robertwilliams

>> I put the pad down, and then snuggled into the rest of the sleeping bag like a quilt, with my feet in the closed end of the bag. So you are laying on the pad with the bag over top of you?

>> a 40 degree sleeping bag (used as TQ), and a fleece bag liner. >> Trick is to not let your unpadded torso touch the fabric I think I'm missing something. I was going to sleep inside my bag & liner, with a pad underneath. Sounds like y'all are saying to do this differently?

I'm taking my den to Webelos Woods Days this weekend and was planning to try camping in my hammock for the first time. My wife thinks I will fall out and is amused by the thought. I have a Grand Trunk UL and I was going to put a cheap tarp over it for wind/rain protection. I was going to put a blue Wal Mart pad in the hammock, then my sleeping bag and a silk liner. The lows this weekend are going to be in the 40s. Am I going to freeze?

>> What does the committee say??? We don't have a committee other than the CM, CC, and DL/ADLs. The CM and CC were frustrated at the overall lack of support so I'm just going with that. >> Provide a meeting location. >> Provide unit leadership, taking seriously the CO's role in the selection of the committee. >> Represent your unit at the district and council levels, with the COR voting on and advocating for issues that would affect your unit. >> Promote the unit (e.g., recruiting opportunities). >> Recommend service projects. These are pretty much the things I want, too (except that we have a good meeting place that works most of the time). In addition, I want some continuity of leadership so that the pack thrives long after the current leadership is done. When all is said and done I'll have been with this pack for 7 years, so it's near and dear to my heart. My only concern is that a CO with a lack of experience running scouts, or some sort of agenda, might actually harm the program more than it helps. But nobody on this thread has really warned about that or told any horror stories, so it's probably an unfounded fear. Lisabob - thank you for the good advice. I will see what I can find out about why we dropped the "Friends of" CO, and try to get some traction in either improving the relationship with our current CO, or in finding a new one. I know our DE has discouraged us from using a "Friends of" CO.

>> What more do yeh want? Well I don't really know what I should expect. What would a good CO do for a pack?

>> he ran over to me and happily showed me his Youth religious knot and told me that when He became a uniformed Adult, he wanted knots just like mine. Jay, that's an awesome story. >> At every training event, I've gotten a card, and I've tracked the requirements that I did and turned them in. >> assigning one of the Committee Members to track and prepare paperwork for all the scouters This is the reason I'm using myself as the guinea pig - I haven't kept track of specifics and don't have any documentation of the stuff I've done, but I don't know how much it matters. So I can get this process sorted out and then introduce the other adults to the program (hopefully at the next Pack meeting).

Scoutnut, >> Ideally, a CO starts a BSA unit as a service to it's own youth. I am not sure who originally started our pack - it's a few decades old. Like I said, I know we're doing this wrong :-) >> Have you considered working at repairing the relationship between the Pack and it's CO? There's no real relationship there - it was always just a "friends of" kind of organization until the last couple of years. But I will discuss this possibility with our CM, as she has the closest relationship.

>> The best is good at offering space, storage and a smile. We do service projects for them once or twice a year. The school where most of our boys attend lets us meet there and we do some service projects for them. So at least we do have some support. >> Try your local VFW, AFL, Knights of Columbus, Kiwanis, Optimists and such. Thanks; I will keep these in mind. >> you may need to relinquish all that over to your CO if they do not choose to release it. That's a good point moose, but I don't think that will happen; we've only been chartered with them for a year or so and I don't think they want us. I'm pretty sure they just signed the paperwork as a favor to one of their members (it's a church if I didn't mention that) who is in Scouting in another unit. Since we raise our own money I doubt they would try to keep it, and we don't have any equipment. This is an argument IMO in favor of a "friends of" organization.

