69RoadRunner

8 hours ago, Muttsy said:

Second, how does BSA operate without the LCs and COs? Isn’t it like cutting off a pianist’s hands and then telling him to play anyway? What is BSA without its “boots on the ground”?
 

Girl Scouts do not have COs. It's a choice to be organized this way, not a requirement. 

I don't think most COs understand the risk and liability they take on when agreeing to be a CO. That liability should be 100% with BSA with the exception of actions done by the CO, of course.

I've never liked having Charter Orgs and if BSA hangs them out to dry, many COs not even affected will decide they don't want the liability risk.

1 hour ago, yknot said:

It seems kind of obvious but you do hope.

I don't know about Gen Z. First off, I see them putting off having families as have Millennials. Frankly, I look out over the units I see and there are still a lot of Baby Boomer parents here with adolescents and teenagers, especially dads.  We're still riding the membership connection to that generation.  
 

Not too many boomers with teen kids. It's mostly us Gen Xers.

It's a long thread, maybe I missed this, but if BSA is upside down on Summit, then it's a liability, not an asset, right? The property can't be sold and proceeds given to plaintiffs if the loan exceeds the sale price. That would be making BSA's creditor lose.

@qwazse we only shut down last year when required. Then we started meeting at 2 different houses outside because the school was closed to us.

We camped until Virginia reduced group sizes to 10. Then we continued meetings, but as individual patrols and shorter meetings outside.

Once VA opened to groups of 100, we started activities again. First was our mulch fundraiser and now a campout.

We had an outdoor Court of Honor without the potluck dinner we do in normal times. Everything is outside where Covid transmission is rare.

We're doing our best to keep the program going within the Covid safety protocols.

@Eagledad for 3 consecutive years, we had a camping activity scheduled in early June and they had to be canceled every time due to people not signing up. 

August is the month that high school sports and band have summer stuff going on. Our school year used to start after Labor Day and ran until late June. Now it's just before Labor Day to mid June. We lose our meeting place when school closes.

We try to make HA in late June now. Summer Camp is July. Even during the non-summer months I have difficulty getting commitment to multiple weekend activities in the same month.

There's usually some sort of meeting of the HA participants in June as well. So, really, August is our only month without program. Adults and scouts need the break, in my opinion, but if a troop has a successful summer program, that's great! 

2 minutes ago, qwazse said:

Last month I was giving condolences to the family of a neighbor who only got his 1st dose, so if I sound paranoid it's because the math is adding up in a boots-on-the ground fashion.

We're all playing an odds game, and success is more likely if others around you have been vaccinated. Still, we're talking being exposed to uninfected youth who, if infected, tend to be asymptomatic. We're a cut above folks in E-Rs and respiratory clinics, and that comprises the folks who I know got sick 7-14 days after second dose. But then again most of the folks who had second doses last month were in those fields.

An Israeli matched case-control study gives us a more real-world understanding, and it seems to indicate that the Pfizer vaccine is 90% effective 7 or more days days after 2nd dose in men. But that's not 95%, and when we get to large-scale distribution, those differences matter. On their charts, new cases of infection, hospitalization, and death seem to stop sometime after about 10 days post-2nd dose while they keep climbing among unvaccinated.   (Aside: I would have done a different analysis given the huge dataset available to them, but I think I would find roughly the same conclusions, just a little more precision in the analysis.)

Kicking a pandemic's butt is what we're after. So that means making sure we "respect the wildlife pathogen." My guess is that for every person who gets sick after their jab, 5 people will conclude that the vaccine won't work. If your scouts see you being cautious during that window, they will understand that and be more likely to make sound judgements if/when the vaccine is approved for them.

The good news is, Covid transmission is rare outside and we'll be outside the whole time. We did Northern Tier last summer as well as summer camp at Summit (I only did NT). We have more than half the adult population fully vaccinated. Cases are dropping as are hospitalizations and deaths in this country. 

There's no such thing as zero risk. We can't live in perpetual lockdown. Just as there are too many people who thought the virus was fake, there are too many people who want us to continue hiding in fear. 

