CNYScouter

Empire State College (State University of New York-SUNY)will accept Woodbadge for credit. I believe they may be other schools in the SUNY system that may take this also.

This role would be an advisor to the Scoutmaster based on their long experience as a Scoutmaster. They would retain honorary privileges for outings, meetings, etc., but without direct responsibilities. Isn't there already a position with a patch that does this? This sounds to me like a Unit Commissioner. It seems to me that with the amount of Scouting experiance this person would make a good UC.

Just finished the first weekend. Being a Sea Scout I was put in the patrol of the only Critter that likes water. Beavers Rule! There are some other Venturing Leaders in the course all from the same Crew. We haved discussed doing a activity together. Great staff. Great food. I learned a great deal and had a great time. Being with a new unit I easily came up with ticket ideas. I am still working on what my vision is and then trying see which of my ideas fit into that vision. I could put together 5 easy tickets that would fufill the requirements but I want my tickets to really mean something and fit into my vision.

Eamonn - the advice about finding a vision and mission first and then selecting tickets is the best advice I have seen about "tickets". I've been trying to keep an open mind but I keep hearing about "tickets", working my tickets, and how hard it was to come up the "tickets" and can't help but think about them and starting a list. For now I can put them aside and starting thinking about a vision and mission first for my role as a Skipper.

One week from today I am off to Wood Badge NE-III-175 I just received my 20 questions to fill out and with the remnants of Ernesto coming through I wont be doing much outside this weekend and will have plenty of time to think these through. Also included was a newsletter that had pictures and brief bio of the staff. They look like a great bunch and have many years of scouting experience. I have really been looking forward to this. I couldnt make it 3 years ago when our council held it last and was very disappointed when it was canceled last summer due to only 10 people signing up. I took some posters advice and I am taking this in another council. This course has been full for months. Im sure this course will be everything I have been told it is.

Eamonn- I am very envious of the support scouting gets in your community After reading about what you can rent a Van for and this. It seems that you have people in the community that go out of their way to support the BSA. The private SCUBA shops here have a discount rate for Scouts, about $20 less than the regular rate and after having to buy mask, fins and boots and having to rent a suit for the open water dive, its still close to $500 to become certified. It costs even more to go through the local Y. At one time the local University offered this for about half of the cost but this year the new chancellor banned the Scouts from its campus. We are still looking into ideas for a trip next summer. Ill have to get in touch with Pamilco if SCUBA is what the ship really wants to do but I dod contact the BRSR and that maybe the way to go.

along with the VFW the American Legion will charter. You can also look at local business groups like the Lions, Rotary or Kiwanis to Charter a unit.

We're looking at SCUBA programs for our super-activity for next year. I've looked at the Pamlico Seabase and the BRSR. Both look like excellent programs but are a 10+ hour drive from CNY. Does anyone know of any other summer camps in the NE (NY) that have SCUBA (PADI certified)

Eamonn- you bet me to my comments. Even in the short time the Ship has been together I have noticed that the Ship members usually come to the right conclusion. What I mean by this is that the petty officers of the Ship saw that this trip wasnt for them and decided not to go. Our Ship members wanted to attend the Sailing Championship this year. The IH and COR are both very experienced racers and are running the sailing activities fort eh ship. They didnt think the youth was ready but did agree to work towards them attending. After a couple of weeks of trying to sail around markers the youth in the ship decided that perhaps they needed more experience and put off going until next year. They did make the correct decision with no input from the adults I am really impressed over the statement "Is this something that the Scouts came up with, or did it come from the adults?". It really shows that you have Ship members that really understand the idea of what youth-led should be.

The IH and COR are still not clear on the relationship between aUnit, CO and council and their roles and responsibilities If I dont explain it who will? I cant get any response from District or Council level people and my DE is in no big hurry to explain this. I did tell the IH that as a unit level scouter I didnt really have much to do with these items and he show direct his specific questions to the DE. It looks like I may need to have a talk with our SE. Im not sure Ill get much attention from him with all the issues we are having about selling one of our camps and our offices.

