Twocubdad

As you presented it, doc, the most pertinent "fact" from your hypothetical was the Scout Executive reviewed the complaints and didn't find sufficient evidence to merit further discussion. The most reasonable conclusion is the complaints were without merit, NOT that the SE is engaged in some sort of cover up. Do cover ups happen? I'm sure they do. But is that the most likely explaination? Come on. Clearly this isn't a hypothetical. Clearly you have knowledge of the situation you can't share with us. That's fine. But don't get all indignant because the "hypothetical" information you chose to share doesn't lead us to your understanding of the situation. Not sure what you're looking for here. Validation? If you're really looking for usable advice, I posted in the first response you're not going to get it with the information you've chosen to share. Perhaps an online forum isn't the place to post the information. That's fine, too, and I can respect your descretion. But don't get upset with the others here because we don't see what you see.

What was the line from "War Games"? "The only way to win is never play"? Don't call. If she calls you, simply tell her you really "don't need to discuss the hows and whys of the SM attending the meeting. Is there anything else?" If it gets ugly, make sure you're in the ladies room.

I agree with you. Painting, repairs should be okay. Simply pulling weeds, mowing grass, and janitorial chores would not. But more to the point is how the project is structured. A thorough landscape renovation at the CO could be considered just pulling weeds and cutting grass. But if the project is of sufficient scope, involves multiple tasks, lots of people and requires substantial leadership and organization, I'd could be convinced. To many folks look at phrases like "no routine maintenance" and try to figure how to exclude projects instead of trying to figure how to work with Scouts to make it happen.

Don't we do this thread about once a year? People make this out to be some sort of sacred rite. It's not, it's Cub Scouts. Although we generally do what ScoutFish describes, we do what the Scouts want. On the pack side of the bridge, there are poinst in the ceremony where the boys have been given all the Cub bling and have an opportunity to duck out the side if they've definitely made the decision not to join the troop and where boys who have not earned AOL but are moving on to the troop can slide in and cross over with their mates. On the troop side of the bridge we have the members of PLC welcome the new Boy Scouts, remove their Webelos hats and neckers and give them their new troop uniform pieces. Once they're all on our side of the bridge, the SPL leades them in the Scout Oath and Law. We've had boys not joining the troop to cross the bridge -- the Boy Scouts shake their hands, congratulate them and direct them to a seat. Occassionally we've had boys join other troops who cross over, shake hands, participate in the Oath and Law but don't get the hat and necker. We've had outside troops show up to welcome their new Scouts and we work that out too. Tell everyone to chill and remember why we're there. It's not as if it is some great blastphemy to allow a kid to walk across the bridge with his pals. If the kid wants to crossover, fine. If he wants to get his stuff at a den meeting, fine. It's all good. It's young people who put life into ritual by making conventions a part of life. Only old people destroy life by making it a riual. The boy that belongs to a secret pirate's gang and dreams of defending an abstraction with his blood hasn't quite died-out before twenty-one, you know." William Faulkner

The problem is with the rules, not the scale: "Cars will weigh 5 ounces or less weighed the day of the race on the scale provided by the pack. The pack scale is official." Of course you need to be fair and the scale need to be relatively accurate. BSA sells a brass 5oz. weight which we used to calibrate our scale. Tell the parents with the scale accurate to -12 decimal points to pound sand.

I mean run, don't walk, do not pass go and engage the parents in this. This is their problem to handle. They need to make it stop and they need to deal with their child.

Acting silly, getting doused with water, taking a pie in the face, participating in the belly flop contest, etc., in the name of good fun and entertaining the Scouts is fine. I can't see participating in a real competition for our own amusement. That's not what we're there for. I especially can't see taking the resources away from the Scouts just to keep the adults out of the boy's hair. Put them to work running events for the Scouts.

I absolutely despise the little giving ceremonies. They're all about the giver -- "oh, didn't we come up with a clever/expensive gift" -- not the recepient. The idiot patrol that spent lots of time and money on some doo-dad gets to feel smug and superior while the patrols that didn't know they were supposed to bring gifts feel like schmucks. Tacky, tacky, tacky. If it is a tradition that the patrol flag goes to the Troop Guide, then the patrols need to be inform of this tradition. Otherwise, if a patrol or individual has a heart-felt need to memorialize an activity with a gift, then the gift giving should be done privately.

