t487scouter

I guess once again I am in the minority. If a scout forgets or fails to put on his raingear, I am not there to supply it unless the weather is such that the scout is in danger of hypothermia. If it is a matter of him just being miserable, consider it a learned lesson. I can't see how supplying a whole patrol with gear or food can teach them anything other than "we will get taken care of no matter what." Schleining, you are from the same climate as I am. I am also sure you know that nobody wears rain gear around here, the boys wait for the bus before school, get wet but soon are in a dry classr

Thanks everyone. Aw, does your troop pay for this training or do the boys pay for it? I tried to send some boys to a similar type of training that is held in our council. The week long program runs $205/$175(fos). We don't have enough money in the troop funds to pay for the boys. My son is the only scout that is going, the rest of the parents and scouts opted out. It kind of surprised me when I received the paperwork for the camp as well. The council paperwork stated that the camp is usually paid for by the troop.

Okay, once again I ask for your knowledge. I began wondering about requirements for SPL. At the moment, my bylaws (I know, nasty word to some)require that the SPL be Star rank or above. I was wondering if this conflicts with any BSA rules? Also, if it is not against the rules, should we have this requirement?

Well said FB in fact excellent! Mind if I use that for a SM minute?

You are right Bob, these are assumptions and probably incorrect. I thought that a certain percentage of scouts were required to attend camp for QU but I am at work and don't have the paperwork with me. It has been my experience (a very limited experience) that more younger boys attend camp than older boys. I just figured by not letting the young scouts attend summer camp that the unit would not be able to reach this goal (I thought it was someting like 80%) You also state that all boys can attend summer camp. I thought I had read in a past post that young scouts were limited to 2 or 3 day

My first few outings with a brand new troop I noticed quite a bit of top raumin and hotdogs being consumed. I only had two boys with any scouting experience, the boys made their own meals, did their own shopping and this is what they picked. I did not say anything to them about their choice. What I did was hang a DO on a tri pod over a BBQ and lit the coals before a meeting. I had been shopping, prepared all the ingredients and before the troop meeting began, showed what I was dumping into the DO. We then had our regular meeting, after the meeting I dished out what I had made. I started doing

I have read quite a few posts on the thoughts of the future BSA, where it will be 20, 30 or 40 years from now. Although we of course will never know, I wonder what it would be like if it didn't exist today. What would it be like if LBP began forming BSA tomorrow. Would the same foundation and merits that BSA stands behind hold true if this were formed tomorrow? Would BSA have the same requirements for membership?

Tortdog, I think I would be better to answer this question since it is happening in my council and I posted the original. It is not that LDS are "clogging" up the camps or that they are not participating. The problem is with the other camp dates. 75% of the other camps were completely full and the LDS Week camp was only 20% full. It has since been filling up but everyone else has to get their reservations in 8 mos in advance to get the spot they want (including the LDS units that can't make their camp date) Also, no, the other units are not shunned from this week of camp. As everyone knows, y

"Well, to address this specifically there is no BSA requirement that women (or mothers) be allowed to camp with the Boy Scouts. The BSA ALLOWS it, but does not require it." I could very well be wrong here but I thought the BSA did have a rule that parents will not be denied access to any BSA event. Again this is from a memory which seems to dump more info than it retains. As for the disinterested scouter, I finally convinced him that he needs to become involved or find another person to be CM and he agreed. It was not fair for the boys who worked so hard. No matter what religio

Okay, it has been some time so I figured I might as well chime in and get slapped around a little. After reading all the posts I do not understand the difference between one CO being able to "adjust" rules and other CO's or troops being chastised for it. An example of this is a recent post to a thread I made indicating I had a set of troop bylaws (which some agreed with, some didn't) and in those bylaws I had a statement that only 5 bluecards could be out at one time. Many people disagreed with this rule because it was not allowing the scouts to have as many bluecards out as desired and was ag

Actually for the 1st question, I believe that EL stated that her children did not believe in God. She stated that she has no desire to attend a church so it was an assumption on my part that she has not let her son try either. As for the second question, a great question I might add, I truly do not have an answer. Actually I have never heard of this organization. Had I known about it, I can answer truthfully that I would not have. After giving it more thought, would I be wrong to let them? I would not let them do this without first checking it out to make sure it was child friendly but t

I guess I am confused, which happens quite often. So what I am reading is follow the BSA rules to the letter. I totally agree with this statement. But I also read that in the grey areas, there really are no rules. So, uniforms for example although recommended are not required so the boys can wear whatever they would like, whenever they would like. Drinking alcohol, which is not tollerated by BSA (BSA rules do not spell out what a troop is to do with a boy caught drinking) can be a minor offense to one scout resulting in a "johnny don't do that again" to an expulsion to another boy depending on

Eammon, thank you for your comments. I am always looking for ways to improve "our" troop. The reason I referred to it as "my" troop is because I did everything to start it. I started it as a sister troop to "our" cub pack. All adult leaders that I had to choose from had never even been to a pack committee meeting. My CO, a school PTO, wanted a troop from their school but had no idea what BS do. This is why I referred to "my bylaws", because I am the one who created them. As time passes and I gain a larger adult leader base, I welcome any changes to the bylaws. You seem to not have any written

