Armymutt

I haven't experienced this issue. About the closest is skipping Scouts for another activity. I caused a bit of an uproar at our University of Scouting. A class was discussion bending the Scouting schedule around everything else in order to retain Scouts. When it was done, I asked why we would sell Scouting as the lowest priority activity. People were shocked. I pointed out that no one in their 40s mentions that they were a high school quarterback. Even the guys who played in college aren't sticking it on their resume 20 years down the line. Eagle Scouts proudly wear t-shirts, tie tacks, label pins, etc. Since the Army began interviewing officers for positions, I was told by a commander that she will always give an interview to an Eagle Scout. Reminds me that I need to add it to my resume. My message is that Scouts is so much more than all the other activities. It is a program and a way of life that will carry you forward. Those who were Scouts get it. The rest just need to get on board.

I think their communications are in person at the meetings. I'm busy being a Lion parent for my daughter at the same time. When it's not my turn to lead, I try to get over there and find out what is going on. They aren't good about returning emails or text messages either.

Our Webelos den has a campout planned at our church - if they put it on the calendar. I'm not sure if they are having parents attend. For some reason, they don't feel it is necessary to discuss these things with the Cubmaster.

We don't allow drop offs at any rank, unless it's really necessary, like retrieving a sibling from an activity down the road. We had one family who thought Scouts would be a date night for them. When the meeting could last 30 minutes to an hour, you're not going to get much of a date out of it. The best chance would be to run to the gas station and microwave a burrito.

That's the thing. Where do you draw the line between parent observation and parent interaction? If a parent can observe any event, to me that means they would have to not engage with the Scouts, unless there was a problem. I don't know of any parents who would go on a camping trip, stay off by themselves, and not get involved, whether it's helping set up camp, eating dinner with the troop, etc.

I wish we had 2 per chapter. At our Fall Fellowship, we were lucky to assemble 3 pre-Ordeal teams and 2 Ordeal teams. One was chapter pure, the other was a mix of 3. They each did three Ordeal ceremonies that night. We were all exhausted by the third one, and the quality suffered. At this point, I have one ceremonialist who shows up at chapter meetings, but he's a senior. I'm recruiting hard, but no one is biting. They don't seem to understand that if there are no ceremonialists, there are no ceremonies, and thus, no inductions.

I'm on the fence about WB. What put me on the fence was having a beading ceremony during our den meetings night that took about 30 minutes. The kids - K through 3rd grade - had no idea what was going on, other than some adult stranger was giving a den leader a neckerchief and talking a lot. They were bored. Violated the Keep it Fun principle. If I did WB, I would do the ceremony at an adult event. I like to keep the program youth focused. About the only thing I would want to do related to adults is to hand out square knots with a quick round of applause at the end of an awards ceremony. I make it a point to thank the adults regularly anyway. It's a habit I carry over from work, where I thank my team for their hard work every few days.

I don't know how we looked in 2019. We joined in October 2020. After crossover and moving season (Army area), we had 3 active Cubs and 4 semi- to inactive Cubs by August. We now have 20 currently registered and I'm waiting on applications for 2 more. Our Webelos den has 7, Bear has 1 inactive and probably won't recharter, Wolf has 7 with 2 on the way, Tiger has 3, and Lion has 2. One of the kids was a transfer from another pack - he moved across town. The rest came from FB bombardment, 1 elementary school visit, recruiting/badgering my wife's friend, and the rest - no idea.

We talk a lot about youth protection from the adult side and how it isn't as good as it could be, but I think on the youth side, it's pretty good. I've watched the Lion and Tiger version so far, and the videos do a good job of sensitizing kids to what is bad. Just like the rest of Scouting, it's going to take parental involvement in reinforcing the idea that it is ok to tell on an adult for doing something bad or that makes a kid uncomfortable. We review the difference between secrets and surprises, and do our best to use the terms appropriately. Between this and the fact that my kids are the biggest narcs, I feel pretty safe with them in Scouting.

We have a Den Leader who is chartered as a committee member due to our size. Would he be eligible for the DL knot, or will he need to be on the charter in that position?

When I was a kid in England, we had a version of the Klondike derby with a pioneer theme. Each patrol in the district - probably 10 troops total - made a covered wagon of sorts. Our troop had the best by far - actual wooden boxes with bows and tarps. The wooden wheels weren't the best, but oh well. We were given a packing list and when we showed up, there was a list of events. Each event had one competitor from the patrol and we moved as a troop. I remember that they were timed events - like tying a series of knots, starting a fire, chopping wood, making a tent stake, etc. It was a round robin event and you had to pull your wagon from station to station. It was lots of fun and we did the OA call out on Saturday evening.

This is essentially what we do. Everyone has an equal share to pay in the running of the pack - charter fees, adult fees, B&G facility fees. Everyone also gets charged for the requirements for rank, and a pack t-shirt. Your dues pay for all of that. Any electives are not included in the dues and are paid for out of pocket. Fundraising shares essentially go to your pocket for the year. Anything left at the end goes to the Pack pocket. For example, if a Scout sells enough to earn $300 in commission, then they can pay their share of the fees, their rank advancement requirements, t-shirt, PWD car, and then they have $75 left to spend on campouts, uniform parts, Scout books, etc. It's just centralized as a service to the parents. Our Scout Shop is an hour away and many parents don't have time to go up there. The "help everyone" part needs defining. To me, that would be what we might call durable items - things that stay with the pack, like stoves, tents, and cookware. Things that a Scout keeps for themselves would not fall into this category. We don't normally loan out adventure loops and then reward them to another Scout the following year.

