SeattlePioneer

The Tiger Cub year is my favorite in the Cub Scout program!

I protest! I just checked my mailbox and STILL no Gas Stamps to cover the fuel costs of my 17 foot powerboat that gets 1 MPG.

I took a young Scout who was a beginning swimmer out rowing at summer camp a couple of times and was entirely satisfied that was safe. I would have doubts about taking a beginner swimmer with no canoeing experience on a river. I might do it, I might not, it would depend on the circumstances. A PFD is a supplemental safety device in my opinion. I would be depending on the person involved to keep their head and have a measure of good judgment if a problem developed. The hydraulics of a river can add a lot of complexity to canoeing. On the other hand, a kid with some swimming skills in a PFD combined with a reasonably skilled adult in the same canoe adds a substantial amount of protection. It would depend on the river. How fast is the current? Are there sweepers or other obstructions? How wide is it? Can you get ashore readily if need be, or are the shores obstructed? And so on.

I repeat my earlier words, which I think are burnished in wisdom after the last several posts: BSA wise gives Scout units wide latitude in deciding how to present the program. Nothing illustrates why that is important more than a thread like this one.

I was Treasurer in a homeowner's assocaition that required two signatures on checks. That meant that I signed the check and sent it to the President, who spent most of the money, and he/she signed it too. Not much of a check. Besides, as a practical matter banks don't check on such things. As a practical matter, a Treasurer who wants to write themselves a check and sign it only themselves can do so. At least as important, I would find reimbursing pack volunteers to be more burdensome if such a requirement were in place. MUCH better to have an independent person receive the bank statement and review the checks written, in my view. But if others like this as a requirement, help yourself of course.

> I'd like to hear more about a patrol that has a Patrol Scribe.

> I never claimed that strong units would be driven to failure by having high uniforming standards. I said that WEAK units could be driven to failure by concentrating scarce resources on the wrong issues. I gave my own unit as an example. BSA wise gives Scout units wide latitude in deciding how to present the program. Nothing illustrates why that is important more than a thread like this one.

My own experience with people who traveled the road to bombing institutions with high explosives as part of a radical political agenda is that the motivation originates in frustration. In 1967-68 I was involved with the SDS that organized a chapter at my high school. At the time, this was a radical mostly anti-Vietnam War group. After I left, this group grew more frustrated when their political platform was ignored, and traveled the road of greater alienation from the society to revolutionary theories and a campaign of bombing in the early 1970s. Just like President Obama's political adviser Bill Ayers. Radicals tend to believe that the government is a threat to them. Revolutionaries tend to believe that the government is out to destroy them. If you believe the government is out to destroy you, using violent tactics can be rationalized as self defense. When you get out from under the thrall of that revolutionary ideology, people can be constrained by social norms again.

> I agree with Jay (above) and Qwaze. Sounds like a fun night of camping to me.

I'd be curious as to the opinion of the boys doctor. Does the doctor believe the boy can manage his medications on a lengthy trip with a wide variety of new experiences? If not, what assistance or supervision does the boy need to keep him SAFE? Is that compatible with the assistance and supervision provided by the troop leadership? Recommending that a boy take charge of his own care might be reasonable --- or might not be reasonable. Whether a lengthy trip with a widely varying schedule is the right place to start experimenting with that is an interesting issue. I can easily imagine the plans of a troop being substantially disrupted by an emergency trip to a hospital. As a troop leader, I would prefer to avoid having such potential problems unloaded on me unless the family doctor thought it was a reasonable and safe thing to do. My very limited understanding of Type I diabetes suggests that regularity of daily schedules is important to avoiding problems. A jamboree trip over a period of two weeks suggests itself as being the opposite of that regularity. Off the cuff, having a parent along as a care giver sounds like excellent back up to me.

> How many Scouts in your unit 3 1/2 years ago --- we had one. We rechartered this year with 14. Our pack committee has never had an occasion to discuss uniforming. In recent months we have been working to improve poor advancement results and to encourage our new Advancement Chair to deal with advancement issues. You think we should disregard poor advancement results in favor of spending limited time and energy on uniforming? I see your unit decides for itself what it's uniforming standards will be. Thank you for making my point. I am spending my time this month organizing the pack Pinewood Derby, and next month our recruiting night and plans to introduce new families to an excellent Cub Scout program designed just for those new families. As part of those efforts every new Cub Scout will be awarded a pack neckerchief I make along with a slide I make the day he joins the pack in a simple ceremony, the idea being to encourage uniforming. But I can see you would be unhappy with such efforts. Perhaps you think these activities should be abandoned in favor of spending my limited time promoting uniforming among existing Cub Scouts? Thank you for making the point that you have no understanding at all of the issues other units may have.

Hand the boy a rope and see if he can tie a bowline...

Maybe "prestige" isn't quite the right word. But if Cub Leaders don't get needed respect, the needs of the Cub Scout program may be neglected or ignored. That IS important. I suggest that Cub Scouts is the foundation of the Boy Scout program and the source of 85% or so of Boy Scouts. That's a program that Boy Scout leaders need to look out for and treat with respect, I suggest.

Hello camilam42, Yes, I think your references are being negative about the methods used to promote uniforming in my Pack. I can show you a lengthy list of obligations suggested for ANY Scouting position, and few or none will meet them all. When I see such lists, I choose for myself the ones I am either interested in doing or good at doing. That applies to uniforming as well. If I wanted to devote all my time to uniforming issues I could do so, but my pack would collapse. Yes, devoting excessive time and resources to uniforming will undermine and perhaps destroy a good many Scout units I suggest. Like so many things, a list of things is not a substitute for GOOD JUDGMENT as a leader!

