5yearscouter

The only hole I see right now is that COR isn't supposed to be co-registered as Asst cubmaster. COR can be coregistered as CC or as committee memeber, but basically they aren't supposed to have a hand in the committee side and the program side. So probably suggest he works on recruiting a 2nd ASM or even 3rd. Best year in my pack we had a committee member and ACM from each den. The ACM's took jobs like being in charge of songs, skits/run/ons/audience participations, games, and advancement ceremonies. of course the advancement ceremony guy worked closest with the Cubmaster and took over his job.

Our roundtable has a boy leader break out session, it rotates thru some of the positions, inviting say all SPLs and ASPLs to attend one month, all QM the next month. It goes thru cycles of good or bad attendance probably based maybe on when each troop's elections are held in the district.

thanks for the advice for my oldest, again I'm not worried about him. Elections are coming up, not sure if he'll step up again for a big part, or if he's tired of beating his head against the wall about some of the issues the troop has. OA is a huge part of his scouting, he's on the ceremonies team and does hundreds of hours of ceremonies a year, just got recognized as Vigil! Heck he already convinced his newly ordealed younger brother to join the ceremonies team in a pinch, so 2 weeks after doing his ordeal, he filled in as a part for the ordeal ceremony as well. His OA advisor keeps reminding him to not let OA get in the way of his EAgle by taking up too much of his time. He's not interested in the local Crews though they aren't his style.

In some ways boy scouts has been too easy for my boys, but that's cause they come in with a hefty set of scout skills from years of camping, hunting, hiking, fishing, outdoors stuff--but also cooking, cleaning, family service, scholarship and community service and more as that's how our family does things. I don't have any worry that my 16+ year old will decide to jump thru the hoops to finish his Eagle, but the award does not exemplify what he thinks it should--that the award is tarnished by how it's given out. Part if it is our unit but at this point, that won't change, although at times I want to go running screaming from the way things are done, or beat my head against the wall trying to get them to acknowledge how they do some things is certainly not the BSA way and it isn't working to keep boys. but anyway, the unit is a problem but he's embraced that 110% because as a young SPL at 14 just out of NYLT training elected by 50 boys to lead them for over a year--he pushed hard to get things on track, but has had sooooo far to come, and such a custom of the bar being set too low for too many years. He certainly wouldn't give up the troop at this point, not even for his 12+ year old brother. Instead the two of them have worked so hard to make their small parts of the troop stronger, the boys they interact with have a better experience than they had. so he's off working at summer camp--helping to teach cooking merit badge, and certainly it's a bit of 1 and done but they are making homemade chicken soup and beef stroganoff and such, so they aren't shorty cutting much. At least I know he's drilling the food safety rules. I know he's bemoaning the fact he can't have them all practice dutch oven biscuits due to the severe fire danger(no charcoal fires). They'll come out cooking better than they would have after the local mb university cooking class. He just did a week at Philmont at NAYLE and txted home asking if they were still looking for an SPL for December's NAYLE course. He has a heart full of cheerful service. I do like the idea to think of advancement as that triangle mentioned above. BSA can set the skills and suggest the proficiency, but if they put in a maximum suggested time for FCFY, the amount of skills or the amount of proficiency goes down. so how best to get around that and increase the skills and proficiency. I hate the repeated you can't add to nor take away from the requirements. Some take that to mean that if the MB says you have to do 1, 2, 3 if you throw in extra stuff to make the boys understand 1, 2, & 3 better and get more fun out of the badge, then you are adding to the requirements. So I've seen a few MB counselors, so afraid of adding to the requirements that they spent their time reading answers from the merit badge pamphlet. And these were people who had supposedly been doing it for years. But they'd been called on "adding to the requirements" by going on field trips and having hands on demos and such (not required but recommended)such taht they were now afraid to have fun with the topic. Like a boy scout wanting to use the necessary knots to make a trebuche and being told that wasn't what is required so here just tie these two ropes together.

