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I'm not LDS, but I did play one on TV once...

Here's what my LDS friends have told me.

The president is called from the Quorum of the 12 appostles. He is, as a general rule, the eldest member of the Quorum. The president chooses 2 members of the 12 as his first and second councellors. This is called the first presidency.

The Quorum of the 12 calls from the quorum of the 70 to fill positions. The Quorum of the 12 calls the 7 brethren from the Quorum of the 70. The Q70 and Q12 constitue the General Authority of the church and preside over all church matters.

I gotta say, the LDS church is very structured.

I had the opportunity to sit in on an EBOR the other night with a young (YOUNG) 15 year old that was so nervous he had trouble talking and giving responses to the board.

Maturity is not a requirement, but it sure comes in handy. He had done the work, his leadership project was weak, but had been approved and he completed it as described in his application, so we had no options there. He'd finished all of his MBs and held an appropriate POR. Scout spirit was not in question.

The only thing we could do is let him, his parents and his Scoutmaster know that we considered him lacking in the confidence and leadership areas, and he needed to work on them over the next couple of years in order to maximize his potential as it related to his Eagle and every other area of his life.

I live in an town that had 3 "mega" troops...HAD. Each troop had well over 100 youth. They ran a very agressive program and had events and outings almost every single weekend.

An operation of this magnitude requires a lot of support. Physical, financial and emotional. When a troop gets this big, the unit dynamics change, and not necessarily for the good. Many boys feel lost in the numbers, issues with bullying and cliques seem to go un noticed, youth leadership is often streched beyond its fragile limits and adults are often very territorial and looking for a way to advance as they would if it were a place of business.

Many troops this size cannot camp together, most camp areas are not suited to hundreds of people and dozens of cars. Most Summer Camps are not suited to mega units either, usually they take contingents to several camps each summer, requiring several additional adults to support the contingents. Quite a logistical pain. Doesn't bode well for building troop camraderie.

One other thing I've noticed around here, these 3 giant troops have one thing in common, an adult leader, usually the Scoutmaster, who is so driven and focused that he makes the program work for everyone. The minute his attention wavers or he decides to step down, the walls come crashing down until this indespensible man or woman comes to the rescue of the troop. Since he or she is so indespensible, they never leave and hold control until they are forced to leave by the masses, thier spouce, or thier physician (Lem you need to take it easy).

All 3 giant units in our area have imploded in the last 5 years, and mostly due to adult issues, which often is the case in any unit. Adults just don't have enough sense to let the program work for the kids, instead they all want to be top dog in the troop, and ultimately cause it's demise.

I think the perfect troop IMHO, is 4 patrols of 6 plus 4 youth leaders. Just like a Jamboree troop, this just seems to fit like a nice pair of boots.

LOL, This cracks me up. I must have been at the right place at the right time, or the wrong place at the right time, or...well you get the picture.

The first time I was asked to be a SM, my own Scoutmaster, then the District Chairman, asked me to help out a troop accross town who's SM had moved away. That little job lasted 4 or 5 years.

This time I was asked to take on the job by the previous and founding SM. I love the kids and spending time with them so according to him I was the perfect choice. I had no intention of being the SM of this troop when I joined, I was happy to be a helper bee.

I'm a member of our CO (Rotary), and became one after taking the job of SM. That has seemed to work out for the best of both organizations. We support each other fully.

I wonder how many unit leaders are chosen because they have the uniform and the time and meet no other qualification? I'd bet it's more than half at least.

When I give a SM Confrence, i make notes in the margins and blank spaces of the boys book. This give him a place to reflect on the goals we've set for him and gives him some idea of what his SM looks for in a member of the troop. He can share that info with anyone he wants, or he can keep it private, it's totally up to him.

The document you mention is like that, but where does it go after the confrence? If it's just more file filler, I don't think I'd be too excited about it. I do see some pros though. I like the fact the boys needs to reflect on his service and leadership, and needs to set goals and even work on a vision for his future in scouting. I just hope at some point he can use this as a tool later down the line.

I think the BSA takes good notes, I'm just not sure they read them in between events.

About four years ago our troop had 3 boys earn Eagle at 14, had thier Eagle CoH and then two of the three left the troop immediately. They'd earned the Eagle, it was time to move on to other things according to their moms. I had only one of them stick around until he was just 17 before he gave up the ghost.

