Twocubdad

All three are BS. SOP for this is to politely ask the person spewing the BS to please provide a citation for the BSA publication in which you can find the policy. But don't hold your breath while they look for it. And even if it is a local regulation, it still needs to be in writing somewhere.

Talk to the parents. With boys whose age/grade are out of sync, I always left it up to the parents to decide which den to put the boy in. My strong suggestion was to put him in a den with his buddies, if possible. Around here a trick many of the private schools use is to push boys -- boys, not girls -- back a grade, but trust me, you don't want me to get started with that. One of the things that does is puts the private school kids off a year from their buddies in the neighborhood. When it comes to joining a den, I strongly encourage the boys to go into the den where their friends are, as long as we can legally do so in terms of EITHER age or grade. And it worked the other way, too. When boys would recruit friends from school into the pack, we would put them in the den based on grade, not age. I found that being a scout group with your friends, whether Tigers or Venture, makes a big difference. This may be an accommodation to the LDS units but it's in the regs so use it to your advantage.(This message has been edited by Twocubdad)

Sorry you had a bad experience with WB, but I really question the checklist generally. Sounds like something produced by an advocacy group with an ax to grind. With a jaded enough view, most churches, civic groups and sports leagues qualify.

Google 'Wood Badge Font Mac'

You need to add a red neck jacuzzi conversion kit -- a pound of pinto beans and a bar of soap.

Scouts soliciting money for other organizations is specifically prohibited. In fact, the example used to back this up is Scouts participating in the SA bell ringing program. Get a copy of the unit money-earning application http://www.scouting.org/filestore/pdf/34427.pdf The answer to a lot of this is on the second page.

Been to many stock holders meeting? The CEO stands there and takes crap from a handful of unhappy share holders for an hour, then announces the vote totals which were decided by a few majority shareholders months ago. Maybe the council has done the same math with the CORs. Not saying it's right, just saying....(This message has been edited by Twocubdad)

Given your feelings about the professional staff, the district and how your council camps are run, have you considered that the decision has been made that the district needs to be rebuilt from scratch with all new volunteers untainted by the old ones? Not saying that would be a good thing, or that they are going about it properly, but maybe you should read the writing on the wall....

What? First of all, I believe Georgetown is a private school, in fact a private Catholic school. And a fraternity is yet another private organization. And unless the government has recently bailed-out Pepsi, I believe it, too, is a private company. But if Pepsi having government contracts taints the whole pool then every dime in circulation is government money. Let's see -- I did some work for a client who is a contractor for a software company which does work for Goodrich which has government contracts. Does that mean I can't donate part of my money to the BSA? Nuts.

Our trailer has spinners and underglo lighting. Seriously.

Question: Could this not be resolved by requiring units to charter as either "open" or "restricted" units? Maybe further sub-divide the restricted classifications into "restricted leadership?" Open units would accept all comers, obviously subject to stated BSA membership policy. Restricted Leadership units would be open to all youth, but adult leadership would be restricted to members of the CO. Of course, Restricted units would be closed to the public and serve only the members of the CO. This is all allowed now, just formalizing and publicizing what is currently taking place. Seems to me it would be difficult to argue if all the rules are known up front. I can't be the first one to think of this. Maybe E92 or BP can explain from the organizational perspective why this won't work. And yes, I understand that the words "open" and "restricted" have also sorts of legal, political and cultural baggage. But let's not get too hung up on the words. Legal can work that out later.

My issue with this requirement is that at Tenderfoot it's the wrong time to make this stand. If you were dealing with 16- or 17-year-old Life Scouts and wanted to press this as a Personal Fitness requirement, okay. But this is frequently one of the first requirements boy's work on after crossing over and is often done in a group setting. Creating what is a near impossible requirement for certain boys this early in the game isn't right. It's essentially creating a "weeder" requirement right at the start. And I would really have concerns that a troop would allow a boy to stay at Scout for three years without advancing. If the troop is going to stand hard on the requirement, then two years ago someone should have taken these boys under their wing and helped them with the workouts to get them through it. Excluding them from the advancement program for that long is wrong, too. What do you do about it? It's hard to say. It is the Scoutmaster's call. If other adults in the troop agree with you, perhaps approaching him together could help change his mind. The boys could appeal the SM's definition of "improvement" to the district or council advancement committee, but I wouldn't really recommend that as it's very divisive. If the SM won't budge, maybe it's time to look for another troop. Edited part -- I like NJ's approach to talking with the SM.(This message has been edited by Twocubdad)

