karunamom3

This discussion of CO is great. Thanks. We hope to meet with the new CO next week to discuss moving so the more understanding the better.

On 6/13/2019 at 7:24 AM, qwazse said:

When you spin off a different troop, do everyone a favor and meet on a different night from you current unit. 

On 6/13/2019 at 7:35 AM, David CO said:

Yes. Meet on a different night.

Also, if the old unit has an established fundraiser activity, choose something different for your fundraiser. 

When starting a new troop, the leaders should make every effort to build a good relationship with the existing unit(s) in town. It is important to remember that your new unit will still be working with the old unit(s) at district and council events. 

Good points. The interested CO has their meetings on the night our current unit meets. So by default we will need to find another night.

By us leaving and starting a new unit in town, our relationship with the current unit will be shattered. At least with the old time leaders, not so much the current SM. The current unit hates council so they rarely ever go to district or council events, while we love council events & feel they are of great benefit to the kids.

26 minutes ago, David CO said:

It is right. The CC, COR, and IH should all be given a copy of the unit's calendar of events as soon as it is available. You should make this a routine practice (from day one) when you start your new unit. 

Ok. Good to know. 

I was under the impression that the boys planned with guidance from the SM. Then committee secured what was needed to make it happen or to decline the event if resources couldn't be secured. 

I didn't realize the CC had final say before any committee discussion. I thought the SM dealt with program.

On 6/11/2019 at 12:09 PM, Thunderbird said:

@karunamom3  For the Cub Scouts who went fossil hunting, you might want to check out the STEM Nova awards.  I think this activity would fit under the Cub Scout Nova award: "Uncovering the Past" for Wolf, Bear, and Webelos Scouts.

Thank you so very much! I am a Nova Counselor too so we can easily complete that award over the summer.

20 minutes ago, ParkMan said:

So, from what we know of your troop:

• - tyrant CC/COR
• - weak program
• - oldest scout is 13

If I recall correctly, you're Cubmaster of the pack.  Me - I'd think seriously about getting together with the other adults and starting a new pack & troop with some more forward thinking leadership elsewhere in town.

^^^ Correct.

A few pack parents & leaders have previously inquired about us finding a new location.

We have 4 troop leaders & 5 scouts (all young) ready to bail and come with us. 2 other scouts went yesterday to check out a unit in another town.

We have a CO begging for us to come to them and the mayor wants us to go there although he doesn't yet realize it would be a brand new unit & not just moving the old. Giving the town 2 Scouts BSA units & possibly 2 packs. I really dont think I would be welcome to stay with the current CO as CM if we start a new Scouts BSA unit. So starting a new pack may have to happen by default. I will see what council has to say about that.

Tough deciding when to split though. After summer camp? Before? After CO is secure & charter is complete or give a heads up before that?

Ack, why couldn't this be easy. We could have just quietly went to another unit but instead tried to be 'agents of change' for a failing unit. (Taken from another thoughtful post.)  I must say our boys certainly do not want to remain & that is key.

So many good replies giving me quite a bit to ponder. Thank you all.

So, what prompted this post was this...

I am a MC for the Troop. At Mondays leaders meeting, discussion of an event came up. The CC who is also the COR became quite angry because he did not know about the last minute event. He was adamant that ALL events have to come before him via email for his approval. 'I have final say on all events. I decide if they will happen or not'.

I was quite surprised by this. It's not right to my mind.

Let me add some background...

-he has been on a medical leave of absence & quite a few of us, myself included, didn't realize he was active again. His wife, the treasurer, has been filling his shoes.

-he & his wife have been around for 40+ years and want to do things the same way they always have.

-Troop is completely adult led, no patrols. At the meeting new leadership pushed for patrols/boy led & we got a resounding no... 'patrol method doesn't work for us. We tried it in the past. It's no good'

Needless to say, new leadership is wavering on staying (not likely), finding a different unit to go to, or starting a new unit in town. 

18 hours ago, David CO said:

The final word belongs to the Chartered Organization. 

The CO? So are units supposed to supply the CO with a calendar for approval?

Who gives final approval on your Troop's activities the SM or CC?

17 hours ago, mrkstvns said:

One way to build tighter bonds between the pack and troop is to involve more Boy Scouts as Den Chiefs for the cubs.  Encourage Den Leaders to have a Den Chief and let the Scoutmaster know that your pack wants more Den Chiefs. 

There are no older scouts. The oldest is 13, tenderfoot. We did train a few younger kids as den cheifs & it didn't work well. They just were not very helpful and were simply not ready to take that responsibility. Good idea though.

22 hours ago, DuctTape said:

 I would also encourage the Webelos dens to visit other troops. One reason the troop culture is not great is b/c they do not have to be. They keep getting scouts and have no competition. Introduce competition and they will have no choice but to change or dissolve.

