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For need #1, I think i would ... Show them this video from scouts South Africa: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpMFkcSn5IM Say that We help youth grow up strong and good. We do that by instilling a vision of the pinnacle scouting experience: hiking and camping independently with your mates. Scouts who stick with it master skills that help them make the world a better place. Introduce them to my SPL. I already do the second and third step. I usually don't have a device with me to show the video. But, any scouter who does, should.

Has anyone used or considered using this official presentation? Up- or down- vote if you've used it and liked/disliked the results. Pick an emoji if you have an opinion without having actually used it.

Our CC has a troop handbook (mostly power-point print-out). It's not too detailed, but goes over some basics step-by-steps, who-does-what, key dates, etc .... He prefers to get new parents in the same room to go over it. He then asks one of the ASMs to drop in an fill in some of the blanks. @Treflienne, it sounds like you're doing one-on-one with prospective parents. (Even if they are in the same room, their diversity will make any given presentation feel like one-on-one.) That's a little different.

I've seen some of those Kentucky hollers. The "right" 4 miles could crush body and soul, even split over two days! By the way, backpacking in the snow is an awesome experience ... a bit of a head-game balancing what you need to keep warm and how light you have to go. But the sheer beauty is worth the price of admission.

6. Irritate crew as you and a committee member stop mid trail to discuss if you are looking at a tall beech or mutant hickory. (It was an English Hornbeam.)

@Tom243, welcome to the forums! There's a reason this is optional. Most boys would not be satisfied calling it "snow camping" without the snow. Even, up in Western PA, we can get years where our winter camps turn unseasonably warm. Keep planning monthly camp outs like you usually do. Toss in variety (maybe even an out-of-council klondike derby in parts north) and in the process you'll knock out one or more of the other 9b options. Who knows? You might wake up with a white blanket everywhere outside your tents on one of those days!

BTW: ours was not a backpacking troop, and water purification was foreign to us. I remember nighttime insertions where we would go back those hundreds of yards to shuttle the 20 gal army surplus water bottle! Next time, talk to the state park ranger about a primitive site removed from the cars. Grandpaw's still "wearing the patch." So, commit to sitting down with him to review each weekend you all go on. Just give him the good, the bad, and the ugly as you saw it. Most of SM's and Advisor's get a reputation for not being the easiest people to deal with. The more adults you deal with the more you'll understand why. It might seem like a nuisance, but in the long run all that talk might make you a team.

So, how far from your vehicles were you when you difficult leader started blowing smoke about the big tent? Honestly, growing up, our SM never parked the car within eyesight of the camp. Note: I said "car" -- singular because the other drivers dropped us off and picked us up at the end of the weekend. I think you need to bounce this off of Grandpaw, and have him tell it like it is to these adults. The result might not always go your way. But, if he lays out a standard of conduct, your odds of this errant adult falling in line are a little better.

Simple plan (one you can explain to the boys): choose each campsite twice as far from the cars as was chosen on the previous campout. By the end of spring, you'll be hiking in a quarter mile; summer, a mile or two; late fall, four to six miles. Boys grow fast! Call the rangers at most camps, they will be more than happy to set this up for you. Many have special sites set aside for folks to hike into. Others have trails or canoe treks between a sister camp. Three adults + three scouts. That, some rope, and some tarps ... and you're good to go. Give your adults full warning that they are to get in shape or find someone trustworthy who is. The "big tent" is to be the exception, not the rule. Don't worry, there'll still be plenty of opportunities for close quarters: camporees, webelos weekends, etc ... but your scouts will get the idea and maybe share it with a buddy or two, and hopefully by the end of the year they'll be a tight knit patrol and your difficult leader will worship the ground you walk on.

I see a lot of back-country backpacking trips in your future!

I think that's the point. If the majority of your campers are subsidized, best let everyone know. I bet the families who do pay tier A will be sent a targeted FOS letter. Not sure if it will work for them, but if it does you'll be seeing it in a council near you pretty soon.

It's good to hear of a patrol of older girls willing to give it a run!

From http://www.scoutinsignia.com/seabadge.htm No specifics about the Jambo patch, but logic would dictate that it should be centered above the Seabadge, which is above any interpreter strips, which are above the organization name.

@Jpalmer, welcome to the forums! I suspect the new troop should charter with a paper applications. Expect it to be a rough start. In such circumstances, having paper copies will come in handy. I think the link is the common CO that both troops will have. If anybody else has prepared a charter for a linked troop, it would be good to hear if there's a special check-box or paperwork for a linked troop. It's not that I doubt @John-in-KC's friend knows what's working in his council. But, it would be good to know if multiple councils have the same chartering process. I would not be surprised if national's soup-to-nuts instruction on how to charter a linked troop won't be in place until the end of next month. (Hoping I'm wrong.) How many older girls do you have who could get Eagle if they got an extension?

