MarkS

Pack212Scouter said, "Our Den sizes are stretched to their limit. At what point would you say it has to stop? 15? 20 boys per den?" 11... once you reach 12, you have enough for two dens. Pack212Scouter said, "We had 4 new Webelos join this year, and had to turn this and the one before him away due to size limits." Sounds like you had a pre-existing den of nine and passed up on a chance to from a new den of six. Are the rooms provided by your CO the only place your dens can meet? I can see the need for special facilities for a pack meeting but a den of six to eight boys does

If you plan fun and interesting meetings that elicit involvement from both parents and boys, then a lot of the behavior issues go away. The "Program Helps!" is a great starting place for ideas. Just throw in a little imagination. Involve the parents, engross the boys, keep it simple, make it fun. SemperParatus'' had 9 pretty good rules to follow. I completely disagree with rule number 1 (it''s also unnecessary if you get a few of rules 2 thru 10 to work). A family or rec room, basement, or even a garage (you mentioned you home-school, maybe you have a classroom already) that you can set u

A few years ago our troop bought 25 tents. The tents were used by the troop as a whole for our monthly campouts. Attrition took its toll because of damage through mistreatment, normal wear and tear, boys taking them home for drying and not returning them (lost three or four this way), and finally theft as our trailer was broken into a couple months ago. We just bought 20 brand new tents. The troop owns them but we're numbering them and assigning them to partrols. This makes it harder to cherry pick tents when setting up camp. Boys have a choice of four tents for their patrol instead of al

What John-in-KC said hit the nail on the head. The boys are your best recruiting tool. Part of their advantage is that they can do it one-on-one. That''s important. Recruinting works best when it''s personal. Work on small groups at a time. Our SM is having a Recruiting Jamboree at the local middle school this month. Plans to have displays and demos and such. Not really the personal touch I think works best but he''s got a strategy. He doing it during parent/teacher conferences. Nothing like a little captivity to get an audience.

Full field uniform to troop meetings and outings unless the activity requires something more appropriate. This includes scout socks and older style pants or shorts and a cotton uni shirt at meetings and the switchbacks with a polyblend uni shirt at outings (I'm making the switchbacks last longer). Usually don't wear the scout socks at an outing. I prefer wool with a coolmax or thermalite liner. Don't wear the uni when an activity needs something else. Wore work clothes, a polypro t-shirt and non-scout zipoffs (both treated with permethrin), during my Ordeal service project. Also wore

Yep... when it comes to delivering the scouting program it is very helpful to have a little more insight than the ability to quote a fact sheet. Sure our unit requires that full scout field uniform be worn to all troop meetings, activities, and when traveling to and from outings and campouts unless otherwise directed by the SPL (as advised by the SM). However, the lack of wearing a uniform is not a prohibition to participating in our unit either. The boys who don''t wear a uniform when directed by the SPL, will just have to deal with the friendly reminders from the SPL, SM, and ASMs.

Lisabob said, "Some people argue that if it is a boy-led troop then the boys should be the only ones in charge of this, which tends to mean it does not occur. ... Personally I don''t buy into that view; I think it would be better if we had an adult working as a guide or mentor to help the youth produce a newsletter... And at the cub pack level, I think it is essential." The guide/mentor should not prevent the newsletter from being a boy-run project. Depending on the organization of the Troop Committee, the guide may be Troop Secretary or a position created exclusively for this purpose.

CNYScouter said, "The only downside was that if you missed the Pack meeting you couldnt get one." Nothing wrong with the concept that if you miss a Pack or Troop meeting, you''ll be missing something important. Sounds like another incentive to show up. ;-) The boys in our troop tried doing a monthly newsletter but they only stuck with it for a couple months. In the end they decided that their primary means of communication, announcements at the troop meeting, was more efficient and effective, and instead of investing energy in a another form of communication, it would be more benefic

Whether created in MS-Word, MS-Publisher, or a text editor, my advise would be to convert it to PDF and email it to the unit membership that use e-mail and snail-mail it to the rest. Saves time and money that way. For a Troop, I see the creation of the Newsletter as a youth project. Adults can contribute ideas, content, stories, etc., and teach the boys to use the publishing tools, but it should be a youth project. Your youth can delegate the duties of editor-in-chief to the scribe or create a special position for this. If the adults do this, it seems to me that this would circumvent some

To extrapolate on what Beavah said, you have the scout spirit requirement for advancement to use as your consequence. Just be sure to work the SMC to get the boy to admit to you that not supporting youth leadership goes against scout spirit before telling him that if he is successful working on it for a couple months, then you''ll sign off on the scout spirit requirement.

We send messages extremely well... 1. Annual calendar published and hard copies given to parents at the first COH/parents meeting at the beginning of the program year. 2. Youth maintained web site where forms and permission slips can be downloaded. Electronic version of the annual calendar is also available. Parents can sign up for email service and get our our distribution list through our web site. 3. A youth communication plan: SM SPL PLs Scouts. PLC meeting info disseminated. Notices dispensed when plans for outing or regularly scheduled troop meetings change. Method of c

Sorry to hear about that. It is an unfortunate situation. Maybe your troop can turn it into a positive learning experience. Maybe have the boys write letters of complaint to your state Attorney General. It won''t get your money back but it''ll make you feel better.

