SeattlePioneer

Understand what a bond is. It's a guarantee by an insurance company that they will pay off on a court judgment if the person bonded is sued and loses in a trial, and refuses or is unable to pay. The assets of most Scout units is pretty trivial --- a very few thousand dollars in most cases. Even if someone steals the treasury, proving that in court would probably be complicated to do unless the person is convicted of a crime. My personal bias is to have one person receiving the checking account statement who will watch what the Treasurer is doing with a reasonable degree of care. A watched pot, they say, never boils. In my view, that's a better system than most Scout units have, including the system in my pack currently in place which has no review of what the treasurer is doing and infrequent treasurer reports which amount to little more than the checking account balance. A Cub Pack for which I'm Commissioner has the wife of the Cubmaster acting as Treasurer. I'm looking for a system that offers a reasonable amount of oversight consistent with what is practical for a Scout unit. A "Good" system is a LOT better than a poor or bad system, which is what most Scout units have. That's my theory, anyway.

Just because people are supporting another candidate for the nomination doesn't mean they wont support the nominee, and Mitt Romney in particular. I plan to support him, and most or all the Gingrich and Santorum delegates plan to do so. Most of the Paul delegates plan to do so, although there may be some who will choose not to do so. But people aren't OBLIGATED to support the nominee of the party. My experience has been that the Republican Party has a good deal of agreement on many the political issues, even if there are several different candidates favored by different elements within the party. Nothing wrong with that. Last time the Dems split between Obama and Hillary, with the party uniting behind Obama once he was nominated. Same deal.

> Your comments suggests to me that firearms deserve to be inspected and maintained by a competent expert on some regular basis to make sure the firearm is operating properly and receiving appropriate maintenance and repair. Is this something that tends to be neglected by gun owners? What kind of maintenance is commonly recommended by manufacturers, and who is authorized to perform that maintenance and inspection?

I agree that it's fairly common for financially desperate people to get themselves into trouble if they have access to other people's money. So I think that's good advice. I don't know how many units are going to be willing to find a new Treasurer on that basis, though. I don't know how practical that might be. It's not something I would take the initiative to do. Our ties to the Catholic parish that charters the pack are more limited than I would wish for. In my view, the biggest check on abuse is sending the checking account statements to the Committee Chair. If the Committee Chair is paying attention, they should be able to catch discrepancies early and they have the power to ACT promptly. If the CC doesn't want to do that, the responsibility should be assigned to another person who is motivated to scrutinize those statements, and ask further questions as needed. That and getting receipts issued especially for cash payments are the things I'm hot about. These are my theories, anyway. I appreciate all the comments!

That all sounds like good political methodology to me. Politics is not a dirty word.

Who is the Committee Chair? As unit leader, you should be signing the recharter. Are you? Do you have a copy of it? It should describe who at least occupies critical positions such as Institutional Head, Chartered Organization Rep and Committee Chair. Are there monthly Committee Meetings to plan adult support of the unit, and if so who chairs them and effectively runs them? Unless you gain the support of the old SM, I doubt you are going to win out on many reforms, or win respect for your position as SM. So having the frank & candid conversation over coffee is worth having, in my view. Either he is willing to give you support in the things you need as SM, or you are probably best handing the position back. A fight is probably futile. My council has a small shrine to a Scoutmaster who served for 51 continuous years. Your retired SM is really just a young pup. Frankly, monopolizing all the leadership/power positions in the troop is unwise. The smart unit leader disperses such responsibilities as widely as possible. (This message has been edited by seattlepioneer)

> Perhaps an early understanding that politics is important and how to play the political game is a fact of life people need to understand.

One of the fancy pants private schools in Seattle allegedly has a cheer they do when they are losing: "That's OK That's all right You'll all Be working for US One day!" It's the school where Bill Gates and Paul Allen went to school and learned their programming skills, so it's pretty much proved to be true in Seattle.

Hello ghermanno, I am concerned that if we fail to reimburse driver and leaders for their costs, they will decide to stay home. What would be a fair way to do that from your point of view?

> A CHANCE? I will be right at the beating heart where the decisions will be made on who the Santorum-Gingrich-Paul Open Convention slate chooses to support for national delagate and alternate positions. A caucus of state convention delegates for each Congressional district to select three delegates and three alternates to the national convention, plus the convention as a whole selects ten additional delegates and alternates. Suppose that when the slate is made up, one name on the slate is from each of the three campaigns. Do I have a CHANCE of being named? Well --- sure. Of course the slate then needs to beat the Romney slate. So is there a CHANCE? Sure. But I'm sure there are plenty of other eager beavers with that much of a chance or more. But heck --- the state convention should be fun and interesting. There are a whole series of workshops on the nuts and bolts of political campaigning that are available--- See: http://wsrpconvention.eventbrite.com/ So while it would be great fun to go to the national convention, it's unlikely that I will be making the trip.

