Eamonn

Neil is right on the money. See page 2 of the project workbook. I was thinking more along the lines of a general OK, before the Scout started making too many plans. Being as this couple might not be seen as a group in the eyes of some people. Eamonn

I have no idea what brought this on, but over the last month or so I have started to receive lots of E-mails for pills and stuff that are supposed to enhance my sexual performance. I normally either delete these or hit the block sender. My spam filter isn't catching them. Add to these all the other junk that comes in. People who want me to refinance my home or sell me an extended warranty on my car or whatever. There is just a lot of this stuff.I don't like this stuff and would prefer not to get it. Still I look at it as 21st Century Junk Mail, and much as I don't like it, these guys have to make a living and it's not filling the land fills. I just delete it and move on. I enjoy a joke as much as anyone, but I have two friends that send out too much and two many. Our District Commissioner is a contradiction. He sends me all this religious stuff mostly to do with dying kids who see Angels and if I don't forward it to everyone in my address book within twenty minutes the world will end,and all my hair will fall out. I suppose I could be a little more religious. It wouldn't do any harm, but I am not comfortable using E-mail to preach my beliefs to others. Sure I will sit down and explain who I am and where I'm coming from with you if you want to. On the other hand he gets all these jokes that might be acceptable in the locker room and sends them out in mass E-mailing. Some times as many as 20 or 30 at a time. Our Order of the Arrow Lodge Adviser sends out mass E-mailings of mostly cute stuff again 20 or more at a time. I don't have a problem not opening this stuff. I never forward it. If the Angel of Hair Loss is going to get me, that's fine. The bad thing is that they mix in important stuff with this junk. There is some things that I arrive via E-mail that I like. Some one sent me the photo's of the Concords last flight, with the plane surrounded by the RAF flying team the Red Arrows. The pictures were breath taking and I will admit that I did forward them . I don't have a problem with receiving the odd joke. I just don't want to get 20 of them at a time. I have asked both these guys to "Slow Down" It ain't happening. I think the District Commissioner thinks that he is on a mission from God and E-mail is his way of spreading the Word. I don't want to block them. As I say they mix in things of importance with this junk. I really do like E-mail. I use it a lot. I now do a better job of keeping in touch with family,friends and Scouts from the old Troop then I ever did. But what with the spam and the jokes and the Angels that are mad at me for not forwarding their messages it is becoming a pest. Why can't people use the priority settings. If I seem to be letting of steam it is because I am. I had 96 messages in my In box last night all but two of them were junk. Eamonn

Hi and Welcome to the forums. It sounds fine to me. However just to safe I would run it past the District Advancement Chair. Before the Lad starts just to be safe. Eamonn

There in lies the problem I say 25Th of May 2004. The 25 th day of May in the year of our Lord 2004. Eamonn

Neil I thought I was the only one that used the term warm and fuzzy. - Oh well!! You and I both know that only having one disk per troop had as much to do with one on one recruiting as me flying to the moon. Knowing the Scoutmasters in our District, the one copy that they did get, got stuck in the Scoutmasters case never to see the light of day again. While I am not full of doom and gloom, I think that with the decline in the Cub Scout section, the Boy Scouts have no alternative but to do more recruiting. As it is now Boy Scout recruiting is like the Field Of Dreams, we kind of keep telling ourselves that they will come. We need to be warm and fuzzy with our Scoutmasters to get them to recruit, if this means a certain amount of spoon feeding, so be it. Many of these Leaders have never felt the need to recruit. We are starting to see some of the older Scouts become bored with the Boy Scout program and move into Venture Crews.As yet Webelos Scout growth continues, but the number of Cub Scouts is dropping. Many of the troops in our district are small to start with. If they start losing Lads to Venturing and the number of available Cub Scouts goes down. They are not going to survive.We have to try and change the mindset of our Scoutmasters and get them to be more active in improving the membership of the troops. I would like us an organization to be as active recruiting Boy Scouts as we in recruiting Cub Scouts. Eamonn

I don't very often wear a watch. Not sure why not. I remember my first Timex. It was the first thing that I really saved up for.Nothing special about it. I now own two watches.A Timex which I take to Camp.I found it about 25 years ago at Gilwell Park, handed in as lost property and no one claimed it. I have a very plain watch that I bought duty free on a plane, I think it's an Omega. I don't like those new digital things that do everything. I can never set them to tell the time. One strange thing is that in 3 days I will have lived here for 20 years. I have become Americanized in most things other then the date. I still want to put the day first. In fact when I write the date I now write the month. I don't know but I think the USA is the only place where it's month, day, year. How does the US military do it? Eamonn

