5yearscouter

We have a race for sibling made cars and adult made cars. they must follow the same rules as the cubs, but we may not be as careful with the measurements, as they are racing for fun. we don't give trophies --We have 1,2,3 place ribbons and participant ribbons for all, and that costs us next to nothing. they pay for their own car kits. we raced adults first this year, so their cars were the test cars for the track to make sure everything was workin right and the scoring system was up ad functional. we only had one sibling car, so that one raced with the adults but got a 1st place ribbon as fastest sibing car.

Your number for the JTE/good turn for ameria site is the same unit number used for internet advancement id. so if your unit logs in to use internet advancement, you already have the number in your unit somewhere with somebody.

He has to be a member of the organization in order to earn an award within the organization. Make sure mom understands that. Eagle badge cannot be purchased without proof of Eagle (don't go there on the ebay thing) which includes step #1, verifty scout is registered. put it back to mom. make sure SCOUT understands that not being registered is the issue. and then move on.

test it out sending yourself a few messages and see if you like it. I think there are other places similar that teachers use but I can't remember the names.

If you are ok with not getting replies and just want to use it to send out bulk txt message advisories, you can sign up to use remind 101. it is a program set up so teachers can send txt messages to their class, but the teacher doesn't have to collect the student's phone numbers and the student's don't have the teacher's phone numbers. it kinds respects everyone's privacy, you set up a class at the website, call it whatever you want, OA blah blah chapter members then they give you a phone number. everyone who wants to get the txt messages, sends a txt to that phone number, and they get put on the distribution list. you log in to the website, type up your message, in short bursts to be sure it fits in the txt field. everyone on the distribution list gets a txt with that info. it's a little wonky at first, cause people expect to be able to reply. but it works well if you have a LOT of people that you want to txt. you of course, have to get the message out to have the scouts and leaders sign up. it probably works well to protect everyone's info for youth protection issues. some 12 year old arrowman isn't going to be able to txt you something innappropriate [on purpose or by accident] late at night cause he won't have your number.

He wants to use it as an Eagle Required merit badge to earn Rank now? If so, then right now it's not Eagle Required, so it wouldn't count. It doesn't go into effect as an eagle req badge until 2014.

I can't find this on the website, but this was shared with me. note I'm not in this particular council but it references the BSA defending question. "If the National, BSA Board votes to make a change no chartered organization would be asked to accept any adult or youth member they did not want to allow in their unit. No unit will be forced to accept a gay youth or leader into their unit. =>The Boy Scouts will continue to legally defend every leader's and every chartered organization's right to choose who to allow in their unit. This includes continuing the cost of any settlements and cost of legal representation, just as it is today.

most likely the LDS church has decided this will be ok cause they can just do their own multi unit events like they tend to do around here anyway. That they don't really spend all that much time co-mingling with the traditional units. And if they see other units with "unacceptable members" they'll just keep even further distance. if that makes sense?

Around here the LDS already barely put in an appearance at Camporees-- coming in late Friday, do a few activities and are gone often before the campfire program on Sat night. They go to their "own week" at summer camp or do their own summer camp separate from the council camps. We may see them at merit badge roundup or an occassional other district event. But they already see things as us vs them and they stay close to their "own kind" for scouting activities. I know that sounds horrible, but it is what it is. I do wonder if this will all be announced as if it's a done deal and then the LDS etc leaders on the exec board will veto it. Then BSA can say "we wanted it to happen but they voted it down." as if that will make it better. In my pack it won't make a difference, we've had gay leaders, and we probably will again. I've talked with them and approved their applications for membership after that talk. In my boy's troop, there will be a couple of blowhard old fogeys who complain but most won't say a thing and nothing will change. We've already had an Eagle scout who may be bi[his words], and a couple that have identified as gay in later years but most of the leaders are probably straight, but I haven't asked. I'd say it's "don't ask, don't tell", but people hate that term. It's not like there is a spot on the leader or scout application or on the Eagle application to fill in your sexual preference. Like a job interview, it shouldn't come up, should it?

Richard, Does your boss know that you vanity search your name on scouter forums and then come here to poke the volunteers? I really think you are like some of the hover parents we regularly lament in troop and pack meetings, and someone stupidly gave you an important job where being a hover parent is rewarded with a paycheck.

should have used the tiny url in the email you sent out too. yes, it's a small world and it got forwarded around a bit.

