Bob White

I am sorry that was unclear to you. The committee must have at least three members. Committee members must be at least 21 years of age. You are eligible to serve in troop leadership as an assistant scoutmaster.

Please don't say that you are administrating the pack based on rumors and stories from friends and families! Peole will agree to be den leaders when, 1) You show them that as an individual thay have the traits needed to be a den leader. 2) That their decision will have a positive impact on cchildren for years to come. 3) That you will give them the tools and resources they need to be successful 4) You follow through on your promises and recognize them on a regular basis to keep them motivated and rewarded. The surest way to see a pack collapse is to wait for adults to volunteer to help.

As you have already learned from the Troop Committee Guidebook you must be 21 to be a registered committee member. Until your 21st birthday you can serve as an assistant scoutmaster. BW

Or perhaps the unit leadership should have followed their training and started new dens when they got up to 8 scouts. Den size has nothing to do with the adults ability to manage it and everything to do about how kids are wired to be able to function as a social group. That potential member that gets turned away may never come back to scouting. There has to be a better answer.

Wouldn't be ironic if it turned out the parents you turned away were the ones who would have been terrific Den Leaders once you got them in the pack.You never know!

We are a little ahead of last year as a district. Currently we have registered 670 Cubs this month. With Packs telling us they have another 150 registrations they have not yet turned in. BW(This message has been edited by Bob White)

Twocubdad reminds all of us of an excellent point. When you combine the resources of two units you inherit the weaknesses of both. Presuming the cause of the merger was that one or both units were in trouble all you have done is spread the desease to another group hurting it as well.

Packs as well as other scout units are a youth activity of the chartered organization. You can no more merge two packs than you can the choirs from a Catholic Church and the Presbyterian church down the street. Scout units are OWNED by theur Charter organization. The leaders of a unit have no authority to end a charter organizations charter. The members can all quit and join another pack. But the CO still owns the charter, the money, and the equipment. And by the way I am very proud to wear the uniform. Bob White

"I still don't see how scouts' work for this or that party compromises BSA or any 501© clause organization. Of course I understand that BSA's official PR is not going to endorse working for a political party." No one said the Boy Couldn't do whatever he chose as a citizen. But the name and image of the BSA is not owned by the boy, or his unit or the CO. It is owned and trademarked by the BSA with the local council being the licensee. The boy cannot give the endorsement of the BSA to a political party or candidate by using the name, or identifying emblems of the BSA. So if he lead a project that fit that description he could not mention scouting or use the scout uniform, or make any connection to scouting in his conversations to plan, carry-out or publicize the project. But as a non-affiliated citizen he can participate in the political process to whatever extent he chose. PLEEEASE go to New Leader Essentials and learn more about the structure of scouting and of the policies that control it.

The DE was wrong to go to the pack leadership of #1 and ask them to share their resources (whatever those resources are) with another unit. Supporting and helping unit#2 through this is the responsibility of the District Committtee and its resources. "It was started about 10 years ago with 5 kids and grew to around 20 kids. There was a change in leadership about 4 years ago. Membership started to wane about 3 years ago." This unit's problem is a weak program. This is not a reqcruitment probelem. A restaurant with bad food that can't keep customers or gain new ones does not have an advertising problem they have a kitchen problem. This pack needs to learn how to make a program "cook". The best thing that you or the DE can do is find a commissioner or mentor scouter who has experience with growing and maintaining membership through the method of developing a quality program, and introduce them to the Pack Committee Chair and Cubmaster. Use the resources of the community. I am sure there is someone there who has the skills to share with them.(This message has been edited by Bob White)

I agree with Eamonn and Fscouter, I will leave it at that.(This message has been edited by Bob White)

As far as the project there is not enough information, what was it? Did he were the uniform? Remember it is the unit committee's responsibility to review the project before it is begun. National does not see it until AFTER the project is finished. If an adult made a bad decision the national board of review will not hold the award back from the scout or even tell the scout of the error, they will take the problem to the person(s) who made the error. The BSA National executive board since 1910 has determined and upheld that the BSA will be non-partisan. It supports participating citizenship but not a specific party, plank or candidate...EVER. NO, the troop is not automatically a 501c3, all councils are and most charter organizattions are. The unit belongs to the CO the CO franchises the scouting program through an annual contract with the local council, who in-turn is a francisee of the National council. I recommend you attend New Leader essential Training to learn the structure of the program. Hope this helps, BW

