AlFansome

This is a known issue that's been around a while with the forum software. If you don't have a Subject: for your post --or-- if your subject contains certain characters (such as a single quote - '), then you'll get errors when you try to create a new topic on the boards.

Regarding the CO and ensuring leadership for outings... There's also a subtle change in the new Tour Planning Worksheet that replaces the old Local Tour Permits. Previously, the outing leader and any unit committee member needed to sign the form. Now, the outing leader and either the Committee Chair or Chartered Org. Representative need to sign.

Looks like a change in what a patrol can do: From the new G2SS posted at http://scouting.org/filestore/pdf/34416.pdf: 1. Two-deep leadership. Two registered adult leaders, or one registered leader and a parent of a participating Scout or other adult, one of whom must be 21 years of age or older, are required for all trips and outings. There are a few instances, such as patrol activities, when the presence of adult leaders is not required and adult leadership may be limited to training and guidance of the patrol leadership. With the proper training, guidance, and appr

Having a discussion in the troop about what camping nights are eligible to be counted for OA membership for adult leaders: - camping while taking Wood Badge (2 weekend course) - camping during IOLS training (held @ local Council camp) Yes, no, cheesy? Opinions, please. The OA web site says "Boy Scout camping" is what is eligible (I assume to differentiate from non-Scouting events).

Luckily, I have a wife who knows how to say "no" for me! Of course, I haven't told her (yet) that I'll be taking over as SM of my son's troop at the end of the year....must've slipped my mind. :-) Seriously, though, walking away from something you've invested alot of time and effort into is hard. After my son bridged from Cubs to his troop, I've stayed on with his pack as the Pack Trainer in order to make sure that (at least) the new and continuing leaders were trained and also to be there to share my experience and advice, along with helping transition Pinewood Derby and popcorn. It'

Just saw this in the latest Scouting Magazine (page 12) in a section talking about all the different awards that Scouting offers: "...there's a new, interactive scouting.org site called Awards Central. The site, which replaces the Insignia Guide, will serve as a clearinghouse of info about all the awards, including descriptions, links to the nominations or application process, approving authority, and deadlines. Bill Evans, of the youth development team, believes the new site will save councils alot of time by making all the recognition info easy to attain electonically. And Awards C

Yep..that's typically the difference. In our council, we've combined the 2 into L.E.A.D. (Leader Education and Discovery), which has Cubs, Boy Scouts, Venturing, Outdoor, and other courses as well.

1974 Ford Pinto squire (fake wood applique on the side) station wagon. Light blue like the one at http://omwoman.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/pinto.jpg Cost $3300 new and the only "upgrade" was the sport mirrors and spoiler on the back (which my mom knocked off with the garage door anyway). Worst part was the AM-only radio. I turned 16 in 12th grade and in order to have the car for the day, I had to wake up early to get my dad to the train station for his commute. (This message has been edited by AlFansome)

For new scouts, we split duties: - recruiting ASM: contacts packs, makes up recruiting flyers, co-ordinates Webelos visits, informs PLC of dates of Webelos visits, keeps track of new scouts, co-ordinate Troop attendance at bridging ceremonies - new Scout ASM: gets handed the new Scout spreadsheet from recruiting ASM. Deals with parents (not scouts) to get their head around Boy Scouts vs. Cub Scouts, uniforms, adult volunteers, troop structure, email lists, etc... - Committee Chair: paperwork, paperwork, paperwork. Gets checks to Treasurer, gets apps to Council, gets data in

As with everything, there are good and bad aspects of the LDS methodology...more often than not it comes down to Scouters' attitudes regarding their service to scouting and their young men. Example: Went to Philmont and attended "Strictly for Scoutmasters". One of the facilitators was from Utah (I assume was LDS)...fantastic, knowledgeable, great attitude, asset to Scouting. One of my classmastes was LDS. His father was an Eagle and was Scoutmaster, he was an Eagle and was now stepping into being a Scoutmaster. He had the absolute worst attitude I've ever seen in a Scouter, b

So to sum up: - your Pack is chartered by a "Parents of ... " organization - you're the COR for the Pack (and the Committee Chair as well it seems by looking at some of your previous posts). - you've got a parent annoyed at the new choice to be Cubmaster (not Scoutmaster, right) and this parent is active in District and has the SE's ear. - this choice of leader is an issue because of some online political comments Questions: - do you personally have the support of the other parents in the Pack? - do the other parents know about the comments and what is the consensus? -

From the Silver Beaver Award Nomination form at http://www.scouting.org/filestore/pdf/92-103.pdf: "(f) Each duly chartered local council shall be entitled to one nomination. Councils having more than 60 traditional units shall be entitled to further nominations on the basis of one for each additional 60 traditional units or fraction thereof in their territory, as of December 31 preceding the nomination, according to the records of the national office. (g) Councils not using their full allotment in any year may accumulate the unused portion for use in any subsequent year.