I agree it is for the pack, but everyone needs to contribute to the wellbeing of the pack. How is it fair for one Scout to work hard selling the product we ordered, while another does nothing? Our pack fund get used to buy items of use to the entire pack, not just individuals. For example, we need a new flag. We also have no pack cooking equipment or loaner tents. With the exception of 2 families, our entire pack is either active duty military, former military, or worked with the military for a long time. Our organizational culture is that Scouts pay their own way. Right now, we are rebuilding from a mismanaged system.

Schedules - the location was exclusive to us. If a parent's schedule doesn't allow them to spend some time with their kid between 0600 and 2000 M,W,Th, F, S, or S, I don't know what else I can do. No one I know works 14 hours a day, 7 days a week. Tues night is our meeting, but they could sell on Tuesday day. Further, all someone had to do was ask for popcorn to sell and it would be delivered - we didn't require anyone to come all the way out to our house to get popcorn, the table, or banner. I live the furthest out from our selling location, so that's not a valid excuse. There were no families selling with other families by design. Small area to sell - didn't need a bunch of parents crowded behind a 5 foot table. My wife and I both work full time and still managed to surrender our weekends in order to get the popcorn sold. Our next fundraiser is camp cards. We didn't have a good handle on them last year and many didn't sell. We're going to try to do storefront sales of them. Depending on what businesses are on them, I'll try to target those locations. For a $5 card, the bearer gets a bunch of $5 coupons and the pack gets $2.50.

You don't have to sell popcorn. You just don't get the benefits from the work of others either. The first part of a Scout's commission goes toward fees and dues. Anything left can be used toward camp, activities, uniforms, books, camping gear, etc - stuff needed for Scouting. At the end of the year, the balance reverts to the Pack fund. We made it quite clear prior to popcorn sales that this is how it would be. Parents were given ample opportunity to sign up for shifts - only 19% were claimed. We aren't trying to establish a huge pack fund. We ordered enough popcorn to give everyone enough sales to fund their program. When people didn't sign up, the rest of us signed up for extra shifts to prevent us being stuck with popcorn. Consequently, some Scouts have a large credit and some have none.

I kind of figured that Scoutbook was a stand alone thing vs something monitored by BSA. Not that they have the time or staff to be doing that in the first place.

Right now, we have separate dens in Scoutbook for buys and girls. This means we have 2 of each den. On the ground, we all meet at the same location and there is a registered over-21 female always present - usually 2. I'd like to combine the dens to simplify record keeping - or at least speed it up. I want to start recording attendance and having the den meeting plans in SB. The only way I can figure out how to do this is to create a calendar event for each den meeting, which means our calendar is really crowded and the same info has to be entered twice.

I talked to the dad. It's not a matter of not having the money, but more of a lack of just doing it. He said he'll bring it to the meeting, so I picked up the pins. The committee is firm on the pay to play. It may be difficult to sell popcorn no matter how hard you try, but first, you actually have to try. Very little gets sold if you don't try to sell any. We set our dues so that the kids are able to get all of the required items, have a PWD and B&G, and still be able to afford Scouting. Between the national and council fees plus insurance, the program is expensive as it is. Add in a uniform and the price goes up. We rely on the sweat equity of selling popcorn to fund things and it's really insulting to all the kids who worked hard when those who can't pay also won't attempt to contribute in some manner.

Considering dues didn't come into existence until August, there is no chance that the records are wrong. Being the person who covered all of last year's awards with no repayment, I'm loathe to continue the trend. Giving the Scout their award takes the money from other Scouts, meaning they will have to do without later on. Our dues have no padding to them - we have factored in the cost of each item and the tax. If someone gets something for nothing, then someone else will miss out down the line. They didn't even offer to pay anything toward the blue and gold or rank advancement ceremony last spring.

Our pack meeting is Tuesday and we are now at the point where we start awarding adventure loops. We announced at the beginning of summer that dues need to be paid in order for the pack to be able to purchase awards. We have a family who has not paid. They are not new to the unit, and in fact their Scout has been with us for 4 years. Our finances are so screwy from the past two treasurers that we don't even know if they paid a cent toward recharter. The sold no popcorn this year. The awards are being purchased tomorrow. I don't want there to be a scene at the pack meeting when their Scout doesn't receive an award, but it is not fair to every other family that has paid. What would you do?

So the solution is to further isolate the workforce along personal identity lines, rather than figure out the problem and eliminate it at the source?

I see that BSA is deciding to toss out the notion that all Scouts are just Scouts without regard for social class - "for members of the affinity and their allies". The non-Newspeak version of this is "we created group to separate people by identity other than 'Scout' with the intention of try to make people feel special, rather than foster brotherhood and understanding that everyone is different." This is usually followed by special "spaces" and meeting that are only for members of these special groups. It's basically emotional reparations writ large. Seems to me that a more effective solution would be to have commissioners look at their units for signs of exclusion and have a chat with the leadership. One final thought, if we truly examine the "diversity of our society", are we really sure we want to include all elements? Seems to me that the organization should establish its own culture, rules, morals, expectations, whatever, and have its members rise to meet them. A race to the bottom is unlikely to help it survive.

You bring up a good point. We don't ask anyone. Frankly, we wouldn't know the details in this case if they weren't friends of our family. This is a case of ignorance is bliss and knowledge totally throws a wrench into things.

That's the problem - she's not attending. He's completed YPT and she considers him a guardian. She's trying to get with the legal office on post, but of course, they aren't picking up the phone.

We're going to go the power of attorney route. That seems to be sufficient for guardianship in NC.