Melgamatic

> I'm just wondering why he was touching the boys?

I touch our cubs all the time. I shake their hands, pat them on the back, russle their hair, guide their hands with mine when learning how to use a pocketknife, bandage their wounds, etc.

Can you be an effective CM without touching the boys?

-melgamatic

One of the issues with Cub Scouting leadership is that we only get the best leaders for 5 years at the most. Just as they become effective leaders who understand the program, learn how to handle difficult parents and adults, learn how to make pack meetings exciting, they "bridge over" and leave the pack.

We could use more creepy guys who stay in Cub Scouting after their sons have moved on.

I would award it! We actually did award it!

Just confirming that it was the right thing to do. Wasn't planning on taking them back, yelling at anyone, etc. Just confirming that we did the right thing. Thanks to everyone for the help.

-Melg

Several well-educated, trained and apparently literate adults in our pack are having a friendly debate about whether or not the Tiger Cub "immediate recognition" paw print thing can be awarded before the Bobcat badge. The TC handbook seems to hint that it can, and the requirements for getting the big plastic paw appear to be a subset of those for Bobcat, thus implying you can earn it first.

However, there are several people also remembering that they've been told many times "no awards before Bobcat."

Anyone have solid information?

Thanks, Melgamatic

Thanks for all the input. Many of your suggestions are very useful.

I have had additional discussions with Council's popcorn guy, our popcorn colonel (kernel?), and our CM, other ACM's, CC, new CC, treasurer, etc.

The money thing isn't the important part. The mom gave us a separate form with just ouir $200 on it, and $200 of money to pay for it. The other $1200 is on some other forms that will go wherever, I guess with the money (the only trick is that I suspect many of the checks will be made out to our Pack; not sure how Council will arrange to deposit them but that's not my problem).

We'll lose around $500 of profit (our percentage is up to 40 or 41% this year), but there are always other ways to find money. We had a rough popcorn year in general, but that's not going to kill the pack like a sullied reputation will.

Our main concern is the reputational damage our pack may be suffering from due to the mom's complaints to council and general bad-mouthing at our pack meeting, etc. The council guy did tell me that she questioned our finances in a way which could have been considered an accusation of financial impropriety. The second time he talked to her she told him we were buying a second new expensive pinewood track (we bought one 3 years ago, which we'll probably be using for the next 50 years). So, she's just completely lying to anyone she talks with. The guy from council did not take her accusations seriously, didn't believe the "2nd pinewood track" story, and told us that as long as we weren't buying completely inappropriate or illegal things with our money council wasn't really concerned with how we spent it.

And, she is definitely bad mouthing us at the back of pack meetings.

Strangely, she is not considering leaving. That is too bad, because we'd all like nothing better. It would make all our lives so much more pleasant. She is really the only aspect of our entire scouting careers which has been less than pleasant. She and her son are now on their 3rd elementary school, and that's not something you see too often.

One of the other leaders, who has a boy in the associated troop, told me that if this mom's son joined his troop he and his son would be forced to leave the troop and find somewhere else. I feel the same way; our son's main consideration of what troops to consider largely revolve around not being in the same troop as this family.

Frankly, although I'm doing much of the work for the pack, and will be taking over as CM very shortly, the idea of moving on to some other pack and helping them as an ACM enters my mind sometimes, mostly as a pleasant fantasy.

Our CC and CM will be calling her this weekend, together, to ask her what she means by her public accusations. Then, Sunday night the pack leadership will have a conference call to discuss our options.

Most of our leaders are fully trained, some highly trained. We do not have a close relationship with our chartering organization, but I would call it a good relationship. We use their facilities, store stuff there, post pictures and awards on a bulletin board in their hall, and wave to them vigorously when the parade goes by. But, they are not involved in leadership selection (they sign the forms, but don't do anything beyond that). Our COR is the only parent who is a member of the CO, and he is not particularly active.

So, getting the COR involved would not be the first choice for us.

I know I must have read it in these forums, and probably in some of my training, but what is the proper way to remove a Den Leader?

-Melg

After 2.5 years as an ACM, and now transitioning into a CM role, I face my first truly nasty parent situation. I could use your advice.

We are a pack of around 50 cubs.

We are just finishing our popcorn sale. We set a target goal of $200 per cub, but that's just a request. Many cubs surpassed it, a few hit it, lots missed it, no big deal. One cub and his mother (co-den leader of his Bear den) sold $1400, which is very nice.

We had our pack schedule planning meeting in September and planned our 2008-2009 schedule, which includes the Pinewood Derby in January and the B&G in February. As everyone knows there are tons of school holidays and events, various religious holidays, etc, so picking the best times for these is tricky.

