blw2

As the son of a USCG Master Chief Boatswains Mate, I can tell you that the "bo lynne" is one of the few knots I learned as a kid. He of course knew a lot of the knots, but that and the half hitch were really the only two I learned. He tried to teach others, but when it came to practical use these are the two he used most. I remember him teaching the 8, but don't know why it wasn't a go-to knot. .....

ahh, now there's some real ideas as to how the government and BSA might work together. I was hoping for some of those. Any other ideas as to how the administration might help the BSA, or visa versa?

What do they even do anyway?....short of adding a little tally on the post.... Does the poster get notified if I post them up or down?

I doubt that will be an issue. Just an old fashioned "Mail Forwarding" through the USPS will take care of little Johnny's letter. Might add a couple days to the process..... But I'd imagine most go by email now days, so it's maybe a non-issue.... I hope

When did this code come onto the scene anyway? It's not something I remember, and it always seems like an extra thing....a nuisance really. One more thing that some well intentioned adult thought it would be good to add to the growing list of check boxes of things to be memorized. Our other Committee members always ask the Scout to recite it after the oath and law, and the start of a BOR. It's always an uncomfortable moment that I sit through, not wanting to make a big deal about it. Scouts never know it, & I have sometimes hinted through questions or comments that perhaps these scouts might spread the word and come up with some way of learning this thing as a troop, so as to avoid this fumbling at every BOR. They never do. It's not important to them. It's not really all that helpful. So I suppose I'm not impressed with the idea. before clicking save on this thread, I googled it and found this reference to answer my own question..... http://www.outdoorethics-bsa.org/OutdoorCode.php I guess it existed when i was a scout, but obviously we never made much out of it either.....

yeah, I think there are a lot of angles to it.... lost proficiency habit of going lazy habits developed in not going but in my thinking, for scouts anyway, one of the more important considerations for frequent meetings is the occasional absence. If a scout can't make a meeting (sick, sports, band, or whatever), he can always go next week.... if there are weekly meetings. If meetings are monthly and a scout misses, that's 6 weeks of no scouting. Easy to forget that you are even a scout in that time!

oh interesting, I thought it was a BSA thing, that we were all in it at the same time. Ours is technically up Jan 31, but they like to lead people to believe it's 'due' in December. It has always seemed like weird timing to me.... we like a lot of units sort of role on the school year. In a way ours is good because it gives plenty of time after the fall 'kick-off' for the roster to settle out and for all the dues money to be collected before we recharter.

it was a parallel thought, illustrating an opinion of less frequent meetings. Applies to troops too.

thread seems to have evolved into more of a discussion of combined units (troop and pack) and not cub program improvement exactly.... but I'll throw this out to the discussion... Is recharter really that much of an issue that it needs to be streamlined? Would this really help much of anything? In my thinking recharter is only a pain in the neck if the roster is full of holes and unorganized. If a person has kept up with the member applications, and they know who is in the troop and who is not, the biggest issue I see is getting everyone to pay their dues. even that really isn't a big deal.....set a deadline and a person that isn't paid up is dropped. The recharter paperwork isn't really a big deal and really doesn't take up all that much time for a person....and eliminating one contract means one or two less signatures for the IH to make.....but really, how much time does that save? I do find the idea of combined committees interesting, but for a different reason. Since it seems that it is often hard to find enough people that are really willing to show up and work, things could be a good bit more efficient with one committee as compared to two..... but then again the focus or method of the two different units, pack and troop, are really a good bit different.... they are doing different things and have different interests..... so it could cause more tripping up too. My suggestions for a better pack start later.... bear or WEBELOS year is soon enough to tap into the best part of the program and to avoid burn-out Have a better or more clear SOP regarding volunteering, adult positions, term 'limits' I like the idea of say every parent is required to do something a parent from the 1st year webelos den is CM a parent form the Bear den is ACM ready to take over next year the old CM that is now from the 2nd year WEBELOS den is still around to offer help and advice. Maybe they become the CC for that year.... and if you are determined to run with Tigers, a perpetual Tiger Leader, someone who is not a parent of a scout in that den should be the leader. They facilitate parents from within the den to lead the meetings, grooming them to take over DL and other jobs next year...and forming the 1st level vetting for future roles Oh and the big thing on the program side is to teach the boy lead patrol method to the adults early on. That should be a big key part in the cub program. Sadly, it's not

I love it Stosh! did you say once that every parent is registered committee in your troop? Just thinking out loud here.... but perhaps that is a danger of having too many "un-trained" or under trained folks in official roles. I have this gut feeling anyway, every time it comes up about adding another inactive or unnecessary adult person to the rosters in our troop. I suppose there's no real gain in fighting the mob....but I can't help but thinking you should fall back on your authority as SM and under no uncertain terms remind them that you are in charge of the program, and that your program is up to the Scouts (or whatever the case is). I suppose this falls back on a necessary strong relationship with a strong CC though. I'm reminded of a podcast, or maybe several different ones....but Clarke Green did a long while back where is was talking about adult heavy troops, and how he strongly discourages even ASM's from talking directly with scouts without his express and specific direction. Or something to that regard anyway. i just remember being a little taken back by the idea, but every now and then I can see a twinge of sound logic in it. anyway, it took me a little digging to find it, but this is one of them (actually I'm remember another when he was a bit more blunt about it, but can't find that one) https://scoutmastercg.com/podcast-284-assistant-scoutmasters/ skip ahead to 20:09, but the meat of this point started around 26 minutes

old thread, but since it's bumped back in, I'll comment..... My 2 cents is that it's best to have regular meetings. Maybe depending a bit on the group but as a general rule weekly would be the goal. I used to encourage our dens to meet weekly, except the week of the monthly pack meeting.... so 3x per month....but occasionally it would only be 2x because of holiday conflicts, etc.... Basically, the idea was to have a scout meeting or activity EVERY week, We had one den that met far less often. It was a very small den of like 3 scouts so they worked it out...but I'm convinced the lack of activity did nothing but hurt any excitement. There was no momentum in that group. My daughter's daisy, now brownie troop meets twice per month, but the meetings are 2 hours. It works well enough But what happens is that when a scout misses a meeting, a lot more material is missed and a lot longer time passes before they're at it again....

