Cleveland Rocks

On 7/14/2023 at 7:48 AM, RememberSchiff said:

Some questions:

     Will there be patrol competitions in scoutcraft?

     How much freedom do scouts have with their time while there?

No patrol competitions in Scoutcraft. No Scoutcraft area either. This isn't Summer Camp.

With the exception of four defined programs that units will be attending together at pre-set dates/times, the entire program is up to the Scout. They have the total freedom to do whatever they want, whenever they want. Program areas are open each day from 9:00 - 5:00.

Emailed out last night from our neighboring council, from the NAM:

• $80 for Cub Scouts, Scouts BSA, Venturing and Sea Scouting participants ($5 increase)
• $60 for all adult volunteers ($15 increase to provide general liability insurance and enhanced background checks) 
• $25 one-time joining fee for new program participants in Cub Scouts, Scouts BSA, Venturing and Sea Scouting (Not prorated and no change in fee)
• $30 for Scoutreach (Not prorated)
• $25 for Merit Badge Counselors (New Fee applies only for Merit Badge Counselors not already registered as leaders) 
• $50 for Exploring participants Youth & Adult ($5 increase)
• $100 for a unit charter/affiliation fee (no change in fee)
• $15 for Scout Life magazine

• Existing members’ Anniversary date will be their unit recharter month.
• New members’ Anniversary date will be the month they joined.

• General Liability Insurance costs to protect volunteer leaders, staff, charter organizations, units, and youth.
• BSA restructuring costs. 
• Enhanced Criminal Background check processes and investments in Youth protection and safety programs.

• Completed a new staff structure and streamlined both the professional workforce and the volunteer structure, while maintaining essential services.
• Reduced the National staff workforce to support essential services.
• Reduced expenses throughout the National organization.

• The new adult membership fee is $60, and the youth membership fee is $80 annually. 
• The BSA will continue to evaluate the membership fees and keep our councils and unit leaders informed of any further changes to the fee structure. 

• Expanded GLIP protections for Chartered Organizations and volunteers. 
• Enhanced Criminal Background checks.
• Investments in BSA safety resources and training.
• The employment of a new Youth Protection Executive and support staff.
• The National Council provides the following essential services to councils:
• The use of BSA Intellectual Property – Youth Safety, Cub Scouts, Scouts, BSA, Venturing, Camp Standards, Training and Program development etc. 
• Legal 
• Human Resources 
• Information Technology – Rechartering, Scout Book
• Accounting Resources
• Council Services Support
• Membership & Marketing Support
• Crisis Communications and support
• Safety & Membership Standards Support
• A variety of training support for youth and adult leaders
• Health Insurance & Benefits

• Expanded General Liability Insurance protections for the chartered organization and unit leaders in the event of an incident.
• Program research and development including, Cub Scouts, Scouts BSA, Venturing, and Exploring. 
• Access to Youth Protection Training, Incident Reporting, and Scouts First Helpline: 1-  844-Scouts1. 
• Access to leadership-specific training for adult leaders.
• Investments in program literature and resource development. 
• Ability to purchase Uniforms, Insignia, and Recognition for youth and Adults.
• Provides access to Membership, Marketing, and Brand Center resources. 
• Provides important technology support including Scout Book, online registration, online advancement, and rechartering, My. Scouting, BeAScout, and BSA Brand Center for digital assets.
• Access to the four BSA High Adventure Properties including Philmont Scout Ranch, Florida Sea Base, Northern Tier High Adventure Base, and the Summit Bechtel Reserve.

Looks like SOAR is not dead.

They just sent everyone an email earlier today saying that the number of customers saying that they didn't want it to go away was overwhelming. They loved the simplicity that SOAR offered as well as all the other features that the other options didn't fully offer, particularly for us vanity domain support and email groups tied to that domain.

The owner of SOAR is transferring ownership to a company called Meridian Computing that looks to have the tenure and bandwidth to serve us going forward. The owner will stay on as a consultant. It also helps that the people at Meridian Computing are not only SOAR customers but also Scouters themselves.

Looking forward to it all!

On 4/3/2023 at 11:08 PM, MattR said:

We're in the same boat. SOAR is likely no more.

