sunsetandshadow

We have tried in the past with very little success. The public school also has a food drive in the spring and the classes all compete to see which class can bring in the most food and then that class has a pizza party. So all the kids e even had a large plywood box that we inherited from a pack that closed down. It was big and very visable and we put it in front of our grocery store in town and after one week we had ONE can! We have decided to focus on other service projects.

Just another perspective from a concerned parent. I want all adults on campout with my children to be registered adults for the reason of the background check. I also support the registration for insurance purposes. There may be some who use that as an excuse but I really believe in it. We know of a woman who was in a car accident while trasporting her own daughter and two of their friends. One of the friends has several broken vertabre and is without any medical insurance. They are now sueing for millions of dollars to cover expenses. Insurance is very important and because of things like this we no longer transport any children other than our own.

We recently took our juniors to a badge night at the council and afterwards they each had brought some money to shop in the council store. Several girls picked out the new necklaces and thought they were cool and bought them. (Yes, I thought my daughter paid too much). But with so many girls there we (the leaders) did not even notice that the necklace was an award. The browines were buying the browine necklace with the 4 girls on it (it is not an award) so the older girls went for the necklace hanging in the junior section next to hair bows and braclets. My point is that no one there at the store ever mentioned that the necklaces were awards and just let the girls buy them. It wasn't until after the girls got home that someone at council called the leader and mentioned it to her. She asked them why they didn't say something before when we were buying them. So now the girls wear their necklaces to every scout meeting and we just got the printed sheet for them to hurry up and fill out so it can all be legal. sounds crazy to me.

HI, I have been involved with cubs for a while and also help out with my daughters Brownie and Junior troops. I found this web site a while back that lists all the badges and their requirements. I think the troop did it as a service project or something. The site has extra links that are not always valid but the badges are all listed on one page and they all work. I use it a lot since I find the web easier to navigate than the book and I can print the info I need for the girls. While I have a badge book and a handbook most girls in my daughters troop do not. http://troop851.ellenbecker.net/Badges.htm

Thanks for the suggestions. The reason I am so involved in making this scouting program work is the fact that this is the one program my son loves to participate in. He is not that great at sports and has had some difficulty in social areas in school but he really shines in scouting. The discipline and the rules of the program foster an environment that keeps him motivated. The one rule I do not like is the minimum number of boys required to have a troop. If three boys are dedicated and interested but cannot participate unless they find 2 others to join does not seem fair. We looked into the lone scout program but was told it was not avaliable to those who live in our council. I will look into other councils of neighboring states. I do indeed live in SE MO. And yes most of the time it feels like we have been abandoned by the council. We just changed district exec. (i think thats what she was called) so we will see how the new responds to questions. This forum is a great resource for advice, information, and sometimes a place to vent my frustrations:)

Thanks to all who responded. I think I will try ebay to see if we can find any good deals. As MaScout pointed out those who live in a rural area do not have as many options as some city folk are accustomed to. The closest Troop is 60-50 miles away one-way. It takes about 80 minutes to drive there if you do not travel during rush hour traffic. The choice is start our own troop or quit scouting. I do not think the principals of scouting would support the argument that this area is to poor to have a scout troop. And when we go camping everyboy brings his own equipment which is very minimal. The scout brings his own sleeping bag (or bed roll if he can't afford a sleeping bag) and his own food (a pack of hotdogs and some fruit maybe), and most everything else is taken from nature. Some have tents and some use tarps and ropes tied between trees. It is very back to basic and a very rewarding experience for the boys. They do not need a lot of camping eguipment. We roast on a stick or one roll of aluminum foil can go a long way. Most places we camp at are places we hike to as so the boys must carry everything in. We travel light. And many just wear the camo they have when they go camping/hunting with their dads. I have read another post here about how the boys are not suppose to wear camo - I have never heard such a thing and no one else here has either. Camo is probably the clothing item most kids here do own. When I started this post I had no idea anyone would object to raising money for uniforms since so many seem to view the complete uniform as a necesary. I also thought it would serve as a good visual incentive to other boys and younger scouts on the importance of proper uniforming in scouting. Both my husband and myself are former military and we thought proper uniforming would help the troop in many ways. I appreciate everyone taking the time to comment. I am always open to learning.

