SeattlePioneer

Hello Own The Night, I find we get nailed a lot on three day holidays on Mondays. That winds up being a conflict that the holidays win.

One thing you could try would be coordinating your schedule directly with the other pack to identify any conflicts if they are willing to cooperate.

Here's an idea you can adapt for a ceremony to dismiss a volunteer:

Tuesday is good. Tuesday gives me two days to do school recruiting before a revruiting night. Wednesday gives me three days.

Our district Boy Scout and Cub Scout Roundtables are on the second Thursday of the month, and District Committee meetings on the first Thursday of the month. So units meeting on Thursday are somewhat handicapped in attending those meetings --- or perhaps suppose that they have good excuses for not attending. My pack meets on Monday by happenstance. Three years ago they pack was down to one boy, and the Cubmaster was free on a Monday for a recruiting night --- that became the meeting night for the pack. Personally, I don't like Mondays for a pack meeting night. When I'm recruiting in schools, it means I wind up doing school recruiting with a weekend before the recruiting night, which reduces the impact of my efforts. This year I scheduled our recruiting night and 1st pack meeting of the school year for a Wednesday, which made my school recruiting more effective. The rest of the year it's Mondays though. Tuesday or Wednesday would be better though --- with Wednesday BEST in my opinion.

My experience with Merit Badge Universities is that classes are typically taught by adults who have at least a measure of experience and competence in they field of the Merit Badge. Often enough they are taught by people with considerable competence and training in the field. By contrast, when I was a Camp Commissioner at a Scout Camp this summer, the Trail to first Class classes were taught by Counselors In Training who were mostly 13 years old and 1st class. Often they had minimal competence to teach, and minimal equipment with which to teach. The CITs were probably handicapped in competence by having gone through the Trail To First Class program at a Scout Camp themselves. The quality of Merit Badge University programs may compare favorably to a lot of merit badge programs at Scout Camps, except in areas like aquatics and shooting sports where standards are typically commendably high.

Anyone have biases as to which days of the week to either schedule or not schedule den or pack meetings? What about best times to schedule meetings?

> As I understand it, BSA provides a lifetime guarantee on the stuff it sells. I'm still alive. Anyone care to argue the merits of a lifetime guarantee versus this kind of wear and tear issue? Using Scoutfish's example with the Coast Guard uniform belt, one might say this would be a known point of failure, and perhaps BSA should be responsible for that under a lifetime guarantee. While trivial, it's an interesting issue. I might take it in to our Scout shop and see what they say. I wouldn't anticipate twisting any arms.

Just as Scoutfish describes, the knurled pattern is still visible and appear to be even with no APPARENT signs of wear. But despite that wear is the likely explanation for the problem. Hmmm. I don't know that I want to buy and experiment with muriatic acid. If I take the brass buckle apart, I might have difficulty reassembling it. So additional ideas would be welcome.

Also, anyone have any opinions on whether I should call this a guarantee problem I should take to the Scout Shop?

It doesn't matter how far I insert the webbed portion of the belt into the fitting, it still slips easily. The bras buckle wont cinch up firmly enough to hold the webbing in place. The part in quest is riveted on each end, and is knurled through the rest of the length to hold the webbing by friction. This part moves freely back and forth to allow the belt to be pulled through to a desired length, and then is pulled back and the knurled portion ought to hold the belt in place, but it doesn't. I could disassemble and remove the knurled portion by bending back four brass tabs that hold the two parts of the buckle together. That might enable me to use a file or grinder to rough the knurled portion so it would hold better. I'm just wondering if others have have this problem and any other bright ideas for fixing it.

> Sorry, I don't agree. Training and good judgment is a better guide. Just as an example, first aid training recommends that a persons airway, breathing and pulse be checked first. If impaired, that may require treatment before calling 911. And there are plenty of trivial injuries as well. They need to be assessed as well, and probably don't warrant calls to scarce and expensive emergency services.

I have a BSA web belt with a brass buckle that holds the belt by friction. After years of use, the brass friction fitting does a poor job of holding the belt at its set length. This is the friction fitting you'd use every day, not the one holding the other end of the belt that would typically be fixed in length most of the time. Does anyone have a good fix for this?

