Tacoma Scouter

IThe payment voucher is printed off and submitted with the payment to council. I think to simply match payment to an application. In our case we leave a few dollars in our account with council so we can email the payment voucher to council. (potentially saving multiple trips to council, and eliminates "lost" paperwork. I really hope this gets all the bugs out!

I have used on-line application for three youths.....It almost worked as advertised, The parents completed the application and the COR approved them. This is where it went side ways, the council did not recive the applications took several weeks to find and approve. If I knew the system was going to work right I would recommend it 100%. The concept is great, a youth or parent contact you via your unit pin, you invite the youth to a meeting, he loves it his parent completes the online application. The key 3 approves and a payment voucher is sent to the council office. No reading hand scrawelled applications....no waiting on the youth showing up on unit rosters. no fuss no mess but it...your mileage may vary, my first attempt did.

With out starting the who is the best or more in depth training agency. BSA partnered with the American Red Cross to produce the Wilderness and Remote First Aid course. The path way to becoming an instuctor for ARC is to usally a call to the local office, they may have a low cost option to become an instructor. Here they offer was teach a few classes for the local chapter for a huge discount. Once your a First Aid CPR, AED instructor you then can bridge to other course like WRFA. I would suggest that your friend takes a look at this as an option, much safer from a liabilty stand point, and books and such are avaible, along with cetificates from a national reconized agency. Once he is an instructor he can move to other training organitions. One other note the agreement with ARC, give a huge price break on certificates ($5.00 down from $19.00) for each training course.

in 2011 a remote camp was attacked http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Norway_attacks Along with the Belsam attack http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beslan_school_hostage_crisis It is time to take a serious look at our camps and how we manage our risks. Truely we need to do our own risk assesment for every event and take the actions needed to bring our scouts home.

As of May 2012 we had our first SPL Roundtable, June and July we do not have a roundtable sceduled, so come August we will have our second. It is the hope of those behind it to do exactly as you suggested. The first roundtable turn out was low but we expect it to grow as we present the idea at program kick off nights and through our contact with the units. Communications continues to be the problem getting the word out. I hope to be able to give this a year before we evaulate if it is worth while. Matthew

Yes, We meet the monday befor a camp out and two weeks latter to get the camping gear back. So about 2-3 times a month for June, July and Aug. with Summer Camp and two camping Trips and WashJam,

The solution will not be fixed at a national level ever. We have to fix this at the district and council level. In my district the units with a program grow, other units not so much. We have to have challanging programs, young men and women who are challenged develope that swagger and beome the populer crowd. Every region has the ability develop a program, with camporees, camping, or technology challanges that can and will reverse this trend. Councel level executive boards need to hold the pro-staff feet to fire, redefine the expectations, say Program, Membership, Money vs. the current Money, money, Money...the focus has to be quality. A quality program will grow, parents and scouts know what they want and will vote with their feet. we can attract scouts, but we need to meet the expectations to keep them. Now what to do about National, the only thing we can do is start a grass roots campain, we demand accountabilty and quality. Instead of preaching to choir get to round table and any where else scouters meet and share the ideas of quality scouting. will this generate results overnight, no but soon. Communications, we have to write press release's and groom a relationship with local media. get the positive press our scouts and program desreves. unfortunataly most of us would rater give a FOS presention than talk to the media. This is my $.02 I have never seen a national solution for a local problem ever,

It only took almost a year for the site and my PC to allow me to register! I have found my self on the District Committee, Now I find myself reaching out for help a lot. I hope to learn and find solutions to what I am sure are not unique problems. Matthew