Twocubdad

As my attorney says, "It depends. That will be $400 please." I know Eagle Scouts have been awarded decades after the requirements were met. Part of that depends on whether or not the failing was the Scout's or the troop's. In the couple cases I'm aware of, the Scout joined the military and never completed the application, in the other the troop folded before the Scout could complete the BOR. It would be worth a phone call the the council advancement chairman.

That is absolutely correct for unit fundraisers and why units aren't permitted to ask for direct contributions. However, at best, I would call an Eagle project a grey area. As has been discussed, contributions should be solicited in the name of the benefactor organization, not Scouting. But let's be realistic. Even if a Scout is clear the funds will benefit XYZ organization, a big selling point (and no small point of pride, either) is this is for the young man's Eagle Scout project. Does anyone think a boy is going to do their fundraising in street clothes and never mention Scouting? And what would you think of some random kid asking you for money to build picnic tables with no other context? I ask my Scout to be clear to contributors that their money is benefitting another organization, but it's a bit unrealistic to think they will leave Scouting out of their pitch entirely.

Just about everything our council does related to Eagle projects is backwards. They have a very, very strong inclination toward construction projects. No added requirements about the "permanence" of projects, but that's the net effect. If your project doesn't include the use of pressure-treated lumber, you're going to have a hard time getting it though -- not impossible, but difficult. Consequently, projects tend to be material intensive. In our troop the LEAST expensive project I seen in the past few years was $800. One was over $1500. Here, we are completely backwards from the rest of you guys on fundraising. While there is no prohibition or limit on family contributions, Scouts MAY NOT include any time spent raising money as part of the project. (And yes, the time matters as they still insist that an Eagle project should include a minimum of 100 manhours, exclusive of planning and funraising). The council justifies this citing the national policy that ESLPs may not be a fundraiser. Of course the result of that is that most projects are family-funded. If parents are willing to write a check, there is no reason or incentive for a Scout to otherwise raise the money. That's becoming a problem, given the economic situation. Personally, we could afford to make the same contribution to my older son's project if it came up today. I'm seeing a lot more Eagle project fundraisers, not just for out troop, but all over town. That's not a bad thing, but I believe the council needs to change it's attitude about projects. We need to get a handle on this from the cost side or the fundraising is going to get out of hand. If you assume a decent fundraiser (carwash, donut sale, etc.) nets $250-300, our troop would have been involved in OVER 20 ADDITIONAL fundraisers in the past two years. That's just too many trips to the well. While I know the Eagle candidate would be doing the work, the troop leadership would still have some peripherial involvement and at minimum it would be an extra activity for the other boys in the troop would be expected to attend.

Years ago we had a similar situation. Ultimately, we just walked away. Hounding people for money like this is tough on volunteers. I'd let your COR or Institutional Head know what's up. It's their money. And the bottom line would be for your chartered organization to take the parents to small claims court. Even if the CO is willing, is that really the direction you want to go? I would do a little research: Who has the popcorn? Did the Scouts deliver the popcorn and now can't collect? Did the customer pre-pay and then something happen to the popcorn? I would be concerned if the buyer of the popcorn got stiffed. What is the families' attitudes? Are they concerned and trying to solve the problems or are they just blowing you off. You don't say much about the two families' situations. If the money or popcorn is lost, do they have the ability to reimburse the pack out of their pockets? That would make a difference how I approached the situation. I would tend to agree with your wife that I would not boot the boys for this. But I could change my mind if I thought the parents weren't taking it seriously.

This is about planning and authorization. What makes it a pack campout and not just a den campout is that the pack leadership is involved and approves of the campout, even if only one den ultimately attends. Note that a committee member's signature is required on the tour permit. Let's face it, there is a lot of wiggle room in this regulation. There is no written criteria for what constitutes a pack campout. So what's to prevent a pack with four dens from having four separate "pack campouts"? Nothing, although I would want to have a discussion about dancing around rules rather they following them. But if the pack leadership is involved in the planning, satisfies itself that all BSA policies are being followed, and signs off on the tour permit, in my opinion you have complied with the policy. Scoutfish, Why are they precluded from earning awards, pins or belt loops? Can you cite a policy for that?(This message has been edited by Twocubdad)

Yes, what you've outlined is acceptable. G2SS, Pack Overnighters -- "In most cases, each youth member will be under the supervision of a parent or guardian. In all cases, each youth participant is responsible to a specific adult." Note that this is not bold-type so there is some flexibility in it's implementation. When I was Cubmaster we added a couple requirements. First of all we had a simple authorization form which required the signatures of the parent, the adult accepting responsibility for the Scout and the Cubmaster or campout leader. We had one situation when a parent dropped a boy off to be supervised by another adult, but that person wasn't aware of the arrangemnt. We also had a rule that none of the leaders could be responsible for a Scout other than their own. This was open to a bit of interpretation, but the idea was that the folks with the responsiblity for running the event shouldn't have the added responsiblity of looking after someone else's kid. The last rule was that no adult could be responsible for more that one additional Scout. This was to prevent a den leader from doing an end-run around the prohibition against den campouts. The last two point were (I think) at one time part of the national guidelines.

