Scoutfish

As a New CubMaster this year, I can offer one piece of advice. And honestly, this piece of advice might not even be somthing you should "technically" handle, but as CC,,,it's still within your area of operations. As a new CubMsaster, I found out that our camping program was ...to be kind..lacking. At least on the council camp side of tings. Our previous CM and other previous leaders ( most have crossed over by now) just didn't do much on the council side. They stuck to pack stuff. It wasn't so much they were against council camps or oppertunities, but that they followed what the previous set of leadership, CC and CM did. So I am still in the process of making every oppertunity known to our leaders and parents too. They may not be interested, may not care or may not participate, but they will know about it. At leadership meetings, I bring up every fun day, every event, every oppertunity that our council or other councils offer. Used to be when I started within this pack 3 years ago that nobody did anything. At least half of them just werent aware of the oppertunities. Well, I'll put it tis way: I managed to get our participation numbers up enough that the DE asked me to be the Camp Promotions chair for the district.

Bucket and plunger? WOW! That's high tech! The plunger I mean. We ( my family on camping trips long, long ago) used to just fill a bucket half full of soap and water and put the lid on then shake the bucket. Plunger...Not a bad idea!

Same thing here. They sell bottled sodas at the trading post and that's it. No vending machines anywhere. They have water coolers..well, the 5 gallon igloo cooler with the keg spout on it - at archery, BB gun, Tom Sawyer rafts, and fitness trails and stations. There are water fountains in the admin bldg, dining hall, and camp office as well as the trading post. But the only sodas you will drink are the bottles you buy from the trading post or what you bring with you when you pack. But the thing is this: Just because the trading post sells soda...it doesn't mean the kids will dribnk nothing but that soda 100 percent of the time. If they do, they have DEEP wallets and they do it while at home, at school , while shopping in town or any chance they have to go to a store. Not sure why some people only see things in absolutes. Having soda at camp trading post does not mean it's a requirement to drink them no more than you are required to buy any other trinkit or moment or even a t shirt. Most of the scouts I saw were drinking either water or Gator-Aid which is nothing more than glorified Kool-Aid.

From Scouting Magazine...summer jobs. Now, I wouldn't go and quit my job just yet, but if you are a young scouter around the 18 to 22 year old range, this is a great oppertunity. Help Wanted Attention, Scouts and leaders 18 or older: Super summer jobs await you at the BSAs three high-adventure bases. Heres how to apply: Florida National High Adventure Sea Base Summer hires: 150 Pay: $900 per month and upmore for specialty positions. Includes room and board. Positions: program, retail, and food-service staff. Specialized positions such as scuba instructors and boat captains require prior certification. Contact: P. O. Box 1906, Islamorada, FL 33036; 305-664-5612,bsaseabase.org. Northern Tier National High Adventure Bases Summer hires: 200 Pay: varies by position; firstyear staffers generally make $936.79 a month, plus room and board. Positions: canoe-trip leaders and outfitting staff. Contact: P. O. Box 509, Ely, MN 55731-0509; 218-365-4811,info@ntier.org. Philmont Scout Ranch Summer hires: 1,000 Pay: $950 a month, plus room and board. Positions: trek rangers, backcountry interpreters, and craft counselors. Contact: 17 Deer Run Road, Cimarron, NM 87714; 575-376-2281,philstaff@philmontscoutranch.org.

Scoutbox. "Temporary insignia, including one current world Scout jamboree patch, centered on pocket. Only one temporary insignia may be worn at a time, and they are not required for correct uniforming . Cub Scout leaders and female leaders wearing the ofcial uniform shirt or blouse may wear one temporary insignia centered above the Boy Scouts of America strip." The situationmay be that, in the district circle, the person you see doing tis may hold more than one position. I see Cub Scout Leaders who also teach certain things or lead certain events on the troop level. They might change their shoulder loops to the current groups color, but the rest of their uniform still is Cub Scouts. Seen a few do this at RT and other council events. Seen some Troop leadership switch to blue tabs while helping out with Cubs at Tigeramas.