No surprise here I am in total agreement with Eamonn. The role of the committee is not to say "you can't" to the decision of the PLC, but to say "How can we make that happen?". Too expensive? How can we reduce the cost or raise more money. Not safe? How can we make it safe? The role of the committee is to help the scouts succeed not to say no. And the person responsible for controlling that is the Committee Chair. This is spelled out in the Troop Committee Challenge training course, which is BASIC traing for troop committee chairs and committee members. It goes towards proving the point of other threads. You cannot have a quality program without trained leaders. BW (This message has been edited by Bob White)

Is any election NOT a popularity contest? Has anyone ever voted for someone they didn't like???

"I wonder why the BSA does not just make the "Brag Vest" an official, if optional part of the Cubs and Boy Scout uniforms, since all the Scout Shops sell them, yet, technically, they are not allowed to wear them for ceremonies which require "official uniform" only. What is your source for that information? I am not familiar with that. Please identify a ceremony that requires "official uniform only". BW

cjmiam No matter how good the training was or how often a leader goes, if they never put in into practice it doesn't matter, they will not be a quality leader. We have a leader on this board who has been to Wood Badge and even serves on a training team. He has scouts leaving his troop faster than passengers on the Titanic. Yet he constantly argues against the methods of scouting. Nothing will change his ability to be a quality leader until he puts into practice the methods of scouting. You look at ANY of the numerous threads on this forum of scouts, scouters, or parents having trouble with a unit, and every one boils down to someone not following the program.

But John you base your arguement on a false premise. You say "What if scouting doesn't change". But John scouting does change. It has changed in many many times over nearly one hundred years. And at at any point in time the best leaders were the ones who knew and understood the program at that time. And it was changed by the ones who did it well and were able to move it to another level, not by people who never took the time to learn it. It is the people who know scouting who grow it.

Lets start with the Quality unit awrd as that is on of the measuring devices I listed. I even said this measured MINIMUM activity a unit needed to be doing to be considered as offering a scouting program. And yet the number of units nation wide that do not even achieve these minimum levels are appalling. Less than 60% of units earn it on average. Why don't they achieve it? They don't cost anything. They aren't dependent on a societal level. They are not dependent on family finances. Its because the leaders haven't gone to training or don't follow the program. Want evidence find out which units didn't achieve quality unit and then find out who in the unit is trained. Your District officers have the report. There are also commissioner evaluations for units ask you District Commissioner what units are in cautionaty or dangerous levels and then ask how many of them have trained leaders.

>>VERY IMPORTANT!! The den leader identifies the topics for each month or den meeting based upon the achievements to be completed and monthly themes, and then the Parents get responsiblility for the month's den meetings and field activity on a rotating basis. DANGER WILL ROBINSON DANGER! NO NO NO, That is not the Cub Scout Program. Take the training. The den meetings are to be planned and lead by two TRAINED leaders. Parents have not been trained in the methods aims and mission of scouting. They do not know the 7 parts of a den meeting. They do not know that advancement needs to be planned to take place during 5 of those 7 portions. They do not have youth protection training. ONLY Trained Den Leaders are to run the meetings...Go to training!!! This has been an anouncemeent of the emergency broadcast system. Had this not been an actual energency I would have been tuned in to my local radio station. BW

Hi Eamonn, that was a big shopping list let me answer some and if there are more answers you need hot me again. District Members at Large (DMAL) are residents of the District or BSA members temporarily living outside such as military or college students. They must be registere dmembers of the BSA unlike the nominating committee and its chair which do not have to be registered members but representatives of the community or communities served by the district. DMALs are a nomatic tribe of men and women usually with a background in unit service who are called upon on a regular or sporatic basis to provide, information, insight, muscle and manpower in service to the district and unit support functions as needed by the various service branches opf the District committee. When the Council Commissioner assists on the nominating committee it is in an advisory function only. I do not believe that it matters if you accept the DMALs nomination before or after that of the District Chairperson's. Check the Council By-laws to be sure. Have the rules changed in the last 10-years? Maybe, it is hard to say since each council has the ability to make limited changes in their bylaws. So it would be hard to say without specific knowledge of your councils by-laws. Hope this helped. BW

