Lisabob

Given the above - question for our moderators - why is this thread still here?

Gee, thanks there, Gov'nor Perry, for further politicizing the Boy Scouts of America. I can't help but think this is a politically motivated move, designed to get potential party supporters up in arms and to the polls. If we could have a moratorium on all politicians using the BSA, especially during a presidential election year, I'd be a lot happier.

I may be a guest but without me they can't get the "Centenial Quality Unit Award." :-) And this is just a guess on my part, but they may not care about earning CQUA! Consequently this is not a very big stick to shake at them, IMO. I think CQUA is important, I think it helps units set benchmarks and goals, I know for a fact my DE desperately wants units to earn it, etc., but I also know a number of leaders who have told me in blunt terms that they have other fish to fry. Not being capable of running all of their units for them, I have to respect their view. And then work with them where I can. (Which might result in them earning the darn thing anyway!) GW, maybe you're venting here and that's useful too sometimes. But I get the impression from your comments that you are approaching this unit as a disciplinarian. You aren't going to get far at all that way, as you're already discovering. There are some safety issues and it is kind of unfortunate that you found yourself confronted with the laser tag issue right up front. This is indeed out of bounds as per the G2SS and I think you were within your rights to tell them that. They might choose to do it anyway but if for some reason a problem occurs, at least you can say you told them. But, having found something right away that you felt compelled to contradict or criticize, I think you have to work that much harder to show them you're really their friend and not someone who just shows up to tell them they're "doing it wrong!" So please, start looking for ways to do that. One fellow I know who is a well-regarded UC shows up to each event with a "goodie" for the unit. It might be an informational flyer about an upcoming district or council activity, or a head's up that cub resident camp registration is starting next week, or a connection to a local troop with someone who wants to be a den chief and needs a den, or whatever. He does a good job of following up too, bringing any awards, ribbons, patches, etc. that "his" packs may have accrued but not yet collected. But he's always welcome in his units because he brings value-added info to the leaders, and he does it with a smile. (And this gives him an avenue of entry if he sees something that needs to be changed, too.) About just showing up...yes, if you showed up to one of our unit meetings we'd tell you we were happy to have you and of course you could stay, etc.. Just like if you showed up at my house at dinner time, I'd invite you in and feed you. But I surely would prefer it if you called in advance and asked whether it would be ok! If the unit leaders aren't returning your calls, try again. Maybe you caught them at a bad time. Only pop in out of the blue as an absolute last resort, IMO. I don't think this will endear you to them. Good luck to you, GW! Being a UC is one tough job and I admire that you're giving it your all.

Hi Gold Winger, Coming from some experience with packs, I can say that unfortunately, it is more common than we might wish for the CM (or CC, or pick your other post) to do double duty as a CM too. No, this is not ideal. But it is also pretty typical. As for "whining for a UC". If they're asking, please take them seriously. They may not know what the true job of a UC is, because they may never have had one before who actually did the job. But at least they are asking. Make this a positive instead of a negative. Be the best "friend to the unit" that you can be. This may mean that you need to explain that laser tag is not an approved activity. But, on the other hand, if they haven't met you, don't yet trust you, and definitely don't know you, I'm not surprised if they also don't pay a lot of attention to your emails. You'll need to develop a relationship with them in person before they even begin to see you as an asset. And, if they've had fly by night UCs in the past, they may be waiting to see how long you last before giving much credence to your advice. I hate to say it. But my personal experience with UCs, and the experiences I hear from the vast majority of others in my area, leads me to the conclusion that most UCs don't know what the heck they're talking about and/or see the job as something bestowed upon them due to their longevity. There are notable exceptions and Gold Winger, I'm sure you're among those exceptions. But you may have some hurdles to overcome that are not of your own making. So instead of talking about "rogue units" right off the bat, I suggest you take some time to get to know the units to which you've been assigned, and let them get to know you. That way they'll be a lot more likely to take your advice seriously.

GAHillBilly, I'd really like to see your list of things you wish you'd known before joining a troop. I think it could be quite instructive for people who are looking for troops now (keeping in mind, of course, that no troop is perfect!).

