SeattlePioneer

Plenty of female LDS leaders around here.

Several LDS leaders attend my Cub Scout Roundtable regularly. Many of the LDS units in my district struggle because they tend to be very small. Assigning leaders to Cub Packs and Troops has it limits of effectiveness as well. But I have no issues with LDS.

> Perhaps. The adult leader who has rebuilt OA over the past 3-4 years is an excellent man and I'm sure he's been doing the best he could. He has been a leading part of the Indian themed ceremonies I saw. But it is what it is --- of little interest even to Cub Scouts.

I'm concluding a two year term as Cub Scout Roundtable Commissioner. My August Roundtable will be my last --- it will be a model recruiting night demonstrating use of Stomp Bottle Rockets as a recruiting night activity, plus an ice cream social. I'm encouraging unit leaders to attend with their Cub Scouts to do the rocket launch and to invite someone who might serve as a pack recruiting chair to attend with their Cub Scout as well. Pretty tough sledding getting people to attend Roundtable around here though.

> In Washington State it would be flatly illegal to permit those under age 21 to be present in a bar. I don't know if there is a BSA regulation against it, but I wouldn't sit Scouts down in a bar to wait for a ride. You may have your standards. Those are mine.

Good program is an essential element for recruiting and retaining Scouts. But it's often not a sufficient thing by itself.

I would say it's a matter of continuing to work at recruiting until you find things that work. If you give up, you're dying, probably.

A former DE promoted the idea that unit Committee meetings should be fun and interesting for adults, and suggested doing wine tastings as an example. Of course, this was a situation where no Scouts were present. I did that once and had good results with it. The rule I'm familiar with is "no alcohol when youth are present." But perhaps there is something further about uniforms generally. > Interesting examples. My own personal bias would be to avoid parading youth through a bar to get to Scout meetings if another way to get to the meeting room was available. Usually I would want to see a second exit directly to the outdoors from a Scout meeting room, and if that was there I would use that to enter and exit from meetings. I'm not claiming these describe "the rules," they simply represent my judgment as to what is reasonable and appropriate for youth. I will be interested to read additional posts on your "no uniforms at the bar" question. What adults do when not around youth can be different. I would not invite a Scout to sit at a bar where alcohol was consumed as you describe it.

I hope Mr. Boyce hasn't been lost on a Scout outing....

I could do without the Law of The Pack. The Cub Scout Promise is fine except that dropping the reference to the Law of the Pack should be done if the Law of the Pack goes away. There's something to be said for progressing to different statements of ideals by age, in my view. (This message has been edited by a staff member.)

Personally I wouldn't trade the LDS in for the gays. Our district has an LDS leader who is promoting the idea of LDS Scout units making concerted efforts to recruit non LDS families into LDS Scout units. As a bonus, the LDS church pays for BSA registration fees even for those not members of the church. They may fund additional pack and troop expences, minimizing out of pocket costs for families joining Scouting. It might be quite practical to significantly expand the number of Scouts if this is something LDS units want to do. I'm sure many liberals who hate Scouting for a wide variety of reasons would be delighted if they could get their gay friends into Scouting and get Catholic and LDS units out of Scouting at the same time. This would be a "twofer" I'm sure many would celebrate. For pretty much the opposite reason, I oppose such changes in policy.

Hello Neil, Unfortunately, the current methods don't seem very imaginative. They seem rather dated and of little interest to Scouts, even Cub Scouts when I have seen our district OA chapter providing a ceremony. Some imaginative new ideas seem sorely needed, and that I what I was suggesting in earlier posts. I haven't participated in OA because I have too many other Scouting positions already and because the program has little interest to me. It's possible I might take an interest in the program if there was room for some new ideas of the kind I was suggesting. Apparently there is room for such things, so it's something I might consider down the trail some time.

Just another idea to consider--- One frequent objection by Scoutmasters is that OA takes Scouts out of their troop program. Perhaps OA leaders might consider programs that would take OA back into Scout troops for other purposes than doing recruiting for OA. If OA was visibly serving Scout Troops, I suspect that more Scouts would participate and fewer Scoutmasters would object to elections and the OA program. Just to throw out possibilities--- suppose OA organized a Dutch Oven cooking event at Camporee, or an attractive community service project at which all troops and Scouts were invited to participate? Could be a Saturday or evening activity to help new Scouts earn part of the Scout, Tenderfoot or Second Class awards. Lots of things might be possibilities. A good many Scoutmasters might welcome a quality outing or activity for troops that they didn't have to organize.

