Treflienne

I agree. I meant have both available. Ok, I am not familiar with Cubs, but from my experience with Brownie/Junior girl scouts: Paper towels are a problem. The kids go through a lot rapidly. And then you have the garbage piling up, and, worse, blowing away. Most of the time the kids are fine with waving their hands dry. (And, in warmer weather, the kids are fine just drying their hands on their shirts, so there is no problem.) If you insist on towels -- each kid can bring his own bandana to dry his hands on. Another possibility (which I have never actually used with kids, but was promoted at a girl scout leader camp training I attended) issue each kid a handiwipe at the beginning of the weekend, which they keep, carry with them, and dry their hands on like they would a bandana.

1) Hand sanitizer pump bottle located right outside the latrine. 2) For actualy hand washing, you could use something that will let water trickle out, but not too fast lest you be needing to refil it too often. You can improvise homemade stuff (milk jug, with hole poked in side near bottom, with golf-tee plugged into hole) but in my experience those tend to be finicky. You can also use something like this https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005S4LOYY - a beverage dispenser -- this one does not have an air intake, so the water tends to trickle out slowly, which is a plus for the handwahsing. A quick web search turned up a picture of the classic improvised version: https://craftingagreenworld.com/articles/camping-hack-make-a-handwashing-station/

Good. So I am not crazy to want the scouts involved in the process, and not to want the committee to set a budget and decide spending with no scout input. (I am still rather uncertain about how many non-BSA ideas I am bringing along from my girl scout background.) @qwazse, thanks. The rest of you: any more suggestions for best practises as to how to involved scouts in the process?

Time for a new topic: To what extent are scouts involved in making the troop's budget? To what extent are scouts involved in spending decsions within (pre-made) budget categories? What have you seen (and how well has it worked)? What do you think is the ideal? What have been the major schools of thought on this subject? Obviously some expenses are mandatory if you want to be a scout troop (rechartering fees) and ought to be included in any sane budget. Other expenses I cannot imagine dropping (patches for ranks, merit badges, etc). But there is a lot of stuff that is rather discretionary: buy cakes for COHs and pizza for PLC meetings (some troops do)? how much to devote to buying equipment? Do the scouts have a lot of say, or little say, in the budgetting/spending process? And which scouts? Last year the troop had no money and no budget -- so we are starting from scratch here. Both in terms of building a budget, and in expectations for how much the scouts are involved in the process. It would be nice to have a broader perspective than simply that of the boys' troop of our same CO.

Slightly different perspective here: brand new unit, brand new scouts, brand new scouters. The JTE came across as a helpful handy list of things troops should generally be doing. Even to someone new like me, it was obvious that a high JTE score deesn't guarantee a terrific unit -- but rather that if there are areas in which a unit scores really poorly, it is worth considering the reasons why.

I agree. @qwazse, what do you have against the number 2? And what was "1" doing in that list?

Don't forget ebay. That gives more options of shirts available a few years ago -- such as nylon. People in my troop tell me that the polyester-microfiber shirt snags too easily. Of course these particular scouts, who are telling me this, would be capable of snagging almost anything.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07RP1B2TD (“6055 Army Green”) Good color. Big pockets. Zip off. Quick dry. Haven't had them long enough yet to check durability.

This is a complete aside. But one of the things that really struck me, coming from GSUSA into BSA was how much more the boy scouts had in the way of resources that the girls scouts. Money? Local BSA troops seem to be sitting on back accounts with thousands of dollars in them. The GSUSA troops start and end each year with no money. Resources: The BSA camp has motorboats, kayaks, canoes, new-looking life jackets, bicyles, rifle range, a fancy archery range, etc, etc, etc. The GSUSA camp has battered aluminum canoes, faded old orange life jackets, and a small shed containing a few bows for archery -- and this is one of the premier camps in the council. I have just been astonished at much money boy scouts appears to have.

