InquisitiveScouter

There are a lot of different threads relating to specific policies or activities discussed in the Guide to Safe Scouting. As this is a fundamental document in BSA literature, I thought we might have a thread with just that title. @John-in-KC had created some threads with the dated versions, but I think it might be useful to have an enduring topic with all things "Guide to Safe Scouting." Please include in your posts the version date, section, and page for reference, so folks may easily find source info on their own. From time to time, I review the G2SS, and I always seem to find something new that I had not noticed before, that might also be useful to others. I intend to post those here instead of in new threads...

First I heard of it also. Was part of BSA PR releases yesterday: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/the-boy-scouts-of-america-bsa-announces-confirmation-of-plan-of-reorganization-and-emergence-from-chapter-11-bankruptcy-to-equitably-compensate-survivors-while-ensuring-scouting-continues-across-the-country-301802086.html

YES! To all the above, and more! Would you believe I actually had a professional Scouter once tell me I had "too much Scout spirit"??? Could have knocked me over with a feather 😜

Or, "the way I was taught..." This mindset is death to any organization. Better yet, "What does the book say?", and "What makes sense?", and "Why not?" (versus "Why?")

If they don't have a yell, then they are not a patrol. It is part of the Patrol Method. Scout Handbook, page 26: "Patrols have yells, too. If your patrol is named for an animal, you can use that animal's sound - the howl of a wolf, for example, or the hoot of an howl. Or your patrol might decide on some other shout that identifies it. Members can give the patrol yell whenever they do well in a troop competition or reach an important goal, and even when they're ready to chow down on a camp meal." (Reading between the lines... not optional...) Scout rank requirements: 3b. Become familiar with your patrol name, emblem, flag, and yell. Explain how these items create patrol spirit. National Honor Patrol Award requirements: 1. Have a patrol name, flag, and yell. Put the patrol design on equipment and use the patrol yell. Keep patrol records up-to-date. This is the way.

We... are... doomed...

We do it at all meeting openings and whenever we gather for an activity. The adults have a "Patrol Yell" also... "Ask your Patrol Leader!!!

Transferring is no cost. Do you know of another good unit nearby?

Greetings @ASMPeter! And welcome to the forum! Congratulations to your daughter on these impressive achievements! And I know what it takes as a parent to guide them on their road to these recognitions, so good on you, too! Congratulations also on your first post stirring up the old hornet's nest! I love it. You'll find here two kinds of folks: the letter of the law, and the spirit of law. The letter of the law folks will tell you, NO!, if it isn't written in the Guide to Awards and Insignia, then you are wrong to do it. The spirit of the law folks, are more aligned with the thinking you have already displayed with that simple question: If a Scout can wear her Gold Award pin on the Venturing uniform, then can she wear it on her Scouts, BSA uniform? I agree with your premise that this is most likely an oversight in editing to update publications to accommodate changes in membership policies. If you were to push this up the chain to National for adjudication, you'd most likely never get an answer, as this is not really a big issue for them. They'll focus on other things. If you read further in the G2AI, you'll see this: Awards From Other Scouting Associations Scouters occasionally receive awards from Scouting associations of other nations, and it is important that they know how these awards should be worn. This does not include jamboree patches. Following are the regulations for wearing such awards: 1. They are always worn when visiting the country whose Scouting association presented the award or when attending a meeting or function attended by Scouters from that country. 2. Medals awarded by other associations are worn above the left breast pocket. Based on the spirit of that excerpt also (because it applies to Scouters vs Scouts), IMO, she could wear the pin on her Scouts BSA uniform. This is a "Medal awarded by other association" However, she should not wear the faux knot from the 29 Jan 2020 post, as that is not a BSA supply division knot created to recognize that specific achievement. Although program reciprocity would be nice, what the GSUSA allows is irrelevant to your question. To expand the discussion, the BSA ought to allow the wearing of Congressional Award and Duke of Edinburgh award also. Thanks for asking the question and being willing to endure the down arrows you'll get. Happy Scouting!

