Lisabob

Beaver, We recently had a discussion with our CO and district exec. about the meeting space requirement.(CO has never had an appropriate space for us to use, but they've chartered this troop for over 60 years and want to continue). The DE indicated that this meeting space requirement only means that the CO is supposed to either a) physically provide a space or b) help the unit locate a space. The DE said this does not mean the space provided has to be extraordinarily well suited to the scout unit, nor does it mean the CO has to do the leg work for the unit in terms of finding a meeting place

mbscoutmom, Check with other service organizations in your town as well as your public school system and other churches to see about finding a new meeting place. One pack around here is sponsored by a church but meets at a public school because of the lack of appropriate space over at the church. In another pack that is sponsored by a public school PTO, one of the dens meets at a local church and another den meets at a different public school, because that's where they could find an open room on the days/times they wanted to meet. My son's troop is chartered by one service club, holds

Ah, this is what I love about this board. Dan, you'll be happy to here that the Wendy's down the street from me is advertizing the mushroom swiss burger on its sign today! Here are some of the pack level tweaks I've seen, some more ok than others in my view. Tweak One: Parental involvement in den meetings beyond Tigers After Tigers, parents aren't required to attend den meetings, but I know several den leaders who make it clear that they expect parents to attend anyway, at least the vast majority of the time. A few other DLs I've met discourage parents from "hanging out" at d

If your pack has a bridge you use at B&G for cross over, what kind of shape is it in? Maybe it needs some work. Lisa'bob A good old bobwhite too!

Right, but ultimately the buck stops with the CC and the committee. It certainly would be poor judgment to exclude the CM from planning, etc., since the CM is expected to carry out the program though. Scoutnut, I suspect we're pretty much saying the same thing - my point was just that the CM is not supposed to be "running" the pack - that's not what the job is about, although that's what a lot of CMs seem to do (or in some cases, seem to want to do). Lisa'bob A good old bobwhite too!

Let's talk about the role of the CM, CM's unregistered husband, Committee Chair, adn the rest of the committee. First, the CM is supposed to be a sort of "master of ceremonies" who runs the monthly pack meeting. That's it. The pack program should already be arranged by the committee (including all the planning and logistics) so that all the CM needs to do is show up. And the CM should be willing to get goofy with the kids. One person explained the CM's role to me once as "the clown in chief." Second, the CM's husband. Sounds like he is excited about helping. Great. The commi

Eamonn, SWScouter, I agree with you completely that the basic skills need to be taught and it seems that they are not being covered adequately in some cases. And you're right that there are many activities which will be "off limits" (or at least, not fun) for people who lack the appropriate skills. And Eamonn, I'm not generally in favor of teaching youth leadership as just a mini-version of adult leadership classes. Your son's response says it all - boring. But...what to do with the many adult scouters I've met, who may already have pretty solid "scout skills," whose hearts are in th

Scoutnut writes: Ahhh - Lisa, you haven't read the Insigna Guide or the Uniform Inspection Sheet lately have you? : Per the Uniform Inspection Sheet (because I can directly copy a quote & not have to hunt it down) : "Webelos Scouts wear only current badge of rank (Bobcat,Wolf, Bear, or Webelos badge) centered on (left) pocket." --------------------------------------------------- Guilty as charged (hangs head). Don't know how I missed that. Anyway that's what we had been doing so I guess our instincts were good at least. Thanks for clarifying. Lisa'bob A good

This is one thing all the boys in my son's webelos den commented on at one time or another as we did more things with area troops. "How come their uniforms are so booooooring????" Along with mourning the end of the blue shirts with all their hard-earned rank advancements, they noticed the absence of the patch-covered red vests. Boy Scout Merit badge sashes, which are displayed infrequently, were small consolation to them. On the other hand, parents seemed happy enough with the switch to tan shirts and fewer adornments - less sewing! Personally I like that the boys can wear either blue

I wonder if anybody else has run into this and if so, how they've addressed it? A couple of the major industrial employers in our area offer donations to non-profit groups where an employee volunteers for x-number of hours in a given year. Scout units are frequent recipients of these donations. This year several pack leaders have fulfilled the requirements for these donations. However, the pack has run into a problem because the companies will only donate the money if the pack can provide a 501c3 ID #. Apparently, typical scout units piggy back off their CO's ID # (so the pack has

Ed writes: "It seems if the Scouts don't use the skills they are taught, they forget!" Well sure Ed, and how good are you with a manual typewriter these days? (me, I'm hopeless. Thank goodness for spell checkers and that backspace key!) I like your "knot of the night" idea though. Lisa'bob A good old bobwhite too!

