Overtrained

I am serving on an upcoming wood badge course with a Sea Scout Leader participant. We give each participant a course t-shirt and hat. We ask the they wear the t-shirt or other scout t for activities during the course. The wood badge admin guide states a participant should wear their official scouting uniform signifying their Scouting position. For this Sea Scout leader that would mean the Sea Scout Whites, Tan or BDU. For those Sea Scouters, uniform experts and wood badgers - what would you suggest this sea scouter wear and what deviations would be aloud? i.e course short and hat.

We have offered the course a couple of times. I'm looking at the syllabus now and the sample one day agenda does go from 9 am to 5 pm with lunch.

Hmmm...makes me wonder how we did it in 6 hours.

I appreciate the comments and would like to ask a few questions:

Apache Bob - Tis the problem with any database, keeping it up to date. Had you been able to do that, what was beneficial to you as DC with ADMS? Could you download data from Scoutnet to ADMS or upload data to ADMS from Troopmaster/Packmaster for units that had it?

AvidSM - Each district in my council keeps their own MB list and counselors are registered through the district charter. Does your council list the counselors by merit badge and if they will only teach to their own troop? I noticed in another thread that this can be an issue with scoutnet. Also, could you tell me what size your district is? I'm thinking this might make a differance, but am not sure yet. My current district is the size of my previous council. Many things done at my previous council as a whole are done by the districts in my current council.

emb021 - "And having a separate district database may lead to the council database not being updated. Not a good idea. "

I agree if we're talking all the same data and procedures would need to be in place where the data is the same. That is why I'm curious if some of these can upload/download data into Scoutnet like troopmaster does for charters and advancements.

"Any district info should be an extract from what's in the council ScoutNet database."

I partially agree with this, but wonder if a district database can give a 1 page unit summary i.e. Membership, Camping, Advancement, FOS, Popcorn Sales, Trained Leaders, Roundtable Attendance, District Event attendance, OA, etc apposed to looking at a seperate report for each area listing all 80 units.

Plus Scoutnet doesn't list all of the items I listed. This begs me to restate my original premise of "information for information sake or if it really will be useful"

I'm still neutral on this with our database as it doesn't affect me much and many seem to like it. Keeping it up to date, at this point isn't a problem with 50 committee members but as people change who knows.

I appreciate your comments and insight and look forward to more.

A lot of districts collect data as it relates to merit badge counselor lists, roundtable attendance, training course registration, etc.

To have all this data available in one spot for commissioner's and committee members we have purchased some software to manage this. Not that we have it though I am curious to see if it will become information for information sake or if it really will be useful. So I have some questions.

To those districts that don't keep data, is there any particular reason?

To those districts that do keep data, what software do you use and how have you found it useful?

Thanks for your input!

Overtrained

Welcome Kathy

Overtrained

Dluders,

I'm sorry to hear about the request from "Council" to update or resubmit your records. I have been there, done that and solved that.

I won't tell you what I think you should do, because I don't know. Because of volunteer/professional dynamics of each council, each are managed differently and anything I might suggest may not work in your situation

As such, I will let you know how we solved this issue in the hopes that it might give some ideas for your situation. When I say we/us, I am only talking about my council and its team.

"Council" is all of us, not just those that receive a paycheck. We're all one team and work it that way. Per the "Leadership Training Committee Guide" each district training committee is responsible for training inventories and records. If there is a discrepancy between their records and those of scoutnet, they correct it.

Now there have been times when the district says the records were turned in and yet scoutnet still shows untrained. Often times we found that there are duplicate registrations of a person and this confuses the situation. We also find the person thinks they are trained for what they believe is their primary registered position, but it is actually their duplicate registration and not their primary. Technicalities, but important. Those don't matter to the scouter who believes the record is wrong. We have found usually about 70-80% of the time, there is no error. In those cases, we educate the scouter why it is what it is and work to solve the issue. Might be correcting some registration issues, I missed course not known about or an error. Doesn't mattter, it gets solved to everyone's satisfaction. I cant remember the last time we got a salaried scouter to solve the issue other than direct data entry into scoutnet.

There are some methods we've adopted to insure accuracy and customer satisfaction.

