Twocubdad

Can you imagine running a business were your customers were of the opinion -- correctly or not -- that you never really did much for them and tried to hire away their employees when every you came around? Perception is everything. I've been on our district committee for about two years. Most of the members are also unit volunteers. The committee works much like a cooperative. The unit leaders come together to do things as a district that they could not do (or could not do efficiently) as a unit. Like district-wide camporees, day camp and school night roundup. By and large, the units see a direct benefit in those things. The district committee members also serve as our representatives to their respective council committees and are our chance to be heard. I suppose FOS and new unit recruitment are exceptions, but most everyone understands those necessities. Those who are going to complain are going to do so regardless. I think the Council has a bit tougher sell. I see a bit more of the attitude the others have described in many units relationships with the council. Aside from maintaining the two Scout camps, the things done at the council level are of less direct benefit to units. Commissioning is another matter. I would hate to be a DC trying to fill all those slots. I think many folks, myself included, see the commissioner corps as a net drain on manpower. We've had several threads on the problems with the commissioners and I won't rehash them here. As I noted in the other thread recently, it seem like everything our commissioners do creates more work for the units.

Where did they come from? I have no idea if they are accurate or not. But if they are, I'm struck by the fact that the only growth is in non-traditional members, that Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts numbers are flat and the drop off in Venturers. I have been told several times by professionals that the growth in Scouting would be in Venturing.

Our local parks and rec department is always a good source of conservations projects. They usually have a backlog of areas that need to be cleaned up or improved. Whoever you talk to, be sure to let them know the age of the boys your are working with. It's easy to get into a project where the real labor is done by the parents with the boys just standing around.

I simply try to be fair to both the new Scout and the unit. Think about what you are going to spend on the Scout between now and re-registration time in the fall. As an example, for my pack we only have two money-spending events between now and then, our year-end picnic and our luau/pool party in August. With food at the two parties and that we give the boy his next-year's neckerchief at the year-end party, I'd probably ask for $15 in addition to the national dues. Normally, it's unlikely that the Scout is going to have a lot of advancement, but I'd ask. I wouldn't want to low-ball it and then find out the Scout has completed 12 beltloops and 9 Webelos pins.

Oh, that's just nuts. If your guys earned the badge, they need to get it. Stick to your guns.

HOW FAST SHOULD A BOY ADVANCE? Generally speaking, a boy should advance one rank per year. The important thing is to see that he earns the rank for his grade (or age). If necessary, allow the boy an extra month or two to earn the badge. A Cub Scout's advancement progress depends on his own motivation for learning new skills, on the encouragement and help he gets from his family, and on the need for recognition. These factors will vary for each boy. An "overachiever" will progress rapidly, especially if his family encourages him. An "underachiever" might not progress at all without an occasional push. Den leaders can provide motivation by stressing advancement work during den meetings and by providing quick rewards and recognition...." Cub Scout Leader Book, Page 18-3 First of all, if your boys have earned their Wolf badge they should be presented at the earliest possible pack meeting, regardless if what your Cubmaster or the other den leaders may think. Secondly, the program is self-paced. Your Scouts should be allowed to work on the advancements as they see fit. The Cubmaster shouldn't hold them back, but neither should you set an artificial deadline of the Blue & Gold. And third, what is your Cubmaster's expectation for when the boys should earn their Wolf Badge? The fact is, since they joined in January, they don't have the option to take a year to complete it. Once they complete the 2nd grade, they become Bears and are ineligible to continue working on their Wolf requirements (although there is some flexibility as to whether this happens in June or September.) What would your CM have them do?

