Twocubdad

They're telling you this is how much you need to raise from your unit? I like Beavah's idea. I'd send it back with a bullseye drawn on it and a number of age-appropriate caliber holes in it. Those numbers are nuts. Do contributions from your pack families through patron lunches count towards these totals? How about gifts to the community (business) campaign (as Beav suggests)? What about employer matching gifts? Gifts made through United Way? Do you get to include popcorn and camp card profits? Do you get to include the income generated by your Scouts attending district and council events? This is the ham-fisted approach to fundraising that turns off more people than it attracts.

So for the unit which have completed the Journey to Excellence process, what have you learned? I'll start. First, we're at the Gold level with 1800 points. Advancement -- I'm surprised the standards are so low. Under the old Quality Unit program, we were usually in the 70's, due largely to the First Year/First Class program and a large percentage of new Scouts. But we've dumped FY/FC so we're down to about 55%. Honestly, advancement is what it is. I really don't care about this number. Retention -- our pct. is higher that I thought it would be at 85%. I had no idea what the percentage was, but looking at the roster I know the situation/reasoning for all drops. I'm looking after the trees and don't worry too much about the forest. I also learned that if I really wanted to bump my retention rates, we wouldn't process membership applications from boys until they attend two campouts with us. A large number of our drops are kids who joined and never showed up (equal numbers of Webelos crossovers and totally new Scouts.) Maybe we need to raise our dues. Growing Scouting -- BIG YAWN. At 6% we're silver. But with 50+ boys and a big pack feeding us, this is not a concern. This seems to be a silly goal. There needs to be an exemption for units over a certain size. As a Cubmaster, at Roundtable I would sit on the back row with two other CMs representing 100+ member packs. We would blow razzberries and throw stuff anytime the DE mentioned growing our units. Training -- did not qualify. The requirement that 100% of ASMs have SM Position-Specific within 3 months got us. Several of my new guys had schedule conflicts with the two courses offered this fall. And I've got a couple "launch failures" on the rosters -- guys who registered but haven't become involved at all. But we had 20 people go through a half-day of committee-oriented training last month, and that doesn't show up at all. I'm satisfied with where we are on this. Camping -- blew it out of the water. Patrol Method -- got silver only because our Scouts would rather attend summer camp with the troop than spend their week at NYLT. I'd like to see our guys at NYLT, but that our guys prefer to spend the time with the troop says a lot about the quality of the program, too. Service -- blew it out of the water two or three times over. Webelos -- ditto Budget -- zero. A known issue the CC has been working to solve. Courts of Honor -- Why is this in here? We do summer and winter. IMO, more would be a waste of time. Fitness -- Huh? Bronze level. Is this for a Boy Scout troop of a Varsity Team? Is physical training a new eighth part of the troop meeting? Register on time -- Whatever. I've discovered that if we don't turn our recharter in on time, eventually someone will come get it. But yes. Big Picture -- I don't think I learned anything I didn't already know. Our weaknesses are known and are generally things we've been working on. Our strengths generally blow the JTE standards away. There is a lot of stuff I think we do really well that's not reflected here at all. And there are things in which the troop leadership apparently disagrees with National as to its relative importance. We're not going to change our program just to chase a JTE patch. We didn't bother with JTE last year, so this year we've invested a lot of time figuring it out adn identifying baselines. We've had 4 or 5 adults invest probably 12 or 15 hours into trying to do this "right". I'd call that a poor use of resources. Next year we'll be a little further along the learning curve and won't require that much time. But if it requires this much time routinely, we'll either wing it or punt entirely.

SOP is to be back at the CO by noon Sunday. If we're camping nearby, that means we let the boys sleep-in a little later, and have a more leisurely packout. Usually try to do a quick Scouts' Own Service before hitting the road. Having time for fun depends on how quickly the patrols get packed. Occasionally, depending on the activity, we may stay an hour or so later. If we're at the council camp we really have to shake it to get home by noon. We employ bribery. If the troop is packed up, in the cars, rolling by 9:30, we get to stop at a favorite country store for junk food. Later than that we just don't have time to stop so it's straight home. Getting to the CO at noon means it's 1:00 by the time I get to leave and 2:00 by the time I'm unloaded at home and cleaned up. I don't think allowing folks half of their Sunday afternoon at home with their families is unreasonable.

Look at www.universityproducts.com . They specialize in products for professional archivists. Much better than the crappy albums and stuff you get at the local Big-Box or even photo shops. I'm the designated family historian, so over the years I've been given a number of cool heirlooms. Nothing worth any money -- it usually coste me money to keep it -- but things I want to keep and preserve. Univ. Prod. has a way to store ANYTHING.