Eamonn, that's sad re: the knot situation. Hopefully the SM is now embarrassed enough that he'll do something about it. At both the Cub level and over the last year observing at the troop level, I've seen a lot of adult leaders who were highly competent in terms of scout skills, but who lacked the organizational, inter-personal, or leadership capacity to translate those skills into a successful program. We have many training opportunities that focus on building scout skill (though I'm all in favor of having more of them, too). In the current BSA training continuum, leadership s

I've had the same problem getting new cub leaders trained. In part this was a logistics issue but in part it was a matter of "culture." By the time they get to boy scouts, most parents have at least a passing acquaintance with BSA, while many new leaders in the cub program are brand new to the entire organization. So troop leaders are probably already "on board" and more willing to go to training. Some things that seem to work around here: 1. offer a variety of times/days for NLE. Parents of young kids might find it harder to take an entire Saturday or Sunday off but they may be wil

One question I remember had to do with naming 4 of the beltloops. The "new" beltloops were not included in the list of acceptable answers. CD therefore denied their existence. (astronomy, geography, several others - I'd have to look up which other ones are newer but I think there were 6 or 8 og them.) There were a couple of other questions too, I just remember this one in particular because we had some fun awarding the "phantom beltloops" to the WB staff the following weekend. Lisa'bob A good old bobwhite too!

Eagledadx3 I think you're right that we need to focus on keeping existing leaders happy. With that in mind I've been thinking about why I volunteered to start with and why I've stayed involved, and why, recently, I have considered leaving more frequently than in the past (ie, what's changed?) I started out as just a parent. Not that I was unwilling to lend a hand at den meetings and pack fundraisers, etc., but I never intended to be a leader. I agreed to be a leader after a nasty adult blow out left our den without a leader, our pack without a CM, and the committee with a lot of ho

Honestly I don't think very many of them would subscribe, though I guess I could be wrong. I'm just thinking of my 11 yo scout and whether he'd use what you are describing (or whether I'd let him). If I could get him to keep a calendar of any kind - let alone a web based one - I'd be overjoyed. This isn't a priority for him. He's young, but still, most of his homework doesn't require access to a web site and he does most of it at home - where we have a computer with word processing capabilities already. And I wouldn't be excited about him doing his homework "from anywhere" online while su

I bought a set from our council scout shop about two years ago. So yes, they're "out there." Lisa'bob A good old bobwhite too!

Huntr, Let the other pack have her. You seem to have done everything that might be reasonably expected to accomodate her. Hopefully she'll find a better match there (though I rather doubt it, based on your description) and your life will be that much less stressful. By the way - have you tried getting a den chief? Den chiefs are usually pretty good at helping run games. Can be wonderful if you have "adult" stuff to deal with for a short part of the meeting but don't want a bunch of boys running around like crazies either. Lisa'bob A good old bobwhite too!

I'm not on the BSA legal staff but I'd sure be shocked if they said yes. Given that scout units are not allowed to use the uniform or other BSA symbols to imply support for fund raising without specific permission from their council to do so, I'm guessing BSA would be less than excited about a private company helping individual scouts (not units) raise money by using a part of the uniform (mb sash). Doubly so because the private company would also make money from the venture. Javaco, you may want to get hold of the unit money-earning application that troops/packs/crews/teams are requir

Looking at the requirements on the USScouts.org page, I notice that the Scout rank is listed as follows: "Boy Scout Joining Requirements (Scout Badge)" . All the other ranks are listed as "xyz Rank" www.usscouts.org/advance/boyscout/bsranks.html Also, unlike each of the other ranks, there are no "alternative" requirements for the scout badge listed. And, as has been pointed out, the requirements are quite simple. This leads me to believe the scout badge is intended to be given very quickly to new boys, though of course they should fulfill the requirements as listed first.

OK I gave my copy of the Cub Leader Handbook to a new leader so I can't go back and find this right now. Mark, does the book suggest that the PT do this new leader training in place of Cub Leader Specific Training? Do districts then count the new leaders as 100% trained for purposes of quality unit, etc.? I definitely did a lot of training for new leaders but I viewed it as supplemental to the NLE and CLST courses offered by our district. Lisa'bob A good old bobwhite too!

Really? The PT was designed to do NLE and Leader Specific within the pack? That's definitely not how it was portrayed to me! My frst thought is, that would be much more convenient. We're situated at the far end of our district and council and training nearly always takes place at least an hour drive away from here (often further). I've often thought it is ironic because despite our location on the geographic fringe, we're also the fastest growing part of the district/council. Second thought though: if packs could do all their training in-house they would never get to know anybody ou

scoutldr, your comment about long-time leaders promoting their agendas at training rather than actually presenting the material made me grimace. I've been on the receiving end of that more than once! For cub leaders, add to it that half the time (in my experience anyway), folks on the training staff haven't stayed current with the Cub program and end up spreading mis-information as a result. Very annoying. So maybe another reason people quit - eager new leaders who go to training expecting actual help/correct information and get garbage instead, become disillusioned and frustrated.

Good question Eamonn. Here's my top-five list: 1. Frustration with poorly run programs. 2. Insufficient training to run the program properly. 3. A poor fit between a volunteer's available time/expertise and the job they're asked to do. 4. Lack of real help from district/council staff who tend to either vanish when things really get rough or tell endless stories that aren't that helpful. 5. The "insider club." I've met veteran scouters who were quite welcoming to newcomers and open to different ways of thinking - wonderful people on all levels. I've also met a fair

Service projects in the last 6 months or so: help direct participants in a charity walk/run help staff a party for disabled youth memorial day parade beachfront clean up at state park help conservation society plant cover for ground nesting birds served up the ice cream at a local elem. school's "welcome back to school" ice cream social