5yearscouter

The application I have in hand states "Your son can be a Scout if he has completed the fifth grade and is at least 10 years old, or is age 11 or has earned the Arrow of light award and is at least 10 years old but has not reached age 18. so it seems they want at least age 10 with grade under their belt or AOL under their belt, otherwise age 11. I will ask for the most recent application at council when I go later this week to compare. I know the adult application changed very recently, the pages open on the left side instead of at the top, in theory to make it harder for people to miss that they need to sign the authorization page for a background check. As for missing out on a scout due to age, Sometimes SM's are very uncomfortable with cub scouts who haven't joined the troop because they are just too young participating in all the activities of the troop. Sure Webelos come to visit, but their parent and/or den leader is along for the meeting. Having a cub scout meeting with the boy scout from Feb thru June when they can finally join just seems like an bad idea. Boys and parents tend to get frustrated, going to meetings and activities but not being able to get signed off and parent should really be at the meetings each week as well. I don't fault any SM who doesn't want to take on babysitting a webelo for months on end who isn't old enough to join the troop the way you are supposed to. It's not just that hey they are a registered scout so they are covered by insurance so you can let them pretend to be boy scouts. There are joining requirements for a reason and I don't like skirting around the reasons. If he were that gung ho about scouting, he would have stayed in webelos and been a help to the webelos 1 den who he is friends with at school, and who are his same age and finished up some of the other 12 webelos badges that weren't required for AOL. it seems often to be a matter of parent pushing more than it is a matter of the scout truly being ready to move on to boy scouts in age and maturity level. kind of rambling there a bit sorry.

We had that situation with a boy in our pack. He was up a year in grade. So he started the Bear when he should have (age wise) been a wolf). come the end of the Webelos 2 year, his den is ready to cross to boy scouts in February. He was too young. He had to wait til he either turned old enough (Oct or Nov) or the end of the school year. His den crossed over, he was uninterested in meeting with the webelos 1's til the end of the school year. So while he was very gung ho about joining boy scouts in Feb, by the time he sat our the spring, he felt all left out by the time he could join June 1st. and he quit. For the most success for him, to allow him to go to boy scouts with his buddies, count forward age wise and grade wise and ensure he won't be left behind if he goes with the older rank den. And if ends up the only wolf, RECRUIT hard to get a den of wolves for him. Ask him to bring a friend or 7 and have a kick butt activity to reel them in.

Something to keep in mind regarding average tenure in BSA, is that a huge number of units are chartered to the LDS church. Their volunteers are called to service by the Bishop to give about a year to scouting. That means their average tenure will be much lower than traditional units who may keep people for many years. I just realized I went to my pack's blue and gold for the 8th year in a row this year, each of those years in a main leadership position. Unfortunately many of our pack leaders have been in it for a year or two only. One den leader is on his 2nd round of kids thru the program. we have leaders in the troop that have been around for 10-15 years, not many old timers still in the troop, most have moved up to district positions.

To piggyback onto that, I've never heard of the canyon being considered high adventure. But the idea of going down all the way to the river and back in one day is not such a good idea just based on the sheer number of people who can't do it in one day and get stuck. I've done it a few times in 1 day, down and back up, but that wasy in high school and college, so I know it's possible. To go down and camp in the canyon, you have to get a permit. they are available online, first come, first serve kind of thing and you'll only be able to take 6 people from your group. you may be able to get 2 permits, but the two groups can't hike and camp together. You could go in and do a day hike, realizing you must take enough water, even in the winter it's warmer as you go down into the canyon. and that at x hours you must turn back. figure it will take you twice as long to get out as it did to get in. so hike down 1 hour, turn around and hike back up it will take 2 hours. Last time we went we did camp in the park, the price wasn't too horrible. and we awoke to snow, because it was november we were cold but were prepared. boys hiked for 2 hours down and 4 hours back up and were suitably tired and in awe of the canyon itself.

