blw2

I'm sorry, I have to ask...... Why do all of these "original scouters" go by three names?

As a dad of 1 boy and 2 girls, I find this whole thing very interesting. Thanks for sharing.

we didnt have a de when i started.... just lost our DE after about a year. Heard he left and went into sales. Really nice younger guy, eagle.... He'll do well Our loss Think his boss is running people off

Dude, I was suggesting a step back for a friendly moment of consideration...... I think you took a step forward! I just hope you didn't break your keyboard on that one. You bring a lot of good to the discussions, and we don't want you down due to technical difficulties

Looks like a duplicate thread..... I typd a response in the other one. I'll copy it here although much of what I suggested has been written here already..... just one more voice to echo the sentament. "sticky for sure..... my son's den started at 13 I think it was, floated around 12.... after a few drops and move aways, and some new boys we settled on 10 last year, around 8 really active. I would say that's a good tipping number. Our Tiger den last year settled on 5. I think that would be a really great number, especially if most or all are active. Maybe you could step up and volunteer to lead a split from your "bad-boy" den. Assuming you split to 9 & 9, that would make your den around 4 or 5 boys. Even if you have a couple "bad-boys" it would be much more manageable, especially if you set clear guidelines for the parents to police it so you don't have to. Recruit another parent as assistant, even if unofficial..... and you'd likely be able to control things nicely and have a really fun program. Just an idea...... OR..... if there's no ADL in your new den, maybe you could do that. You didn't say his grade..... are you starting wolf year? Regardless, get the boys out of the chairs and outside whenever possible. Work on volley ball belt loop, ultimate loop, play a game of dodge ball, stomp rockets were a hit for us last year...... If it's raining, play a game of marbles for the marbles loop...... Just get them active. Don't give the bad boys much of a chance to get out of line. Everyone will have more fun."

sticky for sure..... my son's den started at 13 I think it was, floated around 12.... after a few drops and move aways, and some new boys we settled on 10 last year, around 8 really active. I would say that's a good tipping number. Our Tiger den last year settled on 5. I think that would be a really great number, especially if most or all are active. Maybe you could step up and volunteer to lead a split from your "bad-boy" den. Assuming you split to 9 & 9, that would make your den around 4 or 5 boys. Even if you have a couple "bad-boys" it would be much more manageable, especially if you set clear guidelines for the parents to police it so you don't have to. Recruit another parent as assistant, even if unofficial..... and you'd likely be able to control things nicely and have a really fun program. Just an idea...... OR..... if there's no ADL in your new den, maybe you could do that. You didn't say his grade..... are you starting wolf year? Regardless, get the boys out of the chairs and outside whenever possible. Work on volley ball belt loop, ultimate loop, play a game of dodge ball, stomp rockets were a hit for us last year...... If it's raining, play a game of marbles for the marbles loop...... Just get them active. Don't give the bad boys much of a chance to get out of line. Everyone will have more fun.

can't say I've ever heard that one either......

I'm not so sure from my perspective that we are loosing people solely because of the paperwork and training, but I'm sure that it's a factor that turns some folks off. I'm all for training, and I guess I can't help but to agree with CYA paperwork.... but there needs to be a serious re-visit of this stuff in the BSA for sure..... Required training such as BALOO. I've been trying to find a course for going on two years now. Not many are available, and the ones that are conflict with pack outings. how am I supposed to check that off? Tour permits. They make sense as they are for a troop where you have a SM and ASM taking a bunch of boys in one or two cars or vans. Make absolutely no sense when you have a pack with maybe 30 or 60 different families heading to an event. Each boy has at least one parent or guardian with him and that parent is driving, 30 or 60 different vehicles.... and that parent is holding complete responsibility for that kid during the whole of the trip.... The requirement just looks kinda dumb. Ditto the medical forms..... kinda dumb when mom &.or dad are standing right there beside little Jr. Oh, and I will say that we have had multiple... like in more than I can count on one hand.... issues of lost or misfiled applications at council in my year and a half of adult scouting. and then there's the nightmare of on-line recharter.

