Scouter99

I have used on-line application for three youths.....It almost worked as advertised, The parents completed the application and the COR approved them. This is where it went side ways, the council did not recive the applications took several weeks to find and approve.

 

If I knew the system was going to work right I would recommend it 100%. The concept is great, a youth or parent contact you via your unit pin, you invite the youth to a meeting, he loves it his parent completes the online application. The key 3 approves and a payment voucher is sent to the council office. No reading hand scrawelled applications....no waiting on the youth showing up on unit rosters. no fuss no mess but it...your mileage may vary, my first attempt did.

 

 

My Parent-Leaders wear their parent pins on their uniform with pride, and no one "calls them out" on it. If someone did, they'd be told to "pound sand" loudly and proudly, and I'd back them up as COR.

 

You can call it "improper uniforming" and point to the Insignia Guide all you want, and preach how it's a "bad example for the Scouts" but....

 

How many of your Scouts have a copy of and know the contents of the Insignia Guide? My guess: somewhere near or equal to zero.

 

Our boys wear their rank pins on their lapels! It's just something they started doing---if they're all the same, we think that's OK.

 

Is being picayune about something as small as a parent pin really "a hill worth dying for"?

 

Just Food For Thought.

For Cubs, meh. I love my uniform and always did, but as a Cub I wasn't even aware they made uniform bottoms, and there was no money issue. On the Scouting level, sorry, I can't stand Scouts or Scouters in anything but a complete uniform. Units set their own uniform policies, so it's fine that they make that choice, but it gets under my skin when they're on a stage or in a parade or something.

But don't conflate that with being a jerk about it. In my unit, we've got a hand-me-down locker and the neighborhood is such that anyone can buy it outright anyway, so our boys are expected to be in full uniform. But, I would never go make an issue out of it with another unit, or chew a kid out over it in my own unit. My own father cited the uniform cost as one reason he quit scouts, so I would never make a big issue over it if a boy really couldn't afford it. I simply reserve the right to my own unspoken mental annoyance

I also saw this option the other day; the council guy told me our council was being used to test the feature, so I assume that a high number of forum users will have the privilege of griping about the system without even being able to look at it. Or, he was wrong, and any unit in the country can turn it on.

He made sure to hammer home that the council cannot activate the option for a unit, only the unit's pin manager can do it. I turned it on, call me wild man.

Uhhhh, bed bugs don't stay in people's hair. If they're that thick, call social services.

I think frustration is that everyone who wants to go on a weekend campout with their kid now has to be trained. When we filled out the trip permit for the 50 miler the question were "Do all adults have Youth Protection?" and "Do all adults have Swim Defense & Safety Afloat?" Not everyone wants to be a leader or has time to be leader. I have no problem with BSA requiring training of it's leaders' date=' but we have had parents would have been happy to attend a weekend event change their minds when they realized they would have to put in 2 or 3 hours of training first.[/quote']

 

Less than 2 hours, actually. Anyone that says they don't have 1.5 hours for 3 training modules is either the President of the US or a liar, anyone that won't didn't want to go in the first place.

No, I'm not kidding. Each module takes ~30 minutes. If the internet isn't up to par in your neck of the woods, try doing it at the library or better yet borrow the videos from your service center. (Or I may be showing my snobbery again by assuming that your council has them available for loan like mine). Units are encouraged to offer the YPT training in-house once a year, anyway.

Internet is a cherry on top of a system that just a few years ago meant driving halfway across the county (if you were lucky) or state (if not) to get these training modules.

I guess it can be relative, but I'm sorry, the training sob story gets no traction with me; it's too easy to get (in fact, I did Safety Afloat in the 30 minutes before my original post just for giggles).

My Parent-Leaders wear their parent pins on their uniform with pride, and no one "calls them out" on it. If someone did, they'd be told to "pound sand" loudly and proudly, and I'd back them up as COR.

 

You can call it "improper uniforming" and point to the Insignia Guide all you want, and preach how it's a "bad example for the Scouts" but....

 

How many of your Scouts have a copy of and know the contents of the Insignia Guide? My guess: somewhere near or equal to zero.

 

Our boys wear their rank pins on their lapels! It's just something they started doing---if they're all the same, we think that's OK.

 

Is being picayune about something as small as a parent pin really "a hill worth dying for"?

 

Just Food For Thought.

April 16th, 2009.

My Parent-Leaders wear their parent pins on their uniform with pride, and no one "calls them out" on it. If someone did, they'd be told to "pound sand" loudly and proudly, and I'd back them up as COR.

 

You can call it "improper uniforming" and point to the Insignia Guide all you want, and preach how it's a "bad example for the Scouts" but....

 

How many of your Scouts have a copy of and know the contents of the Insignia Guide? My guess: somewhere near or equal to zero.

 

Our boys wear their rank pins on their lapels! It's just something they started doing---if they're all the same, we think that's OK.

 

Is being picayune about something as small as a parent pin really "a hill worth dying for"?

 

Just Food For Thought.

The PLC cancelled our troop meeting for the second Monday of Jambo--it was horrible.

As for summer camp, things seemed a little more crowded than usual, which was the opposite of what we expected. So, we figure maybe they over-booked base camp to try and compensate for the loss of older adventure program campers to jambo.

I went with application date for Scouter's Training Award and veteran status.

It would just seem in the age of the mobile interweb that there would be a better way...

Don't confuse motion with progress.

If you recharter before May 2014 you'll be using the 2013 requirements, anyway. And, like Qwasze said, there likely won't be big changes, and in fact the requirements got easier from 2011 to 2012, and it could go that way again.

