suzdvm

It was Suppose to be a Troop camp out, but most of the Boy Scouts had little brothers in Cub Scouts, so they wanted to go too. I did not want to go on a camp out with two or three leaders and the rest of the adults drop their boys off and leave (last time they did not send tents, sleeping bags, tp, food or anything). So I suggested making it a Troop/Pack Family camp out. To go you had to have your family go with you. (so you would be responsible to your own parent).

The other leaders really liked this idea, so that is what it turned into.

The cubs had a great time and learned a lot... including how to let an adult go down the trails first to step on the rattlesnakes. (happened twice.

I wanted to contact the ranger in the horny toad incident because all the boys knew the toads/lizards were protected, we covered that at the morning hike up the mesa (Black Mesa, Oklahoma, highest point in Oklahoma, dinosaur tracks and dig.) So I was really upset when the older boys were doing this.

As to the dropped off boy, I WAS WRONG, he is only 17 yrs old (his brother is 19) So a youth was left by his parent without permission.? I made a remark this AM/noon to a Scout parent that couldnot go this weekend about the child, and she said that family considers it self priviledge and does what they want.

Thanks so far.

Suz

Our troop and pack just finished a Family camp out weekend. we hike, fished, cooked, napped, and did crafts at a state park. All the boys had a great time. Most were cubs, two boy scouts; one had a brother that is a cub and one came just to get camping nights in bringing his mother, baby brother, and 19 year old brother.

My request for proper "official" conduct/information regards the older brother and company. The company complained about my conduct, so I want to be sure that I did not go overboard.

The situation is as follows. A car pulls up in our camp area Saturday late afternoon, the cubs were working on nature crafts and knots, one boy scout was helping them. The other boy scout was sitting off by himself. The 19 yr old was in his tent. The car contained a woman and her 19yr old son from our home town. They were attending a family reunion nearby (40 miles +/-) They go to one tent and talk to those people for 30 minutes, the woman leaves, leaving the son. No problem, we 're from a small town, everyone knows everyone. (This was irritation #1, she dumps son without checking with SM or CM if ok. Scouts let her withour checking with SM or CM. I am the ASM, but am female, so the boys around here to not respect me very well, It is a taught behavior in this area that is really ingrained in the natives. Also we do not have "money" so some do not believe they have to listen the "white trash".)

The two 19 yrs old and the "lazy" scout sit at a table and are talking, laughing etc. The next table over the cubs continue to work. one of the cubs comes up a little while later saying the big boys have a lizard and are hurting it. Summary ; they have pulled the tail off of a lizard already and then had a Texas Horned Lizared (protected in our state) and are messing with it. The horny toad is taken away and I tell them in no uncertain terms: That they are not to torture the wildlife, they are not to mess with horney toads, that if the ranger saw them, they could go to prison or get fined. (they take the horney toad seriously here) And they had better not do anything like that again.

I did have another leader there with me. It was out in the open. THe parent of the 19 yr old and "lazy" scout was sitting there ignoring the whole thing.

I went to the CM , as the SM was not available, and asked him to seak with the boys. (CM is also my husband.) he thought I was overreacting, that all people would pick up a lizard to look at it and show it to others. I said that was not the problem , the problem was the pulling tails off and harassing the protected lizards, besides being on state property and being scouts or "guests" at a scout function. AND then proceding to laugh in my face about being >>>>>>>>>> fill this in with language, uncomplimentary words , etc. CM talked to them. He said they listened to him, but he is very easy going on everyone except his own family.

The big boys continued to sit there until after supper (letting the mother fix it and clean up after) then left to go fishing. But in the mean time, the continued to talk badly about everyone, especially me as one cub reported to me.

I told the cubs to ignore the big boys and to continue to be good scouts as they had been and let's do the next project.

OK: questions:

1. How do we get parents and scouts to act like scouts?

2. What is the proper way to discipline/talk to/ etc scouts that break the law on a scouting event?

(One said take care of it internally, I said on a blatent deliberate act like lizard mutilation, if it happened again, tell the ranger)

3. What to do about "guests" that show up uninvited? Normally no problem, we take them in and include them. But when they "cause trouble" and disrupt things?

4. How else could this have been handled?

5. any other input.?

6. Only the CM has any training. I have asked for two years for council to offer training in the area (150 mile radius) but they only offer it 250 + miles away. They are thinking about offering one 200 miles away. But I have read everything i can get my hands one,, and read this forum.

THANKS

suzdvm

As a newbie to this forum and scouting my "pearls of wisdom" aren't very pearly but I try to watch, listen, and ask a heck of a lot of questions.

