scotteg83

Can you avoid this headache and get the equine therapy center to allow your scout to do this on a different day then the others?

1 hour ago, qwazse said:

I feel the SM is missing a great opportunity here. He could walk (ride?) around the grounds checking in on different projects, observing which scouts have the best plan for lunch, etc ... and free up time for lots of other activity.

Ask your district advancement chair to have a word with your SM about this.

Heck, he can borrow a horse and play John Wayne too!

1 hour ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

I thought one of the reasons why registration increased 275% in an 8 year period  was to cover background checks.

If that was the case, we wouldn't have registered sex offenders as leaders

Real issue I have.  When is the background done versus the crime?

Its my understanding that national only runs a background check when you send in a new application.  I've had adults run off the same application for 10+ years, never changing positions, so never sending in a new application.  I can only assume that National is not re-running background checks on everyone, every year.

At least the offender was following 2 deep leadership in a car.

Funny you bring this up.  In the last 8 years of being a volunteer, I have never needed my card for any reason.  And now with the Myscouting app on my cell phone, I just load the app to find my BSA number. 

As a former pack committee chair, it would take months for the cards to come in, and then a couple more months to chase down all the boys to give them the cards.  I've never had a scout that showed they cared to have a card either.

Personally I waited till my next year my council offered it.  I felt I would connect better with people from my own council, and be able to use those relationships down the road better.

That and I am not in a huge hurry to take WB.  Its on my list, but nothing I can't live without.

Due to your extra PTO, it might be worth it to take it now, that way you don't have to make a hard choice next time on what to take off for.

6 hours ago, dilrod said:

Has anyone else experienced difficulty in getting a knot for a position they held?  It took my 3 years to finally get a Den Leader knot.  This only happened because I took it upon myself to prep all the forms (not just my own, but my fellow Den & Pack leaders going back two years), get the signatures and submitted to the District training chair.  The Council sat on them forever & some of those never came.  

I see those old Scouters with a chest full of knots and wonder how that happened.  Were they better about awarding and processing these things in the old days?

in our district, all "smaller" knots are handled by the units.  Den leader, scouters training, etc.

District award of merit and bigger ones are done at the District and Council level

As a ASM, I never sign my sons requirements, unless it was in a group setting.  We have enough ASMs at meetings to send our kids to each other instead. 

For most our dads, its because we would be harder on our own son then another scout.  I know that's not right, but it happens that way.

Sounds like the troop should start a Sea Scouts Unit and focus on that boat monthly.

If its truly the Old timers show, I would cut losses and go to another troop or start your own.  Take the hit now and cut your losses.

Everyone keeps saying its up to the charter, but they must have missed the part that says "Our Troop is chartered by "Friends of... so-and-so" and NOT a non-profit nor does our C.O. have their own EIN.  This I confirmed.  So I cannot use the Tax ID or EIN for our C.O."

The biggest issue with having a charter being a "friends of ..... group" is exactly this, EIN numbers. 

Wish I could help more,  I know our old cubmaster managed to get a EIN number hassle free when, or so she said, but I'm not sure what steps she took, and now we are under a different charter anyway.

As a scout we went to Camp Crooked Creek in Kentucky

As a leader (moved to Maine) and so far the last two years we went to Camp William Hinds in Raymond.  This coming summer we are going to Camp Roosevelt outside of Bangor

Webelos den leader uniform:  Webelos adult necker and webelos slide.  We do make themed slides each month that I wear at pack meetings.

Scoutmaster uniform:  Troop logo necker and either a yellow paracord woggle, or my son make me a 3-d printed yellow Troop 111 slide

District committee uniform: Handmade wooden slide, made by a host unit for a district event

We had custom baseball caps made with our troops logo and colors.  The PLC voted for that to be official headgear for the troop

Our pack for the last 7 years, have done this:

All show-n-sells were totaled, and then divided by the amount of time slots filled.  So ideally, if we had a total of $100 sold, and 10 scouts filled the time slots to make the sales, each would credit $10 towards their sales and add them to their Take order totals for prize ordering.  Now mind you, we do $20,000 on average for show-n-sells, and this year had 36 scouts participating, some as little as 1 two hour slot, and one went as many a 19 two hour slots.  This years average was $100 per shift, so my daughter that did 15 shifts earn $1500 towards her overall sales.

26 minutes ago, Eagledad said:

My kids would mutiny if their parents went to Disney without them.

Barry

If this kid was getting kicked out of summer camp early, that's probably the same reason they went to Disney without him

When we changed banks with our pack, we had to have a letter from our CO, with their letterhead, stating our Pack and names of those going on the account, allowing us to use their EIN.  Hopefully something similar and your last Charter agreement would be enough.

Or try another bank, we use local credit unions for our pack and troop.

16 hours ago, perdidochas said:

More hands isn't always quicker work, when Boy Scout aged boys are involved.  

Ain't that the truth sometimes

7 hours ago, ParkMan said:

One related thing - I would encourage anyone who goes through the program to write a ticket that benefits their unit.  In our council, it's required that 4 of the 5 ticket items have to directly relate to your primary role in Scouting.  If you're an ASM, then is has to be something to do with you being an ASM.  I get that in some councils it's different.  I'd still encourage you to write ticket items that related to your unit.  Being an ASM who then goes off and does ticket items about district or council stuff is missing the mark a bit. 

