GKlose

I had firsthand experience with this last year. We were heading to a patrol-oriented camp that publishes their menu in advance (and will allow customization). Knowing that we had two scouts with issues (one vegetarian and one ovo-lacto allergy), I suggested they look at it in advance and plan.

The patrol met and modified one day's worth of menus to accommodate the allergy scout (leaving the other five days unchanged). The vegetarian scout had the attitude that like the other camp he had visited twice before, everything would just work out (peanut butter is his friend).

I did step in and try to guess what changes needed to be made -- at the camp itself, the commissary people were very nice and helpful, and helped me replan on the fly, as the week went on -- I'd stop in daily to say hello and ask questions like "does the pancake mix have dairy in it?" (yes) or to explain why something might have been sent back (one morning, they sent a cinnamon raisin bagel for the allergy scout, but he told me those typically have dairy in them, so he doesn't eat them).

Both scouts were ultimately disappointed in the food offerings for the week, but I tried to gently turn it back around to them. Knowing the vegetarian scout in particular would have issues, I tried suggesting to him ahead of time that he consider bringing some of his own food, as a backup, but he wouldn't even consider it (he's Indian, and he's done well on past campouts with some prepackaged "heat and eat" entrees -- and they're not expensive in Indian grocery stores). He assumed, I guess, that he'd always have a jar of peanut butter around.

A more difficult situation arose with the duty roster -- neither wanted to cook or cleanup their prohibited food. Other scouts were annoyed that they had to do more work, and the others weren't carrying their fair load.

This year, now that they've been through it once, they'll know they need to plan in advance.

Guy

When my older son joined a troop, I registered as an adult leader (the first year was as a committee member), kept my eyes open (and mouth shut), got training, volunteered for duty that nobody else wanted (membership chair), and gave my son plenty of space. I didn't go on an outing for six months, and even on that outing, I kept my distance from my son. He needed to, and did, establish his own connections to the troop.

After that first six months, I changed my registration to ASM, and started to contribute more to the adult leadership of the troop.

My wife knows that Scouting is important to us (she has two brothers and a nephew that are Eagles), but I try and be conscious about not overloading (and I always ask what she thinks, when it comes to adding another event to the family schedule). I've joked that this year, since two weeks of summer camp will take up most of our vacation time, that maybe she should register as an adult leader and come to summer camp with us. Next year, on a planned trip to a Canadian summer camp, that may become more of a reality.

So only you know to read your wife, right? It *is* possible to be an ASM and stay relatively in the background, but that includes a conscious decision on your part. Your son, I would guess, needs space. I would think a conversation with the SM about your concerns would help out in this situation.

Guy

"The real issue: determining what you will maintain as community gear and what each boy needs to maintain in personal gear."

This is certainly a background concern of mine. An example -- mostly everyone in the troop uses their own tent (and nobody owns a lightweight tent) because the troop tent stash is made up of mostly older tents which are mildewed, probably with missing parts (a QM is supposed to be checking into that). I don't necessarily want the troop to purchase higher-quality lightweight tents if they're just going to be treated the same way as the old ones. In another thread from last year, I talked about a suggestion a guy from another troop gave me, which was that his troop subsidizes the cost of the first tent a Scout purchases (from an approved list of tents, I think). In general, though, the reaction from this forum was negative.

Stoves? We've got a few older Coleman propane stoves that are still in working order. We've talked about purchasing lightweight stoves for canoeing trips (and future backpacking trips), and a few of us have our own lightweight stoves (I even have an old Svea 123 that still works).

So here's another question...for backpacking, how many of you do without group tarps? I don't recall carrying one at Philmont, circa 1975, but then again I don't remember any rain on that trip either.

Thanks,

Guy

Thanks for the replies, everyone...it never fails that one of these threads will pop up a few places to research online.

I was mostly interested this in terms of thinking ahead. The friend's troop has no equipment, and has chosen to be a backpacking-style troop.

In our case, we're not a backpacking troop (although we're quite fond of our annual canoe trips), and the last three major purchases of the troop have been a large carport, a trailer and a 3-burner propane stove...can you detect a hint of adult-led troop method here? :-)

So we've got patrol boxes that weigh a ton, old beat up propane stoves, a pile of mildewed tents and torn tarps, and trail chef kits missing pieces. We'll eventually be replacing equipment, so why not try to move towards a backpacking-style troop? I think that if I make reasonable proposals to the troop committee, then everyone will be receptive to the idea.