And yet, you named them "friends"... the horror 😛 LOL

Email them telling them you want to know how to donate $1000. They'll get back to you really fast 😜 Of course, when they get back to you, you then ask your questions. When they ask about the money, just say, "Oh, I wanted to know HOW to make a donation so, in the future, if I should decide to do so, I'll know how. Thanks!"

Here's what we really need. Invoking Murphy's Laws of Combat, #2: If it looks stupid, but it works, it isn't stupid 😜

I just hope the brim is as wide as the old BSA Expedition Hat I do like that is is oiled cloth, versus the old felt one. That felt hat is hot in the summer, and the dye would bleed out when it got wet or sweaty. Maybe the new one will be a bit cooler as well.

https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/childhood.html

Best when taught by older Scouts. If older Scouts or an adult do it, just like everything else, use EDGE. (Which means they see one demonstrated before having to do it.) Too many times I see this turned into TWGL-EDGE (pronounced Twiggle-Edge) Tell, Watch, Gasp, Laugh, then realize you need to do EDGE.

Welcome to the forum!! Teach them... 😜 Some notes that will definitely raise some hackles around here... enjoy the discussion. 1. You can select meats that have lower fat content, or all already cooked, and therefore produce less grease. They are more expensive. Think 93% lean ground beef instead of 85% lean. Think brown and serve sausage patties or links. (Once they master these, they can move on to raw meats...) Or, here's a wild idea... teach them about tofu!! 2. For their first few trips, recommend you avoid the dreaded three... pancakes, bacon, and scrambled eggs. (Let the fights begin...) Messy, more messy, and most messy. Nothing wrong with a mess 😛, but cleanup is frustrating, and they will not get it right. So then what do you do... make them do it again? And then they won't get it right the second time... So then what do you do??? 3. If you have access to a kitchen, make a patrol meeting of it, and have them cook and eat one of the meals at home before preparing the exact same meal in the woods. And have them do the clean-up too!! (No automatic dishwasher. ) (Most will NEVER have cooked at home, or hand-washed dishes, so having them do it in the woods for the first time, under more austere conditions, is a set up for frustration and disappointment all around.) If possible, once cooked in the kitchen, cook the meal under controlled conditions outdoors, making that the MAIN activity. Think a day activity versus camping out. 4. Teach them that lower heat is better. Scouts will think that they want to get it done fast, so turn up the heat!!! (Slow is smooth; smooth is fast) Teach them the second they see oil or grease smoking, they must remove the pan from the stove! Most will not plan ahead for this, so teach them to have mitts on hand, and a place to put a hot pan. Then, adjust the heat on the stove, and return the pan. 5. Start saving some empty tin cans from your kitchen to bring camping. Put a paper towel or two in the can to absorb some grease/oil and keep it from sloshing around. Have Scouts practice boiling some water in the frying pan, and then pouring it in the can slowly. If they can pour hot water without spilling, they can pour grease. (Let grease cool for a bit before pouring, unless needed to make cooking safer while in progress; but don't let it solidify. If it does, heat it up slightly to help pouring out.) Now, you can save the metal grease can, and put it on the fire later as a demonstration of what happens when grease catches on fire (let more fights begin!!!). When the fire burns out, retrieve the tin can and re-use. (Do not do this with aluminum.) For noobies, a bigger can is better, if you can get your hands on one. (Can you get a #10??) This could be part of their patrol gear. 6. If you are attacked by the Leave No Trace cultists, then you can just put the cooled grease can in the garbage. (Wanna get really down in the weeds? Use it to make soap!! There's a million videos on this, and it is a great science project!)) Hope these help...

How big is the C10 endowment? Inquiring minds want to know...

Who told you this? One person or multiple? SM or other? Do other parents/leaders in the Troop feel as you do?