>> Maybe using the same CO as a troop would be the way to go. We are fortunate to have 2 good troops in our town, but neither one is a sister troop to us. I am not sure if any of the COs in our area function the way I think they are supposed to; I will talk to our DE and find out. >> you want support and a CO that really owns the pack, and other the other hand, you don't want a CO to meddle nor to "give" you pack to an outside organization. I want a good CO that works well with the pack. I am nervous about the risk of putting the pack under an organization that I (and most of the pack leadership) don't really know. Our pack is doing well as far as membership and the program and I'm just afraid that will get messed up. Like I said, I doubt there would be any problems, but I am just cautious about our Scouting program. I just want it to be a net benefit for our boys. By the way, it's not the fact that it's the Masons that bothers me; I'd have the same discomfort with any church or other organization that wasn't already sponsoring an effective unit, or that the pack leadership didn't have deep ties with. I guess I could always just join the Masonic lodge. :-) (This message has been edited by robertwilliams)

We are a pack in need of a chartered organization. We have one right now that does little more than sign paperwork, and they aren't particularly good at that. In the past we've had our own CO - "Parents of such-and-such school"; I'm not sure why we stopped doing that and went with another organization. Now, due to our frustration with our current CO, we are considering going back to that. We've even discussed starting a small non-profit corporation that could take tax-deductible donations, own the property, etc. Another option is to see if the local Masonic lodge would charter us, or look for a church or Lions Club or something. I know we aren't really doing this right, but that's the situation we're in. I'd like to have a CO that really owns and helps the pack, and have a good relationship of mutual support. I just don't know how to get there from here. I'm hesitant to give our pack to the Masonic lodge or any other outside organization. Even though there's probably little chance things would go wrong, there's always the possibility it could backfire on us. I imagine they would just support us and not meddle. But still it's an unknown. I have similar concerns about forming an organization to carry our charter - who do we put in charge of that organization? I'd be concerned about politics and conflicts of interest there (e.g., if the COR is the spouse of the CM or the CC then there could be problems down the road - those sorts of things). Our pack has been very low-drama with no politics so far and I'd like to keep it that way. Any experience or advice you can offer?

Thanks 83Eagle and Eagle92. In my opinion these knots are kind of like the "Trained" strip. I didn't submit my ADL for that either; he did the training and then I pestered our Cubmaster until she remembered to pick up the strips for us and everyone else who'd finished the training. If I remember correctly, she just handed them out privately, with no ceremony or anything. However, I distinctly remember one new leader asking an older leader "Hey, how did you get that Trained badge? How can I get one?" So if a cloth badge motivates someone to get trained and better serve the boys, then I'm for it. To the best of my knowledge, no other leader in our pack besides me and my ADL is qualified to receive these particular knots, because they haven't met the requirements (we have low Roundtable and UoS attendance, for instance, and low parent involvement other than the DL/ADLs). I hope to use the knot program to remedy that situation. (This message has been edited by robertwilliams)

I think if the award has definite requirements, and you achieve them, it's legitimate to request the award. But if it's something with vague requirements like Silver Beaver that you have to be nominated for, then yeah that's pretty tacky. This is my 3rd year as a Den Leader and I didn't even know about the knots when I started. But sure, some of the things I do are motivated partly by fulfilling the requirements of the awards - like going to UoS and having regular planning meetings with my ADL. Those are useful and help me run a better program with or without a little cloth knot, but it did provide a bit of extra motivation and a nice checklist of things I might not have done otherwise. I hope that the knot program will provide other adults a little bit of incentive to get involved in the program, as well as help shape their involvement - get some DLs going to Roundtable and UoS, get some other leaders doing the same and volunteering to organize pack activities, maybe encourage our Cubmaster to pursue the Quality Unit award, etc.

I really like the ideas to collect standard paperwork at the beginning of the year and just keep it all on file. Everyone is filling out paperwork for the start of the school year at that time anyway so a little more won't hurt. I'm considering doing Woodbadge this spring; maybe streamlining the registration process could be one of my ticket items.

Thanks for all the feedback. I am going to be the guinea pig and see if I can get the WDL knot myself (I've done the requirements; I just want to see how well the process works). The knot program could help us a lot; for instance out pack has almost nobody at Roundtable (except the CM and sometimes me); my ADL and I are the only ones who've been to UoS, etc. I'm hopeful that this program will help us.

I considered keeping copies, and that may be the easiest in the long run. But then it's more for me to manage - my desk is messy enough as it is, and then I'd have to check to see if their forms are out of date and such. Also, I feel uncomfortable keeping personal (like SSN) and medical information on other people, particularly the adults. I've never been able to get the search thing on myscouting.org to work on any field other than email address. Not a big fan of that site. Getting another parent to handle this is a good idea - even if things don't go more smoothly, at least it frees me up. Definitely something I can delegate. I hadn't thought of rewarding the boys whose parents get the paperwork done on time. I like that too.