SR540Beaver

Sounds somewhat like a Camporee or Jamboree. Talk to your Council about reserving one of your campgrounds, plan some activites and invite all the Venturing Crews in your Council and surrounding Councils to attend. I'm sure a lot of networking could take place to facilitate Crews getting to know each other and do activities together. There is nothhing that would prevent you from doing this. The Councils exist to provide the program. They certainly won't frown on you providing additional opportunities. They may expect you to organize it as their professional staff is usually stretched to the limit.

E, You could be right, we won't know until dana responds back. My take on it (strictly assuming) is that rather than do the leg work of finding willing charters, they want to form a "Venturing Association" to act as a paper charter so Crews can get established anywhere and everywhere. I can see a group coming together to form a "concerned citizens" group or whatever BSA calls it to act as a charter to form an individual crew. But not to act as a clearing house for crews spread across multiple districts and councils. I appreciate the enthusiasm of promoting Venturing; but to me, it sounds like an attempt to not have to do the hard work of finding charters for crews. I can speak from first hand experience since I was turned down by a good number of organizations before finding a church that was excited about adding scouting under their umbrella. It ain't easy.

I don't see how a charter could cross more than one Council. Heck, it can't even cross more than one district. If Main Street is the dividing line between District A and District B and I'm on District B's side of the line, I can't be part of District A. Therefore, it would be impossible to cover more than one Council. Now your membership can come from anywhere across Districts or Councils if they want. If someone wants to drive from another town or state to attend meetings, they can.

You can create a charter with a "Friends of Troop xx" to charter a unit, but I agree it isn't preferrable. We split from another troop back in June and did this to get our new troop up and running. Keep in mind what you will have to provide to the unit as a charter. The main thing is meeting space. We got away with using borrowed space from a church that had a Pack. We had to be out when the new Cub year started. We worked hard thru the summer before finding a church in August that agreed to be our charter organization. We now have permament space and support from them. The charter organization that our old troop belonged to made an offer to act as our charter as well and have two Boy Scout troops. They claimed to have checked with the Council who told them it would be acceptable. In our case, it would have been extremely awkward and we thanked them, but declined. I still question the "legality" of one charter having multiple units of the same level. I don't know that there is actually any prohibition, but what would be the point? If their is already a pack/troop/crew there, join it instead of duplicating the effort.

E, I knew my post would get a rise out of someone. I'm sure what I'm about to explain won't matter to some folks, but it is why we do what we do. We are a new troop of ten 11 and 12 year olds. We have two boys gone most of the time for football season, so we have 6 to 8 boys at meetings on a regular basis. Three of these boys are brand new to scouting in the last couple of weeks and they are acting like model scouts. The core group that we started with are our sons who earned AOL in Cubs. We have four boys in particular (ex-Cubs) who provide 90% of our problems. We have workd with them since Cubs and they "know" how they are "supposed" to act. They are supposed to be the example for the new boys. They have had many many one on one private sessions regarding their behavior over the last several years and continue to be defiant and disruptive. Since we started out with 7 boys, we only had enough for one patrol. So our PLC consists of our PL (my son) and the APL who is one of the better problem boys. These boys are Tenderfoots and while they are doing their best, they have a long ways to go to develop the skill sets to handle boys with bad behavior. From our leaders discussion, we are pretty much in agreement that the bad behavior stems from several factors. One is simply that they are 11 and 12 years old. Another is that a couple of the boys are diagnosed as ADD. The other reasons are that some of them are allowed to act this way at home without consequences, they are trying to get attention, they are trying to be cool in front of their peers and in some instances they just like to frustrate the adults. We don't see using the oath and law as punishment, but reinforcement. As I said, we've had the one on ones for a long time with no success. They are not thinking before acting. So we make them think after acting. We make them reflect. If they are going to act badly in front of the group to provoke a response, they will explain to the group that they disrupted why it is wrong. A little fair humility is a good thing. When we do the one on one all they seem to hear is yada, yada, yada and then off they go to repeat their behavior. When they have to repeat the law and consider what they did in front of everyone, they have to stop and think about it. When they realize that this is going to keep happening, they decide to start thinking before hand and quit acting badly. When I stole a piece of bublegum from a store at 5 years old, all it took was for my dad to walk me back to the store and stand in front of the owner and apologize and pay for it to keep me from ever stealing again. We are trying to modify their behavior and the private counseling has gotten us nowhere. When they are held accountable for thier actions in front of the people they acted out to, it sends a message to everyone involved that it will not be tolerated and their will be consequences. I'm sure you won't agree with it and that others won't either, but that is how we think it can best be handled at this time. It will stop when we don't have to do it anymore, but that is up to the boys who behave badly. The committee and the parents are in agreement with the approach and know that we may be sending boys to them if they continue in the behavior.

We've just started using the Scout law. When someone displays bad behavior, we stop them, have them stand up, say the scout law and tell us which law they broke. They've been told that this will continue until they change their behavior. We are trying to get them to think beofre they act. Because if they act, they will be having to think about it after the fact. We've also told them that if the behavior continues, they may be required to write a paragraph or two explaing the particular law they broke and why it was wrong to do what they did. If it continues beyond that point, they get to make a trip dowm the hall to the committee and explain why they are there and see how the committee wants to handle it. We just started using this approach this week and it made a big difference real fast after two boys had to do it.....one of them twice. The SM, myself and my fellow ASM set down and discussed how we wanted to get a handle on the disruptive behavior that seems to be a continuing problem and make sure that we are on the same page and use it consistently and evenly across the board. We'll see how it works out.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this has been covered in one of the many other uniform threads. I was thinking it had been stated that a charter CAN require the wearing of the uniform even though BSA says it isn't required. It would "logically" follow that the charter would then need to work to assist in uniforming anyone who could not afford it. Am I dreaming this, or was this stated in another thread?

