Bob White

You are not moving them early, you are simply moving them once they become eligible. there is no BSA rule or procedure that says they must go in February, the rule is they can go to the Boy Scouts once they meet the membership requirements and no sooner. BW

Ed I doubt that you would accept any explanation of the scouting program that came from me, so I will sit this one out and let others explain to you how incorrect you are on this.

If you make up a method that you think is better and use it instead then you are not doing a scoutijng program, you are doing YOUR program in a scout unifrom and that is false advertising. What gives an individual volunteer the authority to alter the methods of scouting? I agree with Eamonn, but then we live in the same world, and we are not as lonely as some might think.

Those are the current requirements.

A scout active as a junior leader in a troop position during the tenure of his rank advancement still meets the requirement. If he is active in his troop that's enough, you cannot expect him to be active in a patrol he doesn't have. I cannot imagine an adult leader not realizing that, or detaining a scout from advanceing based on it.

Upto and including this year popcorn has Never BEEN a national BSA activity. The national office has had NOTHING to do with popcorn sales. the BSA national office gets NO MONEY from popcorn sales. Popcorn started in a single council and spread slowly to others. NOT EVERY COUNCIL even has a popcorn sales program, in fact many do not. It is a local council activity. So NO the BSA never did plan to make this as big as girl scouts. Local scout councils saw it as a cooperative way to help finance units and bolster local council revenue. Do you ever want the BSA to be known for ANY product sales activity or for the program they deliver using the financial resources of the council and units? What product would you gave picked that you feel would have been more attractive than cookies? If trails end came to you and offered you 66% profit for selling a popular snack food would you have said, "well it's not as attractive as cookies"? (This message has been edited by a staff member.)

If your not looking at back packing long distances I prefer the 4. What my sons troop does is they use two different size tents. First year scouts have a 7X7 dome. THen after the first year and they have growna little taller and gottemna little stronger they go to a 7X 9 A-frame. It works out real well. EagleInKY, you would meet quite a few scouters in my world. There is nothing magical about us, we simply follow the program the way it is designed. It's really quite easy. If three guys from the bear patrol have to stay behind they do so as half the bear patrol they do not eat or camp with the hawk patrol members, they act as an independent unit.

One solution to that situation that would allow you to retain the integrity of the patrol is to have (as the BSA program is designed) patrols made of scouts of similar ages and abilities. That would have allowed the entire patrol of older scouts to do the activity that was more appropriate to their abilities without the need to splinter the patrols.

These virtual partols are a horrible idea. A scout will never feel a sense of responsibility to his patrol if he knows that his absence doesn't make an difference in the success of the group. But then adults cooking for scouts, and 10 boys to a tent are pretty bad ideas as well. It sounds like you may need to look further to find a real scouting program. Best of luck, BW

First off the Girl Scouts have been selling cookies for decades longer that Bot scouts have sold popcorn. The Girls Scouts (according to the GSUSA so don't bother posting about how your wife is a GS leader yada yada) The girl scout units get .55 per box. The council gets OVER 2.50 per box. Do you really want popcorn to work that way. Try a word association. Ask someone what the first think that pops into theri head is when you say Boy Scout. I'll bet not a one says "popcorn" thank goodness. Ask the same person what they think of when they hear the words "Girl Scout", I will bet the majority say "cookies". The BSA is not trying to make the association that strong. They are merly supporting a project that has been very successful in helping to finace scouting at the local level in both the unit and council operations.

Summer Camp FREE Oh you want a meal $7 each Dining hall use $5 Swim Test for pool access $3 Buddy Tag $1 Pool entrance $5 per day You want to go somewhere in the camp, Trail head toll $1 Canoeing ? Canoe rental $7 for 30 minutes, $8.50 with PFD Oh you want paddles too $5 Rapelling Tower $5 Campcraft $5-$15 deppending on project Plus trail toll of course. (how else can we do trail maintenance unless we charge you to use it? Sure we can mow the campsite $20 Is that really the scouting world you want?

The price discrepancy could be due to sales made through the council and not credited to a specific unit in a district. The decrease in cost of sales is due to more units opting to forgo prizes and take a higher commission (note the 3% increas in average commission)it is an option some councils choose to offer. "If people spend an average of $15 for a fund raiser, my unit could sell these people 3 hoagies!" How many hoagies does your average customer buy Ed? Remember also that at your hoagie profit of 41% your unit makes $6.15 on $15 in sales where as Scouting makes $10.

Read the description for the ASPL.

"BRUTE FORCE" You can't possibly be serious. "Oh dear lord Ethel there's a 9 year old at the door in a Cub uniform, hide the valuables. Whatever you do don't say no to him, you know how vicious they can be. I know... smile and buy something from him and maybe he won't hurt us or the children." You guys slay me. It really kills you that so many units and councils do just fine with popcorn sales. In fact I can show you a site where a sampling of Popcorn sales taken from a variety of council locations across the country and a cross section of population densities. 22 councils are sampled, that is about 7% sampling from across the expanse of the BSA. Any guesses as to how much was raised in 2004 in popcorn sales just in these 22 random councils????? $10,610,103.00 No lets extrapolate that into an approximate total of what might be the national figure. It would be approximately $151,512,270.00 Thats one hundred and fifty one MILLION dollars in gross sales. Thats over 50 MILLION DOLLARS in unit profits. $50,000,000. And another 50 million to the independent councils and $0 to the national office. That there is a bunch of hoagies gentleman. How you can even complain about something as successfull as popcorn only proves my origial point. The only folks who complain are the ones who don't sell or who don't know how to did it successfully, or just like to complain about the BSA. The website I am going to send you to also has the results of some market analyis done by Trails End. It will rebut every theory the nay-ayers have offered in this thread. I am convinced that even if the Councils found a way to teach you how to spit gold you would find some reason to complain about it. http://www.doubleknot.com/openrosters/DocDownload.asp?id=4458 (This message has been edited by Bob White)

Page 13 of the Scoutmaster Handbook.