BP writes "I think what jd and others were trying to say was at the early stages of scouting there were no formal training classes." That's because in te early days there were no scout leaders. The program was Lone Scouts or boy run patrols. But adult leader training began in 1916 (the same year the BSA organized as councils). Can there be any reason for a leader not finding time in the last 88 years to take a few hours of training? A"Any good training program is ever evolving and changes over time." Any good leader evolves with it. But to evolve with it you first have to follow it don't you? What the program has been and what it will be in the future is irrelevent to anyone who has never bothered to learn what it is now or practice it. johndaigler writes "Nice try, but "degree" is not a measurement." Really? Lets look at the Webster shall we? degree n. A unit of of measurement in a scale. HMMM would you like a chance to withdraw that statement john? I will stand by my statements and I listed for you the BSA documents to prove that objective measurements exist. This is not a guessing game it is a structured program. John how can anyone build on a structure they never took the time to learn or use? "We can only help him do that if we ourselves are more tomorrow than today. We can only be that if BSA is more tomorrow than it is today. Very pretty words, now what evidence is it based on? what if instead of the program being more than it is, what if the leaders improved? Would that have an effect? Until the leaders follow whatever the program is what difference will it make how it changes, or even how often. BW

This might be a good time to ask "Who votes on the troop committee?". Answer: Nobody, the committee chair assigns tasks and the committee members report back at the monthly meeting.

cjmiam, I have trouble understanding why you are so selective in your reading. Nowhere did I say that being trained was the same as being a quality leader. We have examples right on this board of trained leaders who lose boys faster than Brittany Spears loses husbands. Quality leaders know and apply the methods of scouting to achieve the aims and mission. To do that you need to know what those things are, and how to do them, that takes training. No one who lacks the love for the kids, and an enthusiasm for the program is going to make that effort. Johndaigler, I don't know were you found you definition of "quality' but it wasn't from a dictionary. Here is how Webster defines it, and let's compare it to what I have offered. Quality n. That which makes a thing what it is, nature: kind or degree of goodness or worth; attribute; degree of excellence; excellence A degree...a measurement. Quality is a measurable thing. We measure scouting quality with specifc measureable scouting elements. You either do something or you don't. You have or have not, you did or did not, things happened or they did not. The quality of scouting can and is measured objectively. Can you honestly tell me that you cannot look at the performance of a group or individual and not be able to tell in specific terms if they follow the scouting prograzm or not?

Johndaigler , "Also, BW, your words give no respect to the many untrained, "unQuality" leaders whose efforts, mistakes, time, sweat, passion, money, creativity and Spirit eventually led to the "quality" of which we are so proud and take for granted. And who would they be? What untrained leader making mistakes improved the quality of scouting anywhere? I submit . . . since "quality" is obviously a "qualitative" assessment, then the court of "public opinion" has a greater impact on program than quality leadership. But that is not true John. Have you never heard of Quality Unit Awards? Commissioners Unit Evaluations? Camp inspections, Scouting methods, aims and missions? The BSA has many measuring devices that look at specific elements to evaluate the quality of the program being delivered to youth. This is not a subjective "hey let's have a vote" situation. Scouting is a specific and unique program with known program elements that are either practiced or not. "what will we do if the Supreme Court Changes the pledge?" Well John, I expect we will do the same thing scouts did when Congress changed it the last time, we will say it. This isn't the first version. No one ever promised you it was the last one. How does changing the pledge affect the quality of your next Scout meeting? How would changing the Pledge affect the leadership abilities of any person? John, quality in Scouting is specific and measurable. Here is an example. The National Quality unit Award is given to units that achieve a minimum level of program activity set by the BSA program. John, nationwide fewer than 60% of all units meet these minimum requirements. Of the ones that do not do you know what nearly every one has in common? NO TRAINED KEY LEADERS. Specific, and measurable. Ask your District Executive for the numbers in your district and see if the same thing isn't true. BW

being trained is only half the equation. There are lots of trained scouters who do not follow the program and it shows in the poor retention rates, poor advancement, continual administartive problems in the unit, injured scouts, and on and on. It's getting trained and using the training that makes the difference between a leader and quality leadership.