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So they are recording and balancing stock levels on SKUs not a straight forward dollar inventory. Typical inventory for accounting purposes just looks at the total dollar inventory for a department to determine shrinkage. Old stock is removed and depreciated then the remaining dollar value is calculated. If a Lifesaving MB patch is counted as a Leather Working MB patch no one cares as long as the value is the same. In the old days what you describe would have been done manually every order cycle, although never to the extent you describe. I used to feel sorry for the HBA lady having to count her makeup every week. Now with computers, bar codes, scanners it is done less frequently, again never to the detail you describe. Except for high dollar or low stocking level items, adjusting a single SKU's on-hand by one or two is cost prohibitive.

The recounts you describe just seem like a waste. One day as young manager trainee I was working with our invoice clerk balancing delivery receipts and invoices. We were 5 out of balance. We must have spent a half hour chasing that thing. The manager stopped by to see how things were going. He looked at us in disbelief, took the form, added the nickel to one of the columns and walked away.

I've not had any issues with the Supplex shirt like you describe. Sewing the POR patch on the sleeve pocket is inconvenient and the "Boy Scouts of Americ" on my shirt gets a comment on occasion. Other than the letters it is held up well. The pants, not so well, starting to wear through the seat.

As for the removal of the ODLR Uniforms. Clearing old stock is difficult. The sizes that people buy are generally gone quickly and all you are left with are the very small and very large. These end up sitting on the self in smaller shops until they eventually get removed from inventory and are thrown away. Sending these into a central supply is generally the best way to handle it. There they can reduce the amount of discount and minimize the loss. Once they are in the boxes I can understand not opening them up for you to see if Billy Bob can fit into that 10 youth shirt. What they should not have done is told you they would not be starting until after Christmas and then get started anyway. Why would any store do inventory before Christmas? Surely even Scout Shops get a holiday shopping boost.

If it is taking multiple recounts over several weeks (or even days) to do an inventory on these stores they need to either suck it up and hire RGIS to come in a do it in a few hours or change the inventory methods. There in no way the number of SKUs in a typical Scout Shop can justify weeks for inventory.

Why would such a hoax require the active participation of thousands? There are not thousands of climatologists. There are not thousands actively involved in AGW research. Basically all the modern CO2 data comes from one guy in Hawaii. There are only a handful involved in ice core analysis. There are three organizations that catalog and normalize temperature data, and none are very open about how the data was normalized. All told there is only a fairly small, tight knit group that controls the data. You would be hard pressed identifying scores that would need to be involved, thousands is just silly.

While I think "hoax" being a "deliberate attempt to dupe" may be a bit much but members of the group have certainly behaved in a unethical and untrustworthy manner. It would not take many people to severely compromise the data.

It has to be a frustrating experience.

Call the council office

get directed to the DE's voice mail

leave a message and wait

and wait

and wait

Call again and get lucky

Hopefully you get lucky and the DE will give you the contact name for a couple of unit leaders. If you are not lucky they will take your number a tell you that they will pass it along to unit leaders.

Call the unit leader and leave a voice mail and wait

and wait

Finally give up and put your kid in soccer.

I'm amazed at the number of people that call or email me about joining a troop that have been waiting for someone else to contact them.

One other problem with a caravan that has not been mentioned. Car break downs. Now many will say that it is better to be in a caravan if a vehicle breaks down. Perhaps if you are abandoning the vehicle or needing to go get what is needed to repair it. But from a safety POV it is very unsafe. Having a half dozen vehicles pulled over on the shoulder greatly increases the chance of being hit. I can think of few things more concerning than 30 scouts milling around on the side of the road waiting for a car to be fixed.

Could just be me. But if I was looking to join I would likely do what I do when looking for anything else, google: Boy Scout Troop MyTown, USA

The troop locator at The Scout Zone is fairly useless. It wants a zip code and then lists all the units in the three digit prefix. All it gives is the unit number and charter org name. No address, no contact information. How to you contact the "Concerned Citizens of My Town" or "Friends of Troop 999"? Heck, other that the LDS units I'd be surprised if I were to call most of the list chartered orgs if they could even tell me when the troop meets or a contact number for someone who knows.