At various council events, like University of Scouting, we have an area where a scouter can check there record on scoutnet. If they find an error, it is corrected. "A scout is honest". That correction is sent to the District Tng committee for their notes. Anytime a district conducts training, they're attendance roster is emailed to each district training chair to obtain information on scouters that went to another district for training. The last one is many districts are using Automated District Management System (ADMS) designed by Troopmaster. At each roundtable and most any other district activities, they have the training list for each unit so leaders can check the accuracy there too.

As volunteers in training leadership positions, we are the customer service and the buck stops with us, not at scoutnet or the office.

Hope this helps.

Cordially yours,

Overtrained

Army 04

Scouting. Good For Life

There used to be the leather wood badge name badge holder, but it is no longer in supply. There is a set of plain leather name tags that can be bought through the Scout Shops in the craft section.

I know of one patrol that bought these after the course and put their totem on it and then glued the patch on the back as mentioned already.

Overtrained Beaver

I accidentally started another thread without realizing this one was here.

These are all great ideas and I've heard of some before. Keep them coming.

Another item our Chapter and then Lodge did was to have a sister troop. The idea was to have an election team of OA members from 1 troop to conduct the OA election for their sister troop and vice versa.

As it turned out, more youth paid attention at elections and took it more seriously because someone other than their troop members were conducting the elections. This also made sure that units held elections which increased the membership...which increased the fun at activities... etc etc.

If your council is too small for active chapters, the same ideas will work in a small lodge.

Good Luck!

I'm looking ideas for fancy ways to start campfire's. Things like a candle on a piece of wood with a string to pull it under some tinder. Things like that. Thanks for the help.

Well, after leaving this on the shelf for a while ( I know a loooong while) I am getting it going. I had some family issues that kept me away. But I'm back and the target date to go live is April 1, 2007. But I need your help to get there.

One of the items will be standardized outline for every course. This will list items like the purpose of the course, materials and resources needed, outcomes, etc. I have some from what my council has already done, but need others to give the site some depth when we start.

This is where you come in. I need your presentations to add to the site. The first part of this is by sending me a private message asking for a blank draft outline. The second part will be you returning the completed outline with any attachments that you use in your presentation ie PDF or Word handouts, Power Point Presentation, sound or video bites.

The second part is I am looking for Scouters interested in being on the website committee for this site. I have some scouters already, but I desire more from across the regions and not just my council. I am looking for trainers specifically. The committees purpose would be to insure material is appropriate and meets the guidelines to be on the site, to keep the site current, reply to visitor emails and in general to insure the sites existance. If your interested or just want to talk about it, send me a private message.

One day two of Wood Badge you played the "Wood Badge Game Show". One of the sections was on uniforming.

You could probably get a copy of the questions and develop more and do a game show of your own. Or make a new one using the questions and Gonzo1 and emb021 suggestions mentioned above. Be creative.

But remember, what is your Vision and how will all of this achieve that.

Good Luck!

I have never seen a general requirement that Youth Protection training has to be taken by any leader, as far as a national requirement. I make everyone in our unit take it and our church even uses the various trainings, to include youth videos, for training in our church.

It is suggested that every leader take it and to that end, some council board of directors have mandated it in one form or another with a tenure requirement. Most I have heard of made a two year requirement so it would coincide with other items like Climbing Tower Certification that have a two year certification. This could be the situation in your council.

Although national doesnt require it, they dont allow us to ignore it either by making the following requirements:

1. Item 2 of National Quality Unit Award requires two deep leadership where One registered adult is assigned responsibility for Youth Protection training (note it doesnt say they have to be trained)

2. Local/National Tour permit states the following:

a. All registered adults participating in any nationally conducted event or activity must have completed the BSA youth protection training.

b. At least on registered adult who has completed BSA Youth Protection training must be present at all other events and activities that require a tour permit.

3. National High Adventure Bases require the training within one year of your activity start date and they want proof.

This is the best I could ascertain from having participated as an instructor in the first trainings ever offered, my Safe Guide to Scouting, Council Health and Safety Guide,Camp Staff Youth Protection Training Manual, Tour Permits and National High Adventure applications.

