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Let's just remove the double-speak. The rule is there to curtail BSA being drawn into civil action from your misconduct. BSA can say that they did everything in its power to train you, but you went rogue. They are running a gambit that this will placate a judge enough to find frivolous a plaintiff's request to include the organization among the defendants.

Just to be clear ... I never felt bad about uniform police. Given as obsessively as I inspected my scouts when I was an SPL, I could have been called one. No problem, it was usually my dimes or my time that got whatever award I would give to the PL with the sharpest looking boys. But, I would call them on the carpet when they misstated a rule. Like when someone dressed down my scout for not having a standard issue neckerchief slide. I said, "You might not like it, but it is in uniform, plus the knot he made with real rope is 10x more valuable then that stamped piece of metal that can't hold a yard of cloth together for more than one rugged boy-hour on a good day." Scouts have learned that I'll give them a straight answer when they ask about insignia. And if I don't know, I'll get back to them with an opinion and supporting literature. So, as we mature, we need to be less uniform police and more insignia dorks!

Welcome, and thanks in advance for all you'll do for the youth! If even a half-dozen parents buy in and provide muscle, it sounds like you have a plan. Scouts love to sell their old stuff. They also love to buy other scout's old stuff. There is paperwork. You should contact your district executive about filing a Unit Fundraising Application. It will cover the basic "do" and "do not" items.

Put simply, the most vulnerable of our citizens -- our nation's children -- do better on any metric when raised by both biological parents committed to serving each other and only each other sexually and materially in the same home. Everything else is a compromise because the world is a hard place where adults think of themselves first and bringing up children second. Given that so many have compromised the ideal child-rearing, we scouters have had to put up with some really abysmal adults for parents. That said ... we all have also seen some of these same adults manage to redeem themselves in one way or another. I know that you want to apply a categorical label. It's convenient. It makes everyone feel "safe." But it's a big world. And so much of it winds up at our doorstep in a really messed up fashion. This doc might be constantly approached by families who would rather send their children to old-country relatives than let them "suffer" the indignity of "impurity." The resulting harm caused by parental separation, or the severe mutilation, infection and death caused by private "home procedures", might weigh on his/her conscious far more. This person might be as bad as he/she sounds on paper. But, most likely, predator does not fit as conveniently as you wish it would. I have welcomed others who seemed vile in my opinion (parents who frequented strip joints, fooled around, heavy drinkers, with anger management issues), and my kids have survived -- and sometimes even learned good things -- from those adults. I have no qualms telling them that I don't trust them to lead a unit. Mrs. Q and I have told a couple that our kids won't be going to their parties on account of nobody watching where the beer is going. But I also have no problems sitting beside them and and watching their kids grow up strong and good. Why? Because I know whatever lousy examples they've been, and however they may have messed with their kids' heads on account of their own selfishness, they have no intention of doing the same things to my kids. Plus, for whatever reason, they are cool with me being me with their own precious ones in the deep woods. Also why? Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.

And I think permissive sexual ethics are a form of abuse. Hasn't changed my ability to welcome such "abusers" while promoting a restrictive sexual ethic. What if, it turns out, the spouse is no damn good? And this accused parent was stuck in a cultural vise? They both will stay "stuck" if you all can't bring them into your community and watch each other's kids race a wood block car down a track.

... and don't forget about applying clear repair patches for down sleeping bags. A leader showed me that this week. Mind=blown.

My advice: welcome him parent and child with open arms. There are some people who do things out of respect for their culture that we find reprehensible. Their kids still need to grow into loving and caring citizens. They need to abandon their old ways. Or, once legal proceedings have ended and they are free to discuss it, they will need to sit around the campfire and talk it through with people they've grown to trust. I dare you to be those people. Note: I'm not suggesting you ask the parent to be a den leader. I am suggesting that you probably have other parents whose behavior right now is far more harmful to their kids and their community.

You might get a better answer to your question on https://discussions.scouting.org/. It was rolled out this year to handle topics about scoutbook and internet advancement, but I think my.scouting questions are fair game too.