I guess that in your part of the country, the schoolkids don't all take field trips to Plimoth Plantation. Around here its hard *not* to know what the "Three Sisters" and "pottage" are: Plimoth Plantation's explanation (for kids) of how the three sisters were grown: https://www.plimoth.org/learn/just-kids/homework-help/growing-food And see the sobaheg recipe: https://www.plimoth.org/learn/just-kids/recipes

For us the sticking points were a) patrol identity stuff (name, yell, etc). When a new patrol is formed it takes the patrol collectively a while to reach consensus on a good name. So for a number of our scouts this was the sticking point. (But scouts who joined later had this really easy -- the flag was already made, the current scouts were really enthusiastic about their yell . . .) b) the cyber chip -- scheduling the opporunity to teach other scouts c) the cyber chip -- the contract with one's parents about electronics usage.

One could wish. But IOLS certainly did not do that.

I'd like our troop to make the transition to youth doing the sign-offs. The question is which scouts and how soon? None of our scouts are first class yet, but different scouts have different skills. Could the scout who did the Pioneering Merit Badge be approved to sign off on the knots? Could the scout who did the Lifesaving Merit Badge be approved to sign off on the swimming? Could the scout who completed the LNT trainer course be approved to sign off the LNT-related requriments? Could scouts who have done the First Aid Merit Badge (or WRFA) be approved to sign off on the first aid requirements? Could the patrol leader sign off on Scout Rank steps 1-5? Or does this sound crazy, since none of these scouts are first class yet?

But the "Tenderfoot" rank of the 1960s is, in content, more similar to the "Scout" rank of today than it is to the "Tenderfoot" rank of today. That is, today significantly more is required for the Tenderfoot rank that in former years. Actually, one can argue that today's "Scout" rank is a marginally more difficult rank than the 1960s "Tenderfoot" rank. The only things in the 1960s Tenderfoot rank that are not in today's Scout Rank are the requirments about the uniform, the flag, and the clove hitch. And today's scout rank has a number of things not in the 1960s Tenderfoot rank. From the history of rank requirments, http://www.troop97.net/pdfbin/bsa_ranks.pdf helpfully brought to our attentions by @HashTagScoutswe have the 1965-1970 Tenderfoot

I don't know that the name "Scout" is the best choice. But the content is a helpful preliminary orientation. The focus is on understanding how being a scout works: (scout oath, scout law, "four steps of Scout advancement", what ranks are, what merit badges are, how scouts provide leadership in the troop, the types of patrols in your troop, etc, etc. And of course going throught the YPT pamphlet with ones parents.) There is very little in the way of outdoor skills. (3 knots, whip and fuse rope, "tell" about pocketknife safety.) So later on when the scout wants to be signed off the very first time they, with help, stumble through a skill activity, one can ask them whether they remember the "four steps of Scout advancment" in which "You learn" and "You are tesed" are separate steps.

So I have a scout who hates the name "Tenderfoot". This scout had a lot of camping experience before joining BSA and does not feel like "Tenderfoot" is an appropriate term -- since using the broader meaning of the term, a "tenderfoot" is someone who is inexperienced in the out-of-doors. Thanks to @HashTagScouts for that ready reference to the history of rank requirements. Back in BSA early days, 1910-1911, "Tenderfoot" was a very basic rank: Scout Law, signs, salute; a little flag knowledge.; four knots. If you go further back, Baden-Powell in Scouting for Boys in 1908 said that “A Tenderfoot is a boy who is not yet a scout”. It seems odd, indeed, that first one becomes a member of BSA, then one becomes a "Scout", and only after that does one become a "Tenderfoot". So I would propose (not that there is any chance in the world that BSA will change) the following: Upon paying the registration fee and turning in the required paperwork, the kid becomes a "Tenderfoot", that is someone who has not yet learned those things that even the lowest ranked "Scout" should be expected to know. No rank badge. The first rank to be earned is, as now, "Scout". All the same requirements and same rank badge as current "Scout" rank. The next rank up, while retaining the its requirments and rank badge is renamed to be "3rd class scout", instead of "Tenderfoot" This would restore the sense of the tenderfoot being a kid who is not yet a scout, and the tenderfoot being the least knowledgeable kid in the troop.

Well, my scouts are not quite at that point yet, but they are definitely getting practise with knot tying and shear lashings.

