fred8033

Thank you. That's triggering a lot of reading. Supreme court decision from 1798. I'm still reading on this. It is truly a complex topic. I guess that's why I'm not a lawyer. I confused when I read things such as this: "The cases cited hold that the ex post facto effect of a law cannot be evaded by giving a civil form to that which is essentially criminal." ... I'm still wondering how this is all possible.

Personal choice. Both are valid. I prefer the green as they are iess "flashy". Red reminds me of a 1970s style. It's always been a bit "iffy" as all past uniforms are still valid. BUT, I never ready about mixing and matching. At some point, the most important thing is your troop looks sharp and similar. Look at your troop and youth. If "ALL" leaders are wearing red, maybe you want red. If some are each color and youth are mostly green, maybe wear green. Your choice. I prefer the green as it's less flashy.

QUESTION ... I was reading on retroactively extending SOL. Am I correct to interpret a difference between criminal and civil SOL? Or a specific person SOL versus an institution? I'd like to better understand the topic. I've read Supreme Court rulings about extending to apply criminal charges, but not found the specific about extending for institutional civil cases like the BSA's situation. Pointing to an article I could ready would be fine.

My apologies. I did not mean to indicate you had not communicate. Sometimes our scout's families subvert the very program we are trying to establish. My key points were about this should not be in G2SS.

Many of us have been in your shoes. Years when I enjoyed scouting. Years that sucked because I was not part of the "click". Or, I was treated bad because I was friends with someone the other person did not like. Even more similar, times where I really enjoyed scouting and then took the next step and it did not work out. It was hard to enjoy scouting after that bad experience. My suggestions. Focus on your son. Enjoy his company. Don't worry if he's not perfect or if you're not perfect. No one is. Enjoy your time together. Focus on yourself. If being Cubmaster is not fun, step back. That's okay. Someone else can up then. If scouting is not a positive in you and your families life, it's okay to find somewhere else for your family. Talk to your wife. Talk with friends.

I agree with your disruption point and your example is meaningful. My issue is putting the rule in Guide To Safe Scouting, Abuse, etc. Are we saying the scout is not safe with the mom? Are we saying parents should not be allowed to take their kids out of camp because it endangers the troop? ... "barring medical exceptions" Are we saying a non-emergency medical condition allows ignoring Guide To Safe Scouting rules ? Radically, I'm going to assert ... Scouts are safe with their mom and dad. Troops have zero authority to override parents in such decisions on the basis of "safety" or "abuse". Bar it on troop policy or that it would interrupt the program. Bar it because the parents did not communicate well. Just not on "abuse" or "safety". Your example is of poor communication and subverting the program. Troops need to work with parents to encourage letting scouts have their own experiences and to let scouts interact with scouts. I'd be very very upset with the parents. My issue is it should be somewhere else, not in G2SS.

"Turned in about 5 applications" ... I'm thinking it's less IT Systems; less Record keeping and more process. From what I've seen, if the application gets to the registrars office, it's recorded. Where I've seen things can get lost are these. App gets turned into a unit leader. Unit leader forgets or misplaces. App then gets turned into district exec at round table or somewhere else. DE forgets or misplaces. App reaches registrar's office and sits in unit registration folder without being entered ... Because ... missing signature on app missing signature on permission to do background check missing youth training protection certificate no funds to pay for BSA registration Unit leader is contacted to get signatures / fix. No response and it sits. Can get lost then. Sometimes apps are shuffled into the wrong pile. I did see that happen once when I was in the registrars office. Once. I'm hoping the new direct online registration system solves these issues.

