Beccachap

I think we need to keep things in perspective here. First off, BSA has green lighted virtual campouts and even hosted them. BSA realizes - as should each of us - that Scouting needs to adapt to the environment we live in to stay relevant to our audience - children. Waiting until COVID is over to return to the way things were is bass-akwards and we will loose the attention of every child, even the most dedicated. Some will return for a while and try to recapture the magic, but they won't return forever. We are running them off when we hold back the tools they need to continue their journey and their joy.

To condemn children - and don't ever forget they are just children, no matter how much we think we can expect from them - for wandering off during a virtual campout for an undetermined reason is not ok. Maybe they were instructed to leave. Maybe they got bored. It does not matter. Celebrate what they did stay for and let the rest go. Have less involvement in the next virtual campout because that one must have been ill-tuned to the audience.

To assume that a parent who marks off a child's progress in scoutbook/wherever without photo evidence is being dishonest flies in the face of the Scout Oath and Scout Law - a Scout is trustworthy. Trust them, and if we need more proof, call them, talk to the child, and inquire how they completed the task. If we can't do that for now, for whatever reason, let it go until you can, but err on the side of people doing the best they can. Scouting isn't something that any child signs up for because they want to please a leader, jump through red tape, or otherwise impress someone. They do it for the adventure, for fun, and we need to assume that all regular advancement that they quite possibly did on their own doing what they truly thought they were supposed to do under published BSA guidelines is checked off for a Scout following the Scout Oath and Law. 

It sounds like there is good advice above for going about removing from the roster, but just remember that everything with BSA moves glacially.

In the meantime, if it is a financial situation, i.e. missing funds by a treasurer perhaps, get their name replaced at the bank and inform members of the change in the money stream.

If a legal liability situation, i.e. bar fight between leaders or w/e with the thread of lawsuit, then current roster matters less than what the roster was at the time of the event.

If it is a scouting situation, i.e. a leader being called out for fictionally advancing a scout, edit the permissions for that leader directly through Scoutbook and reduce or remove all privileges or with the help of your highest ranking admin.  Next, go into membership in Scoutbook and end their relationship with the Unit. 

On 11/5/2019 at 12:32 AM, Liz said:

There are only two troops for girls in our city, and the other one is "closed" to new members, so unless the one girl in this nearby Webelos den happens to be the daughter of the Chair of the "other" Troop (which would be unfortunate, but that's a long, other story) it's safe to say she'll be joining our Troop if she joins any Troop at all. 

We had our meeting tonight and I think I've pretty much made up my mind to go with our neighborhood Pack, for several reasons. As a bonus, our Troop Scoutmaster who was at the meeting pointed out that it would give us a good opportunity to make another connection between our Troop and another Family Pack in the area. My daughter is disappointed but I think the other kid that she is currently doing Webelos with and she can still get together and work on electives and stuff, and we may still go to camp together next summer. Once they move on to Troops they won't be able to be in the same unit anymore anyway, and this gives her at least a chance of working towards her AOL with a girl who she might end up in a patrol with later. The unit the other family is planning to go to, which is in their neighborhood, is registered as a Family Pack but I don't think it has any girls at that age level. 

It's not a done deal yet and I reserve the right to change my mind before it's all over, but I think this is a reasonable course. 

So just a quick note, we have 8 registered girls in our Pack and more filing in the door, but only through word of mouth and our own recruiting. Despite fighting with our council since the inception of girls in cub scouts to reclassify us (and I mean revisited over and over and over), we still appear as a boy only Pack in the council and at national level. There may be more Packs out there taking girls than what you can see online, given how impossible it is for someone on the Council end to fix our own classification. 

As an aside, yes, I know it is a setting we can do through our own Scouting.org tool. However, at our council level that function is disabled globally and it does not appear to us to configure. We've had DEs and Council verify this and look into it, and .... nothin'. 

I don't doubt that this could work, but I totally get the response from the den leader. Kids have just minutes of recess at school instead of the hour or more that was considered the mere minimum in the past. There are endless standardized tests starting at the lowest elementary grades and kids are desperate to move. 

Maybe interactive stories would be better, where in the storytelling every time a title or catchphrase is mentioned the kids have to act it out or make the animal sound. Those have had success with our younger Cubs. 

