SeattlePioneer

> Still, a good Webelos Den Leader needs to understand how to construct a quality program for a Webelos den. That's different than Boy Scouts, although a good Webelos Den leader will probably use suitable Boy Scout outing for his Webelos program. Scoutmasters and Assistant Scoutmasters probably need to understand the nature o0f a quality Webelos program too, and how to offer services to Webelos dens and den leaders and encourage Webelos Scouts to transition effectively to Boy Scouts. So it seems to me that if you combine the two programs (which would be a good idea) you need to figure out how to educate the Webelos leaders about Boy Scouts and the Troop leaders about Webelos. Some troop leaders may have already been Webelos Den Leaders, but they still probably need education on how to do that program right and the role troops should have in supporting Webelos Dens.

A Scouter in my district has been working hard the past three years or so to revive the district OA chapter. He's had moderate success and put a lot of work into it. I think it's a real contribution to Scouting around here. The OA stands ready to help with crossovers, recruiting and other activities, and it's presence as an honor society helps inspire Scouts to higher levels of service. It also gets Scouts out of their troops and experiencing the fellowship of a broader group of Scouts and Scouters. There is A LOT of competition for the time of Scouts and Scouters. That's probably the biggest barrier to more active OA programs would be my guess.

> Wrong Kudu. I described your post as a rant because it was your usual diatribe of bitter hate that you regurgitate without thinking. I asked you a few questions that I was, and am, interested in your thoughts. But you couldn't be bothered to discuss something that might have some meaning. Too bad.(This message has been edited by seattlepioneer)

Sigh. Sounds like it will take some time to get introduced. If they have committee meetings that might be a time to visit their meeting.

Kudu, You repeat your general rant and fail to even answer the question posed ---- what is the role of uniforming in a boy run troop? Your troop doesn't use uniforms? Or perhaps a high standard of uniforming is imposed by adult leaders? If the troop is boy led, perhaps the boys adopt the uniforms that appeal to them? Do tell. What do you personally wear and why? (This message has been edited by seattlepioneer)

As a district membership chair, I do a lot of recruiting for Cub Scouts in elementary schools. Girls reliably ask about joining Cub Scouts, and I encourage them to talk to their parents about joining Girl Scouts. I've never been able to get recruiting literature I could pass out to interested girls from Girls Scouts. Seems like a missed opportunity to me.

Does anyone know if any Scout Troop has completed the Appalacian or Pacific Crest Trail as a unit? If not, I'd bet that would be a way to get your unit on the cover of Boys Life or Scouting magazines. (Worth the effort?)

Like a lot of things, I see no reason why we need agree on what kind of knives should be a part of various Scouting programs. Tahawk seems to have a particular interest and perhaps skills in using a wide array of knives, and special knowledge and interest is often a good foundation for building such things into a Scout program. That's true with my own experience of finding no real need to carry more than a folding pocket knife with a 3" blade. Tahawk might wind up being Scoutmaster in a troop where most people carries a sheath knife and might might be Scoutmaster of a troop that proudly carried folders. Either one can be a good program in my view. As I noted, I even gave Cub Scouts a chance to learn about a KABAR fighting knife and how to use it to split kindling. If I were a Scoutmaster I might consider a knife like that to be suitable to leave as a tool in the axe yard for splitting kindling. If I had someone with Tahawk's skill an interest in such knives as an adult leader, I might well encourage him to set a standard different than my own preferences. I think this is an example of how Troops acquire their varying values and personalities, which can be and often is a good thing.

I've made up tags or necklaces for Cub Scouts to wear saying "I've sold $___________ of Popcorn!" New stickers increase the amount sold after every sale. When one boy makes a sale, that boy makes a new sticker increasing the amount he has sold and a new boy is up to make the next sale. That makes it easy to credit boys with the amount they have sold.

Hello Old Grey Eagle,

In my pack, I was giving neckerchiefs I'd cut from decorated bedsheets to boys who came to our recruiting night along with a slide. Parents took the neckerchief out of the plastic bag it came in and helped put it on their boy. The idea was that these were boys trying out Cub Scouts, and if they wore a neckerchief they were "in uniform" and could practice the Cub Scout salute, do the salute during flag ceremoney and so on. I do that now for boys when they actually join Cub Scouts. But the purpose is the same ---- to get boys in uniform right away and impress on the parents and boy why it's important. After that though, parents decide when and even if they buy more uniform parts. I often suggest that they might consider buying a unform blouse when their Cub Scout finishes the Bobcat requirements and is ready to be awarded the Bobcat Badge. I encourage uniforming, but it's not my job to put the bite on a family's budget if they don't find that worthwhile. I wear the same neckerchief and slide I give the Scouts, although I've decorated it to make it uniquely mine, just as I encourage Cub Scouts to do that as well.

