5scoutmom

My crew is charging $35 for the first member in a family with a $5 reduction for each subsequent member. The youth members themselves came up with the schedule. We also charge a per person fee for certain activities like camping trips. Fundraising monies go to the group as a whole and are used for things like renting camping spots for the crew and purchasing crew equipment. Adult members other than the committee pay the same rates.

Oh, and you should have a word with the bed wetter's parents. My oldest wet the bed till just about the time he had his first girlfriend We sent him to camp with a medication that suppressed urine output over night. At home, we'd wake him twice a night to go but we didn't want to broadcast his issues or, more importantly, put a burden like that on a volunteer, so our pediatrician prescribed a med. The camp nurse gave it to him at my request so that the SM and other adult leaders didn't know what he was taking. He just thought it was a med to help him sleep. He never had an accident at s

Our troop had one boy who was so homesick that his mom had to come get him on day 3. Ironically, his dad had actually been at camp and stayed after the boy left! The kid couldn't be apart from his electronics without withdrawal symptoms. He went to camp every year with his dad and every year went home early while the dad stayed. The day he turned 18, he left scouting without having advanced beyond first class or earning any merit badges. He didn't want to be in scouts, but his dad sure did. OTOH, my son went to scout camp having never been away more than one night in his life. After on

Jblake - Your kid sounds like my son. He earned the MB's because he was interested in the topics, not so with the other things on which he had to be pushed.

Our council has a special needs troop. Many special needs kids don't join it, including my own ADD/Aspie son, but the SM of that group was a wonderful resource for advice on how to accommodate MB's so kids with special needs can accomplish on an equivalent level.

David CO - Our CO is a church and it has a pack and a troop. There's another troop in town as well. Our COR, a friend of mine for many years, sent his only son to the other troop. When I asked him about it, he said he wanted to avoid any appearance of favoritism towards his son, especially since his family belonged to the CO church. His son knows he earned his eagle and wasn't just pushed along because of who his dad is. The dad is still our COR even though his son is now out of college.

Given that the boys involved were cubs, I think the pack did the right thing. Small children don't grasp the issues and wouldn't understand why they were good enough to pick up garbage but their water wasn't good enough to sell. I would not have given it away for free because that's rewarding the bad behavior of the organizers and the bullies. I would have either stored the water for the next event or donated it to a worthy cause. I am an adult leader of a crew and, if my unit had been involved in this incident, I would have given the group a chance to vote on what they wanted to do to

Congratulations on your son's achievement. My son's COH was one of the proudest days of my life as a mom. As for scout music, I have no suggestions. For my son's processional I selected the theme from "Dr. Who" because my son and all of his friends are big fans but I didn't tell anyone what the music was until it began to play. The smile on the faces of my son and his friends and the laughter of the audience was a great start to the ceremony. I also had my daughter sing the National Anthem; she's a vocal music minor. Whatever you choose music wise, the day will be wonderful and

SSScout - The organizers didn't pay for the drinks. The attendees paid for the open bar and tickets cost a great deal of money. There was a discounted price for current unit members, everyone else paid much more. It cost me close to $400 to bring part of my family to this party. There was no choice given as to whether you wanted to pay extra for an open bar as is done at my company holiday party (I would have declined). It was a scout event honoring the unit, not any individual members. It was billed as a celebration of the unit, there was a glossy magazine with the history of the

There isn't a copyright on how to start a fire per se but the precepts of, for instance, Leave No Trace, were designed by BSA as are the merit badges, etc. The impression that I got is that TL is cannibalizing those parts of BSA material that they want. They want Christian religious recognitions, that's fine, but making a similar number of ranks and almost equivalent requirements to BSA is cheating. A conversion chart implies that they are not using original concepts but are copying Scout concepts. Although imitation is supposedly the sincerest form of flattery, this isn't imitation, it's

Thank you all for your thoughts. Packsaddle, I am familiar with the rules you mention and I have feasted my eyes on them. That is partly where my inquiry comes up. The unit involved is NOT my unit and I had no input into the planning of this event. My family left this unit a number of years ago because we didn't like how it was run but we attended this celebration to mark the time we had spent in it and to honor those who came before the current adult leadership. In my current unit, adults do not drink in front of scouts at any type of scouting related function and we emphasize that scout

/when you say district recognition dinners, do you mean adult only? I have no problem with alcohol at that type of function. This was a family event, though, with cub scout aged children in attendance as well. There was one adult leader in uniform, and many boys in uniform.

Your son is a Webelos I and will be 10.5 in April? Is this typical for where you live? My son turned 10.5 in Webelos 2 in March of 5th grade and bridged the same month with his W2 den members. My school district has a December cutoff so he was one of the younger boys in his grade. However, he did fine and made Eagle - he is 20 now. I think that 10.5 is old enough to be in scouts but if your son moves up without his friends, he'll not only be the youngest but he'll be without his support group of friends. That's the main reason I would hold him back. My son wasn't the only 10 year old

It was not a spontaneous gathering, it was apparently planned for quite some time and it was organized by the scouting unit. There were more than 50 people in attendance. Why do you say someone goofed and what might the repercussions be?