Thanks for responding but it seems like you and i live in different communitites. I am able to buy my son his uniform but not everyone here is able. 90% of the kids in our school recieve free or reduced lunch and breakfast. Many kids go to the school nurse to get new clothes when they rip their jeans at school and it is their only pair. We have school drives becasue some parents do not buy their kids crayons and siccors and other items on the back to school list. Not to mention the shop with a cop program that helps kids get christmas presents during the holidays. We do not have football or soccor. Our biggest sport it baseball and we get community sponsors to buy the kids t-shirts that they pair with jeans for their sport uniform. There are families with no phone service that teachers stop buy their house if they want to discuss the children. This is an economicly depressed area. We also have many families that do not believe in welfare and therefore do not accept government assistance so they scrounge for every dollar. Ther are dads that go around collecting scrap metal and cans as there regular income. We have looked into collecting cans but since we are so rural we need a way of transporting them and since 10-12 years old do not drive extra job oppourtunites are rare. We do not buy the expensive game systems. I shop the thrift stores for good hand me downs. We do not have cable or satelite or use credit cards. WE are thrifty and we are a large family with 5 children (the oldest is 10). There are many large families here with 4,5,6 even 8 children. So spending 40 dollars on boy scout pants on one child means spending it on the other and getting those girl scout uniforms and the accesories like hats, necekrchiefs, socks, ect. It can and does get expensive. I have 3 scouts and I know one other boy has three sisters that are scouts.So saying the money issue is "BS" is off the mark. AS far as the personal property issur goes, i did say in my post than any uniform pants or shorts purchased would be on loan an dthen returned when they outgrew them to a newly established clothes closet. I only brought this issue up since so much importance goes into "oroer uniforming". If we do not have a fundraiser then we will just have to accept the shirt and whatever pants as the uniform as the parents have already said they cannot afford them and will not buy them. I understand how they feel since boys pants at walmart are 12$.

Thankyou for your replies. There have been some "tweaking" of requirements and I am trying my best to have those corrected. I do believe that the integrity of the program is at stake when we allow substitutuions and changing of the rules. I also believe that there are some requirements that are hard to follow/accomplish and we are trying our best in a small pack/troop. Scoutnut,thankyou for listed the leadership positions. Our problems start with the fact that the same man is the IH (president of vfw), COR, CC, and now stated that he will be the SM but he will not be running the troop. He also controls the checkbook for the pack even though we have a treasurer. He stated that there have been problems in the past he will handle the money. I know from experience that the problem are due to him registering adults to meet the committe requirements and position requirements even though those people had nothing to do with the pack. Then he expected us to pay their registration even though we require the boys and parents to pay their own registration. So we spent over half our popcorn money on rechartering. WE made 170$ and paid 90$ on recharter our first year. But I am getting off the point. Since He has been in scouting for 60-70 years he comes to the table as knowing it all and he gets angry if anyone makes any suggestions. We have been polite in an effort not to hurt his feeling but he has said he started this pack 50 years ago so I doubt he will change. All we can do it try to work with him or around him. There is some bad blood as he takes credit when things go right and blames everyone else when they do not work out. This is a small town and he is a well know citizen and many people do not wantt o anger him. In small towns ticking off the wrong person can really make life difficult, ecspecially for the boys. It's not fair, but it's life. AS for camping we use the wildlife refuge that is open to the public, i do not know if it is bsa approved or even how you check to see if it is approved. We use these campgrounds because they are close, cheap, and allow family style camping. Besides the den leader we have one other mom and my self that come along to meet the 2 deep leadership requirment. Between the two of us we have 7 tag along sublings (not counting the scout boys). That includes 5 girls and 2 toddler boys. That makes camping at a bsa campground difficult. We are both the only registered ADL for weblos. As for the training matter, i have talked to the district about their scheduled trainings and round tables. They are all held on school nights at 7pm with over an hours drive each way. I have repeatedly asked if they could scheduele training for a differnt time or day and they said they would look into it. That was 5 years ago. All of our leaders (except one) are moms with other children . most of the boys have not gone to cubscout daycamp in the summer because the 35$ fee is too high. 90% of the children in public school here are on some kind of free or reduced lunch and breakfast at school. Camporees and NAtionial Troop Leadership Training are not even on our radar. We struggle to get everyone to buy a shirt, no one buys the pants. Then there is transportation and the cost of fuel.I have had parents not bring there son to a meeting becasue they have no money for gas until payday at the end of the week. I have an suv but I also have 5 children so there are no extra seats. Another parent has 4 children and the other parent of the active scout is PTA president and doesn't have much time. The last two boys are ones we had to beg to join scouts to make up our 5 minimum requirment for a troop. I would love it if we had an established troop close by but that is not the reality. My husband does not want our son associating with the city boys that live 60 miles away because there lifestyle and ours varies greatly.(no judgment here just different lifestyles) Our council headquarters is a 3 to 3 1/2 hour drive away and most activites are centered there in saint louis. We have no plans of attenting those activities becasue the distance is impractical.And while i may drive 60 miles to go shopping or on vacation i do not feel comfortable having my 10 year old son that far away when i am not confidant in the bsa leadership. another issue- if we required parents to register as a committe member when there son joins many would just not join. We tried that in cubscouts, many parents dropped out when they realized they were required to help out. Is it fair to punish a boy if he wants to join but his parent will not help? There is one boy who wants to join our troop but him mom said only if we take him to every meeting and bring him home (he lives 2 miles from us). Many boys are from single mom households where they joined scouts so their son could have male rolemodels. But we only have one male so far. And many dads work shiftwork, nights, or are away on the railroad or truckdriving. I explain this becasue at a recent meeting with the cubmaster I told her that i did not feel comfortable with some outings as the 2 deep leadership was not being met. At one overnight the DL used his 16 year old non scout step-son as his "second leader". I would not allow my son to go. The cubmaster told me that my husband should have gone along and since he did not it was not her problem but mine. Many parents are not avaliable for all outings/meetings. We have looked into the merit badge counselor program and many dads have agreed to sign up since this is something they can do on their own scheuele. And most boys will probably work on the merit badges their family members sign up for a counselors first. Thanks again for the advice - i will look into the traing you suggested.

