T2Eagle

I have some friends and relatives there, I haven't had a chance to see what their take on all this is. Cruising the Council website there is a blog from the SE with some mare details http://www.cvcboyscouts.org/blog

Most COs I've known and heard of don't want that. It's going to be a lot of work for the CO Treasurer. First piece of advice is sit down with the Treasurer and make sure you understand what rules they have, and whether they really want everything passing through their hands. For instance, you're heading to a state park this weekend. You might collect money at the scout meeting Wednesday, you might still be collecting money Friday (you'll wish this wasn't so but if wishes were fishes...). How does the Treasurer want to handle this. Even if you collect money no later than the meeting ho

Krampus, Can you give an example how that works? Let's say you're selling candy bars. Scout A is very good and/or lucky and/or has a parent who can take them to work to sell them. Scout B isn't a good salesperson, doesn't get lucky, and has a parent who is not allowed to sell at work. Does scout A have to stop after he sells his quota? Does Scout B have to buy any candy bars he doesn't manage to sell?

Here's the first sentence in the Scouting article: "Despite what you might’ve heard, the Boy Scouts of America’s rules do allow for individual Scout accounts." Stosh's way can work, if you do it his way there will be winners and losers, some scouts who fundraise a lot may be subsidizing others who do not. That's not a bad outcome, but it will leave some people disgruntled until they get used to the idea. If you don't want to move entirely away from ISA's it is critically important that everyone understands going in that although you can decide to designate portions of a fundraiser

Welcome, My first suggestion to you is to 1) read the books, and 2) take all the training. You can do both these things without any involvement from anyone else. The handbooks at all levels have a lot of information and go a long way towards explaining the basic programs, too few adults take the time to sit down and read them. The training that I'm referring to is all available online. For Cubs there are three different positions: Den Leader, Cubmaster, Committee Member, and for each position there are three modules: Before the First Meeting, First 30 Days, Position Trained. I'd

Most interesting was when an SPL who was trying to get the other guys to step up their game got together with one of the other older guys and laid out white table cloth, china, linen napkins and silverware. He made a Thai chicken, coconut sauce dish. It worked, the other patrols started putting more effort into their meals. Maybe the best scout prepared meal I've had was a cedar planked salmon, the equivalent of some of the best and most expensive entrees I've ever been served in a restaurant. One of my best scouts is an absolutely terrible cook, such that outside of completing his r

Several posters have talked about Council having records, losing records, wrong dates etc. Just to clarify, "Council" is no longer the keeper of the records. I believe this is universal although I could be wrong. The BSA has a national database, Internet Advancement, that is where all ranks, merit badges, and special awards are entered and the records maintained. If you ask your council for a report of either a particular scout or an entire troop's advancement this is the database they will pull from. Someone, or several someones, from your troop should also have access to this system. I

Over the weekend I worked with two scouts finishing up their camping merit badge; came home, entered that into Internet Advancement so the Committee Member could pick up the badges for the COH this week. I will probably eventually sign their "blue cards" which are actually 8.5 x 11 sheets of white paper, but the most salient fact is that the scouts completed the requirements and earned the badge --- everything else is just bookkeeping.

Beware SMs bearing gifts. There previously was guidance in the G2SS that covered adults and youth sharing dormitory or barracks style cabins and other accommodations. The gist of it was that you put up some type of sheet or curtain to provide privacy, especially for changing. You never know with BSA when they rewrite things whether they intend to make drastic change, such as the idea that adults and kids can no longer share cabins, or whether it is just an oversight, or whether they want it to be deliberately vague. Put all your Webelos in together, they'll have a blast but get no s

Adults can make anything overly complicated. It's great that the scout has his copies of the blue cards. it will be nice if the Merit Badge counselors have their copies. But all of that should be entirely unnecessary at this point. Someone in the troop has, or should have, the responsibility to enter into BSA's Internet Advancement system the fact that the scout has earned these merit badges. The scout and/or the SM (really the SM, since it looks like his mistake) should be able to just send an email to the Advancement Coordinator and have the facts recorded in the system. End of story.

The first webinar from National was presented yesterday. One of the changes for this Jamboree is "grocery store model" food provision. I found a FAQ that said this was a model used at World Jamborees. Does anyone have any experience with this, and can they give a brief descrition of how it has worked? thanks,

I'm with David CO on this, and I'm often surprised at the outright scorn that some in this forum heap upon "parents" as if any of us aren't or weren't or didn't get involved or stay involved in scouting because we are in fact "parents". Nothing that the OP relates gives any indication of where this parent wants the conversation to go, or if there's a problem what the problem is. I am always willing to meet with a scout's parents. I am always grateful for the opportunity that parents give me to pursue what I love --- helping the development of my scouts. And I remind myself all the ti

I have been receiving the following error message all weekend when I've tried to get into the Internet Advancement system. ORA-00936: missing expression The Load Roster process failed. You may try again but if the problem persists, please contact your council. Has anyone else ever seen this message? Anyone else try to use the system this weekend successfully or unsuccessfully? It says to contact my council, but they usually have no idea what's going on with BSA systems, why would they know what the error message is?

