flyingember

http://www.kaiserklan.com/roundtable/

world famous north star district. hundreds of attendes a month. they've had to move over the years to larger locals.

woah. It sounds like you need to go to people above the council level on this one.

Guam. wow.

scout camp 2003:

80 scouts

60 leaders

this ratio has been near the same for years now. at one point we had 30 scouts and 20 leaders. then 50 scouts and 30 leaders.

we have everything down pat (there's leaders meetings in may/june). each leader has a job, even if it's to get ice, check this one merit badge areas records, or handle the after campfire cracker barrels. no leader who goes down doesn't have something to do. it's excessiveness of leaders that lets us setup a campsite for 150 in 2 hours and pull it down nearly as fast. we can send 5 leaders to sit at the showers each night. a leader who supervises a daily lolly cleaning. our camp scoutmaster tends to be around for official meetings, to handle problems, and other necessary events. he finally gets to take naps at camp these past couple of years. in the late 90's he had a much tougher job. having the leaders to do all the grunt work has helped the scoutmaster be the scoutmaster and not the leadermaster.

on campouts we always have a heavy leader contingent. on a campout with 20 scouts we had 10 leaders.

the leaders are all part of the lawnchair patrol by default. we don't do the same stuff as the scouts, but we do cook for ourselves. every leader is welcome, especially since we carpool to campouts rather than have a troop bus. we usually take two trailers on campouts. 1 for troop gear and the other for patrol gear.

I'd guess that this scoutmaster is not being totally clear. I'd guess he allows leaders to go on campouts. he wants the people there to be able to help out for many campouts. think of how many moms quit going camping after cub scouts because the level bumps up and he wants them to understand that parents who are better off with a showerhouse and rv should think again. I'd ask him to clarify his point and what you think about him saying that.

how serious do you want to get?

not serious: the tree song. hold your arms out like they're branches. (make a big wide Y)

TREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

hold EEEEEEEEE for a short while.

there, done. that's it.

for a more serious skit:

you have the banker. should be the most serious guy there.

then you have 3-4 frogs. hopping to the banker. he has a helper who mans the desk.

the first two come up asking for a loan to the helper.

the helper asks if they have any collatoral

they show him something cheap (stuffed animal, hammer, etc)

he takes it to the banker. they overdo whispering about the object

he says no to the first ones.

then the last frog comes up.

his object is much better. pick something out, perhaps put a big sign that says "antique" on it for exaggeration.

the banker replies. "its a nick-nack patty black, give the frog a loan."

and you're done.

in our area there's a scout cabin. it's used off and on for all the troops in town.

we used to use it semi-regularly but not always even inside.

the building is two-stories with a heating system running off a wood fire. for our webelos campout the scouts stay outside and the webelos inside. we partition off a corner with tarps using nails setup for just this purpose for any women. the webelos all stay upstairs. this is perfect because you can hear any movement at night from downstairs.

any other time it'll be a seperate area if necessary (lockin) but usually they just get a seperate tent. at camp we've had women mostly every year since 94 or so.

the majority of the time in the winter we're outside. I camped in sub-zero temps, with 30mph winds, next to a lake, in a tent. from oct-march I spend all but one month outside. its more fun that way

we haven't always had patches for every weird patrol.

the flaming hampsters, a patrol formed in 93, died in 97, and brought back in 98 (older scout patrol, finally dead) never had one. it was a mishmash of patrols and they tended to use their old patch.

currently we have weird ones. the flaming lepricans use the pedro patch decorated up. the thunder panthers is the panther patch with a lightning bolt. a new patrol is the soaring snails.

we're lucky to have a leader who's the local scout product seller/clothing store/show store and has all the equipment.

our big thing is that the troop tee pee has every patrol from 91 or so on it. as the names get weirder, the guy who paints them has more of a job each year. we've had 20-30 patrols in 10 years so you can imagine what it looks like (each emblem is 2-3 feet long)

you have to start somewhere.

