JosephMD

Wow, 4? My son's jamboree troop has said they require one jamboree troop uniform and they recommend another as there are many times where uniform wear is the norm. I suppose if you don't mind wearing a dirty uniform, one would do. I'll probably get him two. They'll get used. Overall comments on the cost. It costs what it costs. I think that some councils are less thrifty than others, and some have a much more expensive transportation expense. If the council fills its contingent, the price is probably right. The jamboree fee itself, $950 or so, is paying for a unique scouting experience, the rest is transportation and their council overhead. The NCAC cost of $1250 was cited, that is what my son paid. Fundraising started even before we knew what the council would charge but the $1250 was earned in a little over 9 months with a combination of popcorn, camp cards, fair parking, and a golf tournament. it is not an impossible amount. I'm looking forward to being on staff as well, and I've paid $850 for the privilege. I think that is kind of high, but it is one of the ways I want to serve our youth, so, I pay it. Fortunately, I can drive there, will probably car pool with other staffers from the area and write off the 600 or so miles for the round trip at $0.14 per mile.

The others have noted that nominations should be made of those who the unit thinks may have something to offer to the order of the arrow. While not an honor officially, many still find it an honor to be asked to serve. My best advice is that you know the adults in your unit better than anyone else in your scouting community, and, you know there are some adults that don't need to be asked before being nominated, and there are some, that you think may have something to offer, but maybe you are not sure, ask them. As a chapter adviser, I know I need adults with a couple of spare weekends and a couple more spare evenings per year. Right now, it is making sure that our elections team has transportation to troop meetings that aren't in their neighborhood. That our chiefs and those who serve on lodge committees have transportation to lodge meetings. I also need adults to help the youth get to fellowships & conclave as a lot of these events occur some distance away. I hope some of these adults can develop into advisers for various chapter committees, such as, elections, ceremonies, dance, etc. as one day, the current adults filling those roles will move on and we will need someone to fill their shoes. I also need a finance adult, it is something that I'm not very good at myself, budgets, balancing, etc. I think it would be really helpful to have someone with a background in that sort of thing to help the youth in charge get a handle on these budget things.

Our chapter shrank a bit last year. Well, the combined numbers of two chapters that merged mid year shrank a bit last year. Perhaps the disjointedness of the chapter merger cost us some membership. We will work on our chapter retention and growth this year and see how it goes. That our lodge grew, that means some chapters did well enough to make up for our losses. Our troop elections so far this year seem to be going well, with many troops electing multiple scouts. 12 elections so far, 40 scouts with 17 elections to go, if the trend continues, this could be a really big year. Of course, our chapter is the size of some lodges, so, it could be apples and oranges to compare. I'm not sure if we are doing anything particularly different with the elections, maybe, there are just more scouts eligible in the troops this year than last due to the requirements change, I haven't really crunched the data to that level. The new national video is a little better than previous ones I think. And the chapter emphasizes leadership, additional camping opportunity, and service as key reasons that one would want to be a part of the OA. Our cub scout pack exposure will be pretty big this year compared to years passed, I think we have 6 arrow of light ceremonies on the schedule. The chapter also hosted a webelos in the woods style camp out where the OA staff were showing some sash, and performed an awesome ceremony that was still on the minds of some of the adults at the next round table. One problem with having a big year, is that, a lot of those scouts will age out together, so big up years will lead to big down years later on. They don't all stay involved, that's just the way it is.

A photo of the finished product is attached. It was not very fast, 12th place overall, but the boy was proud of winning the overall coolest car award. Cant seem to attach the file

Nothing beyond the Eagle Scouts requested. Our chief from the north was chosen to march though. I would have really liked to do some service, as would so many of our other chapter mates, but, it looks like it is Klondike Derby for us that weekend. Maybe in 4 years.

But he is not looking forward to the overhead of the "Jamobree Troop". I get why they do it that way, logistically, for huge events, you need things broken down into uniform manageable sized units but still, extra uniforms, troop tshirts, meetings, and so on aren't high on the "this is fun" chart.

Son: I want lights Me: Sure Son: headlights and tail lights Me: that might sound easy, but I'm betting you want white headlights and red tail lights. There is a problem with that, white LEDs are 3.3 volts, red are 2 volts, are you willing to do the math to design that circuit? Son: I just want headlights Me: Good choice, otherwise, everyone would think your dad did all the work. I didn't tell him that no one would really know that a proper LED circuit would be required, nor that it would all work fine on a 3 volt source, but the whites would be a little dim and the reds would burn out a little fast, but it wouldn't matter in the time it takes to run a few pinewood derby races. The real hard part would be wiring back to front and to keep it all looking nice!

My mother ran a larger girl scout troop with the patrol method. They were middle school aged girls and it worked out pretty well. I think she defaulted to what she knew based on the BSA training she had been through. They planned some things as a troop, and each patrol planned some things just for their patrol.

