Mrw1

Our troop has looked at Philmont and backed off because of the close to $2000 price tag from the Cleveland area - especially for the families that have two boys in the troop along with the active adult who would likely provide leadership.

They have taken two week-long canoe trips in the past few years. They looked at Tinnerman and settled on a trip in Algonquin National Park and a trip down the Au Sable river in MI for far less than that. Tinnerman runs about $400 per person, I think, from our area.

Our troop trips cost about $125 each person, including gas, meals on the trip there, etc.

Tinnerman may be well worth the cost, but it is out of our troop''s normal budget and fund-raising realm.

We always had a joint open house and then the parents signed their son up to which ever pack best fit their needs.

One had pack meetings on Saturday afternoons and the other one evening during the week.

We suggested they pick based on where their son''s friends were if that were an issue or on which meeting schedule better fit their needs.

That seemed to work pretty well and we never had a problem if a boy later wanted to switch for some reason.

Both my boys earned their Eagles several years ago. The younger one aged out last May and is at this very moment packing his car for tomorrow's trip to college.

I have been a den leader and then on the troop committee for many years now. I spent one week at summer camp as acting SM several years ago. I enjoy working with the boys, but don't want an every week commitment. I am sticking with my committee member/advancement chair position since I am still enjoying it.

When it stops being fun, I will pass it on to someone else.

Yes, someone has to do the district stuff, but it just isn't me.

We are using Troopmaster.net. As Advancement chair, I am working on getting it up to date and then keeping it that way. I am very happy with being able to input the advancements as they occur and about monthly then uploading it to ScoutNet electronically and without the input errors I was often seeing when we turned paper into Council.

I don't know that anyone other than our treasurer is also using the Troopmaster data at this point. The value of being able to check what each scout needs or what a group needs in seconds is wonderful when they are planning activities to help advancement.

I also keep paper records of the advancement reports that are turned into Council and papaer records of the badges each boy earns since there is a specific checklist form our Council uses for Eagle applicants to make their record checking easier. If I fill these in for each kid as we go along, it makes my life easier.

I use the posters for the boys, sine they like to compare each others' progress.

We have recently begun using Troopmaster to track things and that has helped a whole lot. Greater Cleveland has been on-line with advancement reporting for about two years now and that has helped tremndously.

Previously, I regularly found errors in the ScoutNet records for the troop. I would have them print me a copy about every 4-5 months and then submit a list of errors they needed to fix. Adding information that was missed the first time was easy enough. Getting things removed that were wrong is darn near immpossible.

I currently have a scout who had an erroneous date for Star rank put on his record for the week before he earned Scout. He will actually earn Star in the next month or so and I can put in a reasonable and correct date for this. I have not been able to prove to them that they have his brother's date and that it needs to be removed!

I have been very happy with on-line advancement as I can double check the dates as I enter them and the error rate is now extremely low.

I keep the large advancement posters and most of the boys regularly bring their books when they get stuff signed, so replacing lost book data doesn't hurt them too badly - and we replace a couple books a year. Most blue cards come direct to me as advancement chair so they get recorded properly as well.

Our pack, which I have not been with for several years now as my kids got older, is still run the way we experienced it.

They sell popcorn and run a kiddie carnival at a town festival as their two fundraisers.

We always strongly encouraged participation for each family in the carnival and had pretty good success with that.

For popcorn, we gave the boys about 10% of the total sales back in "popcorn points" that they could spend on scout stuff. If a boy only sold one small item and earned one point, he could still get a prize of a cub pencil or something in that price range. The items available out of the scout catalog included all the uniform pieces for Cubs and Boy Scouts and many of the craft and camping items.

We had boys who sold enough to earn their entire uniform or pay for the entire week of day camp. There are very few families who don't participate at all.

For sales at a store booth if the family only wants to participate that way, the total sales for the day was divided by how many boy hours were worked.

Our current SM had a year long period where as he was getting to know the program and the troop, he often clashed a bit with the older boys. He didn't listen when they told him how things should be done, including when they told him how the camp cabin was to be left when the checked out after a winter Klondike and then had the camp staff make them re-do stuff the way the boys has said.

He was an Eagle, but had been away for many years before his son was old enough to get into scouts.

With a few committee members patiently explaining to him what the boys knew and needed, he started to learn from them and trust them to do it their way.

They taught him, and now he is the one pushing the boys to take on the responsibilty for all the things he thought he had to do before.

