5yearscouter

technically no, but today is the 21st of July, that means you have 10 days to make an alternative plan. how bout meeting at the park for a water balloon fight, and then a clean up project to clean up your water balloons and eat watermelon. or meet at the city pool for swimming or go to someone's house with a big backyard and run thru the sprinklers. lots of ideas, just do something fun together to reconnect with all the scouts.

Who is your chartered org? Maybe they are the ones with the 501c3 since they own the unit.

In our troop the existing leadership goes over the requirements for positions the week before elections, usually with a review before election day. The troop has a bunch of rules for who can run for what position, they want SPL to have NYLT, and obviously 1st class. they have attendance % listed, but they are not enforced or tracked in any way. and of course the list of rules is in the 58 page bylaws, so it's likely to be adult created list, not scout created. but anywhooooo. the boys seem to talk amongst themselves ahead of time, recomending each other,and pushing each other to see who is interested in positions. Election night, the current SPL asks for those who are interested in the office of SPL to come to the front of the room. Usually scoutmaster at that time tells anyone if they are not eligible(so that could be handled a bit better in advance to avoid hurt I guess). Scoutmaster goes over the requirements for the job, tries to ensure all parents know what their scout is getting themselves in for. then the scouts vote by raise of hands for the different boys. Current SPL and Scoutmaster both count hands, but it's pretty open for anyone to count the raised hands. Current SPL congratulates new SPL and goes and sits down with the other scouts. Elections are every 6 months, a scout can run for position multiple times, but there is encouragement by scoutmaster for them to not re-run for the position after a year of the same job. Except for Quartermaster, when they get a good quartermaster they tend to try to keep him. The New SPL then calls for anyone who is interested in ASPL to come forward. He also may try to call people to the front that he wants as his ASPL, especially the prior SPL if they do not stand up. the boys in the audience usually are cheering for certain people, which sways the SPL in some manner. SPL discusses options with SM and they announce usually 2 ASLs for the size troop we have. Repeat for all other positions. Den chief is never mentioned in this. Once elections are over, the boys are sent off to redo their patrols. In our troop, patrols have been completely redone every 6 months and that means our patrols are very ineffective. about the time they start really working well together, it's time to change patols again. that is an adult thing to prevent cliques and bullying [what I'm told] Current SPL at the PLC on Monday night had a vote to have patrols stay together for at least a year, with fixes being done every 6 months after elections only if needed. Some of the moms sitting in the back of the room were agast and worried over "my son has to stay in the same patrol for a year, what if he hates it and is being picked on? my poor baby." so I raised the question and the SPL and SM let everyone know if they have an issue with not fitting in to their patrol, or not getting alone in the middle of the year, to talk to the SPL for a patrol change. But that should be done whether there are permanent, semipermanent or ad-hoc patrols.