Parents.

Thank you, Beav. I've been trying to think of how to make that point in non-legal terms. 'Round here we call that the "Texas Defense" -- the sunnofagun needed killin'. Correct me if I'm wrong, but another possibility would be that the actions alleged in the complaint, even if proven true, don't meet the standards for a violation.

Wow! Godwin's Law in under seven hours. Must be a record for us!

Welcome to the e-campfire, doc. You're really need to provide more detail. This is waaaayyy too open ended. You're not going to much helpful information. With the lack of information, responses will be based on everyone filling-in the information based on their experiences and assumptions. For example, in my experience multiple complaints from multiple units against multiple leaders seems unlikely. My assumption would be that there is probably someone behind all this tryiing to stir the pot. My further experience is that given the current environment, councils take YP violations very seriously. Because the council seems to have dismissed the complaints out of hand, I would assume they were completely without merit. Of course opinions will vary based on different experiences and assumptions. If you're really interested in valid input, you may try filling in the hypotheiticals a bit more.

"Nancy? Nancy Taylor? It's Phil, Phil Connor!"

Been to Gilwell? It's 10-12 miles from central London. Suburban camps have their place. Day camps, training, etc. Having a camp available closer to home sure makes the one-night campouts easier on the drivers and accessible to the Scouts. Being able to leave early Saturday and not take half the day in the car means we can Not everyweek is a high adventure trip. There are plenty of functions which can occur in a park-like setting. Who cares if the dining hall-and-swimming pool camps are adjacent to other folks swimming pools. Concentrate all the wiz-bang stuff closer in where it will get the use and leave the large out-lying camps undeveloped. Anyone been to Gilwell?

Interesting that sometime over the past 400 years the state has gone from "granting" property to those who satisfy the requirements, to selling it to them at fair market value. Gee, that's a surprise.

Now that the thread has returned to BD's opening post, I'll add I believe we absolutely need scout camps. Summer camp is obviously a need. There may be a different ownership arrangements, but the facilities needed for most summer camp are fairly specific -- not necessarily to Boy Scouts, but specific to being a summer camp. My point being if your council makes an arrangement to share a facility with the YMCA, Heritage Girls, or a church camp, it's still a summer camp. Year-round, council camps provide a safe environment for weekend camping. Last spring we were at at state park and had the whole campground reserved. We got back from out activities Saturday afternoon to discover that a group of ladies had squatted (okay, that's a poor choice of words) in the middle of our site. Seems the ranger told them it we wouldn't mind. of course there was no problem -- actually I was more concerned that we were bothering them -- but in a public park, you never know who you're camped with. At a scout camp, your are relatively sure the other folks in the camp are also Scouters and running by the same standards. That said, I do think some adjustments are needed. Nationally, we probably have too many camps and spend too much money on them. There have been threads in the past about guidelines out of the NE Region which seem to be aimed at thinning the number of camps by requiring standards for long-term planning and financing. I think our camp gets a lot of use, but summer camp operates four weeks per summer. While there are plenty of units using the camp year-round, the capital-intensive facilities -- dining hall, waterfront, shooting sports, climbing towers -- are pretty lightly used. On the other hand, I'd like to see more wide-open reservations, like the one Ea.'s coucil wanted to sell. Just open, primitive camping with potable water. We have a piece of property nearby like that. We camp there as often as we do the council camps. E96, I'm going to disagree with you about CSDC. Scout camps are seldom good choices for day camps. The first two lines of the first session of CSDC camp school is "Cub Scout Day Camp is the camp that comes to the Scouts. If your Scout are driving an hour to get to your camp, you're not running a day camp." Few councils have camps located to accommodate a day camp within a reasonable drive of every camper. That's why so many of the camp school case studies involved non-BSA-owned properties. While a Scout camp does offer the conveniences you describe, most folks don't have the luxury of operating at a council property. The camp I ran never did.