Our council last fall- school scout night- with held the packets from the established units ( we will send them to everyone at the same time to have everyone on equal footing ) I asked for ours for a month before they told me that. Two weeks after the standard scheduled scout school night- that council told us not to do because they would get us our packets and help, I found our the new de had been to towns all around us (40 to 100 mile radius, and that is close for here ) recruiting and starting new units. They went to the school recruited boys, THEN found charter orgs, and assigned boys to dens and NEW packs.

YEAH!!! they got new boys and new leaders and new charter orgs. BUT, they did nothing to keep what they had?

WHAT GIves? I asked they said - there was a gap to fill, they would fill it then come back and help the rest of us. I am still waiting for the hlep.

Any comments, questions, or complaints that might get all of us out here help?

THANKS

SUZ

More good info!!

Burn Ban; we were down to no flame outside-grills, branding fires, etc. We did get .2 rain during the end of last week!!! (the first in 12 months) so we can have grills now. The bad part was we could , but were frowned upon, driving over pasture or off of paved or clechy roads.

Parents: most parents here see Scouts, 4-H, school, church, and any other youth org as a free babysitter were their children may do as they please free of discipline. When my children got involved in scouts, the leaders were very lax with discipline. We took our kids to council camps and involved in roundtables (now called leaders meetings). The older leaders retired- walked away saying the kids wouldn't do anything for them. The scouts were up for charter renewal, the district gut came to us and said please, so here we are.

BUT we now have three other parents that are will to help!!!

School: the K-12 has just about 350 students enrolled, just over half are girls. leaves about 120 boys. about half the paretns say (and this is a quote from one)-if they had to ANYTHING including driving or suppling anything their kid would not be involved- leaves about 60 total in the school that we pull from. AND we have built up from one den of six in the CUBS and five in the Troop.

CAMPS: our council just cancelled out cub scout camp and webelo camp has been moved to the other side of the state. two parents contacted me this morning- we will be family camping this month come heck or rain (we will take the rain:) ).

Our troop does more camping - The troop from 60 miles away asks us to every camp they have. (Great leader!!!!! He is the shining example of what I see scouts should be) But only one or two boys ever show up from our troop. Parents again .

this leader had JLT training set up for his boys, asked ours. AND WOW! ours: one already had jlt, but came to help, two more came for the training. best turn out we've had except for summer camp when we hauled them over there and stayed with them the week.

THANKS again for all the information and help.

I am going to go back to nagging council to get training set up for our half of the state!!

I'll even promise to drag people there myself just to get it.

Suz

THANKS AGAIN!!

But your help has raised more questions.

The boys will be "held" as Webelos until the "appropriate" time. They did the work, they wanted more!!!! They have earned most of the belt loops and some of the pins.

"Have them keep working on them and beltloops & pins. "

Comments and questions below:

"This error cannot be put in the council's lap. You and the pack advancement chair are the ones responsible for signing off on their requirements before they actually completed the requirements. "

They did complete all the requirements, except the time thing. I was reading the Boy Scout book and using a computer program to keep track of the advancements. COMPLETLEY missed the 6 month clause in the Webelo book , until stated here. went and borrowed a book. THe council cancelled our troop and pack charters after they cashed the checks. Erased everyone from their records and cancelled the Boy's Life subscriptions. It took four months to find this out and get it corrected. Their secretary retired suddenly due to poor health and they did not go through all of her filing to see that we were Ok. So it was a real mess for awhile, which probably did not help me or them.

There is no advancement chair here. We have a troop and a pack 22 boys altogether. We have a tiger leader, a wolf leader, a webelos leader (me) and I double as ASM (the SM said he was too busy to do any more and someone else needed to take over, two years ago) the CM has been in and out of the hospital for four years (also my husband, so when he has to go to hospital or dr < five ruptured discs in lower back> four hours away, I have to drive him - lots of time spent on the road) Our charter reps do not want to "get involved" in council politics (we just lost our district and are a rural service area) Everyone that is involved helps as best they can with everything they can.

"Have they earned all the Webelos badges? " yes

""Have them work with the new Webelos on requirements. " there are none - there are no other boys to recruit VERY SMALL TOWN- don't blink, you'll miss us

"Spend time checking out lots of troops, even if the boys think they know where they are going." There is only one troop in the area, they would have to drive one hour one way to join another troop.

" learn more about cooking outside. " we have been under a burn ban for over a year now.