so use the money to set up a super duper small pack campership to help boys go to camp who might not be able to come up with all the $. my pack has one and everyone that needs it can ask for $10. it's not much this year, of course the amount does change based on fundraiser amounts we get each year. or does the $ help pay for the awards earned at camp (belt loops or patches or wahtever) then there you go, how to tie it into camp funds. of course, if you are standing in front of the grocery store asking for $ to help boys go to camp and you don't use any of the $ for summer camp, but use it for the pack family campout, that counts too. but if you don't camp at all and are asking for $ to help boys to camp, rethink your marketing strategy or go have a pack family camp out in the fall.

Been following along, the changes to the Guide to Advancement clarifying things that were confusing before have been overall pretty good. But the work as a whole gives the impression of one and done being the standard. I think the do, review, test parts should all have some kind of separation--that they all probably shouldn't be done and signed on the same day. And if it says tie a knot, it doesn't mean tie the knot today, and then tomorrow go tell your SM or whoever in your troop signs books "hey I tied that knot yesterday" and then they sign it. I think there should definitely be more clarification that when the book it signed, THAT is the time where the testing occurs. But then that kind of interpretation of the requirements certainly starts in cub scouts. I'm looking at the list of "things your scout earned at day camp" right now-- and the idea that "do your best" doesn't mean each scouts works to do their best--instead if whoever is teaching did their best, but under the situation they couldn't do all the parts of the requirement but that's ok. for instance they are teaching weather belt loop and need to collect the weather data for a week, but only have 3 days to collect the weather data at day camp--but that's ok, we'll sign it anyway. Or that where it says make a poster of the water cycle, it's perfectly ok for one adult to make a poster of the water cycle and everyone else to just look at it. That is subtracting from the requirements and I think that is a much much more prevalent proble than adding to the requirements. You add to the requirements too much without good reason and the scouts go elsewhere. You subtract from the requirements, and the scouts get something for nothing and they learn that is all that this scouting game is about-- awards that don't mean anything. I'm dealing with my oldest probably not finishing his Eagle. It was a bit huge carrot in his eyes, something WORTHY of achieving. But he sees the scouts who are earning it and having camped with them for years, he knows they were a 1 time and done group for the most part. So many of the ones who don't know any scout skills, couldn't tie a knot if they had to and did it one time to get it signed in their book. Sure the program should use that knot again over and over, but with a large troop, and instructors and troop guides doing the bulk of showing those knots to the new guy, too many of the scouts just hang back and work thru the requirements and not really participate in keeping their scout skills current and active. so son is 16+ in a troop that has 5 Eagles so far this year, with about 7 Life scouts currently working on their project plans--these are mostly older boys 16-17 year olds that have been with this program for years. But only a handful of them seem to have done their best all these years, and only a handful of those seem to really know what Be Prepared means and could do it in a pinch. I'd really like to see a rewrite of the BSHB. I'd like to see a revamp of the requirements, so each rank in trail to 1st class has to be earned in order, and you don't start on the next one until the previous one is completed. And certainly do what you can to get rid of SOME of the double or triple dipping. Sure in theory with actual skills req if you can tie the knot for pioneering you can tie the knot for trail to first class req. But if you cook for your patrol one weekend, should it count for camping merit badge, trail to 1st class and cooking merit badge? or if you camp 10 nights and 1 long term camp, should it count for trail to first class, camping merit badge, with the nights camping on a backpacking trip counting for backpacking merit badge and it all counting toward OA? It seems to be stacking things to get more awards, not to get more knowledge and experience. And without knowledge and experience, the whole thing is a wash.

