ScoutNut

It the CP suspended the entire Troop, fired various folks & did not recharter, then they have voided their charter. They have dropped the unit. While the equipment & assests are technically theirs, if they are no longer a CP & are not planning on chartering a new Troop, then all of the current Troops assets should revert to the council. What does your COR have to say? Your CC needs to contact your DE ASAP. The DE should meet with the COR & IH of the Charter Org to determine what it is they are doing. DE's do NOT like to loose charters! I would suggest that all of your Troop families either look for a new CP or transfer to new Troops. Your DE should be able to help you all find a new CP. DE's DO like adding new charters!

"one parent give a lenghthy list to the den leader (with the DL's encouragement) after being registered less than one month." If the boy was registered less than a month, I would bet that most of the stuff had been done by the boy BEFORE he became a registered Cub Scout. The CM should have a talk with the parents & DL & explain that only activities completed AFTER the boy is a registered Scout count. That should par down the list a bit.

The requirement is not really to visit a news station, it is to discover how people communicate with others. You can do that in a number of different ways. Check with local colleges & high schools to see if any have a campus radio station. They will also both have newspapers. Their calendars are usually different from those of grammer schools and your Tigers might have a day off when the high schools (& especially the colleges) are still in class. You might be able to get a nice tour. Do you have any local museums on communication? Maybe a science museum? You could use a visit to those also. Local printing shops also do a nice job. I understand Kinko's does a great tour. I have used the Dear Abby site to have each Tiger family send e-mail messages to soldiers in all branches of the Service. Last, in a pinch, I have also used our 911 center at our local police station. They do a nice job of demonstrating how 911, & the reverse 911 feature, works.

I thought that you were the Tiger Den leader? If your meeting times are not working out, talk to the families in your Den & work out a new shedule. Even if your Pack is one of those that all meet together, same place/time, there is still no reason why your Den can't be a trend setter & meet when/where it works best for them. My Tigers meet on Saturday mornings from 9-10AM. We still have conflicts, but we deal with them! Our Pack meetings go from 7-8:30PM. However, since it is only once a month our families don't have a problem.

According to BSA - "The Wolf program is for boys who have completed first grade (or are age 8)." Until your den completes first grade they are still Tigers. BSA National's computer system, Scoutnet, advances all Cub Scout levels on June 1st. There are still TONS of stuff the Tiger Teams can do together. Get that Shared Leadership going & have each Tiger Team plan a meeting based on a Tiger Elective!

If you are not using the products purchased from National, & plan on having a sign company do your trailer logo, You should contact National for a list of allowed companies. National is starting to crack down on trademark infringement.

"As I see it, I three choices for next year: become a Brownie Leader and create a program from scratch" If you are planning on creating the "MomIsBoyScout Youth Program" then I would recommend that you do it on your own & do not involve GSUSA. I would say the same thing if you were planning on creating a program "from scratch" for your son & calling it BSA. BSA and GSUSA are DIFFERENT programs. You can NOT judge one based on your knowledge of the other. It does not work and is not fair. Both BSA and GSUSA have programs in place that have worked for them for 95+ years. For both BSA and GSUSA, their programs are only as good as the leaders that deliver them. If you want to improve your daughters experience I would recommend that you first REGISTER as an adult GSUSA volunteer. Then GET TRAINED!! Then, armed with the info you need, you can put together a GS Troop of girls who are interested in the outdoors (all of them aren't you know & the Troop should be GIRL driven). Follow the GSUSA program for their level & watch the girls blossom. **NOTE** In the next few years GSUSA will be implementing many changes. Currently, they are in the process of realigning and combining councils. Next will come changes in program and levels. GSUSA is hoping to update & improve their program into the "world's best" leadership development program for girls.