I am signed up to do our Councils Wood badge next fall.  Looking forward to see it for myself. 

Tickets might be a challenge for me, I already volunteer in a Pack, 2 troops, and district level.  Last years course had 90% of the council staff in it, so of course when it became ticket writing time, they were "influencing" district and council level tickets out of people.  Not all people caved, but the ones struggling to think of their own jumped on board.

Could shut up the Project Coordinator by building a shelf to hold the LEGO tubs.

But on a serious note, is this Eagle Project Coordinator in your unit, or the district?  If he's in your unit, maybe have your Scout reach out to someone on the Committee for a second opinion. Whenever a project is proposed to our Committee, the entire committee will ask questions (to help smooth out details) and lead them in the right direction.  And no, its not about building something.

Its the Scout doing the Eagle Project responsibility to find and provide the workforce.  No where does it say it has to be fellow Scouts to volunteer.  Personally I would encourage an open invitation because more hands could me quicker work.  But if they feel they can get it done with a select group, then that's their decision.  As a Eagle scout mentor, they should remind the Scout that in a work place in the future, they will have to work with people not of their own choosing, and this would be a great opportunity to get experience in working with a vast group of people.

43 minutes ago, 69RoadRunner said:

We have a meeting tonight. I'll see if I can start getting an idea of what this group is thinking. It's hard when we've barely started Philmont stuff for 2019 and kids change so much year to year.

Maybe pushing one every year is too much?  These trips can take a year of planning and fundraising to make happen, which is why most troops do every other year or every three years on these types of trips.  If you pump them out every year, how much input and planning do the Scouts really have versus letting the adults plan it?

36 minutes ago, MattR said:

I have a shirt with no position patch. If people have to look at my uniform to see what I do then they can just as easily ask me. Usually I'm right there.

I have a spare shirt that has my knots, council patch and no unit number or position patch, makes a good backup shirt

15 minutes ago, Eagle1993 said:

Family packs have no minimum number of girls.   Where does the 5 come from?

The earlier adopter program for Cubs required a minimum of 5 girls, not sure if that still applies

1 minute ago, qwazse said:

Got it! So, what age range are you actually dealing with? The full 10-14? Or is it more like 11-12 year olds?

I ask because if you have a few interested 13-14 year olds, or you this lot of youngsters seem like a bunch of natural born leaders, you may want to put Introduction to Leadership Skills for Troops ILST on the agenda for a December or January activity. That might be a good complement to those SPL/PL handbooks.

The other way that I think linked troops could use ILST is for the two PLC's to do it together. (I say "do" rather than "take" because it's actually designed to be run by youth with your SMs/ASMs in the back of the room.) Over the long run I think this is a good way for the boys to compare notes with the girls and make sure they are each doing their part to deliver on the promise of scouting. I don't know, however, if it's a good idea for a joint ILST in the beginning of year 1 -- especially if the boys have been doing it yearly already. The only reason is from my experience with Venturing, is HS girls don't like to step up when they think there's a boy who's had experience with the task in question. At the end of that first year, one or two of the girls who've taken the course will be ready to team up with their male counterparts in delivering it.

This is probably going to be more 11-12 year old.  At least the core 5 we have lined up are.  And we plan to start recruitment focusing on 6th grade and middle school. 

I would have to look into ILST more.  I've heard the term, but I've never seen it happen before.  Our currently scoutmaster has done "leadership training" for newer PL's, but I doubt its ILST standard.

7 minutes ago, T2Eagle said:

What strikes me is that you're assuming both an extreme lack of knowledge on the part of the parents and an extreme level of complexity for youth running a program.

How would you be doing this if you were starting a new troop for boys --- as has been going on for 100+ years?  There could be some value in the girls observing how the boys run their troop for a few weeks, but mostly I think what you need to do is get the girls to jump in and start putting together THEIR program.  

Get your troop together, see who wants to be the leaders, have them work with the their fellow scouts to plan a campout --- where do they want to go, what do they want to do, how are they going to feed themselves.  You can help them find equipment, but see what they think they know already and what they think they'll need.  Skip the joint opening, closing, and game; Troop 123 isn't a subset of Troop 456, it's Troop 123, they know how to say the Pledge, they'll learn how to say the Oath and Law, they're as capable of deciding how to organize and enjoy themselves as any other troop.

Once they get back from the first campout, great, what did we do well, what do we want to do differently.  Now plan a couple more trips and start thinking about other things like advancement, if they're interested in that they'll read the handbook and start planning how to knock out requirememts.  But what they probably want to do most is what all youth want to do: get together, get outside, and have some fun.

Some of the other things you mention could be helpful, like having the parents of the new scouts observe how a current troop operates, however, maybe I'm wrong, but I would guess that many of the parents of girls joining the program are going to be the parents of sons already in the program.

The essence of scouting is a group of youth being empowered to develop their own outdoor program.  Focus on that and the rest of the stuff will follow.

Some very great points.

The only thing on the committee shadowing the troop's.  Our 2 females that have already agreed to step up, have no clue on how to run a troop (Positional training will happen soon), nor how to hold a SM conference and Board of Review.  They are both Mom's of boys in Scouting, but haven't volunteered for anything on the troop level.  The soon to be Scoutmaster has been a popcorn kernel for the pack and nothing else.  The potential Committee Chair has been a Assistant den leader for two months now and has no clue on what a Committee Chair does, or how to hold Board of Reviews, etc