Tatung42

Ya I am sure that giving the money directly to the food bank is way more efficient. But for us, it is more a way to show support for the store that lets us take up part of their parking lot for free (even if it is a Walmart).

Out local Walmart lets us setup our homebase in their parking lot. So if we get any money donations, we buy caned food from the Walmart and then add those to the food that we collected.

Thank you for the replies. I like the merit badge counselor idea. This brings me another question. What about a Lion Den? Every scout is there with their adult partner (most of whom have taken YP), and there is one fully trained Den Leader. This setup is clearly a violation because "A Lion or Tiger adult partner is not considered a registered leader for meeting two-deep leadership requirements". We could get one of the adult partners to register as a merit badge counselor to fulfill youth protection requirements?

Lets say a patrol leader wants to have a patrol meeting at his house. The patrol's fully trained ASM adviser will be there as well as the patrol leader's mother. The patrol leader's mother has taken youth protection, but she is not a registered member of the BSA. This is a youth protection violation right? Now lets say that nothing changes, expect that the patrol leader's mother pays national $33 to become a committee member. Now this is perfectly ok? I just want to insure that I am understanding how the rules work correctly. (yes that is a snarky tone that you detect in my question)

Yes, we hold a council event once a year at the local community college where offer scouts the chances to work on Nova awards or STEM related merit badges. Also what really helped to promote the program was just having STEM committee members visit packs and troops in their local area. They bring all sorts of fun STEM gadgets and demonstrations with them. The packs especially really love this.

I attended woodbadge out of council. My council had no STEM program when I went to woodbadge, and in fact, I did not even know that STEM in scouts was a thing. However, at woodbadge, they pushed STEM really hard. It inspired me for one of my tickets to started up a STEM program in my council. For the first year, STEM committee members from out of council came over helped me run successful council STEM events. They also helped me recruit interested adults in my council to serve on our newly formed STEM committee. Now 4 years later we are functioning completely on our own, holding several council wide STEM events each year, and have two dozen active super nova mentors. If I attended woodbage within my own council, I probably still would not even know that STEM existed in scouts, and I certainly could have never accomplished my ticket without the support from experienced STEM scouters from out of council.

A good resource that people have mentioned to help plan mixed-ranked den meetings is https://cubscoutideas.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Cub-Scout-Connections-12-24-2017.pdf. But just looking at that resource in any detail illustrates how there is actually very little overlap in requirements between adjacent ranks. Some examples are how Bears have cooking requirements and building requirements and wolves don't. Whereas wolves have fitness and navigation requirements and bears don't. Even where things appear to overlap, if you look at the requirements closely, they don't. Like on knots, wolves learn the square knot, bears learn two half hitches, and webelos learn the bowline. The issue then becomes what to do at Den meetings? Dens can started the year by working on the few requirements that can be combined (like hiking or skits). However, once you get to the point where all that is left is to work on requirements where there is no overlap what do you do? Splitting into groups at Den meetings, having each rank rank work on their own set of requirements, is one option. But that plan often results in group sizes that can be as small as a single scout (which is why they were combined in the first place), it requires way more leaders (one leader for each group), and it negatively effects the feeling of unity within the Den. Another option is to just have everyone in the Den do all the same activities. The issue with that plan is that it greatly hurts advancement, since only scouts at one rank will be completing requirements at each activity. It can be depressing to the scouts when they see the scouts in single-ranked Dens earning twice as many awards at pack meetings. Also you run into cases where some activities are not age-appropriate for the younger part of the mixed den, like how tigers and wolves can't work on whiting chip. Tonight at round table we had this discussion, specially in relationship to girl dens in coed packs. Most packs have the problem that there are not enough girls to form single-ranked dens, so following BSA guidelines, they formed mixed-ranked Dens of the same gender. However, pretty much everyone that tried the mixed-ranked sens came to the same conclusion that mixed-ranked dens don't work for the reasons that I mentioned above. Essentially everyone's attitude was "to hell with BSA policy", next year we are having single-ranked coed Dens.

