Scouter99

Your MB sash.

That's the impression I got from the description on the council's doubleknot page 2 years ago. Learning about resources for adventure programs. OK, I know how to use Google. Maybe in the past it was different, but then everything was

Call the District Executive.

Until BSA releases a more nuanced approah, 1-to-1 allocation of the proceeds (Johnny's sales effort resulted in X dollars, he gets X in his ISA) to individual boys is not allowed because the IRS and tax courts have issued several rulings that doing so constitutes "private benefit" to a person rather than a benefit to the troop. As far as allocating sales opportunities, it should be fair. If the volunteer running the fundraiser doesn't know how he/she is planning to staff it and how the proceeds will be used, then that person should figure it out before proceeding, and definitely shouldn't be giving half-baked answers to scouts and parents. As boomer said, that person should read the product sales guide: http://www.scouting.org/filestore/financeimpact/pdf/CFD-Manuals/Product_Sales_Guide.pdf As for whether or not you should climb that hill, that's a political question for you that boils down to is it worth it. We can't know that

Is it? The last time (only time, actually) that I saw Powderhorn offered it was billed as training for planning high adventure trips. Edit: That's the way Scouting Mag describes it as well: http://scoutingmagazine.org/issues/0709/a-high.html "Powder Horn is officially described as a way to introduce unit leaders to activities and resources for conducting unit-level high adventure programs that can also assist crew members in earning Venturing’s coveted outdoor skills Ranger Award."

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Exactly, packsaddle. What I can look up in 5 seconds is not the same as what I know. Being able to look anything up because I've got the internet in my pocket isn't the same as being well-versed in a variety of subjects. Those tools can be used in the same way as a book, but that is not the way the vast majority of people use them, and that's not an argument for bringing all the games, texting, helicopter parenting, porno, and distraction that comes along with the smartphone. They're just not necessary in a Scouting context, they're a distraction, and in fact they are a detriment to our goal of producing young men who can do things for themselves.

Anyone planning to go to this? I tried to ignite the passions of some older guys in our troop to no avail.

Something like that addresses my main concern with apps: They don't foster learning, they simply fuel "hm" moments. The second the phone goes back into a pocket, the user is ignorant again, and as long as the phone is there, the person has no incentive to become knowledgeable. For me, that's just as much an issue for adults as youth--we can't teach things we don't know, and pulling out a smartphone and pointing it at the sky isn't teaching astronomy, it's teaching how to use an app and kids already know how to do that--these things are literally designed for any moron to be able to use. Is YouTube, etc useful as a reference? Yes. In the field? No. For the life of me, I never could figure out how to do the floor lashing. I looked it up on YouTube and immediately felt like an idiot, but frankly the drawing in the book is no good. When did I do that? At my house before I needed to know how, not out in the hinterland. The field is the place for knowledge. Snapping a photo of a leaf and having a phone spit the ID back at you is not learning, identifying the distinguishing features of a leaf and then using them to identify the plant is learning. Perdidochas hypothesizes that this question probably hinges on personal use, I tend to agree. Because the people who use the phones prefer the quick, hollow method of looking things up over and over again for 5 seconds each time rather than the labor-intensive approach of gaining knowledge, and if they can't use their phone, they can't teach what they don't know. As far as allowing phones so you can teach them how to handle incoming calls and messages in a meeting, the answer is to turn off the sound and ignore them, so there's no reason to allow them.

Meh. There were occasional teenagers in my community college classes, they were all home or private school kids. The first 2 years of college is nothing but high school all over again (in my case, even some of the same text books) so a teen with Associates degrees doesn't really impress me. For some overlapping reasons, many top tier schools are beginning to stop considering AP courses/scores as anything but placement tests rather than awarding college credit anymore.

There is not one use for a smart phone mentioned here or on the blog that merits their inclusion. At best, competent but lazy people want to use them as shortcuts, at worst incompetent people need them to keep themselves from learning.

Stosh, it may be legal, but nothing you're accomplishing by this lick-your-own-elbow approach cannot be accomplished simply by the scouts holding onto his own money. There is no reason to involve the troop in the ways you're describing, it's cumbersome and counter-intuitive--it makes no sense. What you're engaged in is "saving the phenomena [paradigm]"--there's no reason to use an ISA to do these things, but you love ISAs so you're creating reasons regardless of whether they make any sense. In either event, I'm not saying that using an ISA in the way you're describing--as a savings account, not a way to facilitate individual benefit from a troop fundraiser--is illegal; I'm saying it doesn't make any sense. It doesn't have anything to do with the IRS/BSA prohibition on individual benefits, so it's not really germane to the discussion. Yes, and when the unit turns around and puts the amount of commission generated by Tom's sales into Tom's individual account, and Dick's to Dick's rather than using the whole amount to offset the cost of the program to everyone, that is an individual benefit (wages), and that is why the IRS/BSA says we can't do it.