To earn the Eagle rank, a Scout has to be active for six months while a Life scout. Not six consecutive months. Not the last six months. Not necessarily active when he works on his Eagle Leadership Service Project. Not necessarily while he earns his merit badges.

An argument can be made for six consecutive months. "While a Life Scout, serve actively for a period of 6 months in one or more of the following positions of responsibility". That is "a period of 6 months" not the "serve actively 6 months" like it is with life. Now I suspect that no scout would successfully be prevented form being awarded an Eagle because of it.

"Much better than having Scouts report to Mr. Jones with his laptop at the back of the room every time they get something signed off."

What an odd thing to do. We mostly just update TroopMaster after the BOR. The Advancement Chair takes the handbook with him and returns it to the scout the next week. But such tracking tools are much older than PCs. Back in the seventies we had an advancement chart.

"Upon receipt of the approved nomination form, the council may present the Unit Leader Award of Merit, which includes a certificate, square knot with the appropriate device, and a gold-bordered unit leader emblem. Recognition of this achievement may be presented at appropriate district or council events, such as district or council leader recognition

dinners, training events, and board meetings."

It would seem the 6" patch goes away. There also seems to be a gold bordered emblem, I assume this is a Cubmaster, Scoutmaster, Varsity Coach or Crew Leader emblem. Makes me think of the old Mylar patches that indicated you were trained. Only 4 requirements in common. It also seems to be completely at council level while the old award was sent to the NESA director and is technically a national award. It almost seems like a new award, I wonder if the same knot will be used.

It would be during the SM tenure.

Yes it is hard to do. I would think that, except for a new troop, having half the troop First Class or above would be trivial. Figure two years to First Class, seven years in scouts makes 70%. Okay, I know, scouts don't just drop out the first year. But the ones that make it to First Class tend to stick around.

There seems to be two versions of the requirement "a majority of Boy Scouts in the troop" and "a majority of troop Boy Scouts". I'm not sure when the change occurred.

Yes, I understand all that. Which are reasons why we should not refer to the Field Uniform as "Class A" nor the Activity Uniform as "Class B". It is an attempt to refect the military (which we are trying to avoid) and gets the designations wrong to boot.

When I refered to the "'Class B' service uniform" I was refering to the military designation. That uniform is slacks, shirt, leather shoes and belt w/ no jacket or tie. Approximately the new wool blend or the ODL w/o teh cargo pockets.

I'd posted before I got to this page. Silly, to not wait until the end.

Worn at activities the pants are cost effective. My son even wears them to school, though that may just be because they were the only clean pants he had and he was avoiding laundry.

Our troop only wears the field uniform at the first meeting of the month and COHs. They also wear it at summer camp, camporees, etc. For a while the SPL and ASPLs would wear it at all meetings, but the current bunch doesn't want to...sometimes this boy led thing really chaps my...I wear it at all troop meetings and a couple of ASMs do as well. We discussed this at the last ASM meeting, I'm curious to see the results.

There really isn't a "Class A" uniform in Boy Scouts and nothing close to a "Dress" uniform (Unless you count the professional blazer and slacks). The new uniform is about the same as a BDU. The ODL Uniform is close to a "Class B" service uniform.

So what would you call the poly/wool trousers with the poly/wool shirt? This is still about the same as the "Class B" service uniform although a set up from the ODL. But in Boy Scouts it really would not be a Field Uniform. My son and I are considering getting sets for COHs and the like.

Overall for a Scoutmaster it's not obvious whether this is easier or harder - I think it might depend on your unit. When we were a very young unit, we barely got 50% of our Scouts to First Class. Now that we have bunches of older Scouts, a lot of them are happy to coast along at Star or Life until they hit 17. So now the First Class requirement is easy, but the 60% advancement is harder.

The new is much easier, at least as I interpret the old requirement. It is not that the majority of the troop is First Class, but that the majority of scouts attain it. That includes all those scouts that drop out the first year at Scout and Tenderfoot. Very hard to do, not to mention that every new scout lowers your percentage. We finally made it to 50% it takes a lot of work maintaining it. The new requirement is the unit's youth, so worse case for Boy Scouts is that you wait until after the roster is cleared at rechartering. Even without that our troop of 67 is at about 76% (81% when three of them finish their Eagle BOR next week).