Hello gr8sailor, If it's of interest to you, Boeing is hiring engineers these days...

The only time a policy of two signatures makes sense to me is when the Treasurer is paying expenses to himself. Then my plan is to send the CC receipts for my expenses and have him sign a check made out to me. The rest of the time, the Treasurer is already an independent person and getting a second signature is a pointlessly burdensome practice, in my view. If checking account statements can be viewed on line, that's great and as many people as may be interested can view the statement. But ONE person needs to be RESPONSIBLE for reviewing the checking account statement every month other than the Treasurer. Anyway, those are my current thoughts as I propose to get started on the job as soon as the current Treasurer is ready to pass things on to me.

Hello Brewmeister, The conventional wisdom is to do just what you suggest --- splitting boys off from parents to do an activity while parents are given a sales job on Scouting and encouraged to complete an application and pay dues. The main reason for that is so District Executives can collect applications and dues and go on to the next recruiting night. At our rocket launch and egg drop recruiting nights, parents were engaged enough with the activities that splitting them off to get applications signed can be difficult. On the other hand, if you've just done a fun activity with your kid, a big sales job may not be necessary. You don't have to TALK about Scouting if you've just been EXPERIENCING a quality Scouting activity. Which is likely to be more appealing? Actually, signups the day of the recruiting event usually are kind of disappointing. But families are invited back to participate in our Bobcat Den (starting tonight) where the new boys and parents are together to learn about Cub Scouting together for a few weeks before they get their Bobcat award at our June 2-3 overnight camp. So tonight they will make their own Bobcat Den flag, decide on a Bobcat Den cheer, make a neckerchief slide with their name on it, be awarded a neckerchief to go with their slide so they will be "in uniform," learn about the Cub Scout Promise and get to light several of the eight candles on our "Bobcat trophy" showing their progress towards earning the Bobcat award. Saturday is our Bobcat hike, where we meet for a library tour then hike to a farm for a tour and do a hot dog roast. Parents will be encouraged to complete an application tonight if they want to do the hike Saturday. They will also be asked to complete a parent inventory telling us about things they are good at doing or things they would like to do to help the pack. If they don't complete those tonight, they can turn them in the day of the hike. My aim is to have a SERIES of high quality Cub Scout experiences one after another that will impress both the boys and their parents, and draw both into participating with the pack. Our parent meeting this month is April 30th. I am planning to give new parents a written invitation to the parent meeting and to use the parent meeting in part as a reception for the new parents to give them a friendly experience to get acquainted with pack parents and vice versa. I've been perfecting this approach for four years now. It seems to work especially well in drawing new parents into helping with pack leadership right away --- a critical issue for many packs. I think too many packs more or less ignore new families for a period of weeks or months. My aim is to give people a high quality program RIGHT AWAY which gives them an incentive to help support that program right away. That's my theory anyway. Perhaps some people may see elements of that they'd like to try even if my whole grand strategy seems daunting. As our district Membership Chair since 2004, I've been trying to come up with recruiting methods that are more effective than the conventional strategy commonly pushed by District Executives.

I have just been appointed Pack Treasurer. Personally, I don't think an outside audit is needed, and it would be a significant expense. The methods I support for maintaining transparency and preventing theft include: 1) Have checking account statements sent to the Pack Committee Chair or someone designated by the chair to review the checking account statement for any irregularities, and to approve any checks written to the Treasurer. 2) Anyone receiving pack funds, especially cash receipts, will issue a receipt in a three part receipt book. a) one copy is sent to the Treasurer along with the payment received b) one copy is given to the person making the payment c) the third copy stays with the receipt book. Cash is an especially slippery commodity, and even an honest person can forget about receiving payments. This can insure that payments to the unit are received. 3) Any checks paid to the Treasurer are approved by the Committee Chair or his designee. Aside from that the Treasurer only signs checks. (of course the Committee Chair sees all the checks when the monthly statement comes to him) 4) I plan to use Quicken to record pack financial transactions, and I plan to e-mail monthly financial statements to all families. --------------------------------------------------- So let's suppose someone makes a cash payment for a pack activity. The person making the payment should be given a numbered receipt for their payment and they should be able to see a record of that payment being deposited in the checking account in the monthly financial statement. In case you haven't noticed, I'm as concerned about making sure that payments made to the unit are actually deposited as I am in making sure that checks are written for appropriate purposes. It's all too easy for checks and cash to never get deposited. They are easily lost. In general my aim is to maximize accountability while minimizing the burden of accounting for funds.It is IMPORTANT that people who have pack expenses get reimbursed for those expenses quickly and as easily as is practical. Those are my bright ideas, anyway. Anyone have improvements they would suggest?

