ScoutNut

There ARE some Mariner Scout groups, but it is NOT a current OFFICIAL GSUSA program. GSUSA National recognizes, and registers, girls as the following : Daisy Girl Scout - ages 5-6 Brownie Girl Scout - ages 6-8 Junior Girl Scout - ages 8-11 Girl Scouts Ages 11-17 The Mariner Girl Scout program for Senior (high school age) Girl Scouts started in 1934. The uniform was discontinued in 1960 & by 1978 the pin was no longer considered part of the official GSUSA uniform. I believe that the pin can still be found in the Girl Scout catalog for adults who were Mariner Scouts. From what I understand, the Mariner Scout groups that are currently a part of GSUSA councils are "self-proclaimed" Mariner Groups that are technically considered Girl Scouts Ages 11-17 Studio 2B specialty groups by the councils. These groups were originally Mariner Scout groups way back when the group was "official". The leaders (or Skippers) raised their daughters as Mariner Scouts & those daughters have carried on the tradition. The leader of one of the groups out of Girl Scouts of Rock River Valley Council, is now over 80 years old. These groups have created their own uniform & in some cases are earning the historic Mariner advancements using old literature that has been handed down from the original members. These advancements are NOT recognized by National GSUSA, & can NOT be worn with GSUSA official uniforms. Any actual ships are NOT owned by the GSUSA councils (like everything connected to a Girl Scout Troop usually is) but by independently set up organizations or individuals. The Mariner Scouts usually do activities with the local BSA Sea Scouts. I hope this information helps.

Call your Council office. There is usually a Scouting for Food Coordinator that the units have to sign up with & be assigned an area to work (otherwise you would have multiple units covering 1 area & 0 covering another). The SFF coordinator should know who the units responsible for your area are. In the meantime, take your bags to your nearest food pantry yourself. I am certain they will appreciate it. Maybe next year your Pack can participate in Scouting for Food!

What theme are you going with?

GSUSA does not officially recognize Mariner Girl Scouts as a unique Girl Scout Level. The few Mariner's that are out there are either on their own with their own non-profit organization, a part of BSA's Sea Scouts, or set up as a speciality Studio 2B Girl Scout group. The Studio 2B groups earn the offical GSUSA recognitions & advancements. There are no "Mariner Girl Scout" specific awards that are recognized by GSUSA.

A fleece blanket is a nice way to display your patches. I don't know if I would send it camping with the boys though. With all of use/abuse it will get with 2 or 3 boys trampling it, you might end up losing patches (especially those attached with fabric glue). A better way would be to put a rod pocket on one end & hang it on their bedroom wall.

To get yourself started, do the Cub Scout Leader Fast Start Training on-line : http://www.scouting.org/cubscouts/faststart/ That will give you a good overview of the whole Cub Scout program & the Committee's role in it. Next, sign up at your council for the next available New Leader Essentials Training & Cub Scout Leader Position Specific Training. Last, go to your Council Scout Shop & purchase a copy of the "Cub Scout Leader Book". It contains detailed job information on the various Committee positions. It also has forms, rules/regs, & many other things that your Committee should know. I would recommend that the rest of your Packs leaders also do all of the above.

First, & most importantly, it is NOT a BOY SCOUT religious emblem. The religious emblem program is created, & administered by, the individual religious institutions. The purpose is so the youth (boys & girls) of each religious institution can grown in THEIR OWN faith. The Boy Scouts of America simply recognizes the programs & allows the medals to be worn on the BSA uniform. The BSA religious knot is a recognition of the fact that the boy has earned the religious emblem OF THEIR FAITH & done their "duty to god". The program for Baptist youth in grades 6-8, would be the God & Church - Baptist program. You should talk to your pastor about this program. If they do not have the workbook at your church, you can either purchase it at your local BSA Scout Shop or order it from Pray Publishing at the following website: http://www.praypub.org/

gwd - As long as the boys who respond are 11 years old you don't have a problem. I was concerned with the boys who were not yet 11, were all excited about joining this great program, then were told that the most they could do was attend 1 or 2 Troop meetings as a spectator until they either turned 11, or worst case, finished 5th grade. If it was me, & I was that eager, excited boy, who was then told that I had to wait for up to 4 months to be actually eligible to join, I would write Scouting off completely & you would never see me again. As I said, I would target current 6th graders first & current 5th graders at the end of the school year (if you run a summer program). It's great you got 2 boys to register. Hopefully you will get more. I also, can't say I fault the other Troop for not stepping aside. Every Troop is unique. A large Troop has some advantages over a small Troop & vise versa. Every Troop is run differently, does different things & has a different "feel" to it. What attracts one boy & his family, will not necessarily attract another. If you are doing your recruiting together, the boys should be encouraged to visit BOTH Troops, just as Webelos Dens are. There are many ways to recruit boys. Don't worry about other Troops traditional "territory". Talk to the principles of your area schools to see if you can do a talk in each classroom. Send out flyers inviting boys to a meeting. Put a notice in your local paper. Put up flyers on church & store bulletin boards. Put posters in the windows of area businesses. Put flyers in doors (NOT in mailboxes!) of area homes. Find out if the local High Schools have "club" days or such and put up a table (explain how the boys can have fun, learn things AND add great stuff to college applications too!)

