curious_scouter

Looking for general outing concepts we can float to our PLC. There has been a bit of a trend in our PLC towards "Spendy" outings. Really cool stuff, but they cost $100-$600 per Scout to attend and when done in consecutive months and around high-spend times of year (holidays) creates a challenge RE: exclusion. I've been advocating within our troop the idea that not every outing has to be for everyone, but there should be an outing for everyone - every month. So, if there's a contingent that wants to drop $200 a scout this month on something unique, awesome. But there should be something for everyone that month too, maybe a pioneering weekend at the local camping haunt. Recharter is coming, between that increase, Troop dues, summer camps.... I think having fun but very thrifty outings will be a need this year to achieve retention in our unit. So, in that spirit looking for some ideas that span the spectrum but that hit both ends and are "Scout Approved". One thing I find is it's SUPER EASY to find a list of places to go camp. It's a lot harder to know the Scouts will love it. And even more important if others have done things the Scouts really loved that did not rely on the place so much as the activity was super fun. Like some kind of theme, activity, etc. that you did that went off super well but does not cost a ton or rely on something like a specific location.

Will second this. Get Baloo, get IOLS, do position-specific online. I recall thinking I knew my stuff and being humbled on several occasions since re-engaging with my sons Between what you've forgotten and what has changed, there's plenty to learn.

This is a passive thought I had too. Get in there, enjoy your time. One of the great things about Den Leader vs. Pack Committee is you get to focus on YOUR SCOUTS. You'll need to pop your head up to Pack level now and then, but I talked the outgoing Cubmaster into joining me in Den Leadership (we had both been on Committee / Pack Leadership to then) and we had an absolute blast. You're right in it with the Scouts and they are so much fun. As with SSScout I was a prior youth, I had no concept of the power structure or struggles of the adult leadership. As a parent and a Den Leader - you will invariably encounter it. Try to keep it a mystery to your Scouts and don't let it get you down if there is drama. For me, it was the worst part of it and I found that at times the more established folks did not always appreciate a "fresh perspective" It's good to ease in and the best way to encourage change is to set an example and hope others will follow.

Welcome! I was where you are about 9 years ago. Hoping your renewed Scouting journey is as fun and fulfilling as mine has been.

I've been advocating this for a while. But I think it should be done at not fee at all. Value add for a mediocre (but improving) product as a means to attract regular use. If you want a specific pamphlet, my experience is they are pretty easy to find with some light googling. You do what you feel okay with, but the information is out there. I find them very useful for the info in them. When paired with the free and regularly updated requirements PDFs they make for a good resource.

That's actually the policy. Within boating for those not classified as swimmers there are two tiers: Fixed seat rowboat or pedal boat: Those not classified as swimmers can operate "fixed-seat rowboat or pedal boat accompanied by a buddy who is a swimmer". Because these vessels are far less likely to capsize, an adult buddy is not a requirement. Canoe or other paddle craft: Those not classified as swimmers can go canoeing if they share a canoe with a Swimmer Adult. Additionally, these policies only apply "on calm water with little likelihood of capsizing or falling overboard". So someone not classified as a swimmer would not be okay to buddy up with an adult swimmer for white water rafting for example. https://www.scouting.org/health-and-safety/gss/gss02/#j

I would not call my personal uniform "minimal" in the sense nothing but default is on it, but I also prefer a simple uniform and do not put on every single thing I could. I want to be recognizable as a leader to Scouts (in and out of unit) and parents. I want some things like AOL/Religious Emblem/Eagle knots to show the Scouts "these things mean something and follow you through life" as a means to encourage them to achieve and respect those things. But otherwise, I want all the "showing off" to be the youth. I think that's a good practice when you're actively involved in unit leadership. I love and someday dream of being an "old salt" and I think for that crowd of emeritus Scouters their life in Scouting evolves beyond unit leadership. At that point packing the uniform is an interesting way to showcase the different ways you can stay involved and contribute once your time in unit life comes to an end. I love seeing those elaborate showcase uniforms and have zero problem with them. In the end, I don't really feel one way or another about how people wear a uniform. Once official, always official means there's a wonderful spectrum of pageantry to enjoy

