T2Eagle

.  I was going to advise my son to contact the other scoutmasters in our church area.  (We have 8 or so of what are called wards in our stake area.

Regional bias on my part, we only have 2 or 3 LDS troops in our whole council, spread out over several counties.  Community troops wold be the only realistic alternative if you didn't want to drive over an hour.

I really was just advising that if you want to go camping with another troop, pick just one so that he becomes a part of the gang, even if only a part time member.

Every year at summer camp I suggest a horseshoe or something similar to what Stosh suggests, every year I'm looked at as if I have grown a new head during that discussion.  The end result is that the boys don't stay in straight lines because they intuitively understand it doesn't make sense, but we don't let them spread out sensibly, so it's a bit of a mess of a formation.

The personal connection/recommendation is your best bet.  Ask each of your families to identify 2 or 3 other boys that they know that they think might enjoy scouts.  Have them e-mail or contact those families to invite them to an event.  Then get that contact information and follow up by adding your own personal invitation to theirs.  Make sure that you tell prospective families not just about the program but about yourself.

I don't think this is an either/or situation.  There are things you and the potential SM want to talk about and there are different things your son and the SM would want to talk about.

As a SM I think hearing from the parent first can let me help the conversation with the scout be much more productive.

Given what you've written in these forums I think you and your son should pick one community troop to be a part of and stick with them rather thanpicking and choosing campouts to go on. Although I think most troops would always welcome a guest, if this is going to be more than a one time situation I think it's a better experience for everybody if he becomes part of a patrol, a group of friends, and learns to work and grow with them.

What are the general rules about alcohol at international scouting events?

Does anyone know whether there will be any accommodations made for international mores when the World comes here in 2019?

Capture the flag, various versions of flashlight tag, moonlight only hikes.  The woods are fascinating at night, send them out to roam.

As to cold and windy, the right equipment renders that moot.

I suspect Neal is right, based on my own son.  A common behavior is to isolate himself, so that needs to be broken through.  A scout like this will not sign up for things on his own, he will not move forward on his own.  Offer to pick him up for meetings and campouts, have a fellow scout contact him and invite/voluntell him he should come on a trip.  These kids feel and therefore do paralyze themselves.  A nightmare for parents.

Set your expectations low and your engagement high if you want to make a difference.

The latter bit, @@Stosh, means that your YPT expires in 2 years, 91 days.

Took me a while to puzzle it out, but 91d-2yrs actually means your YPT expires SOMETIME between 91 days and 2 years from now.  Theoretically something should be happening if your YPT expires in less than 90 days.

I think you meant registration and not YPT. The latter is currently required for all adults coming in contact with scouts on events.

 

 

 

Respectfully BW, there is no rule requiring YPT for any adults outside of registered adults.  There is no requirement, at least no National requirement, that non registered adults on an outing be YPT.

If you have a cite, it'll be news.

We do this now. To attend any event adults need to be registered and YPT-trained. Never had a single person complain.

 

 

The recent membership policy change puts BSA in a real predicament. They will need to 1) decrease their operational risk, and 2) find new revenue resources to make up for those going away. Requiring all adults to be registered will kill two birds with one stone. 

 

I would not be so sure that this is just opinion from his district or council. I heard the exact same thing while in Dallas last week attending a council discussion with several national representatives present. This very issue came up with the reply above being the statement from one of the national people in attendance and fielding questions.

We have everyone going on an outing take both BSA YPT and the Diocesan YPT, but we don't require registration.  

The rumor that YPT will "soon" be required has been tossed around for years.  It wouldn't surprise me if it comes true, but my district guys, all good friends of mine, have no more insight into that than I do.

It did occur to me that one way to increase membership (and fees) was to require that more adults be registered.  At the troop level that wouldn't be too hard to manage, at the Pack level it would be a very different story.

As to operational risk I don't know what that would mean.  Risk, if you're talking about exposure to legal claims, comes first and foremost from injuries; car accidents, burns from cooking, sliced fingers, water accidents etc.  Nothing about registration is going to move the needle on those risk/costs.  If you're talking about exposure to truly horrific stuff like molestation, I'm not sure what registration of everyone would do. As a matter of dollars and cents, I'm dubious that the marginal increase in background checks would actually result in picking up any more registered offenders than are spotted now.  The true predators, the Jerry Sanduskys, act like predators, they are stealthy and choose their victims carefully.