 

Maybe not . . . if you go to the FAQ that they created, there's this little tidbit posted to it Monday night:

Is SOAR out of business?  That will be determined later this week. Some individuals have reached out that may be a path for SOAR to continue.

If that's really true, we might be willing to wait it out, depending on how long it might take to get something back up and running. For us, neither Troopmaster or TroopWebHost really provides us what we had with SOAR, and it'll cost us more money to get back to where we were before. Remember, TroopWebHost is saying it will be April 21 before they're able to import and support everything. That's still 2 1/2 weeks away.

15 minutes ago, cmd said:

I don't know why everyone is so resistant to a google calendar, but judging by the number of parents and leaders who insist on adding things to the calendars manually one by one instead of subscribing to the pack/troop calendar feed, I think that's going to be unpopular.  (I'm not the one who is making the decision on how to replace SOAR - just researching and making recommendations - so popularity does matter here.)

The decision for us is that with SOAR, it wasn't just a calendar (we had subscribed to the SOAR calendar through Google Calendar, so people could see the events on their mobile devices, etc.), it's that with SOAR, the calendar was also for sign-ups, and you could track who was signed up, and whether they had paid, and if they were bringing guests, how many guests were they bringing, etc.

The SOAR calendar also allowed us to allow others to sign-up for events, something Scoutbook doesn't allow for on their calendars.

And, it was all easy-peasy to use. Like someone else said, you didn't need a Masters in Computer Science to use it.

9 hours ago, cmd said:

By this, do you mean having email addresses @troopX.org instead of @yourtroop.mytroop.us?  I hadn't thought about that before, but it IS so much easier to send an email to our troop with their vanity email address than to our pack that let that lapse and another unit scooped it up.  I didn't realize that was being done through SOAR, but looks like the troop committee email address uses the vanity domain, so I guess it probably is.  
Please let me know what you find out about whether other options support that.   On the TroopTrack forum there's a post complaining that they don't have that, but I think it was from 2017.

Yes, we registered the domain name troopX.org over a decade ago, pre-dating my time in the troop.  We then use that domain name to have our SOAR website be www.troopX.org instead of www.yourtroop.mytroop.us.  SOAR also handled the email addresses using that domain, so we had info@troopX.org for inquiries to our troop, cmty@troopX.org for emails to our Troop Committee, summercamp@troopX.org for all communication with appropriate leaders regarding summer camp, treasurer@troopX.org for all emails to our troop treasurer, etc. And sending to those groups was very easy--if you wanted to send an email to the entire committee, you just sent an email (provided your email address had permission to do so) to cmty@troopX.org and it went to every adult who had a leadership role of Troop Committee on the roster. You didn't have to maintain separate email lists--SOAR looked at the person's role within the troop to determine what email lists they were on.

The big one we used for everything was announce@troopX.org, which sent emails to everyone who we had an email address on--current Scouts and parents, alumni, friends, committee, etc. Our weekly newsletter was automatically sent out by SOAR to that group. SOAR handled all of that and send them as individual messages so it wouldn't get caught by spam filters.  Can't do that with Scoutbook--you can only send to current Scouts, Scouters and families.

Those two things are big for us, and I'd be curious to know if TroopMaster or TroopWebHost can replicate that.

One of the things we really liked about SOAR was that it allowed us to have our website with our own URL, and we could have any number of emails tied to that domain name.  We also like the ability to keep lists of our alumni and families, as we regularly communicate with them, something Scoutbook does not allow.

Does anyone know if TroopWebHost or Troopmaster allows either of those things? I've reached out to them both, but with it being the weekend when all this transpired, obviously no one is going to answer until Monday at the earliest.

23 hours ago, qwazse said:

@Cleveland Rocks, if it's not too late, I grant your district permission to adopt anything from my Syrian heritage for a name/mascot. It would tickle my family pink if a council had an Alleppo or Homs district!

This has been in the works for many months. The realignment takes place January 1, and all the names are all selected (although I only know the name of our new district, not the others).

Our council is going from 8 districts to 5. Three of the 8 districts have Native American names (one is actually not a real name, but a combination of the first letters of 9 NA tribes that used to live in the area). A fourth is/was named Arrowhead, and while that's not an NA name per se, it has obvious NA references.  A fifth is/was named (just recently in 2018!) after a local landmark that was used by NA tribes in the area. So, there were lots of NA names/references they are retiring in a week and a half.