I think you have to consider the language which was changed from the old Advancement Committee Guide, that an Eagle candidate "does the project outside the normal sphere of Scouting." Compare that to the new section you quoted and that's a consider change in philosophy. We've always held a bit of a middle ground. We always left EP's to the Scout to handle, including recruiting appropriate adult leadership. We've asked the Scout to run his schedule past the PLC as a courtesy. But if a Scout wants to schedule an EP workday on top of a troop activity and then use his non-Scout friends for labor, that was his perogative. Personally, I always attend at least one work day just to observe how the project is going and how the Scout is demonsrating leadership. We haven't totally thought through how all this will be implemented. But with the old 50-page proposals out the window, our Scouts are as giddy as the Munchkins dancing around Dorothy's house. About anything will be seen as an improvement.

Part of the EP requirement is to "plan and develop" the project. That's not a throwaway. There needs to be some level of planning and develpment and I take that to mean tangible planning and development. "I've programmed my brain to dream about my Eagle project" ain't gonna get it. At somepoint I am going to be asked to sign off on the requirement, including the planning and development. Our troop is going to "ask" our Scouts to complete the final plan section of the workbook. And I mean "ask" as in the same way your father "asks" you to mow the lawn. Or another way to look at it is the workbook describes the final plan as "insurance." I think they mean insurance the way The Mob sells fire insurance to shop owners. In other words, don't do it at your own peril. Or perhaps a bit more positive and encouraging perspective is it is like we're offering you an advanced copy of an exam to take home and complete. I'll even grade it and give you the right answers before you sit for the exam for real. What schmuck would't take that offer? It's the same thing. If a Scout works through the final plan and get the sign-off from the troop (literally or figuratively) and then gets some hard-A** from council wanting to reject the project at his Board of Review, then I will be the one pounding the table at the next advancement committee meeting and filing the appeal on your behalf. From the troop's point of view, we need to consider that Eagle projects are now fully troop functions, with the leaders ultimately responsible, two-deep leadership and tour permits required, etc. That was not necessarily the case with the old guidelines. As such, the troop leadership has a responsibility to know what is going on. Certainly health and safety is a concern, but I'm not necessarily going to commit troop resources to an activity without some plan in place. All that said, I don't care if you use the workbook for your final plan or not. I would think it silly not to use it. But I do want you to address most of the elements outlined in the workbook. I want to see schedules, plans, materials, equipment lists and a budget. I don't need to see MSDSs for glue, a map of driving directions to the work site, a "A into Slot 1" set of directions or any of the other baloney our council used to require. Of the four of five Life Scouts I've explained this to, their response has been "well of course we need a final plan with all the details." (Actually, what they said was, "duh" but that's what they meant.)

Yeah, SP, we know. We've heard the company line before. But that were really the goal, BSA could accomplish the same thing by PROVIDING this info to the units, not making volunteers struggle for it. When your commissioner comes for one of his annual visits (we're still waiting for our 1987 visit) he could provide the leaders with the info available on Scoutnet, then suggest to them they may want to plug in the program data and see how their unit stacks up against national averages and standard. Internal use only. But this system where unit JTE feeds into district JTE which feeds council JTE which feeds professional salaries and reviews is ripe for the kind of abuse Basementdweller is reporting.

Eh, garbage in, garbage out, huh, Al? You don't need to figure it out with "any certainty." Just SWAG it. It's not like you're going to get audited. Everybody up the food chain looks better the better your unit does, so everyone's happy. For the rank advancement, on TroopMaster go to Reports >> Advancement >> Advancement Summary. You enter the date range and it gives you a list of all the ranks awarded in the time frame. We're in the throes of trying to match up our training records with what's in Scoutnet, so we've been working that already and have a good handle on that. Unfortunately, we have one or two guys who volunteered in Sept. and haven't been to training yet, so we're at zero. Retention and recruitment is the only hard part. You just have to sit down with last year's charter and this year's and reconcile the two. Actually, your DE can pull a number off Scoutnet (NO ONE can explain how the number is calculated) and if you like his number, go with it. He can give you the advancement numbers too. Its still a PIA and doesn't benefit your program in the least.

