TonyHooker

Our troop is sending the 14+ boys to Seabase, and the SM anounced that because that, and the need for additional parents, the rest of the troop would be going to our local camp. My son, who just crossed over this spring interrupted, and said "Wait, I thought we get to vote on that!" He was immediately put in charge of researching camps, and presenting his recommendations to the PLC. I was so proud, of both my son and the way the SM handled it.

I have asked my own DE not to use the "It only costs X to be a Scout for a Year" Where that X does not reflect the local unit cost.

I recently went through the Den Chief training, and I have not seen any such rule, nor have I heard of it in the past. In fact, there are several places in the official BSA literature where it describes a pack with multiple den chiefs, in different dens. I would respectfully ask the SPL or SM to show you that rule somewhere in writing from the BSA.

Deliver it to the Pack Meeting or COH via robot?

If you are familiar with Girl Scout Swaps, (Special Whatchamacallits Affectionately Pinned Somewhere) they are like their equivalent of custom neckerchief slides or something, and they can make them to trade. There are some with various knots incorporated into the making of them, some called Friendship Knots, etc. Some googling Girl Scout SWAPS and Knots showed quite a few results. Unfortunately, a lot are on pinterest, which is blocked here at work.

The Chartered Org Owns it, but in most cases, has no interest in keeping it if the Unit leaves. Sure, they have the legal right to take everything out if the troop trailer, including the trailer itself and do anything they want to... But they very rarely have any interest in doing anything of the sort.

Troopmaster has a product called TroopLedger (Also a Cub version called PackLedger)

I would probably stick with the CM role. That's the more public facing of the two. If you feel like having 2 uniforms, you can, but I wouldn't worry about it if you have other places to put your efforts and money toward scouting.

I am a huge fan of Hammock Camping. After I got one, My oldest son wanted one. Then the three younger ones all wanted one too. So now, All of us but Mom sleep in Hammock tents on our Scouting trips. (Found some good deals on Hennessey around their fall clearance sales) The only problem is when there are not enough trees. Without a good underquilt though, winter usage can be quite chilly. (Use Pad/reflector and Sleeping bag, but it still makes for a cold backside.)

We keep the same den numbers over time, but in our pack, we generally only have 1 den per year - (No 28 boys at any level, more like 6-10) If we had more than 1 den per level, Den numbers would be a lot more important, normally we just call them by their rank.

I'll have you know my sons won first, second and fourth last year. Despite having 3 sons, I thank god I didn't sweep all 3, being that I was also running the scoring. They honestly did all the work, I just showed them how...

I would not have any issue with it at all, as a parent or as a scouter.

In this scenario, I would probably vote to fold.

I'm coming at this as a Methodist, and first of all, I'd like to say it's not always that easy to get the Methodist Men to help out with scouting. Some of those guys are more bullheaded than you would expect. One of the suggestions that I saw above was that what was really needed was a family inside the congregation that will champion Scouting. They need to be able to step into a leadership role, and find other families both inside and outside the congregation that may be interested in it. You may also need to decide if you are going to be focusing on serving your own congregation, or serving the community. My own troop has a number of different religious traditions represented. I'd say about 15-20% of the pack are members of the church, and maybe 10% of the Troop. As for the Religious Emblems Programs, we offered them to all of our church youth + any of the scouts who would like to participate. We focused on them as primarily Christian Education in our case, as the PRAY program is very non-denominational, and works with just about all mainline Christian Denominations. It's a good program, regardless of whether or not a kid is involved in scouting. I do not know if the Jewish Religious emblems could be used in that way. But if they can be, I would recommend asking the church to offer them for all the kids, not just the scouts... and make it available to scouts of your faith in other troops and packs throughout the community. It might be you signing up to help run things though. However, if you cannot find a critical mass within your own synagogue, I hope you can find a good home in some other location, in a multi-faith pack or troop.

Looks like that field is visible, but Disabled for Myself as a user. (Probably for all of us in the non-test council) For youth, it's a good idea. For Adults, I think it would make sense to have an online app, BUT have it initiated by a Unit Leader/Key 3. (Scoutmaster can invite someone to be a leader and it sends them a link to the form, but someone can't just go out and apply on their own.)