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 waist and length.  I went with the ones that felt most comfortable to me, and without looking at the tag I doubt anyone could tell that they were not a version from national supply.   

Our average since our founding is just over 4/year. Over the last 5 years it has risen to about 7.5/year.

 

We are below the average for our area but our retention rate is one of the highest. We did find a high correlation between scouts making Eagle and parents involvement at some level within the troop. Nearly 90% of the boys who made Eagle had a parent who volunteered a great deal with the unit.

 

This is a fact we note for new parents eager for their Scout to make Eagle.

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 told her I don’t think average age would reveal much, I suspect that if I look I wont find so much a curve as clusters.  I suspect there is a cluster right at the end of the 14 beginning of 15 year old mark and then another cluster at age 17. 

Krampus' numbers prompted me to take a quick look and here's what I found as a rough percentage. Our troop usually recharters about 30 -- 33 scouts, in the last 3 years we have had 9 scouts earn Eagle, so somewhat less than 10% or our scouts become Eagles.  Scouting.org says about 6% of Boy Scouts became Eagle scouts in 2013.

Determining ages will take some more digging, and I may try to do that this evening.

Anyone know the percentages and ages of your Eagle scouts? 

I could not imagine the district changing that. I think most of the units in our area would rebel. I also think we have WAY too many EBORs in our district to hold them all at one time. If you figure 40+ units with 6-12 Eagles each a year that's a HUGE number of scouts to review at one time. 

 

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 and not a prior SM, and there certainly is no rule that the current SM has to be the signatory of the "Unit Copy" portion of the card.  So you could maybe have a discussion with your advancement coordinator and convince him/her to just submit the thing, or maybe she has experience with Council being silly and the current SM really does need to sign the card so that the council doesn't do something even dumber.  

I would spend about a minute talking to the Advancement person to make sure you understand what she wants and why, I would spend another minute asking them why they didn't just get the SM signature  themselves, then I would have your son get the signature and explain to him that sometimes adults are morons who insist on ridiculous levels of unnecessary bureaucracy, and that often times the futility of trying to correct that just isn't worth the individual effort.

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

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.

T2E:  The theological issue is practicing homosexuals are in active sin, are not welcome at the Lord's Supper sans change and repentance, and should not be involved in activities of the congregation or its collateral ministries.

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 Boy Scout troops for the children there, and each day, the scouts would raise the American flag and recite the Pledge of Allegiance.  At one point, the adults decided to invite scouts from nearby towns to a Jamboree.

In Cody and Powell, stores, restaurants and hotels had posted “No Japs Allowed†signs. But, over the misgivings of some, scouts in the town — including the young Mr. Simpson — went to Heart Mountain, passing behind the barbed wire, guard towers, guns and search lights.

He and Mr. Mineta stayed in touch through the years, and reunited in Congress. 

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 check.  If we are somehow unsure that a scout is going to continue we contact them directly and ask before we recharter, but that's no more than one or two a year.

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 off to a big adventure like Jambo or Philmont.

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 or similar look and feel of the news content they provide.  Almost every news site I read on the internet has similar "Sponsored Content" ads or headlines, and so I know either to not click on them, or if I do that I am clicking on an ad.

I do wish that this could be done a bit differently.  As NJ said "Bryan is a guy who presents information and opinions, and he (and his employer, the BSA) want all of us to believe that information and opinions are correct, and follow them..."  I think that these sponsored columns, and it looks like there have been about half a dozen of them, could appear on his blog without them being made to sound as if they're coming using his voice.  I don't mind that there's sponsored content, but I think there are better ways to do it.

Registration CAN be done online through the Be-A-Scout system; however most units (mine included) have either not turned on or otherwise disabled that functionality.  Our council ran training on the system two or three years ago.

 

 

Most units want to have that in-person, face to face before taking and accepting either a youth or adult leader application.

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.

