CNYScouter

The only thing I got from my council was from a DE requesting money to buy banners (2' x 3') for recruiting.

The DE wanted to buy one banner for each division (Cubs, Boy Scouts, Venturing, Sea Scouts, Explorers) and enough sets for every district.

FYI - They got enough money donated to buy the banners (~$600)

I am in the Longhouse Council in NY.

They have instituted a policy that if you are going to teach a Merit Badge for more than 6 Scouts or hold any type of MB day or fair you need to fill out a form and get approval from the Council Advancement Committee.

The issue wasn’t just the “do an 1 hour class and get the badge†but these were being done with MBC’s that were not registered/not taken YPT.

I think a lot of this had to do with our local APO fraternity’s Merit Badge Day.

It was really poorly run and not organized very well.

At the last one (it was a couple of years ago) many Blue Cards were lost.

Not only did they not have a list of what MB’s each Scout took to get replacements, they had lost the list of MBC’s and what MB they taught.

A few weeks later some of the Blue Cards showed up in the mail but we also received Blue Cards that were from another Troop that was from another council.

The frat was no help in tracking down the Troop.

Our council wouldn’t help (they had nothing to do with the Merit Badge Day).

Luckily there was enough information filled out on the cards we figured out what council they were from to get the cards to them (at our own cost)

Here's a link to an article that compares White Gas to Propane to Batteries

http://www.campinglife.com/camping-gear/camping-lantern-shootout/

@@qwazse oddly we went the other route by requiring percentages. Here's what we achieved:

 

- Increased participation by all grades of scouts

- Participation increases from 9-12 grades from >30% to near 70%

- Increased size of troop from 60 to 80 scouts

- Increased retention to 97% from 82%

- Decreased scouts labeled as "inactive" to less than 5% from 25%

 

It can work if done right. We've kept these numbers for nearly 7 years and counting. Change was hard but those who want to be part of the program are willing to invest their time...not just pay dues and collect awards.

Krampus - Can you give some more details on this?

What percentages are you using?

Who in the Troop came up with them?

If a scout becomes inactive how long does it take before he is considered active again?

My's son's troop bought tents from Alps through hikerdirect.com last spring (March/April)

I think they were asked change the name to take Scout out of it.

The hiker direct page just lists the discount prices and you need to go to the Alps Mountaineering web site to get descriptions and specs.

A couple of years ago our council considered holding multiple Scouting University's

I suggested to do an outdoor oriented version at our Scout Camp

it never got passed the rough draft stage but here was what I wanted to do

4 - 2 hour session on a Saturday

there would be a basic class and an advanced class in 4 subjects

Topics might be

Basic Fire building - Advanced Fire Building (flint and Steel, campfire layouts)

Basic Map and Compass - Advanced GPS

Basic Knots - Advanced Lashing (pioneering projects)

Basic Outdoor Cooking - Advanced outdoor cooking (utensils-less cooking)

After staffing IOLS there just isn't enough to do more than a quick run through on some of these

I have run into many an SM and ASM's who have no idea how to do these basic scout skills

I wouldn't expect anyone to become an expert after these but they could come away with a solid background to be able to practice further on their own.

From my understanding there is nothing wrong with the way a Council's popcorn prizes are done.

Incentives for a fundraiser are considered as a cost of doing fundraising

if you look at the popcorn prizes, for example, in my council you get a $40 gift card for $1100 in sales.

This is 3.6% personal benefit and in the allowable range set by the IRS

Most of the prizes are valued in the range of 4%

As to the Disneyland trip; if this is valued at $10k and the council sells $200k in popcorn it is 5%

Add the total of prizes given comes in at about 9% which in the allowable range for insubstantial personal benefit set by the IRS

Around here most units do one big fundraiser for Troop funds and all other fundraisers go into ISA's

All of the money raised by these other fundraisers are distributed by either amount sold (a scout get's the entire "profit" from a sale into their ISA) or based on hours worked (a Scout that works 2 hours gets twice as much in their ISA than a Scout that works 1 hour)

 It was determined by the IRS that distributing funds by these methods are personal benefits

Making a rough guesimate for fundraising in my son's Troop the funds for ISA's would be at about 70% to 75% personal benefit which is way above the amount determined as insubstantial personal benefit by the IRS

I would think this is the more typical ways fundraising is done

Lots of good info here and gives us a starting point of things to look at and what to ask about

Just because a BSA unit hasn't been audited yet doesn't mean it is not going to happen in the future

None of us have any idea what could trigger an audit of your CO and/or unit

Many years ago I also had to deal with the IRS.

