T2Eagle

The only formal campfires my scouts ever do are when someone wants to organize a program to fulfill a Communications MB requirement or the yearly weekend we put on for our affiliated Cub Pack. Beyond that, like BD's guys they'd rather be out running around playing manhunt, capture the flag, spotlight tag, etc.

I am posting this response in a separate box because it is a separate and tangential question. You mentioned that you had a morning program time and that afternoon program time was rolling around. Is your PLC allowed to decide they don't want that much programmed time on a campout, or is that a set expectation they need to fulfill? One of the things I found when I took over as SM was that the scouts sometimes, but not always, wanted bigger breaks from program and more free time, but they felt, rightly, that the adult leadership wanted their days fully programmed, like school. But for my scouts

I'm an information junky, I always want to know the why of something. Why did he do this? Why was his behavior different from other times? I'd have a talk with him him and try to get to the why, maybe it was something with scouts and you can help, maybe it wasn't scouts and maybe you can help? And maybe he was just having an off day and hasn't yet learned how to fight through that either by motivating himself or asking for help and his response is to shut down. Then you can help him with strategies for dealing with that challenge.

Pick your battles is always good advice so I'd say give them an inventory and try to find some other option for storing your equipment. Maybe approach some of the local storage companies (there seem to be a ton where I live, I always wonder how that many people can have that much extra stuff) and see if maybe you can either get a donated or maybe deeply discounted storage unit. My understanding of the Charter Agreement is that although the CO owns all the equipment, if the unit folds that equipment reverts to the Council. I've never understood how that works, but it is kind of a fail sa

Why not start with the ball peen hammer. Since a scout's last BOR is probably a number of months, he could list a hundred things before he stumbled on the only one you're really interested in. What matters is the answer he gives to the real question, not how well he can guess what the real question is. BOR:"Can you think of instances where you didn't?" SCOUT: I said my homework was done when it wasn't BOR "When else" SCOUT I wasn't kind to my sister. BOR "Any others" SCOUT I wasn't reverent I didn't pay attention in Church. BOR "Any others?" SCOUT I wasted a bunch of money on video g

I don't accept Facebook requests from scouts, mostly because I don't care to share my Facebook posts with my scouts. I also don't just accept every adult request, I restrict my "friends" to a pretty small group of family members and actual close friends. The other reason I don't have scouts as friends is because I really don't want to wade through all the inanities that kid's Facebook posts can be. I monitored my own kids FB stuff for a while and was struck by the sheer volume of drivel.

Interesting conversation. What type of organization is it? Church or Religious? Lions, Elks type? VFW, Legion Type? What do they see as the value to them of being a Chartered Org? If you were making a request for more support did you feel you were offering them something more in return for their increase in support? Had you identified a space you thought they had that would be suitable and easy for them to turn over to you? Do you have any concern that they might want to use "their" new found camping gear for other parts of their organization?

One suggestion I would make is that if you want to talk about his Facebook behavior then directly talk about his Facebook behavior, don't beat around the bush asking how he feels he lives the Oath and Law, don't put out bait and see if he'll bite. You want to talk to him about a topic talk about that topic. Twelve year old boys are not so self aware nor so discerning that most of them will catch your hints. For the most part that path will leave you frustrated and him confused until he either stumbles on what you want or you finally give it to him directly.

I don't see a problem here at all. The scout was looking for someone to be the third person on a BOR, one committee member couldn't do it that night and so a little later in the evening another member finished one task and assisted with the next one. It all worked. We used to have a rule that scouts had to line up Sm conferences and BORs at least a week ahead of time, and that's a great idea, but on a regular basis one of the adults cannot keep the commitment and we end up scrambling so we scrapped the "rule" and if a scout can put together the members the same night he requests great,

If you need help it's always best to directly ask for it. Rather than have a meeting where you say "we need more people to drive" walk up to a few individuals one at a time and say "hey Joe can you drive this week, if we don't get enough drivers we can't go." It is a lot easier to not raise your hand then it is to say no to an individual ask.

You've been using your sleeping pad as a pillow all this time Sentinel?

I had to respond because I had this discussion with a fellow scouter last year. As a matter of keeping warm on a winter campout, a cot with a sleeping pad on it will keep you warmer than sleeping on the ground with a sleeping pad. It’s a matter of physics. You stay warm by having your body heat the insulating layer of air surrounding it. On top and the sides of you this insulating layer of air is trapped in the insulation of your sleeping bag. Under you this insulating air is provided by your pad plus the compressed insulation of your bag. Keeping warm is a race towards equili

I'm curious, the units that are folding, are their COs closing the unit? If so who are they? Are the adults just deciding to bail? I have not heard of any units around here closing, and there are some that are chartered by some very conservative churches.

