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chrisg478

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Everything posted by chrisg478

  1. chrisg478
    Or get your district training chair to do it.
  2. chrisg478
    I love working with the kids, especially the Cubs. They get so excited about things that adults take for granted and they always want to learn more. Most of my run-ins with parents come when I try to enforce the rules or even just common courtesy. Like - Kicking a kid off the archery range because he would not listen to directions (he had shot archery before so he knew it all) and he pointed a bow, arrow nocked, string drawn, at another child (his sister). According to his mother he was just fooling around and would never have actually shot his sister. My response was accidents happ
  3. chrisg478

    Help! I'm surounded by Beavers!

    1. Eagle94-A1

      Eagle94-A1

      Are you at Kerr Lake? http://www.wral.com/news/local/video/14784407/#/vid14784407

       

  4. chrisg478
    I have heard, and over the years I have found, that the best volunteers & leaders are the busiest people. We all work for a living. We all have family members to care for, homes to maintain and tons of other responsibilities. The difference between good Scout Leaders and the "I don't have time" crowd is that good Scout Leaders MAKE THE TIME. The "I don't have time crowd" will never know the great things they are missing. .
  5. chrisg478

    Received the Silver Beaver Award at our Council Awards Reception the other night. The ceremony was ok but I really wish Council would have just mailed the thing to me. The thing that made the evening worthwhile was getting to spend time with some really great friends and my wonderful family. And I guess this is a good end to my scouting career.

    1. packsaddle

      packsaddle

      Congratulations! Enjoy the good feeling.

    2. qwazse

      qwazse

      Congratulations ... and don't stop scouting. Just scout differently!

    3. chrisg478

      chrisg478

      Qwazse - I am not leaving scouting entirely. Scouting differently sounds really great. I just need some time to figure out what that means for me.

      I have served at the Unit, District and Council levels and I really have no desire to repeat or go back to any of those jobs. I've had to slam those doors shut and lock them to keep from getting sucked back in.

      I think for now I will continue volunteering at our local camp (my home away from home) and see what doors open up there.