I cant say if all of our districts work the same way but I have been involved with 2 districts during re-chartering. I have been the CC for a Pack and Crew, ASM for 2 Troops and now the Skipper for a Sea Scout Ship. The Pack and the Crew (and now the Ship) were in 2 different districts. As the CC for The Pack and Crew I had to get signatures for the charter renewal from the CO. I didnt have anything to do with the troops rechartering. As a CC I had no help from a UC, District, or council for the charter renewal process. I can pretty much say this was true for the troops as well as one didnt have a UC and no one knew, even at district level, who the UC was for the second troop. The Ship doesnt have a UC, and most likely never will, so we will be left on our own to handle rechartering next Spring. Seeing the way my DE handled the starting of a new unit I going to say that our DEs dont visit COs very often nor do they do much with the Charter Agreements. It looks like even though I have nothing to do with the Charter Agreement between the Council and Yacht Club as the CO, I may have to explain this agreement means to the IH. Any suggestions on doing this?

Our council also has extra insurance that we pay a fee for. I have been told by 2 DE this can extend to equipment. The DE told our CO if a Ship Memeber were to damage one of its boats they could file a claim (although he say that most don't). I have also been told this insurance would extend to cover equipment if we used personal "equipment" for a scouting activity and it was damaged. A new signed unit app and a framed certificate that says the Yacht Club has charter the ship is the only things they have received. When I asked the DE about the "Charter Agreement" he acted like it was no big deal and would get around to getting it the CO. When I read this simple agrement between a CO and council I can see it simply states what an organization's responsibilities are to become a CO. If my council isn't bothering with these it doesn't surprize that there are units acting the way they are. It seems to me that this is the very first thing that should have been gone over with a potential CO. No wonder our council is in the mess it is in when we don't even use this basic agreement and let our CO's know what is expected of them from the beginning.

Who's responsibilty was for the "Charter Agreement"? It seems that this should have been one of the first items discussed with a potential CO which I can clearly see it wasn't. This is the exact questions the CO has about how the boat donation will work. The have an accountant who is fimilar with the IRS and they want to be sure it is done right. During the Ship's open house I metioned creating a 501(3)©to accept boat donations as see this is how many ships handle boat donations. The DE overheard this and told us we weren't allowed to do this and had to use the councils non-profit status for donations. So our CO won't consider this (yet). I know at least one troop that has done this recently. They were leasing a 75 acre camp and created a "Friends of the Scouts" group to purchase the land so I know it can be done. I'll have to see if someone in the floatilla can help.

I saw the discussion about Sea Scout insurance. It dealt more with insurance on a large vessel and so far we don't have a boat bigger than what you would typically see at a Scout summer camp (Sunfish, Lasers, etc.). I looked at the "standard" Charter Agreement which our council uses. In it it does say that the council will supply libility insurance for the CO and it does say who is covered under this insurance. I think the issue is without a signed "Charter Agreement" our CO has no proof that the council has agreed to provide liability insurance for our them during scout activities. With the District Chairman being our CO's insurance person I am not sure why this hasn't come up before and he seems unclear on how BSA insurance works (it didn't sound like he could explain it to the IH). I talked with my DE and he just hasn't gotten around to have the CO sign this agreement. The council does have more information about the insurance and is willing supply something in writing to the CO that shows they are covered. I hope this answers their questions. The other issue I am also trying to resolve is using our council to receive boat donations for the Ship. When the DE met with our CO about chartering a Ship he said that this wouldn't be a problem. Now that someone has offered a boat for us to sell they seem to be dragging their feet to tell us how to make this happen.

I didn't mean to suggest that "National" should change the program but should have said "give us ideas to improve the delivery of the program". We have Troops in our council that do a really good job presenting the Scouting program and they are booming, but are few and far between. This shows me that the Scouting program is still relevant if it is delivered as intended by the BSA. But there are just too manu units doing thier own thing, changing the guideline so it no longer looks like a Scouting program.

The IH of the Ship called me earlier today and asked me about the Charter Agreement. Our CO did not receive one. The only thing I have is a new unit application that the CO filled out and a framed certificate that said that said that the Club was the CO for the Ship. Should the Club have gotten something or was filling out a new unit application enough? The IH also asked about BSA Insurance and how the club was covered through this. The club has received no information on this either. It seems that the clubs insurance agent is telling them that they need to be named on this insurance. I find this a little odd as the clubs insurance agent just stepped down as the District Chairman and it hasnt come up before. The District Chair knew even before me, way back in March or April, that the club had decided to charter the ship as he was the first person they called asking about insurance when I approached them with the idea of a Sea Scout Ship. I have to admit that I have no idea about these. I am not sure who should really be dealing with these things. I do know that I have enough to do being the Skipper and trying to recruit a Committee to have to deal with this too. I am planning on calling my DE tomorrow. Should I be contacting someone else in addition?

