AwHeck

Ah - but any of those would require that I take on another "job" within scouting and quite frankly, I don't have the time! I went to WoodBadge last summer and got beaded in May; our troop currently has 100 boys registered; I'm a HAM radio operator, active in the local radio club and ARES; Vice President of a local Disaster Support Organization; involved in ToastMasters (public speaking organization); a volunteer at my church plus I work full time. There's just not enough time in the day/week/year! All of my volunteer activities are important, I can't see dropping any of them at this time but I sure can't add to them.

I'm a Troop Committee Chair - other than the Scouters Training award, I haven't found any knots that I'd be eligible for the rest seem to be aimed at the SM or truly "awards" such as the District Award of Merit.

All I can say is that the local disaster support organization I am involved with in the foothills of Colorado emphasizes that usually for the first 48 hours, it's up to the locals. It seems to take 48 hours for the feds to mobilize and that seems to be a fairly well accepted standard around here. With something of this magnitude, I'm sure that there were people and equipment on standby but they need time to get those people and equipment from wherever they are stationed to the affected area - you don't want to move them "close" in advance since hurricanes are unpredictable and you don't want to put your rescuers at risk. "First Responder" Safety is rule 1.

I personally think that the footwear should be appropriate for the activitiy. If a troop meeting or other event that will be indoors with no safety hazards then I don't see a problem with open-toed shoes. On the other end of the extreme, if you show up for a winter campout wearing tennis shoes you'll be sent home to change. edited to add: I do remember some discussion regarding sandal-type shoes for situations where the scouts would be wading. Some leaders encouraged this while others felt that full water-shoes should be worn in case of stubbing a toe on a rock. Again, my personal opinion would probably depend on the likelihood of sharp rocks being in the area in question.(This message has been edited by AwHeck)

We encourage Emergency Preparedness as one of the first few that new scouts earn - if summer camp doesn't have swimming available, the new scouts are highly encouraged to take first aid and e-prep in addition to our own troop-run "trail to first class". With 25 to 40 new scouts the past two years, it helps to have all of them in the same track during summer camp.

SP - my son wants to know... what if it's used on a venturing outing and one of the girls in the crew is an enterprising girl scout and takes it back to her troop??

Are they on the council-printed roster? Did they fill out a Venturing application? My son filled out the venturing application with a note that his registration was "joint with troop xxx" so he didn't have to pay the registration fee twice. He's got membership cards from both.

Yes - and my son did.

In our council, at least, webelos are encouraged to participate in our Camporee's and Klondike's AS A GUEST OF A BOY SCOUT TROOP. The webelos cannot come "on their own" but they can come and participate with the troops. They can camp with us for the camporee (fall) but for Klondike (winter) they can only come for the day due to winter caqmping concerns.

I've sat on quite a few Eagle BORs and I can honestly say that we've never asked to see blue cards or questioned the Merit Badges earned by the Eagle candidate. I suspose that if the application showed a lot of badges being earned in a very short period of time, I might question it but so far that hasn't come up. We will ask questions like "what was your favorite MB?" "what was the most challenging?" "which one are you most proud of?" etc but we haven't qeustioned the legitimacy of the MBs.

Well, let's see... our (male) SM has promised for the past couple of years that if EVERY SCOUT sells at least $50 worth of popcorn (a very do-able goal), he'd wear a pink tutu to all scouting events in December. So far, he hasn't had to pay up....

Jon - take a look at the Adult Application ... on the back of the front page it is stated there somewhere.

For what it's worth: I asked my 16yo scout his opinion of this issue - just giving the bare facts presented in the original post. His response was that since one item reviewed in the Scoutmasters Conference is living the Scout Oath and Law and since underage drinking is illegal this appears to be in conflict with the "Physically Strong, Mentally Awake, and Morally Straight" area that it should be discussed with the scout and the rank withheld at least for a time. When I further asked him how to develop a contract or decide that he has straightened up his act he was less definitive and didn't have a good plan in mind.

I won't even attempt to argue that popcorn is anywhere close to "fair value" but then you could say that about most fundraisers for any organization. One thing to consider if you're thinking of opting out of popcorn sales and doing your own fundraising is that your councils recieve a siginficant percentage of those popcorn sales also. If too many units opt out of popcorn, they'll have to raise their Friends of Scouting goals or find other ways to raise funds for the council. My son asks around among his friends at school and some teachers (this is High School) and I put the order form on a table in our break room at work. People are always willing to support scouts by purchasing some of the popcorn and I reciprocate by purchasing some of the fundraisers posted by others at work. He'll never be a "top seller" but this does contribute in some small way to council operations. As an aside - our guard at work purchased one of those $40 tins last year and the day I delivered it, I saw it open in a common area for anyone to help themselves. Obviously he ordered it solely to support scouts and not for the perceived value recieved. I've seen him do similar things with girl scouts cookies etc.

I'm curious where in Colorado you are, I thought all the councils in Colorado had summer camps, we've been to several of them Since we frequently go "out of council" for our summer camp, we often do our own call-out so I don't think there's any prohibition on this.

Ours is at: http://www.themountaintroop.com/docs/troophandbook.html

amazing that no one noticed.. .an 11 year old obtaining Star? and at his Eagle BOR a year later? Based on that alone, I kind of doubt SFMike's comments....

Popular week for summer camp. We leave Sunday for our week at Peaceful Valley (Denver Area Council) ... we'll have 68 boys and 8 adults all week plus a few adults coming in for the end of the week only.

