5yearscouter

I would suggest he call, making sure that he explains that he may isn't wanting to join their troop but that he wants more camping nights and was hoping they would let him join them for a few campouts once. And after he talks for a while, suggest that he ask if the SM would like to speak with you to be sure everyone is on the same page.

If it's within your unit you contact your unit key 3 [or training chair if a key 2 person has designated them as such in the myscouting system they can add in the current code with the date of training to update your records. Of course, understandably if it's a class that has been redesigned and may be really different now, it might be a good idea to take the current class. So if they took a troop committee challenge in 1995 in a classroom setting maybe just ask them to take the current edition of the course online in 20 or so minutes.

When you can't send home flyers it sucks. You know what is worse? When you can send home flyer and council prints them for you, but they print them so small (2 on a page but set up wrong so it was huge margins and nobody can read them! Yeah that was the stupidity from our DE last fall in a cost saving measure to cut printing costs. Too small of flyers get lost in the backpacks. I told him we would have PAID good money to council if they printed regular sized flyers, or he could have printed 1/2 to 1/4 of the number of flyers full size and we would have just targeted fewer grade level

I didn't see this when you posted it, but yes, My pack did not recharter for 2015 and it's gone now. The last year we had 5 cubs, and they were all different ranks. That was a HARD year, one room schoolhouse type cub scouting, and none of the parents wanted to do a darned thing. I came back from boy scouts to try to make a difference but it was too little too late when at recruiting one new potential scout showed up, and three existing members didn't show. So that was the end of that.

We just suggest everyone take it every year before summer camp along with safe swim etc. It's a good habit, cause we are human and forget stuff and need reminders.

Our best years in the Pack were after we started the rule that every youth application had to include an adult application. Then we would do a bulk adult ypt training, and this is scouting. and we had a rule that every normal sized den had to have a den leader, asst den leader, cubmaster or asst and a committee member or two in it. The other parent had to step up into some kind of event or activity chair, or into a large job of some other kind. We passed around a list of all the jobs in the pack (secy, treasurer, den leaders, asst den leaders, cubmasters and asst, committee members, e

Directing adult questions at the spl makes no sense. He's involved in program. Parents usually want the answers to the questions on the committee side of things. cost, fundraising, equipment, committee needs, etc. That's a bad joke. But there is some truth in it. Most SPLS are better at scouting skills and rbusy unning their meetings training up good scouts [program] than they are at coddling webelos parents who have a million questions. the SPL covers some stuff in a talk to the visiting webelos and their parents and then he wants the webelos to go try out what scouting in his tr

this is the list my webelos parents used when we went visiting. To make it easier on the 4 troops we visited, we emailed the SM the list and let him answer in his own words. Usually that would get us a copy of any written documents, the troop calendar, info on cost, etc. Doesn't mean all their answers were correct, especially the boy led one, but it was a start. Parents sat and discussed the answers after our visit so they could go over the things they liked and didn't like. and the boys had their own discussion separate from the adults. When does the troop meet? Where? What

Yeah I can understand having a bit of kerfuffle over a den of 10+ webelos show up to the troop meeting unannounced, but if the troop can't handle them visiting without x amt of notice that doesn't seem welcoming nor being prepared. We should be prepared to have visitors and boys wanting to join at any meeting. At least have a one page info about the troop passed out to the parents and the boys willing to bring webelos into their patrols for the evening to observe and participate in as much as possible. Sure you may not want to have the webelos chopping wood and making fires in totn chi

Oh and just to clarify, while the area the Scout lodge is at is very friendly to scouts The scouts themselves come from a diverse area. WE used to just pull scouts from the kind of well off area of where the scout lodge is located, but now we have families from all over and lots of lower income families. We used to only have one income, mom was sahm kind of families, now it's both parents work and some parents have two jobs.

Well I did get them to help underwrite scholarships to camp for a few boys (boy has to pay at least 50% and be active with fundraisers/activities etc). That was about $1500, which came out of extra donations we received with our flag fundraiser payments. People in surrounding area pay $50 a year to have a large flag put up in front of their homes by scouts at 7 holidays a year. And they did about $1500 in repair on the trailer (new tires, new spare, new jack, new fender). It was getting dangerous to drag it around and blow out a tire every trip, but they won't give up the trailer, so they

It always feels as if BSA is using volunteers to do their IT work, and they get what they pay for.

You'd think it would be parents not knowing the balance. It's more the parents not realizing that we don't need that high of a balance. We get new parents coming to committee mtg usually about the time we are collecting and paying out large amounts for summer camp. So if they see 40 scouts going to summer camp at $500 a pop they think well we gotta have a LOT of money on hand to pay that bill. Of course we had already collected most all of the payments. WE have 62 scouts but usually less than half can afford summer camp. We have a flag fundraiser that brings in about $9k a year, which

I agree. It''s very very obnoxious. Unfortunately the CO thinks we need to keep a high balance, so when we spend $2000 more than we bring in during a year we hear about it as they talk about how hard they worked to bring in that much money. CO= old SM's and friends who formed a non-profit to protect the scout lodge and charters the unit.

