fred johnson

I'm pretty hard core with that rule. Don't violate it. Period. But I've seen this at times. Heck, I grew up with church fairs and all church fairs had beer. And, brewing beer was a mastery of the monks. But when served, it was usually in a beer tent. Beer in one area and youth activities in another. Youth having no involvement or interaction with the beer serving or consumption. Similar to a county fairs. Lots of scout groups work county fairs and those county fairs serve beer and adults walk around with beer. If there is a beer booth and a separate scout booth and the two don't inter-mingle. But it would have to be a pretty big tent. Talk to your DE, but as long as scouts have no involvement at all with it and are not mingling in the area, I would not have too much of a fuss. IMHO, I'd really find it hard to not support a church fundraiser. Perhaps, your scouts could support the event in a different way: setup, cleanup or something "outside" the tent.

I was thinking of how to say it better .... The activities committees I've seen turn quickly inward to succeed with the big ticket events: fall and spring camporees, district dinners, klondike derbies, district pinewood derbies, etc. And thus relatively quickly stop using the 2nd part of the name ... civic service committee. Essentially ... Activities / civic service committee - inward focus toward the district membership Public relations committee - outward focus toward the community Activities / civic service committee - creating and administering scouting events and service Public relations committee - finding and promoting community events and service

Yes and no. I can see your view, but I disagree in reality. The following is from what I've seen in the district's where I've been part of the district staff. #1 Civic service part is consumed by the major activities. Maybe one or two "service" projects will be done such as planting trees or helping to open a camp. But that's about it for service. #2 The activities committee already has a full plate with running many major events: fall camporee, klondike derby, spring camporee, district pinewood derby, district dinner, summer district cub event. Each of these events is big and takes lots of planning. Even if it was emphasized that the activities/civic service committee also had to do the above, it would usually be lost or treated 2nd class in the effort to make the district big events successful. #3 I've never seen the activities committee look at things such as - FOR EACH CITY IN THE DISTRICT - When are their city celebrations? Parades? Special events ? - Are there special events by the fire department, police, medical, hospital or other community groups we can leverage ? - Are there businesses in each city doing special events ? - Are parks and rec in each city doing something? - Have the cities planned service events that the local scouts can support ? - I've never seen the district activities committee contact Pack ***** and let them know their city is hosting a ****** on **** date ?

JerseyScout - Your story can be repeated throughout the nation and was the driving reason for the 2011 GTA and Eagle project workbook changes. The 2011 changes were huge and dramatic and did a lot to reign in all the abuse and adult power trips. Heck, your story mimics our district before the 2011 change. The process is to do a good deed for the community and to plan and lead other scouts. It is NOT a class project in an MBA program. I feel bad for all the scouts that were scared away due to the past damage abuse. Escalate it. This is worth getting fixed. Keep escalating it until you find someone who can make a change. If nothing else, by not dropping the issue, you are educating people and making them aware that your current district practices are bad, wrong and essentially abusive to the scouts.

I am a stickler for "knowing" the rules so we can better implement the solution and support our scouts. A key part is avoiding creating dependencies on the adults. Requirements changing every year does more damage than good because it injects adult nit-picking into scout managed advancement. This problem was created by a BSA contradiction. - Fixed - Printed in the scout handbook - Changing- Annual revisions with rules for effective dates IMHO, BSA needs to clean this up. I see two possible better answers. - Scout is answerable to the handbook requirements he received when he joined - Requirements are not printed in the handbook. BORs hand the next requirement set when the previous rank is completed. In any event, our troop has scouts that use their handbooks. We don't use TroopMaster or anything else. We don't have an adult auditing Boy Scout handbooks versus current requirements. It's what it is.