On 12/15/2019 at 2:26 PM, hertfordnc said:

> kneejerk reaction 

I suppose it appears that way, and "tone" is a challenge in written form but there's more to it. 

Having spent four decades in the largest bureaucracy on earth I am used to putting with things i think are stupid.   But  if you build an organization around free labor you have a responsibility to nurture that labor force.  

We spent all of the Fall rebuilding our pack and  raising money. My goal was that no parent would have to  pay more than $30. This is a poor community.  We almost lost the whole pack last year because we were led by higher income people who did not understand the needs of working parents. 

We would have met that goal but BSA doubled the national fee and we did not have cash in the bank.  Still, to meet the goal, we in leadership volunteered to cover the cost for ourselves and our scouts so that all the new parents would not be burdened and we squeeked by with a little in the bank and no hard feelings. 

BSA's failure to prepare  for the increased need and springing it on us weeks before charter shows reckless disregard for the people who do the work. 

This goofy two-year certification that cannot lapse in 23 months is another example of the same reckless disregard.  

And the other layer to my frustration is that I am trying hard to recruit leadership from lower income and minority folks in my community.  We are 30-40% non-white but scouting is as white as the klan for 100 miles in all directions. 

So when i ask a mom who works two jobs that I want her to be a den leader I expect the organization to value her time and mine.

end of rant 

YPT  is rolling in the background because in a dysfunctional bureaucracy, compliance is everything 



 

I don't know where you live, but I'd love to get a cuppa with you someday. I just lol'd at your Klan remark and disrupted a room full of folks here waiting on our cars to get serviced. You are doing amazing. 

Something that might help your lower income pack is to accept credit card payments and actually raise dues to include more activities. Those steps helped many of our lower income families. We also offer camperships, i.e. free dues, which anyone can claim. To claim one you must put your need in writing and sign your name. It's confidential, just between the parent and cubmaster. That simple action deters 90% of the people who inquire in our pack. 

At present or dues include a class b tshirt, pinewood derby (car and event), raingutter regatta (boat and event), and a 1$ campout with 4 meals for the whole family. It may seem counter intuitive, but this means exactly one painful financial transaction per year (can be paid off in installments through credit card), and that is easier for the parents to endure over the endless smaller payments.

Also, I don't know that aggressive ongoing fundraising will help the lowest income brackets because most of those families are working too many jobs to be able to get their kids to fundraising stuff in addition to traditional scout activities. We tried that route too and found it unsustainable. 

Try getting seen in the community and donors will present themselves to you. We stumbled into a real life Santa who pays for every campership and attends a few of our functions as an honored guest. (We met this Eagle Scout in a Santa parade). When I'm at my most frustrated, he seems to pop in my mind. 

Stepping into Committee Chair is the only role for you. Lead on! Your instincts are great, your mind is lovely, your humor is perfectly dark, and you can make your pack a hearty beast of your own making. 

I'm sure I'll get crap here for this, but if the ypt recert makes you crazy and your cert is still good, then set your computer to silent and kick it off in the background. Set a timer to remind you to pop back and answer questions now and then, and promptly forget about it for another year. Don't get bullied by it, just skip it. Watch it all again properly when your 2 years is up. 

Hope to see more posts from you soon. I could use the laughs. 

Our charter has a large, beautiful green space next to the Fellowship Hall where we hold the derby. This year we opened the doors and made it one big space. 2 years ago the Bears put on their carnival outside during the derby and that worked well. Last year it rained, if memory serves, so we were stuck inside the whole time and I don't recall it being as much fun. 

One significant improvement we did for our pack was to run separate heats and award them accordingly. That gives back uninterrupted free play to k-2 or 3-5 grades while the other heat goes down. The other half of the pack generally goes outdoors when it's not their turn, so it shortens everything up. Easier on their attention spans. 

The kids know I'm always soliciting feedback so many come to me unprompted when they like or don't like something. Hands down my biggest feedback from every single age group is 'we want more free time/ free play'. We adults often think it's a bad idea when it's hot, buggy, rainy, etc, but their response to that is so much purer. They don't care. They want to be outside, and allowed to play tag or roll around on the ground/mud/prickers. Their bodies demand it.

Maybe try adding free time. Our pack loves it. 