I had someone prepare my taxes.

 4 or 5 years later I got a letter from the IRS saying I had under paid my taxes for that year and they were due plus fines

The fines were as much as the back taxes owed

I would hate to have my son's troop account wiped out because of this

It was a pretty heated Committee meeting over the weekend when this topic was brought up.

One question brought up was we have 2 or 3 families who have come out and said they don't want to participate in fundraising and just want to write a check for any of their son's expenses.

How do they fit into this?

Currently we have one fundraiser that all proceeds go to the Troop in which they do participate but that's it.

I would think that a point system could become a nightmare to track and cause more complaints than it's worth

here's an example

Scout A went on outings, did service projects but did no fundraising

Scout B went on outings, did no service projects but did fundraising

each got the same number of points so got an equal share of monies raised

I think we would have some parents up in arms over this

edited: (I didn't see Hedgehog's response which answers this question he posted while I was writing)

From further reading it looks like the only way to be safe is to just not use ISA's

I also see that way we run some of our fundraisers just won't fly under these rules

For can & bottle drives not only do scouts get credit but parents and siblings time count towards how much a Scout earns.

Also, our CO is a church.

Due to low membership it is combining with another church.

I don't know if this would trigger any type of audit but I would think that our books would be at least looked over when this happens

As a MBC I received an email today from my councils advancement committee with the following attachment:

MERIT BADGE GROUP INSTRUCTION EVENT – Application Form

This is a form I need to fill out and get approval if I am going to have a Merit Badge class that has more than 5 Scouts in it.

I need to attach a Draft copy of the event flyer or information sheet at a minimum of 2 weeks prior.

Along with the form there are 2 pages of policy on

Do any other council's have this?

Have Merit Badge days, fairs, midways, clinics, workshops gotten so prevalent that this is needed?

Personally I have never taught at one of these nor do I like working with more than 3 or 4 Scouts at a time

I have read the topics about Fundraising for the Good of the Whole Troop and the BSA policy about this

At out COH last night I was talking with our Treasurer. He read the article in Scouting magazine about ISA’s and is concerned about how we conduct fundraising. The troop constantly has multiple fundraisers going, mostly of the “go sell this†type.

Our Treasurer wants to bring this up at the next committee meeting and knows there is going to be some upset parents.

So, how do you move away from ISA’s?

 We have scouts with accounts that have a balance that run anywhere from a negative (they owe money) to a couple of scouts who want to go to Jambo and have nearly $1000 in there account.

 We will have some pretty upset parents if after earning $1000 for Jambo and then finding out it was going into the troop general account for everybody.

What do you do with the current funds?

The other question was how do you distribute funds if you don’t have ISA’s?

We have scouts who work just about every fundraiser and others where the parents just write a check for everything.

I fully understand the idealist concept of if a Scout wants to go to Philmont or Jambo then everyone pitches in to help as this was the way we did it in my Troop as a youth but I don’t see this going over with many parents today

As just like moving from adult led to boy led it takes time to change a troop culture.

I can see how moving to a boy led troop can be done slowly over time but I don’t see how moving to not using ISA's can be done in steps.

This is from meritbadge.org

http://meritbadge.org/wiki/index.php/Den_meeting

Den meetings typically have the following parts:

