Lisabob

For me, what we really ought to be talking about here is economic status because well-off suburban neighborhoods have the ability to support scout units but poorer urban and rural areas may not. I am with Eamonn in hoping that any new efforts will be geared toward developing traditional scout units that also happen to serve more minority kids. Realistically, this means there needs to be more financial support of units - especially troops/crews, which are more expensive to run than packs - in poorer neighborhoods. I'm not talking so much about paying adult leaders (as in Scoutreach, which I don't think is a good model at all)but more in terms of districts helping to provide gear, subsidizing camping (not just in the summer), etc.. Either that, or we need to work a lot harder at finding strong, active, fairly well-off COs in low income neighborhoods to provide material support to their units, and that too is a challenge because most COs seem to reflect the economic health of their communities. This may also mean that units in better-off parts of a district or council need to buy in to the mission of developing units in lower income areas, and I'm not convinced that would happen. Even among scouters, there's a lot of "me, my, mine" attitude out there.

I'm not sure I understand why a certified intructional facility is not sufficient in the BSA's eyes. We have a couple of local ranges around here that produce olympic-class athletes in shooting sports. They have extensive junior programs for the younger kids. Why a pack or den couldn't go there and learn from them (within BSA guidelines), is a bit mystifying to me. That said, I'm not sure I'd want to see individual packs get certified to maintain a range. Turn over in the adult leadership is very high in many packs, and the percentage of even basic-trained Cub leaders tends to be fairly low (typically in the 20-30% range). My worry would be that while a pack might have competent, BSA-certified instructors at one point, those folks would move on and some new leaders without even basic leader training would blithely continue the pack's shooting sports program anyway because "we always do archery/BB in May" or something like that. That's where accidents are more likely to occur. ETA: I served as an archery range master for a few years at our cub day camp. Most fun position in camp, in my view! The training I got from BSA wasn't wonderful. It did cover the basics of how to safely run an archery range, but as someone without extensive experience in shooting sports, it didn't do much to help me learn how to teach cubs to shoot. On the other hand what did help me there, was that I met people at that training who had a lot of expertise, and they kindly shared their knowledge with me after and outside of the training when we all met at the range for some informal practice. So I would say the BSA training was a mixed bag - it provided me with basic knowledge of running a range and it provided me with the opportunity to make further contacts and learn more.(This message has been edited by lisabob)

Its Me, would your SPL be willing to try this out on an interim basis? I'm not sure whether this is a great solution because it depends on how open minded your SPL could be going into things (if he believes it is doomed to fail and is vocal about it, then it will fail of course). But maybe, ask him to give it 4-6 months and then you'll re-evaluate together? Sometimes change is really hard, no less for teens than for adults. If you can acknowledge that with him, yet also couch things in terms of flexibility and open thinking (also good leadership traits), maybe he'll be on board. Of course if you were to go this route, it would mean the group would have to be committed to doing it as well as they could - no half measures and then "see it didn't work, we knew it."

I like to think I'm thrifty. Most of the uniforms I and my son have were bought on ebay for significantly below ScoutShop prices. But I really dislike the older shirt and pants and would be happy to have the new one. So I'll probably buy the new uniform but like gwd, it depends on how those shirt pockets look on the model (me)! I like the idea of just sewing them flat and may opt for that, depending. The real question is my son. He has a pair of the first generation zip off pants and likes them so much he wears them to school, out and about, everywhere (including scouts). He has gotten $40 worth of use out of those for sure. He hates the old shirt for what he calls its "dork factor" so he'll probably want the new one. Timing isn't so bad on that because he's almost ready for a larger shirt anyway. I'm hoping to hold off on buying the newest pants, socks, etc. for him until he outgrows his current pants though.

Hear hear! Frank, I used your trax programs for a long time as a cub leader. Thanks for all the time you put into them!

How interesting, we learn new things all the time (at least, I hope). BW, to be sure I have this right because I still have not had the chance to buy a copy of the SM handbook, though I promise to do so before the end of the month: The SM hand book says that boys who have AoL may automatically be given the Scout badge without having to do those requirements? Does it say it "can" happen? Or that it "must" happen? I'm not questioning you - if you say the book explicitly allows that, I have no reason to believe you're making it up - I'm just curious is all.

