John-in-KC

Fast Good Cheap Pick Two

'Zis time for ze music! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eRXyQn55hM R A G G M O P P RaggMopp! "and your obedient serpent is ... A BOB CLAMPETT CARRRRRRRR TOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON!(This message has been edited by John-in-KC)

mmhardy: The computerworld article is still online; the hyperlink ( http://opensource.scouting.org/ ) is dead. To quote Dr McCoy: It's dead, Jim! Jim, it's dead! Captain, it's dead! It's dead, Captain! It must be dead! Let it go Jim, it's dead!

For my EagleSon, and the five others in his ECOH, they decided most of it was over the top too. Instead, they asked the Troop resident Grandpa, himself an Eagle and a member of our Council Exec Board, saying a few words about the expectations people have of Eagles

And to clarify what the Judge just said: If you have questions about tax law for your unit, call your local council, and ask for the contact information for their General Counsel: This will be a volunteer Scouter, an attorney, who provides legal support to the Executive Board. Alternately, ask your COR or IH for whoever they get legal help from... usually a member of the organization.

Find the kids first. Then have them help you sell the concept of a Crew to the potential Chartered Partner. You have to know what their interests are, so that the Friends can see that there's a fit. From the National website: Starting a Crew/Ship Organizing a Venturing crew is easy to do. Just follow these steps: A survey is conducted annually in community high schools to determine students' recreational, hobby, and avocation interests. FIND THE KIDS FIRST. The process is easier to sell if there are young people wanting to do things. BTW, since you are a Commish, may I assume you will not a direct contact leader in this?

I remember having to learn how to use an abacus. It was elementary school, the 3d or 4th grade, and time for "new math." EagleSon has been on Apple products most of his teen years. His university has damned good IT support, but it helps that I bought it at the bookstore

BSA's open source pages are dead links now. That can mean the project is dead, or it can mean the project has moved elsewhere in the BSA domain...

Mr Lee, The issue is not BSA; it's the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. BTW, if there's a National IT staffer who looks in here, they need to look at this page: http://www.scouting.org/highadventure/philmont/doublehranch/reservations.aspx RANT: OLD INFORMATION. The info on this page is for 2-3 season ago. / RANT

Venturing is about the youth, not about what the adults want to do. Look at the area high schools: Are there kids who enjoy the outdoors? Are there interest groups in things supported within the refuge? The youth can come from an outdoor recreation bent, or from an outdoor service bent (ranger, firefighter, forester, what have you...) That's the target audience for membership. Once you have a coherent group of kids who have a concept of what they want to do in your outdoor environement, then you can think about the other things Venturing will do for them. Find your audience, then becoming a crew is not quite a mechanical process.

SOLOING is not outside your comfort zone, when it's done in front of a well-trained and experienced musician, such as a band director? EagleSon is a freshman in university, when he solos for jury, he's outside his comfort zone, and his jury is his professor, his professor/director of athletic bands, and a third member of his conservatory. When he solo'd for Districts, he was outside his comfort zone. Trust me, a band director as MBC is a good choice!

If the CC and the SM are not on the same page, life gets very difficult for the kids. You don't say what your position in the unit is, or what the actual problems are. I hope both are fully trained for their positions. If not, well, once this challenge is fixed, training is a tool to help folks be on the same page, so you don't get in the mess again. You start things, even at this hour, with the proverbial friendly cup of coffee. SM/CC go someplace, offsite, away from the kids, and both actively listen as each other airs the challenges. If friendly, active listening doesn't work, and you have a do-nothing COR, SM tells CC he's going to make a business appointment with the IH. On prerogative of a SM is he/she has same level of access, in matters of program, as the CC. If your UC is a no-show, SM can call the District Commissioner and ask for assistance. There's also the big trump card, which gets the DE's attention: SM asks him for help, as the unit is at risk of closing. DE's do not like to lose units, and if the Commmissioner Service hasn't been spurred to action until now, that may well do it. The Scouting "charter" (license, franchise) model works well when all the parts work together. That said, it's obvious something here isn't working. Can you give us some more info, please? Otherwise, the generics we give you are as far as we can go...