44 minutes ago, yknot said:

I think you have to adapt to your demographics. I hear about troops in other parts of the country that are very active in the summer but it in our area it's almost impossible to pull off.  Very few people are around enough to do much more than summer camp and some ad hoc stuff. We are also perennially short of adult volunteers, most of them are two career families, and most of them seem to want to kick back some over the summer. Summer is really not that much of a break in family activity anymore. 

As far as the OP, I think the key is to set expectations ahead of time. Our unit has never held fast to the idea of six months fully active. However, even with a summer let down or during a Covid pause, there are tasks that can be done related to the POR. Same thing with a scout that took a POR but found out he had a conflict with some of the meetings. We didn't extend his term, we just made it clear he needed to delegate so his job was done even when he couldn't be there. Every troop seems to do it a little bit different. The only approach I don't like is the no show POR -- the scout who gets credit for having his name down on a piece of paper but never actually does anything. 

I agree.  Demographics and also the culture of the troop. If your troop has always done it, the parents and scouts know what to expect and that could be part of why they're in your troop. 

If you try to make a large cultural change, it could meet resistance. Sometimes that's necessary, but sometimes it's tilting at windmills.

We have HA in June and summer camp in July, so August is really our only no activity month. Meetings end in June when school ends (we usually meet at an elementary school in normal times).

Do your best to deliver the BSA program to your troop. This Covid year+ has made us adapt to having meetings at 2 homes outside. Camping, when we could, was different. Nothing in life has been ideal, but we play the cards we're dealt as best as we can. Same is true for summer scout meetings and activities. Do what works best for your troop.

I'm an avid concert goer and bought tickets this morning to see Genesis in November, so let's kick this pandemic's butt and get back to normal.

1 minute ago, qwazse said:

IOh @69RoadRunner, keep up the social distancing. Less then two weeks is too soon to let your guard down. I'm not trying to discourage you (or anyone else) from camping with your scouts. Just keep things ventilated (windows down or burkas on). The charts from the clinical trials are clear: the 20x advantage really does require 14 days, not 10. Before 14 days after last dose, the margin of difference between vaccine and placebo is not all that great.

We have parents drop off at the camping site, so no carpooling. Everyone tents solo. Masks when they're near each other. We did this last Fall before Virginia had increased restrictions.

Keep in mind this is shot 2 for me. The other adult is fully vaccinated. Shot 1 of Moderna for me 4 weeks later does provide good Covid protection. Clearly 2 shots does much better and I'll be happy when I'm fully vaccinated.

My son is 17 and gets shot 2 of Pfizer the same week.

I was scheduled for J&J on the day they started the pause.

36 minutes ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

@69RoadRunner and @Jameson76 Trust me, I understand the competition. But it was just like during the school year when football, baseball, basketball, band, cheerleading, JROTC, etc are going on. So it has never been a big deal. And this has been with troops as small as 11, and as large as 40.

It's not just scouts. I have a very limited number of registered adults who will do campouts and getting 2 to commit for a campout is sometimes a challenge. I'm trying to recruit more. I've let the parents know just as we have turnover in scout leadership, we need turnover to new adults for adult positions. Or the troop fails.

We have a campout this month. I have my second Covid shot days before it. If I'm not up to going or the other guy has to cancel, we'll have to cancel the event as nobody else can go.

38 minutes ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

I had never heard of troops taking the summer off until I moved to NC. That's when I encountered my first troop that took a summer break except for summer camp and high adventure. No meetings, activities, other camp outs occur during the summer. IT BLEW MY MIND! (emphasis) Troop I grew up in not only met year-round,  but summer was when we were more active because we didn't have to deal with school.

As for being inactive for 3 months and it counts, I do not like it one bit.

We have to compete with vacations and other activities. We've found that it's impossible to have a functioning troop in July and August, so we don't meet and only do summer camp and high adventure. 

Maybe larger troops can have more success, but we range from about 17 to 25 active scouts. Even during the rest of the year, we typically end up having to improvise patrols at camping events. I'm not going to demand scouts make scouts priority number 1. The result would be no troop. So we adapt to reality and make the program the best it can be.

2 minutes ago, Armymutt said:

That's cool.  Probably a bit much for our 8-Cub pack, but probably a good one for older kids.  Wonder if we could do the same thing with pine straw here in NC.