Cajun, I did a little Google search and came up with five Councils in Tennessee. These are West Tenessee, Middle Tennessee, Chickasaw, Great Smoky Mountain and Cherokee. They all looked up to date to me. Great Smoky Mountain had some out of date material on it, but did have stuff for 2004 and even 2005. If that is the council you are in, they are having a Scouting University in 2005 that is listed under their training page. You'll be able to get a full day of all sorts of training at that. Call your Council office and ask them for training opportunity info. Get your District Executive's number from them. He can tell you when and where the District Roundtable meets. Keep in mind that if your District's training schedule does not meet your schedule, you can go to training in other Districts. In my case, five of my Council's 11 Districts are within the metro area and are within a 30 to 45 minute drive from my house. I have practically no excuse for not being trained.....which I am.

Cajun, Go to your next District Roundtable meeting. The District Training Chair should be there and can provide you with his training schedule. If not, there will be other folks there who can provide you with the info. Some Councils are big and some are small. Some have lots of money and some don't. Some see the value in spending money and effort in providing timely information thru the internet and some don't. That doesn't mean that training isn't taking place. Go to Roundtable and you should gain s wealth of information about what is going on in your District and Council.

OGE, WHAAAAAAT? And give up our cabin tents, cots, air mattresses, lounge chairs, EZ-ups and dutch ovens. Then it wouldn't be camping. Heaven forbid!

KS, There aren't any multi-millionaire scouter mega-stars to emulate, just poor volunteers with bulging buttons. I think that is part of the difference between wanting to wear a sports uniform and a scout uniform. That and the fact that the coach won't let you play if you are not in uniform. But still, they want to wear the sports uniform regardless of whether it is required or not. The sports uniform isn't geeeeeky, dorrrrky or lame.

You need to take into consideration whether a big trailer is going to sink up to it's axle(s) in muddy conditions too. It would be a bummer to have to drive home 200 miles and leave your trailer back at camp until conditions dry up.

fscouter, Ouch! That's fighting fire with fire.

BW, HEY! You stole our patrol yell! Chew or die! Our other one was, "gee Wally". I'm sure they've been used by many a WB Beaver patrols, but we thought them up and considered them original to us. Where is a copyright lawyer when you need one?

nld, I'm not justifying it. I've only been around Scouting long enough to see the call out. I have to say that it has been the most drab, dull and boring thing I've seen. Our call out is done at our spring Camporee. I was shocked because it went on forever and ever. They had to have called out at least 75 to 100 people. They were so thick that there was no room left down front and they were having to line them up the aisle. One could however assume that for a boy to be called out, he has been in Scouting long enough to have seen the ceremony and knows what to expect. He certainly does after the first person gets tapped. That doesn't make the activity right or acceptable, but I don't know that I'd say they would be unsuspecting.

Just a thought.....perhaps you should tell him that there are no blue or greens kids in the room, just brother Wolf Cubs.

2Eagle, Now you just need some magnetic signs with the BSA log and your Troop number to slap on the doors of the vehicles of your caravan. Hey, maybe a US flag and BSA flag on the front fenders would look good too.!

nld, We'd better not let the boys get in canoes, build fires, use a knife or do any rappelling either.

E, Buck Tail would be better than Horse's Patoot!

The state has the legal right to execute convicted criminals or to put animals down. The average citizen doesn't. And no, I don't equate animals with humans. If the man can be charged with a crime for shooting the puppies, then it is against the law for him to do it regardless of his intention. The civil authorities can do it, he can't. On a side note, it is amazing the laws that are on the books. When I took the IOLS class, we had a veteran scouter who is a naturalist come and do a presentation. He informed us that it is against the law in the state of Oklahoma to pick up any dead wildlife or roadkill without a liscense to do so. He has a liscense and that is how he obtains many specimens for the museum he works for. However, he warned us against doing it ourselves without getting the proper liscense. Go figure. There goes my hopes for a coon skin cap.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but charters run from April 1st to March 31st don't they? Rechartering on time is a huge deal in our district. It is one of the main goals of our Unit Commissions to wrangle the recharter packages from the units. How can one unit's charter run from January to December and everyone else's run April to March? I didn't know it was an option.

fscouter, No, we establish government shelters to control stray animals that are running loose. They are available for adoption or for the owner to retrieve. When they are not adopted or picked up within a certain time frame, then they must be destroyed. But the primary function of the "pound" is not to destroy the animals. It is to control strays with the hope of finding them a responsible home. Destroying them is the last resort. Otherwise they'd gas them as soon as they got them to the facility.

I enjoyed my time as Patrol Leader of the Beavers. I was always the first thru the chow line!!!

meamemg, Gillwell Park is where Baden-Powell held the very first Wood Badge. Every Wood Badge troop is called Troop 1 and the site is referred to as Gillwell wherever it may be held anywhere in the world. Do a google search and you can read the history of Gillwell.

I'm not sure about rare names. There are standard Wood Badge patrol names and they do go in "Wood Badge order" starting with Beavers. It all depends on how many patrols make up your Troop whether you use the patrol names at the end of the order. I don't recall the names, but I've seen a list that included additional patrol names if your course has more than 8 patrols. I used to be a Beaver...... One ticket item to go!