Our guys like a lot of variety in their activities and the activity drives the type of campout. However, what they've decided to do in recent years (e.g., float trips, short horseback rides, etc.) tend to not require backpacking or primitive camping. Next summer the older boys are going on a Philmont trek so this presented us adult leaders with an opportunity to "advise" them during their annual program planning conference. They were looking for opportunities to practice backpacking but wanted the younger boys to have fun too. They were concerned that this might be too much of a physical chall

Tour Permits Online! We've asked in this thread and they say they'll deliver. Coming to a National Council web site near you... http://www.scouting.org/nav/enter.jsp?s=ms

By the book and in our troop the TG, like the SPL and ASPL, are not part of a patrol. He's an older boy, so at the discretion of the SPL and who is actually attending a particular campout, he can either tent solo or with the SPL or ASPL (usually when both do not attend an outing) or a buddy from his home patrol. However, the SM/SAs and SPL/PLC (we) came to an agreement long ago that we prefer that boys in the NSP do not tent solo. So when an odd number of boys from the NSP go on a campout, the TG will tent with one of them (our tents have space for at most two boys). We also have an agree

Our camporees are organized by our Distict OA Chapter. It seems to me that having youth and advisors from several units and district plan the camporee would likely result in fewer conflicts and produce higher quality event than one planned by a single unit. Our council, districts, and OA lodge do a pretty good job of avoiding conflicts with each other. What they don't do is avoid scheduling their activities, camporees or otherwise, on three day holiday weekends when schools are likely to be closed (e.g., MLK Day or President's Day). These weekends are primo opportunities for units to have

Bob T said, "New kid was not interested. Can't win 'em all." I don't have a problem with the fact that some boys aren't interested in scouting. I really don't. They don't have to be in scouts to have a productive interest. However, the new kid across the street doesn't seem to know how to make friends. Belittling a potential friends' interests does not make for a good first impression. At least your boy took the high road. You can't ask for much more than that.

Beavah said, "...Can yeh even name a single adult in the program who wasn't a scout as a youth?... ...I don't know of any council anywhere that has a bunch of excess enthusiastic adults around lookin' to start new units... ...And as for Gen-X, I count you guys as at least a dozen steps better than da Baby Boomers..." Most of the more active and involved adults in my son's troop were not scouts as a youth. There's at least one adult in each district who is very enthusiastic about starting new units. It's the DE. He'll start as many units as possible. Quality of the pro

My wife and I had a conversation along these lines last night. My son starts middle school this fall. It's a new school and she's worried about him being able to adjust to the new environment. He has some special needs which require educational therapy and she's worried about it being available for him from the git-go. Sort of like summer camp. She wanted me to follow him around on the first day and make sure he got adjusted. I gave him a map and pointed, "you're first merit badge class is down that road and on the right, see on the map? Yes, dad. Have fun... okay." He was about a half ho

My troop attended summer camp at Peaceful Valley in June. It was an out-of-council camp for us. I have only one question... there were homes around the property? It sure seemed remote to me. BTW, if the neighbors have problems with the noise, maybe they can move to our camp site because I never heard any of the shootin sports there. However, the shooting sports area was about 3/4 of a mile from our campsite and isolated by a 100 foot cliff (realy a steep hill) from out camp site. Actually, looking at the topo map I bought as a souviner. The rifle range is near the Southern boundary o

Beavah said, "Awards in life aren't an automatic thing." No... but if most parents had their way, they would be. For example, last year my son's school awarded a grand prize and nine recognition ribbons for their annual science fair. A parent complained and this year they awarded ten recognition ribbons. Apparently, their's no room for failure in elementary school. Most parents today just don't want to expose their children to the potential for failure in the things they do. BTW... my son won the grand prize ribbon. ;-)

New copies at http://www.barnesandnoble.com/ for $18.

Who... SPL, ASPL, PLs, and TGs plus the scribe. The boys let the scribe vote even though by the book, he's not supposed to be a voting member of the PLC. Our PLC currently usually consists of six boys (three patrols, one TG) so letting the scribe vote provides an odd number for tie-breakers (although they make most decisions based on a consensus). At least two adults attend. Officially the SM and at least one SA attend to provide adult supervision and advice but we're not so rigid to prevent an MC from attending and offering input. If the SPL and SM can not both attend the meeting, it's a show

According to this web site, http://www.honorpub.com/scout-e-zine/vol03/council_history/mo_history.htm, the council mergers took place more than 11 years ago.

I've been through this before too. The pack my son joined as a Tiger Cub had a nice string of three strong, enthusiastic, Cubmasters who motiviated Den Leaders and made the program fun for the adults. Each took on the job for a couple years so strong leadership was established and demonstrated well before my son joined the unit. When my son joined there were probably 40 to 50 boys in the Pack. However, about the time my son was a Bear they all had moved on. Two took on leadership positions with the Troop chartered at the same school and had arranged for a smooth transition to the third bu