gumbymaster

In order to be fair and balanced, maybe BSA ought to institute a policy that states that uniformed Boy Scouts cannot be within 500' of an establishment that sells alcohol, cigarettes or firearms.  Of course all those things are perfectly legal operations, growing medical marijuana is as well. 

 

This might make it difficult for our scouts to do the shopping at a local grocery store.  I guess maybe the local CVS would work, but the price and healthfulness of the menu might suffer.

At the Day camps and resident camps in our area; the summer camp staff decidedly does NOT certify completion of the requirement or sign off in the book.  They will provide unit leaders a listing of what was worked on, but as they do not even perform an attendance of who was at each session, they could not know which scouts did or did not complete the requirements.

That said, our pack has pretty good adult representation at these events and follows along with the Scouts, so they usually do have a good idea of which Scouts actually did and completed which requirements.  Often, the Den leader(s) are part of this group, making it even easier.

You could, as a matter of principal, refuse to sign off on these requirements and make other leaders or parents do it; but that will create bad feelings (for which it may already be too late) and make the scouts aware of the adult drama (to be avoided if possible).

Cub Scouts are a "do your best" environment, if the scouts participated in the activity, they may well have done their best, even without retention of the skill(s).

There is nothing that would stop you, as the den leader, from going over these skills again as a den (after all, did every scout in your den go and do this?).  This would allow you to re-teach, and reinforce the skills for all the den members.  In the end, you may then feel that the award was earned by the boys - regardless of when it was presented.

- Good luck

Sometimes you just have to have to engage in tough love.

First, because the Lion program is a pilot program and is trying to measure it's effectiveness, you really should keep the Lion dens to 5-8 members each, anything else will skew the evaluation results.  Thus you need at least two coaches (not den leaders) for your Lions program.

I agree with others that the Tiger den is also too large, and it will only be worse as the boys become bears and Webelos.  Break the den up now.

My suggestion for the Tigers ...

1. First, set the expectation.  Tiger parents are to participate in all things with their Scout, they are not there to socialize - that can wait until the Scouts are Wolves. 

2. Since all parents have to participate at some level anyway, this reduces the excuses for potential den leaders.  Maybe even make everyone do the YPT so that is also not an excuse.

3. Have 3 copies of the tiger leader guide there.  Give the parents 3-5 minutes to look it over, maybe give each parent an activity/chapter to look over (they can trade later if they want).  Remind them that each parent will need to lead an activity, and that the Den Leader's job is to coordinate the parents when they lead, not to do it all for them.

4. Let them know about the other support and training tools available including experienced leaders, the unit commissioner (I hope you have one), Roundtable, in-person and on-line training, pow wow, baloo's bugle, etc. (maybe hold off on telling them about this forum ).

5. Then, if you will pardon the blasphemy, you need to have a "Come to Jesus" moment.  Tell the parents that right now there is the one Den leader (whomever it is), hand them one copy of the guide.  This den will take 8 boys.  If no other parents step up to lead the second and third dens, you will hold a lottery / draw straws for the seven other boys (since the Den leader's son get's in automatically) that will be in that Den.

6. If necessary, do the drawing, and you have your first Den.  If no one from the remaining parents step up, sorry, try again next year ; if one does, have a drawing for the next seven boys.  Repeat as necessary.

7. Supervise and keep an eye on the new Den leaders to see how things are going, and help as you can.

While it would be cruel to the Scouts if it does not work out to get you three dens, consider having the scouts there to draw their numbers to put additional pressure on their parents to step up.  What parent can look at Johnny's heartbroken eyes and say "sorry you can't be a cub scout, I'm too busy" (at least once the parent and child has already gone to the meeting).

The Lion overcrowding is a harder issue, since while the Den Leader can come from the new parents, the Coach is supposed to be an experienced scouter - although does not have to have a child in the den.

Believe it or not, it's a good problem to have - you have Parents who value their children being in the program, you have lots of membership.  If you get similar numbers for another year or two, you really should consider splitting up the pack.

Not printed, but I am pretty sure I have a Data CD (or DVD) of NCAC's 2012 Pow Wow presentations somewhere.

I am not defending the practice, but let me play devils advocate for a moment.

SM: "Johnny, could you help the troop by doing a presentation on your recent visit to the high adventure troop?"

Johnny: "No"

SM: (thinks to self) there is a lack of scout spirit here.

Moving a little closer to a grey area ...

"It is our expectation that the older scouts will do presentations for the younger scouts." 

