Eagle1993

Materials will arrive in Scout Shops starting June 1 and girls can register in any family Pack starting June 11. Article has some info regarding working with your COs and preparing for the change. https://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2018/04/16/heres-when-and-how-you-can-start-welcoming-girls-into-your-cub-scout-pack/ Oh, and there is this minor change. Two Arrow of Light Adventure Trails will be renamed: Outdoorsman will become Outdoor Adventurer, and Sportsman will simply become Sports.

All organizations have a choice in how they respond to competitive threats. If you are confident in your program and see yourself as a market leader you rarely have to try and trash the competition and can simply emphasize your own brand. GSUSA is clearly not confident in their brand/product and must resort to attacking the BSA program. I certainly hope they are planning on focusing inward to see how they can retain and attract more girls to their program vs attempting to scare them away from the BSA. I’m not stating BSA is without flaws and I wish the organizations could work together but this continued line of attack from GSUSA won’t play well as soon as you see more and more girls in BSA. I think BSA should stay consistent... we have a great program that works for all youth. There is no need to modify the program for girls. In my small sample size, 7 girls joined my Pack who are also members of GSUSA and 5 are planning on dropping their GSUSA membership. So far my daughter is one of about 2 who plan to return to GSUSA and that is not firm. The Pack/Den model is really tough to compete with.... too much is put on the shoulders of each GSUSA Troop Leader.

Our council encouraged sibling participation in our activities for years. We were told to include sisters as well, the only thing they can’t do is attend summer camp and obtain official ranks. When I took over as CC this was communicated to me by my DE and CM... it went back many many years. We limited participation in some cases (PWD and overnights) but definitely allowed it in others (den meetings, hikes, etc).

Is that true? I know a Pack just rechartered this Jan 2018 with a brand new FOS charter org. Absolutely no pushback from Council. The hardest part is getting an official release from the existing charter.

I just did a quick search and found 6 Friends of Scouting corporations in my state. So it is definitely an option if you want to take on that work.

Many years ago several PTOs in my area dropped scouting units (due to BSA’s ban of gay scouts). Several formed “Friends of Scouts - Home Town” 501c3 Organizations. They then chartered Packs, Troops and Crews our of these. The benefit was self determination as the leaders of the scout units also were responsible for the CO. In our Pack/Troops case the CO founders were concerned about continunity as they would leave when their scouts left the program. So, several units left the FOS COs and found other organizations to take them on. It wasn’t a bad short term answer and my understanding is that you could created a broad FOS CO and cover all packs/Troops in your area (if all the PTOs want to drop them). I know a Pack nearby that currently working with other packs/Troops to form a combined CO due to lack of engagement from PTOs.

Or this... which is what one of the scouts in my dad’s Troop brought to BWCA. https://www.campsaver.com/biolite-campstove.html

May not fit exactly but one patrol bought a frozen pizza to cook for their first night dinner. If that was not bad enough, they attempted to cook it over direct flames on a grate. The icing on the cake is that they forgot to remove the cardboard.. which caught on fire. At least they didn’t have to carry anything out.

I would NEVER call you simple minded or obtuse.

Jacket wearing 8 yr olds could be code for something else...

Most of our events are coordinated at the district level. Our council level activities are minimal. If anything, I don’t see much of a need for councils (perhaps one per state) and would prefer simply letting Districts work together on larger events. I’m sure I’m missing something, but in my case I think it could be a disaster if everything would have to run through council.

@TAHAWK what is the plan to organize outside the District model? What is the camporee plan? Everything at the council level?

Most of our “pack meetings” are activities or outings. Cake bake, camp fire, PWD, Blue and Gold - pool party, camping outing, Bear Scout carnival, egg drop are 7 out of our 9 “pack meetings”. We also have activities in the summer but none of those are traditional meetings. So we have about two traditional meetings a year. One is the first meeting where we do the initial kickoff of the year including popcorn sales and the other is a standard meeting. This has worked for us and I cannot imagine having any meeting where we talk to parents. The CC owns dealing with the parents, pack meetings are for the scouts and Cubmaster.

Yes ... we plan to use this as our build it adventure next Monday month.

