highcountry

I beleive that succession planning in a volunteer organization is extremely difficult. No one has to be there and if the percieved work load or politics or un-desirable factors are too much no one will step up and that is what frequently happens. The previous SM and his wife the CC tried the door will not open until these blanks are filled method once while I was still ASM. The result was several adult volly's who put their name in the blanks so everyone could leave but had no intention of actually doing the job and ther result was some troop critical functions going completely un done. At l

We used a different recipe, used italian Sausage and Ricotta, fresh parm and mozerella. Our boys took 1st place in the Dutch oven cookoff at TAhosa Camporee in October with it. No leftovers for sure.

Yes Beavah and evmori, the scouts keep the money they fundraise in their scout accounts, for use to pay camping, activities and the like, they don't take cash or use it for purchase of any personal goods, you are correct in assuming that, I thought I was pretty clear but some people appear to busy themselves looking for any opportunity to rant and tell others how they are wrong. If scouts drop out they can transfer the money to another troop if they have moved, otherwise it goes into the troop general fund. I can see in Evmori's response there is a snippet of BW's post, I normally don't see

We charge $50 a year dues, $10 for membership the balance goes to fund troop overhead costs. Boys Life is extra. We have a local Utility that also donates about $800 a year and this also goes to troop overhead. Adult volunteers pay $10 annual registration fee. With 25 boys the $1800 a year comes close to covering annual overhead and leave some extra to cover equipment replacement or repair. We have re-equipped the troop since I took over 2 years ago as we had worn out junk at the time, this was mostly covered by donations by adult leaders and parents and some from fund raising. Campouts

I have 6 ASM's and 3 do not have kids in the program, those 3 are my best ASM's. 1 became Eagle 2 years ago, aged out and liked our troop and the program so much he stayed on as an ASM while he is in college locally. He is s huge supporter of real learning, leadership and responsibility, does a load of coaching, mentoring and counsels several merit badges. 1 is an Eagle Scout frm about 1970, is back in it for the love of the program. He is connected to the veeterans and also is strong on values, honor, responsibility and leadership 1 is the step son of teh 1970 Eagle ASM. He i

evmori, I know my post was long and full of typos so sometimes they get a bit hard to follow. I mentioned "Scout A" was removed from the unit, in fact it was almost a year ago. When I took over the previous SM made an agreement Scout A had 6 months to keep his nose clean which he did. He also however missed many troop meetings and activities so his opportunities to "Mis-behave" were somewhat limited. This was also the same time period I was trying to "right the Ship" and get the CC out of the troop that was such a problem. After teh 6month time period was up he made a few more meeting

OGE, my posts are long enough but even at that I didn't give all the detaisl for folks to understand the story of the scout in question, yes he absolutely should have had membership revoked, I have not told all the details, but how it evolved...... Lets call the scout in question A. He had always been a trouble, picking on kids at meetings, campouts, mean attitude. He has been frequently suspended from school, has a patrol officer due to arrests for burglary, severe vandalism and othe things. A's mom is a drug addict in prison, A's dad is a piece of work to put it nicely. A's poor beha

I can certainly agree that an SM who has some personal issue with a scout or his family should not fail to sign off on a scout's advancement because of personal conflict. That is unethical and working outside what scouting is teaching, but I am talking about the more frequent problem os scouts who without a doubt are in no way deserving of an advancement due to behavior, lack of activity or worse, teh SM should be able to say NO, this individual isn't even close to derving at this time and needs to plan and implement improvement. If I am supposed to sign off just because the SM was held, why

We do COH 3 times a year, we have thought about 4 times but it is hard enough doing just 3 that we have stayed with the current plan. 90% of the time the scouts are craming last minute to finish rank and merit badges before the COH. Our meeting before the COH is typically a lightly scheduled meeting as we know many boys are asking for SM conference and BOR. We have tried to remind and suppor tpeople (scouts and parents) to do SM conf and BOR's early to work on badges as opportunities are available to have PL's coach theri patrol members and it is like trying to part the sea, we resolved to

Some of the things I am reading here are a tragic shame, be they the written rule or what, they seem to me to run contrary to what kind of young people we are supposed to be developing. As the rule is supposedly written is basically ludicrous and undermines what I as SM should be doing to develop youth. This is why I will not operate that way as I feel it is crazy to pass a scout off on a requirement for simply participating even though they failed miserably. I would hate to find my wife's surgeon got his credentials to operate because he particiapted in college but his grade average was a

Some people have a huge amount of time on thier hands looking at the frequncy and short response time on their posts , especially it has been apparent the only other thing some seem to do is comb over and memorize every minute rule out there. Some people are best put on ignore poster when history has shown they demonstrate little to nothing positive to add. I think at least one poster can't let it go because deep down he realizes there are many out there that don't obey every single rule to the letter 100% of the time and that there is nothing he can do about it but rant and rave and make

We have not bbeen to San Isabel but I suspect it might be quite hot. We have also done Alexander and the boys always love it and it is close to us. I have an ASM (Made Eagle with us 2 years ago and stayed on as an adult leader after 18) who was a counselor there and has lots of good to say about it. Our younger scouts are going to Alexander again this year. Peaceful Valley I hear has improved the past couple years, the food service used to be beyond awful but they mow have Sodexho that does a good job generally. Our scouts never go to peaceful valley though as we aere in the mounta

Verbotten or not, scouts who are not trustworthy, not active and prove to be regulalry undependable are missing some significant parts of teh scout oath and law and therefore are sometimes asked to try and improve and come back for anotehr scout conference. I am not talking about the scouts who come to meetings and particiapte, come to activities (campouts) and saw theri end of the log, but miss on the communciations end occasionally, I am talking about those who are rare at meetings, alsmost never on campouts, bad with communications etc. There is no way they are getting a scoutmaster revie

Oh...yes and we do have a troop website, one o my excellent asm's keeps it up. Almost no one bothers or remebers to check that either despite constant reminders.