Ok there Gunny, I tried to write a SHORT response to your post, but understand that my thorough disgust with how troops and packs (fail to) interact effectively (in my experience as a former cub leader) is the major reason that I am now our troop's recruitment coordinator and the district webelos-scout person. Consequently I apologize up front for the fact that it didn't turn out short! So, on to what I expected from troops (when I was a cub leader): 1) Most importantly, I wanted timely information. I rarely got it. Please do not assume that all cub leaders are clueless and don't begin to organize their programs until Sept/Oct or later! I'm sure that's true for some, but it isn't my experience, especially with webelos leaders who usually know their way around the cub program by that point. We set our den agenda in May for the following year. We'd solicit info from all local troops around that time, about what recruiting activities they had in the works for our scouts - even if the details were TBA, at least give us the month and the basic idea so we can plan accordingly. Never happened. What did happen was that we usually got two weeks or less notice that troops had something planned and they wanted us to attend. Doesn't work that way! 2) I wanted a specific and consistent adult contact person for each troop. In small troops that might be the SM but in larger troops I'm convinced it needs to be someone else whose job it is to keep tabs on the recruiting process. SMs who have 30 or more scouts to work with are just too busy to also do outreach to a bunch of cub packs, more often than not. And of course it also depends on the SM's personality. Those whose strengths are NOT communication (don't use email, never return phone calls, short on detail) aren't the right people for this task. In reality, I usually had to call 3-5 people per troop, usually several times, to get pertinent info about any events. In the larger troops, it was a new person for each event so no continuity. Thank goodness I had personal contacts in all of the troops in my town (hurrah Woodbadge!) or it would have been worse. 3) I wanted opportunities to do occasional outdoor activities together, beyond the troop's recruiting events. For example, for 18 months as a webelos leader I tried to get some scouts from ANY of the local troops to come and do a cooking/skill night with our webelos, since outdoor cooking wasn't one of my strengths, or the other parents in our group either. Or, come and show our boys how to pack and dress for a cold weather camp out, in the winter months leading up to cross-over. Or, share with them some news about the cool stuff your troop has planned. Or whatever - but interaction that is a little more focused on the things boy scouts do would help cubs & their families understand the program and bridge the gap between cubs and boy scouts. 4) I'd have loved to have a den chief and tried for several years to get one, to no avail. I understand busy schedules, teen age boy attitudes, etc.. But I've become convinced that den chiefs who aren't merely tagging along to little brother's den meetings (often per force, because the parent is the den leader too) are exceptionally rare. Now, as a troop leader, here are some of the things I would like from cub leaders: 1) Responses to invitations. If you can't come, fine, but please let the troop know. And if there's a problem (ie, the troop scheduled their recruiting event on your pack's meeting night, didn't give you enough notice, set the cost too high, etc.), please TELL ME so we can do better next time. In the absence of better info, people in the troop will make all sorts of assumptions, many of which are probably flat-out wrong. 2) Help from Cubmasters and Committee Chairs in contacting Webelos and Bear den leaders. Troops typically have the CM's and maybe the CC's contact info and they are relying on these people to share info with the Den Leaders. Half the time we don't know whether it has in fact been shared or not. Especially when we get no response from the pack (see above!) troops can't tell if it is because someone "sat" on the info, or because no one in the pack is interested in our activities, or what. In my case I usually do know, but only because I have personal connections in many packs in town - and that's not the norm. 3) Please don't play coy about what troops your boys might join. If your boys aren't planning to join ours and you want to come to our webelos/troop activities anyway, that's ok to do and we (at least, my son's troop) will still be quite happy to have you at our events. Just please be up front about it. There is a lot that goes into preparing a troop (and program) for new cross-over scouts, and it is much more difficult when, at last minute, the troop discovers that they were being strung along by people who never intended to join. 4) Help families to understand that each boy/family should make his own decision about what troop to join. My son's troop, good as it is, is not the best one for some boys. The same is true of all troops. I'd rather a boy finds a troop that fits him rather than join a troop because the whole den is joining, just to drop out a few months later due to lack of fit. I think most SMs feel that way too, in my experience. 5) Understand the role that the YOUTH play (PLC and SPL in particular) in boy scouts. Sometimes planning goes astray or isn't as efficient as it could be, because of this. Please be patient, but also let us know if this is really becoming a problem. And then...as a district person, here's both what I've been trying to do in the last 8 months, and what I see as things that need improvement: 1) We have provided CMs and SMs in the district with each other's contact info. However, we can't know who the troop has designated as their webelos contact person, so it is up to the troop to identify that person for the cub packs. And we don't generally get updates on who the Webelos DLs are until recharter in January so we're counting on the CMs to help here. 2) We have asked cub leaders to send us an updated webelos den roster about now, so we have more accurate membership info to share at the time when webelos and troops are (should be) trying to find each other. 3) We have put together a comprehensive webelos-scout transition packet that includes CM, WDLs, Webelos families, and SMs. (Cubmaster's Disappearing Packet). This is a new endeavor for our district and I am not sure yet how widely it is being used on the ground... 4) We've encouraged troops to raise their profiles in their communities so people (incl. cub scouts) are more aware of who they are and what sorts of things they do. At a minimum we're hoping that boy scouting will be a little less mysterious to current cub scouts & their families because there seems to be a big disconnect there, right now. 5) We're going to hold a webelos-scout transition training/planning session for the first time in (??) years, this spring. It will be aimed at bringing Bear and Webelos I den leaders, CMs, and SMs together. I'm really hoping that it will strengthen ties between packs and troops, beyond just the transition phase. We'll see though. One step at a time, right?