I read about Trail Life and my first thought was the BSA should go to court and get injunctions against this group. How DARE they just change the names of things and think they have a "new" program. They even have a conversion (ha ha, not!) chart for changing BSA ranks, etc. to Trail Life equivalents. It's a copy cat program and National should sue them. It's fine to have your own group if you have sincere differences of opinion, but have some originality. Don't copy because you don't have enough creativity to come up with your own ranks and badges.

Recently, my family and I attended a party celebrating a milestone for a scouting unit. It was held at a local catering hall. The boys in the troop and adult leadership wore uniforms; other guests dressed for an occasion. There was an open bar. I was surprised but admit that I had a drink since I wasn't driving. My adult children also had a drink; obviously, my minor children did not. The question came up at the party as many people were curious and most thought that no alcohol could be served at a function where scouts were in uniform. Is there such a rule and would it apply to a sit

We have a mix of members: some are cross-registered, some are scouting dropouts (primarily because of the leadership of the local troop), some are female and some are boys who've never been involved in scouting ever or were cubs for a year or two. My son was our first Eagle but 5 of our cross-registered boys are already eagles and 4 or 5 are still planning to work on it. After a year or so of no interest in earning Venturing awards, the kids have decided to work on obtaining ranger awards. They want EVERYONE, from the 14 year olds to the 20 year olds, to earn it and are going to set up a p

Some years ago, there was an older boy in my son's troop who wound up going to a juvy like alternative school. His next step was prison. I think it was drugs, not violence. There was a scout troop at the school and this boy joined it. He became a leader and when he left the school, he returned to our troop and made Eagle. I saw his dad recently and learned that he was so inspired by the second chance he'd been given in scouting that he went to college AND grad school, became a social worker and is an ASM for a troop for troubled kids. Sometimes, a kid takes a bad turn but keeping him on

Our pack awards the Arrow of Light at the Blue and Gold dinner. The boys bridge a couple of months later. We have 2 troops in town and both send a representative. The boys cross and are greeted with the troop they are going to. Most of our boys bridge and then some drop during the summer.

Thank you to all who wrote. My son's COH was last weekend and it turned out well. We did a breakfast cooked by his fellow scouts at the church which is our meeting place. My son's project was done in the parish reception hall so we had the ceremony and the party there to show it off. We had a color guard and then an honor guard of 4 friends led him in. 1 was already an eagle scout and the other 3 are all set to be. Then the scouts recited the pledge of allegiance. My daughter sang the National Anthem. Then we had a few speakers, all from our political party because my son did not want

My son's COH is coming up. My husband, who is the advisor of son's Venture Crew, wants the ceremony to be as short as possible. So does my son. I am willing to dispense with the candle lighting ceremony, the Voice of the Eagle speech, the reading of the Scout mom poem and 100 Scouts. I am also willing to dispense with the explanations of the 12 points (I'm moving them to the program). However, my husband has planned to have the Scout Oath and Law recited by the other scouts who are present and not by my son alone. I believe that he has to recite the scout oath and law, as well as the 12

Tampa Turtle - What kind of knife did you get for your lefty? My 13 year old is my only lefty and he's about ready for a good knife. As for other gifts, depending on your climate - fingerless gloves scout belt homemade fire starter kit cook kit headlight lantern hanging lantern for tent attachable reading light (my youngest even reads in his sleeping bag)

To answer the second part of the question, my son socializes with youth members, including my 16 and 18 year sons and the other boys. I expect him to act maturely and set a good example. These are kids who, for the most part, have been his younger brothers' friends for years and who know him. I think the two young men who are best friends are fine. The older one should not show favoritism towards the younger at crew activities but clearly they are friends and the crew is another fun activity for them. As I said before, the purpose of the rule is to prevent abuse of a younger p

My son is 22 and his girlfriend of 5 years is 20. He is now adult leadership and she is youth. They do not bunk or tent together on camping trips and neither would dream of doing so, although they are sexually active. My understanding is that married couples can bunk or tent together. My H tents, I do not so we don't share a sleeping space on trips. I bunk in a cabin with the female members and he camps out with the boys. In this case, since their relationship is of longstanding nature and began when he was a youth member, I see no reason to end it or put it under deep cover. I beli

I am boggled by this thread. I know many gay men and women and not one of them is a pedophile. I am sure that there are gays who molest children, but the vast majority of men who molest and abuse children self-identify as straight. Many scouters who were outed as abusers were married men with families so that's not even a guarantee of safety for your children. I believe that there is one morality and that gayness, in and of itself, is not immoral. Child molestation on the other hand is not only immoral but illegal and child molesters should be locked away for life. That said, I do no