My husband and my almost 17 year old are both Ham radio operators. my almost 13 year hasn't pased his license test yet. They got into it in conjunction with my son's very first merit badge --radio--as a new boy scout, put on by a Ham Radio Explorer club at ScoutORama (scout fair) when my son was almost 11. They do some support for bicycle and foot races where the cell reception is non-existent; and were the "in case of emergency" plan on the troop's last canoe trip (down a canyon with no cell reception). They already requested those patches for their uniforms.

What was said by Pappadaddy is true. I know a lot of kids whose paretnts do.not.cook.at.all so they have no idea. Making a roast or pork chops etc is gourmet. soup or stew or chili that isn't from a can is outside of what they've had before except in a restaurant. They do not even know the various things they could cook, so encouraging cooking merit badge [with someone who knows what they are doing of course] and a troop easy to make real food type cookbook would do them wonders.

Looks like they were disabled and owned by former US military members (conveniently left out of the CNN report). So much for them saying it was all anonymous too. Quote: Two rocket launchers turned into the Los Angeles Police Department as part of the city's gun buyback event this week and displayed by the police chief and mayor did not have the capacity to fire. But the department will examine the origins of the weapons with the military, police said Friday. The two launchers--long metal tubes that were once capable of propelling rocket grenades--were turned in along with 2,037 weapons at a gun buyback Wednesday, and exchanged for supermarket gift cards. Det Gus Villanueva said the launchers were "stripped-down shells" without the technical parts needed to discharge a projectile. "They don't have capability to discharge anything anymore," he said. The launchers were turned in by residents who did not receive a gift card, he said. Villanueva said the people turning them in at the buyback told officers they had family members who were at one time in the military and "they no longer wanted the launchers in their homes." Los Angeles police gun experts will be checking the origins of these weapons with the U.S. military to see if they were ever stolen, he said. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/12/two-rocket-launchers-in-gun-buy-back-inert-lapd-checking-origins.html

Beavah said "Two patrols have been around for at least twenty years, probably longer." Those are permanent patrols--where the troop has decided certain names of patrols will live on forever. That's another subject IMHO. Sure we have those patrols. The Eagle patrol is the leadership patrol it changes every time there is elections, boys go in and out. And the other is the Pedro patrol--the venture patrol of older boys who have held leadership positions may already be eagles, and want to do higher adventure and are leaving the leadership to the a bit young boys--often it's the 16-17 year olds who are almost done with their scouting. the patrol they used to belong to has often folded due to only 1 or 2 members. they may have the lowest attendance due to high school classes and finals and college classes(so many high school students take college classes now) but there is never a question of their committment to scouting. Those two patrols have been around probably for 40 years or more, but in name only. The boys have come in and go out. the leadership changes. the members change. they just decided to keep the same name over time. That's like the bobwhite and beaver patrol of wood badge--keep the names, and when you get together with a group of different year wood badgers, you can all sing the same song, but you don't know those who came before or those who came after enought to say those are my mates, my buds. you have a basic kindred spirit, but not due to belonging to the same patrol, only from belonging to the same troop over time. The patrols with a longevity of 6-7 years, now those are the patrols I'd be comparing to others. boys join a patrol and stay in it the whole time--perhaps they pop out to do a troop position for 6 months, but they go right back to their home base. They are the scouts who become friends and buds outside of scouting and within. For some boys they will want to be with scouts of their same age for quite a while, or maybe forever. many adults are like this, they like to be around those with similar age based culture. These types do best in a new scout patrol, they may mature a bit and integrate into other patrols well, but most scouts like this do best with at least one to 3 same aged scouts with them regardless of how old or mature they get. For some boys they gravitate toward scouts who are older than them and younger than them. it may be their common interests outside of scouting, or their common interests within scouting. They do well if you sink them by themselves into a mixed age patrol right off the bat. It is very very difficult to identify what kind of scout you have there when they first cross over. To say one is better or worse than the other is missing the point--and is actually very poor insight into the inner workings of young boys. They are not all the same regardless of how much you may want them to be. Sure in a small troop you can get to know the boys as scoutmaster and/or spl. you can see where they'd fit and make good recommendations of which patrol they should join or which of their same age buddies they should take with them to a mixed age patrol. When you have a troop of 70 after 15-20 webelos cross over each year, it is nigh on impossible to get that to work. you can't get to know the 15-20 webelos enough to know where they fit best. so you have to choose, mix them up, mixed age patrols? or new scout patrol or 2? If you have 6 patrols of 8, with one being your leadership patrol, and one being your venture patrol, so there are only 4 patrols that you ca really put newbies into. Do you put 4-5 new guys into each of those patrols, over the course of 3-4 months, but you don't know how may will come over since there are 4 other troops in your area that may get some of the often 30 ish webelos that are eligible to join a troop in the spring. some cross over as early as January, some not til the end of the school year in May. Is it a good idea to take a patrol that is performing, and put them back at storming/forming level by giving them 1-5 new scouts over the course of 5 months over and over again? about the time they get those boys sort of figured out, wham you get 1-2 from another pack. Your existing patrols have now gone from 6 patrols of 8, to 2 patrols of 8 and 4 patrols that are close to 13. which is a bit too big most of the time. So in our troop with those kinds of conditions we deal with every year, we did the above for years. many years. and usually within 3 months of joining we'd lost 60-75% of the new scouts, usually with the complaint that they were lost, confused and felt left out by the older guys. One year we tried the New scout patrol--we had only 13 crossovers that year. Everyone went into the new scout patrol with a troop guide and an older scout given to them as a start up patrol leader, transferring them to self governance asap. some joined in January-May, then we received a few more in august as well. at recharter time, we'd lost only 15% of them. many still had the complaint that they were lost, confused and felt left out by the older guys but they were in it together, went camping together etc. In February we have elections, and at that time they were given the choice to stay in their own patrol, join an existing patrol or form a different patrol. and they did all 3. about 6 of them stayed together, a few joied existing patrols, and a couple wanted their own patrol and some other guys joined them. so at that point, we still had mixed age patrols primarily, with a group that wants to stay together by age. so there is not just one answer to this. Patrols should change or die off when they need to. nsp has it's use in some size troops.