I thought i replied to this last week.... don't know what happened to my post.... Campmor offers a discount if you are 501c3 https://www.campmor.com/CustomerServiceContent_____nonprofit

With the idea of letting the DL's choose how to collect and hold, it seems like a piece of the puzzle or two might have been over looked If the DL is managing the budgets and expenses for the den Who pays pack level expenses, and where does that money come from? How can you affectively work budgets as a unit?

not sure about BP, but I know Campmor offers a discount to non profit groups (501c3) https://www.campmor.com/CustomerServiceContent_____nonprofit

great! I think I'll make a point to show that video to my son. I can imagine him saying..."I want to do that", or "why do we never do that stuff?"

Yes, you are probably right about the mirroring thing. I'll admit that while I as ADL was excited and tried to encourage the idea, and hinted around about it, but I was not the DL. Furthermore, our DL wasn't the most gung-ho about uniforming and stuff like this. he did encourage the flag, but it's that extra mile tying it all together that was perhaps lost in our case. It sounds like you did a much better job laying the groundwork and then fanning the flames....

interesting list there, NJCubscouter! What I find interesting is the depth of just Eagles..... While as far as I know some of those girl scouts may have only been a Brownie for a couple years..... Oh, the Eagle list left off President Ford.... I would be interested in seeing a similar list broadened out to say Scout Rank or above....

I kinda feel that way about all the knots. I felt a little bit funny about pursuing any of them. On the other hand, and I think to the OP's point, there is I suppose some value for the scouts to see their adult counterparts pursuing the similar things....just as we wear the uniform for "unity". Somewhere i remember reading something like that once, as one of the purposes for leader awards. I also don't put a lot of stock in the knots as a whole, but just as I don't want a lot of pats on the back for other things I do appreciate acknowledgement once in a long while for my time and effort. I only wear one, the training award. I hesitated to do it at first, but I did pursue it and pushed the paperwork myself. There was one or two others that I would have appreciated receiving when I was Cubmaster but never got. The scouter's key and I think one other.... And I felt that as a very active and engaged ADL for several years I would have appreciated getting the Den Leader Training award too.....but that one doesn't apply to Assistants.

welcome to the forum and scouting, by the way.... Glad to see you here.

They are religion dependent, as I understand it. I know us Catholics have a group at the diocese office that oversees their scouting program and the medals. http://www.nccs-bsa.org/

Some great ideas there.... and from my perspective it seems like it would be an awesome camp activity to plan for patrols or Dens.... bring along the materials, and then it gives something to do while spending time in camp. Sadly, I see most scouts today not being overly interested in such an idea and too lazy to make it happen without a whole lot of adult push (because of lack of interest)

This whole thing brings a side question to my mind,..... In my thinking, gumbymaster is spot on. But putting myself on that board (the first time around). Let's say I'm the only member of that board that gets this concept The scout can't tie the knot. Other board members want to fail him, I do not. what am I to do? or Let's say that two of us on a three member board think it this way. What are we to do? Can part of the board sign him off and push the paperwork without the consent of the rest of the board? Guessing here, but what I think i'd do is go along on the follow-up board at a later date, based mostly on the fact of missing signoffs for the other stuff, but I might allow the other member's desire to retest the knot just to appease that person. No reason the scout shouldn't be able to brush up on a knot, it would do him good after all..... Then, if the scout reacted as described on the 2nd board, it might open up a new conversation about scout like behavior or whatever.....but that's another story.

home number? what's that?

I have an uncanny ability to put things like that out of my mind. My whole life I have never been able to on the spot answer questions like "what was your most embarrassing moment?". I think I just naturally "let things go" after a while. I was never the coolest kid, never the "best looking", always shy and uncomfortable in most situations so surely I was picked on plenty, but I just don't recall. I grew up a Coast Guard brat so we moved around a bit. I was often the "new kid", so maybe that helped me learn to fly under the radar. Slacked off in Jr and High School as much as I could get away with. Changed my ways in college and now that I'm spending a few minutes thinking about it, I remember catching it a bit for being studious or bookish..... one guy used to call me "Schools". He thought he was so cool, but it never really bothered me that much

I wonder when it's moving. Maybe it said in the article and I missed it..... I'm planning a family RV trip next summer to head out west, and I had a thumbtack in the virtual "map" to drop in during our pass through Texas. Guess we'll miss it if they move it before then. Yet another scout and scouter that may not ever get to see it. Philmont looks to be a good 5-6 hours off our route. Then again, if they let me park in the parking lot overnight maybe we will.... and it'll give DS a chance to see philmont from the street and get a little taste. Might spark some interest. But as I think about it more, I doubt if we can afford to take that much time off route, and even more I doubt if the girls would be too excited about spending 5-6 hours of just driving off route to see it.