(Ignore)(This message has been edited by Twocubdad)

Can you do it your own way? Sure you can. But if your way isn't working isn't it nice to know that there is a remedy available for you to use? I totally agree, and would add that that is a fair summary of part of my post. Two other thoughts: one regards the idea that there is a theoretical "best" person for any given job. "The Best" is obviously a subjective quality. Is the editor of the local newspaper "the best" person to edit our pack's newsletter? Or is a mom with an interest in Scout, a desire to help and a basic knowledge of word processing the better candidate? Secondly -- and I think this is what you are getting at, Laurie -- at what point do we look at the cost-benefit of the recruitment process. Yes, we could have recruited the newspaper editor had we put together a proper search committee, had a couple dads who are big advertisers make the pitch, and really worked the process. But after devoting 20 man hours to recruiting the editor, are we that much better off than we would have been with the mom who raised her hand when asked? Would that time have been better spent elsewhere? I'm a contractor. A big part of my job is knowing what and who is good enough. There may be 100 people who want a job, 75 of whom are fully capable. Is it necessary that I consider all 100 applicants if I believe the first one to be capable of doing the job? Certainly my judgement will vary depending on the job. I would put more time and effort into selecting a fininsh carpenter or a Cubmaster than I would to a day laborer or a pack newsletter editor. The first two are crtical to my/our success and the latter less so. And as you point out, not every Scout leader has that skill so the written procedures are there for those who need them.

I'll take it back another step. I think we do a poor job of recruiting Chartered Organizations. Time and again I see new units at CO's where the attitude is, "Sure, you can have a Scout unit here as long as I don't have to do anything." They then find a couple of parents who want to help, but not necessarily be in charge (think assistant den leader). A year or two later the result is a bunch of families with a bad taste for Scouting because they were given the promise of Scouting but then had their unit collapse from under them. How many threads have we had here where a core problem is that the CO doesn't feel an ownership in the unit? How many of those COs ever really bought into the idea that they "own" a Scout unit? How many really understand their responsibility toward their unit. Last year our Council tried to schedule the first COR training session in several years. I know it was cancelled once or twice and don't know if it ever took place. I agree that asking for a show of hands is a poor way to recruit unit leaders. But that is essentially how we recruit chartered organizations. Do we ever look to see if an organization is the best one to charter a unit or are they just the first one to raise their hand. Do we press to see that the IH is committed to Scouting or just willing to let the Scout use the facility? Do we dig to see if the unit leaders are enthusiastic and know what they are getting into? If we ask those questions, I'll bet my district would chartered less than one new unit a year. But year in and out, our greatest challenge in meeting our goals is unit recruitment. The problem is not the 2-3 units we need to meet our 2% goal, but the 8-12 units we need to make up for the ones we lost. It becomes cyclical. Weak units fall apart, but in our zeal to reach our goals we replace them with similary weak units. I second what Eamonn said about units needing a White Knight. From my observations locally it seems to me that the units that "get it" have leaders who are passionate and excited about the program -- your White Knight. The poor mom or dad who was willing to help out but suddenly found and entire unit dumped in their lap are going to burn our rather fast.