> In my opinion, a large part of the problem with American public education is the egalirtarian ideal that schools buy into but which is completely inappropriate. Far from being equal, children vary enormously in their ability to absorb an education. But public schools are loathe to admit that simple fact, and trying to hide it corrupts schools. Amwerican colleges and universities respect and embrace that huge variation in students ---- with half or so never getting much higher education at all, and the rest being sorted in a wide variety of education programs ranfing from community colleges to MIT. Until public schools kick out the uneducable and those not interested in education, they really can't imnprove much. And instead of encouraging that, we have laws that prohibit it. "Education reform" is a lost cause.

I'm with Beavah! I have plenty of things that need improvement in my pack program. But I'm working on those improvements, not giving up or in despair because things aren't what they might be. For those who might want to suggest improvements in our first pack pinewood derby race in memory let me know how you'd improve the following plan (You can PM me if you don't want to intrude on the thread): "Xxxxx Xxxxxx is our newest Cub Scout, and I was glad to be able to award him his Bobcat Badge Monday. Alan is Xxxxxx's father and has agreed to help with our Pinewood Derby race. Because of possible noise conflicts with church services (see below), I have a tentative date of April 16th for the Pinewood Derby from 9 AM-noon. I'm figuring we would spend an hour building and decorating PWD cars from the car kits right out of the box, and then racing from about 10-11AM or longer if boys are maintaining their interest. While Scouts are building their cars, adults would be setting up the PWD track which I have in my possession. Plan on being cleaned up and outa there by noon. I'm expecting that we would invite families to bring in woodworking and decorating tools and everyone would share in using those tools as needed. I'd like to see boys deciding who they want to race against and perhaps awarding stickers on a certificate for each race won by a boy. We might want to add some additional recognition for "Best Decorated Car" "Best Sportsmanship" and such. Suggestions welcome. If families have parents or siblings who would like to race, we might consider selling PWD kits @ $5 apiece to those who might want to build and race a car. The Cub Scouts would be receiving a free PWD kit thanks to meeting our Friends of Scouting contribution goal. For those interested in perfecting their race cars and doing more racing, the district PWD race will be held on a Saturday in May that hasn't been scheduled yet. That would be available for any Cub Scout, sibling or adult who wants to do a more formally competetive event. Any comments or suggestions on this general plan would be welcome. Just as a fr'instance, there is a pizza place right across the street from the church --- we might want to buy a large pizza or two as a snack during the race and have some drinks available."

Interesting discussion. I'd be interested to know what the election team reported back to the OA chapter and what the OA chapter might have decided to do in the future. The OA election team learned that there is a pretty wide range of Scouting out there, and that some may take their standards seriously. They should be able to learn from that and try to adapt to that fact. Of course they could just be insulted and go home. While it might have been the generous or patonizing thing to ignore the out of uniforming thing by the Scout Troop, I don't think they were behaving badly by trying to maintain their troop standards. They acted reasonably, in my opinion. The interesting question for me is how the OA election team reported on this issue to the chapter and what chapter leaders might be doing about it.

> I don't think this is entirely accurate Beavah, although I'm not an Xpert on the details of union security agreements these days. The Supreme Court limited the ability of unions to compel union members to pay dues for political purposes in the Beck decision: http://www.mackinac.org/1403 However, as the article describes, it's not a very satisfactory decision from the point of view of an employee who desires to actually use such a right. Most unions make political contributions out of dues money and have opportunities for mwembers to make additional voluntary contributions for political purposes.

Sorry Joe Bob, As district membership chair I see the critical role district executive play in doing the heavy lifting on recruiting new members, fund raising and starting new units. Absent paid staff, I believe a pretty large number of Scout units would found withing a few years, and I'm not sure where that trend would stop. Personally, I think the paid staff provide a lot of the backbone that allows units to function and thyrive. Volunteers are great at a good many things, but others simply wouldn;t get done very well without paid staff. That's my experience and opinion, anyway.