I just got back from an awesome weekend where I attended the Northeast Region National Leadership Seminar. Having been through Woodbadge, the concepts aren't new, but the approach is different. For example, stages of team development are just stages of development. As OA advisers, sure, our chapters, lodges, and committees are teams, but our leaders are often just one chief, or committee chair. My number one take away was learning how our youth leadership are taught these things at NLS. I think it will help me be a much better adviser. I guess the biggest trouble with NLS is, that space is so limited and there isn't a great way to get around that, and so few of our leaders can attend, but I'm glad to see the ones that do come back and use what they've learned in their lodges and sections, and put on their own leadership development trainings. J

Now, for the pack. Have you ever tried to get a den leader to install packmaster? Hint, they don't, or at least, most of them don't, or they do and manage to erase your dot net file. I just had so many problems with that when I was a cub scout advancement chair. My wife had the same issue as committee chair. She actually had an advancement chair quit on her because packmaster was too complicated. scoutbook.com is really great for packs who often have a lot of cooks in the kitchen when it comes to advancement, giving them all, from the parent to the den leader an easy way to input advancement and award information. It requires almost no instruction, works well on almost all mobile phones (even my WIndows phone), and the millennial parents seem to pick it up with ease.

I use it for advacement tracking in my troop. I've also used it as a merit badge counselor for scouts in other units. I find it to be a grat tool for advancement tracking. Most things are written into the scout's book first, then every so often I look at the scout's book and record the information into scoutbook.com There are some occasions when something gets done as a group or something that I know about that gets entered in scoutbook.com first, it gets to the book eventually. It gets really handy at court of honor time. A couple of our scouts access their own records. I think the future will be that physical sign offs will go away, and everything will be done via the .com platform. As an MB counselor, I've signed off on the digital blue card at the same time as the physical one. In all cases, the scouts, parents, and leaders all like having the digital backup copy should something get lost or destroyed. It happens, and I've painstakingly worked to help a scout re-construct partial blue cards or a that one page with the first class requirements on it that fell out of his book due to over use, it isn't fun, for me, or the scout. A couple of the parents really like being able to check up on their son's advancement. I'm not sure how I feel about this, but, it does keep things transparent.

​A special task to show scout spirit, that's a new one on me. You really should show scout spirit all the time. I'm not a scoutmaster, but it should be obvious if a scout is demonstrating scout spirit by living the scout oath and law, and if he wasn't, he shouldn't have to wait for a scoutmaster conference to find out. I could imagine in the worst case scenario that I'd suggest that he work on living the scout oath and law and come back in a couple of weeks for the sign off. Remember, the SMC and Scout Spirt requirements are not linked. As far as tests during the SMC, well, that really isn't in the requirements either. Perhaps the SM can decertify whoever is signing off on requirements that haven't been met, but really, once it is signed off, it is signed off, and better handled with a conversation than a denial.

I've heard that the new overtime rules enacted this year will cause some problems with councils. We all know that our district executivies are low paid, but the US Department of Labor has mandated that employees making under $47,476 /year are to be paid overtime for workign hours in excess of 40. I know DEs are paid low, and work long hours, they'll either have to pay them more and have fewer of them, or keep the low pay and limit their work, but probably need to hire more of them. No matter what, this will cost councils more, and those already in the red will have an even harder time.

Hi Dale, Welcome to scouting on the National Capital Area Council. I'm up north in the newly formed Francis Scott Key District of Frederick County (we used to be two districts, Appalachian Trail & Catoctin Mountain, south and north). My wife is experiended with JSNs. One of her tricks is to have schedules availalbe for the next month or so and invite everyone. If you get the contact information, send some e-mail invites, and make a follow up call. I encourage you and all of your leaders to go to training, in addition to what is offered online, Pow-Wow in November, University of Scouting in February. Our council has an excellent training committee, and does a great job with these events.

ahh, going to pust in issues & politics! Against my better judgement, but here goes. I think as long as GSUSA exists as a seperate entity, girls will not be boy scouts and won't be able to earn first class, eagle, etc. You always hear about girls wanting to be boy scouts, but boys wanting to be girl scouts, a lot less, unless they think they are actually girls. Oh, and while I've seen all female boy scouts of America leadership, I've never seen that with the girl scouts, have you? I think the next step for our female scouts is OA membership. There are a couple of instances where ranger award requirements create a first class equivilenc. This plus camping nights and a crew election would make it so. That being said, I don't really have a strong opinion on it either way. If they add venturing elections to OA, including female members, that works, if they don't, that works too. I know people that really want to see it happen, and people who will never pay another cent in lodge dues if it does. But me personally, whatever happens happens.

My son wanted some publicity photos for his Webelos Mountain event. He is running the event with his OA chapter. The idea is for Webelos and Patrols from the district to camp together and do scout skills. This isn't the best of photos of the bunch, but one that I was small enough to attach! J