This isn't going to end well. The questions is, how much time and effort are you willing to put into this family between now and then? I see two options: 1) Take the mom up on her threat to leave. Don't let the screen door hit them in the butt. 2) Sit the mom down and explain to her how the program works and what her responsibilities as a "Tiger Parent" entail. She is responsible for supervising her son ALL THE TIME. Storming off and driving away is not acceptable. Who was watching her son during her tantrums? She needs to be told very explicitly what the expectations are of her. Use short sentences and lots of verbs. I doubt she's still around by the end of the conversation. The issues with the boy are surmountable. You can work with his issues and be a positive influence for the boy. That's what we do and why most of us become Scout leaders. Unfortunately, his mother is going to make that impossible. She will be a black hole of time, effort and volunteers which could be better used delivering solid programming to all the Scouts. From your description, she sounds like she has combined a huge sense of entitlement with bullying. The odds are greatly against her behavior changing significantly.

Julia; Are you a RT commissioner? Have you been through that training? Have you run CSRT in the past?

The biggest reason so few Scouts earn the bronze and silver medals may be for lack of knowing about them, says Frank Reigelman, the BSAs director of camping and conservation and a Hornaday Awards Committee adviser. Nah, the biggest reason so few Scout earn these awards is that no one seems to know how to go about doing it. Yes, I've read the web site. I've asked the district and council advancement chairmen about it (they're clueless). I've spoken to the guy who is supposed to be the council Hornaday coordinator. Actually, on mutiple occasions, either I or the couple of Scouts with an interest in Hornaday have approached the guys and I've NEVER gotten past "I'd love to discuss that with you." I had an adult who offered to serve as the Scouts' counselor (very well-qualified to do so, professionally) and he couldn't crack the code. I even made a point of going to the Hornaday booth at the national jamboree. While the guy there was very enthuasistic and had lots of info about how his council did things, the best info he could offer me was to read the web site and talk to my council advancement chairman. Apparently, the hardest thing about earning the Hornaday is getting straight information about the program.

So that's what that smell is in my old tent!! I though some had barffed in it when I wasn't looking. I know I never did. Can't help you with the 3Gs, but we have solved the problem of lost/broken/missing gear by permanently assigning tents and other patrol gear to each patrol. The troop QM does an inventory every six months. The cost of replacing anything that's broken or missing beyond normal wear & tear is shared by all members of the patrol. Interestingly, after this system was set up, most of the patrol begain signing-out the tents within the patrol so they could hold accountable the individuals who used the tents.

I've edited this to delete my response to Kudu's last post. I'll just back away instead. CubsRgr8, I hope you are getting the info you need.(This message has been edited by Twocubdad)

I suppose I deserve that. It is probably foolish and totally unnecessary to point out that Kudu has an agenda. Even if you are new and haven't read Kudu's posts for the past five years, that should be completely clear to anyone reading his highly perjorative list of true/false questions in this thread. While I haven't made a career of tracking Stosh's and Kudu's troop organizations, from Stosh's posts over the past few weeks or months I believe he has about a patrol and a half and no PLC. I believe I am correct in recalling from Kudu's posting that in his troop whenever there is a need for someone to take a troop-level responsibility, one of the patrol leaders will step up and take it. But again, I don't claim to have full knowledge of how their troops operate, which is why I opened with "I think" and didn't mention either of them by name. If either gentlemen would like to set the record straight, I will welcome the correction. If all Kudu wants to do is name-call, then I suppose I can join Beavah and add him to the squelch list. Stosh, (and thank you for your reasoned response) I will absolutely agree with you that returning the troop to a Scout-led operation is the goal. (Although I believe you and I fundamentally disagree on how patrols operate within the troop, that's probably the topic for another thread.) I guess we also agree that CubsRgr8's troop is in need of a radical surgery to fix the problems -- although our solutions are radically opposite. Neither of us, however, know what the real situation is in this troop. Based on his post, however, I'm assuming CubsRgr8's troop is a more modern, PLC-oriented troop. As such, I tried to suggest ideas for training and reinvigorating the PLC. And given that we have ballpark a thousand "lurkers" who read but don't participate in the discussions, a diverse response is healthy. On the otherhand, if CubsRgr8's troop runs more like yours, then disbanding the PLC may be the answer. Fortunately for CubsRgr8, it's not up to either of us. (Looks like Stosh posted just ahead of me. Thanks for the clarification, but I'm not going to re-write the whole post.) (This message has been edited by Twocubdad)