Our then Scoutmaster, myself as CC and a few others sat down with the entire group of parents and explained how ridiculous this was and that we were determined that it not happen again. The group came together and made a pact that they would not "force feed" scouting to thier sons in an effort to become Eagles, that they would not pressure them ever and would only start the parent push after they turned 16.

It's worked out pretty good so far. We've had 5 Eagles in the last year, all 17, all overly qualified. It's a nice feeling to think we've done right by them.

Honestly, I attended the 1977 Jamboree at Moraine St. Park, PA. It rained for almost the entire time, and i'm not talking sprinkles, I'm talking "Noah, build yourself a boat" rain. But I would say it one of my fondest memories of my youth, and I will always remember that trip. When the opportunity came up to send my son to the 2005 Jambo, I jumped at the chance. The cost for our council contingent in 05 was $2300. It was well worth the money for me.

I was able to staff on the last Jamboree. My son attended with a council contingent. I was stationed in the Arts and Sciences Expo, just next to the OA Shows tent. The day the lights went out is when the troop showed up. The 4 adults from Alaska had just been killed, a freak traffic collision stopped power in our area, and rumors of the electrocution were running rampant. My staff mates and I hurried to board a buss that was bound for our barracks, near where my son's sub camp was. He was one sub camp from the accident.

The info was so spotty, I was in a panic and needed to see him in a hurry. The bus driver did all she could to get us back to our barracks, and finally did an hour or so later. I hurried to his campsite to see him. They had no idea of what happened just a few hundred feet to the East of their campsite.

I have this great picture from that night. I'm standing next to my son, it's raining, and I'm soaked to the bone, but I'm standing next to him with my arm around his shoulders. I'll never forget that trip, neither will he.

I was lucky as a staffer. I was able to stay in the barracks on Long Street. We had showers, electricity, so everyone had their own personal fan blowing on them all night long. Luxurious to say the least. We even had a washer and dryer, although the only time it was not in use was 3 am.

The day the show was canceled there was a group of us headed to the amphitheater. We heard the sirens and emergency vehicles, saw dozens heading toward the amphitheater. We then heard the show was canceled. We waited where we were and not too long after we saw the kids and adults walking our way. They looked shell shocked, depleted, aimless. On young man was wobbling down the path. He was in bad shape. A few of us grabbed him, layed him down and doused him with water. Many others followed that afternoon. We made them all sit in the wet grass in the shade of a tree and get watered down. That was a scene out of a war movie.

All in all my experience as a member of the staff was great. I throughly enjoyed my time there, with the exception of having to render aid to the heat oppressed. Eamonn, I would think your job as SM of a contingent would be more difficult in many ways.

I see really great things happening in Scouting in my district in the near future.

Your DE must be happy to have you and other dedicated Scouters step up to the plate and make it happen. Sometimes it takes someone willing to be the punching bag in order to get change to begin happening. Great news about your conversation with your SM. I think it's great he sees your vision and agrees with it. Keep up the good work.

Good advice so far. Re-schedule the pack meeting or allow an assistant to cover for you. Take the training and have a great time, come back energized and ready to roll.

Have fun

Our CO, a local Rotary Club, is generous IMO, they provide scholorships to the boys attending NYLT, about 1/2 the fee, upon completion. They provide 2 1/2 camperships to Summer Camp every summer. They will help to finance Eagle Projects, but the boy has to make the ask.

Wow, had to do some figuring.

My district is the Old Baldy District of the California Inland Empire Council. We are made up of Upland, Rancho Cucamonga, Ontario and Montclair California. That's 114 square miles and a population of 417,000 people.

My council is huge, it covers all of San Bernardino and Riverside Counties. 27455 square miles and only 3.8 million peeps. I takes over 4 hours to drive from one side to the other. We have over 40,000 youth registered at this time. Wow, toooooo big.

Well, I wonder how Jambo is doing, havn't heard anything for two months. Hope all is well, or as well as can be expected.

Well...

It sounds like the changes that have occured are for the better. If a troop committee/parent group gets loosy goosy for a number of years, then it may seem like a Napolean steps in when someone like you want's to put them on the right track. If you feel you should step down, maybe you should take on another job, sounds like the troop is doing better, maybe you could become an ASM?

Try not to take it personally, people let the darndest things set them off nowadays. It sounds to me like you're on the right path, maybe taking too steep a tack. You have obviously made a difference and should be proud of that fact. If you stepped down, there would be no harm in that I think. Give someone else the job of dealing with the committee.