Well since the treasurer said the donations were going to cover a bounced check, you might want to smooth over that little ruffle. something like while you try to collect on the bounced check, the donation amount would be able to cover other expenses of the pack so the boys never notice that kind of blip. and that yes, the money will be spend on helping all the boys go to camp. and then show what the pack is spending on the boys going to camp if need by, if anything has been approved of course. for instance, In my pack we help pay part of the leader's fees for webelos camps depending on how mcuh we get in donations and fundraisers. that amount would help us to cover 2 leaders going to webelos camp and that the boys can't go without leaders, so that is a direct benefit to the boys.

since ALL the money brought into the pack actually belongs to the pack to be used for all the boys, and since donations especially are usually given with the idea that they are helping boys in a cub scout pack go to camp, all the donation money should go to the cub scout pack directly. now if you want to give part of it or all of it to a scout account, I understand wanting to do that, but did the people donating, really think they were donating to an individual, or to the group as a whole? if you want to give all or part, or any of those kinds of changes to prior pack policy, you should really get a consensus of your leaders/committee and not have it be 1 or 2 people's idea only.

what I understand is that the Continuous Chest Compressions has shown higher success rates than the regular CPR. In cases of drowning and with children they still recommend the traditional CPR to get more oxygen into their systems. Interestingly enough My neighbor/friend who is a Cardiac care Nurse Practitioner taught my oldest's den his Readyman in 2006 or 7 and taught them that if in doubt do the CCC, but this is how to do the CPR as well. She had just been to a big conference on the benefits and comparision of CPR and CCC and came away with the info that the Continuous Chest Compressions should be the standard that is taught for the highest level of success. Not too long after that, I saw in the paper that the local fire dept uses on the CCC with higher success rates as well. I think BSA needs to reevaluate the first class req and first aid MB and include both CPR techniques and CCC with info on when to use each. like I said with infants and childrens and cases of drowning I was told CPR was still preferred, but that may have also changed.

We've been chartered for I believe 84 years in January. but not the same CO the whole time.

our dollar tree has a bunch of sizes of mesh bags. but can't say if they are high or low quality. for the price it's probably hard to beat.

yes, definitely the pins go with the rank they are working on. it would make no sense for a new wolf who joins June 1st, who is working on his wolf badge now to go to summertime activities and earn the tiger pin, since he was never a tiger. so june 1 everyone goes up to the next rank and are considered that level and work on the requirements in that level book, which includes the summertime pack award at that rank level. so new tigers joining after june 1, go to the 3 pack activities and earn the tiger summertime pin. boys who become wolves after june 1, get the wolf pin boys who became bears after june 1 get the bear pin boys who became webelos after june 1 get the webelos pin. that leaves you a conundrum for what to do with webelos 2s who participate in the summertime activities what do you do. give them the webelos pin again. or I have some old plain gold pins that we had bought before they came out with the colored borders and we've given those to the few web 2's who earn the summertime pack award. at that point they are so full of pins it's not so big a deal if they've done it every year since tigers.

We seem to end up with some mesh bags from apples, onions and oranges at the grocery store, so check there for a premade bag. you may have to make the top drawstring part yourself(weave a string in and out of the mesh and you are all set). we also got some mesh bags with like toys or rain jackets in them and those have also been repurposed. as for sewing your own bag, if you end up with scout zip off legs in your troop that don't have a mate, they can be sewed to make bags about the size you want. or the legs of jeans work out to about those dimensions.

I would probably buy a new outdoor activity award patch, and move the pins over to the webelos shirt (if he wears the pins, if he tends to just lose the pins, leave them on the blue shirt for safekeeping).