Hello Shortridge, You are exactly correct. The problem IS the Den Leaders and I am reluctant to try to "council" them. In such situations I tend to make a bad impression, so I avoid it. That does have consequences for my pack. Even so, it seems sort of redundant to have several den leaders repeat common program elements like gathering activities, and opening and closing ceremonies when everyone is in the same room. It seems to me that doing these activities as a common program would relieve Den Leaders from part of the program planning task. That is desirable in my view, and would result in a higher quality program. So even apart from my own weakness, it seems worth considering to me.

I don't like them either, for the reasons already discussed. Unfortunately, this practice probably began at Scout summer camps, which are usually no better. I don't oppose this program in my own district --- neither do I volunteer at it. If I were a Scoutmaster again, I don't think I would be too hard nosed about it. I might limit participation to one such program per year held in my own district. As noted earlier, some boys will feel deprived or left out if they are prevented from participating. I'd want to avoid that, too. So my inclination would be to place reasonable limits on a program that after all has official encouragement even if I don't care for it.

> Yabbut it would be a mistake to train people to call for help every time for any reason. Good first aid instruction would recommend against calling 911 first in some situations. It requires good judgment and training to assess a situation with a reasonable degree of accuracy. Unfortunately, it sounds like this Scout perhaps received inadequate first aid instruction which led to a bad decision making choice.

Hello Lisabob, ore the problem of inadequately planned meetings than the form of the meeting, I suspect. You have to engineer fun activities into your meetings, then carry them out with style. A lot of adult Cubmasters have trouble doing that, and it's probably more of a challenge for Senior Patrol Leaders.

All too easy a mistake to make. A year ago my nephew was a somewhat isolated freshman in college. He got sick and in pain and toughed it out in a dorm room until his abdoman swelled up alarmingly. He came fairly near to death because of delay in treating a condition that blocked food passing out of his stomach, and avoided calling his parents (both medical people) in order to avoid worrying them. It's really an issue for me, too, as a single person living alone. When do you go in to see a doc or to hospital? So far, my decisions have been reasonable. But it's easy to underestimate a problem.

All too true, Venividi.

I appreciate the comments. Do the dens in your pack routinely do gathering activities, opening and closing ceremonies? A lot of dens I see don't do that, and doing a common program for those elements of the den meeting are what I'm contemplating here. I'm thinking you might appoint an Assistant Cubmaster to do that, or perhaps rotate that assignment to different parents each month.

Hello Ann, If he's not interested in continuing ---- send an e-mail to your district chair or district executive. There are LOTS of other places for experienced unit leaders. He would probably make a great Unit Commissioner for your pack or another pack, or helping out with advancement at the district level or whatever.

> Well, the people who come each month are sold on the program. The person attending the first time is deciding whether it's worthwhile or a waste of time. Most unit leaders other than CC and CM never hear about it or never give it a chance if they do. > Good idea! As Cub Scout Roundtable Commissioner, I've been doing programs on the things I needed to learn about. But I'm out of ideas. Next month I'll use your suggestion --- something that hadn't occurred to me!

Most Boy Scout Troops have weekly troop meetings. The program is (ideally) designed by the Senior Patrol Leader who is a Boy Scout and Patrol Leaders who lead the Boy Scout equivalent of Cub Scout dens. All the patrols typically meet as a group, and usually during the course of the troop meeting there is time for the dens to meet as individual groups and pursue their own programs for twenty minutes or so. But thats under the umbrella of the troop meeting. In Cub Scouts, the dens are supposed to meet and organize their own programs for three weeks out of four. The pack meets once per month for something like the Boy Scout troop meeting. Would there be advantages to adopting more of the Boy Scout troop format, with a common gathering activity, opening and closing activity and such that all participate in? A lot of packs have all the dens meet at the same time in more or less the same place. Often those dens don't have much in the way of gathering activities, opening and closing ceremonies. Perhaps such packs would be better off adopting more of the Boy Scout Troop meeting format, with time set aside during the meeting for dens to meet separately.

Hello Packsaddle--- From your Oct 13th post---

Well shoot. That's an easy one. Get the guy a new wife...