5yearscouter

Basement says "Gotta chuckle here......6th grade scout son has 134 hours since joining scouting 18 months ago." Sounds like bragging, except that's only an average of 7.4 hours a month, and hours over the summertime don't count for school credit. I also have a 6th grader, him getting hours is cake compared to the honors student high schooler with a lot of things going on. 6th graders don't have OA, PLC, college classes, girlfriends, work for pay, multiple clubs and such to balance against scouting activities.

Take the time now to go over your normal scouting year. Make sure she knows this is what you do, ask if she has suggestions or changes, and explain that you want to present a unified front to the dens and the rest of the pack. don't wait for her approval of an event, explain that in her job, she gets to make the program you plan work, not that she plans the program. Figure out which item in the year she wants to spearhead/lead, because it's always nice to have that kind of buy in, but that same offer should be made to any other leader in the pack--that the cubmaster has certain say, but other leaders are welcome to do all the grunt work to make a particular project come off. That you will be walking in the parade and you really don't expect her to come out since it doesn't work for her health wise, although if she wants to show up at the beginning of the parade and hand out some candy canes to the boys, or give everyone a parade patch, that would be marvelous if it makes her feel like a part of the unit. Realize that in some packs, the cubmaster is a weak person who doesn't have the plan, and committee chairs may be used to picking up the slack. the cub scout leader book explains that when you don't have a cubmaster the committee chair can act as cubmaster until one is recruited. this may be where she gets that opinion that if you don't do the job, she gets to. put a bit of a cobosh on the usurping of your power, but also don't slap the face if she's just trying to help. In most successful packs the leaders tend to not have such super well defined roles, they all work together to make things happen, one person doesn't decide everyting but one person doesn't have veto power unless it's health and safety related. Go have a cup of coffee with her and get on the same page of what you want to do for the coming year and make sure she understands which items are negotiable if she has a better idea, and which items are your baby. If she's giving time to your unit without having a scout in the unit, that means either she wants the power and recognition, or she's just really trying to help out your pack to succeed. I would keep focusing on how it MUST be the 2nd of those options, otherwise you will find yourself butting heads over everything. She wants to help, make sure she knows which things you really want HER to do and which things you've got under control. probably for walking in a parade you don't need a tour permit, double check with your council.

I think someone is reaching a bit too far to call foul. Scout has done his 6 hours for the scout rank before entering high school. His actual required number of service hours this semester of high school are hours for FFA (5 hours a month) service hours for NHS (10 hours a month) and 30 service hours per semester for the high school itself (doesn't have to be exactly 6 hours a month) The school, NHS and FFA don't care if the service is counted for more than one activity--the advisors overlap between these activities, and they sign the paperwork to approve it. There are students who are not in anything, so they have to do what the school requires, 6 hours a month. the school will count service hours in any club toward the 30 hours a semester total so that they aren't requiring students in clubs to do more service than those not in clubs--they want all students to do 30 hours of service a year--in clubs or not. So for instance if my son does 5 hours for FFA, it also counts automatically as 5 hours for school. he doesn't count ffa hours for nhs hours, since nhs hours will mostly be tutoring students which doesn't count for ffa anyway. so any double dipping is for school and club hours. But he usually comes in at 5 hours for FFA and 10 hours for NHS that counts for the school credit. If his scoutmaster decided it also counted toward a rank requirement, that would be up to the scoutmaster to determine whether it makes sense. some months he comes in with 16 hours on an eagle project, and 5 hours ffa and 10 hours nhs, and 8 hours at the food bank, so I really don't see how we are teaching him some un-scout like behavior here.

Ask your local troop for help making it into an AOL and crossover ceremony in November if they are done done, or in December or January if there is a bit of things that might still excite them about cubs--for instance we have a night light parade in December (cover the boys in battery powered christmas lights ) and the boys wouldn't want to miss that. and we have derby in january, and some of the boys want to participate in that. if you don't have anything really special they don't want to miss out on, then contact the troop and get them to help you out. or contact the local OA and get a ceremony team. make up some AOL arrows, plan a backyard campfire AOL ceremony on a den meeting night, and make out some kind of bridge and cross them over. if it's half dark they won't realize the bridge is just flat pieces of wood and the campfire is a small bit of burning wood in a pie pan on someone's grass lawn.