I cringe at this. I remember reading it before and thinking: Yeah right. It's G2SS and in a section on "Youth Protection and Barriers to Abuse FAQs". Scouts can't share a tent with their parent because we are trying to protect them from their parent or sibling ? The trouble is someone inserted a program goal as a YP rule. Plus, YP should not include things that units can't really enforce. The G2SS also says we are mandatory reporters. And if a serious policy violation is made, we need to report it. Who wants to be the scouter calling the SE about a YP violation because a scout went into the tent with his parent? ... It's in a section on abuse. If it's a YP rule, then we need to follow-up with the procedure. I'm 100% for encouraging and even having troop rules for scouts camping independently from their parents. I hugely favor that ... mainly because I don't want to clean up after my kid at camp too. My issue is having this in the YP rules. Someone messed up with documenting it there.

Deleted. Old point. Nothing new.

Sadly, our first-time participants were also our last-time participants. Scouting is a short program. The years go quick. For my family, there was one-chance for high adventure. We could not afford multiple ... dollars, time, fund-raising, etc. I love Sea Base because of where we live. Our troop has done lots of hiking and once a year backpacking. trip So, Philmont was cool, but not a big driver for us. Northern Tier trips are cool, but we do canoeing regularly in our troop. Sea Base is unique because it does not overlap and because of scale and the absolutely different lifestyle in the keys.

Large overlap. With one son, I did Munson Island. Another son did Sea Exploring. I'm glad my son and I got to do the 5 mile (??) canoe to / from the island. That was cool. The big difference I see is with Munson you are anchored to the island for five days with all activities based around the island. The sixth day is the canoe back to the base, sleeping in domitories, A SHOWER, and a luau. Keys Adventure you get to shower each night, sleep in air conditioning and more diverse activities. When we were there in August, it chilled down at night to just below 90 with an 85 degree dew point. It was nasty. Nothing dried for a week. It was not comfortable and I was exhausted at the end of the week. BUT, it was a great time and an easy high adventure. If I had to choose again "for scouts", I'd do Monson island. Shark fishing. Probably more scuba on beautiful reefs. Lots of one-time activities. I can do many of the the Keys Adventures another time as a vacation. Then again, a shower every night is extremely welcome after spending the whole day in high humidity and a good night sleep is valued. IMHO ... it's a choice between being uncomfortable for the week and a vacation. I still have my shirt from that trip. I've put it on a few times. It still feels like it has things embedded in it that grew on that trip.

Love your ideas. I really like the idea of having the scouts cook. I'm betting ... when we did ours as a picnic / pot-luck, we could have recruited scouts three / four scouts from every troop to help cook / contribute. That would have been great.

I'm betting someone submitted it to an events calendar and it got entered. ... And, it just has not been removed yet.

@qwazse has a good answer. Rules are often not clear cut.

Paid? I want to say no, but I'm not sure there is such a rule that it must be a "volunteer" basis. If you can't find the rule, don't make it a decision point and it goes in the scout's favor.

Qualifying statements: I don't believe youth are good or bad. There are behaviors, maturity, distractions and other issues that are incompatible with scouting. Response: Leaders need to address bad behavior. It's infectious. It drives scouts away and can earn your troop a bad reputation. Leaders need to ask scouts to move on if the scout can't behave within the boundaries of scouting. Packs or troops. Depending the behavior, troops that keep such scouts are accepting a lot of risk and taking on responsibility often beyond their experience. My concern is safety and my personal responsibility. Am I willing to take responsibility. Am I going to have the church pastor tell me someone broke a bathroom stall or broke in somewhere they did not belong? Am I going to be able to trust scouts on campouts with fire, knives, fuel, etc where I won't be able to oversee them all the time? I need to sleep. Will I be able to trust those scouts at 2am to not cause trouble or endanger themselves? I cringe hearing "if any scout needs scouting, that scout does". It's truism. Scouting teaches values and behavior that the most problematic scouts often lack. ... But when incidents happen and parents say "if any kid needs scouting, that kid needs scouting", it's often their very own kids that stop attending because they are scared of the other kid or don't want to be associated with the other kid. ... Some leaders have a gift to work with such scouts. I'm not sure if I'm such a leader. Story: We had a problem scout one year. Came in with 12 to 15 new scouts. I had to ask him to move on 18 months later, but not before losing almost all of those new scouts and breaking our recruiting relationship with that pack. And many of the scouts that left were scouts of parents that said "if any scout needs scouting that scout does."

