Shilue

Basementdweller, I never said it was a good thing. Believe me, I was one of the more vocal opponents to it. However, rather than thinking that council was out to screw me, I found out why they did it, and I understand.

No name, the council buying by the pallet isnt poor planning by the council, that's the way they are required to do it by Trails End. Requiring units to buy full cases was their way to cut down on their loss. It makes sense to a certain degree, but isn't really practical and ours decided to discontinue the practice, fortunately.

Scoutfish,

Last year, our council did the same thing - required final orders to be full cases only. It's not that bad to deal with if you arrange with several other units to do a little "horse trading" to eliminate the extra. But it is still a pain. We only had to eat about $100 worth of popcorn out of $22k sold. Enough people expressed displeasure at this to council that this year, they went back to ordering by unit.

Keep in mind, though, that council has to order by the pallet and/or the row, so they also end up eating a lot of excess popcorn. That is their way of trying to offset what they end up getting stuck with.

Contrary to popular belief, BSA Councils are not evil. There is usually a method to their madness.

Our popcorn sales ended tonight. Orders have to be in at Council tomorrow. Our pack meeting was 2 weeks ago, and that's when the order turn-in was. That 2 weeks gives me time to triple check everything. I know that I will get a few late from people who weren't at the pack meeting or forgot, and I account for that. However, last Monday, I sent out an email that I HAD to have all orders in by last Wednesday night, and any orders that came in after that time would not be accepted, and the boy would have to go around and refund everyone's money, explaining to them that his parents screwed up.

I've never had anyone come in after that "drop-dead" date, and I never have any problems with really late orders.

Although I kinda wish I had about $800 more in orders come in this weekend at our campout. We would have hit a major sales milestone of $30,000/

Our pack uses them. Each den has a flagpole and holder made from PVC, and the flag itself is made of canvas. The front side has a drawing of the den's name (Grizzlies, scorpions, lizard, whatever) as well as the number and the current rank patch for that den. The rear of the flag, the boys are encouraged to decorate and sign.

We use the flags at pack meetings and campouts as a rally point for each den to meet. During the crossover ceremony each year, as the den comes across the bridge, the CM removes the current rank patch and puts the next one on. When the den crosses over to scouts, their flag is retired and given to the den leader.

LeCastor,

Don't let the Negative Nellie's get you down. I took WB earlier this year and thoroughly enjoyed it. I learned a lot that is helping me out in my Scouting career, but also in my real life job. There's a lot of good information that is presented. If you go into it thinking that you're going to have fun and enjoy it, then you will. It's really a great program, obviously dependent on the staff, but also our personal attitude toward the course and Scouting.

Wow, a lot of anger towards the District here. And from the sounds of it, some of it is quite justified.

I am the District Commissioner for my district, and we are fortunate to have a good District Committee that works with the units. I tell my Unit Commissioners, as well as the unit leaders in our district, that the Commissioners and the Committee are here to serve THEM, not the other way around. My Commissioners don't go in telling people how to run their unit unless asked. If they did, they wouldn't be Commissioners for long.

My view of the council is an inverted pyramid. The small portion, resting on the ground, is the paid staff. They support the slightly larger portion, which is the district, and the district, in turn, supports the largest section which is now at the top, the units.

The ultimate purpose of Scouting is to provide a quality program for the youth. Period. That's it. There's no prize for having the most youth in a unit, there's no prize for having the most attendance at a Cuboree or a district camporee. The youth are the MOST important thing, and all efforts should be focused there.

Fortunately, we don't have ego-driven, Good Ole Boys on the District Committee. If we did, I'd be doing my best to break it up. When I came on as DC, one thing that I promptly changed was allowing Unit Commissioners to be UCs for their units. A previous DE had decided that it was ok to do so, because of people's valuable time. I tossed that out the window. I sat down with my DE and went over all the units in the district, figured out who needed help the most, and assigned my UCs that way. That's the way it needs to be done. Most of the units that my UCs come from are doing fine. And if a unit is doing fine, it doesn't need a UC as badly as Pack XXX which is struggling.

I'm sorry to hear that some of you are turned off by your District Committee, and I'm sorry that some of those District people don't get it. Personally, if units in our district are not participating in District activities, I want to go to those unit leaders and find out how we are failing them and fix it. A District exists to serve it's units. Those of us on the District Committee work for the units, not the other way around.

