Roadkill Patrol

Better council fee than what we have.  Ours just went up to $85 to match National dues.

Looking for thought on how to handle a situation we faced last year that we will likely encounter this year.  The summer camp we go to has a latrine/shower shared by two campsites.  Inside, there is a urinal, sink, mirror, toilet, & shower.  On the backside, there is a shower and toilet, each having their own door with no access to the inside main area.  There is a sign on front that can be changed to either Youth or Adult to identify who is currently inside the main part of the building.  Last year, our boy troop arrived after the female troop that was in the next campsite.  They placed their own signs on the building that stated females only inside, and males use the exterior shower and toilet.  The exterior shower is very small, with nowhere to put your clean clothes without getting wet.  We spoke with the female troop about setting up a schedule so that both troops could use the inside portion as there was also no hand-washing station on the outside.  They would not budge.  Camp commissioners could not get them to change either and the only fix was to bring in a portable foot-pump handwashing station for us to use, or travel 3 campsites away to use the nearest empty campsite facility.  We had twice the number of people that had to use the facilities.  I am suggesting that the camp have a set procedure that everyone must follow so one troop can't make up their own rules.  An easy one I see is adding to the signage that would include Adult Female, Adult Male, Youth Female, or Youth Male that can be changed on the outside so you know who is in there before entering.  Does anyone have any other thoughts?

10 minutes ago, scotteg83 said:

The program isn’t changing.  They still have to do all the same work as before. If they are between 16-18 when they join, they can ask for a 24 month extension to finish properly. 

 

Also, not sure what you mean by inaugural year, there will be no Female Eagles in 2019. 

Yup, my inaugural comment was off base.  However, I believe that continued to change the rules is not the way to go. 

5 minutes ago, Thunderbird said:

Does this exception apply to boys who are 16 years old in February regardless of when they joined?  Am I reading this correctly?

In statement #3, it states first time joiners.

So much for previous statements that the program would not change.  Now they change the rules to make sure there will be a female Eagle Scout in the inaugural year.  Where were the adjusted rules when they opened registration to homosexual scouts.  Those scouts did not get any benefit to being able to join and obtain their Eagle if they did not have enough time.

I agree. I think the whole "making Scouting more accessible to families" thing has been a euphemism for "making families' checkbooks more accessible to Scouting."  Hey, that's pretty good.  I thought of that myself.

You hit the nail on the head!

I am DYING for a reporter to ask Trump to tweet about this.

Donald Jr. already did.  Donald Trump Jr.â€

Donald Trump Jr. Retweeted Ken Dilanian

Also not sure how this is going to help families with boys and girls to participate at the same time except for Pack meetings.  The pack in our area have den meetings on all different nights, so unless the siblings are twins or in the same grade, they wouldn't have meetings on the same night anyway.  I assume some packs have all den meetings on the same night, but don't see it working in our area.

I assume you are being sarcastic.  I just saw a notice about an increase in council fees due with the recharter, on top of the national increase.

Yes it was sarcastic, they are desperate for money.  Could see it especially when they are now requiring all adults attending summer camp to be registered with the BSA and pay dues.  We had an event recently that required everyone to be registered with the BSA and I countered with the council program director that this has to include MB Counselors as they are registered members of the BSA but do not have to pay dues.  Loophole to the "must be registered" rule IMHO.

Since the BSA will be getting more registration dollars with this program, where is the push to cancel the membership rate increase we are all going to suffer this year?

As SM, I have refused completed blue cards issued by summer camp that I know and can verify were not completed. Namely, I had 2 scouts take the camping merit badge which were marked fully complete even though they did not have the 20 nights of camping under their belt. Basically we would inform the scouts of how many nights they had completed and hold the blue cards until they fulfilled the requirement. We would try to plan extra campouts to help them complete them faster.

I really like what you put together as it is very informative. Thanks for sharing it.

What I don't understand is that the Scout Executive for President Ford Council told us during this year's summer camp that the 2 camps in our council were the only 2 in Michigan that had both an increase in kids and were both profitable. So why not keep both open to Boy Scout Summer camp? Instead, they only make the northern camp a Cub Camp (while keeping the other southern Cub Camp open) which I doubt will see an increase in youth and profit without the Boy Scouts using it next year.

The issue with driving longer distances is that we had numerous troops that rotated leadership during camp week due to work schedules. This is going to be more difficult with longer drive times.