Ditto BuffSkip -- down to the Tenderfoo BORs at summer camp. Our AC usually schedules the BORs within a week or two, depending on prior commitments and the ability to get a board together. We've recently added one step to the process which is for the Scout to check with any one of several folks with access to TroopMaster to make sure he is ready to advance and that troop records are up-to-date with what's in his handbook. The boards used to do this, but we had a couple instances where we found at the BOR that a Scout was missing a requirement or two. All these folks are generally hanging around during troop meetings, so it's no inconvenience for a Scout to make the contacts.

" The problem is that sometimes the warehouse is out of stock." Then someone up the food chain needs their butt chewed. Cumm'on. This isn't that difficult. When was the last time BSA redesigned any rank badges? I have a boxes of badges from the '70s so I know they don't go bad. It's not like they're selling strawberries. So what if they have the same dozen Plant Science merit badges sitting on the shelf year after year? I'm guessing there is a strong correlation between the number of new Cub Scout applications processed in September with the number of Bobcat badges earned in October. Similar correlation between the signups for merit badges at summer camp and the number of merit badges purchased in August. I know there are elements of council operations that are difficult -- keeping the United Way happy, balancing the budget, dealing with tough volunteers -- but keeping a sufficient supply of badges in stock isn't one of them. OBTW, I belive it is against policy (maybe it's just a local policy) for units to stock pile rank badges. Of course that doesn't stop anyone. They don't want badges to be awarded without the advancement reports being turned in. Yeah, it's a silly, ham-fisted rule.

E61, Your wife, or preferably the unit's COR needs to be in the Scout Executive's office asking why the council is not upholding their part of the charter agreement by providing insignia in a timely manner. National shop or local, that should get their attention. If it is a national shop you have the added chain of command of asking to speak to the area manager and/or calling national supply in Charlotte and asking the same question. Been there, done that, got the patch -- actually a whole bag full. Scout insignia is cheap and rarely changes. There's no excuse for not keeping a substantial inventory.

I never get letters anymore, only junk mail and bills. And I hate walking to the mailbox every day. But I do. Blasting an email to 200 people to get them to do something for you is the equivalent of standing up and asking, "You guys don't want to help me with this, do you?" Clearly, when the message is to my benefit, like when I'm trying to recruit someone to do a job for me, it is in my best interest to text, Twitter, Facebook, send smoke signals or Morse code, if that's what it takes for me to get the response I need. But if I'm sending information for your benefit, "Here's the list of stuff you need for this weekend" the equation changes. You need to get your butt down to the mailbox.

I don't have a problem serving on staff and paying $85 for a week or 10 days worth of food. I do, however, have a problem paying $20 to take a course taught by a volunteer, sitting in a donated church classroom and receiving about 25 cents worth of handouts. Question for the course directors and ASM-admin folks out there: When you figures the council's percentage of profit on a course, is the staff fee included in that calculation? In otherwords, Moose, are you paying $85 for food and a t-shirt or are you paying $68 for food and a t-shirt and $17 profit to the council?

Sooner or later there will be a technological solution to all this in that the various platforms will merge and it will make no difference that the recipient of a message is at a computer, Ipad or shoe phone. I'll be able to send an email and have it translated to whatever gizmo you prefer to receive it on. My guess is texting will ultimately be a fairly short-term fad, like MySpace and Twitter now seems to be. Facebook is probably a longer-term thing, but the little bit it I know about it, it is especially weak means of communication. If you have the need to let the world know you're feeling a bit constipated this morning, fine. But to communicate a specific message to a targeted group, it stinks. Sooner later Facebook will come to grips with all the privacy concerns and figure out how to allow to use it Part of the problem and somewhat the generational divide is that for most kids -- and a lot of adults -- these things aren't about communications, it's a pasttime. Ten years ago, the thing with kids were GameBoys. Nothing has changed, except that the game is now to play at texting or Facebook. Why else would you send a text message to someone sitting right next to you? Until then, I see no need to play along. Because you consider yourself an "early adopter" or your mommie and daddy have more dollars than sense and buy you every new gadget to come down the pike, doesn't mean I have to jump through your communications hoop. We cover most every topic with announcements during the close of each troop meeting. We have calendars and info sheets posted on the troop bullentin board. We maintain an online calendar on ScoutTracks which automatically generated email reminders and we use ScoutTracks to send emails to the whole troop. For critical information we produce old-fashioned letter individually addressed to each Scout of family. We distribute these at troop meetings and then mail any remaining letter. Unfortunately, all of these media require some effort on the part of the recipient. You still need to attend troop meeings, check your email and go to your mail box to receive them.