It is not technically a requirement, but if an older scout is unwilling to do things to help their troop - whatever those things are, Scout Spirit could be called into question.

Sometimes it's how we phrase and think of things, not the things themselves. 

I am fully on-board with not adding to or subtracting from the requirements.  I'm not a big fan of do not retest - but I accept that that is our current advancement policy; so I would think failing the SMC over tying a knot is beyond the permissible.

As for just doing it or not.  Objectively, neither request would be unreasonable if it were not tied to advancement, so it is worth fighting over ... probably not.

But as I was going over my response here, I began to think ... do we ever encourage our SCOUTS to read the guide to advancement.  Their handbook will tell them the tasks and skills to achieve; but not the standard to which they are (or should be judged).

When I submit a proposal to the government, the RFP package has a whole section on the evaluation criteria, and I would be a fool to submit a proposal without having read that section and address those points.  Yet each time we send a Scout to their SMC or BoR, they probably have no idea what the expectations for that meeting (for either side) should be.

The one thing they never make more of is land ... once it is gone, it is gone.

While I have not seen the data, it is often told to us in the Webelos to Scout transition that getting the Scout to attend summer camp is the single largest factor in the retention of that Scout.

A week of self-determination, away from the constant directions of Mom and Dad will do wonders for the self-esteem and confidence of that Scout.

Camps are very different, if the one you are going to is not doing it for your unit, there are many others around (at least for most the country).

Camps do not need to be, should not be, merit badge factories.  The camp I was program director for generally ran three or maybe 4 merit badge "session" times.  A really motivated scout could probably complete another merit badge during open program time.  It was a constant criticism of the camp, and we did not run at full capacity (number of weeks or filled campsites), but those who did come, came year after year - many from other councils - because the camp was beautiful, the boys always had fun, and even those that did not complete merit badges had lots to do, learn, and enjoy.

We too have had this challenge.  For our CSRT, our team decided to stick to the point of the scout law and theme used in the next month's pack planning for cubmasters, as we felt this would be most in-line with the needs of our leaders.  So in September, instead of using "Thrifty" as the point of the Scout Law, we stuck to "Kind" with the Creepy Crawler Theme to prepare our leaders for their October pack meetings.

That said, we did still do the group session on Cub Scout Cooking for our interest topic, as that was also timely as many of our pack have Fall camping planned.

It also helped because I lost half the roundtable staff to Back to School nights, so doing a group session instead of level breakouts also matched my staffing ability.

The Roundtable guide is just that a guide.  We use the parts that match what we plan to present for breakouts, interest topics, and big rocks topics - even if the guide has those listed in a different month.

First, I will concede to Eagle dad that these comments are more focused on the needs of (a subset of) girls, and not the current male youth membership.

One of the challenges in our discussion is that it devolves into statements like "the girl scouts have their own program, if they want more outdoors let them change their program".  OK, this is a fair enough statement; however, the girl scout program has evolved into its current form because that IS what the MAJORITY of their membership/leadership want, if not, it would change.

If the BSA opened up to girls, it would not be the instant death of GSUSA with everyone coming over.  The BSA program is not what MOST of the GSUSA members want - but there are a few, a subset of girls for whom the BSA program would be a better fit for them than the GSUSA program is.  Currently we make they wait until they are 14 before they can participate as anything other than a sibling, and even then, the offerings of the program do not include advancement (at least the BSA vs. venturing advancement).

Likewise, there is probably another subset of boys for whom the GSUSA program would be a better fit for their interests, if they could overcome the stigma of joining - the GSUSA has already accepted transgendered youth to whom this might apply.

Admitting Girls to the BSA might solve the equivalent of one or two years worth of membership goals (e.g. our district is only looking for 40 more youth than last year), but it will not be an organization saving membership migration.  Similarly, we have enough sponsors, leaders and youth members that would likely drop the program if such a change were made to wipe out any likely membership gains.

In my view, we (i.e. internally to the BSA) seem to have two paths here...

1. The boys really do deserve their own program, and place where boys can be boys without the expectations of co-ed appropriate behaviors, challenges, etc.  Women (girls) mature faster than boys, and many have argued that they would thus dis-proportionally absorb leadership roles in a co-ed unit.  This may be true - it did not seem to be with the explorer posts I was involved with as a youth, but they were three to five years older on average than BSA exclusive ages.

