5yearscouter

We were told today by our DE that the $66 bsa national fee can be prorated to $5.50 per month.

And our council program fee of $60 can be prorated to $5 a month. $10 discount if we do online applications, but those are currently turned off as we go thru recharter process.

But the $25 new member fee is not prorated.

A new scout in our area will have to pay $66 + $60+$25 = 151 before buying a uniform or a book.

Our troop waived any troop fees for our recharter with new year starting August 1st.  That's not sustainable but we have only had a few virtual meetings since shut down in mid March.  With AZ numbers of covid so high, we don't know when we will be able to have real meetings again. Nobody wants to pay that much for no real scouting.

how bout call your local church and see if the pastor needs help calling elderly shut ins? Just to check on them, say hi,

ask if they need anything. make a list and give back to the pastor so they can follow up.

yeah you probably need to already have a relationship in your church.

You could probably go around and wash cars sitting in driveways, or sweep front porches.

with the owners permission of course. You'd have to figure out how to ask who needs this service, without getting face to face

Make your own mini food bank with any extra food you can gather, and put it out by your mailbox with a sign. advertise on your neighborhood facebook or next door.  Although a lady in my neighborhood did that and someone took everything.

Find a council/camp that does ATV riding and maybe the pistol markmanship course.

Go to a high adventure camp like Philmont, but gotta find one that is open at this time of year which prob doesn't exist.

Earn the National Outdoor Awards or some other awards that no other scout in his troop has ever earned.

Earn all the merit badges related to what he wants to do when he grows up/goes to college/gets a job.

Do more service hours, or hiking or backpacking or insert thing here than anyone else in his unit, district, council.

Have him help along other scouts who are also on deck to miss their Eagle by a month or so.  

For a brand new small troop, I'd want a committee chair, Sec/Treasurer, and Advancement Chair.

SM and ASM work the program side as they should. working with the scouts to make a new scout appropriate first year calendar of events.

At first, almost every scout who submits an application you are gonna need an adult to also submit an application and take training.

At first all the adults of a small troop need to be on the same page so all going to training together would be great.  Although you do have to remember there is program side(sm/asm directly working with the youth) and paperwork committee side handling membership applications, advancement/BORs, permission slips/reservations, and  financials/fundraising.  com chair will have to be willing to do every job that the adv, and sec/treas is unable to get done, working closely with the sm and asms to be sure the program succeeds.

DE I was talking to at council office yesterday said they were told registration fee has to be minimum of $48 just to cover insurance.

So how much do you think they want to make on each registration over top of breaking even?

Grand canyon council announced they will change our recharter year from jan to dec instead to fall in July.

That way we'd pay a prorated amount of the new BSA fee and they think it will be close to the same.  So to pay a prorated amount  Jan thru July close to $33, would mean an annual fee of $60 (7/12 prorated of $60 is $35 if I did my math right.

Oh gosh, you can't have a SOCK FIGHT?

We had a cub scout indoor snowball fight, using brand new socks.

Socks were then washed, packaged and donated to homeless shelter.

We got over 800 pairs of socks

and not a single person was injured by cub scouts throwing socks at each other.

Grand Canyon council used to add $2 for insurance.

Till last year they added a mandatory Friends of Scouting donation per scout to each unit.

$63 per scout or if paid before recharter $50 per scout.

huge jump. Not helping retention. Luckily our unit has a good (separate from popcorn) fundraiser, so we could cover most of the $50 ourselves, but did pass on some of that to parents in the form of raising what we charge annually.

Grand Canyon council had already started laying off the council office employees months ago

So if 2 adults over 21 need to be there for outings and meetings as of Oct, how is this going to work with summer camp program areas.  Currently most program areas run with a Director usually age 21, and an assistant age 18 and a handful of staff of various ages and genders.  They hold meetings with their staff in their program area, program area set up on pre-week before camp gets started, clean up after scouts are done with merit badges for the day, where other adult lleaders (scoutmasters with their scouts) aren't around, but where the director and asst director are around youth and aren't both age 21.