We're recently made some changes to our patrol rosters and suggested to the Scouts they take a few minutes of their patrol time to share contact information with each other (we'll distribute real rosters after the patrols are set.) I told the guys to be sure they got the preferred contact from each guy. "Wadda you mean?" Well ask how each of you prefer to be contacted and get that info -- home phone, email, etc. And I turned to one of the guys and asked what was the best way to get a message to him. "Facebook." How about you? "Home phone." Pointing to another Scout, "text message." I didn't say so aloud, but I'm thinking to myself, "this is nuts!" Assuming I have an obligation to scratch every techno-itch, no longer can I sit down and send an email, or go down a call sheet, I'm supposed to have access to and use multiple mediums to hit everyone. May as well include telegraph, smoke signals and jungle drums to the list. So with everyone with their own pet gizmo, how are you supposed to accommodate everyone

As a philosophical matter, I don't especially care one way or the other. Paying to cover the cost of my meals is not unreasonable. And if the organization wants to cover my cost as a volunteer that's fine too. In no way do I consider that any sort of payment. It is really more of a practical issue -- where is the money coming from? If I'm building a program and can include the cost of feeding the staff without raising the fees to a point that they burden the participants, I would try to do so. But if the costs are getting jacked up to a point we're loosing participants over it, I'd ask the staff to help pay their own way. And in the spirit of volunteering for a good cause I, as a volunteer, would agree. What's the point of volunteering for a program which fails because no one can afford to participate? I have much more of a problem with councils which look at every activity as a profit center. Sure, do some real cost accounting and cover the council's real cost, but some fo this is just out of control. And here's a question, doee the staff advisor pay? Out of his/her own pocket or does the ocuncil pay? How about all the muckety-mucks who show up for dinner?

First of all, I'd say you're pretty deep into what should be the SPL's and PLs'responsibility. Youth leadership needed to be making the decisions about if and when folks are able to leave and whether or not a change in troop meeting plans is warranted. I would hope the boys would seek your advice and counsel, but they need to be the ones managing this. Your job was to provide the boys cover from the parents. "I'm really sorry, but we're not ready to go yet. You son is the Troop Quartermaster and is responsible for packing the gear and getting it stowed when we get back to the scout house. Especially since he missed loading and unloading yesterday, he really needs to stay and do his job. You may want to discuss his responsibilities with him." Ultimately, of course, you can't prevent a parent from taking their son home. But on the way out I would have an short Scoutmaster Conference with the boy -- in full view and ear shot of the parents -- explaining his responsibility the patrol and troop. Scouting is not a door mat. You don't get to show up for the fun stuff after the campsite is set up and leave without helping with the cleaning and load out. Life happens and I know there will be times boys and families are juggling multiple schedules, but in my experience the same kids/families who pull this stuff over and over. The decision to change the troop meeting to a clean up night should have been left between the SPL and the QM. If asked, my advice the the SPL would be to make the QM responsible and leave it at that -- especially since the QM was the one who bailed. Had the SPL decided to change the game night and involve the whole troop, I would have supported that too. One of the advantages of letting the Scouts make the decisions, is on the backside all you have to explain is the PLC is making those calls and you're just supporting them. "Sometimes youth leaders don't make the same decisions we adults would and sometimes those decisions are inconvenient to the adults. But that's the program we've joined and it is your job to support the boys and help them learn from the process." Shrug your shoulders and put your hands in your pockets. At this point, I think your response to the parents is to explain that Scouting is about teamwork and responsibility. On the campout the troop failed to work together as it should have to take care of its gear, so the change in schedule was required correct the situation. Sorry for the inconvenience. Short and sweet -- don't engage in a debate. I'd make that the topic of my next Scoutmaster's minute, too. I'm guessing some of the irate parents are irate because they're catching a earful from their irate sons. This would be a great time to reiterate the point that when one member bails on the team the rest of the team has to pick up the slack and sometimes suffers because of it. Creating a little positive peer pressure is a good thing.