Lisabob

"waist was also adjustable with buttons and elastic inside the waistband" Hurrah! Now if they would PLEASE do that with the boy scout pants too!

Agreed that this is something your swimming MBC should be showing you how to do in the pool - no substitute for actually trying it! I never would have believed it would work until I saw it (and tried it myself). It's fun - go experiment. Jeans and traditional scout pants work well, sweat pants a little less well.

CNY - contact all of your scouts and tell them that if you don't receive the $ from the adults (parents) by (deadline) you will have to cancel the trip due to lack of adult leadership. That might light the fire under the scouts to bug their parents. Far more effective than you doing it! You aren't a bank and shouldn't be fronting money for other adults - especially since they apparently have not asked you to do so and might not pay you back.

We had a boy join the troop in the fall and both he and his dad signed up for summer camp. They paid their deposit. Then about a week before the final payment was due they stopped coming. Hadn't seen them in a few weeks. Gave them a call. "Oh, we quit." Nice to know they were going to tell us. We're treating it just like we treat anyone else who backs out of any troop activity for whatever reason - if the troop gets a refund then it will be passed on to you. If not, and the troop is already financially committed, you need to pay your share. They seemed to understand this. One key to this is that you need to have it in writing, up front. We include the disclaimer that all fees are non-refundable once the troop has incurred costs on every permission slip and sign up form. For summer camp, especially.

Yup, we've got a few of these folks too. Just let it roll right over you. She's making herself look like a fool just fine all by herself and if she's cc:ing the whole troop then all that does s guarantee that the whole troop knows it. By all means be polite, but don't schedule anything until the boy comes to you himself. And please, don't take it out on the kid. There are some people around here who do that because they don't care for the parents' approach and most of the time there is absolutely nothing the kid can do about that. At the cub level it is actually harder to deal with because there at least, the parents are supposed to be a little more involved and hands on. So telling them to back off (however nicely) is more problematic.

ASM, do you mean "sign a blue card" as in, give the kid permission to start working on a MB? Or do you mean it as in, sign off on MB requirements even though they're not a registered MBC for that badge? The first is considered acceptable around here (with the SM's approval usually); the latter is not. As for work arounds? Oh sure, they exist. But you know it is so easy for a kid to get discouraged and believe it when the SM says things like that. And once they accept the SM's line, it is harder to ask them to challenge the SM on it and be insistent. I've heard from plenty of SMs who do that too - not referring specifically to ours. And there are a lot of the 120 or so MBs that our district and even our council don't have MBCs for. So in reality it might mean either helping a kid locate and register a new adult as an MBC, or going out of council (assuming a nearby council has an MBC for the badge in question). I've done both of those, but a lot of people just don't want to be bothered. Right now I'm trying to help a scout identify someone to be an MBC for cinematography, for example. No way in the world I'm going to tell this kid he "can't" do it!

robvio, let me ask why? Usually it is because people want to "recycle" an experienced uniform. But in that case, so what if there are spots where the council patch, unit numerals, etc. were? You're going to put new patches over those same locations, right? But yes, the adhesive leaves stains and no, I don't know any way to remove those. You know what really annoyed me was that I melted the iron-on backing off a patch (that I had sewn on) and all over the front of a shirt one time by putting it in the dryer. That shirt is my official "messy job at camp" uniform shirt now. By the way - for those who buy used uniform shirts on line - always a good question to ask before bidding - how are the current patches adhered?

My son's troop does this. The way the troop shop works is that we take either trade ins, or ask for a donation. We leave it up to the individual to determine the amount of any donation. Most people give $10 or so if they go that route. One difficulty I've noticed is that when newer members drop out (in our case, usually this is young guys who just crossed over from a pack) they don't even think of donating their uniforms. So we tend to have few of the smaller sizes. Oh and we always have more pants than anything else. Apparently boys don't outgrow the shirts as quickly (or they can get away with a larger size shirt and just grow into it where as the larger size pants would fall off!). I was never successful in convincing others to do this, but a couple of years ago I did look into starting a uniform bank for our pack. Seemed to me that the quickest way to build a base inventory would have been to get the pack to allocate a little cash and have someone go "shopping" on ebay or the like. Cub uniform parts tend to be very cheap, esp. if you look any time other than Sept-Nov. when all the new cubs are joining. Now is actually a good time of year (people are cleaning closets, parents of boys who aren't continuing in scouts are getting rid of uniforms, etc..) If you do that it would be a good idea to watch a few times and make sure you have a good sense of what the typical price of items is likely to be, first. And of course make sure you know what you're bidding on/what you need!

