Leaderboard

We're doing Sea Base this year. In 2017, we did one of the large sailboats. This year we're doing the Out Island Adventure. In 2017, it rained every single night. Sleeping on deck wasn't possible and sleeping down below was hot and stinky. I plan on taking my hammock and tarp to Munson. It's a Warbonnet Eldorado with a bug net. I also have a Warbonnet Thunderfly tarp. I used this setup (with underquilt) at Northern Tier last summer Obviously the underquilt and top quilt aren't needed at Sea Base. The tarp is. If anyone has taken a hammock to Munson, what stakes did you use for t

BAed on my experience in fourt councils over fifty years: Professionals rarely train volunteers, except than one junior staffer on each WB course is typically an employee; professionals rarely see that training takes place - the job of the Council Training Chair, and the Distict Training Chaor, when the "professionls" have not eliminated ditricts alltogether; our current SE eliminated the majority of training time for volunteers even befor COVID; "profesionals" do not run any program other than Summer Camp; "professionals" do run recruiting events. In my principal council, they primailr

Your ability to hammock camp will be highly dependent on the campsite you are assigned, which you won't know until you arrive on base. Munson is broken up into two campsite areas - Front Porch & Back Porch. When we were there in 2018, we were assigned a site in the Front Porch that had a few trees in it - enough that 3 of us could barely hammock (1 w/tarp, 2 w/o tarps). Many of the campsites on that part of the island didn't have much for trees or living shrubs - not a lot of rebound from the hurricane at that point. From what I saw on the island tour of the Back Porch side of the isla

@MattR When Scouters talk about council value add, they often come back to program activities. Almost all program activities are driven by council/district volunteers today. I'm all for increasing the council focus and shifting financial resources towards enabling volunteers to be successful. I suspect that the best way for this to happen is for a council to spend more money on: district/council volunteer training district/council volunteer support improve council infrastructure for activities Beyond that, I wonder - what should a council do to help volunteer

I wasn't wearing my moderator hat. Continue burrowing. I believe the rest of your post contained many shoulds, that aren't happening. No disagreement there.

It's not that attention should be paid first to the struggling units, it's that those are bigger fires that need attention. I know that sounds the same, but typically struggling commission corps are the cause of struggling units and they in their unstructured mind only fix big problems. Units would likely see their UC in a well run corp. But, many folks feel they should see their UC every week, That is not the case. You contact the District commissior. Infact, all units should know the District commissioner. They are usually the one that handles the more challenging problems. UC's are

How is it that a discussion about council budgets went back to a discussion about volunteers? Cost of running a council, and whether there's value for that cost is being related to how good the volunteers are. That tells me that the $600/year should entirely go to helping those volunteers. This is why budgets need to be transparent. And not at a one page view but where all the money is spent. If it turns out that camp infrastructure (dining halls, showers, wifi, etc) is where all the money is going and none of this is helping the volunteers put on camporees, and nobody really cares for the sum

I do not think you can make that a blanket statement. Every council is different. In mine, we have had some great volunteers on the district and council levels who get fed up with the interference of professionals in their programs that they say the heck with it, if the DE wants to tell me how to do things, he can run it. It is a major problem. Best example I can give is district camporee chief being told told that a Cub Scout event would be held simultaneously at the same camp as the district camporee and IOLS training. This information was given 5 day prior to the camporee. Both the cou

I'm sorry to hear your council is struggling so significantly. Clearly your district/council volunteer structure is broken. District & Council programming is the purview of volunteers. If the district programming is boring and the council programming nonexistent, that lies in the fault of the volunteer ranks. For whatever reason, these volunteers either are don't exist in your council, are not up to your level or expectations, or are not fulfilling those roles. Somewhere in your council some volunteers need to start focusing on fixing this situation. I know in your case you a

Get 'em Timo. Good dog Timo! Only two weeks on job and .... "Thanks to the keen eye and partnership of K-9 Deputy Day and K-9 Timo the Boy Scouts trailer wasn’t stolen!" the sheriff's office wrote in the release.

The problem that councils have with any of these sorts of discussions is that it is very difficult for a council to show value to an individual Scout. Scout executives, district executives, and mich of the staff are focused on sustaining the council. The money that a scout pays in terms of fees almost entirely goes to pay for amorphous things like DE salaries or office expenses or depreciation of equipment. Very little of that has any tangible benefit to youth. My recommendation has been that councils need to establish two different parts of their budget. One part pays for is funded by

Agree 100% - each uniform material has it's place and a contingent of folks who like them. Myself, my favorite uniform is the venturing nylon ones. I wish the BSA would produce a tan version of those. They are light, comfy, and keep up pretty well. My outdoor uniform is canvas. My son had the microfiber ones and I never liked how they aged. I thought that they look nice at first, but given a couple of years they start to look "soft" and. I've got a poly/wool uniform too. I like the look of it, but it's not rot really an outdoor uniform. You buy dress slacks to do with th

How are other Packs doing with recruiting so far? I personally took applications 4 new Scouts and two Den Leaders in the past month. Today, one of those Scouts Dad offered to sign up as a Den Leader. One of my existing parents offered to sign up to be a Den Leader. After a Den Meeting today, one of my existing Den Leaders gave contact information to a mother at the gas station just because he was wearing his uniform, I have 3 other Scouts via local community FB pages that want to join and I have sent them a PDF application. This is my 4th year in the Pack and I h