yknot

I can answer #3 for you: If you are still in scouting after your kids have aged out some parents will wonder if you are a pedophile. I can't tell you how many parents have told me this is a worry.

Someone needs to enact a BSA by law that says no new rate increases can go into effect after August 15 or 31. Recruiting/registration usually starts with the start of the school year, so we need to know now.

Good heavens I would not use Tor.

I think it's great if older scouts want to peel off and plan some summer HA outings. After a certain number of years, many of them are bored with traditional summer camp, which some of them have been doing for years. Neither of my sons are HA types but I support any scout that is. I see too much HA as a good problem to have, not a bad one.

You can do a ton of fun table top things. Frankly, I don't like the pie in the face of an adult. I think it's disrespectful. But there are a lot of cheap sources of temporary paw print tattoos. You could also do raingutter regatta races. They sell cheap blow up tracks. Or a Hot Wheels pinewood derby. If you're in a somewhat suburban area, send them off on a nature scavenger hunt and they can return for prizes once they've ticked everything off. Marble rodeo. Paper air planes. Table top craft, like beading a claw necklace... have fun

Didn't they try to stagger departures but had to change that because it required some people to leave before the closing ceremonies?

I agree with keeping pack meetings fun. There is a lot that can creep in that gets boring for kids. If advancements are taking too long, figure out a way to shorten them up. Don't let all those boring district or council people try and come give presentations to the parents, lol. I don't agree with constant noise though. They definitely need to move and be engaged but it can't be a maelstrom. I don't think that's what Eagledad is recommending but I just know that while some kids love to scream and be loud, there are also a lot of quieter souls who will just stop coming if it's too crazy.

In some ways, scouts is a very solitary pursuit and not at all team oriented. My scouts biggest complaint when they crossed over from cubs to scouts is that they lost that sense of shared adventure with their den. I know it's supposed to morph into a patrol model, but when you are in an area where parents are pushing their kids to tear their way up the Eagle Trail, it becomes very individual and fragmented. We can tell ourselves that it's a winning vs. service mentality, but in reality, I think it's more about the shared experience. Win or lose, if kids feel like they are more part of a team

It's great to reach out to this forum, but what you really need to do is talk to people in your council who have experience with canoeing and know your local waterways. A great way to get hooked into your local expert network is to get your scouts to organize some training outings as Tatung42 said. This sounds like a great goal for your Troop and will be a ton of fun. Just be methodical and do your due diligence as a leader.

We pretty much need to provide proof of insurance, or a certificate of insurance, for anything we do, whether it's standing in front of a local supermarket to solicit food donations or use a local camp site or town park for meetings. We have some that are good for the year and others that need to be obtained for each event. While it might seem silly for councils to ask for COIs from other Councils, it's not surprising given the general ratcheting up of liability concerns everywhere. If you have not seen this yet, it is likely to come to a Council near you soon.

OK, I'll speak up for sports here. I don't like when we try and pit disciplines against each other. I think the benefits of scouts vs. sports depends in many ways on the parents and what they want for their kids. Almost all the things we criticize sports parents for I have seen in scout parents, it's just not as overt. Whether it's the win at all costs or make it to Eagle at all costs mentality, some parents are just programmed to push their kids that way. I will say that while sports parents can harass the referee, there is a limit to how far things can be contested. In scouts, however, if a

One year we gave all of our new tigers small stuffed tigers they could clip onto their back packs as a welcome to the pack gift. Someone found them at a dollar store. Anything fun related to outdoors, etc., is probably going to be expensive. Cheap things are pawprint tattoos or stickers. Cheap paper airplane or rocket toys...

People either love, hate or endure popcorn season. We typically have a scout or two who has luck selling it but most of the time it doesn't move. We can no longer even get relatives or neighbors to buy the product. It does not sell in front of grocery stores, and in my area, people resent door to door sales. If they don't know your car, they don't want it driving down their driveway lol.

This points to the problem I see where there is a BSA fantasy about what the CO role is and then there is the unit reality about it. Many COs are almost completely hands off. Ours just signs when asked and gives us space. If they really understood the degree of responsibility that BSA expects from them, they would likely drop their units. Many units understand this, and don't push the envelope. In an organizational sense, I think this is where so many things fall through the cracks. I know this is not the case everywhere, but it is maybe more the norm than the exception. No way would our CO wa

Buggie, thanks for BSA origin of field connection. Coming from more of a wildlife biology background, means something totally different to me lol.