2. Society has / is changing.  It's a backlash against millennia of male domination.  While we (society) seem to accept that women should have their own spaces (i.e. shapes health club) and accept discrimination to support that, men are not permitted the same option.  Our job as Scout leaders is to prepare our youth to be successful in the real world; not a fair world; not the world as we would like to see it; not the world that we used to have 50-70 years ago.  We are not doing our job if we do not prepare them - and that may include preparing them to deal with a world where boys are not allowed to be boys anymore.

Numerous studies have indicated that both boys and girls (generally) do better when educated (i.e. school) exclusively with their own gender - it removes (some) distractions and competitions, it acknowledges the biological reality that men and women mature at different rates; but no one could reasonably presume that public institutions would be permitted to explore this option on any wide scale - there is too much (justified) fear that separate is not equal.

Now most of the above have been addressed to the general issues of co-educational BSA.

Venture / Explorers are already coeducational - so here it comes down simply to should the advancement program be open to the girls who are already part of the BSA program.

Clearly, the advancement program was deliberately designed to prevent this.

While male members of venture units can earn BSA (vs. venture) advancement - they can only do so if they have already earned first class.  This permits the exclusion of girls, because there is no means for them to legitimately earn first class before they become venture scouts.

This may also be practical, while many venture units do outdoor skills, follow patrol method, etc., many do not; many units would not be set up to do those skills - leading to a lot of confusion across the program.  This could be solved (if we wanted to) by permitting venture scouts of either gender to participate in IOLS / NYLT or something equivalent to learn those skills AND earn those awards when warranted.  I include NYLT knowing those programs do use the basic S-1 skills, and is already open to all venture scouts - it would not be a stretch to allow NYLT patrol leaders to sign off on successful mastery of those skills.

I'll be honest, I probably have more respect for the Girl Scouts who succeed in earning their Gold award than I do in the average Eagle Scout.  I think is it more challenging and requires more dedication for them to succeed than it does for the boys to earn their Eagle.  But, the reality is the world knows what an Eagle Scout is, and at least thinks they know what that represents - not so much for the Gold award.  We've got a better marketing department in that respect.

Is it fair to girls that they cannot get the equivalent recognition that boys can from an Eagle Scout award?

If it fair to boys to take what they have, what their program has worked hard to achieve, and make it available to the girls (who earn it) just because they want that equivalent recognition?

And, it seems to me, this is what the argument boils down to, because if it were only about the skills (or activities) to be an Eagle, the girls in venture units so organized, could very easily achieve all the knowledge and skills, do the same activities - with or without advancement badges to acknowledge it.

You could also consider using the patrol method

The Patrol Scribe would be encouraged to take notes of the announcements and upcoming events.  If they are absent, the Patrol leader could appoint a substitute.

When A Scout misses a meeting, they should contact their Patrol Scribe to learn what they need to know.

I'm not saying parents should not be in the knowing whats going on loop, but we need to encourage the boys to take responsibility for getting the information they need, processing that information, and reacting to it appropriately.

In this case, the method of contact (phone, text, email, facebook, school hallway, etc) is unimportant.

A favorite for my pack is "Rock, Paper. Scissors, Snake"

Basically it is the traditional game of Ro-sham-bo when two scouts approach each other; however, the scout that loses, then has to follow the winner. (i.e. he puts his hands on the others' shoulders (or the shoulders of whomever is at the end of the snake).

If the leader of a snake of boys loses, he (and the rest of his snake) join the end of the other snake.

Even though the boys in the snake had previously lost to their leader, they are excited for their snake to be the ultimate last remaining snake - its a lot of fun.  When only one snake remains, start over.

As you mention, you should be very aware of how any contributions might be viewed by the IRS since doing the wrong thing can jeopardize non-profit / tax exempt status. 

At least as far as Amazon Smile, this should not apply to you.  You never receive the donation to make, nor do you even get a statement.  Amazon is making (and taking credit for) the charitable donation made based on the value of your purchases, to the qualified recipient of your choice - but it is their donation, not yours.

As @@Chisos said, as a Webelos, he can attend Boy Scout Events ... however, technically this needs to be either with two cub-scout/webelos leaders OR you the parent attending those events as well.

Another option would be to work with the Webelos (AOL) Den leader to "work ahead" and complete the AOL adventures quickly.  He could then have the AOL, join the Troop, and if he wanted, comeback and be recognized for his AOL when his friends are.

As others have said, he cannot work on the AOL and Boy Scout advancement (including Merit Badges) at the same time.