I can answer your questions, but our Council day camp is all I have info on, we don't have district day camps that I know of. It runs every 3 days thru june into first week of july,not on sundays. We have about 300 scouts at each of the sessions, with 9 sessions and some sessions going into overflow we get almost 3000 cubs thru the doors. It's a twilight camp from 3-9pm. There is a theme each year. um, cost is $65 includes hat and tshirt, plus patches and archery and bbgun belt loops/pins if earned. Uses council property, and with the snack bar they make enough money to pay the ranger's salary for the year at last report. so definitely figure out how to get a snack bar to add extra income to your camp. everyone pre-registers online and pays. parents can register just their scout, but it's recommended to register by pack. about 2 or 3 weeks before the first session, a day camp orientation is held on a saturday(a day where staff is setting up stuff anyway). They go over what to wear (swim trunks, tennies, socks, day camp tshirt and hat each day), what to bring (sunscreen, towel, lunch, refillable water bottle, water balloons, squirt bottles), and they give a little blurb to those who attend about what they can expect for activities, a tour of the facilities, and required paperwork can be turne in at that time (medical forms for all participants and adults). They also have a little handout about day camp expectations, rules, what to do if you see a snake, signs of heat exhaustion, etc. the handout is emailed out to all packs, in case a pack doesn't send someone to the orientation day. Each pack is responsible for sending 1 adult per every 5 boys for actual day camp, but recommend 1 adult for each 2-3 tiger/wolves age scouts. Scouts are divided up into dens of 8-12 scouts, they will keep your pack together but you may have a few scouts from another pack if you don't bring at least 8 from your own pack. Tigers, wolves and bears go around together to activities. webelos go around together and get a time to do webelos activity pin activity, when the other groups have free time. there is a schedule for each day that includesg opening announcements for everyone in an amphitheatre, each den writes a marching song/cheer on the theme and if time gets to do it at opening and closing ceremonies, so dens try to get their early to do their cheer. they get awards for being on time (a certificate to get free tootsie rolls at the trading post, that are otherwise 5 cents each for sale). and a similar award for the den at the end of camp that has the best cheer, was on time the most, best decorated picnic table den sight, etc. opening starts on time, if you aren't there on time, you have to go find where you are supposed to be--but like I said, each pack brings their own adults, so it's not a drop off with camp and parent leaves kind of thing. the boys all come with the other boys of their pack in a carpool. Similarly there is a closing skit that keeps everyone interested so nobody goes home. it's always a story to go with the theme, and the staff dress up and it's really cool to watch, sometimes moving dragons and fake fires and all sorts of things. 4 dens at a time rotate thru archery, bbguns, swimming, crafts, games, and a misc themed area, freetime or webelos time. dinner is in the middle of that. everyone goes to a set of picnic tables under a shade for their den home for the 3 days. they can decorate it and they meet there at the beginning of the day, and at lunch and the end of the day. check in is that the adults in the group have to show up at the check in table in the parking lot and get a wrist band showing that they are registered and have turned in their medical form. the adults account for all the scouts being there, check their medical forms are turned in and get a certificate to go to the headquarters to get hats and tshirts with the first day's attendance sheet. Each den is given a den notebook with the schedule, some cheer ideas, info about the camp activities, map, and some of the rules. Since each pack has to bring their own adults, they take care of their own early arrivals. early departures must check their scout out at headquarters and go find them around camp. early check outs are discouraged with the cool closing ceremony, scouts don't want to leave until it's done. oh they recruit boy scouts as staff to run much of the stuff under the guidance of an adult staff. they let staff bring their kids and do activity with a staff babysitter team for free. they don't get patches or do archery and bbguns, but they do get to go to the pool and do the games and crafts on a different schedule/different area of camp. If you work all of june, I think they let your kid go to camp for one session for free, but not sure. more than you ever wanted to know, eh?(This message has been edited by 5yearscouter)

I don't know how long the council has not been entering advancements, it may only be a year, but with a large council that ends up being a LOT of advancment sheets. and once you get behind it's a booger bear to get caught up. I know the name has to match exactly and the Date Of Birth. some scouts their applications spelled out their whole middle name, but whoever entered them at council only put the middle initial, so all of their records wouldn't upload from troopmaster. but there are some records where it took some of the merit badges uploaded from troopmaster and some of them didn't go thru. We've got everyone except a couple of stragglers on internet advancement. so if a scout in our unit looses his cards, we got it covered. and I've helped a couple other units get started on internet advancement.

Sounds like time for a scoutmaster conference with the boy to privately find out what is going on in his life, what the rumors are that are going around, behavior at troop outings and expectations for improvement in behavior. Or maybe that's been done and it needs to go up a notch to a scoutmaster, CC, committee person(COR or other) "board of review" to determine if this is a discipline issue that can be solved within the troop and create a plan of action to help the boy out, or if the boy is more than the adults know how to deal with. Either way a meeting to explain the no drugs, no violence, no bullying rules of the troop, set up expectations, and set up a bit of support for when the boy needs help with a particular issue. Boy Scouts alone can't fix these things, but these things can be working on within the troop structure, expectations and ideals, but you do have to keep your eyes open for whether the scout wants to change or is pulling your chain, or sneaking drugs into your scouts, etc.