I want to thank everybody for your input here. Admittedly I was feeling a little sorry for myself when I originally posted this thread - especially because, on the same night in the next town over, the community open house there brought in upwards of 50 people (all cub scouts/cub families though - they failed to get any non-scouting families to attend too)! We had precisely the same advertising strategy (worked it out and carried it out together) - theirs worked, mine fell flat. Boo Hoo. Guess I'll go eat some worms... Well ok, I'm over that. I'm still surprised that area webelos den leaders - who I know pretty well - didn't take advantage of our event, which would have "saved" them from having to plan a meeting! But, it didn't happen. I do think it would be great if our district would host a Webelos Woods. No one in our council has done that in recent memory. That's a big undertaking though and I'll need to sell the idea to other parts of the district committee (this is not a membership committee undertaking). We're also talking about making this event a "Webelos-Meet-the-Troops" night in the future, rather than a general community event. And area troops are talking about coordinating to do a downtown campout in the winter, complete with snow huts and lots of dutch oven cooking. That's not likely to result in many new recruits but it may help to raise boy scouting's profile in the area. We'll see how things develop. Again, I really appreciate everyone's feedback!

When I was a cub leader (and not that long ago)... 1) I was a pack level scouter and only marginally active until about halfway through my son's Bear year. THen my husband and I became den leaders too. 2) As Wolves & Bears my son's den met three times a month for 45-60 minutes. Week four was for pack meetings. As Webelos we went with twice a month, but for longer times in order to accommodate bigger activities. 3) We were lucky if we could convince the pack to hold any summer activities besides day camp. We typically held two events in June and August (often with low attendance in August) but July was challenging for us to pull off one event. People just wouldn't do it. 4) Some summer activities we did included: attend baseball game, nature park clean up, family picnic, day camp, car wash/fundraiser, United Way Day of Caring and other community service, hiking, Cubs on Subs. I'm sure there were others but these are the ones I remember.

It may well be that the larger troops in gwd's area *are* successful at getting and keeping boys. Not being in the same area myself, I can't tell. However, this also could be an incorrect conclusion. I've known several large troops that have a very high turnover rate, especially among the scouts at the age extremes. Yes, they look successful at first glance on paper because they have so many boys. But they lose well over 50% of their first year scouts and/or have few or no scouts over age 15. Large #s doesn't necessarily mean a good retention rate, especially when we're talking mega troops where they do little to recruit and just rake in boys, who then drop out within a few months anyway.