The mom who sold $1400 worth of popcorn had already planned her winter vacation, and it starts on the day of the Pinewood. She had told me in August that her vacation would be then, but there was no way around putting the PWD then. Any weekend is going to make people unhappy. Last year our CM, who really loves the PWD, was unable to attend with his son due to his own vacation. He was disappointed, but understood. So, while we want everyone to attend, we're really scheduling for the maximum ease for the maximum number of people, and that's when we scheduled it.

This mom is very unhappy about this. She told our popcorn kernel that she would submit her $200 of popcorn to our pack, but would "move the sale of the other $1200 to a pack that needed the money." We (the CM, the 3 ACM's and the new and old CC's) were all taken aback, but bit our tongues and didn't say anything unpleasant. We decided not to fight, and just suck it up. We discussed that it was a little flaky (the word fraudulent came up, but that's probably a little strong) that they sold popcorn under the guise of supporting our pack, within our town, but again, we're just letting it go.

Today I just got a call from our Council's popcorn executive (whatever it's called, the pro in charge of popcorn), telling me that he got the call from the mom, asking to move the $1200 of sales to a needy pack.

The thing that surprised me is that she told him that she wanted the money to go to another pack "because she didn't approve of the way the pack spent the funds."

This was pretty surprising to me. We spend our funds the way most other packs do, I imagine. Awards, meeting programs, that's about it. We had some more money left over last year than expected and bought all the cubs the handbook, neckerchief and slide for their next rank. Nothing strange going on.

So, in my mind, it's turned from a bitter parent taking her little vengeance on us (which I comprehend) to a bitter parent telling a district executive that she believes our pack is irresponsible with our money. This is an entirely different ball of wax, in my mind. I'm no longer sure that my "suck it up and move along" philosophy is applicable.

(Interestingly, when the council guy asked her if she was therefore planning to move to another pack, she told him that she would be staying with our pack.)

So, I guess I'm going to try to stay quiet, stay nice, and move on, but being accused of not using the pack's money correctly really sticks in my craw.

Looking forward to your opinions,

Melgamatic

Our pack pays for all awards but not for camping trips. District-organized family campout or facility-based campout (like the one you are discussing, we also have them at a zoo, a baseball stadium and at a science museum).

We do offer scholarships to pack-sponsored events (like official district family camouts) for those cubs who cannot afford to attend, but not to the facility-based campouts.

I'm considering redesigning our pack's website using Apple iWeb, but publishing to our own ISP (you can publish from iWeb to Apple's MobileMe servers, or to your own ISP).

Does anyone else do that, and could you share your URL if you do?

Thanks, Melgamatic

We had two people fail to attend the second weekend, which might constitute "failing" the course.

I think the answer is highly district or council dependent.

For our council in NJ, the answer would be "yes." We do require tour permits for camporees. It seems a little silly, since we are doing tons of other paperwork for the exact same trip with the same people, but that's what they want.

On the good side, it takes me around 3 minutes to fill in the form, sign it (if I am a trip leader), email it to a committee member, get it back from them and send it off to the council, and then I usually get the approved permit back within 4-6 hours!

-Melgamatic

The only requirement that is beyond "say and tell what it means" is the Cub Scout Promise. That one you have to "learn and say" which I guess means memorize, although if that's what it means I wish it said that.

I don't know any of the people involved, and although I've read probably all the posts on the boards it wasn't immediately clear to me who was the topic of discussion until their names were mentioned in this thread.

Although I am a newcomer to this board, I have been actively involved with message boards for more than 30 years, from starting some of the earliest modem-bank BBS systems through running large Yahoo groups, internet forums, etc. I once ran a very large auto racing organization until the unpleasantness from the forums and email lists dragged me down and I had to quit to make myself happy again.

My comment would be that some people are unable to kept themselves from being unpleasant on the internet. They can be very good people, successful in life and wonderful contributors to volunteer programs, but can't help themselves when typing at a computer. It's just an issue they face.

Unfortunately, these people can bring the quality of a forum down. People who do not have this syndrome start posting less frequently. People are afraid that they might be "slammed" for asking "stupid" questions or having contrary views. This is exactly the opposite of what you want.

Especially in a program where we all promise to be "helpful, friendly, courteous, kind" among other things.

Editing all their posts is not a good answer. Most importantly, I'll guess that the moderators have better things to do with their lives. Moderation also gives unhappy people another thing to complain about.

The most successful email lists I know have a "two strikes" system. The first time you are very unpleasant in an email you get a week timeout, and the second time you are removed from the list permanently. You can't let people who feel they can be unpleasant on the internet ruin your life (or even make it much harder). Life is already challenging enough.

-Melgamatic

I brought my shirt in, but the guy behind the counter didn't seem to be very concerned (he was very busy setting up a lot of new Tiger Cubs with their new uniforms) and just let me buy what was necessary. Thanks for the help.

-Melgamatic

PS: I'm sure it's not just me, but seeing parents buying their Tiger Cubs their first Cub Scout uniform makes me very happy.