Interesting thread. My bias has been towards Boy Scouts. When my District Executive recruited me to be the District Membership Chair, my real interest was in recruiting more Boy Scouts. However, experience taught me that the way to do that was to recruit more Tiger Cubs and Wolf Cubs into quality Cub Scouts packs and give them the time needed to mature into Boy Scouts. Exactly that impulse has led me to be a TCDL for dens in two different packs, and to be a Cubmaster working to rebuild a pack that was down to a single 1st year Webelos (who did complete the AOL and is a Boy Scout). I actually have developed some methods that can result in more non Cubs being recruited into Boy Scout Troops, but few Troops are interested in doing such recruiting. They depend on Cub Scout Packs to produce their recruits, but often do little to support those packs. In short, I have bones to pick with a good many Boy Scout adult leaders. MANY Cub Scout leaders were Boy Scouts when they were young, many Eagle Scouts. I was at a Cub Scout Gathering a year ago and encountered the Tiger Cub Den leaders for a Pack, which consisted of five fully uniformed adults, all of whom were wearing their knots as having received the Arrow of Light and Eagle as youths. All of the Den Leaders in my pack are men, and they all were Boy Scouts as youths and a couple are Eagles. Being a den leader, especially year after year, is a tough job --- tougher than being a SM for most, I think. Cub Scouts is the foundation of Boy Scouts and the source of most Boy Scouts these days. I'm sorry to see that a lot of Scouters fail to recognize the contributions of those leaders.

Hello Fred, I really like the e-mailable bank statements.

If you want to be mean, ask Boy Scouts who were Cub Scouts to recite the Cub Scout Promise. I did that as part of a camporee contest event once, it was pretty amusing! As a former SM, lately a Cubmaster, it would be equally amusing to ask me to recite the Scout Oath. It's real easy to get confused because of their similarity.

From the Jambo 2012 REJECTED thread:

Interesting thread. It would be interesting and perhaps useful to have some kind of list of staff positions that need to be filled and a link to an application for such a position.

When recruiting Cub Scouts in person at schools, emphasizing BB gun shooting, archery, rockets and Pinewood Derby gets the attention of a large majority of boys. When talking with parents at recruiting nights, emphasizing the family nature of the Cub Scout program, fun for all and character development are usually good sales methods.

I also like Eamon's example and advice. To answer the question TAHAWK asks which is how to use that method, I would suggest the following: Asking the council to clarify what their policy is is reasonable. But if the professionals at the council level are enforcing a policy volunteers don't like, I'd start raising that issue through the hierarchy of volunteers. That would include district leaders, then volunteers at the council level such as the Council Commissioner and Council program leaders and such. At my council the council President and Scout Executive have open access at the various council meetings for volunteers, and raising issues through those methods might be useful. There are quarterly "Council Roundtables" where such issues might be raised, with breakout sessions for various program elements where such issues could be raised. That would be my take on how to apply Eamon's recommendations to an issue such as that raised by the original post.

I see we are off and running giving this regrettable topic yet another lease on life. In my opinion, the reason it gets new leases on life is that the advocates of strict uniforming want to be acknowledged as having the "right" solution to the issue, not for their own unit, but for all units. Frankly, if some units want to have strict uniforming standards they are welcome to them, just as eagle mills are welcome to provide a very heavy emphasis on efficient advancement programs. In my opinion, better balanced units wont place a heavy emphasis on uniforms. But that's what the uniform advocates wont accept. That want every unit to copy their emphasis on uniforms and if they don't feel condemned as being a sloppy, "bad" unit. That's the divide I see that animates this discussion and keeps it going. As I've said before, personally I support uniforming and wear a full uniform myself. I provide a neckerchief and slide to new Cub Scouts the day they join so that boys will be "in uniform" immediately as a way of encouraging uniforming. This year Scout Accounts from popcorn sales can be used to buy uniforms. Those are the methods we use to encourage uniforming, not more direct coercive method like complaining about someone not wearing a uniform. In my opinion, that is supporting uniforming as a method. Coercing people by complaining about their not wearing a uniform is not required. Spit and polish units are welcome to their standards as far as I'm concerned, and I'm entitled to my standards and methods for my unit. Can we agree on that? Or must I adhere to the coercive methods used by spit 'n polish units to be a good unit leader?

The part of the Lord's Prayer that resonates most strongly with me is "lead me not into temptation, but deliver me from evil." To me that means not putting temptation in front of people. If you do that too often people will be weak and take advantage of a situation when they wouldn't if reasonable protections were in place. So while it's very common for small organizations to ignore the risks just as described by Eagledad above, it's important to take precautions despite that. emb21 describes a number of protections. Personally I'm not in favor of requiring two signatures on checks, it's too burdensome for my taste. Ditto for requiring that all payments be approved in advance, for the same reason. Sending the checking account statement to an independent person for review is the single best protection I think. That person can then raise any issues with spending with the Treasurer or at the next committee meeting. When I was a homeowner's association treasurer I sent monthly reports to board members that were mostly easily generated Quicken reports. That was easy to do, but few board members were interested in reading them, or at least they were never a subject for discussion.

Why would professionals be staffing a Jamboree outing for Scouts? Seems like that would be a typical position for adult volunteers.

Welcome to Cub Scouts! Personally I consider the Tiger Cub program to be the most exciting year in the Cub Scout program. You just can't beat the excitement of Tiger Cub for almost anything --- for about five minutes, ten minutes tops!