SR540Beaver

While I am one of those people who do my best to avoid written rules and bylaws in a unit, it is items such as this that makes you think twice. There is always going to be a difference of opinion and a policy "seems" the best way to handle it. We are a new troop that isn't yet a year old. We've had several boys quit scouting who had money in their accounts. The committee's take on it is that the funds are for scouting and if the scout quits, the funds go into the general fund of the unit. Obviously, if the boy moves to another troop, the funds will be sent to that troop. It makes me uneasy to assume that we can just keep the funds. While the boy is in the unit, the rule is it can only be spent on scouting. If the boy leaves the troop, can you just assume that his money now belongs to the troop? Depending on how good your treasurer is and if you are using software, keeping up with how much came from fundraisers as opposed to money the boy and/or the family put in can be a real headache. Even if it was from a fundraiser, it is the portion of the raised funds that were given to the boy as his own for scouting. He earned it by the work he did. While I would love to be able to keep the money for the troop, if it belongs to the boy......it belongs to the boy. If I quit my job, I still expect to get my last paycheck. The company doesn't get to keep it.

This conversation has come up here a number of times. Last time it came up I happened to be watching something on the History channel on TV and lo and behold there was vintage footage of a WWII plane with the flag painted on "backwards". Seems it has been around for quite some time.

Thanks for all the comments. Some posters got it right. I'm not interested in pumping out 13 and 14 year old Eagles. My concern was with keeping a boy who can advance from advancing due to a self decided age limit by the SM. My son could have made 1st Class 2 months earlier than he did if he would have taken 30 minutes to an hour to finish up 2 or 3 small requirements. That was his decision to put it off because he busied himself with other things. He can easily make Star by this July if he works at it and he will barely be 12 1/2. If he does do the work, I certainly don't expect him to have to wait until November because the SM has decided that no boy at his age should be a Star before then. If my son puts off doing the work, that is fine and it is his decision. My whole point is SM's not taking each individual scout into consideration when working thru the ranks and setting boundaries. Holding a boy back and not recognizing and awarding his efforts runs the risk of running him off.

I'm not a very direct person and I don't like confrontation. The SM and I get along fine and I don't really think there would be a conflict, but I am having a problem with his approach on advancement. Let me throw in that he is wanting me to take over as SM this summer, so this may be a moot point. We are a new troop that started up a year ago with all Webelos. For the most part, these boys have attained 1st class in the first year. Some or most are working on Star. As long as the boys fulfill their POR's and get a good number of their MB's at fairs and summer camp, the only other thing they need is service hours. Unfortunately, we have been a little weak on service projects. He told me and the other ASM in an e-mail last week that he has no intentions of anyone making Star before the end of this year as he wants them to mature and not advance too quickly. He doesn't want 13 or 14 year old Eagle scouts. In fact, he told the boys that they would be 16 at the youngest before making Eagle becasue the council wouldn't approve a boy before then. This guy is an Eagle and district trainer. I was kind of floored. Boys should advance at their own pace and if they do the work, they should attain their rank. I'm in no hurry for my son to shoot up the ladder, but he is SPL and he will easily accomplish his POR and MB's by mid-summer. The only think he doesn't have is service hours. We could easily (and should) be doing at least an hour of service per month. Our charter is a church and they have weedy flowerbeds. They asked us during the winter if we could weed their beds this spring. I figured we could get the boys there on a Saturday and spend a couple of hours and clean them out. Our SM announced that we will work on the beds for 15 minutes at our next meeting. 15 minutes?! I finally figured out how he is going to slow the advancement to his liking. He'll dole out service hours in 15 minute increments and make it last until the end of the year. Again, I'm just floored. He'll allow the lower ranks to pick up trash around their neighborhoods and let the parents verify that they did it in order to sign off on those ranks service requirements, but he wants the upper ranks to be a group project he can verify. How do I tell him he is off base and that while we are not adding or deleting from the requirements, we are controlling the speed and it is wrong.

Boy, there are so many different cooking methods, it would be hard to list them all. I did a demo for our scouts this week on the sidewalk of our church charter. I used a metal pan used for changing the oil in your car as a fire pan to hold my charcoal. I placed and old grate from a BBQ grill over it. We made a pizza in a stainless steel camp dish and placed it on the grate. I then covered it with a stainless steel mixing bowl that was larger than the dish. It recieved heat from below as well as reflecting off the top of the bowl back down on the pizza. Probably not as good as using a dutch oven, but a decent quick replacement. I was trying to show them that you can take items you normally wouldn't think of and improvise a way to cook almost anything at camp. We have a young troop and they are pretty one dimensional when it comes to cooking and want to cut corners and leave items out of their menu. I want them to realize that camp cooking can be inventive and fun and not just a chore. Next week, we will probably bake a cake in a cardboard box. I've tried this at home with good results.