I have to add that my experience with BSA computer systems has been uniformly atrocious. I have no reason to believe that their computer systems are very secure, I just hope they're too small a target for serious identity thieves.

These are Tiger Adults not actual registered leaders we're talking about. They are just filling out the parent section of the Youth Application. I just looked at it and it doesn't ask for a SS number. I'm pretty sure that they don't run background checks on Tiger adults and they don't require they take YPT. So it's as likely that the information is there as much because it's always been there as that there is an actual reason for it. I would just send in the application without the date of birth, you can ask a DE or SE why they need that information, and they'll probably give you a reason

Tradition or no, whether you give new scouts notice or no, this seems like a pretty clear violation of the Scout Law, the Guide to Advancement, and the Chartering Agreement. I am also pretty sure it is theologically repugnant to our faith. Just because something has been going on for a long time and lots of folks have gone along with it doesn't mean it’s a good idea. You should seek some guidance from outside your unit, both at the Council and Diocesan level, to be sure you are acting properly in a critical area of the program and your mission.

I am part of a Catholic sponsored unit. We do attend Mass on campouts if we're not going to be back in time for scouts to attend with their families. We have a few non Catholics as members; we let their parents decide if they will attend with us, if they don't want to they can hang out in the parking lot or back at camp depending on logistics. This probably warrants a talk with your Pastor, I would be surprised if he actually supports the idea of non Catholics being required to attend Mass. It's likely that this is some interpretation or tradition that hasn't been properly questioned i

Even the no 1 on 1 contact needn't be taken to absurd extremes. " In any situation requiring a personal meeting, such as a Scoutmaster's conference, the meeting is to be conducted in view of other adults and youths." So even if one adult and one scout somehow managed to be on a platform by themselves, it would be fine as long as this was "in view of other adults and youths", which would be hard not to do given that any platform has to be a straight unimpeded shot to another platform. If I'm at the top of a climbing tower I don't have to have another adult climb up with me, or two scou

Received an e-mail today with this link for providing feedback if you were a leader at the Jamboree.

I can confirm part of the quarantine thing. We were one of several troops quarantined by the WV Health Department for a GI viral outbreak. They came in and bleached all our cooking gear and the nearby shower houses. Our troop was on its trek day (those well enough) and they isolated them at the top of the climb and bleached all their water bottles. None of which did any good, by a few days after the Jambo we were above 90% infection rate and gleefully spreading it to family and friends. There was also a candidate for Nevada Governor who had some bats@#$ crazy stuff to say about a mass

In our Council we have the choice of either using the incentive prizes the company provides or an additional 3% commission. One year, when I was Cubmaster, we took the 3% and tried to do our own prizes thinking we could increase the quality a bit. It didn't work out, it's hard to buy those kind of things for anything like that cheap unless you're buying in huge bulk quantities. The Cubs actually like getting the flashlights and knives that constitute the first few levels of sales and are what most boys end up with, so we went back to prizes. In the Troop we don't push popcorn, but we allow

I didn’t receive any forms for providing feedback before I left the Jamboree. If anyone knows where I can get one please post. Both I and my scouts had a wonderful time over all. I have been thinking a lot about my experience and what I think could be done differently. In no particular order here are my reflections. The enthusiasm and dedication of the volunteer staff cannot be overstated. Every computer system I encountered was poor: the dashboard that remained stubbornly stuck at 50% from when I first registered until it dropped to 0% after I checked in, the activity

VS, I remain skeptical. I spent the first full day of program volunteering at the canopy. No one there was aware of any type of recruiting other than looking for the traditional scouter and hoping they had an extra month in their lives. The one exception were the WVU students who, if they took the course at school and came to the Jamboree, were the only volunteers not to have to also pay the $850. BSA being BSA, they were asked to pay for their own duffle. The first day that they held training programs and didn't have 800 plus folks signed up the problem of a volunteer shortage w

The problem with inadequate staffing, especially in areas that required specialized skills, was a very real problem, and one that must have been obvious a long time before the Jamboree, probably a year out. The BSA did really continue to hype things like zip line when it was eminently clear that that very few scouts were going to experience it. Frankly the idea that they were going to find 800 plus volunteers (the number necessary to open all the zips) who would be able to spend two weeks training and then two more weeks at the Jamboree was beyond wishful thinking. The better choice w

I would call the quality adequate. Lots of processed food, but I'm not sure how to avoid that given the circumstances. The quantity was way out if whack. The biggest complaint we had was the wastage, most meals we received more than we could eat of most of the contents and there was no alternative to throwing it away. As an organization I would say we were shockingly unthrifty in the absolute tons and tons of food we had to throw away in the last 10 days. As an example, the final night we had 90 hot dogs plus buns, two very large bags of chilli, 2 gallons of macaroni salad, two bi