Depending upon the willingness of the Den Leader ... one other possibility is that if he earns his AOL early, joins the Troop, then he could (potentially) come back as a Den Chief and still work with the boys in the Den.  The advantage here is it will very likely help the Webelos to Boy Scout transition of his peers, the disadvantage is he would probably rather participate in the activities of the AOL den rather than help run them.  For this reason, I personally try to keep at least 2 years of age difference between the Cub Scout Den and their Den Chief.

My Council is my Smile recipient, and as I get of lot of things for both home and work through that account - it's probably worth more than my FOS donation - too bad that doesn't seem to count to the DEs and what not.

Two plus decades ago, when I was a summer camp program director, my camp manager who was an active girl scout leader approached me about running a week of Girl Scouts at our camp.  We already did a week of Webelos, two half-weeks of Cub Scouts, and three weeks of boy scouts.  Over the course of the summer, the camp was underutilized - it was a small council at the time.  The Girl Scouts had also recently closed down and sold their own camp; so I thought that this might be a neat idea to try.

I acquired the literature for different Girl Scout ages and their badges and looked at the cross over between the capabilities of the Staff and facilities.  While in the end, the program did not happen while I was still the program director, I understand my successor was able to run it for a year or two - I wish I knew more about how that went. 

More recently, with the changes in the cub scout program, we did a lot of analysis of the overlapping activities and events that could be or had to be done at the pack level. 

My point is that I understand that it takes a tremendous amount of work and planning to achieve programs that can simultaneously fit the different needs and requirements of the different cub/boy/girl/venture k-1/2-3/4-5/5-8/9-12 grade youth programs.  I am in total awe of what @@hieudo and his fellow leaders have been able to accomplish.  It probably isn't the right program for most of the boy scout programs, but it would be so fantastic if a few more units like this could be set up as some sort of pilot program - to see what we could achieve if we wanted to and tried hard enough; to learn when and where a program like this is appropriate - and when it is not.  It seems to have the right balance of together and separate activities for the different age groups and genders.

@@hieudo, please, document well what you and your fellow leaders do and make that information available somehow.  What works, what doesn't and the challenges you face and how they are overcome.  This would provide invaluable information if any form of program unification were ever to be considered or to come to pass.

If we take @@Eagledad's comments regarding the program changes in 2000 or so as accurate ..

1. the BSA introduces training materials to bring the new female scouters up to speed.  This also benefits male leaders without prior experience.

2. This is necessary because the Female leaders, generally/statistically, do not have the outdoor experience that Male leaders who grew up with the program do.

OK, but, unless we were to ALSO let girls join the program (and thus obtain the outdoor experience as a youth) this will ALWAYS be a problem for our female scout leaders - the BSA accommodates, but does not solve the underlying problem.  For the purpose of this post, I don't intend to advocate one position or another, just to point out that we are all better if the problem is solved - this could be more youth trained/experienced leader, this could be better retention, training and mentoring to get over the "3 year hump"; it could be something else.

Venturing can serve this youth experience need, but the numbers are not enough to make a dent in the needs of troop leadership for the next generation.

Now all that said, even if we did have more youth-experienced female leaders; we still have to have a means to train the inexperienced because there will also be new moms and dads who did not benefit from the program as youth.

I'm not sure I really want to drop back into this fray, but circling back to the original topic (although now we are in I&P that may be moot)  ...

All of this powerfully held, sincere belief on the part of our membership is why unless the unit is a Church chartered unit being used as an extension of the Church's ministry; it is probably not a good idea for a youth member, who in being true to their own convictions has to do their prayers a certain way, may not be a good choice for a CA POR.

Now for a little levity (or irreverence depending on your take of the world and sense of humor ...)

The Frantics: "Heaven is for Presbyterians"

South Park: "The Answer is the Mormons" http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=123_1190395606&comments=1

I forget why exactly - if it was a camp School thing or my Summer Camp, but I was given/wore the Western Region patch for a number of years (then I moved East and became a normal scouter )

Other than that, I've only seen them worn by the people with the Gold/Yellow area shoulder loops.

Hopefully, before this topic devolves into an argument over whose more this and whose more that ...

I wanted to raise a couple of comments and thoughts.

My first is the concern that if you leave it up to the boys (i.e. they vote), and the majority of them are some form of Christian, then the majority would approve ending all prayers that way, and the unit might risk disenfranchising the non Christians.  Now, many of our youth are smarter than that, especially presented with the alternative positions of why that may be an issue, so rather than voting yes or no, have them as a group think about ways to address both concerns.  Now, for a church sponsored Troop, using the Scouts as an extension of their ministry, and everyone joining that unit understands this to be the case, absolutely be true to the tenants for that faith.

