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Most of the units in my Service area are not asking the parents to fork over the extra $27 and instead dipping into their unit funds to supplements the costs.. I actually don't think we will lose a lot of youth over it. Adults yes, but youth no. Now, what I really see it having a bad effect on is brand new Scouts. When you start a new unit in the fall, you do what called a "long-charter". That means you pay for the rest of your current year AND the next year. So if I wanted to start a new unit in September, I would be asking a brand new scout to fork over $75 just for registration

I went to Roundtable tonight so I was able to speak to people in person. Always better than email of FB Messenger. This is my third year, but I have made enough of an impact that District level people know who I am. I talked to the District Membership Chair tonight and she really encouraged me to reconsider. I think all I have to do is ask and I will have a Unit Commission at my beck and call to help out. We also have people on our Committee that have been involved locally in Scouting for a long time. One really wants me to reconsider because she thinks that unlike many, I do have t

Kudos to my council - Northern Star ... centered in Mpls / St. Paul, MN. I listened to a presentation last night about pending district changes and re-aligning how the council / districts serve units. Re-engineering to serve units first. Re-aligning districts. Though few precise details were given, the right words were said and the presentation was very good. The timing was right to ease into a significant change. The right change processes seem to be happening. ... I trust the delivered changes will rise to the level suggested in the presentation. I'm proud to be in the cou

Some clarifications and easing of the rules above. I thought this contest would be a fun diversion, but it seems more like the campout where only 3 or 4 scouts sign up. ~ RS

I'll be very sad if it's the end of meritbadge.org. I very much enjoyed using the Wiki interface to look for scouting information.

I own only one council patch of which I am not or was not a member.

I have often heard good things about the Northern Star Council. Several years ago a couple of districts in that council set the gold standard for Unit Commissioners Corps. I've been told over the years to look at Northern Star Council for good examples of several projects I was on. I will be interested in hearing what they do with this re-engineering. Barry

My first thought as a fan of both Fred MacMurray and Kurt Russell was "Follow Me Boys!"; but it would now be "Follow Me Scouts!".

I don't know, mine is the best one and nobody voted for it. Maybe everyone misunderstood the instructions.

That's how it's done in my current Council and in the Council I was in before. At least in the previous council the round patch placed on the right pocket was a District patch which you could argue had some value by itself (the segments being a different matter). But in my council it's just a 2nd council patch, which is, if nothing else, redundant. If you buy a shirt with patches pre-sewn at the local Council office, they even include this extra council patch. I don't like it. I grudgingly complied with it on my daughter's blue uniform, but now that she's in tan, nope. My older kids did it

OK, I found this in the Troop Committee Challenge instructor guide / syllabus. The duties and responsibilities should also be available in the Troop Committee Guidebook.

No way. SM works with scouts! This is backoffice for sure CC is wrong.

Agreed. I think the fee increase will have an effect on those currently in scouts. We will, no doubt, lose some. I think it will have a much larger effect on recruiting new scouts into the program. A lot of the people in the program are already "sold" on scouts. Retaining them might be a challenge. Recruiting new people, who aren't yet "sold" on the program might be much more difficult.

Scouters.com - Uniting Scouters Worldwide

Those are patches & segments from Tomahawk Scout Reservation. Our troop promotes the segments for our boys - it gets them out of the campsite & trying things that they might not do without the opportunity of earning a segment (like the 5k rootbeer run). It's also a bit of bragging rights too - there's some very competitive scouts that try for the highest total each year. Now how they wear the segments...that's a different matter. The majority of our boys wear them as pictured in the OP - the middle patch is their first year at Tomahawk, surrounded by all the segments they've earned

Interesting article. I followed the links in there to the FAQ and the Fund Raising Application. There, I had to pause at guideline #5... 5. If a commercial product is to be sold, will it be sold on its own merits and without reference to the needs of Scouting? All commercial products must sell on their own merits, not the benefit received by the Boy Scouts. The principle of value received is critical in choosing what to sell. Soooooo, you're telling me that popcorn is actually *WORTH* the ridiculously inflated prices shown in the Trails End catalog? If it weren't for the promi

Well, if you want more suggestions. Take the "liked" slogans, put them in a poll, and invite everyone to vote on their favorite. Then you'll get hundreds of comments with alternate suggestions.