Hello Sentinel, A couple of issues I'll point out which you might want to consider: 1) Your recruiting methods appear to rely entirely on recruiting Webelos Scouts. That's quite common, but have you considered reaching out to non Cub Scout youths and inviting them to join Boy Scouts too? 2) Again, your methods rely of recruiting Webelos Scouts, so you are wholly dependent on having a Cub Scout Pack that continues to function effectively to supply you with what you want. But you aren't making any apparent effort to support that Cub Pack or packs. It's quite common for Cub packs to run into rough patches and leadership problems and issues that can damage them or impair their functioning. If that happens, what happens to your recruiting methods and your troop? My suggestion is for Scout Troops to keep an eye on what the Cub Packs they recruit from are doing and to find waysw to support those Cub Packs and keep them on track. That might include providing Den Chiefs for dens other than Webelos, for example. It might include providing an Assistant Scoutmaster or other troop leader to help guide and support the pack program and leadership ---- I wont say to spy on the pack program, but that might be a part of it too!

It would appear that those who would like to build a new OA program have a goodly degree of freedom to do so. You could get involved at the district level and promote the abandonment of the Indian theme and adopt new activities that would be more interesting to Scouts and perhaps of more value to Scouting. Organizing a Webelos program for new Webelos Dens and leaders might be an example of that kind of program ---just to throw out one possibility. Webelos Scouts who are served by Den Chiefs tend to become Boy Scouts. Webelos Scouts who are served by an OA program might well remember that too. Our district OA leader has brought OA back from inactive to a functioning program over several years. He wants to move to a council level position but has no one to take his place. Personally, I'm not interested in the Indian theme and dancing, but I'd at least consider working with OA on other projects that seem useful and valuable to me --- an example being a Webelos kind of project. I don't know how committed OA Scouts are to the Indian theme. I suspect that is an adult and tradition driven thing in a good many cases.(This message has been edited by seattlepioneer)

> Suppose someone had been found underneath all that coal? Of course, they would only have had to wait an additional 36 hours for rescue. Perhaps next we will have ambulance chasing lawyers getting injunction against fire departments putting out fires because it might interfere withe the full consequences of someone's negligence becoming known. Sounds like a dumb thing for judges to be involved with at least until all hope of human rescue has been abandoned.

> Suppose people are ultimately found dead under that coal that couldn't be moved because of the legal injunction. Will the relatives of those people be able to collect damages for wrongful death from the lawyers who prevented rescue work from continuing?

So what kind of unit do you have --- pack, troop? What kinds of recruiting success have you had and what would you like to do and accomplish? A good recruiting plan is usually tailored to the needs and situation of a particular unit. There are lots of off the shelf ideas that can be used, but the best thing is to choose from among the variety of possibilities the ones that best fit the unit and it's community.

Hello Sasha, That's a long story, and I'm still studying how to do that job at this point. For my unit and district, the issue is how primarily English speaking Cub Packs can recruit and retain Latino youth and families. One key thing I haven't seen mentioned elsewhere--- My aim is to have a bilingual English/Spanish person be a leader for those Hispanic families. Someone who can and will stay in touch with families where the parents may be Spanish speaking and have little or no English. That leader can then help keep other pack leaders informed about issues that are important to Latino families so they can be accommodated. Also, that ought to permit those Latino families to take charge of particular pack projects that need to be done, e.g. putting on the Pack Blue and Gold Dinner perhaps. Using bilingual recruiting materials and having Spanish language Den handbooks and other literature to display would be other examples of things to do. A couple of weeks ago I signed up that bilingual leader who is keenly interested in helping me recruit more Latino families for the pack. So I'm hoping we'll have some real success with that this fall.

So suppose a chapter or lodge decided to dispense with Indian lore, feathers, dancing and such. Is there any reason they couldn't do so if they wished? If others wanted to dance or whatever, you would watch respectfully but just not participate.

Personally I favor current BSA policies which prohibit smoking at Scout meeting and activities. BSA24, would you favor a local option that permits units to burn offenders at the stake? (This message has been edited by a staff member.)

> I've mailed out FOS solicitations to people who missed the pitch at pack meetings. I don't think I ever got one returned with a pledge. The bottom line is that a good FOS solicitation by a leader you know and respect, done while you are digesting a nice Blue and Gold dinner, is a lot more likely to produce a donation than a solicitation received in the mail.

I'll provide an example of what a new OA program might look like --- retaining the theme of "Honor Campers." My council used to have an annual program on Dutch Oven cooking, a long one day program aimed at teaching adults how to do Duth Oven cooking. The teachers were adults from different Scout Troops, showing off their methods and recipes. It was an excellent program that continued for several years but was abandoned circa 2006 or so. Suppose an OA chapter decided to do such a program, aimed at improving cooking by troops? Just throwing out an example. How about an OA overnight camp aimed at Webelos Scouts to introduce Webelos dens and leaders to Boy Scout style camping and working on Webelos skills?

All too true, I suppose. Suppose the Scouts and adult leaders in a district or council decided to abandon the old formula and adopt a new one. Is there anything that would prevent them from doing so? If not, what would such a new program look like?

VOA?