Jump to content

ParkMan

Members
  • Content Count

    2293
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    52

Everything posted by ParkMan

  1. As a district volunteer, I'd be floored if the council key three had an inkling of how Camporee planners were scoring events. The council key three should have significantly bigger fish to fry. In fact, I doubt our district key three know how Camporee events are scored. My recommendation is to ask some of the planners how they decided on the format. Explore it with them. Then, I'd recruit a couple of experienced troop adults to join the Camporee committee.
  2. What an awful disgrace from the adult organizers here. I would have some blunt feedback for the District Chair after this. The people organizing this Camporee need some better guidance going forward. One thing that particularly saddens me is that this kind of behavior always backfires. There are lots of Scouters out there who are apprehensive about the impact of girls entering the program. We've seen several instances of that in just this topic alone. It only serves to further feed that apprehension when nonsense like this occurs. Volunteers have to approach troops for girls and tro
  3. But that's not why the Scouts were chanting that. There's millions of facts that they could have chosen to chant. But they chose that one for a reason. Further, it's a divisive thing to do. In essence it's pitting the boys against the girls. As we are all Scouts, there's no real reason to do this.
  4. I suspect it will happen during the term on the next CSE. He had to make promises that there would not be co-ed Scouting. So, I doubt we'll see him go back on those promises.
  5. In the BSA Guide to Awards and Insignia: In short - technically the BSA rules prohibit modifications to uniform items - like the hat. So, technically no - you cannot cut a hole in it for a ponytail. Now, in practice - I see uniform modifications from time to time. You might get the odd look from time to time, but most Scouters wouldn't say a thing. Some would even say - "great idea".
  6. Just wanted to second this recommendation. Our pack has a small assortment of gear focused at pack cooking. Two Camp Chef stoves, a large gas powered griddle, several restuarant size pots, large cutting boards, large coolers, drink containers, a pretty good assortment of tools, etc. We've partitioned this into a small number of the plastic containers to make access easy - knives in one, utensils in another, etc. We purchased it over a few year period. We regualrly cook for 100 or so and it works really well. The pack buys all the food and organizes the meals. Because the equipme
  7. I think there are lots of models out there. For someone who's program is very Scout and patrol driven, I can see why this would be hard to believe. Yet, I think there are lots of high functioning programs where adults serve as "Coach" every one and again. I think of it as inflecting some adult guidance from time to time to broaden the Scout's horizons. I see that in our troop. Scouts in our troop know a big, high adventure summer trip is an option. They know that because the Scoutmaster shares his enthusiasm for big trips. "Boys, I think it would be fun to plan a week long trip this
  8. I think we're all reading too much into this. I cannot really draw any significant conclusions here until I know what the competitions were. For all I know, this competition had more to do with preparation and effort than it did Scout skills. If this had more to do with effort, preparation, and energy I'd probably be surprised if some troops for girls didn't do well. They are probably running very high on enthusiasm right now. I say this fully acknowledging that there are certainly adults who are very motivated to make sure the new troops for girls are ultimately successful. I
  9. I have to wonder though. As adults we tend to worry about things like political discussions. But, perhaps it's good for Scouts to share their political views with one another and learn that within a group of friends one some can wear Hope t-shirts and some MAGA hats. Isn't learning to work together as a patrol despite whatever their political views are an aspect of the patrol method?
  10. I thought @qwazse said it very well. I think you have to seperate instances where a Scout's actions have the effect of portraying Scouting in a political role from instances where the Scout is merely reflecting his personl beliefs at a Scouting function. I thought Qwazse's earlier point was spot on - the when Scouts are merely portraying their personal beliefs, the Scoutmaster needs to react when those personal beliefs begin causing issues within the Troop. In my part of the country, I see a different effect when people wear a MAGA hat. Here, in my area, there is a segment of the
  11. Same here. A CC of a local troop asked the DC to stop sending a certain UC to their unit.
  12. I went back and re-read the OP. Was struck that now the 10 year old daughter who was interested in attending with the mother could today join a Pack and be a Scout herself in a year or so.
  13. I fully expect that we'll find cases like yours where the information was beneficial and I'm sure even life saving. It's pretty much an indefensible argument to make that we should take the precaution to collect a healt from. But, there are lots of places I visit with some freqency where something could happen and a health information form would be useful - church, work, my children's school just to name a few. Yet, none of those ask me for a health form. In an era where we have limited adult volunteers and we're working hard to get parents engaged I just wonder if it's worth the effor
