karunamom3

My son is taking a virtual photography MB. They need to upload their worksheet and images into folders in a Google classroom. He looked at the folders of 2 other scouts in his troop to see their pictures. The counselor has shown other scouts work in their online meetings so my son felt confident that it was ok to look at other scouts pics.

The 2 scouts in his troop are brothers. It was obvious to my son immediately that his troop mates did not take the pics in their folders. Most of the pics are of themselves! They are pics their mom took for the most part.

My son was not happy because he put a lot of work into it. He noted that the MB counselor will not know that the pics in scout A's folder are pics of him so obviously not taken by him. If this was an in person class this would not be an issue.

My son wants to contact the MB counselor to let him know. I am on the fence myself because their mom is always looking for the short cut and trying to get things done the easy way. I talked to my son about the fact that the others are really not learning what they should be and they will have to live with that. He needs to consider his options. Maybe even talk with the scouts directly. He knows the mom pulls the strings though and a talk with them won't help much.

How should I direct him? Any advice?

Edited to add that I am the advancement coordinator and the CC of the troop. It will be tough for me to enter those MB's into Scoutbook knowing they really weren't earned.😔

3 hours ago, Navybone said:

what are the safety concerns you have?  If you set it up with a waiting room, you cannot be zoom bombed.  Is it because the servers are/were in China?  I think that has been changed recently.

Yes. I believe the servers are still there. So the Chinese Gov't can seize the servers if they wish. Although I imagine other platforms use foreign countries too. Apparently NY State Attorney Genera,l Letitia James, started an inquiry. Now Zoom has been banned from NYC schools by the NYC Dept of Ed, which is who our committee member works for.

From the image above the only 2 things I dont do are create a waiting room and lock the meeting. I didnt know you could lock it. I will look into it. I am honestly on no rush to make changes. It took me weeks to figure Zoom out and become comfortable with it.  

The title says it all. 

Which one do you use for virtual pack/troop meetings? It seems almost all of the scout resources we have been using are on Zoom (merit badges, virtual campfires, roundtables, etc). And this is with councils all over the country. I think we have one class with Ring Meetings. Our schools are also using Zoom. We just held our first pack meeting on Zoom and a committee member brought up the safety concerns with Zoom about 30 min before go on a forum with all of the parents. Frustrating. Is anyone moving away from Zoom?

I will send my son to another state provo if its within 6 hours of NJ. He will also be devastated if he cant go this year.

We are a new unit with little money in a not wealthy area. We had hoped the scouts could raise most of the money needed for summer camp through fundraising. Well due to quarantine we have lost our 3 big fundraising opportunities (event concession stand, candy sale, car wash). Our council still plans on opening camp in July if allowed to by the state.

How can we help these scouts get funding? I know we are not supposed to solicit funds. 

Can we do something like hold a virtual car wash where we pre-sell car wash vouchers?

We are at a loss really. Our kids want to go, but some just can't afford it. And we don't want to seem crass by trying to fundraise during tough times either. Keep it within our CO? Appeal to the mayor for money?

Thanks for your insight.

1 minute ago, ItsBrian said:

Another reason why my troop goes to PA for camp... a lot cheaper! I suggest your troop possibly trying one in the future! I’ve gone to at least 3 PA summer camps and had all great experiences. I’ve had amazing experiences working at one for hopefully a 3rd summer. 

We are a brand new troop this year and decided to go to winnebago so we could possibly get camperships and its within 1 hr from us.  (Last year was a different troop at jersey shore council camp). And 2 of our boys love Winnebago. They had really great Webelos resident camp experiences there.

But, I hear great things about SOME of the PA camps. Would love to know which ones you recommend.

6 minutes ago, ItsBrian said:

I saw that email that was sent out. I feel like the camps will be hurting this year if they open.

I work at a camp in PA, but I’m in PPC.

I agree. We are scheduled to go to Winnebago July 12th. Who knows how things will be then. We are struggling with approaching our families about camp & applying for camperships when we have families losing income and loved ones. Now we are considering moving our week to later or cancelling and going to the MB week in August. 😥

On 4/6/2020 at 2:28 PM, swilliams said:

Our council, Patriots' Path, is planning on moving forward as of now.  The early bird deadline is April 24th.  For the first time ever, the camps will be offering 100% refunds, right up until the day camp starts.  I believe the first week of camp is July 5th.

The early bird deadline is now May 1 for PPC. It will be really tough for us to get our scouts to go I fear. It is the last thing on many people's minds. 

13 hours ago, Eagledad said:

I think the choice is going to be made for the troops, and most youth organizations. My high school teacher son said their district is telling them to expect no school after Spring Break. 

Wow. That's a month away. I'm surprised they may keep them open that long. Here in NJ it feels more imminent.

14 hours ago, MattR said:

I can, and did. If it's not what you want let me know and I'll change it for you.

Thanks. I couldn't  figure out how to do it. 

16 hours ago, FireStone said:

We're also in NJ, nothing cancelled yet but I think we'll know more about what the schools are planning by early next week, and then we'll probably follow their lead. I think it would be weird if schools closed but we were still trying to get kids together for group scout activities.

A lot of local schools are doing half-day or full-day closures on Friday for teacher training on virtual learning.

I agree to follow the schools lead but we will also look to the parents and see how they want to proceed as well. I did see a list on NJ.com of all the schools closed for a "planning" day. Some are closed on Monday as well.

16 hours ago, FireStone said:

Obviously some YPT issues come into play in a virtual setting. I'm not even sure if video conferencing services are allowed with scouts, need to research the YPT implications. But off the top of my head, if we used a service like this I was going to ask that a parent/guardian be present and visible on camera with their scout for any video meetings we hold.

On a female BSA FB group I am in, there is a lot of discussion about virtual meetings. Both Zoom and Google Hangouts were mentioned.