My legislative district caucus was held Saturday. The "Open Convention" slate of Santorum, Ginfrich and Paul triumphed, electing all 16 delegates and 16 alternates to the state convention, where delegates to the National Republican Convention will be elected. The Romney supporters had a slate of party regulars which was shut out of electing any delegates or alternates. If you don't have a taste for political theater, you would probably find this boring, especially if you were on the losing side. The Santorum, Gingrich and Paul delegates shared in putting delegates on the slate. I was elected as a Santorum delegate. One woman was on the Open Convention slate as a Santorum supporter. She got up to announce that she was switching to supporting Romney. She was immediately replaced on the Open Convention slate, which required almost everyone to get new ballots. She lost as a delegate to the state convention AS A RESULT of her speech! Too bad Paul, Gingrich and Santorum couldn't have found ways to cooperate on the campaign trail and minimized Romney's influence. Their grass roots supporters were more effective in that than the candidates themselves. Perhaps if those three campaigns had announced support of a joint slate of conservative voters they could have displaced Romney's influence. The Washington State Republican Convention will be electing delegates to the national convention June 2nd. I will have the honor to be voting on who will be making the trip. I would suppose that an Open Convention slate will duke it out for control of delegate selection. It should be an interesting and exciting day of politics! (This message has been edited by seattlepioneer)

Fighting over Webelos dens is fine, but what are troops doing to attract non Cub Scouts to Boy Scouts?

Theft of unit funds is a risk most units should take more precautions against, in my view. The episode below has many of the elements which cause such thefts and allow them to go undetected:

It was sad when the great ship went down!

My pack does an overnight camp June 2-3. I have a bias towards Cub Scouts cooking their own meals. For breakfast boys cook hotcakes and sausage for themselves and their parents. Last year we baked potatoes in a Dutch Oven and Scouts cut open their baked potato and added the topping they wanted. The year before we made tacos with Scouts frying up the shell and then making up their tacos. Those all work well. I'm not a big fan of foil pouches on campfires --- they tend to come out raw or burned unless you've practiced and learned the skill. Also, folding pouches from foil takes more skill than a lot of new Tiger Cub and Wolves are likely to have. But I'm willing to listen to advocates of foil dinners, should you wish to make a case for this method. Other ideas for dinner menu items are solicited.

More camping tends to be a good indicator of an excellent program. Cannibalizing your program by offering more than families want to do just invites poor attendance. As a Scoutmaster, I started by scheduling two outings per month, but most boys and families weren't interested in doing that much so they just chose the one they were most interested in. Often that meant poor attendance at both. A noble effort and plan! Experience will tell you how that idea works in practice.

> Another paranoid comment by Baden P.

Hello Brewmeister, The advantage of doing an activity like the egg drop I described is that boys and parents are DOING a quality family activity. You don't have to explain it after they've just had the practical and emotional experience of that themselves. The second advantage is that having something like the egg and packaging I described for the DE going into the school allows them to show and explain the activity to the boys. My experience is that young boys often have a limited ability to understand "Cub Scouts" as an abstration when you talk to them. But they usually can understand smashing eggs, and usually relate pretty strongly to an idea like that! The best ever recruiting night activity I've identified is making stomp bottle rockets. I'll be doing that for our initial recruiting night and pack meeting in the fall. Again, being able to show boys in schools the rockets they can make and launch at the recruiting night produces a great turnout of interested boys.

This year I did an egg drop for our recruiting night. At the dollar store I got a set of egg dyes of various colors. As boys arrived they and their families signed in and got a fresh chicken egg at that time. At some tables boys and their parents first decorated their egg, dyeing it and then using felt pens and such to decorate it any way they wished. The egg dye kits came with some eyes and mouth that could stick on the eggs to look like a face. Once decorated, boys picked from a selection of boxes and packaging materials and packaged their eggs to resist being dropped. If a balcony or other elevated area is available, boys walked to that area and dropped their package onto the concrete. If no such high area is available, I brought an A frame ladder that boys could climb, be handed their box and drop it off. Boys kept their egg if it didn't break. If it did, they could package it and try again the next week. That worked well. If you decide to do this, decorate eggs and boxes for the DEs to take into thew schools. SHOWING boys what they will be able to do at the recruiting night is a powerful incentive to attend.

When something goes bad, everyone in sight is going to be named in the lawsuit. If a chartered organization has liability insurance, I would suppose they would wind up paying off a portion of any settlement. If the CO has no liability, I suspect the Council and BSA pick up the tab. I'm guessing they would prefer to have more partners available to split the tab.

My bias would be to reimburse drivers for their gasoline costs on outings at a minimum. Troops can set a transportation fee for Scouts for each trip, paid to the troop, and reimburse drivers for their actual gasoline expenses. It may be that troops might choose to subsidize those costs if they can afford to do so. Frankly, drivers ought to be reimbursed for more that their gasoline costs. Expecting drivers to contribute their time, costs of fuel and costs of operating their vehicle is unfair and a formula for discovering that few people want to drive to outings. "A Scout is Thrifty." That means he pays his own way. I don't think that includes gouging people who drive.