dhendron

I retired as a peace officer after 33 years in 2013. I currently own and operate a mobile notary public business.

Having been involved in co-ed Scouting (a Venturing Crew, and now a Sea Scout Ship) since 2008, and comparing to that my experience as Scoutmaster, I have to say I like co-ed much, much better. I hope they do make the change, which (correct me if I am wrong), would put us in line with international Scouting. I would love to see the gals in Order of the Arrow...

Another completely stupid rule I think we will ignore.

Our Council (San Diego - Imperial) began requiring adult applications for our 18-21 year old Venturer's and Sea Scouts with the recharters for the 2015 year. No phased-in period here, I guess.

I echo the suggestions above re getting your charter org rep involved. A sit down him him/her, the SM and the committee chair to ensure everyone is on the same page. This is Boy Scouts, and most charters want a traditional Boy Scout program. As a former SM myself, I have had leaders go off of the rails before on the thankfully rare occasion. Sadly, as charter rep I have been forced to dismiss two leaders (an SM and an ASM) a few years ago, and did some housecleaning again last year in our Troop and Crew. A reminder to your wayward ASM that he serves at the pleasure of the charter, along with what he committed to do as an ASM when he signed on the dotted line appears to be in order. We are all volunteers, and as such take the good with the not so good. Hopefully, after a wake-up call, your ASM can join the team. If not...well, he can always be encouraged to find other opportunities elsewhere. Just make sure it is done diplomatically, and that anything that occurs is for a better youth program. Good luck!

You're welcom, LeCastor! I put on this training a few nights ago. I updated the PPT and edited the link above with the newer version. I hope the leaders here find the presentation useful to their units.

We get the same thing here in the San Diego - Imperial Council. So, at this point I have taken care of my own problem and have a PowerPoint with presentation notes ready to go. It follows the syllabus. If anyone wants to download it, feel free. Here is the link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/49v0zv6856z1pm2/Crew%20Committee%20Challenge%20Training.pptx?dl=0 Feel free to modify it to suit your needs. If anyone spots any errors or omissions, please let me know and I will take a look at it.

No, nothing online and apparently BSA has no plans to do so or offer the training via the Councils. However, they do require that committee members have the training and supplied a PDF syllabus. We asked why they weren't planning on doing an online training like the troop committee training, but they simply say that there are no plans to make an online version on my scouting.org. We're on our own if we want to satisfy JTE requirements.

Hi all! Checking in to see if someone has access to a Venturing Crew Committee Challenge PowerPoint they would be willing to share? I have been asked to do the training. No point in reinventing the wheel as they say. Thanks! Dave

On this note, our unit is involved in a six-month ordeal (so far) getting lost paperwork handled. We submitted some adult leader awards and two leader applications in January. All were promptly lost. Resubmitted to the DE. Lost. Contacted the DE again to get it taken care of with cc's to his supervisors...some back and forth about it from the DE, but no awards and the leader applications were not processed. Somewhere along this someone got into the leaders record, added him as a committee member in the troop (he is the chartered org rep and has never been a committee member) and took him off of the Venturing crew entirely. A few days ago, we had finally had enough and fired an email missile cc'ing everyone up to the Scout Executive. Miraculously, the leader application issue, which had appeared to be insurmountable the day before, was fixed. While this was all going on, other leader and youth applications were submitted and promptly lost. We were able to get those handled within a couple of months without having to annoy the SE about it. The leader awards are going nowhere still (Council says they were processed and the certs and knots left in the DE's mail, so they don't want to reprocess them...we're in a Catch 22 on that one), but at least our COR can see the unit's leaders on my.scouting.org now.

I don't think there is a policy...except that the Scout Law comes to mind.

Does anyone have information on a Powder Horn Course Directors conference in the western U.S. any time this year? http://www.powderhorn-bsa.org is rarely updated for these, and my own attempts to have my own PH course in San Diego posted have been unsuccessful. Me and one of our ACD's have been trying to find a course for over a year without success and time is running out quick. Thanks!

Our DE's often look like they just stuck their finger in a wall socket! I know from talking to them that the time commitment is significant, including most nights and weekends. I am glad folks want to do the job as it is needed, but why they would for $36K a year is beyond me. I only know one that happily did it for an entire career and retired (he lived and breathed Scouting and never failed to have a smile on his face, what a great guy!), but most I have known tend to do it for a few years and move on. There is a lot of pressure to meet the various goals that are placed on the DE's, and some Council's are quite aggressive in dismissing DE's who do not meet their goals, whether they had any way to actually make it happen or not.

I had to laugh after all this discussion about the pin that I received one from a Silver recipient at his Silver Award presentation. I wear it quite proudly on my uniform even though the thing is as big as a house (okay, not quite that big...but still pretty darn big), along with my own Eagle Dad pin (not one of these guys that wears all the Eagle Mentor pins received over the year...gad, where would I put them? I have way too much stuff on the uniform as it is!). Whatever the original intent of the pin, I like how it is being used now. Our Crew bought out the meager supply from our Council (they are not ordering any more) in case anyone else wants to give them out at their award ceremony).