jhankins

Call the National Help Desk and let them know what's not working.

877-272-1910

I made this video for our Distinguished Citizens Dinner (thanks for the help on music ideas!).

Please feel free to use it and share!

People out here in the desert have nothing better to do than complain

All that aside, I'm proud of our Sunrise District and how far the boys have come. It's an isolated community with not a lot for the boys to do. Scouting is one of the fun things around, and I applaud the scoutmaster for inviting more community involvement!

4' off the ground? That's kinda high for cubs.

The last monkey bridge I saw, the boys had to wear helmets, and they were tied in to a rappelling harness on a line above the bridge, and it was only 4' off the ground for boy scouts.

I do keep track, thanks for the reminder, though. It's my understanding that you can only count that if you itemize, and I don't.

When you look at the annual stats of merit badges earned, most are in the tens of thousands, or even thousands. Bugling is right up there with... hundreds.

I'm not saying it's a wise choice, but from an interest standpoint, it's dwindling.

I saw those at the National Office when I was there two years ago and was wondering more about their history. They looked great!

Thanks for that.

Webelos Leader Outdoor breakouts include some fun and games for the leaders to work on -- the geology activity badge (I think?) needs baking soda and vinegar to get the volcano goin

I 2nd what Eagle has stated here. As a DE I even encouraged units to not participate in FOS and popcorn until they felt comfortable with where their monies went. My bosses hated that I said that, but it paid off in the end. It took a lot of unit service to the upset units to show them they were getting their monies worth, but it was a job I was proud to do. If your DE isn't cooperating, the only people he's really hurting are the boys.

If customer service sucks at the office, and your DE isn't your "servant" like his Executive's Oath he took states, and you're not getting your money's worth at camp, I suggest as a committee you write it in a nice letter, have your COR sign it, and ship it off to the Council Key Three. Not to the SE to the Key Three -- so the volunteers sign it.

This is my favorite merit badge to teach. Some of my very best memories of junior and senior high band were my private lessons with a bugler. She had copies of an old Dan Butterfield bugle book and she would let me borrow it and learn the calls. I felt so very special for the chance to learn off the source material!

I think I'll make one last call before it's gone. Thanks for the idea.

Do you have a copy of the budget form used by the council? This is a good first step. You'll need the cost center codes for your event.

My council insists on a 15% overhead fee to cover the time of the office staff and to make a small profit. In reality, the SE has said he wants to make a 60% profit off every council event INCLUDING TRAINING. Well, as a district training chair, I make razzberry noises in his general direction.

For trainings I budget for:

Snacks

Copies (5 cents per page)

facility rental

training cards (56 cents per sheet of 8, plus tax)

training record form

Meal (if required)

Program supplies: Rope, baking soda for volcanoes, etc...

Now that I've said that -- I get a lot of that donated, including the facility rental. But I still have to budget for it because I have to file "Project sales."

PSs are things that are the cost to run the program, but are donated. The cost is still there, I just got it for free, so that project sale is recorded as a donation, and any profit made on top of the training because of the off-set expense is all bennies for the council.

I got sick of filling out a purchase order for 56cent training cards, so I print those from home, and include the line item for office supplies to include the ink I use from home (With DE permission).

I was told by my DE to include my gas mileage because I drive 1,300 miles a month or so for training. I refused. Scouts pay their own way, and I won't set the precedent that my time is more valuable than any other volunteers. Every trainer in our council pays their own way -- Wood Badge, lunch at an event, if they need credit for a training, etc...

It is possible for every unit to have a trainer, but with mandatory "Train the trainer" coming in a few years, we've already started a process in my district. If you want to train, you have attend Trainer's EDGE. You must attend a mandatory district trainer's training on the jobs at hand, paperwork, etc...

And you've got to funnel all training records to the District Training Chair for submission.

With mandatory training coming, it's a shame some refuse to work with the team. In the end, his unit is going to suffer.

I once spoke with a Scoutmaster who said to his boys "A 12 year old Eagle doesn't do anyone any service, let alone the boy. You'll have to really impress me with your skills knowledge and understanding of Scouting in your conference to get past me."

I thought that was pretty harsh, but it turns out the boys made sure they understood what they were learning, they made sure to have the skills under their belts. None have reached Eagle at 12, but at 14-16, they've been some of the most impressive young men in my district.

It depends on how you run a district or council TLT. If the focus is on the "Team" that the boys came with, you'll get those aspects of team development and cooperation you're looking for. If you break the boys up, it's more of a seminar on leadership rather than a team-building experience.

