CNYScouter

In the past record keeping has been poor at best in my council.

I took Wood badge in another council.

After sending in a copy of the certificate 4 times I gave up trying to get it listed in my training record

Due to budget cuts my council no longer has a registrar. It is paying National to enter all registrations.

All training and advancement record updates are now the units responsibility. The Unit Leader and Committee Chair both have the ability to enter records

Maybe I now I can get Wood badge entered in my training record.

I took Wood Badge 12 or 13 years ago and of course I have no idea where my certificate for it is.

I haven't seen "Boy Talks" around here in a long time - I don't know even if the schools allow them any more

Our scout district is made up of 2 large school districts.

In both of these it's up to the Principle of each school to decide who gets to send flyers and be at their open house.

One of the biggest things I have seen to improve recruitment is to get names and contact information of anyone who expresses interest in the program at a recruiting event.

I save seen packs do recruiting events at school open houses, community events and other events that Cub Scout age boys.

You then need to call and remind them the night before your unit "Open House".

Any that do not come you need to call them again and let them know that they can still join. Many parents think that if they miss the open house they can't sign up.

1) what program are you running?  Specifically, what book are you in and what page are you on becuase I'm totally unfamiliar with such an event.  

 

The Cub Scout program has limited camping oppourtunities.  Unless this is Council run family camp, it's not the program of the BSA by your information offered.  By design there is not individual cub camping experience.  The only other experience is a Pack Overnighter with provisions for Webelos to Den Camp.  

 

2) if this is an attempt to run a Cub Scouting program - has the council approved it?  

 

Multiple packs getting together on there own also isn't a part of the program outside of Council / District organized events.  

 

Please run the Cub Program as designed.  

We had a discussion about this event with our council and BSA National

To our council this a considered a Pack campout.

Packs can get together and do activities together. 

Around here it happens all the time

The only thing not being a council/district event is we can not do shooting sports

As the Drive-In asked for a liability insurance amount above what our council has, we had to apply to BSA national for the additional amount.

The person who handles the paperwork side of things on our committee had a talk with National about details of the event for this additional insurance

BSA National has no problem with what we are doing and give us the additional insurance (and have issued this for the past 6 years)

There is not a fee to us for this coverage

There is a long list of reasons why we don't want to run this as a council/district event.

Having shooting sports isn't worth the hassle having our council involved.

...and in the beginning we went to council/district(s) about having this event and they weren't interested

So we decided to do this on our own

This sounds like a great event.

Can you share the list of what they look for?

as of last night our count is up to 60

The person who did registration put together some numbers

last year 13 Packs registered as a group - all of these came the last 10 days before the event

6 of these had 10 or less - of the others, only 3 had over 20

this accounted for about 25% of the registrations

I have been asking around to see what is going on - a lot haven't even starting meeting yet.

School here doesn't start until after Labor Day

One pack said their first meeting isn't until the 9/19, another starts 9/28 and a 3rd doesn't start meeting until after the event

We hear a lot of complaints that the event is too early in the year.

But it's gets chilly here at night in Oct. and going much later isn't going to work (The Drive-In is usually open thru Halloween)

I also found out that many school moved their open house dates where most packs do their recruiting at

In the past most schools did open house during the second week of Sept.

This year many aren't doing them until the last week of September/First week of October

No Theme for the event - what we do is have 15 to 20 activities from 1pm to 5pm on Saturday - allow tent setup starting at 5pm - movies start at 7pm

We have a have a few activities that we do every year (Bounce house, Fishing (there is a pond in the back), cooking and knot tying

We try to offer 5 or 6 new activities each year and have a list of others we rotate thru

On Sunday we offer Coffee, Hot Chocolate, Fruit and Donuts for anyone who stays the night

I agree with Col. Flagg except that I've never seen the term "sheepeople" before.  I have heard "sheeple" which I am pretty sure is the same thing.

 

The other thing that caught my eye, and sorry for the off-topic... are you talking about a drive-in movie theater?  Do such things still exist somewhere?  When I was growing up there were drive-in theaters all over the place in New Jersey.  Now they are all housing developments, shopping centers or whatever.  I think it is mostly that the land got too valuable to remain as what was basically a parking lot. Maybe they still do exist in places that are not the most densely-populated state in the country.

Yes a Drive-in movie theater.

There are still 338 open in the USA. 4 of them are in our council boarders.

The one we go to has been open with continuous operation since 1948.

The person who owned the drive-in started working there in the early 60's when he was in high school and worked there thru college.

He ended up as a teacher in a nearby school district and worked there every summer.

Meet his wife there and bought the place in 1987.

His wife and children are now running it.

back to my post.

looking at registrations from the past most of the early registrations where from individuals and not entire packs.

Pack registration is only about a 1/3 of the total

We only have a handful of pack registrations every year that are over 25 people and most come in with less than 10.

our 2 or 3 largest usually come in a week or so before the event

We are just stumped why we aren't seeing the numbers

Our pack hosts a Cub Scout sleepover at a local drive-in.

This is our 6th year hosting the event and in the past the event has had 650-950 (+ staff) sign up to attend

We now about are 3 weeks away and have less than 50 registrations in.

