Lisabob

OK so quit playing this idiot SM's game. Go above his head, and do it today. He is just going to continue stone walling until your son is too old for anything to be done. What a jerk.

This is a problem with ladder style race set-ups. Even if you had changed out the wheels late in the race, at that point other boys' cars have lost out on a chance to continue to race (outside their dens). No matter what remedy you apply late in the race to deal with having discovered that there was an impropriety, the fact remains that you CANNOT correct it for those boys whose cars did not advance because they lost to this particular car. This is why many packs run races where all cars run the same # of races (changing lanes and perhaps also changing racing opponents), and the car with the fastest average time wins the race. Had you been running such a set-up, you could have DQ'd the car without causing havoc lower down in the standings. There still might have been upset people since it wasn't discovered til the last race of the day, of course, but at least the impact on other cars' chances in the race would have been ameliorated. As it is, I think you count yourself lucky that the dad (or the parents of the other kids whose cars didn't get to advance because they lost to that kid) didn't make a bigger fuss. No matter what you did at that point, the last race of the day, you would have been in for it. Learn from it and move on, and consider doing things a bit differently next year. (This message has been edited by lisabob)

Scoutmom, I think it would be good to speak for yourself. As another mom, I don't know that I would agree with your characterization, writ large. Perhaps this describes your experiences - not every mom's though.

Yes. Please, if you have other options for scouting in your area, find another troop for your younger son. What you describe sounds like a bunch of adult bullies to me - not something to subject your kids to.

Although I'd have thought that the DE would be listed on most district web pages, it is possible he or she is not and that only volunteer positions are listed (the DE is a paid professional position, not a volunteer position). It is also possible your district lacks a DE. Far more likely, though, is that they just aren't on the website. One quick way to find out is to call your council office tomorrow morning and ask for the name and contact info for the DE for people in your town. If they tell you there is not one, then ask who the PROFESSIONAL, PAID individual is who is in charge of your area. It might be a Field Director or District Director, if you really don't have a DE for some reason, but there will be someone. About this SM holding 3 district positions, which you've mentioned a few times now... That doesn't necessarily mean anything. Many times district positions are filled by "any warm body." Not good, but common. It does NOT mean that all the other district folks are his buddies. Additionally, the three positions you listed (I think that was in your posts on the site referenced by NealonWheels) are not "power" positions in this matter. If the SM were also the district advancement chair there would be cause for worries there - as it is, I think you can stop worrying about this particular angle though.

At the time my son was a cub, they went from having different neckers but the same hat for all cubs, to different neckers AND different hats. They also moved the Tigers into the uniform stream (as opposed to just the T shirts). Seems clear that it is a money-driven decision to me. It is true that the little guys like the uniforms and they sure are cute. But I think if I had a group of cubs these days, I'd offer the parents an option of simply not wearing the hats at all, and going for a pack ball cap instead if people want head gear. 12 or 15 bucks for a hat that is only "good" for a year and probably won't get worn that much anyway, is nuts. And the neckers? Boys had them on for all of 5 minutes at most meetings. Skip 'em. Special cub scout socks? Forget it! They won't be harmed by wearing ordinary socks to their den meetings. Another $8 or so saved. Then, having saved about $30 on cub hats, neckers, and socks, MAYBE some parents will be more inclined to buy the kids a uniform shirt! Of course, maybe I'm just feeling stingy today. I'm for uniforming, really, but part of the point of uniforming is to bring people together, no matter their background (economic and otherwise). That's not going to happen if the uniform gets to be so expensive that parents need to get a loan to purchase the darn thing. I worry it is increasingly becoming an economic status symbol instead - the very opposite of what it should be.

A parent at the troop meeting tonight verified that the prices went up TODAY, including for shirts and pants, at our council scout shop. He said he was there buying his son a new uniform when the clerk started re-pricing everything. Sigh.

Other than stepping in for the SPL in the event of his absence, most ASPLs I have seen don't appear to do much at all. Is that typical? Not asking for the "book" answer per se - I'm more interested in hearing about what happens on the ground which may or may not be the same thing. This is mostly a matter of curiosity and a wish to identify "best practices" out there.