Luckily they could not sell our camp in Traverse City since it is owned by the Rotary and not the council. They did however not make it a boy scout summer camp next year, just a Cub camp. Grand Rapids, the other council we merged in to make our FSC, got both a Boy Scout summer camp and Cub camp. Then it made more sense when I saw the transitional board members and found our council had 1 member and Grand Rapids had 3.

Once the merger was proposed, I thought that there would be a new Michigan Crossroads Council shoulder patch and everyone in the mitten would be wearing it. Now I hear that each Field Service Council is going to have their own. That's a bummer for us in the north now have to wear the name of the council to the south, which didn't change much after the merger. The other 3 FSC's created new names for their legacy councils, ours was the only one that kept most of their identity. They went from Gerald R. Ford Council to President Gerald R. Ford Field Service Council. Actually they got tired of writing so much so now they are calling it the President Ford Council and even dropped the Field Service from their documents.

I think our FSC is the only one that kept the Scout Executive from one of the legacy councils and not hired an outsider that did not have an interest in any of the merging councils.

I am done venting for now.

The SPL and ASPL were neither appointed or voted in as it would have been a moot point having the troop vote for only 1 person who wanted to be SPL. Even if we said he was elected by the troop, therefore he can be Patrol Leader, they just came off of their stint as Patrol Leader and others need their shot at becoming Patrol Leader. And if an election is held for Patrol Leader and they didn't win, where would that leave their training?

I love eating pickles, but I hate being in one.

I spoke to my ASM and CC (previously SM) last night to come up with any ideas that we could offer the boys when they meet all together if they get stumped. I also spoke to the SPL during our SM conference for his Life rank last night about the direction we may take.

The idea we are leading to is keeping the SPL and ASPL in their positions for a 1 patrol troop. I know...not necessary. I told the SPL that if things stayed the same, there would not be much for him to manage as the PL would be doing most of the work. He could help guide the PL, but not trump the decisions the PL made as long as they were sound. We think this could work if we tweak the SPL and ASPL positions (let the PL lead his patrol) and focus their work to recruiting efforts, big event planning, skill instructions during troop meetings, and work closer with the adults in training the youth.

And yes, two small patrols did not work well for us as we barely had enough for 1 patrol when it came to outings. I think focusing their efforts to recruiting will help the troop in the long run.

Sentinel947,

The SPL and ASPL are both NYLT trained. They were each the outgoing patrol leaders for their patrols and began their term back in March. Now it is time to re-elect patrol leaders which we do every 6 months. That is my other issue is that by forming 1 patrol and "making" these boys the PL and APL, no one else in the patrols that were eager to be on the ballot get a chance. Until they finish the PL election, the APL's are stepping up to the plate to fill the role of PL.

I would really hate to see the SPL or ASPL get disgruntled over the issue that myself and the last SM (now committee chair) began when we requested they take NYLT so the troop could elect an SPL. The troop paid half of the course fee, but there was still the other half they paid for and the time they spent from their summer break.

I have been striving for a boy led program as much as possible. When I came aboard as ASM, the troop was 80% adult led (from leaders no longer there). I took Wood Badge and one of my goals was to turn the troop around to boy led. This is why I am trying to keep from telling them what they need to do. Maybe until I can get all 9 together, we will function for a week or 2 as we are with the APL's running their patrols and postpone the election until after the group discussion.

The other issue is getting the remaining 9 boys together at one time. With sports and band heavy until mid October, we have just over half attending troop meetings and outings. We may have to go with the makeup now, and hold elections once sports have let up and boys can actively participate.

They would like to have a larger troop and have tried recruiting with little success. Currently there are no Webelos that will be crossing over next February. Also, the schools in our area do not allow any groups to come in and do any kind of recruiting. Our DE has tried multiple times.

Sentinel947,

Sticky situation indeed. How do you tell a patrol "These 2 boys are now your PL and APL even though you didn't elect them" when they have always voted for their PL? I can't do it and at the same time say the troop is youth led.

I am looking for input on how to deal with the following situation.

We just had a two scouts become SPL and ASPL of our 2 patrols as they have recently completed NYLT and we did not have any NYLT trained youth before. Since these 2 are no longer in the patrols, one patrol has 6 and the other has 5 (had 6 but one just aged out). The patrols are currently working on their patrol leader elections. Even though we did not really need an SPL or ASPL for 2 patrols, we felt the boys deserved to put the skills they learned to use in managing 2 patrols.