Like I said, I thought I might have read that somewhere, but I can't remember for sure. Our pack always camps Fri-Sun, Tigers included. It might have been a rule at one time, or I'm mis-remembering things (a distinct possibility), but I'm pretty sure at this point that there's no limitation on Tiger Cubs camping more than 1 night.

I serve as the District Commissioner for my district, and I recently had a leader mention to me that many packs are violating BSA rules on camping. One of the rules she mentioned was that Tiger Cubs can only camp 1 night, so if a pack does a weekend, if the Tigers stay the whole weekend, the pack is violating policy.

In the back of my mind, I think I remember seeing that somewhere, but I've been looking and I can not find that rule anywhere. The G2SS only says that Tiger Cubs can do Family Camping and Pack Overnighters, it doesn't say anything about how many nights Tigers can do.

I am not BALOO trained, so there may be something in that training that states it, or it may not even be a rule. I'm not sure, but I would like to find out.

Anyone heard of this?

We don't have a tot lot for siblings, but I don't have a problem with tagalongs. I've worked Day Camp for 4 years now (2 as den leader, 2 as Camp Director) and my daughter (now 11) has been along all 4 years. Since I've been CD, she's been "officially" on staff and has been my administrative assistant - meaning I send her on errands, or to take pictures, etc.

I've got no problem if a parent wants to bring a younger child along while they work on staff. I do tell them that it may not be possible for them to participate in the activities, but that if there is room and/or extra craft material, they can. I do also remind them that they have a job to do on staff, and that's where their focus needs to be, not on their own child. I've never had an issue with it, and its always worked out well.

Eagle92,

I've just finished my second year as Cub Scout Day Camp Director, and I'd be happy to talk with you sometime and help you out with any questions that you might have.

Our camp was a Day Camp, from 9am-4pm. We had 59 boys this year.

To answer your questions:

1) We have no orientation.I send out an email the Friday before camp to the final roster that explains the sign-in/sign out procedure, what the boys need to bring, and what paperwork the parents need to bring the first day. I also send them a copy of the BSA health form in case they don't already have it.

2) Checkins - I divide the roster in half: a-M, N-Z and have a clipboard for each. As the parents come in, they were directed to the appropriate line. One of my staff members handed each of them a card that needed to be filled out with the scouts name, parent phone number, and who was authorized (or specifically NOT authorized) to pick up their child in the afternoon. When they got to the table, we checked them off, made sure we had the card and their health form, then directed them to another table to pick up their T-shirt. Name tags were on their den tables. It went very smoothly this year.

3) We told parents that nobody would be able to watch their child until 8:30. If they wanted to bring their child early, they were welcome to, but they would not be able to leave until we had sufficient staff there to watch them. It was not a problem, fortunately.

4) We simply told the parents what time camp started and what time it ended. If they weren't able to be there on time, it was their son that would miss out. We did have some boys who were late each morning for various reasons, but we didn't worry about it.

Our signout procedure was: We set up a table OUTSIDE the main hall for signout. As parents came up, they again split into 2 lines by last name. They told us their childs name, we pulled their signout card and verified the identity of the person. If we didn't know them, they had to show id, which for some meant a walk back to the car. Once we had verified that they were allowed to pick up the child, we had them sign the signout sheet, and they could go wait inside until we were done. Again, we had no problems with it, and it ran smoothly.

With regards to your last question about how they meet up. We hold our Day Camp at a local church. They have a large fellowship hall that we use for our assemblies and campfires. Each den has its own table that they gather at. we divide them up by wolves/tigers, bears, and webelos. This year we had 2 dens of each type (6 total). We live in South Carolina, and during Day Camp, it typically gets up to 100 degrees each day, so our assemblies are inside, and each den alternates an inside and an outside activity, to give them a chance to cool off.

If you need any further information, feel free to ask.

I agree with Beaver.

Carter may have been a lousy President, but he's a good man.

The first campout we went on as a pack, we had 300 people. We've got a pack with about 100 boys in it, and usually get a good turnout. We do 2 nights - arrive on Friday, leave on Sunday. People are responsible for their own food Friday night, but we do S'Mores. The pack provides cooked breakfast Saturday, lunch (sandwich)Saturday, cooked dinner Saturday, and cereal for breakfast on Sunday. We do charge $25 per family to offset costs of food and campsite rental.