Sometimes the practitioner of a religion has no choice but to do things a certain way, without violating their own faith.  It does not mean they are necessarily being disrespectful to other religions, or failing to be reverent as defined by the scout law. We should strive not to put the potential CA into this situation, so if that is how they have to do things, if they are leading them, then that position may not be a good fit for them - or alternatively, what they do when they lead the prayer, but as the CA, their role is not to always lead the prayer, but to organize it - thus they could work with other less restricted scouts and have them lead some of the prayers.

As an example of not having a choice, we have a Scouter in our area, whom I believe is an Orthodox Jew, and one of the tenants of his faith (which may or may not apply to all Orthodox Jews - I don't know), is that he cannot enter a religious structure of another faith if he would be sheltered by the same roof line as the chapel (I hope I'm getting that right).  Cupolas and wings of a structure are apparently ok.  As many of our district training's and events (such as Roundtable) are often held with the generous contribution of other Churches in our area, this severely restricts his participation, unfortunately there isn't a really a good accommodation for this as of yet.

My faith would not generally be considered Christian by other Christians, but there is no restriction in Christians practicing as such.  Years ago, when I worked at summer camp, the staffer who generally ran the vespers service was unavailable to do so for a couple of weeks, and I found myself leading those services.  My faith does not take offense at the overt Christian references all around us, but as I was organizing and leading these services, I really started to take a critical look at how our interfaith-non denominational services really were very Christian (or at least Old-Testament) in nature, and I had to think of how to be more inclusive.  Even without constant references to Jesus, our common vespers songs like "This little light of mine", or "noah", while fun to sing and easy for audience participation without prayer books; would not be considered interfaith for many.  It is a hard thing to look at, and a harder thing to solve.

Often in scouting we devolve interfaith into saying prayers that seem very generic - and sometimes they are; or we use native American prayers, often glossing over that those really are the religious faiths of those people, and not something we should really appropriate as a generic (i.e. won't offend) prayer.

For me, personally, I think that mixing in the honest prayers of different faiths, so that everyone is eventually included is the most reverent (to the scout law definition) approach to make.

For those that remember the television show Babylon 5, there was a great episode where the leaders were each expected to put on a program or demonstration of the faith of the people of their world - to help the other alien species better understand one another.  In the end the leader for the Earth delegation set up a receiving line with dozens (hundreds) of leaders from each of the faiths of earth.

I've noticed this difference between my son's troop and the troop of my youth.

Note this may also be associated with the relative size difference of the units (his 20 young boys, 3 patrols; mine 60+ distributed boys 6+ patrols)

For my son's troop, they first determine the number of seats that cars of camping adults generate, then, if needed, inquire for additional seats (this is adult to adult); the SPL then organized who goes in who's car - generally they try to split up siblings and parents and children for the ride up, for the ride back they usually organize by dropoffs.

In my troop, other than the troop canoe trip ski trip, and summer camp (organized at a troop level rather than patrol level), the patrol leader was responsible for organizing the transportation (youth and equipment) for his patrol, if he didn't have enough, either a parent had to step up, or the patrol leader had to beg for an extra seat from one of the other patrols.  It did help, that few of our trips needed to be more than a 90 minute trip (one-way).

While I will generally agree that a "by-laws" may be overkill, I do think that:

1. Some "structured" discipline policy (there are many examples from many units on the web) has some value in making sure that the adults treat the youth fairly/the same for similar magnitude issues rather than at the whim of how much the leader(s) like that particular scout or their family.

2. Defining "Active" has value.  Under the Guide to Advancement, if the unit does not have an "active" policy/definition, then the Scout is considered active simply by virtue of being registered and in good standing (i.e. not suspended or otherwise under disciplinary action - see above).

That said, both of these are worthless if not followed or no one knows about it.  My son's troop has/had an active Scout policy on the website that I don't think any current parents or scouts are actually aware of.  It was something along the lines of of a certain percentage of attendance of the weekly meetings and a different percentage of attendance of camping trips or other activities.  There was some provision for an "excused" absence not counting against that percentage.  The excuses had to do with church, school, sports functions, and I think custody issues.

My 4th year of camp staff, the night before camp started I fell down a couple steps going to dinner, and after an ER visit had a cast.  I was still on-time to report to work the next day.  At first it was thought to just be a sprained ankle, but at the follow up a week later, it was a greenstick fracture.