If a scout is molested --- last year, this year, next year, BSA and the Chartering Org are probably going to pay, whether the person would or would not have passed a background check is not going to affect that.  

 

 

We were told to expect in the near future that all volunteers will have to be registered with the BSA to participate in Troop activities.  In fact, our Unit Commissioner Chairperson (volunteer head of District) (member of another Troop) mentioned that they attended Summer Camp with unregistered parents and the Disctrict Commissioner (paid head of District) was not happy at all upon hearing that.

 

As I mentioned before, joining and participating in the BSA is a voluntary membership for the adult applicant.  It is not a right of the applicant to be able to join or bypass the decision of the BSA application process. As unsavory the language of the decision may be, it should now be considered FACT, that the BSA has the final determination on who is and can be registered and active with the BSA youth membership.

 

Lepzid,

Thanks for the update.  

A couple thoughts on the these two paragraphs.  First, you may have the titles wrong for the folks your speaking of.  The top people in a District, often referred to as the Key 3, are two volunteers: the District Chairperson and the District Commissioner, the  third person, a BSA employee is a District Executive (DE) or District Director (DD).

Second, as to the person's unhappiness with unregistered parents, the policy Stosh quoted about unregistered parents on outings is decades old, any unhappiness this person may have is akin to someone who has an opinion about there being only one proper way to tie a shoe.  

As to the rumor that BSA may soon require everyone to be a registered volunteer, or that what you were told is the final word on participation, take both of those with a big grain of salt.  The folks you were talking to, especially if one of them was the DE, are at the very bottom of the BSA food chain.  DEs are the entry level scouting professional, they are often 20 somethings fairly fresh out of college.  A District Commissioner or District Chairperson are usually more veteran volunteer scouters, but Districts do not have much real decision making authority in BSA.  The relationship between your unit and BSA does not pass through the District, it's a direct relationship between your Chartering Org and the Council.  Your District folks probably are no better plugged into the BSA rumor pipeline, nor would they have any more insight into future policy changes, than many folks on these forums.

 

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Getting your training update is a bit different. One of your Key 3 with edit rights in to the membership data are the only ones who can change training data. If you are one of those people you can change or update any training EXCEPT for yourself.

 

By Key 3 do you mean at  the unit level or at the District  level?  For instance, if I know that someone completed IOLS but their records are hopelessly lost, can I,as SM, go in and edit their training data to fix that ?

My contact tells me they tested with production data (a big no no in IT) and someone deleted the records when done. 

 

 

I am far far from a techie, but the other day I was helping my son with an Excel project.  I told him "Before you do anything, make a full copy of your current sheet, so that no matter what you can always go back to where you started without losing anything permanently."

How hard is that as an idea, the first time you don't do it you realize you should never do it again.

I would turn over the management of my unit's data to one of my teenage scouts before I would give it to BSA.

I won't defend DCFS, although to be fair if you've ever known anyone who actually works in that system you learn quickly how badly we starve the system of anywhere near adequate resources for the job we ask  them to do.  But the fragment of a sentence you quote doesn't support the idea that there is some jeopardy in scouting.

DCFS are a type of law enforcement officers, and like any law enforcement the possibility for overreach, bad judgment, and simply bad acting is always present.  It is also true that immediate supervisors and even the initial court systems will tend towards upholding rather than challenging that initial action.

That doesn't mean we need to go off the rails with worry.

Is it just me, or are there individuals that truly are not cognizant of Eagle paperwork?  Hours ARE tabulated on the project paperwork, and are part of its completion.  That is where National gets their periodically published total hours from Eagle projects and value comparisons.  The project paperwork has to be approved prior to the BOR, and it is also part of the review package for those sitting on the actual board.  On a rare occasion, there could be a board inquiry about hours should something stand out to one of the reviewers; but it is already approved, so generally would simply be a clarification.

 

National has said in regard to total hours and candidate hours that there is no minimum amount.  Some projects may have more personal prep hours listed, while others may have few prep, but many and broadly distributed hours for the actual work and such.  Part is how the candidate interprets these stats, and part is due to a project's nature.