Spot on. Thanks!

19 hours ago, T2Eagle said:

First the easy stuff: there is almost certainly no such thing as "troop insurance"; BSA carries insurance for all scout activities.  Search the BSA website and these forums for better explanation.  Since it sounds like your son is in the troop this is a topic you should be able to discuss with your troop leadership, independent of this incident,  just to clarify what nonsense they think they're talking about.

Second is the relationship between the troop and pack.  There could be good, bad, and just lazy/dumb reasons why the troop would not support this activity.  Troops have their own program and activities that they have planned and it takes concerted effort just to make them work; adding in another activity just because someone else thought it would be a good idea, and maybe it is, isn't as simple as saying sure let's do that.  It's well within the troop leadership's purview to decide to just do nothing about the event --- not support it, not communicate it, not participate --- and they don't really need to have any better reason to do that than to feel that they have a full plate and simply don't want to add another activity to it.  But at a minimum, they should have had the courtesy to tell you that.  It's worth keeping in mind that this was the pack's event, it was very nice that they were willing to invite the troop to participate, but an invitation compels no more obligation than an answer, in no way was the troop obligated to participate in any way just because they were invited.   The fact that you were expecting them to tell you who was going indicates that you maybe assumed they were obligated to participate, including by helping to organize part of the list of participants.

Thank you for taking the time to write this lengthy response. I appreciate it.

I was under the impression that what you state is correct about insurance. Its BSA insurance for all BSA, not unit specific. I will discuss with council & at the troop leader meeting tonight.

I do understand that the troop has it's own program. Although our troop is not very active, I do understand what you are saying. And yes, of course they were not obligated to go. Since the pack never received a decline to the invite we figured it was a go. I should have followed up better on that. I inquired about who was going through a combined parent & leader group text (Its a small troop). Asking the parents who was going & to see who needed a ride. 

When you said this...

"I think the troop's behavior was poor because they should have declined your invitation if that's what they intended, they also were way off in telling troop members not to participate; that's not their call regarding your pack or any other scout unit.  If you want to invite members of the troop to join in a pack activity that's great, it's your activity, you're responsible for making sure it complies with all BSA rules, and the troop really has nothing to do with it one way or another.

If this was my troop, we would have said "That sounds nice, we'll pass along the information to the troop, send us an email with the details and we'll pass that along."  It wouldn't have been our event, but we'd be happy if people decided to participate."

... man that is so spot on and probably what has bothered pack leadership the most (other leaders besides me). Their behavior was rude and disrespectful honestly. Not very scout like at all. It was a simple fun activity that required no additional work from the troop leaders besides the 3 leaders already going because those 3 are pack leadership too. Much to discuss at tonight's meeting.

14 hours ago, SSScout said:

Dinosaur fossil hunt?   Nothing could be more Scouty….

""....Arlton Murray, who worked with fossils at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, hid his own time capsule in a dinosaur installation in 1947. The wooden box — containing Murray’s Boy Scout membership card and a note about one of the installations — was a surprise find five years ago as the museum’s Fossil Hall was taken apart for renovation....""

""...It took a bit of research to discover the significance of the Boy Scout card . . . Murray discovered his passion for fossils on a  Boy Scout outing. ""

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/kidspost/?utm_term=.20cf958898ee 

He was a Scoutmaster in 1945..... 

Exactly. It was a great time finding sharks teeth from the Cretaceous period & fossilized oyster shells. The pack had a blast & so did the 2 boys from the troop that went 😃

8 hours ago, yknot said:

I would suggest contacting your council to get coverage details from the horse's mouth. I have not always found a great deal of clarity about who is covered and when even at the council level, but at least it is a place to start. Whatever the pack or troop thinks is likely to be wrong. 

That is on my to do list today before the leaders meeting, thanks.

13 hours ago, GMath said:

I'm all in favor of trying to play nice with my neighbors and fellow scout units, but if you've identified this other unit as having a toxic culture, you'll likely be a lot happier if you just ignore them.

Yes, yes. A toxic culture seems to be the case. I wont even get into all of the issues in this post. We (4 new leaders and council) were hoping to turn this unit back around and get it going again. It has been an uphill battle with very old leadership since Dec/Jan and we have had it. Thanks for hitting me with the reality of the situation.

12 hours ago, MattR said:

That's nonsense. I talked to the insurance company that provided our insurance a long time ago and if there were scouts at an event then it was covered. No permissions nor uniforms needed. Besides, nobody's likely to get hurt anyway. Sounds more like an ego issue to me.

It is nonsense for sure. And lack of proper training/education.

12 hours ago, ParkMan said:

My understanding is that Scouts are covered because they are members of the BSA, not members of a specific pack or troop.  If some other Scouts come to your event, they are covered.