The merger of two councils in 1999 is how our council has 3 camps. All of these camps have long histories of 60+ years in their respective councils so feelings run deep not to get rid of any. The "Task Force" did contain both volunteers and professionals. This camp did run at a loss last year but the selling of it will not come close in helping the council make up the shortfall we are facing. The decision to sell this camp and the other suggestions will be out for a vote at the end of September. There is a great deal of effort by the volunteers in the council to try and come up with a way to not have to sell any of these camps.

National came in and with a "Task Force" of local peole evaluated the council. Their answer was to sell property, combine districts and reduce services. How about how to increase the "quality" of our units. I'll bet no one on ths "Task Force" went out and did an evaluation on how to increase membership so we didn't have to do these other things. From our numbers its not hard to see that 1/2 our districts saw an increase in the number of Scouts and 2 district's stayed the same in size. Almost all of the councils losses came from one District. This district lossed almost 700 Scouts in one year. We have units that contantly run a good scout program and they are thriving but are very few in numbers. I seem to be running into more and more adult-run "Eagle Mills" that can't keep a kid in Scouting after 14. I would have really liked "National" give us ideas to improve the program than just say to cut everything.

I would expect to see peaks and valleys in the number of youth but this 28% seems excessive. This was a loss of almost 700 scouts in one year from one District. This area has lost a large number of people but you would think that we see it spread out among all the districts but three districts saw small gains, two stayed the same. It seems that there has to be more to it than peaks and valleys.

The person who had agreed to be the ships CC is still MIA. I though I had made a good choice for a CC. I was in a Cub Pack with him and we worked well together but I have yet to see him or his daughter at a ships meeting. It looks like we'll have to look for a new CC. The Ships CO and COR have no Scouting experiance and will be looking to me to help find someone So, what do you look for in a Committe Chair? Would you look for different qualities if it were a Pack, Trrop or Crew/Ship?

I'm curious. How much does District level staff play in the number of Scouts in the district? I was looking over a breakdown of Scouts by districts in my council. The council my son's Troop is in is the largest and until this year was over twice as big as in number of Scouts the next largest district. Last over 1/3 of the total number of Scouts in the council were in this district. I know many of the district staff are there because they have been around forever and don't do much. Roundtables are the "old-boy" coffee hour and are not well attended. There is no training staff to speak off and no has any idea of who the UC's are. At Scouting University I was the only one from the Distict on staff and of the 35 or so on Staff at SM Specific/WLOT last year I was one of only two. Out of the 40 in attendace at SM Specific and 16 at WLOT only 3 or 4 were from this district. The average unit has around 16 scouts. This year 2 districts stayed even in numbers, 3 districts had 2% increases, this district saw a loss of 28%. The second largest District has a good number of UC's. Many of these are the staffers at traning. I see a good deal of people from this district at training. (numbers per district are posted) This District averages over 26 scouts per units. Do this numbers really tell about district level staff or is it something else?

A task force led by someone from "National" reviewed our council's situation and made these recommendations. One of the other recommendations was to add another professional - an Operations Director???? The camp that the council wants to sell is 450 acres with a 40 acre lake. It is a dining hall summer camp. The program ran for 3 weeks this year with 259 scouts in attendance. This is also used for Cub Camp during the summer. In the off season it is used for JLT and OA Fall Ordeal. One of the big controveries is the off-seaon use. The council only had a record of 29 Scouts using it off season. Many Troops had said they camped there but council had no tour permits to back this up. One of our other camps is used strictly for Cub Scouts Summer Programs. A great deal of training is done there during the year and it gets used a lot in the off season. The third camp is 1200 acres. It hadover 1250 Scouts in 6 weeks. No Cub Program. It is patrol cooking style. However it is unaccessable for winter use. It was also suggested that the council build a dinning hall at this third camp. It looks like the state may in the next few years ban "patrol style" camps. We only just begun the agrement of where to place the council offices once the sale has gone through. 2/3 of the councils population is located in the southern part of the distict with the northern part over 4 hours away.

