Eamonn

One slight problem I can see with having Unit Leaders serve as U/C's is maybe when the Commissioner for the unit makes a report about the unit at the Commissioners Meeting. For example I don't believe in forced advancement, that is to say I'm happy as long as the Scout is happy for him to advance as and when he wants. Mr Unit Commissioner might report to the meeting that the unit I serve is not advancing. This might be true. Of course I don't really care, but if I did? Maybe if I was attending the meeting I'd get upset. Not a good thing. Ea.

A little while back (About a week or so). In another thread, there was talk about "Good Cop -Bad Cop". I was feeling very dumb at the time and didn't really get it! Now the light has just come on!! I'm a very easy going, kinda simple guy. At work I'm charged with the "Care, control and custody" of the inmates. To help this work inmates are given a handbook, it's about sixty pages. I'm not sure how many pages and books of policies, I have to help me? Needless to say there are several thousand pages. If I catch someone doing or not doing something that they should be doing or not doing, there is a long list of charges I can write them up on This then goes to a hearing examiner who decides what or what not will happen. In mates of course have lots of time on their hands and can spend many happy hours filing law suits against people like me for not following the policies that are just too many to know. Which brings me back to the "Good Cop -Bad Cop". I really don't have a problem knowing what is right and what is wrong. I when the situation requires can be the bad cop. I don't need to lead by committee. If I'm the Skipper, SM or CM. The buck stops here. I don't have a problem picking up the phone and asking a parent to come and remove their little darling. Having said that passing on the what happens next to the Committee is fine and dandy with me. I also believe that kids know when they have been little toads. They don't and their parents don't need some meaningless bit of paper to tell them what is not acceptable. Have I ever before a trip or an event given a few wise words from Eamonn? You bet I have!! But I think to do it before each and every trip would make it almost worthless. Everyone knows what is expected of them adding it in written form is not changing anything or adding anything. Eamonn.

dawnydiesel, I kinda think many of us who have served as Commissioners have at one time or another ran into the "Spy" thing. It's kinda hard if you really are the "Eyes and ears" of the District? Not to be seen as a spy. The Commissioner Worksheet isn't a bad tool. But it only works if there are Commissioners around to visit the units. My point is that we just don't have them. Maybe? The reason why we don't have the staff we need is because people don't want to be known as spies? Our Council Commissioner is a super nice guy. I did at one time ruffle his feathers a little, when I wrote an article for our Council Newspaper and refereed to my Commissioner Staff (I was then a District Commissioner) as being "Warm and Cuddly". He seen this as going a little too far! I thought and still think that Commissioners should be warm and cuddly types. We need to push the idea of being the Friend to the unit and put everything else on the back burner. Just recently in this forum someone mentioned that a Commissioner was able to shut /close a unit down. Thinking like this really hurts and harms the image of Commissioner service. -I'll stick with warm and cuddly. Ea.

" The family is not even sure if they will be able to be there - it is still just too much for them." Please don't think I'm trying to be mean. But I question the wisdom of doing something like this without the family being 101% behind it and involved in it. Eamonn

"Camping is the quintessential scouting experience; it's what we do." Unless of course you are a Sea Scout!! Eamonn. (Not that Sea Scouts work on MB's)

Again in no order, but with Rory, Friday and Ollie at my feet! 1/ Dog care 2/ Cooking. 3/ Pioneering. 4/ Small Boat sailing 5/ Motor boating