When we started with the pack as Tigers, most of the parents in the Tiger dens hadn't camped before. The pack got together with them and helped them figure out what gear they needed, and what they didn't. It was raining that first night, but the parents who had done this before were right there waiting for the new familes to help them get setup quickly.

The program is well planned and thought out, with various activities throughout the day. There is some down time for the boys to just be boys, but it's not a significant time. Everyone seems to enjoy the campouts.

For our meals, we break up responsibility by rank. Webelos get up Saturday morning to cook breakfast (with parents), tigers are responsible for lunch, bears do dinner, and wolves do Sunday breakfast. Since we have 2 dens of each rank, usually 1 den does the meal, the other den does the cleanup, and we alternate among our 3 campouts per year.

A scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.

Seems to me something is missing. Anyone else notice?

@ Basement Dweller - "KEY 3 = Lazy self important people who award themselves and their cronies at the district awards banquet. "

Personally, I take offense to this. I am one of the Key 3, the District Commissioner, and I don't see myself, my DE, or my District Chairman in that light.

Lazy? I am an active Pack Committee member in my son's pack, in charge of Popcorn sales for the past 3 years, I am in my second year of being the Cub Scout Day Camp Director, and have been (and still am) and active Unit Commissioner. So, Lazy? No.

Self-Important? Not hardly. I am doing this job for the youth, not for my own personal gain. I don't expect nor want recognition for myself.

I am currently working with my DE to go over all of our units and prioritize who needs Unit Commissioners the most. Then I'm going to start working my way through the list of Commissioners we have and get rid of any deadwood so all we have are active, useful Commissioners.

Part of the reason I got the job of DC is because the DE wanted to get some fresh blood in there. Nothing against our previous DC, he was great, but it was time for some change.

Not all Key 3 are as you described. I'm sure some are, but not in my district.

I can sympathize. I am a new District Commissioner myself, and I'm working on trying to build up our commissioner corps. We've got about 40 units in our district, so at minimum I need about 15 UCs. We have about 9 actually assigned to units, but a couple of those I think are "paper" commissioners. 1 in particular stands out. He's a former DE, now retired, and he claims to be UC for 2 units. I only knew about 1, and I know he doesn't visit that unit but maybe once or twice a year. I know this because it's the pack that my son is in. I'm at every pack meeting, and the only time I see this guy is at Blue and Gold and sometimes at our end of year crossover. His grandson is in the pack, which is why he comes. He never comes to District meetings, either. I found out yesterday that he told one of our crew advisors that he was their Unit Commissioner and to call him if they needed anything. But he's never been to a meeting.

So, I'm in the process of purging inactive or unuseable commissioners, and plan to start heavily recruiting new ones. Unfortunately, many of the active commissioners that we have are commissioners for their own unit that they are involved in. This stems from the old DE's day (same ex-DE mentioned above). I'm working to get that changed as well, or at least get those guys branched out to some additional units.

My DE and I sat down the other day to go over the units in the district and prioritize who needs a UC more than others. We've got our priority list, and I'm working on trying to visit each unit to evaluate them for myself.

It's gonna be a long road, but it will be worth it.

Yup, it's all about priorities. My son plays soccer and ice hockey. My family is also involved in the Society for Creative Anachronism, and there are usually at least 1 event a month that we would like to go to.

However, when my son joined Cub Scouts, I determined that Scouting was going to take priority over everything. My son agrees. He loves his soccer, he loves his hockey. But once a month, his pack meeting interferes with hockey practice. He doesn't go to hockey practice. When he has a hockey game the same Saturday as a campout or other pack activity, he misses the hockey game. We tell his coaches up front that these day are already spoken for and he won't be at the game or the practice.

My son is fine with that. He realizes how important Scouting is, and so we adjust our schedule around his Scouting activities.

Lots of parents aren't willing to do that.

"any temperature in which the scout would be uncomfortable" isn't really a good definition, as I know scouts that are uncomfortable in 50 degree temperatures.

As long as they are dressed properly (which means training the parents in how to dress for campouts), they should be fine.

However, I will grant you that January campouts in Wisconsin are probably a bit harsher than January campouts down here in South Carolina.

> It's in winter.

And?

