T2Eagle

I used to be a fanatic about wearing only official uniform panst/shorts. But when I was getting ready for Jamboree I laid out every pair of BS shorts I owned: 2 different types of switchbacks, a couple of the the bathing suit types, and an older pair of cotton. Between style changes, manufacturer changes, and sun and wear, no two of them looked alike. When I decided I needed a new pair of pants (the one thing they all had in common was that they were all getting smaller) I tried on pants from Cabela's, the scout shop, and Amazon, both Amazon and Cabela's provided exact combinations of wais

How many scouts do you usually recharter year to year?

In the thread about EBORs Krampus posted some numbers that interested me. Coincidentally, I was recently asked by the parent of a Webelo II what percentage of our scouts became Eagle scouts and what was their average age when they did. My response to her was that I don't track the percentage; then I talked about the three Aims and that Advancement is just one of the Methods to achieve them I did acknowledge that I was a bit intrigued about the question of age. In my tenure we have had one scout achieve it when he was 13 and we have had plenty who were pushing their 18th birthday. I

My council works very hard to discourage even paper Advancement reports, strongly encouraging everyone to submit them online; they certainly don't want to have anything to do with Blue Cards let alone scrutinize them to the point of knowing whether the current SM or someone else signed them. My own signature is an illegible scrawl so they'd have no way to check my troop's blue cards even if they wanted to. But that's a discussion for a different day. It's doubtful that your Council, even if they actually want the original blue card, is going to check that the signature is the current SM

I've thought about this, but I'm not sure I want to inflict it upon my SPL.

The first thing every poster on this board is going to tell you is that you should let the boys figure this out, and they're right. You will also get a lot of opinions telling you an ASM shouldn't be micromanaging any scout's advancement, let alone a whole patrol's, and they're right there also. So you should immediately move to a boy led patrol method organization the way Scouting has always meant to be. But you have a question/problem/concern today that you probably want to do something good about today without changing the entire structure and culture of your troop today. A patr

I'm with KenD and Krampus, know all the written rules and materials; if you can manage the adults the boys will take care of themselves. The other piece of advice I have is make allies of your parents, you have in your care the thing that is more precious to them than their own lives, never forget that and remember it is a grave privilege and graver responsibility.

Our PLC came up with attending a minimum of 50% of outings, meetings, and PLCs in order to receive credit for a POR for advancement. We've had a few scouts not get credit as a result.

I understand that, but that's not the reason they cited for ending the MOU. Their concern seemed to be legal liability rather than being forced to have (more) sinners in their midst.

I found this tucked into a story in the New York Times today. Former Senator Alan Simpson was on an Atlantic cruise this week with another congressional sponsor of the 1988 bill apologizing for the Japanese internment during WWII, Norman Y. Mineta, continuing a seven decades long friendship that began at the Heart Mountain internment camp in Wyoming. In the early 1940s, Mr. Mineta was a preteenager from San Jose, Calif., who lived inside the camp. Mr. Simpson was the same age, growing up 14 miles away in Cody. Japanese-American adults at the cold, windswept Heart Mountain had formed

I don't know enough about the LCMS governance structure to know. Does this mean that their Churches, cannot charter, should not charter, or are just own their own if they do charter and get caught up in a lawsuit. The latter seemed to be the message, but I speak from a position of ignorance.

I find it interesting that legal considerations, I guess the desire to simply not have to be a part of any suit, seemed to drive the decision more than a theological determination that an MOU would have been contrary to the Church's teachings.

Krampus, I'm curious what paperwork you're referring to. With the exception of the signed copy of the charter signed by our COR, and of course the check, we don't have to turn any paperwork in to the council. If you're up to date on YPT you're good, if not you have to get good, other than that you check the box online next to the scouts and leaders who are staying and fill out some code for scouts who are being dropped. We charge an annual dues, but we're fortunate enough to have the funds to cover the rechartering costs without collecting each individual check before we write the big chec

It's not unusual for us to have a few months lag between getting the official paperwork back and when the ECOH is held. The timing is generally left up to the scout and family, sometimes they're waiting for a buddy or two to finish so they can have the ECOH together, sometimes it's just a matter of convenience for the family. If it's going to be a while I ask the scout if they want the patch before the ceremony. Usually if they have reason to wear the uniform outside of troop activities they sew on the patch. Most common occurrence for this is guys working staff at summer camp or heading o

I guess I should defend the pros in my council. The top guys have scout age sons and camp with their troops. The DEs camp at the District Camporees, and most Scout Execs have to make their bones running and living at a summer camp for a few summers on their way up the ladder.