It's hard enough to get dedicated, mature people to step up to be director and asst director all summer for low pay at our summer camps.  They are very happy when dedicated staff turn 18 and could be an asst director.  But now it looks like both would have to be 21? The director usually gets paid a more cause they are 21, sin order to entice them, but now how to entice 2 age 21 year olds?

Whenever staff leaves summer camp to go into town--like to do laundry and shop for deodorant or go to the movies, most camps count that as an outing.  And our camp has always made it two adults in any vehicle, one of each gender since they hire youth female staff age 16 and 17.  But there aren't very many adult director females over age 21.

saying merit badge counselors aren't really leaders is false, they are adult leaders who fill out the adult leader application.  So it would have to say for a private meeting it's ok cause in view of others.  But what about merit badge roundups, where a classroom setting full of scouts is not a private meeting? Oh cause they are outnumbered by scouts no one on one, but certainly not two deep both over 21  that the new requirements seem to say has to exist for ANY scouting to occur.  But merit badge counseling doesn't require 2 adults, just 1 adult and a scout with his buddy. 

This isn't going to work out as intended.  All leadership positions are going to end up being only for people over 21, so nobody ever has to guess someone's age when looking around the room at a troop meeting.

Our Chartering Org has a different COR for the pack, troop and crew.

But national wants it to be one person

Every year at recharter whoever's charter that gets renewed first resets the cor for each unit and then council registrar has to go in and change em back.

If you are running a one room schoolhouse version of cub scouting (all dens in one room cause you only have 1 or 2 scouts in each rank) this is probably going to be the hardest to implement as coed.  Because you will not have enough parent/leaders to make separate accomodations for gender. In that instance a suggestion would be to do a different night of the week for the girl dens (whether all the same pack or two different packs will depend on if you get enough core committed adults).  To help get more adult leaders, require all scout applications to come with an adult application attached with ypt certificate.  Then you work on the next trainings and get those adults running dens or whatever.

If you are running a full program of cub scouts with all den levels with training, it may be easier, if you have room in the building you all meet in to accommodate girl dens in the next room over. or if the dens meet in different people's houses then you need more houses.  the separate dens come together for inter den competitions and pack meetings but each den is able to meet on their own.  I think that is best case scenario for larger size packs. 

But again, you may have to force each youth application to come with an adult application attached, and additional payments.  But that means your minimum amount to charge is $35x2 + any pack fees.  So $100 a year scouting before doing any activities or uniforms.  yucko, but reality.

Well since he did all of the WORK (earned all the mb) before he turned 18, and he was just waiting on the BOR to be scheduled to complete the last portion of the requirements for eagle and his palms.  So he gets the palms.

Huh.  Well I learn something every day.  Here's a PDF.  On page seven is a screen shot of the page for recording rank dates.  I've cleared out dates before.  I thought it became effective.  The PDF says to contact the registrar.  Huh .... not how I remember it.   

 

http://www.miamivalleybsa.org/files/d/usr/1162/Wright%20Brothers/BSA%20Online%20Advancement%20Walk-through.pdf

 

I'll have to ask our registrar next time I'm in.  

If you catch your error on a rank or merit badge or award in internet advancement before you click SUBMIT to council,

you can cancel by clicking START OVER on the top right side of the screen. and then reload the roster and start over.  But that's cause the report doesn't go anywhere or do anything with scoutnet (or whatever they are calling it now) until you hit submit. 

If you do not catch your error and have already submitted to council,

you can't go in and delete the date on the next go around, it won't save as blank fro the date.

You can CHANGE the date, so if you just entered the date wrong, you can fix the date the next time you log in,

But if they never earned it, you can't delete it.

So if you accidently entered canoe merit badge under the wrong twin brother, when their names are almost identical, you will have to call your registrar, or email (if they reply promptly to email) to ask them to delete the date earned under the wrong scout.

btdt. lol.

I would think you would want him to step up to the next level Cyber Chip requirements to ensure he learns the next level of online safety.