I've mulled on this thread for a couple of days. I'm not writing this to discourage anyone from using this method or to complain about it. But I think many folks, myself included, read things like this, roll our eyes and think, "Oh, please, could they possibly make this more convoluted!" At one time or another we have probably all (well, almost all) read some BSA guideline or suggested method and thought the same thing. Does that make us poor Scout leaders? Does it mean the guideline should be ignored? First, you need to think about how and to whom these recommendations are written. They must be written for someone with absolutely no experience and no idea how to go about recruiting volunteers. They need to be very linear, covering every step along the way. They are written for a national audience and must be all encompassing. Sure, your unit may have some special circumstance that doesn't need to be addressed in a national procedure. I'm sure there is also some thought given to liability and other legal issues. The goal is to produce a one-size-fits-most, sure-to-work-in-most-cases procedure. I don't want to rekindle the wing-it/real world vs. by-the-book/Utopian debate we just went through in another thread. Rather, I look at these things as the "ideal" way of doing something, or perhaps the "default" method. If I've never done something before and am looking for a resource, here it is. On the other hand, if I've been doing this for awhile but suddenly find I'm not having success with my own methods, here's a touchstone to go back to and reassess what I'm doing right or wrong, much as what Neillup did for his council. I liken these things to the instructions that come with tools and equipment. I know not to touch the sawblade until it comes to a stop without having to read the instructions. On the other hand, last fall I helped a buddy put together a metal garden shed that must have had 9,000 pieces. Had we not precisely followed the assembly instructions, we would have been absolutely lost. Experience tells me what I can and can't do, when I need help and when I need to read the instructions. As to the the specifics of volunteer recruitment, I have to admit that I've never read the document Eamonn references. I am familiar with the section in the leaders' handbook on voluteer recruitment and what I remember from my training is the idea that we should seek out the best person for a job, not just the first one who agrees to take it. I suppose we are fortunate in our pack that for the key leadership positions (Cubmaster, Committee Chair and Den Leaders) we seem to have always had well-qualified individuals step up and offer to fill these slots without our having to recruit them. In the three years I've been in unit leadership positions, I've not been disappointed in the quality of our volunteers. We have had people to drop out, sometimes in mid-year, but that usually relates to job changes or sometimes family issues. Honestly, I have more trouble filling some of the support positions, like newsletter editor or the leader of a particular activity. For those, we usually simply ask for a show of hands. We get by with that approach because for most of these jobs the greatest qualification is simply a willingness to do the job. We may have a Pulitzer prize winner in the pack, but if he or she is interested in editing our newsletter, they're not going to make a good volunteer. The published procedures are fine and will work if you apply them. But if your method works for you, that's fine too. The bottom line is whether or not the volunteers you recruit are delivering a good Scout program to the boys in your unit. (Disclaimer -- it has been difficult to write this without using the word "policy." I think I went back and deleted it. Note that in BSA lingo a "policy" is black-letter law that may not be altered, as compared to a guideline, recommendation or suggestion that you can follow or not.)

This may be one of those answerable questions that drags on for page after page of posts, but here goes anyway: Why are Cubs limited to earning the badge only one time? There are three distinct sets of requirement for Wolf, Bear and Webelos (without looking, I'm not aware that Tigers can earn it). If the purpose of the badge is to get the boys to think about conservation, to complete the conservation-oriented achievements for their program level and to do a conservation project, why not? It makes sense that Boy Scouts can earn it only once, since there is only one set of requirements.

Why not suggest that they have their own spaghetti dinner in their community for the nearby Scouts who want to participate?

Boo-hoo-hoo, poor Bob White. Everyone picks on him. Of course he never does anything to bring it on himself, like questioning the honesty, motives or integrity of others. (For those of you who have trouble with these things, the above was intended as satire, defined as "irony, sarcasm or caustic wit used to attack or expose folly, vice or stupidity.") pdunbar -- I also have to wonder why you are bothering to post this for Bob White. In the past three days of this thread all he has done is criticize you based on what he assumes to be the motives of your COR. In that time he has added nothing substantive to the conversation regarding the rules in question. Now, by responding to Laurie's questions, you are "dwelling on the past." You're not going to win.

I don't believe the Scout badge should be given to an AoL Scout automatically, but any boy who has completed AoL knows all the material required for Scout. If the troop is ready, there is no reason a boy can't receive his Scout badge at his first troop meeting. The requirements for Scout aren't the same as AoL. In many respects, AoL goes beyond Scout and covers some of the Tenderfoot material.

Fine,Bob, we'll leave it at that. This has been a very instructive thread. I have learned a much about both the BSA policy and the character of Bob White.