We did have one mom who asked if we wanted her to fill it out in english and spanish? And her kid's doctor, knowing that she is from mexico, asked her if she wanted him to complete it all in spanish--especially the information about the kid's allergies and asthma treatment. I'm glad she said that english would be fine, cause if mom wasn't there and the kid headed off to summer camp with a form completed in spanish? We probably could have found someone to translate, but shouldn't medical information be primarily in the most common language of the land, english? or you are just asking for trouble.

Oh and if the signature page for parents is on a different page from what they sign, I don't think that makes it totally kosher of a legal document unless parents initial the page where it says "I hereby assign and grant to the local council and the Boy Scouts of America the right and permission to use and publish the photographs...." without a signature or initial on the page are you really agreeing to "I release the Boy Scouts of America, the local council, the activity coordinators, and all employees, volunteers, related parties, or other organizations associated with the activity from any and all claims or liability arising out of this participation." ??(This message has been edited by 5yearscouter)

We have some parents who have used it --we try to update med forms at recharter in November/December, cause about half the troop don't go to week long summer camp in June, so recharter time we can get everyone to touch a med form. The feedback from their doctors is that they hate it. It is not easy to use at all if you print it out, maybe if my dr was filling it out in pdf form, but he's not. Doctors had a hard time figuring out what goes where, basic information about vaccinations there was too much room for it,a check for if they had the disease is sufficient, you don't need room for both a date of vaccine ad a date for disease. Feedback from the troop people who review the forms before the big outings[scoutmaster and a couple of asms]? It is hard to read. the font size is bad really really small, which makes it hard to read in an emergency and the english and then spanish makes it hard to read to find key data fas. The home phone number is the number that automatically fills in for the emergency contact phone number--where most people would prefer it to be their cell phone number, and many leave the home phone number blank because they don't have one. Note, one of the parents, one dr and one asm are primarily spanish speakers who gave negative critiques.

The online tour plan asks for names and info for all drivers on outings. you fill in name, address, etc if they aren't registered leaders as well as vehicle info. and it asks if their ypt is up to date. which implies that anyone driving on an outing should have Youth protection training, eh? So we are starting to ask everyone to do it.

Be very careful taking a scout with attitude, behavior, bullying issues and sending him off to be a den chief. That can be a recipe for cutting all ties with a local cub scout pack, when they think that young man represents your unit's best scouts.