"If we don't figure out those communities all over the Sun Belt and across the country, then we will become a niche organization for the white, middle class," he said. "We want to serve all kids, and that's really what these changes are about." Gee, I think we're mostly already there. Here's hoping that we can change this.

I know that scheduling a physical and maneuvering the crazy rules governing insurance coverage of physicals are often the sticking points when it comes to getting class 3 forms filled out. It might be worth pointing out to your new scout's parents that many doctor's offices will simply fill out such forms on the basis of a past physical, as long as the physical took place within the last 12 months and there are no underlying medical issues. Of course not all doctors will do this, but many will because they also understand the insurance rules (once a year! once every two years! only on the 5th Monday of the month under a full moon! etc) that complicate scheduling physicals for school, sports, scouting, and other activities. Re: whether you need class 3s? I think if I were the SM and we had a troop whitewater trip planned I would be uncomfortable with only a class 1 on file, based on the brief description of the trip you provided above. But at the BSA summer camp we attended this year, they ran a 1-day whitewater excursion. The camp required only a class 1 in order for boys to do day trips on the river. However, they did require parental waivers (provided by the rafting outfitter) indicating an understanding/acceptance of the potential risks of whitewater rafting.

While we're having this conversation, I'm going to ask a slightly tangential question. Just how long does the Venturing program need to exist before it isn't "new" any more? It has been around what, 10, 15 years now? I'm not picking on you OGE. I find that most people in scouting know nothing or next to nothing about Venturing. I find that the few who at least have heard of it, confuse it with venture patrols, and usually not in a positive way either. I find that many councils (my own included) do a rather poor job of supporting Venturing as a program, despite the fact that it is probably the single biggest untapped market out there. I am finding that changing this dynamic is really tough. And I find that the excuse (or justification, if you prefer) is often that hey, venturing is new! Are we ever gonna get the wagon rolling here?(This message has been edited by lisabob)

The problem with applying a numerical definition to attendance is that it is not what the actual requirements say. The reason people "dance around" as you put it, is because we all know from long experience, that when it comes to cub attendance, family circumstances are very often unique and so no hard and fast rule applied across the board works. And incidentally many of us are also aware that in January of this year, the BSA specifically prohibited boy scout troops from applying any percentages to attendance for rank advancement purposes. WHatever we may think of that prohibition (and there was/is debate), it is clearly spelled out. Consequently it seems you are holding your Webelos II boys - soon to be boy scouts - to a standard than the BSA explicitly prohibits for boy scouts. However, I wish you well and I'm done responding to you in this thread. If you think you can do what you're suggesting and make it work, obviously you're going to do just that. For the sake of the boys in your unit I hope everyone else you're with agrees and this problem never actually manifests itself for you - because if/when it does, it is going to be one ugly mess.

For goodness sake Nissan, thanks so much for the complement. Remind me not to try to offer you input in the future when you ask for it again. Lighten up! For what it is worth, while you can't understand why people are telling you that the aquanaut requirements are not flexible and yet attendance is, I personally can't see the logic in going the OTHER way as you have. My thinking is that the Aquanaut has very specific black&white requirements (swim 100 yards - not swim "some" or swim "with good form") and so these requirements are not open to interpretation of the sort you indicated. On the other hand, the attendance requirement is DESIGNED to be flexible and yet there, you've decided to draw your line. Illogical. When your boys cross from Webelos into Boy Scouts, you and they will discover that in Boy Scouts, one of the sacrosanct principles is that adults can neither add to, nor detract from, the written requirements for a rank/award. Seems to me you're playing fast and loose with both ends of that, adding to the rank advancement for webelos, and detracting from the aquanaut. Doesn't work that way. I would suggest that you have a lot to learn about how the BSA program - at all levels - operates. Being a martinet and then insulting the patriotism, intelligence, and generosity of people who attempt to help you, just isn't going to get you very far in a volunteer organization.