 I'm cautious with a response here because I've heard this same argument from a small troop that's a mess. Youth lead does not mean all planning happens the week or two before you want to go somewhere. Although I know many adults live this way (our society is largely composed of families living paycheck to paycheck), it's a reactive, painful existence that no one will gravitate towards. 

Leaders need to instill an expectation that it is paramount to pre plan months and sometimes years in advance, depending on the goal. Once the lesson is learned and a calendar is established, long term planning doesn't seem so daunting. I'd even argue that it's much easier. 

Now I'm clearly projecting on your situation here. The fact that you've come to the forums, that you've stood up a girl's troop when that's a difficult chore, that you've retained girls, and are fresh out of the gates making it youth lead are all indicators that you are doing everything right. 

So I recommend some reflection. Are they not joining after visiting, or are they not visiting? If the former, perhaps you could reevaluate the problem with the youth and brainstorm recruitment strategies for improvement. How welcoming was your troop? Did you host special activities for their visit(s)? Did your scouts explain the importance of youth lead leadership and how it could benefit new members? 

If they didn't visit, brainstorm how to find local girl Webelos and how to reach out to them through invitations to every Campout, hike, service project, etc. Teach your scouts that they should court them, starting now, for next year's crop. 

On 7/11/2019 at 2:31 PM, SSScout said:

For real.... That was my Troop's fund raiser for many years. 

Early on a Saturday morning, a Troop dad drove his station wagon down to the Silver Spring KK factory.  About 6:30am,  the Troop assembled in the church parking lot to meet this delivery.  Each pair (!) of Scouts and their parent driver, took on , oh, maybe 20 or 30 or 40  dozen donuts and drove off into the neighborhoods. Back then, homes were fewer and farther apart, as I remember.  In uniform, we went up to the door and knocked. 

Generally caught by surprise at 7:30am on a Saturday morning,  folks, some with coffee cup in hand, some in bathrobe,  were easily willing to buy  a dozen donuts  "to support the Scouts".  "JANET ?  YOU GOT YOUR PURSE HANDY?  THERE'S A SCOUT HERE AT THE DOOR SELLING DONUTS !"  rarely were we politely refused.

 

 Some bought 2 or 3 dozen, "to freeze". .  By 10am or so, the back seat was no longer smelling of fried sweet bread.

We did this about every other month.  "Where were you last Saturday?. I was HUNGRY ! !"   I truly believe we could have done this every other Saturday on a regular basis, but even the parents realized us Scouts had other things to do.....

What was the markup per dozen? Did you get any discounts from Krispy Kreme that added to your profits?

17 minutes ago, MikeS72 said:

Councils may choose (and most probably will) to set a council program/activity fee.  That fee may not exceed the $60 national registration fee.  We have been told that as part of the recent increase, there would be no more last minute changes to the fee structure.  Any changes must be announced early, nothing to come after May.

I'll be all sorts of bitter if my dysfunctional council that we've all but eliminated from our lives demands a fee from us next year. Do we have to charter with the council in our zip code, or can we charter with any council? 

On 2/16/2020 at 10:05 PM, ParkMan said:

Hi @Beccachap,

Welcome!  I know I've already replied to a topic of yours, but was going back through posts from the weekend and saw your intro.  I love the honesty in your intro!!!!  Welcome

I welcome your perspective on Scouting.  I've always believe that we need to set high expectations in Scouting and it sounds like you're doing exactly that.

Thank you for what you're doing and thank you for challenging those you Scout with.

 

 

Thanks for your kindness, Parkman. This made me smile. 

2 hours ago, NDW5332 said:

Then you are very, very lucky and have done a very good job managing all of the food and utensils to prevent cross contamination.

I'm always nervous about meals and cross contamination. We have no peanut allergies, I'm relieved to say, because I'd just be breaking out in panic attacks about having a child at risk at a campout 24/7. Even if we eradicate peanuts from our meal plan, other families show up with what they show up with, and kids are kids (messy & dirty especially camping). I'd have to have a leap of faith that the parents were managing it, but we'd adapt as best we could to accomadate. We have food service gloves and an actual bucket of serving utensils to try and keep that down, but then we have children and distracted adults serving so... 

Ugh. I just don't know what I'd do. I think if I was a mother of a child with severe allergies I would write my pack off entirely. We're just too large, too chaotic, too many moving parts. But if a parent is zen enough to embrace us and prepared enough, then we could give it a shot. 