I love that there is no set "order" for Scout-->First Class rank requirement completion. And there is some wisdom to connecting Scout-->First Class advancement with what fits for older scouts into a win-win to maximize results in meetings and outings. What is ultimately most important is what is the goal for that Scout and do they feel empowered to achieve it? If not, they should talk to their PL/SPL/SM to get help and advice. That might not come in the form of "let's change our meeting plans" so be prepared for some homework or outside of the box options. Have your scout start with the Patrol Leader and get the PL to bring up any needs at the next PLC. But, if the CC is running the new scout show, that might be a symptom of a larger problem with adopting the boy lead philosophy. Not to derail the main topic, but the new scout patrol comment jumped out at me. We are about to rebalance our patrols to start the year. We had the discussion about how to structure patrols too. For now, we're sticking not with "new scout patrols" but "similar age patrols". Two main reasons: 1) YPT says scouts must be within 2 years age to share accommodations, having like-aged patrols makes this less challenging when doing an outing under the patrol method 2) we were worried with older scouts in a patrol the younger scouts might defer leadership chances to the older boys too often - we want the younger aged patrols to have a PL and to have the PL and patrol have the challenge of sorting out campsite/duty roster/menu/etc. We also want every age group to have representation at the PLC so like-aged patrols seemed to support that too. Just some thoughts, but we're having similar debates here about Patrol age structure.

I think we have a spare and a jack. Our leaders are great, but with few exceptions any kind of mechanical issue beyond a flat is going to require outside help anyway. I actually think the concepts of proper loading, appropriate cars, etc. could use a bit more focus. Most adults in our troop are trailer rookies. Some guidelines / preflight checklist would be good.

I was typing something almost identical to this So I will just quote and add: Avoid assumptions as well. Just because a Scout is at an "expensive event" does not mean they paid to be there. There are plenty of Camperships, Sponsorships, Volunteer chances to attend these larger spendy events with no or low cost. This does not mean that Scout and their family have the means to be fully kitted for whatever reason.

Will cheat and include last year's also. Philmont is obvious probably, but we had a group go in 2021 and hope to send another in 2024. Great time had by all. Sea Base first time I know of was this summer, hearing incredible stories although I was not there in person. Main "downside" is cost and logistics... which as you would expect no Scout is commenting on But parents said that was the main challenge for them. Raven's Knob in North Carolina was awesome. Us flatlanders from Florida were wowed by the terrain and the hike to the top of the knob was a legendary moment for our Scouts and leaders alike. Staff was truly awesome, they do a campfire production on Wednesday like you will rarely see. Would definitely go back for "leg day" again. It's a very big, very hilly camp. From my campsite to IOLS training was almost exactly 1 mile and coming off the knob after lunch a couple Scouts had to make it from there to shooting sports which is about a mile as well. The camp is EXPANSIVE. Bring a daypack and use it lol. After day one, I just did not return to the campsite until the evening which... is how it really ought to be right? Camp Shands, Hawthorne, FL was great. Cheated as we had the tree houses which were super cool. Camp is small but it's one of the best things about it IMO. Very "outdoorsy" still but not a death march in FL summer heat to get everywhere. Great aquatics center, great staff. From my observations some of the most thorough counselors I've encountered, I feel good our Scouts left camp without any "glossing over". Smaller camp at ~300 weekly scout campers from ~12 troops, which makes scout-scout interactions interestingly more intimate. I feel like I got to know the staff and some other unit leaders better than I have at other camps for the same reason. Same 30 or so adult leaders you keep crossing paths with made it easier to make connections. I think the Scouts ended up making more and stronger out-of-unit friendships here than I have seen elsewhere. We plan a repeat in 2023.

I also had a small troop growing up of about 15 and loved it. Does not have to be 100 scouts to be a great troop. But, in Scouts BSA in general I don't see the same kind of council-sponsored in-school recruiting in middle and high school that they do for Cubs. Without that, it does unfortunately leave actual recruiting up to the unit and their ambitions with as you are pointing out are subject to the energies and resources of the unit and its leaders and scouts. First class requirement 10a is designed to get the recruitment discussion going I think. I try to make it part of any scoutmaster conference I do, just a quick "Hey, do you have any friends who might enjoy scouting? Have you thought about inviting them to a meeting?" It's not producing droves of recruits, but reminding the scouts "You can invite your buddies to join us" now and then is good practice. But yeah... we need to get out there and do some recruiting this year too. Does not seem like there's a formal process in Scouts BSA so we're planning on just getting out there a couple places this year and seeing what happens. Relying on larger events who will let us pop a spot for free or little cost just to have a presence in a crowd where youth might already be in attendance. We also have a camping event sponsored by our town where they allow camping downtown once a year. It is well attended and "target rich" so we're trying to see if we can set up a model campsite or recruiting table there this year. That kind of stuff. I think this is where having some background committee people can also be a huge benefit. Recruitment chair has a nice ring to it Time to voluntell a background parent about their promotion?

https://filestore.scouting.org/filestore/pdf/33066/33066_Official_Policy_WEB.pdf Official policy even states wearing the uniform is not mandatory and to "promote the wearing of the correct complete uniform on all suitable occasions." I think this is intentional and works. At least in our troop we expect for meetings shirts, jeans, or scout pants/shorts. For Court of Honor and Board of Review full uniform to the extent you own (even BoR rules state something about only having to wear the parts you own). Etc. Our troop has policies on what to wear when, the Scouts follow it, we have no issue. There is no official uniform policy demanding full dress uniform every week at a scout meeting. Much is left to the unit, I believe this is by design.