Maybe encourage this parent to take the online hazardous weather training too. Perhaps that will settle some fears. Probably not though. Another option might be to see if your council has any risk management folks advising the council. If so, talk with those folks about the situation and get their read on it. If you feel that those folks are reasonable and competent, then perhaps also consider inviting them to a troop committee meeting. Let them do a SHORT presentation on appropriate procedure and then answer any questions parents have.

Better buy it now, I guess, before the price hike. I'll be honest. I recently bought a whole new uniform for my (rapidly growing) teen. I'm a supporter of proper uniforming. This isn't my first time buying a uniform off the shelf. Still, I got sticker shock. The centennial uniforms are already pretty expensive and I would be darned unhappy to have to pay another $10 each for the pants and the shirt. $50 for a pair of typical pants that he will outgrow within a year is too much, in comparison to other similarly styled pants on the market. At least he'll wear the pants on a regular basis though. Don't get me started on the shirts, which I still think are pretty useless (no kid I know wears them outside of scouting events and they're still not particularly good in the outdoors even with the newer material). I still have the old-style uniform for myself. I was going to buy myself a new one this year, but if the prices go up I will not bother even though I absolutely despise the old ones. For me, at $100 for just the shirt and pants, it comes down to deciding who gets the new stuff - me, or my kid?

Hi Kari, I don't think it is that common for troops to tell webelos that they should/must participate in troop fundraisers, before the boys even join. However, there are always exceptions. I know that the year my son crossed over, his troop had a very expensive trip to Yellowstone planned for that summer. They *invited* webelos to participate in fundraising prior to joining, and they *expected* new scouts to participate immediately after joining, even if they new scouts would not be attending the trip. The idea was that this was a group effort and the profits would be evenly divided among all who wished to attend, including brand new scouts. Although I understood where they were coming from, I will say there are sometimes communication and perception issues. Maybe that's the case in your situation too. In our case, many new parents were put off by the heavy fund raising pressure from a group that they didn't yet feel part of, and it scared some folks away. This jambo business sounds really odd though. Participation in the national jamboree is limited and many councils no longer even have openings available. Whole troops do not typically attend together - instead, each council sends one or more "temporary" jambo troops comprised of 36 boys each, typically drawn from across the council. Boys must be at least 12 AND at least 1st class rank AND active members of their home troop for at least 6 months prior to July 2010, to be eligible at all. (And then there's the additional cost, which is about $2000 for boys in my home council for 2010 - more/less from other councils, depending on where you are located) If the SM is telling you that your boy will be excluded from jambo unless he fundraises for the troop, something is fishy there. Not only is the SM not the one who makes that decision, but chances are high that your boy wouldn't be eligible for jambo in 2010 anyway if he is a webelos scout now. I think if I were in your shoes, I would politely seek clarification. It might be that something isn't making it through the channels of communication here.

