NJCubScouter

For whatever it's worth, I thought my son's Cub Scout day camp was a reasonable balance between "rustic" and, well, Cub Scouts. What I heard of it, and what little I actually saw of it (I tried to get to the closing ceremony, I think I succeeded two out of three years) seemed age- and program-appropriate. These were kids going into the second through fifth grades. It wasn't supposed to be Philmont.

Just to provide another example of what Eagle94-A1 is talking about, in my council (at least as of 2000-02 when my son went to Cub summer day camp), there was what appeared to be a paid staff (which appeared to be mostly college-age kids, mostly girls.) It was only day camp, I suspect that may be different today. I really don't remember what it cost, but $200 per week is somewhere in the ballpark. It certainly wasn't less than that. There were probably four weeks. There were buses, we had to drive him to the bus stop but it was only a few minutes away. They also bussed the kids to a nearby swimming pool several times during the week. The pack leaders and parents had nothing to do with it and were not there, except to attend the end-of-week ceremony if they could make it on a Friday afternoon. I assume the camp directors (directing the college-kid staffers) were Scouters, but I don't know who they were. My son always came home in one piece and in good spirits with arts and crafts to display and a list of completed rank requirements.

Dittos. We came close to having a White Christmas. It was snowing when I went to sleep on Sunday, and technically as of midnight there may still have been a stray snowflake on a blade of grass somewhere, but sometime in the wee hours it turned to rain, so it was just a Wet Christmas.

In that case, I also wish you a Happy Chanukah (belated), Happy Winter Solstice (slightly less belated), Happy Boxing Day (very slightly belated) and a happy, healthy and prosperous Gregorian-calendar New Year! (And to all a good night.)

I never actually went for Eagle. My son did. He procrastinated as long as humanly possible (or even beyond that) and got it by the skin of his teeth. Do not try this at home. During the entire time, he was fully participating in the troop program, meetings, service projects, camping trips, summer camp, etc. He also spent a lot of time on the robotics team in high school.

I guess it is all part of the larger issue of why ANY volunteer should have to pay to volunteer, not just for a uniform or a book or other tangible things, but an actual membership fee for the organization they are volunteering. But I know I am just talking crazy talk now.

Qwazse, what you say is reasonable, but I think it's still a legitimate question about whether they should be charging a fee for this category. But there is probably very little chance that they will change it.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Hmm, in light of current societal events the comely elf of the fairer persuasion may have sat on her last lap. Last year's holiday photos have already been subpoenaed.

If it isn't already clear, I agree with that. I don't want to send Cubber's thread off on a tangent about CO policies toward adult leaders. But wow. So if your CO has a pack and a troop, and Mr. Smith has a boy in both, he can't be a leader in both. I've never heard of that.

It would be even better if people can communicate, cooperate and compromise in a reasonable manner rather than having edicts handed down from on high. I am wondering about this scenario, which is hypothetical but still related to Cubber's situation: Webelos 2's (or I guess they call them Arrow of Lights (Arrows of Light?) now) are about to cross over and are all deciding which troop to join. One choice is the troop at the same CO (Troop 1), which has lost all its boys, and the crossovers from this pack will be the only boys in the troop. (Which as we have recently learned is not necessarily Cubber's exact situation since the CC/CR is trying to get some older boys into the troop.) Troop 2 is also nearby, has 50 kids with a good mix of Scouts all up and down the age/rank range and a full staff of leaders, uses the patrol method, no merit badge classes, everything by the book. The hypothetical "perfect troop." Now, Mr. Smith is the den leader of the "graduating" den and his older son is also in that den. He plans to remain in the pack, switching to DL of his younger son's den, who are Tigers-going-on-Wolves (or whatever.) Mr. Smith does NOT take his crossing-over den to visit Troop 2 because the CC/CR does not want him to. But he and his son do visit Troop 2 on their own, and they also "visit" Troop 1 (in quote because the only people to visit in Troop 1 now are adults.) Mr. Smith and son decide on Troop 2, in fact he is so impressed with Troop 2 that he is going to become an Assistant Scoutmaster there upon his son's arrival in the troop. And let's also add that all the other kids in Mr. Smith's Webelos den were wavering between Troop 1 and Troop 2 (which they also all visited on their own), but now that their good friend Bobby Smith is joining Troop 2, they all decide to do so as well, and Troop 1 either lapses or continues to limp along on paper but with no actual Scouts. Is Mr. Smith being disloyal to the pack's (and Troop 1's) CO? Should he be "fired" as a DL for his younger son's den?