I was there in Oct 2002 and the JLTC Lads did an outstanding job. Eamonn

Not being an American, I only know what I have read which by no means makes me an expert. I thought that the retirement of a United States of America flag was supposed to be a private ceremony ? With only a few people involved? Am I wrong? Eamonn(This message has been edited by Eamonn)

Thanks for the offer Neil I would like to see the CD. The point I was trying to make was that we seem to go all out for Cub Scouts while not doing the same for Boy Scouts. Many of the Scoutmasters in our district are not good with computers and I doubt if they know how to burn a copy. As a matter of fact none of the computers in the service center have a CD burner. Eamonn

Dear Uncleguinea While I feel sure that your intentions were good and your vision and mission were focused. I feel that your Scoutmaster version of Head,Shoulders, Knees and Toes is not suitable for Scouts. I have spent the last half hour singing it to my dogs. The English Setter was so offended that he has departed to the bedroom. The Collie has taken to giving me looks that can only be described as a cross between utter shock and dismay. If this song can cause such feelings in a pair of canines I shudder to think of what the outcome might be if it were to be presented to children of an impressionable age!! The problem lies with the word Belt. Try as I may every time I try to sing the word Belt, I find myself singing the word Butt. As I'm sure you are aware while the word But is permissible at all Scouting functions, all efforts have been made not to use it. Mainly because it is followed by some very lame excuse for not doing something. However the addition of the extra T, making the word Butt is not acceptable as it might be seen as a gray area. Of course I in no way am saying that the Butt is a gray Butt, but the area might be considered a gray one. A simple solution to this horrific situation is to change the Belly and the Belt, thus making it Belt and Belly. You do need to insert the word and. As to the song "Do your Ears Hang Low". We do need to use care that this song is not sung anywhere near Prince Charles. Eamonn

As a Council we were "Pushing" the Build A Troop Program where the Scoutmaster made an appointment went into the schools did a boy talk and invited the boys to attend a open house and hopefully signed up a bunch /group of new Scouts. Every year we had a sign up sheet at the Round Table. We got a lot of troops signing up and very few if any Scouts. This year we asked what went wrong and the Scoutmasters informed me that they were only signing up to keep me and the DE happy!! They said that the Build A Troop, didn't work as there were too many steps and the big problem was that they worked during the day, so they wouldn't be able to get into the schools to do the boy talks. We thought that we would send in some of the District Membership Committee to the schools to do the boy talks. We have a really good relationship with the 3 School Districts in our district. One Superintendent is on the Executive Board and another is on the District Membership Committee. The other is a new guy that I'm meeting for breakfast next week. The schools all allow us in to do Boy Talks in September when we do the School Scout Sign Up. In fact they let us have the use of the school buildings to do so and they go out of their way to work with us handing out fliers for other recruiting events. When we asked if we could go in and do Boy Scout age boy talks they said that we could do it at the same time as we do the Cub Scout boy talks. Which is better then not being able to do them. However it is a bad time as the boys are busy with Football, Band,and Soccer. Still I don't think that there is a good time, after September we have the holidays and this year that was followed by the snow and ice and just getting around was a real pain. Then in the spring school sports restart. Last year there was a CD for Tiger Cubs, with interactive games and stuff. I think that I heard that they cost c. Each we had enough for every little fellow going into first grade. There was one for Boy Scouts, we had enough for one per Troop - Even I didn't get a copy!! I have sent each Troop a Bring A Pal Recruiting Packet. The Scoutmaster hands out a printed sheet to every Scout. There is space for the Scout to fill in the name, address and phone number of six of his Pals. The Scout then tries to recruit the boys on his sheet. For every Scout he recruits his name goes in a drawing to win half the cost of Summer Camp. The more boys he recruits the more times his names go in the drawing. The boys who join have their names go into a separate drawing to win half the cost of Summer camp. The Sheet goes back to the Scoutmaster and he is challenged to phone every boy on the lists.He can also plan a open house or something special. The cost of Summer Camp is only $160.00 so the members of the District Committee have that covered. I don't know if this will do any good or not. My hope is that one Scout asking one pal might work and if the Scoutmaster follows up the boy will have been asked twice. Of course a lot will depend on the Scoutmaster. Eamonn