About those merit badges, GAHillBilly. So far my son is not real interested in rank advancement. But he is enjoying, and learning from, the advancement part of the program in other ways. He thinks he might want to be a scientist, but at his age (late middle school) "science" is a big, general topic and he doesn't know exactly what sorts of science he likes more or less than others. So he's slowly working his way through a bunch of different science-related MBs. None of them except environmental science will really help him along the way toward Star, Life, or Eagle. So far he's discovered that chemistry isn't as much fun as he thought it might be (not all explosions and magic tricks!) and oceanography started out sounding interesting, but the details didn't excite him at all. On the other hand, Astronomy, Space Exploration, Soil & Water Conservation, Reptiles & Amphibians, and Fish & Wildlife Management all hit the sweet spot for him. So now he's beginning to narrow it down and he is discovering he really likes the more applied focus of the environmentally-related badges, as well as the physics that goes with learning about astronomy and rocket trajectories. (October Sky is his favorite movie right now...). He's got a counselor in mind for a couple more of the science MBs over the next year and she's really good (a high school biology teacher, to boot). Of course, he might change his mind next week too...but at least he's getting a taste of what the different disciplines of "science" are like and isn't that what the MB program is REALLY for?

"We would never think of allowing unrelated women to camp with our boys given all the possibilities for improper contact or even the appearance of improper contact." Lock up your men and children, the women are goin' campin'! Onehouraweekmy... you are aware, right, that the BSA policy does NOT require female Scouters to be related to anybody in the troop, pack, crew, team, or ship? Similarly, you are aware, right, that women can and do hold the full range of scouting positions, regardless of whether they have male relatives in the program? There are a few groups in our society who try to limit contact between men and women who are not related or married to each other on the assumption that even casual or business relations between un-related people of opposite genders could cause some kind of sexual immorality to occur. However, this is not a very common view in mainstream society. So I am supposing that I may have misunderstood your comments. Perhaps you meant that we don't generally allow women to share a tent with male children who are not their sons (which I agree is true, but then this applies to all adults and isn't necessarily a sexual thing)? Or were you, in fact, suggesting that allowing women to attend a scout function is likely to result in some kind of predatory behavior toward the scouts, and therefore, that women without a male relation in the unit should be banned from scouting?

Sorry to hear this, fgoodwin. I don't think this indicates that you are "a failure as a UC" though - it isn't your job to make all the adults play nice, and be thankful too, because frankly, reality is you can't make them! Adults behaving badly seems to be a sub-theme to an awful lot of the difficulties we face in scouting. Anyway, on to the problem. If the CO wants a new CM then of course they have the right to do this, but if they are going to play their power card like this, then it might be good for the DE to have a little sit-down with the COR and IH to help them understand their role in selecting leaders (not just dismissing current leaders and demanding new ones with no other input or feedback as to what's acceptable to them). Then, with an ACTIVE and (hopefully) HELPFUL COR involved, the pack can start looking for a new CM. This is one of those times where the nominating process as described in cub leader training, and well articulated from time to time by Eamonn, really could help the unit overcome their current problem (despite the fact that personally, I've never known a unit that follows it!). Ideally, the CO may be able to engineer a somewhat graceful exit for the current/past CM, even if the CC can't/won't, by publicly thanking him for his service and recognizing him at an upcoming pack meeting. Ideally as well, the CM will see the wisdom in graciously accepting this thanks and moving along. (This assumes that the CM and his son plan to stay with the pack after this whole mess blows over.) But if he can't manage to hold his tongue and be gracious in public, then at least the CM *might* be counseled to choose not to be in attendance at that pack meeting - so his service can be publicly acknowledged, but the fact that he's being pushed out isn't rubbed in his face. Something like this from the COR or IH: "Unfortunately Mr. Smith couldn't be here tonight, but he has been the CM of pack 123 for the last XX years, and at this time he is stepping down. We appreciate all the hard work and effort he has put into the pack over the years and we'd like to ask all of you to thank him the next time you see him. (Pause, applause, whatever). And now we'd like to introduce to you Mr Smith's successor, Cubmaster Jones..." Of course this all supposes that the current CM sees the writing on the wall and isn't still trying to hang on as CM, and/or that he hasn't burned the bridges totally yet by sending out nasty emails to the entire pack or slugging another parent at a pack meeting, or something equally horrendous (hey, the CM of our pack did both of those things. And then he asked to be re-instated! Ha!) If he's adamant about making a scene and venting, help him by suggesting he schedule a meeting with the IH where he can make a fool of himself without doing it in front of the boys at a pack meeting. Making sure, of course, to give the IH a head's up too. Hang in there with them, fgoodwin. And here's hoping for the least-bad outcome.