The troop guide becomes a part of the patrol. At first he sort of acts a patrol leader, showing them how to plan a menu together, how the stoves work, how to set up the tents etc. They do elect their own patrol leader as soon as there are enough boys to make that choice, their own asst patrol leader and they choose a patrol name, make a flag, cheer, paint their chuck box and put their names on it, the whole works. They stay together until the new guys have a handle on things, know how the troop works, are advancing a bit, not necessarily having to be 1st class. usually after summer camp, at August elections and patrols get a few holes in them as people move around, if they want to go into another patrol they can, if they choose to stay together they can. But the first few meetings it's like the troop guide acts as whatever help they need to make it come off without a problem. Note, we've not done new scout patrols in recent years and are on our first 6 months of trying it after years of only having mixed age patrols. It started up in August last year with a new scoutmaster, after the boys in PLC voted to give it a try. so far it's working to the point of having no new scouts drop out between summer camp and now. We'll see how it goes as they continue. So far the boys have voted to stay together even though some of them do have buds outside of their "new scout patrol" and have earned 1st class. They actually kicked their old troop guide out--well they had gotten tired of him and he had gotten tired of them, since they didn't need him to show them the ropes anymore, so it was mutual. In our troop the troop guides are the ones with primary power to sign books, each patrol with boys below first class is recommended to have a troop guide to help them out, so they pushed one of their own to become their new troop guide at Feb elections--who happens to be a go getter scout who has a handle on scout skills very very well, has his first class after a year in the troop and raring to go. His older brother is ASPL Life scout who watches over the new scout patrols, so it's worked out well. We've been pleasantly surprised watching this patrol, but not sure it will work out with the next set of kids. They all tend to have their own individual dynamic--this set of 10 scouts just meshed together very well for some reason. sometimes new scout patrols totally crash and burn cause the kids butt heads too much. This year's new scout patrol is forming as we speak has 3 scouts in it and 4-8 more coming in the next month from crossovers. The SPL found them a new troop guide to get them started, and the same ASPL will be watching over them as well. Should be interesting to watch.

I wear the women's pants, most recent addition. the elastic thingy in the waist fits awkwardly, and it's rough on the inside. guess that roughness ensures I always wear my uniform shirt fully tucked in so the pants don't rub a hole in me right at the waist. the zipper part rubs on my legs when I walk a lot or if I'm doing a lot of bending down. I prefer the coulottes even if I can't spell that word. I bought them when they were clearancing them, and if I knew how comfy they were I would have bought two. Unfortunately the plastic zipper is now missing a tooth so it won't stay zipped anymore, so I wear the pants full time. I finally found a seamstress who will change out my zipper for a reasonable price, so hopefully next month I'll have those back to wear. I like the coulottes as they do fit better than the pants and they make me appear a bit more ladylike than the pants do. I get comments when I wear them from so many people, positive comments, and I can crawl around on the ground with a den of tigers or sit down and start a campfire with the boy scouts and still fill sort of ladylike and not show my butt. In AZ they are better than the zipper pants for keeping cool as well cause they are a thinner fabric that breathes better. I do have to go look up the uniform police/uniform inspection sheet from the time of the coulottes. I can't remember if I have to wear scout socks with the coulottes. Cause in AZ the last thing I like to do is wear socks with my leather sandals or moccasins which are my preferable shoes to wear for most scouting things I do. Of course, then I probably should wear hose instead. Either sucks when it's really really HOT outside...

You may or may not get your membership reinstated, I cannot say the best way to approach that aside from what you've already been told by the scouters here. I'd say chances are probably slim. As for the CO not allowing you into the building for meetings etc. I would ask council for clarification of their cease all scouting, explain that your son is still involved and that per the Guide to Safe Scouting it says "No secret organizations. The Boy Scouts of America does not recognize any secret organizations as part of its program. All aspects of the Scouting program are open to observation by parents and leaders." Explain what you wish to observe (court of honors is what I'd push for, but there may be other meetings, like parent meeting for summer camp that you, as parent, should attend) and how does can you support your child in scouting, with the CO not allowing you to observe those things. The answer may be that the CO does not want you to support your child in scouting on their turf, however the G2SS should apply to anything the CO does regarding having meetings and not allowing parents to be present. of course, if your husband is a leader? the CO may feel that your family is certainly able to observe anything they want to observe and that you are not going to be allowed to participate in anything scouting with your son. Honestly, is it worth it to earn Eagle in a unit that would keep a mother from seeing her child awarded their Eagle, keep her from attending the Eagle Court of Honor?

What we do is have the regular OLD duplicate copy of the advancement form available on BOR nights. They sign them as they do them. Then we take the stack and enter everything in internet advancement, and attach council's copy of the old form stapled to the internet advancement form that is signed by the advancement chair and for the other two signatures we write "see attached". For now that is what our council wants. I will assume that will die off with the duplicate forms. At that point council will decide that they really don't want or care about the BOR signatures and we'll just use something "in house" to have the BOR sign and have the advancement chair sign the internet advancement forms. So we kinda do a combo of old paperwork and new.

