fred8033

I don't really care one way or another ... and I definitely prefer almost any other tent over the BSA canvas wall tents ... BUT ... as long as our summer camp provides free tents and does not provide a significant discount if we don't use them, why would we use our own? It's basic economics. Our troop uses troop owned tents (Eureka Timberline 4xt ... moving to the Timberline SQ 4xt model). They cost $250 to $270 each. 40 scouts. 20 tents. Seven nights at camp? We would have at least one damaged beyond repair; two or three significantly damanged and all experiencing signficant

I posted to another thread discussing this topic. I've read much about failing units and the scouter suggestions how to fix them. There's always good suggestions, but I keep thinking the heart of the issue is being missed. #1 Unit commisioners. Yeah right. It's always brought up. Over the last ten years, I've been involved in three units. When the pack I just joined was in trouble, I asked multiple times for a UC. It was like pulling teeth to get anyone at all to show up to help when the pack was on life support. I did get a professional staffer to visit but that was f

I had a similar situation a few years ago when our house was assigned to a new school, our former Tiger / new Wolf cub joined their pack. I volunteered in the fall and all the leaders quit at the B&G, a natural transition time. I didn't realize the pack had trouble. The adults were burnt out from starting a new pack and just waiting for someone to step forward to continue the pack. They felt abandoned by their council. The pack dropped to just below twenty kids from 60+. We are back at 60+ cubs now, but it took three or so years. From my experience... - AT-LARGE CALLS FOR

I'm the pack committee chair and in my 20th year of marriage to the current Tiger Den leader. It does cause marital stress especially during committee meetings when I ask her to save her comments for later in the agenda or for the next meeting because the agenda item is closed or because she's exceeded her speaking time. .... Hey. It's been 20 years. Gotta look for excitement where you can find it.(This message has been edited by fred8033)

"Only need 1 registered leader present at all times that has YPT training" Not to nit pick but .... where did you find "present at all times"? Camping groups are often split between different activities and locations. While I absolutely fully support your statement, I don't see any such rule in BSA. An applicable example is that two adults are required for any camp out, at least once registered and one parent. One must be YPT trained. Whoops, we didn't realize the waffle mix required eggs. There's a gas station 1/2 mile away. There's nothing that says the leader can't go get the eg

Okay. I apologize in advance for taking this beyond the original "cell phone policy contradicts family policy" topic.... I always wonder how many youth are driven out of scouting by arbitrary rules created from the attitudes of adult leaders. At least at the local unit level, the scout has the option and time to find another troop. My eldest son had no such option when attended the 2013 national jamboree. He was put under such gung-ho, starch-and-iron-the-underwear leaders that it ruined the NJ for him and he's still trying to decide if he wants to be part of scouting. They wer

For someone totally new to scouting, the scouting program is hard to grasp. A short five to ten page guide won't be enough. Plus there's the challenge of how many to print (5, 10, 20). It's hard to predict. (and most will be lost, damaged or thrown out before they are ever read) This is our plan. #1 At join scouting night .... in paper ... say two double sided pages .... give them a "QUICK REFERENCE GUIDE" that has a pack calendar, contact information, local resources (pack web site, email addresses, scout shop, ...) and a strongly emphasized link to the pack "parent guide".

Thanks for the input.... I received the pile-o-stuff from our troop treasurer last night. Nothing has been enetered after July 2010. Apparently, he had trouble with a computer crash and during recovery he had other trouble such as having to re-enter a scout year because he re-closed the previous scout year records and it reformatted the next year records with new initial values. Also, he showed how TroopLedger works. I was not impressed. Clunky old MFC interface. Fine for 1995. Poor for now. Problems entering dates in the account date field. Small dialog data entry windows don't resi

Thanks for the advice. We use spreadsheets for our pack to manage $25,000 going thru checking it works fine. BUT... the pack doesn't have scout accounts. That's the challenge. Without scout accounts, spreadsheets would be fine. As we transition treasurers and recover records, here's our current direction.... - We'll create an individual spreadsheet for every camp out, event, fundraiser AND FOR EACH DEPOSIT (check #, amount, purpose, credited scout, family on check if different). We'll "securely" store these so that everyone can't see them, but that key members can see them.

Any unit treasurer's out there?

Our web site vendor http://soarol.com has an on-line event sign up. We use it to track who's going. People can sign up, but only the event admins / web site admins can correct the attenance numbers and mark people as paid. We use the comments field to clarify things. It also does automatic costing with three price levels. At camp, we event out the event sign up (has phone numbers on it). Later, we update the on-line version from the paper. Works fine. Not great, but gets the job done.

Our troop is in recovery mode. Membership and such is fine. The big issue is that our treasurer just surrendered being treasurer after insisting he could do it for the last eight months to a year and without doing much. So now, we need to re-create records, balance books and get things straightened out. QuickBooks or TroopLedger ???? I have both. QuickBooks because of my business. TroopLedger because of previous treasurer. He said it's not easy to use though. I'd like to produce key financial statements for the troop, scout account reports and event specific profit/loss stat

(I try to avoid posting because I probably have more opinions and thoughts than I have knowledge and experience. LOL...) The one thing that took me years to understand is something that's pretty obvious. Don't forget the fun. Games. Songs. Skits. Jokes. Teach the adults to plan in lots and lots of fun. If I were teaching BALOO, I'd add - plan in the fun to every event - include games to burn energy - include the parents (for cub scouts) in the games and the songs - (if the parents are playing too) take the parents aside before games to warn them... --- #1 D