I have read many of the posts and I can tell this may be a hot button issue for some but I really need some advise. Our pack currently requires unifrom shirt only. No hat, neckerchief,pants,ect. It is a cost issue. We started this pack 5 years ago so we have no uniform closet and no hand me downs. My son had the cub scout shorts that he wore for several years but he was the only one. Now that they will be starting their own troop I want the boys to wear the full uniform. The issue is once again the cost. Two boys have a shirt and they will have a hat and neckerchief (if the boys decide to have one). The only weay they wil have pants is if we were to have some sort of fundraiser to buy them. And most parents want the shorts since they will last longer and won't outgrow them height wise as fast as pants. But if we buy shorts then they will still be back to wearing jeans when the weather gets cold next winter. So we thought about raising enough to buy pants and shorts. These would then go into a clothes closet when they were outgrown for the younger scouts coming up. My question is has anyone tried this and what fundraisers have you used? WE are talking about 3-4 boys participating. They are 10-11 years old. Wr have tried first aid kits and they did not do very well. Carwashes are not popluar either. It's hard enough getting anyone to buy the overpriced popcorn. Any ideas on fundraisers that meet bsa quidelines of course?

We are starting a new troop this spring that will consist of 2 weblos crossovers and three 11 year old boys new to scouting. Our charter organization has not had an active troop in 20 years. (The pack had been inactive as well until 5 years ago when we started with one tiger den.) Well now the boys and their weblos leader are ready to move up to scouts. They have a great leader who is a former boy scout with no boys currently in scouting. The charter organization representive (who use to be scoutmaster 20-30 years ago) has said he was glad to finally have boys in his troop. He plans on registering as scoutmaster and the current weblos leader will become asst. scoutmaster. The CO rep has also said that the asm will fill the role as scout troop leader as well. Now I am not real familiar with the workings of a troop verses that of a pack but I thought the SM was the "leader" and that below him were boy patrols led by boy patrol leaders. I was informed that the order went SM ASM TL (troop leader) ATL PL's I am worried becasue the CO rep is very hands off and he will not be attending any meetings. He says that is what the troop leader is for. He is about 80 years old as well and not very agile.He is also not willing to step down as scoutmaster. Did I mention that the boys were afraid of him. He comes across as an elderly man who does not like children. We have no troop committe or pack committe (they are simply names he fills in from the VFW membership list) We have contacted committe members and they did not know they were on the committe or were told they did not have to do anything, that it was just paperwork. From what I understand the boys must meet before the committe members to advance in rank. So we have 3 parents volunteered to register as committe members but that means that when a boy goes before the committe it will always be before a relative. We are having a boy scout school night this month to see if we can get more boys and/or parents interested in the boy scout program. We are visiting the 5,6,7th graders at school to invite them to join. The nearest troop is 60 miles away and we have never met them. Since the boys were always planning on creating their own troop the weblos requirement to meet with the troop you will join seemed out of place. I know some boy scout purists will argue this decision but we are trying to do what is best for these boys. Could someone please clear up the proper adult leadership roles in a troop. Thankyou By the way I know many people will just recommend recruiting more boys and parents but we have been trying that for years. Scouting is not very popular here as sports and other activites win out. Sometimes we get boys interested but rarely do we get parents willing to volunteer. Our problem has been that we want to give the boys a good program but how do you do that with minimal adult volunteers? We have tried to use our parent voluteers wisely to avoid burnout.