"I would prefer to see commissioner SWAT teams trained to go into struggling units, roll up their sleeves and help run the unit. After a certain period of time, the units need to either stand on their own or be taken off life support" I have tried this in the past and so far it has never worked. Of course that doesn't mean it will never work. The problem with leaving successful units alone is that no one is around when they stop being successful! The Pack I was CM for isn't there any more. During my term we had about 70 Cub Scouts, the next 3 CM's did a great job until number 3 split with her husband and everything fell apart. I will take some of the blame as I was then District Chairman. I seen a great group of kids, Den Leaders and a good program. I failed to notice that the Pack Committee wasn't meeting and was in fact just names on paper. Identifying the problem is easy. We just don't have enough man power. I just don't know what can be done to improve things? Sure, saying "Recruit more Commissioners is easy to say. But the numbers prove this isn't happening. Shame is that in the District I serve we do have units that seem to have an over abundance of experienced, trained adults. But for one reason or another these people are unwilling to serve anywhere but in the unit which they serve. We also have a fair number of younger guys who are on the edge. I think given a push they might be willing to help, but I can hear some of the units complain that they are still wet behind the ears!! Ea.

The BSA has or seems to have put a lot of time and effort into resources as to what Commissioner Service should be. I think the fact that there are so few U/C out there doing what they are supposed to be doing has given them a bad rap. IMHO The "Spy" thing is a thing of the past! Most volunteers know that unless the CO gets a bug up his or her nose, they can continue doing what ever it is they have been doing (Good or bad) No matter what the guys from the Council or District say. Till they decide to quit or go visit that Great Scoutmaster. The basic idea of having a friendly outsider who can help is a good idea. With the lack of people providing this service, we are losing units, losing youth members and placing a bigger burden on the professional staff. This leads to a bigger turn-over in professional staff and a professional staff who really don't have very much experience. Surely if the District Advancement Chair gets a report that shows little or no advancement in a unit, he or she should be capable of visiting or sending a member of the Advancement Committee to visit and have a word. Scout-Net can kick out all sorts of reports and Districts know without sending in a U/C what is happening. Scout-Net can't kick out a report that informs anyone that the SM and the CC are at each others throats and without some sort of friendly advise someone is going to quit. Ea.

Many of us have great stories that we can tell and re-tell about Commissioners. Some of us have been around the brightest and best, while others might not have been so lucky. A few might think that a Commissioner is a rare bird only found on the BSA web site. Looking at: http://www.scouting.org/filestore/pdf/14-975_08_FallWinter.pdf I see that we have 24,195 Unit Commissioners. We should have 39,251 Meaning that we need 15,056. A shortage of over 15,000 seems like a lot to me. I know in the area where I serve Commissioners are not easy to recruit and the ones we have seem to spend a lot of time doing tasks that maybe don't fall within the job description, that I'd think a Unit Commissioner should be following. My question is how do we fix this? As I look at the options, I come up with: 1/ Do nothing and accept that this is just the way it is. 2/ Change some of the rules that prevent Unit Scouter' serving as Commissioners. 3/ Rethink the idea of Commissioner Service and maybe think what the most important tasks are with the idea of having different groups cover these tasks. For example pass rechartering on to the Membership Committee and so on. Eamonn.

"At what point do we say "maybe we can no longer afford an SE who makes 150,000 a year" I don't know. We have a new SE. He seems like a very nice fellow. To be very honest, while I have met and talked with him a few times I have not worked with him. I firmly believe that volunteers need to and should take charge of the program areas. I know that with Commissioner Service fading away DE's are spending more and more time working with units. Some people seem to think that this is a good thing. In fact when our new SE came along a few very good friends of mine were overjoyed saying that he "Seems like a program type guy." Truth is that I don't think we need a program type guy! I want a guy who is going to be out and about bringing more funds into the Council. If this means he has to be out on the golf course winning over company executives or hounding foundations for grant money? I'm fine with that. The sad truth is that most SE's are not trained to do this sort of thing. They spend their first few years on the job running around doing things that volunteers ought and should be doing. If we had SE's that were bringing in lots of new funding and lots of cash paying them would not be a problem. If all the SE is going to do is send his staff out to put pressure on the volunteers to support FOS and sell more pop-corn? Then maybe paying minimum wage is too much. Eamonn

A very long time ago I was on staff for this course. Back then there were two courses one for Program Director and one for Camp Director. The Program course was a lot more fun. If you can manage to get a copy of the Standards for the camp before you go? That might be a big help. Some will seem, maybe a little silly? But it's worth remembering that Day Camps are held all over the country and while some Districts have wonderful facilities others end up in a mud patch in the back of beyond. A fair amount of time is spent on the budget and insurance, which may or may not apply to your Council. It has been my experience that whenever you bring a large group of Cub Scouter's together you are going to have lots of fun. You don't say where you are taking the course? The courses I staffed were at Heritage Scout Reservation. The participants were housed in neat little houses that a local home builder had donated. The food wasn't bad. I'm sure that you will have a great time. Go and have fun! Ea.