Usually we have almost 300 by this time.

It seems the interest in attending is there but we are not seeing the registrations

We are wondering why we are having such a low response this year.

One change we made was to not have registration done by Packs this year and only have individuals register. Pack registration was a headache. A lot of people had no idea what Pack they were in or who the CM was. We had packs register 20 and have 40 show up. We asked for a pack roster when registering but half the time they didn’t send one in and we had to spend time tracking it down and sometimes were never got one. We had checks showing up with no information - just a check with a name and address on it. It just became really hard to manage this.

Do you think that having the parents send in the registration instead of the pack may be hurting us?  It's easy when someone else is doing it for them, but when they need to do it themselves the parents won't always put in the effort.

One other change that happened is registration in our council went from $26 to $60. This doesn’t include Boy’s Life or the additional $9 increase from National for next year.

We don’t think this is a factor but the owner of the Drive-In was killed in an accident while getting the Drive-In ready to open for the season. It happened about a week before opening. His son and daughter have taken on running the Drive-In but instead of opening the first week of May it didn’t open until late July

So why do you think we are lagging so far behind in registrations this year?

Would you go back to having Pack registrations for next year?

Unless we get a lot of registrations in this weekend we may cancel the event as financially we don’t have enough to cover the upfront expenses to make this happen.

Back when I was a Commissioner(5+ years ago) it seemed that the units that were resistant to OA were also the same units that didn't send anyone to NYLT or Jambo or Woodbadge and the same units didn't like the Venturing program.
Most had the fear that these pulled Scouts/Leaders away from their unit.

This was most likely true as these units had a weak program and these other programs were offering a activities and challenges that were not getting in their units

I also noticed that the stronger units were the ones where they had members fully involved in all of these.

This morning my council posted the notice about YPT and registration increase and the grumbling has already started.

Last year when National registration increased my council also increased the insurance cost from $1.80 per scout/leader to $10 per. They also added a “resource†fee of $24 to each registration to bring thetotal to $60. The resource fee was to pay for the DE salary increase due the federal regulations.

I know a lot of long-time scouters who dropped from the program due to this big jump. Most of these were Scouters who stayed in the program when their sons aged out and would help out once or twice a year.  I think with another increase this close together a lot more will drop the program.

I also think these increases are going to greatly reduce the number of new scouts just because of the cost. The area where I live is still losing jobs and population in general and I don’t see it getting any better.

the BSA has training for selecting new leaders called SELECTING QUALITY LEADERS

Here's a link to a copy of the training :

http://www.scouting.org/filestore/pdf/18-981.

One thing NOT to do is to sit at a committee meeting and say "We need a new Scoutmaster (or whatever position needs filling) - who wants to do it?" and then take the first person who raises their hand.

I have many bad choices for a leader when it has been done this way.

Elections in our Troop are held in June.

The newly elected SPL and the outgoing SPL get together and decide who is SPL for summer camp.

Last year there was an issue because both were working at summer camp and wouldn't be going with the troop.

The PLC got together and voted on who was going to SPL for summer camp.

From what we were told at the VOA meeting about creating CSP's as a fundraiser was that a CSP must be able to be worn on a uniform - they can not be created for just trading.

From the link it says no cites/state names or unit numbers - I would like that BSA doesn't want units to create there own shoulder patches.

The person looking into the patches went thru our scout store (national store) and they were the ones that told the VOA that the patches needed to be approved by council

Here's a link to BSA patch ordering guidelines

http://www.scouting.org/filestore/licensing/zip/PatchDesignGuidelines.pdf

Our council's VOA wanted to do CSP's for a fundraiser.

The idea was each crew design a CSP to go around a large VOA patch - like you see for Jamboree contingents.

The council (not sure who had final say) would not approve CSP's for this. The VOA could do other patches just not CSP's

I would think that it would be up to someone at your council to give the OK.

BSA discourages use of unofficial merit badge worksheets

https://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2015/01/13/merit-badge-worksheets/

I am in one of the council's that were in the pilot program for Lions.

We started with Lions over 10 years ago.

I don't know how many Packs in the council have a Lions program but I know no one is forcing a Pack to use the Lions program.

Most of the Packs I am familiar with use the Lions program and a re happy with it.

We are seeing that burn out rate is no higher with the Lions program than it was before we started using it.

I heard Pack leaders say that the using the Lion program has helped get more parents involved as it gives a year to see how things work.

Here are2 Packs that are successful with the Lions program:

The Pack I work with has 2 young ladies from the Venturing Crew running the Lions. This is the 3rd year they are doing this and it has worked out great.

Another Pack I know has a ex-CM working with the Lions. I think this was one of her Woodbadge tickets. Her kids (and grand kids) have aged out of Scouts and she stayed involved by working with the Lions (and their parents).

As with any Scout program, if you make it fun the boys will stay

Around here when a Scout make Eagle it's the usually parents who write and ask for congratulatory letters.

There is nothing stopping you from writing and asking for these

When my son made Eagle he made a list of people he wanted to get a letter from.

