SeattlePioneer

Show me a big enough check and I might nominate someone for an award. It's just that in my very short tenure with the nominating committee no one has shown me a check or mentioned that they've seen one in the past. Bill Gates received the Silver Antelope (I think it was) award a couple of years ago. I think he was a First Class Scout and I don't know that he's ever held a Scouting position. But he DID have a WELL ATTENDED Hundred thousand dollar a plate awards dinner when he received it. Frankly, I don't begrudge that. In our council, each district nominates people for the Silver Beaver, plus the council makes some nominees as well. The council recognition committee then decides who will get the Beaver from among those nominated. Each district gets one or sometimes two Beaver from people in their district. The council typically gets a couple of Beavers. Last year one of the Beavers was the Council VP for Membership who I work for and who was a good candidate for that honor. I don't recall who the other person was. Our district sends the last year Beaver recipients to the council meeting that decides who will receive the honor the next year. I was told that the council has to fight pretty hard to get their nominees recognized. Sounds pretty reasonable to me.

> That might well be true. And it would be a shame. I attend our Scout University each year, and taught the Tiger Cub Den Leader Training last year. I got in the habit of attending the Boy Scout and later the Cub Scout Roundtable, and then wound up as the Cub Scout Roundtable Commissioner the past two years. Both are well worth attending in my view.

Oh, my no. Districts provide a LOT of services to units and are the place a lot of volunteers activities are organized.

Hello Eamonn, Good ideas. This pack was chartered by an elementary school PTA at one time, but it's been self chartered for years. The Chartered Organization Rep is actually quite a spark plug in the pack --- contacting her would be a good idea. She's also a personable and tactful person and probably knows the actors pretty well. As a matter of fact, the COR might make a fine CC! There is also a business executive recently recruited as an Assistant Cubmaster who is taking a definite interest in the pack. He was being considered for Cubmaster except he is out of town traveling the world quite a bit. He would be a likely prospect to be CC as well. Our district committee/Commissioners meet Thursday. Perhaps I can try calling the CC and COR Wednesday and talking things out a bit and plan to make a short report at the DC/C meeting Thursday. Still TOO BOLD?? I tend to be pretty involved with this unit. I helped build it up when it fell apart in 2004 and I don't want to repeat that experience! But it's easy for unit leaders to neglect important problems--- such as membership, appointing the right leaders or leadership succession. My aim has been to keep my eye on those kinds of problems, with the idea that if they were taken care of the rest of the program would be fine.

Who has been involved with their district nominating committee and what criteria did you use in evaluating people for district recognition? Or what kind of criteria do you think should be used? What emphasis should be placed on recognizing contributions to district and council programs, as opposed to unit (pack or troop) program? How much credibility does district recognition have as far as being suitable and fair? Who cares about such things?

Hello Eagledad, All too often true. The SM hasn't persuaded the CC to take charge. The odds of my effort being successful.... limited. I figure it's courteous to make the effort and hope for the best. And if the CC wont act --- then we'll know we need to try plan B. Any suggestions on Plan B? That aren't too BOLD? Seattle Pioneer

More evidence that the lawyers and courts rule the world.

Hello qwazse, Thanks for the comments. If I don't hear from the CC within a couple of days, I'll plan to give her a call.

Hello Eamonn, Interesting portrait of a community --- and of the nation in some ways. I think it's the product of an increasingly materialistic society and of a government that is often eager to take over when voluntary organizations fail. I commend you for your efforts to get the Pentecostal church to adopt a Scouting program. Running Pack and Troop meetings as part of their Sunday program, or their program generally sounds like it would be a good addition. I've been working for 3.5 years now to revive a Cub Scout Pack that was down to a single boy. It's chartered by a Catholic parish. We recently appointed a lady as Chartered Organization Rep who used to be a Den Leader (her son is 43 years old!) She is doing good things to make the pack more a part of the Parish community. Based on that experience, it sounds to me like that Catholic parish is the best place to work to build Scouting. The church has families you can draw on for members, and my experience is that Catholic families are more likely to get involved to make Scouting work than the average family. Is the parish unit a Troop or Cub Pack, and what kind of condition is the unit in?

