Sebastian a lady

Probably for the same reason that the 75th Anniversary of Cub Scouting pack streamers can in packs of 10. Simply easier for supply to ship and stock.

If your scout shop won't split the package, maybe you could ask at roundtable if any other packs would like to split it with you.

That you must have a BSA trained lifeguard anytime that scouts are swimming (when questioned about this, he amplified that being at a pool with on duty certified lifeguards wasn't enough - the BSA lifeguard had to be there too).

That there is a limit to how many merit badges one counselor could sign up to counsel (I think it was the DE that told me this one).

That the patch worn in the temporary patch position on a boy scout shirt had to be one that the entire troop had earned (ie, Klondike or summer camp).

That the troop elected den chiefs and that the pack didn't have a say in accepting them.

That there were BSA rules about who could hold leadership positions in the troop (As in BSA dictating that PL or SPL had to be a particular rank or age or have certain attendance at troop events. If the scouts want to set some parameters, I have no beef with that. But when a scouter tells me that scout A has to be the next SPL because they can't serve back to back terms and this scout is the only one who meets the requirements being imposed by the scouter (not coming from the PLC or the scouts), that is adding quite a bit to the BSA requirements).

There was one scouter in a previous council that I started calling the Berean Scouter because after any roundtable or training that I'd been at with him, I would go home to search the handbook and G2SS to see if it was true.

Would anyone who has done a game like this mind posting a selection of some of your questions?

It sounds like a great activity for Oct/Nov to see if the parents have been paying attention.

When our pack and troop did popcorn last fall, we came in just over breaking even and still have popcorn left over that we couldn't sell. The general comment from the adult leaders was that they felt bad charging $10 for a tiny tub of caramel corn. Our customers were pretty much making a donation to scouting and getting a little popcorn gift.

With a similar outlay of time, we can hold a bake sale and make $300-400 profit. The cubs did a bake sale booth at a recent festival and made over $1000.

Of the four units in our area, only two sold popcorn in 2009. I don't think that either of those two will sell in 2010. Don't know if the other units will pick it up. I did look at doing online sales with Trail's End, but the price points for products were so high that I was honestly concerned to be putting our unit's name on that as a fund raiser.

Our council has a fair share fee at recharter that is $20 per scout in addition to the $15 national registration fee. Our troop met our FOS goal of $50 per scout. It might be a quirk of our overseas military environment. But it seems that we can bring in far more money a dollar at a time than selling popcorn. Plus just about every family will help with a bake sale (baking and/or selling) while only a few will come to sell popcorn. With one sale council gets an upfront cut but we hardly break even and people are frustrated and burned out on fundraising. With the other we have lots of participation, make more profit and then have cash to pay to FOS. Plus I see the pack (which rarely contributes to FOS) considering things like renting a bus to get kids to the next day camp which would really up participation and retention (which is a long range win for the council).

Base,

The policy of using day camp as either the capstone requirement or opening requirement is something that I have seen in Transatlantic, Aloha and Far East Councils. In all three of these councils, there are varied school schedules between state and private (and DOD) schools so it is quite possible to have a pack in one district crossed over while another is still in school.

The one day daycamp I mentioned was Japan district FEC for 2009.

Aloha used one day events such as Cub-O-Ree and Schofield Days for this requirement with the explanation that they were organized as district day camps even though they were not called that.

And yes, I have had this info in writing from folks at the district and council level. Does this prove that my council is right and another council is wrong? Not really. But I'm really not just out there cruising the scout shop for more stuff for the scouts to wear.

The outdoor activity award is something that should be encouraging the scout, den and pack to participate in more outdoor activities than they might otherwise. For some that is going to mean making a bigger effort to drive to the other side of the district for a day camp. For others it might mean actually doing a scouts' own service during a pack overnighter or organizing a service project.

In the end, it really doesn't matter if there is a consensus here about a CS event countin as a day camp or not. What matters is if the council considers it such. I have been in councils where single day events were run as day camps and were counted toward completion of the Outdoor Activity Award. Not, in my mind at least, in an attempt to give the kids more bling, but to recognize that those scouts had in fact participated in outdoor events and activities.

In the council we are currently in, there was only a 1 day day camp offered last year.

Take a deep breath and work on finding your kids a good solid scout unit that isn't going to require you to act like Atlas holding the world on his shoulders. If you are in an area that doesn't have a lot of units, then prioritize a troop for your boy scout and consider Lone Scout for your younger kids.

I would not send any sort of letter to the pack parents. But I would consider sitting down with the IH of the Charter Org and discussing access to the bank account. Don't accuse anyone, but do make it clear that the CO owns all the unit assets and suggest that the account access might not reflect the current leadership of the pack.

Then don't look back. Sounds like there were plenty of things done less than by Hoyle, including as was mentioned having cub scouts camping without their parents along.

Do move ahead with what is good for your kids and do get training.

Another vote for a Tilley hat. I have a large scout pin on the crown of mine. It has sides that snap up. It keeps rain and sun off and has a great strap that keeps it from blowing off. I've worn it everywhere from WWI trenches to volcanos in Hawai to hiking in Japan.

Mine was a gift, but it really has been an incredible functional hat.

If I forget the Tilley, then I usually have a pinewood derby race official hat stuffed under the seat of the car.

Seems like there is some variety to what councils consider day camps. Our last council was willing to consider any district organized all day event including Cub-0-Ree, summer day camp and the day long CS event at the local Army Base.

They were also willing to use a summer time day camp to either complete one rank's award or to open the next rank's. In other words a scout attending day camp in June could use that for the Outdoor Activity Award for the rank he'd just completed (ie, Tiger) or the rank he was moving into (ie, Wolf) but not both. Our current council has a similar policy.