Basement & KDD, you are both bringing up some interesting and I think valid points...... I have to say Basement, your interpretation is starting to read, to me anyway, as a bit socialistic.... like the book The Rainbow Fish. It's not "fair" for one or two or three boys to get off their backside and earn something...... they have to include everyone. May not be your intention, but that's how it reads. I might suggest that both of you might benefit by taking 3 or 4 huge steps back away from the issue and ask, "what's the point here..... for the boys"? Basement I think is suggesting something good and noble.... some great lessons - inclusion, leadership, organization.... KDD is in my opinion also suggesting something very valuable and good too - leadership by example, independence, self reliance, not letting others slow you down or keep you back...... and both are encouraging goal setting, accomplishment, etc.... Just looking at this as a Cub leader, not knee deep in troop goings on...... & applying some common sense. I think that auspices intends to mean what it means. Seems like a good approach would be for a boy to invite the patrol, troop, or whatever..... organize, etc..... If there's not enough interest, nobody shows up, whatever, go it alone. Don't hold the guy back? Oh, and while you are stepping back and asking yourself questions, ask how would your position affect a Lone Scout?

5yearscouter, I like the sticky notes idea. I've actually been thinking forward to WEBELOS year and making the boys more responsible for this. I really want to start in that direction in this, our Bear year. I'm not really sure I want to continue with logging the partial achievement stuff though, as I've previously written.... I really just want to keep the boys (and to a lesser degree the parents) on top of progress. I'm in total agreement with you about the beads, but I'm thinking if we switch up our focus with them they might be the tool to use to encourage the boys. If my DL buys into the idea, I'm planning to try and pick up some cool animal, pirate, or indian beads in place of the boring BSA ones.

I've not seen scoutspirit. I'll plan on taking a look today. In the spirit of this thread, why are you getting away form scoutrack and scoutmanage?

Yes, KDD.... I too am an enabler I suppose. That's funny, but true I guess..... Our pack handles the awards on the den level.... den leadership takes care of awards for their boys..... Wearing my ADL hat, I have tried every angle I can think of..... ask at meetings - they forgot the book or "oh, I've been meaning to go through the book" regular emails asking for them to send to me at their own pace - only one or two dads out of our ten boys responds occasionally. Not even the DL (& I know what you're probably thing...."there's your problem!") I've sent emails out as you suggest leading up to the pack meetings.... get me your list by next Friday.... no response I'm really trying to push our DL to make it a more serious part of the meetings. I think getting the boys interested and actively participating in advancement is the only way. I still don't think there's much value in tracking the details though..... The only help I can see from it at this point is helping us to come up with applicable den meetings based on which requirements or belt loops are needed

We were only looking at it at the pack level as a tool for communication, roster tracking, etc.... We don't go as far as you do 5yearscouter at the pack level, we track nothing. We put on a program, arrange meetings, arrange camping trips and other pack level outings, but do not keep attendance or log anything. On a Den level, my first task from our then Tiger leader was to keep track of the "paperwork".... so I started to log attendance. I also started filling out the achievements for the boys, but we just don't get enough boys/parents that are signing things off in their books until the end of the year. I'm trying to work with our DL to make the instant recognition beads a formal part of the program with a few minutes at each meeting encouraging book sign offs, recording progress, uniform wear, etc... I like your idea of asking the boys to turn in their books for recording, but I don't want to sit at the back of the room each meeting flipping through books trying to decode what new has been signed off on. How do you make that work?

I spent quite a lot of time and effort last year reviewing and studying this matter.... scouttrack and others..... as did my CM. We ended up not buying into any of the programs. I have used cubtrax spreadsheets for two years now, trying to get the data from the parents and boys to enter myself. Free, but I do not think I will continue even with that. Getting the data is nearly impossible, and I don't think the data compiled is really all that valuable. It just doesn't seem to be worth the effort..... at least in my den. I'll probably continue with it only for attendance, because that has been slightly useful. Personally, I don't think those programs are worth it. Maybe for WEBELOS and Scouts, but not for the younger boys. We use emaildodo.com for our email groups, and I think some of the other dens might also use the cubtrax free spreadsheets..... but that's all.

I grew up hunting and in the woods East of the Mississippi. I too have seen plenty of black bear sign, but never a bear in the wild. I don't consider this bear country though, when I read threads about camping in bear country. I always figure folks are talking brown bear, just based on my experience..... er is that lack of experience..... with bears. I'm more concerned with a rabid raccoon digging through the food.... or snakes, or now that I'm in FL, scorpions.........

& I thought it floated around a June 30 date, not the school year......

