rkfrance

Hey Chuck. Welcome to the virtual roundtable. Please continue to come to our regular one too.

Rob

No you're not doing it wrong.

When in uniform, Cub Scouts and Scout leaders wearing the blue shoulder loops should use the Cub Scout 2 finger salute.

Are we blaming the youth for not giving more of themselves and/or their time or making them choose between school/band/etc and scouts?

The same could be asked about parents, volunteers, professionals and especially the National office.

If you've been around Scouting awhile, you have a certain expectation for an event, activity, program, etc.... When that event, activity, etc doesn't meet your anticipations, who's to blame?

If you have a program that's been promoted to be the "BIGGEST AND BEST THING YOU CAN DO THIS YEAR" type and the weather doesn't cooperate, who's to blame?

What if the program doesn't live up to the hype? Will you or your youth want to come to the next event?

As a parent, having to get Johnny from this activity to the next and have him say, "IT WAS BORING", who do you blame?

No matter what we do, it won't please everyone (especially in these forums). Sometimes it comes from high expectations and poor delivery. Too many times, there's a lack of quality program.

Should we demand more from event organizers or trainers? Should we demand volunteers give more time to the program? Should we demand more parent participation? Should we demand the professional staff work day and night to get everything done? Should we demand National just puts it all in a little box for us to "just add water" to make it work?

If we do our best to improve the quality of the program, either by feedback or better yet, direct participation and continue to make it better each time, isn't that good enough?

In the end, some will, some won't, SO WHAT!

For the average unit leader, is it worth it?

We've gone from a very simple form several years ago to the Centennial program to this. This is definitely not easier to understand or more user friendly.

We can't get leaders to come to roundtable. Now they're supposed to check out a webinar for the "new" quality program. It MUST be as convenient, easy and painless as possible.

This is going to take a lot of time to explain to people, who most of the time, wouldn't care about it to begin with.

For the commissioners and professionals, it will be a HUGE waste of time trying to get these same leaders to understand how this will benefit them, the unit and the youth.

Forgot to add, it will not have Centennial attached to the name.

This is the response I received from National a few months ago. September is almost done though.

2011 Quality program

That project has been going on since last August and is not complete yet. It is our intention to have the roll out of the new plan starting the first of September. I can tell you that it will be set criteria, not setting goals; there will be standard achievement and advanced (for those high octane units); and it will be due with the unit's charter renewal each year instead of at the end of the year. There will be separate criteria for Packs, Troops, Teams, Crews, Districts and Councils.

Things are still changing.

Don't know if this helps or is what you're looking for

http://www.mormonscouting.com/guidebooks.htm

I don't know of an official BSA LDS Commissioner publication. Most are by the church from the church's perspective.

Our district just did this last spring. The biggest change from previous camporees was NO SCORING. It was all about completing the course and activities while really trying to learn from it.

No one missed the cheesy prizes and all the scouts still had fun.

I recently got this note from our council training chair, who just got back from Philmont.

"National will be getting a new module for ScoutNet in 2011 called the Membership and Training Module from an outside vendor that promises to simplify everything for everybody. This will need to be in place and working prior to implementing required training."

We'll see....

Both youth and adult applications are changing and should be available soon (still not updated online). Once the new forms are out, throw out all old forms.

Yes the SM can, but should he do it by himself?

I'd recommend a sit down with the scout, his parents, SM, CC and several members of the committee. He needs a SM conference and a Board of Review. Get everyone on the same page. Establish some guidelines and a timeline for corrective action. Don't just cast him aside, with no chance of resuming his position.

Give the scouts the option then of new elections or allowing the SM and committee the option of having the ASPL assume the SPLs responsibilities, until such time that he can return to his position or regular elections would occur, which ever comes first.

There's a lot of related Cub camp info at http://www.twinvalleybsa.org/cubcamps/cub_directors_info.html

I don't have a reference other than the council reports I also get being a District Commissioner.

My name came up on the Training Not Completed report in the Pack Trainer position. I had to cross reference the training codes to find out why. The requirement missing was D69 - Trainer Development Conference. I took TDC several years ago but was never credited for it in my training file. I happen to be one that keeps my training cards and sent the council registrar a copy, along with my commissioner basic training and a couple of others that hadn't been credited. The next month, we had another trained Pack Trainer on one of the other reports.

You can reference this page which "recommends" TDC but does not say it's required http://old.scouting.org/cubscouts/resources/13-152.pdf

And to say one is "grandfathered" because they had a previous training does not keep you off the Training Not Completed file. Lots of issues with that, but that was already discussed in another thread.

Rob

Sorry, that should be Trainers' EDGE.

YPT, This Is Scouting, Pack Committee specific and TDC are the required trainings for Pack Trainer to be considered TRAINED. EDGE is encouraged but not required.

Among my many hats, I'm also a Pack Trainer and just had to get my records cleared up with council regarding this issue.

NO NO NO NO! Uniforms are NOT required for travel. They are a way to identify you and your scouts from others. You are still covered by insurance.