Leaving the troop might not be in your best interest, boys don't like to be uprooted like that, even though you are less than a year into it. I would venture to guess that any boy that is moved from one unit to another has at least a 40% chance at dropping out of the program. The odds are still in your favor, but honestly how does you son feel about the troop? You're there for him in the end. If he's bonded with his patrol, you may need to "suck it up" and either take an ASM job, be a supporting dad, or take on a district position, they're always looking for trainers and commissioners.

Good luck.

Wow, there's drama everywhere nowadays. LOL, EKmiranda, I had similar issues with den leaders in my Pack some years ago. I had similar issues with an ASM just a few months ago. Very ugly business and I have to say I agree with what Beavah has posted for you, put on a united front before you have your meeting, get your strategy straight and all that.

Regarding the husband/wife, cm/cc issue. I have to agree with the others that you should really consider making a change there. You may both be very committed to the success of the Pack, but you need to share power with others at least to negate the illusion of impropriety and nepitism. I've never seen this to work well for a long period of time. This arrangement leads to a lot of unnecessary drama for the Pack and the husband/wife team. Share the workload, you'll both be happy you did.

The good news is that you two have a common activity that, if you let it, will keep you busy 8 days a week. In our area we have many great husband/wife teams that have some great adventures with each other.

Good Luck, let us know how it pans out.

Have any of you ever found yourself recommending a boy for the job to the troop? I find that sometimes we need to change the direction of the herd in order to keep them from running straight off of the cliff.

example. I had a couple of brothers that were much larger physically than any other boy in the troop, bar none. The were also bullies and we (myself as ASM well as the current SM and other adults) to get them to change thier ways. They were always in trouble and could never grasp the concept that bullying was verboten. Since they were brothers, this gave me cause to wonder if the culture of bullying began at home, as I suspected it had.

At any rate, elections were nearing and one of the brothers had become qualified to run for the office of SPL. There was also a good chance he would have won the contest, due to some pretty effective intimidation techniques. I found myself in a worried state on how this would pan out. I was ASM at the time and in talking to the SM, he noted the issue and how it would effect the unit. He made a statement before the elections, recommending another youth for the position. The election was held and the other youth was elected (Thank God).

The bully was asked to leave the troop within the year due to his bullying activites on a summer camp week.

So, how many of you have ever had to influence an election in this way? Would you have? Just curious.

Darnit, I was just going to post this...you beat me to it.

What a gret story, sorry the boy got injured though. I pray his hand heals fully. When my son attended the WSJ in England this summer, it really opened his eyes to the fact that there are Scouts litterally Everywhere in the world.

To quote an iconic TV Commercial...

"Try it, you'll like it"

I have not met anyone that will admit Wood Badge was a waste of time. I have read very few over the last few years say something to that affect, but the % is very small when you get down to it. WB will give you very usable tools for use in Scouting. These tools are also very valuable in your normal life as well, but we all know that nobody in scouting has a normal life any more...ha!

The time is minimal for the amount of information you get. The training is a lot more valuable than the few hundred dollars it cost to attend. The friends you make are life long and irreplaceable. You also get some cool goodies when you've completed your ticket, the neckerchief, woggle and beads.

I'd been in Scouting for 20 years prior to taking the course. Ok, that included my time as a youth, too, but that all counts as far as I'm concerned. I learned about different types and styles of leadership. I learned about team building and team dynamics. I learned about the mechanics of communications and interpersonal relationships, I learned how to listen, how to plan projects, and how to assess myself in my scouting, professional and or personal life.

There's so much more. I'm a little biased, but I think it's going to change your life.

Enjoy the course.

Matt

I used to be a Bear

WE4-51-2-03

and a good 'ol staffer too

WE4-45-1-07&08

This happens way too much. It has come up a million times in trainings and we trainers all say the same thing...Don't tie earning Eagle to the DL, or any other such thing, in most cases it causes the kid to rebel and push away from the pressure. I typcially talk to the parents and the boy separately and get them to agree to make a commitment without causing pain and suffering along the way.

Keep us posted...wow, did I just attend a district committee meeting....lol

(looking at you with a suspicious sideways glance) Wasn't this your idea? hmmmm

I am going to bring this up to my council's board, and maybe get my SE to put a bug in the ear of SGVC folks soon to get some emotion stirring. I have a couple of friends on that board as well, so we'll see what gives.

