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Unexpected visits are a bad idea. I've had a cople bad expeirences with this from the Troop side over the last few years. A few of years ago I had a parent who wanted to visit. I told him, come by any Thursday, just don't come the third Thursday of that month - we have elections planned that night. Sure enough, he show's up anyway. At this point, rescheduling wasn't happening - too hard to get the OA rep to show up as it is. Mr. Webelos' eyes were rolling in the back of his head 15 minutes in. When it come time to vote, the OA Rep told Mr. Webelos he wasn't allowed to cast a ballot (can't

Honestly, little needs to be done for the youth come January 2016. Most of the Scouts will continue doing the old requirements during their transition year under old requirements. After they hit first class, the changes are not all that significant. Our older Scouts should already provide much of the training and leadership to the new Scouts. The challenges will begin when the new Webelos transition in mid-spring and those will mainly be record keeping. When we do fire tool safety, new Scouts will be getting credit for second class requirement 3c and older Scouts will get tenderfoor requir

I disagree. Please recheck guide to advancement 8.0.1.4 and 8.0.1.5. Once a Scout has been called and congratulated by the BoR that he has met the requirements for the rank, he becomes that rank. There are no provisions for take-backs a week later in light of new information. The matter is properly addressed between the the Scout and his Scoutmaster. It should be addressed as part of his requirement for showing Scout Spirit to earn his Star rank.

Hmm... pull-ups are gone from the t-foot fitness requirement.

I've used both Patch Town and Class B. Both are they are solid choices. If anything, Patch Town has too many designs. Their catalog is 13 pages long and has over 700 designs. I made the mistake of handing that to a NSP once without any guidance and 90 minutes later they hadn't come close to making a choice.

The council calendar is a local issue which should be handled better, but you really can't fault your local council for the IT issues. They are relying on software run by national (your recharter issues) or provided by a third party vendor (event registration). National is so far behind in IT it is laughable. As far as the third party solutions are concerned, none of them are really up to date or easy to use. I doubt the Council can afford to hire a trained IT guy, so they do the best they can. I know in a for profit business you'd have a roll-out plan, testing and adequate user training, but

My two cents: I'd suggest your husband talk to two people before submitting an application: the Council's Scout Executive and your Pack's Chartering Organization Representative (COR). The Scout Executive is likely the one who has to make the tough call on situations like this and he can tell you how the wind is blowing in your Council depending on your situation. Let him know the situation and he can tell you if you will be approved or not. More likely than not, he's also going to tell you that you should talk to the COR, who has to approve your application on behalf of the Pack. Best to be up

I've been to a small number of out of council trainings. In the past, it's been due to a timing conflicts with by home council training schedule. But I've found that the neighboring council's HAT training blows ours away and this year the local council gutted U of S program, I may go out of council more in the future.

To address a part of of your comment, we make it clear to our Scouts they are responsible for packing and unpacking their own gear. We drill this from day one. The second a Scout mentions mom when missing gear comes up I cut them off, and explain it was their job to pack and not mom's. Then, unless it is a safety issue, I tell them they just need to make due with what they brought. We do have equipment checks for our longer back country trips, but otherwise we put it on the Scout so they learn responsibility.

My take: Assume the Troop will not fold. Continue being thrifty with the money so when you grow you won't feel a pinch. Curtail, but don't completely stop fundraising efforts so it won't be as painful to restart. Have a discussion with your CO to decide if it is appropriate to plan a Philmont type trek, but don't go out of completely out of proportion with what you've done in the past. If you do fold, unless things are set up in a way that goes against BSA policy, the funds go back to the CO. They should probably look to giving it to another Scout unit, but are not obligated to do so

Seconded

Nice idea if it works. I haven't tried this in a while, but I've had Wells Fargo lump all deposits made on the same day into a single transaction.

Tell your son to report the situation to the Scoutmaster. While the merit badges can't be taken away, his Scoutmaster is still required to complete a Scoutmaster Conference and sign-off on requirement 2 (live by the Scout Oath and Law).

In my experience, you need a theme or central activity to get the Scouts interested in participating. Once they get there, a good number of them may in fact be more interested in "just camping" than the activity. But you need to get there there first :-)

I doubt the DE will do anything other than a mild warning. They're judged based on recruiting numbers so they won't shoot themselves in the foot by kicking the boys out. Here are the issues you'll face: 1. As first graders, some of the boys won't have sufficient reading comprehension to be able to use the Wolf handbook. Not a big deal, but they would get more out of the program at second grade. From my experience, this should be a one time issue, since the Bear and Webelos hand books are not as big a step up in reading level. 2. As third grade Webelos you'll be skirting the Guide to Safe S

I really dislike lanterns when camping but getting into camp on Friday night before dark can be a challenge in the spring and fall, so having a lantern available for fixing dinner is helpful. Someone in our Troop made a set of these mesh globes years ago and they are a real money saver. If you already have trees for propane, I'd stick with those.

$40 is not close to excessive. I charged $30 a year which covered only about half my out of pocket costs. You son's Den Leader might well be $100's of dollars in the hole already from the Wolf year. Don't make life hard for your Den Leader. They brought it up at a meeting, presumably explained how they wanted to use the money and had an open discussion. It wasn't his or her fault some parents missed the meeting. Don't make this a "thing". Your Den Leader is working had enough without this kind of push back. BTW, if you get Boys Life, $50 will barely cover BSA registration, awards and

Unless absolutely necessary (i.e impossible to do in a Den setting), I never expected the stuff the Scouts were supposed to do home would be completed. When meetings were missed, parents were told what was missing, and why Johnny won't get the badge everyone else does, but in reality only a few Scouts actually did the work at home. During the year, when some Scouts got awards and others did not, parents got the idea. I usually did dedicate the last couple of Den meetings before the final Pack meeting of the year to missing rank requirements. I knew who needed to do what and I was clear wi

The sash can be worn any time a the class A uniform is worn. In practice, it is usually reserved for more formal occasions: Courts of Honor, flag ceremonies, parades and other public ceremonies.

Two of my favorite quotes seem on point here: "Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want." "In the 100 years of Scouting, no Scout has ever starved to death on a weekend camping trip."

I would suggest you talk to your District Executive about letting unregistered friends (youth or adults) attend Troop camp outs. Depending on your Council's insurance situation, he may not be covered. At an absolute minimum, I'm sure they will insist on your having parts a and b of a medical history on file; even if a parent is present, you want that release in hand.

Absolutely!