Well the way I understand it is that the US part of the company has already gone thru bankruptcy, and it's settled or almost. The international part is going thru a restructuring about like bankruptcy but not exactly like in the US. so far there has been no mention of touching the troop funds in any way, but we'll have to ask outright by declaring the balance in the checking account to get them to sign off to council so we can get a new co. so who knows what they will do. It's gonna be interesting, but we have a couple of lawyers and accountants looking into it. Of course some people said to move the funds and then tell them how much money we don't have anymore, but a scout is trustworthy, right? now our scout lodge that was donated to scouts almost 60 years ago may go away, as the title stayed with the CO, and it's up for sale. nobody wants to buy it yet, and we don't have the funds for that. All the girl scouts, cub scouts, crew, several troops, OA etc use the scout lodge, but together they all don't have enough $ for the property assessed as a commercial property near a resort.... ok, let's see what dirty laundry is still in the bin.....

You know the more money they have, the less likely the committee is to vote to approve spending the money. The scoutmaster suggested fillin the troop library with one new edition of the full color merit badge books, and having the troop librarian go thru and use them to help him determine which of the other merit badge books are too out of date. There is a whole footlocker full of books going back well not the full 80 years, anyone want collector's editions of these things? But the committee said that was too much money to spend and the boys would just take them home and lose them. They charge $65 a year, plus $1 a week dues paid EACH WEEK (which drives the boys nuts they spend too much time collecting money each week and asked if they could just collect it once a month and were denied) Plus at least $10 a campout for troop equipment use and propane They do pay 75% of woodbadge for adults and have several go each year. and they pay 100% of boys to go to NYLT and several go each year, next year they'll pay for a few boys to go to NAYLE. They don't give camperships. A scouter who died set up a campership/scholarship fund, so any scout that needs $ for camp can apply for that. The troop gives the money from inactive scout accounts to the campership fund even though that's not totally probably a legit use of scout funds (if a boy sells popcorn and gets 100% of the profit, and then drops out, the $ goes into camperships that come back to the troop boys). The campership fund does have other income from other places and is a non-profit separate from the troop. there are 72 boys registered, about 10 aren't coming at all and another 10 are hit or miss. There is over $350 per boy in the troop coffers.(This message has been edited by 5yearscouter)

Well, um, I probably shouldn't air ALLLLLL the troop dirty laundry on the internet, but hey, that's what you guys are here for, right? This troop has been in existence in a fairly well off part of town for almost 85 years. The CO used to be a very expensive resort, so yeah, there was always extra cash floating around. The CO actually is going thru bankruptcy internationally, and we are looking for a new CO before the end of the year. Of course, existing CO does own the money in the troop coffers, so we may not have this problem of too much money if the CO decides to keep their money. To change CO's they have to sign off the number, the equipment and the bank balance, so this is going to get interesting. The unit gives the boys 100% of popcorn and scoutorama ticket sales each year. So the troop isn't making money on the council fundraisers. We bring in a lot of money by selling a flag program. Families in the neighborhood of the scout lodge sign up and pay a yearly fee to have a big flag put up in their yard for 8 holidays a year.

So how much money do you regularly have in your troop checking account? What is a good amount for an emergency fund? or a slush fund (for slushies on a hot summer's day or other silly fun)? after taking out scout account balances I think we are at $26k and that amount wanders slightly upward every year, it never seems to go down, even when they decide to donate a ramada to scout camp and buy an AED, or other pet projects of particular scout families. Where is the falling over smilie, or the hitting your head against a brick wall smilie? The committee thinks we are a "normal" troop. help me enlighten them. (This message has been edited by 5yearscouter)

