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MattR

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Posts posted by MattR

  1. 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?

     

    • Upvote 1
  2. 1 hour ago, forestcharm5 said:

    I know this is a super old thread but just wanted to say this is so helpful. We're a brand spanking new group of 14 kids and it's a mixed bag, only 4 of the kids are wolf and higher. Even though we meet nearly every week, we still have some time management issues with 14 kids (10 of them neurodivergent). I am fortunate that we have lots of adults willing to help out and a good chunk of parents willing to work on adventures at home as well. 

    Very nice of you to help all those kids. I hope you collect a lot of good memories.

  3. 9 hours ago, curious_scouter said:

    It's not a tradition yet, but we've had 5 boys this year who will all turn 18 before April.  We've made a habit of having the last outing they attend have some kind of going away party and some aspect focused on their favorite part of scouting.  Like a fishing outing followed by an elaborate dinner by their Patrol and then the Scoutmasters supply a pile of cobbler and desserts and we give a later lights out that night.  Leading up to their last meetings and outings, I announce it and do lead up recognition in my opening recognition segment as well. 

    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.

    • Upvote 3
  4. 1 hour ago, Delphinus said:

    Where is all that extra money going?

    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.

    • Upvote 3
  5. 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 it depends on the activities. A trail ride would be fun one day. We have access to some kyaks and a lake. We have loads of hiking nearby.

  6. On 2/2/2023 at 10:38 AM, InquisitiveScouter said:

    For some, he said he could not remember.  He asked me if he was going to have to re-do the requirements, and I told him yes, for the ones you cannot remember or that we cannot verify.  Later that week I got a message from his Mom that he was leaving Scouting.

    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 tradeoff of having a young scout turn devastation into success, priceless.

    This is one of the reasons I'm not keen on how requirements are handled. There are lots of rules on dealing with check boxes but it doesn't relate to how scouts learn. Most 11 year olds don't have the dexterity to sharpen a knife and so the one and done approach just leads to kids that stay away from knives because they really know they don't know but the patch on their shirt says they do. So they hide it and make excuses for not using the skill. 11 is a great time to start learning but the requirements do the opposite.

    • Upvote 2
  7. 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.

    • Upvote 1
  8. 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.

    • Upvote 4
  9. 11 hours ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

    So as some may tell, I have been a "Negative Nellie" of late.

    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.

    11 hours ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

    The Instapalms ....

    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.

    11 hours ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

    But look at the Lion Program ....

    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 burnout and boredom is more about parents too invested in advancement. That's bad for scouts but horrible for cubs. Rather than doing mini-me scouts, just show them how to play outdoors. Kick the can, ghost in the graveyard, make a solar oven, go sledding. It's a simple recipe. Play. Outdoors. Skip the beads, belt loops, pins, B&G, and even the different colored neckerchiefs. Cub scouts should be easy. Share ideas with other packs and make a big google doc of ideas. 5 years with 1 big idea per month is 60 ideas. Teaching children how to play outside should be a slam dunk.

    11 hours ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

    The June 2015 Cub Scout Program was supposed to put OUTING back in Cub ScOUTING.

    Make. Your. Own. Program.

    11 hours ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

    The OA has tons of challenges that I won't get into here. IMHO it is no longer the Honor Society it was intended to be.

    Since when does honor need a society? The OA is treated as a bunch of check boxes because that's what it is. Anything that has a manual describing how to do it can't possibly be a way to ensure honor. As soon as there are a list of rules to guide everyone, Truth, with a capital T, is replaced by check boxes that can only ascertain whether something is not false. To be honorable is to be True to a set of ideals and not check boxes. And no society needed.

    12 hours ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

    Advancement is so focused by National, that quality of instruction has dropped. National actually praised a council giving  over 10,000 in their online MBUs.

    You seem to be getting warmer.  Again, focusing on rules rather than ideals will water down the real program.

    12 hours ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

    One recent Eagle said that "Advancement seems to discourage Scouting. I just had fun, and said 'why not' and finished [Eagle]."

    Just one recent eagle? That's exactly what my son said 13 years ago. What stuck with him was doing the service and the high adventure. If he were to do it again he'd likely stop at first class and just have fun doing things.

    You can't change the cub program, scout advancement, the OA or Eagle. But it turns out that just ignoring those things might free you up enough to bring about the things you seem to really care about - the ideals of scouting.

    • Upvote 1
  10. 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 my brotherhood 30 years after my ordeal. It was fun going with my son.

  11. 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 aspects of having meetings on weekends that really appeals to me. I'm also curious about the group structure used by UK scouts to lesson transitional shock.

    I just got back from a pre-klondike, one night campout that was just intended to give new scouts experience in cold weather. Of the four adults that went, none have kids in the troop. Three of us had kids in scouts and one has an AOL scout that joined us. The idea of a third of the parents have lots of experience in scouting or the outdoors is just not valid anymore. At the same time, lots of young adults do like the outdoors. There's a solution, or likely many, that will help.

    These ideas are not about program, but more about the nuts and bolts of running units. While it would be nice for national to help with this, I don't see it right now.

    • Upvote 4
  12. 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. While Bill is trying to comfort his new friend, the FSB hacks into Charlie looking for the secret of having a soul. Instead, they find the award winning recipe for Borscht, developed by Tatsuya Kimora, a Japanese Pacinko parlor owner that caused an uproar when he won the borscht competition. The FSB tries to create kompromot on Tatsuya and burry it deep in Charlie's algorithm.  Rather, Charlie is invigorated by this challenge to right wrong and comes out of his depression just in time to save Bill's life. They work together to find new leadership in the BSA before moving to Wyoming, where power is cheaper for Charlie.

    • Haha 2
  13. 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 eliminate parent burnout.

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