We try to wait to give out any ranks earned in prior months in February. Mostly cause November has really low attendance right before thanksgiving, December is a parade with short christmas party, January is Derby which takes a lot of our time, so there isn't a lot of time in the mtgs to do a good ceremonial rank advancement. we talk to den leader and parents if they are ok with that, and if not we work it in somewhere. we do give out belt loops and other awards but they tend to have no ceremony attached, call on stage and give em a cheer kind of thing. Then we have 1-2 ranks tend to be earned in March, April and May where there is a SMALL ceremony used--april is probably better ceremony wise cause it's a campout, and it's always cool to get your rank award at a campfire program. May we focus on giving out those last minute ranks and other awards. then we have polled the parents to figure out who is continuing and who is not. If not continuing often they either don't come to the advancement/graduation to next rank, or they leave after they get any of their last awards. Then we make a big deal of calling the webelos 1 on stage and give them a scout coin to thank them for continuing the next year, wish them luck as webelos 2's, read a thing about what they can look forward to in the coming year. We ask them to stay on stage and help us turn the bear's into webelos. Read a thing about what they will be doing in the coming year, the webelos 2's change out their hats, neckers, slides and give them a new book and turn them into webelos. then the webelos 1's stay on stage and introduce the wolves to what they'll be doing as bears (read a little script) and then change out the hats and neckers and slides and give them a book. Repeat turning tigers into wolves. Then we ask if we have any new tigers in the audience, call them up and give them hats and neckers and a book too. and tell them what they can look forward to in the coming year. Then we have a quick announcement about our summertime events and enjoy cake and punch. It doesn't take a lot of time, it's mostly hands off to the adults, the kids promote the den to their next rank. they all get recognized for sticking with it. oh this year I gave them all a homemade bug neckerchief slide to wear when they are running around so they don't lose the new cub scout slide they just got, with a little card that says just any old bug can hit a windshield, but it takes guts to stick to it. Thanks for sticking with scouts this year, look forward to next year with you in our pack. something like that.

Ask him to do CM for 6 months(or til December, or pick a key date in your unit) and to recruit and train his replacement and new assistant CM. Explain that right now, you need to get the committee side under control and separate out all the jobs and find people to do them. Give him the short cubmaster list-- plan and run pack meetings, be the front man for all awards and pack activities, check up on den leaders and their programs, sign youth applications, things like that--make it the short list of things a cubmaster really needs to do to make the pack go. anything adminstratively like, put on committee side for now. Sure cubmaster may end up doing more, and often needs to do things like campout sign ups and payments and permission slips, but let that happen naturally if it has to, not because you say cubmaster has to do those things. Then work to back yourself out of a job. Financial stuff, get a fundraiser chair, and a treasurer recordkeeping, communications, awards, website, ull in someone for each of those all under someone that may be a secretary, or just under committee chair. Get an outings chair whose job it is to recruit helpers for the cubmaster's events. They may cross back and forth between helping with program at the cub level, or just accepting the money and permission slips, or making the reservations. Keep your eye out for the person who seems to be able to see the big picture of how all these people fit together and can communicate with the cubmaster. get that person as CC. Then you figure out if you really are COR, or find out who has that job and who should be in that position. and then find which of the above jobs you really want. But once you can really see the big picture in the pack of how things fit together well on each side, you may struggle to JUST do the one thing on your plate.

Honestly if you are wearing the COR hat, and overseeing so much of the committee kind of things, it makes sense for YOU to take the CC job. and recruit someone to do the cubmaster job. Also if you were actually registered as COR, you couldn't also be registered as cubmaster on the program side, but you could be coregistered as cc. you can write it up however you wish, but overall, cc and cubmaster need to be a team that works well to lead things, see eye to eye on policies within the pack and both have a good overview of the running of the pack. Cubmaster really needs to focus on the pack meetings and activities and work with the den leaders to help them be effective in their dens. It's hard to be a fun cubmaster and also be looking over the whole thing from COR level.

