MattR

Welcome to the forum, @Neckstock. What lads and where are you from?

Not sure where you live, but the los Angeles Meritime Institute (lami) has been our source for tall ship sailing. Our guys really enjoy it. BTW, you rent the boat, and it holds 30. So you do need to find enough people to keep the cost down.

This idea that we're breaking norms or rules by asking for something that will help us out sort of illustrates the problem. If the council's primary focus was on helping units put on a better program then the answer would not be, no, you can't do that. It would be let's figure out how to make this work. @ValleyBoy doesn't want to wait months to get paid back but the council wants to keep records. Okay, settle the accounts at the camporee and write down what was paid for, generate receipts for the accounting system that can be put in the following Monday. If they have enough cash they can finis

Thank you, that's exactly what I'm talking about. I don't want a bank account, I want an accounting system account. I don't want to handle the money, I just want it known that when I submit receipts it's charged against the excess we brought in the camporee before. Not only can we keep costs down for scouts but the council can figure out how the money flows. Okay, I can understand the confusion. They do have an accounting system. And it has just enough resolution to satisfy the IRS. But accounting systems can be used for a lot more than that. The question is why $600/scout/year? My co

A friend of mine is an accountant and did see the books. There is no accounting system set up for my council. There is only one account. Nobody could ask, for example, what is the net on a summer camp? Is it making money or losing money? Each camp should have it's own account, I'd think. So yes, we have repeatedly asked and repeatedly gotten nowhere. One of the council staff is solely funded on volunteer run events bringing in enough extra money to cover this person's salary. So does this mean the "budget" covers salary for all staff? Who knows? But this still evades the issue of value. W

I wasn't wearing my moderator hat. Continue burrowing. I believe the rest of your post contained many shoulds, that aren't happening. No disagreement there.

How is it that a discussion about council budgets went back to a discussion about volunteers? Cost of running a council, and whether there's value for that cost is being related to how good the volunteers are. That tells me that the $600/year should entirely go to helping those volunteers. This is why budgets need to be transparent. And not at a one page view but where all the money is spent. If it turns out that camp infrastructure (dining halls, showers, wifi, etc) is where all the money is going and none of this is helping the volunteers put on camporees, and nobody really cares for the sum

All of the angst is about the cost of running a council and the fact that most of that is covered by donations. It's $600/yr/scout in my council. Add in the fact that we talk about how boring eagle required MBs are, is there really a surprise that parents are questioning the value of scouts? Trust me that I don't enjoy this but this is one of those hard facts that needs to be addressed.

I've never seen an acorn knot. What does it look like? I suppose it's only one loop of an oak tree knot, but I'm not sure.

Most scouts I talk with don't get much out of the MB program as it currently exists. Anything that actually helps them learn a skill is appreciated by the scouts. Anything covered in school is considered a waste of time. Cit badges are all a bust. Shooting, climbing and watercraft badges are great. Camping is surprisingly neutral. They like pioneering if they get the chance to make something fun. First aid is appreciated, but they don't believe they'll ever need it. So, most of the eagle required badges are just hoops they need to jump through. But this is about a specific mb. I think it

Sorry to hear that, @packsaddle.

I said it was a start. I've had patrols complete this and it does a great job of encouraging them to do their own thing. But, given that this is really just wishful thinking, I'm good with lots of ideas.

Another set of metrics is the national honor patrol award. Bronze could be all patrols score against it. Gold could be all patrols achieve it. Silver is somewhere in between. Or maybe each patrol needs their own JTE. I think we talked about this many moons ago. Anyway, not perfect but not a bad place to start and someone has been thinking about this.

Oh sorry, I removed it before I pasted it into the editor. You have to think like a cheap editor. Honestly, having it reported and me fixing it is also fine.

I just removed the https://