Yeah, I've been following this topic. It just doesn't thrill me. BSA changing the requirements creates a moving target for the scouts. (i.e. what are the requirements I as a scout have to fulfill) It would also take our troop down a path I just don't want us to go. (i.e. adults tracking detailed requirements and auditing scout handbooks for which requirement set is taped into it.) I absolutely would not want any of our scouts showing up at a rank BOR and being told he can't advance because he was using the wrong year of requirements. Would that really be a scout failure if we tell the scout to depend on his handbook? I understand the need to update requirements. But making requirements effective for the "next rank" defeats our telling the scout to depend on his scout handbook. We tell them to use it. Carry it with him. Get people to sign off advancement in it. The last thing I'd want is for a scout to discover that he was working a plan to get to first class and getting some of those requirements done while even a tenderfoot, and then earning that earlier rank and then receiving a new set of requirements for the rank that he had already read and learned. What about individual rank signatures, do we transfer signatures from the old requirement page image to the new requirement page for those that are the same? What about the slight wording differences? IMHO, except maybe Eagle, BSA is wrong to force use of new requirements Make it optional. Either use the new requirements or the requirements in the scout's handbook. As for our troop, we don't have an adult auditing current requirements versus what is in the scout book. If we discover it, then we will help the scout be compliant with the new requirements. Otherwise, we are auditing the scout against what is published in his scoutbook.

Yeah, I've seen that too. Probably been guilty at times too or to some degree.

Too often the district PR chair is viewed just publicity. How do we get our scouts visible? I think this is short sighted and misses huge opportunities. The PR chair should be expanded to focus on connecting local scout units with opportunities. For years, I've seen individual units try to integrate into larger community events. They may do well for awhile, but problems occur. Problems Individual unit level scouters become too busy and great events are lost forever Individuals only contact one or two units to be "involved" Outsiders often reach out to scouting contacts thinking they are reaching ALL scouts. But really they are reaching just one unit or one leader who may or may not be receptive. Essentially, "city" or "county" events are really good for many units, not just "one" unit. I think we could redefine the district PR role to be almost like the district activities role ... but OUTWARD facing. Opportunities Own (create and maintain) a tracking list of events and opportunities City and county parades Marching in the parade Handing out water City and county festivals, fairs, parades, city government special events Have a booth Sell food as a fundraiser Special events with fire departments, police departments, parks departments, etc Watch for things that would be good go-see-it for tigers, wolves and bears Watch for things that would match with Webelos pins Watch for things Boy Scouts might plug into Get scouting units aware and involved in events in their communities For each event, recruit unit level leaders to be the contact for all units in that city for that one event for that one year Bob - Would you be the contact point for the local four packs for the fire departments open house this year? Promote it to the scouts to get them to "go see it"

IMHO, BSA's policy is mis-interpreted as not allowing a member based groups. And, BSA's wording is clumsy. The issue is youth protection. "No Private Channels" means do not violate the one-on-one youth protection rule. The issue is people interpret that as no closed facebook pages. The interpretation is because BSA says no private groups and that wording is clumsy. Facebook does not have private groups (open, closed and secret). When wording is clumsy, fall back to the basics. Youth protection. No one-on-one communication. Read the policy. IMHO, the 2nd and 3rd paragraphs are even more meaningful. Applying basic logic, a good feature of Facebook is event registration. If you leave it open tot he public 100%, then the broader public sees who's camping and that can be a safety violation itself. IMHO, as long as the closed facebook group has multiple administrators and the group is open to all troop members instead of a smaller select group, then it's okay. What would be bad is a Facebook closed group used by just the scoutmaster and SPL. Or some other smaller select group. If we were to truly say no closed Facebook groups, then it would be parallel with saying no SOAR web sites or ScoutBook sites or TroopMaster web sites where you get more information by logging in.

We have both. One serves marketing. The other serves to manage event sign up. The challenge we have is getting parents to "JOIN" the group. As such, we have both.

The rationale is that BSA sets the basic requirements. Based on the council infrastructure and council, the council advancement committee may establish different processes. In our council, the scout has the designated responsibility to handout the references. The troop leader (scoutmaster) is designated to have the responsibility to collect the references. (... and as such as the right to open then ...) But even if the advancement all falls apart, it is not the scouts responsibility to make sure references are received. That is a key consistent point.