I think that the sports and academic program is easy to not understand well. In fact I'll go one further and say that given how difficult it is to get new parents to understand how rank requirements and electives work that I'd be amazed if they got the belt loop program at first glance.

I wouldn't require completed worksheets (since that is adding to the requirements). But I wouldn't have any issue with handing them the requirements list and asking them to check of or date what they've done (in a similar way to how they sign and date the book). I think that many parents have the view when they start scouts that if their son has been in swimming or soccer or baseball then of course they've earned the beltloop and pin.

As an advancement coordinator, I once had a heated disscussion with a parent who was very upset that her son hadn't received a swimming beltloop when others had. She kept insisting that of course her son had earned because he was on swim team. When I asked about the Safe Swim Defense requirement, so told me that how could he have done that, when she had no idea what that was.

I've also been in a pack that had no problem with scouts earning things outside of pack activities (which I think is a nice way of recognizing that for some kids scouting is a big deal and for others it isn't), but that asked that scouts who completed beltloops and pins on their own come to a den meeting and tell the den about what they had done. It was presented not as an extra requirement (ie, not a test), but as a chance for them to talk about something cool that they'd done and maybe get other scouts excited about doing something similar.

-Having scouts who are verbally or physically aggressive towards other scouts without being corrected/stopped by adult leaders.

This is not to say that you have to throw out a scout who has issues (aren't most scouts a work in progress?). But it does mean that if you are going to give all the benefit of the doubt to the aggressor scouts without ensuring the safety of the others, you ought not be surprised when families walk.

-Having two leaders who each have a SM vision for how things should be run.

-Failing to hold the scouts to the boy led aspect of scouting. Then when you aren't providing enough "fun" it is the troop's/adults' fault rather than something that the scouts pony up to fix.

-Having scout leaders who are doing such a fine job leading that no one else feels the need to or feels qualified to step forward into leadership roles. Then when the leaders move on (kids age out, burnout, move) there isn't anyone from the farm team to step up.

-When scouts or adults carry disagreements from other associations (school, sports, church) into scouting. For the longest time I couldn't figure out the dynamics in our first pack. I finally realized that one group went to church together, another group had kids in the same school since preschool and another group had done soccer and baseball together for years. There were actually two sets of parents who weren't on speaking terms over some call in baseball from the year before. (This might be more common in military/expat units.)

I checked my Cub Scout Leader Book (c. 2001) and in the section on camping it says:

"To provide leadership for this event, Webelos den leaders should complete the course, Outdoor Leader Skills for Webelos Leaders." (This is from section 33, Cub Scout Camping.)

In section 21 on the Webelos program it says:

"Webelos den overnight campouts are parent-son events, under the direction of the Webelos den leader. The Webelos den leader should be trained in Outdoor Leader Skills for Webelos Leaders, which is in addition to basic training."

It goes on to discuss parent attendence at the Webelos den overnighters and Webelos participating in joint overnight campouts with Boy Scout troops (also with Webelos parents attending).

Livery stables were where you went to hire transportation. The modern vehicle for this would be taxi, chauffer service or rental car. In fact, I think you will find that many locales refer to taxi drivers and chauffers as livery services.

Telegraph office. I think that Western Union might still offer telegram services. They certainly offer wire transfers of money. Or if you stick with the communications aspect of telegraph, then does an internet cafe fit the bill?

We have a youth sports office locally that holds quarterly archery clinics under a qualified instructor. Our district has sanctioned the recognition of participation in these clinics as meeting the requirements for archery for the CS belt loop and pin.

A couple notes. This question was formally asked and answered by the council executive, in writing. Not just word of mouth. We found that a previous waiver given verbally had been modified in the retelling until it was quite a ways distant from the original exception that had been granted.

The exemption was only to allow us to use official class participation for the belt loops and pins. It does not authorize dens to have archery parties or for parents to learn to shoot enough to meet the minimums to rent archery equipment and then "teach" their dens.

I think this might be the sort of sanctioned event that is envisioned in the guide.

I bought an extra recently for a scout attending NYLT. Our scout shop uses an locally created order form for orders done by email. I simply put a note in the item description that it was a second rank badge for a specific scout. Needing a replacement or second badge isn't unusual. Can happen for all sorts of reasons and the scout shop should have a process in place.

I do like having a stash of badges at the troop level, so that we can recognize scouts immediately. But I've also dealt with enough messed up advancement records to know recognize that the follow up also has to happen (and doesn't always, despite good intentions).

The problem I could see with people trying to buy rank they haven't earned would be at the cub scout level, where scouts are a particular rank whether or not they have completed the requirements to earn that rank badge (in other words, a 2nd grader is a wolf cub for all of second grade, regardless of his status in completing the requirements for wolf).

My oldest is a den chief. He is on the young side, but works with one of the younger dens (wolves) instead of scouts who are only a year or two behind him. He has enjoyed things so much that he wanted to do a second year.

The den leader needs to have specific things for the den chief to do (teach a knot, lead songs, lead a game, teach the parts of safe swim, etc).

Good communication and advance notice help a lot. A den chief should know ahead of time what the den leader will ask them to do at the meeting so that they can prepare.

My son did the online den chief training. He also ended up being at the Cub Scout Leader Specific training that his den leader was at. I am pack trainer and initially had planned on using him just as an example of scout uniforming, but he was having such a good time that he stayed for the whole thing, including planning a model den meeting. I don't know that it would help every den chief, but I think it gave my son a better insight into what went into planning for a meeting.

How about allergy medicine? We have a scout with quite a few allergies. I mentioned to his mom that he should probably carry his Epipen. Her concern was that if he was having a reaction that he wouldn't be in any condition to administer the medication. My concern was that the person with custody of the Epipen would be in some other part of camp.