Respectfully disagree... Scoutbook has more functionality now than when it was free. I used it extensively then, and use it extensively now. It runs even better with the Scoutbook Feature Assistant add-on (which Gary Feutz keeps up) from the Goggle Play Store. I do agree that Scoutbook support by BSA is sorely lacking. It is mostly volunteers (Scoutbook User Advisory Council) who assist with day to day problems. BSA definitely lost a LOT of credibility in my book when they dumped user support, and expected the Registrars to answer peoples questions about Scoutbook (with no training at all, if you can believe it.) BSA still runs programming changes, and they seem to move slightly faster than glacial speed. Slightly 😜

Scoutbook has decent high level account tracking. If done correctly, the balance matches what's actually in the bank account. For fine detail, like tracking fundraiser amounts, we use Excel spreadsheets stored on the Troop Google Drive. Once all the fine detail accounting is done there by the Fundraiser Chair, the Troop Treasurer makes entries into each Scout account in Scoutbook.

We have a calendar on our Troop website. That calendar is public, and subscribes to the Troop calendar. You can see events there, but you cannot open an event without a Scoutbook log in. We encourage Packs to look at that calendar to see what events they may like to attend. Then they contact us to make arrangements. No, you cannot have anyone other than Scouters/Parents/Scouts with Scoutbook accounts, but you can send event notices to guests. (Although I have not used this feature to test capability.) We do not send out changes. We send up to three event notices, along with our planning timelines. One at three months out, one month prior to event, and one week prior to RSVP close. After RSVP close, one final notice goes out on Wednesday or Thursday with final instructions. Scoutbook calendar features allow you to send notices to only those who have RSVPed Yes, No, or Maybe. For our culture, once you RSVP No, you never get another notice about that trip. Once you RSVP Yes, you only get the Final Instructions notice just prior to the trip. The Maybes get all notices, except Final Instructions.

So, just had this convo with another leader asking kinda the same. Here was my "edited" response... Questions: I wanted to reach out to you regarding comparison & recommendation between Scoutbook and Troopmaster (& any other like products). P-XXX had Scoutbook. I don't know Troopmaster. Initially - What products does yours & other Troops in our area use & why? - Is there much of a cost difference - multi-year di$count? - Is one "Better" than the other? - What's their guarantee for data protection? - Any other good questions I should have asked? ---------------------------- Response: It has been six years since we used Troopmaster. So, my experience with it is dated. Anecdotally, people I know that are already "fully vested" in it, love it, and do not intend to change. Mostly, I believe, that is just resistance to change... - We use Scoutbook because it is free, automatically populates with data from Scouting records and rosters, tracks individual Scout and Leader Accounts for money exchange, is BSA proprietary, and has very functional add-ons which the original programmer makes while waiting for BSA to adopt upgrades.. We do not have to do any data transfer between systems. There were growing pains in moving to Scoutbook, and people must take time to learn its features, but I think you will encounter the same with any product. Scoutbook is best used in Chrome. - Yes, Scoutbook is free. All others are paid subscriptions (yet another thing to pay and manage) I believe most platforms will offer a multi-year licensing discount. - Where you stand depends on where you sit. Everyone LOVES the product they are currently using, and thinks it is the BEST. - None that I know of. I have seen egregious examples of people posting all kinds of privacy data from different Scouting trackers. End-users are usually the most frequent offenders, due to bad data hygiene, but those offenses would be limited to small exposures. The only consolation is that, if big data leaks from BSA, it's on them... good luck with any company if there are damages to be dealt with. All good questions. Here are the cons of Scoutbook: - No unit data storage for files, pictures, etc. We use several Google accounts for the Troop to manage this: troopxxmembership, troopxxwebmaster, etc. - No unit website capabilities. If you want a unit website, you have to find a Domain name subscription, and then a website host. We use GoDaddy for name support, and Weebly to host the website. I am not saavy enough to know if there is a better solution to this. - No task-oriented signup capability (like bringing different dishes to the Troop picnic); we use Sign-up genius for that, but usually only once or twice per year. You could use Scoutbook, but it would be a lot more hands on management... - Rudimentary Reports capability... I can find out how many Scouts have Canoeing merit badge, but I cannot create a report showing multiple info queries into advancement, training, swim checks, etc. We have to pull and collate all that data ourselves, when needed. So, we use a lot of spreadsheets on Google Drive to track an Adult Training Dashboard, or a Summer Camp Tasks List, or some such things.