An example -- the SM has talked about getting some Jet Boils. But based on the recommendation above, it is probably not the best choice for group cooking.

Eagle92 -- thanks for the vendor recommendations...I've bought many things from Campmor and Alps Mountaineering. My favorite online source is the REI Outlet, which tends to have great prices on closeouts (and free shipping, to a local REI store, if you have one nearby).

Thanks again --

Guy

A 10x12 tent probably wouldn't work out so well, unless you talk to your (future) patrol members and see if they want to share.

So here's a hint: likely there will be someone in your patrol associated with a troop who may be able to help you borrow a tent from someone. That same patrol member will probably also help arrange other gear for the patrol (cooking, for example). You'll have some time to talk about those things at a later date.

My patrol chose a quartermaster and a grubmaster. One other guy led the project, and we all worked together on the presentation. One meeting, between weekends, and the rest was handled via email.

Guy

I received email from a local SM, a friend, that says that his recently-formed troop has no equipment yet and has decided to become a backpacking troop. In our troop, we have aging equipment and have been thinking somewhat along the same lines.

So here's my question -- for those of you that have gone that route, shunning patrol boxes and troop trailers and the like, what sorts of things have you purchased as a troop, and what sorts of things have you decided are personal purchases? Examples: stoves, cookware, tents, tarps...

Thanks,

Guy

I told part of this story in another thread, so it was probably lost in the shuffle.

First committee annual planning meeting I went to -- it was basically everyone meeting at the SM's house to talk about what we wanted to do over the next year. Since I was new, I didn't really understand that in this troop this is what they did. There was no real PLC that was functioning. The annual plan consisted mostly of "this is what they enjoyed last year, so should we do it again?". I was kind of flabbergasted.

Here was the kicker, though. The troop was kind of flush with cash, after good fundraising, and not spending it on much. So the committee was talking about getting around to the high adventure trip that they'd been talking about for years. It degenerated into a discussion about backpacking out west, or canoeing somewhere in the east. I'd suggested that we pull together all of the older scouts in the troop and ask them to plan the kind of trip they'd like to do. You know, a venture patrol concept. That eventually became a troop meeting where the SM described a trip either backpacking out west, or canoeing in the east, and then taking a vote from the entire troop.

Anyway, at this committee meeting, the committee's "outdoor coordinator" was arguing for a white water rafting trip, or perhaps a visit to Acadia. "So that way families can come along and the women go shopping and that sort of thing." I don't think I said it at the time, but I told some others later that I didn't think that families and shopping was high adventure. It still kind of irks me. The shopping guy, who basically had only coordinated two trips a year (a ski trip to a lodge in NH, and a white water rafting trip in May, both trips well over $100 each), didn't end up going on the trip that we did arrange.

A high adventure trip did take place. Canoeing on the West Branch of the Penobscot in Maine. I ended up not going on the trip, due to the timing, but my older son did. The trip went well, and the troop is repeating it again this August.

Guy

B-Skip, we're kind of along the same lines as the others. Our SM does not do anything with applications, or administrative work, and he has a hard enough time remembering names of the new Scouts. I'm kind of amused by it, because any time a new parents hears the term "Scoutmaster", they assume he is in charge.

Our CC takes care of the application, and he used to (sorta) keep Troopmaster up to date, until we got a full-time advancement chair. He does take the information from the applications, but otherwise he doesn't do anything with the applications. He's busy enough, I think, just keeping on top of advancement and coordinating boards of review.

I'm the membership chair of the troop. I not only try and keep tabs on all the Cub Scout packs in town, and keep in contact with them re: troop visits and an annual outing that we provide for them, I try and greet visiting Webelos (and other prospective scouts) and their parents. I coordinate the troop presence at crossover ceremonies (and the purchase of handbooks, troop neckerchief, etc). This last year, I started new Scout and new parent checklists (one-pagers), and ran a new parents meeting. At times I've handed out applications, but it is really our CC that takes care of that administrative detail. I'm up and running on Troopmaster now, but there really isn't much for me to maintain there. I take care of the troop website, which has accounts based on an export file from Troopmaster, so I can do that myself now rather than rely on the advancement chair to run exports for me.

I know this is a side topic, but I wish we had a good outing coordinator. We have one who has that title, but he doesn't really do anything besides organize our annual ski trip. He used to also organize an annual white water rafting trip, but I'm glad that the troop was getting away from big ticket outings like that. Our coordinator, one year, argued that our "high adventure trip" should be an outing to Acadia, so that moms and sisters could come along and go shopping. I tried to steer the troop away from that as soon as I heard it. His son will be an Eagle within a few months, so I think he'll be stepping down fairly soon.