1 someone said that if an adult goes to summer camp they are automatically made a member of the troop committee. How does that work out if they have to fill out an application & do Youth Protection Training? That doesn't seem very automatic. 2 Scout received his Tenderfoot rank badge tonight, and is all excited and happy. Helped an older scout with some of his stuff in Tenderfoot, so he didn't just get the book signed, he knows the stuff well enough to teach it. Yeah! 3 Yes our troop has a bit of a stockpile of badges. BUT advancement forms are turned in to council regularly, usually once a month or every 2 months. 4 Interesting about Internet Advancement. Troop hadn't done internet advancement yet, even though my pack had been using it for 5 years when it first started being advertized. So everyone was all excited to see the Advancement recorded at council for all the scouts when we first logged on. So first time log on, load roster, and the ONLY boys with any ranks or merit badges showing are the ones who have earned Eagle. The rest, blank? Asked at council, they showed me the file cabinet, and the chunk of advancement forms for our troop. and explained that they didn't have enough personel to actually enter any of those ranks into scout net. So they just file the forms. They explain that when a scout gets close to Eagle, they ask for scanned copies of his rank cards and cards for merit badges (not the blue cards, the merit badge award cards). and they MAY pull the advancement forms if they can find them in the troop, and they go thru and enter his info into Scout net at that time. So now my goal is to make sure everything the troop has from Troopmaster is uploaded to council-- some we could upload automatically, but a few scouts it kicks out, or only takes part of their advancement for some reason. so we spent a lot of time entering, then auditing to compare, then entering the missing data. still have a couple scouts who have to upload their data, cause they weren't on the torop roster, even though they thought they were--they were transferred to the crew instead of dual-registered in the crew I think. 5. wish the new ACP&P book would be out before Fall. Getting it out before the "new year" starts, when we have down time over hte summer to read it all and discuss and train people on the changes would be nice.

Well I've seen the file at council where the advancement reports get put after you turn them in at the scout shop to buy your badges. Nobody looks at them further than to see ok it's troop 123 and there are signatures as needed. There is no place for names, only signatures, so unless council persons can identify which chicken scratched signature belongs to which troop committee person, there is no real way to check this except at the troop level. In this instance, it was actually 1 registered troop committee person, 1 troop parent who used to be a registered scouter but isn't currently, and 1 borrowed from another troop SM who sat on the board of review. other available adult at camp was a SM or ASM for the scout's own troop. This was an out of council small camp that didn't have that many personel available and well they weren't all that friendly to help out for a BOR. Could have probably begged someone to do it, but it still wouldn't have been persons registered on the scout's troop committee. like I said our troop is ASM heavy right now, with about 11 of them (3 are 18 year olds) And we don't have that many active registered troop committee people, and only 2 of them went to camp this year, others had been recently changed to ASM's. our troop gives rank badges immediately at the end of the troop meeting after the BOR. Merit badges and rank cards and parent pins are given out at the next CofH. Internet advancement forms are uploaded before each CofH, individual advancement forms(using the old 3 part form) is filled out by the 3 persons at the end of any BOR, so there are signatures of the persons actually performing the BOR. For more interest to this scenario, the BOR forgot to sign the scout's book. They signed the advancement form. 2 can sign the book, but who should sign instead of the 3rd person from out of council who lives 6 hous away? I think the troop advancement chair should perhaps sign the book?

So you want to charge the boys $25 for troop gear. so that everyone pays for the gear they use. what about the boys who only go on a couple of campouts a year because they have sports, or school committments? They have to pay the whole $25 even though other boys use the tents more often? In our troop they charge an extra fee to cover the cost of basically "rental/replacement" of the troop equipment. usually it's like $5 a campout. so if a boy goes on 5 campouts, he's paid the $25 fee for troop equipment but it didn't hurt, nobody noticed it. Then have a fundraiser, and those who participate get a % of the profit to go into a scout account for them to cover their extra $5 a campout, or other fees for the year. That way the boys who work the fundraiser get paid, those who don't still end up paying for the equipment. It's part of the reason why our troop has so much money, because they've bought quality equipment over the years and got a bunch of it donated, that the tents and gear last a LONG time. They also charge closer to $10 per campout to the troop to cover useage of equipment and propane costs, at one time it covered the cost of gas for the leaders, but they discontinued that but didn't lower the fee. That is one place I'm going to start to get them to stop charging for a while, and set aside a certain % of their huge checking account balance to equipment costs for replacing tents, filling chuckboxes and buying a new trailer. when that "account" falls below a certain number, they can re-institute a pay as you go on campout fee, but for now it's not needed.

That doesn't sound like a veto. That sounds like a CC who went home and thought about it, and perhaps was contacted by several parents who cannot afford yet another scouting fee. Depending on your troop finances, this may be something necessary, or something that just seems like what you should do. For instance, our troop has a LOT of money, but committee often will vote to pass costs on to the scouts, when the troop could and should pay for the items out of the troop funds. The CC or COR occassionally has "put his foot down" that the troop has the funds, the parents don't have the funds, and as long as it's a troop supplies cost, the troop should cover it from their % of the fundraising profit if at all possible. Unfortunately the CC hasn't put his foot down in a while, and we are losing scouts over excess fees when the troop has $30k in the bank. yeah, that's something that sticks in my craw and makes me wonder if I'm in the right troop sometimes....