Full story on reduced cookie flavors can be found at the following link. At this point 12 councils out of 100+ are running a pilot program with only 6 flavors vs. the typical 8. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704881304576093691253234896.html As always, google (or bing or yahoo) is your friend...

I should also add, that as a former popcorn kernel for Cubs and a cookie manager for GSUSA, that the amount of paperwork and complexity on the backend is SO much greater with cookies, it's ridiculous. Running a popcorn sale is infinitely easier...fewer units, less paperwork, etc.

From a purely financial view to the unit selling, popcorn beats cookies hands down any day of the week (at least in my experience). Why? Because cookies provide $.65 / box profit to the troop on a $4 box of cookies (in my daughter's Council)....about 16%. Popcorn provides $3.50 profix on a $10 bag of caramel corn (35%). My son's old pack had 40 boys selling last year, sold $20,000 work of popcorn and now have $7,500 in the bank to show for it. (about $190 per Scout). For my daughter's Girl Scout troop to make $190 per scout, each Girl needs to sell 300 boxes of cookies or so. Mu

"The Troop and Pack have the same CO but two different CORs. The wife is the COR of the Troop, the husband the SM. He is also the COR for the Pack. The husband is also a member of the CO. These two control everything in the units." Same CO but different CORs will get kicked back in the computer at re-charter, according to my Council's registrar, as a CO may only have one COR. The obvious reason for this is that the COR is a voting member of Council and CO's only get one vote each. I'd bet that if you saw the recharter paperwork, the names listed won't match the people who are act

For those who don't know how to do it... Log into MyScouting. Under "Unit Tools" on the left in grey, choose "BeAScout". The checkboxes on the bottom left under "Fields Displayed on Google Pin" control which fields you can edit. So, check the ones you want, then enter the info to be displayed. I can edit all the units that I'm the chartered rep for and I assume that unit leaders (SM, CM, etc.) and committee chairs also have the ability to update the google pin on the map. As an fyi...when I updated my unit's pin on the map, about 8 people got an e-mail notification all th

That passage has it's genesis in various forms of documents floating around the internet. The closest to the source (with an actual reference to the author) can be found at http://whiterockdistrict.org/content/fiscal-policies-and-procedures-boy-scout-units IMHO, that passage is completely incorrect. A CO operates a unit using BSA materials per the charter agreement. The Council exists to help the CO be successful in running the unit. If a unit goes away, the CO legally owns its assets. Nowhere in the charter agreement (the only document a CO signs and agrees to besides adult apps and

Cubby- I also have fraternal twins, also in 6th grade, also in GSUSA and BSA respectively. I've been a Cub Leader since 1st grade, soon to be Scoutmaster of my son's troop. Have also been actively involved in GS since brownies, from Try Its to Junior Badges to cookie sales and now taking 6th grade girls on 10 mile hikes with 2000+ ft. of vertical change. Some truths as I see them: - Leaders mean everything in the Girl Scout program...much, much more so than in Boy Scouts. With a great leader, you get a great troop that's active, challenging and interesting. My daughter's c

Agree completely with BrentAllen. As a resident of the Golden State, take a look at California to see what term limits and (more to the point) completely safe legislative districts have gotten us. In each party's primary, we get the most extreme candidate (both left and right) winning their primaries, followed by that district's dominant party's candidate winning in the general. They all go to Sacramento and have a p*ssing match to see who can stonewall the longest. (Oh yeah, having a 2/3 majority required to pass a budget doesn't help, either!). This year, we the voters pa

As a Chartered Representative for 5 units, here is my $.02: - If the concept of a Chartered Org went away completely, the leaders of a large percentage of units wouldn't even notice or care. There are so many non-involved COs in my Council that COs aren't even engaged by Council staff whatsoever. I never get mailings, e-mails, phone calls or anything at all (literally) from Council about anything in my capacity as a CO for 3 pack and 2 troops. - The CO model is a very good one when a CO is engaged since there is an organization (not just a bunch of volunteer leaders) who have ultim

Straight from the Adult Leader Application: "All leaders must be 21 years of age or older, except assistant Scoutmasters, assistant den leaders, assistant Cubmasters, assistant Webelos den leaders, and assistant Varsity Scout coaches, who must be 18 or older."

Just got this from BSA off of our district's e-mail list (formatted for readability): ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Below is information on how the BSA is addressing requests for reinstating the Beekeeping merit badge. We have carefully considered how the beekeeping hobby and industry can have a more integral presence in the BSA's merit badge program. Background The Beekeeping merit badge was offered from 1915 until 1995. From 1980 to 1994, the number of youth earning this merit badge ranged from 700 to 1,000 per year. That

Here's what the BSA says about unit websites: http://www.scouting.org/scoutsource/Marketing/Resources/UnitWeb.aspx

2.5) EDGE is a tool like any other that has it's place in our Scouting toolboxes. Some boys will benefit from using it...some boys use something similar naturally...some boys are effective with other teaching techniques.