> Cars are a great example. If you have a car payment from the time

> your 25 through out the rest of your life you will spend over

> 5 million on car payments.

Interesting concept, but not correct even with an order of magnitude.

If you have car payments from age 25 to 75, that's 50 years. That is 600 months. If you bought nice cars, and paid $500 a month, that would be $300,000 over the 50 years.

If we increased the cost of the car by 3% every year (which is much faster than the actual growth in the price of cars), we'd be paying $2128 a month 50 years from now, but the total for 50 years would still only be around $676,000. (Even going further, the present value of those cash flows is around $299,000 today.)

Talking about how people spend too much money is interesting, but let's be careful about our math.

-Melgamatic

I have an Arrow of Light knot on my Cubmaster uniform. I think it's a great thing to have, because it directly relates to the cubs working on their AOLs, and gives me a nice connection with them.

As I do more and more multi-day events, I need another uniform shirt or two. I'd like to have AOL knots on each of them. What's the method for getting them? The scout shops keep them under lock and key, and I'm not sure what evidence I can give them to get another (perhaps the current knot on my shirt)?

My first AOL knot was acquired by a former advancement chairwoman, and it was very confusing. No other leaders in my pack had knots at that point, and the store gave it to her in some confusing transaction. The new advancement chairman is less seasoned, so I'd rather get it myself if possible.

(Just out of curiousity, for people who get other knots like cubmaster / den leader / scouter / etc knots, do you get some sort of card which indicates your right to purchase/wear the knot?)

-Melgamatic

The diversity ticket item is a real stumbling block for me. Coming up with something that wasn't completely minimal was very hard.

Our Pack has very rich people through very poor people. We have white, black, asian, hispanic, indian, and various mixes thereof. We have probably nearly every major religion practiced in the east and the west, and some that aren't major. We have a large number of very ADHD kids, two with CP, and many with other medical problems.

So, coming up with a "diversity" item which would address any kind of traditional definition of diversity that we didn't already have in our pack is tough.

My ticket item ended up being to create a "Diversity Program Ideas Guide" for den leaders, which would help them plan den activities and field trips around diversity issues.

It's sorta lame. The dens are already diverse, they get along great, diversity is already accepted and enjoyed.

I really liked Vicki's concept of ADHD training for the pack leadership; that would be helpful to us and actually address a diversity issue which we struggle with. I might talk to my ticket counselor about that....

-Melg

Oh, and we re-used the magician theme late last year (a Boy Scout who was a magician did a very nice job for us; it was part of a service project for him).

Actually, that was pretty amazing. This Boy Scout had two adults (CM and an ACM) tie him to a folding chair as tight as we wanted, using a very long rope, and he managed to escape within a minute or so. The Cub Scouts seemed to really enjoy his whole presentation; the fact that the magician was only a few years older perhaps made it seem more exciting.

-Dave

I actually suggested this, but we have a lot of second-year Webelos, and there was a strong tendency to not repeat what they had seen. So, I need a 5th program....

Thanks, Dave

Each year our pack spends some money to provide a splashy and fun first pack meeting of the school year. In recent years we've had a wolf guy (raises and rehabilitates wolves, brings one in, etc), a snake guy, a reptile guy, a great science/fun presentation (chemicals, animals, etc), a magician, etc.

While that goes on (and keeps the kids completely occupied for 45min to an hour, the CM takes the new parents into the next room and we give them an introduction to the pack. We use a powerpoint presentation that gives a quick summary of the entire program and our pack, and then handout copies of the pack's New Family Guidebook. If we have enough Tiger Cubs for more than one den, we try to set them up into dens at that time.

We have great den-produced pack meetings all year, but find that paying for a well-produced and interesting show for the first meeting works well, allows the CM and one of the ACMs to go to the parent meeting, and doesn't require us to find a den to organize the first meeting.

But this year, we're having a hard time coming up with a new/different program this year. We thought about trying to get the local OA Chapter's dance team, but they are not active at this time. We saw a "Wild West Show" advertise at a recent Tradeshow of Scouting, but we're not hot on that idea (twirling guns, etc, isn't so popular around here). I liked the idea of a "bubble man" show, but can't find any local vendors.

Any great ideas? We are in Central NJ..

Thanks, Dave

A fellow patrol member of mine at Wood Badge is an "illustrated man." His entire body is covered with tattoos, including much of his face, neck, etc. He was never a biker or into drugs, he just decided as a small child that was what he wanted to be, and as soon as he was allowed he started. It was daunting at first, and it was hard not to stare.

He turns out to be the sweetest guy ever. He was a Cubmaster for a pack, is now a Scoutmaster for a troop, and is starting a crew. They are all with his own Catholic Church. He is always doing something for someone, painting the rectory, running a fund raiser for a troop, etc. IN the summers he helps run one of the larger summer camp programs around.