I'm experimenting with something that school teachers have begun using in the jr high/ high school grades. Sending bulk text messages, announcement style only. you go to www.remind101.com sign up for an account for your pack then you set up a class that you'd call perhaps Pack 123. they assign you a phone number. you set a code, like "@Pack123" everyone in your pack, you give them the flyer to sign up. but all they do is text "@Pack123" to the phone number assigned by remind 101. they'll get a reply and request for name, ask them to type in scout first name (rank), so they'd reply "John(Bear)" that's all parents have to do. you don't have to get all the parent's phone numbers and send out bulk messages on your phone. you go online back to your remind 101 account and log in. click on the pack 123 class and in the text box you type in your message, something like "check your email for info about campout" or "remember you must sign up with your den leader (cubmaster) by Tuesday's meeting for the campout." then it sends out the text to all the people in the pack. now you could also set up separate classes for each den. you'll set a code for each class, like "@tiger den 5" or whatever. tell everyone they can't reply to those messages. they are only for announcements. give them the info on who to reply to--ideally their den leader. The biggest time saver--- you don't have to type in each and every person's phone numbers and save them in your phone. that can be overwhelming if you have 40 kids in your pack and you'd have to enter 80 phone numbers to text mom and dad of each scout. clear as mud?

In scouting I find a lot of things are not done exactly how BSA says they should be done. And most of the time it is done due to well that's just the only way to get it done. a den chief in our pack is always an older brother who comes to meetings with his younger brother and ends up helping out. If he's a good fit with a particular den (we encourage it to not be his brother's den, but sometimes that's how it happens), then we ask the SM to make the position official so he can be den chief. Like a scout in any position, they are still considered active as a den chief if they are just too busy with other activities (like with the troop or school) and come as often as they can. We ask them to come to pack big events (pinewood derby, blue and gold) otherwise we may not see them at a pack meeting. And den leaders work out with them how often they need to see them to be the most help. Often they end up leading a gathering activity or game, and then they don't have a lot to do after that cause the den leader has guest speakers and webelos activity badge counselors take over, so a scout that could show for the first 20-30 minutes of a den mtg would be great. Getting parents to transport them to den mtgs and then to troop meetings is a BEAR. and the younger scouts are the ones that usually do best as den chiefs, after a certain age, a lot of the older scouts just don't have the interest in cubbies anymore.

I wouldn't add anything to the requirements, if he's met them, he's met them. sure someone would try to "flunk" him on scout spirit, but if he's wearing his uniform and being helpful and friendly I wouldn't hold him back on that alone. I would perhaps talk again about what things he likes to do, challenge him to add more "older boy" things to the troop/patrol calendars. I would certainly suggest a crew if there is one close by that does more challenging things. I might try to buddy him up occassionally with a scout who is similar to him that I think he might get along with who might make the whole things more worthwhile. And I might encourage him to get involved in more leadership to pass on his knowledge and explan that sometimes you aren't in scouting just for you, you are in scouting for them(the younger, little guys that need your guidance). And I wish there was a way to get thru to the parents that if it's not the kid's goal, and they aren't having fun, then why are they forcing it on the kid? We have scouts whose parents won't let them get their driver's license unless they earn eagle. so then the boys say whatever and make parents drive them everywhere. it doesn't make them reach for eagle faster or harder, it's just another hoop to jump thru to make the parents happy. It often ends up with scouts frustrated and annoyed over the whole thing and they start to be troublemakers in the troop. thats not good for anyone.

If the CC can recruit a new SM/CM and take the application to the COR for approval. They can't fire the SM/CM without the COR's approval, but by having a new application filled out and ready to go, well it effectively fires the SM/CM from their position. The SM/CM even though they are called the unit leader, doesn't seem to get as much say in who is CC, as the CC has a bit more control over who gets to be CM/SM since they have to APPROVE the CM/SM application. I've never seen a COR replace anyone without the CC wanting it to happen. I have seen SM's and CM's be replaced with a single phone call from the CC to the COR telling them they have a replacement and need a signature of approval. I have seen a CC replaced by a COR, and in that instance the COR doesn't need 2 signatures on the application. I think it comes down to semantics and most units should never have to have the discussion of who is over top of who in a chain of command. The 3 leaders, CM/SM, CC and COR should work together to provide a quality scouting unit to the boys under guidance of the CO. Cubmaster/Scoutmaster approves the youth applications, without the youth there is no unit. CC and COR approve the adult applications, without a certain number of adults there is no unit. I do think BSA could do a better job of helping units to make a plan for how to change the unit leader if the unit leader is ineffective. How to determine if they are effective, warning signs of issues, how to train replacement scoutmasters under the guidance of exisiting scoutmasters, an overview of best practices on how to make a smooth transition. It often ends poorly if CC/COR removes them, but then again involving a committee to choose unit leader it often becomes a committee decision with majority choosing someone based often on their personality rather than their true skills to effectively lead the unit's program side.