For the moment, let's assume that this boy actually does want to earn his Webelos and AoL ranks before joining boy scouts, and that his goal is to do so as quickly as possible in order to be with his buddies in the troop. I'm not at all sure that you would need to spend much additional time or effort playing catch up with him and thereby hold the rest of the den back. Here's what I would do in that situation: TO EARN WEBELOS RANK: 1) Webelos requirement 1 is done by the parents. No additional time for you. 2) Webelos requirement 2 (tenure) takes care of itself, you don't do anything. Since he was already a Webelos scout, he probably fulfilled some (all?) of this requirement in the past. 3) Webelos requirements 3, 4, and 7 can be done in coordination with AoL requirement 2. No serious additional time or effort on your part since your den will be doing AoL req 2 anyway. If you don't plan to do this anytime soon, see below (AOL req 2) for other thoughts on how this boy could accomplish these requirements without you needing to change your schedule. 4) Webelos requirement 5 (FITNESS) should be done at home. Most of the requirements explicitly tell the scout to discuss the material with a family member- not the Webelos den leader. No additional time for you. 5) Webelos requirement 5 (CITIZEN) can be partly done at home. Citizen requirements 1, 2, 7, and any two from 9-17 could be done by the boy with his parent, with a brief meeting between you and the scout to check that he has successfully completed them. That might take 15 minutes of your time before a meeting starts. Citizen requirements 3, 4, 5, 6 can easily be incorporated into a den meeting, since most Webelos dens have regular flag ceremonies anyway. No serious additional time necessary here. The citizenship beltloop requirements 1 & 2 can be done outside the den, and beltloop requirement 3 (service project) is probably something your den does in the normal course of events anyway. Maybe you'll need another 15 minutes of your time for the boy to show you what he did in beltloop requirements 1 & 2. 6) Webelos requirement 5 (ONE OTHER BADGE FROM ANOTHER GROUP) can either be done individually (think scholar or traveler badges, both of which lend themselves well to individual completion) or it could be a different badge that the whole W II den works on together. You'll probably already be doing some work on some badges with your W II guys anyway, right? No serious additional time for you here. 7) Webelos requirement 6 (flag ceremony) is easy to incorporate if your den already does flag ceremonies. If your den doesn't, why not? Consider adding these to the mix this year so that the guys know how to do this when they join boy scouts (where, as you know, flag etiquette and participation in a flag ceremony are parts of the tenderfoot and 2nd class rank requirements too). Supposing that flag ceremonies are NOT currently part of your normal den meeting and that you decide to add them, we're talking about maybe an hour's worth of effort on your part spread over the year to guide the boys, and perhaps 5 minutes of time at the start of your regular den meetings to actually have the flag ceremonies. You could designate another parent to be the go-to-guy/gal for the boys in terms of designing their flag ceremonies, or you could bring in a boy scout/den chief to help with this so that you don't need to spend your own time on this. Now we're down to just the 5 minutes it takes to do the flag ceremony. 8) Webelos requirement 8 (religious requirement) is usually also done primarily with the family. Depending on what options the boy chooses he may also need to meet with you to tell you about what he did/learned, but that is not a den-wide activity and should not require more than perhaps 30 minutes of your time (if that). So, with the addition of 1 hour or less of your individual time and some outside work/commitment by this boy and his parent, he could easily finish the Webelos badge very quickly. There's no need to disrupt your W II den meeting plans if this boy joins your den. ----------------------------- Now on to quickly earning the AoL. Here you can work together with the SM from the troop that this boy will probably join. Designate the SM or an ASM as "Akela" for certain AoL requirements for this boy. There's no reason these couldn't be accomplished quickly by this boy and in conjunction with a willing troop, while he is still fulfilling the tenure requirement. 1) Requirement 1 (tenure) takes care of itself. 2) Requirement 2 (boy scout knowledge) can either be covered in your den meetings with your W II boys early in the year, or you could enlist a boy scout/den chief/adult troop leader to work individually with the boy on this. 3) Earn 5 more activity badges - this is probably the "hard" part since presumably you don't want to rush all your boys through all of these pins just for the sake of this one boy. So set it up where this boy works individually, with a qualified adult (not you!) to complete these. Then the onus is on him, not you, and he can be with his buddies in the troop while he works on some of the requirements. Earning the OUTDOORSMAN pin: Maybe you don't want to do all of the outdoorsman requirements early in the den's W II schedule. Fine. The boy can go on one or more boy scout campouts (with his parent) and accomplish Outdoorsman requirements 2, 4, 6, 9, 10, and 11 with almost no involvement from you at all - allow the SM to sign off on those requirements. While he is on these camp outs, he will be with his age/grade-based friends. You would need to schedule just one additional Outdoorsman activity for the whole den, early in the W II year, so that this boy can earn that pin with haste. That's hardly too tough! How about Outdoorsman requirement 5 or 7? Both make a basis for good den meetings. EARNING READYMAN PIN: None of these require that they be done "with your Webelos den." So enlist the help of the troop's best First Aid merit badge counselor. Set the boy up with him to complete the requirements for this activity pin and let him sign off as Akela. Or work with the Scoutmaster and get this boy invited to upcoming troop meetings where the troop is working on 1st aid skills. This boy could participate as a guest, right along side his friends who are already in the troop. EARNING A TECHNOLOGY PIN: Handyman and Craftsman are pins that most boys love earning, and can be done fairly easily and entirely on one's own if you don't want to schedule den time for these activities (but most boys really enjoy them so you might WANT to schedule den time!). If the boy does them on his own, schedule half an hour of your time to let him tell you about what he did before you sign off. EARNING A MENTAL SKILLS PIN: Scholar and Traveler are easily accomplished outside the den. 15 minutes of your time for the boy to tell you what he did is about all you'll need. EARNING ANOTHER PIN: Also easy in most cases. There are so many he can choose from and complete individually. Supposing that he wants to work on one that requires special skills, again, enlist a local merit badge counselor or troop leader to be Akela. For example, if he wants to earn Aquanaut, find out who signs off on the 1st class swimming requirements for the troop, and ask that individual to help out. 4) AoL requirements 4 & 5 (with den, visit boy scout activities/do webelos den overnighter or day hike): These require your help because you have to schedule them for the den early in the year. But your current den will need to do these anyway, and you might as well schedule them early, when the weather is cooperative. 5) AoL requirement 6 requires perhaps 10 minutes of your time to meet with this boy before he fulfills the remainder of the requirement on his own. 6) AoL requirement 7 is done with the family, not the WDL. So your "extra" involvement boils down to about an additional hour to help him get his Webelos badge wrapped up. After that, in order to allow him to earn AoL quickly and move on to the troop with his peers, you will need to help the scout make contact with appropriate leaders from the troop, make sure those leaders know the requirements for which you are asking that they are serving as "Akela," and schedule one outdoorsman activity plus visits to a troop meeting, a troop outdoor activity, and a webelos overnighter or day hike early in your W II den calendar. If the boy is motivated and if the troop leaders are willing to work with you, this boy could finish Webelos rank, earn AoL, and transition into a troop, all in the space of 3-6 months. During those months he could be participating in some troop activities as a guest to keep him excited about scouting and allow him to be with his friends. And the extra work for you is really very minimal. Hope this helps.