12 minutes ago, 5thGenTexan said:

The best part about this is... you can prepare the noodles at home so they are ready to go.  Maybe most importantly, you can use canned chicken or I am going to use pulled rotissiere chicken from Sams.  No raw meat in camp.

Oh, I love a casserole. Tastes like childhood. This looks yum.

I think the rotel will be no problem at all, unless you opt for the spicy variety. One thought - if you pull the chicken you may have larger chunks of meat which can be problematic for little ones. You may want to take extra care to ensure all meat is pulled or cut very small for safety. But going rotisserie Sam's chicken is genius. 

One question, what size dutch oven?

On 1/28/2020 at 12:00 AM, 5thGenTexan said:

No!  Not cooking Cub Scouts.  Cooking for Cub Scouts.  😆

On family campouts do you plan a meal and cook it and at least make them try it, then have PB&J or something waiting in the wings just in case.  By waiting in the wings, I mean have it on hand, but don't tell anyone about it unless a Scout just wont eat what is cooked?

 

My plan for this month is to cook a dutch oven chicken spaghetti that I sampled at a UoS class.  Its really filling and will be a good hot meal for the end of the day.

Every campout we use the same meal plan with small variations, but no, we don't make anyone try anything. We require everyone to buy it as part of registration, but no one has to eat it (everyone eats it though). We charge 3$ for age 0-4, 10$ for ages 5+. They get Sat breakfast, morning snack, lunch, afternoon snack dinner, dessert, and Sunday breakfast. We have a small bin for Friday night late arrivers/families in disarray to do DIY PB&J, bananas, and graham crackers for dinner, because with family camping there is always greater potential for chaos and there is nothing worse than having a crew of hangry children running about at 10pm because things went sideways. 

We've found tremendous buy in from kids to try foods when they help cook and prepare. Peer pressure is magnificent too for kids to want to try new foods. There's nothing like sitting with a pile of kids all diving into their burritos and watching a new kid reevaluate their plate with a plain tortilla and a teaspoon of shredded cheese on it. Usually, they get up and go back through the line and add a few more 'exotic' items like tortilla chips and a little chicken. But if they starve, that's ok. We follow with a dessert that very few kids turn down so they get calories in them. I could care less about our Pack's general nutrition intake on a campout. I figure we offer what we offer, and anything that doesn't work out is between the parent and child to sort out. If the child is older and camping with other children / no parent, then they figure it out for themselves. They may ask for 4 poptart packs Sunday morning, but we roll with it. 

By repeating the same meal plan the Cubs grow more confident with each return to a meal/assignment. We have a handful of Cubs who infuse themselves with serving/preparing at every single meal, despite not being assigned. There is always some way they can contribute. 

That said, I design each meal to be a la carte. Burritos are not premade, but ingredients are set out and you make your own like in line at Chipotle. Using that design I almost never hear a vegetarian or a gluten free camper cite difficulty. 

Your dutch oven chicken spaghetti meal sounds intriguing. Perhaps you could share the recipe here? I think that's a great way to introduce meal plan elements to Cub Scout camping. Our community was mostly built through shared meals, so I can't endorse it enough. All Scouts (wolf and older) and parental types have assignments to run it. Through meal plan participation friendship and trust have been fostered throughout the Pack.

On 1/28/2020 at 2:14 PM, Jackdaws said:

Webelos should be creating their own menus.   Its required for Cast Iron Chef.

You can break down meal planning by the ranks.  That way everyone has a role.   Logistically this may create some issues.  Depends on the size of your pack.   As mentioned above, dietary restrictions are a challenge.  My son has a nut allergy so PB& J are a no no.  But my son knows he must be careful.   We have had youth with dairy issues and families with the religious restrictions.  Baked beans were almost always on the menu, we had a family of Seventh-Day Adventist and could not have pork.   We would make a separate pot of beans to accommodate their needs.   Or they would tell us to not worry about it a head of time. 

 

Webelos Adventure: Cast Iron Chef Complete Requirements 1 and 2 below. Requirement 3 is optional. Plan a menu for a balanced meal for your den or family. Determine the budget for the meal. If possible, shop for the items on your menu. Stay within your budget. Prepare a balanced meal for your den or family. If possible, use one of these methods for preparation of part of the meal: camp stove, Dutch oven, box oven, solar oven, open campfire, or charcoal grill. Demonstrate an understanding of food safety practices while preparing the meal. Use tinder, kindling, and fuel wood to demonstrate how to build a fire in an appropriate outdoor location. If circumstances permit and there is no local restriction on fires, show how to safely light the fire, under the supervision of an adult. After allowing the fire to burn safely, safely extinguish the flames with minimal impact to the fire site

I disagree with this interpretation.