I AM a mythbuster...I have the scars and bruises to prove it!

Two things I want to say: 1) If National wants to push a Heathy Initiative..cool- as long as iyt starts at the top. I fairly heathy. Not gonna compete in the olympics, but won't have a heart attack walking to my mailbox either. But I don't want some 350 pound overweight slob talking about being heathy when the only exercise he has is countring the $$$ in his account. The guys at the top do it too..then I'm cool with it! 2) Our trading post sells soda. Not a big variety either. I think it was only coke products, and only Coke and Diet Coke, and Hawaiian Tropic at that. Really sucked as I am a MtDew dreinker myself. So at the weekend campout, moms and dads and various pack leadres cooked food, brought snacks and for the most part, kept their kids full of water, milk and healthy juices. Same for the adults: waters, teas, coffees and such. So when we had time to kill, we hike over to the trading post to see what kind of souveniers/momenos/junk they had for sale. Bought a t-shirt, a bumper sticker and my son had a CowTail and Hawaiian Tropic drink. Now, that one drink (which isn't even a carbonated soda) and cowtail didn't cause my son's health to suddenly plummet, and wasn't any worse than what he might eat drink anywhere else. But considering that he ran and played his but off and did all kinds of running around, hiking , climbing , etc...that weekend, and figuring the amount of calories used up...not to mention all the water he drank above his normal consumption - well, I think he came out ahead . As other said, the trading post has to make a profit in order to stay open. Scouts do not flock to the shop to buy cream of spinnach ice pops or sparkling water milkshakes. Besides, I think it's more of the scouts and parents/leaders responciblity to teach a kid to refrain than the guy/gal behind the counter. We want to promote healthy diets that much, we'd have to drop all popcorn sales.

I'll echo what John and Blanc have said - and this is what I heard fromour concil camp director: A camp may not weaken BSA standards, but they can strengthen them. Case in point: Parents with scouts. Depending on the program being offered, the number of people attending and the time of year, you could have 15 Webelos with an appropriate number of adults and leadership without a single parent being there. Not likely, but plausible. But they may decide that each Webelos has to have at least one parent or legal guardian to attend the cam. Again, not likely, but plausible. But that would be my council camp's standards, not yours. If it's a district event, they may decide to go tougher. Depends on the amount of leadership and staff available.

I've seen it myself. Council or District announces an upcoming training or a minumum requirement to do/ lead something and a few people stand up, balk and somehow are personally offended that they have to take "X" training or class because they are : Eagleand ahve done it once already way back when, they have been a leader for over ( amount not to be under 15 years here)years, or they are a regular outdoorsman who camps way more than the pack/ troop ever does , so therefore, they automatically know more, and last but not least...they are a CM or SWM so terefore they are obviously at the top of the "people who know everything" list. BSA, you called Scoutnut out for not having proof: So where is your proof? What evidence do you have that substanciates what you claim? WEll of course you don't have any other than to say that - that ia what you have experienced. Some for Basement, Scoutnut and myself. Am I an Eagle? NOPE! Wasn't even a Cub Scout or Boy Scout as a youth. But I did work my way from beimng just a parent, to a volunteer parent, to being in leadership to being CubMaster of my pack. OIn that time, I have seen leaders who were just parents who stepped up when needed , become some of the best scouters. They took classes in things they thought they already knew just for the fact that some things change, some things are dropped, some things are improved upon and something are found to be wrong or un-necessary. On the other hand, I have seen leaders who were both Eagle and WB who couldn't light a fire with a gallon of gas and 20 Bic lighters because..well simply put, their egos were so big and their attitudes were so arrogany, they could not/ would not ever see themselves needing any more training or more advanced training specific to what they were doing. They also were too bling in their own self importance to recognize that they had forgotten some things or could make mistakes. Not all of them, just some. Same thing that the two other guys who are Eagles and have taken WB pointed out to you.

Basement, How about some milder winters, slight more humid summers and living in a Council where - If you say you want to help with something...all the DE's start smiling so hard, you couldn't take that smile away with plastic surgery! If you offer to help out, they will take you up on that offer to the point you might regret being in scouts!