Even though this man had no direct contact with boys, you know the press and all the naysayers will be all over this. http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/03/29/scouts.charges/index.html Boy Scout official charged in child porn case Tuesday, March 29, 2005 Posted: 2:44 PM EST (1944 GMT) DALLAS, Texas (CNN) -- A former top official of the Boy Scouts of America has been charged with downloading child pornography from the Internet after federal investigators found images of children engaging in sex acts on his computer. Douglas S. Smith Jr. is scheduled to appear before a federal judge Wednesday in Fort Worth, Texas, said Kathy Colvin, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office in Dallas. "We anticipate Mr. Smith will enter a guilty plea at that time," she said. Smith retired from the Boy Scouts in February after a 39-year career with the youth organization, based in suburban Dallas. He had been placed on administrative leave when the group learned he was under criminal investigation, and stepped down soon afterward, BSA spokesman Greg Shields said. Smith, a former Eagle Scout, previously served as the Boy Scouts' director of programming, Shields said. "As a professional scouter, he was in more administrative positions -- most recently developing programs -- and not in direct contact with the youth," Shields said. Shields said the Boy Scouts are "shocked and dismayed" by Smith's arrest, but the group has cooperated with investigators in the case. "We surrendered his work computer to authorities," he said. Smith surrendered to authorities Friday and was released without bond, according to court records. There was no immediate comment from his attorney.

No story yet, just this breaking news alert: Former top Boy Scouts of America official charged with downloading child pornography after investigators find images of children engaging in sex acts on his computer. Details soon.

acco40, "Oh, and one last thing pray you are not a Beaver and feel blessed is you are a Bear." Just remember, Beavers rule, all others drool!

orennoah, "because you can never be assured that the QM will properly spice your food" One man's spice is another man's ruined meal! Not all of us like blistered tongues and breathing fire! Hmmmm, was there a dragon patrol I missed in my course? WASGuru, Don't worry, be happy! Just go, you'll like it. I promise.

Question: How do you REQUIRE a boy to participate in a fundraiser? Don't get me wrong, I expect them to as much as the next scout leader. I single handedly organized and ran a fundraiser for our 2005 Jamboree contingent since our costs were $1900 per participant. Around 100 eligible boys covering over 1/4 of the state of Oklahoma. I had about 33 boys participate. One boy sold over $800 in first aid kits. Many others sold $15 worth. Around 66 boys didn't participate. My son was the second highest seller. Our troop is currently having a fundraiser. My son won't lift a finger to sell. He absolutely dislikes going door to door. Heck, I would too. I could make him, but is that what scouting is about? I agree it isn't fair to those who work hard. We went thru this same thing with every sports team he played on iwth parents or kids wanting to write a check instead of raise funds. The question is, how do we enforce the requirement?

ps56k, I think you fell into the trap that has been discussed numerous times in this forum......starting a crew. Instead of starting a Venturing Crew, you could have created a Venture Patrol within the troop. They could do seperate high adventure activities while the younger scouts do the more "traditional" younger boy activites. It is simply running two different programs within the same unit. Kind of like one table playing chess and the other table playing checkers. Everyone is still in the same room and playing games, just different games. You could have retained your older boys for leadership and training younger boys while still providing them with an exciting older boy program. I see no need for existing units to create Crews and siphon off all of their experienced scouts. Start a Crew where none exists. Leave a standing unit alone and create a Venture Patrol.

Not being in OA and only being involved as an ASM for that past year, I have a question about the sequence of events concerning OA. Our election was held at the end of November. The Tap Out occurs at Camporee in April. Our one boy (new troop) who was eligible for the election was elected. He did Ordeal this past weekend and was recognized at the COH this week. What specifically is the purpose of Tap Out? Isn't it where those who were elected get Tapped Out and later complete Ordeal? Can you do Ordeal before being Tapped Out. I'm not trying to accuse anyone in the troop of doing anything wrong.....simply because I don't know how it is supposed to work. If anyone can educate me, it would be appreciated.

Did you ever try dropping them from the roster at recharter time? You are under no obligation to call them up and track down their annual fee. If they don't come to a meeting and pay up at recharter time, drop them from the roster. When they show up four years later to do an Eagle project, they might be shocked to find that they have not been a Boy Scout for four years. I realize that you don't want to do that and you want to retain them, but you have to get their attention and help them understand that they have an obligation to the troop if they want the troop to have an obligation to them. However, it is tough for some older boys to stay active in a troop. I dropped out after Webelos. If I'd become a Boy Scout, I would have stopped at 16. I wasn't going to stay at home every night and have my parents drive me places. I wanted a car. My parents expected me to pay for my car. That meant a job. I worked in a grocery store. Now this was back in the old days, the early and mid 70's. Stores were not open 24 hours a day back then. We were open from 10 AM to 9 PM. Housewives worked the mornings and teens worked the evenings and weekends. No exceptions. If you were a teen, you worked every Friday night and every Saturday or you didn't work. That was two of the busy times of the week and it was all teen hands on deck. That meant you couldn't go on campouts and since you worked evenings, no troop meetings. Unless parents want to buy their kids a car and pay for insurance, gas and maintenance (which happens a whole lot more now than it did in the 70's), you will lose many a boy when he turns 16.

