eagle_scout98

ever thought about starting another Venture Crew in your area? You could "set it straight" right away with that and possibly move into adult leadership with that once you turn 21.

I will feign some ignorance here since I was a Scout during the 90s and have continued on since then but I had a patrol all through my Scouting time and know pleny of units that have patrols in their Troops.

So, feigning ignorance, I have to ask if the general thoughts behind patrols are any different than they were when my dad was in Scouts (late 60s and early 70s).

The only thing I think that may be different, basing it off of my views on the local Troops, is that patrols don't go off and do things on their own as much as they could. I also don't think that the idea of a Venture patrol is used as much as it could be.

Now, is this something that we need to create a whole separate subgroup with its own rules, training, manuals and fees? Personally, I don't think so.

I think we merely need to reinforce the idea of the patrol method within the current training we have. I have not taken the Scoutmaster specific training (yet anyways) but I think that would be a great place to start.

Unit commissioners can also do a good job of coaching units on the patrol method.

As you put it prairie, I'm not looking for an arguement, just my thoughts.

I would say that while it shouldn't be something the Scout puts together for a day or weekend just to get the merit badge but they don't necessarily have to incorporate. A lot of youth could start a business (let's use yard work) without incorporating. They can still advertise, get clients and have invoices and expense.

I've been doing some research at the request of others since we have gotten back from a weekend campout where the lows were in the 20s.

There was discussion on the "Polar Bear Award" as it pertains to camping at temperatures below freezing.

My question is: Is this a council based award or a national award?

So far, all I have found is some councils versions (pretty much the same but still unique) and not thing on a national scope.

And by "award" I mean patch given to someone who completes the requirements. Not something you would hand out at a COH as an 'award' earned.

Thanks for the insight.

Thanks for all the great information.

I have two questions.

What is a Coke Wagon?

How do you go about selling mulch?

Thanks!

I agree with eagle-pete.

We sang the Wood Badge song ALL the time at Wood Badge. It was one of the first things we were taught.

So I sing with it all the time even though I haven't finished my ticket yet.

"I used to be a Fox

and a good old Fox to

but now I'm finished Foxing,

I don't know what to do!

I'm growing old and feeble

and I can Fox no more

so I'm going to work my ticket if I can!"

Amongst my other Scouting duties, I am the Committee Chair for a Venture Crew.

The Crew is going to Philmont next year and we have promised them many fundraising opportunities (about half the kids are from low income type situations).

We are currently selling popcorn and will be bagging groceries next month.

I'm hitting a wall coming up with other good fundraisers.

What has worked for you in the past?

Thanks.

Check out this website:

http://adventure.oa-bsa.org/index.php?p=trailcrew

There are a lot of good links off of that site.

The one thing that I was told when I expressed an interest is that it is youth only (16 through 20).

I agree with Fuzzy Bear that delegation and recruiting are important. About 1/2 of what I do could be made easier by some delegation or recruiting (or recruiting to then delegate).

My only issue with the delegation is that I've gotten burned in the past by people not following through. I've ended up doing it all myself anyway, so why not just do it?

I agree with everyone else in that there is no limit on how many hats you can/should wear. It is up to you and what you feel you can do while keeping everything else in order.

I have been involved in Scouting for about 22 years straight, both as a youth and an adult leader.

Here is what I do/have done:

I am Boy Scout Roundtable Commissioner

I am Committee Chair for a Venture Crew

I am the District's Family FOS Chairman for 2007 (and probably beyond)

I am coordinating the first of (hopefully) many District Crossover ceremony's

I have taught many training sessions.

I have taken many training sessions (including Wood Badge - Foxes Rule!)

I am one of several on our Life to Eagle Committee and regularly help to conduct Eagle Board of Reviews and Project reviews.

I may be planning our 2007 Fall Camporee

I try to be involved in Order of the Arrow

I am on the Finance Committee on the District Commitee

I am planning a Golf Fundraiser for next year (also first of many I hope)

I am looking to start 1-2 additional Venture Crews

I am working on setting up an informal Venturing Huddle (roundtable for venturing).

I will be taking Merit Badge Counselor training to become a merit badge counselor

I have joined our Council's Eagle Alumni Association (haven't found out yet what that means)

I will be one of the adult leaders on a Philmont trek next summer (which entails a lot of training/trips with the youth leading up to it - good bye weekends)

I think there is more but I just can't remember anything else.

I have been married for about 18 months and don't have kids (yet). While I do all of the above I still spend plenty of time with my wife and I do travel for work occasionally. I still get our 1/2 acre yard mowed and tripped every week. I still get to church (when I'm not on a trip) and I am on Church Council.

I do know that once we do start having kids I will probably slow down a bit but then I'm sure it will pick up more if we have boys and they are in Cub Scouts/Boy Scouts.

The point is right now I have a lot of free time and my wife is okay with it (I even got her to be an Associate Advisor for the Crew). But I do realize that I will need to focus on other things later and will need to back off of Scouting.