Pants/shorts are the most difficult items to get the scouts to purchase. Part of this is because it is asking the parents to spend $40-50 for a pair of pants that the scout may only wear once a month. Making is required for the class b makes it at least a little cost effective.

I think the pants are one of the best things about the centennial uniform. For a growing scout it can be purchased at the large end of the waist with the pants' hems sewn leaving extra material it could last several years (if they can manage not to walk on the hem).

I'm having a hard time picturing the circumstances where this would be necessary. Some scout has been active enough to go camping, and do his 30 day fitness follow up. Has gone on another 4 activities including two more campouts but could not fit in a BOR. Then goes on another 5 activities with at least one campout. And only then is able to have a BOR.

While I agree that this would constitute an added requirement, but it seems to me that either the troop does not have BORs often enough or has a very odd program. I can see the occasional older scout as in SSScouter's example. It certainly should be rare enough that 1) no one would have thought of making the rule and 2) no would think it would be an real issue if they did.

I'm also trying to picture the evening for the scout: Does his BOR for Tenderfoot, then gets with the SM for a SMC. Another BOR for Second Class, then back for another SMC and final BOR. Just what to to talk about during the two SMCs and the last two BORs?

If I get one more tweet about this I'm going to drop @boyscouts. 8 in 20 minutes is going a bit overboard.

I live in a state with the second highest number of illegals per capita. Other than I refuse to use Spanish, I really don't know that I care. Most of the reasons that people give in objection is the result of some government interference in our lives and the solution is to remove the state's meddling.

Has anyone talked to him? Often the parents see themselves as observers, not participants and don't realize that they should stand up. It amazes me how many Americans never learned any flag etiquette.

The time requirements are also there to protect the youth from capricious scouters. I can easily see a SM preventing a scout from advancing because he "isn't Eagle material".

We are approaching "mega-troop" size with 68 scouts on the roster. We currently have 24 scouts needing PORs only 14 are currently in those positions. There are another six that are in PORs but do not need them. Of the ten that are not serving it is because they have not asked. I'll find a way to give them an opportunity to serve.

In general the POR time requirement is not an issue, I currently have 3 scouts who are just needing POR time. In two of the cases it is because the scouts have spent years avoiding PORs and now that their 18 birthdays are coming they suddenly need the positions.

The same is true with T21 scouts activity requirements. For the most part they are well past the activity requirement before they have finished the other requirements. It does happen on occasion, mostly on Second Class. I can't think of it happening with First Class. Remarkably, I have a scout who will be going on his first campout this weekend, he joined in May, and yes the camping requirements are preventing him from earning his Tenderfoot.

From the very first line of the application: "TO THE EAGLE SCOUT RANK APPLICANT. This application is to be completed after you have completed all requirements for the Eagle Scout rank."

Six months is six months. What is so pressing here that the scout cannot wait 20 days?

Is there some other reason you don't think this scout is ready? If the UC and DAC are involved then this started more that a day or two ago with a "You need another 3 weeks Billy." What's the rest of the story.

Okay, I have to ask.

Since neckers are completely a troop determined item, why do people complain about it?

As for the uniform. They had the perfect shirt in the Action Shirt. Sadly, not only wasn't it the new uniform shirt, they have already discontinued it.

They are happiest when they can camp as far away from the other scouts as possible and be left to do what they want. Given a choice 100 yards is not far enough.

The current "venture patrol" likes to play Magic, The Gathering and D&D. They are planning something along the lines of SCA with padded swords, staves, etc and want to learn tracking and stalking. They are also planning the next campout which we will have with Webelos scouts.

We don't have the school we meet in the rest of the year so we meet at the church that is our CO (the room is very small for a troop our size). We also meet at the park and at a pool. We have three weeks of summer camps (one troop organized, one coucil camp and an out of state high adventure camp. I can't imagine shutting down for the summer.