I do think we can and in my case have allowed allowed ourselves to think that what we once had is better than what we have. I get my leg pulled a lot about being English and drinking tea. Fact is that the Irish have always drunk more tea than the English. With both my parents being Irish we drunk a heck of a lot of tea at home. No soda-pop for us, but tea with every meal and pots of tea made several times a day as well. When I moved across the pond, being offered a cup of water with a tea bag floating inside was, to my mind just wrong. I quit drinking tea. Just about everyone who knows me when they make a trip to England or Ireland brings me back a big box of tea bags. They sit around until someone from England or Ireland visits and I make them tea (In a teapot!) I don't join them. When I visit England or Ireland, so as not to make a fuss I do drink tea with anyone who is making a pot. As soon as I return to the USA,my tea drinking is put on hold. Even though the tea I use is from England, I'm using a tea-pot I brought from England and I make the tea the same way as I did at home, somehow I have come up with the idea that the tea is not as good. If that's not daffy? I don't know what is? As for training's there are parts from every training that stand out and I'm saddened that are not there any more. There are some parts in the new trainings that I wonder why is that there? When the 21st Century course came along, I staffed a course the first year the course was available. The CD had stacked the staff with a large group of people who had earned their fourth bead. Most spend a lot of time trying to compare the old with the new. This got in the way of why they were there. They were there to present the material as it was in the syllabus. Trainers do a big disservice to the participants when they allow their personal feelings to get in the way of the reason why they are at a course. As for the people who go on about how much better the old course was. Very few have taken the new course. So even if some of what they say might be valid, I'm left wondering how they know so much or do they just love hearing themselves? Ea.

As far as I can see the Council I serve seems to be trundling along with little or no changes. This worries me. We seem happy to do this until we dig a really big hole and then things get really ugly. So far the doom and gloom has not touched my family. My little sister who works for an Australian company, but lives in Hong Kong has been hurt because she is paid in Australian Dollars and that Dollar has gone down a lot and doesn't have the buying power it once had. The hospital where my wife works has said it is cutting staff by closing some departments. One that is being cut is Mental Health. This is really bad news, Already the State has closed nearly all of the State Mental Hospitals, the result has been that more and more people who are mentally ill are ending up in State Correctional facilities, where they don't get the care that they need. I'm not sure what the outcome of people who have lost their health insurance will have on the hospital? She works in the ER and it seems that the people who don't pay are the most frequent "Visitors". My co-pay to visit the ER is now $50.00, the co-pay for hospital employees has just gone up to $100.00. Many of these employees get a little upset when they see people coming in two and three times a week and not paying anything. While like everyone else, I've seen many of my investments dwindle, because I have invested mainly in property and real estate I have been spared the sticker shock. I know that maybe these properties are not worth what they once were, but I never had any urgent plans to sell them and hope by the time I do, that they will still show a good return. We in the area where I live never seen the huge jumps in house properties that were seen in other parts of the country and most of the banks in the area have always been very conservative when it comes to lending and who they lend to. Talking with co-workers and people who live in the area, I have to admit to being somewhat surprised about how calm and how accepting they seem to be about lay-offs and cut backs. This might because in some ways it's a case of "Been there, done that and nothing is new". I wasn't here when the big steel mills closed. I have watched as the State has managed to mess up a local, what they call Technology Park. Build with a lot of government aid for Chrysler, who never even moved in and then occupied by VW who lasted as long as the tax incentives lasted then moved out. Then Sony moved in, again attracted by the tax incentives. Now claiming that the change in TV sets to flat screen LCD TV' means they no longer need the facility they are going. I'm unsure how much money the State has poured into this site and the companies that have used it? But I do know that soon once again it will be empty. Add to this the cut backs that companies like Kenna metal and the small mom and pop companies are making many people are feeling the pinch. At home we have made a few changes, we looked for a deal that combined our TV, Internet and phone. We are thinking of not renewing our membership to the country club. (Mainly because we don't use it enough.) I have delayed buying the new car I was going to and am thinking of buying a used car. As yet I have to decide how much I'm willing to donate to the local Scout council. In part this is due to the fact that I'm not sure how the money is being spent and how much they need? I'm still a little upset that the Board knows that the way we have gone about raising funds in the past is failing and even though they have stated that they are going to find new ways, nothing has happened. I was very upset when endowment money was used to bail the Council out the last time they found a big hole. I think that maybe I'm hearing so much about everyone cutting back and looking at what we are doing and how we do it? That maybe the time is right for the Council to take a long hard look at what is happening? Sadly it might take a financial kick in the pants for them to see this and get around to doing something. That is to say as long as we keep on bailing them out things will remain the same, until such a time comes that the hole is just too big and all will be lost. Eamonn.