at this point any advertising you can get would be nice. get the word out at all the middle school level. 7th and 8th graders can join too, and have made it to eagle from that point. see if theres any brothers or kids in your neighborhood who can join too who werent in scouts. kids who've dropped out may be a good choice. there may have been any number of reasons, but a new troop may be for them.

goto camp! even if you have to double up with another small troop find one to goto.

use the first few years to be heavy into recruitment. get really interesting events under your belt. be very liberal with what you do. as a small troop every scout will get to do what he wants. this'll help set the stage. if the scouts enjoy everything they're doing they'll be active and get the word out.

make your appearance at all dist events. get a nice large patrol flag, and wear troop shirts with esp 2003! on them. put the word out in local papers, etc that you're forming the troop.

pick dates right now. do you want to dedicate the first weekend to campouts or the second? getting dates down when you will do something will help the kids attend. find stuff to do in the summer. spend the weekend at the lake or by the river as a family campout where you do stuff they couldn't as webelos.

all those people you know in the community? they're great resources.

I wish you luck.

as seen in other threads here the pack and troop doesn't really control the money or org. its all the charter org since the pack isn't a seperate entity at all. find out when they have a meeting and get on their schedule and present your concerns to them. in my experience, most any group thats willing to support cub scouts will not be happy to hear that the adults are pushing them away with their actions. the charter org has all the power they need.

as far as uniforms go, this tends to be a troop rule that just goes down over the years. I've heard the required for insurance line at times and others not.

I do think that requiring the scouts to wear a scouting shirt is the best policy. when you make a pitstop the group is easy to find and you get good advertisement. if your scouts are in scout shirts and act good, then you've helped publicise the program.

many troops that aren't in scout uniform are in a troop shirt instead

http://374.flyingember.com

one thing that I've found that makes or breaks a webpage is pictures and being current.

a newsletter, attendence calendar are all great, but become out of date so quickly. putting up images of the scouts over the years is much more interesting and you get the same scouts for years in them. I have ones going back to 96/97. I have over 45 mb of images on the page.

make the page timeless. information about where meetings are, general information about events attended and where you goto camp. local links. don't put up specific information about a campout unless you have time to update it often.

have the scouts help if possible. let them take picts and put them up. get that leader with a camera to let you borrow the images to scan in or send them to you. have them write stories for the webpage about specific campouts.

feature the page in the troop newsletter.

most of all, use it as a record of what the troop did. most issues with names and the like can be alleviated if someone can not find where you're going from the webpage. I put a newsletter archive up but never the recent ones with upcoming events.

now, many lodges have a basis before oa came to its area, I'm doing research into connections to missouri groups.

now, many people here have access to local history faster than I do. (I've been through the usscouts program)

if your oa lodge has the usage of an eagle claw, leather pouch-like lanyard, assigns names to all members, history contains the words manhawka, or had its basis in st joe missouri or h roe bartle, uses paint to denote ranks within it (other than lodge 80), and you're outside the midwest I'd like to get a tip on where to search/who to contact.

I'm especially interested in south carolina and a possible connection.

kevin@flyingember.com

http://www.flyingember.com/mic.html for some results for the midwest so far.

Now, although the most important part of membership is keeping the 1st years, I'd argue that the second is keeping new 18 year olds.

I'm 21 and have been active since I turned 18 (I'm more active at 18 than I was at 13). I was youth prot trained at 18 (I need to renew that here soon), am merit badge trained, and am leader trained. I served a full summer on camp staff at 18 and a partial summer at 19.

I am registered with two troops (one at college and one with my home troop, same council conveniently) and have attended camp with both the past two summers. (19 and 20)

I am unfortuantly in the minority and both troops I'm in make use of 18 yr old+ (we have 10+ registered for camp with my home troop).