So -- to me, there is plenty of work for five adults: CC, Scoutmaster, advancement chair, membership chair and outings coordinator.

(we have other parents that step in on other duties, which is really nice -- one dad pretty much handles any event that calls for a parade or a flag ceremony, one dad assists with scheduling service projects, one mom assists with the two fundraisers we do every year)

I hope this helps...

Guy

Many councils are now putting their Eagle advancement policy online. For example, ours can be found on www.yccbsa.org.

(in our case -- our council was made up of 5 districts until a little less than a year ago, and all 5 had independent approaches to Eagle advancement...in the last year, though, we consolidated to 3 districts, and a council advancement chair tightened up the policies among all districts, resulting into the policy now shown online)

Guy

Summer camp fees vary widely...we go to an "out of council" camp that costs a little more than average for this area, at about $365/week. I've heard of other areas of the country where camp fees are sub-$200.

Our troop, in the past, has done two "high ticket" trips a year: skiing in March, which runs about $100 for the weekend, and white water rafting in summer, which runs slightly more. Other months, we're very budget-minded, and typically collect a modest fee for food and whatever other expenses we have. Sometimes we just pull it from the troop treasury.

My reaction is much like Oak Tree's. Puzzling all the way around.

A few things strike me...one is that it seems like there is a mix of families in this situation. Those who have been in the troop for awhile, and those who are relatively new. Those who have been there for awhile know how the troop works and have seen the success. They, if in fact they were involved in the "coup", didn't contact Stosh directly to discuss things first.

Those who are new, didn't contact Stosh directly to 1) find out the concept of the program and how the troop manifests that vision, 2) offer any kind of feedback, whether it be complaint, requests for clarification, or anything else.

To me, and perhaps I might be reading the situation wrong, but this doesn't seem like a breakdown of Stosh's communication. This seems like a case of a group of parents, perhaps even a small minority, that did a power play to take over the troop. Couldn't have done it, I think, without the cooperation of the ASM taking over the troop, or without the actions of the CC.

Which brings up another point -- the CC let this all happen without extending the courtesy to Stosh (the "Chief Program Officer" of the troop) of letting him know what was going on.

I'll relate a brief story -- when my older son joined a troop, three years ago, the troop was somewhat reeling from the loss of a den (ooops, patrol), about 25% of the troop. This "Webelos III den" (patrol) had crossed over the year before. By November of that year, they had decided (the dads, I've sinced learned, were the impetus for the change) to split off and form their own troop. Webelos III style, the troop is the patrol, father-son camping, one rank per year, etc. Active, though. Very active. When my son and I were on a troop visit, I just loved the pictures of the dads cooking at the ski condo they were staying at that February.

I don't really fault them for taking off and forming their own troop -- they had a certain vision that wasn't being fulfilled by the troop they joined. They had issues, such as their monolithic den (which had stayed together all the way through Cub Scouts) was in danger of being split apart, with members going to separate patrols. They also didn't like having zero input into the troop calendar (that year had already been planned, when they joined). But at least they didn't stage a coup and enforce their vision.

This might seem like a non-sequitur, but I've always enjoyed this quote from the movie Hoosiers: "Look, mister, there's... two kinds of dumb, uh... guy that gets naked and runs out in the snow and barks at the moon, and, uh, guy who does the same thing in my living room. First one don't matter, the second one you're kinda forced to deal with."

Guy

We've got a situation coming up, which I'm watching from the periphery -- an older Scout, 17, who has finished an Eagle project. Prior to this, he hasn't been around the troop much, and somehow skated by on some PoRs. Because he hadn't been around much, when he was looking for labor for his Eagle project (which was a very ambitious rehabbing of a skate park -- well over 200 hours of scraping, sanding, painting, installation of "kick plates", and that sort of thing), he didn't get many troop volunteers. I'd say less than 10 hours total, out of the 200. The bulk of the work was done by the candidate and his dad. It will be interesting to see how a EBoR handles that (our boards are now done at the district level).

I have my theories about this scout -- his dad claims the kid is burned out on scouting, and therefore is trying to do the minimal amount of work to finish Eagle. In the past, this has included minimal effort on PoRs. I know that's a whole other story -- a failure of past troop adult leadership, via the SM and the boards. We've taken steps to solve that problem.