By no means as bad as you describe, and the camp did make allowances for my uniforming when I had the full cast - I was on an air cast by the follow up.  They also made the golf cart available as I needed it (to get to the campfire bowl, etc), but mostly I just hobbled around the hills and taught the scouts.  Luckily it was not a great distance to the 1st year camper program area from the core camp.

If the doctor has no objections or restrictions, go for it.

If the merger was a formal one, usually the merger means the surviving entity retains the rights and obligations (including prior contractual ones) as well as assets and debts for both entities.  Thus, as a merger, the mega church would be the owner of equipment and the CO of record.

Now, I have not read a charter agreement, but I would imagine that the BSA probably has an explicit clause in there that if the signing CO (the old one) ceases to exist (or has a change of control), then the charter itself becomes null and void - releasing the mega church from the obligation to continue to be your CO (but technically still leaving them in nominal control of the equipment).  Maybe the BSA would have to formally notify the mega church that the charger is null and void, and not having yet done that, it would still be appropriate for the old COR (now part of the mega church) to sign COR type documents.  Alternatively, if the mega church does not want to be a CO, and the BSA has not formally notified it that the BSA is terminating the charter agreement, then it is incumbent on the church to formally notify the BSA of the plan to cancel it's charter.  Otherwise it will still be recognized as the CO of record.

My understanding of the charter agreement basically states that if the CO does not plan to continue with a Scout unit, they are still obligated to place the equipment for a Scouting purpose (to your "new" unit, another unit, or the council for example).

So the moral of my story is, that until either the BSA or the Mega church formally renounce the charter - it is still in effect.

Now if the Old CO went bankrupt (and thus actually ceased to exist formally), and it was not a merger, but an acquisition of assets, etc.; then the story is different.

One year on Camp Staff, the Camp Director wanted to effect more control over the choice of language used by the staff.

His solution was word substitution.  We were instructed that we could use the phrase "Schibeck" (apparently a manufacturer of outhouses) as a substitute for the more common excrement term.

It worked - of course at first the staff just used that word like crazy, knowing that other campers had no idea of the intent - it was funny for them, but after a while it just took, without being over used.  In fact, I would venture to guess that cursing even decreased, because by the time you remembered the word you were supposed to use instead, the urge to let loose had diminished.

As with any position, it has everything to do with how it is used (or not).

To me, to be a POR the bugler needs to be the unit's clockpiece.  Someone who helps the SPL keep events on time and moving.  He wakes up early to give everyone else the reveille call, or knows when assembly calls are needed.  Maybe he coordinates the honor patrol and flag ceremonies while the SPL gets the rest of the meeting together.

As for Eagle POR; again, as most units use the bugler (if they even have one) just to do the flag calls, I can see why it would not count.  I do not know if SM appointed project also counts for an Eagle POR - I thought it did, and if so, this may be part of a back-door way to allow an active bugler to still retain credit - assuming they actually show leadership of others (which is probably why it might not be a POR for Eagle normally).

As for the Librarian, Historian, etc.  Once again I think is has to do with how its used.  If the Librarian only has a box of books and they bring it to the meeting (if that) - I might not count it.  If they actively promote getting scouts to check out books from the library - maybe MB pamphlets so the scouts can see that the requirements are not too hard - especially by encouraging younger scouts, then I can see where leadership and responsibility play a role  Even an active management of who has books out, do they get returned on time and in good condition, and how to acquire new needed books - now suddenly, the role of this job is starting to approach that of a junior quartermaster.

When my son bridged last year, I stayed on as the cubmaster.  Even before this, I regularly and frequently offered to step down and be a supportive ACM if any of the parents would like to step up to the position.

There were a couple of reasons I stayed on...

1. I like the job, and the satisfaction when the scouts have fun

2. While I am sure other parents would have stepped up if I left, it was lukewarm excitement to someone volunteering if not needed.

3. Being involved with the district, University of Scouting, Roundtable staff, and generally being knowledgeable about the new program changes, I didn't want to dump that into someone's lap.

4. I didn't want to crowd my son's boy scout experience - I wanted him to have more freedom.

5. I felt like I could do more to help my son's troop by helping to have plenty (recruiting) of knowledgeable (strong program and help for DLs) cub scouts crossing over than I would have as another ASM.

6. Honestly, I am sure I had some trust issues (i.e. who could do it as well as I could).

As it turns out, my son decided to become a den chief, so we were/are still involved in the pack, and I expect to be for at least one more year.

My ACM, after subbing for me one month, decided he could do the job, and liked it, so he and I switched roles at the Blue and Gold.  I miss being the CM, but the pack is in good hands - and there are many things he does better with the pack than I did.