kari_cardi

Thanks Eric, I'll check it out.

Our troop does menu planning, shopping and cooking by patrol. It is interesting to me to see how my son's patrol plans the menu so that they can eat good food but have as little clean up as possible. Who needs a plate or a fork when you can wrap your fresh pancakes around your sausage and eggs? My boys have learned to cook at home. I don't buy a lot of prepared foods, and my kitchen is open to all of them. They have to cook if they want to eat more than PB&J sandwiches. We also rotate dinner duty. Just like in scouts, kids respond well to being given valid responsibilities that benefi

I think the treasurer overstepped boundaries to make this decision. A more diplomatic approach and better procedure would be to bring the issue to the leadership committee for discussion and a group decision. Doing so even now would help mend relations with the den leaders. They have an opinion, no reason why it shouldn't be heard. Invite them to the next meeting and make a final decision then. I do think that the donations should go to the pack, but I'm not a fan of individual scout accounts anyway.

BSA24, you are speaking from a position of privilege and you are not taking into account the different uniform requirements different units may have and that ideally, especially for the people on this forum, scouting is a family activity. I have six family members registered with the BSA to uniform. That happens at a cost higher than the $55 you estimate or the $135 previously mentioned. Your estimate is for the cheapest uniform, the cub scout uniform, and didn't include the hat, necker or slide that is required by the uniform guide. Also, a belt is important, otherwise earning belt loops is p

The fact that a mother with a newborn walked into the room would have given me sufficient notice that a feeding may occur in my presence, given the nature of newborn babes. Feeding the baby when it gave cues that it wanted to nurse, rather than trying to put off nursing, would be much less disruptive than cries or stopping the EBOR to leave the room or whatever. It's a normal action and should be treated as such, not as something unpleasant or distasteful. Expecting women to sequester themselves because they are lactating is an outdated idea, and for good reason. I think it is awesome that thi

The CM or the CC should double-check his birthday to see if he will be able to crossover with his Webelos den to Boy Scouts. If no, then they have a good solid reason to have the scout repeat a year, which IMO is better to do with Tigers or Wolf rather than the other ranks, for a variety of reasons. I would not suggest dropping out for a year. And if his age at crossover isn't a problem, I would let the scout continue on through the program. Motivation does play a role in how I would view what the DL did. I'm not a fan of lying, but if he did it with the advice of more experienced scouter

The mother of a newborn who is also a troop parent and presumably has a son at least 11 years of age is not likely to think twice about breastfeeding a newborn at a EBOR or anywhere else, for that matter. I'm impressed that the Eagle candidate took it in stride, as said before acceptance of breastfeeding really does seem to be a matter of exposure.

Yes, but after summer camp in June the schedule drops one meeting a month.

After starting this thread, I did find the email address you posted, gautreaux. I think it was added after I looked and posted here in frustration. My email about the issues I listed came back with a canned answer several weeks later from Lee that did not answer my questions and concerns. So my frustration continues. I hear you too, about the pain of switching systems again. I don't know if I am up for it this year.

I love reading success stories! Thanks for sharing.

I'm sorry, I missed that you are the committee right now. I was hoping you had a secretary or treasurer or someone else, at least. Can you do some sort of project management thing where you write out all the steps for each task and organize it by date, then check it daily so you can see what you can do? Even disorganized people can usually manage this for a little while, maybe long enough to bring more volunteers on board. Is there someone who doesn't want to be on the committee but is good at organizing who can help you temporarily? Watching my dh struggle to do everything in the un

If the SM doesn't come through and talk to the COR (aka his father) then I think someone should contact the IH. I know ours would be interested in knowing the situation, it has PR/image ramifications for his church. I am sympathetic to the somewhat arbitrary idea that the son was fine as a troop member a few months ago, but now is outlawed from the unit that he presumably worked with for a good chunk of his life. If he wasn't a threat before, why would he be one now? It is an example of the situation that I've long thought would change people's minds about homosexuality and BSA. What happ

I think that you need to delegate more if you can. Not the whole job, unfortunately, but pieces of it. Are there any committee members who are detail-oriented who might help? I know there are people who thrive on this kind of thing but don't want the responsibility of the position.