Richard B writes "The site counter informs me that there are 1253 active users. About .1% of the regsitered adults. Can you imagine what the 99.9% also come up with as what is a "water gun" and how can I use it. " While the site counter shows you how many active users, this site is used by a bunch more scouters as their source of clarifying information about confusing BSA policies, when BSA policy writers refuse to clarify the information themselves. Like in this instance. I read at this site for almost 5 years before ever registering, and have learned a LOT from the experience around these here parts. The G2SS could word the policy clearer--probably would still be misinterpreted. If you want no running around with simulated weapons in war type games, then say so and be specific about what kinds of things you want units to avoid. Of course then at our Nationally Accredited Cub Scout Day camp that just received a perfect score this June--- water balloon fights would probably be nixed. Even though water balloon fights are about the #1 way we keep almost 3000 cub scouts and a boatload of adults cool enough in June in Phoenix Arizona to avoid heatstroke. If you want no projectiles shot at other scouts, then say that and take marshmellow shooters off the list of BSA popcorn prizes. By the way, they are LOUSY at shooting marshmellows, even stale ones. But they shoot small bouncy balls very well even though they do hurt if they hit you just right.

I prefer cozy, friends getting together to make the program work for my cub scout pack. not too worried about who does what or if it's in their job title or not, I never moved and seconded and voted for anything except when the committee wanted to require every parent fill out a leader application and for my replacement as CC. Everything else was we came to a consensus, we asked for input, we paid for the stuff we needed to pay for, and we didn't buy stuff we didn't need, and it was cozy and friendly. We had a small one page guideline on some of our standing policies--how much we charge per year (we charge minimum start up to cover BSA fees, insurance and boy's life plus a little bit to the pack, usually about $40 to start which includes book, and $40 for recharter which will also get you the next cub scout rank book). That we cover the cost of adult fees at recharter time if you are fully trained. And a page of our traditions (that we pass down hats and neckerchiefs to keep costs low, we hold at least one campout a year, usually alternating 1 campout and hike with picnic this year, 2 campouts next year, that we go to cub scout day camp as a unit, that we walk in the christmas parade. just kind of an FYI on how we work that is also 1 page long. The troop I'm beginning to work as membership committee chair is the exact opposite of that. Like I said in a prior post, 58 page bylaws detailing every single stinking thing, who does what, detailing Robert's Rules for everything, secret ballots for votes, how to define the quorum, (not sure how you run a troop if a quorum doesn't show up so you can't vote on anything, but you HAVE to get the stuff done that month like pay summer camp deposits or other time sensitive stuff?) What is an active troop member who can vote, what to do if you are inactive and can't vote but you want to be active again, how to choose scoutmaster including questions to ask, and detailed requirements of how much attendance each boy must have to run for any of the positions of responsibility, and on an on. the troop meetings run by the agenda, occassionally something can be snunk into the agenda without jumbo complaints and tabling the item until it can be put on the agenda for next month with enough advanced notice and following all the rules. It's adults playing games to make them see even more important when it's just a kid's game we are playing.

ACP&P says "After a Scout has completed all requirements for Tenderfoot, Second Class, First Class, Star, and Life ranks, or an Eagle Palm, he appears before a board of review. This board of review is made up of at least three and not more than six members of the troop committee" That's what the troop committee is complaining about regarding the Tenderfoot BOR. under Eagle it says "The board of review for an Eagle candidate is composed of a minimum of three members and a maximum of six members, 21 years of age or older. The Scout may have no input into the selection of the board of review members. These members do not have to be registered in Scouting, but they must have an understanding of the importance and purpose of the Eagle board of review." but does the 2nd info about Eagle apply to the first info about T21st class BOR's? I think it should, as does part of the committee, some think it should not, and point to the document as "proof". what do you think about that?

sorry to be confusing, I'll edit the OP to clarify. No ASM sat on the board of review. most of the adults at camp were ASM's, there weren't enough troop committee members to have 3 adults not related to the scout for the BOR. so a parent sat on the BOR that was not a registered troop committee person to make the 3 necessary adults. some troop committee members have issue with this and are worried about my son's BOR being official. I'm not worried but would like clarification on the issue. He did fine on the board of review, his older brother is ASPL so he's used to the troop adults and not scared of the process at all.

