Gone

According to our Old Guard ringer, he thinks it is short for the secondary command given in the military to return to ready position, they just skipped one part of that command. He's not certain but that's his best guess.

And yet we use military terms all the time in scouting. Does hurt to teach them. Arms are only presented when you have actual "arms", otherwise you give the command to attention. As @@walk in the woods pointed out its a two part command. You can't present arms if you're unarmed. Your NG buddy is confused....or always armed.

I think he was asking "Where does the term 'two' come from." Agree on your points about commands.

The Marine Corps Drill and Ceremony manual. We also thankfully have access to an adult who served with the Old Guard (so he hates that we use the Marine Corps manual) who helps our scouts practice proper etiquette.

It comes from the military command as a response to get units back to attention or at ease. It is coupled with the command "hand salute" or "salute" (depending on your service branch). It gets units back to attention from the salute position. You'll find it defined in most military ceremony manuals. As to its etymology, I cannot say. They don't teach you that in the military, only why we use it.

As flag is in transit to its posting position the salute should be given. If raising up a flag pole the salute is given just before it goes up. Reverse when retiring the colors. Most units I see get this bit mixed up.

Our unit is not looked upon well by the adults in the lodge....mostly the guys who have been around forever and don't want to lose power. Our kids have three ceremony teams now, do webelos cross overs and we do our own tap outs. Our kids love it and we've even pulled kids from the next district who can't get on the lodge team. At first kids wanted to quit their units and join us, but we said stay in your unit and join us anyway.

Yes, but these other examples are not private organizations with a policy. There was an expectation by this man. I suspect you bought your house where you did for a reason. If they opened a crack house or XXX store next door I'm sure you'd turn a few shades of white too.

Our lodge doesn't have a clue. Our unit spoke with the local nation and got them to help us (actively) dress out our ceremonial team in dress consistent with the role intended. Our songs, music and dance are all consistent with actual dances from our local nation. The lodge looks like a bad B western set when they do their ceremony. It is embarrassing.

It was a poll of 500 people. This means it was a cheap, bare bones attempt to take a pulse. No methodology published that I saw which means it could be as scientific as this forum.

I may have missed it, but PLEASE say the mom was the "rabbit person".

Odd they let the scout collect them given BSA's directive about scout involvement. Personally I see no reason to not have the scout involved. A scout is trustworthy right?

At some point I hope the boys get to help. We used to be adult driven at that level but changed that 10-12 years ago. Now our boys know how much to budget for food ($13), how much for site rental (varies), gas (varies) and incidentals (propane, mantles, etc.). We helped them develop an event budget sheet which they fill out at annual planning for every event and submit to the troop committee. The TC refines but the budget came from the scouts.

We used to do archery and hawks. Can't do hawks anymore so we stick to archery. Since we do this a lot it is not a ringer meeting. Cooking demos (where you can eat AND help cook) are good, but again, we do those all the time. Our "swat" team guys are just as prepared as our regular guys.

Our district accepts general references in one's own style. As soon as our scouts turn Life we begin working with them to identify adults who would 1) be willing to write a good letter of reference and 2) would be willing to write a GOOD letter of reference. We work on this list and fine tune it during their Life rank so these are ready when the scout is prepared to sit for his ESMC.

@@NationalTrailEagle84, @@jr56, @@jr56,@@pargolf44067, @@qwazse, thanks everyone. Our PLC is looking in to this camp and asked me to check out "what the adults are saying" about it. I have seen a few home made videos and the camp looks nice. Dinning hall looks good and the list of activities sound great. The Pipestone program is something out scouts have not seen so I am sure they will eat that up!

Always. We rotate between in-council and out. Boys decide and we have a short list of recommendations which the Scribe keeps track of on a spreadsheet. It's 60 miles to our council camp. We've gone 1,800 miles before (rented bus). Cost is a factor but not the only one. If we go far renting a bus is preferred, but then we need to fill the bus in order to make the price point under $300 or so for the transportation cost. If we go far one year (and have a high transport cost) we usually go fairly close by (meaning no bus rental) the following year. High adventure is usually done in conjunctio

We use SOAR/mytroop. My thoughts: Very easy to use and maintain. Templates and widgets work well. Tracking registrations, payments, etc. VERY easy. Ability to secure certain pages and make other pages open. Have many recurring things both events and pages. You can assign others to manage a page or a whole section. Mailing lists you can create are GREAT!!! Security not an issue. Initial set up means everyone needs to have an email in the system then it generates user IDs and passwords. Resetting either is easy. Reminders sent to those not using the system also easy. I used to maintain the ol

That's the point! Incoming Webelos want to see the program warts and all, not just what is created and rehearsed for their benefit. If the unit's youth leaders are organized you should be able to publish monthly themes and have your meetings plans done weeks in advance. You should know your location if you are working with your COR. Publish all that online and stick to it. Webelos show up and participate. They either like it or they don't. The last thing you want is to get all dressed up for the Webelos, have then join and then they see all the warts later.

@5yearscoutersame thing happened in my old pack. They lost their CO in 2013 and had to find a new home. Just now breaking 35 Cubs again.

@@mashmaster that's a good price for the quality you get.

@@blw2, I think @@Eagledad points are well taken. Kids that go for the fun or food or friends usually end up out of scouting after one year. The depth of the program, training, leadership and variety of program are what matters. Kids of 10-11 won't recognize that. They'll be all about the fun. The key is to see through the cracks and find out how the unit runs normally. I always tell every parent, if they don't like a unit they can always leave. You won't hurt my feelings. Sometimes you get in to something that you find out later wasn't for you. Great. The goal should be for the kids to le

That's too bad. Sounds like you council needs a better marketing person. I would think they would be interested in some type of marketing. Coins or medallions might be too high cost for them. T-shirts and hats are lower cost and easier to sell/promote, higher margins too. Everyone likes T's, the hiking stick medallion market is likely an over-40 old-fart thing.

We did this: Found a provider that could take our non-vector-based artwork. That's the key. That way you can create anything in powerpoint or photo shop and give to the company. Some charge for converting, others don't Obviously the less work they do the less it costs. Do your own artwork. Make sure you get their specifications. If they have a template or standard artwork it is cheaper to use theirs and customize the text. Recoup of costs depends on your volume, your audience, your sale price, etc. We got them as gifts so we did not even try to recoup costs. We have folks who do graphic desi

@@Hedgehog I think there's stuff kids want to know and stuff parents want to know. Sometimes we get lost in the boy-led discussion and forget that the Webelos haven't had that yet and parents (akela) are still very much the leaders. When we were looking we spent a few meetings with the boys putting together their list of questions. Parents did the same. The boys asked the questions of the other boys while the parents got their questions answered by the SM. There are considerations requiring adult review in the troop selecting process.