LOL ... I know such a parent. ... comments removed ... he's a friend ... his son has applied to five colleges ... all are at least 1000 miles away. The kid wants to lead his own life now.

I HUGELY AGREE !!!! Program comes first, second and third. Scouts want to be doing things. They crave it. From adult leader view, it builds character, develops friendships and gives them great stories to tell. IMHO ... Forcus your energy on getting your scouts out having adventures, activities, doing things, building friendships. A little energy needs to be on troop structure, PLCs, etc. You must follow GTSS. Beyond that, the vast majority of your energy should be on getting the scouts out doing things and then getting out of their way.

I've been thru dozens. At least 20+. Sometimes it was monthly. Each was half recognition and half promotion. It gets old. I like Woodbadge. It was useful. No where near premiere training, but it was useful. For me, I learned alot about the "ideal" on how things should work. I got little from each training session as I'd been thru high performance team training multiple times. But how the event was run, (marching, sons, structure, B&G banquet style, cross over, etc) was extremely useful. For me, it's the sitting thru promotion after promotion. But you're right. Enough bashing. It's not scout like.

Great comments. Love the comment about avoiding the "insider" focus. So so true. IMHO ... ten minutes is eight or nine minutes too long. The audience did not show up to recognize the importance of Woodbadge. Personally, I like Woodbadge and I grew from taking it. ... My negative is because it's proportionally way out of balance. Our district has had 10 minutes beadings month after month. I just don't want to sit thru those ceremonies anymore. Even two minutes is too long at some point. Here's my ideal script recognition script: "Next up: Woodbadge ticket completions. Would the following individuals stand up. Troop 603 Assistant scoutmaster Felix Unger. Pack 801 cubmaster P.W. Herman. These individuals have completed their Woodbadge tickets and have received their beads. Let's have a round of applause." ... Done ... We should absolutely celebrate someone finishing Woodbadge, but let them and their friends do their extended celebration on their own within the Woodbadge structure.

Not sure how I feel about this story. I'm probably reading too much into this. Positive A scout is helpful. It's nice that people in need can benefit Scouts probably won't lose out much because of covid. Concern Precedent. Will city expect similar in future years such that scout's can't depend on using the property in the future? Why not another city property? Maybe an administration hall with large cardboard dividers? Perception Is scouting viewed as a low priority that should yield? Then again, there is not enough details to understand who owns the property (city or scouts) or if the local council gets a donation from the city for use of the property. Generally a nice story.

Each scout has their own path. Celebrate his path included scouting.

Yep. A well targeted, meaningful "30 second" recognition can help recruit new volunteers and also show other scouts and parents the hard work of the leader. Perhaps the key thing is "30 seconds". "30 seconds" means "30 seconds". As scouters, we often hear "30 seconds" and then lose 5 or 10 minutes. Five minutes is not appropriate in front of youth to recognize an adult. "30 seconds" to recognize adults in front of youth happens all the time and is absolutely appropriate. All of this is about not wasting people's time. Don't waste youth's time. Don't waste adult's time. Don't waste leaders time. ... Don't penalize an adult by giving him an award and then making him lose an evening to get recognized. We can agree to disagree. ... I think it's good for youth to see their adults are investing significant time and being recognized for that.

I had a similar "learning" experience. Key learning ... Negotiate time allowed to present. Make sure they expected to be cut off. Then, cut them off if they run over. Be nice. Give them a little extra, but cut them off. Because someone wants to present does not mean they can hold the group hostage.

Yep. I'd also add a reminder. Most people did not attend to listen to your awards. So keeping it short, succinct, FUN and meaningful will make it acceptable to them. Woodbadge Beadings are a big culprit here. They almost always run ten minutes or longer. You have 60 seconds to 20 seconds. Don't take ten or twenty minutes. It's painful and I end up regretting being there.