Two important insights we're overlooking: 1. Hopalong adds, "Can't say that the special diet kids have any better insight or plan for dealing with this." So they exepct the OTHER boys and/or the troop to figure out how to accommodate their diet? If the boys who live with these restrictions don't have any better insight as to what to do, how can you expect the boys who know little or nothing about these diets and see them as an imposition to come up with positive solutions. I really think -- and I'm loathe to say this -- you're asking a whole lot of the boys to accommodate all these different restrictions. There are simply too many variables and demands being placed on them. Do you at least have the vegan boys in the same patrol? Dang few boys -- and not a lot of adults -- even follow simple recipies, much less have the ability to modify one to meet special dietary requirements. I'd say most menus selected because of they are simple recipies resulting in decent meals. Bacon and eggs, pancakes, grilled cheese, pasta, hamburgers -- all campout standbys with few ingredients. Occasionally one boy will have a personal recipe for chili or spaghetti sauce, but other than that, we rarely see complicated dishes. . We have some really good camp cooks in our troop, but it has take YEARS to develop and we actually put a fair bit of focus on cooking. It really comes down to experience. And if you think about how patrols operate, any one Scout may serve as grubmaster once or twice year. If that's the only time he cooks vegetarian or gluten free, he doesn't have much chance of becoming comfortable with it. 2. "SM is annoyed at the problem (problem = scouts and parents complaining), says the SM side is very overworked, and can't deal with it. So you have an overloaded, at best frazzled/at worst burned-out Scoutmaster who is being pressured by parents to deal with a problem which -- in half the cases -- have been created by choices the parents have made. How many of the special needs Scouts have parents serving as trained, contributing ASMs? (Tagging along as a helicopter parent DOES NOT qualify!) Here's the real solution: A good number of these parents need to volunteer as ASM, GET FULLY TRAINED and start attending campouts. I would NOT ask one of these parents to get involved directly in this issue -- too much temptation for adult meddling -- but rather they should take the load off other leaders so the experienced Scout leaders can help the boys find a solution. I'd ask my most dedicated patrol method advocate to take on the task -- Kudu or B-P, you available?. You have plenty of folks advocating for their little niche, you need someone in the mix who understands the program and is there to ensure the solutions are in line with the Boy Scout methods. All the stuff being posted here and on the other thread with all the recipies is great, but should come in to play about four steps down the road. The first step is to get troop leadership in place which is committed to the patrol method and to training the BOYS to solve this.

Two important insights we're overlooking: 1. Hopalong adds, "Can't say that the special diet kids have any better insight or plan for dealing with this." So they exepct the OTHER boys and/or the troop to figure out how to accommodate their diet? If the boys who live with these restrictions don't have any better insight as to what to do, how can you expect the boys who know little or nothing about these diets and see them as an imposition to come up with positive solutions. I really think -- and I'm loathe to say this -- you're asking a whole lot of the boys to accommodate all these different restrictions. There are simply too many variables and demands being placed on them. Do you at least have the vegan boys in the same patrol? Dang few boys -- and not a lot of adults -- even follow simple recipies, much less have the ability to modify one to meet special dietary requirements. I'd say most menus selected because of they are simple recipies resulting in decent meals. Bacon and eggs, pancakes, grilled cheese, pasta, hamburgers -- all campout standbys with few ingredients. Occasionally one boy will have a personal recipe for chili or spaghetti sauce, but other than that, we rarely see complicated dishes. . We have some really good camp cooks in our troop, but it has take YEARS to develop and we actually put a fair bit of focus on cooking. It really comes down to experience. And if you think about how patrols operate, any one Scout may serve as grubmaster once or twice year. If that's the only time he cooks vegetarian or gluten free, he doesn't have much chance of becoming comfortable with it. 2. "SM is annoyed at the problem (problem = scouts and parents complaining), says the SM side is very overworked, and can't deal with it. So you have an overloaded, at best frazzled/at worst burned-out Scoutmaster who is being pressured by parents to deal with a problem which -- in half the cases -- have been created by choices the parents have made. How many of the special needs Scouts have parents serving as trained, contributing ASMs? (Tagging along as a helicopter parent DOES NOT qualify!) Here's the real solution: A good number of these parents need to volunteer as ASM, GET FULLY TRAINED and start attending campouts. I would NOT ask one of these parents to get involved directly in this issue -- too much temptation for adult meddling -- but rather they should take the load off other leaders so the experienced Scout leaders can help the boys find a solution. I'd ask my most dedicated patrol method advocate to take on the task -- Kudu or B-P, you available?. You have plenty of folks advocating for their little niche, you need someone in the mix who understands the program and is there to ensure the solutions are in line with the Boy Scout methods. All the stuff being posted here and on the other thread with all the recipies is great, but should come in to play about four steps down the road. The first step is to get troop leadership in place which is committed to the patrol method and to training the BOYS to solve this.