Yeah, same thing here: At leaders meetings, it's all the DL's the ACM and committee members. We all know each other. We arew all friends.We all know each other's job and position. We usually only meet ffoman hour to an hour and a half a month. But we see each other every week during scouting time, and in uniform. When I have a scheduled meeting with the DE or others at the scout shop/office..I wear my unifrom.

Around these here parts.... We have a combination of both Basements and Vol_Scouters situation: The incorporated citys have higher tax rates and also higher services expenditures.You pay both County AND city property taxes on your homes, vehicles and real property. But yo also have city owned/ federally subsidized low income housing and rent controlled apartments and such. You either live in the contry club fancy neighbor hoods, the middle range, or in the downtown (closer to state ports, industrial areas) and less affluent areas. But then you have tye county areas. These places are in the county, don't have the higher tax rates and costly infratructure, but you also have old wells, septic tanks made of block and tar, and terra cotta pipe from homes built over 60 years ago. Seeing 3 or 4 rusted out cars in the back or front yard is so common, they don't cause anybody to notivce them. Go around a bend in the hiway,and suddenly you see a mile long brick fence with integrated planter on top. The break in the fence in a wrought iron steel fence operated by remote control that leads to a25 acre estate that either butts up omn a river or the intracoastal waterway. 3 BMW's and a Mercedes in the driveway. Another mile up the road is a crack house, then the next mile reveals a gates community of $5 million dollar/30,000 sq ft houses that are seperated by only 10 feet of the most expensive sod that can be bought. Of course, the homeowner never sees the sod anyways because the HOA handles all maint and lawn services. Point being, poor or rich do not have a particular type of area they live in.Some live in the city because they cannot afford to own a yard. Some live in the country because they inheirited their family land and cannot afford to live in the city or small towns.

Our leadership meetings are open to anybody who wants to OBSERVE, but 99.99999999999% of the time, only the leaders are there. We aren't trying to impress each other. To be honest, those particular meets are pretty casual. Wearing a polo shirt might even be considered the same as showing up in a tux.

Here's my deliema: When and when not to wear it. Okay, Obviously, as a CubMaster, I wear it to all pack meetings. I also wear it to all den nights ( all our dens meet at the CO at the same time)even though I am not actively in front of all the scouts all the time. Might answer a question or two and I greet all the scout when they arrive and see them off after the meetings. Anytime we have an event, IE: B&G, PWD, Crossover and AOL ceremonies, camps,etc..... I also wear it to round tables,Pow Wows, and any other distric/ coucil trainings. But I don't wear it to leadership(only) meetings. Neither do any of the other leaders. I don't make special plans to wear it to the scout shop either. But the other night, I wore it to my camp promotions training even though it was only thre DE, Boy Scout camp promotions chair and myself. Totally informal,didn't want to wear it, but wore it anyways. Wish I hadn't because the other two didn't. At our Christmas dinner, I didn't wear it, but really wished I had for the entire duration of the dinner even though none of the other leadership wore theirs. I wanted to be more festive and dressy ( in a casual way) but was miserable about that one thing the whole time. So what factors do you use to decide wether certain circumstances warrant wearing or not wearing your uniform?

Well, there will be day camps as well as summer wet days, family weeks, pack camping, and many other events too. I was just lising the bigger events. My biggest point was that I am only promoting the Cub Scout camp and not the seperate Boy Scout camp. And that I am mostly a pre event announcer snd sign up getter. I can tell the camp director what people say about this or that, but I will not actually be on a committee or participate in planning meetings.

Well.....I suppose that if the karate instructor was ever approached by a group of thugs in the street while wearing regular clothes, and was attacked, he either has to: 1)Endure a publicly humiliating beating or 2) Call a time out, and run how to change, then at which point, her returns to where the thugs are, calls "Game on" then defends himself!