I agree Hawkwin. That was part of my comment earlier. I believe that, like it or not, this is why people persist in using different nomenclature -- because it makes more sense. I'll also reiterate that I think it's time BSA re-engineered the so called field uniform to make it more functional for weather conditions in the field. I know there are plenty of people who love the uniforms as is but there are also plenty who don't. If it were truly a field uniform, people would be more likely to call it that. In reality, though, I think this is a minor thing to be worried about. When I can't remember

Maybe the BSA could solve this by re engineering a field uniform that is actually a field uniform. The current uniform is more like a military dress or ceremonial uniform. It's completely impractical for the field. The shirts are not warm in winter or weather wicking in summer. The patches, other than those that allow leaders to recognize who is who (meaning, I can see from a distance that that scout is in my unit 000), serve no purpose. The shoulder tabs get speared by branches. The neckerchief is actually a safety hazard in certain circumstances. The thin pant fabrics offer no warmth or lit

Our cub scouts attend day camp only, so no need for parents to attend unless they want to volunteer and get a discount. Our traditional history is that attendance is low among Lion/Tigers because many parents think the long bus ride/full day is too much for them. Picks up for wolf and bear. By Webelos and AOL rank, starts to drop off because the older kids are starting to be ready for more adventure.

One reason why scouts may be eager to sign up for merit badge days or programmed opportunities is that at least in our area it can be hard to find merit badge counselors, especially for certain badges.

I think the interesting thing here is that you can see how stressful even frivolous lawsuits can be for those who get dragged into the liability cattle call -- the CO, the CM, the ACM, the DLs and even young scouts who had to be deposed. The people who were named in this lawsuit had to live with the stress for years. It's another reminder to make sure you know GTSS and reasonably follow it. Not all judges are as sensible as this one. You also can't rely on parents having common sense when it comes to supervising their own kids on family activities.

This is a great post. The reason why we need more people exposed to the out of doors is votes. I think immigrant camping comfort is widely varied. In many parts of the world, camping is not recreational but a survival mechanism often linked to stressful or strife torn events. I think scouts can be a great way to assimilate some of these families into American style camping for fun and get them interested in our commitment to the outdoors and unspoiled places. We all wish for more solitude but the reality is there are fewer people here who are interested in the outdoor lifestyle or in pr

I agree about the mixed emotions. You want every scout to maximize their potential but the prime directive for leaders and people like this RSO is to keep everyone safe. I think it's also fair to allow people to say when they are not comfortable. Most of us do not have years of training or advanced degrees in dealing with some of these very complex and challenging behavioral and developmental issues. Parents of scouts with issues are often not a reliable or objective source of information about a child's real capabilities, because they are often so focused on trying to maximize mainstream oppo

One of my issues with scouts is that there really is no clearly defined leadership mentoring pathway. Our mantra is that it is a scout led troop, but unless scouts have had some kind of exposure to leadership training or experience with it, it can be unnecessarily difficult for some of them who do not have those natural skills yet. We seem to expect them to learn by doing, and we accept the idea that a natural state of affairs for many troops is organized chaos when they flounder. There's something to be said for trial by fire, but I also think there is a whole curriculum missing for the young

If you have a diabetic kid in your troop, I would hope the leaders would already know that because they would have medical records on hand. You can sometimes have spontaneous cases suddenly present -- and cold weather can sometimes be a trigger that raises developing or latent cases to a level of diagnosis -- but a fruity smell on a kid is more likely the result of something fruity he's gotten into lol.

If it's in bear country, it could be. Where is the scout getting the fruity substance from? Even it's smuggled starbursts and not a vaping device, it's still not safe to have in a tent. Ditto those water flavorings they like to flavor their water with. We tell them not to bring hygiene products that smell like food, even a chap stick, because of bears. It's very hard to know where to draw the line between safety and privacy but when you're responsible for a passel of kids out in the woods somewhere, I tend to side with leaders who take the proactive approach. Just this week someone posted abou