So why do so many units sell popcorn and do it so well? What do you suppose they're up to?

No, according to the BSA program as explained in the Scoutmaster Handbook and the SPL Handbook, SPL and ASPLs do not function within the other patrpls. There is a very simple reason why. You cannot serve two masters. If the SPL is in a patrol and responsible for patrol duties as a patrol member how can he do his leadership job of observing and evaluating the other patrols and their leaders? How do you get a patrol member to go to his patrol leader for information, instruction assistance when the SPL is right there? The PL has to be given the opportunity to learn and practice his leadership as the leader of the group without outside interference. The SPL and other troop officers can form their own group or they can join the adult leaders which is what I think works best as it gives the adult leaders greater opprotunities to counsel and mentor the junior leaders. Yes you can have as many ASPLS as needed to make the troop function. (Two is usually sufficient one for program one for administration) Hope this helps. BW

BOBWHITE'S BSA POPCORN SALES TIP #7 When a potential customer says "It's to darn expensive" the scout should SMILE and say "how few then did you want to order?" usually the potential customer will laugh and order the least expensive item. If the customer says none, the scout should say, "Thank you have a nice day!" and go meet the next potential customer. BOBWHITE'S BSA POPCORN SALES TIP #4 Sales is a matter of opportunity. The more people you ask the more people you will sell to, in life (as in popcorn) you make your own opportunity. Some say opportunity knocks once. Good salespeople understand that it is not opportunities job to come find you, it is your job to go looking for opportunity. The secret to popcorn sales is simply the number of doors you knock on and nothing more.

ljnrsu is it not true that each person gets the same percentage of profit regardless of how much money they earn from the company or make for the company?

Whether the $40 is a lot really depends on how it is being used. Did the Pack say hwat the money was spent on? Popcorn being kicked off at the meeting is a matter of timing more than anything else. It is not unusual for the September pack Meeting to include Popcorn kickoff, if they waited a month for the next meeting the boys would lose a lot of selling opportunities, and a successful popcorn sales helps reduce the cost of scouting to the families while helping the Pack to deliver a better program for the boys. So all in all what happened wasn't that unusual but it could have been received better with a little more explanation on the Pack's part. BW

Packsaddle you are incorrect, profit sharing is not based on salary it is based on how much of your salary you reinvest into the plan. The same in true in scouting the more you put into it the more you will get out of it. "This also is easily translated into "giving to those according to their needs and taking from those according to their abilities." You have that backwards, it is "give according to your abilities, recieve according to your needs", that is a basic concept of any non-profit agency. "Or do I inform them of their hypocrisy and invite them to find another program?" Unless your job is to develop character in the parents (and it is not) then you ignore them, and do your job as a Scout leader and member of the scouting community. "unless a "large percentage" of scouts ARE in those low income neighborhoods. I think not, at least not around here." Certainly you do not suggest that scouting be structured financially based on what scoutig is like only in your area? What does it matter if there are 5 faily or 5,000 families that would be chased from scouting because of a pay as you play plan? Wht should any boy not have an opportunity to be a scout based on his family's financial ability? "If marketplace mechanisms, forces, and discipline were applied throughout BSA, I think that it not only would help resolve some things but it would also present a great example for the boys." "Are there no prisons... and the Union workhouses, are they still in operation?" Generosity is not some problem looking for a cure, it is the right think to do, it does not need to be "fixed" to teach a lesson in business. BW

I would like to know why units who do not do well with popcorn want EVERYONE to have to give it up? (This message has been edited by a staff member.)

As a non profit corporation the BSA shares some characteristics of a for profit business but not all. Does your company have a profit sharing plan. Don't all employess get the same percentage or is it dependent on how much profit each person puts in the group till? Law requires that it be an equal share for everyone. Do you buy your children what they need based on productivity or do you treat them equally? Do you treat your friends differently based on what they each give to you? The role of the BSA and the local council is to service all scouts and scouters regardless of what they put in the till, in hopes that their character will cause them to do the right thing and help others as they are helped by others. If parents have a problem with that...fine, the program is not there for the parents it is their for their children. Just as not every part of a business is a profit center, neither is every part of scouting. But those products and services are needed none the less in order to serve and support the units and the program. As far as not being able to objectively prove that we would lose scouts on a pay as you play program, You need only to look at the low income neighborhoods where scouting programs exist. Plus think about what BSA scouting overseas would cost, if they had to pay the actual cost of support services and resources. As Red Green would say "We're all in this together". (This message has been edited by Bob White)

Gentleman PLEASE! All I did was answer a question about how training and liability protection are related. THAT'S ALL! I gave a scenario where a trained experienced volunteer gave bad advice that was in conflict with the BSA policies and resulted in an injury. I asked if the BSA should protect that persons negligence financially or as self-insureds do they have a responsibility to protect those who are following the program and policies? I have not strayed from the topic of the thread. I have answered all questions politely. Aside from not seeming to understand yet how training and negligence play a role in liability protection I don't see that Ed has done anything other than ask questions. Why is anyone upset?

Fred, It is totally related, one problem leads to other. Until the membership is strengthened this problem will continue to repeat. How you take things is in no ones control but your own. You said you had three Tigers, You now say you have a full den of 7. Had you said that the first time my evaluation would have been different. Accurate feedback requires accurate input. What is unrelated to the thread are your complaints to me. You are welcome to PM me rather than use this thread. (This message has been edited by Bob White)