Twocubdad

This boy isn't that far out of sequence. He's 8 now and will presumably turn 9 sometime during the Scout year. Web I's are usually 9 when they start and turn 10 sometime during the year. Essentially, he's skipped ahead one year of school and has joined the program based on his grade in school. I usually recommend to parents that Scouts follow the program according to grade, not age. In my opinion, there is greater advantage to being in Scouts with his friends and classmates The boys almost always have one or two Scout buddies in class with them. I think it promotes greater comraderie and positive peer pressure. Since this boy is home schooled, that may or may not be a factor. And honestly, this is backwards from the usual situation where a boy has been held back a grade or simply started school late. One thing you didn't mention is whether or not the boy has just recently joined the pack as a Webelos or if he's come through the program. If he's already been through as a Bear, he's not likely interested in repeating it. But I don't think that was Wblsman's question. I think what he was asking is how will this affect the boy at crossover time. The requirements to be a Boy Scout are to be 11-years-old (actually, I've always been told it was 10 1/2, but I'm reading this from an application), have completed the 5th grade or the Arrow of Light. So year from February, your guy will be eligible only if he completes the Arrow of Light. Now that I'm reading this, my own son, who won't be 11 until April and won't complete the 5th grade until June, is in the same boat. That's the technical answer. The better question is what's best for the Scout. That needs to be discussed with his parents, possibly involving the future Scoutmaster.

Okay, now you're picking on my typing. I'm well aware that Webelos means WE'll BE LOyal Scouts. The regulation that leaders my combine all years of service onto one light-blue star is well buried in the Insignia Guide fine print. Although it's not in the IG, I know I read in some of the new Tiger materials that former Tigers can continue to wear the orange star or combine that year onto the yellow Cub star. So your opinion, FOG, is that it is the pack's option to round up the half year of Webelos II tenure or to just drop it? By the way, I also have a stash of orange backs I'll be willing to part with for the bargan price of $999.

I'm understanding the question to be "Can we count having played a real football game as credit for the award?" not "Can we oranize a real football game among our Scouts for the award?" Clearly, the answer to the second question is no, real football is not an approved Scout activity. As to the first, I'd wouldn't allow the boys to count their play in a real football team toward the pin. Flag football is different enough from real football so as not to be interchangable. Of course much of the knowledge and skills are. Why not set up a flag football game on one of your outings? We did that as an afternoon activity on a campout last fall. A couple of sports-oriented dads were more than glad to run the program and gave all the regular Scout leaders a hour or two off. We used surveyor's flagging tape for the flags, just tucked into the boys' belt or pants. The boys all had a good time doing it.

This question is coming from my 10-year-old Webelo, who is going to grow up and be a fine uniform cop one day. When he crosses over in February, he will have 4 1/2 years as a Cub Scout. In September of next year, he will have five years total as a Scout, but will only have six months tenure as a Boy Scout. How does he accurately reflect his tenure with his service stars? I know one option would be to wear a green 5, combining all his tenure under the color of his current registration. But what's the correct way to show the Cub years and the Boy Scout years in this situation? Scout's choice?

Understood, Bob. And in fairness to you, when your last message hit I was getting ready to edit my last post to credit you with having noted this earlier. I guess my general level of consternation in all this is from a perception I have of strongly boy-led units that the new Scouts become cannon fodder for the older boys to practice their leadership skills. It's all well and good that a patrol leader is learning and growing as a leader. But where's the safety net if he has a bad weekend or gets in a situation he can't handle? One of the troops my 10-year-old is visiting is like this. I don't know of any real harm that has come to the younger boys, but I do see that they have an unusually high drop rate among younger boys. While the older boys are learning from their mistakes, the younger ones just see a miserable weekend or unproductive meeting and become frustrated. In my personal (and yes, untrained) opinion, the adults allow the junior leaders a bit too much rope. As a pack leader, it is very discouraging to see good, enthuiastic Webelos cross over and drop within a few months. My perception (which may or may not be accuate or fair) is that the boys are intimidated by a troop program dominated by 15- and 16-year-old Life Scouts who make up probably two-thirds of the troop. The SM confided to me that with 20+ Life Scouts, it is going to be a real burden for the troop to work that many Eagles and Eagle projects over the next year or two. As a parent, I have to wonder where that leaves this year's graduating class of Webelos. Least you think I'm biased against boy-led troops, I'll add that the other troop my son is visiting is just the opposite. They're run like a big Cub Scout den. No leadership at the patrol level and most tasks are accomplished by the SMs telling (yelling?) the SPL what to do. (I also think they spend way too much time selling stuff, but that's another thread.) Honestly, at this point, my preference would be for the first troop. I think their problems are much more fixable.

