Scoutmaster Minutes

The delusional thinking regarding increased membership stupefies me. We will be fortunate if we see a turnaround in a decade. Prove me wrong. (Seriously, please prove me wrong.) This summer, I did meet a couple that said they would not support our troop if it ever went coed. If five girls approach me to start a unit, I’ll help them. But, I have no inclination to hazard community support if SA continues the corporate doublespeak of “family” scouting. I’d rather say our CO fields a unit for boys, and one for girls, and they sometimes join in the same activities.

Family Troop.  That's a real selling point for the 11 - 17 years olds

Pet Peeve: Adults doing jobs in the Troop that Scouts should be doing... - Maintaining Troop website and social media... should be done by Webmaster with adult mentor - Maintaining, inventorying, procuring Troop gear... should be Quartermaster with adult mentor - Communicating with Lodge for arrangements and scheduling Troop's OA election... should be OA Troop Representative with adult mentor (ASM who is Troop OA Advisor) - Maintaining info boards for rank and Troop organization, takes notes at PLCs and writing up minutes, taking attendance at meetings and outings, etc... should be Scribe with adult mentor etc, etc, etc I would rather these tasks not be done, than be done by adults.  Sadly, most Scouts in Positions of Responsibility in our unit just wear a patch and don't do much to help the Troop.  And yes, they get credit for wearing the patch.  Those patches are awfully heavy, you know 😜  

A little late in the month... feels a bit of a slog at this point with all of the unknowns. November 1 update: average $588,121 per TDP claim... again, about the same for the last few months but steadily rising (for reference, it was $557,053 six months ago). For the TDP, 72% claims determined and 52% paid (30,413 paid) For the IRO, 58% claims determined and 27% paid (54 paid) The "paid" percentages include me this month! Thanks to my counsel, Jeff Anderson & Associates.  The Trust has valued the paid-only claims so far at just about $18B (noting that, presumably and in some cases, confirmedly, the IRO determinations push this higher... this only accounts for the first $1MM of any IRO determination). If the mix remains similar through the remaining unpaid claims, the Trust would need $34B. With the SSS issues, hard to say if it does remain the same. Initially, I was going to note that 30% of disallowed claims were in the last quarter! But there were also a lot more claims determined, so the disallowed claims percentage only ticked up a litte (1.7%, from 1.4%) inching up to 1.7% of claims determined). I think reasonable bounds are $25-35B.  I hope everyone is hanging in there and has a lovely Thanksgiving.