Lisabob

Eamonn writes "At our house Her That Must Be Obeyed and myself have this on going stupid conversation. She asks me what I want for dinner? I answer what have you got? She tells me I know what we have. I say if I knew I wouldn't ask. (Then we have chicken.) " Eamonn, I had no idea we lived in the same house! Ha ha! This does about capture the brainstorming problem though, doesn't it. They don't know what they want. They don't know what the options really are. So they do whatever they did last year. (which gets a little boring) To kick-start the brainstorming session, how ab

Our troop's CC has arranged for the adult leadership (both committee and SM/ASMs) to get together for a program review and "new ideas" meeting. As there is significant division within the troop over how well the program is meeting the boys' needs and the CC and SM are on opposite sides of that divide, this should be interesting. The basic division is over the extent to which the program is appropriate for first year scouts vs. older scouts (13+ and 1st class or higher). The troop currently has about 40 boys, of whom 8 or 9 are first years, 2 or 3 are in their 2nd or 3rd year, and the

TheYoungEagle wrote: "As long as you have BSA certification you should be more than qualified to be a range master or instructor. " Technically this may be true. I went through the BSA shooting sports training/certification in order to be qualified to run the archery ranges at cub day camp for our district. From that experience I can say that I did not learn the skills necessary to, say, be an effective MB counselor for the boy scout archery mb. Neither was the training designed for this purpose, so I'm not knocking the training experience here. What I got from that training was su

OldEagle, sorry to hear this. My son went to Schoelkopf as a provo last year and had kind of a lousy experience too. The provo troop consisted of about 30 boys that week and ONE "scoutmaster" who was about 22 years old at most. The poor guy had no help at all, probably violating all kinds of 2-deep rules in the process. My son was signed up for the 1st year program but didn't attend at all - just "hung out" in his camp site the whole week during the afternoons and...no one noticed...including the SM. From a parental view I wasn't too thrilled with that. If he'd been missing in the woods,

Crew21_Adv, I love your idea regarding "late fees!" Will mention this to our district training folks. If you want to get people trained I think you have to start out by showing them, in concrete terms, how training will make them more effective volunteers and then the training had better do exactly that once you get them to attend. Just as having a couple of people who are fresh from a great training session with all kinds of enthusiasm and new ideas can re-invigorate a unit and promote training, the opposite is also true and probably on a larger scale. So I think this is where the t

Wouldn't this just take the "us vs. them" mentality one step further? What would the "losing" slate do? Would they concede gracefully and then work productively with the "winning" side? Would they sit out entirely for the year, or longer (hey, you didn't vote for me, why should I volunteer to help at all)? Would the storm off to another pack? Would they stick around but grumble about hanging chads until the next election?? Would this become a political grudge match? Yes I understand where you're coming from on this. But I think this could cause more problems than it would solve and

Acco, you brought up a good point about how they are meeting their 2nd class requirement (pick your patrol's camp site). I honestly can't see how they could. However...that's a bit of a problem for this troop these days too, as they allow anybody 1st class and above to sign off on requirements for the newer scouts. What sometimes seems to happen is that the requirements get signed without having really been met. I suppose that's a trade off of allowing the boys to sign each other's books. Strangely, this has not resulted in rapid advancement for the first year scouts anyway. Of the 12 fir

Have to agree with acco - it is a bad sign when the presenters feel they're somehow "above" the audience. Lisa'bob A good old bobwhite too!

Thanks for all your responses. Acco - "I used to be a bobwhite..."- hence, Lisa'bob (our whole patrol attached 'bob to our names, not just me) Semper, no, they don't do take-down in the reverse order. As far as I can tell it's every boy for themselves at that point. Although at the last campout one of the older boys apparently got impatient waiting for the younger guys to finish up and started "helping" by taking their tents down with them still inside. Grr. Probably a good thing I wasn't there. Then I might have become "Lisa'bear" instead. Kudu - I fear you're right that

My son had his first SM conference for rank advancement (tenderfoot) the other day and the SM suggested to him that he should consider questions like "what do you like so far, and what would you like to cahnge, about the troop?" as he gets ready for his first BoR. So my son was chatting about this in the car on the way home and here's what he said he would change. When they have campouts, the boys pitch their tents in a line. The SPL and other boys in PoRs go first, followed by the highest ranking scouts without PoRs, all the way down the line to "scout" ranks. (this apparently does

I don't think that most people who oppose teaching ID in science classes are attacking Christian beliefs per se. I don't believe most of these people would want to see Jewish, Muslim, or Buddhist views on how the world came to be taught as science either. Nor would they advocate teaching various Native American creation beliefs in a biology class. From the perspective of those who oppose ID as science, the problem stems from a definition of what science is and how it operates, that ID does not appear to meet. That doesn't make ID (or any other belief) unworthy of discussion, the question i

Make training affordable, accessible, fun, and clearly worth while to those who attend. Advertize incessantly, keeping in mind that those who may need training the most - NEW LEADERS -may not yet be hooked into the usual sources of district info. You'll need to reach out to find them. Promote that pack trainer position (at the cub pack level) and whatever similar position might exist (is there anything similar?) at the troop/crew/team level. These are the people who should be pushing their own unit members to get their behinds to training, and who can help new leaders find out about traini