I'm enjoying this too, because I'm learning some things. My picture of how this all works is evolving as we discuss it. I like Mark's approach that the boys grow into the patrol outings over a few years. And what DS quoting about the SM's approval makes me feel better. I can envision a SM saying something like the following: "Guys I think you've planned a great outing, but I'm concerned that you're biting off a little more than the whole patrol can handle. Half your patrol is 11- and 12-year-olds and I don't think they're ready for an unsupervised trip. And while you've shown great initiative planning this trip, I'm not sure you're really ready to be responsible for all these young guys. I'll approvethe trip, but I'm going to make two suggestions: one, I'd like to move the trip from the state park to the Scout reservation. That way I don't have to worry about any outsiders causing you problems. And secondly, I want you to take one ASM and one other adult with you. They can stay in the staff cabins, completely out of your hair. I want you to set two times during the day to check in with them, but other that that you're on your own." Sounds to me like a good compromise. As a parent, that would allay my fears. But it also gives the boys a lot of freedom and lattitude. Now Bob, if your metric is that "you've trained them but don't trust them" you may see that as a failure. But you have to ask yourself where are you in the training process? Is it a failure that a third-year medical student isn't allowed to perform surgery? Many of the hypothetical we use when debating leadership issues contemplate that the boy-leaders are at the end of training curve, or at least that the troop has a full pipeline of boys moving through the continuum. In reality -- or at least in the troops I visit -- it's more likely that they have bulges and voids in the junior leadership that have to be leveled.

"What would it take to ease your fears?" My first concern is who they are camping with. As a parent, I am very careful which friends I'll let my boys have sleepovers with. My older son has one friend who he is no longer to overnight with due to what I feel was a lack of supervision on some previous overnighters. In a Scouting environment, I am very comfortable with our troop leaders and would have no hesitation to trust my son's safety with them. I don't have that same comfort with all the Scouts in the troop. If fact, there are a couple boys in the troop who make uncomfortable due to some of their past behaviors. My second concern is environmental. Are the boys in a safe location? Are they protected from outsiders? How far away is help. The easy answer is to camp at a Scout camp. It's a safe enviroment and the ranger is just up the hill. But what's the difference with that and having the Scoutmaster camping just over the ridge? I don't disagree with either of you that with proper training and skills, Scouts can pull this off. But there is also a component of maturity and judgement. Certainly Scouts have the training to make better judgements. But part of it is experience. Both your points that this isn't something that happens overnight and should be based on the ability of the patrol. But that needs to apply to individual boys, not just the patrol as a whole. I would be very concerned about sending a group of 11- and 12-year-olds out without supervision. Ultimately I don't see that the benefits of unsupervised camping balance the potential risks. It seems to be a fairly minor and under-used element of the program (which is why I asked how many units use it.) Bob asks, "What is the point of training boys if you do not train them well enough to trust them?" We train the boys to use a knife safely. But we also teach them first aid. We train them to handle themselves in the woods, but we also provide responsible adult leadership. It isn't a question of trust, it's a question of taking unnecessary risks. Edited part -- Mark slipped his post in ahead of mind, but I think his analysis of the types of independent outings patrols can undertake is a good one, in general terms. I'll agree it is a matter of patrols working up to unsupervised campouts over a matter of years not months. (This message has been edited by Twocubdad)