What can be done to keep more 18 year olds active and make them feel useful? I feel that a troop that has leaders and scouts of all ages can provide a much better program, will have better publicity, and draw in more scouts than one with the under 14 heavy basis I've seen nationwide. its not the scoutmaster that keeps older scouts in, but young leaders close to them. how many 16 year olds that feel better around an 18 year old more so than a 14 year old do you know?

The scout who sees something for them once they turn 18 is more likely to stay and 16 and 17 in my opinion.(This message has been edited by flyingember)

around here all crossovers happen in feb/mar. most webelos patrols just need blue and gold and they're gone. earliness is no issue.

as for keeping a scout, the troop guide is very important on the boy level, but also a young adult leader or first year program dad (usually a parent of a second or third year scout from my experience) to provide a level of adult support.

the first year specific program leader can help transition the scouts from the cub program to the scout program with the assistance of the troop guide. in my opinion both are needed. the leader can slowly let down and have the troop guide be their influence. this also leads to older scouts that are willing to help and the younder scouts are willing to goto the older ones. I've also found that after their first year most scouts have figured out what to do and are willing to use the leader more as a resource than as a guide.

as for keeping the scouts, the program is the most important. make the first year patrol have just as much say as the spl. include them in all planning meetings and treat them exactly as the older ones. there are time that the older ones may do their thing only, but for 10 months of the year the program should be age-general. making the first year feel as big as the spl is what keeps them in.

and the most important is during the board of review. the bor isn't only a time for reviewing what they learned but getting opinions too. learning what a first year likes can be best done without his peers around. discovering one thing he'd do differently were he in charge also gives you a little insight into the boys and helps with training them to be good leaders. the bor for tend-1st isn't just skills but seeing if they're becoming good scouts.

are you the unit comissioner for your troop or is someone else?

if you're the unit comiss for your troop I'd make it your job to get good information to the scoutmaster. this includes policies, training dates, program ideas and the like. otherwise I'd find your uc and see that he's informed about the troop.

don't push it but make sure he's up to date. sometimes being informed as to ways to "expand your skills" helps a lot. its likely time for the scoutmaster to get to places where he can be with other leaders more and learn the program.

the best troops I've seen are the ones with a million leaders asked to help because they have good ideas with a specific subject. getting a leader to assist with one campout because he has a good idea how to fulfill the scouts wishes to go canoeing in a unique way is the job of a scoutmaster. I help where I can and always give my opinion. we have a new scoutmaster and he always takes the ideas of others.

easy answer:

no.

now, you could allow him to be registered as a cub scout, but you'd find that he'd be unable to attend most things the boy scouts do, and that includes scout camp and many of the campouts events. there'd be no awards or badges that could be earned. I believe that as a cub scout he'd have to have the grandmother on all campouts. the cub scout insurance covers cub scout approved events, not boy scout approved events.

base your answer not only on the age, but on the program too and how you'd be doing a disservice to the troop, pack, and other boys for making an exception.

honestly, I wouldn't want that webelos leader anyways. he sounds like he's uninformed on the program.

I was a den chief for a brief period of time. I had no confidence at that point. I even turned down the option of a second den that needed one (It took me years to build it up my confidence). I ended up as the most active scout in my patrol and I'm 21 now and am still very active. I'm actually registered with two troops and go camping with both.

I know some den chiefs. two are very active with the troop and not quite trained enough to be good with the dens. one is very active with the pack and not quite enough with the troop and needs the training too. I've known a few others over the years and they cross the boundries on needing training. the best den chiefs have a few years under their belt in boy scouts or are naturally a people-person. I've known scouts who'd be great den chiefs but weren't.

I feel that more focus on the den chief position would be great for the program. getting leaders learning about it would be great.

they need to train more leaders to train more scouts on these great jobs.

For the past 10 summers I've gone to camp (some staff, some more than one session with different troops). My first 5 years it was 11 days (left the 11th morning), for the past 5 it's been 10 (leave the 10th morning). However, most camps I've seen run a 7 day session.

(H Roe Bartle Scout Reservation)

Are there many camps that still run over a week long?