Step 1, Webelos must plan a menu for a balanced meal, budget, shop, etc. They can do this in a den meeting with planning, then the next den meeting at a store with pencil/paper/calculator. 

Step 2 does not say that to prepare a balanced meal, you must use the menu from #1. Any meal preparation that uses camp stove, dutch oven, etc, if possible, should count.

That said, going about it in a simple 1, 2, 3 step process and Webs delivering a meal would be great. We don't do it that way in our Pack. But any ambitious Den Leader who declares that is the way forward is always welcome to go that route.

Edit: I didn't read your post carefully - you mentioned a public FB page for yourself, not a 2nd account. Whoops.

Go for it. I think it's a good idea. I've had a lot of success with our public FB page as a recruitment tool for our Pack. It's also linked to various area groups, like the PD, YMCA, local business who support us, etc. It's slow to start, but on it's own it's a recruiting magnet after a few years of building it up. I hope you have the same success with your leader page.

1 hour ago, malraux said:

Just one comment on this, because I've seen it go wrong a lot. You need to be really careful when immediate family members are two of the three in the key 3. (especially if you are also functioning as treasurer as well). A big part of have 3 different people in the key 3 is so that there is different perspectives and accountability.

Thanks Malraux. We worry about this constantly and mitigate where we can.

Our community is very strong and cohesive, so inside the Pack we're good. We make all meetings and financials transparent, auto-transfer style, and online-accessible. I record and document everything. Neither my husband nor I touch cash. I'm always trying to unload some or all of my roles (event planner, meal plan, PR mgmt/recruitment online, plus traditional CC roles. Roles offloaded: Health form mgmt, new member coordinator, quartermaster, all den leaders, fundraising). In addition to open monthly committee meetings, once a year I make us all vote on positions again, but it doesn't yield much if any change. 

That said, we don't take input from members. All volunteers have complete domain over their roles. If a member has input, we encourage them to take over the role and improve it for all, or offer to support the person filling the role so they can be invited to share their opinion on that role. Nearly everyone contributes in some way. 

One bit of advice - do not do the transfer process in paper. If you want your children to complete their AOL before crossing over, pay to create new accounts for them online with national directly and log their achievements there, and even call the hotline later to merge the accounts with their previous scouting history. Otherwise you risk a transfer, then another transfer before the first is complete, and the whole AOL rank getting lost in the suffle. Of course your council may be run like a machine, but from what I've seen my dysfunctional council is pretty much the defacto standard. I was just laughing - albeit darkly - with my sons new Scoutmaster at Crossover last night that we have a 7 month wait ahead of us before the council will get around to processing his paperwork, and that's only if we are lucky and they don't loose it. 

3 hours ago, MattR said:

As for kids that want to join but the parents don't speak English, you can ask the kids to translate for you. Or ask them to ask the parents if there's someone else that can help, such as an older sibling. Or use google translate.

Ah, sorry, I should have been clearer. I don't mean kids who want to join, I mean kids who have already joined last fall and participate. At present I have a pair of brothers, Tiger & Wolf, who are seriously keen, but none of us seem to be able communicate to the father that they are supposed to be in separate dens to complete their own adventures. Both kids are way behind despite attending a large number of meetings because they don't go where they are supposed to go, but they are having a great time. So it's hard to redirect them, and the den leaders don't want to rock the boat with the Dad or with the kids who just eat up any activity right in front of them. They always show up 20 minutes late then just pile into the first interesting thing they lay eyes on. 

I suppose explaining this to the kids is the way forward, but both boys are slippery. They are 90 miles an hour, fingers in all the pies sort of kids. If they never get a rank they probably won't care anyway. 

We had another family who's child joined, then they got upset that they misunderstood the information about where to be/when for repeated events, despite using Facebook which translated event info into their native tongue. They kept saying that they heard from someone that they should do something different, then that lead them astray. Once they even cited me to my husband as being a source of misinformation. I recalled in that conversation having to repeat to them instructions for a swim adventure over and over to confirm we all understood, but of course they did not. The biggest frustration is that they profess - and believe - they understand English much better than they really do, and chaos ensues. Anyway, they got mad and quit, but oh well. We really tried hard.