Spare tarp from someone's garage that they had used a few times for raking leaves. Spare tent stakes from someone's basement. Someone else donated some ropes. All the troop needed to buy was four scout staves -- two lashed together for the front pole and two lashed together for the rear pole. And when you don't need the dining fly, the scout staves can be used for other purposes.

I think that one big difference is the attitude towards newcomers or outsiders. The term "clique" is often used of groups that exclude or heap scorn on outsiders or on those who do not measure up to their standards. (For girls it might be: not stylish enough, not thin enough, not rich enough, haven't lived in town long enough . . .) A group of close friends who is friendly and welcoming to newcomers would not merit the derrogatory term "clique". For a patrols, the practical question is how well do they treat new patrol members. Are the scouts truly being "A friend to all, and a brother to every other scout"? (Or "sibling", if the girls prefer that terminology.)

P.S. I expect that by age 11 kids ought to have learned at home not to do "cutting tomatoes right after cutting raw chicken" and the importance of handwashing after using the facilities. However, since most of our families have dishwashers that do the santizing for you, they may not have learned how to wash dishes by hand.

Yup. It's that raw chicken that I am concerned about. Even if you keep the raw chicken well isolated during food prep, you still have raw chicken on the cutting board and the knife. That meal, when you wash dishes, you make sure you wash the chicken-contaminated stuff last, so that no one's personal dishes are contaminated with raw chicken. But by the end of the dishwashing, all the dishpans are contaminated with salmonella (if you ignore the sanitizing rinse.) So after meal #2, when you wash dishes, all the scouts personal dishes become contaminated with salmonella. So at meal #3, everyone has salmonella to eat. As much as I believe in letting the scouts figure things out, the point at which the raw chicken seemed to be on the verge of spreading was the point at which I stepped in to give some specific directions. I agree. But still, failure to properly wash dishes (and properly sanitize your dishpans) is also a source of trouble.

How I learned to wash dishes as a kid was camping with the Girl Scouts: the three dishpan method, third pot containing a bit of bleach. GS reinforced this when I took their leader training earlier this decade. Then I joined BSA, and bought the latest fieldbook being sold at the scout shop, and saw that it had (5th edition, p92) the bleach (or other sanitizer) in the second pot, not the third pot. It seemed a little odd, but I thought that I had better do things the BSA way now . . . So my troop did this on their first outing. Then I saw that the BSA handbook (14th edition p308) puts the sanitizer in the third pot. Makes much more sense, and I'd much rather the scouts do this. Trouble is, my scouts aren't convinced and having conflicting literature does not help. See, for example, Bryan on Scouting in 2017 https://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2017/03/30/how-to-wash-dishes-at-campsite/ Do you a good reference to a public health department that mandates the sanitizer in the third and final pot? Or to you have any BSA literature repudiating the former sanitzer-in-second-not-third-pot practise? I'd like it to seem to my scouts more than just my arbitrary say-so in directing the scouts to follow one piece of scout literature versus another and put the sanitizer in the final rinse.

Imaginary conversation between two girl scout parents: Mom A: My daughter is doing a week of scout camp this summer. Mom B: Is she doing day camp or overnight camp? Mom A: She'll be doing overnight camp. It will be the first time she's been away from family for a whole week.

That's because BSA was an innovator back around 1911, and added extra badges (Life Scout, Star Scout, Eagle Scout) that were innovations not in Baden-Powell's Scouting for Boys. The GSUSA did not add these extras. Not sure when "First Class" when from being a "rank" to being an "award" in GSUSA. But by the time I was the appropriate age, it was the highest award in GSUSA. It was definitely annoying how little those boy scouts at the time were aware of the girl scout program -- I definitely got reaction from boy scouts "You've ONLY reached first class?". Of course, changing the name of the highest award to "Gold Award" didn't actually help when it came to recognition value.

Let's say you really have a kid who wants to do scouting, and you think scouting is valuable, "Scouting" as in the whole broad Scout Movement. Choice comes down to do we quit scouting entirely? (I hope not) or do we see which scouting organization will best help us provide a good scouting experience for the youth? Depending on where you are, and who, locally, is involved with what scouting organization, it might be: the Hungarian scouts (there are some around here), BPSA, AHG, GSUSA, BSA, Trail Life, Campfire, . . .