Yeah, I'm in JFL's camp too. Somehow, destroying the PLC to save it doesn't sound like a good idea. I think the guys promoting that idea don't use PLC's in the first place. So factor that in. There are a lot of things a good Scoutmaster can do to jump start the PLC (and it needs to be the Scoutmaster as it is his responsiblity to lead the junior leaders). I'm not particularly advocating any one of these but maybe one will be something will strike a chord with your troop: -- First of all, I strongly believe this is the point at which the adults need to roll up their sleeves and engage. A good friend who has been a Scoutmaster going on 40 years once told me his greatest challenge as SM is to figure out the level of adult involvement his junior leaders require and to engage or disengage based on that. Soounds like your PLC needs a heavy dose of Adult Association. -- Secondly, focus on training. You need to teach the PLC how to plan an outing. What do the troop committee and parents in general expect to see in a plan? At minimum, the need to treat it like a float plan. Some will suggest that your "natural leaders" leave the womb knowing this but I disagree. That may have been true when life looked looked like "Follow Me Boys" and a group of boys could stop at the corner grocery store be hiking to the edge of town for a campout. Teach the boys the process of working through the details of a campout. Give them the tools they need. Maybe a worksheet would help them, at least until they get the hang of if. -- Do something to jump start the PLC's imagination. Hold a planning session with them where you have several computers with Internet access. Get a big map of your area and highlight every state or US park within a reasonable drive time. Have the boys get on line and research what to do at every park. -- Do your homework and have your own list of "cool" outings. Go to Roundtable and get ideas from the other leaders where their troops go. -- Lead by example. Let the adults plan a trip, but make sure the boys are at their side watching every step of the way. If you call to make a reservation, make sure the Scout who should be making the call is listen in. A couple years ago we wanted to jump-start the level of cooking in the troop. At JLT that year, instead of having dinner brought in, we divided into small groups with 2-3 Scouts and one adult. Every group was tasked with making one entree and one side dish they had never made before. One group made chicken pharm, another wanted to grill steaks, one patrol made a really great gumbo. The adults taught really basic cooking skills, like the right way to chop an onion, or how to test a steak to determine its doneness. An it worked. Those boys took those lessons back to their patrols and really stepped-up the quality of cooking in the patrol. They planned an "Iron Chef" patrol cooking competition for one of the campouts. And now the PLC cook off is a big part of JLT training, too. Now I know folks are going to scream that this isn't Youth Led. No, this is part of one of the other methods, Adult Association. Of course, the goal should be for the adults to back out as soon as possible. But "boy led" doesn't have to mean "boy led off into the ditch." This is why we're here, guys, to teach, guide, motivate and inspire the boys.

My first year in the pack we had a one-man-show with a CM and pretty much the same CC you describe. The CM moved on and one of the DLs I had done a lot of work with stepped up to CM. He asked me to take over as CC. With the politics of the situation, we decided I would be Asst. Cubmaster for Administration which was rather surprisingly very similar to the job description for CC. We ran this ruse for about six months with me acting as CC. We never really saw the old CC much. At recharter we changed the registrations officially and kept on chugging. Maybe a little passive-aggressive, but it got us where we needed to be without the drama of asking the CC to step down.

