swilliams

I did a search, but didn't see any info on this. Our District Advancement Chair told us that BSA is mandating the move to Scoutbook, and suggests that we continue to use Troopmaster (our current platform) until we're certain all the Scoutbook files are correct. In looking for information on how to transfer files in the easiest manner, I haven't found anything from National saying we have to use Scoutbook, other than to record advancement. Right now, after each COH, I upload a file from Troopmaster to Scoutbook via Internet Advancement 2.0, so that shows the advancement for our scouts.

Wow, I thought all schools were doing online learning. My kids would stage a revolt if we had to do summer school.

My boys can't wait, and will be devastated if there's no camp this summer. With Gov. Wolf (PA) being part of the northeast group talking about re-openings, if NJ summer camps are closed, you can bet PA scout camps will be closed, too. I'm not concerned about sending my boys, should camp still be an option.

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.

I was thinking about having a letter at each checkpoint that spells out a word when finished. My youngest (12) doesn't have a cell phone yet, along with one other scout. I suppose he could borrow one. It would be a lot more fun (I would think), for them to share their selfies. Again, on a secure site. It might also give us some photos to share in an iMovie - or something - if we can't have a regular COH with slideshow.

I'm looking for similar suggestions!! I've done a few Zoom meetings, and son is currently doing an online merit badge session. Here's what I've found so far: Zoom (and Skype, etc.) have a small lag time, and it's harder to read body language, so there's a lot of talking over each other, then stops and starts. It's hard to accomplish anything in a decent amount of time. I don't see this ever working well for den or patrol meetings, but not sure there's any other option. The merit badge session is a webinar. The counselor is live on the top of the screen, and he has a PowerPoi

I'm working on the hiking merit badge with one son. It was started with a group of scouts from the troop, but can't be finished together at this point. That's going okay, and we (I was in as a second adult and advancement chair, much to my son's dismay, lol) just finished up a Zoom meeting with the counselor for all the boys that began the badge. That was okay, with only six scouts and the counselor. But the same son also started an online merit badge class with Central Florida Council... My impressions of that are varied. This particular one is Sustainability, and son needs a coupl

No way! I just got "Milf Man Love to Fart Funny Novelty sweatshirt". 🤣 What have you all done??!! Edit: also shoes, web builders, and mountain biking water bottles, so I feel a little better now.

Our schools are closed now. Because our Troop meets at the school, we’re automatically canceled. Our committee meeting was canceled as well, so I’m anticipating a lot of email upcoming. Our Crew held our last leaders’ meeting last night. We have tentative plans for a day trip at the end of March - replacing a cabin camping trip. We’ll reevaluate the week before. The church where our monthly meeting is held closes tomorrow, but we already canceled the meeting for next week. It will be a tougher call going forward, imho, to cancel bigger scout events at both local and regional levels

If we’re all stuck at home, maybe an online group merit badge session on Medicine? 😄

We are one of the towns who have a case now. Our schools are closed today for cleaning, so that means our troop meeting is canceled. 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?

My own son is First Class, and there are two others the same rank, one Star, and 2 Tenderfoot. (The Tenderfoot scouts joined late, so they’re in 9th grade already.)These scouts all wanted to work on this together, so only the two Tenderfoot need any of the hikes as part of rank advancement. Our Troop keeps track of hiking miles. So if we do a camping trip out on the Appalachian Trail, we count the camping nights, but also keep a log of how many miles hiked. In any case, it sounds like it can be added to their hiking totals, since it’s ‘under the auspices’. I have to say, though, I

A group of scouts from our troop have been working on the hiking merit badge, and one of the moms had a question I don’t know the answer to. I tried a search, but wasn’t pulling up quite what I was looking for. Our troop uses Troopmaster for advancement as well as keeping records of activities. One of the activity types that we keep a record of is hiking. Do the miles hiked for the merit badge get recorded as a hiking activity? Is it up to each troop to decide? Could use something me guidance here.