Well the saying is, those who do the hiring can do the firing. The CC and the COR approve everyone else's applications. Usually the CC is finding the person to fill a position and the COR is rubber stamping it, cause most COR's are mostly absent from their position except the signature. In some units, with stronger COR's they MAY be the ones finding people to fill positions, but most will delegate it to the CC, and the CC can further delegate it to a committee of parents or leaders to choose new leaders--like CM or SM. so technically the SM/CM is the unit leader of program side, CC is leader of committee side, but the CC has more power cause they CAN replace the SM/CM with approval of the COR. Now as to the actual op, if you want to have a good healthy unit, you need a good CM/SM and CC. But it's possible for a boy to get a LOT out of scouting if they have an excellent Den leader or patrol leader. In cub scouts I've been excellent den leaders run program effectively when there was barely anything at the pack level, planning events, getting awards, doing fundraisers where there really wasn't a pack. In boy scouts it would be mighty difficult for a patrol leader to do that, so the SM becomes even more important, and yes, I've seen SM's that do the same thing, get awards, plan events(with the boy's help) and the committee doesn't really do anything.

Those % seem mighty high compared to ours. I send home about 2000 flyers each fall, that goes to all the boys in 1st -5th grade in about 10 or 11 schools. I say about cause the numbers do vary we have a couple schools who sometimes won't let us send hom flyers. I get on average 3 scouts for each of the 10 schools, one year I got 4 from each. so to estimate, that's about 1.5% to 2% this is just cub scouts though. now I guess I have no way of knowing how many are in the LDS scouting in the area, but most of the wards average 5-10 scouts in their cub scout packs, so they aren't taking away very many scouts, since only 1 or 2 wards service the area of those 10 schools I recruit from (with some overlap since school districts don't follow ward boundaries).

We've often have had scouts join a boy scout troop and start working on rank and having fun, and then go back for the blue and gold official ceremony, or especially when some packs seem to have their crossover ceremonies late in the year--April or May. Boys are DONE with Webelos stuff and just want to start being boy scouts but the pack isn't accomodating. of course some never go back for the ceremony once starting on boy scout stuff, but many go back, get their applause and ceremony pictures and then continue on their scouting way.

We have calendar planning and keep in mind things boys need for each rank and assign a den leader to plan the things we decide to do that works best for their den. Since the den leaders are looking at their year, we often find big overlapping things that work for a lot of ranks--like fire station visit (tigers go see it, webelos the firemen go over first aid for readyman, fire station next to a police station, bears get their fingerprints done), state capitol building (webelos work on citizen, others get the visit an important place in their community etc). But overall our pack activities are fun things we'd want to do anyway--campout, raingutter regatta, derby, hike, halloween party, christmas parade, etc. We encourage our den leaders to let us know at the monthly leader meeting what they are doing in the next 2 months, so if they are going bowling and can fit in another den who also wants to go bowling, the dens can share the costs and the planning. So we look at the big picture how to benefit everyone, and dens leaders wroking together and turning one of our pack outings into THEIR den outing, or turning their den outing into a pack activity where it works. Now if you are consistently scheduling a pack meeting AND a pack outing every month, and that steps on the toes of the den leaders to not be able to get their own specific rank outings done, then you need to step back and re-evaluate.