Except for a couple places where it says scoutmaster, and it could say scoutmaster or cubmaster, it's a pretty nice list. I especially like the last one. Just dealt with some complaints recently from a couple parents, directed to the Program director at council about a unit which was not exactly the right place to take the complaint so it wasn't effective and made the adults even madder to seem ignored.

background checks are done. I was told they are sent out to be done in our council. I know if someone doesn't pass a background check it is handled very quietly to avoid any defamation of character and that person just disappears from service. BSA won't tell anyone but the person involved and occassionally minimal to the chartered org. and I was told that they are looking for crimes against children. I know a prior felony car theft in your background you will still pass if it's been over a certain number of years(8-10) even if it wasn't expunged from your record like they said it should have been as long as you've done all that was required by the court. I know having your license revoked for DUI and such will still get you passed as well, as long as you've done what was court ordered--and as a unit we didn't let them drive scouts unrelated to them. If you want to know the specifics of your council, ask the registrar, they are the one who will know since they deal with all registration issues.

Ok, so you have 3 people on committee, and whether you see eye to eye with them or not, they will be going to boy scouts sometimes this spring? If so, I would talk to committee chair about how she sees the transition to new leadership going, how long she wants to stick around after going to boy scouts, etc. Yes, she may want to stick around for another year or so, or she may get tired of driving so far after a bit. Suggest strongly to her that you have xy and z parents who seem to want to get more involved, and you'd like her to work with them to train them to do secretary, treasurer, advancement, or outings chair or something along those lines, so that when she does decide to move on, they'll have some experience under their belt. That will give you a bit more "weight" on the committee to get things to go the way you see. And then warn those parents xyz that committee chair is a bit um, brisk, in her delivery, but that without her your pack would have already failed. that you need them to step up to help out and learn the ropes so she can move on sooner rather than later. and see how that works out. you can't get rid of a cc or secy or treasurer unless you have someone to replace them with. so meeting with the church may get you no where, and you don't want to go in there with guns blazing for her job but have nobody in mind to do her job. Use her to your advantage to get the other parents some kind of experience in the running of the pack or you won't have a pack at all without some bodies doing some work.

I have the email address of our council cashier. If I email them for account statement, I get an answer usually within 24 hours unless the cashier is on vacation, which happens about once a year. I know in many places going into the council office and meeting these people is prohibitive, but if you can go in and meet those people that hold your money and learn which of them do particular jobs. I know I can't leave a message with the front desk to get something taken care of. I know I can't send the DE to fix anything for me. Primarily I go directly to the registrar for issues, or directly to the program director or financial person or cashier to fix things. And if there is a charge on scout shop side, I go to the scout shop for them to fix it. knowing where to send your complaint and who to ask for help is the important part.

We have a council account for the pack and the troop. The troop keeps enough in there to cover awards so they are not always running to get a check to pay for them. And that is about a I know about the ins and outs of the troop council account The pack has most of our funds in the pack council account so I know a lot of the ins and outs of how it's worked over the last 6 years. If you turn in applications to council or to your DE, and you do not include a check or cash WITH the application, then the funds are assumed to come out of your unit council account. Otherwise why did you turn in your applications if they aren't paid for??????? similarly for reservations for summer camp, day camp, recharter, popcorn payment--if the unit does not include a check with those reservations or paperwork, council will look to see if you have enough in your unit council account to cover the cost. I haven't had a problem at all over the course of 6 years having council take money out of the unit council account that was not acceptable, understood and approved by the unit. One time they made a withdrawal for a small scout shop return, and they fixed that as soon as they were told of it. I can request from the council cashier a copy of a statement of the unit account transactions at any time, covering any time period. As a matter of fact I'm trying to hand off executive officer of the CO to a new person, and I requested a statement covering the last 6 years I've been in that position and received it as a nice handy pdf form. Now the descriptions don't always say things like "this is the deposit of income from online popcorn sales". It will say unit deposit--so if you have no idea that you are going to get that deposit for online popcorn, you won't know what the transaction is for. but most of us don't look a gift unexpected deposit in the mouth too closely. An extra couple hundred dollars is A-OK in most instances. We actually have had issues with keeping the Pack checking account under control and balanced, never had that issue with the council account. one year at popcorn time we had bounced checks from people buying popcorn and they already had the product. so if in doubt, we can deposit those checks into council account. An wonderfully that it is, council takes over the collection for bounced checks and we've never had that negatively effect our unit council account. for the pack almost everything we do can be paid from the council account with a quick note. We have to be on the signature card just like we'd have to be on a signature card to use funds out of the checking account. to buy in the scout shop you have to fill out a voucher and be on the signature list. so we pay for summer camp, day camp, and all awards, derby cars, leader trainings, uniform parts as needed(or if prepaid to us by a scout/leader), scout books, etc all come out of the unit council account. Exceptions to this are applications as mentioned above --if anyone turns in applications to the council registrar (leaders, DE, etc) the council registrar will take the funds from the unit account unless you have attached a check or cash to the application. the other exception is if your unit makes a reservation for use of a council camp--the application for use of the camp can be filled by the unit camping chair, and deposit be taken from the unit account--unless they attach a check or cash to pay the deposit for the camp. I really don't understand the mistrust of the council. maybe our council is just above board on a lot of things, or maybe a lot of people just think they can turn in applications without paying council for them, or recharter without paying, or get popcornwithout paying??(This message has been edited by 5yearscouter)