Around here, in our district, the LDS adults tend to stick around in their called position for a long time.  They might be working with cubs again after years working with boys, but they are also running the eagle boards, or roundtable break outs or other larger things. They have a lot of commitment to scouting in the LDS church, and I admire that.  I hope that the change to drop Varsity and Venturing and the ensuing drop in units, doesn't kill off LDS scouters commitment to all the rest of scouting that they do.  I hope they keep/ allow/ encourage older youth to continue registration in their troops or encourage them to seek out the OPTION of non LDS traditional unit Varsity and Venturing programs in their area if the youth doesn't want to give up on say varsity/venturing awards.

It's certainly going to make things different at roundtable.

The only fundraising we did at pinewood derby races is the Webelos would get pizza cheap and they'd sell pizza, water, soda, and things like little Debbie snacks.  Any profit would help the den go to webelos summer camp.

That's of course, not what you mean. lol

For expired mb counselors,

fill out the adult application, put position code 42, mb counselor, sign it

sign the disclosure

write your bsa id number on it if known and write duplicate position at the top if you are also registered in somewhere else so they don't MOVE you from your unit to the mb counselor list (they do that sometimes)

print copy of your ypt certificate

fill out the mb counselor information form

find your proof of safe swim or shooting sports training as needed.

Scan the whole shebang and send it to your council registrar

say you seem to have been dropped from the mb counselor list but you should have been registered continuously since DATE fire did this.

Keep a copy of this.

update your training and your ypt as needed

send a copy of this to your registrar as needed any time you are dropped from the mb counselor list.

Check scout book, and your my.scouting.org info.

Both should show you as a mb counselor if you are one.

Used to be that you'd have to attach a copy of the blue cards to the handwritten advancement report to buy awards

Scout shop would take that advancement report and council would file it in the troop's file folder at council.
Sometimes at council someone would actually enter the scout's advancement in something like scout net, because units didn't have internet advancement yet.

Then when a scout went for eagle they'd pull out the file and make sure there was actually advancement records and blue cards for every merit badge.

I guess that was when councils had a lot of volunteers hanging out at the council office, those councils would go thru those blue cards and make sure they were signed off by an actual registered mb counselor.

With the use of internet advancement, Most councils have moved on from this process some to the point that you just show them the advancement report an don't even keep a copy and let the electronic scout net record speak for itself.

, but there are a few councils that want to keep us all honest by forcing extra steps where they still want the internet advancement form and some want blue cards, copy of blue cards or at least names of merit badge counselors so they can muddle about with it.

They have too much time on their hands.

It's very easy to get caught up In who approved these expenditures of the funds and trying to prove it was approved or against the rules of the unit.  But overall, the important thing is here it appears that the $ was spent on scouting, and that's a good thing in your favor.

To give you an idea of how hairy it can be, sometimes the decision is made as a quiet covering of a scout's camp costs without discussion of the full committee, due to the pride of admitting out loud to others that you can't afford camp for your own child. 

Without further proof, I would assume that is what it was, and let it go completely.

While the $ likely should have been spread around a bit more to other youth in the program, sometimes the other youth's parents don't even ask, because they are too embarrassed or whatever, so the people who ask get the $.

My pack would always try to cover the cost of camp more for leaders--usually because In our council to go to camp, the leaders and parents ALSO can to pay full price.  IN boy scouts 2 leaders are free, but for cubs no such break.

So the people who have to pay for their kid plus their fee as an adult leader who watches over everyone else's kid, the pack would try to cover all or part of the leader fee.  Or if there were extenuating circumstances, like last summer the cubmaster or other leader paid all or part of kid's fees in the pack/den out of their own pocket, so this year when time to sign up, the pack decided to cover those fees to pay back to the committed leader.

Sometimes it's cause they were the scouts who sold more popcorn than anyone else, so part or all of the cost of their camp was covered by the pack out of popcorn profit.

Usually those variations were all discussed and approved in the pack committee meetings, but often didn't make it into any kind of minutes just due to the secretary missing the details, or not sure how to write it up. Unless your pack committee is a moved and seconded all in favor kind of formal meeting, those details tend to get lost in the write ups.