We live close to Laurel Caverns, which offers some Boy Scout Merit Badge Programs. Jerry Clark works there at weekends. Jerry is the guy who is in charge of the Action Center D rappelling wall at the National Boy Scout Jamboree. (Some of you may know him from that "Other Forum") http://www.laurelcaverns.com/BoyScouts.htm The Ship has visited the caves. Jerry put in a word for us and the Guide took us on a "Special Tour". To places that the public are not normally allowed to visit. Being the idiot that I am, I went with the Scouts, while the other adults went and found a place to drink coffee and shoot the breeze. I had fun, but did have a hard time keeping up with the group. I got covered in dirt, was very wet, got stuck a few times, even though I'm a skinny little fellow! We made several detours to avoid disturbing the local bats. (Some of the dirt I was covered in was from the local bats!!) I was happy when we came out into the sunlight.(Even if it was in November) But for the next week I was really sore and ached in places where I didn't know I had places!! Next time I visit, I'll go with a group of Cub Scouts!! Ea.

Need to be careful!! Some of them guys talk funny!!! Eamonn.

Sure at times the "Go get Trained" mantra in this forum seems to me a bit like "Take two aspirin and call me in the morning" I think we all know that not everything can be covered in Training's I think we kinda know that a lot of the Training's take it for granted that things which might not be in place to start with are there. For example. Chartering Organizations. How wonderful it is to tell someone to see what the CO has to say. When we know in the "Real World" a good many CO's don't care and some are just on paper. "Talk with your Unit Commissioner" I checked the list of U/C's serving the 43 units in the District I serve and we have five. (Two are over 80, one works out of town a lot.) Having been around Training a lot for a very long while. I think the people who do attend do come away with something. Some with more than others. I do firmly believe that knowledgeable volunteers know far more about how things work or should work than most of the professionals. I like the on line training's because they tend to get things right. Sadly very often trainers feel the need to add or subtract things. There are some trainers who seem to latch onto things and see whatever this might be as their "Thing". People involved with YP and First Aid seem to suffer from this a lot. Most of the material that comes from the BSA is good. Sadly at times the presentation is very poor. People come away feeling cheated and having wasted their time. I really wish that we did more to train trainers and prepare them for the task they are taking on. This was one good thing about the old Cub Scout course. Ea.

srisom is right about Districts not owning stuff. But... A Council can own stuff and the District is an arm of the Council, so the Council can provide stuff for District use. I have organized District events (Which are depending on how you look at it really Council events??) And as part of the budget for the event bought stuff that will be used again often in the same event. It might be said that this stuff does belong to the Council, as the District is an arm of the Council. Cub Scout Day Camp Directors have been known to go so far as to buy stuff for next years day camp, before sending in the final account for this years camp. - Normally this is done when they have extra money and will meet the projected budget. Our District Cub Scout Olympics has over the years managed to purchase everything they need for the event. In part because the Olympics has been going on for about 30 years. To keep everyone happy everything is inventoried and a copy is dent to the Council Service Center. Most of the people involved in /with Training tend to buy the equipment that they need. In part because even when times were good getting money from the Council was a real pain and in part because the people involved with training's want to keep the cost down for the participants. Ea.