SctDad, I just did our district's round up training last night. We give each pack a huge packet of promo material, including a CD with printable stickers, "business" cards, and post cards - you can customize with your pack's round up info. We encourage packs to print some off and have available for boys. There are also posters, mini Boys Life copies, etc. in there. The mini BL are a big hit, both with the boys and with their parents (nostalgia moment for a lot of dads). All of this stuff arrives in our council office courtesy of national, so you should be able to get the same materials. If for some reason you don't or can't get these, you can also find some councils with good web sites. One around here (not my council) is Clinton Valley Council - check out the "Cub Scout Recruiting Materials links on the right side of the screen (stickers, powerpoint, etc.) Hope this helps!

have to agree with ScoutNut here. I would urge you to re-think your approach to all of this, which at this point sounds fairly directive and punitive (you'll require "make up" and "extra credit" sessions? C'mon, this is cub scouts, it should be fun!) If attendance is weak, that's often a symptom of a program issue. People who attempt to compensate by mandating attendance "or else" are rarely successful in achieving their aims. Instead of thinking about what you will do if/when attendance is poor, start from the perspective that the den will be having such a good experience that boys will hardly be able to wait to come to meetings! Then build on that. What can you do that will be that exciting? How can the boys take ownership of their den program so that they'll be invested in what you're doing and WANT to attend? Start by thinking about positive ways to address this issue; it is amazing just how much that change, alone, can accomplish.

Our council has also done what John describes so I'm thinking it is probably fairly common procedure.

NW Scouter, thanks for catching that. What I *meant* to type was "AoL award cannot be worn on the Boy Scout uniform" (not the knot). So maybe faulty proofreading is the start of a new urban legend

never even thought of those - thanks ScoutNut!

Thanks so far for the suggestions. Let me clarify where/why we are doing this. It is part of a Join Cub Scouts booth at a local street fair. We have a rather small area (10x10) and decided to do a campfire scene in one corner with the hope of drawing boys in to see it. We also have some other displays, hands-on games, and info/flyers. This is our first time doing something of this nature so...all thoughts are welcome.

My take is that these sorts of problems probably always existed and it is just that internet forums like this one bring people's experiences together. If you are in a solid, functional unit for a long time then you may be blissfully unaware of the types of problems that other units around the corner (or across the country) have. Then too, I think a lot of young-ish adults in this country have grown up with little or no experience working in voluntary organizations. Their parents didn't join, or joined but didn't really participate much, and now they don't know how to be productive group members either. The first volunteer experience a lot of young parents have is when they sign up their graduating kindergartener for Tiger cubs. They expect volunteer orgs like scouts to provide the same type or level of "customer service" that they get when they enroll their kid in a paid program where the staff is required to cater to their every demand or else lose their job. They don't understand that in scouting, practically all of us are volunteers with competing demands on our time too, and that to make it work, everybody needs to pitch in, be flexible, and maintain a sense of humor. So it is also a learning experience for many adults.

Hi folks, I'm looking for some campfire ingenuity. For an upcoming cub scout recruiting display I would like to have a fake campfire. I can't use flammables (no propane), I won't have electricity (no fans or plug in lights), and I freely admit my carpentry skills are limited. Dry ice is ok and I have a local source for it (figure I'll use that for "smoke"). Also, this needs to be something that can be sustained or replicated for about 10 hours at a stretch, for 2 days. So I'm looking for fast-easy-cheap. I recognize it won't be fully authentic but I'm ok with that - the purpose is to get the idea across and maybe also attract the attention of some cub-aged boys. Any ideas out there?

I attended WB in 2003, under the WB for the 21st C curriculum. I didn't know a whole lot about WB before I attended. I asked around a bit, but at the time most people I knew locally in scouting were fellow cub leaders who didn't have any information whatsoever. The fewer troop and district folks I knew were not exactly forthcoming, some even going so far as to actively try to discourage me from attending on the basis that (in their view) WB should not be for cub leaders. I got this answer: "It will be revealed to you at the proper time" A LOT, both before the course and during the course. Plus a variety of other trite and empty phrases, in lieu of actual information or good discussion. I found it to be condescending and an increasingly annoying cover-up for "we're not prepared" or "we screwed up and are still trying to figure out what to do next." In reading and discussing the changes from the "old" WB to WB/21 here and elsewhere, I've concluded that in the case of my particular wb course, there was a lot of resistance to the newer curriculum among the powers that were running the show. Lack of timely info was a part of this, I think. So going in, I knew very little about what to expect. I found the continual lack of info to be a barrier to getting into the groove, so to speak, throughout the course. I'm very pleased to hear that things are supposed to have changed, and I hope that they actually have changed. None the less, I still had a very good WB experience and am glad I did it and I wear my beads with pride. I do not think it makes a lot of sense for people to arrive day 1 with their tickets all written but on the other hand I do think that the approach that I went through turns off and turns away some folks (in particular cub leaders) for very little reason.