Firekat, I'm obviously not John, but... That's how it works in my council too re: donations. The council jealously guards its community FOS turf. However, your unit CAN still operate a fundraiser (different than just straight-up donations) by filling out and getting approved a unit money earning application. If you have a bunch of small fry (Tigers!) consider doing something like a community car wash (even little guys like hoses and sponges, and bigger relatives can help) or a plant sale (We do one before mother's day - sell gift cards to the local nursery. You'd be amazed how many dads buy the cards from their cubs and then thanked us for providing them this "service" to keep them in their wife's/mother's good graces!)

We had a couple of boys who were held back for a year but stayed with their original dens and who crossed over as 4th graders. Everybody in their former dens/now patrols knew it, nobody cared. The only place it came up at all was in scheduling because the troop's events had not been planned with any of the elementary school schedules in mind (all the other boys were in middle/high school). But that was rarely an issue. From what you wrote about the boy, he'd probably be better served by moving into a troop. Your project is to convince his dad of this. You probably will want to get together with the SM first and figure out what this boy's experience as a new boy scout will look like - get your sales pitch together - and then invite the dad to meet with both you and the SM to discuss the options. If dad insists on keeping his boy in cub scouts then put him in a den that will be quite active and encourage that den to do a lot of joint activities with the local troops so that the boy is getting enough adventure to keep him involved. What, exactly, does he have left to complete his AoL? Depending on the unfinished requirements, he may be able to do it quickly. Don't forget that he can join boy scouts at any time - need not wait until next year's cross over to do so. Perhaps that would be a middle ground if dad insists that he wants his boy to earn AoL before moving on.

Egad! That's the model we want to set for our boys...15 badges in a week!

Beavah, I am not qualified in tax law to determine whether or not what my council says is accurate. I do know that's what they have told me, and on at least one occasion, done to units I have been associated with.

In a refreshing turn of events, we were notified this week that our council's jambo costs just went down by $250. How often does THAT happen!?

Why don't you encourage your council to make a request for community FOS donations? Firekat: Be careful here. Our council also requires that non-council fundraisers be approved, which much of the time is fairly simple (fill out the paperwork and be adamant). On the other hand, our council will NEVER earmark donations for specific units and in fact, has in the past held on to such donations for themselves. That has occasionally caused some hard feelings, but the council claims that for tax reasons, they cannot and will not distribute donations downward to units (because the council does not own the units). The council also does not appreciate it when units hit up local businesses and groups that the council solicits for FOS donations though, and they won't approve unit fundraisers that are based on that sort of a plan. Bottom line - be really clear about your council's assumptions and expectations regarding any donations that go through them to your unit!(This message has been edited by lisabob)

Yes to your last point. If this boy joined because his friends talked him into it, then put him with his friends. Make it their responsibility to teach him the basic skills he needs to be successful and have fun. Putting a typical 16 year old in with the 11 year olds is likely to cause him to want to quit, pretty quickly.