As mine is an only child, that issue hasn't really come up. But if it did I hope my answer would be "no." As a leader I would rather say that I couldn't go than drag along a young child who shouldn't be there (or even, allow a young kid who wants to tag along, but really ought not to). And frankly, if none of the other parents are willing to step forward under the circumstances Gonzo describes, they need a kick in the rear. Maybe having the camp out canceled due to lack of adult leadership will provide that kick, from their kids who wanted to go. Gonzo, I'm not faulting you and I'm sure "princess" is a great kid. I can understand the once in a blue moon type of response to such a scenario, although I think I'd have chosen differently myself. I just wonder what will happen the next time no other parent is willing to step up, because now they know you'll do it even if you have to take your daughter with you.

I've been thinking a lot about how our troop, district, and council views the MB program these days. Our boys are getting ready for summer camp and this year they are attending a camp that appears to be quite serious about doing things "right." ie, they tell us that they don't herd boys through MB classes and sign off on stuff just because Junior was present. They have serious limits on the size of their MB classes. They have pre-requisites for many MBs and (they say) won't allow boys to join the mb class unless they have documentation from a registered MB counselor (like a partial blue card) that the pre-reqs have been completed before camp. After our experience with what must be the worst possible MB mill situation ever at a different camp last summer, this is a welcome change in approach. So we've been working on getting boys set up w/ MBCs to prep for camp. And I have found two things that dismay me. First, most people don't want the boys to have to go out of our troop to find counselors. And second, our district and council MBC list are rather lacking once you get past the 20 or so most commonly sought after MBs. Now we have a large troop with lots of adults and there are many MBs we can legitimately cover as counselors. Also, our council limits MBCs to 5 MBs (which I'm ok with) so there is no chance of a boy doing all his Eagle MBs with one or two people. But still, I view the MB program as a way to grow outside of the troop, work with true experts and practitioners with deep knowledge of the field, and also as a way to get the wider community involved in/aware of the good things scouts do. This sort of closed-door mentality promotes none of those objectives. There is, for example, a guy in our area who makes arrows for the US olympic archery team. Wow. He's even registered as a MBC for archery and by all accounts he does a good job. Hardly anyone goes to him though, because someone else in the troop is willing to counsel the same badge and the SM and advancement chair routinely direct boys to the guy from our troop instead. Now the guy from our troop isn't bad, but he doesn't have that same sort of background either. It's just that we "needed" someone for the boys to finish up summer camp partials with, so he signed up. With regard to astronomy - there's a guy on the council MBC list who teaches astronomy at a major university in the area. He's internationally renowned, has access to the university observatory, and is a super-nice guy who works well with kids to boot. He has told me that no one seeks him out; they all do it "in house" with their troop. Nothing necessarily wrong with that, but for the kid who has a passion for astronomy, think of what he could have learned and the potentially life-long connection he could have made, if the SM or advancement chair had given him this guy's contact info. And again, once you get past the "basics" the troop, district, and council MBC list is thin. Every troop stretching to cover all of the Eagle-required plus a majority of the other popular camp MBs (so they can finish partials) leads to a clustering of MBCs. So ok, enough complaining. I'm not on our district advancement committee (I have enough meetings to attend, thank you). But I'm thinking of starting a sort of MBC sign-up drive to get more people signed up for the less common badges. I don't know that I can do a lot about troops' attitudes (outside my son's troop) but I can at least make sure that next time some enterprising kid wants to do, say, archeology, that there will at least be someone to call. Because that's the other thing I've seen - SMs tell the kid, sorry, there's no MBC for that, you'll have to pick another MB instead. Too bad, that MB could have been the start of something great for that boy. How do you view the whole MB experience? Do you try to cover as many MBs as possible in your troop? Do you actively seek out outsiders to serve as MBCs? Am I missing a part of the picture here? Would you like to see your troop/district/council change the way they do MBC recruitment? The way you currently do things (however that is), do you believe you are "delivering the promise" or is it more along the lines of "covering the bases?"

Hey Stosh, I completely agree. It's just that in terms of serious vocational counseling (not only a willing and friendly adult to talk with about general career paths and ideas, but someone who really knows the field and what it takes to get into it), SMs today are probably less able to offer that sort of specific counseling than they would have been in the 1930s when the types of jobs and types of educations, and community networks people needed and sought out were rather different. In that regard, the MBs are still wonderful, you're right - and it is also (in my view) a real dis-service when troops feel they can or should "cover" as many MBs as possible "in house" rather than find true experts or practitioners for the boys to learn from. The differences between what a kid learns about, say, environmental science from Joe Scout's dad who happens to be willing to teach it and someone who has a degree in E.S. and works in the field for a living, is likely to be huge. Of course sometimes that's not possible, but more often I think we (collectively) take the easy way out and don't seek to build a great MBC corp.