• Before the Meeting. Leaders gather to make preparations and handle last-minute details. Denners and Assitant Denner set up.
• Gathering Activity. As the Cub Scouts begin to arrive, they join in an informal activity or game, often conducted by the den chief to keep the boys interested and active until the entire group has arrived.
• Opening. The opening is the official start of the den meeting. The Denner and Assistant Denner lead the flag ceremony, Cub Scout Promise, Law of the Pack, and perhaps a prayer or song.
• Program. The program part of the meeting will vary by the age of the boys (see below), and may be broken into two or more parts. Most of the meeting consists of activities based on the Fast tracks plan and the monthly themes.
• Closing. The closing draws the meeting to an end. It's usually serious and quiet. Den leaders could present a thought for the day or give reminders about coming events followed by a closing flag ceremony preented by the Denner and Assistant Denner.
• After the Meeting. The leaders review the events of the meeting, finalize plans for the next den meeting, and review their progress toward the upcoming pack meeting. The Denner and Assistant Denner and their adult partners lead the cleanup

from my experience I wouldn't plan on spending more than 10 mins. on any one topic. You may be able to stretch this to 15 mins. for a craft but most Cub Scout aged boys don't have an attention span much more than this. When doing things like flag etiquette I would do part of it, then a quick game or activity, then do the rest. 

On the Scouting web site there is a supplemental training module on Selecting Quality Leaders

There is a link at the top to download a .pdf copy of the training

This can be used to select any adult leader position at any level

http://www.scouting.org/Training/Adult/Supplemental/SelectingQualityLeaders.aspx

Hueymungus - I know those are the current rules but she was told these rule changes are being worked on and will be put in place in the near future.  I don't know who exactly told her this but it came from someone higher up and outside our council.

My councils shooting sports committee didn't know anything about this upcoming change.

As I usually hear about these changes from this forum way before I heard about chnages from my council I thought I would check here

The Mom of one of the Scouts in my son's Troop works at our Scout store. She had heard that they are changing the rules that BB Guns and Archery can only be done at council events (Day Camp or Resident Camp) and Districts can no longer do these at one of their events. This is partly due to eliminating the belt loop program.

Has anyone else out there heard this?

I usually read about these changes here but haven't seen any post about this

I wish I could say that my son's troop is doing something exciting this summer. They are going OOC for Summer Camp - Camp Yawgoog in RI. It's about a 6 hour bus ride. I tried to get a bike trip together for t this summer but can't get enough adults to commit to a weekend to do it.

I also have to say that for the first time since we joined there was an overnight activity in June.

The troop did a backpacking trip into the Adirondack mountains.

The only down side was only 5 boys signed up to go.

It turned into a quite an adventure. Because of poorly marked trails we couldn't find the lean-to we wanted to stay at.

We ended up back tracking to another doing about 11 miles on the way in. Only had to go 4 miles on the way out

For all but one Scout it was their first backpacking trip and they are looking forward to doing it again.

I have to say in my experiance most ASM's can't do the T-FC skills.

A couple years ago I was on our council training committee. They were talking about doing multiple Scouting Universities in a year.

I suggested that one be held at the council camp only doing outdoor classes.

I was thinking that at IOLS we show partisipants how to tie knots and lash things together but there is just not enough time to teach someone from scratch in this and run training with longer classes that there is actually time to teach a skill.

the BSA is an outdoor program but we (as in the BSA) have very little in the way of real outdoor training

I wanted to do maybe 8 classes at most - 2 hours each - maybe a beginners class and an advanced class (knots/lashing for beginners - pioneering for the advanced for an example)

This idea went over like a lead balloon and they chose to the "classroom stuff" for the second Scouting University- hardly anyone showed up.

In my council we have a registar who can get a list of MBC's in this type of situation

I don't see one listed for your council but maybe the Director of Support Service is the person?

Also this is something your Unit Commissioner can help with

If you don't know who that is try your District Commissioner

One big thing I see in my son's troop is that nothing in written down and everything is done "by the seat of the pants"

According to the SM these scouts were given expectations of what was needed to fulfill the POR. It was just not written down.

My big issue is that I directed both of these Scouts to the SM to get these signed off but they went to another adults instead.

PL's and the SPL (SM and ASM's too) can sign off on anything under First Class.

the SM likes to have one of the ASM's do the Scout sprit requirement to get another view on how the Scout is doing

One thing we have been struggling with is the PL's and SPL's willing to sign off on requirements.

This fall the SPL (just turned 14) came to me and asked if I could sogn off on another Scouts' requirement - responded that he was the SPL and he could sign off

His responce was he thought only older Scouts could sign off. I then reminded him that as SPL he was now an older Scout

Same with the PL's. They are all young (12 just turning 13) and don't see themselves in a position to do so

My thought is to ask about "Scout Spirit" in the contect of their POR and holding off signing it until they fullfill what was outlined when they decided to take the POR.