As far as I can tell, yes, that one paragraph in a document no one but no one reads (or knows exists) is the only thing addressing the issue right now. This planning sheet was sent out at popcorn time, but it works for any fundraiser: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BznDEjUskN5vdnVrWmZGR2FMNDQ/edit?usp=sharing Click "file" in the top left corner, then download it. Enter all the yellow shaded fields at the top and bottom, fill in your activities cost, and it spits out how much of XYZ each scout needs to sell to fund the entire program. Some scouts will sell more, some scouts will sell less. The point of a fundraiser is that each person benefits by working to fund the whole thing, not just his little part.

Sorry, Stosh, that's the silliest thing I've ever heard and until this discussion came up and multiple people in various forums/blogs have said they do this I never would have believed anyone does. Why in God's name would the troop act like a banker for its scouts? Billy can and should "bob a job" to help pay his own way. That's not fundraising in the same sense that selling popcorn/camp cards/wreaths/etc is (as you said, it's a private transaction between two people). Then he takes the money and puts it in a jar. There's no good or sensible reason to bank it in his troop. Your pants example wouldn't even work in my council (and I suspect most councils); only certain individuals can authorize troop acct transactions, we'd have to list every scout or scout parent as an authorized user. It's an overly complicated Rube Goldberg way to go about buying a pair of pants, paying for camp, etc.

Anyone who has used the popcorn planning spreadsheet immediately sees it: The fundraiser funds the program, not individual participants in the program. That's how it's designed. If the troop is sending a crew to ABC Base, that's part of the program. Everyone participates in the fundraiser, X amount of the proceeds are applied to the adventure trip just like every other trip. Not every scout goes on every camping trip, but your fundraiser subsidizes/mitigates the cost, and you haven't used ISAs to get there--that's not an individual benefit for those who go simply because some do not. Not everyone goes to ABC Base, but your fundraiser mitigates the cost.

All the other doodoo aside, I'm not clear on why youth sign-offs is the hill you want to die on. You want to keep the older scouts engaged and their skills sharp--you do that by making them responsible for instruction. You want the ASMs to be engaged, you do that by letting them sign off. You're happy, the CC is happy. Out of all the other stuff, this is the least of your worries, it doesn't make sense to lay down the line at something so trivial. Anyway, as both Institutional Head and CC, she's just going to fire you if you don't play ball, unless you've got a silver tongue. Wood Badge is great and all (or so I've heard) but you don't go to grad school without getting a bachelor's first. Get all your entry-level training (the modules for the "Trained" patch), go to Roundtable for a few months, read the stinkin' Scoutmaster's Handbook (which I've read some ungodly percentage of Wood Badge participants have never done), read the Patrol Leader's Handbook (1955 version if you've got $5 and an eBay acct) then go to Wood Badge.

Welcome to the forum! I think your wife is likely to find that boys will sometimes stay up until 4 AM regardless of which numbers are on their sleeve; this is no reason to alter the entire course of your son's scouting career. If the SM called this weekend rough, then that's your first indicator that this isn't normal. The cabin thing almost always makes for late or even late, late, nights, so maybe ask him how often the troop spends nights in cabins.

I don't disagree with any elements of the OA, I'm just under no illusions about it being authentic, which is perfectly fine with me; it's neat without being authentic. Just watched the video, wow, really sleazy to air the minors' names and air their personal business.

Uniform.

You've give 'em 7 more weeks than I would have.

Scouter's Training Award, it's the green medal with a thin white stripe down the center/green square knot. http://meritbadge.org/wiki/index.php/Scouter%27s_Training_Award Looks like they just changed the requirements last year.

So, invite them to come camping with your troop. If they join later, that's the free market.

If the "swap" takes place because the camp's policy is to send the refund to a parent, I think it would be a simple matter of explaining to the camp that the troop paid, the boy canceled, and the refund comes to the troop. Are there people in your committee who actually think the money should go to the family? I don't see why anyone would have a question about this.