  14. Hi @PackALder, I agree with Thunderbird - the crossed over Scouts can participate, but participation is the call of the pack leadership. You could decide yes, you could decide no. Either answer is fine. I would add though that I would discourage you from spending a lot of effort to invite the newly crossed over Scouts to come back to pack events. Those Scouts have crossed over and it's good for them to focus on getting settled into the troop. We had a year where the pack had a few events that conflicted with events specifically for the New Scouts. Because Scouts were getting inv
  15. The more I read this topic, the more I'm coming to the same conclusion. I understand why we want to know if a Scout has asthma. For youth we really should know a lot more because of the simple fact that as leaders we are responsible for them while they are away from their family. We, as leaders, probably have limited knowledge about some very important health issues. if we relied on everyone to voluntarily share them, we'd get a wide vareity of information and may truely not be prepared to adequately supervise them. But, in the case of adults, there is realtively little we need to kno
  16. Hi @EastCst, Here's what I've found works for me. The person who makes the decision is the person most responsible for the decision. i.e., if it's a membership question - it's the membership chair. if it's a pack meeting question, it's the Cubmaster. I found people really appreciated it when you empowered them to make decisions that were relevant to what they do. When a minor decision came upin a committee meeting and there wasn't a clear person who was organizationally appropriate to decide, I'd generally throw if out for quick input: "hey folks, anyone have a recommendat
  17. Thanks @RichardB. I regreft that I didn't know about this. This looks like exactly what I was hoping would exist. I very much appreciate you highlighting this.
  18. I'd agree. The BSA really should ask a team of volunteers in their health and safety team to put togther a list of best practices for handling health & safety forms. It doesn't have to be onerous, but some basic guidance really should exist. I may be placing too fine a point on it, but most people who handle health forms are not "the BSA" in the form of national or council profressionals or volunteers. Most people who handle health forms are unit volunteers. Most of use have about 0 experience in how to handle them beyond common sense. Providing us as volunteers some guidance on
  19. That's what I'm thinking. Create a ceremony that doesn't include the NA references. You could even take a script from one of the existing ceremonies and rework it so that it's done in a way that doesn't make the NA references.
  20. I understand the directive to no longer have Native American references. Given how ridiculous the new script is, I'd be inclined to write my own. I'd follow the sprit of the rule, but not the letter. Has anyone with an OA ceremony team here tried writing their own script that does not use Native American references?
  21. @HashTagScouts Thank you - much appreciated. I do understand the history of how Scouting has worked for the LDS church. I am glad that the LDS church is now defining their own youth program. As they grow internationally, I think this is a good thing for them. I just thought this statement from the LDS leadership and the way that they will not charter Scouting units, not allow Scouting activities on their faciliaties, nor faciliate the seemless transition of youth to non LDS units is turning a pretty cold shoulder to Scouting. More broadly - just because it's no longer their youth prog
  22. It may be true that the youth that are members in the LDS church will be treated like any other Scout in the future. However, the LDS church is not acting like other church with respect to it's relationship with Scouting. It's not just how the LDS leadership permits Scouting to interact with it's members, but also how the LDS leadership acts towards Scouting that is important. If I read the above LDS statement and extract that restrictions they are placing, I see: The Church (including individual stakes, wards, or branches) will not be a sponsor for any newly formed packs or troop
  23. Hi @Cambridgeskip, Our scout group is just a young on at about 40 years. But, we've considered much the same. Even if it were just a quarterly newsletter or something I'm sure that folks would be interested in hearing what is going on in their former troop. I'm sad to report though that we've not yet pursued it either. For us, I think we just need a champion to get it going. One of those things that people think is a good idea for someone else to do I suppose! Here I would approach it in an invite system. Bascially we'd develop a master list of prior scouts, contact them th
  24. Maybe it's just me, but this policy sounds remarkably unfriendly to me. Other religious denomiations I know of seem to have no problem with fliers being up in the church and leaving it to local churches to decide if they want to sponsor a Scouting unit. Not sure I see the need to be so unfriendly to Scouting.
  25. Hi @Mom2Scout, I think that's just their interpretation. It seems like a more protective interpretation of the actual text. The text doesn't say anything about line of sight - just that they need to be present at the activity.
×
×
  • Create New...