I'm not sure I see where the need for cooperation between the two patrol leaders makes for a significant difference. If two or three patrols are sent out with instructions to stay within earshot of each other, but to run their program within their patrol, I don't really see that point. But as you may suspect, my greater concern is with the idea of unsupervised camping in general. It strikes me as an anachronism from another era of Scouting. When I was a kid, my neighborhood buddies used to camp just as you described. We were fortunate to live on the edge of a small town. Our neighborhood dead-ended into a large tract of undeveloped land that literally went on for miles. My group of friends could have easily been a patrol as we were all members of the same Scout troop and with one or two exceptions, all Eagles. We, and our families, had known each other since preschool. But there were a few significant differences. The most notable that we were all probably 16 or 17 before we were allowed to go camping alone. Along the lines of your step-by-step approach and only allowing the boys to do what their skills permit, I can see this as an option for a high adventure patrol of boys 14 or so and First Class, where the boys are of an age, rank, and skill level where they can handle the responsibility. A year from now, I can't imagine allowing my son to camp with his patrol unsupervised. And I'm about 1,000 times more likely to allow it than his mother. Part of it is geography. There isn't a good, safe camping area the boys could reach without driving. But more significantly is the issue of trust. I would not trust my son's safety to a group of 14- and 15-year-olds. There's just too much room for mischief.

The stick and the fire isn't the issue. The problem is that the parent refuses to discipline her son and even undermines the DL's efforts to do so. The parent needs to be dealt with directly. Correcting the Scout only to have the parent contradict the DL just confuses the poor kid. If I were DL, I would want to have at least one direct conversation with the parent, the point of which being that when I tell her son something she needs to support my instructions. Lead, follow or get out of the way. But as Bob points out, it's ultimately the pack committees responsibility.

Too bad. Sounds like you opened to door for her to do the right thing, she just wouldn't walk though it. I would still try to get word out to the all the parents as to how the program should work. Maybe a article in the newsletter, if you have one, or just asking to DLs to pass the proper methods along. I failed to say it earlier, but welcome to the campfire!

Personally, I don't think it's a big deal, but at some point someone had sufficient heartburn over it to donate enough of the safety strings to the camp. I can't say that we have a lot of times where the boys hook their name tags on anything causing the strings to separate, though.

I got a number of MBs my first summer in the troop, but I suppose the first were Nature and Conservation which I earned at summer camp. In our troop, the usual rotation was to take Camping and Cooking your first summer at camp and Nature and Conservation the second. But a buddy of mine was a year older and convinced me to take those with him. I had not problems with either, as I was always our troop's go-to guy when it came to plants and trees and such. Problem came the second summer when I needed to take Camping and Cooking. Now I had to take the two by myself. Although I easily had the required 20 nights, the counselor required that we camp with the merit badge class (an added requirement?). Of course it was a miserable, rainy night and I was stuck camping by myself and terribly home sick.

Bob, can you explain the rational behind allowing patrols to camp with no supervision while requiring it for mutiple-patrol (i.e. troop) campouts? What's the difference? Question for all: how many of you have troops who camp as a patrol without supervision? Among the troops in our area, I'm not aware of any where the patrols camp without the troop, much less unsupervised.

I would assume that the Tiger joined in September, although I know in some cases Tigers register as soon as school is out in June. Still,I think completion of all the pins is beyond the normal ability of most Tigers.

I've not seen those, but it sounds like a good idea. You can probably work with your patch supplier regarding the holes. It may require a laser cut, which can add to the cost, depending on what's happening with the rest of the patch. On another front, we don't use anything tied around the boys' necks out of safety concerns. The name tags are on a plastic saftey string which pulls apart if it gets hooked on anything. I don't know if that is a BSA requirement, but one of our former camp staffers was an OSHA compliance person and insisted. She got all the safety strings donated by her company, so it wasn't an issue for us one way or the other.