OOOOPS! I somehow took Clems being a TDL in the first responce and merged it with the OP. Still, as I have repeatedly stressed, it's not the beads themselves that make me raise an eyebrow. It the fact that a leader for a program about boys, for boys, and designed around a boy's mentality...decided ( based on his owm personal likes and dislikes) that they got enough stuff alreagy. Really? He decided that a big portion of the advancement part of the Cub Scout Program that spans 3 ranks isn't really a big deal because they get enough stuff already. Well, I hope that in his job as a BSA volunteer or in his regular career, that his boss only recognizes a certain amount of good work and progress. After that, the boss decides he's already considered enough stuff and recognized it already. Same thing for soliciting $$$ through opopcorn: What if a person who always bought some just up and decided that the pack has enough money because they sold enough to others and didn't need any more. Personally, I'd use the immediate recognition beads and incorporate any hiking, camping, or whatever else into earning the IMMDEIATE recognition beads. I'm just simply saying this: If he refuses to use the IR beads...when and where else we he decide something is just useless fluff? And again, not saying there is a garantee that he's gonna start changing everything around...but I would keep an eye open for it and be ready to step in with some preventative measures.

Right back at you , fellow scouter!

So I had my "training" the other night after a second cancelation. It was a meeting actually between myself, the Boy Scout Camp Promotions chair, and our DE. So here is what I am going to do: At roundtables, I am supposed to tell all the other pack representatives about how great the camp is. Then I am supposed to get each pack to be on a team or at least appoint a designated go to person to let me know how many people want to sign up for camps. If they want to reserve a certain section or field , and which weekends of our: 3 resident camp weekends, our 3 weekends of Webelorees and our 3 weekends of parent/son weekends. They are actually called sessions instead of weekends, but that confuses alot of folks into thinking that the 3 seperate weekends are actually a continuation of the previous one. So I am going to call them weekends. Incidentally, the camp is actually two seperate camps on one property, or I suppose you could call them two seperate camps that share a border on one side . Camp McNeill Cub Scout World is the camp I will be promoting. That it. Camp Bowers is the Boy Scout Camp. I won't have anything to do with that with the exception of joint Webelos/Boy Scout promotions..from the Webelos side of it. To that extent, I will not be pushing or representing Boy Scouts, Venturers, Crews, OA or the like. Pretty much, my job is at roundtables. Talk to CubMasters or designated pack camping reps, have them sign up on sign up sheets, get tallies of "planned" attendance, and if necesary, go to their pack meetings and do Q&A sessions. And this is what was said at the beginning of the meeting: The Cub Camp is not a hard job like The Boy Scout camp as there are not any Council Camps competing for cubs anywhere around us. Boy scouts on the other hand..their attendance has been down due to not only competition, but also many , many broken promises and repeated last minute program cancellations in the past.

Different opinions are great! Now, I'm not saying that tis DL IS going to cause the pack to shut down. I'm just saying that the reasoning behind why he refuses to do something is what I am concerned about. If he thinks beads are bunk, what does he think about patches fopr hikes, campouts, Council camps, or events. Might even be this guy doesn't think racing cars has any practical value either. Again, not saying that I know he thinks this, I'm just saying that keeping up with beads is a non issue because he shopuld be keeping up with all that anyways as part of the boys earning rank patches. The info is the same. The achievements are the same. Beads are basd on acheivements, not extra activities. Tell advancement chair ( or whoever handles that stuff) where each scout is. That info should be already kept up with and written down ( or on a computer) anyways. And sure, the program runs year after year, but this is a Tiger DL. He's new this year. It all starts somewhere. And it is a testament when a parent ( if this is the case) understands the ideas behind a program better than the DL. As far as a parent volunteering and signing up....I completely agree! If you have ideas and the energy to do it, and think you can do better....go for it! That's where I came in. But then again, I think my dog could have done better than a DL /ADL husband/wife combo who REFUSED to believe that 24 boys in 1 den was too much. Some boys were waiting a LONG time on patches while at the same time, my son earned his Bear rank 3 times. THREE TIMES! Explain that one.