He tells me that new parents are sometimes a little surprised, but that the pack and troop have such good word-of-mouth that most people know about the ink and aren't shocked. Once they get involved with his troop and pack they get to know him and the issue disappears.

That was probably the best diversity lesson I learned at Wood Badge.

-Melgamatic

We bought a 6-lane aluminum track from BestTrack, along with the digital lane timer. Very nice. You need a large storage area. We did a lot of research before buying, but are very happy with the purchase.

The digital lane timer is neat. Goes into a laptop running the scoring software, and that is hooked to a LCD projector (borrowed from a parent's business). The Cubs love seeing their results up on the big screen immediately after the race, and people across the large gym can see each race's results without crowding.

-Dave

Just a quick followup. We had a great time in London. We ended up doing two things not on the list...

I tend to chat with the London taxi drivers a lot, and one of them suggested that we take a boat trip from Westminster pier (just a 5 minute walk from our hotel) down to Greenwich and then down to the Thames barrier. That was a great (and relatively inexpensive) trip. Lunched in Greenwich, etc. It was a little cool and windy, but we all had windbreakers and sat out on the deck for most of the trip.

The second unplanned trip was to the HMS Belfast, a WWII battle cruiser which served until the mid-60's. It has been turned into an absolutely fantastic museum. The signage and audio tour were fantastic. You climbed up and down all over the ship, from climbing down three levels of ladders into the boiler rooms, up into the gun turrets, down into the shell loading rooms, kitchens, etc. My son loved it. He really liked Tower Bridge, and was talking about the "battleship" the whole time, so we added that in and it turned out to be one of our highlights.

We didn't do the London Eye because my son and I both really didn't enjoy the heights of the whispering gallery at St Paul's (same reaction I had 2 years ago last time I was there), and decided that the much-taller heights of the London Eye were probably not going to be so much fun, even with the view.

Did a "Harry Potter Walking Tour" which was a mixed result. The tour guide and London tidbits were great, but he was really having to push to make connections with HP. I would take another walk (something about the oldest parts of London, etc) next time with the same company (walks.com).

We didn't make it to BP House; I'll get there myself on my next trip (I make a weeklong trip every month or two). Thanks for all the tips.

We did make it to the Tower of London, which was nice but crowded. Legoland was a lot of fun, and my son really enjoyed the "4D movie" but the park itself was amazingly inefficiently run....

-Dave

I attended Woodbadge NE-II-168 around a year after I re-entered scouting, 30 years after I left it. I never made it past First Class, but found myself as a Cubmaster only a few weeks after my son joined as a Tiger Cub. I had attended all the required (plus some additional) training, but was really short on many of the basics of scouting in general.

My first few hours at Woodbadge were a little of a culture shock. It was clear that 95+% of the other attendees had a much deeper background, and I had no idea what was going on some large amount of time. However, I took to it like a fish takes to water, and loved every minute of it. I had a fantastic time, learned an amazing amount (probably more than anyone else there, since I had so much less at the start), and have taken back an energized, excited and active attitude to the pack. They've certainly benefited from my ticket items (all of which were about improving the pack), but also my knowledge and enthusiasm.

Our SPL was an amazing guy. I've never seen anyone with such energy, enthusiasm, etc. I learned so much from him. Before Woodbadge it never would have occurred to me to stand in front of the pack and make a fool of myself leading some silly cheer. Now I do that all the time, and rather than thinking it's "foolish" the kids just eat it up. My fellow Cubmasters and other leaders don't know what to say!

-Melgamatic

Beaver! NE-II-168.

Four out of five done on my ticket.

I am really regretting my fifth item. It was the required "diversity" ticket item, and I had a heck of a time coming up with it. I had another 20 good items I could have used, but none really had that "diversity" aspect. My stumbling point was that our Pack is already pretty diverse in any common sense of the phrase (race, religion, economics, etc.) I came up with something about writing a "den meetings idea" booklet that would give local den leaders ideas about den meeting activities, trips, etc, which encouraged diversity. Ugh.

-Melg

Ah, but a 1913 edition is not an "Original Edition" it is a "First Edition", and the price difference between the two is very great.

I've paid as little as $41 for a 1913 edition softback copy (BSHB-01-07SB) on ebay (this past March), and as much as $450 for a hard cover edition of any earlier printing.

But, for Original Editions, I think it's hard to pay less than $800 or $900 for an acceptable (all pages still attached) book, and probably $500+ for a copy with significant problems (pages missing, pages unattached, covers completely disconnected, etc).

I think one of the nice reproductions of the original edition would be a completely reasonable way to fill out a collection. There are very few Original Editions out there, and a bunch of collectors who will bid a lot on good copies (and even poor copies); the reproductions seem reasonable for this purpose.

-Dave