I don't believe there is any legitimate way for a Tiger Cub to complete all those pins in six weeks. That many belt loops would be tough, much less the pins. Ultimately, we have to take the parent's word for what the Scout has completed. But that doesn't mean we should roll over and play dead. First off I'd have someone at the pack level, CC, CM or advancement chairman, talk to the parent and make sure they understand the program. In addition to the technical details (work should be done while a scout, etc.) make sure they understand the big picture. Even if the family goes bowling five nights a week, the parents should make a point that "Tomorrow night we're going to complete our Cub Scout belt loop when we go bowling." For them to say, "Oh, we go bowling five nights a week, we can sign that off," short-changes the process and sets a bad precident for completing future badges. Another big-picture point is that by completing this many pins in the first six weeks, what's the boy going to do for the next four years? One of the advantages of the loops and pins is that they can be earned during those dry spells while the boy is working toward his rank advancement. I always tell parents to "ration" the amount of loops a boy earns in any given month. That way, they are receiving a little something at most every pack meeting and getting the positive reinforcement as they go along. Another point is that some of the loops and pins are required at different levels. If the boy does them now, he'll have to repeat them later. (Actually, that happens all the time, but in this case it's a good point to make with the parent.) If that doesn't get the parent to take a step back and reassess what they claim to have completed, then you need to ask for a list of the specific requirements the Scouts completed for each pin. With the parent and Scout, ask the boy what they did to complete each. When a requirement calls for the boy to make something, ask him to bring it to the den meeting. What was it we used to say about the Russians? Trust but verify?

Bob is right in that your question is best answered by attending Scoutmaster training. I wouldn't want to short-circuit that. But go back up and read KoreaScouter's post about striking a balance among the various methods of Scouting. Still being on the blue side of the aisle and not having all the training myself, I'm still an outsider here. But KS's approach seems very reasonable.

Our local situation is apparently different. All the retail distributors have dropped their Scout department. I knew one of the store owners and she said she gave it up because BSA dictated both the wholesale and retail prices and the margins were too low, and because of the BSAs return policies, she ended up being stuck with everything that was returned to her, unless it was defective. Unfortunately, our council (or maybe I should say our SE) has a poor relationship with the surrounding national stores. When the national stores first opened, they ate our council store's lunch. Better location, service, hours of operaton and selection will do it every time. Of course the natural response to competition is to improve you own game, right? F'git abattit! Instead we got policies requiring that all our advancement be purchased through the council shop and a lot of blather about how we're taking dollars out of the council. I'm sure national has a business model for opening a local store and it doesn't include covering every location where a council hangs three shirts and a stack of handbooks. But from my limited experince, in the locations where they do operate stores, they are a great improvement.

Thank you for your comments, Dave. It's always a pleasure to debate with a gentleman. But I addressed your point in my earlier post. Under the current system it is a problem for small shops to stock low volume items. But their are several ways it could be solved. First of all, the pant cuts we are talking about are not rare. I'm talking about two new cuts of pants, one for ladies and one for grown men. Last Scout function I went to, there were plenty of both demographics represented. It's not as if I'm suggesting we stock pants for people with three legs. Right now, those cuts aren't offered at all, so the question of what a small, local shop can stock is moot. And if a shop stocks a low volume pair of pants it's not as if they're going out of style next month. Scout uniforms have a long, long shelf life. As I mentioned earlier, National could help the situation by changing their return policy from the shops. Unless our council's store manager is blowing smoke (which, admittedly, is probable), they're not allowed to return anything. So FOG goes in and orders a pair of the wool blend pants to see if they are better to his liking but then decides they're not. The shop is stuck with them. As a service to it's customers, national could allow returns on low volume items or even allow shops to stock them on a consignment basis. And I know this is possible because the national stores operate just this way. Our neighboring council has a nationally-run store which is a pleasure to use. They have a very broad selection and can get anything they don't have in a matter of days. Questions for you, Dave. If operating a Scout Shop requires so much capital to stock and operates on such small margins, why don't more council's let national run their stores for them? As to the number crunching, one thing left out of your equation, Bob, is that most business' bottom line is net after taxes. BSA is tax exempt. I won't try to recalculate the numbers since they are all based on gross guesses none of us are qualified to make anyway. Funny you should mention Microsoft. They can get away with a large portion of their customer being unhappy because they are a functional monopoly (if not a legal one). Many Microsoft customers have no choice as to whether or not the use Microsoft products. True, there are other products out there and no one is forcing you to use Windows, but for most folks if you want to buy and use a computer, you're going to use Windows. You can draw your own parallels between that and Scout uniforms.(This message has been edited by Twocubdad)

I though the elastic waistband was one of the good points of the pants. My biggest complaint is that they are all so short in the crotch -- they look like (AND FEEL!) like something Brittany Spears would wear.

