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IndyDad

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Everything posted by IndyDad

  1. Along the lines of what curious_scouter mentioned, don't be afraid to bring this up with your Pack committee and re-evaluate. I would suggest talking with the Troop to get a good understanding of what the funds are needed for. I know that our Pack transfers any scout balances over to the Troop when a scout crosses over, but otherwise no additional funds are passed over. Our Troop has its annual dues that help pay for incurred costs per scout, however we don't ask crossover families to pay for that first year (as it would seem a bit much to say "Hey, welcome to the Troop! By the way, that'
  2. Crossroads of America council (central Indiana) is going through this as well, except our anticipated fee is $240 annual (or $20/month). Leaders and Parents were both taken back when we heard of this earlier this spring, and the council wisely backed off until they could provide more information on what the need was. We are getting some good info now... unfortunately a combination of multiple things in the past couple of years have put our council in a big deficit, including (but not limited to) to a large annual loss of grant money. I'm not sure what the right answer is to solve for it, bu
  3. Did this family per their Scout registration/dues for the 2022 calendar year? If so, then they were paid up till Dec31, 2022 and were delinquent by 2 months at the time of Blue & Gold. We generally treat B&G as an end of year celebration, so if they were part of the Pack until Oct, they still had some activity they participated in that the B&G dinner would cover, date-wise. In that situation, I would have let them come in and attend. I'd also approach them separately and find out what their intentions were for the rest of the year and also remind them of the annual dues that a
  4. When my son crossed over with his AOL den, the Den Leader sent an example of a plaque that the parents could consider getting (on their own), but the Pack itself did not pay for this. The Den Leader was nice enough to provide out of personalized arrows for each scout (he purchased arrows and then personalized with colored stripes that lined up with the badges they completed throughout their cub scouting career). With the info, I purchased an arrow holder plaque on etsy on my own. Given the extra cost for such a plaque and not budgeting ahead of time, I would strongly disagree with the paren
  5. ^ I will say that the Scout Life website has a good set of pages set up for the Programming merit badge that speaks to the requirements much better than any pamphlet could. Includes a list of various Programming languages they can use, along with some sample programs/files to tinker with: Programming merit badge – Scout Life magazine that site became the 'pamphlet' that my son could follow along with when he was learning the basics of his three languages.
  6. As the dad of a First Class scout and myself now a Merit Badge Counselor for a couple of badges, I find the topic of Merit Badge Pamphlets a bit confusing from a BSA standpoint. When my son initially crossed-over, I had seen the term 'merit badge pamphlet' and read that you could purchase them but thought they were just printed versions of the Badge Requirements pdf found on Merit Badges | Boy Scouts of America (scouting.org), which had me questioning why an 8 page printed form cost $5 or $6. It wasn't until I was browsing the official BSA store when I found out about the full pamphlets.
  7. Thanks for confirming, all. I find it odd that a number of the advice online from scouts who have done this badge suggest going for the Mountain Biking portion simply because of the shorter distance. I went with my son's troop last year as part of a mountain biking activity, and it was definitely NOT easy. My son and I who had never mountain-biked before took well over an hour just to do 2 miles. This included a lot of walking the bike over very high tree roots that our bikes couldn't clear and extremely narrow paths right next to steep ravines. I don't think I'd recommend that experience to a
  8. Looking at the Cycling badge and Requirement 7 - Road Biking vs Mountain Biking options, I'm trying to figure out how a paved bike trail fits in while I help schedule some upcoming outings for my son's troop. We have a couple of long mileage paved bike trails in our state that would seemingly be a good fit for part of the requirements. These are trails separated from the road but do cross the road at various intersections where the cyclist has to stop and be observant of oncoming traffic. Would such a bike trail count as 'road biking' or 'mountain biking'? In my view, they are are more ro
  9. I like the newer ideas you listed and would consider those. (not sure on the wireless router... I'd suggest the parent set that up, along with the security settings and password). I feel like this badge does need to be updated though on its list of suggested projects (as others have mentioned). For instance, most homes could benefit from some newer electrical/smart device installation, but if you follow the list of 'categories' that the scout has to perform the required number of projects, the Electrical category would get filled up pretty quick for these newer types of projects. -
  10. I'm a dad to a scout who crossed over this year from cub scouts and was considering being a merit badge counselor for this badge. In my opinion, this is a very useful badge to pursue for general life prep (the Arrow of Light related badge was also pretty handy to know). A couple of the possible projects though had me scratching my head on how the scout would perform these: - Replace a pane of glass The only windows I've come across recently have been double-paned sealed windows that the average homeowner wouldn't replace on their own. Maybe this project is more common with older houses
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