MattR

Well, yes. The thing is this whole issue about patrol cheer is one of enthusiasm. One doesn’t teach enthusiasm by explaining it. One does enthusiasm. If your SPL is introverted, unsure of his or herself, and never seen enthusiasm in scouts before then nothing you talk about will change anything. My suggestion is ask the SPL to watch you while you walk up to the troop and ask them what time it is ... which eventually leads to a really loud song. Once the SPL is comfortable doing that then ask him how each patrol can do their cheer instead of a song. I have no idea, do each patrol in turn o

My impression is that patrol yells were the original way for a PL to get his patrol to form up. A patrol cheer is completely different and used when the patrol is already together.

Well, that's half of what I'd prefer. I want to use our domain name and not twh.email. But, thanks for the pointer.

We went to Troopwebhost and I wanted to set up email aliases. It seems like we can only send out email through the website. So we can't send email to, say, plc@ourdomain.org. That's annoying. Or am I missing something?

Hmm. So that's why our email doesn't work. We're in the same boat. SOAR is likely no more. We use our website for a few things: Calendar with registration Pictures and invites to visit us email aliases (all, parents, plc, etc) Announcements (both push and pull) I think we could do 1 and 2 fairly easily with a somewhat static website. 3 and 4 need some better tools. Honestly, I don't want to mess with it even though I could.

Just remember that the cub master reports to the committee chair This sounds like a bad working relationship. My guess is the CM has no idea you're burned out. The only reason you're sticking around is for the scouts. That's really good of you, up until it explodes. My suggestion, for the continued good of the scouts and your sanity, is prepare yourself to educate the CM on what he's doing to you and any future CC that you can't find. Be honest, firm, and kind. Leave your anger at the door. Remember the scouts. Remember that he's likely burned out as well. Talk about ways to get mor

Big tents are like big boats. The two best days are the day you bought it and the day you sold it. You might want to consider when you'll be needing the larger tent. In the summer a dining fly and a smaller tent makes a lot more sense. When the weather is not so good you'll only be camping for a weekend, so I'd suggest practicing good stuff management and getting cozy in a smaller tent. And a 6 man tent is not that small.

Thank you for joining the forum, @Jadalexm.

Welcome to the forum, @Brannigan. I hope you have a lot of fun with your kids in scouts.

Sounds very familiar. I came back to help the plc plan, as events were waiting to the very last minute to have a plan. Sometimes that resulted in events getting dropped. Wait too long and campsites can't be had. Wait too long and there's no enthusiasm and nobody signs up. So, the importance of having a calendar with enough detail far enough out can't be stressed enough. We just had a committee meeting and all sorts of problems stem from not having a plan with enough detail that people will look forward to doing it. Bringing this back to the original post, our cutoff used to be the me

I see kids on powered toys and I think have fun, but some day you'll pay. Better to find a fun way to exercise. But I keep my mouth shut.

Welcome to the forum, @skop. "politics in scouting" is a really loaded term. I can imagine everything from drama to actual politics. My suggestion for mending relationships is to first remove the "politics" from the vocabulary. Also ask them what you did that offended them. Listen and apologize. Even if it's nothing you did. How they clear their conscience is their business so don't expect an apology from them.

I was a BSA scout in Belgium. We went to international camporees and we never thought about anything other than "they" had a wild mix of accents, uniforms, and clothing, even compared to what we saw in Belgium. I wouldn't make generalizations about people in the BSA. People are unique everywhere. I spent a summer in Japan and, once you cut through the facade, everyone still cares about their family and tries to do their best. Different cultures have different ways of doing things because that's what evolved. Not better, just different.

Any bets on how long before @SSScout asks for a sub forum? 😀

Enough. This was a discussion about recognizing adults.

The scouts can hand out more than one. It's just a nice way to thank adults. I find the mentor pins more meaningful than the knots.

You seem to not like that word. How about enjoy instead? I enjoy learning new skills as well as working with the scouts. And when it comes to scouts, of any age, if there's joy then there's also fun. If the scouts are not having some related fun then I suspect there is no joy and it's become a grind, very much like what happens to adults. This all gets really contorted as to what the difference is between fun and joy. I've read things that suggest a difference but then I looked at the definitions and they refer to each other. I suspect fun is what children, and adults acting childish, do

This might help you learn the melody. https://www.whosampled.com/cover/170658/Cornelis-Vreeswijk-Brev-Från-Kolonien-Allan-Sherman-Hello-Muddah,-Hello-Fadduh-(A-Letter-From-Camp)/

Whenever I list out the scout methods I add two: fun and service. Fun is an odd idea. Everyone knows it when they see it but it sure is hard to define. It's also dependent on each person. An eight year old's idea of fun is a lot different from a 12 or 16 year old. Fun is also something that changes. Gaga ball is fun, for awhile. Just like zip lines. One thing missing from the BSA is that playing is one of the best ways to learn something. The first thing I want to do when I get a new tool is to play with it. Another challenge the BSA has is understanding the how hard it is to keep a program fu

Sounds like a MB win to me. Another idea, at least one I could use, is a fireplace rake for separating coals from ash in a wood stove. It's a pole attached to a double sided rake. One side is a flat blade to push everything to the back of the stove and the other is like a regular rake to pull the coals forward out of the ash. So, a plate for one side and pieces of rebar welded to the plate to make the rake side, along with a pole sticking out perpendicular to that. No need for them in Texas but maybe Etsy.

Do a search on welding scrap metal art. Gotta be artistic but there are some great things.

Welcome to the forum @QBearHugs.

Fun outdoors

I might have handled it differently. A family shows up, with scouts in uniform, to some event and they haven't paid. That's fine. I think the first thing I would have done was consider how much the pack will go into debt for them paying nothing. Apparently it's about $4/scout, so call it $10. Next, I'd consider the shame and embarrassment on these scouts of being turned away. About the same time I'd ask myself why they didn't pay. That's always tough to figure out. They could be just trying to get a free ride, might just be really disorganized, might be broke and too shy to ask for help,

Welcome to the forum, @TwoColdCamper.