Most have a way to contact them online and I just sent them his information asking for a congratulatory letter.

I don't think they actually enforce the "Troop only" policy

At one time you could specify that you were a "Troop only" MBC and it showed that on the MBC list.

You can no longer specify this.

Our council has a form you fill out to be a MBC.

It basically asks why you are qualified to be a MBC for a MB.

It also says that you must be able and willing to see Scouts from outside your unit.

This sounds like our MB list until a few years ago.

Keeping a list of MBC's is a function of the District Advancement Committee.

Our council also no longer allows "Troop only" MBC's.

It also limits a person to be a councilor for 7 MB's.

I was told this was due to there were Troops that the SM was registered as a MBC for every Eagle required MB and the Scouts in that Troop only earned earned those MB's from him.

The person who was on the committee that was keeping track of MBC's just stop doing it.

A new person was recruited and he spent months calling/emailing people on the list to see if they still were registered (or alive)

It took awhile but he finally got a pretty accurate list of MBC's

I am a MBC for a few MB's and every May I get a letter from him showing which MB's I am a registered for and he asks to be called or emailed if I wish to continue being a MBC.

It's a simple email or quick phone call telling if I want to continue or not

This seems to work really well in our District

if you download the scorecard from www.scouting.org it says in the paragraph on the top of the second page, last sentence "The period for measuring performance will be the calendar year."

Upon further review it seems these lanterns are lite using LED's.

it is also $15 for adults and $12 for youth to attend so I don't think the Pack will be doing it

Never mind

We are in the middle of a discussions about having cub scouts attend a Chinese Lantern festival as a pack activity

Here is a link to the festival

https://www.facebook.com/NewYorkStateChineseLanternFestival/?fref=nf

Here is a link to the BSA policy on Sky (Chinese) Lanterns

http://www.scouting.org/scoutsource/HealthandSafety/Alerts/SkyLanterns.aspx

Would you do this as a Pack event?

I can fully understand "not knowing" happening.

The rules from our shooting sports committee keep changing depending who is the Council Shooting Sports Director and who is the council Key 3.

At least 10 years ago our council bought a trailer and set it up as a portable BB Gun range.

Any Pack could ask to have it at one for their events and it was used a lot

A couple of years later we called to get it and we told it was no longer available for Pack events - only District/Council events

It now is only used a few times a year.

Most packs had no idea this was changed.

As I said we were allowed to have shooting sports at our pack run event until a couple years ago.

This draws Packs from just about every district in our council and packs from 2 or 3 other councils.

What happened was that our new Council President and VP of Program decided that to be a District or Council event, registration and registration fees (and a few other things) had to be handled through the council office. Since our Pack do these ourselves it not a District/Council event so no shooting sports.

As a side note - the new Council shooting sports director was at our event this year and asked me why we didn't have shooting sports. I explained to him what I was told about not being able to have shooting sports. Next year he as assured us that he is going to have shooting sports at our event - we will see what happens.

Any Troop/Crew in our council can go to our local scout camp and rent one of the shooting ranges.

A Pack can not because it's not a District/Council event.

I met the shooting sport director from the council to our south.

Packs can come to their camps and shoot as along as someone from their shooting sports committee runs the range

Anyone on the shooting sports committee is considered to be on the Council staff

Since a Council level person is running the event it's a council event so shooting sports are OK.

When you have the rules being changed every couple of years and not telling anyone or the rules change depending on who is in charge I can see why someone might not know.

One I hear all the time is the mixing up of "2 Deep Leadership" and "No 1 on 1"

Heard someone over the weekend say that you had to have 2 adults in each car with Scouts.

Hear the same thing about meeting - 2 adults must be at every meeting.

My older son's old Troop won't do a trip unless there are 4 adults available to go.

They don't want to stuck in any situation where 2 adults aren't present at all times.

I'm curious to know how they would enforce that.  Send District Snitches to all the competing events?  I'd be telling someone a story about a long walk off a short pier, and then saying "FOLLOW ME, BOYS!" 

I don't think they try to enforce it.

There are units/leaders who heard someone say it so it must be true.

A few years back when I was District Commissioner I was surprised on the number of units who thought that they were "required" to attend our council's summer camp. Not a lot of units but enough that it made an impression.

I had it happen again over the weekend.

I was with the Venturing Crew helping at a community service project.

A women approached me and said her daughter was in a Venturing Crew but they haven't met or done anything in months.

I invited her and her daughter to one of our meetings and join our crew if she is interested.

She acted shocked because she didn't think that her daughter was "allowed" to join a unit in another town.

Got told the same thing at a Cub Scout event our pack started hosting about 6 years ago year (another Pack hosted it before then).

There were shooting sports at this every year (about 8 years) with no problem then last year we were told that shooting sports are not allowed because it is not a District/Council event.

It had nothing to do with qualified people or the rules or insurance (we had additional insurance through BSA national that said shooting sports were covered).

The only reason given, it is not a District/Council event.

As a side note - we decided just not to have shooting sports at this years event - it wasn't worth it for the hoops we had to jump through to make it a District/Council event.

We still had over 650 show up for the event.