We have also had to had several leaders fill out their applications multiple times.   And had to pay for their applications multiple times.  Now I am running into them dropping a Webelos 2 scout that has been on the roster since he was a Wolf.  No notice or anything.   

 

I am going to ask if there is supposed to be a notification process or something.  If I do not get a satisfactory answer I am going to the DE about it.  There really should be some kind of checks and balances system somewhere. 

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 insists on having all this data entry done by someone n the council office rather than allowing individuals to register online.  No other organization of our size does that anymore.

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 on that trek.  

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 see a couple of older scouts each from a handful of troops helping to set up our camp on Sunday and then taking off for the midweek to the Summit for some real adventure and returning Friday. 

If the week long cost is really $299 that's competitive with our Council camp, there would of course be higher transportation costs, but not a deal breaker.

I'm not sure if the Appalachian Adventure is cost competitive.  We went whitewater rafting on the New for a three day weekend last year and stayed at the outfitter's camp.  Total cost for us including food, transportation,  a day of rafting, and a day in the toy filled outfitter lake was $220 --- the same price they want.  It's not clear whether their program includes meals which would at least put it in the ball park.

Finally, it strikes me that 6 days at the Summit is $299 with paid staff members, but 10 days at Jambo costs $925 with volunteer staffing.  I know it's not fully apples to apples but it gives me some pause.

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, on the roster.

edited to add that I believe some councils, either on their own initiative or as part of national's pilot program from a few years ago, require leaders to be fully trained for their position.

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-minority middle class youth that make up most of our organization today.

But I have no way of knowing whether that's where we need to go to really increase our membership, or if it is realistic to think that even serving those groups better would significantly boost our numbers.  Let's say we wanted to increase our membership by half a million; would it be more cost effective to target the underserved markets or would we be more successful recruiting a higher percentage of the demographic we currently serve.  I don't know the answer to that, but there should be data available, and it should be shared with us, to properly evaluate the question.

We all assert here that if we just emphasized our outdoor program and made it better that that would attract more boys to our program.  Does anyone have any actual data, numbers bigger and more reproducible than our individual anecdotes and experience, that actually show or prove that?  I know I don't.  We don't head off into the backcountry without a map and expect to end up at a desired specific location.  Why do we insist that we just know that if we walk this direction because we've always walked a direction that felt like this before that we'll end up where we want to be?  We, as an organization need some good data, and then we need the good sense and courage to base our behavior on it if we really want to achieve our goal of serving America's youth.

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 policies which protect them from claims arising from the negligence of their employees and agents as well as any hazardous conditions of their properties.  BSA provides general liability coverage for volunteers and an additional liability coverage for Chartered Organizations.  There is also Optional Sickness and Injury coverage available to councils and/or units; like Eagle94 our council automatically provides this.  

You don't fully describe what type of event your looking at here or if you have a specific interest in needing to understand it.  A possible supplement to the Council's primary liability policy could be liability coverage for events that occur on non-scout properties.   

Another possibility is that this isn't really a direct cost for each event but rather a way for the council to recoup the costs for the Optional Sickness and Injury Coverage which they may be providing the same way my council does.  there are lots of "rules" varying from Council to Council about how and how much to charge for events to cover costs that may not be directly a cash cost for the event itself.  

I would urge everybody to understand what kind of insurance coverage their unit, council, and CO have.  Sooner or later someone, scout or scouter, is going to get hurt when you're involved in a scouting activity.  You have a responsibility to yourself, your own family, and those you lead to Be Prepared for when that happens.

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 objects to your providing discipline for their child the only logical response is to say OK and let the matter drop. You are never going to convince the parent that you're right and they're wrong, and at least for me I'm not really going to change my behavior.  If I thought it was a good idea to say something the first time than I'll probably do it the same way the next time, and again there's no point in telling someone that or arguing about it --- It's going to happen or not, and wasting time, energy, and aggravation arguing about it ahead of time doesn't do anyone any good.

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?