Overall last year scout did usually 12-15 hours of service a month, some months were more just because there was more time or a big project came up. we had to double dipped to cover the rest--but the scouting hours were long since completed for life rank Thank you very much. so then it was up to the view of the school whether double dipping was ok or not, eh? Some things were uncountable at school. for instance,nothing to do with OA service hours would count because they couldn't understand what the heck any of it was, even when broken down to we renovated a bathroom at a campground in the mountains. Eagle project planning(currently on hold for the rest of this fall semester) is not countable for school, but once the actual work begins, those hours will count. Over the summer he volunteered for almost 3 full months as a CIT at summer camp, unpaid, helping boys learn to cook real food all summer. Man that kid is a good cook. He was sick one week so he taught everyone to make homemade chicken noodle soup with homemade noodles as one of their one pot meals. Anyway, I'm pretty sure this young man gets the whole idea of *cheerful service* for others. He doesn't grumble about the work, he readily jumps to help out others. He grumbles about the paperwork of getting everything recorded, signed, approved and the right kind of service on the right form to make the grown ups happy. If he counts collecting food for the food bank and organizing it on the shelves of the food bank for NHS AND for the school requirement of volunteer hours, I don't have a problem with that--I have to work those hours too, adult required for those under 18, so I figure he is justified in that double dipping. Oh and Baden he's enjoying high school just fine--he's in a dual enrollment high school that was his choice of high schools. He takes high school classes and college classes concurrently. He will graduate in

Basement, how exactly do you profess a high schooler fits into his schedule 21+ hours of service every month? that's almost 3 full time days of service per month. Are you going to give up 3 saturdays a month to volunteer, since most orgs around here(like food bank) won't accept anyone under the age 18 without a parent present--and have them all be different sorts of places/activities to fullfill the requirements of 4 different clubs? Last December = 8 hours building bikes for the needy at christmas one saturday before christmas -doesn't cut it. 4 hours moving boxes of toys for toys for tots and sorting them with OA. nope, that's not enough hours. going door to door collecting blankets, socks, etc for the homeless shelter, 6 hours, nope, still not enough. serving soup at a soup kitchen with parent along for 2 hours on a friday night, wrapping presents for elder folks home for a couple hours. sure we were able to fit that in cause he had finals the 2nd week of december and was able to spend more time doing for the sake of doing on his time off, and get all 21 hours in for one month. But doing that every month? nope, sorry, ain't gonna work. well unless he doesn't go on any troop campouts, or weekend events, stops taking college classes 4 nights a week, and skips some homework. where else is he supposed to find the time for such hours? can't count the time to work on his eagle project, shouldn't count it for anything except scouting, cause that would be double dipping, wouldn't it? and good thing he doesn't have a girlfriend that wants to go out on dates or anything, and no job but selling popcorn to help pay for his scouting expenses. there just isn't enough time in the month.(This message has been edited by 5yearscouter)

Application says Unit leader or designee SE designates himself Council signs them up to the unit that the SE sees as the closet unit to where the scout lives. I'm not sure what they do if there are more than one unit, flip a coin? we have a district wide recruiting night at peter piper, and one in the spring at the zoo, scouts show up and pay the minimum to join, and the district people take the apps and fill them out with units and turn them in. They do INVITE all the packs to send a representative, and to provide a parent info page with cost, meeting locations and nights and meet the new people. but if your pack doens't go, you might still get newbies. we would get 3-5 new scouts at the zoo each year, middle of May when we've mostly finished the year, have 1 den meeting and 1 pack meeting usually left, too late to sign up for day camp it's full. so those 3-5 scouts usually drop out before they ever really become active. of course they may just be going out to the zoo for the discount--instead of $20+ per person, it's

