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T2Eagle

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Everything posted by T2Eagle

  1. We always did the same as Inquisitive. This is actually the kind of role that is perfect to delegate to one of the parents. It’s purely an organizational project, doesn’t involve camping, and doesn’t involve having any particular scout skill or scouting background. What it does require is someone who can successfully wade through kludgy websites and be on top of deadlines and communications. And it’s usually not that hard to force somebody that’s not you to step up. ‘Mr. Former CC who used to do this isn’t here, so if we want to go to summer camp then someone not me has to do this.”
  2. To explain a little bit about the differences between SB and scouting.org, SB is an interface that allows you to access scouting.org, but it also has some labeling and functionality of its own. Scouting.org is THE official database, and reflects the official registration of each individual. I suspect that in scouting.org he is listed solely as Committee Chair. His listing as an ASM in SB is probably an artifact of an earlier position or some sort of miscue when someone set up SB. The other positions you listed seeing in SB are not actual official positions. They’re suggestions for how
  3. Our troop had older scouts sign off on skill requirements up through 1st class. As SM I kept scout spirit for myself or an ASM. I used the older scouts skills signoff as a teaching, mentoring, quality control opportunity. If I thought a younger scout maybe didn’t have the command of a skill I hoped for I could have a chat with the older scout who signed off to see what his perspective was. I don’t have a particular objective to the PLC acting as a body, but they already have work to accomplish as a group, and I prefer to see advancement be a more organic process that mostly comes from
  4. Funny, we’re in NW Ohio. I don’t think any of our scouts haven’t done #5. We plan at least one or two winter tent camps where we hope to get snow. We’ve had a few of years where the number is it’s higher than that, irrespective of our plans. Regarding MBC discretion, I don’t get too literal on #5. If it was truly cold I’ll give a scout credit. If it drops into the low teens or single digits I figure there had to be some snow nearby, even if I didn’t personally see it
  5. One thing to note is that the requirement specifies a scouting activity, it doesn’t say with the troop. So these nights, and their corresponding activities can be done within scouting but outside the troop. That could mean OA, jamboree, provisional scout at a summer camp, council contingents to high adventure, or just tagging along with another troop where he has a buddy. Broadly, I haven’t seen many scouts struggle with 9b if they are easily completing 9a. Where are you located, and what does your troop do on campouts that they’re not getting these things in? My theory on t
  6. One thing to remember is that council actually needs you more than you need them. Registered units and registered scouts are THE most important thing to a council. Meaning no disrespect to Unit Commissioners out there, but they are pretty much the same place as a unit leader, at best, on the totem pole. Fill out the paperwork, and dare them to tell you and the Chartering Organization that owns and supports you that they won’t allow fundraising where they don’t get a cut. Dot your ‘i’s and cross your ‘t’s, but be stubborn. They will see the light, however grudgingly. I have a
  7. This framing drives me crazy. BSA isn't being sued because BSA has money, BSA is being sued because BSA DID SOMETHING WRONG! That has been the finding of virtually every judge and jury that has heard these cases: BSA knew or should have known that pedophiles were using its program to access victims. BSA's failures, to act, to watch, to look, to enforce rules, etc. were the reason its members, volunteer and professional, were able to sexually assault children --- for decades. BSA DID SOMETHING WRONG AS AN ORGANIZATION! That's why they were sued AND LOST, over and over again. If BSA had
  8. If you’re not on your council board no one above is going to listen to you. I’d start by approaching your own COR, and making sure you get everything from them that you can. In terms of finding other CORs, it will take leg work and persistence, the website beascout.scouting.org lists every unit and their chartering organization. Make a list, send a preliminary letter to the org, get on the phone and follow up. But be warned, you’ll ruffle feathers, and you’ll need to tread lightly or the feathers will ruffle back.
  9. That the parties agreed to the Purdue or BSA or any other plan seems like the weakest argument I can think of. If the non consensual releases were illegal then neither side would agree to the plan and something altogether different would have happened. The question should be are these releases valid under the law as written. Parties agreeing to something under a faulty view of the law and therefore a flawed view of what the consequences of not settling is arguing that the outcome must be right because it is the outcome.