I did have a DE tell me the other day he didn't want me doing something. Not because I couldn't do it or would be bad at it but he didn't want me to have to do it.

Do what you want and are comfortable with.

As I believe I said in my post, if the youth did everything right and it was an oversight of the DAC and/or miscommunication then it should be on the DAC.

WE SHOULD NOT PUNISH THE YOUTH FOR AN ADULT MISTAKE.

However, compromising is a slippery slope. If adults compromise on little things or let little things go by the wayside, what does that teach? In theory youth will learn that they don't have to do all the work because the little things will be 'compromised' on. Plus, what happens if more and more and more is compromised on? People can say, well we let x go why don't we just let this go as well.

Again, this is all my opinion and the main point of my post is the first paragrah and this: find out who really was at fault and move forward. Let the adult take responsibility if it was their mistake and let the youth do the same.

Den Chief is an awesome position for a youth to hold. Unfortunately it seems to be seldom used. At least in our District. Having boys serve as Den Chiefs can not only help the Den Pack to succeed but can also help to get more boys into Boy Scouts. You may even be able to retain older boys if you give them this opportunity as a specialized opportunity. Wouldn't it be great if a 15 or 16 year old Eagle Scout served as a Den Chief?

I don't see an issue with the one boy calling himself a 'Den Cheif for a weekend' but I would approach him and ask him if he wanted to be a Den Cheif.

Listed below are the requirements for the Den Chief Service Award (the braids they can wear).

1. Serve the pack faithfully for 1 full year.

2. Attend a den chief training (if available within year of service) OR be trained by the assistant Cubmaster and den leader.

3. Know the purposes of Cub Scouting.

4. Help Cub Scouts achieve the purposes of Cub Scouting.

5. Be the activities assistant in den meetings.

6. Set a good example by attitude and uniforming.

7. Be a friend to the boys in the den.

8. Take part in weekly meetings.

9. Assist the den at the monthly pack program.

10. Know the importance of the monthly theme.

11. Meet as needed with the adult members of the den, pack or troop.

12. Complete FOUR of these projects:

a. Serve as a staff member of a Cub Scout special event, such as a Scouting show, bicycle rodeo, etc.

b. Serve as a staff member of a Cub Scout Day camp or resident camp.

c. Advance one Boy Scout rank.

d. Assist in recruiting three new Cub Scouts.

e. Assist three Webelos Scouts to join a troop.

f. Help to plan and carry out a joint pack-troop activity.

g. Recommend to your Scoutmaster another Boy Scout to be a den chief.

Taken from the Den Chief Handbook, always check for the most recent requirements.

The braids worn by Scouts while serving as a Den Chief is Blue & Gold or as a Webelos Den Chief (Red, Blue & Gold)

Each of these are worn over the left shoulder, (under the epaulet and under the arm). A Scout that has earned the Den Chief Service Award, and is serving as a Den Chief or Webelos Den Chief, may wear both braids.

As has been stated before, a discussion needs to be held with the DAC and/or the CAC to see what counts as approval or not. If the youth went ahead in good faith that the DAC had approved the project then that is not the Scout's fault.

This comment bothers me.

'But we make compromises on all kinds of little stuff like this all the time.'

Do we want to compromise and Eagle award? What does that say about Scouting. "Don't worry, we will just compromise, you don't have to do it right?"

If the Scout has made a mistake and he was the only one then he may be out of luck.

If the DAC screwed up because he didn't sign but gave all of the approval through other means then it shouldn't be the boy's fault.

DON'T PUNISH THE YOUTH FOR MISTAKES ADULTS MAKE.

The youth move through the program with the understanding that the adults will direct them in the right ways.

Eagledad - what you are doing sounds awesome. I commend you for teaching those types of leadership skills and making holding a leadership position important and mean something.

The issue of adding requirements comes up frequently in our District. Here is what it always seems to boil down to.

If the SM or other adult leader is denying rank advancement or merit badge completion because the Scout hasn't completed requirements that they have added then that is wrong.

I see no problem with a Troop having the expectation that the boys will go to training because it is the right thing to do. But if the leaders do not sign off on the requirement and deny them their Star rank (or other rank) because they did not attend a non-mandatory training session then that is wrong.

Based on my research of BSA resources here is my answer:

There is no reference in any BSA material supporting that training every 6 months is required by the BSA program for a youth to hold a leadership position.

Here is what you will find in the scoutmaster handbook and through basic and advanced scoutmaster training... that training youth in leadership skills is the responsisibility of adult leaders, that is what adults are there to do in the Boy Scout program. Training doesn't happen every 6 months. It happens constantly.

Training happens in the Scoutmaster junior leader training program certainly, but it happens in the mentoring and coaching of scouts on an ongoing basis (Wood Badge for the 21st Century). A scoutmaster's conference is part of leadership training, the example we set as adults is part of leadership training, the pat on the shoulder and compliment on how a scout helped another scout is part of leadership training.