I don't find this dishonest or untrustworthy. I do find it distasteful. It's clearly labeled as Sponsored, so I think any reasonable person who reads it knows it's a paid shill not an original opinion. There are, and have been for a while, parallel forms of advertising. Radio announcers have, for as long as there has been radio, been reading spots in their own voice touting one product or another. Paid spokespersons on TV have been around since it's dawning, and even in magazines, which Bryan's Blog is supposed to be a part of, there have always been advertisements that have the same

I've looked for this feature before, numerous times, I finally crawled through a Power Point designed for Council staffers and it looks like my council has not activated the feature to allow units to utilize that feature in Be A Scout. I don't want Council collecting dues, and I have to imagine I can still reject or accept an application, I was just hoping for some automation of the otherwise paper process. I'll chat with my DE and see what he knows.

Jackdaws, not sure what your position is with your unit, but in my.scouting.org you can see your unit's roster so you can check who is or is not there. Also, someone in your unit should have access to the Scoutnet Internet Advancement system which is a direct access to who is or is not registered for your unit. These tools may be restricted to the "Key 3" of your unit, I'm not sure. A tip for anyone turning in paperwork or money to council: keep a copy of everything and only ever pay by check so you can show a cancelled check as proof of payment. I will never understand why BSA insis

One more note, we had 20 scouts attend our Council camp last year. Looking at the roster, given that you have to have attended at least two weeks (years?) of resident camp to be eligible, we would have had 8 scouts that could go to the summit instead. If all or even almost all of them went to the Summit we would have been almost bereft of scout leadership for summer camp, and that would really change the dynamic of what summer camp means. We had 5 other scouts go to Philmont, which we do about every two years, none of them went to summer camp, but probably two would have if they weren't

I received this big brochure yesterday in the mail and had some discussions at a district activity meeting last night. We are about 6 hours from the Summit and this is feasible for us so I have a few thoughts on these programs. A couple folks at last night's meeting are on the Council Camping committee and they hadn't heard anything about the Council Adventure Partnership so apparently we're not participating yet. I could see this working, our Council summer camp is topographically challenged and there is no high adventure so programming gets pretty thin for our older scouts. I could se

SP, I am curious what you or your fellow leader mean when you say you registered a new leader during recharter. My understanding is that although the recharter computer system will accept the input of a new leader's information it is not finalized until the council receives and approves a paper application. A part of the application process now is also that a registration isn't compete or final until the new leader completes YPT --- that is probably what your DE was referring to. I have had leaders have their YPT lapse during the year and they remain, at least according to Scoutnet,

Finally got around to reading this. It is mostly platitudes and bromides. I don't know whether National doesn't have or just doesn't share meaningful data, but I never seem to see anything that looks driven by real numbers. As an example, the underserved markets he references, recent immigrants and inner cities, I think we should try to serve those youth better. If we believe that our organization provides a meaningful benefit to our commonwealth by developing character and skills in our country's youth than those underserved youth are as important a part of our mission as the non-min

This could be a lot of things, and at least part of the reason that you don't get a straight answer is that few people really understand insurance or know how to ask the right questions to pin down the details. This often includes all but the top council pros, many a DE doesn't understand it fully and pretty much just accepts that that's the way it is. When someone says it's "supplemental" insurance the first obvious question is supplemental to what, and then what is being insured against, who is being insured, etc. Almost certainly the Council has a general liability policy or polici

In answer to your first question, our Pack has been grade level for as long as I have known about it. So school year determines eligibility and den level. You could easily get the behavior you described from scout and mother at almost any age so I don't think that would make any difference. My view is that if I'm an adult in a group of kids I will do what I think is best regarding discipline when either I am specifically one of the leaders or if the parent is not around, I extend that to any kid I see if I think it's a matter of safety or something getting broken. If someone objec

It always stinks to see camps close. Does anyone from that area know if there's any reason to think these camps were financially viable, contrary to the recommendations listed?