Treflienne

I am about to take my new scouts on their first cabin overnight. In order to have a campfire, they are going to have to shovel out about a foot of snow that is covering the fire circle.

@mrkstvns, he was referring to the fires of 2018.

I've been to a GSUSA event where the adults were required to bring their medical forms, but in a sealed envelope. The envelope was handed over to the event organizers and then handed back at the end of the weekend. The organizers were trusting us that we actually had a medical form in that envelope -- which was only to be open if the need arose. (Most of the attendees were GSUSA troop leaders who were quite familiar with the GSUSA medical forms.)

Tactfully put. But when options of all kinds are open to a GSUSA troop, and the majority decision rules, if the majority decision does not want to do archery (or some other outdoor activity) then that activity will not happen for that troop. And, importantly, the majority of the troop will be quite happy about that. One thing I have seen with the BSA program is that it is attracting the girls who want to camp, and helping them find each other. (And the girls who don't want to camp can look at the rank advancement requirements and decide that other youth-program options more suited t

For GSUSA whether shooting sports are allowed varies by council The Girl Scouts of Central and Western Massachusetts permits it: http://www.gscwm.org/content/dam/girlscouts-gscwm/documents/2018/Volunteer Essentials 2018-2019.pdf The Girl Scouts of Eastern Massachusetts does not permit it: https://www.gsema.org/content/dam/girlscouts-girlscoutseasternmass/documents/volunteer-essentials.pdf

How densly populated is your area? Are some of these other boy troops reasonably close by, even if in another town? If so, the opportunity for boys in your town to participate in scouting does not go away, even if the troop chartered in your town folds. So you do not need to feel you are letting scouting for boys down if you focus on the cub pack and/or girl troop and encourage the boys to join stronger existing troops. Actually, cooperation with those troops might help you with the girls troop. For us, even though our girls troop is linked with one of the local boys troops, the

Give credit where credit is due. Baden-Powell talked his sister into setting up a parallel organization for girls. Then for decades Baden-Powell's wife worked with said organization.

Better yet, get the offending scout to quote it to you, and stop him at a relevant point which you then discuss with them. (I use to do this with Brownie and Junior girl scouts.) Worked well for many scouts. Did not work so well for the Brownie who really did not want to be a Brownie and would have preferred do be doing almost anything else.

What would you do if you saw this behavior in a Bear whose parent was not present? Who would address the behavior? The den leader? Perhaps the mom is wanting to wear her CC hat and not her mom hat in this situation. It was a different organization, but with Brownie girl scouts we moms/leaders learned to differentiate between wearing the Mom hat and wearing the Troop Leader hat. And at Brownie events a different leader (not the problem Brownie's mom) would deal with any typical kid behavior issues. Are you the den leader? Maybe the mom is hoping you will say something to the

We are digressing. The scouts will pick their own menus. Back to my main question. Opinionated opinions please:

In my experience, pancakes are a terrible choice for beginner campfire cooking. Too hard to keep the heat really uniform. Too many memories (as a high school girl scout) of being offered scrambled burnt pancakes by brownies I was accompanying.

Cabins have no kitchen, no plumbing, no sink. Water needs to be hauled from a spigot at a different location in the camp. All cooking has to be done outdoors on a campfire or camp stove. (Troop wants to do it on campfire.)

To be clear, I am not asking if the trip counts as camping for the purposes of TF 1a/1b -- it does not. I am not asking if the trip counts as camping for the purposes camping for SC 1a -- it does not. My question is about specifically about the meal planning, cooking, and cleanup and TF 2a/b and SC 2e. I listed the other requirments, because they seem to define what a campout is for the purposes of rank advancment.

There is still snow on the ground here, and for our first overnight outing with new scouts we will be going to a local boy scout camp and staying in small cabins there. Cooking will be done outdoors over campfires. The scouts will plan and cook their meals. However, since they will not be sleeping in tents that they pitched themselves, this is not actually a campout. Since this is not a campout, then the meal planning and preparation and cleanup do not count for rank advancement. Is this interpretation correct?

The new scouts BSA uniform pants for ladies have a fine fit -- but they are cotton blend. Suitable for indoor use. The older style polyester microfiber pants are a very poor fit (on me at least). So, for heading out into the outdoors, I might be looking for a pair of BSA-olive-green quick-dry ladies-cut pants. Any suggestions? And don't suggest 5.11 -- they don't have quick-dry ladies-fit pants in olive green.

I would venture that for different kids, the methods differ in importance. Adult association? For the outgoing kid who is already comfortable going up to unfamiliar adults and talking with them -- this method is not so important. For the timid kid, the chance to interact with friendly encouraging adults is invaluable -- to prepare them for when they need to talk to the department head at the high school, or the college interviewer, or . . . The uniform? For some kids, it is no big deal. For the kid (and this may especially important for some girls) who is extremely self-conscious

Around here, the school district calendar lists the last-day-of-school-assuming-five-snow-days. Parents are told by the schools not to make any summer vacation plans that start before that date. If we have more than five snow days, many families pull their kids out and school and go off on scheduled vacations, or sent their kids to scheduled camps. Attendence is low and not much work is done on any make-up days beyond the anticipated five.

Any good advice on how to do so?

@Ranman328, it looks like you were right to be concerned about this new unit. If a kid has a requirement signed off, knowing that he has not actually completed it -- or if a kid has a requirement signed off by an adult who tells him he did it, but the kid later looks up what is required and realizes he has not actually done what was required -- this is discouraging and demoralizing. It also casts doubt on whether others who have that badge/award have actually done the work. I have seen this problem far too often in a different youth organization. The question is how to instill in t

And the advantange of an all-girl troop using the BSA materials, (instead of materials from "another national scouting organization"), is that since BSA has camping and outdoor skills built into the rank advancement progression, such a troop will attract girls who want to go outdoors and camp, enabling those girls to find each other. It avoids the all-too-common problem of

It helps to live in a populous school district. A couple of girls were initially interested. They recruited several more from their pool of friends. All the boy scout troops and cub scout packs in the school district communicated with all their families that a new girls troop was forming, and inquired about interested sisters and/or friends. This found several more girls. There were also info notices put into a local paper, and posters put up around town -- but this did not turn up much interest. Going forward, the cub scout packs are planning to help advertise for u

Thanks. I have a couple of questions about your presentation. With a single-patrol troop why have both an SPL and a PL? What are the distinct differences between the roles in that setting? I seem to recall other discussions here which came down opposed to having both in a single patrol troop. This is a practical question for a newly organizing troop.

Would I be reasonable if I told a scout, who had just been studying a picture of a knot in the handbook, that she needed to wait to have her knot-tying skill checked off? (None have tried this yet. Hope none do.) That is, can I expect them to know it cold?

Unless it is a group of very highly motivated 16-year-old Venturers who are working very hard to try to reach Eagle. In such a situation, whether they are self-motivated could be assessed by talking to them.

These is a saying "never attribute to malice what can adquately be explained by incompetence." How about considering accepting that some people genuinely misunderstood you and were not trying to take your words out of context?