hicountry

For those who like this sort of thing and are going....great, have a wonderful time doing what you are chosing to do. To me, these Jambo's are disconected from what scouting means to me....local camping and hiking and learning in the local troop with your friends, being thrifty but having great fun and adventures. Expensive, scout oriented disneyland type trips are not what scouting is about to me. We never brought up Jambos in our troop, boys are having a load of fun with our active program, no family we have is ready to come close to considering these outrageously priced events.

The YPT is not the problem, the mandatory IOLS is. The troop I was SM with is great with helpfull parents registering on the committee, they take YPT online no problem and help not only on committee but pinch hit with driving kids to and from campouts, assisting with merit badges, advancements and sometimes staying on campouts, Some actually are really ASM's with the troop in function. They are becoming knowledgeable about and supportive of the program and are enjoying seeing this part of their boys development in life. Forced Manadatory IOLS is not going to hurt the troop but is changing

We have an acknowledged issue on declining numbers in scouting, youth today having a poor perception of scouting, scouts that would NEVER wear the uniform to school and avoid letting other kids know they are involved with Scouts. Add to that the perception by the public about scoutmaster pedophiles. And having it get around that some scouts and scouters might wear kilts (ie: Skirts, the things normally found on WOMEN in the USA) is going to..... A. Justify and amplify the perception by other kids and the public that scouting is out of touch, gay, wierd, nerdy, something they wouldn't

We have an acknowledged issue on declining numbers in scouting, youth today having a poor perception of scouting, scouts that would NEVER wear the uniform to school and avoid letting other kids know they are involved with Scouts. Add to that the perception by the public about scoutmaster pedophiles. And having it get around that some scouts and scouters might wear kilts (ie: Skirts, the things normally found on WOMEN in the USA) is going to..... A. Justify and amplify the perception by other kids and the public that scouting is out of touch, gay, wierd, nerdy, something they wouldn't

I found myself evolving along with my boys, now that they have aged out and are in college I have changed to the point where I have a tuff time relating to 6-10 year olds. Even in my last year as SM, I found it harder to continue to try and recruit relating to 10 yo Webelose as my boys were 17 and almost 18. I couldn't imaging becoming involved in CUBS again, my life has moved on and even though we have great meories of my boys and theri friends in CUBS that is so far int eh rear view mirror I can no longer relate. Burnout.....still enjoying the free time I have since I finished being a s

I know our troop has never filled out one of these applications since at least 1992 and maybe before that and no one ever called, emailed or slapped anyone's hand for not filling them out. Our troop does run on a budget, does sell popcorn, does have an FOS presentation and makes donations and does not keep a lot of excess funds in the account. We never have run any fundraisers that are "off color" or effect anyones business either so we are good stewards of those aspects listed in the fundraising app. I know some units have issues with funds, we haven't and feel it isn't Council's business wha

I don't see what dressing up in fake Indian gear (I've never seen anything that looks like the native dress of any particular tribe in any of our OA events) and doing fake drumming and fake dances has to do with Boy Scouts, being an honor society, or giving service to others. "Just seems like very valuable and hard-to-come-by time is being spent pretending we are Indians or that we are somehow special and accepted as part Indian or Indian like (no, we're not, folks. Get real)... wouldn't this time be better spent working on other things that are so frequently brought up on these forums?

Solution seems simple to me....if this guy wants to play games and add in requirements and restrictions that aren't there, one has to get creative and play along. Hve the parents donate to son Eagle candidate, have him tell the SM that he earned the money mowing lawns, washing cars, shoveling snow, babysitting etc....scout raised the money doing chores on his own. This should shut up the blowhard and get the project done. Yeah, I know we are going to get a scout is honest replies, but when you are dealing with an idiot, why take the past of most resisitence in solving a problem that didn'

Warning Label on a Hand Held Hair drier..... "Warning, do not use this on a wet Bobcat" How many here remeber the thread that was going around here about a year back debating if BSA's rules and regulations were taking the fun out of scouting and introducing un-needed hassle for Scouters, that the rules were taking some of the fun out of scouting and similar topics. I think this situation on this thread supposts those of us who feel....Yes...BSA is doing harm to the program in the ways mentioned by total nonsense such as these tool rules. Anyone car to guess when camping will be

Denver Area council has apparently gone to mandatory IOLS for the unit leader to have registered with the Feb. 2012 recharter. Our SM had to cancel off a troop campout due to having to go to IOLS in order to be able to recharter and it created a mess. He has 20 years whitewater, camping and backpacking experience and sometimes as a guide, IOLS was a complete waste of his time. We have heard Denver Council will require all SM's and ASM's to have IOLS in order to charter in 2013, our troop has a couple of people with IOLS and a number of active adults withourt it but with loads of camping exper

Let me get this right...still shaking my head.... You want a volunteer to help teach woodbadge and you want that person to cough up $200 plus for the priveledge of taking a a weekend or more of their time providing you basically free labor ? Sounds like a double negative incentive to me. I think I'd take the road of, no thanks, I'll keep my time to use as I see fit and byt he way, in so doing will save a couple hundred bucks in the bargain....no brainer to me. When I travel or am in all day company trainings the company who I work for salary compensates my meals, ledging etc or provi

I recall threads here or elsewhere a year or two back trying to establish that Eagle Scout projects were being done outside the sphere of the unit or scouting, that it was a stand alone effort between the scout and the benficiary. Seems like the additional rules, forms and requirements are leaning toward establishing the EP is within the sphere of scouting, at least the way I see it (And always did see it). There has been debate here and on another thread about covering food and drink for volunteers on EP's, I beleive plenty have made their cases, mostly for it's justification so I won't