We pay for the Eagle kit and the costs formally associated with a COH. Anything more is up to the scout's family. I've heard that the recent ECOH for the son of the SE was quite the shindig.

I think the percentage of leader's sons who have behavior issues is about the same as the percentage of scouts with behavior issues whose parents are not unit leaders, or at least that is my experience. I also have no problem correcting the behavior of youth in any setting, at meetings, playgrounds, parks, wherever; or letting their parents know there is a problem they need to handle. I use the same methods I use with my own kids - a quiet reminder with a suggestion for a more appropriate activity.

Most of our den leaders start out as leader for their son's den. Some stay that way if it works well, others move around as needed. We've had scouts who didn't want to have their parent as a leader, so the parents swapped dens with another leader. I'd prefer to not lead my own boys, so I've taken on other dens, especially Tigers. I think the Tigers really benefit from having an experienced den leader, especially to start, as it helps to orient and retain new parents. There is also a drop of moms as leaders for the webelos years, and also again with the transition to boy scouts. We ca

Our local council regularly schedules spring outdoor training on Mother's Day weekend, so they must not think it is an issue. I find that the first two weekends in May, including Mother's Day, are very busy with graduations, birthdays and religious celebrations. So I would push for a date later in the month for those reasons. I'm wondering now why my husband always seems to be gone for Father's Day and his birthday. Is scouting the reason or the excuse?

We have found that the best way to get a response for anything in the pack is to go around and ask each parent directly. Sad but true.

It's common practice to leave a blank page at the end of a chapter so that the new chapter can be started on a right-hand page. Not so much a mystery.

We have each scout, whatever the rank, cross a real bridge and meet their den leader on the other side. The den leader congratulates each scout on moving to a new rank year and does the Cub Scout handshake with him. Then we have a snack. Everyone seems satisfied with this. We dropped neckerchiefs and slides because of cost. We stopped giving out books in May because so many were lost over the summer or the boys didn't return to scouts in the fall (we don't have den meetings.) For boys who want to work on rank advancements over the summer, we have an online program to record them and we al

I don't think it was cruel but I don't think it was appropriate. I think a non-food item presented at the camping trip would be a better choice. I would prefer a non-food item because I'd rather see physical activity rewarded with something healthy, not junk food; and because I was taught and have taught my sons that it isn't polite to eat in front of other people without sharing. And I would prefer that the award be presented at the camping trip because I think rewards are best appreciated when earned, like others have said. I would not have made a big deal at the meeting though, but per

Any given candidate for a position is pretty obvious in our pack, in my experience. Indentify, recruit, and get the rubber stamp of approval from our IH. Jtex1234, does your pack committee have any bylaws or other document that describes how committee members are selected in your unit?

If a cub has been working on his rank and needs a little more time, then why not encourage him? In my experience, these scouts need just another week or two. If a scout hasn't been working on his rank, missed meetings etc. then in my experience he will either not finish it over the summer OR his parents will report that magically he has completed everything. I'm not so supportive in this case.

I think this thread is doing a good job of pointing out issues in keeping people in positions that can be tweaked so the job is easier. Our pack advancement chair has a tracking program to simplify the award process and a debit card to purchase awards at the scout shop. Much easier than collecting emails from all the den leaders and getting reimbursed for expenses. I would hesitate to give a person new to my unit the positions of committee chair, scout/cubmaster and treasurer. All three require a level of trust beyond competency in the job. Trust in leadership, trust in keeping the scouts

My local YMCA network does similar yearly swim checks for any youth under the age of 16 before they enter any water except the baby pool and for swim lessons. Maybe this isn't common elsewhere? They've been doing it for about 4 years. They've also always done swim checks for youth to use the diving boards and diving area. 'More to the point, teen lifeguards routinely handle swimming pools with higher ratios of swimmers to guards than we have at BSA camps, and they do it without doin' swim checks. Every day. All over the nation.' I do live in the USA. Perhaps BSA is serving as a model