pargolf44067

and I don't really care how it would affect the GSUSA...

My daughter has been in their program for 3 years now.... 1st year as a Brownie this year.... and I so far am impressed by the energy and creativity from their leaders, but I'm not so impressed with the program, what I've seen of it anyway

Totally agree.  My daughter was in Girl Scouts for her entire school career and her last group of leaders was great.  However, some troops she was in before we moved had NO outdoor trips.  My boys thought it was hilarious that my daughter went down to camp for a day and learned how to build fires with pretzel rods!   The overall program was not impressive in my opinion.  I thought BSA had some arcane rules and was iron fisted.  Nothing compared to GSUSA.  

I think having girls in would be good in general, however, as others mentioned there would be an adjustment period needed.  I don't know that my daughter would have benefited from being in Boy Scouts (and I know my sons would have hated it), but in general I think  what we provide to the boys is just as useful and important to girls as well.

That was very well done. Can't imagine ever seeing that here.

Kind of off topic, but there used to be a scout troop (adult leaders) that sold beer at FirstEnergy Stadium to raise money right by the section that I had season tickets in.  I always thought that was not really appropriate.  Guessing they didn't file the appropriate fundraising paperwork with council.     I haven't seen them in a couple of years, so maybe people caught wind and stopped them from doing it.

I recommend joining the mailing list for "Counselor's Compass".  It's an online document for Merit Badge Counselors that the BSA Advancement Committee puts out.

 

link to current issue

 

In this issue, you'll find another link to "Essentials of Merit Badge Counseling" power point.

Thanks @@KenD500.  I've been a merit badge counselor for 11 years and SM for over 7 and never knew about this publication.

Welcome to the forms Zachary!

First of all @@Stosh, major props to you for keeping your energy up while running a troop that is down to 2.  Good luck with your open house tomorrow.  I don't know that I would be as energized at this point.

As far as fight or flight, I have never personally been in a position to have to make that choice.  There are a lot of posts on this forum that would make me want to "take flight."  I agree with one of the previous posters on here, everyone has their own breaking point.  I have been lucky and have never been close to that point in any scout group I have been involved with.

However, there was a point where I was getting somewhat burned out and I felt that was impacting the program for the boys, which was why I stepped down as a SM a couple of years ago.  However, when the troop needed someone to step up and nobody with kids currently in the troop volunteered, I decided that I felt refreshed enough that I would step back in and am really enjoying myself now.

Welcome to the forum!

I am caution about adult Eagles. I have found they are usually no better or worse than any other active adult. Most of our best volunteers were never Eagles.

I guess I am just happy for any leaders that want to volunteer.  If someone is an Eagle then they know the program and (hopefully) understand what the process is.  Not saying all Eagles are great scout leaders, just saying that if someone who happened to be an Eagle and whose son joined my troop, I would certainly not make it difficult for them to join or make them feel unwelcome!

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

I was hoping for that too!

I have to say as Scoutmaster, I would give my right arm to have an Eagle Scout dad volunteer in my troop!  So that makes me wonder about the troop as well.  There are strong personalities in many groups and sometimes those strong personalities can hinder the development of that group, but sometimes those personalities can work together to provide great developmental opportunities.

The important thing is your sons.  If they are having a great time and they see that it is boy led, then give the troop a chance and do some of the things that Stosh said to help slowly build the relationship with the troop leadership.  I can understand your frustration though, because I wouldn't give up the past 13 years of scouting that I was involved with my boys, just the events we shared and the memories we made. 

Welcome to the forum!

We use Google for our website and it has it's advantages but I am getting frustrated with maintaining it.  It is frustrating when you try and do something and they have changed the way they have you do it.  We did a survey on our website a few months ago and it worked one way.  Everyone was able to get  into it without a problem.  I tried to do a survey last week and they changed the way you have to do the survey and I had issues with some of my parents being able to do it even after I changed it to share with the public.  People have an issue getting to the pictures sometimes and they have to come up with workarounds.  The main advantage is that it is free and we have used it for several years, so I am fairly comfortable with making changes (except when they change the way you make those changes).

I am debating whether or not to change to a hosting site like Scoutlander or SOAR and potentially paying.  I am afraid if we change and we have to have people use logins, we may get usage to drop.  Has anyone used both Google and another webhosting site to be able to give me a comparison of other sites vs Google?  Also, how much usage does your website get with the security on the website?  We also like to use our website as a recruiting tool where people can see the things we have done and the security kind of foils that ability, in my opinion.  Any thoughts on that as well?

Thanks!

For regular summer camp we only go about 7 miles away (believe it or not it is NOT our council camp) in part because it is close.  We have gone there for the last 15-16 years.  Part of the reason we like it is because it IS so close as we have had a hard time in the past getting people to be able to commit to a full week off, so we have parents/leaders that will trade mid-week.  It makes it easier to do that being so close.  It is also relatively cheap compared to other camps that I have seen the cost of.