Mark, that's a good point. This is where "non-traditional" awards can come into play too. We usually used these as a way to thank and recognize adult volunteers but they can be adapted and used for the boys too. Things like the "top banana" award for a kid who can be counted on to try and do anything, no matter how goofy it might be, or the "big heart" (large heart-shaped wood or paper ornament, painted/decorated - you can get these at Michael's and other craft places) award for the kid who is always helping other people. These can be as silly, or serious, as you want them to be. In

Gosh nld, that's amazing. You can "tell one when you see one" from a post on a message board? I must have misunderstood what you meant here. EagleScout316, you certainly seem worried about taking this job, and if it is going to keep you awake at night (when you're not working I mean) then you should look for another job. No job is worth excessive mental, or moral, anguish. On the other hand if you're comfortable with it, then go ahead. As for scouting - if your scout troop back home were to give you a hard time then I suppose you could ask them to help you find an equally well

This is an interesting thread. Eamonn I feel your pain man. I grew up in a scouting family and one of my earliest memories is going to Camp Ti-Wa-Yee (sp?) with my dad (Eagle,SM, and camp director), grandfather (longtime SM who also carved the totem poles at the entry of the camp) and godfather (professional scouter) to say "goodbye" to a BSA camp that was being sold. I must have been 3 or 4. My parents met there (mom was camp director at a nearby GSUSA camp). I spent a good many summers at various scout camps with them and on my own too. So in general I'm opposed to selling camps and I

Hey FourGuardians, don't despair. My son and his buddies are all comic book junkies! Also the university where I work has a scholar-in-residence program and this year "our" scholar is a comic book artist. I think one appealing characteristic of a lot of video games is that they can be played in a variety of ways, depending on what the player thinks is fun. Yes, there are certain parameters, but within those, there's a lot of choice. My favorite games also allow the player to revisit scenarios and yet they don't feel like "repeats" because the game changes/is changed based on how you

Another thing we have done in the past: make the boys a "badge box" for various boy scout patches that can't be worn on their uniform (well, not more than one at a time anyway). Unlike in Cubs, I've never seen a boyscout wearing a red patch vest. We've gone to a craft store and picked up a generic type of wood jewelry box (plain, no decorations) for a couple dollars each, used a wood burner to add the fleur de lis and other items (names of the boys in the den, den symbol, pack number etc.) and then stained them. They turn out nicely and the boys seem to think they're pretty cool. Just mak

We had this happen last year and just separated the cross-over from the AoL ceremonies. However, our pack has not had a W II program after February so *if* any of the boys who hadn't completed their AoL and weren't 11 years old had wanted to stay in the pack then they would've had to join the W I den . Telling the W II den leaders that they "have to" stay on with these boys would not have worked well at all in our case. One of our WII den leaders moved on to boy scouts with his son. The other den leader's son quit scouts to do sports, and his dad would almost certainly have refused to stay

How about their boy scout handbook, if the troop doesn't already provide that to their new scouts? We did something similar to what Mark described and provided the handbook too. The troop provided "their" neckerchief. Lisa'bob A good old bobwhite too!

Did this scout know about this "rule of thumb" prior to starting work on this project? If not, it seems a little unfair to expect him to have lived up to it, even though I understand what your concerns are. On the other hand, it seems reasonable to just ask him how/why it turned out that he and his dad did most of the work. Admittedly I have limited experience with Eagle projects, but I can imagine a variety of ways that this boy might have demonstrated leadership even though only 26 of the 126 hours of work came from outside sources. Others with more experience might disagree though.

It sounds like a thoughtful gesture but...in general, scouts are not allowed to solicit monetary donations for non-scout groups. I don't know exactly how or if that rule applies to eagle projects (I've never had it come up in that context) but I can tell you that where I live, units who have tried to do things like this (including for hurricane victims) have been told a resounding *no* by the district and council professionals. It's too bad, as monetary donations are often more useful to charities than goods and services. Lisa'bob A good old bobwhite too!

My son's troop has a membership chair and an advancement chair. Each keeps the records that are appropriate for their positions. As the membership chair is also responsible for recharter, she has the applications. Lisa'bob A good old bobwhite too!

mbscoutmom, that's a really unfortunate situation. Sorry to hear you are feeling so frustrated. Before you quit. Do you have a pack committee? If so, is there anybody at all on that committee that you can work with? If you have any kind of a decent committee, go to them and put it on the table. Tell them that you cannot continue as both CM and CC and give them a deadline. "We need to find a CM by ___ date." Set it after the holidays so that it is more likely to happen. Make it a group project. Ask each person for 3-4 names of people they personally will contact. Don't le

Foto, I agree that there are some things national could do to improve the webelos program. Among other things I'd like to see a clearer distinction between 1st and 2nd year, making the 2nd yr. function more explicitly like a boy-led patrol instead of glorified cub scouting. Some WDLs do this on their own but many don't. However, I don't agree that the webelos program is too ambitious. I think it was designed to allow flexibility, especially for those who use the 18 month format (which is probably most of us). Some boys will be highly active and motivated to earn most or all of the 20

Mark, it is true that the CC assumes this position if the CM suddenly steps down and there's no replacement. However, most CCs would not welcome this added position. Being CC is enough work. So in a situation like this where the CM elects to step down mid year (rather than needing to because of an unforeseen emergency) I think it is only good manners and common sense for the CM to give the committee sufficient notice so that they can find a replacement before he leaves. It would certainly make the transition smoother for the pack. Not to mention that dlw has a boy in the pack; if hi