T2Eagle

If your ASM thinks there should be a form ask him to show it to you. But unless your council has something weird there isn’t one. As you said, have your son answer the question on form F: “Mr. Smith has generously agreed to donate all the costs necessary for this project.” If he wants to elaborate a bit he can add some thing like, “because Mr. Smith is a supporter of both Scouting and the community organization this project benefits.” As a guess, I would guess ASM is sort of waving at some IRS rule about donations over $500, but that’s not for the scout to worry about, that’s between Smith and the beneficiary org, because that’s who he is actually donating to.

The short answer is no, especially if you mean “would proper full uniform require an undershirt beneath the uniform shirt.” I’ve never worn a t-shirt, and even the Woodbadge folks who insisted I turn my collar under and pretend I was wearing a shirt from 1980 didn’t feel it was a requirement.

We always did the same as Inquisitive. This is actually the kind of role that is perfect to delegate to one of the parents. It’s purely an organizational project, doesn’t involve camping, and doesn’t involve having any particular scout skill or scouting background. What it does require is someone who can successfully wade through kludgy websites and be on top of deadlines and communications. And it’s usually not that hard to force somebody that’s not you to step up. ‘Mr. Former CC who used to do this isn’t here, so if we want to go to summer camp then someone not me has to do this.” As SM it’s hard to not have some hand in everything. So you’re probably going to have to do some handholding the first year.

To explain a little bit about the differences between SB and scouting.org, SB is an interface that allows you to access scouting.org, but it also has some labeling and functionality of its own. Scouting.org is THE official database, and reflects the official registration of each individual. I suspect that in scouting.org he is listed solely as Committee Chair. His listing as an ASM in SB is probably an artifact of an earlier position or some sort of miscue when someone set up SB. The other positions you listed seeing in SB are not actual official positions. They’re suggestions for how you can structure a troop committee. To wit, the Advancement Chair and Training Chair are titles that can be conferred on any member of the committee, including the Committee Chair, but they’re not necessary, and you don’t have to have or use them at all in a functioning committee. Now, within SB, those titles, along with the key three delegate title, grant the person or people holding them some functions and permissions within SB, like the ability to record adult training or record scout advancements. If you have one person who is actually the only person performing chair duties, AND advancements, AND training that is a bad idea, and some folks should have a heart to heart to talk about how delegating roles is important for any organization.

Our troop had older scouts sign off on skill requirements up through 1st class. As SM I kept scout spirit for myself or an ASM. I used the older scouts skills signoff as a teaching, mentoring, quality control opportunity. If I thought a younger scout maybe didn’t have the command of a skill I hoped for I could have a chat with the older scout who signed off to see what his perspective was. I don’t have a particular objective to the PLC acting as a body, but they already have work to accomplish as a group, and I prefer to see advancement be a more organic process that mostly comes from the normal interaction of the scouts. A young scout who pulls an older scout aside to sign off on a test, or an older scout who points out “now that you know how to do it I can sign it off for you” is a happier moment for me than a formal meeting.

Funny, we’re in NW Ohio. I don’t think any of our scouts haven’t done #5. We plan at least one or two winter tent camps where we hope to get snow. We’ve had a few of years where the number is it’s higher than that, irrespective of our plans. Regarding MBC discretion, I don’t get too literal on #5. If it was truly cold I’ll give a scout credit. If it drops into the low teens or single digits I figure there had to be some snow nearby, even if I didn’t personally see it

One thing to note is that the requirement specifies a scouting activity, it doesn’t say with the troop. So these nights, and their corresponding activities can be done within scouting but outside the troop. That could mean OA, jamboree, provisional scout at a summer camp, council contingents to high adventure, or just tagging along with another troop where he has a buddy. Broadly, I haven’t seen many scouts struggle with 9b if they are easily completing 9a. Where are you located, and what does your troop do on campouts that they’re not getting these things in? My theory on the why of the tied requirements is that it’s designed to do what it demands —- encourage a troop or patrol to seek a variety of adventures, not just go out and plop at the same park or scout reservation every month. And since it’s the scouts not the adults who should be planning their activities, they all have some incentive, beyond the obvious quest for adventure, to build consensus and get out and do enough of a variety that everyone can satisfy both the requirements and their own particular wanderlust.

