T2Eagle

College Scouter Reserve sounds like the most appropriate registration code for what you have in mind. Just for clarification, 18 -- 20 year olds can also be ASMs if registered with a troop, and of course Venturers. It doesn't really matter what the registration code is, it matters what you intend to have them do to help the program. If I was trying this, one area I would consider that's a little outside the box would be as Instructors for youth leadership training programs, especially if that could get you some good training outside rather than in a classroom. I would probably also try to have them staff district and council events like camporees, or have them act as adults for new or struggling troops. Basically take advantage of their enthusiasm and their probable penchant for getting outdoors and getting a little dirty. Most especially I would make this a co-ed outreach, look for former female camp staffers and Venturers to supplement the obvious Eagle Scout pool you'll probably start with.

In my experience the largest number of partial MBs come out of summer camp. Thankfully we don't have MB days, universities, etc. around here and so I don't have to deal with that. If scouts are signing up to retake the class it is possible that they don't understand that they could try to complete the badge on their own. A troop should at least make sure that their scouts understand that possibility Having said that, for some of those badges the easiest way to complete it is probably to try to finish the requirements at camp the next year whether that's by signing up for the badge all over again or by trying to get in the missing requirements during open area times. Some of the most common examples of this that I've seen are Climbing, any of the Boating MBs, and the shooting MBs. For shooting it's getting a high enough score on enough targets; since there are very tight restrictions and when and where scouts can shoot as scouts it is not uncommon for summer camp to be the most likely venue. For Climbing and Boating weather plays havoc with completion: thunderstorms on Thursday and Friday at camp mean the areas are closed and there is just no way to complet the badge. In theory a scout could find someone with a small sailboat to borrow for completion, or go to a climbing wall, but that just may not be as practical as waiting until the next summer. There are other common summer camp MBs that we do see completed: the nature type badges come to mind, things like Astronomy, Nature, Reptile and Amphibians, Oceanography, etc., usually the scout needs to do more research and report writing to complete these, and often if a scout was intrigued by the material they'll get around to finishing them up. The big take away I think is making sure your scouts really understand the MB and partial process, and then let them handle it as best meets their own curiosity and needs.

How sure are you about the no chartering orgs that served alcohol. That could easily eliminate most Catholic parishes and Knights of Columbus councils. Back in the day, and it was a long day ago, my Pack was sponsored by a KofC, and we met in the social room that also contained a stocked bar. That council sold their building and so we met in the parish school gym, which also was the parish social hall, and there were live (locked) beer taps in the corner.

I won't miss them. I'm curious, has anyone ever had to cancel a trip because Council denied a permit, back when they were permits, or had to substantively change a plan because they were remiss in their plannings? My guess is that thousands upon thousands of these things have been filed over the years without any appreciable effect on anyone's behavior. I cannot think of any reason Council would need to know where my troop was going. They're not going to be there to prevent any problems or help in any emergency, and if something does go wrong it's a near certainty that we'll be back home before they would know about it, so why would it matter that they knew of a particular campout ahead of time.

Hard to say much without knowing what the Trust documents say. It would be interesting to know what the $500,000 was used for. That's not the kind of money you borrow to patch a hole in your budget, it's more likely to be some sort of capital improvement. Which if it was say a building or pool at the camp might be within the bounds of the Trust to have purchased rather than just loaned.

Here's a suggestion for them. We love xbox, We love xbox, Yay, xbox! Is that one you might come up with? Does it seem like a good Coyote patrol yell? That's OK, you're not in the patrol, and you're not responsible for the patrol. The point almost everyone here was trying to make is that these four boys could certainly reach consensus on what xbox game to play --- because they see it's in their interest to do so. Hopefully, they'll be going camping next month and doing their own meal planning, they'll reach a consensus about what to eat --- because they'll see it's in their interest to do so. They'll come up with a patrol yell --- when they decide it's in their interest to do so. Likely they'll go through several yells before they really settle on one, probably parroting versions of yells that they hear from the other patrols. And if they don't, that's OK, you're not in the patrol, and you're not responsible for the patrol, some of the older boys, who are responsible for them, will help them hammer out some sort of compromise, that's the point of being a Boy Scout. One of the hardest transitions in scouting is for adults going from Cub Scouts to Boy Scouts. It's been your job for probably five years to make sure that they get done what they need to get done. Abruptly this weekend that changes, it's now your scouts' job to be responsible for their accomplishments. They won't do all the same things at the same time, they won't get all their advancement together, they won't be having your guidance to make it all happen. But it should be great for them, so as everyone else said, relax, have a cup of coffee, and sit back and watch. It actually will be more fun for you too.