I do agree with Callie about the cubs needing more responsibility on the camping trips.... at least in my pack. But I agree with KDD and Dedkad. I sure don't want to take on the total responsibility for all of those treasured kids. That's why I want mom &/or dad along, especially when they are young. I do think our pack could do better with some organized responsibilities and or activities for the cubs, rather than just letting them "enjoy the outdoors" . That's sort of the stance of the pack's old-guard leadership. No there's a place for that for sure, but IMHO I think it would be better to have maybe 10-20% of the awake time occupied formally with some responsibility, service project, achievement, or elective activity, with the rest freetime. Our problem is that this is not the way it always has been done..... and also it's hard or impossible to get anyone interested in organizing it. As KDD wrote, we're not all that good!

Just spent a few minutes going through the bear book this morning. It truly is too repetitive. Granted, a scout can choose to not do some particular activity that he did last year..... and oh yeah, the year before...... but when you cull all of that out, there aren't that many choices! If I step back away from it for a little perspective I can see that it really is a good idea to have a dedicated leader rather than have a leader follow the boy, but there are problems with that too. Not such a big deal bear year, but one of our boys' dad is the leader for his older brother's den..... so his son has been dropped off for his den leader to watch except the occasion that mom brought him. Especially for the Tiger year, the program is clear that it's not to be baby sitting. The parent is "supposed to be" an integral and active part of it. Also, there's the angle that the parent who wants to be active & become a leader..... wants to work with their own kid...... especially at first. Now if you have a Lem Siddons (just watced that movie for the first time today) that can be the tiger leader..... & I guess soon we'll need another Lem for the Lions...... then the parents can just be a parent until the boys get older and don't have to be with the parent.... also would give the parents and prospective Wolf, Bear, & Webs leaders a better orientation and time to filter out the more interested leaders from the rest of the parents. Has great potential for a better program, but finding the right person to take over tigers permanently, and making that happen in my pack is not likely to happen anytime soon.

Well that's great. I hope it does if/when my son crosses into a troop! My only point was that at some point somebody has to go back and count up miles, nights, or whatever the criteria..... and if the boy doesn't do it, then who. I guess in your boys' case it's you..... I like the sound of the boys just having fun, and not really aiming for an award. Kinda makes the log book something I don't want to encourage.... except I think setting goals and working towards them can be good too.

Now you see scouter99, that's where you're wrong. I'm not the one ignoring. I'm trying to participate in a brainstorming session "around the campfire", to help others think and at the same time learn something about the program and life in general in return.... But thank you for the education.

I'm a cub leader, starting our Bear or third year...... & I chimed in that it is too long. We have way too many leaders on committee that checked out a long time ago. In almost every case, it seems that it's some time in the 3rd or 4th year that they start smoldering.... then by the time their oldest boys crosses to a troop, they have checked out and are more of a hindrance to the committee during their tenure for their younger boys. Honestly, I think the burn out if from dealing with the adults than the boys, but it's there.

many posts back, Basement wrote, "The best part....he will never have intended to earn it....He will have earned it thru the course of an active scouting career.....Not thru book keeping tricks." Not that's a noble goal! I wish it could truly flow like that...... The boys go out and do scout stuff, have fun, then at some meeting some time in the future, they get surprised with some award that someone figured out that they earned. Thing is though, who is that "someone"? At some point it has to become and intention to earn it, otherwise who would know if meets the requirements if not for some book keeping?

so then, a couple of very active scout buddies are family friends, and they do a lot of say, water skiing or canoeing, because they happen to have active families that own boats and therefore have lots of ample opportunity and really become "expert", may not be eligible for some award because there's not room in their parents canoe for the whole troop or their parents don't want to lend out their boats to the whole troop? .... or some boy that happens to have a really great $2,000 bike because he rides distance races as a hobby, but yet belongs to a troop where the other boys don't have bikes and aren't riders...... then that boy with the bike would never have a chance to be eligible for some bicycling distance award? I understand the spirit of what you guys are writing, and basement's post is clear... & I have to say the ideal he professes is grand, about inclusion of the other boys, fostering leadership, etc.... Really grand indeed. I have no idea what the book says, just common sense.... but it seems like an angle is being missed though. Some boys have opportunities in life that other boys do not. Simple fact of life.

what is G2SS anyway? Apparently it's some sort of rule book that I'm supposed to be following. Funny, I'm "trained" but have never been shown a copy.