This is from our local paper today. Last week I recieved a letter (so did all the registered leaders in the council) that outlined the strategy behing this. There has been a great deal of discussion about this and has opened a big riff between the "urban" scouterss in the southern part of the council and the "rural" scouters in the northern part of the council. http://www.syracuse.com/news/poststandard/index.ssf?/base/news-5/115485562510870.xml&coll=1&thispage=1 Dwindling scouts may have to sell a camp DeWitt headquarters could also go. Reason: declining membership, rising deficits Monday, August 21, 2006 By Tim Knauss Staff writer To a Boy Scout, selling off a 450-acre camp in the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains is "like selling a church," says Ray Sander, who leads the local council of the Boy Scouts of America. Such is the difficult prospect facing Sander's organization. With 25 percent fewer Boy Scouts than five years ago, and budget deficits of about $150,000 for each of the past two years, the Hiawatha Seaway Council, which oversees Boy Scouts from Syracuse to Massena, faces critical challenges. To meet those challenges, the council is proposing to sell one of its three Adirondack-area camps and its 9,000-square-foot headquarters building in DeWitt. The proposed consolidation - to be voted on by the board of directors in October after input from volunteer Scout leaders - would strengthen the council's finances and improve its ability to serve Scouts in the future, Sander said. Although selling the 63-year-old Camp Portaferry in St. Lawrence County may stir up emotions, it would not diminish camping opportunities for local Scouts, Sander said. The council will keep the popular Sabattis Scout Reservation, a 1,600-acre preserve near Tupper Lake, and its 1,000-acre Camp Woodland in Constantia. Camp Portaferry is the smallest and least used of the three. "It's excess property, and financially we can't afford it," Sander said. National trend Dwindling membership is a fact of life for scouting organizations across the country, said Gregg Shields, speaking for the national Boy Scouts of America. With fewer Scouts, some local councils faced decisions about selling their camps. Some sell for economic reasons, Shields said; others sell because the camps have been gradually surrounded by suburban development and no longer offer a wilderness experience. In recent decades, many neighboring Boy Scout councils merged because of shrinking membership. The mergers often leave councils with more camps than they need, Shields said. A series of mergers between 1969 and 1999 created the Hiawatha Seaway Council, which serves Onondaga, Oswego, Jefferson, Lewis and St. Lawrence counties, from four predecessor organizations. The local scouting population no longer requires three camps, Sander said. Why the decline in scouting? Tristan Whitehouse, 18, of Skaneateles, recently became an Eagle Scout, the highest achievement for a Boy Scout. He said he can't imagine why more boys don't join the Scouts. Whitehouse, who's leaving soon for the University of Vermont, rose through the ranks with six close friends, all of whom started in first grade and became Eagle Scouts 11 years later. Those friendships, forged during hikes, skiing trips and other ventures, are precious, Whitehouse said. "For me, it was lasting friendships that I'm sure will last me the rest of my life," he said. But fewer and fewer boys participate in Scouts each year. Nationally, about 4.5 million youths are involved in Boy Scout programs, down 10 percent from five years ago, Shields said. Occasional hostility Scout leaders say they compete for boys' time with a growing array of sports, hobbies and other activities, many of which place less exacting demands on their time-starved parents. Then there's the image issue. Bill Goonan, 52, a Liverpool scout master, said the 16 members of his troop seem to enjoy canoeing, wall climbing and other activities of scouting, but he thinks they feel strong pressure from peers who view scouting as old-fashioned and uncool. "It's amazing the kids who do not want to wear their uniform shirts. They take it off as soon as the meeting's over," he said. "It's not cool. They don't tell their friends what they're doing." Goonan said Boy Scouts also encounter occasional hostility because of the organization's controversial policy of excluding openly gay members and leaders. Some school teachers won't distribute scouting materials, and passersby sometimes harangue Scouts during food drives and other events. In 2002, Syracuse University stopped hosting the Hiawatha Seaway Council's annual "Boypower" fundraiser at the Carrier Dome because of the policy. "In many ways, scouting has a bull's-eye on its chest because of some of its ideals," he said. Many of today's scout leaders grew up during a time when scouting dominated the competition for boys' time and donors' dollars. Eric Will, 59, of Pompey, joined Cub Scouts as a child and went on to become an Eagle Scout, as did his oldest son. But Will, a board member of the Hiawatha Seaway Council, said he's not sure whether his grandchildren will enter scouting because they have so many other activities available. "When I was a kid, I grew up in the scouting program - it was like an automatic," Will said. "As soon as you were old enough to join Cub Scouts, you joined." During the 1950s and 1960s, United Way typically provided a majority of the Boy Scouts' funding, Sander said. Today, the local council gets 3 percent of its $1.7 million budget from United Way, he said. Similarly, large employers such as Agway and Carrier Corp. once donated as much as $70,000 each to the Boypower fundraising dinner, Will said. Those donations have dwindled as the big companies have left town, closed or cut back their giving, he said. Girl Scouts, too Boy Scouts aren't alone in their struggle to adapt to new circumstances. Service organizations of all sorts - from the Lions to the Elks - are fighting attrition. Competition from alternative activities also has taken a toll on Girl Scouts, said Sue Stewart, chief executive officer of the Girl Scout Council of Central New York. Local participation dropped from 7,600 Girl Scouts last year to 7,200 this year, Stewart said. A few years ago, there were 9,000 local Girl Scouts, she said. "This is a national trend both for girls and for boys," Stewart said. Local scout leaders say the trend is compounded here by the population erosion in Central New York. While many areas of the country are growing in population, Onondaga County's population is about 2.3 percent smaller now than it was 15 years ago, the U.S. Census Bureau estimates. Despite those challenges, the local Boy Scout organization is committed to maintaining its broad array of programs for young people, Sander said. In addition to traditional scouting, there are educational and career-oriented programs such as a recent "engineering camp" the council hosted in conjunction with several local companies. The council also has Venturer programs for boys and girls ages 14 to 20. To fight the trend of declining membership, the Hiawatha Seaway Council this fall will open Cub Scouts for the first time to kindergartners. Cub Scouts traditionally begin in first grade. The new "Lions" division for kindergartners has been tried in only a few locations around the country, Sander said. "We have a whole new market to attract," he said. You can contact Staff writer Tim Knauss at tknauss@syracuse.com or 470-3023.