I am just curious as it is difficult to research the stances of all of the different religions and denominations. For what research that I have done: The LDS church has said basically flat out said that it won't allow girls in any units that it sponsors. Baptists (who were totally against the homosexuality changes - not allowing any of their sponsored units to have homosexual leaders or scouts), seem to be taking a much more neutral (almost positve?) stance on the girl issue. They are leaving it up to their individual churches to decide with the following statement - "It's simply another opportunity to reach people. Churches have the option to not go that way, stay with what they're doing or to include the girls." Does anyone know the stances of other major religious groups?

I sit on my district's advancement committee. Typically the "hard" questions that I like to ask are to determine how the scout feels about various aspects of the scouting program or changes to the program. However, this issue is controversial enough, that maybe it wouldn't be good to bring it up at a board of review. Any thoughts?

When in doubt, ask the local land manager how they would like you to dispose of waste.

A lot depends on which staff camps you are going to for program. Like if you are say going to Indian Writings, they have the petroglyphs tour, archeology, atlatl throwing, usually a conservation project (building trail over to Chase Ranch), and an evening hike up to the top of the mesa. You are looking at about 6 hours of program, and if you don't get into the camp by about 10:30 AM, you likely won't have time to do everything. Whereas other staff camps may only have one program activity, which you could participate in even if you don't make it to camp until 4pm. Also some programs, like horseback riding at Clark's Fork, require reservations at logistics before you leave on your trek. So if you have a reservation for riding at 1PM, you better make sure that you are at camp by 1PM.

In an email today to DOI employees, Zinke had the following statement: "I approach this job in the same way that Boy Scouts taught me so long ago: leave the campsite in better condition than I found it."

First you need to determine the skill level of the group that you are taking canoeing. You should have minimum 1 full day of experience on flat water before doing any moving water. After that, my general experience is that scouts can move up to the next 1/2 class of whitewater after 1 full day of experience (up to about class III-, where it takes more experience and training to continue to improve). So general guidelines are: 1 day on flat water (should have the 4 basic strokes mastered before moving on - forward, backwards, draw, pry) 1 day on class I 1 day on class I+ (should be able to enter and exit eddies and perform both backwards and forward facing ferries before moving on) 1 day on class II 1 day on class II+ Onto your specific trip, you should consult a whitewater guide book (or check online) on the river and see what the difficulty rating is at different flow rates and what normal (recommended) flows are. For example, my local river where we take the scouts canoeing has 7 class II rapids at normal flows. However, it is harder not only at higher flows (several rapids merge together into one 1/2 mile long rapid) but also at lower flows as well (the drops get bigger). Next you want to check what the actual flows are on the day of the trip and make sure that the river will be appropriate for your group. Good places for checking flows are http://waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis/rtor http://dreamflows.com/. Some state or local agencies will even calculate and post river flow forecasts.

Wow that is an awesome infographic. Thank you for sharing. If the OP didn't state that his scoutmaster was only doing the job for over a year now, I would have thought that I am in the same troop as him. My troop is mostly a 6. However, occasionally the adult leader forgets to find a puppet scout to be "in charge" so then we are a 7. They actually need to add a 9 to that graphic. The scoutmaster schedules an event, and then requires everyone to be there by threatening to not advance them in rank if they don't show up. Oh also this scoutmaster scheduled event happens to also be on the same date that your scouts are already planning a trip.

When I backpack, I always take my phone and battery pack. Phone is 5 ounces, and the battery pack is 8 ounces and can charge the phone 4 times. The main use is obviously for emergency communication. Cell phones operate by line-of-sight so you can usually get service from ridges. Even if you don’t have strong enough service for a call, texts will go through. Beyond just being emergency communication, it also works as a camera, flashlight, and watch. The camera is probably the coolest part as I have my phone set to auto upload pictures to our troop's google drive. If our webmaster isn't on the trip, my pictures are usually on the troop webpage before we even get home. I also have on it: PDF documents: Guide to safe scouting Scout handbook Wilderness survival guide BSA tour plan Permission slips for all scouts Apps: Weather forecasts (includes sunrise and sunset times and tides if we are hiking near the ocean) Wilderness first aid GPS Trail map (I still have a hard copy too - phone maps are much better an local navigation because you have your exact location on the map, but nothing beats a paper map for getting the big picture) Plant and animal identification Star chart Any trip specific apps that I need

Like others have said, there is no BSA policy against open toed shoes. For example, flip-flops are considered OK at Seabase for your land shoes. However, many camps and units have their own local rules.