WDL Mom - Lot of great comments from good scouters. You asked about the pack trainer position. This can vary a little by council and district, but basically from my experiance you might want to help the district training team for a couple ( and let them know this) of trainings to see from the trainer side how it is done. Perhaps attend Trainer Developement Training (TDC) and then get a copy of the Cub Scout Leader Specific Training manual. The job just entails mentoring and nurturing new leaders to get trained, whether it is by the Pack Trainer directing them to scheduled training or by the Pack trainer doing it themselves. After they had a little experiance and are trained, do sensing session to see how they can tweak their skills by reviewing the training. Most scout training is like drinking water from a fire hose - you get a lot of good stuff real fast, but just can't absorb it all.

I have 3 hats right now. I think I'll start a business that makes hats with 2,3,and more bills with my position patches above each one.

I don't have a uniform guide handy to say that it is/isn't allowed. I did look quickly on line for the supply catalog under boy scout uniforms and it was listed on the boy's uniform options.

CONGRATULATIONS! As a current ticket counselor, I know what you went through. You asked about thoughts. When you call the boys up, perhaps discussing the theme of your course and how it reminded you of them. Most themes do. Have fun!

I used to be a Beaver

There are a lot of books, obviously. Since you mentioned about planning your program I think you will be best served by the Troop Program Features books (3 of them) and the Troop Program Resources.

As to your charts, I have seen units that make a stand, like a pole in a flag stand. They then have a line between two of them that they hang the charts up with clothes pins.

Good Luck

It can very by what type of council the DE is in and the type of support there is, but here is a small list:

1. Working with school principals for access, boy talks, statistics.

2. Working with community clubs: Kiwanis, Optimist Etc as a member and for financial requests.

3. Working with church leaders to start units and solidy existing ones

4. Securing distribution sites for popcorn

5. Maintaining camp property

6. Meeting with district leaders

7. Meeting with Golf outing committee and related tasks

8. Meeting with various council committee chairs for planning.

9. Training on upcoming national initiatives

10. Starting that home schooling unit

11. recruiting/hiring summer camp staff

This is just a few. Again it can very depending on size of the council and the support staff available. Not to mention all the evening meetings they have with their units and district and council responisbilities. When I was a DE I had 120 nightly meetings I could go to ( and had to at least once a year) and 10 evening meetings to attend monthly. Add in district and council weekend events, area/region/national events and running summer camp for 9 weeks.

I haven't replied to this since February, but thought you deserved an update.

Like most scouters, September and October are busy months. After my University of Scouting is done on October 30th, I will start the process of gathering and posting training syllabi and what guidelines there will be. I have communicated with a couple of web sites and will narrow it down shortly.

This is my doctoral project for the University of Scouting.

Hi Bob,

The date must be getting near for your event. My council's is October 30th

Info can be found at www.indianhead.org/uos. Where can I find info on your event?

Dancinfox,

I am a troop guide for our course this year, but have not gone through the new course. We have several cub scouters who have and are on staff. This topic did come up in our staff development and they said they did not feel alienated at all. They did sight that when giving examples that using real world stuff ie family situations, sports teams, work and not always using a troop scenario did help.

Food for thought

Overtrained

It has been many moons since I taught camp schools. What I remember of Aquatics Director was that it was an intense waterfront experiance (as it should be). Hopefully the water is warm. They will give you several large binders of materials, so depending how your travelling, be prepared for this.

It is a fun time. You'll meet scouters from all over. Some of the sessions will be shared with the other school participants.

Congratulations by the way. It is quiet an honor IMHO.

Overtrained

Hi Bob,

See my private email to you about our councils previous classes that I can send you. I have perused a lot of other web sites for ideas. Here is my councils, http://www.indianhead.org/training/supplemental/uos/

Like I said though, no classes listed yet. One's I have seen that scouters like are from authors of books we use. We have a couple in our area that come to our events.

" While Scouters here may quote you rules on ownership, this varies greatly from state to state. In the state where we are from a troop is considered the legal owner if its registered to them as our trailers are. "

NLDScout - there is no variance by state. Per the units charter (registration) it is own and operated by the charter organization. All of its equipment is owned by the charter organization. This is in the rules and regulations the unit leaders agreed to abide by when signing their registration form.

Do trailers get registered other ways? Yes, but it is not within the rules of the BSA.

Dan,

It was around 1983. If I dig deep enough, I probable still have the notes on that.