But here's the most recent fallout -- now that the project is done, the only thing standing in the way of Eagle, for this candidate, is a real PoR, and the troop is working on real accountability in those roles. For everyone, not just this particular candidate. Since this candidate didn't win a spot via fall elections (who would vote for him, they barely know him...), the SM created a PoR for this Scout. A "trip coordinator" spot -- coordinate all outing plans, gathering information, names, etc. All of the scut work. One of the first major events for him to coordinate happened this last weekend -- a snowshoe excursion in Franconia, NH. The kid found a campsite online, but when they arrived Friday PM at the campsite, they found it was closed for the winter. Turns out the "trip coordinator" found a campsite name, but didn't actually call it for a reservation. I'm not sure what exactly transpired after that, or in the last couple of days, but they were able to find another campsite late that night, and the weekend went well otherwise.

Personally, I do see a troop culture at fault. For years, our troop has allowed this adult-led troop-method advancement-oriented culture to take root. We've been making positive changes, but the hardest thing to deal with has been these older scouts who have not been around with an effective PL or SPL, active patrols, or accountable leadership, etc. It hasn't been pretty making changes.

Guy

I think I may have driven up that way, on my way to Keene, once. :-)

NewCubbyMomma -- what town are you in? I'm in North Andover, and if you're in the northeastern part of the state, there is a remote possibility I may know someone in your neck of the woods.

Guy

Fuzzy -- the PM was just me thanking you for the response.

Guy

Hi E92 -- we're not going to be limiting terms. In the past, the vote has usually taken care of the issue.

Up to now, our SPLs have served about a year, sometimes longer. And at this point, I can't really say when the troop will have the next elections, or if the present SPL will want to run again.

Since we're now in uncharted youth-led territory, we'll probably turn it over to the PLC and see what happens.

In any case, no matter when the next elections are, since we've got a great precedent being set by the present SPL, the challenge will be to have the next guy step up to the job like this guy has.

Guy

Nice site, Fuzzy. I like how the site theme matches scouting.org.

Did someone use a service to build the site, or is it home-grown?

Thanks,

Guy

Since I'm the originator of this thread, I thought maybe I should post a followup.

In the original note, I mentioned that my Woodbadge SPL had asked me about a ticket item (which was to run a training weekend for our patrol leaders)...another friend, a soon-to-be SM, overheard us and said "our guys really need that too". The Woodbadge SPL, our district activities chair, asked me if I thought I could run something at the district level. I wasn't really looking for another project to add to my list, but brought up the idea on this forum, and then also thought about the concept quite a bit.

In my own troop's case, I ran a program in early October, and it was pretty much a success (I learned more about what works, and what didn't work, for our guys). Then again, our SM hasn't done any kind of training like that before, and had no plans to do anything before he stepped down (which is probably going to be this spring). Our future SM was fully involved in last October's weekend training, and is fully supportive of getting leadership of the troop back into the hands of our guys.

Side note here: I had much help in setting up this weekend, including from this forum, and especially from Bryan Spellman. He runs a weekend-long program for his youth leaders, twice a year.

As far as a district training event goes, I've pretty much figured out exactly what everyone here says...it is troop-specific, and would not be a very good one size fits all program. My own son attended a day-long TLT session given at our University of Scouting, and from his reports, that program also didn't work very well.

Another side note: the theme of the weekend that I organized last October was a series of challenges to our youth leaders. Some challenges were generic ("take back ownership of the annual calendar"), and some were specific ("run your patrols according to National Honor Patrol criteria"). In it, I had three challenges for the SPL, three challenges for PLs and three challenges for the PLC.

Because of timing -- and this was somewhat awkward -- the weekend was run for all Scouts wishing to be in a leadership position. Elections were held a few weeks later. The Scout elected as SPL was fully on-board with the challenges, and to date has far-surpassed anything that we could have hoped for. I had a discussion with the SM-to-be the other day that when this SPL term is up, our challenge will be to make sure the next SPL follows suit.

So what was once a 100% adult-led, troop-method, advancement-oriented troop now looks a lot closer to what a real troop should be. We still have progress to make, but I think we're safely in the realm of being able to mentor the PLs and the SPL and let them lead the changes they'd like to see.

Guy

Our troop has a website service which has a provision for online payments (www.soarol.com/mytroop.us). If we had a PayPal account, we could link it to payment buttons on our event pages. However -- our CO does not allow us to have a PayPal account. So we're stuck with doing things the old-fashioned way.

