nolesrule

One of the units I serve as UC does the council popcorn, but they also do the candy bars, christmas trees, restaurant nights, fun center nights and pancake breakfasts, as well as a dinner in which proceeds go to the CO's endowment fund for scouting.

The other unit does not participate in the council popcorn sale, but does christmas wreaths and spaghetti dinners.

The city they are in also donates to volunteer groups who provide trash duty during the city's annual "pow wow" celebration. Several scouting units take advantage.

Most council's are in desperate need of fundraisers. It makes sense to find something that will work. Popcorn may be expensive, but how many candy bars do you have to sell to equal one bag of popcorn?

What's the point of having monthly pack meetings if you don't give out the awards as they are earned.

Blue and Gold is supposed to be the pack's birthday party for scouting. When you hold back lots of awards and achievements just to give out at the B&G, you make the whole thing unnecessarily long with ceremony, which can end up boring the scouts (and their families) to tears, unless it is a smallish pack.

"With your thoughts, I believe the Blue/Gold event we are holding will be awarding those who have earned their rank specific award, and those who have not will, of course be awarded (if earned0 at the end of this school year."

A boy who earns the award should receive it at the very next pack meeting. Do not wait till the end of the school year. You do the scout a disservice.

I'm going to venture an assumption, and it may be unwarranted, that evmori's question was meant to ask if it had to be done as the last requirement before a board of review, or basically the scoutmaster's pre-BOR.

How do you fail a scoutmaster conference rank requirement?

Basementdweller, I may be a UC, but if that's how it went down, I'd be right there with ya.

When our DC tells us it's inspection time of year, we are told to schedule them with our units. But if a unit has no interest in holding a uniform inspection, we can't force the issue.

It's not our unit, and that's something every commissioner needs to remember.

As a UC for 2 troops and a pack, I aim for one physical visit each month, usually alternating between unit meetings and committee meetings. If there is something important that I need to go over (such as the mandatory youth protection training), I visit the very next committee meeting. All 3 units take the summer off, so no June-August for the pack and no July/August for the troops (they both meet until summer camp).

In between, I stay in contact with the unit leaders and committee chairs via email, and I make sure I am on all their email distribution lists so that I can keep up with what they are doing.

I have a standing invitation to the pack B&G and Pinewood Derby, and I try to attend those every year as long as I don't have a scheduling conflict. I attend as many CoHs for the troops as possible, which I also have a standing invitation to.

I have also been invited on overnight outings, but have never participated.

I would never show up anywhere uninvited.

Basementdweller wrote "I asked him to leave after he wanted to do a uniform inspection. Another scouter whose perceived power has gone to their head. "

According to the Commissioner annual plan materials, we are supposed to help units perform uniform inspections twice a year, which involves scheduling it ahead of time with unit leadership. That said, if the unit doesn't want to do it, we should not push the issue.

(This message has been edited by nolesrule)

They can wear their career arrows on a string around their necks. :-P

Any member of the uniform police who thinks you can't wear your Eagle medal at an Eagle Court of Honor should be subject to having his UP membership revoked.

"It sits in the middle of a vast protected Southwest Florida Water Management area, but funding for the Boy Scout camp itself barely squeaks through the Council's budget process every year because nobody seems to know that the camp is open again. "

It's in need of a PR campaign. I knew about the sale to SWFWMD, and the lease to the council, but no one ever talks about it. Thanks to the reminder, I'm going to suggest it to the 2 troops I am UC for. I know in the 5 years I've been their commissioner, neither has been there.

Forgot about McGregor Smith. Haven't been there in a long long time.

Sand Hill Scout Reservation is near Weeki Wachee,about 25 miles south of the Homosassa / Crystal River area. It's our council's primary camp, and I staffed there as a youth for summer camp, but honestly there's plenty else to do. Someone mentioned Rainbow River, there's good tubing if the water level is high enough (I haven't checked), and there's a few rivers good for some relaxing canoeing.

This information is from 1998. They are now extinct. :-P

I'm in agreement with basement and John. Simple, handwritten thank you card.

While it's thoughtful to give a thank you gift to a mentor (or two) who had a major impact along the way, I don't think giving gifts to those who helped on an Eagle Project is appropriate. Service to others is supposed to be about selfless giving (remember the story of the Unknown Scout who refused to accept a tip for his service), and that goes for the volunteers who assisted on the project. Doesn't an expected gift defeat the purpose?

Besides, a Scout is THRIFTY.

"What if we skipped Beavers and Bobwhites, and sang Eagles thru Antelopes? Would that not maintain Gilwell order? For that matter, we could skip something in the middle and still stay maintain the order. "

My course last year had 5 patrols...Bobwhite, Owl, Bear, Buffalo, Antelope. We maintained Wood Badge order throughout the course. We just skipped over the missing critters, although Beaver, Eagle and Fox were represented on staff.

BMI is just a height/weight ratio forumula.

I was definitely on the younger side when I put the project together. I don't remember my exact age (if my Eagle book wasn't in temp storage, I could check my time log for dates), but I know my mom or dad were chauffeuring me around town, which means I wasn't yet 15.