Our OA lodge just voted last weekend to change the totem used on our lodge flaps and other media from a side-profile Native American in full headdress to a black squirrel.

Our district (which had a Native American name) just merged with another and the contest conducted to come up with a new name had explicit instructions that Native American names or references could not be used in the new name.

I will second the comment on hot and humid days. I have one and it is not a good hat to wear in the summer. I switch to a bucket hat in the summer months, something that is cooler and is able to breathe a bit better. But I definitely wear mine in the cooler months.

The BSA says: if all those units were charted to the same CO, then yes, they could do an activity together. But if they are not, the BSA says no. This was the stance prior to the pandemic; it is just being reiterated again. Because you'd be planning an activity for units that your CO does not charter, that would prevent the activity from being permitted.

The relevant quote from the BSA's COVID-19 FAQ (emphasis mine):

♦ Q: If my camp is cancelled, can my unit get together with other units and have our own camp?

No. Chartering organizations play an important role in the program and activities for their chartered units. Chartering organizations promote well-planned unit program for the units they charter and encourage their units to have active outdoor unit programs. Chartering organizations are not authorized to plan, promote, or deliver programs for units outside of their charter.

It is the role of the council to plan long-term or resident camps and the role of councils or districts to plan camporees and other outings during the year that give youth an opportunity to test their knowledge and skills in competitive events with other troops and/or patrols.

When units with different chartered organizations do activities together, this becomes a district or council event and requires council approval. In fact, some states require such activities to be licensed.

Our council still awards them.  We got JTE and 100% Boys' Life ribbons from them this year.

Our troop has so many ribbons we have to periodically offload them because there are so many on the flagpole it gets hard to attach new ones at times. We get them at camporees, klondikes, summer camp, FoS, and more.

I can't speak for the rest of the country, but our council and districts still use them and units still fly them from their flagpoles.

The BSA's guidance on whether you should or shouldn't store the AHMR electronically (you shouldn't):

• The forms should be maintained by a designated leader. To assure privacy, the forms should be carefully stored and used only as needed to provide for planning and rendering care. The AHMR should not be scanned, stored, or sent electronically except as specifically directed for a BSA national event such as the national jamboree or NOAC.

The 2021 NSJ has been postponed.

https://jamboree.scouting.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2020/07/NSJ21_Postponement_FAQ_FINAL.pdf

On 5/13/2020 at 8:18 PM, 5thGenTexan said:

Would it be inappropriate for me to call out everyone in our leadership in a committee message reminding those that have YPT expiring in the next few months so I am not singling him out?  Even though he outta be singled out?   And I understand this is not the job of the CM, but I tend to find things that need to be done and do them.  Its my nature.

As the training chair for my troop, not only would it not be inappropriate, I do it in my committee meetings all the time when someone's YPT or Hazardous Weather training is about to expire and they have not responded to individual direct messages.

My council and district's training people contact me all the time whenever someone's training is about to expire, so I think it's only fair that I pass that information on to the person, and if they don't respond in a timely manner, I will absolutely bring it up at a committee meeting.  If the person allows the training to expire, I get a message from the council and/or district letting me know that that person is not permitted to participate in Scouting activities until that training is brought up-to-date.

My predecessor did it, and I continue it.

I'm surprised they were allowed to recharter?  A valid YPT is required to recharter for all registered members.  Our council and district training people begin hounding you 90 days before your YPT is going to expire to make sure you get it renewed.  They're quite explicit with us in their reminders--if you allow your YPT to expire in the middle of the year, you are not permitted to participate in Scouting activities until you get it renewed.  They also copy the unit's training person as well as the unit Key 3 (although in this case, the CC is one of the Key 3).

Lots of Webelos Scouts earn all 27 Webelos and Arrow of Light adventures. There's even a Webelos Super Achiever award to commemorate it:

https://www.scoutshop.org/cub-scout-webelos-super-achiever-emblem-648454.html

https://www.scoutshop.org/webelos-super-achiever-wall-certificate-621112.html

Let your son's Webelos Den Leader know (when he becomes a Webelos in June) and they can work on helping him and others in the den work towards these adventures.