They are finding for the voice of the scout survey emails that a. councils haven't been adding email addresses to the adult's scout net records at all or b. the email address was entered when they registereed their cub scout and well that son has aged out, so the email address is old and doesn't work. We were asked to verify all of our email addresses for youth and adults with our recharter. Our Troop doesn't collect email addresses for the youth if they are under 14, and that is the majority of our scouts. so we usually don't collect email addresses at all for youth. -Position code 92U wasn't included in the recharter computer program this year like it was supposed to be. So our registrar was pulling her hair out at the number of units who have called her to ask what to do. She told them to register them all as asm's (since most are too young to be mc) and then she will transfer them all back to 92U when she sees their packet. Of course that means most will still be registered as ASM's because she doesn't process all the recharter packets herself. They should flag them somehow so they know these weird ones need to go to the registrar since she made the promise to fix their problems herself.

Perhaps Sort of a step by step process and a power point presentation on the council website. to become a registered leader in a unit(pack, troop, crew) with BSA 1. go to www.myscouting.org make an account, remember your user name and password. take youth protection training(ok so you gotta take venturing ypt if you are registering in a crew) 2. when correct, print the certificate. 3. go here http://www.scouting.org/filestore/pdf/524-501.pdf complete an application and print 5. be sure to sign on page 4 & 5 and include your Social Security number and driver's license # to help with the background check 4. take application and YPT to your pack, troop or crew leaders, specifically the Committee chair. Unit leaders, 1. take the application and ypt certificate from your leader candidate. 2. verify that application is complete, and all parts are signed in the appropriate place by the applicant page 4 & 5. 3. contact the references listed if so desired. 4. confirm the position to be listed, be sure the code is correct using the list on page 2 of the application. 5. If applicant is approved for that position, Committee Chair and Chartered Organization Representative sign the application in the 2 places provided. And then local council gets involved. our council provides an email address where applications can be scanned and submitted. So you scan the application, page 4&5, plus the YPT certificate and send it off. otherwise deliver the application directly to the council registrar if there is any way you can do that. Applications get lost or delayed if they are given to the DE, the UC, a district chairperson, friend, relative or others to "drop off" at council for you. Note at recharter time, if the adult leader is going to be acting as a leader immediately, then turn in a copy of their application at council immediately. AND include a copy of the application and all of it's parts with your recharter packet. That way it won't wait for months to be processed. Then the unit needs to confirm it's completed and the person is registered. The easiest way for units to do this is to log into internet advancement. You can pull up a unit roster at any time that will show you immediately whether someone is registered in the unit. follow up with the registrar if there is a huge delay. Then report back to the applicant that they were approved, and this is your bsa id number(also listed on internet advancement). Applicant who is now a registered leader, logs into their www.myscouting.org account, enters their bsa id number in their profile, and takes other training required for their position. Our council recently added an assistant registrar, and with the addition of scanned applications to submit them, the turn around from sending off applications, to them showing on the unit roster is less than a week, sometimes they are completed THE SAME DAY. wow If the unit is using the tools available to them on internet advancement, or the new tools under myscouting for units (which I have not seen yet due to needing to upgrade my internet explorer) then there is no reason there should be any surprises of people not registered in the correct position in the unit. anyway, there are probably things that could be improved in the above kind of process, noteably council somehow notifying units when the email application is received and when it is approved. But it's getting better here all the time. I do wonder why the adult application doesn't say YPT is required to be done when you turn in this application and a little pull off sheet that says this is how to make an account and take the training? that is something I do for my cub scout pack, attached to all applications is where to go and what training to take. ok so that was long..... I think I was bored.....?

Yeah Qwayze, some of our Pack parents are just a tiny bit older than your crew members! It's kinda scary.

Polaris that is too long, too many words. Most parents lately seem to reply/respond better to short messages like they'd read in a text message. so send a text that says Hey, Johnny scout's registration fees of $xx are due by Nov 29th. when can you pay? Dear scout family, Every year we have to re-register with Boy Scouts of America and make payment to them to continue in another year of scouting. Your son's rechartering fees/annual dues are $xx. They must be paid by Nov 29th or he will not be registered for 2013. If not paid, he will not be able to participate in any scouting activities in 2013, but he can continue to participate in scouting thru the December actvity on the xxth (name and date of your last scout activity of the year). The pack does fundraising to offset the cost of scouting for families with financial hardship; if that is the reason his fees have not been paid, please call me privately ASAP. sincerely, Pack Committee Chair phone number email address(This message has been edited by 5yearscouter)