Ask for a written copy of that policy. Since I dropped from the district committee I don't know the current rules, but previously achieving Quality District was a big goal for DE and greatly impacted his/her annual evaluation. One of the criteria for QD was a certain percentage of Quality Units. I'd be surprised if JTE doesn't include something similar. That could explain your DE's anxiety. I, also, could have filled out the form in about 10 minutes, and probably should have done so. For one, I know how to BS through these things and two, I don't really care. But the troop committee has taken it on and I now have about four committee folks wearing me out over it. I've probably spent several hours meeting with them and answeriing emails. In order to get our advancement numbers up (before knowing what our advancement numbers were) one mom wanted me to schedule special meetings over the holidays to get all the boys who are a requirement or two from a rank through their SM conference and BOR. (Nope, didn't get around to that one.) They're sweating service projects now. I sent them a list of about 15 service projects the troop participated last year, so now they're trying to figure out the hours of each -- we're talking thousands. Of course JTE doesn't require hours, but it does require service projects be register with Service to America, which requires hours. Not sure how any of this improves the quality of our program. Seems like it's taking resources which could devoted elsewhere.

Maybe they're using BL as a recruiting or PR tool. Seems like a reasonable idea to me, depending on what actual cost would be. Dues to national are $15. If it all goes to pay for BL, that's still the cheapest subscription we get in the house.

LisaBob said it well. Don't let this tail wag the dog. I do think trying to group some of the kids with restrictive diets together will help. Maybe there is enough commonality between their diets they can find a menu that works for most. Or maybe if you have all the guys fending for themselves in one patrol, then at least the other patrols can have a more "normal" patrol meal. I have a lot of sympathy for the guys with medical resrictions and respect for he boys trying to follow their religious principles. But I have to admit I'm a less symathetic with the families which make a choice and expect everyone else to accommodate them. Everyone else has to be flexible because they aren't. My wife's neice is Ova-pesca-somethin'-er'-'nother-tarian. Basically she eats anything she wants except beef, pork and chicken. But it really just serves to put her in charge of what everyone else eats. As a Scout leader, the thing you have to do is stand up for the Patrol Method and the boys who want the experience of working together as a patrol, meal times included. Parent solutions to this are going to be everyone cooking for themselves, mommy bring his meals for him, or something similar. The easy solutions to this are to throw the patrol method in the corner. Don't let that happen.

Holy Smokes, hopalong. I'd just drive the troop into town to a short-order diner. Maybe you can put the vegans, vegetarians and other ruminants in one patrol? Kosher and Halal are close enough to eat together (they did that at world jamboree -- all the Jews and Muslims in one line to eat was interesting). Gluten and lactose intolerant together? In all seriousness, you've got so many different variables there, I'm not sure what I would do. I would be concerned that all the different menus and kids opting-in and out of meals would effect patrol unity. Cooking and eating together is a big part of the glue that binds patrols. We have a big troop and have never had a serious alergy issue. We do have one Scout on sodium restrictions, but not severe that one weekend makes a big difference. He just knows to pass on the bacon and potato chips. At summer camp, the kitchen staff does prepare a low-sodium plate for him. If the patrol menu gets too out of range for him, he will speak up and get the other guys to make some adjustments. Question -- is gluten-free an alergy or a choice? I know there are folks with gluten intolerance, but you hear so much about it in the media I'm wonder if it's not also a new fad diet.

And apparently the pond was a busy place! (Read the next story down.) I believe rolling people was an early, albeit not terribly effective, method of CPR.

Interesting. Particularly interesting that this is the first mention of financing I've heard. The way the whole thing was presented at Jamboree summer before last, you would have assumed the Bechtel's brought the cash with them in small bills.

It's not that we forbid the boys from helping each other out, rather the patrols have everything they need so there should be no need to. If the Aardvarks forget their skillet and ask to borrow one from the Zodiacs, the Zodiacs are free to do so. However if the Aardvarks then lose or trash the skillet (it CAN be done) the Zodiacs are on the hook to the troop for replacing it. It would be up to the two partols to figure our who pays. Compare that to the old system where everything was on big shelves in the back room. Before campouts the patrols just went in and took what they needed. If something was broken, lost or just left dirty, it didn't really matter as everthing went back on the shelves. There was a fairly high probability that you would draw a different item next month. The new system now means you have to live with the gear you're assigned so you better take care if it. The biggest down side is the amount of stuff we have. We have enough gear for every patrol to have a full complement. For example, every patrol is assigned three two-man tents and one three-man. Before we only had to have enough tents for the average high attendance on campouts.(This message has been edited by Twocubdad)

I can spare a couple of my mercenaries, if you think it will help. They are a lot less expensive than you would imagine.