When you consider the age of venturing youth, if there isn't at least some elements of a social club, the crew will likely fail.

Judy, I can answer a few of your questions... Some troops go to the same (usually home-council) camp every year, often the same week of the year. Our troop believes that this gets boring for the scouts and leaders after a while. We specifically try to only go to our council camp every 2-3 years and try other camps in the other years. We are in Colorado so there are several camps in-state (including one that belongs to a Kansas council) but we've also gone out of state on occasion. We've found that there are plus's and minus's to each camp but the boys seem to enjoy the variety. When my son and I first joined the troop either the camps didn't have a "first class adventure" program or our troop chose not to participate. The last few years we have and we believe that it can help with the advancement towards the next rank. This year the camp we are going to encourages a "build your own" program and we've decided to do our own version of the "first class adventure" for our newer scouts. Regarding showering - since camp showers are almost always communal showers, bathing suits are recommended. Even with that we've had a few scouts that resisted showering. Personally, if we get them wet and rinsed off at least once, I'm relatively happy. Water is acceptable, all other personal food is discouraged due to critters etc. Keeping them away from the temptations of the trading post is difficult at best. As a troop, we have an adult leader designated as the "banker" for summer camp. The day we leave, scouts turn in their money to the banker - it's placed in an envelope with the scout's name on it and he iitials the beginning balance. Throughout the week, we usually have "bankers hours" twice a day when they can request to withdraw money from the bank. Teh banker usually won't let them take more than a dollar or two at a time without a good reason (supplies for merit badge etc). This helps somewhat. WE DO ask that the money turned in be in small bills ($1s are great, $5 is workable, higher is a problem). Our banker also tries to keep an eye on the "rate of spending" and not let them take all their money out at the beginning of the week. At the end of the week, they get their envelope back with any remaining money. Regarding letters. I can't speak for your camp but it seems that if a letter is mailed to the camp after we have left for camp, the odds of getting it are slim. We encourage letters be given (discretely) to one of the adults going to camp and we distribute them periodically thorughout the week at "mail call". Scouts DO like getting letters from home and rarely notice that it doesn't have a stamp on it. The email option is good but I'm not aware of any camps in our area that do that. (long response but I hope it helps) Sharon (mom of 16 yo and committee chair)

My mom refused to give my sister permission to join Girl Scouts when we were younger because, in her opinion, the wearing of the uniform was a status thing and she didn't buy into that philosophy. This was at a parochial school and apparently the girl scouts were allowed to wear their uniforms on meeting days rather than the regular school uniform. I personally was never into joining of any sort when I was a kid (too much of a loner) so it wasn't an issue for me. My older brothers were in Sea Scouts for a while but I only have hazy memories of that.

We had a problem last year at summer camp where a 15/16 yo scout was causing problems, leading an entire patrol astray, etc. The leaders at camp put the entire patrol plus this boy (not from that patrol) on notice, monitored their movements more closely etc. At dinner (in a dining hall) this scout made a statement about us treating him like (explitive) babies. This was said while sitting right next to scouts and a leader from another troop and only about 2 seats away from me. I immediately told him to go outside and we'd be calling his parents. Long story short - when I spoke to the parents, they informed me that this scout was Bi-Polar and that the severe restrictions the leaders had imposed were "the absolutely wrong" way to handle him. FINE TIME TO TELL US!!! There was NO information on his medical form indicating an issue. He WAS on meds and our parent who happens to be a nurse and handles medical issues for the troop had asked if the medication was for seizures (which it is also used for) and was simply told "no". The parents did drive up to pick up this scout (a 10+ hour drive) and supported us in our decision to send him home but come on, folks... the leaders at camp NEED TO KNOW about issues like this!

From the Troop perspective, Den Chiefs help but they're only part of the puzzle. Our former SM is now the District Webelos-to-Scout transistion coordinator and he's tried various methods to increase the percentage of Webelos who join Boy Scouts (our district already had the highest percentage). Getting lists of Troops with SM name/phone number into the hands of Cubmasters/Webelos leaders is part of it along with the reverse - Pack contact information to the SMs. We've tried hosting "Show and Do" days where Webelos can come to one location and see/do some of the cool things the troops are doing but we've had mixed success with that. For a Webelos leader - I suggest finding and visiting ALL local troops early on. Find out what campouts or other events they have coming up where you can come and see them "in action". Have a checklist in hand to help evaluate the troops - I've seen one here and I'm sure there are others, our Webelos-to-Scout coordinator has his own that he provides to the Webelos leaders. The second "year" of Webelos they should be focusing on Boy Scouts to earn their Arrow of Light, get them excited about the opportunities that will open up for them once they join Boy Scouts.

The scoutmaster is the liaison between the PLC and the Troop Committee. As the CC, I personally would not have a problem with a youth member sitting in on many of our meetings, however there are times when issues need to be discussed that Should Not be discussed in front of the youth and it would be akward at best to ask a youth to leave so that we could discuss these sorts of issues. Off the top of my head, some of these topics include scouts: with medical/behaviorial issues and how to address, families with financial issues, issues relating to other adults in the troop, etc.

Just a few items to add... The copy of your application that is retained by the troop/COR does NOT have your SSN - only the copy that goes to council has that. At least in my county, when I obtained a background check, it only covered any issues that may have occurred within the county. I assume that thhe one run by council is more thorough than than.