What just happend anyway?

Ok, here's the skinny I've gleaned off of the website www.tournamentofroses.com

Parade includes only Marching Bands, Equestrian units, and floral floats. Only 3 cars are allowed as per tradition, the Mayor of Pasadena, the President of the Tournament, and the Grand Marshall (Emeril Lagasse this year)

Floats are limited to no more than 50 due to the length of the parade and the following Rose Bowl game.

The cost can be estimated at a minimum of $175,000 per float and should be produced by one of the few approved professional float builders in the area. There are some self built floats, Cal Poly for instance, but only a small handful do so. Note, after watching this years float, I don't see quality an issue, they floats were awesome. The Cost of the floats are dependent on the complexity, flowers used, and any animation added.

The Tournament charges a fee to participate, for non commercial entities the fee is $3,700, approx 1/2 of what a commercial entity fee would be.

Applications are accepted at all times, but they have not announced any themes for next year or 2010 as of yet.

Total audience for the 2008 parade was estimated to be around 40 million households, in addition the parade is televised in 140 international territories. The parade is carried live on 9 networks, not to mention re broadcast throughout the day on several others. The parade is viewed live, in person by approximately 1 million persons along the parade route, and additional visitors view the floats for 2 days after the parade in selected locations. I would estimate the length of time a float gets on camera is about 1 minute give or take. At a cost of let's say $250,000 (can't have a cheap float after all)that's really not terrible considering a commercial on national TV for 1 minute on prime time, during a national event, is at least that much or more, and that's on one network, not 9 as is the case here.

Now for the fun part, if this is to be something that should happen, and it's a fantastic idea and opportunity, who's gonna raise the monies needed to pull this off? In the grand scheme of things, it's a drop in the bucket, but it's still a pretty good chunk. Something of this nature would need to be handled by Nat'l, or at least the Region I would think. Hmmmm, who do we know that could put a bug in the ear of the powers that be in Irving...

I'm a Rotarian, we had a float and Rotary asked each member to donate $3 to the cause to pay for it. I don't know how wide an audience they plucked to get the dough, but $3 was not a difficult thing to give up for a bunch of flowers rolling down Colorado Blvd.

Our council can award up to 23 Beavers a year, and I imagine it takes a long time for the bios at the annual dinner. I was humbled to be chosen to recieve the SB for 2007.

My Council uses a blind system of determining who, if any, are chosen to recieve it. The Asst. SE assembles info in a matrix, removes all identifying info, previous council names and odd positions as an example. We had one fellow scouter who had been active in several councils in several district and council level positions before deciding he's staying put in So Cal. Most know his moving record, so any council or pequliar position name would have made his nomination known. The recommendation committee then takes the time to read all nominations by number, ask questions of the ASE, then vote on a points system.

They have a minimum nubmer of points that are to be made in order to qualify for the award. Some people's nomination are just not as thorogh as others and don't rate as highly. It's up to the nominator to develop the nomination and get as much usefull info to the recommendation committee as possible. The Council allowed the Recommendation committee to chose up to 20 recipients, the council reserved 3 awards. The Council can bank any of the allotted awards they don't use on any given year. These can be awarded in a subsequent year. I'm sure there's a good reason to have a bank of them, 20 awards seems like a lot to me.

In my old council, which was allowed 5 awards/year, the nominations were not blind and were scrutinized by a group of well meaning and over qualified persons. Needless to say the committee typically knew more about nominees than what the nomination form said, and probably made thier own suggestions for nominations on more than one occasion. Honestly I don't think I've met anyone from my old council that had received the SB that certainly didn't deserve it, so who's to say which method is better.

As for the disparity in number of SB's in a district, I'd say it's probably a factor of the number of quality nominations from that district, not necessarily the number of qualified persons. That has seemed to be the case recently with our new council, lack of quality nominations. That's something you can help with in the short term, if you feel someone in your district deserves the aware, nominate them, but be a thorogh and complete as possible in the nomination to give your nomination the best chance of success.

Part of being a Scout parent is being able to sit back and let your son do his thing without your help or influence.

You are probably in the norm if you want to take a less active roll. I'd say go for it, just remember that most boys that have a successful run in Scouting have involved parents. Hopefully your son will stay active with the troop for a number of years, just take your time and find the best position fit for yourselves and have fun.