"For them to toss it down to a troop level was improper knowing that I was looking for several area troops to be involved if not the whole Council." While the volunteer whose number they gave you might be a Troop Leader, if you specified you wanted to involve multiple Troops, she could very well have also been the Service Unit Manager, with the contact info for all of the GS Troops in your area. "As for the Comm. Memb. He offer to help with actual outdoor camping and cooking over fires particularly with Dutch Ovens. If it wasn't indoors and on a stove or oven, they weren't interested." Who did he make this offer to? If it was a Brownie Troop in his area, than I can understand why they turned him down. GSUSA practices progression in everything, including camping. Brownie Girl Scouts very seldom tent camp. They do cabin or lodge camping. Individual Troops, are only as outdoorsy as their leaders & girls are. If the Troop's leaders (no matter what level) are not comfortable camping then they will usually not encourage their girls to do it. Your Committee Member would have been better off talking to the GS council's Outdoor Programs Director. He might have been able to put together a special interest camping/cooking program. Please note - GSUSA requires ALL volunteers, even those who are volunteering short term, to register & go thru a background check. "Why don't they try a joint Venturing program?" There are a lot of older girl (Cadette/Senior) Troops out there who are dual registered as both a Girl Scout Troop & a BSA Venturing Crew. It would make no sense for a GSUSA council to actively recruit girls for a Crew. BSA & GSUSA are different. They might have the same roots in BP, & their purpose & aims might be very similar, but they are set up completely different. Not better or worse, just different.

"Not trying to down GCUSA, but on a few occasions I've contacted the area Council about joint projects, only to be told, " I/We can't help you. Here is the number for the Leader in your area. Give her a call." The call is placed, a message left (on sevearal occassions) with no replies. Maybe it is a regional thing, but it appears that they want nothing to do with the BSA." Why condem the whole of GSUSA when it is just one person who can't figure out how to return phone calls? The council can't speak for the girls in the Troops. The council staff is working on things for the entire council, not simply one small area of it. That is why they gave you the name & number of the VOLUNTEER to contact in your area. It was up to you & that person to get together & work things out. You could have also called the council back and told them this person never returns call & could they give you an alternate contact. "I have a CM in our BSA Troop that has offered his services and outdoor expertise only to be turned away." What a shame. Who did he offer his services to? What services did he offer? Why was he "turned away"? "Does GSUSA persue CO's like BSA? Can a CO provide a meeting place for the GSUSA Troop?" GSUSA & BSA are set up differently. In BSA, National charters councils, which in turn charter community organizations, who own their BSA units. In GSUSA, National charters councils. The councils basically own all of the Troops in their council. There are no GSUSA CO's. GSUSA does work with community organizations to sponsor special programs/events and provide some volunteers. Individual Girl Scout Troops have often formed relationships with organizations on their own to help with a meeting place. Some councils have "Scout Huts" which Troops can use for meetings. Some Troops are forced to pay for a meeting area. There are other options besides meeting in your house, but they might not be readily available to Troops. "What are GSUSA's Safe Scouting Policies on leaders to girls ratios?" Don't know off the top of my head as I do not have a copy of GSUSA's Safety Wise handy. "For the girls interested in outdoor activities, why can't GSUSA form strictly outdoor oriented Troops to accommedate these girls and meet their needs." GSUSA does have special interest groups. The problem however, is the same as when trying to form any other Troop/Group, finding qualified leaders.

Another oblique question. What do you consider to be "in the public eye"? The date on all of his paperwork will show the date of his Eagle BOR. So, if the BOR tells a boy he passed & he runs around & tells everyone he knows that he is an Eagle Scout, is this what you would call "in the public eye"? He would be technically correct, he would be an Eagle Scout as of the date of his successfully completed EBOR. Per BSA, after the EBOR, the paperwork is sent on to the council for their review. After that the Eagle application goes to the National Eagle Scout Service. The National Eagle Scout Service can return the application for more information if they think something did not meet National standards. If everything is OK, National will certify that the boy is indeed an Eagle Scout & will send the approved Eagle Scout certificate, showing the BOR date, back to the local council. BSA's rule is that - "The Eagle Award must not be sold or given to any unit until after the certificate is received by the council service center. The Eagle Scout court of honor should not be scheduled until the local council receives the Eagle Scout rank credentials." So, a Scout's ECOH could very well be 3 months, or more, after his EBOR, & after the credentials are received back from National. However, the ECOH is when all of the dignitaries, family & friends (public) show up to honor the Scout for his accomplishment. Is this what you consider to be "in the public eye"? This is usually when announcements are made in the local newspapers, etc & when the public "at large" finds out about it. However the boy could have actually been an Eagle for a number of months prior to this. Or is it when the Troop advancement person is able to actually purchase the Eagle rank award from his council? Personally, I feel that the boy is technically an Eagle immediately after his BOR, but until his Troop can actually purchase his award there will be the (however infinitesimal) chance he might NOT be certified by National, so he is an "Eagle in-waiting" so to speak. So, after the BOR, but before the COH. Public eye or not, when that certificate comes in from National is when he is officially, official!