Fascinating. Why do you think that is, Ed? Does it have something to do with conveying nuance or double meaning (heart of a lot of jokes) in ASL?

Sorry to post twice but asm411 and I must have been writing at the same time. I want to second what asm411 said about his camp, Manatoc, in northeast Ohio. Our boys went there from far out of council last year. We'd never been to Manatoc before. We go to a different camp every year (we have no council camp of our own) so our guys have a lot to compare to. With hardly any exceptions, the boys (and adults) had two very positive comments about the merit badge program there. The first was that they had knowledgeable counselors who actually taught the requirements. That's refreshing, after some experiences the boys have had elsewhere. The second was that there WERE lots of other non-merit badge things to do and lots of time to participate in free-use time in the program areas. They really enjoyed that.

I admit I did not understand this the first year, but after that I did. My son's troop allows the boys to leave open one of the merit badge blocks, so that they can just enjoy being boys outside in the summer. My initial worry was that there would be little to do during that time. The program areas were all running merit badges so weren't necessarily open for free use. But after I spent a little time at one of the summer camps, I understood. The boys played cards, hiked, visited the trading post, went fishing, "explored," worked on attaining parts of the camp's honors programs (usually visiting certain locations) and in a few cases, worked on parts of their merit badges. Several commented that they just enjoyed having some time to relax. Late in the week, I noticed those boys did not appear as stressed out. That won't work for all, of course. There are some boys who need a full schedule to keep them out of mischief. Boys who are prone to homesickness are probably better off being very busy. But it is an option, even at camps that operate as "mills." Just because the camp sets up its schedule to offer a crazy number of badges doesn't mean you and your scouts have to play along. TwoCubDad - thank you! For not letting your scouts suffer through the citizen and communications badges at camp! I'd take off family life and personal management too. Those badges are not designed to be taught in that type of setting and require a bit more perspective and life experience than the typical 15 year old "counselor" is likely to possess.

Political beliefs are NOT quick and simple. That's the problem here. Anyone who tries to tell you otherwise is either a) selling you something or b) not very careful in their thought habits or c) an idiot.

That's a little bit of what I was thinking, Eamonn. Actually I was wondering if jambo troops maybe aren't a little more "boy led" than many typical troops? After all, here you have a group of pretty experienced, competent, and trained leaders who actually should all "get it" in terms of how the program is supposed to work, patrol method, a real PLC and all that. That is not always the case in a regular troop but my experience is that boys are a cautious lot and tend to think the way "their troop" does things is the only way - until or unless they experience something different. And maybe being in a provo Jambo troop gives them that different perspective sometimes. SR540Beaver, I found your comment about the boys who sign up to be an interesting one. I would have expected that, due to cost and length of time involved, the boys who sign up would be the ones who are pretty fired up about attending.

It seems you have received a lot of great advice already. One thing I will add, is find out from the scout how he prefers you to get his attention. I don't know how common this is (Ed?) , but when I was working on summer camp staff one year we had a profoundly deaf camper who, after a couple of days, found it very annoying to constantly have people touching her. So, she asked us to tap the table or something along those lines so that she could feel the vibration instead. That worked out ok for a bit, but some kids took to POUNDING the table at every turn (in part because the girl sometimes seemed to ignore them otherwise), which also really got on the girl's nerves, understandably - kind of like someone shouting at you all the time. Unfortunately nobody there had any experience working with deaf children and, being summer camp (not scouts), her parents weren't there to help us find our way. It took a bit of an explosion of frustration on the girl's part for people to recognize that we needed to revisit the issue and try out some other approaches. I do think it probably also helped her better understand the need to communicate her own preferences to people who lacked her experience, as she had never been in a totally hearing environment without her parents to mediate before that. Things ended up ok, but we probably could have spared everyone some grief and provided her with a more enjoyable experience if we'd all communicated better to start with.