This death just sounds like a tragic accident. Rafting is a high risk activity and even if you do everything right, there is a chance of injury or death. Normally you purposelessly raft on the rivers during scheduled releases in order to hit your desired flows. To suggest that they were somehow caught off guard by unexpected high flows is silly. I suspect that they knew exactly what the flows were going to be.

Just to echo what some others have said. The actual letters are strongly recommended (no pun intended) by my council, but they are not officially required. All that is required is to write people names and contact information on the application.

I guess I'm not sure. I am just going by what was told to me at district roundtable. Edit: I looked up the official rules: "Unless it is otherwise stated in the merit badge pamphlet, Boy Scout Requirements, or official communications from the National Council, if a Scout chooses to use the old merit badge requirements and pamphlet, he may continue using them until he has completed the badge." http://www.scouting.org/scoutsource/GuideToAdvancement/TheMeritBadgeProgram.aspx 7.0.4.3 What to Do When Requirements Change

This is a good change. I know it breaks the "no more no less" rule, but when I did hiking MB, we started with hikes less than 10 miles and then did progressively longer hikes before doing our 20. So it was more like 7,9,11,13,15 then 20. Also a little off topic, but one other thing to note is that if scouts started the merit badge under the old requirements, they are allowed to finish it with the old requirements (meaning no 15-miler).

Obviously during hunting season you should wear bright orange. But for all other occasions, this topic is a debate that I have been having with some other adults in my troop. Our class B, which all the scouts wear on outings, is a neon yellow. The main argument for bright colors is that you are easier to find if you get lost (the counter argument to this point is that other signaling methods such as a whistle are more effective). The main arguments against bright colors is the 7th LNT principle (be considerate to others). In other words wearing bright colors interrupts the solitude of people who go to the backcountry to get away from people.

Actually I almost forgot this one: At a recent meeting, the scoutmaster was talking to the troop about some upcoming events. Then the SM invited up one of the ASMs to talk about another upcoming activity. When that ASM was done talking, he looked over to where the SM usually sits, but the SM had stepped into the other room. The ASM then had this sorta of panicked look on his face, and he was like "well I don't know what is next on the program, but the SM will be back soon hopefully". The whole time the SPL is sitting in front of the meeting...

Sorry to bump my post, but just to give some examples of how egregiously adult led my troop is. From the PLC that we had last week: Based on some other suggestions in this thread, I tried to plant the youth led seed into one of the scouts. So at the PLC, the scout made a suggestion, and the scoutmaster immediately responded with "there is no time for that, and in the future if you have an idea, you need to clear it with me first before bringing it to the PLC." From the outing we had this last weekend: There was a new scout who was minorly misbehaving (nothing unsafe that required immediate adult intervention). Based on my coaching, one of the older scouts went over to the new scout to talk to him. Just as the two scouts started talking, another adult barges over yelling "Hey stop that!" totally ignoring the fact that an older scout was already trying to correct the behavior.

We have a joint venture crew and scout troop. A big issue right now is that our venture crew is that taking experienced boys away from the troop. It is causing enough problems that our scoutmaster is pretty much discouraging older scouts to join the crew. I listened to this pod cast: http://www.scouting.org/filestore/scoutcast/resources/201504_1/SC_APR_Venturing_Can_Help_the_Troop.mp3 And their main point is that scouts can be active in both their crew and troop. However, it doesn't address the fact that realistically scouts just don't have time to do both. It is pretty unrealistic to expect a scout to attend 4 scout meetings per month, 2 crew meetings per month, 1 troop outing, and 1 crew outing.

We try to follow putting the slower scout in behind the navigator, but inevitably he always falls back behind. Also, I totally agree with the point that Sentinel947 makes about appropriate activities, but I guess it brings up another point. How do you tell a scout that an activity is not appropriate for him? You can't just set an age or rank cutoff because often a first year scout can out hike a first class scout who is a few years older. Also in this day in age, the scouts are often happy to hear that they don't have to go on a 10+ mile hike, but then you end up with acrimonious parents when they find out that you are not allowing their son to go on a trip.