One thing to remember is that council actually needs you more than you need them. Registered units and registered scouts are THE most important thing to a council. Meaning no disrespect to Unit Commissioners out there, but they are pretty much the same place as a unit leader, at best, on the totem pole. Fill out the paperwork, and dare them to tell you and the Chartering Organization that owns and supports you that they won’t allow fundraising where they don’t get a cut. Dot your ‘i’s and cross your ‘t’s, but be stubborn. They will see the light, however grudgingly. I have a good council, and good friends in both the volunteer and professional leadership of the council. But I have had polite but firm conversations where I remind them that my first obligations are to my unit, its scouts, and my Chartering Org.

This framing drives me crazy. BSA isn't being sued because BSA has money, BSA is being sued because BSA DID SOMETHING WRONG! That has been the finding of virtually every judge and jury that has heard these cases: BSA knew or should have known that pedophiles were using its program to access victims. BSA's failures, to act, to watch, to look, to enforce rules, etc. were the reason its members, volunteer and professional, were able to sexually assault children --- for decades. BSA DID SOMETHING WRONG AS AN ORGANIZATION! That's why they were sued AND LOST, over and over again. If BSA had won many or most of the cases against them, if after spending lots of money on good lawyers zealously defending their clients BSA and its Councils, we had won those suits, then we wouldn't be where we are. But we lost all those cases, BECAUSE WE DID SOMETHING WRONG. Just because you have money doesn't mean you get sued and lose. In fact, the best predictor of whether you will be successfully sued is how much money you have to defend yourself, and we the scouting organization had plenty of money and lost any way. You don't lose over and over again because you're innocent. We weren't innocent, and so we lost, over, and over, and over again.

If you’re not on your council board no one above is going to listen to you. I’d start by approaching your own COR, and making sure you get everything from them that you can. In terms of finding other CORs, it will take leg work and persistence, the website beascout.scouting.org lists every unit and their chartering organization. Make a list, send a preliminary letter to the org, get on the phone and follow up. But be warned, you’ll ruffle feathers, and you’ll need to tread lightly or the feathers will ruffle back.

That the parties agreed to the Purdue or BSA or any other plan seems like the weakest argument I can think of. If the non consensual releases were illegal then neither side would agree to the plan and something altogether different would have happened. The question should be are these releases valid under the law as written. Parties agreeing to something under a faulty view of the law and therefore a flawed view of what the consequences of not settling is arguing that the outcome must be right because it is the outcome.

For good deals on a bunch of equipment, go to Hiker direct.com and sign up for their scout discount. They sell their equipment at about 40% off retail to scouts. My personal recommendation is their Taurus Outfitter Tents. They're sturdy, good quality, and have full vestibules front and back. They'll stand up to really bad weather and twelve year old youth abuse. These are not backpacking tents, but, they're not too heavy to split between two or three scouts if you're only hiking a couple miles in to a camp site. They also have backpacking tents if the troop you join are serious backpackers,

My pretty long experience was crossover around March, first campout in April, another in May. You want those campouts to be not too rigorous, fun, and at least one of them really focused on them learning how to be a part of the older unit. A scout who has a miserable time on their first real campout will be much more likely to drop than continue. Scouts BSA camping is often the first time in their lives a kid is away from home, and away from their parents, and away from their family, and responsible for taking care of all their own stuff. A scout with two campouts with two good campouts under their belt is ready to do that for a week at summer camp. Throwing all that at a kid for a week and not just two nights is a lot to ask and a roll of the dice. We know from long statistics that a kid who goes to summer camp is likely to stick around at least another year. So you really want to be strategic about getting them to and through that first summer camp. To make this work you really need to know how the troop you're going to works, because your scout and your den are going to be folded into their culture and process. You need to change this right away. By the time you crossover you and your scout should be familiar with the troop, how it operates, what it expects, what its plans are for taking in crossover etc. Go visit the troop, with and maybe without your scout. Have solid, directed conversations with especially the Scoutmaster, but also the other parents hanging around the troop meeting. If I was being thorough, I'd even ask if I and my scout could sit in and observe a PLC --- but that might be a bit much. Your den should certainly be visiting troops, and good troops will have some events, like the Saturday afternoon of a campout or something similar that they can invite you to. Our troop did a fair amount with our Pack. But for Webelos in particular we usually invited them to the fun parts of our winter campouts like Saturdy afternoon tobogganing, hiking, cooking lunch outdoors, etc. A taste of what's to come without all the hard work.