sure 6 hours for rank isn't that much Beavah, but if you look at my son's list it's 6 hours a month for school(30 hours a semester) 5 hours for ffa and 10 hours for nhs so each month they expect about 21 hours of service if you don't allow double dipping. I give my hour a week to scouting and along the way work way more than that for other community groups, but some months come in higher than others. Making a habit of giving to the community is important to me, but the quantity of required volunteerism is counted more than the quality. sometimes I think an hour of reading to the elderly who cannot see is more important than 3 hours of cleaning up trash in a neighborhood park that is already pretty clean. eh? I think it's a bit much sometimes to expect almost a day of service(21 /24 hours)by our teenagers each month. 21 hours this month, or do you need 27 this month because you can't count the NHS and FFA and school hours for scouts so you need to add in 6 more hours this month? if we were talking "just" 6 hours a month, well even that with school, sports, scouts, band, and college classes and SAT prep and such is sometimes a bit too much....(This message has been edited by 5yearscouter)

Even with a new CC, it's not really the CM's job to track down parents who have submitted applications and not paid. hand the applications back to the parents, and tell them their scout is not registered without payment. or hand the applications to the treasurer whose job is money, and have them track the parents down for payments or hand the applications to the den leaders who presumably see the kids each week, and have them collect the $. lots of other people could collect the $, you keep a list of scouts and their parent's info if you want to follow up if the above people drop the ball, but you don't have to be point man on the collecting of money if it's giving you this much grief. tell the DE, oh we had a few interested scouts, but they seem to have changed their minds. sorry I'm sorry if you thought they had completed applications and made payments to join. I'll let you know when I get any new scouts. There is a huge issue with packs and troops who collect applications and payments and don't register the boys in August when they join--and intead wait until recharter to turn in the applications, which in our council seem to not be processed until March or April even though they are turned in November. Insurance would probably still cover them if they get hurt between August and April when the application is processed, but I certainly wouldn't blame the insurance company for denying the claim if info about the scout and payment is collected in August but insurance doens't know about it for 6+ months later. That isn't fair to the insurance company that we really want to have a good relationship with and want them to continue to cover our activities for the small price we pay. in my pack, if parents don't fill out an application AND make some kind of payment committment, then I know 90% of them won't be back for the next week's meeting. they were just feeling things out, and filled out the application more as a I'm sort of interest form, rather than I really want to join form.

In our council it's assumed that if you turn in an application, and $ is not attached to the application, that the cost of registration comes out of the unit account. I'm not sure what else the DE was supposed to do with the applications if they weren't going to be paid by someone? Was he supposed to hold them until you showed up with a check? The scouts are sort of covered by insurance if they are checking out scouting and haven't registered yet. However, when this goes on for weeks/months of coming to meetings without paying, well, I think it reaches a point where they wouldn't be covered by insurance if something happens. in our pack, we recharter at the end of November (for year ending December 31st) when we register new scouts in August, we take enough payment IMMEDIATELY to cover the scouts thru the end of December. and then advise parents there is a second payment due in November that will pay for the whole next calendar year. That allows us to break the cost of scouting into two parts make it easier on the parents. we basically charge $40 down and $40 in Nov, and both of those payments include registration, boy's life, insurance, a new book, partial cost of the adult registrations in the pack (we do a leader app on the scout parent in each family to get the minimal background check done). I would go to the families and tell them like it is. In no other activity can you go and participate without paying to register. couldn't do it in soccer or football or chess club or anything else. Tell them the minimum payment that will get their son registered, and set up a payment plan for the remainder of any fees the pack needs to collect to run on. Let them know once they begin to participate in fundraisers and become and active part of the pack, that they can apply for help with the fees(or pack will cover up to half the cost for the next year if the boy participates fully in popcorn sales in the fall for instance)But for now, they have to cough up some money. And if they don't pay something and make arrangements to pay the rest, hand them their application back. It's tough, but if you allow the parents to not pay, then that is exactly what they will do, not pay for as long as possible.

don't give BSA a new idea for how to raise more money!! They'll be selling Oath credits like crazy!

Some schools have minimum service hours. and I believe some states have added service hours as a graduation requirement. for instance my high schooler has to have service hours for scouts--working on his Eagle project service hours for FFA (5 hours a month) service hours for NHS (10 hours a month) and 30 service hours per semester for the high school itself if there was no overlapping, the student might be hard pressed to meet all of these required volunteer hours. some of these will count things done scouting, some will count OA service, and some won't count unless it's for another community organization, and some will count cleaning up a neighborhood park of trash even if mom was the only adult present to verify completion. If volunteer hours are required, are they then voluntold hours?