When I read that statement I see it as assuming that scouts, scouters, and scouting have control over the event. It does not say that scouts cannot participate or be present when alcohol is being served. To read it as prohibiting scouts from being anywhere where alcohol is allowed would be almost absurd. The example the OP uses is certainly a common one, think of all the others where scouts would be expected to be and to participate but somehow the provision of beer by someone having nothing to do with scouting precludes them. As someone mentioned, professional sports where they have

I have used them a fair amount --- they're primarily toys, not any kind of substitute for a kayak or canoe if you're thinking of really going anywhere. A really high end one will have a way to strap a small dry bag on the bow, other than that you're not going to have anything with you except maybe water, and very few even have a place for a water bottle so you need to have a hydration pack. My brother said about them, "what do they do that something else doesn't already do better?" The answer is nothing. They are a good way to get in a paddle workout if you want a change up from a kay

Scouting achieves its aims: character development, citizenship training, and personal fitness, through an outdoor program.. None of that is gender specific. The outdoors is the outdoors, building a fire is building a fire, pitching a tent is pitching a tent. There is nothing about outdoor skills that girls would learn any differently, any more slowly, or any more quickly, any better, or any worse than our boys currently do. One of the things that I see scouting doing well in my troop is giving boys a space where some of the usual societal competitions are set aside. Boys are free to mor

I sort of agree with Eagledad that thinking of it as a way to just add numbers to the membership isn't a good way to view it. There are things good and bad that could boost membership, and I don't think that should be the driving force behind this kind of change to the program. I disagree that girls have a comparable scouting program and that this discussion should not be about our nation's young women. Broadly, I think it has to be acknowledged that adding girls would cause changes and have both benefits and draw backs. Which brings me to some threshold questions. We currently ca

Yes, we had a scout have everything ready to go to build a bouldering wall at a school, everything signed off and ready, including their lawyer and insurance guys, dates set, hadn't actually purchased any supplies. Someone at the school in charge of facilities either hadn't been consulted or had second thoughts -- we could never really get a straight story --- and convinced everyone to deep six the project. Made for a scramble, but he identified another project and ended up working up until a few days before 18 to get it done. It's their property and there's nothing really binding about

I don't see a problem with promotional giveaways like a rocket or something similar when you register. These types of promotions are tried and true marketing devices, any particular one may or may not be effective, but there's good research behind their efficacy as a marketing tool. The real sales pitch is what happens after the scout registers, if the program is good and the kid is interested they'll stick around. Frankly, if something can help get them through the door I have confidence I can take it from there. As to the "free" neckers etc. We provide a troop necker, epaulets, and h

Wikipedia seems to indicate that we are talking about non-US Citizens. And it seems almost inconceivable that with the numbers we're talking about, roughly 15 million, that there are 7.5 million expat American Mormon missionaries living outside the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Church_of_Jesus_Christ_of_Latter-day_Saints_membership_statistics#South_America

As a guess, a BSA program for Mormons who are not Americans just wouldn't make any sense. The people who become members of the LDS in other countries convert to Mormonism not Americanism. It would be the equivalent of having every Catholic troop in the US be members of Scouting Italy or all the Lutheran troops be part of Scouting Germany. Although there is a world wide scouting movement of which we're a part, if you look at BSA there is a lot of it that is very culturally and nationally specific. How would Citizenship in the Nation as a merit badge make sense if you were Brazilian?

In my area alternative seasonal jobs are actually not that easy to find. The service and retail sectors hire adults who a generation or two back would have worked in factories, and if a student wants a job the employer wants a commitment that they'll work through the school year. In addition, companies that used to hire summer interns now offer the internships only as unpaid work. When I was a teen companies would hire kids for the summer in order to cover vacations --- those jobs are exceedingly rare. There are a few truly seasonal employers like pools and ice cream stands, but they just

I think this is good news for scouting. But from the outside it does look like the LDS has an unresolved issue with their ministry to youth. With the caveat that I have a very limited understanding of the LDS religion, It would seem to be a very real problem that something that is a very large component of their youth ministry is available to only half their Church's youth members. I have no idea what the LDS will do about this, and I wouldn't presume to give them advice, but having, almost uniquely, evolved from a religion that was almost entirely existent in the United States on to a

I've always been puzzled by this. It would save a lot of nickel and diming along with at least some of the push to sell popcorn if the Councils could just charge some of what it actually costs to run the council.

So I just went poking around in the training section for my unit. Found a couple of problems. Saw a report that said 80% of my leaders weren't fully trained, which I was sure was wrong so I dug a little deeper. Turns out that, for Committee members, only E-Learning Committee Challenge is counted by the system as qualifying, so if you took it in person and/or prior to there being an online course, you are listed, at least for the my.my.my.oh.my system as not being fully trained. The other weird thing I found was that there is only room for nine courses in the reporting fields, you can lo