Verify the starting balance,

decide on policy going forward for spending,

Discuss variations of camperships when scouts can't afford camp.

and try to spend the $ judiciously in the future

and try to keep better records

When you know better, you do better.

WE have a patrol that just renamed itself the Old Spice scented Leprechauns. I'm not sure the patrol yell yet.

We always use the data that is in this

http://www.boyscouttrail.com/content/award/tech_chip-2052.asp but not the actual award/card.

Scouts using the linked training ideas

will mostly  get the point across to the rest of the scouts that there is a time and place for using your cell phone

and when it interferes with other's enjoyment of the outdoors or interferes with scouting it's a problem 

But that it can be a useful tool.

I think MOST people nowadays are poor in their cell phone etiquette and could use some training.

Take em to your district roundtable and see who wants them.

Well first they say if you make the csv file out of troop master or troop web host or whatever,

they tell you do not open it, cause when you open it, that changes the file somehow so it won't upload properly.

So that's not helpful at all if the format is changed by opening and viewing it. 

The problem is there are some fields that make no sense.  They are numbers that mean nothing when you look at unit number, Internet advancement/unit ;log in number, or anything that makes it seem to be reproducible without knowing some secret BSA codes. 

If you could get the gobbledygook numbers figured out the rest is sort of

header for unit id/scoutmaster info/date the unit recharters, district in two rows.

then list by row for each rank or mb

with random number, count of what row you are on, then scout name, first, middle, last, date of birth, date of advancement earned and the code for the merit badge or rank

But the bsa codes at the top and several other places are unexplainable.

it won't let me upload this type of file to the message board.

It should show immediately if you saved it to internet advancement.  Did you save it and print the advancement report?

Waiting a week for the herbicide is no issue, perhaps the use of said herbicide was targeted on unwanted plants only instead of broadcast spread, so replanting right away did not effect the new plants.  Or that roundup was used, but roundup resistant plants were planted immediately after so there was also no effect.  Or the scout showed up, and as you said the city provided all the stuff, so the scout did was the city provided, an on their schedule. Or the city changed their mind when the scout asked them about doing this project on two weekends instead of one. You do not know these details until you review, and if the city signed off, it is likely that the replacement plants didn't die due to the herbicide.

I really don't care that this is a turn key project where the scout did very little to plan.

We have things like blood drives all the time, where a scout CAN'T do anything except advertise, recruit volunteers and maybe provide snacks and thank you's, and on the day coordinate people signing in and standing in lines to do whatever the Blood Bank requires.

In lots of city projects, the city requires use of specific tools they know are safe, requires specific use of plants that they have purchased, likely at bulk huge discount, or paint or whatever other supplies the city often REQUIRES the scout use exactly what the city wants them to use and provides it and then shows up to make sure the plants are put exactly where the city wants them. 

So the scout's leadership is shown in the advertising of the project, recruiting enough scouts to do the work, and then hopefully leading the scouts on what to do when thru the project itself. But everyone knows that adults OFTEN jump in to try to tell the scouts what to do and how to do it.  If they were mixing and pouring cement and the adults were showing how to mix cement, you would not question that the scout who doesn't know how to mix cement should be showing how to do it, the scout would be expected to defer to the specialist.  The scout then has to coordinate only the scout side, which scouts help with this part and which help with this part and who does what at clean up time.  And feed and water his scout helpers and make sure safety is followed. 

There are sooooo many ways the scout could have shown leadership.  And even though there is a Eagle project workbook, being able to write clearly to explain everything you did to show that leadership is NOT part of the whole process.  A discussion for the scout ahead of time can make it clear to him that on paper his leadership on the project doesn't shine thru, so when he shows for his EBOR perhaps he should be prepared to talk about that specifically and discuss how he overcame adult pushiness if it was happiness, or if he couldn't overcome adult pushiness (cause that has happened and doesn't reflect on the scout as much as it does on the adult)