I don't see that as a rule violation. The scoutmaster has been designated as part of the reference letter collection process and he's a registered leader in the council. He needs to confirm what is in the envelope and he needs to deliver the Eagle rank application with all attachments. Our scoutmaster always opens them as part of getting the packet nicely organized. There is no violation there. In your situation, the scout is part of the designated process to distribute the forms and provide reminders. For our scouts, I suggest they keep politely following up until the scoutmaster says he has the references. The issue is making it a requirement. We can't hold up the scout because the "reference" does not follow through.

I agree. I think ScoutBook targets the mom and dad who want to see all the awards their kid has. It adds flare and style presenting the scouting record. The rest of the system is tedious to navigate through.

.... funny ... With all the BSA acronyms, I'm not used to seeing AOL. I immediately pictured a 1990's dial-up modem, connection noise and "you've got mail".

"fairly new" is a relative statement. The 2011 version of the BSA GTA said pretty much the same thing.

We are similar to the original poster and the GAC. Scout is held account for providing the references on the rank application sheet. The council has a specific form for each type of reference, but the references can use their own form if they desire. Council has designated the eagle candidate scout to deliver the reference sheet forms to their references. Forms are returned via mailed to the scoutmaster. The scoutmaster stores the references letters until the rank application is to be submitted. Forms are never to be seen by the scout, as written in the GTA. When the rank application is ready for submittal, the scoutmaster drives (or mails) the paperwork to the scout office and hands it to the registrar. The paperwork includes the Eagle rank application, life statement, list of positions, eagle project workbook, additional eagle project archive items that are interesting to demonstrating planning, development and leadership .... AND ... the scoutmaster attaches the reference letters. The council registrar processes the whole stack as one submission. The stack is checked and scanned into a PDF file to be shared in advanced with those that will be sitting on the scout's EBOR. In addition, the paper stack will be made available to the board the evening of the EBOR. The council strongly prefers to get as many references back as possible. Missing references are not a show stopper. There is no process to chase down the missing. The BSA formal scout requirement is to provide the name and contact info for the references. There is no BSA scout requirement to receive the references. After the EBOR, the reference letters are destroyed by the chair of the EBOR.

I'm a SOAR user and very satisfied with the tool. But I have noticed over the last ten years, things have changed. People don't like to sign into web sites. As such, we also parallel the data in Facebook. Usually one of the parents is regularly on Facebook. If not, they can email automatically through SOAR and can access the SOAR site.

So true !!!! It's an ever moving goal. ... Boy led ... Over the years, I've grown to despise the term as it is used way too much to compare troops with a better-than-thou attitude. Boy led is absolutely a key goal, but using the term to compare troops is almost always more destructive than helpful. I fully agree. It parallels the marriage joke about trying to hang wall paper to see if you and your future spouse are a good match. You can ask all the questions you like, but I really don't think you learn much from the answers other than the hard facts: meeting nights, cost, schedule, etc. The rest is the smoke and mirrors of marketing.

Agreed. I've had a few similar experiences over the last ten years and our scouts are as prepared as any to handle impromptu visitors. Unfortunately, all nights are not created equally. Some troop meetings are by the book agenda. Others are structured differently and just won't create an exciting impression. Plus, we have never had visitors who are content with standing in the back. More reasonably, we've had adult visitors in "shopping" with questions and some that are even looking for what type of deal they can negotiate. Essentially, the adult leaders want attention and to see how much you will value them. The Webelos themselves usually want to interact with the scouts. Little interaction with the scouts or the adults usually means poor impression. We've had some visitors on nights where the troop has a full schedule that needs to get done. Meal planning. Duty assignments. Boards of review. Elections. Final check-outs before big trips or big events. We've had visitors appear on nights when many scouts are gone for one reason or another. It happens. There is no ideal troop and no perfect visitor. Expecting such is only asking for trouble.