I'm going totally cub scout silly in looking for an "award" for the boy scout leaders that took time to get fully trained recently. The troop has had a really POOR % of trained leaders, and I've been pushing heavily, nagging, and even taught troop committee challenge for the district for those who couldn't get it to work on their computers(or don't have computers) so now we are up to 6 of 7 SM/ASM fully trained --1 needs Scoutmaster specific and about half of the committee has taken time for all training and most of the rest have done some kind of training (like they took this is scouting finally instead of just YPT) up from about 1% So since they have really started to buy into the trained thing, I want to give them their trained patches (district doesn't give them out) and something with it. I thought about just a thank you card that says "every scout deserves a trained leader". thought about a little train ornament but can't find them cheap enough to give out dozens suggestions? I was going to put this in the cub scout area since they often give out silly awards for leaders.

Without a SSN the application won't go thru. if he's here illegally, then he doesn't have a SSN.

So do you have something more similar to this??? http://meritbadge.org/wiki/index.php/Fast_Tracks click on the rank for the meeting plans this is the current stuff http://www.scouting.org/jamboree/sitecore/content/home/cubscouts/leaders/denleaderresources/denandpackmeetingresourceguide.aspx

My pack SM has a petty cash box with about $40-50 in it. He brings it most meetings and some outings/events to collect money in, make change, reimburse small receipts for events. then he turns that all over to the treasurer with signatures, and she gives him cash back to keep it at the balance they agree upon him needing. At roundup the balance may be different than a balance needed for a popcorn sales change box, but it averages $50. He's a police man so if he has a box with a bit extra in it, it is pretty safe. Cubmaster can approve expenditures up to about the $50 limit. Expenditures over $50 have to go thru the treasurer and committee approval. Our troop SM has a petty cash box with I'm pretty sure more $ in it. It is used to buy last minute supplies for trips, provide gas money if needed, copies, pay back imediately the person who rented a uhaul trailer when the troop trailer was down for the weekend campout, etc. It stays locked in the SM's office, treasurer collects the receipts out of it that have been signed by SM and replaces the cash. The expenditures are approved by committee ahead of time except in the case of emergency when approval of SM, and several committee members is usually sufficient. Most units don't have a locked office in a locked building to keep a locked cash box, so that probably wuldn't fly for most part. I actually don't like having hundreds of dollars of cash hanging out in the SM office, it seems like asking for trouble since quite a few people do have keys to that office.