I once had this idea about an organization for boys that is led by boys, but alas.....

nldscout, You might want to hold up on the "it's the SM's call". While I agree that the SM is in charge of administering the boy side of the program, he is recruited by the CC and answers to the CC. Note that he should attend the committee meeting to bring a report, but is not a "voting" member of the committee. The pecking order of a unit according to the BSA is IH, COR, CC, SM. To me, the SM and CC are basically counterparts and compliment each other, but the CC is head of the unit. Any conflict in an element of the program should be discussed and resloved between them. But the CC runs the show in a perfect BSA world.

Geez, either a lot of you guys are expensive or we are cheap. We usually collect $5 per adult and boy per campout for food and none of us have starved yet. I understand we have a new boy coming into the troop who ONLY eats mac and cheese and the meatballs out of sphagettio's. He might starve, but it won't be for a lack of good food available. We don't allow special diets except for health or religious purposes. I think the highest cost we've charged is $10 when we go to a non-scouting camp that charges for the campsite. The highest charge we've had so far is $2 per night per person. We charged $25 annual fees for 2005. We are going out of council for summer camp and it will run $180.

Congrats!!! I used to be a Beaver......

E, Perhaps we can find a good raspberry bug juice.

Thank you all for the kind and encouraging words. E, Maybe we can have a pint of bug juice with those cookies at Jambo. I actually had an opportunity to add that third bead with a course that is about to get under way. My WB troop guide is course director for this year's spring WB course. But, I had too much of my annual vacation tied up in Jambo this year to be able to serve on her WB staff. Hmmmmmm, I know next spring's course director pretty well. Who knows?

This past Saturday, I recieved my beads along with six other SR540 participants. The reciepients included me and a fellow Beaver and the five members of the Fox patrol who decided to wait and be beaded together. I've attended a few Roundtable beadings and decided that being handed my beads and a certificate and a quick handshake so they can move on to other business was not the way I wanted to remember my beading. Our council puts on a two weekend course called Outdoors Skills Training that is in addition to and more advanced that the IOLS course. I visited with my fellow Beaver and we elected to have our beading at OST. The Foxes found out and tagged along. What a great experience. They did the beading at the end of their campfire program. It was an unusally warm March day in Oklahoma and the temps had hit near 80. The temps in the evening were cooler, but you could wear shirt sleeves only and there was only a slight breeze. They led the course participants and those to be beaded to a campsite that was surrounded by a ring of tall trees, with a clear night sky and three huge fire burning. They pulled out the stops on the ceremony. It was a very memorable experience and the best part was having my 12 year old 1st Class son there to watch. Then he got to experience an adult cracker barrel complete with singing. It sure beat the roundtable route.

Ridge, Are you aware that ou can have scout uniform pieces custom tailored thru National Supply? Obviously they will cost more than pieces off the rack, but you can get a custom fit in a variety of fabrics.

Santa brought me a GPS for Christmas and my son and I love to geocache. While I still want Scouts to learn and use the compass and map, a GPS is a wonderful thing and I think a geocaching outing would be a blast. The only problem is that the cost of even the cheapest GPS units would make it fairly cost prohibitive for many troops to supply enough even for teams of scouts.

I'm well aware that we don't live in a perfect world. But in a perfect world, there is a "pecking order" in a BSA unit. Let me say upfront that I don't have my resources in front of me and I am working from memory. The BSA way of starting a unit goes something like this. An organization says, we want to start a unit. The Institutional Head recruits a Charter Organization Rep. The COR recruits a Committee Chair. The Committee Chair recruits a ScoutMaster. The Committee Chair recruits Committee Members and the Scoutmaster recruits Assistant Scoutmasters from folks they know and from the parents of boys that the SM and ASM recruits to start the troop. It takes three adult leaders and 5 boys to charter a troop. That is how it is supposed to work "by the book". As such, directly within the unit, the SM is accountable to the Committee Chair who recruited them. The SM and CC are somewhat on equal footing as one is in charge of the program and the other is in charge of supporting the program. But in the final analysis, the CC is top dog in the unit itself. Now in reality, every unit is unique and their experience is totally different from one another. The troop I serve had seven or eight 11 year old boys and an equal number of adults who wanted to begin a troop and had to shop ourselves to organizations to find a charter. We were a package deal and the church and COR took us lock, stock and barrel without having to do any recruiting on their own and have been pretty hands off as a charter. They have set no policy regarding how we operate the unit.

rj, Whoa there pardner! Duct tape is the 8th wonder of the world. As the saying goes, if duct tape won't fix something, it is time to buy a new one!!!

Adults don't wear patrol patches!!! Just ask one particular old timer in our council who helps with a lot of the outdoor training classes. If he spots an adult with a patrol patch, he gives them a lecture. Personally, I wear one of the custom made "Old Goat" patrol patches our scout shop sells. They also carry "Coffee Pot" patrol patches. I know one unit that has an adult patrol patch of a firecracker broken in half with the word "Dud" under it. Just don't let our old timer see you with it or you'll get an ear full.