Our scouts don't really need one more place or opportunity and they haven't been interested and to try and pull it off with our logisitcs is a hassle we know by experience it won't happen. I know the local reps trying to push OA would like to think they know better than us our issues and people but they don't, no matter how they wish things were different in our unit just so it suits THEIR purposes. The problems all over the country getting troops and scouts interested, to join or to stay even to their ordeal, the sash n dashers etc all confirm our suspicions that OA doesn't have enough

SR, appreciate your enthusiasm for OA but I guess we just disagree on it, so far I am not sold on it and the annual push from OA to have elections with nothing to make it worth the scouts and parents time have mostly closed my mind to OA at this point. ACCO it's not one person deciding, it's the ASM's who also don't have time, the parents who don't want to drive to OA meetings and functions, the scouts who were turned off to it either from our 2004 Eagle's experience, what they hear from others at camporres and such, the indian ceremonies they saw and what we used to describe what OA offe

92 I lament the me first, lazy attitude today of not only scouts but parents too. Made some reference when I posted today on another OA thread. It might be a topic worthy of it's own thread actually. Our unit has been very good on community service projects, helping out in addition to Eagle projects we do every year. I do have some scouts and parents though who do little to no service work, complain that it is a requirement and grip when their failure to do service work holds up their advancement but overall the scouts in our unit are pretty good. What makes me mad enough to about knock s

John, I'm with you, I really get aggrivated at many folks today that are all about themselves and never volunteer. Our troop does a lot of community service in addition to about 3 Eagle projects a year so we are not hurting for service opportunities and that message is not lost on our bous. We have it in our program so don't need it from OA.

No disrespect, I will reply honestly in respect for your devotion and interest...... Being a unit scouter, I know that it is usually code for the SM not being interested and thinking it is just one more thing he has to deal with. I always encourage the SM's who are not OA members to be the adult nominated from their troop so they have a working knowledge of the OA and can promote and encourage their boys from inside the troop. Part of my point right there....when I was SM I had more than plenty to do, I didn't need to be the unit OA adult nominated. More calls to get and communicatio

Double posted....(This message has been edited by hicountry)

Seattle, I don't intend to sound mean or anything but our troop has run well for 5 or 6 years now, I and ths scouts and parents don't see the need to add things unless they are fun or unique or a great opportunity. We put enough in trying to have a successful troop by just about all measures, that seems to be plenty. The troop is essentially the customer, the side stuff offered through BSA are like many small businesses, reaching out for units (Scoutmaster's) attention be it career night, roundtable, FOS, Popcorn, Denver Nuggets Night, Merit badge classes, Soccer games, college hockey, OA

A couple similar threads going on now about OA, I'll just respond to this one. As a former SM I was initially open to OA. Our troop has some logistical difficulties about it but I was open. I never got to the issues of diappointment at OA not showing up for elections as we never got that far so fr that I can't relate personal experience. One good point earlier on is OA is yet another Scout related voice reaching out for the SM's attention. Note, it is always OA reaching out to units trying to get them involved, we hear very little about units trying to reach OA, we also hear a l

I sometimes wondered about the need for venturing and as I saw registration numbers in the Denver Area Council, I realized I was not in the minority with those kinds of thoughts. Of the given number registered in BSA in the council, about 2/3rd were cubs, about one third Boy Scouts and a very small number in Venture, Explorer, varsity etc. There is one good venture crew that is focused on shooting sports and puts on a good week long Summer camp. It is well run and reasonably popular, my troop has several boys register in the venture crew so they can attend the RAMS summer camp but other t

We had to introduce rules regarding campout sign up due to scouts and their parents taking ever increasing advantage of the troop scouters that resulted in hassles, un-necessary extra work, frustration and burn out. If we were flexible, people slowly took more and more advantage of things until they were nearly out of control and the boys were learning some very bad habits. As we adhered to rules we got griping from some parents as we did not flex to accomodate them, we invited them to register and help run the troop and activities, that shut most of the complainers up fast. In addition to s

Spot on Baden P, we opted out of the JTE, formerly quality unit, formerly Centenial unit carrot and stick game a few years ago. As I assumed, the devil in the details about JTE are coming out and it appears to be developing into a clueless, useless game that as you put it, is out of touch with Scouting in the field. I too am amazed they manage to sucker in many units with such poor incentives as a patch and a certificate.....big deal. Somehow I managed to be a SM for 5 years without a trained patch as I never took IOLS and we ran very well and I never missed a beat nor did I stay awake ni

"He called me 6 times yesterday from 2-9pm." HUGE RED WARNING FLAG HERE This is someone almost out of control and may sense they are losing thier grip of contol over YOU. Definitely time to distance yourself from this guy and probably district and council. Don't answer or return calls, as others have said, control your own destiny, only turn in apps with payment, other apps....what apps ? FOS...."we'll get back to you" Dlegate Say NO more often. District events.....hold your own events that can be more fun, closer, lower cost, more convenient. Don't let

In the 2 years I was ASM and 5 years as SM of a troop that had between 25 and 32 scouts in it, I think only 3 times did a scout come to me or any adult wanting to start a merit badge on thier own. @ times came from the same scout. The concept of independantly doing this is lost today. I tried to promote the traditional means of the merit badge process on numerous occasions but it was like talking to the wall. The parents see the badges a checkoff although I was able to educate them somewhat as to what we are trying to accomplish with many aspects of the scout program and the did see the value