$25k left over carried forward every year.... and complain when that amount wasn't getting LARGER. Our annual fundraiser pays for everything they've decided fits into troop budget (awards, some repair/replace equipment some underwriting of events in that they buy the propane or if the event pays out $ for gas for the poor soul stuck pulling the trailer.) They want to do a fundraiser to buy new tents and complain if we buy something that isn't "budgeted" or the balance decreases each year. My pack used to have a plan to have an extra $3-500 to make it from one fundraiser to the next, adj

Yeah I've looked into this a bit. Ziplock bags are safe to heat food in the microwave[according to manufacturer] which seems to mean they don't leach deadly chemicals if heated to extreme temps [in a microwave]. If so, then logically I will assume they are also not going to leach deadly chemicals heated to extreme temps in a pot of boiling water. The highest risk seems to be the danger of the bag melting and pouring hot food on your foot. Doing at test at home when cub scouts were contemplating ziplock omlet cooking, I did discover that the key is to use the larger gallon size freezer

ok so there is pretty good agreement here that this http://www.big5sportinggoods.com/store/details/Camp%20Chef+Explorer-Two-Burner-Propane-Stove/0730122136000/_/A-2436707?#.VbSFmGxRE5t is NOT a lightweight stove?? Right? Cause I got a lot a grief [as a cooking mb counselor] when I brought that up to the troop. I had some Scouts wondering what stoves they should cook on that would be lightweight and when I told them my opinion they then were wondering if the troop could provide one or two of those stoves, you know since there is tons of room in the giant troop trailer (don't get me

Unit leader MIGHT be able to get something out of the Scout exec. Committee chair MIGHT be able to get something. COR MIGHT be able to get something. Institution head or Executive officer of the Chartering organization SHOULD be able to get something out of it. Person involved should contact local council Scout executive and ask the catch 22 question themselves and get any answer in writing. If as a parent they are NOT allowed to be around your unit and your scouts, including their son on their son's scouting activities, then the unit can't or at least shouldn't take on the youth as a mem

Oh I have a question, For cooking mb 6c says they need to cook 2 meals on a lightweight stove or low impact fire. How do you define lightweight stove? This is complicated because our troop uses two burner propane stoves like this http://www.big5sportinggoods.com/store/details/Camp%20Chef+Explorer-Two-Burner-Propane-Stove/0730122136000/_/A-2436707?#.VbMYuWxREfQ for plop camping which tends to be a lot of their camping. They use backpacking stoves for backpack trips--mostly like these http://www.big5sportinggoods.com/store/details/Stansport+Backpack-Stove-with-Fuel/076010799018

our summer camp cooking merit badge has taken it up a notch. Aside from the classroom time, the boys doing the badge meet at lunch time and do most of their cooking then. Basically the adult mb counselor goes to the kitchen and get a selection of food that the chef orders ahead of time or has extra of on hand, so some chicken and beef and hamburger, rice, pastas, milk, cheese, butter, spices, various vegetables, flour, sugar, potatoes, etc. and there is a set amount, x number of kids are doing the merit badge so he gets x lbs of food items. Staples are stored longer term of course. The

if they are only regular old parents, just keep a list of names and dates after showing them the video. I have made a dummy account before on myscouting.org that used the pack email address, and then just shown the video over and over to the parents who needed the training. We require anyone who camps overnight with the youth or goes on outings to take ypt for their own protection/reminder of rules/etc. If they ever want to register, they'll need some kind of certificate or proof, so if you use a dummy account, you put in their name on the profile and then it will print a certificate wi

Last time my son went to philmont a couple years ago it was lick your bowl and spork clean as you can, scaping with he spork. add hot water, swish and stir to finish getting it clean then drink the "soup" with all the food particles. Then dip in boiling water to sanitize and let dry in mesh hanging bag. I think that would probably be a good idea to use on most campouts. the sanitizing rinse water tends to get so yucky by the end that it's not sanitizing much of anything.

I took a look at the user forums and wish reports and report of errors yesterday. From what I see the biggest hang up is that you can't enter anyone in your roster unless they have a unique email address. we have whole families that use one email address, and no I do not want to make dummy email addresses for the other 4 people in the family in order to have the whole family on the roster of 3 scouts and 2 adult leaders. So many people are moving away from email except as stuff to get and read and then delete. if they even read it. And it appears that parents have to do most of everything

We usually do some kind of merit badge orientation at our roundtable and they usually put it down as being D76 when they submit the list of attendees to council. Try http://www.scouting.org/filestore/training/advancement/Merit_Badge_Counselor/The_Essentials_Presenters_Notes.pdf and http://www.scouting.org/filestore/training/advancement/Merit_Badge_Counselor/The_Essentials.ppt

They could all be feasibly registered as Unit Scouter Reserve which only requires YPT to be considered fully trained. And Unit scouter reserve is basically parents on reserve, ready to help out when and where needed Our troop by the way has an old goats patrol which is basically unit committee members and asms plus sm on any campout that are required for transportation of scouts. They cook, camp and function as a patrol but they are a very unofficial ad hoc patrol that forms as needed and disappears just as readily. We do require that EVERY adult regardless of their registration statu