Can you really hope to train a boy if the only training you do is once every 6 months?

Leadership training takes many forms in scouting, the Troop Leadership Training program of the BSA is just one small part of how we train youth in leadership skills. It is certainly not meant to be the only training, and no where is it said to be the only way or the required way to hold an office.

Short answer is NO it is not mandated by National. Long winded answer you should be training constantly in the form of coaching and mentoring.

Keep in mind this is my opinion, but I am also doing some research.

I can't imagine that National would require it every six months. I don't know how they could enforce that. It may stated somewhere that since the PORs are usually only held for 6 months that it is a good idea to hold the training for the Scouts taking on PORs that they have never held before.

Maybe the SM is misunderstanding the suggested policy.

I commend the SM for wanting to have the boys all trained but I can't imagine making a boy sit through Troop Guide training every six months for as longs as the boy is a Troop Guide.

Doing some research.

My District works the same way as emb021 said theirs does. We have one person who is generally in charge and they come up with the ideas and plan it and then ultimately run it. Ideas and such need to be approved by the Activities Committee/Program Chair on the District Committee. This is how our fall camporee runs and most of the time this is how our winter Klondike runs. Occasionally (like this year) a Troop takes on the responsibility for running the Klondike. I might suggest this for the future. Might lead to some more ownership in the camporee. We have, on average, a very low attendace rate to the fall camporees given the fact that we are a very large district. Occasionally (like this year) we also have Troops run stations on a topic and there is a competition between Troops for who can to the best. It winds up being a little subjective since each Troop usually has a different topic and it can be hard to compare. I do not think in the past 8 or 9 years we have ever had the OA involved in planning or running a fall camporee. Not a bad idea.

I am looking at putting together a big district camporee in the spring to have a big crossover ceremony for the Webelos. I may be asking the OA to help with that for the ceremony aspect.

Let me ask a few questions for clarification.

What exactly are you wanting to do? It sounds like you want to say that if someone needs a bigger size of say, shorts, you would like them to give you in exchange the pair that no longer fits. Is that correct?

If that is what you are looking to do then set the rules that way. If you want shorts, then give us your old shorts. If you want a shirt, give us your old shirt. And so forth.

Another option that I have heard used is to buy the old uniforms from the parents for say, $5.00. Then you turn around and sell the items to the new parents for $5.00. That way it is fair and it would allow new Scouts and their parents who are new to Scouts (Tiger Cubs, etc) to get a uniform, or at least a partial uniform, at a low cost. This works extremely well for the low income families. I don't know if that is a concern for your Pack or not.

You know, everything in this forums leads me to this conclusion: the best way to overcome any of this is to run the program correctly.

Not the way someone interprets it (ie adding their own requirements, deciding to ignore others, etc) but the way it is put out.

This also means having quality, TRAINED leaders. How many of the leaders in this case took the necessary training to do their job right?

If there are major issues with one Troop on not doing things right, form a new Troop and run it the right way.

My question is what are you doing to correct it?

unless otherwise referenced, all items written are of my OPINION and should be taken with a grain of salt, especially if you don't happen to agree. 

- eagle_scout98 -

Good or bad, each District (and the professionals in them) have requirements for growing Scouting. This not only includes the number of Scouts but the number of units as well.

I have talked to enough people and the general consensus is the "if you build it, they will come" mentality. In our District units are focused (Cub ones anyway) on schools, then churches, then other organizations. Boy Scout units and Venturing units are hit or miss on where they charter in my opinion.

I can see the logic, but also agree that you should focus on serving the units that are existing before worrying about a second unit.  I had that discussion with a DE last night.

- unless otherwise referenced, all writings are of my OPINION and therefore should be taken with a grain of salt.

- eagle_scout98 -

It all comes back to that immediate recognition. I had never heard of the ones for the Boy Scouts (and now explained I know what the Cub ones are) but they are not a bad idea.

There is a Troop in my area that I used to be associated with that has name tags made for each Scout (nice ones with a leather holder) and they have beads hanging from them that represent the number of nights they have been camping. There are two different colors of beads, one for days and one for weeks (obviously for when you have 7 days, you redo it to reflect a week) and then a third color bead for # of summer camps attended.

That has nothing to do with advancement but another way to give recognition to the youth is to give out the beads for the weekend camping trip or summer camp at the next meeting.

I'm not aware of the kits but immediate recognition will always be a good thing. If a Scout earns the award by finishing a board or a merit badge by getting the card signed off on, pull him up at the end of the meeting and announce that he has gotten ______. You don't necessarily have to give him anything but he will feel good about being recognized right away.

Also, get him the badge as soon as possible and let him wear it right away. You can make another announcement at the next Court of Honor.

If he is interested you could wait until he is 18 and look at joining a Troop as an assistant Scoutmaster.

I echo everyone else in saying that Venturing would be the best bet and to look at starting one up.