Not sure if the Troops in our district are the norm. or not? While the packs are very active in recruiting new members and the Crews seem to be working at it, the Troops and the adults seem happy to sit back and wait for a fresh bunch of Lads to cross over from the Pack. I have to admit that the packs get a lot more support from both the council and the district. We spend a lot of money recruiting membership for the packs. While we don't spend hardly anything on Boy Scout recruiting. Is this true in your district? What if anything could the council and district do better to support the troops in your district to do a better job of recruiting? Eamonn

Please don't tell anyone but I'm scared of spiders. Any found in our house are the business of Her That Must Be Obeyed. I have seen one like your one on a holly bush in our yard. He looked as if he was happy there so I didn't go near him Eamonn

Wow just like my new telly Wide Screen!! Have to admit that I'm a little disappointed to hear that the BSA did a survey and didn't share the results with everyone. Or maybe I just didn't see it? I kinda think that the wise people who work for National know what is going on at the unit level. I know from talking to other people in Scouting and parents of Scouts that uniform and uniforming is high on their Agenda. I really don't buy enough clothes to know if the prices are fair or not. I did notice the high cost of Venturing Socks a little while back. Part of me knows that if the uniform was changed that it would look like something from a fast food company. But I don't mind the uniform that we have at present. If I was going to add something it would be a warm jacket. I always think that it is a shame when everyone is in uniform that no one can tell. I have the red wool jacket, but I don't any youth member that owns one. Looking over the articles in the links that have been provided I never really thought about it, but the English standard of uniforming was in my day a lot stricter. While there were times that a Scout didn't come to a troop meeting in uniform, I can't remember anyone coming in just parts of the uniform. Eamonn

In our council Cub Camping is not allowed October through May. Not saying that I agree or disagree, but you might want to check the guidelines in your council. Camping equipment for Webelos Scouts is a tough call. How many boys have their own equipment already? How many are using a big brothers old stuff? I remember some years back inviting someone to cover Equipment at a Webelos Scout Den Leader Outdoor Training, the guy started showing all the very top of the line stuff which cost an arm and a leg. The Den Leaders nearly swallowed their teeth. Rather then have the parents go and spend all the money that a good sleeping bag costs, I would see if you could rent or better yet borrow what is needed. Leave the selection of a sleeping bag to till the Lad finds out what sort of camping the troop that he might join does. Some troops do a lot of hiking, in which case he will need to be concerned about weight, while others do more car camping. Some do lots of wimter canping while others might use cabins in the winter. I think that you might be jumping the gun a little bit. Eamonn

Hops Dear Fellow, I don't think that he is a good as you. Rumor is that you are one heck of a good baseball player. OJ, is on the track team and is captain of the Soccer team. Sad to say he has never played Rugby or cricket. I would hope that anyone looking in on the forum would see that we have in Scouting Lads like you and OJ. While you are both good active Scouts, you both find time for other activities and do live in the 21st Century. Could it be that Lads like you are the image that we need to put center stage? Eamonn

Not if they don't have the money. Eamonn

Marty Give'em a few years and the ladies will be SWEET. A few more and they will be trying to lose a few pounds from too many sweets. Thinking back when I was young "Smashing" was one of the words. We had a smashing time. I still do. Eamonn

At our planning meeting we would have all the themes and use most of them. We changed them to fall in line with what the District was doing and some of the things that we were doing as a pack. For example we had a fishing derby in June, so fishing was the theme. We did however get all the dens working on the same theme. Eamonn

In my daz it was: Neat or Neatamundo. But then I'm still so young. Eamonn

Laurie Sorry I nearly missed your question. I am not sure if Cool is the right word, I know that "Hip." Isn't. Maybe the correct wording would be " How can we make Scouting more attractive? For a minute lets forget that we are talking about Scouting. In my business experience I found that we needed a quality product. In fact we needed a lot of products, but all had to be good quality and well prepared. We found that while a certain amount of change was good, there were things that people didn't want taken away or changed. When it came to marketing by far the cheapest way to manage it was to keep the customers we had and look after them, not only did they spend money on a regular basis the word and mouth advertising was invaluable. All the time we were very aware that when we stopped growing we were dying. So in Scouting: I like to think that we do have a quality product, in the programs that we offer. If we have trained leaders with imagination that can deliver them. There are some things that we do very well and there is no need to mess with success. We need to keep on doing the things that we do well. But adding new and exciting activities and broadening the horizons of our members is a good thing. While recruiting is very important we need to make sure that we are retaining those that we already have, we need them to be the salesperson we want them to bring in their pals. We need to make sure that their entire family is part of our Scouting family. Moms talking to other Moms about how much little Al is enjoying his time in Troop 99 is worth its weight in gold. As we all know the Troops, Packs, and Crews are living things when they stop growing they are starting to die. My vision for our district doesn't have every available youth joining the program. It does have units doing everything that they can to make the program work. In 2001 I sat next to some Lads on the grass as the rest of the 42,000 Scouts arrived for the opening ceremony for the Jamboree filed in. The Lad sitting next to me looked at the sea of Scouts and said COOL. Eamonn