1. It's never the user's fault. 2. There are good programmers who understand computers, and then there are programmers who understand users. Most people hire the former when they need the latter! 3. It's really nice to have someplace where real people answer simple questions. Props to @TMSM and @Jameson76! I'd rather have my mileage vary a little from a stranger on the internet's advice than be completely clueless after an hour on an official website.

Definitely send the students home with that. And if that's how you talk, go right ahead quoting it repeatedly. But, if you're not Danish, or riveting, seriously consider your audience and do what needs to done to get in their heads. Be the meme they'll post to their friends. If you want it to be in large print, you have about two words for each point.

If I were to take your list, mix it with my experience, and boil it down ... It would be something like: Patrol pride, Skills mastery, and Brotherly love. You'll likely come up with something different, but a goal is to have a frame of two or three themes to hang your ideas from ... something you won't mind repeating throughout the course so much the boys will think you don't know how to say much else. You could leave them a list, but lists are hard. Frameworks are easy.

Welcome to the forums @Scout745! No it's not too late! But hurry up and apply! I can only speak for my contingent (NER4). There are just a few open slots left. http://wsj2019.us/apply/

This question is begged by @ianwilkins comment in Cub Scouts: Links to pictures are welcome ... as is speculation about when what started to appear where. Those who don't wear neckers? Well, I think we've heard your gripes elsewhere, but if you're feeling left out, please do type!

One more thought about Primus Classic (noticed while I was showing Mrs. Q how neatly it disassembled for cleaning -- the things we do to distract from Thanksgiving preparations): its stainless steel under-shield is reflective. I wouldn't necessarily pop the shield off its assembly for routine grooming, but it would make a great signal mirror in a pinch. On the other hand, taking a cue from @DuctTape's comment about fires from natural material, you may want to consider carrying a couple of spare signal mirrors to assemble into reflectors that channel air, focus heat, and support your pot.💡

Probably ... my reference is to Irving's "Rip Van-Winkle" ... the key feature being playing it in someplace carpeted with leaves with the valley wall as a backdrop.

Please, someone in the Hudson valley, send @ianwilkins an image of scouts playing a round of nine pins in the woods with the SM's sleeping on aging camp chairs in the background!

Of course, I review the weather two days before inserting into wilderness - especially with first-year scouts. There's a big difference, however, between making a no-go decision in the face maniacal gale-force winds and only "going out in the sunny days". The worst thing rain might do is inspire me to wrap my pack in a second tarp and change where I cross the creek. If I'm carrying a shelter any distance on a day certain to be sunny and night certain to be clear, it ain't gonna be a tent. I need to offset the weight of a backpacking telescope that would be perfect for clear nights on some meadow far from electric lights. I'm not even setting up the hammock unless there are two sawed off stumps at the right height. (Branches block stars.) A ground cloth and maybe mosquito netting beside the scope will do.

Now you're making me miss the Italian exchange student who was in our crew the year before last. She would say "I am not a Girl Scout. I am a scout!"

The SM is making that decision based on whatever is rattling around in his own head. ...The most the SM should do is say something like, "Boys, we got four patrols of 2-4 members. Have fun with that until you decide it would be more fun to temporarily reconfigure. Send someone to report to me any new way you decide to configure for the weekend." Nowadays, that's swimming against culture and bucking that attitude is tough (c.f. my other stories about Son #1's besties being assigned different patrols, or Son #2's fellow scouts outright bucking being divided). The only way I've come close to success is carving out my crew, pushing scouts to operate independently in that context, then in joint troop/crew maneuvers putting my foot down with the other adults and saying "Welcome to my house, now grab a coffee and read a book while your SPL behaves like one of my crew VPs." We are actually coming close to that with the troop's current PLC. Maybe it's because the crew's no longer there as a crutch, but I don't think so. I think we have a committee who "gets it" better than others have. Here are some examples of what makes PoR's different than jobs: In my troop growing up, the sole QM was a practical thing. The scout-house had one good place for storing canvas (i.e., the root cellar). So, PLs and APLs checked their gear in and out with him. If you turned in sloppy gear, he'd store it as long as it would fit according to whatever scheme he had, and he'd be sure you'd get the same gear next time. The nice QMs were the ones who'd chew your ear off and throw the gear back at you if it had one crease out of line. (That way you'd know what kind of gear you'd get next month.) Each patrol's room needed space for other important equipment (i.e., pool table, even larger air hockey table, ping-pong table, ...). The QM, by doing his job, made sure that our gear was safely stowed, thereby making room for us to have really fun round-robin tournaments. Same applied to the Librarian. For a while, I was "that guy" who yelled you up one side and down the other for turning in beat up pamphlets and old BL editions. But, the patrols knew exactly where to find those needed references to teach scout skills. (Remember: any teaching method that doesn't have "reference" as a key step is poppycock.) They were neatly tucked in shelves behind the air-hockey table ... alphabetical by year.