You also get a spirit of cooperation from a district event. We have several troops and patrols that now camp together on occasion and the SPLs work on common events and share information because they met at Cedar Badge.

I do believe a TLT should be run every six months at the troop level, but there's an epidemic of leaders refusing to do them, or not having the time to do so. As part of the deal as a district if we offer the Cedar Badge course, the Scoutmaster or his assistants have to be involved in some form, they're just not bearing all of the burden.

Suitable gifts from non-scouters to me include things that are fun and special at the same time.

He's gonna get lots of gifts from Scouters with Eagle stuff, why not think outside the box? Does he like certain kinds of music? Concert tix?

It requires the same effort to train 8 boys as it does to train 80-- in most respects

Our council offers council-wide TLT. They call it Cedar Badge. The course makes the rounds from district to district throughout the year. It's an all day affair with more fun and games introduced.

Over the years it's been modified little by little to include some hands-on application, too. Each troop forms its own leadership patrol and they work the room visiting youth leaders playing the roles involved in planning a campout -- so they walk through the process in a practical fashion.

It's more than the TLT syllabus requires, but it's popular. Each course usually has more than 75 boys. Last year we ran two in two weekends since we had 150 boys signed up.

The only thing I suggest when doing something like this is making sure the Scoutmasters are involved and have their past senior leadership help lead the course, especially if boys have been through NYLT. It's a great experience for everyone to see them in action.

Ya, that's right -- I just copied and pasted what her notes were.

My Council training chair just got back from the national meeting --

Presenters:

Joe Glasscock Dan Zaccara Mary Stevens

Instructional Design:

Addie Model Assessment, Design, Development, Implement, Design

Development of above template (guidelines) to build new training

More courses going on line (including Trainers EDGE) for Councils to

download and use

Philmont schedule to come out later than usual due to course selection

Courses for trainers will be scheduled for Sept. 2011

Required Training (for leaders who have direct youth contact)

Councils must complete by 12/31/11

More Basic Courses on line

More skills and instructional courses to be added

Suggest take training to leaders (units) rather than large

District/Council groups

Must develop more District training teams

Looking for greater retention

Trainers Certification Process looking to implement in 2 years

A process to insure that trainers are current and presenting current

materials

Improvement of Scout Reach to assist Councils

Development of a learning management system which will aid Councils in

duplicate registrations for online courses will use ID number, not names

Suggest Councils invest in volunteer assistance to input records

*** As of 6/1/10 all leaders with direct youth contact must take Youth Protection Guidelines after Registration and before first meeting with Den/Pack

NOTE CHANGED 5/29/10. PLEASE READ Youth Protection Guidelines from previous e-mail.

New site on Scouting.org Rumor Control

Example Yes, a Unit may recharter without all being trained

Troop Leader Training (TLT) and Cub Leader Training (CLT) developed for

Unit Leadership

National Youth Leadership Training (NYLT) developed for Council Leader-

ship

2011 new Council Development Course (CDC) will be available

Kodiak still based on treks new component will add Leadership skills

NYLT and NAYLE Venturing girls have been included in new syllabus

New syllabus still in draft form until 2011.

Venturing girls may staff NYLT if have completed NAYLE

Mentoring Program new as of April 2010 under development

SO why put "the old guard" in on a BOR for a Venturing boy? If the old guard can't follow policy, why give them the chance to give a boy a hard time for doing nothing wrong?

What the boy wears really doesn't matter, and National has said so. If a boy shows up and a suit and tie he can't be penalized for that.

National hasn't officialy given the boot to TDC. I kinda wish they would. 20 minutes on how to hold and sharpen chalk and 30 minutes on how to make flannel boards is well, dated.

In my council Trainer Development Conference is required for all district trainers. EDGE is still listed in our council as only for NYLT and Wood Badge staff. National's policy on this isn't clear yet. Saying that, though, TDC is only ran once a year, which hasn't been conducive for me to get new trainers online. I'm still mentoring people along the way if they are doing ticket items or want to train (or have trained), but the TDC hang up is kinda silly for say, an educator of 30 years!

Bob has turned over the majority of national council operations to Jim Terry and Gary Butler, both guys I've only met and interacted with on occasion, but they were quite tenacious! I really like Wayne Brock. He seemed sincere and organized and he's got a clear vision of operations that I didn't get from Bob.

Two years ago when I last saw the council list it was just over 300.

What a neat idea. It's good to see councils getting along from both sides of the fence. Here, our professionals refuse to even talk to each other and camps that volunteers had faith in unification failed because the pros trashed it on their end.