I have no issues with the song other than it gets really old really fast. I'd rather hear the 15 to 30 second announcment than a bunch of people singing multiple verses complete with coreography for a few minutes.

I think it is ridiculous. It's one thing if' date=' like jblake does, you use the it as a planned means of injecting a funny, self-deprecating song into a meeting. We have this one guy at Roundtable who sits on the edge of his seat just waiting for some newbie to slip up and mention the "A-word." I've heard him do the song three times in the same meeting. What a stupid waste of time. And another reason I don't do Roundtable.[/quote']

 

I've never heard of the announcements song, but based on the description I would have to agree with you two. After the second time my reaction would probably be along the lines of this https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=tO4X8_c80kg#t=66s Especially if it was an adult at an adult meeting.

Yeah, they screwed up with their stadium show live feed, apparently because of Three Doors Down. I was watching the live feed and right after Mike Rowe (a great presentation), they cut the feed "due to contractual agreements." Really pissed me off and I never went back to see the rest of the show. I imagine I was not the only one. You'd think they would know better, but it seems sometimes they can be very thick-headed, PR-wise. Either put that at the end of the show or tell folks in advance they are only going to see part of the show.

Sold some of our older boys on making Litepac backpacks so they'd be more motivated to come to meetings. There were a few tents, survival kit, mess kit, backpack, etc instructions published by Ernest Schmidt from Schiff then collected in a Boys' Life reprint, which someone has digitized here: http://dankohn.info/~scouts/boys_lif..._equipment.pdf

Didn't much work in terms of getting them to more meetings; they cut out the fabric then everything sat for 2 months until they took them home to finish (doubt any did). I can't imagine the cost in leather for the packs nowadays, fortunately I had a huge piece laying around from 20 yrs ago. Tents would probably still be pretty cheap.

Tell them it's just an ~hour a week; it's worked on me over and over.

Or, "Scout Bites Raccoon"

I think it also causes one of two things to happen:

 

1. Leaders take their boys on less trips because the paperwork is too cumbersome (Sometimes great opportunities come up, but the deadline to submit a tour permit has already passed.), or

2. The boys go on the trip anyway, without the paperwork.

I think frustration is that everyone who wants to go on a weekend campout with their kid now has to be trained. When we filled out the trip permit for the 50 miler the question were "Do all adults have Youth Protection?" and "Do all adults have Swim Defense & Safety Afloat?" Not everyone wants to be a leader or has time to be leader. I have no problem with BSA requiring training of it's leaders' date=' but we have had parents would have been happy to attend a weekend event change their minds when they realized they would have to put in 2 or 3 hours of training first.[/quote']

 

Less than 2 hours, actually. Anyone that says they don't have 1.5 hours for 3 training modules is either the President of the US or a liar, anyone that won't didn't want to go in the first place.

More activism on the stadium show: http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/music/2013/07/19/3-doors-down-to-play-us-scouts-jamboree/2569377/

GLAAD is none to glad. Surprise.

Looks like 3 Doors Down took the PR gamble. Of course jambolive.org was contractually obligated not to stream the concert, but when the stream cut back in the boys were chanting "encore" so I guess they enjoyed the show.

Here's what it boils down to: People do what they want to do. Some things are a hassle but I've never been so put off by any of them that I've showed my butt and quit. If someone has time to be a SM, they have time for the training. If someone has time to drive 5 hours to summer camp, they've got 5 minutes to find their insurance limits. We had a guy whinge, whinge whinge over ASM training because "he joined scouts to spend more time with his son, not get taken away for a weekend." Fine, then quit, this isn't Indian Guides, anyway.

People will do what they want to do.

Just to clarify something - you did NOT send in an application for your son to become a Cub Scout. You filled in an online form to receive more information. Heaven (or Hell) only knows where this information goes, or when/if they will get read/acted on by anyone. Traditionally, e-mail dumps do not get cleared out in a very timely fashion.

 

The BeAScout site gives you your local council contact information which includes name, address, and phone number. You can call your local council for further information. They should be able to pull up contact information (Cubmaster name/phone) for the Pack you are interested in.

 

The BeAScout site also shows the name of the Chartering Organization for the Pack.

 

The Chartering Organization is the community organization which "owns" the BSA Scout unit (Pack / Troop / Team / Crew / Ship). You can do an online search to find contact information on the Chartering Organization, and then call them to get information on their Cub Pack.

 

Since your son is going into 4th grade, he will be a Webelos Cub Scout. Hopefully, whichever Pack you choose will be active during the Summer so you, and your son, can get to know the folks. Find out if the Pack will be attending any Council Summer Camps. If at all possible, I suggest you get your son to Summer Camp. It will be a great, fun, introduction to Scouts, for him, and you!

A separate issue I am not entirely clear on is what kind of adult leadership is required. I see conflicting opinions. Two deep for day activities ( my CC thinks so) ? One, None ?

So read the Guide to Safe Scouting:

Two-deep leadership. Two registered adult leaders, or one registered leader and a parent of a participating Scout or other adult, one of whom must be 21 years of age or older, are required for all trips and outings. There are a few instances, such as patrol activities, when the presence of adult leaders is not required and adult leadership may be limited to training and guidance of the patrol leadership. With the proper training, guidance, and approval by the troop leaders, the patrol can conduct day hikes and service projects. Appropriate adult leadership must be present for all overnight Scouting activities; coed overnight activities even those including parent and childâ€â€require male and female adult leaders, both of whom must be 21 years of age or older, and one of whom must be a registered member of the BSA. The chartered organization is responsible for ensuring that sufficient leadership is provided for all activities.

http://www.scouting.org/scoutsource/HealthandSafety/GSS/gss01.aspx#e