2 hours ago, malraux said:

As I recall, you can process transfer applications online, but you have to know the scout’s bsa member id. Most people don’t. 

We've attempted this process a few times with months in between, but the process fails before it completes. Have you been able to get it to complete? If so, any tips?

On 9/23/2019 at 9:17 AM, RookieScouter said:

A website sounds like a great idea. However, we dont have a lot of funding and dont see how we can afford a subscription. My husband and I just took over leadership and still working through the bumps on getting things straightened back up. I'm also working with the schools. For years our pack wasn't involved. We have a scout night next month. I like the idea of a video showing all the things we do. I tend to take too many pictures at events. Lol.... When I put posters together it's hard to just choose a few pictures. 

https://www.scoutlander.com/PublicSite/home.aspx

That is a free hosting service and we use that in conjunction with a pair of Facebook pages - one public page for recruiting and a private page for members. 

7 minutes ago, David CO said:

I wouldn't rush to judgement in deciding that this is a geriatric thing.  You don't like it when men are condescending to women.  So try not to be condescending to us old folks.  There are plenty of people at council (who are incapable of consistent and coherent thought) who can't blame it on age.

David, I had one conversation with him where he appeared to understand and follow along. The second conversation the next day he couldn't string his thoughts together. I'm talking bizzaro, completely inconsistent thought. I mentioned his age as a correlative factor, not as a causative factor. No offense intended. 

Edit: The more I think about it you have a point. Evening mentioning his age was indicative of my being ageist, so I will work on that, starting with being aware of my shortcoming.

I'm a SAHM and I married into Scouting. I used to work in tech as a Computer Engineer so I have history working with and mitigating the occasional male who is stuck in the dark ages where women were supposed to defer to all things. I'm type A, extremely organized, introverted, and run a large metro Cub Scout Pack as Committee Chair (large for our district, but not large compared to rural areas). I run it because my kind, Eagle Scout, extroverted, procrastinating, mild mannered, and wildly optimistic husband is magnificent as a magical Cubmaster but significantly less magnificent with logistics. I don't do Scouting because I love it. I do Scouting because I love my marriage, my family, and feel compelled to support my husbands passion while our children grow up in the Pack. I have a difficult council, but I have significantly reduced problems they create for us by replacing nearly all Council events from our calendar, hosting our own private campouts, and going paperless for applications.

We are tech heavy compared to others, but I genuinely marvel at how much effort they spend getting things done like payments, communications, etc, versus our automagical setup. I rail against the vestiges of the male patriarchal setup in scouting, and do my best to protect my daughter and son from having to hear that it isn't a woman's/girls place to wear the uniform when out in public. 

I have pent up frustration because my husband feels pain when I have to rail at situations, so I look for another outlet. Based on what I've written so far this appears to be a place where I let it out, so I do apologize to anyone that this may have hurt. I am sympathetic. But I also came here for an unfiltered view of Scouting and to improve my Pack. I have dealt with infuriating situations and have a backlog to process.

I'd very much like to hear about others experiences and techniques/tips for dealing with problems like:

- children who are very eager to Scout, but their parents don't speak the language and no one we know does either

- instant catch phrases to make angry men stop talking when out in public with children

- transfer applications without using my council

You folks are wonderfully reassuring. Thank you for your feedback. My husband has the thickest pair of rose colored glasses wrt Scouting and insisted that there was value added there, but I've been skeptical. I called our Commissioner in to appease my non-confrontational husband when I had to diffuse a situation with a hot mess Scoutmaster in another Unit, and detected several notes of 'little woman, you don't know nothin', so I thought a male mouthpiece might help him dial it down. But no. I just had to repeat myself 5 times in writing and 2 times in person. With an audience. Lol. 

I think I won't bother getting a new one. My guy is very geriatric and when reviewing the situation with him I felt he wasn't capable of consistent and coherent thought. We almost never see him, but now I am putting him the category of liability. But simple liability. I think I'll leave it alone. 

Can you request a different Commissioner other than what you have been assigned? Also, what exactly is the value - if any - to a Commissioner?