Nope, he does not. If his Webelos Den picks a Den Name & patch (they do not have to do this it is just an option), the Den patch will replace the Den number. It is a case of either / or, not both. BTW - Do not run out & purchase your new Webelos the Colors pin. Some Packs will present the Webelos with his Webelos Colors when he earns his first Webelos Activity Pin. Check with your Den Leader or Cubmaster.

It is never a bad thing to find out the "other half" does things & to clear up some misconceptions. "HOWEVER, one thing I've learned about GSUSA vs BSA, is that GSUSA Council are much more 'autonomous' then BSA ones, and this leads to a greater difference from council to council in how things are done." I'm not so sure how true this is. From everything I read on forums like this one, every single BSA council out there does things differently from every other BSA council. Some of these things are small & some are rather large. GSUSA councils are the same way. There are a set of National rules & guidelines that they must follow. However individual councils are allowed, in some instances to add to their rules & policies. So, for GSUSA as with BSA, you should always check your with your local council for their local rules, regulations & procedures. "This father wanted to get his girl into Girl Scouts. But ALL the local troops were 'full', and had waiting lists. This was how the service unit ran that troops. That's how they (the leaders) like it. In the BSA if there were kids in need of scouting, you got them into a troop. I've never heard of troops being 'full' and turning kids away." Nope, that's NOT how the SERIVCE UNIT ran the Troops. As you stated - "That's how they (the LEADERS) like it." Just as in BSA, where a unit, & it's CO, has the ability to refuse membership in that unit to anyone, a GSUSA Troop has that same ability. Many Troop Leaders will "cap" the number of girls in their Troop at a certain number. This is not because they are mean & vindictive. It is because they truly do not feel that they can handle any more girls. Look at it this way - Your average Boy Scout Troop is 25-30 boys, who meet weekly in some kind of large area (large meeting room, cafeteria, hall, etc), where they have room to have games & meet in different areas in patrols, that is usually provided by an organization. Most Girl Scout Troops meet in a Leaders home. Sometimes they can find other accommodations, but they usually don't have a lot of extra room. Would you want 25 kids meeting in your kitchen every week? "And if you had so many kids who wanted in, you formed another troop. Not so here." Actually, I am quite sure that the Service Unit Manager & the Council Rep tried to start other Troops. The problem is however, just like with BSA, if you don't have enough adults willing to volunteer their time to be leaders you can't form another Troop. There are other options for these girls. They can become Juliettes (GSUSA's version of a Lone Scout), attend special interest events, or just attend Council/Service Unit activities. "So the father said basically 'how about I form a new troop for all these girls and be the leader' (since maybe the problem was the lack of leaders to form new units). The council or service unit was NOT having that (a male girl scout leader), so they quickly 'found a place' for his daughter." Good for him! His problem here might have come from a number of sources. The local Service Unit Mgr and/or SU Registrar might have felt that GIRL Scouts was for GIRLS only & that men should not be involved & should go join that "other" organization if they wanted to be involved in Scouting. Gee, now where have I heard sentiments like THAT before? Certainly not in BSA! It might also be that your friend's local council has a rule that prohibits men from holding the position of Den Leader (position code 01). They WILL allow a man to register as an ASSISTANT Den Leader(position code 02), & also as the Troop Product Mgr, Troop Registrar, Troop Camping Specialist, Troop Driver, Troop First Aider, etc, etc, etc. If he could not find a (some councils specify unrelated) willing female to be the 01 with him as 02 then a new Troop could not be formed. From the fact that the SU pressured a Troop to take in another girl when the Troop Leader did not originally want to, & did it ahead of other girls in line on waiting lists, suggests to me it was the first scenario. A GSUSA "Old Girl" network at work (as opposed to the BSA "Old Boy" network which freezes out willing women volunteers). "Too bad about all those other girls on the waiting lists." Yes, it is a shame. To bad he did not push it with his local council. He might have been able to help form a Troop for them. I know of a number of men who are very active in Girl Scouting. Hopefully he at least helps out with & supports the Troop that eventually did take his daughter in.

