AlFansome

Over at Scouting Community, I found a link to a scouting.org page dedicated to Professionals and thought it might be of interest.

Check out http://www.scouting.org/prospeak

It will bring you do a section with a different navigation bar and a bunch of articles of interest to pro's. In particular, click on 'Articles' on the blue bar and there will be about 20 or so articles, many focusing on membership, recruitment, etc.

There's also a "Message from the Chief" with a view from the top.

Regarding ATVs, here's a post on Ray Warren's blog at Scouting Community regarding topics brought up at the last National Meeting. https://community.scouting.org/blogs/622774/archive/2009/05/21/national-annual-meeting-day-1.aspx

In the post, it's mentioned:

Today was the first day of the annual meeting.

Below are some notes I took during various sessions.

Innovation Council:

- The Innovation Council is testing the use of Personal Water Craft and ATVs.

So..it looks like it's being looked at(This message has been edited by AlFansome)

Check out http://www.scoutingmagazine.org/issues/9910/a-ksmp.html#sbarc for an blurb from Scouting magazine from 10 years ago.

Basically, if you are paying for a chance to win something...that's against policy since it's basically gambling.

However, if there's no money changing hands (i.e. door prizes) then you're OK.

Our Pack used to have a $$ raffle but we got rid of it a few years ago. We still have a drawing as a way to encourage on-time attendance, but no money changes hands.

Spun this thread off the older "World Crest with WB Beads" thread, since now there's even another way to add stuff to your World Crest!

As someone who had gone to the National meeting had mentioned a few months ago, there's a "Centennial Ring Emblem" at http://www.scoutstuff.org/BSASupply/ItemDetail.aspx?cat=01RTL&item=18156 that you can now put around your World Crest.

Guess you gotta choose between the beads or being timely and trendy when you accessorize your World Crest!

The Mt. Diablo-Silverado Council has 4 camps at this point.

1) Camp Wolfeboro on the north fork of the Stanislaus river up Hwy 4 past Arnold. Been around since 1928 on national forest land. This is where summer camp is held. If you go to google maps and search for "Skyhigh, CA", you can zoom in and see the forest road heading southeast from Hwy 4 and down to the camp.

2) Camp Herms in the El Cerrito hills near Berkeley. Currently undergoing a big upgrade. This is the nearby camp where adult overnight training (IOLS, BALOO, Wood Badge) is held, where Webeloree is held, and other short events. Once the upgrade is done, family camp and day camp are going there.

3) Camp Lindblad in the Santa Cruz mountains is currently where Cub Family camp and some NYLT is held. This is being sold off for a variety of reasons (no waterfront, too far for short events, lack of capacity).

4) Camp Silverado is the one near Silver Lake that you're talking about, CA_Scouter. When Mt Diablo and Silverado councils merged in 1992, this once came over from the Silverado council. Currently, it's unused for Scout programs but still owned by the Council and used by a 3rd party to put on a camping program there, I think.

5) Camp Berryessa up in Napa was also owned by the old Silverado Council, but it is also closed and (I believe) no longer owned by Council.

For a pretty good list of camps in northern CA, check out http://www.gec-bsa.org/districts/trailblazer/tbcracker/tbcamp

It's a color change from the "old" green to the "new" Centennial green color.

You can see (and buy) the new "Centennial" Webelos cap at http://www.scoutstuff.org/BSASupply/ItemDetail.aspx?cat=01RTL&item=640WEBCAP

(not sure if the link above will work, but just search for "Webelos cap" at scoutstuff.org and both the old and new will pop up)

Could be changes have been made (i.e. EDGE for Life vs. Star, and new PORs for Eagle), although I got my info straight from the new Handbooks being passed around at PTC and not off a data sheet or a website. In particular, the no-new-PORs for Eagle is one that I definitely saw in the Handbook that I was able to look at.

Well, at least that's the story I'm sticking with!! :-)

We'll see come August when the new Handbooks are available.

Here is what I had posted back in June on MBs for Eagle and the new Handbook. The new Handbook didn't have any changes for Eagle required MBs, so it hasn't happened yet.

-- begin old post --

After talking with a few attendees at the Advancement conference at PTC, here are a few things that National is considering (according to a National advancement person who spoke to the class).

Other than what I've listed below, I have no details other than National is considering the following:

1) Combining "Citizenship in the Community" and "Citizenship in the Nation" into a single "Citizenship in the United States" merit badge. Then, using the freed up Eagle-required slot, making "Cooking" an Eagle-required badge.

...

-- end old post --

Looks like there *might* be a typo on the scouting.org site (as hard as that is to believe :-)

When I had a look at the new Handbook at PTC in June, the 2 new PORs were only valid for Star and Life, not Eagle, as I had posted at the time.

That Ship in part of our council has been in the news alot over the years ...