Yeah, sorry. I've got dust on my computer screen bigger than the dots. Tried to format it into a larger type size, but the format link doesn't seem to work. Anyone ever seen a morse code font?

Dean, .--. .... --- -. . ... / .- .-. . / -. --- - / .- .-.. .-.. --- .-- . -.. / .. -. / ... -.-. .... --- --- .-.. TCD

Your post presents two problems. The first is whether or not to automatically recharter everyone. It is healthy for a unit to annually reassess their roster and require some action on the Scout or parent's part to continue. All you need is a simple, "yes we still want to be in the pack." Personally, and regardless of fundraising, I don't think requiring the $15 registration fee is asking too much just so everyone has a little skin in the game. As a practical application, in our troop we know who the active Scouts are. If they're late or forgetful with dues at recharter, we will recharter them anyway. But for a kid who shows up once every six weeks (and absent some pre-disclosed conflict like school or sports) and they don't re-up by the deadline, we drop them from the charter. We usually mail a written notification to every family, follow up with e-mails and make mutiple announcements at meetings. We don't carry dead wood. When I became Scoutmaster we had 48 boys on the roster and about 25 active. We now have 42 on the roster and I would say 40 are active. The second issue is dealing with the Webelos II den. You had a whole den go AWOL? Calls should have been made in SEPTEMBER to your Webelos II den to ask what's up. Now, six months later, is too late to find out what is going on. One of my Wood Badge ticket items was to develop and present as a Roundtable topic a session on Scout retention. This was a biggie. Anyone who misses two consecutive meetings should get a call from their den leader. Anyone who misses four meetings should get a call from the Cubmaster. You need to discover and fix the problem BEFORE not attending Scouts becomes a routine. Maybe the family has a schedule conflict with their den meeting night and moving the boy to another den solves the problem. Maybe it's a transportation problem. Or maybe there is something more going on in the den the unit leaders need to know about. It's amazing the number of boys who drop out of scouting simply because no one called to tell them when den meetings restarted in the fall. In our district the commissioners ask the units to do a mid-year membership inventory in September or October. It's a good practice whether or not your districts asks for it. For any boy who does not return after the summer, you should find out why. If you wait for recharter in the spring, it's too late. The boy has missed 5-6-8 months of the program year and has probably moved on to other things. Our district used to wait until after recharter to look at the "drops." The commissioners and DEs would start calling around in April, but that was a waste of time -- it was too late. Generally all they accomplished was to learn that many boys drop out of scouting really lame, solvable reasons.

Year, and Carpentry seems to be a somewhat easier version of the current Woodworking. But I suppose Stalking and Signaling make up for it. Learning both Morse and semaphore isn't easy. I mentioned the badges to my two sons. Neither seemed interested until I suggested how cool it would be to sit in school and tap out Morse code to their buddies. Depends on how you sell it. I also think the uniqueness of the badges will be a selling point. Can anyone find out if they will be offered at Jamboree?(This message has been edited by Twocubdad)

I generally don't read or participate in the I&P stuff, unless the title of the thread seems to have a connection to scouting, as HillBilly's thread did. At face value I thought there was a lot of stuff in there I disagreed with, but not necessarily inflammatory. I wouldn't have closed it, but neither did I have any interest in responding to it. I will allow that I haven't followed the threads on which it was based, so maybe there was some flame throwing going on there on which OGE based his call.

Never mind(This message has been edited by Twocubdad)

WAY COOL is right! I can't wait to see the requirements.

I've been on a horse maybe three times in my life. And based on lenght of time in the saddle, by far the most time I spent on a horse was at Philmont. We did the trail riding the last day on the trail at the camp on the back side of the Tooth of Time, the name of which escapes me. Regardless, based on my experience with the trail horses at Philmont, I would say there is a third possibility, C) the horses are in control, do pretty much what they dang well please and you're just along for the ride.

Next time you see the chairman, strike up a friendly conversation. As some point I would let him know how his committee is perceived by THE EAGLE CANDIDATES. And leave it at that. Hopefully the fellow has enough self respect that he (or she) will take it from there. I'd give it some time so it's not so obvious that it came from your son.

Nope. I've loaned out/given away my copies, but I think you will find the reference you're looking for in the Cub Scout Leader Handbook. If it turns out the policy has changed and you can go back, please let me know. Eagle Scout son is still miffed with me that we didn't do Tiger Cubs. If it's allowed, I'm sure he will want to go back and earn his Tiger Badge.

In my troop, food is the coin of the realm. "What would my guys do for a Klondike bar?" Dang near anything.

MN -- where do you find the criteria for the minimum attendance in order to count nights toward the unit award. One troop in our district received the 1000 night award a year or so ago. The SM says it took them about 11 years to accumulate the nights. Do the math. They counted every night anyone in the troop camped -- summer camp staff, jamborees, OA functions, etc. If the troop was camping somewhere and a couple guys were on an OA outing, the weekend counted double. We have good records going back that far, but we sort of felt based on this other troop is was a bit of a farse. Using the criteria you mention, an average troop should take decades to hit 1000 nights.

