jstephens42

With the current price of silver, you're only looking at around a 26% to 30% premium for the scouting coins. If you want to buy 1oz of silver today, you're going to pay close to $52. If you're going to buy a large qty of sliver, you can pay as little as $47.85 in today's market. National Supply has to plan for the price of silver over the course of the entire run of 12. I'm not sure if they have secured the silver for the coins either. In the last 3 months, silver has gone up $20 per oz. In a month or two, $69.99 could be a good deal for the coin...

The position in ScoutNet is still 'Roundtable Commissioner'. I believe the registration code is still 83, but I'm not sure of that at the moment. National Supply doesn't make that patch any more since in most districts the roundtables are divided. Since you're doing the job, I say wear the appropriate patch, but I'd make sure the DC doesn't want you being an ADC. It's a different commissioner key progress record.

If a committee member is only coming to one adult committee meeting a month, they're not going to meet the requirements for the award. Any committee member that is earning this award is probably at least serving on boards of review, helping drive scouts to and from events, and serving as an MBC.

If you read the requirements for the award, one of the 12 requirements (which you must complete 5) can only be completed by a committee member: 'Fulfill requirements of a troop committee function as described in the Troop Committee Guidebook.' This would imply that the award is to be awarded to committee members as well. It also specifically says that IOLS is only required for ASMs and SMs.

Tenure in a single registered position only counts once. Although you can be registered in multiple positions. An example would be a DL and a District Committee Member. You would track your DL time and District Committee time separately. Being a Den Leader should not conflict with your ability to do your duty on the District Committee. The person should show up on both rosters and have filled out two applications. Clear as mud?

Before you just cross out the 2009 and write 2010, please look at question 1. There is a very large change on the wording of that question. For your Direct Contact Leaders to count, they need to be 'Trained'. For Troops and Teams, this means IOLS and Scoutmaster Specific.

Has anyone ever passed Staffing the District Committee? Everyone I've spoken to, who has tried to take it, has bombed it. If they're going to require this for all District Committee members, I think we're going to have a lot fewer people at the district level...

From the picture, this would be a temporary insignia. I don't see why National would care one way or the other. There have been several awards based on the Universal Arrow pin that have come out of National. The Leadership In Service award being the newest. Perhaps they are thinking of no longer issuing those types of national awards in the future.

I'm sure this has been mentioned in the past, but to be on the council exec board, you would need to be registered in either positions 11-14 or 41. To be a registered adult leader in the BSA, you need to be 21 except for the assistant unit leader positions. You may also want to look into the Council Committee or the Council Advisory Board.

Last I heard BSA uses Choicepoint. I've also heard some very bad things about them, but they seam to be the 'standard' that everyone uses. They offer a service that lets you verify that you have no criminal record and give a passcode to another person so they can see this info. If BSA is just going to give your SSN to Choicepoint, you might as well do it yourself and verify the information is correct.

It really should not matter which council the scout shop is in. The employees at the shops I've been to are all national employees. Although I'm sure most of them are also registered in local councils as well, but they should be following a uniform national policy.

While I haven't seen the new issue, I hear that there is what looks to be a CSP on the pocket flap? Could this be the new uniform we have been hearing so much about. One of the older scouts in my troop, who works at a scout shop, has mentioned seeing the new uniform shirt and I thought I heard him say that they were moving the CSP and the shoulder loops are changing to green. He didn't say what color of green, so it may be light enough to look silver in the picture. As I said in my first sentance, I haven't seen the new issue yet so take this with a very large grain of salt.

Another quick merit badge is Coin Collecting. The hardest part is putting together the 'date set' which should cost you no more than a few dollars for some penny rolls. Grab the book, sit down with it for a few hours and knock one off your list. And who knows, you may find a new hobby as well. Good luck and let us know how you did.

Maybe the 1st of the year was for the fiscal year?

Update: I emailed Council today and they were able to find me in a database. They didn't have my Ordeal or Brotherhood dates, but did have a record of me paying dues in 1996, and that I was Brotherhood. I don't remember paying dues in '96, although it was like 5 bucks a year back then, and I may have paid 5 years in advance. James

I'm guessing that they don't have the records either. I do have an idea where my sash is, it should still fit. I'm hoping that since I still know the admonition, and the other tests, I should be OK. I'm guessing that they didn't get back to me because they couldn't find the data.

I was in the OA when I was a scout, and am now getting involved in scouting as an adult. I am trying to get information regarding my time in The Order, but am running into problems. I first emailed the chapter webmaster, and received no response. I then tried the chapter advisor and the DE, still nothing. The only thing I can think of doing now is emailing the SE or possibly the Lodge advisor. I moved around 6 times after turning 18, and my parents moved twice, we were unable to locate any of my old paperwork for scouts, and I'm just glad my uniform never got thrown out. Do any of you ha

What about MBCs(code 42 I think)? Say you are a Committee Member and an MBC, do you register as both?

Thanks for the quick reply. I made first class in the late 80s, so that does make sense. I 'aged out' right about the time the uniform changes took place (no more background color on rank/position badges and everyone could wear the WC). It would make sense that there were other changes that happened around that time with the requirements. I probably never looked back at the 1st class requirements once I hit star. I still miss the metal belt loops for the skill awards that we had to earn to advance, I think there was a first aid one for that too. James

I'm not sure if this is the right place for this, but here it goes... I recently got re-involved in scouting by working at a Merit Badge college my employer hosted, and noticed something. When I was in scouts, to earn the First Class rank, you needed the First Aid merit badge. What alerted me to the fact that something changed was when I saw a First Class scout registered for the First Aid badge. I'm wondering when this changed, and what the reasoning behind it was.