CubsRgr8 -- if your council doesn't offer WLOT (how can anyone earn the Webelos Den Leader knot?), I would suggest you take the BALOO course instead. It covers health and safety in more detail than WLOT and most of the camping skills. The primary thing you will miss are the units on teaching the outdoor-oriented activity pins, Outdoorsman, Naturalist, Geologists and Forester.

So Bob, having 1.2 million dissatisfied customers is okay? Does that work in your business? Let's see ... the pants are about $40 bucks. That's $48 million in revenues and even at miminal margins, we're talking $5 million net. Not bad numbers, especially when you consider it's on top of the other 4.8 million pants you already sold. All Laura is suggesting is that National consider that the uniform pants are worn by other than 12-year-old boys. I'm not saying every Scout shop should have a pair of 82 waist, 22 inseam pants, but where's the downside in adding a line of ladies cut pants and mens full sizes. Given the membership numbers, there is no reason they can't offer uniform pants in a variety of cuts. Go in any retail store and they offer 100 different cuts, waist sizes and inseam lengths of the same basic denim blue jean. This doesn't include different colors and styles. And don't try to tell me that they can't support that many different sizes and cuts. I don't buy it. If they can afford to still carry blue coulottes, they can offer different cuts of the basic olive uniform pant. By the way, I took your suggestion and revisited page 13 of the handbook. It says, "For outdoor activities, Scouts may wear troop or camp T-shirts with the official Scout pants or shorts." So whether you're in the full field uniform or the activity uniform, it's the same pants. So how does Laura have the wrong uniform?

A little off topic (so what else is new?) but does anyone know of a way to find out where the nationally-owned stores are located? They are usually very well stocked and are willing to order non-stock items for you without a commitment. If any of you neighboring Councils have one, it may be worth a little drive time. On another tack, much of this could be solved if National would revise it's return policy. Making the problem Bob describes worse is the fact that national won't let a local Scout shop return anything once they order is (if the folks at our council store are telling me the truth). I'm sure it's a pain, but if I can mail order something and send it back if it doesn't fit, why can I get that same service through the stores?

Howdy! You probably know this, but the old books are still valid for another year. The boys who began with the old books can finish with them. I don't really understand your situation. Do you have a Webelos II den with a couple new Scouts with the "wrong" book or do you have a mixed den of both Webelos Is and IIs? If it's the former, I'd probably go with the old program and help the boys with the new books make the translation -- maybe photocopy pages out of the old book if it's too confusing for them. If it's the latter, the Webelos Is should probably be using the new requirements. It will be a little bit more effort for you, but you can run programs such to cover both sets of requirements. They really aren't that different.

Know what you mean about "clutter" projects. And the requirement does say that they must make something useful. I try to make the Webelos projects a little more testosterone drive so they are of interest to the older boys. Some of the things my den did last year: Wood -- Built shadow box picture frames we gave to the Webelos II's as crossover gifts. (We're going to try and turn this in to a pack tradition.) We built them on an assembly line so that it was more of a group project. I did the serious woodworking in my shop, so that the boys essentially had kits that they assembled, sanded, stained and finished. This will be hard to do if you don't have a woodworker in the den to fabricate the parts. I'll send you more elaborate plans, if you're interested. Cloth -- Had the boys make their own patch vests. I bought one at the Scout Shop and reverse engineered it. From the original, I made a cardboard pattern that the boys cut out of red felt, sewed the shoulder seams and added gromets and a leather tie. The Scouts actually had more fun with this than I expected. I was worried that a sewing project would be too woosey, but they surprised me. Plastic -- lanyards and/or key fobs. Way too much to try and finish in a den meeting, but if you can show the boys how to do it, they can finish them at home. Key fobs are just short lanyards. Metal -- Pepsi can alcohol stoves. See instructions at http://wings.interfree.it/ . These are right on the edge of being too advanced for Webelos. I simplified the process by making a "can cutter" out of a 1-inch piece of wood with a semi-circle the size of the soda can and a utility knife blade mounted so that it would just barely score the can. You hold the can in the semi-circle and slowly turn it round and round, and it eventually makes a clean cut. Use sharp finishing nails to punch the holes in the upper section. I had each boy work in pairs with a parent assigned to help each pair. (I've got a big den and lots of parents.) You really need to study this one and decide if your boys are up for it. Build a couple of stoves yourself before hand and to get the hang of it.