Now, during the midst of patrol leader elections, one of our families just informed us they are moving out of state due to their parent's work. It would not normally be a problem losing a youth, however there were 4 boys from this family in the patrols (none of them were the SPL or ASPL). Now the patrols would be down to 4 and 3. In my opinion, these patrols sizes are way too small. The remaining boys prefer to form a new patrol of 7, but what do we do about an SPL and ASPL who would only have one patrol to lead and would be pointless?

One easy answer would be to make a new patrol of 9 and have the SPL and ASPL become the PL and APL, respectively. Normally the SPL is elected by the troop, so this option would not be a problem since the patrol leader is selected by the patrol members. However in our case, the SPL was not elected as out of the 2 youth that went through NYLT, one wanted to be ASPL and not SPL at this time, so it was basically down to one scout wanting to be SPL, therefore no voting was needed.3

Should the boys that are SPL and ASPL have their name on the ballot for patrol leader and then have the patrol vote? I would be dismayed if the 2 boys were not elected as patrol leader after we asked them to take a week of their summer and complete NYLT. And I would really hate to strip them of the titles they were recently awarded as they really wanted to be in those positions.

Should the SPL and ASPL remain in their positions and lead one patrol? Although not necessary, it could help them grow as leaders.

As the SM, I do plan to sit down during our troop meeting tonight with the SPL, ASPL, and committee chair to discuss what we should do. I thought if anyone has any other ideas on the forum, I could bring them to the meeting.

Thank you.

Roadkill

I was staffing Wood Badge this past weekend and did not hear of his passing until it was announced during the rocket launching session I was in charge of. We had a fitting dedication as we launched in his honor.

In our troop, your gift for registering is brand new book. We figure since we require them to use it, we are not going to create a barrier for them to get one on their own.

When the scout completes a requirement, they are responsible to bring their book to be signed off. It is also the scout's responsibility to bring their book to the advancement chair to have their signed off items entered into Troopmaster on a routine basis. This way if they lost their book, we have our records since they last had their items entered.

Each scout is told it is their responsibility (there's that word again) to keep their book in good condition, not to misplace it, and to make sure to bring it to meetings.

We had a scout transfer from Oregon recently who had been out of scouting for about 7 months. He said he was Tenderfoot rank and almost all 2nd and 1st Class requirements done. We asked if he had his book that had been signed off and he said that the troop kept track and didn't sign in the book. Our DE contacted both his troop and council and the most records we could get was that he earned Tenderfoot on xx/xx/xx. That was it, no partial records for completing any requirements for the next 2 ranks. Had the book been used for its partial purpose of record keeping, it would have saved him a lot of re-testing. The scout was made less responsible for his actions and made him rely on adults for his hard work.

You think that is ridiculous? Try this one out.

During the leader meeting when we got to summer camp last week we were told that Michigan is starting to require smoke detectors...yes, smoke detectors inside the tents. There was one campsite at our summer camp that had smoke detectors installed inside of the canvas wall tents. I could not find the requirement online when I got back from camp. Good grief, what next?

Lisabob:

The entire lower peninsula is now the Michigan Crossroads Council. This is the only 501©3 council recognized by National.

The lower peninsula is then split into 4 Field Service Councils. These are not stand-alone councils, but service areas so not everyone in Michigan has to converse with the main council office. Each one will have a Scout Executive.

Our Field Service Council is now President Gerald R. Ford Field Service Council, which was the formed Gerald R. Ford Council and Scenic Trails Council.

From the Web:

We have a new name! Michigan Crossroads Council!

Approved by our Transitional Board last week, the new name of our statewide legal entity will be known as the Michigan Crossroads Council, and with this final name our naming process is complete. The Michigan Crossroad Council is made up of four Field Service Councils which include:

President Gerald R. Ford Field Service Council will serve the Gerald R. Ford and Scenic Trails legacy councils.

Water & Woods FSC will serve the Tall Pine, Lake Huron Area, Blue Water and Chief Okemos legacy councils.

Southern Shores Field Service Council will serve the Southwest Michigan and Great Sauk Trail legacy councils.

Great Lakes Field Service Council will serve the Great Lakes legacy council.

Hope this helps to clear it up.

Yeah, I am also part of a council being dissolved because of the new Michigan council. New council name for the entire lower peninsula is now Michigan Crossroads Council. I think I will wear my old patch for as long as I can and just say I can't afford the new one.