Armymutt

We have it in our by-laws, with some exceptions - spouse deployed, single parent family with no supporting adults. It's just really insulting when a stay-at-home parent tells 4 people who work full time that they don't have time, but expect a quality program, and then they sit and play on their phone during the meetings.

Not really. For the bulk of the small committee jobs, there's no need to become a registered leader. Any parent can be the popcorn person. Any parent can find places to go for outings. Any parent can go to the scout shop and buy awards. Any parent can find a place to hold the B&G and coordinate who brings what. For the positions that involve direct contact with the kids, sure, but for the bulk of what we need, not at all. At this point, the pack will fold at the end of the year if no one else starts picking up some of the load.

This past year, our pack has been operated by 4 people, with 2 doing all the heavy lifting. Those 4 are a university professor who often has evening jobs, a physical therapy assistant student who has now graduated and is working full time, a clinical pharmacist, and a veterinarian. Somehow, they have managed to find time in their schedule - one family has 2 kids under 7 and the other has 3 from 7 to 12 - to perform every single job needed to make the pack run - Cubmaster, Committee chair, treasurer, Den Leaders. For some reason, no one else is able to help out. Luckily, this past week we have recruited another family where the mom wants to be the secretary and the dad wants to be the ACM. That will help a bit, but their son is a Webelos. I'm not asking for much. Looking for someone to manage advancement - pull a report once a month and go buy the awards. Need someone to find outdoor activities and promote them. Someone else to manage membership and registration. Another to handle fundraising. We have a mom who spends all day on Facebook promoting downtown businesses, but can't find time to be the PR chair for the pack!

Got inspired in one of my lectures today.

I know this thread is old, but the language of the Order is masculine, for better or worse. The second degree is called Brotherhood. Everyone is called a brother, regardless of gender. The only place I have seen any modifications to this is in The Drum, where Tischitanissohen (Jay Dunbar) has coined the term "akinship" as a substitute for brotherhood. Changing the names of the principals to reflect would require changing part of WWW as well, for consistency.

I'm still confused by this thought process. Maybe it stems from a misunderstanding of "OA elections" and "OA elections". Election to select candidates for the Ordeal are a unit function. They are supervised by the OA members, who may or may not be members of the troop. OA elections to chose the leadership within the OA is not a unit function, and doesn't happen on unit time. I'm not clear on how you think that the election of candidates to the OA from the ranks of a unit's Scouts would happen outside the unit.

That seems to be the current methodology in PH. I'm an outsider looking in on all of this. I'm a veterinarian by trade. I'm just doing this to get closer to retirement from the Army. Hardest questions I've had to answer in the program is, "What's your public health interest?" Umm....hmm....food safety and food protection. Neither of which are discussed, nor understood by any of the faculty. From what I've seen over the past year, everything is geared toward finding a public health reason to advance your political point of view. It's really exhausting for someone with a science background. This article provides some evidence of how Scouting can be an asset for inner city kids. Look past the political parts and focus on the quotes from the kids and SM. https://www.city-journal.org/html/why-boy-scouts-work-11848.html The issue I'm running up against is how to make Scouting work for the rural poor. Cities should be easier, if you can get the timing, locations, and volunteers right. In rural areas, it's more complicated. If the kids don't have transportation, getting to a meeting is impossible.

Depends on when you were in school. Today, "public health" is interpreted more broadly than Congress interprets the term "interstate commerce." Anything that is a social determinant of health is considered public health. Off the top of my head, potential policy solutions would be things like requiring all Medicaid providers to allocate sufficient funds to significantly offset the cost of participation in your organizations and providing tax incentives to people who volunteer to be leaders in these organizations.

I'm writing a paper for a class. Originally, I was going to do opioids, but thought that I'd have more passion, if not information, for Scouting. The goal of this is to eventually develop a policy brief that proposes some solution to a public health issue with an equity or social justice aspect. To me, youth programs in general, and Scouting in particular have great potential as public health programs. I'm looking at the aspects of mental health, criminal involvement, family dynamics, role models, and social-economic status as the factors that can be improved through a robust Scouting program. The idea of creating opportunities to build skills over time, mentoring, and an orientation toward service provides evidence that greater support of these programs is needed. I've identified barriers to participation, including program costs, shortages of volunteers, lack of facilities, and peer perception of "coolness". Thoughts? Inputs? I'd really like to hear from folks in a variety of areas. My Scouting experience was Air Force brats, a few suburban white kids of various economic situations - trailers to huge houses in the same troop, and now a group of middle class kids from various races, but essentially the same living conditions.

How so?

From the Army perspective, you have to be performing your normal duties at the camp. That knocks out most of the people, other than medical types. I'm a veterinarian, so I could possibly use the food safety angle. The reality is that I'll be retired before my oldest is a Tenderfoot, so won't really matter at that point.

That's what I figured. It's funny that they say 500 hours and or 3 years, then cite a suicide hotline worker or Scout leader. I think a Scout leader would rack up more hours quickly vs a hotline operator.