Kind of an interesting side story from a couple years back: Monday night dinner at camp everyone had gone through the line and was sitting down to eat when the food services director came running out of the kitchen looking for me. "Where is your peanut allergy kid?" she asked, with a little panic in her voice. "Wrong troop. We don't have anyone allergic to peanuts." "Yes you do, Chris or Christopher or something. We been fixing him special meals, but he didn't show up tonight." About that time she recognizes the kid, who is already mostly through with his regular dinner from the serving line. "You shouldn't be eating that," she says, "We have your dinner in the back." "No, this is okay," Christopher says. "No sir," she said sternly. "I don't know for sure that meal doesn't have peanut in it." "It's okay, I'm not really all that allergic." To make a long story not quite so long, I made a bee-line from dinner to the health lodge and pulled Christopher's medical form. No mention of any allergies anywhere, except "peanut allergy" on the check-in sheet. The nurse remember checking Christopher in and says, "Oh yeah, I remember him. He very specifically said he is allergic to peanuts." "But if his parents and doctor didn't put it on the form....." I asked. The nurse shrugged as we both grabbed for the phone to call the boy's parents. Bottom line is the kid is a bit of a hypochondriac. The peanut allergy was totally made up, although one of his sister's friends is very allergic so his family takes all the precautions so the friend can visit their house. I've since suffered through many nights of "stomach aches" and trips to the health lodge with this kid. And we sent flowers to the kitchen staff. No real point here -- and I'm certainly not suggesting you shouldn't believe a kid when he tells you he's allergic -- just an interesting aside.

JMH please accept my apologies in advance if the following offends you, but your opening post was one of the most judgmental I've read in quite a while. Do you know this boy? Maybe the presentation you saw represents a light-years improvement over where he started. Maybe he has challenges you are unaware of? Maybe the adults dumped the presentation on him 30 minutes earlier? Maybe public speaking just isn't his thing? Maybe you are prejudging him based on your preconceptions of his troop? One of the best Eagle Scouts our troop has produced during my tenure can hardly say his name in front of a group. Several years ago he applied and was rejected for a job at summer camp because he interviewed so poorly and didn't meet the camp director's pre-conceived ideal of what a glib, outgoing, full-of-Scout-spirit Scout should be. But he was offered a job after our troop started an email campaign on his behalf. According to the camp director, what tipped the scale in his direction were the emails from boys for whom this kid served as troop guide. One-on-one, the fellow is a great teacher and had been a real asset to our troop. So he was put on staff working in the new scout program area. This past summer he was an area director an on of the most senior staff members. He still squirms and stares at his feet when speaking to more than a small group, but I wouldn't trade him for a room full of ToastMasters.

In the first place, TN, I think you're borrowing trouble. I'm guessing the probability of this ever being a real problem is in the fractional percentages. But my real job involves anticipating and preventing low-probability problems, so I understand where you're coming from. The answer is to run the program the way it should be run -- 2010 version. If a boy transfers-in with dificiencies in certain outdoor skills, you give him a big, Friendly, Kind, Cheerful welcome and you TEACH THE BOY THE SKILLS in which he is difficient. Real simple. You don't talk bad about his old troop and you don't make him feel like some city slicker just off the bus from Noo Joisey. You train him up just like any other new Scout. My opinion is the split between "traditional" troops and "parlour Scouts" is a false one. Folks tend to spin the conversation to unnecessarily justify the way they want to run things -- like using tags like "traditional" and "parlour", for example. There's no need to fall into that trap. Our mantra at the session of National Camp School where I teach is "Program is Flexible, Policy Is Not." There is plenty of room within today's Scouting to run the program you want. You don't have to pretend to be part of some underground movement to do so. Go to Roundtable. Get all the training you can -- including Wood Badge. Then offer the best program to your Scouts you can. The rest is just politics. (This message has been edited by Twocubdad)

For pins like service stars, I've found that the longer you leave them on the longer they stay on. I never take them off. I don't know if the on-and-off weakens the springs or if mutiple washings sorta corrode the metal together. Either way.... With service stars, after a time, the heat from the dryer and ironing will shrivel the colored plastic backers. They need to be replaced every now and again. If you want to permanently attach the pins, at one time I found a gizmo that was a very small barrel with a whole in the size of the pin and a tiny set screw in the side. You put the pin on then tightened the set screw. They NEVER came off. I found the first pack of them at a local army-navy store and ordered more on line. No way I can remember the name of the things, but maybe some of the military guys will know what they are. For actual medals, we suggest to the boys they are for formal occasions where they're hopefully not running too wild.

Reminds me of a meeting I had with a client and their Realtor one time. The client sat back and thought for a minute and asked, "Do you think we'll be happy in this house?" The Realtor snapped back, "Were you happy in your last house?"