With respect Stosh, I think the way you framed the question "What do you do with..." invites the sorts of responses you seem to have gotten. Your program, as described in this thread and previous threads, sounds wonderful. Keep up the great work! And my answer to your initial query would be, you introduce the boy to palms (if he's interested) and as long as he continues to grow, mature, be challenged, and have fun, you don't worry about the fact that he earned Eagle at a young age. There are plenty of other things he could be doing in the troop besides rank advancement. You have a solid high adventure program (once he's old enough!), right? As others have said, and as you yourself seem to agree, not everything in scouts has to be about advancement. And just because he is an Eagle doesn't mean he has learned everything you have to teach him about leadership, or about scout skill either.

Ah ok, so that's a different dynamic. So then, maybe get together with one or two other parents who are willing to help you out (don't need to be den leaders - draft a parent from each of several dens if you can) and make some slides together. In an hour or two you can be done as long as you pick a reasonably simple design. I think if I were in a position to sell the committee on this, I'd go in with a couple of examples to show them. Remember KISMIF (keep it simple, make it fun). Maybe once they see that slides can be easy, fun, and cheap to make, they'll be less resistant. Because you're right, it isn't easy to find them pre-made except for the standard issue slides that the scout shop sells.

I think the expectations about young men attending college are much different now than they were in 1932. Also, mobility patterns were much different and people weren't nearly as likely to pick up and move across country as they are today. Back then most boys probably expected to join the military or the work force straight out of high school (if they got that far) and so some immediate community-based vocational counseling for scout-aged boys made a lot of sense. I think boys could still use guidance of course, but maybe the scoutmaster is no longer in as good a position to provide it, given that boys are probably in their second or third year of college before they figure out what they actually want to do (if then), and they could be halfway across the country from their friendly SM. And colleges generally do provide a lot of career guidance too.

Thanks for the input. Our guys are really excited about going and we have also found the camp staff to be very helpful answering questions via email, etc..

Sounds like this is something that has developed over time into a troop culture/troop tradition issue. If you want to really put a stop to it - encourage the boys to choose quite different sorts of activities for the next year. THings that the extended family & friends of troop 123 probably won't see as open invites to a family vacation. Or start requiring that all adults be either registered leaders or parents/guardians (I can't see allowing invites to go out to the neighbor's friend's cousin or other far-flung adults as an acceptable use of troop resources!) If you want to keep this tradition alive but limit it in some way - consider making it more of an official "come one, come all" kind of event and do it once a year. Everyone looks forward to it, everyone understands that this one event just isn't really typical troop camping. Of course this means you should have appropriate program support in place for all those little kids who show up too. Our troop does something like this with an annual thanksgiving dinner campout/cook out. This year we had close to 100 people there, most of whom came out for the afternoon/evening, ate dinner, and went home. (They paid for dinner). It is always a huge success, allows families to feel "part of" things, allows us to draw in community supporters, etc.. If you want to change things in a slightly more subtle way - start putting volunteer apps in the hands of the people who express an interest in attending. Give them something concrete to do in preparation for these events. Treat them like Scouters! Keep them busy enough that they won't have time for side trips because they are expected to be doing something specific at your camp. Make that clear early on. You might get some people who don't mind and would be happy to help. You might get others who aren't interested in pitching in and won't camp with you under those circumstances. Problem solved in both directions. But yeah, if you have free for alls three or four times a year, that does seem a bit excessive. That's probably a third to a half of your campouts, right?

Slides are fun and can be really easy/cheap. A hot glue gun and a little imagination are really about all you need. If you need starter ideas: *check out the monthly program helps for cub leaders, *or check Baloo's Bugle online here (I found 599 hits related to slides: http://www.usscouts.org/GoScouting/index.asp *or google them. I am in agreement with various other posters on two fronts though: 1) Don't feel like YOU need to do this - get the boys (in your den) involved. They'll enjoy it more than you might think. 2) So what if the other dens don't do it. Maybe, just maybe, your den can "lead the way" and some of the other boys will start asking their own den leaders if they can do it too. If not, too bad - not your problem.