"Boy Scouts, especially when the ages in the troop can range to 18 years" we have 7 boys in the troop, ( one 7th grader, 4 - 8th, 1 - 9th, 1- 10 th) they have been the ones helping and teaching the webelos during their meetings

"requirements that are not easy to meet" these boys are mostly overachievers (makes it hard on the adults)

Have these boys function as much as possible as a patrol (name, patch on shirt sleeve, etc). " ordered their patches last summer, still waiting for council to get them in, have flag, shout, song, etc

2) This summer, go to at least one overnight summer camp session just for Webelos (in my corner of the world, you could chose from sessions at several BSA camps, ranging from rustic to posh).

- there is one in our council three hours away, no other parent wants to go (2 deep) I will NOT take some of the other children without their parent because of discipline problems, and do not feel right saying I would take some and not the problem child. The next nearest camp is over 400 miles away. My child has gone for four years and is bored to tears because it is the same every year.

3) Get your BALOO training and go camping, just the patrol, once month as long as the weather permits. by the way you need Webelos Leader Outdoor Training to take them camping - I have requested training for two years now. The council has scheduled all the training over 400 miles away on Saturday mornings at 8 am or early evenings. I work seven days a week but could take off if I did not have to drive eight hours one way. (three years ago they had a training here. husband CM went after we got special permission for him to have someone (oldest son who knew how to help) go with him to help him get around. but because of another burn ban, they could not do the outdoor taining. I was unable to attend because it left the youngest alone, no babysitters in this town on a weekend) AND I would need another adult to go. I am surprised at the parents that think Scouts is a babysitter.

4) Ask your Cubmaster to incorporate these boys in leadership roles at the pack meetings. These boys already run the pack meetings because the CM has a hard time getting around at the meetings. The boy scouts have "retired" and sit back and enjoy !

5) Participate as a patrol in as many camporees, klondike derbies, etc. as you can. Remember, you aren't limited to the ones in your District or Council. see above,

6) Definitely visit as many troops as possible and choose one that will let them join as a new patrol, hopefully keeping their patrol name.

only one troop and because of size, troop and pack do a lot together already

7) Start planning now for the ultimate crossover ceremony next February (complete with flaming arrows! or not!) that people will be talking about for the next ten years. "

everything has to be under one hour here or the parents walk out during the middle of it. (including derby)

"have they done any campouts or hikes" when I can get another adult to go with, we go. we go with another pack from 60 miles away because noone here has the training required. makes it hard to cooridinate and get there.

SUMMARY:

1) I need traing (the troop and pack adults all need), but have found it inaccesable to me due to time, travel, money constraints coupled with lack of understanding on council's part. We have a trained trainer 60 miles away willing to do training in this area, but council refuses to allow him to do it (just about refused to accept the merit badges he got councilors for, which included trained professionals approved by the council- go figure)

2) I need to learn to read lol

All leaders need a copy of each level. (will work on that)

3) MORE TIME to get ready for the little overachievers, we have built lamps, telegraph machines, studied ham radio ( one will be testing this summer), made "art" to hang at the library, done research for teachers, EMS, and self, organized teams for sports not included at school (all but basketball), cleaned the park, cleaned the fairgrounds, etc etc. It's hard to keep one step ahead of them.

4) I need to call upon the collective wisdom of this forum more often now that I have figured out how to get in.

THANK you again.

Ok, three answers in less than 30 mins!

WOW

two say yes go on , on says no.

On the one that says NO:

"The Official wording for the AOL:

"Be active in your Webelos den for at least 6 months since completing the fourth grade (or for at least six months since becoming 10 years old), and earn the Webelos badge. " "

6 months past 10 yrs or 6 months past 4th grade:

The Council Office has already awarded the Arrow badges for the boys. They are not all 6 months past 10 or 4th grade. Do I take the badges back or let them keep them?

The two that say yes send on:

comments about the 6 months?

THANKS

(there is a danger of losing ALL 5 of the boys because they are not challenged and are bored with Cub Scouts already)

I need the wisdom of the "old timers" and those with extensive training.

I have a group of Webelos (5 out of 6) that have earned their Arrow of Light. (ceremony Friday night). Most will finish up all 20 achievement pins this weekend also. (one has already finished all 20).

Since they have earned their arrow, may they now enroll in Boy Scouts?

What I can find states- out of 5th grade,OR turn 11 years age OR earn Arrow of Light. Nowhere can I find AND.

The questions arises because these boys just finished fourth grade (10 years age). We met once a week throughout the school year and last summer. They are a very GOOD group of boys that know what they worked on. (they did what was expected of them AND a lot more because they wanted to)

So May they enroll in Scouts now or do they have to wait till next year?

My council office is giving me the run around on an answer. If I can get one from someone that knows, I will have confidence to tell the council the boys are enrolling or the parents they cannot.

thanks