Sorry, but I don't think recruiting 5th graders into a Boy Scout Troop in early February is a good idea. You will loose them for sure. A better scenario would have been to do your boy talks this week with the CURRENT 6th graders. They are eligible to join a Boy Scout Troop immediately. Perhaps it was a typo, & sixth grade was what you meant to type?

What a shame your wife had to go thru all of that. I would be asking your wife's doctor some hard questions about prescribing drugs that interact so violently. Does she have to resign? Of course not! You might consider having a talk with your COR & IH (Head of your Charter Org) to give them a heads up & explain the situation in case the fact that she has a court record ever comes up. I would not feel compelled to mention it to anyone else.

I'm sorry, but taking training at "outside agencies" not only does not qualify as being BSA trained, but does nothing to improve the quality of the BSA training you are complaining about. "it's this kind of institutional attitude of "blame the volunteers" that makes me want to leave scouting altogether. I've got better use for my volunteer time than to be yelled at." So do the volunteers that run the BSA training. Yet they put up with it from people who can't even be bothered to ATTEND the training, but still complain about it. Every BSA training has a form for participant feedback at the end. After each training session, these comments & suggestions are ALL READ & DISCUSSED by the training team. Changes are implemented for the upcoming sessions based on this participant input. National also receives input on their trainings & uses that input to make changes. That is why they are always issuing new syllabi for their courses. You complain that BSA training is not worth your time. Are the boys worth your time? Is the program worth your time? If you answer "yes" to the last 2 questions, then taking the BSA training so that you can offer your boys the best possible BSA program SHOULD also be worth your time. BTW - if you would like to see your District's training improved, then you should volunteer to be a part of your council's training staff.

The 75th Anniversary patch is considered temporary insignia & should be worn centered on the right shirt pocket. It may also be worn on the red patch vest.

We usually do pretty well staying between 30-40 boys. This year we ended up ahead of the game. For the 2004-2005 year we had 35 boys. Of those, we had 4 move & 3 cross to Boy Scouts. After all was said & done, this year we ended up with 40 boys, a 14% total increase.

"Our council, don't know if it's BSA wide, allows for Outdoor Skills to be completed via a mentorship program." What, exactly, does a "mentorship program" entail? We do all of our Outdoor Training, outdoors, over a weekend, at our local council camp.

There should never be only 1 ceremony (formal or informal) per year for any award. Once a boy signs that registration & his membership is transfered to a Boy Scout Troop, he is no longer eligible to receive any Cub awards. You can have an impressive AOL (or any other) ceremony each month if needed. Give him his ceremony, recognition & awards while he is a Cub & then let him go on. He has other awards and ceremonies waiting for him as a Boy Scout.

I agree with everything that the others have mentioned here. However I would like to stress one thing. You have just come from a VERY hands on Cub Scout experience, you have only just crossed over to a BS Troop with your son & have not yet figured out all of the new dynamics of being in a Troop & learning to let go. You have also not yet taken any Boy Scout training to help your transition. You have just come from 5 years of holding a Pack together practically by yourself, so that your son "could stay in the program". You are going to a Troop that also needs rejuvenating & it sounds like you will be heavily involved in that also. What you need to understand is, you can not do that with Venturing. There is good reason why they are called Crew ADVISORS & NOT Crew LEADERS. They do NOT lead - they advise. Even the Crew Committee are advisors and work with their youth counterparts. You stated that - "I know this is going to be within the embrace of a very well organized charter sponsor and troop." and "the only way their troop committee was going to allow a crew to be organized was thru an advisor outside of their leadership". The Troop has absolutely NOTHING to do with the Crew. It is up to the Charter Org to decide if they want to organize a Crew or not, not the Charter Org's other units. The Crew is usually organized around a specific theme, or purpose, & the youth recruited who are interested in that particular purpose. It is NOT simply co-ed Boy Scouts. Once the Crew has been put in place, it is mainly up to the YOUTH MEMBERS to hold it together, not the adult advisors. I have seen this happen so often in the GSUSA older girl program. The Leaders have a very hard time transitioning to a strictly Advisor role & relying on the skills the girls have learned to drive the group. The adults end up doing most of the actual leading/planning/doing & then can not understand why the girls loose interest & drop out.