Sounds like a great opportunity for all of your scouts (and maybe your larger community) to learn about other cultures. You could use the language & cultures belt loop/pin as a base for this. I did my diversity ticket item along those lines and the kids (and parents) really enjoyed it. An international food festival is always a big hit. My son's teacher did this one year in elem. school. The kids each chose a country/culture from their family background, created a display, and brought in food. Worked out really well. You could do that on a den level or an individual level in a pack. Talk to the elem. school teachers too - they might have ideas or even be interested in co-sponsoring an international night at the school. If you have a large group of people from a particular religious or national background maybe you could invite them to help your pack celebrate a major holiday. Diwali, for example, is a Hindu holiday, but it is widely celebrated in South Asia as a cultural event regardless of religious background. Chances are good that most typical American kids don't know anything about Diwali - might be a great opportunity! Of course, if you do this, you'd want to make sure parents understood that this is simply an introduction to other cultures - not an indoctrination - and that if other families want to share their special holidays, you're open to that too. See if you can link up with a cub pack in another part of the world where many of your scout families have ties. Set up a pack to pack pen friendship. This can be done fairly easily via the internet, especially if you have families who can read the local language to help you. Whatever you end up doing, make sure you have the parents on board to help you. This should be about making use of the resources you have (and getting them involved) rather than you doing it all yourself. Sounds like fun to me! Please keep us posted.

Good for him! Sounds like the best possible outcome. By the way, how is your son liking the program so far?

Gern I don't think it is only the program we offer, I think it is also part of being a typical teenage boy. I've noticed that, if left to their own devices, my son and most of his friends would far prefer to just "hang out" somewhere, not doing anything at all, or to be alone (together) in their rooms with various electronic gadgets, playing out a virtual existence. It isn't that they don't enjoy the stuff they are involved in, but I think it is a matter of exploring control - over one's time, over one's interests (developing them or not as the case may be), over one's predilections to slothfulness... We have an expectation that our son will be involved in *something* outside the house. He's an only child, spends too much time alone or with adults as it is. We don't ever have the kind of harried, over-scheduled life that you hear about some people living, but we do want him interacting with other kids and doing something meaningful that he enjoys. So far that has been scouts (and other activities when he's interested). But sure, if we were willing to let him sit in his room and play game boy every night instead, he'd probably do it. Not an option though. By the way I'm picking up my son from a NCIS-themed camp-out in a couple of hours. They had a bunch of guys from the local & state police and the local guard base work with them to set it up. Last year they worked with police dogs and did fingerprint and DNA lab analysis. This year it was more about collecting evidence of a crime along the trail, but really cool stuff. The day before the camp-out my son was moaning about how he just felt like staying home (too bad, he'd already signed up and paid, I said). I'm willing to bet that all I'm going to hear about for the next few days will be how awesome the camp-out was though!

We're the Old Goats (Mbaaaa). But I tend to agree w/ Eamonn. Sometimes it seems like we're running two parallel programs - one for the boys, one for the adults.

Being a UC might be a serious option. Most of the active UC's I know tell me that they attend one or two meetings a month for each of the units to which they are assigned. Supposing that you were assigned to units who meet on a week day, that would be feasible. I do think that I'd want to talk with a couple of current (active) UCs in your district first though, to see what the reality is in your area. Some districts have excellent UC corps while others are stretched way too thin, leading to burn out problems and unrealistic expectations about what the few active UCs will do. But this is definitely an area where you could have a noticeable and positive impact on scouting in your district. If you determine that being a UC isn't for you, there are lots of other district committees to consider. Not all of them meet on weekends. And even those that are more activity oriented (like program committee) won't necessarily require that you give up your weekends. Another thought - are you part of any church or civic groups that sponsor a scout unit? If so, perhaps you would like to serve as the Charter Organization Rep. As COR you'd be a sort of liaison for the organization, the unit, and the district. Having knowledgeable and active CORs is helpful for all three parts of that relationship, and being a COR wouldn't require you to give up weekends either - just keep up relationships with the unit. Look around a little bit and I feel sure you'll find a good scouting "job" match for you.

In another thread Eamonn mentioned that he'd had success recruiting people from the community to serve on various district committees (like membership). Specifically he mentioned the head of a church and three school superintendents. I want to know more. Our district membership committee is faced with two challenges. First, our #s are dwindling. We're down to three people, not including the DE/advisor, and all three of us are from the same troop. It isn't for lack of trying to recruit others, but reality is that we all know the same folks within Scouting circles so our pool is too limited. And we don't want to cannibalize our troop leadership much further either. I've long thought we needed to reach out to people who aren't Scouters in units but from a pragmatic point I guess I'm not sure how to make that work since I personally don't know a lot of these sorts of people in my district? Second, we're having increasing difficulty getting into local schools. I mentioned a week or so ago in another thread that one district has shut us out of the kindergarten building completely, which seriously compromises our ability to do spring Tiger recruiting there. Another - and the largest school district in our area - seems to be moving in that direction. Rather than debate whether schools have a right to do this (that's for the issues & politics forum), my point is that we have access issues. And getting superintendents on board would surely help us. But these are extraordinarily busy folks who may not be well disposed toward scouting (else, why would they be shutting us out of schools in their districts). So tell me how you got them on board Eamonn? Who else has had success in getting community members to serve on district committees? Any words of advice on this would be welcome.