Well, I know I wore the "beanie" when I was a Cub Scout (1966-1969; I don't recall a separate Webelos hat from back then) and I know they were long gone by the time my son became a Cub Scout around 1998. When they got rid of them in between there, I don't know.

"Be", no. But Scouting is not isolated from the rest of what a person does in his life. The BSA's main marketing slogan (unless they've changed it) is "Be Prepared. For Life. But I think the better point is that advancement, to the point of earning Eagle, is not just something that a youth picks up along the way by engaging in Scouting activities. MOST, but not all, of the Scout-to-First-Class requirements probably do fall into that category. An example of one that does not is the First Class requirement where the Scout is to discuss with an attorney, teacher, elected official, etc. the rights and obligations of citizenship. I have never seen a patrol or troop meeting in which the Scouts discuss the rights and responsibilities of citizenship as a planned program. There is no requirement, through First Class, that the Scouts participate in any organized activity where they would learn this information. They either learn it in school or they pick up the handbook and read about it, and have the discussion (usually with me, in my troop.) In other words, they do it on their own, and it is something they would not be doing otherwise (in Scouting) if it wasn't required. Past First Class, and on to Eagle, it is a real mix. Some required MB's build on the specific skills that were demonstrated in Scout-1C, such as Camping, Cooking, First Aid and Swimming. Others really don't, and you have to kind of "make your own path" (using your analogy) to get them. I already mentioned Cit in the World and Personal Management. I think most of the requirements of the other Cits and Communications also are things that do not derive from "regular" Scouting activities. One could debate how to classify Personal Fitness, Family Life and and E-Prep, for example. As for the non-required MB's, very few are extensions of earlier Scouting activities. The only ones that come to mind right now are Pioneering and maybe the boating/canoeing etc. and maybe there are a few others but they are a small fraction of the total. And then the example that Helpful Tracks gave, the Eagle project, is really the best one of all. So the point is, if a youth is doing advancement (especially past First Class) the way it is supposed to be done (as opposed, for example, to simply being "advanced" by adults, or earning MB's in "classes" where they aren't actually doing the requirements individually), they cannot simply stay on the "path" and pick up the shiny rocks. They have to blaze their own trail, and in the case of the Eagle project, they then have to recruit a road crew, pave the path and put up a plaque.

Oh, there are many black bears in northwestern New Jersey. They do not generally behave that way toward our species, but the guy entered the bear's cave without an invitation, so...

We haven't heard enough from them this year?

Hmm. Does that apply to performance in school as well? To future employment? To the military, if they go? I think part of the purpose of the advancement program is to give the Scouts experience in setting a goal and achieving it - or not achieving it, and learning from the experience either way. As for your shiny-stone-on-the-path analogy, I think the requirements are really a mixture of things that one might happen upon while walking down the path (such as learning outdoor skills while on a camping trip and advancing accordingly) and things where one has to make a special trip (such as, oh I don't know, Citizenship in the World and some of the other required MB's. The BSA advertises Fun! Camping! Climbing Rocks! Whitewater Rafting! etc. etc. It does not advertise, for example, that you will learn the skills of personal financial management and practice them for at least 90 days, but you can't make Eagle without doing that.) I have mixed feelings about the importance of Eagle, which has been debated in this forum SO many times before. I myself am a Life for Life. That was actually a conscious decision that I made when I was 16 years old. I was PL, SPL and JASM, and aged out, and continued as an ASM until I went to college, but I did not really "go" for Eagle. I would change that if I had it to do over again, but I don't. I encouraged my son to go for Eagle if he wanted to, and at the age of 15 I told him how to avoid having things come down to the last minute. I have told the harrowing story before of how THAT turned out - he almost procrastinated himself out of making it, but he made it - with (in effect) four whole hours to spare. (And actually if it had rained on one specific day, five days before his birthday, he most likely would not have completed his project.)

I have hit both deer (two) and turkey (one) with my car, all in New Jersey. The deer were about 26 and 5 years ago, and the turkey was about 25 years ago. It was the animals' fault in all cases. (The most recent deer, who really hit me rather than the other way around, was very large and probably survived; the others kind of limped into the woods after being hit, but I suspect they did not get very far, unfortunately.) A lot of people probably think of New Jersey as one big paved-over city, but there are a lot of areas where one may run into wildlife. (Yes, I see what I did there.) I do not believe there are coyote residing in NJ, or at least I have never seen or heard of one being here. Or maybe they are just smarter about staying off the roads. As for the article in question, I think this person should speak for herself. If she wants to call herself a hypocrite that's fine, but she should not imply that other environmentalists are as well. I consider myself an environmentalist, but I do not hit other people over the head with it.