Our troop just had a change of scoutmaster, we ended up kinda heavy on assistant scoutmasters, they are working to shuffle people around. so at summer camp last week, my young scout completed everything for Tenderfoot and got his Scoutmaster Conference. For Board of Review, there were too many ASM's there, and only 2 committee members plus my husband who is committee member but couldn't sit on his own son's BOR. So they pulled in a "regular old parent" (not currently registered as troop committee, used to be a Cubmaster)as a 3rd person for the Board of Review. Now there is a discussion of whether that is appropriate or not appropriate. So, since you guys know everything..... what is the right answer, chapter and verse from the ACP&P?

depends on what the issue is and why. If it's the committee got carried away and voted for something against the law, against the BSA rules (like adding to requirements or ignoring tour permits requirements or stuff like that) or against common sense, I could see the CC "putting their foot down" about an issue. I would hope the CC would be contacting the COR and the SM or CM and trying to figure out what went wrong right there, consider more training for committee or something. If it's a petty thing, I could see committee either leaving or contacting the COR themselves. so what's the backstory?

Firearm n. A gun, pistol, or any weapon from which a shot is discharged by the force of an explosive substance, as gunpowder. water pistol n a toy pistol that squirts a stream of water or other liquid Also called water gun or squirt gun. I think it is absurd to equate something that squirts water to something that shoots projectiles at high velocity.

I've been complaining about the error in the 2010 program book for counting electives since before it was the 2010 program book and was just a fast tracks program in experimental phase. the person who wrote the 2010 program for Bear did not understand what the book said, and did not pay close attention to following it to the letter. they made up their own rules and BSA rubber stamped it. And it's wrong. It's similar to the Webelos craftsman 2010 program starting 2 woodworking projects in den meetings, and then telling the boys they completed craftsman when they need to do 4 projects not out of wood and a display stand. I'm not so sure how that is supposed to work out???

I know women who have had to remove tampons and pads in order to get thru security, because the nakey scanners see them as something scary. Yeah, I'm not sure that kind of thing increases our security one iota. If you believe that the pat downs make us any safer, then why not full strip searches or body cavity searches? I do not care if the TSA agent does or does not get pleasure from feeling inside of someone's underwear, it sure gives them a lot of power over us. I dislike the illusion that we are telling our children that it is ok for complete strangers to feel of your body parts without your permission in order to gain a favor(flying on an airplane). Agreed that flying on an airplane is not a right guaranteed by the constitution, but we do have protection in the constitution against unreasonable searches and seizures. yet we get on the plane, let them search our bodies and seize our tubes of tooth paste in the name of security? While TSA continues to miss the big things, guns and knives on planes, while checking out someone's tampon for explosives.(This message has been edited by 5yearscouter)

Check out http://www.hospicenet.org/html/child.html Hospice websites like the above usually have a LOT of info on how to help children and teenagers deal with grief and the loss of a parent. They also break things down by age, as a young child will need and understand death differently than an adolescent, and different still than a teenager. Teenagers seem to want to talk about their grief with their peers, where younger kids gravitate towards their parent to help them deal with it. Realize that he may get very very angry at you. sometimes the anger is directed at any surviving parent or step parent--why didn't you died instead of Dad? kind of thing. That is normal, even though it hurts to hear. It's not aimed at you, that he would want you to die, but a way of telling you just how much this hurts. Grief has distinct stages. help him thru each one, and if he gets stuck at a certain stage, get him the support he needs to complete the grief cycle.

Our Boy Scout Camp commissioners help people get settled, check in with the unit if there are issues, do campsite inspections, and they usher boys thru to wash their hands for the dining hall, and count heads at various times. Not hard work at all, just extra bodies to help camp run smoothly.