Hi Tom, I can't tell you what your vision could or should be. But I can say that having a DC with a clear sense of where s/he wants to take the district is crucial. As a district membership committee person, I have served with DCs who did, and who didn't, have a clue. In the latter case it felt as though there was almost no point in doing much because it would just be a loose thread, never woven into a bigger effort or supported by other parts of the district committee. Very frustrating. Right now we have a DC with vision and the positive effect on all the district committees is apparent. A couple of specifics that I've noticed as perpetual issues around here - maybe these apply for you, maybe not. 1) UC corps. If only we had a solid UC group then the work of various district committees would be so much easier in terms of disseminating and collecting information, and in terms of providing service to units as well as getting units on board with district programs/vision. Unfortunately our UC corp is weak to non-existent most of the time, though there are some exceptions. 2) Data/information. Being on the membership committee, this is a big one for me but I continually find that we know next to nothing about most of our units and what data we have is generally outdated and inaccurate. Tough to do much to improve things when you don't have any serious benchmarks or reliable information about what's working and what isn't, or even what's been tried and what hasn't. 3) Communications. Our district, in all its aspects, is notorious for springing things late in the game. This goes from program to membership campaigns to service/support issues. And it doesn't work. If we communicated our plans (to support the units) more effectively then units just might buy into those plans. 4) Having a comprehensive vision that everyone buys into. Oops we're back to where we started. But really, without this, each part of the committee is just going off in their own direction and not understanding how they impact each other or can build on each other's efforts. For example, we've been talking about doing a better job of spring tiger recruiting in our area and we keep coming back to two things. First, we need the UCs to help packs understand how and why to do this, and then to encourage packs to hold at least one or two summer events to make it worth while for the new boys to join now. Second, we want a district program element so that boys who join as tigers on June 1st have some kind of district-wide event to attend in early summer, in order to get them fired up. In our case, that's Cub Day Camp, but the folks running that need to know we're promoting it to new Tigers, fresh out of kindergarten, and be sure to have Tiger-appropriate activities in place for these little guys. Eamonn - I'm going to spin a thread over in "council relations" that I hope you'll get a chance to read. I want to know how you managed to recruit those superintendents!

LongHaul, I think I may not have been quite clear enough. My son actually asked both my husband and I not to be constant presences in his troop experience. You see, we were heavily involved in cubs because - due to a major leadership meltdown - we and another family ended up organizing and running practically everything the pack did for about a year. Even after we succeeded in bringing others on board to revive the pack, we still were very involved. So when he crossed over, his explicit request for a little space was understandable. And in reality, that only affected me because almost all the troop stuff happens on nights when my husband is working, and besides, my husband does not like camping. I do. So I've tried to respect his request, which honestly I think was fairly reasonable. He's an only child and spends a lot of time with adults as it is. In fact he often seems more comfortable with adults than with other kids. So one of the reasons I wanted him in scouts was and remains the socialization aspect and in order for that to happen he needs some space. So, it wasn't so much a gender issue as a parental issue. But yeah, when I do camp with the troop, I'm 100% sure my son would be horrified if I made him tent with me. He'd probably quit rather than have to do that twice. As for the question of whether moms and dads are perceived differently? Yes, without a doubt I think we are. It may be inaccurate or unfair (or, I suppose some will argue, exactly why women shouldn't be involved, though I don't agree) but there's no denying it. We have women who are active ASMs and some of them kick the butts of any of the guys in terms of skill. The boys recognize that and so do most of the adults. We also have both moms and dads who are either committee members or not leaders at all, who occasionally camp with the troop. These are the folks, of either gender, who are the most prone to being over-involved and need to be reined in/taught by a good SM or ASM. But I do think there's still an attitude from some people where if a woman raises a complaint about things like inappropriate language, bullying, etc.., that this is viewed as "mothering" in the over-protective sense and consequently the concern is sometimes discounted. And that I find unfortunate because it makes it harder for us, as Scouters, to improve the troop program. Blech - too long a post. Sorry, haven't had my morning coffee & the brain's not going full bore yet.