Hello Eamonn, Thanks for the comments. Calling on the phone might be preferable to e-mail, but I'm an e-mail kind of guy. The Committee Chair was at the Committee meeting a month ago. The Committee Chair hasn't been an effective leader, and the burdens of leadership have been thrown onto the Cubmaster, who has been burdened more than he would like by that. Plus, the Cubmaster is resigning in August and we need to get the CC taking responsibility if she is able to do so. My e-mail to her was to encourage her to take charge of planning a needed meeting, and to give her some ideas on how to do that. Committee meetings have been held infrequently and irregularly over the past year. I usually attend Committee meetings, and I thought perhaps I'd been left off someone's e-mail list. The Cubmaster brought his worries to me a couple of months ago. He is planning to resign in August, and no effective steps had been taken to find a replacement. No committee meetings were planned to start dealing with issues. Since the CC hasn't been scheduling meetings, I encouraged the CM to call a meeting and start dealing with the issues. He did so last month and we had a well attended and effective meeting. But one is not enough. Rather than again suggest that the CM schedule a meeting, my idea was to encourage the CC to do so and to provide some help in doing so, and to provide more help if desired. I think we need to find out if the CC can do that task. I hope she just needs some encouragement. If she can't do it, that's important to know too. This is a pack that is large and has been successful since 2004, the last time the leadership fell apart. I helped put the program back together then, and I don't want to have that happen again. The parents historically have been willing to help. But they need some leadership to know what to do. Suggesting to the CC that she schedule a needed meeting still seems reasonable to me. Your comments and questions are good ones though.

I've been Unit Commissioner for a pack since 2004, and I've had a pretty activist role in the pack over the years --- such as organizing the spring and fall recruiting nights. The Cubmaster has been getting slammed because the Pack Committee Chair hasn't been doing the job. After several months without a pack committee meeting, the Cubmaster organized a Committee meeting a month ago, which had excellent attendance and did fine work. Nothing scheduled a month later. So I e-mailed the Committee Chair today, congratulating her on the excellent meeting a month ago and reminding her that it was the CC's job to conduct Committee meetings. I included an agenda for the Committee meeting my pack is holding tonight as a possible source of ideas, and suggested a couple of locations where a committee meeting could be held. I offered to be of help if needed. The Cubmaster does a fine job but is being overwhelmed due to lack of adequate support. So --- was this unreasonably BOLD for a Unit Commissioner?

http://www.scouting.org/scoutsource/CubScouts/Leaders/Forms.aspx Training Awards (Knots) Progress Record for the Cub Scout Den Leader Award Progress Record for the Cub Scouter Progress Record for the Cubmaster Award Progress Record for the Tiger Cub Den Leader Award Progress Record for the Webelos Den Leader Award Progress Record for the Pack Trainer Select the link at the top then the link for the Cub Scout Den Leader Award. You can print out the form that's used to record progress towards the award and which also serves as an application to receive it. Personally, I'd print that out, cut it out and give it to your husband as a token of your desire to see him recognized for his service. I'd also print out the Webelos form so he can plan on completing those requirements during the course of his service. Once it's signed off, he can give it to the District Executive or District Training Chair who should take charge of seeing to it that the achievement is awarded and recorded on your husbands Scouter service record.

Congratulations on getting a good turnout! Cub Scout competitions are about being fun, character driven and building experiences. As I think about it, I might have put both the athletes on the same team, and the other six boys on the other team! See if that evens things up and makes them fun. If not, have the athletes take their shoes off and try again. They might be ready to sit down after trying that for a while. Give the athletes a chance to see how they do sinking hoops from two or three times the usual distance. Or perhaps they have to run down to the end of the field and back before they take each shot. You want to wear down some of that energy. Use these points to discuss what it means to "do your best." For those with special talents, much higher standards of performance are expected. In Boy Scouts, when boys were antsy we did a run around the block. One boy always beat me, but he had to run pretty good to do so. You do need to maintain order and make sure boys aren't being pushed around. The usual rule of thumb is that one badly behaved Scout can drive four other out of the program. These are just a few ideas that may or may not work for you. Maintaining order for Cub Scouts is mostly a matter of keeping them busy. You need one or two activities each meeting that all the boys will be interested in doing. That can be a science experiment, construction project or lots of other things. An example of something I've found to be a hit is making and then using stilts. Each 2"x2" 8foot long stud bought at Home Depot is cut in half by the boys and a 2x4" foot rest is nailed on. Boys love sawing and hammering, and they'll have fun learning to use the stilts, too. I'll bet you can teach even the athletes that there are things that are fun to do other than ball games.