The bigger concern would be to have all appropriate paperwork in order.

In no particular order

Sports - the sport programs thru our local schools are now year-round. Training, practice, conditioning, assorted camps and the coaches prefer 1 sport athletes so they can be monitored closer with a lower chance of injury from another activity.

Schools - we can only get in one time per year to do any kind of boy talks. If the night in question also happens to be football or soccer practice or there's another school activity, that's too bad. The school administrators don't care. You had your chance.

Cost - a 50% increase in cost in one year. Our area is still being hit extremely hard in the economic sector. Some have been unemployed for over 2 years and are losing their benefits. No end in sight.

TAY - our TAY has been on a continuous decline over the last several years, mostly due to the job situation here. We still are maintaining a slight increase in % against TAY, but are falling behind in actual #'s.

Apathy - parent and participant apathy is frustrating. If you can get them to a recruitment event, they're more likely to sign up and attend a meeting or two. If those meetings aren't better than what's on TV that night, it's over. If you ask a parent to step up and become a leader, you'd better be wearing kevlar. How could they possibly help when they're soooooooooo busy already?

Program - BSA program continues to change for good or bad. Inconsistent information comes out of the national office and local councils are expected to enact the programs as best they can. Local programs fall into a rut and are afraid to try something different.

Training - leaders aren't attending training, roundtable or taking upon themselves to learn about their position.

Time - if it's not right now and I can't download it onto my Blackberry, I don't want it.

Bug, snakes, racoons, bears, the boogie man - it's almost like people are saying "I'll take my chances going to the park where we may have a random drive by shooting." As pointed out earlier, too many leaders and parents have no clue what to do in the woods or won't go more than 20' into the treeline.

Don't talk to strangers - we've conditioned our entire society to mistrust everyone. Watch out, that person's going to lure you in so he can steal your life savings. The media is quick to pounce on anything that might resemble a story, because they don't investigate anything, they wait for someone else to do it then tell the story over.

No that's not everything, but it is a variety of factors that have affected ours, and I'm sure many other areas as well.

Sorry, don't want to add gas to the fire but ...

The Training Not Completed report shows leaders by position with needed training codes. These codes are listed at http://scouting.org/filestore/training/pdf/trainingcoursesreport2010.pdf which has been changed recently from a 3 page document to a 7 page document.

I've posed the same questions about NLE and This Is Scouting. There's another glaring issue that pops up thru our council. Troop committee members previously considered Trained now appear on the report as needing to take WS10 WEB Troop Committee Challenge even though they have had the standard form of Troop Committee Challenge.

If this is the one of the biggest issues BSA is facing over the next couple of years, why is there such a lack of response at addressing these concerns for the volunteers and professionals that will have to deal with them?

Not sure when it's all supposed to happen, but all outdoor skills trainings are supposed to be combined into one format. No more Webelos Outdoor and Scoutmaster Outdoor as separate. This was then to include Venturing as part of the new training, all as one, good for all.

Don't know if it will affect BALOO training.

Sorry. Forgot to add...

It's more about character than camp, and I would recommend watching it more than once. Camp just happens to be the setting. But I still recommend it.

Anyone who's been to, going to, or works at camp should enjoy it.

We bought it months ago. Have watched it several times and really like it. Much more up to date than Follow Me Boys.

You'll probably see some Scouts you know. Not by face, but definitely by character.

We played it at our Christmas gathering for the troop. Kept them interested enough.

Different POV.

In an ideal world, there would be a nominating committee for prospects and you would receive support from your District Chair, District Commissioner and DE. Then there's reality. You get to recruit your team. Now the good news, you get to recruit YOUR team.

There are expectations from all sides. The ultimate purpose of a district or council is to support the units, leaders and youth within the district or council. The DE's are generally focused on increasing the numbers. The District Commissioner should be interested and focused on supporting the numbers. The District Chair / Committee should also be focused on supporting the numbers and the needs of the Commissioners to support the units. It sounds a little confusing, but it's all perspective.

If a District Commissioner isn't interested in supporting new units, he/she isn't doing his/her job.

I could go on for days on this particular subject and branch off in multiple directions, but I won't. There's info available if you know where to look. Check out the latest The Commissioner newsletter http://scouting.org/filestore/pdf/522-975_Spring2010.pdf .

Rob

District Commissioner

This will depend on your council and what policies they have in place for Cub Scout camping. Every council decides its own policies for situations like this based on guidelines from National. Check with your council office first.

According to the plan, this is a total make over for Cub Scouting with regard to how the den and Pack meetings are run. All leader position specific trainings will be online by May. New leader books and info are to be out at the same time. The program is supposed to be redesigned to follow on a path closer to the current FastTracks program. Also this will be the beginning of the revamp. It will likely need some tweeking.

But as with most things in Scouting, it will be up to the Packs and leaders to buy into the program and implement it. I presented the information to our District Committee several months ago and even the more experienced leaders were quite excited about the possibilities.

You can watch it at http://www.ktla.com/entertainment/roseparade/ part 8 about the 9 minute point.