  6. chrisg478
    My pack and troop are lucky enough to have their own "scout house" behind the CO's building (local Moose Lodge) but we are one of the few in our area that have our own space. There are pro's and con's to having your own space - Pro - you can have meetings whenever you want Con - you end up having den meetings in a building with no heat in 20 degree weather because you didn't budget for a new furnace this year. Pro - I can store equipment, supplies and materials at the scout house instead of in my house/shed/garage. Con - Other people "borrow" my equipment, supplies and materials and d
  7. chrisg478
    So how did you convince your District to do this? On our District Committee - We have a new DE, fresh out of college, this is his first "real" job, and he doesn't know his head from a hole in the ground. We have a new District Chairman who is following the clueless DE because he doesn't know any better. And we have a recycled District Commissioner (2nd time as Dist. Com) who can not wait until her term is up on June 30th so she can get away from the other 2. There are also a bunch of names on a piece of paper that says they are all members at large. In the 8 years I have been on t
  8. chrisg478
    ~~My fear is that another awesome professional scouter and friend will loose his job because of the unrealistic expectations of our council leadership.- - - I hate it when I am right. The only part I was wrong about was my friend quit before they could find a reason to kick him out. At least he got to leave more or less on his terms. ~~My dream is that our local council leadership will remember that this a volunteer run organization and the professional scouters job is to support the volunteers. - - - If the first 2 months of the year are any indication, council will never get it right.
  9. chrisg478
    In my area most Chartering Organizations don't know they sponsor 1 or more units and the unit leaders don't know who their Chartering Organization is or who their COR might be. How can we support each other if we don't know who we are and don't speak to each other? A sad example - Last year our DE was having problems getting a units charter processed because he could not find someone to be the COR or IH and sign the paperwork. He said he was going to go park outside the Chartering Organization (a VFW) on Friday night and he would get the first drunk that stumbled out to be the COR and sig
  10. chrisg478
    Getting back to the original topic, I have some other suggestions on how to promote scouting - 1. Become active partners with your chartered organization. Do service projects for them. Do they have a newsletter, bulletin or other publication you could get an article or picture in. Have the SPL, SM or CM go to an appropriate meeting and give a "state of the Troop or Pack" report once a year. Thank the organizations leaders (pastor, board of directors, etc.) for their support. 2. Get your unit involved in your community. Do service projects (long & short term) for other organizations.
  11. chrisg478
    When the politics and BS from my District and/or Council outweigh the FUN. Which is happening now. They (council) are firing and/or forcing out all of my friends (volunteers & professionals) as I write this. I can see where this is headed and I am taking the high road out rather than waiting for them to beat me down and drag me through the mud. So much for the Scout Oath and Law. And the funniest part of all is the Council Training Chair just asked me if I was interested in taking over his job in the fall. I guess he missed the memo.
  12. chrisg478
    Mark, Since this topic was started several years ago I am sure things have changed including that e-mail address. Rodney Scout Reservation has a facebook page and the e-mail address is rsr@dmvc.org. I am sure if you contact the camp director either by e-mail or facebook he will be able to help you. .
  13. chrisg478
    A suggestion - Why don't you show the YPT training video to all the parents before going on your next pack overnighter? Your District Training Chair should be able to help you locate a DVD copy and/or run the training for you. I have several units in my district that do this training with all the parents that are going to summer camp with the pack/troop. They feel it is helpful for all the adults to know the rules ahead of time.
  14. chrisg478
    Our local council camps have separate bathrooms/showers for youth males, adult males and females. We also have latrines (no shower) in most of the campsites. Most of our Cub Scout events or summer camps only last 2-3 days so most people don't bother with a shower. And in the summer most of the kids will say they don't need another shower because they had to walk through a shower to get into the pool. We do our best to get people to follow the rules about adults in the adult bathrooms, youth in the youth bathrooms but we are not fanatics about it. All females use the same bathrooms anyway.
  15. chrisg478
    Around here the LDS units are just another unit. They do things thier way but we don't treat them any different. When my son was a Cub Scout he went to Day Camp, District events and Webelos Woods beside kids from the LDS unit. I attended basic Cub Leader training, PowWow and even Wood Badge with the Leaders of the LDS unit. Our District holds roundtable at the LDS church and we also have used it for other events. Our local LDS unit has always been very involved in the OA and their leaders help with training events and activities. The only real differences are they leave camp Saturday night,
  16. chrisg478
    5 miles for me. I think the farthest any unit in my district has to travel is 30-40 miles. But it doesn't matter. Round Table is a complete waste of time.
  17. chrisg478
    Thanks Faith and good luck with your training as well. Training is my main scouting job so I feel comfortable putting a program together as long as I can find enough information to offer a quality program. My problem is this course has to be hands on learning. So while the power point has a lot of good information it is not really a hands on learning experience. I know there are sample den meeting guides and sample adventures from the new books and that is probably what we are going to end up using, but I was hoping for more by now. It just seems like a lot more work than it should be.
  18. chrisg478
    I get that message as well. Usually if I sign out and log back in I don't get the message again for awhile.
  19. chrisg478
    Bigger than district level but smaller than council level. This event would be very much like what most people know as Pow Wow. Here we call it Cub College and our council holds 3 of them every year. One up north (covers 3 districts), one down south (covers 3 districts) and one in what they think is the middle of the council (covers 2 districts). So at the southern Cub College in March there will be classes like Derby Days, Pack Fundraising and Let's go Camping. But since the new Cub Program is starting in June and people are asking for more information we thought we would offer some clas
  20. chrisg478
    I will be. I need ideas for a Cub Scout Leader Training event (similar to Pow Wow or U of Scouting) in March. We want a couple of sessions to really focus on the new program so I need to find out all I can.
  21. chrisg478
    Our pack was short on Den Leaders this year so we have been using "shared leadership" to run den meetings. So for example when the Tigers signed up last fall each parent was told they would have to "help" by taking turns hosting den meetings. The Cubmaster planned and hosted the first den meeting to show parents how it was done. Then each family signed up to do 1 of the next 6 den meetings (6 boys in the den). Each parent was given the den meeting plan for the meeting they signed up for and told they were responsible for the entire meeting. The Cubmaster worked with each family to help them ma
  22. chrisg478
    Since we are on a rant - I hate to say it but the volunteers have brought some of this on themselves. The biggest reason my council started doing on-line registrations (about 8 years ago) was to control costs and record income and expenses more accurately. . For example we had a troop than ran the District Klondike Derby and used it as a fund raiser for thier troop. The Scoutmaster of that troop would set the registration fee and collect all the money himself. If the event "made money" he would keep the extra for his troop. If the event "lost money" he would send a bill to council and t
  23. chrisg478
    So my first suggestion is - KISS - keep it simple silly. Next - Focus on the boys, the den meetings and activities and programs you are offering. Make sure the den leaders are meeting on a regular basis and they are working on advancements at every meeting. Make sure the boys are having fun and staying busy. The boys have until the end of the school year to finish their rank requirements so if they are not done by B&G just keep working with them. And if they don't earn their rank badge it's not the end of the world. They just move to the next level and hopefully they do better
  24. chrisg478
    Disappointments are a part of life and IMO we are hurting kids by protecting them from disappointments and taking the value out of working towards a goal. I think most kids can handle disappointments a lot better than most adults give them credit for. Kids know what is fair and what is not. They understand all about following the rules. They know if they have "earned" an award or not. And they are so proud of themselves when they really accomplish something. By giving awards to kids whether they have earned them or not you take that sense of accomplishment and pride away from both th
  25. chrisg478
    If they are 2/3 of the way done I assume they are already Webelos and already have (or will soon have) their Webelos badge. The program updates from national say boys that have completed their Webelos badge by June 1, 2015 can continue with the AOL requirements as written in the current book. That gives them until the end of the 2015-2016 school year to earn AOL with the current requirements.
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