The three packs in our town have evolved their Blue and Gold banquets into end of the year awards ceremonies, to the point that the date is pushed out (as early as March, as late as mid-June) and hold all awards until the banquet. Whereupon dens are called before the crowd, a list of accomplishments are read, and small plastic bags filled with patches are awarded. It frustrates me.

One year, in fact, the year my youngest was awarded Arrow of Light, the B&G banquet was held in early March. The problem, though, was that the pack considered it the end of the program year, and had no intention of doing anything at all until the start of the next program year (for them, recruiting in September, and first pack meeting in October). So, October to March. Honestly, I was happy to be done with that pack.

Now that we're fully invested in a troop, it frustrates me that our "feeder pack" does kind of the same thing. But they have their B&G in mid-June. End of the program year is mid-June, recruiting in September, first pack meeting in October. The mid-June B&G date means that their crossovers don't go to summer camp, which for us is in early July. Our local camps seem to be well set up for first year campers (whether they do the "first year program" or not). But the crossovers from this pack aren't around to take advantage of it.

This year, I'm trying something new. I'm talking, early and often, with the Cubmaster who also has a son that is crossing-over. By mid-April I want to encourage them to finish AoL and then start coming to troop meeting and troop outings. We have a pretty good summer camp lineup this summer, so I want to get them excited about it early.

I hate the award ziplock bagful arrangement. It does everything to undermine what advancement is all about (accomplishment/achievement/immediate recognition).

Guy

I read several food blogs, and one in particular (written by pastry chef Shuna Fish Lydon) talks about the difference between hot chocolate and hot cocoa. For years, I'd heard the best possible hot chocolate is made with shaved chocolate (high-quality, of course) and cream. Shuna's post elaborates:

http://blogs.kqed.org/bayareabites/2007/11/01/hot-cocoa-hot-chocolate/

Now I should add that in order to hit the right spot on the BSA medical forms charts, I'm not consuming such things any more, so I haven't tried her recipe. But I still think her discussion is interesting.

Guy

"Tuoc Syag"

I'd like to add a couple of thoughts --

On one troop visit, with my Webelos son, I heard a Scoutmaster lay claim to the crossover ceremony. "It is OUR ceremony." Some Cub Scout packs feel differently, and our troop has certainly been part of a few combined ceremonies (AoL/Crossover) at Blue and Gold Banquets.

Also -- I've been to a couple of ceremonies where Webelos have gone to different troops, and if all troops were not represented, troops that were there always did a "crossover by proxy", which makes sense to me. Although a Webelos may not be welcomed by his new troop that night, he was certainly welcomed to the world of Boy Scouting. Saved the awkwardness.

Another anecdote: one entire Webelos den, except for one Webelos, was transitioning to our troop. He was fence-sitting and told his dad that he'd just rather sit at home and play video games. Dad wanted him to join our troop. We step in prior to the crossover and have our SPL take the kid aside and talk to, which took quite awhile. He finally was convinced to join our troop and crossed over that night. They crossed over late (early June) and I don't recall seeing him prior to summer camp. He showed up on the first day of camp, having arranged it directly through the council and not letting the troop know he was attending. It was a complete surprise to have him there, but he did well during the week. Seemed like he had fun. But he dropped out afterward, and we didn't see him again. I think the video games won.

Guy

Our DE sent out the newest medical form (11/2010) but said in the email that it was the same form that we were supposed to start using starting Jan 1, 2010.

I replied to him that it was an all-new form, but I didn't hear anything back from him. I did notice, however, that links on the council website, and on the summer camp websites (including the out-of-council camp we attended last year) all have the newest form on them.

I did SOLO's WFA course almost two years ago (I'm due for recertification this spring), and I was pretty impressed with the course. In my case, I was taking the course through the Appalachian Mountain Club's Youth Opportunities program, which subsidized the cost of the course. So it was only $85, at the time.

I was pretty impressed with the three instructors, one RN and two W-EMTs, all of them with a ton of experience. It was pretty interesting hearing about actual remote rescue situations in the White Mountains National Forest area that they'd participated in. We had one scenario, where were to extricate and move a victim, and when someone said that it seemed like kind of a ridiculous scenario, one instructor was able to give us multiple stories about scenarios he'd been in that were much worse.

Since I'm due for renewal, I've been checking to see if the local ARC (Cambridge, MA) has a WFA course. They do, but I'm pretty sure the price was fairly high. I think I'd rather stick with the AMC-YOP deal.

Guy