Well I don't have a real problem with self chartered units, as I'm IH/Exec officer of our Cub Scout Pack and have been for 6 years. I've passed COR off to a dad who will be in the pack for at least 7 years more, who has been with us for 2+ years and can see the "big picture." That is the hardest thing, to choose a COR who isn't so involved in their own scout's den, that they can't see outside of that to the whole pack level view and can keep things on an even keel. For a "parents of" type CO one of the biggest issues is that you can't give the unit a place to meet, so you must go find one. That means scoping out the local meeting rooms, schools, churches, community centers and seeing what you have available as a primary and ideally a back up location for pack meetings, and hopefully something for den meetings if den leaders can't or won't meet in their own homes. If your current CO seems invisible and isn't very responsive to signing paperwork, then I would go talk to the COR. Well I would actually sit down with CC, CM and the committee and den leaders, figure out what you want from the CO and then discuss this with the COR (CC is the person to do this). Note, you HAVE to have a committee of at least 3 people. Committee Chair, and usual are secretary and treasurer. There may be more (Advancement chair, outings chair, etc) but there have to be at least 3 for the pack to exist. It's probably someone who is acting as a den leader or asst den leader but who is actually registered as committee. I understand more than just the charter paperwork signed by the CO, you also need all leader apps signed by the COR--who if it's someone at the church that you have to go find everytime, who is not readily available to sign apps, then that can be an annoyance. Getting a relationship with the COR person, knowing where they work or live, their hours they are at the CO (if they are, like pastor or deacon or other) and the best way to reach them if you have issue or need apps signed. Having some kind of relationship between at least CC and the COR will make these things easier. Especially if you end up needing them to help the CC take care of a big issue within the unit--like firing a volunteer. MOST COs dont' seem to take an active roll in choosing leadership, providing program continuity or other real hands on stuff. Some churches like LDS do that, and take a very big roll in running the program, but I really don't think most pay that close of attention.

if you pm me name/nickname, your state and if you feel comfortable their email addresses[that may be a bit too personal of info to share with a stranger like me, if so I understand that], I'll search myscouting for you for their youth protection training and send verifications to you as a word document if I can find them. that is if you really think they've done the training. that one I doubt, if they did the training, they are prompted to print a certificate, so if they didn't give you a cert, they probably didn't do the training..... know what I mean?

In our pack, we have each den keep a red emergency folder with their den leader notebook. It has copies of medical forms if they are filled out ever (usually for day camp each summer, or webelos camps, etc). It at least has a list of 3 contact numbers for each scout's family and any major medical issues (allergic to peanuts and carries an epi pen, asthma and carries an inhaler). Even if parents are there most of the time at den meetings, it's still nice if a parent goes to pick up a sibling or buy some snacks and something happens, you have info to contact them and know the basics. By webelos year if we visit camporee and go camping overnight more, so we require part a & b for all even parents. For 3 night webelos encampment, we require part c for all even parents. Since SSN cannot be required for ER medical care if you are uncomfortable keeping that info, run a sharpie over the number if someone fills it out on your copy. Make sure parents keep their own copy of med forms, especially the part c. it's nice that when the webelos go to boy scouts, we can pass off a completed med form to the troop right away, parents can edit and update it, but it makes the process a little bit easier. In the troop we have a zippered binder that has a strap. the medical forms for scouts are slid into those clear page protectors, one per scout, and the adults as well. At recharter time and at summer camp time we check if we need updated med forms. The zippered binder is small, compact, nothing falls out, and with the strap it's easy to grab it off the scoutmaster's desk for each outing and have available to look up emergency stuff if someone gets hurt on an outing. Scoutnet gets incredibly slow at about 12 MST and 1 MST. not sure what runs at that time, but that is according to our registrar. I have better luck if I do myscouting searches at about midnight MST. I can usually find people by first name, last name and state, OR by email address, OR by membership id number. but not all of those fields.

With the price of reserving the campsites large enough for 100 people around here, we tend to just pass that cost mostly on to the parents as the fee to go to the campout. That means the cost of the food comes from the pack budget, and the pack doesn't have a lot of money, so we just can't provide everything for everybody. Friday night is on your own. This year the campground we used had free burgers and dogs for anyone who showed up early enough, so some people enjoyed that. Saturday morning is on your own, or with your den. That tends to be a fast cold breakfast cause everyone is excited to get going on cubbie games and activities and hiking and fishing, and the boys are often awake before daylight. Saturday lunch is also on your own, but most do it with their dens. Saturday dinner is a pot luck thing with the pack providing a main dish and drinks with enough for everyone who is coming, sometimes we also do desserts or smores. Each den is advised to bring x number of sides, breads, salads, extra drinks, dessert, etc to feed their den family, but everything will be shared within the pack. so often the pack is providing hot dogs and burgers, or sometimes we get 100 or more pieces of fried chicken from the local grocery store (50 pc is about $40), chill it and bring it in a cooler. sometimes the campground is close enough, that the person arriving right before dinner on saturday night(there is always someone coming in late when most everything is done) brings hot chicken with them, or a leader drives to the closest grocery store and picks up the chicken. Dens will often have a dutch oven dessert contest, and we get enough brownies and pies and cakes to feed everyone desserts with enough to supplement sunday's breakfast. Sunday's breakfast, everyone is usually dog tired, sleep in a half hour or hour longer than Saturday morning. Then someone throws on a bunch of pancakes, eggs and bacon/sausage (pack provides pancake mix and some of everything, but dens are supposed to also contribute). while that stuff gets going, we have a flag ceremony and a scout's own service, and the kids run over and want to eat cause they are starved from all the activities of the day before. Having a big pack wide breakfast on Sunday allows us to get parents to stay saturday night, encourage participation in the scout's own service, we get to touch base with everyone regarding the things that are required to check out of the campground (garbage removal, policing the area), and lost and found items and such. When we do a cold breakfast most people just grab and leave and eat on the way and the leaders are left doing all the clean up.