As Cubmaster I'd encourage you to attend their next Troop Committee Meeting and discuss what happened.  Why didn't they respond to your invite?  If they decided not to participate - fine, but why didn't they even tell you?  Further, when this was problem was uncovered, why didn't they try to encourage Scouts to attend?

One of my biggest frustrations as a Troop CC was the line that existed between "the pack" and "the troop".  Pack leaders would often discuss on their own and come to some conclusion about "the troop".  Most often, the pack leaders had some sort of misperception about what we, as troop leaders, were doing.  I would encourage a quarterly "Key 7" meeting.  Pack CC & CM, Troop CC & SM, Crew CC & CA, and COR.  It's a great way to help keep the unit working together.

Thanks for this thoughtful response ParkMan. Many good points here. 

So, this is exactly how I understood BSA insurance to work. The Troop kids are registered, insurance paid. It shouldn't matter which scout organization they are doing an activity with. 

Tonight, Monday, I will be attending a Troop leader meeting since I am on the committee as well and I am SA of a linked female troop. Your questions to ask are certainly valid & what I have been asking myself all day.

Love your idea of a key 7 meeting! That is really great. Our pack & troop have the same CO & meet on the same night. They have rarely interacted together over the 40+ years they existed. As I became involved with pack leadership I was shocked to learn that AOL Cubs are supposed to camp with & go to a troop meeting.  Never happened before I stepped into CM role & pushed the envelope. Our troop relies solely on this feeder pack for membership! We have been working hard to change this odd dynamic and have forced the troop into having the AOL's attend a meeting. The troop is not very active & we thought this would be fun for all to help build a relationship between the 2 units. 

Our troop and pack are both 88. Officially 0088 because it has to be a 4 digit number, but we never use the 00 unless filing out an application or rechartering paperwork. 

Our new girl troop is also 88, but council has given female troops a 10 to begin with, so its troop 1088.  There is some debate over weather to use the full 4 numbers

I dont know. This is what a troop committee member is telling parents this morning. I assume to stop any scouts from going.

This is the BS we find ourselves dealing with as we learn about this troops culture (my son just crossed over). I wonder when they were planning to discuss with pack leadership 🤔

I am fairly new to Scouts BSA so dont know what are the 'rules' vs troop culture.

I am CM of our pack. So, our pack invited our troop to go fossil hunting today. The invite was given to the SM & a committee  member. I asked them to please let the scouts know about it at the last meeting.

Well, today I asked who was going & come to find out that they never relayed the invite.

Today they are telling the parents/scouts that going was not approved by troop leadership and that if any scouts go they are not covered by troop insurance.

So, are they covered by pack insurance? Can the pack leaders, many of whome are also troop leaders myself included, have permission slips ready to be filled out if scouts any want to go?

We have a scout that has very limited use of the right hand & arm. She uses her left instead. It did lead to a discussion amongst the leaders. We left it up to her & what she was most comfortable with. 

So after all of the debating and back and forth with the new scout parents... we show up and the oldest, most experienced scout was there in shorts along with his leader parents in shorts 🙃

I dont think I ever saw a group of scouts unzip their convertible pants so fast 🤣.

Thanks everyone!

My sons troop leadership requires long pants at all courts of honor, ceremonies & parades... so I was told. Although, only myself and 1 other new parent of a crossover scout were told this. All communication about the parade has just started Class A uniform - no specifics.

To my mind,  Class A uniform shorts are an approved BSA uniform. Just wondering if other units allow shorts during a parade.

When walking in a parade in 90 degree weather, do you require long uniform pants? Would your unit allow BSA uniform shorts with BSA socks? TIA.

On 3/23/2019 at 5:50 AM, qwazse said:

With a cub? I would just go for one. At this point most of the places you'd stay are full, so you would have a substantial drive to the nearest hotel or campground each day.

Thanks. We are going for 2 days with 5 from the Troop & 3 Cubs. 

I know this is an older topic, but if you are going with day passes, how many days are you going for?

On 3/8/2019 at 2:56 PM, mashmaster said:

That is awesome to hear.  I hope some of your pack joins a Ship.  Or even founds one.

So, 8 months after this trip and today my son tells me that he would like to be a sea scout when he is old enough... and continue to be a boy scout. 😲

On 2/12/2019 at 9:22 AM, thrifty said:

fyi - WSJ day passes are now available.  I was able to get ours last night.

https://www.2019wsj.org/attend/day-visitors/?fbclid=IwAR0KipxPhJIj4OXNMTnsv6VJu6ud9IEykS3qfHf0HCCuC56w9vpNCTRrcHM

 

How many days are you going for?

I just discovered today that day passes are possible even for cub scouts. I think we may take the drive, but not sure how many days to go for. I was thinking 2. Or maybe 3?

Any thoughts on this from anyone.