I haven't seen a written policy on this but I do know that a lot of younger teens& pre-teens don't operate well on 6 or 7 hours of sleep. So you might want to consider what the general mood is like on Saturday late afternoon and Sunday morning, at a typical campout for your troop. If you are seeing a lot of temper flare ups, squabbles, and melt downs (esp. among your younger scouts), it might be the case that you need to give the guys more time to sleep.

Ed, I am compelled to point out that the BSA did in fact change its rules (not too long ago, either) to allow women to hold any leadership position in the organization...

"I don't care if you are a homosexual. The policy is neither right nor wrong, it is just the policy and we need to abide by it." Just for clarification of your viewpoint, I'm curious to know *why* you believe we need to abide by this policy, if it is not a matter of right and wrong?

"Just curious how many would pull their kids out of football rather than deal with a "you must be at every practice" expectation from those nosy coaches who have nothing better to do than decide what our family's priorities should be for us" To respond to this - my son chose to play rec league soccer instead of travel league soccer for this exact reason - he didn't want to be so tied down that he wouldn't have time to do anything else he enjoyed.

Beavah, do you attend 100% of every meeting of every organization you're a member of? (If you tell me you attend every faculty meeting your dept. has ever had, I'm going to have a hard time believing it...) Are there times when one group takes precedent over another? Are there times when you can't get enough of one group and would be involved with them every night of the week, if you could? Are there other times when you're still a member but maybe less active than in the past? Are there times when you set aside one interest for a little while so you can try something new? Maybe you come back to the original group refreshed, for having done that? With the exception of attending 100% of everything, the rest of these are all things adults do (or anyway, the ones I know). And I think it is ok for kids to try new activities while they are still kids, and have the luxury to do that. I am not saying they shouldn't be courteous, and if they know they'll be absent it would be nice for them to give a heads up to the group. Nor am I arguing in favor of over-stretching to the point where they are committed to nothing. I am saying that expecting any one extracurricular activity - even one as wonderful and important as scouting may be - to take over a boy's life is unrealistic and will drive more kids away (adults too!) than it will lure in. I am also saying that when adults in the troop start deciding what an "excused" absence vs. an "unexcused" absence is going to be for my kid, for my family, then they're over-reaching and getting involved in setting other people's priorities. This rarely works out as intended. For me, it would get my hackles up. Who the heck do they think they are...and so on. We can be respectful of the time others put in, but just because an activity or group has become one person's top priority does not mean it will be everyone else's. And I haven't checked my email that PMs go to in a while - sorry if I didn't see your message there.

Well now if someone tried to enforce the 100% attendance rule you mention in our troop, we wouldn't have any scouts at all. Pretty unrealistic if you ask me. And if our troop started demanding "excused absences?" we'd find another troop. I'm not going to start justifying my busy life to a bunch of nosy adults who apparently have nothing better to do than decide what my family's priorities ought to be for us. And neither should my son be expected to do that. If attendance is a problem, maybe these scouters should look to the quality of the program being offered, rather than seeking to punish kids for developing other interests and/or voting with their feet.

Asking one of the other parents to intercede may backfire in a big way, depending on the severity of this situation. First off, you're telling another (brand new) member of your pack that you want him to run interference on a touchy personal kind of issue? I know as a new parent my response would have been, are you nuts? I'm out of here. Second, depending on what the details are, you may be engaged in spreading rumors about this guy (however well intentioned) if you start telling other parents who are not in a position to really do anything serious about this anyway. Third, think how this guy may respond to "random parent #3" approaching him and saying hey, the DL over there wants me to tell you to quit drinking before den meetings. Probably not a positive response. If it were me (and actually I had to deal with this in our den too) and I needed outside assistance, the three people I would want involved are the Cubmaster, the Committee Chair, and the Charter Organization Representative. Nobody else, unless things escalate.