Evans v. Berkeley ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evans_v._Berkeley

YP charges against previous Skipper ... http://www.ebar.com/news/article.php?sec=news&article=2492

Good to see some positive news come out of the unit. The current Skipper is a young man who has been connected with the unit for some time.

Yep..that's the most current. It matches the one I got which was in a big PDF file that came attached to my PTC "Registration Approved" e-mail.

Apparently, the 2% numbers is creeping closer to 5% of Scouts making Eagle. (Cause everyone is so "active", I guess :-)

See the bottom of http://scouting.org/Media/PressReleases/2009/20090617.aspx for the new statistics from National.

Also interesting to note that the most Eagles ever awarded was in 2008, even in the face of declining registration numbers.

From the requirement for the Webelos badge on p. 49 of my son's Webelos Handbook:

"Active means having good attendance, paying your den dues, and working on den projects."

No one here can tell you what to do since everyone's situation is different, but a couple of things to consider:

- Do they "Do their best?" That is, do they come when they can or is sports a convenient excuse?

- Aside from sports, are do they participate as much as the other boys in both den and pack events?

- Did they attend Pack/Den events last summer (if any were scheduled)? If so, then the summer would count towards the 6 months as well, if you plan on counting month by month.

- Have they fulfilled all of the other requirements for AOL (camping, meeting with a Troop, activity badges, etc...)? If so, then they must be pretty active when not doing sports. If not, then you need to take a harder look at the situation.

The one thing that I would NOT do is hold the other boys back because of the few in sports. It's not fair to them to hold them back for many reasons:

- getting them into a Troop in early spring is really important to allow them to have time to sign up for summer camp next year.

- this isn't an all-for-one and one-for-all deal. If a boy has earned his AOL, award it to him without unnecessary delay

- the boys in sports need to realize that they've made choices which have repercussions (perhaps not getting AOL with the other boys, for example).

Anyway, that's my $.02.

After talking with a few attendees at the Advancement conference at PTC, here are a few things that National is considering (according to a National advancement person who spoke to the class).

Other than what I've listed below, I have no details other than National is considering the following:

1) Combining "Citizenship in the Community" and "Citizenship in the Nation" into a single "Citizenship in the United States" merit badge. Then, using the freed up Eagle-required slot, making "Cooking" an Eagle-required badge.

At the same time, add more "life skills" cooking requirements to the badge. It's unclear if the new requirements would add to or replace current requirements.

2) Moving some/most/all of Tenderfoot skill requirements down to Webelos and Arrow of Light. The idea being that when Webelos w/ AOL cross-over, they'd get Tenderfoot instead of the Scout badge. (Editorial comment: I think this is a stinker of an idea...T-2-1 is already too compressed with inadequate skill development in many cases, not to mention even younger Eagles)

3) Girls, girls, girls: An early, exploratory effort to consider a progam for Scout-age girls using basically the same program as for Boy Scouts.

Like I said, no more concrete info than that, but interesting to see what is being looked at.

Regarding Kudu's link to the BSA handbook info....

The new handbook very frequently references bsahandbook.org to allow the Scout to get more info and deeper content on topics in the handbook. Kudu's link points to an early version of the site, it would seem.

Ohio_Scouter-

No Philmont Field Manual at all on the shelves at the Trading Post. Being the 1st week of the season, there was still a bit of stocking going on in some areas.

John-in-KC-

Monday was cobbler (yum!) and the Wanna Be Band.

Tuesday is Western night with branding and dancing.

Wednesday is Follow Me Boys.

Thursday ... more cobbler and maybe the back in action. (I'll be missing that since I'll be camping out with my 10 year old).

The whole Philmont experience is really kicking in here...lots of discussing and sharing. Unlike in previous years, they're mixing the conference targets together each week (Scouts, Cubs, Varsity, OA, Commish on site at the same time). So you get a whole lot of diverse backgrounds and current positions represented. A real nice spirit.

Hal-

As they say on my son's favorite show, that myth is "busted!". There is NO addition to Star remotely relating to Wilderness anything.

In fact, after I posted this morning, the Quartermaster handed out a single page sheet of all the requirement changes for all ranks. It basically covered what I said before with a few more. I left it in the classroom, but in general they are:

- for 2nd class, a requirment to earn and save some money (a throwback to some of the early requirements)

- for T-2-1, in addition to living the Oath and Law, give 4 specific examples of how you've done so for each rank.

- an LNT item or two for 2nd and 1st class.

Other than that, nothing else that I'd call earth-shaking.

Tomorrow morning, I'm sure the kids will want to sleep! They're dragging already from all fun...

After that, maybe some geocaching in the area since we have a car or perhaps a hike to somewhere the kids have been but I haven't!

In the afternoon, my wife's signed us up for the bus tour of Cimarron and parts unknown.

Since we have 4 nights in Santa Fe once the conference is over, we'll have plenty of time there to travel out to Taos and that area.