do yourself a favor. as soon as you get the med forms and proof of youth protection training, keep copies for the den. for youth protection training, if you think they've done it and just aren't providing the certificates then do a search for their name, or email address on the training validation at myscouting. caution if you fill in everything you know about them to do a search of their training, it won't find them, as the search feature seems to only work on 1 or 2 fields, too many fields and it returns nothing.

Prior answer was mostly to the scout 8 months discussion at the end. As to the beginning question? I'm not sure that the troop needs to add too many check boxes to look at to ensure a scout is active. I think in our troop it should primarily be active= registered with the unit, paying dues, attending enough meetings and outings to do all the stuff in your rank and get the book signed (troop guides primarily sign books and you have to catch them at the end of a meeting to get the book signed) Of course in the bylaws (that are mostly ignored) the troop requires 70% of meetings to get to 1st class, and 50% of outings and 70% of meetings for rank after that. I guess at one time they were very big sticklers for taking attendance and pulling up records before you could request a SM conference. I'm a bit concerned as it's time to go thru and update those bylaws and someone will drag this skeleton out of the closet and parade it around as a wonderful answer to what defines active. what do you think of that kind of requirement to be active? too much? too little? just right?

Reading the beginning and jumping to the end. You let the scout sign up for a scoutmaster conference you bring the scout in as SM and probably the first thing out of your mouth is how glad you are to see him, and a question about where he's been, what's been keeping him away from scouting, and what can the troop do to help him get re-involved in the scouting fun. and you listen to him and make suggestions. Only then do you open the book and check off some things, remind him that he did his months of active and months of POR, but with the absence some of the boys are going to look at him funny for jumpin to get a badge that they didn't see him earning for the last 8 months. Explain that he should be aware he may get the side eye from others, and perhaps should let them know a little something about why he was gone if he hasn't already and how eager he is to jump back into scouting. Then you challenge him to step up his active status as high as possible, taking into account those other things that may keep him from attending(school committments especially) and then you sign his book and you pass him off to a BOR to get his rank. SM conference isn't just about signing the book, every time there should be a discussion with the boy about how things are going, what's working well or not working well and how the troop can help the boy.

Basement this is an incredibly rude statement "5 year, you view community service as something to be gotten thru or simply a line on a college resume or box to simply be checked off or tallied.....I believe it is my responsibility to be part of my community. " I do not think of community service that way, neither does my son. His average community service hours since joining scouting 6 years ago is WAY higher than the ones you report for your son in 18 months. If we only wanted to do the minimum and get it checked off, then certainly we would have done so. But we are talking averaging 15 hours of service a month, rather than 7.4. As I've stated numerous times, his hours of service for SCOUTING has been checked off pre high school years ago. His OA hours of service DON'T count toward school requirements as they do not recognize the OA as a service organization. He has hundreds of OA hours every year. His Months of 24/7 as a CIT at summer camp also DON'T count for any hours at school since they were not during school months. So if the school double or triple counts his service in their limited view, I have no issues with that because I KNOW hes putting in more hours than they require in acts of service in his community. Luckily his scoutmaster not only views his hours of service as acceptable, his scoutmaster wants to nominate him for Vigil (don't tell my son I told you that it's a secret)based on his selfless servant leadership and service hour count. I don't think he's put in enough time for that honor actually. Vigil is something that find you, you don't seek it, but I'm not sure it should find him this early in his scouting career.(This message has been edited by 5yearscouter)