ASM416

"Medical training seems to hold a special aura that many other training does not. If we suggest that it is ok for scouts to wear non BSA badges of training from EMS, what is to say badges of training from other fields should not also be worn? Should the mechanic wear his training patch? How about the trucker with X many years of safe driving? The policeman's sharp shooter medal?'

What are the odds that in an emergency, life threatening situation that I would need to quickly identify a mechanic, trucker, or sharp shooter. This is not to say that these are any less important of a profession.

While not nearly as long as Akela(wow, 21 years!), I have about 6 years under my belt in emergency services and EMS, the details of witch I will spare everyone. My desire to have some type of identification on the uniform for trained and qualified emergency responders is not to boost my own ego.

Myself and my scoutmaster often are the health officers for council and district wide events. In the case of a life threatening situation it would be nice to be able to pick out of a sea of tan shirts who is trained and who just wants to help. All I would like is something generic that shows emergency services training. I don't need to know if you have 21 years in or if the ink on your EMT card is still wet.

Tim

How about a special hat? A few of us have talked about talking with the DE of the SE about making district or council wide EMS hats. Something like "Greater Niagara Frontier Council EMS" or "Southern Hills District EMS". We even thought of the "Ho-De-No-Sau-Nee Emergency Squad" since our lodge does a lot to support our efforts to have qualified EMS with appropriate equipment at all events. They could then be distributed to the qualified people in the district or council for a small fee if necessary. This is the BSA after all! I know I would be willing to shell out a few bucks for one.

Tim

Hello all.

Lots of very good ideas here. I have to caution about the use of the rubber wrist band. While something is always better than nothing, so many people wear these bands. As an emergency responder (full time EMT for 5 years) I normally wouldn't think twice about a rubber wrist band. I guess now that I know these are out there I will try to remember to check them, but it seems everyone is wearing them these days.

Tim

Wow, our council service center is about 10 minuets away and on my way to work. An hour is quite a drive. I wouldn't expect anyone to drive an hour each way every week to get patches. Maybe you (or someone) could make the trip once a month? That would still be much faster than twice a year.

I also can understand the time between COH's. Having a very small group, currently 8, it takes us awhile to have enough advancement to justify a COH. This is why it is even more important for our boys to have immediate recognition.

I would suggest talking it over with you PLC or your troop, depending on how big you are. Let them deside how they want to do it. The whole point of this is to recognize them, maybe they like the pins better.

Tim

Why not turn in the advancement report after the BOR and award the Rank patch at the next meeting? There really is no reason to wait until a COH. I recall when I was a scout we always had to wait until a COH to get our patches. Looking back I would have rather had them right away.

Tim

I could very well be wrong, and if I am someone will say so, but I don't believer there is a place for the pins. The most correct place for them might be on their hats, but I dunno.

In our troop we give them the patch right away. We feel that as soon as a rank is earned it should be displayed on the uniform. At the COR we hand out the card that would go with the patch.

Tim

I am an EMT and Emergency Medical Dispatcher for Rural Metro Medical Services Western New York operations. I have been working in this field for about 5 years. I plan on starting Paramedic school in august, I think I may need psychological help!

Tim

I think every effort should be made to send anyone who wants to go. At least two should be sent to comply with buddy system rules. Also its good to have a friend with you. This may require some personal investment or fund raising on the scouts part but would probably make for a better experience for the boys. I will also help the troop to have more than one trained leader.

As for the SPL, he should be voted on by the troop, so there is really no way to make sure the trained one is the SPL.

As far as "wasting" the money to send a boy who quits. We all know who the dedicated scouts are that will stick around for awhile. But, another way to look at it. Maybe by sending a boy to JLT you will give him the incentive to stay. Even if he doesn't, if he gets anything that he can apply to life out of it I wouldn't call it a waste. The point here is to make better citizens. We have to do what we can while we have them.

Tim

I thought the rain only followed my troop around. That and the bitter cold in winter! Summer camp 2004 was named Mud Week at Camp Merz. We had so much mud in our site we could have wrestled in it. We had to get pallets from the local lumber store to walk to our tents.

I have to say even with all the rain and mud it was one of the best weeks I have spent at camp. Funny how that works isn't it?

Tim

In my council we have "Merit Badge Days" This is a day where one merit badge is offered. Usually badges were it is hard to find councilors, Aviation, Nuclear Energy, etc.

My Volunteer Fire Company once hosted a Fire Safety merit badge day. The Fire Chief and the councils PR manager (both eagle scouts) arranged it. I was asked to assist with it the day before. When I arrived I discovered that there was no preparation at all. There were no prerequisites listed on the fliers. On top of that there was no MB councilor! No one knew this when I was "invited", but I am a Fire Safety MB councilor. So by the seat of my pants I put on the best program I could at the last min. I think we did a pretty good job, and since some of the scouts did do the prerequisites, many did finish the badge.

I still feel that it was a substandard program and am not a fan of group merit badge sessions. I will not assist with one again and I will try to discourage my scouts from participating.

Tim

Our Pack and Troop work together on two fundraisers a year. A spaghetti dinner on a Saturday after church services and a pancake breakfast on a Sunday after church. We average about $1500 to be split between us.

Tim

Good story Lisabob, the best way to learn is almost always from our mistakes.

CA_Scouter, buying 10,000 packets is a better idea than borrowing them but I am still concerned. It is probably not the most thrifty was to buy ketchup. It also creates a lot of unnecessary extra garbage from the packets helping to fill up your local land fill. Also, knowing scouts, they all prob wont make it to the garbage.