I adjusted my settings to high; we'll see what that does. Of course, Terry didn't believe us about the Chinese hack for a while, too...

Western Union... Some bloody resort... Current Magazine... I'm getting pop-up ads here. It's getting really old, really fast. Yes, my pop-up blocker (IE 7.0) is ON.

IF he called me in advance and explained the problem, and proposed a solution, I'd buy in. If he jumps without calling me, I might well say I won't accept them.

Oooooh... a great training example. Thanks, all

This is one of the reasons BSA wants units to be organized under established Chartered Partners in the community, rather than self-organization. Churches, American Legion, VFW, ...

OMG. The Franchise Tax Board of California. The California State Board of Equalization. Dad held CPA licensure in California and Nevada, and had friends on both States Boards of Accountancy. Let me make my advice short, sweet, and to the point: If you want to do this, consult a California/Federal corporation/tax law specialist, and pray he's a Scouter who'll do it pro bono or deep discount. If you don't do this right, that popcorn Council wants you to sell? You'll be paying sales tax on it.

IH has the inherent authority to remove a COR. Welcome to why BSA discourages self-chartering. Your self-chartering organization has set itself up for explosive failure. Call your District Executive and District Commissioner tomorrow. You have that authority as the COR. You need big and very local friends. You've not told us the particular issues in this challenge. Maybe they are big at first, but can be solved with our proverbial friendly cup of coffee (listen/discuss/find a solution most will buy into). Maybe not. Not knowing what they are, we cannot help you dig deeper. Maybe Beavah can untie this Gordian knot. With the information at hand, I cannot.

CONTRACT??? That a Scout will follow the Oath and Law should be an expectation. This is something the Scoutmaster should simply report out at the next Committee meeting. Youth members or adults (and I've seen some adults be bigger horse's patooties than youth) who are out of bounds may suffer the Scoutmaster's (ASM being weekend SM) wrath, including a call to come and get him. A few years back the ASPL was acting out at our LT camp. It got to the point where SM, Camp SM, and troop resident Grandpa (a former SM and member of our Council Exec Committee), made the decision and called Mom/Dad to come fetch him. Yes, we lost a Scout. I'm not 100% sure we'd done all for him that we could, but I'm over 85% sure.

Uniform is but one method.

Much depends on the structure of charitable law and non-profit corporation law in your State. We had a huge brouhaha in Missouri a few years back, when they yanked the tax-exemption rug out from under BSA National Scout Shops. By one Scouter corporation lawyer's estimate, it would have taken each Pack, Troop and Crew 300-500 manhours, 10K in attorney fees, and another 10K in CPA fees to make a unit a non-profit subsidiary of a base non-profit (such as a church). Consult your local Council's General Counsel for additional advice. Your DE should be able to put you in touch with him.

While the wearing of military medals can be done (I believe the old social custom was "morning dress" and up), the rare times I've seen an American do it out of uniform are when he/she's a diplomat presenting themselves to a foreign government. I would not wear a youth religious emblem under any circumstances.

Funny, when we talked about teaching skills at our WB (and I am 21C, and yes, it was during our own time with our TG), that was the general outline of training we used. BTW, that also is a part of how I was taught to train by Mother Army.

Get the adults out of the business of signing off T-2-1. They can overwatch the Instructors, SPL, ASPL and TGs. The exceptions: Second class 8a: 8a. Participate in a school, community, or troop program on the dangers of using drugs, alcohol, and tobacco and other practices that could be harmful to your health. Discuss your participation in the program with your family. Parental signoff imo. First class 5: 5. Visit and discuss with a selected individual approved by your leader (elected official, judge, attorney, civil servant, �principal, teacher) your constitutional rights and obligations as a U.S. citizen. The person with whom the Scout has the discussion (and note, none of these are defined as youth members or unit serving Scouters in their Scouting position) should do the signoff imo.