We share our scout lodge with several other units, most noteably another scout troop, a pack, some girl scout units, OA, and sometimes other scouting related meetings. so we have a calendar yahoo group I believe it is(I don't do the scheduling) and everyone puts in their own dates, first come first serve, with a contact # in case someone else thinks they need to use the building they can call and try to work something out. The calendar all in one place to view is great so you can see who else is using the building on any day. Add in some friendly cooperation to work out the conflicts. Occassionally someone forgets to add their stuff to the calendar yet show up on the date and they have to work out something on the fly. like one troop always uses sunday nights and the other Monday nights so they assume those are set nights and everyone else with "know" they are using the scout lodge those nights. there is a church nearby that will often take one group at the last minute, and there are lights and benches outside so often one group takes the inside and one group takes the outside. do what you can to not feel it's you against them. work together, do scouting for food or some other yearly thing together to make it a more amicable and friendly situation.

I don't like combined gathering activities, because we may be cutting out boards, or sanding stuff to use later in the meeting, signing books or reviewing rules for a game we are going to play, retesting th 30 days of fitness exercises for webelos--often a more structured gathering activity, and if the pack takes that time away from my den meeting that cuts into my den time. We also encourage dens to have an actual planned gathering activity/game rather than a free for all, otherwise it ends up with a couple of tiger parents trying to watch over all 30+ boys on the playground and they don't know all their names and sometimes stuff happens. Our opening ceremony in most dens is cycling thru each boy practicing leading a flag ceremony based on their rank ability level (so tigers are practicing the pledge with their adult partner, and Webelos are calling color guards) and they need that practice they won't get in a group setting or will be too overwhelmed if they have to do it in front of 30 cubs instead of 6. Start your leader meeting with a flag ceremony and demonstrate a few styles/levels. rotate thru the dens having them take turns leading a flag ceremony with color guards (the whole den) to carry the flags to post on stage for your pack meetings. Advise your den leaders they should practice those things every week in their den meeting opening ceremony so that if one den forgets any other den can step up and take over the pack meeting flag ceremony. It sort of puts den leaders on the spot, but it encourages them to practice in their dens, which is your goal. We usually rotate starting with Webelos 2's so by the time we get to the tiger den, they've had some time with the whole idea of things, and can do a flag ceremony to lead the pack in the pledge with all tigers standing on stage if they are not able to carry the flags, or walk with their adult partner carrying the flags to post them on stage. Lots of ways to do it.

Well if he has no transportation, you could talk to your scout shop about the options. at ours they will package up your awards if you email or fax or call them in, and they'll mail them out to you really cheaply. so that may be an option, at least for a short while, even if he doesn't want to continue to do advancement long term. when you recruit a new advancement person and talk to this guy about helping them get started, driving down with them to the scout shop a couple times to make sure they get the right stuff, I bet it would make the new and the old guy feel better about the process.

Baden, You say we shouldn't keep separate bank accounts for the boys,I'm pretty sure none of the units have separate bank accounts for the boys. Most are keeping track in a ledger of credits for the boys. Interesting to me, is to note that the units with scout accounts are primarily using the scout account credits to cover the boy's uniforms, registration/boy's life annual recharter and camp fees from the unit directly to a council. Primarily the boys who work the fundraisers the hardest are those who cannot afford to pay for those items.The fundraisers were created to allow those boys to raise money for those things, since their parents cannot afford to pay for them. So we should take into account that the fundraisers are already skewed to help cover those who cannot afford scouting, so they are similar to a need based award like any other campership. If BSA councils can give camperships to benefit only one individual scout based on need(or request, sometimes they are seemingly a rubber stamp approval if you fill out the form you get the $)it seems the unit can do that as well. Not that all units must give equal amounts to each boy--everyone gets $100 off on scout camp this year because George Scout sold $10k in popcorn? So that is one criteria that is not based on how much you sell of something. The boys must be active in order to sell popcorn etc, and to have a scout account within the unit, so that's another criteria that is not based on how much you sell. So the sticking point is whether 10% to the boy or 35% of profit on their particular sales amount is payment to an individual. If a unit were to state instead--if you sell between X and Y dollars you will receive an incentive of Z credit toward scout account costs, how is that actually any different? But it then is just an incentive for selling more popcorn, like any other marshmellow shooter, or amazon gift card for $100.