BP describes exactly how things work in our district, top to bottom. An announcement is usually made that so-and-so is stepping down and someone else will be filling the slot. No vote, no nominations, no announcement that the position for those who are interested in serving. On the finance and membership side -- which includes the district chairman -- the DE is the driving force behind the selections. Our DE is smart and politic enough that I'm sure he touches base with all the power brokers. Of course that DOES NOT include the schmucks who attend meetings and do the heavy lifting on the actual district committee. The process works exactly the same on the program side except the decisions are made by the one or two volunteers at the top of the ol' boy network. With one or two exceptions they are all members of the same mega-troop. When there's an opening on the program side, it's usually a domino effect, with all the underlings moving up a link along the food chain. None of this corresponds to anything like a fiscal or calendar year. Appointments are good for as long as they please the ol' boys. Changes occur only when positions come open. All of which is why I no longer volunteer at the district or council level.

What's the SPL doing? Does he have the ability to slide into the patrol and get them going without it being too obvious of a coup d'etat? Or maybe an obvious coup d'etat is what's needed?

One year we let all the boys vote for the winners. The Tiger Division wound up in a nine-way tie. Yep, every single one of them voted for their own cake! Ya gotta love them Tigers! We were a large pack and could have 50-60 cakes at the event. We had theme-based awards (as Manyhats suggests) and awards by rank. Usually trophies for those. For everyone else we had a big stack of ribbons and a parent with a Sharpie. The judging committee came up with some superlative for everyone. Best Use of Green Icing, Most Disgusting (actually a very sought-after award), Best Use of Gummy Worms, Flattest, on and on and on and on.... One year a dad rescued a case of paper chef hats from the trash at some corporate dinner. Some markers and glitter paint and we had the best awards we ever had.

Next pack meeting, have a couple den leaders (who are current on their dues) take the kids so that the Cubmaster and Committee Chairman can meet with the parents. Give everyone a copy of the pack budget and current financial statement. Be sure to use BIG RED NUMBERS where appropriate. Explain to them what recharter is. Let them know if their sons are not current with their past due dues and have not paid whatever the recharter fee is, they will not be included in the recharter and will be dropped from the pack. This is just hard, cold reality. While you would love to have the pack front the money for those in arrears and keep them on the charter, there is no money with which to do that. Until then, all pack activities are on a pay-as-you-go basis. This includes advancement. Scouts may still complete requirements and the pack will record advancement, but until all the dues are paid, the pack cannot afford to buy the gizmos for the Scouts who are behind. Beyond that, you need a nest egg just to cover the float and to help out families who may be in a tight spot. Truthfully, if you guys just started in September, there wasn't much hope of selling a lot of popcorn. Don't beat yourselves or your Scouts up over that. You need to look for a spring fundraiser. If you have a Chick-fil-a or a Pizza Hut locally, talk to the managers there. Both companies will do events nights where they give community groups a percent of the night's profits for bringing in extra business -- you have to go out and promote the event and try to get as many people there as possible. Car washes and yard sales are good, too, because you don't get stuck with a ton of candy or wrapping paper if it doesn't sell. Talk to your CO. Assuming the CO wanted the pack (vs. the pack went out and found a CO just to provide meeting space) maybe they could give you a few hundred dollars in start up money. If you start putting out some inquiries, you may find a kind soul in the community who would make a similar contribution to the pack. Strictly speaking, individual units can't go out and ask for direct contributions from the community. But if you work though your chartered organization you'll be okay.

So why do you choose to charter as a crew? What's the advantage to your overall program?

A few years ago, when I was on the district committee, it was fashionable to seek out existing youth organizations and register them as crews. Purely to boost Venturing numbers. A big push was to register all the ROTC units at all the high schools in the district. There was no thought that these new crews would change their operations in any way or adopt any part of the BSA program. In fact the sales pitch was that they could continue business as usual, but take advantage of the council facilities at no charge (other than the membership fees). Things started getting out of hand when the districts all tried to register their OA chapters as crews. I think the council finally put the kabosh on all the silliness when the districts got in a fight to see which district could register the summer camp staff as a crew. I imagine if I walked into the council office today and wanted to register start a crew with the intent to operate just as CNY describes, I would be greated with open arms.

When we joined Cubs I bought a big honkin' Coleman 6-man from Bass Pro Shops. It's just a big, solid no-nonsense family tent. I think I paid about $125 for it. It has the plastic-coated tarp material for a floor (and 6" up the side). Rarely does it ever leak and usually only in driving rain when the rain blows against the sides and the zippers drip. It's now over 10 years old and I think I treated it and sealed the seams once. One of the fiberglass poles split not long after I got it, but I wrapped it up with electrical tape and haven't had a problems since. Now that the boys are older and tent on their own, I'll take it car camping along with my big REI camp cot. Nice and roomy for one guy.