I can't speak for every council, I'm on my council's Jambo Committee, and we finally did away with the extra tours and events for 2013. Didn't even discuss it for this one. As much as anything it was a case of "we always did it that way." It wouldn't shock me if it started in many councils with the thought, "the scouts may never get another chance to see ..." and has simply always been the default assumption, but with the amount of traveling that is common today compared to even a couple decades ago that's simply a bad assumption. As with many things, changing takes more effort than letting the status quo remain. One other factor at play may be that the folks planning a Council's Jamboree participation are not the families actually participating in the Jamboree. So at best there is guessing about what most of the participants would want to do (and want to spend) without any actual collection of data about how those folks would like to structure their participation.

We're still wrestling with this as a troop. For sure no one's name should be associated with a picture. If anyone doesn't want their scout's picture displayed that should be honored. I've talked to several scout professionals about the meaning of the "no private FB groups" they all agree the wording is poor and should be read as meaning no private FB between a scout and an adult, but private FB groups where the membership includes but is limited to the families of the scouts is the right way to go. We're currently engaged in a discussion about the troop calendar being public, ie on the front page of the website. My argument is that this is the easiest way for the information to be useful. I don't get the argument that there is any danger to knowing where the troop is camping. We camp at scout camps, state parks, and some private lands. That there are going to be scouts or kids at the first two is a given for any and every week of the year, and we control the access when we are camped on private property, so I'm not sure what folks concerns are.

Any of the ranges, climbing tower, and lakefront equipment are available for a fee if you're at camp outside of summer camp season. You can rent and use off site cross country skis or canoes depending on season. Neither council nor district own a derby track, but plenty of packs do and they get loaned out.

I will say one thing about the privacy issue. Several years ago we put the MBC list up on our website, didn't really give it much thought. A few months later one of the counselors, in hindsight probably rightly, called Council and raised holy heck. Turns out she was a teacher and we had inadvertently published her heretofore unpublished phone number and address. We dropped the list from the site the same day, but it was a lesson learned for us in what was then the early days of having a troop website.

Each scout can and should be judged individually, but I do think it shows at least some deficiency if a scout makes Eagle and almost immediately quits the troop. It's true that most of the scouts I've seen do this are not people of poor character, and they probably do decide to spend their time in other meaningful ways rather than just being narcissists. But I do feel there is some service owed to a troop after it has provided a scout the program and support necessary for them to become Eagle. After all there had to be other scouts above him as he was coming up. Making Eagle and taking off strikes as at least somewhat analogous to pulling up a ladder after you that someone else actually set up before you. It's not the worst behavior I've seen, but it does leave a bad taste in my mouth.

My first post was long enough that I decided that I should do a separate one for some more observations on the MBC, counselor list, MBs topic. For better or worse, and I think it's worse, most summer camps these days are merit badge heavy. even if your camp has a solid program that does a good job being sure the requirements are met, most scouts come away from summer camp with at least 3 and some years as many as 5 MBs, either full or partial. Take out some of the required badges that really don't fit at all well with a camp experience, like Communications, Family Life, Personal Management, and maybe one or two others, and a scout that goes to summer camp every year from when they're 11 through age 15, will already have somewhere in the neighborhood of 16 MBs, and have probably earned all the non-required badges they need for Eagle. So outside of the required MBs there is almost no demand at all for counselors or for MB work other than at camp. I think this is not good for many reasons, including narrowing the list of MBs that most scouts even consider, and limiting the Adult Association that used to come from MB work in the community rather than at camp. A last thought, whenever possible I try to steer my scouts to a MBC outside the troop rather than them working with the same group of adults they already see regularly. I mentioned above that The List doesn't capture emails; if I present my scouts with an option to initiate contact with an adult they don't know by calling them on the phone rather than first emailing versus them meeting with someone they'll probably see at a troop meeting or at least will have an email already, which do you think they most often choose?

My understanding is that the crux of the issue about the The List of MB counselors lies in the decrepit computer systems that BSA uses. Our council sends out a PDF about every two months that has been sorted by District, and then sorted by MB, so what you receive is a list of the MBCs in your district. It's generated from Scoutnet, so you have to be registered in Scoutnet as a MBC to be on it. In our council, if you are already a registered scouter there is a form/application you fill out if you want to be a MBC; you can indicate on the form that you want to be Troop only, and that info prints out on the list, but very few people limit themselves that way. Once Council receives the form the registrar then has to go in and "Multiple" register you as a MBC. It is possible to be registered as just a MBC, but then you register, and are approved for BSA membership, by the District. Just like all other types of BSA membership you have to be re-chartered every year as a MBC, and this has to be done independently of your unit membership. We used to get an email once a year with a new form asking if we wanted to again be MBCs, if you didn't respond you were dropped as a counselor. I suggested to a couple people on our Council advancement committee, and I probably wasn't the only one, that if somebody remained registered with their unit we should just recharter them as MBCs, and this year they finally made that change. So, in a nutshell, the list has to come from someone going into Scoutnet and first Multiple registering you as a MBC, then every year someone has to re-charter you as a MBC or you drop off the Scoutnet system. As you can imagine there are a lot of ways for that process to go wrong, including everyone thinking/hoping it's someone else's responsibility to keep it up. Oh, and one more quirk in the system, it doesn't capture email addresses.