Hello Beavah, At least around here, the District Executive tells me the council has statistic on things like advance, retention and new membership. That's supposed to be available on request, but I haven't actually seen the data produced. That might reduce the amount of guesswork required. My district went over the district JTE a couple of times early in January. The first time we just read over the different metrics to undeerstand them. The second time the DE went back and figured what the results would have been based on last years data. The third time we looked at our strong and weak points, looking especially where we wanted to make a particular effort to improve. And every couple of months we review how we are doing at our monthly district meeting. That's my model on how units can use the JTE as an effective management tool if they have the desire to do so.

Hello Basement, Congratulations on a superior program! As I noted earlier, I was told by our DE that units filled out their own JTE assessment at the ernd of the year. If that's true your pack's daycamp program shopuld certainly be counted towards a top notch JTE score. You've earned it and then some!

In health care we have a diversified system of providers that does a terrific job of providing service in most cases --- if you can afford the cost of care. In the public education system we have the single payer system that liberals would like to go to for health care. It provides minimal family choice in most cases and often does a lousy job of educating children.

Hello Basement, I echo moosetracker's sentiments. And as I understand it, the unit makes the final decision on whether you've completed particular requirements. Personally I wouldn't hesitate a second to consider an element completed if my Cub pack had done it's own day camp or a Scout troop did it's own summer camp. Just out of curiosity, what do you consider an unreasonable cost for day camp? My council charges $70 for a four day program, and those interested can typically get half that as a campership paid for by the council if they wish to make an application for it. Personally I find the Journey to Excellence program worthwhile on both the unit and district level I work at. The Cub Pack I work with didn't meet the Quality Unit requirements last year --- this year I have a Committee Chair who is willing to work at them in a more formal way and we should be able to imoprove on enough of the metrics to qualify. I see four steps to using the Journey to Excellence effectively: 1) Unit Leader and Committee Chair review the various requirements with the idea of understanding the program 2) Unit Leader and Committee Chair evaluate how the unit would have done last year by applying the JTE standards to last years performance 3) Unit Leader and Committee Chair identify which elements of JTE you want to improve on to meet the desired JTE standard 4) Unit Leader and Committee Chair share those needed improvements with the Unit Committee periodically during the year to determine if those new goals are being met. So we have a ways to go on some of those standards. We have an excellent district program (that would have qualified on the JTE lasty year) to help us. So it's a useful program for us.

Hello Eagle, I don't consider myself an Xpert in interpreting or applying G2SS rules. But G2SS only describes rules for official Boy Scout acticities. You may decide to do any activity you wish as a family and you are not bound by G2SS rules. The same thing goes for things like karate classes or tackle football. Such activities may be proscribed by G2SS and would therefore not be suitable as activities for a Scout troop. But there is no reason why boys can't participate in such sports and qualify for merit badges and such while doing so. That's my understanding anyway. I'm sure if I'm wrong you'll see four or five people jump all over me!

In climbing glaciated mountains like Mt Rainier, it's often a long steep slog to the summit. Usually the novice hiker or climber starts out walking at too fast of a pace, that results in stopping and resting repeatedly. An experienced climber usually doesn't allow that to go on too long. Instead, the experienced climber takes the lead, taking a step and resting a rfew seconds before taking another step, maintaining a pace that can be continued for an hour or so without a break. The inexperienced climber follows in the same steps, and learns a pace he can maintain by following the experienced climber. That's a large part of what Scouting is about, in my experience. Pretty simple but important stuff. There certainly are people who never learn. They may follow those footsteps and keep up the pace while an experienced leader is there, but never wind up with the discipline, experience, judgment or interest to lead a climb on their own. Scouting offer opportunities to learn, not guarantees that people will learn or adopt Scouting values.

Hello Lisabob, True "sealing" records mostly just sounds good. But there's no reason you couldn't seal the records to your hearts content and give them to the chartered organization to hold in a file if you wish. Do that and they are probably pretty well sealed.

Hello volscouter, Labor history has a period where employers organized labor unions that they controlled. This was a big issue for independent unions which found such tactics hard to overcome. As a result, Federal labor law and most state laws prohibit employers from "employer domination of a labor organization" by paying dues or subsidies to unions. What is common are union security agreements which require employees to pay dues to a union as a condition of employment. Like other employer work rules, if you fail to abide by the employer's rule you can be fired. Also, such agreements often require employers to collect dues from union members who have signed an authorization for dues to be deducted from their paychecks. Employees have no ability to pay dues with pre tax money. Dues are paid from after tax money and deducted from the net pay an employee would otherwise receive. An employee who itemizes their income taxes can deduct union dues just as they can deduct purchases of safety glasswes or work boots for example.

I wonder if the whole issue could be solved by just putting up the Cub Scout sign and waiting until quiet ensued....