Can't say enough about PTC, by the way. For this being the 1st week of the season, things are running amazingly smoothly and the staff is phenomenal. Looks like we might get our first drops of rain this afternoon, but love the breeze / wind! Nice and cool.

Back to class...

Posting from PTC (love the wireless!!) and just had a chance to browse through the new Scout handbook (2009 edition).

A couple of things I noticed (not sure if all are new):

- troop webmaster and LNT trainer are now valid POR's for Star and Life advancement (not Eagle). Picture of Webmaster POR patch in book.

- new Tenderfoot requirement: Using the EDGE method, teach someone else the joining knot.

- new Star requirement: Using the EDGE method, teach XXX requirement XXX from list for 2nd or 1st class.

- requirements in effect on 1/1/2010

Anyone want me to check for anything?

The content seems to be better in some respects than the previous version (Training in particular, for example)

-- begin rant ---

However, the navigation is exceptionally confusing. That little "change" deal on the top left to switch between "Volunteer" or "Parent" or "Youth" is particularly annoying. Why not some cascading menus or rollovers or drop-downs?

As an example, go to "Visitor". On the left side you have a list of choices under "Why Scouting?". Why no drop-down off of "Why Scouting?" on the blue bar above the content? The blue menu bar in particular could use a rework.

The one nice feature on the front page of the previous incarnation of the site was current stories, scouts in the news, etc.. That's gone and now the front page has very little, if any, actual content except for an absolutely giant area of page real estate to get you to the Join Scouting page.

--- end rant ---

There, I feel better now... :-)

Not an exhaustive list, but some of the most common.

CO = Chartered Organization

COR = Chartered Organization Representative

CC = Committee Chair

CM = Cubmaster or Committee Member

SM = Scoutmaster

QM = Quartermaster

DL = Den Leader

WDL = Webelos Den Leader

TDL or TL = Tiger Den Leader

AC = Advancement Chair

DAC = District Advancement Chair

CAC = Council Advancement Chair

DC = District Commissioner or District Chair (2 different positions) or District Committee

DE = District Executive

UC = Unit Commissioner

RT = Roundtable

RTC = Roundtable Commissioner

SE = Scout Executive

CSDC = Cub Scout Day Camp

OA = Order of the Arrow

SS = Sea Scout

VC = Venturing Crew

G2SS = Guide to Safe Scouting

LNT = Leave No Trace

GTA = Good Turn for America

WCA = World Conservation Award

BL = Boy's Life

Irving = National Council (location of HQ in Texas)

Supply = Those who produce/distribute items for the Scout shops

IWL = Izaak Walton League (not Scout-specific)

Trail's End = Popcorn company

Commonly but not always,

A is "advancement" or "award"

D is "district" or "den"

T is "training" or "tiger"

S is "scout"

C is "council" or "committee" or "chair" or "cub"

U is "unit"

L is "leader"

Now as for what all these people do....well, you didn't ask for that!

Currently it's only available to BSA employees. The FAQ states that it will open up to everyone with a MyScouting login, but that hasn't happened yet.

From what I've seen of the employee-posted ideas, it does seem that feedback is being considered and at least acknowledged by staff at National.

At the Webelos level, as you've seen, there are a few places where you can't use X for requirement Y if you've already used it for Z. Those are clear.

For other things you mention, I have never seen or heard of a written anything that would prohibit using a project for 2 badges. Nor anything written about using something for both a belt loop requirement and also a badge requirement.

Whether you (as Webelos den leader) will allow X, Y, or Z is up to you. Your decision could be different depending upon family circumstances, the exact situation presented, or a variety of other things.

BSA documents don't spell out everything in black and white (and even if they do, we still "discuss" them anyway!). You have to do what you feel is right and appropriate and go from there.

We've got a very active orienteering group here in the Bay Area that holds an annual "Scout-O" event where Cubs, Scouts and Girl Scouts can come and try their hand at orienteering, including a competition for fastest, most points, etc...

I took my then-Wolf cub and his twin sister a few years ago. After a 15-30 minute discussion with me on reading the map, contour lines, magnetic vs. true north, identifying landmarks and the like, we were off. On the beginner course, most of the checkpoints were just off of (within 30 feet) established trails, so it's a great activity for Cubs to do under the right conditions.

"Perhaps to you it is okay, but to me and my program even 1/10 of an arrow point needs to be earned. "

It was earned. He did the elective requirement. Period.

"Would you be upset if your child looked on another kids paper for a answer on a 10 question test? Come on it is only 1/10 of a point."

Nice misdirection. Totally irrelevant, however. This isn't school, Cubs isn't a test, and the boy isn't pulling anything over on anyone in this discussion.

"We all want the boys do their best, however the difference is that you believe that going easy on a child is in their best interest and I believe pushing a boy and making him do all the requirements to receive credit is in their best interest."

So, now you know all about me, huh?

You go on "pushing" your 7 and 8 year olds, and I'll start handing out Eagle badges like candy and I guess we'll call it even. :-)