Troops I know of rely 98% on cub crossovers, 2% on scout-friend recruitment for building a troop. Most don't "need" to market and sometimes individual troops don't want to market. Our troop is at 75 scouts. That will drop to 50-60 in the next two years due to the double whammy of boys hitting 18 and the pack we work with having only a handful of crossovers to feed the troop. I floated the idea of having a recruiting campout this year since we know our feed-in from packs will be light the next two years and it was received well. We'll see if we do it. When I was a youth we did that once a year. We'd arrange to camp right out in front of everyone somewhere and invite the public in like an open house. We were a small town but would usually get 3-5 new scouts a year doing that. Nice thing about Troop vs. Pack is Troops are considerably less time sensitive. Scouts can join almost any time since advancement is an individual responsibility. For Packs, it's harder - if you don't get that "marketing" in right off the bat in the school year, a big influx of cubs mid-year creates and advancement challenge for Den leaders, parents and scouts.

Thanks, good clarification. Anyone know if Scouts BSA has ever achieved that kind of membership gain in a 3 year period in its history? Anyone with involvement / knowledge of the strategy at national to achieve such an aggressive goal?

Does this mean their business plan currently relies on nearly doubling membership over the next 3 years? I'd love to see that, any one have insight on how they expect to hit that goal?

I feel like we might be in the same council. Either that or this is a VERY familiar story. Last year my scouts got ONE lunch at a Camporee free for this fee. A single turkey and cheese sandwich and a small box of milk. No joke.

$33 of the $33 was national. $75 of the $146 was national. My unprofessional, non-forensic opinion is the biggest impact they have seen is camping revenue has tanked. It's down over $500,000 annually. DESPITE this obvious reality - they continue to budget for much higher revenue from camp and consistently fall short. One of the reasons I have such an issue with the assessment of the additional council fee is that it seems obvious a bulk of it is to cover this deficit. HOWEVER, the fee has been assessed to every scout in council. The first year it was in place, Cubs could not even attend the camp in question. Now they can but their opportunity to do so is much more limited than Scouts BSA members, yet the fee is the same for each. Additionally 60% of camp attendance in the summer is out of council units. This fee is a council fee to cover the shortfall from running the camp. So we are subsidizing the camping fees for a LOT of out of council scouts. That's what I've come to understand and it's why I find it a hard pill to swallow. FOS is down a bit but nothing like the camping revenue tanking. FOS being down is not surprising. Who contributes to that? The most passionate and invested people. They are still here, so the revenue should be strong-ish still. But... we all have limits. When I was paying $48 a year for my two scouts, it was very easy to open up the checkbook when the FOS people came around. Now that it's $300 a year... I mean... what do you expect? You're getting what I can reasonable contribute from mandatory fees now. Sorry... nothing left to give when FOS comes around and zero excitement to see them come around and ask families for more money when they've already increased the base cost of scouting to them by 5 orders of magnitude in the past 3 years without any objective improvement of a similar magnitude to the program or experience for the scouts. It should embarrass them honestly.

Welcome! Boy... this story sounds familiar to me It is basically the path I also took. Hyper involved as a youth, fell off after college and married life, son came home in 1st grade asking if he could join Cub Scouts: Heck yeah you can. Back in the fray! Probably the best thing I can share is be humble. I was amazed at how much I had forgotten. Let the boys in the troop teach you, you'll both benefit from it. If you're ever unsure how something is "supposed" to be done, do what the boys should do: Ask your SPL

Popcorn and FOS are almost exactly today what they were in 2018. It's not for salaries. It's not entirely clear what it is for, that's the issue. Help me understand how in 2018 first year membership was $33 and in 2021 it is $146 in my council. I stand by it. It's ludicrous. The people collecting these fees owe us transparency. They owe us a plan for getting back to an affordable rate. They owe it to scouting NOT to make this a country club activity only accessible to the most wealthy who can afford these huge annual fees which are just the tip of the iceberg in costs for scouting. They are professionals, they ought to be able to figure out a plan to get straight financially that doesn't boil down to "tax the heck out of all our members". That had never been an approach ever. And then it was. It was clear that keeping scouting accessible to all was a priority of Scouts BSA and then suddenly around 2018 - nope. That's sad.

Our council has a hefty $46 per scout additional fee. Initially they called it an "insurance fee" but after being called out on the fact that insurance costs have gone DOWN for the council in each of the past 5 years, they renamed it "activity fee". You know what my two sons got for that $46 each fee last year? Free lunch one day at a camporee. A turkey sandwich, bag of chips and little carton of milk. I kid you not. I honestly don't know what council needs or uses that money for but from my POV it's just a tax on parents and volunteers to make up shortfalls in their budget. Even volunteer adults "get" to pay this fee. It is ludicrous.