Email seems to be back up fine... at least for us. As far as the calendaring goes, you can email the entire group with notices from a specific event. One thing to address is culture. Most people want you to "Push versus Pull". This means most people wait around waiting for you to send them a message about stuff. They are waiting for you to "Push" to them. (Of course, when you do, a few do not respond and claim they didn't get the message.) We teach our Scouts that real leaders "Pull." They go out and get the information they need to make decisions. The easy way to do this? Log in to Scoutbook yourself and check out the events in the calendar for yourself. Then RSVP Yes or No. "Maybe" is not an acceptable response after the RSVP deadline. (Our rule is that, when RSVP closes, your "Maybe" becomes an automatic "No".) Better yet, subscribe to the Scoutbook calendar in your preferred calendar app. Then, events for the unit automatically populate in your day-to-day calendar and you can check them out. (If you have too much calendar clutter, then just toggle if off for a while.) We have gotten good results, but some basic human behaviors always seem to rear their heads... For example, the 20-60-20 rule (which applies to lots of things.) Say you have 10 Scouts, well 2 of them are going to be AWESOME. These are the Scouts I invest my time in without reservation. They will be Eagle Scouts. They are going to be movers and shakers. Of the 10, 6 Scouts will be AVERAGE performers. They will do fine with the program, have a great time, and most will make it to Life or Eagle. Time spent with them is well used, but must be done according to your "bandwidth," or mentorship must sometimes be delegated to another, but you must see to it that it is. Of the 10, 2 Scouts will not do well. They sporadically attend meetings or events; they do not take advantage of the advancement opportunities provided; they do not communicate well; they do not "get with the program." I do not spend time pursuing these Scouts. If they come to me, I will work with them. But I am not going to spend time going after them to get them to participate. "All models are wrong, but some are useful." I have found this one useful. But, of course, sometimes it is wrong, and I adjust. This model applies to parents as well... amazingly enough, there is a high correlation to the behavior of their Scouts. 😜

And by adults allowing *some* 15 years-olds with little to no experience lecture around a picnic table at Summer Camp and giving the MB away.

From the G2SS... "In situations not specifically covered in this guide, activity planners should evaluate the risk or potential risk of harm, and respond with action plans based on common sense, community standards, the Scout motto, and safety policies and practices commonly prescribed for the activity by experienced providers and practitioners." Two Scouts wanna hike a well-travelled, flat rail-to-trail section? No problem... I'll drop 'em off and go to the ice cream shop near the end to wait for them. Two Scouts wanna hike up Mount Washington? Maybe not... "Known as the most dangerous small mountain in the world, 6,288-foot Mt. Washington boasts some scary stats: The highest wind velocity ever recorded at any surface weather station (231 mph) was logged here on April 12, 1934. And almost 150 fatalities have occurred since 1849. No surprise: Most are due to hypothermia–and not only in winter. “They call them the White Mountains for a reason,” says Lieutenant Todd Bogardus, SAR team leader for New Hampshire’s Fish & Game Department. “We see snow right on through the year.” Several weather patterns collide on Washington and produce its notoriously foul weather, which can move in quickly. In 60-mph winds, hiking becomes nearly impossible: Traveling north along the Crawford Ridge from Washington’s summit, hikers routinely–and unknowingly–get blown off course by powerful westerly winds, which shove them down off the ridge into the Great Gulf or the Dry River Valley. “It’s human nature to go with the wind rather than into it,” says Bogardus. Unfortunately, hikers often find the winds have steered them many miles from trails and roads, thwarting their safe return." https://www.backpacker.com/trips/america-s-10-most-dangerous-hikes-mt-washington-nh/