This is NOT a good fundraiser for Cubs. Some of our youngest scouts are not able to carry a bag of mulch. We typically make them the bag counter, ask the owner where to stack the bags, hand out the thank you and they also sweep out the truck each time we return.

These bags can double in weight when they're wet. And they are almost always wet. I'm guessing the wet bags weigh 40-50 pounds. Just a guess.

1 minute ago, mashmaster said:

We spread it for $2/bag.  It is a very popular fundraiser here in Texas for our troops, school bands, baseball teams.....  Spreading is the high margin part and the big work part.

We often get asked about that. We make enough with delivery that we haven't done that as well.

In fact, we were making too much and sometimes had to take delivery into Sunday. By too much, I mean you risk your non-profit status if you pull in too much. So we did a better job limiting the amount we will sell based on the size of the troop.

However, our troop trailer is over 20 years old and we probably should save up for a replacement. Losing our fundraiser last year really hurt that effort. We literally held out until about 10 days before delivery last year, then the restrictions made it impossible.

16 minutes ago, Armymutt said:

Tell us more.  This probably beats popcorn

 

Oh absolutely it does. I HATED selling popcorn in Cub Scouts. I felt guilty selling something that was so absurdly overpriced and didn't yield a great deal for the pack.

Our mulch is $4.25/bag for 10-29 bags. It's $3.75/bag for 30+ bags. That's the delivered price. We stack it where you want it. Sometimes that's 20 bags along the side of the driveway and another 30 in the backyard.

That's a bargain for the customer.

When I joined this troop, this fundraiser blew me away. It's taken years of developing it.

Typically, in February we deliver flyers to surrounding neighborhoods. We know where our best customers are and we increase/decrease the number of flyers based on how big the troop is.

We order from a wholesaler who delivers the mulch Thursday night or Friday morning on pallets. 70 bags on a pallet. We also rent 2 forklifts from them.

We then rent 6 to 8 Ryder trucks. Forklifts put 3 pallets in the truck. 

This year we had parents who have an Amazon delivery business use their computer system to create each list of deliveries. It batches houses on the same street and starts from furthest point out and brings us back to the pool where we reload. It also ensured we always delivered all 210 bags, which meant some partial deliveries. We are emailed our route that opens in Google Maps taking us from house to house.

A parent or 2 drives a chase vehicle with scouts, parents and whoever a scout brings to help deliver.

Everyone who is delivering signs in and designates the scout who they're working for. We take revenue minus expenses and that gives us what we made.

The committee sets aside a certain amount of money for general operation of the troop. Then we take the rest and divide it by the total hours worked to get an hourly rate.

Multiply hours worked for/by the scout by the hourly rate and that is the scout's Scout Bucks. Scout Bucks can be used for any scout activity and dues. We make it clear it does not actually belong to the scout.

If you work the flyer delivery and bring some help for mulch delivery, you won't have to pay for a single regular activity or membership dues. In normal times (we canceled last year) the committee would also grant a stipend for summer camp and high adventure, depending on how much we made.

It also would pay for the full cost of adults at regular activities and summer camp plus a larger stipend for high adventure.

This past year, we've had to operate as a more traditional troop as few had available Scout Bucks. 

The scouts work really hard and earn a good amount money. I feel good about the product and price for the customer. It's a win-win, but this is not easy to start up.

Many troops canoe in BWCAW with private outfitters rather than Northern Tier. We did NT last summer with BSA and had a great time, but you have options there.

@MattR did you use a guide company in the Wind River Range or plan it all on your own? I'd love to do that.

We're doing the out island adventure this summer with 2 crews. For that adventure, do the sister crews camp together and sort of operate as 1 large crew?

We have just 4 adults for the 2 crews and I'm not sure we could have a last minute replacement if someone got ill. Would the 3 adults be able to cover for the 2 crews in that case? I think our 4 adults will be fully vaccinated by then, but of course other things could happen as well.

1 minute ago, SSScout said:

Oh. gee, I'm sorry you spent so much money on a custom backpack and then had to use so much duct tape on it.  Oh, wait....

 

Well, electrical tape, but...

I found a file with the frankenstrat pattern and used image editing software to expand it to the proper dimensions. I sent it to them and they printed it on Dyneema.