Wow, miss a few weeks on this forum and it takes hours of reading to catch up. I may be too late since I have not read a post from EL, are you just reading and not posting or did you give up? My post is in no way meant to slam you or try to make you change your beliefs. Only you know what you should do. I have to agree with others that I do not believe that you joined scouts completely blind. I would assume that you at least opened the scout book and by reading the first few pages it is clear that this organization is based on many religions and God. I would like to add to the other posts thou

Great question but a little difficult to answer. I started my troop a little over a year ago. After looking at 100's of troop websites for any information I could glean as well as asking other scouter questions I tailored my bylaws to incorporate specific rules and give it individualism. Examples of these are disciplinary actions for scouts that break rules, uniform rules (ex, I allow class b during summer months) etc. For your examples: #1 - Personally I would not adopt this rule but if it was in writing and the scouts were aware of it I would not have a problem with another troop enforc

Thank you for the defense Vicki, that is exactly what I meant but I probably should have stated it differently. I welcome any parent that wants to attend camp but ask them to act as their sons parents when there. If the boys should be doing something different or they are misbehaving, it is up to the PL/SPL to straighten things out. I have also witnessed parents doing things like carry packs or water bottles for new scouts on hikes. This is a disservice to the scout (they must learn to carry what they brought) and not fair for the other scouts without parents attending. To BelieveinScout

Marge, I have been in the same situation this past year. I feel that by having my wife (a registered adult leader) go to camp was in the best interest of the troop. My options were: 1. Have another parent go .....After asking, begging, bribing (I cook, clean dishes, etc) I could not talk another parent into going 2. Take my wife, a registered adult leader and second adult according to "the guide" 3. Not go camping. So, if she did not go, then the troop did not go. This worked for me on weekend outings because I could find someone to watch my younger son (1st year WEBELO.)

I truly wish I shared your problem anarchist. Our troop is a little over a year old. The parents of my first 5 scouts have not attended one outing. I had to register friends and family so I had my two deep on our outings. I am now up to 15 boys and it looks promising with quite a few parents on our first camp after x-over and two parents who have been to all outings so far this year. I am giving you this info because I am not sure I am qualified to answer your post but a few ideas did come to mind. I think the parents request is reasonable, why? Looking at things from a non-scouting view, woul

Actually I have instructed my son to call me uncle! I can't be old enough to have a son that old.......yes uncle it is.

How about throwing some ideas out to fun up otherwise mundane tasks. I am looking for things to do at Meetings that the boys will enjoy. Recently I had a knot relay race, the boys ran around to different stations, the knot for that station had to be tied correctly before they could run to the next station. Last camp, I grabbed their stove from their patrol box (before they woke up), left a message in place with coordinates. From one note to another they paced it off until they could find their stove and eat. Amazing how fast it can be done with hungry boys. Since most of you have years

I was wondering how the rest of you work formalities in your troops? As I told my parents, there are no dads or moms in the troop. It is hard for most parents to not help their son carry something or stuff sleeping bags, etc. Where I am at a loss is what to have my son refer to me as? Does he continue to call me dad or should he call me Mr. X?

Troop bylaws, in my opinion, should be written to protect the youth and the troop. To exclude a scout because of a personal choice he, or his parents has made, in my opinion is wrong. From my prospective, there are a few different types of scouts. Of these types are boys who are involved in many other activities (sports, band, etc) and those which scouts is all they have. I am guessing the scout who walked out, although I feel it should have never come to this, was involved in other activities and could do without scouts. If scouting was all the boy had I think he would have been devastated, a

Eamonn, I second, a great post. As for the rest of you posters, equally well done. There is so much more information to be gained in this board, more than any other resource I have found so far. One question I have for mixed patrols. Again, I may be way off base and this is just an assumption since I have never had a mixed patrol but since humans are pretty lazy, is there a large burden for the senior members of the patrol? I would guess that younger members would rather be taught tasks by the older members rather than learning on their own from their books. In fact I would guess that most if

FB, the majority of new boy scouts are cubs that have crossed over. Possibly all of you more experienced SM's and ASM's can back me up that you get very few boy scouts that have not been involved in cub scouts. In a school of 300 boys you may get 15 new sign-ups a year for cub scouts in a typical recruitment. To equal 300 school boys you would have to visit an awful lot of churches. Most of the church based packs in my area are very small, the school based packs are much larger. There is no better place to recruit school aged boys than at school. It really does not matter how good your program

Well said Eamonn, I agree with you 100%. I have told my own boys that they must wait until they are 30 before getting pierced. I am sure many if not all of you have dealt with boys from parents who really don't seem to care, the ones who need scouting the most. Along with this are parents who do care and let their kids follow the fads. It shouldn't matter what they do to their hair, how many holes the have in their face, etc. I would never say anything to a scout about that, it is their personal decision. I don't put up with the shorts to their ankles though and I am always telling them to pu