I am also a counselor for 2 of the 3 citizenship badges, and I teach this stuff in my "day job" too. For what it is worth, I do not use any tests when I work with boys on these MBs. It isn't because I don't have them available - I give exams all the time in my college courses so I have plenty of questions and could certainly write more. Rather, it is because that (in my view) is not how MBs ought to work. Consider this: many boys put off the citizenship MBs until late in the game, and/or they approach them with a sense of dread because they expect them to be just like school - and I don't mean that in a good way. In fact, in another recent thread on this board, many adult scouters advocated getting rid of one or more of the citizenship badges! I suspect that this approach is based on bad school experiences with boring social studies teachers who didn't adequately introduce their students to the fascination and importance of the topics in question. A good MB counselor can awaken a scout's interest in, and understanding of, the duties of citizenship without making it just a repeat of mediocre (or worse!) schooling experiences. Share both your knowledge and your passion for the MBs you chose to counsel, and you'll find you have some great conversations with the boys without ever needing exams.

LOL, so by that interpretation scoutldr, if I have a sheath knife and I lose the sheath, does it become not-a-sheath knife? Oh I love parsing this stuff.

hmm, I don't recall having said that it is the BSA's fault when a CO and unit have problems. Often as not, it is both the CO's and the unit leaders' faults - I suspect you and I can agree on that. However, as it pertains to this board, usually the question is not who is at fault; rather, it is what to do about the underlying problem, often a problem newer volunteers inherit unwittingly from years or even decades of prior CO and unit leaders. And there, the BSA literature is not always that useful because it describes the way the relationship OUGHT to be, not how the relationship actually IS for some units (not all units, I'm aware of that - some have wonderful CO relationships and I admit I envy them). In that sort of case, quoting BSA policy and then getting miffed that people aren't responding with grateful thanks is unhelpful. Again, that does not mean BSA policy ought to tell people how to fix every last problem. Often what is needed is a sounding board, a sympathetic shoulder, a place to vent, a different perspective, or some input from others who have been there/done that and (one hopes) learned from their experiences.

True Bob, true. As a sort of professional trainer myself I find it especially irksome when the person claiming to be the authority figure doesn't bother to learn the material first. Or, when asked a question they don't know, they make stuff up on the spot instead of just admitting they don't know and maybe recommending where both parties could go to find the right answer. Or, when mistakes occur, they refuse to accept that perhaps someone else has more up-to-date information than they do - even to the point of being confronted with the physical evidence of updated awards/material, etc. Bad practice. Maybe it is just my personal pet peeve though.

Bob I get what you're saying and sometimes that does happen, you're right. Of course it is also problematic that BSA resources are sometimes written in murky language open to competing interpretations, or even on occasion, that two separate BSA resources appear to contradict each other. What's a poor scouter to do? Then there's the issue of whether a particular BSA reg actually applies in a given situation, and there may be many alternate interpretations there too. Judgment calls such as these rarely have an open-and-closed answer. With regard to the CO/unit relationship, well it is a lot like what the BSA resources tell us about the UC/unit relationship - looks great on paper, often does not happen that way in reality. The way I take BrotherhoodWWW's comment on this is not that the BSA should spell out every last possible twist and turn in human interactions between CO and unit leaders, but rather that when a problem occurs in that relationship, the BSA guidelines are merely a starting point and sometimes not an especially helpful one. Often people come to this board looking for input based on others' experiences, much like people go to Round Table to share and learn from the expertise of other scouters (if RT consisted of just "by the book" answers, nobody at all would go - they'd just stay home and read the book!). All that said, there are times when a "book" answer is exactly what is needed, or at least it might be useful to include along with advice/opinion. I appreciate knowing that if I need an obscure book reference, or even a not-so-obscure but quick book reference, I can almost certainly get help on this board. Don't take it personally when people want something other than or in addition to the book answer though!