  10. For good deals on a bunch of equipment, go to Hiker direct.com and sign up for their scout discount. They sell their equipment at about 40% off retail to scouts. My personal recommendation is their Taurus Outfitter Tents. They're sturdy, good quality, and have full vestibules front and back. They'll stand up to really bad weather and twelve year old youth abuse. These are not backpacking tents, but, they're not too heavy to split between two or three scouts if you're only hiking a couple miles in to a camp site. They also have backpacking tents if the troop you join are serious back
  11. My pretty long experience was crossover around March, first campout in April, another in May. You want those campouts to be not too rigorous, fun, and at least one of them really focused on them learning how to be a part of the older unit. A scout who has a miserable time on their first real campout will be much more likely to drop than continue. Scouts BSA camping is often the first time in their lives a kid is away from home, and away from their parents, and away from their family, and responsible for taking care of all their own stuff. A scout with two campouts with two good campout
  12. The best thing to do always in situations like this is to quietly get good information from people who should have it; don't act based on "what everybody knows." I would suggest your first step is to talk to your CC and SM. They apparently know something about this, and the only thing you're sure of about their involvement so far is that they didn't involve the rest of the committee. Respectfully, you don't know more than that; maybe they have a full plan in place, maybe they've already met with the parents, or your COR, or both. Your son and his friend's concern are admirable and sho
  13. I assumed I saw no scout bows in the wild because the GTSS strictly restricts them to use on an approved archery range.
  14. Qwazse has it nailed. The uniform expectations of the troop are set, either implicitly or explicitly, by the PLC. When you say "Our troop has been going back and forth" do you mean the adults or the scouts? If it's the adults they should just drop it because it's not really their call (I know they don't want to hear this). If it's the scouts then they should be encouraged to struggle through the issues Qwazse lays out. In direct answer to your question, the only rule you will find is the one regarding BORs. Extrapolate from that what you will. If it's your adults driving
  15. Steramine tablets are not the ammonia tablets you mentioned.
  16. At a basic level, for mergers to result in more financially sound councils you need to reduce your costs, which are primarily camps, service centers, and people, while trying to maintain your revenues: donations, popcorn, and camp fees. In your council how many of the former did you start and end with, and how much of the latter fell as you did that? Also, what were the factors that drove the four councils not working, and what structural changes allowed the new council to overcome those forces?
  17. The tablets, we had a group of adults who among their many other transgressions would use WAY too much beach. The tablets, as you say, can be measured pretty accurately. The additional cost over time is pretty small, and a small bottle of tablets is easier to deal with than a bottle of liquid bleach. When backpacking we rarely bothered with sanitizing. You can have long debates, and there have been some on this forum, about the actual need for sanitizing.
  18. You’re effectively her grandparent, and we’ve had lots of grandparents. We never ask for documentation. You might consider cross registering with her unit.
  19. The thing is, it sounds petty and selfish until it’s your family facing tens maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical and other costs, then it’s your family’s survival on the line. And there is no other way in our society to ameliorate those costs, no one else is coming to your rescue, no one else is going to be in a position to actualy provide that level of help.
  20. Regarding the emails, in our Catholic unit it is a requirement that any email correspondence that includes youth has to include a parish email address so that there is a copy on a parish controlled server. Rather than issue every scouter a parish email we copy a parish email on all troop correspondence. Our pastor monitors that account periodically. Most scout sponsoring churches view scouting as part of their religious mission, how this manifests itself or how directly the church wants the unit to be specifically or overtly a part of the proselytizing of the church can vary, but is w
  21. There is a difference between a retest and probing with a scout about how well he knows a skill, how he learned it, how whichever scout worked with him played their role in testing him and making sure he had learned the skill, etc.. I never did the former, part of but certainly not the entirety of every SM conference I ever did included the latter. Some scouts retain more some less, some scout-instructors were better than others. SM conferences were a part of how I learned where all my scouts fell on those spectrums. If I thought a scout really didn't have a skill I'd subtly work with
  22. Those kinds of ultimatums are just dumb, and bad parenting, bad leadership, etc. Because, among other things, they're not instilling discipline, rather they're relinquishing it. What if the kid picks pushups? The trash still isn't taken out. It's worth remembering that you're not the ultimate person in charge of the unit. The instances you've cited are bad. Write them down, with dates, places, and names, and take them to your COR. That is who is responsible for the behavior of the adults in the unit, and they along with the org are who is going to be held accountable.
  23. I couldn't find it on a quick search, but I'm curious what the humidity and actual temperature at the time (10:30PM) were. I wasn't there, but several of my friends were working a medical tent during the 2005 BSA Jambo heat disaster. https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna87052 Heat exhaustion adds to Scout Jamboree woes About 300 Boy Scouts were treated for heat exhaustion Wednesday after waiting for President Bush to arrive at a memorial service for four Scout leaders who were killed while pitching a tent beneath a power line. Bush will appear on Thursday instead.
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