I have to admit that at the time I was honestly surprised that my project exceeded 100 hours. It's such a large number for a 13 or 14 year old to comprehend. But I learned a lot about the meaning of man-hours. I can tell you that I was put out of my comfort zone working on the project, especially in the planning stages and dealing with the adults. Heck, I even got a "no" for support on the project from one funeral director because he preferred the cardboard box stools (man, those things are tacky). In comparison, leading the execution stage was the easy part.

My project may have been small, but I was very proud of it. At the time, my exposure to other Eagle projects at the time was building picnic tables for churches. I wanted to do something that would have more personal impact, and it wasn't an idea that was handed to me by a 3rd party.

Had I been older, I'm sure I would have expanded on the idea a bit more (heck, 15 years later I still sometimes think about what I would have done differently or in addition), and it would have been really easy to hit 150 or 200 hours like Beavah said.

As it turned out, my family used the shiva benches once while I was still a scout and once again while I was in college, so it was personal.

I had asked to use them again when my grandfather passed away in 2007. Unfortunately, due to the way they were stored when not in use (wood and non-climate controlled outdoor storage don't mix well in Florida), they aren't around anymore, which saddens me.(This message has been edited by nolesrule)

"I doubt Maurice Drew-Jones would have too much trouble on a backpacking trip. (Although he's listed at 5'7" and 210#, all of his college stats show him as 5'6." Doubtful that he grew an inch after graduating college). "

More often than not, the "official" height and weight stats for professional athletes as listed on rosters are inflated.

Even the planning stages of a project usually involve more man-hours than just the scout.

My project was small. We built a dozen wood shiva benches (14-inch stools used by Jewish mourners) as an option to non-traditional yet more modern "cardboard box" stools that the local funeral homes had been providing. It totaled 120 man hours from inception to delivery. I know for my project I met with a committee at my synagogue multiple times as well as two funeral directors just in the planning stages. Those meetings are multiple man-hours, not just the scout's hours.

If scouts are properly accounting for all the man hours from start to finish, it's difficult for even the most basic project to not accumulate a significant number of hours.

Hehe Beavah. Yeah, I meant 8. Not sure why I typed 7. But one of my favorite mantras as a computer tech is that the biggest cause of most problems with a computer usually is between the chair and the keyboard. :-P

As I said before, I'm not saying hand him Eagle, I'm not even saying this should eventually end in a successful Eagle BOR, so I don't know why you would bring entitlement to Eagle or anything else into the discussion. Except of course that as long as he is a registered member of a BSA unit, I'm of the opinion that he is entitled to participation in the Advancement Method.

No Beavah, no tomahawks for you. I agree with you.

You told a good story, Beavah. Maybe taking Eagle off the table worked in that particular instance. But was Eagle really taken off the table? Or did the SM just tell the Scout that to see how he would respond, and then when he got the response he wanted over time, told the scout it was back on the table?

And is there really any difference between taking it off the table and then giving it back vs. pretending to take it off the table?

But I can guarantee you that it can also work the other way. Some people respond poorly to negative reinforcement, and it can have the opposite of the desired effect. You have to know the youth that you are dealing with and figure out which direction will work best for that particular scout.

If a scout isn't getting what he wants out of the program (and it doesn't necessarily have to have anything to do with advancement), you will eventually lose the scout prior to aging out.

And do me a favor, please don't quote the "Advancement is just 1 of the 7 methods" mantra to me like I'm some novice idiot. I know the 7 methods. You want to know something? I'll let you in on a little secret. Scouts generally don't know about the 7 methods and if they did, probably wouldn't care as long as they get what they want out of the program.

If you had asked me when I was a scout what methods scouting used meet the aims, I probably would have given you the youthful answer of camping (outdoors) and advancement, because those were the 2 things that are obvious. The others are a bit more subtle in comparison. It wasn't until later when I came back as a scouter that I really understood that there were 7 methods and how they all worked together.

By the same token, you need to be careful about driving someone away from scouting during an extremely vulnerable time in his life when it may have the most positive effect. There is the possibility to use this as a teaching opportunity with the scout, but he has to be around for that to happen.

If a carrot for keeping this scout around is the possibility of eventually having an Eagle Board of Review, you can't absolutely write that off, lest you lose him for good with no additional opportunity to make a positive impact. That's also a reason why a definite timeframe is in order.

And it is possible to be a good citizen overall and make a mistake. We have no idea if this was an isolated incident or a pattern, and we can't jump to a conclusion one way or another.

And please note I'm not just saying hand the kid the rank, so please don't misinterpret the above. I'm just saying it's not all black and white.

I've always been of the opinion that how one conducts oneself after making a mistake is more telling about their character than someone who has never made a mistake.

Seems to me that more than 8 patrols and the schedule probably starts to get unwieldy. Or it could just be tradition.

sensational

   /sɛnˈseɪʃənl/ Show Spelled[sen-sey-shuh-nl] Show IPA

adjective

1. producing or designed to produce a startling effect, strong reaction, intense interest, etc., esp. by exaggerated, superficial, or lurid elements: a sensational novel.

2. extraordinarily good; conspicuously excellent; phenomenal: a sensational quarterback.

I would guess the poster was using definition #1.