There is no difference.  You register on the national Jamboree site to register your Scout as a participant to the Jamboree. He/she will be part of your council's contingent. There are no "regular registrants" or "lone scouts" participating in the Jamboree; they're all part of a council contingent.

The $1,175 cost you see quoted is the national fee to participate in the Jamboree.  That's the portion that everyone pays. Unit gear is provided as part of that fee: tents, cots, picnic tables, dining flys, cooking equipment, meals, and paying for the expense of putting on the Jamboree (all the activities, etc.). The only gear the participants have to bring is their own personal gear: clothing, swim gear, uniforms, toiletries, patches for trading, money for souvenirs, etc.

Your council, as part of the contingent they will be sending, will add extra fees to that $1,175, and that extra amount is different for every council.  It costs money to send the contingent to the Jamboree, be it airplane, bus, etc., so the costs for that will be charged to each recipient. Then, there are all the extras that will get added on, and they're council-dependent, too: Council Jamboree Shoulder Patches (JSPs), t-shirts, patches for trading, a duffel bag for all their personal gear, a day pack, possibly a side trip to somewhere, etc.  Depending on all those factors, as well as how far away the council is from The Summit, it can be an extra $500-1,500 above and beyond the national $1,175 cost.

All Scouts participate as a member of their council's contingent. Each council has been allocated a number of units depending on their size. Our council, for example, has been allocated 3 male Scouts BSA troops, one female Scouts BSA troop, and a Venture patrol. They will all travel together and will consist of Scouts from all over your council. They'll travel together. Even though The Summit may only be 4 hours away for you (we're only 5 hours away), they'll all travel together, likely by bus. No individual drop-offs are permitted.

There will be a couple of shakedown camps in the months leading up to the Jamboree, where the participants and adult leadership can get to know each other, get grouped into patrols, select their leadership, do swim tests, and learn how things will work at the Jamboree, which is likely a different experience than they are used to with their home unit.

There used to be a belief--I don't know if it was ever true--that Scoutmasters were automatically Merit Badge Counselors for every merit badge, just by the fact that they're a Scoutmaster. Many long-time Scoutmasters still hold that belief. I have been to events where I have had Scoutmasters proclaim this, only to be told by practically everyone else in the room, "no you aren't!"

That may be where that thinking came from.

There are many who believe that Scoutmasters (or Assistant Scoutmasters, or Committee Members, etc.) should not counsel their own child on Merit Badges (or sign off on rank requirements, perform Scoutmaster Conferences, etc.). The GTA does not prohibit this, although I know a number of leaders who do follow that practice so they are not potentially accused of taking it easy on their own kid.

Troop Secretary badge? Do you mean Troop Committee badge?  There is no official badge for Troop Secretary.

Our summer camp allows adults to bring bikes to use, provided they wear helmets, and quite a few adults use them.  They also allow staff to ride bikes.

A neighboring summer camp allows Scouts to bring bikes. I don't know how many take advantage of it, but I believe they allow it due to the distances between program areas, to shorten the travel time between activities.

Merit Badge counselor registrations have always been no charge. There are no fees to pay out of a unit's budget for a Merit Badge Counselor registration, because they are considered district-level positions, not unit-level positions.

Merit Badge Counselor (position code 42 on the application), Unit Scouter Reserve (code 91) and College Scouter Reserve (code 92) are all no-fee registrations.

1 hour ago, DuctTape said:

What I would like clarification on is in regards to insurance. The national memo refers to liability insurance as a major cost driving the membership fee increase.  The councils also collect an insurance fee of $12. What $ amount from the membership fee goes to the national liability insurance? What is the difference between the insurance provided by National vs Council?

Our Council Scout Executive explained it to us like this at one of our leader breakfasts this past summer at Summer Camp:

The national council carries liability insurance for everyone. That's what much of your national fee covers, and that's what most of the fee increase covers. Some councils carry their own liability insurance, that is in addition to the national insurance. Some of those councils that carry their own insurance do not charge their members anything extra for the cost of that additional insurance.  They pay for it with things like fundraising and FOS.  Other councils charge fees at recharter that are above and beyond what the national fee is.  Sometimes, depending on the council and their individual finances, that fee covers the entire cost of the premium, other times it doesn't.