I'm not finding a lot of info about this. I found one mention in a council's FAQ doc indicating that visitors are allowed but constrained to central jamboree and not permitted in subcamps which is understandable and fine. Is it possible to attend as a visitor for a few days? We have some scouts who might like to do that, some of the requirements of being part of the council contingent preclude their involvement (cost to attend / time commit / equipment purchase / etc.) but will be too old next jambo and have an interest to go see it. We'd find suitable accommodations nearby and drive in for the days. When I was a youth in '89 we drove down to AP Hill from a long ways and attended a couple of days in this model, but it's been a long time and the jambo has come a long way since then

What plans does your unit have that you are really looking forward to? Any annual traditions that your scouts really look forward to?

It's a good idea not to hold two positions. In fact, it is BSA policy. Unless you are uber strapped for volunteers, having an ASM serve as advancement coordinator / chair is just going to make that person spread thin, likely to be mediocre at both roles, and burn out faster. https://www.scouting.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Registration-Guidebook.pdf Page 14:

We are just back from summer camp. This is my third camp as support leadership, next year I've raised my hand to take the lead so I'm capturing some of the observations, notes, etc. immediately on return while fresh in my mind because my mind is a sieve I thought I'd post some of the general comments here and see also if I can take advantage of the accumulated wisdom and recent summer experiences of those gathered here. We had an AMAZING week. Should note we had over 30 scouts with us, so some of this might be more relevant to a group that size, but still worth sharing. Will encourage more that Scouts bring "old fashioned games" to camp and considering building a box of them for our trailer. Chess, dominoes, checkers, packs of cards, LCR, etc. Once our scouts got their chess boards and sets from the merit badge, which was Thursday night, there were no less than THREE games of chess running in camp at a time. Magic! If we had provided that opportunity earlier in the week we would have had more of that I think. Cheap, easy to pack, durable games like that can be a mainstay in our troop gear as well, providing similar opportunities on most outings. Will have part of the prep docs and parent conversation be about moderating the games and music sent to camp. It all needs to be appropriate for 11+ if coming to camp. What started off as "anyone want to play cards?" turned out to be cards against humanity, which we luckily caught wind of and quickly nipped. Oof though. Can you imagine? I feel like foot locker inspections are draconian, but I am thinking about at least having the quartermaster and SPL have some kind of "health check" as boys report to camp. "Do you have your hygiene products? Do you have only age appropriate games? Do you have food in your footlocker that needs to be squared in the bear box?" Etc. Air Tags / tiles on high value items like phones and daypacks were clutch. They will get lost. 99% of the time, they will make their way to main office lost and found. Being able to KNOW the item is there safe, while allowing the scout to stew about it until daylight was helpful to us. We could comfortably put off the search (especially in the dark) knowing the expensive / important item would be found in the morning. It also allowed us to locate a phone that had been dropped in the middle of the woods, presumably during orienteering. I am fairly sure it would never have been found otherwise. That parent had the "locate my device" feature on, not the air tag type of service. They were able to share the exact coordinates and when we got close turn on the screen and sound which enabled us to find it. I kind of hated the scavenger hunts for devices and property but those tags and services helped tremendously when available. One scout lost their phone and its battery was dead so the passive tile device on it was key. This is some insurance a parent can provide that the expensive device will get home. We can debate the place phones have at summer camp (and my group currently is) but the reality is I think they will be there and there is a use for them at camp (photos, contact sharing with new friends, research in badge classes like oceanography, indian lore, etc) and with youth this age - loss potential is high. I will say no one over the age of 13 lost their device or daypack or uniform. It was entirely the younger cadre. The mature scouts showed they could manage themselves well in this respect, the younger experienced the lessons they need to learn about holding on to property in a relatively safe environment where 9 times out of 10 your [insert precious item here] will be turned in to lost and found vs. kept thanks to everyone being scouts. Scoutmaster leading made a point to remind ALL scouts if you brought money to camp it is YOUR money. If you are a young scout and get asked to run an errand by an older scout you are NOT to do it and are to report it to the leaders - no scout is any other scout's errand lackey. I found that valuable, there was a problem with this on arrival night but never happened again after expectations were properly set. We had an excellent SPL who excelled in the camp setting. It was crucial to the success of the week. Do you guys do any pre-camp coaching/prep/training for the SPL? A week at camp is a different beast than a weekend campout or troop meeting. They are balancing a lot more and have a ton more to manage on top of their classes. These are some initial reflections and ponderings I had. Curious to know what other pro tips you all have that lead to "magic moments" or that you found particularly beneficial and plan to include in the plan for next time.