At Round Table last month the break out session for troops was along the lines of how do we get scouts to do a better job of scheduling their time on the required merit badges so they don't miss out on Eagle. The idea that it's OK if they don't make Eagle was never broached, maybe I failed at being Brave for not broaching it, but it didn't seem to be a question anyone there wanted to wrestle with.

Find some hills, bring some sleds.

The second one is open to a lot of interpretation since you would have to define where in the process you start making something. Does sewing already spun cloth count, or do you need to do your own weaving. As to the former, how long do you think that's been a declining skill. To my knowledge no one in my family has farmed anything more than backyard tomatoes since the potatoe crop failed in the 1840s, those and the occasional landed fish are probably the only non store bought food we and millions of others have ever eaten in North America.

Where currently in your troop is the line between what the boys get to decide and are allowed to fail at and what decisions adults retain and don't allow the boys to fail at.

Thanks NJ, what you describe is pretty identical with what we do now. I am not a big fan of either strict organizational charts or any sort of written report. I'm just looking for ideas for how to wear my new hat.

I will soon be moving from SM to CC, and so I'm starting to think about my new role. Part of my understanding of the function of the committee is to evaluate the quality of the troop program through the BOR process. How, if at all, do your units do this? Do you have any formal reporting, is it a standard topic of committee meetings? We currently don't do anything formally, for the most part BORs meet and approve, or really rarely disapprove, an advancement, but beyond the fact of the advancement we don't formally communicate any other impressions or thoughts from the BOR. I'm not convinced I want to do anything formal, but I want to look at other ideas.

I was a new SM in a very old troop. My biggest challenge was getting people, scouts and adults alike, to do anything differently. Just because we've always done things that way is not an argument to either keep doing it that way, or stop doing it that way. My best advice, pick two or three specific things you want to change, that are illustrative of the bigger things you want to accomplish, and focus, focus, focus on them. If you don't have a boy led troop pick three things you want the boys to do now. Push, them, cajole them, and train them to do them, and don't accept their not doing them. Let the adults keep doing other things even if you would like that to change later. Especially early on, and especially if you have a younger base of scouts, you are going to have to spend a lot of time following up with them to get them to carry out what you want them to do.

A topic similar to this came up at our last round table. I bit my tongue through much of the discussion. I have never been stressed by my scouts' last minute attempts to get things done, because it is never my goal for a scout to make Eagle. You have to keep telling yourself and everyone around you that it is not your or their goal for a scout to make Eagle, again, and again, and again. Having said that, I do like helping my scouts learn how to achieve what they want to achieve. Don't try to reinvent the wheel. Most schools provide or recommend some sort of planner/calendar for students. Sometimes these are paper sometimes electronic. Start with that if they have one, otherwise have them pull out their phones and see what calendar function they have there and help them learn to use it.

I'm a little out of my depth here, but just because you take in revenue, popcorn sales, doesn't mean you have increased your net profits for tax purposes. In addition to the direct cost of the popcorn, other expenses, like summer camp or equipment, would offset that revenue so that the business did not actually show a net profit from popcorn.

Hmm Businesses are in fact run by people elected by the shareholders, those people then have to vote to select a CEO and usually also several of the folks directly below that. Most families are partnerships where governance has to be reached by consensus. not strictly voting but not hierarchical either. Many government employees are not elected, but all legitimacy comes from the election of the folks who do the hiring and appointing For the military the senior officials are selected by elected officials, my understanding is that officers at least are in fact promoted based on a vote of a board of folks. So, yes elections do seem at least as common as they are uncommon, and the more responsibility you have the more directly your position is the result of voting.

There are no formal rules about terms, term lengths, or term limits. My understanding is most Troops have six month terms, but I know of some that require the position be 12 months long. I have not heard of anyone not allowing SPL s run for consecutive terms as a matter of policy, although I can imagine not lettting a particular SPL run again.

I made 10 of the things, we made ten of the things, they made ten of the things. Depending on context, who I was speaking with and/or how much precision I was putting into an electronic message tapped out in 15 seconds I could have made any or all of the above statements, but unless you were with me to see the body language, nuance, and context of the communication you cannot know what I was actually conveying or have any insight at all into how much respective work my sons or I put into any of the ten cars made while they were Cubs. You are reading much into a sentence that probably wasn't directed specifically to you.