We live in a military community and I have a Soldier for a DL and I want to make sure he is recognized both within Scouting and at work. When calculating hours toward the Military Outstanding Volunteer Service Medal, how do you count camping trips? He is volunteering the entire time, right? If it's a Cuboree, that's 38 hours easily.

Wow, where was this? We're in North Carolina and our Pack is chartered to a Catholic church. One of my concerns is that people will see that and not come to us. Never witnessed any overt anti-Catholicism, but that's not saying it doesn't exist. The husband of one of the ladies in the parish office was told to remove his high school jacket at a local college because it was from a Catholic school. That was years ago though.

We held an Open House with the PWD track and some cars, stomp rockets, and other activities set up. CC had a table with information for parents. I made a flyer in Power Point and blasted it on every local social media site I could find, starting 6 weeks out. We got a last minute spot at a local school that was having an open house the week before. Spent the hours before it getting flyers printed at council and then meeting our DE two towns away to get the flyers. A DL and myself, along with our 4 kids went to the school, found an empty table and set cute aggressive kids to talk to every person that walked into the school. Handed out 75 flyers. We had 6 kids come to the open house from all of that. Two came back last week, ready to join. We also picked up 4 kids due to military moves. Over all, our pack went from 9 kids to 14 in a week. We may lose 1 next week when I explain to his mom that either she is the Bear DL or he doesn't have one - only Bear we have. From the new parents, I have a Pack Secretary, an ACM, and a Tiger DL who might have to miss meeting due to Army work and Tiger ADL who doesn't want an official title, but is willing to be really involved. I'll take it. Now to start assigning other roles to other parents - like B&G planner and PWD Planner.

That was my experience circa '82. I was really confused by the changes when we returned almost 40 years later. Dens by grade rather than by geography? No more arrow points? What about the little plastic thing with beads hanging from your right pocket? Our pack does keep the same den number as the kids progress, but no one sews it on their shirt. They already have an identifying feature - all the same grade.

The hat is produced by BSA as a uniform part. So dropping it is unlikely. If BSA produced one Cub Scout hat for all ranks, like they have one Scouts BSA hat for all ranks, it wouldn't be a big deal. Look at all the imagery - a properly attired Cub Scout wears a hat.

We conducted a hastily planned recruiting event at a local elementary school last week. I talked to several parents and one of the recurring themes was cost. It got me thinking about our programs. Cub Scouts is more expensive than Scouts BSA when it comes to the basics. A fully uniformed Cub Scout has to buy a new hat, neckerchief, slide, and book every year. A Boy Scout can use the same 4 items for their entire career. Why do we have this? It's been 40 years, but I don't recall changing hats, neckerchiefs, or slides until Webelos. I know we tell parents that they really just need a shirt, but it creates a system where economic circumstances are more evident. Right now, I'm considering proposing a Pack neckerchief and possibly a slide. We could probably get custom hats made for less than the cost of 4 hats.

The problem is that "equity" is a loaded term. It is focused on equal outcomes, not equal resources. Therefore, someone is likely to get more than their equal share of whatever resource, which potentially means a reduction in the potential outcome of the person better able to utilize those resources. The current government policy on masks is a perfect example. Some people chose to get vaccinated while others didn't. The outcome is that everyone still has to wear a mask in certain settings.

Our dens do the Adventures together, so there's no real stragglers. In the 80s it was different than today.

There's a difference between "expert" and having the "skills and education" as required. I'm a veterinarian, but far from an expert. I'm still qualified to be a MBC for Veterinary Medicine, even if I haven't touched an animal in 2 years. For the 6 you listed, 3 are hobbies, 1 is a basic adult skill, one is a common profession, and the last would probably require a bit of extra study on the part of the counselor. I look at my paltry 22 MBs and 2 were taught by legally qualified people (Vet Science and Aviation), 2 were taught by folks in those fields (finger printing by a cop and firemanship by a fire fighter). The rest were taught by people who learned it the best they could with the resources of the time period.

Does anyone use the meeting plans posted here: https://www.scouting.org/programs/cub-scouts/pack-meeting-resources/pack-meeting-plans/ They all have a section for rank advancement. We do rank advancement at the end of the year. These seem like they are more like Scouts BSA where Scouts earn rank asynchronously.

That's the thing. There's so much light, it's perfect for meeting. We meet in the dead of winter when it's dark before we arrive. Why not enjoy the sunshine?

I just found out that our pack doesn't meet in the summer. I'm not sure why. Seems like a great way to lose members. I seem to remember Scouting being a year-round activity. We've overcome so much sluggishness to start building the pack, and then we're going to waste it?

We're a year-round Pack - at least we are now. We've had some scouts join us as late as two weeks ago. I'd like to give them every opportunity to earn their badge for their grade. How do we manage the transition? On Saturday, we award the completed rank badges and they start working on the next rank. Do we keep them with their cohort and they can work toward their current goal, or do we move them into the den working toward the same rank and move them back after they complete it or the next school year begins?