We usually do a HA camp every summer as well and go to Philmont every third year (although we are missing next year because of a lack of interest  ).

One of our neighbor troops go there every year and really enjoy it (it is not our council camp).  Their boys really like the Pipestone tradition.

All three packs I was involved in over the years when my sons were in Cubs used to do the show and sell and sell individual bags for $1 so that people would feel that they were contributing something without getting raked over the coals.  Not sure if that was "legal" or not, but it certainly helped sell popcorn at the show and sells.   We only did that for the show and sells though and not door to door.

FYI, my boys have been out of Cubs for over eight years, so I am sure things have changed 

Jambo is $2800. The local council "package" was that high for world jambo. Can't roll your own trip.

No wonder you love your council so much  !

@ totally agree with that!  If you aren't willing to help others and do your part to help yourself, you shouldn't expect the help in return!

You'd think it would be parents not knowing the balance.

It's more the parents not realizing that we don't need that high of a balance.  We get new parents coming to committee mtg usually about the time we are collecting and paying out large amounts for summer camp.  So if they see 40 scouts going to summer camp at $500 a pop they think well we gotta have a LOT of money on hand to pay that bill. Of course we had already collected most all of the payments.

 

WE have 62 scouts but usually less than half can afford summer camp.

We have a flag fundraiser that brings in about $9k a year, which is about what we spend, give or take donations we receive on top of that, which can be $3-4k more. 

Scout fundraisers like popcorn sales the scouts can use that for registration and camp fees. [illegal scout accounts]

 

It's one of those committee run units that everyone moves and seconds and nothing gets done. 

We spent more on summer camp underwriting this summer than ever before, which makes me really happy. 

 

Unfortunately I've been fighting this battle for years, my oldest is 19, so all his years of boy scouts, and my youngest has a couple years left I'm not sure I can fight that much longer.

Waiting for the 'old bulls' to retire....

 

I've explained many times that it would be better for the troop to run out of money paying the way for boys to camp like crazy than it is to lose the boys for charging (or overcharging) for everything and we have $25k extra money but no scouts.

Like @ I see no inherent evil in having some balance.  $25k seems like a lot but if you have 62 scouts that might not be a totally crazy amount.  Where I have an issue is if half of your boys can't afford to go to summer camp and the old SM and his cronies won't help pay part of the way.  I think the boys should be paying for part of it on their own through fundraising or family but if there is quite a large balance that never gets used it is completely wrong on the committee's part.  It's amazing you still have 62 scouts if half of them can't do summer camp and you overcharge for other events.

At the risk of using a "Lazarus thread", I bought Volume I at the scout shop today (we had a good laugh at how volume II was going to be released in May but wasn't).  I wanted to pick it up before our annual planning meeting on Sunday.  Has anyone used these in the year since they have been released?  I was curious how these were compared to the old ones.  The boys will probably have to do a mix of both the old and the new for this year.

I hadn't really thought about it yet, but I guess that 1/1/16 is coming up quick.  I'll probably mention it to the PLC at our annual planning meeting in case there are things we need to put in our plan for the year ahead.  I'll mention it, as well, to our parents at one of our monthly parent meetings as well so they are aware of it.  I have a boy that crossed over this year that had a 2010 book that he got from a former scout, so I probably need to reinforce this a couple of times with my parents.

This will definitely be a great learning opportunity for our boy leaders to learn how to adjust and be flexible  !

We are having our meeting in a couple of weeks.  They boys have the list of monthly themes that are available and they will pick what themes they want to do.  Similar to @, our scout year runs September-August.  We already have September planned because it is a camporee on one of the Lake Erie islands that we had to make the reservations for in June.  They boys decided that they wanted to do that.  We have a Klondike that we do every year and Polar Bear that we do every year (although the boys don't have to, they always want to) and we have a Thanksgiving campout that we do.  However, if they boys want to change any of those they can.

On a side note, we went canoeing this past weekend.  Several of the boys that went are on the PLC.  They said to me as we were floating down the river, "This is so much fun.  I wish we could do this again next year."  I told them that it was their calendar, if they wanted to schedule a canoe camping trip they could.  They were surprised at that comment.  The last couple of years, our former SM was kind of planning things as the year went along.  There was input from a couple of boys, but not all of the boys.

I have a different take on this than the other posters.  The first question I thought of was who agreed to this project.  It sounds like this was the adults' idea not the scouts, and that may be a part of the struggle for volunteers (I may come back to the Eagle project later).

 

I often hear from adults in my troop either a) we need to do more service projects or b) here's a great opportunity for service you should get the scouts involved.  What I have to do as politely as possible is explain that just because you don't see them do it doesn't mean they're not doing service work --- almost certainly more than I did when I was a scout.  For instance, adults who don't camp with us every month don't see the scouts voluntarily join an ongoing project at whatever camp we're using or come up with their own project that makes a small improvement for the land owner or camp.  