If this proposal were brought before our committee, we would almost certainly ask the scout to add to the scope of the project. The amount of work to be done doesn't have to be X number of hours, but if a project is too small, how much leadership and organization is being done by the Eagle candidate? We have a scout who just finished a project similar to this. He enlarged a deer exclosure (area to keep deer out, so that native species could flourish) and raised the surrounding fencing by a couple feet. Because the fencing is plastic mesh attached to metal poles, we felt that by itself

One other idea for Liz is to have someone in your Troop volunteer with the pack as well. I used to do all the graphic art for the pack and make take home ‘gifts’ for the PW Derby. I’ve offered to continue doing this - albeit to a lesser degree - even though my boys are done with Cubs. This year I helped their new advancement chair make derby car stands out of inexpensive Home Depot materials. I came up with the design, her husband cut the materials, she assembled much of it, then she and the Cubmaster came over and we had some vino while staining the stands and attaching a label. It didn

An update, of sorts. The Scoutmaster gave me back the blue cards last week. The scout will need to re-do all of them. At that point (last Tuesday), the SM still hadn't had a conversation with the scout. He said he would talk to the scout at this past weekend's camping trip, so I hope that actually happened. I'm a little concerned that so much time has passed, with no conversation, from when the scout first turned in the cards. If the SM didn't speak to the scout yesterday/Saturday, I'll ask that the SM let me talk to him at our weekly meeting tomorrow. I'll admit to being cowardly when

Can't speak to a non-mummy bag, though I will say that as much as I hated the mummy bag at first, after many a camping trip it's no longer an issue. I have four sleeping pads, because I'm picky and still haven't found the one I love most of all. First one is a Thermo-rest inflatable. It's the warmest, but it's bulky and it isn't self-inflating, and takes a while to get it blown up. It also isn't quite thick enough for me. As a side-sleeper and female, it lets my hip bones hit the ground, so I end up tossing around all through the night. This is the pad I take for cabin camping wher

Hotdog roast is one I hadn't come up with - thanks! The nearest girls' troop here also pulls from multiple towns. At a recent BOR in our town's troop (boys), one of the committee members mentioned that it's a shame our town doesn't have a troop for girls. Well, the town that has the troop had everything organized and ready to go prior to the official start date for girls. They had a CO, CC, and SM. They had already done recruiting. We didn't. The reason for bringing this up is that I think being first goes a long way and applies to several situations. As it applies to recrui

I gave the blue cards to the Scoutmaster last night. Will let you know how he decides to handle this/approach the scout. On another note, our young-ish and very eager MC for the next COH is driving me up the wall, lol. I told him Friday morning that I would send an advancement report later that afternoon so he could start working on the program. He emailed a half-hour later telling me I "must have forgotten" to send the report "in the rush of things".

Of course he is. I do think this has shown that it would be a good idea to have the SPL go over blue card procedures at an upcoming meeting. In addition to this issue, I had a heck of a time trying to get one of the young scouts to understand it. I didn’t have a print-out of the most recent MB Counselor list with me (had come straight from work), and couldn’t get the document to load on my phone. He couldn’t understand why I wasn’t going to forward the list to him. He wondered aloud why, if scouts were supposed to be responsible, he couldn’t have the list for himself, lol.

Couldn't decide between a 'like' or a 'laugh' here. There are a couple things going on here. On some, the previous person approved/wrote a counselor, on some it was me who gave the counselor name. On those cards, the new counselor was written over the top. On a few, they were issued for summer camp, so no counselor was written in when they were given.

Your first bullet point - yes he handed me the unit copy and his copy. Our troop usually returns the scout portion along with the MB patch at a COH. Second - yes the counselor signed both portions. Third and fourth bullets - the blue cards that were issued by my predecessor are signed on the unit section, and on the applicant's record. The ones I issued to the scout are signed on the unit portion, but not the applicant part. No one ever told me how this was supposed to be done, so I've been signing the applicant's record part upon completion of the MB. In this case, the scout han

To the point about the signatures, all the blue cards have a unit leader signature on the front, whether mine or my predecessor’s. The counselor signatures are done. The final unit leader signature would either be myself or our current SM, and neither of us has signed at this point, given the concerns we have. In our unit, since we have a fair number of scouts, the blue cards are issued by the SM’s appointee - me - and typically I’m the one who goes over the cards with the scout when they’re completed, though on occasion the SM goes over them and gives them to me to enter and purchase th

As far as verifying some of the requirements, he is active in the troop and I'm sure has done a lot of the requirements through participation. I'll see what I can find out. Still troubles me that almost nothing was signed off prior to November.

I don't know, as the town where this person lives is about an hour from us and is in a different council. To be clear, it wasn't his dad that signed them, but the someone with the same last name. The blue cards date back to 2016, but only two of them have any partials recorded on other dates. They're all marked the same day in November of last year for completion. Six of the nine are for Eagle required merit badges. I haven't heard back from our CC. I'm leaning toward just emailing the scout and his dad and asking them about it, but I don't even know what to say. "Excuse me, but are