Paywall. If you have a short quote from the article, please cut-and-paste (like we did before Al Gore and I invented the internet). From one GS/USA council about SIGs ... https://www.gssjc.org/en/about-girl-scouts/join/special-interest-groups.html But, here's the deal (by way of example): backpacking is not a "special interest." Humans have been hauling essential rations and gear since before they could tame horses and dogs. GS/USA misses the point by saying, "Here's an interesting side show." Instead of "Here's where you can have a pinnacle scouting experience of hiking and camping with your mates." (Insert original footage of girls doing actually that a century ago.)

Whatever you decide (and I'm sure good suggestions will come from our various schools of hard knocks): include an inventory list with the title "this kit should contain .." and at the bottom "please inform ____ when this kit is used." The blank is for whoever is best qualified to be your pack's safety officer. That person inventories and restocks the kit after someone uses it, and if they don't hear from someone that the kit was use, checks it periodically. Also consider a "bug out" kit for traveling. Although every driver should have one in their vehicle, some activities might take you a ways from your cars.

So, influencers are the new profession overwhelming the Internet. Here's a story of a couple who funded their wedding through product placement: https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=759127302 Certainly Scouts UK has leveraged its volunteer influencers masterfully. Search #scoutjamboree or #wsj2019 and you'll quickly find months of videos of scouts talking months in advance about the run-up to Jamboree. A quick scan shows that some of them had been video logging for years. One of our former scouts had organized online video game nights for charity. Others now gratuitously promote their careers on social media. So far I have not seen them hawking other's products, but I don't follow Instagram or Twitter, so I could be missing a lot. Is one of your scouts an influencer?

In your position, you could: Lean in to the new position. UC two or three units. (There's no reason why a UC can visit a troop on their activities.) Fill your time with district/council activities. Sit on the committee of a ship or crew who might need one. The reason I suggest this is for networking. Ships and crews often plan activities that would be of interest to other scouts. Also, it is astounding how much venturers love doing Cub Scout games and crafts!

Resurrecting because, well, death. https://www.fda.gov/tobacco-products/products-ingredients-components/vaporizers-e-cigarettes-and-other-electronic-nicotine-delivery-systems-ends

Good point. My working assumption is that the device that took the pics in the 1st place is the local media. In fact, some devices have good organizing tools that auto-sync to the cloud. But I've found over time, syncing stops being as pretty as desired. And, @mrkstvns amplifies the point that things that help a group manage numbers of scouts don't necessarily ensure that information will be available to the scout at all ... let alone in a way the he/she can organize to his advantage.

From the school of hard knocks ... This ends badly. For the love of your SM ... Look around at your commissioner corps. If you are not the best available UC for this troop, have the person who is take that assignment so you may keep yourself registered as an MC. Take a UC assignment for another unit. If you are are the best UC for this troop, stay that way. For your personal growth, look to see if you can MC another unit. Then listen very carefully to what those unit leaders have to say about their UC. Adjust how you approach commissioning accordingly. It's kinda like when Sons #1 and #2 looked like they were serious about engineering. I told them to back-off their service-sector high school jobs and call a buddy who I knew was short on help renovating his apartments. Changing toilets and hauling tons of bricks isn't pretty, but I told them, "You need to learn about the kinds of poor engineering that people complain about when the engineer isn't in the room!" Being a good engineer UC means knowing how folks changing toilets and hauling bricks trying to manage their unit feel about engineers commissioners who set them up. And I'm sorry that people are this way, but they ain't going to fairly evaluate your job as a UC if you are also an MC. Because you're a nice guy, they may not even do it if you are just UC, but the odds are in your favor if you're only that.

Sure beats asking for Oreos! Best of luck in the coming year.