Like I said before, it's not about the beads so much as a Leader refusing to use them. If the pack didn't use them,then it wouldn't be brought up about the leader refusing. It would just be a post about a pack not using them. But again, it's not about the beads . It's about a leader who doesn't appear to be follwing the same program as the rest of the pack, First thing I said was have a chat and allow the DL to explain and follow the program. So after that though, where does it stop? Maybe the DL will not award a rank badge to a scout who lost his necker? Maybe he adds to the requirements? Maybe he becomes an ASM or SM who doesn't believe in BOR or SM conferences. Maybe he figures he sees the scout every week anyways...so why have a special meeting with the scout that you already work with? Again, not the beads themselves, but the attutude or unwillingness to follow the program.

I get the impression , from the part that says "that refuses to use" and "Stating that they alredy recieve enough awards" that somebody already at one point talked to or asked the den leader about it. "refuses to use" say he is REFUSING to use them. Not that he doesn't want to or would rather not use them...he REFUSES. And I didn't catch it earlier, but I didn't mean to say being ashamed is the same as not wanting to. Not entirely sure where my thoughts were on that particular wording of it.

It really sucks too! This den leader might be the greatest den leader in every other way aside from the beads, but you have to look at the entire package. Suppose you own a restaurant. A waitress might be the most friendly, the most liked and respected by all the customers who always sit in her section. But what if she's pocketing $5 or $10 a night that is supposed to go in the register. Might only be $5 or $10 right now, but sooner or later, it adds up! Another thing that concerns me is this: His dettachment from what the boys like and enjoy. He doesn't care about the beads. I get that. BUT that doesn't mean the boys don't. He can't see the value IN THE BOY'S EYES, and that is a very big issue. There are things in scouting that I think are hokey and just dumb. But I realize that I am not the target for that hokey and dumb stuff. I am 39 years old and the program is geared towards 6 to 10 year olds.(This message has been edited by scoutfish)

The beads, while at the front line of thoughts, are not really the issue the way I see it. Sure, the Original Post was about the beads. But the real meat of it is the fact that the den leader REFUSES to hand them out. The den leader decided they were not important or necessary. So the question is ; 1) What else does he think is not important and 2) What else will he REFUSE to do when asked to do in regards to following the program - wether suggested or required? Suppose he doesn't restrict any smoking or even the occasional nip of the bottle by adults AT den meetings because...well , let's face it, alot of parents smoke and drink and their kids have seen it before. They are not traumatized by it, so why not the occasional vice at a den meeting. Maybe he decides that all the boys automatically have the right to use pocket knives just for the fact they are Cub Scouts. Scouts and knives just go hand in hand..so no big deal right? Whittling Chip - smittling ship! They are boy scouts so they get knives! Yeah, that will go over real well as soon as the first boy cuts his own finger off or worse. Maybe the DL lets loose with the occasional profanity or doesn't interject when mom or dad do. Everybody does it, kids hear it at school...so what's the big deal right? Look at it this way: If you steal a $0.25 piece of gum...it's not really stealing is it? It was only a piece of gum right? WRONG!!!!! Stealing is stealing! You purposely took something that was not yours. Price does not lessen the act. The DL agreed to follow the program and he even signed a piece of peper saying so when he turned in his application to BSA. The duties of a Den Leader are outlined and his relationship to the pack, the CO, and to the CM and CC are clearly and cleanly stated. If the pack uses and impliments the beads as part of their program, then the DL is obligated to do the same. If he refuses, what other part of the program ( wether BSA's or the Pack's) is he not going along with. I'd hold a leadership meeting to discuss this very thing. Give the DL the oppertunity to change direction and follow the plan or find another leader to take his place. Let him get away with it and you give hin license to be rogue whenever it suits him. I know it sounds harsh, because it's only progress beads right? But it's beads TODAY. What's it gonna be next week, next month, next year or at a campout? That is what the issue is!(This message has been edited by scoutfish)

Sorry, big fingers. Hit two keys at once alot of the time...but thanks to Murphy's law, the key I don't want to hit becomes the one that actually types out the letter.