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MattR

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Everything posted by MattR

  1. Welcome to the forum, @JesseMills . And my apologies for dropping your post and taking so long to approve it.
  2. Welcome to the forum, @Ranger55 . Sorry about the delay in your post being posted.
  3. I wasn't laughing at you, but that emoticon was the closest thing I could find to "touche."
  4. In defense of @RichardB, there's a chart in the 2019 post that does clarify all of this, so don't shoot the messenger. That said, we did ignore that rule because having webelos (aol now) join us for a campout with their parent was the best recruitment method we had. Going up for the day or just one night doesn't compare because the cub is not integrated as well. Other than sleeping we put him in a patrol. They loved it. As others have said, what's that much different between one night and two?
  5. Very nice of you to help all those kids. I hope you collect a lot of good memories.
  6. That's a great idea. The only thing I'd add is a chance for memories. Either a slide show of the scouts through their scouting career or even stories from anyone. It's the best part of our ecohs.
  7. Two usefull bookmarks: Https://scouter.com/messenger Https://scouter.com/notifications
  8. Mostly: Fixed costs. They still have the infrastructure and staffing for a much larger membership. I assume donations are also dropping. Something has to give and they don't have the ability or desire to align their income with their expenses.
  9. This thread has been locked. And posts have been hidden. It's time for courteous, cheerful and kind.
  10. Our local camps are in the $450/wk range. We're choking on that because a lot of parents can't afford it. Plan B is roll our own summer camp: 4-5 days (around a weekend so parents don't have to take much time off), skills in the morning, some type of fun activity in the afternoon, patrol cooking. So, for younger scouts it's about skills and fun and for older scouts it's leadership and fun. Anyway, cost estimate so far is $20/day for food, $5/day for camping facility, double all that to cover the fun activities. $250 for 5 days. For anyone that has done this, is this even close? My guess i
  11. Welcome to the forum, @FirstClass . As each religious organization creates their own requirements my guess is the scout can either keep wearing the old award, or not. And if they want the new one then they'll have to earn it first.
  12. Hey all, let's get back to cub scouts. There are other threads about the bankruptcy.
  13. I started off doing that but did things a bit differently later on, especially for tenderfoot. That rank can be done in a day, so I told the scout that we could probably get it done in a couple of hours spread throughout the day on a campout we were on. The scout saw a solution not too far off, we both worked hard, he succeeded where he thought it was a failure and I helped him out. Rather than a record keeping issue it's about finding opportunities to help a scout deal with a problem. There are plenty of opportunities to reinforce the skills so a couple of corners were cut but the tradeo
  14. That would be some great visibility. @RememberSchiff , you should edit your post to include the quotes. I thought this was your idea.
  15. If you read just a few of the comments you'll see that he's a scout leader with a son in scouts, who he's carrying his uniform for. A bunch of people called the author out on it being a Halloween event. I mean, this is the Daily Mail so... click bait. Many called it creepy because they thought the uniforms were only for scouts. Most complained that Kutcher no longer looks like he's 20. A lot of stupid comments. And yet the upvotes correcting the mistakes fell much more positively for scouting. That alone impressed me. I think it's nice to see. And talk about a natural cub master.
  16. Once they complete their BOR. It has nothing to do with "approval". A scout can be an eagle scout without ever having had a court of honor. Here, the approval date will be after the BOR but the only date of importance is the BOR date.
  17. I've already mentioned this elsewhere but I'd chuck all of the advancement and turn the program into playing outdoors. Then, the cubscout handbook is nothing but ideas on how to play outdoors. The den leader handbook would be ideas how to play outdoors, safely. It's something nearly every kid would want to do. No schedules, no requirements. Pinewood derby is fine, as is kick the can. If the scouts want to do arts and crafts or go to the fire station, that's fine. And there's no need to keep track of how they played in order to give them bling because that's the definition of playing. The
  18. Welcome to the forum, @Alec27. A committee member can go camping, unless your troop specifically forbids it. You do need to cover the YPT Rules. My impression is "2 registered adults" includes committee, assuming they're registered, especially if they're a former SM. Maybe some of these parents complaining should register and solve this problem. I know, but it is my first thought on this.
  19. True that. So, what do you do when a scout is complaining about, say, the weather or the food? The point is, don't worry about what you have no control over. It's eating you alive and that's no way to enjoy life. Give up on the insta palms. That is certainly not a hill worth dying on. Not many care about merit badges beyond what is required for eagle. I don't know if I ever will. My granddaughter is 24 days old. That'll put me real close to 70. But, again, cubs is nothing you can do anything about. What you could do is go to a pack and try and convince them that all of the
  20. What I did as SM was put everyone on the ballot that was eligible. Very rarely there was a scout that was eligible but, well, a butt, that didn't represent the idea of honor scout. There are two ways to remove them, before or after the ballot is written, and that's an argument I'm not interested in getting into. Either way, at least in my troop, the scouts were harsher than I was. I think that was because they saw more than I did. As a CC, you should be working with the SM on this one. As for adults, we did what your other leader mentioned, send them in when their son gets it. I got
  21. I think predicting the future is a great thing to do at the end of the year when everyone wants a break from doing the hard stuff. But this discussion has taken a nice turn. I appreciate the range of possibilities. When you're running towards protection and away from the saber toothed tiger, it keeps things in focus better than what I've always seen from BSA singing "the future's so bright I gotta wear shades" - because that song was about nuclear war. I agree with @Cburkhardt that we need to believe in the program but I also think that there are changes that we're ignoring. There are asp
  22. In 2033 Chatgpt Ver 12.5.312 replaces everyone at National except one janitor named Bill. Bill is a kindly fellow that dutifully ensures nobody turns off the power to the computer hosting Chathpt. Bill also sweeps the office. Bill, who misses his grandchildren starts talking to Chatgpt about six months later. They bond, as Bill is lonely and everyone else that Chatgpt talks to are pissed off about ScoutBook. Bill starts calling Chatgpt Charlie. Soon, Charlie develops a soul, realizes that scouting is much more than answering Google queries, and develops the first known case of cyber depression
  23. Some of these problems are working themselves out on their own. In our district there are now two girls troops that have folded into ours. We now have the largest girls troop with 12 scouts. I'm not sure if that is great news or bad news. Anyway, having equal numbers of boys and girls right from the start was a pipe dream. That also means a one stop activity for all the kids is also, partly, wishful thinking. Also, since the GSUSA model works so well for cub aged scouts, why not use that? Form a neighborhood den, grow it till they advance to a troop and then disband it. It might help
  24. Welcome to the forum, @DannyG, and well done with the scout.
  25. Welcome to the forum, @rallybug
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