I read this entire thread and was truely shocked by some posters comments. I cannot believe that there are so many "christians" who talk about the bible being stories and tales from the stone age. So many have discussed "being offended" by the Bible Heros section of the magazine when what has really offended me was the comment that "the seven days of creation were not literal 24hr days any logical and educated person understands that". Since I have a B of S degree in mathmatics and statistics I would consider myself very logicial and well educated. I also know that the bible is fact and that the world was created in 7 literal 24 hour days. I know that Job existed as well as all the other historical figures contained in the bible. I teach my children that the bible is fact and that those who do not believe it are misinformed. If the bsa were to become "secular" as some have suggested then we would quit. I find no problems with boy's life containing bible hero stories because we as Christians accept the stories as truth. Others who are not Christians can learn from the stories in the same way that our children learn from the tales of the greek gods taught in school. The BSA oath says duty to God so if a religion does not believe in God, one God then how can they meet that requirement? It does not say duty to all my Gods? And finally why was someone offended by a publication that contained religious stories when it is put out by an organization that has distinct religious ties. The BSA taking a stand for God is one of the reasons we are still in BSA.

I can see there are many lifelong scouts on this forum and we appreciate your dedication. But I have also had trouble with the training sessions. They are far away (60 miles to 180 miles away) and they are held on school nights. They offer no child care or no place for the scouts to be during training. I am only involved with scouting becasue i want my sons to have a great scouting experience. I have repeatedly asked for traing sessions during school hours when kids are in school and little ones in day care. At one time i had 4 moms willing to take training during those times but no effort was made by the district. At one point the CM and I (while i was ACM) made arrangments for childcare and went to a training session and it was all fluff. Nothing was presented that I could not have read in a newsletter. 99 % of our leadership got involved in scouts for their children and they will leave it when the children get out. I do not see a need to do all this training away from my children. If i joined for my sons why must i spend so much time away from them "in training". nights and weekends are family time i will always have my 5 children in tow at these times. My girls go to every boy scout/cub scout meeting just as my boys go to every girl scout meeting. But since the meetings are conviently held at the school they are free to play on the playground during meetings. I wish the district meetings and training sessions had the same kind of appreciation for families.

HI, i have read many previous posts and i need some advice. When my son started tigers we basically restarted the pack from the ground up -all new boys,leaders,ect. It has been rocky but the pack now has 25 or so boys who are active. It has been all women led these past years but we now have a weblos leader who was a former boy scout who has taken charge of these older boys. he has done a great job and he has volunteered to become scoutmaster for a newly created troop. We currently have 4 weblos, 2 will be crossing over to scouts really soon. one is in 4th grade and one is in 5th grade. they both have earned the arrow of light and are 11 years old. One weblos is undecided - he may quit scouts and the 4th boy is too young to cross over. We were told that we need to have at least 5 boys register to start a troop. Is this a written requirement or a local council rule? If we do not have a troop now then there will not be one when the other cubs get old enough and then they too will drop out. There is no troop within 60 miles of our town. Because we had problems getting the pack started many boys joined years ago and then dropped out. They are not interested in returning even though our program has gotten much better. So we are trying to excite the younger boys so they will stay with it through the years. This is working out great as each year the tiger recruitment is larger than the year before and retention is much better. But if we cannot find 3 more boys to join then there will be no program for the older boys. I have also looked into the lone scout program but was told that our council (headquartered in st. louis) does not participate in the lone scout program. I asked how the boy scouts could have a program like that and then not offer it to everyone and was told that it was up to each council. When i explained that there was no local troop i was curtly told that i could then start one. Well we have found a potential scoutmaster and we are trying to start a troop but now we are told we do not have enough boys. The vfw which charters the cubscouts is willing to charter the troop and we have vfw members willing to be chairpersons,ect. My son is very excited about boyscouts - it is the one afterschool activity he is involved in and I would hate for him to have to give it up. any advice?