I like the tips that FB gave - ask to look at tour permits. committee meeting minutes,etc. You should also make sureyou get a copy of the annual calender and look how it was prepared. Only about half the Troops I visited had one and most looked like they were prepared by adults. I would also suggest no to just go to a Troop meeting. A parent should attend a committee meeting. The committee should be discussing the program the scouts put together not deciding the program. I wish I had done this as the first troop we were with didn't have committee meetings and the committee ran the program in the second. I think that sitting in a committee meeting is a very easy way to evaluate a units program.

Don't get me wrong I am still proud where the ship has gotten so far. The one thing I didn't want was it to become the "Thursday night" sailing club, which with the lack of commiment to do anything else it is becoming that. I have had a couple of parents "hint" to me on how busy their child was going to be and didn't know how much they we going to attend once school got going. I really wanted the Ship to attend some Sea Scout events to see other Ships in action but with the distance involved for us and the inabilty for the ship members to travel on Saturdays in the fall I don't see this happening soon. I have ben trying to incorporate other activities into the program but depending on the weather it seems most ship members don't show up on bad weather days to do the other activities. Currently the ship has members in 4 different High Schools and 1 college and playing 3 different sports. I really do enjoy working with the youth in a Scouting program. I just find after dealing with parents/leaders who want to use "Cafeteria" style of scouting or the parents who don't want to help I find that the staff for training Eamonn - I don't think that you sound unkind or that you are off like a pompous English twit. I like that you can tell it like it is. With no UC to get this kind of advice from I've had to get this "kick in the pants" stuff from this forum. I still can not get any support from my District. I just received a council newsletter today and it looks like the District has new leadership and I hope they will do a better job to support the units. I did contact my Council Commissoner. He will come in and get my leaders any training they need as I can't get anyone from the District training staff to respond. We also discussed recruiting. We are working on a date to get together on getting the word out about the Ship. He agrees with me that there are a large number of older scouts that may be interested in the Sea Scouts and we need to let them know about the program. I still do think the Ship is moving in the right direction but