I started this thread thinking about some stories I had heard about both ends of the stick - those iron-grip, past-their-prime Scoutmasters who really needed to move on for their own sake as well as the troop's (you don't get many of those sorts in cub scouts!) AND those folks who are brand new and don't yet understand the program, but who mean well and want to make things as good as they can be for the boys. And I admit I was thinking about some of the comments to the effect of what Its Me posted as well. My son's troop has a (fairly recent) tradition - not policy or rule, just tradition - that the SM and CC serve for 2 years at a time, with turnover staggered so we aren't undergoing change in both at the same time. The genesis of this tradition is that previously, the troop was run by two families where one was SM forever and the other was CC forever. It caused some problems and both families ended up leaving about a year before we joined. I see both good and bad to this new tradition. As a new family to the troop I was both shocked and I admit, not too happy, when the SM who had recruited our webelos boys announced he was stepping down just a couple of months after we joined. He had been a big factor in why the boys in our webelos den chose that troop over others. And now, three years later, my son is getting to know his 3rd Scoutmaster. (Who, by the way, is off to a great start!) Lots of turn over can be hard on the boys, who have to adjust to each new SM's style. And I also can see where it takes at least a year to begin to "get" the job of SM. Our previous SM was (IMO) really hitting his stride at the end of his term. On the other hand...it also helps the boys understand that there are many ways to do things, and that different people have different strengths. And weaknesses. And personality quirks. And that you have to learn to play up people's strengths in order to lead effectively. This is something they might not really see if the same person were in charge for a long time. And it does limit the adult burn out factor, when people know they're signing up for a finite period, rather than for a life sentence. By the way, our two previous SMs are still active in the troop - one as a committee member and patrol advisor (yeah I know, not a typical combo but it works for him) and the other as an ASM working with last year's crossover scouts. So we haven't lost their expertise, just shifted it to a different focus. So far that seems to work.

Thanks for all of your suggestions, which I am passing on to my son as they come in. I suspect he may have a couple of specific questions about specific recipes once he reads through everything here, we'll see.

There is one poster who occasionally shows up on this board who seems to delight in getting the names of certain posters wrong - generally, female posters. I'm pretty sure he does it intentionally, although I'm willing to chalk it up to a matter of pitiable cluelessness too. So, in that vein, I notice that the forum nickname of our resident atheist and advocate for changing the BSA's membership requirements appears to be MerLyn and not MerVyn. Beyond that... Gold Winger writes: "Mervyn claims to be concerned about "civil rights" but does he do anything about important issues like the fact that my employer doesn't require women to tuck in their shirts but men have to? No, he doesn't." This strikes me as a silly rule that your employer has, and one that perhaps ought to be brought up by your union (if you have one). It is not, however, a civil rights issue. The Constitution does not guarantee anyone the right to go about with their shirts untucked (nor require them to tuck shirts in, either). On the other hand, whether one agrees or disagrees with Merlyn's view, the Constitution does have something to say about the establishment of religion. We can, and have in the past, debated what that means ad nauseum. Of course, the Supreme Court has been fairly clear on this matter so we could also save ourselves some time and bandwidth by going with what they say. But at the very least - the question of whether government-run schools can sponsor clubs that have religious requirements for membership is a thornier issue than whether or not your employer can make you tuck in your shirt. And in the end I'm really not sure how baiting a specific poster and making cracks about people's mothers has much to do with the topic at hand.

gwd, how exciting to hear that even though your older scouts weren't able to attend, they've listened to those younger scouts who were there, and are now planning a program where they will teach the younger scouts to improve their skills! Isn't this EXACTLY how things are supposed to work, and proof positive that this whole "boy led" business works when you let it! Kudos to you and the boys for getting to this point and having fun along the way. And here's to better breakfasts...

The explanation I've received for why the MBC list is "restricted" is that this forces the boy to talk with the SM first, before starting work on a badge. If the list were available online, the boy could conceivably do the whole badge without ever consulting his SM (which would raise a bunch of other problems). Now, whether this is BSA policy or a local thing, and whether it is a good enough reason to make the list "restricted" if in fact this is a local thing, I don't know. My thoughts are that any boy who does a MB without first talking to the SM to get a blue card with the SM's signature, will probably only do that once because the SM would be within their rights to not issue the blue card post facto. And most MBCs I know also would insist that the boy have a signed blue card (or whatever procedure the local council uses) before working with a boy, too.

Our troop is participating in the popcorn sale for the first time in 10+ years, so I'm not sure if it is because we're fairly out of the loop on this or what, but as far as I can tell, there is practically no promotion of the "fill it up" campaign going on, besides what's printed right on the order form. And none of the boys seem to give a hoot about it. Now, if we could arrange for the boys to meet local Mega-U athletes, well that *might* draw their attention. Cool promo, gwd.