Thanks! I didn't see anything else that stands out as being wrong or off. looks pretty clear, and should help with some of the districts/units that require project documentation that rivals an architect's works before approving the work. and allows an out if the beneficiary changes their mind half way thru and won't approve the work cause they want the boy to do more/different things than what was originally agreed upon.

working my way thru the project workbook. seems pretty straightforward and clear cut. on page20 where you list who helped you complete your project and hours it lists the following types of people: -The Eagle Scout candidate -Other youth (brothers, sisters, friends, etc., who are not BSA members) -Registered BSA adult Scout leaders -Other adults (parents, grandparents, etc., who are not BSA members note there is NOT a place to include Scout youth who are registered members of the BSA. is the other youth supposed to include BSA youth members, typo, or???

He went on his trip yesterday, but he's probably not going to count it for rank. Cause while he navigated fine, they met with the boys on the trail part way, half way and back at camp by truck. But he didn't actually have his map in the truck with him--he navigated without the map-- the other boys didn't have a map of the area to use for their 5 mile hike so he gave them his map to use.

I wouldn't allow den chief in that situation. He could come back and be den chief MAYBE for the webelos 1's (or another den) and still see his friends at pack meetings, he could stick around til at least one other of his friends is ready to cross over and go together (having a friend can be an immeasurable help when you join a troop and are the youngest kid there) or stick around and finish a few more badges until most/all of the den is ready to cross over or be invited to attend a few pack meetings as a representative from the troop to encourage more boys to cross to the troop, but not in any official capacity.

The scout isn't sure he wants to use the starred substitute requirement for rank, so we'll leave it up to him if he wants to bring his book to be signed when this is completed, or if he wants to do it again when he heals, or try yet another way on the next troop hike if he isn't healed by then. regardless-- he's up for going on his trip while his patrol does the hike this weekend, which will work to keep him engaged and excited. "too easy" would be we get there, get in the vehicle and it's like driving on a paved road with no reason for him to use the map and compass at all. Hard to tell on the map how hard/easy/can you get lost or is it like driving on the freeway--since we haven't driven this particular area before. Then again sometimes trails are like that too. go on the 5 mile hike with map and compass and the only thing you have to even think about on the particular trail is where to park at the trail head. so would you ever decide a 5 mile hike with map and compass are too easy to count for the rank requirement? a paved trail that is so clear cut there is isn't a particular reason to carry a map and compass except if an adult makes the boys stop and see if they can find where they are on the map?(This message has been edited by 5yearscouter)

and the update on time is the report at the most recent troop meeting. Scout is out for hiking for a LONG time, not just a few more weeks/month.

Basement, where do you get that this leg will be healed by Thanksgiving? Scout has been told that he will be in a leg/ankle brace of some kind at least thru Christmas, He will not be released to go on a 5 mile hike for most likely much much longer due to the fracture in the growth plate. so we aren't talking a delay of a month or two, 6 months to a year of delay here.

We get 2500 flyers for fall recruiting, and drop them off at as many 1-5th grade classrooms as we can at 12 different schools. We average 3 or 4 boys per school for the pack. Since we are the only non LDS pack covering a HUGE are in west phoenix, DE's from 3 districts send kids our way. but we don't usually get or keep the ones that are further away than the 3-4 closest schools to where we meet.

Honestly my gut tells me that the guy was holding on with the pack to see if you could get it going again. and you did. so hes ready to get out. sometimes if you give them warning you are leaving, they seem to put up every kind of roadblock and guildt you into staying. so maybe he's thinking a fast and clean break is his only answer. also at his age, well if he wants to quit, it's his perogative, he doesn't really have to give a reason. Health may be involved and he may not want to get into the details. Our current asst cubmaster is dying of lung cancer and doesn't want everyone to know because they treat him differently, and he wants to go out with real friends, not people faking nice to him because he's dying. kwim?