I'm with you, it is not only the email that gets blown off. The previous scoutmaster had the same issues and frustrations. I tried to step up communications and organize proceedures to not give anyone the excuse of "I didn't know". No one dares complain to me or other adult leaders about not getting information as EVERYONE is completely clear that we make contact clearly, in advance, with reminders and sometimes with follow up calls and paper to go with the scouts, announced at meetings and spare copies on teh sign up table. I sometimes wonder how some people hold jobs and mannage through

This thread like many others similar revolving about rules and though should and thou must has become long and mostly non productive. It reminds me of the occasional reference I have seen hear and heard elsewhere that rules zealots spoil things and run off some scouts and volunteers. BSA can and continues to pile on so many rules it is hard to keep track of them all or be aware of them all except for those who have some warped ego bent on knowing the rules and telling others how they have it wrong, so counter productive to trying to do a good safe job and deliver a good program. For those w

Since I took over as SM 2 years ago and from my experience as ASM for a year or so before that I have learned a lot and evolved in how we approach patrols. We tried a number of things that did not end up working and had to change from where things were when I took over to where we are today. When I took over, the previous SM only had patrols in name, the scouts did nothing as patrols, they sat in chairs with their buddies at meetings, not in patrols, some of the PL's had bad attitudes and were in their closed cliques. As a result advancement was very little, retention was terribe with ne

Communication is always a major headache in our troop. We use email a lot as we can forward and reply, add attachments and there is a time trail on when communication was made, where you don't have that with calls unless someone is dillegent about making notes about the calls they make and recieve. Email unfortunately has a terrible rate of response, it has been this way with other groups I have been involved with as well, it is nothing new to scouts. parents either don't open theri email very often, don't bother to read, forget, don't feel like responding etc. We have about 30 on our e

Not a tantrum, sorry you think it is just fine for council to keep asking volunteers to make up for their repeated failings while not fixing it for 8 years apparently. You seem to have plenty of problems having rants and tantrums with everyone who doesn't embrace and adhere to every single nit picky rule that BSA or camps or councils foist on volunteers no matter how useless or contrary to common sense. You do it here dailey but when you are called for your ranting, that is OK right ? If there is one thing that certainly helps chase away volunteers and scouts it is know it alls who's appare

It doesn't matter if it takes 5 minutes or 5 hours to send council the information, it is beyond pathetic they loose the records 5 times in 8 years. To wait this long to make a decision that the national database is not working and they should consider alternatives is a sign of incompetant management. So to be a good scouter one is to be obedient and be helpful at all times. Does this mean it is still OK for them to loose your records 8 times in 8 years, how about 20 times in 10 years, where does this mentality end, as one needs to always be helpful and send that information along as an ob

To the original poster, you are definitely not alone in how you feel. I think between the piles of rules BSA has (Some of little value) and some people's perception of what is or is not permisible (right or wrong) it also seems to me there are far too many don'ts or hoops to jump through sometimes. For the most part we can thank all the complainers, filers of suits, lawyers, media pressure and bad behavior before that has created teh need for BSA to protect itself with more and more proceedure, policy and rules to cover itself. I am certainly for being safe and trying to run a good program,

We just went to Ben Delatour, I would definitely NOT recomend them. They are difficult to deal with on almost every item large and small. Add to this the normal hassles of dealing with Scout camps and in Colorado (Burdensome medication policy and med form policy that has changed frequently in recent years). We overbooked by a half dozen scouts (Long story) they told us that if they sold some of the surplus spots we overbooked to other troops they would refund some or all of our money, they filled most of the spots, even asked us to use one site we paid for for a Texas troop that had more show

Being a firefighter has had some blessings on the side...this area is one of those. Both my boys have heard calls in progrress on the radio, know kids who were involved in wrecks and have been on scene at a couple of incidents. They have seen and heard things most people would rather not have haunting their minds, but they have HUGE respect for driving and will probably err WAY on the side of caution.

Summer camps have been a problem for us and it relates to many of the observations I have posted about previously on other threads. Difficulty with parents, parents who don't tune into communication, fickle plan changers, kids who need the money most raise the least funds etc. Add to that the summer camps want payment in full pretty early, And I am told this is to combat the increasing observation of "too busy" people procratinating until the last minute and it gets worse. I am not rally hot on catering to the older scouts, as when I have allowed them to put activities on the schedule they

This is a difficult requiremetn to address somewhat as there are fewer areas where a scout troop might mobilize and assist in an emergency situation. We live in the Colorado Rockies and myself and 2 of my ASM's are firefighters and understand what emegency situations we face, how they go down and where a troop might possibly preform a function where they could realistically mobilize. In this day and age, the lawyers and liability with trained first responders, teh BSA is not going to get called out to handle any tasks of any significance. About our only large threats here are a mass casualt