As an example, Lake Erie Council (I'm not a member of LEC, they're our neighbors) communicated to its members a few months ago that they carry their own insurance in addition to the national insurance.  For years, they've charged $1 per member at recharter time to pay for a portion of that premium. They just announced that they can no longer (or are no longer willing, depending on your perspective, I guess) absorb the additional costs for the premium out of their general fund budget. The annual premium is around $150,000, and they only collect around $14,000 annually from the $1 fee.  So, they announced that starting at next recharter that $1/member fee for council insurance will jump to $12/member annually.

I'm gonna guess that a significant percentage of the national fee is now going towards the insurance. On some other boards, I've seen people saying they heard that next year, the premium alone for national's insurance will be $50 million. Just for the premium. Now, whether that $50 million number is true or not, I don't know, but even if it's a fraction of that in actuality, it's still a huge number.

3 hours ago, prof said:

Given the strained relationship between Scouts BSA and the Girl Scouts, I wonder if this will continue to be a joint project.

It depends on the GSUSA council.  Some councils have essentially told their membership to avoid us like the plague, while others don't care.

Our troop has done Scouting For Food drives for years on the weekends right after Thanksgiving. Each of the last two years, we've had Girl Scouts join us and haven't had any issues or pushback from the local GSUSA council. We plan on having them join us again this year.

1 hour ago, Saltface said:

 

Is this all that GS leaders are complaining about when they say that GSUSA makes it really hard to go camping?

Well, I think there that there's more to it when they talk about "making it hard to go camping". Some leaders just don't want to go camping, period, and it's an easy thing for them to just say, "we don't camp because national makes it too hard for us to camp."

I've spoken to many GSUSA troop leaders who do find the rules and regs regarding camping to be onerous, but I don't see them as much different than what we in the BSA have set forth. The minimum number of volunteers rule tends to be a sticky wicket with a lot of troop leaders, and they tell me it's why they keep their troop membership numbers low, so they don't have to worry about having enough registered volunteers with them on activities.  If you read their Safety Activity Checkpoints document regarding camping (really, regarding any activity), their safety rules and bullet points are not the much different than the Guide to Safe Scouting. The leaders I've spoken to don't often like the rule that camping for Daisies and Brownies, whom they feel are the ones who are the most excited about the program, is restricted to resident camp only, and that "Travel Camping", which is what they call camping where a campsite is your means of accommodations, is not recommended. The "you must have a trained volunteer who has taken our camping training" rule seems to rub some leaders the wrong way because many of them just don't want to take training. The phrase "Every Scout deserves a trained leader" isn't emphasized in Girl Scouts like it is in the BSA. It's not totally dismissed, just not pushed as hard as we do in the BSA. And I have spoken to leaders who don't want to camp because they are afraid of rules like the trained first-aider rule. And they worry about rules like the "you need council's permission before camping outside of a council-owned camp" or "if you're swimming you need someone with basic lifeguarding skills with you" and the potential consequences that could come with them.

From what I have observed, at least in my area, is that Girl Scouts do camp, and their council-owned camps are often full on weekends. The big difference I see, at least in this area, is that the majority of their camping is cabin camping, and cabins are the primary accommodations at the council-owned Girl Scout camps in my area. Troops do tent camp, and camps are trying to accommodate that more and more. One Girl Scout camp near us recently opened a new campsite dedicated exclusively to hammock camping. Tent camping is still, however, the minority. For example, at the "main" Girl Scout camp in our council, of the 21 campsites they have, only 6 are tent, covered wagon, or platform tent sites, none of which are open from October through April. The others are all cabins, or troop houses.

Like a lot of things in the Girl Scouts, the level of participation in activities is largely at the whim of your troop leader. If you have a troop leader who doesn't like to camp, well, you're probably not going to camp. That's why you have so many troops that are referred to as "snack and craft troops", because that's all they ever do. Some of that is just because the troop leader doesn't want to camp, and some of it is that they don't want to take the training or be beholden to the rules put forth. My daughter's troop is fortunate in that her troop leader loves to camp and takes them on outdoor activities all the time.