Not sure how we got on to a Wood Badge rant? As I see it we need a "Product" that appeals to the youth we want to join. A 100 years ago Baden Powell returned to England to a hero's welcome. The media of the time proclaimed him a hero. His face was on postage stamps, you could buy tea sets with his picture on on. The streets of London filled with people welcoming him home. In big cities like London, kids played on the streets and in local parks, they formed small gangs. Schools were neighborhood schools, the kids walked to school. Schools were also divided into boys schools and girls schools. BP was at the right place at the right time. Boy's wanted to be like him, they wanted to copy him. As we know back in the early days, it was the boy's who pestered the adults to get involved. Asking friendly school masters and preachers to become their leaders. When BP took that first group of Lads to camp at Brownsea Island, it was an experiment. Back then kids didn't camp or go to camp. Just going to camp was a big adventure. I don't think we have the type of hero's that we had back then. News travels so much faster, that todays hero will soon be forgotten. Hero's like BP have been replaced by professional sports figures who come and go. Or rock and roll starts who today are one hit wonders and are soon off to rehab. Going to camp to just live in a tent is no longer the big adventure it once was. Our local elementary school takes third and forth graders away to camp. Many of our Boy Scouts who have been Cub Scouts have had several years of resident camp in by the time they join Boy Scouts. I'm willing to match my own outdoor skills against just about anyone. I know that given a chance I can most of the time "Sell" the youth we have today in a lot of the things that maybe some Troops don't do as much as I used to when I was a Scout. But before I can get any where near doing that, the youth have to become members. If soccer is the "Carrot" that brings them in? I'm ready to buy into it. We can argue about what the meaning of "Scoutcraft" is? Is Scoutcraft the art of living like a Scout? Or is it just having "Outdoor Skills"? I like to think that I'm the man I am today, not because I can make myself comfortable in the great outdoors, but because of the life lessons I learned as a Scout. Eamonn.

With more and more units going with "Personal Accounts" it is very possible that a Pack could have a wonderful Pop-corn sale. But this might be due to very few Scouts selling. This money would go into their account and the Pack might still not have very much. The Pack I was involved with went to these personal accounts. One Lad was the top seller in the Council, for a number of years. He ended up with several thousand dollars in his account. Which really didn't do much for the Pack, only him. It's far to easy to just look at one or two things and think that something is amiss, but when you might not have all the information? You stand a very good chance of being very wrong and end up upsetting people for no good reason. Eamonn.

"Is it appropriate (and/or "legal") to mix parts of the Boy Scout uniform and the Venturing uniform?" No. Just as it wouldn't be OK to mix a Cub Scout uniform with a Boy Scout uniform. Have to admit to not liking the word "Legal"! Chances are that if no one makes a fuss everything will go just fine. The Camp Director is the guy in charge and while he can't change the uniform, he will do his best to do what is best for the camp and the camp staff. Eamonn.