You are the only person I have ever met (or "met") in my entire life who thinks adults earning rank would be a good idea today. But I seem to recall that at one point, in an earlier and happier (?) time, this thread was about physical contact between Scouters and Scouts. If there is nothing more to say on that subject, we can start letting this thread do the inevitable scroll down the list until it disappears into the annals of history. There has always been sort of an ambivalence in this forum about off-topic discussions, but lately it seems that many threads turn into a discussion of EVERY conceivable Scouting-related subject, all in the same thread. And many of these subjects don't need to be in Issue and Politics.

One way they might have managed it is to continue to re-register Scouts who have quit the troop, but are still under 18, with the troop or CO paying the registration fees. I have heard of people doing that for one year, but not three. And there are other ways to do it, which are less "trustworthy." As long as the registration fees are coming in, most councils don't really care very much.

That's a good point. Games have already been played with this troop's charter.

Ok, so the issue here is really much bigger than which troop(s) the Webelos den is permitted to visit, as a den. But as long as parents and Webelos are aware that they (as individuals or groups of individuals) can visit wherever they want, and join wherever they want, the individual choice is preserved and no leader can be accused of being "disloyal" to the CO who appointed them.

I didn't mean what I think you think I meant. Of course the CO does not want the unit to lapse. I was responding to a couple of people who seemed to think that recruitment was a waste of time because the charter is about to expire or has already expired. What I was saying is that I think the CO can work with the council to keep the charter from lapsing while awaiting at least 5 crossovers, and as the worst-case scenario, the charter could be "revived" quickly enough. That being the case, the biggest issue remains recruitment.

I suspect (though I have no proof of this) that the IF the council knows that at least 5 new Scouts are joining in the spring, they can keep the charter from lapsing in between. Or if that doesn't work, they can rush through a new charter based on the 5 (or more) new boys. So I don't think the technical non-existence of the troop is the biggest issue here. On the other hand, to the boys it would seem like a new troop since they are the only members. Let me ask this, Cubber, have the leaders of the troop (SM, ASM's, committee members) stayed on to work with the new boys if they join? Or are the parents of the crossing-over Webelos going to be expected to fill those positions?

I have seen that, and I would extend it to troops that have had trouble recruiting in the recent past. Parents (and to a somewhat lesser extent, their sons) spot the fact that a troop isn't all that large and that there are "gaps" in the ages of the Scouts, and they leap to the conclusion that there is something "wrong" with the troop, as compared with the next-closest troop that has (say) 8 full-size patrols and seems to be humming along like a well-oiled machine. (Even if it is a little TOO well-oiled.) The one exception that I have seen was when the then-Cubmaster of my son's pack (this is about 18 years ago) decided he was going to form a new troop, with himself as Scoutmaster, with the first patrol being the Webelos 2 den that included his son. I think he got 6 out of 7 families on board, recruited parents to fill the mandatory positions needed for the charter, actually got the charter (with the pack's CO also being the CO for the troop), lined up a nearby troop (but not too nearby) to be the "mentor" troop for the first year or two and invite the one-patrol troop on their camping trips until the new troop had had another year or two of recruitment, and talked up the idea among parents of younger Cubs (like me; my son would have been in the fourth "class" in that troop) who would eventually be able to cross over to an "established" troop in their own neighborhood. So the crossover happened... and then nothing else happened. I think the CM got busy with other things, never got around to having the troop's first meeting, apparently none of the parents of the on-paper troop stepped forward to help him, several months passed, and I have always suspected that the CM's son, having gotten bored waiting, told his father he did not want to be a Boy Scout after all. And that was that. I think the DE arranged for the "troop" to be re-chartered for a second year in hopes that something might happen, but it never did. It was a real shame because none of those 6 boys ever became Boy Scouts - apparently they all eventually lost interest and did not look at other troops. (The one exception was always going to join the troop that his big brother was in, and he made Eagle in that troop, which is the same troop my son joined and of which I am still a committee member.)

I don't think any committee member needs to justify asking a question of the Scoutmaster at a committee meeting. It is part of the committee's function. I am advancement chair but I don't only talk or ask about advancement at committee meetings. This rankled our former CC, which is one of the many reasons why that person is the "former" CC. That does not mean that a committee member should sit there and fire question after question at the SM and take up the whole meeting. There has to be balance. I think WisconsinMomma understands that, which is why her item (d) includes "look for opportunities to ask."