Being not a big deal does not excuse rudeness. Troops can usually easily scramble. It's just common courtesy to coordinate your visit. Courtesy does not dictate one roll with the punches. I challenge you to find that in any etiquette book. Yes, always be polite. But being polite does not mean throwing your plans away because someone appears unannounced. It is the hosts option whether to welcome or ask them to come back another time. ... Sometimes I you are just making this stuff up to have something to say. ??? what ??? Anyone can not attending a wedding. Most churches will have no problem if you attend and sit in the back. But most couples rent the church and have the right to choose their guests. Having a few extra sit in the church and listen is usually not an issue. But the bridal party through the church does have the right to ask guests to leave. Heck, I've attended mass at St. Patrick's cathedral in New York and at times parts of the church are roped off for private ceremonies. ... it is a choice of the church and/or bridal party whether the ceremony is open. Wedding reception is a good analogy as the reception is planned and has fixed resources. You say it's an RSVP issue. Some may say the same thing of a troop meeting. Absolutely be prepared. But that's yet again a different topic. Being prepared doesn't justify the rudeness of not having the courtesy of letting someone know you are planning to visit.

Cabin camping ... neg 25 F ... a very cold mile walk packing out to the cars Outside camping... a few degrees below zero. Snow ... Woke up Sunday morning to 18 inches of fresh snow added to existing snow. Most dangerous part was driving home.

The other issue is they playing field is not equal. Webelos parents often have ties to troops. Neighbors. Adult scouting friends. Or, their older son is in the troop. I'd hope the troop of your charter org has access and knowledge about the pack and den schedules. As such, the "surprise" may or may not be a surprise.

False comparison to a church. Churches are big open meetings with plenty of seating. One or two more guests don't mess up the service at all. A more accurate comparison would be to a formal wedding reception where there is fixed amount of food, chairs and tables. They may make you welcome, but the surprise adds stress to their detailed plans. In contrast, "troop shopping" means a marketing performance by the troop and investment by the troop members (adult and scouts). Those "shopping" will also have a set of questions that demands time and attention. It's either politely arranged or an impromptu performance. The trouble with the impromptu "catch the troop as they really are" is that the troop already has a meeting plan that includes objectives and goals. Adult leaders also have plans and goals. Having a den of Webelos show up unannounced is a sure way to blow that troop's planning and potentially create a problem for them. A troop that plans and each scout knows their job may appear as not very welcoming or gracious or hospitable. Yeah. That's because your surprise visit added unexpected stress to their evening. One or more of the troop's meeting plans now need to be dumped. Scouts are pulled from other activities to meet, greet, play, teach and interact with the Webelos. The scouts that are trained and assigned to do such tasks may not even be present. Adult leaders will have to give up their plans to answer the adult's troop shopping questions. It is very good odds that if the troop does plan their evenings, your surprise visit may very well cause the troop meeting to run 30 to 45 minutes late. Or, a scout's SMC or BOR will be delayed. BSA itself says in the "Webelos Leader Guide" .. "These trips should be part of your annual Webelos den program, planned in cooperation with the troop." It goes on to say "Remember that your Webelos Scouts are still Cub Scouts, and some Boy Scout activities are not appropriate for their age." If your Webelos showed up at our troop unannounced, we could handle it and the Webelos would probably have a good impression. But it would probably throw at least one or two of our troop plans out the window. Here's another BSA source: Unit Commissioner field book. BSA #33621. "It's usually a good idea to show the courtesy of a phone call before you visit a unit meeting. This helps guarantee a warm welcome. It also shows unit leaders you are not trying to surprise them or catch them off-guard." It's common courtesy. The same manners that we try to teach our scouts too. http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/relationships/etiquette-manners/is-being-an-unexpected-guest-bad-manners

Actually, IMHO that's not a good idea at all. Not only can it be seen as rude, but I've seen it mess up the troop's plans for for the night. If you are planning to visit, it's just simple politeness and courtesy to let them know.

All BSA documents need to be searchable PDFs. It is such a huge advantage to the adults and the boys.