Oh, sure. Son #2 in his late teens started making notes on his iPod and using that in his meetings with counselors. (Thoroughly amusing when the IH held it up to the congregation after he gave the CO his report on the state of the crew!) But, based on his experience and observing many others ... The best APP that recognizes individual learning/organization styles is One thing about the handbook, now that I think of it, is that colors might overwhelm some scouts. If that seems to be the case with a scout, I'd suggest he/she print them from https://www.scouting.org/programs/scouts-bsa/advancement-and-awards/, and build a check-list from those. That does not seem to be the case for your scout, since he's made Life rank already. But, maybe those Eagle reqs on 8x10 paper with notes in the margin might help him focus. I don't often quote myself, but when I do, it's because the best digital APP that recognizes individual learning/organization styles is to: If the scout names those photos according to the Rank/MB and date in YYMMDD format, he can quickly sort through and see what he needs to update. He can move old photos to an archive. He can create folders for "Do Now", "Do Sometime", and "Done". Some cloud services do this via user-assigned labels. And the best thing ... he's not constrained by the way any other programmer thinks he should do things. He can also include that list of requirements that he downloaded. And notes that he's made for each MB. I've dealt with several ADD scouts at this level. The fewer "black boxes" that do their work for them translates into more control they have over tracking their own progress -- and less stress. Note: this can be time consuming. For example, your brain might think to lay things out MB A: Req #1, Req #2, etc ... theirs might order things most-to-least boring, most-to-least difficult, most-to-least scary etc ... I've dealt with parents driven batty by how their scout is ordering things, but when I've sat down and had the scout walk me through his thinking, it often made really good sense and we could build on whatever foundation he laid down to fill in gaps. To my knowledge nothing does this better than the scout rifling through his own blue cards by hand, and the scout-owned cloud-based solution is the second best. Oh, and we do this for Life scouts all the time. It's the most fun part about being an ASM. Every scout values things along the advancement trail differently. Learinng that gives you a window into where their next move in life might be.

@Johnapollo138, welcome to the forums! Don't frustrate your scout. Put that gear to use and take him and the rest of your family camping! When he's 11 he might want to be in Scouts BSA. But, he almost certainly wont if he feels like he has to do it. When boys are older, they realize that working with rowdy kids can be a labor of love. But when they are young it feels like too much bullying and peer pressure.

Did I say anything about asking for cash donations? Did I even call it a fundraiser? We're scouts, doing good turns without asking for anything in return. It's not as "freaking brilliant" as @Momleader, thinks. It's just what we do. To be fair to a council, I think we all should be conscientious about FoS. At our events, it is reasonable to have flyers or a poster about committed giving to the BSA. I always run into someone asking us how to do that anyway. It doesn't hurt to be prepared to explain that to them.

Your friends next move should be to hold the event for free. Announce that donations will be accepted for threads and sewing needles. I'm sure a few tens and twenties will also find their way into the donation box.

Forget the badge (for the moment). Your son is fixated on one single focused excersize program. His goal isn't throwing better, it's gaining mass so that he can throw better. He is ignoring that throwing ends at the wrist, but requires stability of every joint clear through his core down to the toes. He has a muscle tear in his knee. Sounds like he needs a sports medicine physical therapist. He also needs a little health literacy. It's likely that he didn't latch on to this regimen because it's the best way to achieve his goal. But because someone told him it was without telling him about contrasting viewpoints.

@Scoutmom1989, welcome to the forums and thanks for all you do for the youth. Have fun, make friends, and don't be disappointed about how little wood is actually harmed in the executing of this course.

Our SMs and ASMs keep lodge business out of the troop except to encourage the Chapter Representatives to fulfill their obligations. It's up to the CR to relay the vision of the lodge to the youth. Our adult arrowmen have enough work exhorting adults like me to put some muscle behind he lodge. @SteveMM, your son needs to be plain spoken (both to the SM and to over-zealous arrowmen) and reply "Sir, I have no intention to persue brotherhood this year." A shrug is insufficient communication. Learning to state your position clearly to these types of leaders is a good life lesson.

No worries, I'm an MC too because some registrar couldn't be bothered to catch up old records even when I turned in my 2003 certificate! WB? Wilderness? Ha! It ain't no orienteerinng club (if only)!

We're moving to yearly elections, so this should be simpler for me. Unfortunately, ILST remains an "optional" activities for my SM's. So, I slip a little into each PLC meeting and cracker-barrel. The obvious downside is that scouts receive scatter-shot instruction. The upside is that scouts who come on as leaders mid-year (usually to step in for an absent leader) get at least something. The personal upside for me is I'm forced to think about how to translate this to each troop activity, which has helped me be better at addressing leadership challenges on the fly. IMHO, in your situation, @RainShine, if your leaders from last term are still engaged, encourage them to join the ILST. Maybe they can help lead it with insights from "The School of Hard Knocks." This is basically what I did with my daughter and her crew VP when we delivered ILSC for the council VOA. They had been in office for a while, never got the training formally, but had attended other academic leadership training programs, and they were pretty good natural instructors. Teaching the course filled in some gaps for them.