So we ended up canceling the trip mentioned in the original post. We put it to a parental vote and it was an overwhelming cancel response. 

Now we need do decide on our district PWD which we are hosting on 3/21 and expect 150-200 people to attend based on last years numbers. Ugh. I think I need to visit our towns health dept and check in since we have rented their space. 

For our meetings, both pack and troop, we are going to decide weekly if we will meet. We just had the first cases reported in our county yesterday.

12 hours ago, swilliams said:

I was thinking of starting a thread talking about suggestions for continuing the program while trying to deal with this. New topic, or post here?

Here is fine. I will see if I can update the title.

9 hours ago, InquisitiveScouter said:

We had our Scout meeting entirely outdoors last night.  Except for getting flags and going to restrooms.  Our sponsor requested we station an adult at the door with hand sanitizer to give everyone a squirt, and also asked for handwashing immediately upon entry (yes, right after the sanitizer.)  

Good ideas. Now that it stays lighter later outside may be an option. At least for our cubs.

9 hours ago, InquisitiveScouter said:

Call the council to ask if they will refund if governing health agencies impose community or individual restrictions.  Ask for an email confirmation.

That's a great idea. Thanks

Due to coronavirus, has anyone cancelled or not booked a planned event? Has your council or district done so?

We have a big camp-in scheduled but are now on the fence about going.  We need to book & pay this week. For reference we are in NJ sandwiched by 5 cases above us and 1 case below us. I think the majority of scouters are not worried about the virus, but more about quarantines since NJ has a few hundred folks in self quarantine already and it has just begun here.

I stumbled across this 'no sell' fundraiser. I didnt delve to deep into it. Looks interesting, but scouts provide community service just to be good scouts. Any thoughts on it

https://kindness.raisecraze.com/no-selling-gen/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign_C-1819SCHL&utm_content=ADSG-64BYSTFR--AD-8RSA----receTI2O0dY1YY91K&utm_term=%2Bboy %2Bscout %2Bfundraiser&gclid=Cj0KCQiAk7TuBRDQARIsAMRrfUbWELgJoYxAksANe3ZcymIcYPndLZwwNHszsID9riBi1_GNg42uQxwaAnSNEALw_wcB

And for us, a brand new troop & pack, this could really hurt. We don't have a lot of money to begin with. 

I keep thinking it will be alright and everything will  work out in the end. Maybe that is naive, I don't know. I love scouting. My youngest is only a Tiger and already plans to get her Eagle so I have a long way to go with the BSA and don't plan on leaving. 

I was quite surprised the other day when a Scouts BSA scout said to me that it really doesn't matter what rank he is because BSA is closing soon anyway. I was shocked. His dad is his SM. I wonder what conversations  they have had, if any.

Yes! Our district made it a weekend camping program. We had 6 scouts complete the radio merit badge and 4 begin pioneering. We are in NJ and we connected to folks, some scouts, in Maine, Florida, Tennessee, Ohio, Louisiana,  Canada and Germany. It was open to cubs, scouts and venturers. It was cold, but lots of fun!

7 minutes ago, qwazse said:

@karunamom3, bringing back old designs is definitely the way to go. A little color adjustment or a small change in symbols is all you need to make a great item.

The only think I'd make sure to adjust is the size of the necker if the old one was less than 36 inches on the short. The World Scout Jamboree neckerchiefs were impressive. They actually felt like something you could splint an arm with!

Yes! We love the WSJ neckers we bought. Nice hefty size. Wish they didn't sell out so darn quickly!

Welcome to the forums! 😃

On 9/23/2019 at 9:54 AM, walk in the woods said:

@karunamom3, since this popped back up I'm wondering what you heard from the Masonic Lodge district and what you decided to do?

We put neckercheifs on hold because we had issues opening a bank account. 

But, our lodge is all for it. They even want us to create a second design to put on a special necker for the lodges 100yr anniversary  next fall. In addition, we found out that the Grand Lodge of NJ has a scout necker design on file that has been used in the past. We are waiting for our contact to show us that.

Barry, good point. I guess I am asking if anyone else got feedback like this from their councils. It was basically like as long as it is entered into scoutbook, blue cards dont matter and not needed. We were shocked honestly

35 minutes ago, mrkstvns said:

Most of the summer camps our boys have attended in recent years use some kind of electronic reporting method (sometimes as simple as a spreadsheet emailed to troop). Scoutbook or report, either way it saves you the problems about errors on the cards, unsigned cards, etc. (BTW: Often the unsigned card signals a "partial" --- look at the list of completed requirements)

My son's eagle coach told him to have proof he earned his MBs, but that a report from Scoutbook would suffice (which is good, because he only has blue cards on maybe half his badges ---- though he did save all the completion cards that he's received when awarded each MB).

 

Good to know that other summer camps are not giving cards. Thanks.

I do know about the partials. So 2 of our boys missed one requirement for Astronomy. Before leaving camp they spoke with the counselor about it. When they learned a leader was going back they got it done and brought the blue cards back. The counselor marked the number as complete but didn't sign. I'm sure it was because he never does. It's all printed on the computer by the office staff.

We had such a hard time with blue cards and summer camp. Most were missing, wrong, not signed (even though all requirements were marked completed), signed digitally, not blue, etc. Even after a leader spent 3 hours at camp a week later to try and straighten it all out there are still issues. 

After discussing with council they are not concerned. They do not like the blue cards and believe scouting is moving away from them. They feel the cards are more trouble than anything. (Not being received, digital signatures, lost, etc) They told us that if everything is recorded properly in Scoutbook then the blue cards are really not needed unless we, our unit, needs them. 

I was quite surprised at this because I have been told from day 1 to save every blue card for Eagle BOR.

Any thoughts on this?