Welcome back to the forums. You don't say how many patrols you have? You need to sit down with the PLC and make an Annual Plan. The plan could include activities for the Venture Patrol. If you follow the themes in Scouting Magazine there are activities for every age group. The Annual Plan will show you where you are going. The monthly PLC will show you how to get there. You might want to spend less time running the troop and more time training the Patrol Leaders. This isn't going to happen over night. Start really using your SPL. He is the number one person at troop meetings, but he isn't going to jump up and start running the meetings if no one has done so in the past. He needs you to guide him. Have blank meeting plans and go over how the plan works before you both go to the PLC, have him sell the idea to the Patrol Leaders. Have a look over the handouts and notes that you took at the training's you attended. If you are a little unsure give your District Training team a call. There is no shame what so ever in asking. Take a little time to work out where you want to go with the troop. Set goals for where you think you will be in 3 months, 6 months. Do you want to be a Scoutmaster or a youth club leader? The BSA has the materials out there, in the printed materials, videos and people. Many years ago when I attended Wood Badge the staff answered what seemed to be every question with the same answer: "Check Your Resources." It got so much that I hated to hear it. Don't try to reinvent the wheel everything you need is out there, everyone out there wants you to do well. Good Luck. Eamonn

I agree with K. We need to use all the methods of Scouting and keep things in balance. We as leaders I would hope use different styles of leadership depending on the Patrol Leader. I have seen little Lads that take to planning and organizing things like a duck to water, while there are older Lads who need a little more help.I would hope that we never allow the Train to Wreck. And setting anyone up to fail goes against the Scout Law. Very often it's not what we do it's more in how we do it. Yes there are things that don't go to plan and we all learn from them. By all I mean the Scouts and the Leaders. If a Patrol Leader "Messes Up." Then I know that something that I have or haven't done as Scoutmaster hasn't worked. I think it comes back to knowing the wants and needs of the Lads who are the Patrol Leaders. Eamonn

I wish that I could put my hand on my heart and say that this has never happened before and will never happen again. But I can't. I could sit here and give a list of reasons and could throw in a few excuses just for good measure. Please know that as both a Dad and a member of this organization I am really sorry that it happened. As to what to do? All I can say is what I would do. After reading this wise words from me (Joke!) I would type in www.scouting.org. Then I would find the Council Locater, stick my zip code in and find out the phone number of my local council. Give them a ring and they will be able to find someone that knows of another pack in your area. I feel sure in city of the size you mention there are a lot.(My home town of less then 5,000 has 4) What I or any other Leader might have done is of little consequence. However when I was in "Cubbing" Tiger events were separate from the Cub Scout events, even at our big District race we have races for Tiger Cubs only. I'm not that keen on trophies for the winner, I think that all the Young Lads should get something for participating. But that's just me. While there may have been problems with the communication about the rules,if you were not within the rules I would have not allowed you to race. Again that's just me. Welcome to the forums Eamonn

While I feel your pain, the fact is that the council just hasn't got the money. At times we all feel that whatever we are doing is the most important thing and needs to be treated as something special. When I was Day Camp Director, we made money every year but this balance wasn't carried over to the next year. We hosted a Wood Badge course last year. I was training chairman at the time and I made my case to the Executive Board for $5,000.00 for new equipment for Training. I didn't get a penny!! We made a little over $3,000.00 on the course and along the way managed to get a photocopier worth about $2,000.00 donated to the council. This year the new Training Chair. made his case to the board and again came away empty handed. Again this year money is tight and cuts have to be made and money has to be spent where it will do the most good. Councils and the BSA as a whole is facing rising health care costs for the employees, as well as just plain old overhead costs. For many years I owned and operated a couple of small restaurants.The real money was made in the bar. However without the food service operation drink sales would go down. While I looked at the operating costs of the bar and the kitchen, at the end of the day I looked at the entire operation as a whole. Eamonn