 

Additionally, most of my scouts attend Catholic schools so they have a certain number of service hours they have to complete every year, plus more hours if they're being confirmed, plus most of their extra curricular activities, including sports teams, either are service work or in the case of the teams and clubs incorporate service work as part of their required activities.  There is also a tendency to overlook the various activities that are such a routine part of our calendar that we don't even see them any more as the work that they are.

 

When adults want the troop to get involved in a new project I don't say yes unless 1) they are willing to go to the PLC and get real buy in from them and 2) they are willing to be the adult mentor who helps the PLC make the project work; that mentoring includes making sure that they help the scouts do the nitty gritty work of getting personal commitments from both the right number of scouts and the right opinion leader scouts so that there is sufficient turnout to ensure success; standing up at a meeting and saying "next week we're all going to meet and do project X"  is not a formula for success.

 

My predecessor warned me that there are a lot of people who have a lot of good ideas about things I should do, experience has taught me to say no if the idea comes without a sufficient co-commitment to make it work.

Here's the deal.  The boys wanted to help the food bank with some organizing of their food pantry.  While we were there, the director of the food bank asked if we would take part in this large project that they had coming up in a couple of months.  The boys that were there said that we would be happy to help.  So, yes there was some adult nudging in the initial idea, however, the boys agreed that they would help when they heard what good the food bank did for their neighbors.

I get that people have a lot of different service committments to hit.  Like I said, I don't expect us to have a large turnout on Saturday.  It is a different meeting day and people are busy.  But when it is on the same day as our normal meeting it would be nice if people showed up.  It isn't like we have service projects weekly or even monthly.  I am really frustrated, however, when in one week you can have 15 boys and five or six registered leaders (not to mention parents) that show up to do a hike but only 7 and one leader (besides me) show up the very next week at the same time, that shows me what the priorities are, for both the scouts and the parents.

My first reaction is that delivering the bags sounds boring.  It also sounds like a project that is easy for a parent or scout to skip because they think that you probably don't need a lot of people.

 

We have a great turnout for service projects and our boys typically triple the service hours required for advancement.  The guys love it when they get to really do something as part of the older scouts' Eagle projects.  They enjoy working as a team and seeing the end result.  We do service projects on campouts where the boys work as a team with the older boys leading and where they get to see the finished product.  Add hammers, saws and drills and you've got a line of boys wanting to help.  The goal is to have them say, "that was hard work, but it was fun."

To be frank, it was kind of boring, and the volunteers running it were somewhat disorganized.  However, when we have an organization that we have helped before (our local food bank) that specifically asks us to help with something are we supposed to say, "I'm sorry, that sounds kind of boring for our scouts. So we won't help."?

And we also had issues with people showing up to help a kid with his Eagle Scout project as well (and that included hammers and saws and paint and all the fun stuff).  This young man had shown up at everyone else's project throughout his scouting career and he had an enormously hard time getting people to show up.  So it isn't just the boring service projects that we have issues with.

I agree that it is sad that we have to "incentivize" kids to show up although that does seem to help with some of your troops.  That may be something I bring up to the PLC.

Last night we had a service project that we did for our normal Monday meeting to deliver bags for food collection for our local food pantry.  We are going back out on Saturday to collect the (hopefully)filled bags. I was disappointed and a little frustrated with the turnout we had for this project, especially considering that it was on the same night as our normal meeting and it was out in the nice weather.  We only had about 7 kids show up for this and only one other registered leader besides me.  Thankfully, we had parents that were willing to stay to help out.  As a point of comparison, we had about 15 kids show up to do a hike the week before.  I know it is summer and I did have a few parents reach out and say that they couldn't make it because of conflicts, but most that didn't come didn't let me know.  I expected a low turnout for Saturday, since that is an addition to the calendar, so we'll see if the turnout is even lower then.

I am just curious to know if anyone else has issues with getting their scouts to service projects and any advice on getting higher turnout.

Qwazse, I note that Oldscout448 and AZMike and others who are not happy about this change are still welcome within scouting and I hope they can find a way to reconcile themselves within scouting the same way that others have done for decades under the restrictive rules. They are free to remain or go, their choice, but the last thing I would do is to invite them to leave if they don't like it (as so many others have done to me). I would like them to stay. But if they do decide to go, I respect their views and their decision. I wish them well either way.

@@packsaddle, I don't think Quasze was inviting them to leave.  He was just noting what the two of them had said in their posts.  I hope we don't lose good leaders but I am afraid we will.  I know there are a lot of people that have strong feelings on this, but as I said before, I am in this to help boys become leaders and help them grow.  I don't agree with what BSA does all the time, but if I am helping young boys become a young men and have fun while doing it, that is what matters to me.