3 weeks ago at Troop meeting 2 Scouts asked me to sign off on their POR requirements.

One I wasn’t sure he was even holding the POR he said he was (Chaplin’s Aid for Life) and for the 2^nd one I wasn't sure what he had done for his POR (Historian for Star)

I told both that they needed to see the SM about getting these signed off.

We had a week off for Spring Break and last week both of these Scouts approached me again asking if I could sign off the Scout Sprit requirement.

I saw that both had gotten one of our new ASM’s to sign off on the POR requirement.

I told both of these Scouts I needed to talk with the SM before doing the Scout Sprit requirement and I would get back with them.

After a discussion with the SM he had talked with both of these Scouts on what they needed to do before the POR requirement would be signed off.

Neither had done anything towards the POR but got it signed by another ASM

I have been asked to do the Scout Sprit requirement with them before they do the SM conference.

How would you approach this with the Scouts?

FYI- I can’t really blame the new ASM’s as they took the Scouts word that they had done the POR.  SM has had a chat with the new ASM’s about this….and it will be discussed at the SM conference

The only things banned are Soda, Energy drinks and bottled water. Soda is sometimes given as a patrol competition prize.

The issue with bottled water is it generates too much trash and bottles tend to be left all over the campsite

The scouts can make what ever they want but they can not repeat a meal the rest of the year

We started holding an "Iron Chef" contest on campouts. The patrol gets a "golden" frying pan to hold on to until the next completion

The Scouts really like this and are asking to do them on every campout.

Meals have become much more adventurous and the Scouts are using recipes

I can't take the credit for" doing my homework" as I was just asked my opinion about the route and going through the locks

It doesn't look like the planned route is going to work.

This was going to be a 5 or 6 mile trip down the canal, visit Fort Stanwix in Rome, NY and canoe back

It's more like 15 or 16 miles each way with the Fort being well over a mile inland from the takeout point.

The closest points on the canal we can put in at are 9+ miles away in either direction

These locks are both a 25' drop and a pretty long portage around

A change in our monthly activity is needed for May and a canoe trip is being considered

One of the routes being looked at is on the Erie (Barge) canal. It is flat water with an extremely small current.

There are 2 Locks on the proposed route.

They do allow canoes/kayaks (and with no costs) to go through the locks. Commercial traffic is allowed on the canal but it is very rarely seen on this part of it.

One concern is that Scouts in the troop are very inexperienced at canoeing. I am not sure if any of them have canoeing Merit Badge and most of them have never been in a canoe before.

The Troop as a whole are not strong swimmers.

The question is do you portage around the Locks or allow the Scout to go through the locks in Canoes/Kayaks?

I have been through locks before in a boat but never in a canoe/kayak.

I think there are two reasons why this Scout was 1^st class before he became QM

The SM feels that the Quartermaster position needs to be held by an older Scout

I also know the SM didn’t think this boy was a good fit for the Quartermaster position.

The Scout is lucky if he makes half of the Troop meeting and outings. He is not very responsible and was pretty immature.

The Troop uses E-mail and Facebook for its primary mode of communication – his family has neither.

I know the Patrol Leaders should be calling each patrol member but it has been really tough to get them to follow through with this so he never knows what is going on.

It’s just as much this Scout’s parents than the scout – they just are not reliable to get the Scout to activities

When an adult said he would take over as the new equipment manager and mentor this Scout the SM said OK to him being QM.

The SM is hoping that now the Scout is older he can handle the position.

It hasn’t started out very good.

Right after this Scout agreed to be Quartermaster there was an equipment work day.

With walk-ins and crossovers we had this year we have 12 new scouts we added a 5^th new scout patrol.

Another patrol box was needed to be put together for the new scout patrol.

The Scout didn’t show nor did be call to say he wouldn’t be there.

He then missed the next 3 Troop meetings.

I have little faith in the new equipment manager.

It was discovered at the work day that ½ the propane tanks were empty.

When we got to the campout two weeks later they still empty – he just left it to the people on the campouts to get them filled after we got there….and the 5th patrol box was never put together.