You think you are the victim of "viscious rhetoric" and "personal shots?" Don't like the level of discourse on the forums? You bring it on yourself. Go back and read your last few posts. There are a number of people to whom you owe an apology. You are awfully quick to call my honesty into question because you don't like the way I use quotation marks. I have been a member of this forum for two years now. I have been impressed with your knowledge and dedication to Scouting, but occasionally find your pedantic, lock-step application of BSA policy to lack common sense. As with this thread, your opinions sometimes conflict with black-letter policy we have in front of us. Yet you will go down with the ship before admitting that their may be more than one way to interpret or implement a policy. I have often wondered if anyone can truely be so arrogant and stubborn, or if you have chosen to play the role of the hard-core book thumper for the benefit of the forums. But despite disagreeing with you from time to time, NEVER have I questioned your integrity or honesty. For the record, I did not quote or even implied that your said the CO's "activities are authorized within controlling legal guidelines." It seems fairly clear that was a fictious quote of the fictious "Beltway politician" in the preceed sentence. (And for the politically astute in the crowd, it was a reference to a similar remark from Al Gore about 8 or 10 years ago regarding campaign contributions.) An three posts later, after you asked who said it, I readily admitted that it was my own. I await your apology.(This message has been edited by Twocubdad)

Laurie -- I think your DE may have been reaching to try and create a sense of urgency to file your recharter on time. I can't imagine any Council that would want to count your unit as a drop and then a new unit. As to the original question, as FOG referenced, I think DSteele said before that the Council has some flexibility to transfer unit tenure to a new CO, but that as a normal course a new CO starts with a clean slate.

If the purpose of your last post was to satirically show how one can skew a story to their view by only presenting half the facts, then you have made your point very well. Good job!

Who said "All activities are authorized within controlling legal guidelines"? I did. I was making fun of your post where you said pdunbar's COR was fully withing his authority to do everything he did while totally dismissing the fact that the COR ran the unit into the ground. Sorry the satire evaded you. Aside from my fat-fingered typing, on Sunday Scoutldr posted what seems to be the pertinent sections from the BSA Rules and Regulations relating to the disposal of unit assets. To date, no one has come up with anything which contradicts this section. What it says is that if a unit dissolves, the committee should settle any unit debts then turn everything over to the Council -- not the CO. If the CO is still around, it may hold the assets in trust pending the reorganization of the unit for use for the promotion of Scouting in general. No where does the policy say that the assets belong to the CO for them to do with as they please. Perhaps you have a reference which contradicts this, but this is rather clear. As far as my "big assumption" that pdunbar's version of the story is accurate, how is that different from any other threads here? Are we going to limit debates to threads where everyone involved posts their version of events? Maybe Scouter-Terry will be willing to fund a series of fact-finding commissions to investigate every poster asking for advice on how to deal with a problem. I wonder how many tent ads he will have to sell to pay for that? Yes, I am making an assumption that pdunbar's story is accurate. You on the other hand are making assumptions about the COR's motivations for which there is absolutely no basis. I quote "It sounds more like they wanted different leadership in their unit and were taken staeps to accomplish that." What's the difference between the two assumptions?(This message has been edited by Twocubdad)

Come on Bob, your post sounds like Beltwayspeak from some politician caught with their hand in the cookie jar. "All activities are authorized within controlling legal guidelines." Assuming pdunbars description of the situation is accurate (I'm sure there is another side to the story), as you point out the COR appears to have followed all the proper BSA policies and still done everything wrong. To appoint himself CC and then never attend committee meetings? Leave the committee positions unfilled? To serve as COR, CC and treasurer and not provide any financial reporting? Dismissing the SM with no explaination? Just because the COR may have that authority to do you think this is a good way to run a troop? Apparently not as the unit has folded. Fortunately, the unit leaders seem to have salvaged the program for the boys and moved to another CO. But more times than not, a unit like this would have simply disappeared and the Scouts lost to Scouting. You keep repeating the concept that the assets of the troop belong to the CO and are theirs to do with as they wish. But that's not what the BSA Rules and Regs Scoutldr leader say. Are you disagreeing with the published policies?

Back in the day, we were always the Aardvark patrol, simply because we were usually first in line.

