mrjohns2

Has anyone else ever read the national insurance and the local supplemental? It sucks. I would have to look it up again, but if I recall it was something like 10,000/50,000. $10,000 per person, $50,000 per incident. I’m on my phone, so such super sleuthing is harder, but I was shocked at how crummy this insurance was. Update Council rider - $7500 per covered condition, $15000 per incident, Death benefit $10,000. Does anyone buy the supplemental unit insurance? Why would I buy that if national covers us? https://www.hsri.com/camping-insurance.jsp Update 2: National’s $1,000,000 per person.

Ok! Good points. I agree, those are issues and we have tried to work around them (even though we shouldn't have to). What we have done is have the Scouts continue to have PL or a Scout 1 rank above the rank they are working on, sign off in the paper book. The Scout themselves can then go online and mark it complete in Scoutbook.com. Once BOR happens, the BOR chair marks the whole rank complete (in one swoop, not individual requirements) and leader approved in Scoutbook. The system doesn't require, nor does our troop, to have each requirement in Scoutbook.com leader approved if the whole rank is marked approved. Thanks for the clarity.

I found this interesting. What do you mean? Can you elaborate on your observations? I ask to make sure we aren’t falling into a “trap” or habit.

Opps! That was an embarrassing typo from my phone! It is www.campdoc.com. I thought it was webdoc.com.

An interesting twist is Michigan Crossroads Council has moved to an online WebDic or something. This would be great. I wouldn’t even mind if I had to print a consolidated report. Please national, take $4 of our fee and do something like this. Make our lives easier.

What is the “white sheet”?

Sure! As a Scout, for about a year, I did a different slide each week. My point was to not buy a lion, tiger, wolf, bear, Webelos slides as the BSA seems to encourage. At $6 each, I don’t know if $30 on slides over 6 years is money well spent.

I’m an officer in the uniform police, but I can’t argue with the logic. Cubs start out with the blue uniform. They should wear it until it doesn’t fit or they join a troop. If it doesn’t fit before they join a troop, buy a tan replacement. Pretty simple. Get the right hat and neckerchief. Get the official slide. If lost, get a replacement that matches your current program. For the belt, just get the wolf buckle. Never get the tiger socks.

Actually, we are. One test and many privileges open up. Like boating to the middle of the lake.

Some other post asked how national could lose $3 million on a Jamboree. Pretty easy. Misjudge how much to charge or go over budget. If you misestimated by $50/participant and went over budget by $50/participant, that is a cool $3 million with 30,000 Scouts. Very easy to do.

We just called around and found a high school pool with open swim. We asked them if we could use a lane. They said no problem. Each Scout had to lay $2.50 to get in. We asked everyone to ask friends who were lifeguards to administer the test. We found one who could do it. It worked very well. This is a small troop of only 10 Scouts. The pool is now open again after being closed for the virus. We will do this again. We also politely asked if we could do our rescue requirements if we didn’t get in the way. They had no problem. It took a bit of work. Nothing fancy, but it worked better than 20 laps in a backyard pool.

I agree. I keep thinking about to Green Bar Bill and his troop 1 at Schiff. He had to stay grounded and to experiment with different ideas. That was perfect. I assume many of the top leaders are not in units. I know the design director of Boys' Life has Scouting age kids, but how many on the National Board have been on a campout with a normal unit or a den meeting with a den in the last 10 years?

Actually the ones with elastic were from the mid/late 1990’s. The ones from the ‘80s didn’t have the elastic bands on waste/hips.

Cubs -one hat, one neckerchief, one belt, and one slide from lion to Webelos. Only need to replace if it no longer fits. -I have heard they are already getting rid of the tiger socks (did you know there was such a thing?) and tiger/bear/Webelos belt buckle replacements Scouts -Totin chip and firemn’ chit and cyber chip patches -those dumb mini sashes. Oh, wait, those are already not official. -make good hiking socks that are official. I have tried the Therlos. Not good. Venturing -green uniforms, special pants, special socks. Use either standard BSA uniform or Dickies like Sea Scouts or the option to have your own crew’s.

The fact that these use existing decent quality shirts/pants is such a neat “innovation”.

Talk about protecting sacred cows! These guys are really digging in.

Like many said, this isn’t much of a vision or plan. Getting distracted by Rovers is pretty dumb. They seem to be cutting out some distractions, but to think a distraction like Rovers will help the core program, they are mistaken. Get rid of the garbage and the focus of national on a small set of out of touch volunteers is a big part of the problem. Doubling down on excellent execution of the current program is the answer. Any org structure or flanking program that distracts from Cubs and Scouts BSA is a mistake.

No, not at all like joe Venturing was supposed to be. Right now if a district or council wanted to do a 6 week stem program (and be coved by insurance), there is nothing to fit the current model.

What are you talking about "agency"? Also, it has been clearly shown it wasn't a policy. You may have been subjected to an age limit, it wasn't part of the program on a national basis.

Yes, it can be argued and has. You said we should go back to an age limit. There wasn't a policy of an age limit for the organization. You may have been subjected to one, but it isn't something the "organization should go back to" because it didn't exist. That is the argument.

Man, your assumptions are very general in what liberals think. I consider myself very liberal, and that is not at all what I think.

NRA medals are still offered at camp. Our girl troop LOVED earning them last summer. The Scouts are looking to move up one level this summer. Religious awards still are ONLY offered by local religious communities. This hasn’t changed for at least 30 years. Neither of these have changed. Are they being done differently in your unit?

This is key to the issues across the BSA. This is an issue for both low, medium, and high income families. The amount of time that everyone works is high. Programs for low income kids (Boys and Girls Club), the kids either walk there or it is in their school. For high income kids, the parents just drop their kids off at baseball or hockey. For Scouts, 10-50% of the parents are needed to make the unit work well. Without those parents, it has no chance of working. If there aren't a few superstars among the parents that can help, the unit will struggle and fade. Few to no other activities for families work this way.

What era do you know for sure had an age requirement? I couldn’t find anything on it, so can you give a hint? Like “I was inducted in 1952 and you had to be 14”. I know for sure 1989 and onwards there was no age requirement.

Yes, but Mr. Jeff said you had to be 14. Was that a requirement? If so, when?