Heard this Sunday on NPR. Great relevant topic that applies to many of the topics we have discussed here. Even those who avoid NPR may find some interesting points in this audio. https://www.npr.org/programs/ted-radio-hour/600090006/turning-kids-into-grown-ups

They were on our local news last night (canned national story). Lead into the story was “BSA admits they errored” but when you listen to the story it only said that BSA stated there was confusion. It could easily been taken that Logan’s parents miss understood the message. Who know but I’m not sure why this is still national news. This lawyer seems to be milking this for as much fame as he can get. I think he is probably disappointed the BSA didn’t fight.

@glider90 That is how we handle it. We have a leader (or multiple) help ensure safe operation. The parents pump up the rocket and we keep the pressure to ~40psi or so. Model rockets we allow the scouts to launch it at the full extension of the Estes launch cable. Note that our DE has been present at both activities so I never thought it was an issue. We even had a parent who created some sort of air cannon that launched candy 40 feet in the air. Not sure what rules that falls under (he operates it himself and the scouts are down a hill ~30 yards away) but it is a blast watching candy shrapnel rain down on our scouts.

Agreed with the above. We have used both model rockets and water rockets for an August activity and join scouts night. We do not see this as a shooting sport unless you aim them horizontal (intentionally).

I just want through our Pack inventory and have a bunch of old patches. I was thinking of simply throwing them out but thought I would first ask if anyone had previously thought of creative uses for old patches.

I think the question right now are your options. Assuming this is the only local pack then first try sitting down with the Committee chair and cub master. If that doesn’t work you could talk with leaders of the Charter Organization. If they also push back on your boy friend you could try to reach out to the council (district executive) for support, but as he is not the parent then I’m not sure they would get involved. This completely changes with his own son. Is the boy’s mom in the picture? If not, then banning the boy’s father essentially bans the boy as well. I think the council would probably be more likely to get involved in that case. I would definitely recommend the softest approach as possible. Even if he “wins” by escalating the issue you’ll be stuck in a pack that may not be fun (with leaders resenting the outside involvement). BSA does not ban parents who had felonies from being Adult Partners. I saw a few comments that seemed to allude that is policy.... it isn’t. My sister who has a felony (credit card fraud... she had a bad drug issue in her late teens/early twenties) was approved to be a Den Leader. In the end, scouts are for the kids. Find the best path possible to have your children enjoy scouting even if you and your bf have to deal with some humiliating situations. That is the role of a parent sometimes.

I didn’t say it did. @perdidochas stated speeding isn’t a crime. It can be at certain speeds and in certain states. That statement was wrong. I would be much more concerned about a parent in my Pack who systematically has current speeding tickets than a 40 year old parent who sold some pot to a friend when he was 17. I have no idea who this person is, what they did or if they are “good” or “bad”. I tend to think it best to limit judgement of people you don’t know the details on. I’m not sure judging this person is even needed to answer the questions posed.

Depends on how fast you are going and which state.

So, my wife just completed the annual GSUSA survey. This is the first year my daughter is is GSUSA so I’m not sure if any of these questions are new. One question was if my daughter was in another scouting organization. We answered yes and then another question popped up asking which organization (from a list that included BSA). We selected BSA. Then a series of questions appeared asking us to compare the programs (leaders, activities, impact on community, etc.). For most we answered the programs were equal but a couple my wife stated preference for BSA. Again, not sure if this is new (perhaps this was a generic question that could have included Venturing) but if so, I was impressed that GSUSA is asking about parents thoughts already. I’ll be curious to see if there is further follow up or if GSUSA makes any changes to address the loss of members.

@Jameson76 Does JTE reflect an “ideal” Troop? If not, then BSA should address the gaps and emphasize the true key metics. At that point, they should have their District Commissioners (hopefully retired from the best Troops) work with units who don’t score well to identify the gaps and work to improve. I think some of the framework is there, but not sure if they are driving the right attributes and commissioners are hit or miss from my experience.

I understand that this is out of necessity, but that can drive innovation and solutions we can learn from. Perhaps we (my pack) underutilized the Den Chief model. I know they don’t run the meeting, but t having Den Chiefs come in and assist could be a great help to overworked den leaders and also give Cub Scouts a older peer mentor. While what you stated could be extreme I think there could be lessons there.