This comes from the Ceremony Magic, Glowing Rank Advancement ceremony. It is a GREAT ceremony that can be used for rank or graduation & can easily be adapted for use by the entire Pack. It works nicely if you can find different color glow sticks. Also, it calls for using the small, glass, baby food jars, but we have used the white or clear film canisters with good results. You should do some practice runs to get a feel for how to break open the glow sticks &how much of a glow you will get. http://scouting.argentive.com/presentations/ceremony_magic.zip There are a lot of good "magic" ceremonies in here. Some others we have used & liked are Color Changing & Bobcat Bones.

Does your son have an actual, phyiscal signature for that section? Is it dated? He should first find out SPECIFICALY what this MBC felt was insuffient in his work on that section. Simply telling him, oops, I changed my mind, re-do the section, is not enough. What other boys is your son working with on the badge? How do they find this MBC? Are they having problems as well? Unless this guy can come up with something concrete that your son did incorrectly the first time around and some suggestions for him (he IS supposed to be teaching this after all), I would be inclined to go to a different MBC, explain the situation to him and show him all of the work done for the badge. I would then go to the District Advancement Chair & tell him what happened. If this guy isn't going to do this right he should not be doing it at all.

Here are some past themes that have computer components: http://usscouts.org/usscouts/bbugle/bb0112.pdf http://usscouts.org/usscouts/bbugle/bb9912.pdf http://usscouts.org/usscouts/bbugle/bb0502.pdf

A couple of other ideas: Readyman - The EMT unit at your local fire station. Geologist - Do one of the mine tours from your council (Bingham Canyon) & also get the patch. You also have some great Dinosaur spots in your area.

Here are a couple of plans. One is from Scouting Magazine. http://members.aol.com/standcmr/99bridge.html http://www.scoutingmagazine.org/about/download/bridge.pdf

Welcome Steve & congratulations on being called to serve! The first thing you should do is to get trained for your new position. Cub Scout Fast Start Training is online : http://www.scouting.org/cubscouts/faststart/ This gives you a good overview of the Cub program with a bit about Webelos. Next you should take Webelos Leader Specific training from your council ASAP. Webelos Leader Outdoor training is a good idea also. It will help you with Webelos Den camping & the Outdoor Activity pins. Visit your Council Scout Shop & get a copy of the Webelos Leader Guide. It will help with program & meeting ideas. I believe it also has information on Webelos as a one year program that you might find useful. The Cub Scout Leader Book might help also. For another place to go for ideas & help from fellow Scouters, this Yahoo group might be good for you: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Scouts-LDS/ Hope this helps!

My husband & I have been Scout leaders together, in GSUSA & BSA, for 14 years now. We have volunteered with our kids den/troop. We have volunteered at the Pack, Troop, District, Service Unit, & Council level. There have been some things that I have been involved in that he hasn't. Likewise, there have been some projects that were his alone. There have been times that I felt he should let go of some things & times he has felt the same of me. However, we are still going strong, with my son planning on continuing on as an adult volunteer when he turns 18. My daughter is the only one who has taken a hiatus from scouting, & she is currently a lifetime GSUSA member who is very involved in service clubs at her university. We love Scouting & think it is the best youth program around for both boys & girls. I would not put any limitations on your married volunteers. How involved a family is & if they really have the time to devote to being a volunteer is not YOUR decision to make. That decision is theirs alone. If you have a problem with leaders leaving, then you need to make sure you have enough trained leaders available to fill in when needed. BTW - Where ever did you get the idea that an Assistant Den Leader was a part time position???? (This message has been edited by ScoutNut)

Every May we invite boys from K thru 4, to come to our Graduation Pack meeting. They can participate in the games & stuff & see what we do. We encourage interested families to sign up & attend Day Camp (Tigers MUST have a parent with them at Day Camp just like at all other activities) with the rest of the Pack. Every year we have a few families come & look, but not sign up. Often they will come back for Fall registration. We seem to have the same problem with our Spring District Tiger Roundup too. Very small showing, lots of interest, but no registrations. We do hand out registration forms & a list of area Packs with contact info, so maybe some register directly with the Pack. We will keep having our Spring Pack Open House. It is not really any trouble & if we get registrations GREAT!

Barry - TLT is not JLT. It is new & should be used as the pre-cursor to the new NYLT course. With the number for the new sylubus (# 34306A) you should be able to order it from National Supply.