I'm very cognizant about tracking hours for the Eagle project.  My question was about the tracking of other hours.  We don't track them for an individual in any way, shape, or form.  If I understand correctly, Bad Wolf's, and some other districts, seem to require this tabulation.  What would be done with that number, and what and how would an EBOR say about that number?

Or having a wife and three concubines?

If a non-religious CO, or a religious one for that matter, wanted to allow a SM with a wife and three concubines to serve would the old rules have prevented it?

 our Bibles (or Torrah or Koran)....

How about your Vedas and Guru Granth Sahib, the sacred texts of the Hindu and Sikh religions respectively?  Both of which religions have recognized BSA religious medals, and both of whose texts when translated to English use a capitalized G when referring to a God.

I cannot find any source that supports your contention that either BSA or general English language usage of a capitalized G in God indicates reference only to the Abrahamic God.  On the contrary it takes seconds to find its usage when referring to other religions' Gods.  Here, for instance, is the first line in Wkipedia about Vishnu.

 "In Hinduism, Vishnu (/ˈvɪʃnuË/; Sanskrit: विषà¥à¤£à¥, Viṣṇu) is the Supreme God Svayam Bhagavan of Vaishnavism (one of the three principal denominations) and one of the three supreme deities (Trimurti). 

BSA has never claimed to be an exclusively Judeo-Christian organization, nor does it now make any statement that Duty to God refers in any way either exclusively, presumptively, or even initially as meaning a Duty to the Abrahamic God.

Are the pathways out in the open or more in the trees? Hiking under a hot sun can be pretty hard.

Mostly out in the open and never flat.  The Summit is largely a reclaimed strip mine, so you have terraced plots of land going up and down the mountains, and W Va. is hot and humid in the summer.  Admittedly it did cool off enough at night to sleep; my tactic was to take an "ambient temperature" shower at night right before bed..

 It is one thing to be in shape to get from point a to b, but they waste a lot of time just getting where they need to be.

That was my big complaint/feedback.  Going for a multi-mile hike is a nice thing to do, but to have to do that twice a day before you get to do the thing you're actually there to do is really inefficient.

Maybe I'm becoming one of those old timers I used to laugh at, but other than knowing Scout was becoming an official rank I hadn't paid too much attention to the new requirements.  What new skills are required starting next year?

Our registrar, who is usually very on top of the technical ins and outs of the scout systems, told me the system would not accept "m" or multiple for a scout in two troops.  I or she could be wrong. I thought it was as much system driven as policy.

You now have me curious to see if we were incorrect.  I'll ask.

First the easy part: no, a scout cannot be enrolled in two troops at the same time.

Now the almost as easy a part, if your troop traditionally pays for the cloth merit badges that signify what the scout has achieved then they should continue to do so.  Merit badges can be earned while participating in a troop's activities but they are not a troop function one way or another.  Scouts often have opportunities to work on and complete merit badges outside of troop activities.  They might complete requirements at Jamboree, or at Philmont, or at Council or District camporees, or even at, shudder, merit badge universities, or at other venues like programs with the local parks.

In my neck of the woods the local park service has some of the best organized merit badge counseling possible for things like Environmental Science, Mammal Study, etc.  The person running the program for the parks is a long time scouter and works with scouts all the time in and out of the park's schedule.  I strongly encourage my scouts to take advantage of these opportunities to work with other adults.

The point is that merit badges are not and should not be tied to only what a troop does.  Even with something like summer camp we sometimes have scouts from other units go to camp with us because of family vacation schedules, and we have scouts who camp with other troops for the same reason.   So for whatever reason your scout went to camp with another troop, maybe even made that a second week of camp, then you should recognize for whatever he achieved there just as if he achieved it when he happened to be with your troop.

Other than the requirements for a specific rank or for reporting in the Eagle paperwork we don't keep record of any individual scout's service hours, nor do we have any expectation that an individual scout would keep such a record.

What does a district do if a scout arrives at their EBOR without a number or with a small number?  What number would they consider small?

That's the way it's supposed to work.. I hope he serves another unit.