I think 5 meetings a month is really pushing it. If you hold your Pack & Den meetings at the same place, day, & time, in order to have 4 Den & 1 Pack meetings every month you would need to double up one week. One of your meeting nights would have to be both a Den meeting AND a Pack meeting. If you held your Den meetings from 6PM to 7PM, then held your Pack meeting from 7PM to 8:30PM, your boys would be there for 2.5 hours AT LEAST. Your Leaders would have to get there between 4 & 5PM (& how often could they get off work early to do that) to give themselves time to get set up for their Den meeting & also get things set up for the Pack meeting. This would add another possible 2 hours to the Leaders (& their kids) time there, with no time for dinner. That's way to long, & hectic, a time frame. Our Pack's Dens average 4 meetings a month, 3 Den & 1 Pack. Sometimes that can be more, like this month with 5 Saturdays, I had 4 Tiger meetings. Sometimes it can be less, next Saturday is Easter weekend so I canceled our Tiger meeting. That leaves us only 2 Den meetings in April. As for not having enough time to finish requirements, from Tiger thru Bear Cub Scouts, most of the requirements are supposed to be done at home, with the family & not in the Den meetings. Actually, Tigers are split, with 1/3 to be done at home, but all of them can be completed at home & signed off by the Tiger Partner if necessary. Webelos Cub Scouts are more leader/boy driven because requirements are no longer strictly family based, most are done together as a Den. However, Webelos Dens usually use their local resources & add various outings to supplement their Den meetings. The boys have until the end of the school year to complete their current rank award, & can even, in some circumstances, have a bit longer. The only times I have seen a boy NOT achieve his rank award, is when his parents just never would find the time to work with him.

Wow, with 75 boys and all of the dens have their den meetings at the same time & place? What kind of area do you use that allows for all of those meetings without being rather cramped?

Our dens meet when/where ever is good for our den leaders. I believe we have dens meeting on Mon, Wed, & Thur evenings & on Sat mornings. Our Pack meets monthly, usually the last Tuesday, but for big events that go later we will switch to a Fri or Sat evening. Usually our dens will not have a den meeting the week of Pack Night, but if they are working on something they want to finish, or doing something special, they might meet that week also. The Pack meeting should be about celebrating the boys accomplishments that month, but we always have something else going on too. April is our Cardboard Box Vehicle Relay Race!

" In Girl Scouts, a local service team will run ALL the nearby troops the same way, so you'll have to go farther to try to find a 'good troop'." Ummm - No, this is incorrect. A "Service Team" is a group of volunteers, lead by a Service Unit Manager (who is also a volunteer), who manage the paperwork, coordinate some training, & coodinate some area-wide programing for a local geographic area called a Service Unit. Some councils call them Neighborhoods instead of Service Units. Their function is one support, much as BSA's District Committee is. Service Units do NOT "run Troops". Troop Leaders & the girls run their own Troops. Troops in any given area are NOT all the same.

The Cub Scout World Conservation Award can be earned only ONCE in the Cub Scout program, as a Wolf, Bear, or Webelos Cub Scout, but not at the Tiger level.

GSUSA does not discourage parental involvement. Parental involvement is definately encouraged. However, GSUSA is NOT Cub Scouts. It is not family driven. From the very youngest, it is set up more like Boy Scouts than Cubs, with the girls being progressivly given more & more control of their own Troop. Like any other program, a Girl Scout Troop is only as successful as it's leaders make it. Some GS leaders are pretty bad, don't follow the GS program or do much of anything with their girls other than "crafts & cookies". Some GS leaders arewonderful, very much gungho, outdoor oriented types, who follow the program to the "T" & whose Troop is involved in tons of different things. Then there are the tens of thousands of leaders who fall somewhere in the middle. If your dad is dissapointed in his daughters GS program, then I would tell him the same thing I tell parents who are dissapointed in the BSA program - Step up to the plate, get involved & MAKE IT BETTER! BTW emb021 - I don't know about any non-coed agreement between BSA & GSUSA, but I DO know that one of BSA's pilot Kinder Lion Scout programs is co-ed.

us3packrats, Try and convince your son to have some kind of COH. As John stated, it does not have to be a big, elaborate shindig, with every town & council official invited. However, he SHOULD be recognized, in front of his peers, for all of his hard work. If nothing else, he can have a nice, small presentation at a Troop campfire during Summer Camp.