I have been very involved with our troop since my older son crossed over and specifically turned down a request for a district committee position to stay with the troop. (I also don't think I could have given enough time to make it worth doing.) I stayed away from church youth group as my son wanted something I was not involved in - although I was available to drive, etc when needed and asked.

My husband has never been involved with scouts - he is very impatient with kids and has no interest in camping, etc. His support stopped at dropping them off and expecting them to go to campouts since they had committed to going to scouts. He took pictures for their Eagle projects, but did little or no real work on them. He saw and commented on the things they learned and the leadership they showed.

And from the perspective of other troop parents, maybe he is considered a "bad parent" but he would not be an asset to the troop and he knows it.

The troop parents I have objected to, are the ones who don't get their kids there when they are supposed be someplace and don't encourage the kids to do their best or keep with the spirit of the program.

At this point I am troop advancement chair because I enjoy the kids - even though my two have gone on to college. Their dad doesn't quite understand that, but still sees the "some one has to do it," point.

Having been in Scouts as a Den Leader for both my boys and then involved with the troop as Committee Memeber and Advancement Chair I can only comment on my own experience. (Those kids are 18 and 21 now.)

When my older son was in Tigers and Wolfs, my husband worked out of town and I worked full time. More than showing up and organizing the one Tiger meeting I was assigned, more time was not an option. Sending an occasional snack or napkins for an event was okay, but spending planning meeting time and showing early or late for set-up/clean-up or such would really have been a problem. Two years later I had two Cub/Webelos dens because I could contribute the time then.

If you are loking for the adult volunteers to help with programming, be very specific about what it is you need. Some people may only be able to send supplies, or write out name tags a week in advance or whatever, but are not able or willing to set up chairs and serve food and announce race winners, etc.

Supplying the paper products may not seem like much to some folks, but it allows people to contribute to their own means and/or abilities.

I remember at this same time period that I had no extra time to contribute for the little Cubs, that I deeply offended a soccer coach by refusing to work in the concession stand during my son's game for two weeks.

Be careful how you judge some of those non-helping parents. Some are just lazy or uncaring and I feel bad for their kids. Some are just too sttressed to help and too embarrassed to admit they can't contribute in a bigger way.

As a mom and someone who has been to camp with the troop as acting SM and been involved with the troop for many years:

If the language is bad, I can tell the boy involved that I do not appreciate tha language and he should choose other words to use in my hearing. If there is a question about that, I tell them that even though someone else may allow it, I don't want to hear it. End of story and it generally solves the problem.

If the boys were actually told they were to sign a behaviour contract, I would expect that some percentage of them immediately set about trying to find just where her limits were....

As an aside, my dad as a young scout in the late 1940's, claims he learned more "interesting language" at scout camp than he heard in the Coast Guard a few years later (or apparently in the fraternity house at college).

If this were my troop, I would let it go, but buddy the mom in question up with someone who can help her learn a more moderate response.

And tell the boys in question that they still need to respect the other people around them. And point out to them that they will always have co-workers that will get on their nerves for various silly reasons and that they need to learn to get along with people, even the ones they might not like so well.

I had to tell my younger one this about our current SM when he started. And they both eventually came to an understanding about who was reasonable when and learned to get along fine.

I had a tent that I used (and abused) for several years that had an initial leak in the fly and it did not seem to be at a seam. No obvious holes either. I found a good spraying with a can of silicone boot waterproofing spray fixed it right up.

You would want to do this with the tent fully set up on a dry and non-windy day for best results.

Our average is about 4 months for Tenderfoot and up to 2 years for First Class. They have the opportunity to make 1st class/1st year, but few do. Our SM came back from wood badge a couple years ago with 1st class/1st year as a goal, but has backed off as it doesn't really seem to work that way for most boys.

On the other hand, we have one who has been with us for 3-1/2 years and has yet to earn Tenderfoot. He conveniently doesn't show when we try to get things scheduled around finishing that last requirement. He has been asked and couldn't care less about ranks and badges, but enjoys the camping. He is pleasant and is not disruptive when he is there, so it is his choice and we a are glad to have him around.

The last boy we had who did not belong to any type of church left that line blank and made sure to have at least 5 other references.

I did warn him that the EBOR may well ask about his religious beliefs though.

If I remember correctly there is a line for an employer reference too, which would generally be left blank by a younger scout who has not held a job.

We give out all rank and MB patches, with the cards, as soon as they can be picked up at the scout shop, so really about monthly.

We have 2-3 COH per years and recognize the boys again for anything they have earned since the last one.