Kudu, I have this sudden urge to the fridge and look at the ketchup bottle. I had no idea it didn't need to be refrigerated! Thanks for the info.

Tim

FScouter,

You point is clear and agreed with. Who needs 'em.

Tim

I agree with the Old and the KY Eagle's. I don't like the idea of the boys (or adults even) getting packets from restaurants. There definitely seems to be an ethical issue there.

As far as buying from the families that just seems a bit silly. How much is 1/3 of a jar of Suckers worth. I personally think strawberry is worth more than grape.

Generally we buy the smallest containers we can and at the end of the event whats left goes home with someone (usually myself or the Scoutmaster). If they are still good by the next outing we use them. If not we buy more. Sometimes the old stuff gets used and replaced by the person who takes it, depends on how much is left. Either way we rightfully purchase everything.

I also think its a good idea to let the boys sort it out. If they can't figure it out them maybe some subtle suggestions might help.

Congratulations,

Instead of doing without the "lesser" leadership positions, you could just leave them as members of the patrol. This way you still have a scribe, librarian, etc to take care of those duties but without hurting the patrol size. Later, when you numbers grow you can pull them out.

Tim

HopewellT8SM says, "We take in 6-8 new scouts each year, but that varies greatly, as we are in competition with 5-6 other troops within a 10 mile radius."

This is the case in our area also. My troop had 2 other troops in walking distance from us for years. All 3 have been having a hard time recruiting. This year a charter was granted for a new troop within walking distance of all 3 of us! This is in a town with a population of about 45000 and at least 10 troops.

I understand that the professionals are judged on quality rather than quality. Not to say they are not interested in quality, but as an employee they have to do what the boss tells them. It seems to me it would be in the best interests of the program to help struggling units grow before starting a new one a stones throw away.

On the other hand I can see that maybe this new troop will attract scouts that would not have joined otherwise. In this case maybe it is better to get these scouts in the program this way. But it seems to me, with better recruiting, this scouts would have joined an existing unit.

Also, is competition really the way to go? We have 2 troops that we get along very well with. All three have low numbers and often camp and do other activities together as one group. We also have "traded" scouts that were having problems with one of the groups with great success. Some people just do better in different environments.

Maybe we should think about consolidating our troops. I think the DE's would have a cow if we did this. Also we are three troops with long, proud histories that we are not quick to give up.

I think this is enough raving for now, what are your thoughts?

Tim

Sorry, decided to spin off to a new thread.

Tim(This message has been edited by ASM416)

Its funny this came up. We are leaving tonight (Friday) for a weekend camp. We have a small group of about 9 scouts. Holding our breath waiting for our resurrected cub pack to produce some WEBELOS. We had 8 of them signed up for this weekend and tonight at our meeting the night before 3 dropped out. That leaves us with 5 witch is probably a minimum number. We don't have any rule but the last one we cancelled was 3. Of course sometimes we go anyways and we eat steak instead of what was on the menu. Less scouts means more money for food per person.

Anyways, we do what we can not to cancel. Its a real downer for the scouts who wanted to go and scouters who work weekends (me) and were looking forward to the time off.

Tim

89 in 30 years! Wow, that's a lot. Must be quite a program your troop is running. It would interesting to know the total number of scouts you have had over those years. See how you compare to the 2% of scouts that reach Eagle. Does this number represent just scouts that earned eagle with your troop or also adults who earned it elsewhere?

I spoke to our Scoutmaster, he did not have the exact number but knows we are between 45 and 50. average of 1 per year sounds about right to me, but our group hasn't been over 30 in my time with the troop (about 10 years). I am sure there was a time when we were larger.

Tim

Whats the number for the troop you are talking about?

I have a friend who was eagle number 50 in his troop. They are a very large troop and are prob up to 55 or 60 by now. As far as my troop goes we are nearing 50 years of service but I don't have the foggiest idea how many total we have. We are planning to invite them all to our 50 year dinner, so I am sure the Scoutmaster has the number. I will have to get back to you.

Tim

Ebay?

Lisabob -

Well, we are committed for this year. The scouts have decided, the reservations are made. Just hoping our SM's eval of the place is correct. He made a trip there during last years summer camp and had good things to say.

Hoping for the best!

Tim

Lisabob -

GNFC does still run Scouthaven. It is used for winter camping and Cub Scout resident camp. There is a large piece of land on the other side of the highway that was supposed to be developed into a Boy Scout summer camp years ago. They even went so far as to dig a pond for it. This was long before my time so I don't know what happened. I imagine that money just ran out. I would have liked to have seen it finished, it really is a nice piece of property.

If you are wearing grey loops there should not be a unit number on your sleeve. If there is a unit number then your uniform is representing that unit and you should wear the appropriate color loops for that unit.

Well this is not good news. My troop has decided to return to Schoellkopf after many years away. We have spent most of our time at Camp Merz as of late. They do have a great waterfront, even if its under staffed. They used to have a good all around program and were very loyal to long term troops (Us).

In the last few years the loyalty has gone down the tubes. The program had also been suffering. Last year there were 2 staff members (waterfront not included) and the rest of the program was run by CIT's. They also did not have a Health Officer on duty most of the time.

In fact two years ago myself (an EMT for a local ambulance service) and my scoutmaster (a trauma nurse for many years) got roped into filling in for a very inexperienced health officer. They begged us to help and at the end of the week not so much as a thank you and a hand shake.

Anyways, I am hoping for a good year camping back in our own council. I guess we will see!

Tim