Your son should check his Den Chief Handbook. He is entitled to wear the award even after he has stopped being a Den Chief. If he is still currently a Den Chief he may wear both his Den Chief Cord & his DC Service Award Cord.

From the Eagle Scout Leadership Service Project Workbook - The 12th step in The 12 Steps from Life to Eagle - "The Eagle Award must not be sold or given to any unit until after the certificate is received by the council service center (from National). The Eagle Scout court of honor should not be scheduled until the local council receives the Eagle Scout rank credentials." Your son's Troop will not be able to purchase his Eagle rank award until after his Eagle Scout credentials are received by your council from the National Eagle Scout Service. Once he is certified by National, & his Troop purchases the award, he does not have to wait until a COH to wear his award.

Actually the online training for YP does, and always has, addressed local laws. When they first put it out you had to enter thru your local council's website in order to have access to your state's information. Now there is a download on the national site that gives you your state/council info from your council. The YPT is also updated periodically. I will usually check it out every few months to see if anything has changed & at times it has. I will also go thru the whole thing online yearly to re-certify. Perhaps the online training will be updated to include "Ethical Abuse" in the near future. I find it unusual that a BSA video piece is more updated than their online version. Usually it is the other way around as it takes so long to create & distribute the materials. There is no "one size fits all" training for anything, but in my opinion, the BSA online YPT does a pretty good job.

The online YPT is very good & is periodically updated. It does a credible job of explaining what to look for & who to tell & when to tell. It also has a link to download your specific state's reporting requirements & your state & council contact info. http://olc.scouting.org/ You can also go back & view it at any time. In your scenario with the bruises, the BSA training suggests to keep an eye on the child. If the bruises are noticed on different occasions, are different colors, suggesting they occurred at different times, & when asked about them the child is evasive and/or inconsistent, BSA recommends telling BOTH your SE AND your states Child Protective Services because you do not know if the abuse happened in or out of Scouting. As for "medication holidays", unless the medication is for a health/life threatening condition (examples given by BSA include chronic, out-of-control asthma or a festering wound) it is not considered neglect. Taking weekends off ADHD meds, while aggravating to the people who have to deal with the child, is not USUALLY something that threatens the overall health or life of the child. Youth Protection is a fairly well know thing even outside of Scouting. All people who have contact with children in programs under the Catholic Church now must go thru background checks & YP training. Many other organizations dealing with children do this also. It is no longer simply a BSA thing.

What a shame. Those Webelos den leaders really blew it. Since this was a personal invite event & not a District thing they should have had better manners in keeping you updated on what their dens were planning on doing. It is pretty obvious they did not plan this as a den outing. Were you charging anything, or was the Troop footing the whole bill? Was this supposed to be by the den, or did you advertise as an individual event? Did the Webelos leaders ever get back to you? Are either of your Den Chiefs in either of the Webelos dens? I think I would attend the next Committee meeting for each Pack. Let them know your boys were disappointed by the response. Also let them know that you will try again in the Fall (if your Scouts agree). Think of your answers to the above questions & set things up a bit differently than you did this time. Do not even begin planning any Webelos activities for your camping trip until you have some hard numbers of how many Webelos (if any) there will be. Set a deadline well in advance. If you did not charge this time, maybe if you charged a minimal fee per boy ($5) to reserve their spot it might work better. Get communication with the Webelos den leaders going better. See if they need Den Chiefs. Open up your campout to more Packs. Don't give up, & don't let your boys give up. The only way to bring more boys into your Troop is to keep at it.

"In our area, nits that run district/council event do so in order to earn money and run the event." In our council we do not run district/council events as money raisers for either the district/council or the unit(s) running it. If the event comes out on the plus side, great. However, we are more than happy when it simply breaks even. We, the volunteers, or "nits" as you put it, run the event in order to provide a great program opportunity for the boys.