When I reference another adult to scouts, I try to use Mr./Mrs./Miss. I'm not perfect at this, but most of the time this is what I do.

When speaking to adults, we're peers and I use first names and expect others to use my first name. If someone insists on me, a 50 year old adult, using their title, I see it as them putting themselves above me and I will not comply. The exception is a professional setting when seeing a medical doctor.

14 minutes ago, MattR said:

Fun pattern. I'm not cool so don't get the quarter reference. How light is it? 35 lbs is on the edge for me. Bear canisters and the gear I get with BSA treks seem to put me over, or in 2019 when we had to bring winter gear for snow.

This explains the 1971 D quarter.

https://www.axetremecreations.com/product/evh-frankenstrat-1971-quarter-replica-van-halen-replica-guitar/

It should be around 30 ounces. My personal gear is light and compact. My baseweight (without bear canister) is around 11 pounds.

It's a framed pack, so it should handle anything I throw at it. Philgear and Philfood bulk was a greater issue than weight when we went in 2018.

Just now, InquisitiveScouter said:

Yeah, what the heck does that mean?

They have to be humanely executed?

Cohorts means a group of people that are always together and do not intermingle with other groups. It reduces spread of Covid to just the cohorts if someone is positive.

I really don't see much change here. You need to follow your state/local restrictions for the most part. 

I custom ordered this 46L Curve from LiteAF back in October, shortly after EVH passed. Yesterday they finished it and posted pics on Instagram. The really cool kids will get why they put a 1971 quarter on it. 

I'm going to hopefully use it in September to do the Yosemite High Route and God willing, with my troop in 2022 at Philmont. 

I had to find the EVH Frankenstrat pattern online and then enlarge it to the right size for the custom printing. 

1 hour ago, denibug72 said:

Your ability to hammock camp will be highly dependent on the campsite you are assigned, which you won't know until you arrive on base.  Munson is broken up into two campsite areas - Front Porch & Back Porch.  When we were there in 2018, we were assigned a site in the Front Porch that had a few trees in it - enough that 3 of us could barely hammock (1 w/tarp, 2 w/o tarps).  Many of the campsites on that part of the island didn't have much for trees or living shrubs - not a lot of rebound from the hurricane at that point.  From what I saw on the island tour of the Back Porch side of the island, you'd probably have a better shot at hammocking there, but not 100% sure.

My setup was a Dutchware Chameleon hammock, with an ultralight Xenon Hex tarp for a rain fly - same setup I use for my boundary waters trips.  I picked up some knock offs of MSR Cyclone stakes for the trip, and they worked fairly well in the sand.

Thanks! I'll likely be the only one in our crews using a hammock, although it's possible someone will bring one for lounging. At Northern Tier, it was my first real camping with a hammock. I was going to use last Spring to use it, but of course everything shut down. So, for NT, I took an inflatable sleeping pad in case I had to join the other adult in his tent. Fortunately, it all worked out.

So, I'll go prepared with a sleeping pad in case hammocking won't work.

We're doing Sea Base this year. In 2017, we did one of the large sailboats. This year we're doing the Out Island Adventure.

In 2017, it rained every single night. Sleeping on deck wasn't possible and sleeping down below was hot and stinky.

I plan on taking my hammock and tarp to Munson. It's a Warbonnet Eldorado with a bug net. I also have a Warbonnet Thunderfly tarp. I used this setup (with underquilt) at Northern Tier last summer

Obviously the underquilt and top quilt aren't needed at Sea Base. The tarp is. If anyone has taken a hammock to Munson, what stakes did you use for the tarp? There are several different types designed for sand. Some are for really loose sand right at the beach. I suspect the sand in the sleeping area will be more compact. I have full size MSR Groundhogs, but not sure if they are adequate for Munson. Are there large rocks to anchor stakes?

My setup at Northern Tier:

15 minutes ago, RememberSchiff said:

Scout Charles Logan III completed Triple Crown in 2020. 

Good article

https://www.candgnews.com/news/local-scout-goes-on-the-adventures-of-a-lifetime-119394

Cool stuff, but it's not really several weeks to go 80 miles at Philmont.  Yikes on the 50 pound pack.

Good for him! That's quite a year.