Nothing wrong with tent camping in the winter. Our pack camps every December. Our first year in the pack, second campout, the temperature got down to 27F one night. Those are the good times that you talk about and cherish! The only times we don't camp in tents is when we camp aboard the USS Yorktown Aircraft carrier in SC.

The key thing to remember about Cub Scout camping is you have to educate your parents on what works and what doesn't. For example, those cute "Buzz Lightyear" and "Dora the Explorer" sleeping bags ain't gonna cut it. Parents need to purchase sleeping bags rated for the expected temperature. They also need to have appropriate clothing, and the kids and the parents need to know (CRUCIAL INFO ALERT) to have everyone totally change clothes before going to bed.

Cabin camping? Bah!

Forget the cabins all together and do tent camping. Problem solved.

Tiger Cubs are eligible to go camping, and they will need a Tiger Partner. Doesn't have to be the same person that's with them at everything else, they just need A adult partner.

Saw a new den leader tonight with his den leader patch sewn on his left shirt pocket.

Saw a cub scout today with a temporary patch sewn on his right sleeve, underneath his den number.

I've also seen a boy with his bobcat badge sewn under his den number, and a boy with his pack number above his council strip.

Makes me wonder how people can sew those things on SO wrong...

Our pack policy is that if you must smoke, it must be done away from and out of sight of the cub scouts.

In 3 years+ of being in the pack, I've never seen an adult smoking at meetings or campouts, so they do a good job of doing it away from the scouts.

Here's a question.

Heritages belt loop talk about family. Would it be too much of a stretch to consider scouting as a family. The reason I ask is that we are thinking about the possibility of doing the Heritage belt loop at Day Camp this summer, where our theme is the History of Scouting. The program director came up with this idea, and we're tossing it around to see if it's feasible. I can see both sides of it, but I wanted to get some outside opinion.

Thoughts?

Last summer, my son's pack had a bike rodeo. He was still riding a bike with training wheels, even though he was 7. I'd tried to get him to let me take the training wheels off and work with him on riding without them, but he didn't want to take them off. I figured he'd let me know when *he* felt ready, and even though I felt sure he was, I wasn't going to push him. However, I was all for him going with his training wheels. Most of the pack, with 1 or 2 exceptions, were riding bikes without training wheels. I figured that might be a good incentive.

Yes, my son was a little embarassed to be seen still using training wheels. When we got home, he told me that he was ready to try learning without training wheels, so I took them off and worked with him for an hour or 2, and he's been riding just fine ever since.

Honestly, this is one time where peer pressure can be a good thing. Incidentally, to the best of my knowledge, none of the other cub scouts said anything or made fun of him. They all accepted that he still had training wheels on and it was fine with them.

If they've got bikes with training wheels, I think it'll be ok. Like you said, you can't gear everything down to the least common denominator. If the plan is for a bike rodeo, then have the bike rodeo. If the boys that don't ride choose not to ride, find a job helping out with the stations. Nothing needs to be said about why they aren't riding. Have them do some timekeeping or scoring.

Training is something I'm definitely going after. I'm having my first district commissioners meeting this week, and I'll find out what unit(s) I'm assigned to.

I'm involved in my son's pack and am on the pack committee, so I kind of have an idea of what's going on there. I have taken all of the online training on myscouting.org for cubs, troop, and venture to at least give me an idea on what I need to know there.

Unfortunately, roundtable meets the same night as my son's den meetings, so I'm going to have to miss one or the other on occasion.

I've signed on as a Unit Commissioner in my district, so to prepare, I've been reading a lot of the message threads here regarding UCs. I've seen a LOT of messages where people either didn't know who their UC was because they never showed up, or they had problems with how their UC did things. I've seen a lot about how UCs are considered spies for the district, etc.

I don't want to be seen in that light. My view on being a UC is that while I'm working "for the district", I'm really working for the units that I serve. I'm there to help them, to provide them with whatever assistance they need to provide a good quality program for the boys.

So, as many of you are unit leaders in one form or another, what advice would you have for a new Unit Commissioner? If I were assigned as your UC, what would you look for from me? What could I do that would make your job easier? What are some good Dos and Don't as far as your concerned?

I want to be good at my job, because if I do my job well, the program, and thus the boys, benefits. And that's what it's all about.

So any advice, ideas, hints, tips, tricks, etc would be greatly appreciated.