"if you're not on the Council Adv. Committee, you need to just start showing up. They need you." I've hired mercenaries.

Sounds like your SM isn't much of a people person. Is the role of adult QM really the issue or just today's symptom? A new sled in three weeks is a push for adults or Scouts, but otherwise, Short is correct. Our patrols are responsible for their own gear. We went to no small expense to make sure every patrol has at least one of everything. All gear is plainly numbered or color-coded and assigned to a patrol. There is no sharing between patrols so there is no question who is responsible for what. The troop QM is responsible for keeping the locker room neat, handling troop gear (program stuff not part of the patrols' kits), working with the Parol QMs as needed and working with the adult ASM/QM when it comes to purchases or more involved maintenance issues. Our adult QM is primarily an ASM. He camps with us most months. He is the coach/mentor for the troop QM and helps train him. Depending on where we are in the cycle, if we have a new QM, the ASM is probably a little more involved with checking gear in and out and loading and and unloading the trailer than he is later in the term with a more experienced QM. Of course that's true for all uf us. The same guy fills the committee position of "Equipment Chairman" of whatever they call it. He attends committee meetings and gives a report. "I refilled the propane tanks this month and we probably need to buy more tent stakes" would qualify as a long, detailed report.

Perhaps we're the blind guys feeling different parts of the elephant, but here's the part of the elephant I'm holding on to -- We have two active Eagle projects underway in our troop. Two different boys, two different beneficiaries, two different projects. But the two projects are very similar in scope. Similar leadership issues. They both involve a little wood working, a little inside work and the installation. I expect both to take about the same number of man-ours. The budgets are within $100 of each other. Both boys are planning three separate work days. And I think they are similar in benefit to the community, although one is in a much more public place and will probably get more use. One was submitted in November, using the new workbook and guidlines. It is four pages, including the cover sheet. In fairness, this Scouts "Phase II" plan, submitted and approved by the troop, is about 11 pages, including two drawings. The other was submitted in October, using the old workbook and guidelines required by the council. It is 60 pages, including the two page outline provided by thc council of required information. It is also required that the Scout cross-reference the outline with the page number in the proposal where the required information is found. When boys spend more hours working on their proposal than the do the actual project, something is wrong. When boys tell me they almost didn't complete their Eagle for the dread of the project proposal process, something is wrong. When my son tells me he would have finished his Eagle a year ago, but he didn't want to do the project, something is wrong. When the 17-year-old, all-but-project Eagle I had coffee Wednesday afternoon changed his mind about dropping out of Scouts AFTER I explained the new proposal system to him, something is finally righ. The new EP workbook and guidelines are going a long way toward fixing these problems. Honestly, Max, if a few scammers slip by, if the paperwork isn't quite up to snuff, that's okay with this fellow Eagle Scout. Because under the old system we were loosing uncounted numbers of good kids who just saw no need to jump through our hoops.

Has anyone really followed this outline? I don't mean the general idea of identifying and recruiting the best candidate (as opposed to picking the low-hanging fruit)but actually working though all the steps 1 thru 7 and A to F? In an existing unit has anyone every gone outside the unit and recruited a non-Scouter with no experience to be the unit leader? There's some helpful info here, but the premise behind the way this is presented is just silly.

Upgrades are great, but regardless we appreciate you letting us camp here over the years.

Right. Trailer towing is The Number One job qualification.

In a situation like this I think interviews are just a formality; a game played to make everyone think they were given full consideration. If these folks are all long-time ASMs, you know what you need to know about them. Why ask about their commitment to training they will commit to when you know one guy has already taken all the courses he can and staffed Wood Badge twice, while another reluctantly took OLS a 18 months after joining? You know the answers based on their performance. Now if you're in Kudu's troop, Wood Badge may be seen as a negative. But that's a philosophical question for the committee to work out. And that's my point. My advice would be for the committee to spend most of their time discussing their vision for the troop and the traits a good SM will need to get you there. When you can answer that the choice for the job will be obvious. The only question I would ask would be "What is your vision for the troop" and see how that aligns with the committee's. Actually, depending on the committee structure, I'd appoint a nominating committee of 3 or 4 folks and task them with gathering input from all the constituent group -- Scouts, committee members, ASMs, parents, your COR and IH and maybe others in the CO. I'd even involve folks in the pack, if you have a brother pack which regularly feeds the troop.