Bob, your use of the "employee" analogy is interesting and relates back to what NJ's original post on how contract law applies. What inducements has the CO offered its "employees" to get them to work? Are the "employees", both adult volunteers and Scouts there simply to enrich the CO? Or was there some understanding that by selling all that popcorn and washing all those cars that the proceeds would inure to the benefit of those earning the money? In the case of the Scout accounts, the answer seems clear that the proceeds were to directly benefit the individual Scouts by the amount in their accounts. These accounts are clearly "obligations of the unit" the committee is responsible for settling prior to turning the assets over to the CO and/or Council. The ownership of a Dutch oven purchased by the troop 20 years ago is a little more difficult to determine. The boys who earned the money for it are long gone. But the policies quoted here plainly say that the assets must be used by the CO to reorganize the unit or otherwise to the benefit of Scouting. The idea that the CO "owns everything" -- which has been floated in these forums many times -- doesn't jive with the policy. Here's a real-world example. A new troop was formed in our district and each family was asked to contribute $100 seed money for equipment. Very quickly new COR and SM butted heads over how the troop was to be run and the unit found that the CO couldn't provide the meeting space they had promised. The unit leaders found another CO to charter the the troop and moved en masse to the new unit, taking all the equipment purchased with the parents' donations. The COR started making noise about filing theft warrants. Fortunately the IH stepped in and said that fair was fair and that the Scouts should keep the equipment. There are points to be made on both sides, but the crux of the case was that the parents made the contributions with a clear expectation that the money would be used to the benefit of the Scout troop and their sons. The COR was on pretty shaky ground to claim that the money was a simple, unencumbered contribution to the church to be used as the church saw fit. At best, the COR could have pointed to the BSA policy and held the unit's assets in anticipation of reforming another troop. But given the facts of this particular situation, that would have been a bit tenuous as well.

All the shirts I have are poly/cotton, largely because I didn't know to look and just grabbed what ever was on the rack. I have one long sleeve shirt I save for nicer occasions and would have probably gotten it in cotton if I had known the difference. I've posted before about how much I like the pair of wool pants I have. They are just like a regular pair of men's dress pants -- no elastic bands, flaps or cargo pockets. They seem to be of a more comfortable cut for the over 12-years-old crowd, if you know what I mean. But they are nice pants. I don't wear them on outings, just pack meetings, roundtables and such. I have a pair of the regular pants and a couple pairs of shorts for outdoor stuff.

Crazy? Not from where I'm sitting. The day camp I'm director of charges $95 for a 5-day program, but the length of the camp is only one factor determining the cost. I'd be glad to share our camp budget with anyone who is interested. But some of the highlights include 10% of our budget taken off the top by the council; $2,000 for busses and drivers to pick up Scouts in the far reaches of the district and to shuttle them between the two camp sites; about $10 per Scout for a T-shirt (part of our security/ID system) and camp patch; $18 for each volunteer for a little bit nicer collared shirt; $800 for fuel, bait and gear for the fishing boats; $350 to send our aquatics director to camp school; nearly $1,000 for a picnic lunch the last day of camp;on and on and on. Anyone who balks at the cost of day camp should compare the cost of non-Scout camps. And I'm not talking luxury spa camps either. Our local Y charges $200 for a week at their day camp. I pay $50 per week for my boys to go to a 2-hour per day after school program. Anyone who is balking at paying $40 for summer camp needs to re-examine their priorities. Unless a family is absolutely destitute (and there are scholarship programs if they are), anyone should be able to come up with $40 between now and June.

NJ -- I skimmed over Marty's post and made the same mistake that DS probably did. Where he says that you must be 10 1/2 to earn the AoL, I mistakenly thought he was saying you must be 10 1/2 to join the troop and assumed he was quoting the old requirements. Having not looked at an Eagle app since the Nixon administration, I'm somewhat surprised at the kinds of things it is asking for. I'm wondering if my son (who just passed 30 days as a Boy Scout) should get an application and start recording all those dates as he goes along.