The best thing to do always in situations like this is to quietly get good information from people who should have it; don't act based on "what everybody knows." I would suggest your first step is to talk to your CC and SM. They apparently know something about this, and the only thing you're sure of about their involvement so far is that they didn't involve the rest of the committee. Respectfully, you don't know more than that; maybe they have a full plan in place, maybe they've already met with the parents, or your COR, or both. Your son and his friend's concern are admirable and shouldn't be discounted, But they also don't know much more than what is on the surface. The actual options for your troop are the entire spectrum from he's out of here, to we're comfortable that the many other adults in this young man's life have the situation in hand and we're going to let those actions take their course rather than thinking we should act independently.

$200 at the start of each semester --- two payments, $400 total.

I assumed I saw no scout bows in the wild because the GTSS strictly restricts them to use on an approved archery range.

Qwazse has it nailed. The uniform expectations of the troop are set, either implicitly or explicitly, by the PLC. When you say "Our troop has been going back and forth" do you mean the adults or the scouts? If it's the adults they should just drop it because it's not really their call (I know they don't want to hear this). If it's the scouts then they should be encouraged to struggle through the issues Qwazse lays out. In direct answer to your question, the only rule you will find is the one regarding BORs. Extrapolate from that what you will. If it's your adults driving this and you can't persuade them to leave it to the scouts then the best advice I can give is to ask these questions. Do you really want scouts basing their decision to attend a meeting on whether they can or want to get their uniform on? Are you really going to send kids home who show up in no uniform? While you may end up with a larger percentage of your scouts in uniform you will inevitably end up with fewer scouts in attendance. Has anyone ever really thought it was a good idea to start an initiative whose accomplishment means fewer scouts?

Steramine tablets are not the ammonia tablets you mentioned.

At a basic level, for mergers to result in more financially sound councils you need to reduce your costs, which are primarily camps, service centers, and people, while trying to maintain your revenues: donations, popcorn, and camp fees. In your council how many of the former did you start and end with, and how much of the latter fell as you did that? Also, what were the factors that drove the four councils not working, and what structural changes allowed the new council to overcome those forces?

The tablets, we had a group of adults who among their many other transgressions would use WAY too much beach. The tablets, as you say, can be measured pretty accurately. The additional cost over time is pretty small, and a small bottle of tablets is easier to deal with than a bottle of liquid bleach. When backpacking we rarely bothered with sanitizing. You can have long debates, and there have been some on this forum, about the actual need for sanitizing.

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You’re effectively her grandparent, and we’ve had lots of grandparents. We never ask for documentation. You might consider cross registering with her unit.

The thing is, it sounds petty and selfish until it’s your family facing tens maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical and other costs, then it’s your family’s survival on the line. And there is no other way in our society to ameliorate those costs, no one else is coming to your rescue, no one else is going to be in a position to actualy provide that level of help.

Regarding the emails, in our Catholic unit it is a requirement that any email correspondence that includes youth has to include a parish email address so that there is a copy on a parish controlled server. Rather than issue every scouter a parish email we copy a parish email on all troop correspondence. Our pastor monitors that account periodically. Most scout sponsoring churches view scouting as part of their religious mission, how this manifests itself or how directly the church wants the unit to be specifically or overtly a part of the proselytizing of the church can vary, but is within the purview of the church as sponsoring co. Some churches go so far as to require active church membership of all adults or more rarely of all scouts. Some churches want to scouting to effectively be the church's youth group. How comfortable you are with that is personal preference, whether that can be compatible with a successful scouting unit is going to be fact dependent. Everything you're describing is within the CO's purview, and no council or district is going to gainsay them. I can live with the emails, and even some issues regarding money, but personally I want to be a scout leader leading a scout program that is consistent with the values of my religion, not a religious leader leading a church youth group.

There is a difference between a retest and probing with a scout about how well he knows a skill, how he learned it, how whichever scout worked with him played their role in testing him and making sure he had learned the skill, etc.. I never did the former, part of but certainly not the entirety of every SM conference I ever did included the latter. Some scouts retain more some less, some scout-instructors were better than others. SM conferences were a part of how I learned where all my scouts fell on those spectrums. If I thought a scout really didn't have a skill I'd subtly work with my SPL and PLs to make sure the scout got the opportunity to review and work on it in the future so they did learn it better. Same with the instructors. For me, I always reminded myself that rank and advancement were means to an end. I tried hard to not get caught up in "how can Johnny be First Class he couldn't tie a taut line hitch when I asked him." I've learned and forgotten libraries full of of stuff over the years --- and truth be told to this day a taut line hitch usually takes me more than one try.