Financial contributions don't appear to be considered at all in my district for awarding the District Award of Merit or Silver Beaver. I was asked to get our information form filled out, which doesn't ask about contributions. I suppose someone might produce a list of FOS contributors, but no one has and I don't get the impression that's an issue. Our district has been reliably making it's FOS goal for years.

I was recently added to the nominating committee for my district. I attended the first meeting Friday and the subject is district recognition awards for Scouters. These fall into the following categories: District Extra Mile Award District Service Award District Award of Merit Silver Beaver Award Usually people are first nominated for the District Extra Mile award and then can receive further awards over the years to recognize continuing high quality service. Some people do not desire this kind of recognition, and their wishes are respected. A lot of people do appreciate having their efforts recognized, and I was impressed by the efforts of the committee to look for deserving people to nominate. We had six district leaders attend the nominating committee meeting, and additional meetings will be held each week for the next month. So it's a process that is taken seriously. As a new member of the committee, I could suggest the names of people I'm familiar with who would merit recognition. I submitted two of those names, and one of those people had another name she suggested for recognition as well. Adding another person to the committee can help extend the web of recognition to new people. I'm contacting those people to let them know that their efforts are appreciated and that they are being considered for recognition. We have a detailed Scouting history form that inventories their personal history including their activities as Scouters, training and so on. So I am asking them to fill out that form which will be used in making awards by the committee. The district invites each Scout Troop and Cub Pack to nominate one or more unit volunteers each year to receive a unit "Extra Mile" award, and of course units can make additional awards as well if they wish to do so. Personally, I decided that it was NICE to be recognized by my Scouter peers. My own experience with those positive feelings leads me to take the recognition system seriously and work to provide that kind of recognition for volunteers who are beginning their service as Scouters. Yes, there are those who don't much care for awards for adults, and those who don't want such recognition wont be burdened with it. But it's a small tool to encourage people to contribute to Scouting, and it's also a way to be FRIENDLY, COURTEOUS and KIND, I suggest.

There's a good argument for keeping parents at a distance in Boy Scouts and making parents part of the camping experience when they are Cub Scouts, in my opinion. The following discusses Cub Scout camping: I'm just getting my pack prepared for our annual over night camp/pack meeting which will be June 2-3rd. This will include new families recruited April 2nd, some of whom will have had no previous camping experience. In our Bobcat Den composed of those new boys and parents, we had a day hike and hot dog roast April 21st, and we will be spending our two May meetings preparing families and boys for our camping methods. That will include our parent meeting Monday where we will be planning our meals and camp activities. Our parent meeting will begin as a reception for new parents, who will be our special guests to be introduced to other adults and to be introduced to those other adults. New families will have an understanding of our camp activities and plans by attending the meeting. Our Bobcat Den meeting May 7th will give boys a chance to set up self supporting tents, with two teams competing against each other to see which can set things up first. Parents will be able to give helpful advice from the sidelines and see how that's done. Parents who want to borrow a tent for the campout will be welcome to do so. Our May 21st meeting will include a demonstration of how to make a cowboy bedroll for sleeping rather than use a sleeping bag. Families will be welcome to use a sleeping bag if they have one, but a bedroll is preferred rather than going out to buy new gear. So our aim is to introduce boys and parents to pack camping, and let them decide what they want to do. Last year our new Tiger Cub Den chose to sleep in bunks at the camp lodge rather than in tents. They slept together as a den, and were all asleep after about ten minutes at the end of a busy day. Personally, I'd like to keep dens together as a group when practical, but boys and parents are free to decide what they are comfortable doing together. There are certainly clingy boys or those new to camping who may prefer sleeping in a tent with a parent, and that's fine with me. This year, our Tiger and Wolf Den will be responsible for our Saturday afternoon snack, the Webelos Den responsible for making dinner (probably spaghetti), and the Bear Den responsible for Sunday breakfast of hotcakes and sausage. I like to take advantage of the den structure for organizing parents as well as Cub Scouts when practical.(This message has been edited by seattlepioneer)