"boys not any different now than they were 100 years ago." In many ways I would agree with this. I would hope that you would agree that a lot has changed over the past 100 years. While I'm not 100 years old! In my lifetime I remember when kids in the UK could legally leave school at 14 years old, many of these boys were Scouts. I remember the five and a half day work week. Scouts took off for camp on Saturday afternoons. A lot of changes have been made in the way we educate our young people. Families are not as big as they used to be. Working mothers now seem to be the norm. Single parent families are not as rare as they once were. How all of us spend our leisure time and the amount of free time we have to spend has changed. We are a lot more healthy than we were 100 years ago. People are a lot more mobile than they were 100 years ago, they move a lot more and in a lot of areas the sense of community is not as strong. The list could go on page after page. To say that none of this has in any way impacted the youth we serve? I think would be wrong. I think if my Father was still alive, he would still be happy sitting in the living room glass of rum in hand listening to his Irish records. We as Scouter's still have a big say in what sort of unit we want to be involved with. As I look around the Council I serve I see a lot of different Troops who do different things a lot of different ways. I'll admit that what some are doing is not my idea of what we should be doing, but the Scouts in these Troops seem happy enough. 100 years ago the group of boys of sixth-grade age would not have been in Cub Scouting. Cub Scouts world wide make up the biggest part of Scouting's membership. From what I have read Baden Powell was never very keen on having younger boys involved in his plan for Scouting, in fact he seen them as being a bit of a nuisance. While I would say that we might lose a lot of potential members because of Cub Scouting, I also believe that without Cub Scouting we would not have lasted the 100 years that we have. There are still some people who belong to BP Scouts and organizations that are outside of the "Mainstream". I don't know of anyone who wishes them any ill will. But I do question that if this was really what the youth and their families really wanted? Why aren't they more successful? I really don't have any problem with the Congressional Charter, I would however point out: Sec. 30904. Powers: 6.do any other act necessary to carry out this chapter and promote the purpose of the corporation. My interpretation of this is that we don't have to remain in the 1916's. The values mentioned in the charter:the ability of boys to do things for themselves and others, to train them in scoutcraft, and to teach them patriotism, courage, self-reliance, and kindred virtues. Have not changed and remain intact. Eamonn.

If you are not a member of this unit. How the committee decides to spend the money has nothing to do with you. If the Chartering Organization has an issue with what is going on? Then it needs to deal with it. Let them do their job. Eamonn.

Have to admit to having never heard of a Pack making Recruiting Expenses a budget item. (Not saying it's a bad idea! Just that it's new to me!) In our area we tend to rely on the Council to pay for all the expenses that are incurred from recruiting. I know some Councils spend a lot, paying for things like lunch boxes with a Pine Wood car kit inside. But so far trying to get our Executive Board to spend money like this? Just hasn't happened. We tend to fall back on flyer's send to the schools and billboards that are donated. Some units do put notices in local papers about when they are hosting open houses, but as far as I know, no unit spends any real money. Ea.

"Why am I concerned? Why do I have to be personally involved in the pack to be concerned about the welfare of their boys?" Without wishing to sound rude. I really don't see how a Pack charging $5.00 for their Pine -Wood Derby is about the Welfare of anyone!! The Pack has a Chartering Organization, a Pack Committee and maybe the services of a U/C. With all of this do they really need your concern? To put it very bluntly, it really is none of your business. I see no good what so ever coming from your interferences. Even if they are making some mistakes, they will learn from them. We lose far too many leaders because some people who think that their way is the only way get involved when there is no need to. Unit Leaders main concern should be about the youth they serve. Of course if a child is being placed in a situation that could harm him /her we all need to be willing to step up to the plate. But other than that, let the people in the unit take care of the youth they serve and don't interfere. Eamonn.

Hi and Welcome. This question comes up a lot. Sadly there is no easy or right answer. The Pack Committee needs to look at this and decide what it wants to do. The big problem lies with "Who does the money belong too?" It can be said (And rightly so.) That the money was raised in the name of the CO and the Pack. This would mean that no one person should take out any funds. I'm a little unsure how, if you don't keep individual accounts you will know how much each Scout has? Not knowing this how do you determine how much to send with him? Back when I was a CM our Pack Committee kept track of how much each Scout had in his account, less all the expenses and soon after he crossed over we send a check for the full amount to where ever he went. (Pack or Troop) If he quit Scouts the money went into the Pack Funds. The Pack really is under no obligation to send any money. But in our area it has become expected that Troops will receive the cash that a Lad has in his account. Eamonn.