Hello dwalto02, There's no reason you can't add another ASM if there's a reason to do so. I think there's an advantage to having men teaching young men how to be men. But I don't see any reason why women can't help that process along too. There are plenty of young men who could learn a lot about how to deal with women in a polite way. Nearly thirty years ago, I proposed the Mother of a Scout as an ASM because she had a lot of good qualities and was a dead shot with a rifle and shotgun, as well as an attorney and city prosecutor. Her application was REJECTED because she was a woman at the time. I wrote a letter to the National Scout Executive at the time, and got a courteous reply. A year or two later BSA changed it's policy and removed sex bars to Scouting positions. So my first question to you is what qualities, skills and experience does this woman have which would be a benefit to the Scouts and the unit? Would she be a good prospect to be a ASM were she a man?

> Is that really the FIRST thing to do? Usually when I introduce a new activity, I'm looking for ways to create an appetite and interest in the activity before it's introduced, so there is interest in it and demand for it when the opportunity comes along. Any examples of how that interest can be cultivated in troops?

Our Cub pack was having our Pinewood Derby at an outdoor camp a month ago. We have and accept a number of sibling tag alongs, usually expected to be supervised by parents. On girl complained about being treated in a mean way by boys from the Webelo den. She was nearly their age --- perhaps a victim of boys who didn't know how to deal with their interest in girls. Anyway, I mentioned that to the Webelo den leader, and he talked to the girl about it. I imagine he dealt with that problem effectively. It's very easy and not uncommon to have boys treating others in a mean way, and it's all too easy not to hear about such problems. I think it's a fairly common reason why boys drop out of Scouting. We need to be on the lookout for such issues, in my view.

> This is really the core of the issue for me. Giving the government yet more control over youth seems like a very unwise thing to me. They already have a lot more time and influence than they should. Getting back to one of my original questions though--- What would be the impact of this on Scouting and other voluntary youth programs?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-parenting/post/is-full-day-school-best-for-all-kids/2012/04/23/gIQAgQU5bT_blog.html I've been seeing several recent articles proposing to extend the school day to 5-6PM. Is this wise? And how might it affect Scouting and other youth programs that are independent of schools?

Hello cmarrero, If your OA Chapter has a program that lacks interest, perhaps your troop can help to improve that. How 'bout partnering with the OA chapter to have a fun activity for new OA members? Have a weekend outing aimed at attracting Webelos dens that would go through one of the Webelos requirements and introduce those dens to your troop and OA as part of the program, just to throw out an idea.

Sorry. Try 98146 and look for Pack 240 ---probably the second unit on the list.

I'd do some checking to find out what Scout Troops are in your area that might be tyransfer possibilities. One you've identified one or more prospects, ask your son if he's be interested in visiting other programs, and if he's interested call and get an invitation to one or more troops. If he finds one he likes better, transfer. If you do transfer, I'd encourage you to write a friendly not to the Committee Chair detailing your reasons. Most people just leave without a word, but explaining in a friendly way why you leave might help the unit decide to improve their program. Are you familiar with other Scout Troops in your area? You can try BeAScout.Org and perhaps get an idea where other troops might be located.

There are definite limits on how fancy you can get with a pin on this website. But you can do a LOT better than the default option, which just makes a referral to the council. Within those limitations I'm pretty proud of my Cub Pack's pin. Check it out: https://beascout.scouting.org/BeAScoutMap.aspx Select unit #6, Pack 240. If your unit has a pin you like, I hope you'll post it. I'd like to see it. Councils, or perhaps National, should have a contest for the best BeAScout.Org pin. Give units some ideas of the kinds of things they can do and some incentives to do things well!(This message has been edited by seattlepioneer)