committeechair

to KA6BSA: BTW, when my son joined the troop 2 years ago, I had been the den/Webeleos leader of his cub den since he was in 2nd grade. I was in no hurry to throw in the towel. I came into the troop and said I wanted to be an Assistant Scoutmaster. I had just gone to Outdoor Scoutmster Fundamentals and was gung-ho. "No. Woman are committee members. Men are Scoutmasters." Grrrr. I have been quite vocal about this over the years. They know I am not happy with the sexism. If they want this to be "all men," they better get the fathers in gear. They haven't been doing their jobs!

I don't know, eisely. Does San Francisco have Annual State wide Scout Parades? Austin does. One year an Austin character came to wave and salute the boys as they marched by: wearing high heels and mini skirt. My husband said "Boy, he being very respectful of our Scouts, though!" The media really doesn't cover this parade, although it has Scouts from all over Texas. I wish more photos would be taken of it and more news stations would cover it.

The issue is that we aren't getting the # of men needed to go on the campouts. We have many single moms in our group, but they have been told the men go on the campouts. This isn't a rule set by our Charter Organization. In fact, our Charter Org. has very little to do with us, except to give us a roof over our head. We do not get any funds from them. Our SM is the one who is setting the rule. However, he is on the way out. As soon as we can find someone to take over the role of SM. (Yet another problem....)

In the past year our troop has grown from about 6-8 Scouts to over 20. The problem we are facing now is a lack of participation from parents. The parents we did have that had large vehicals dropped out, and those who joined and participate have small vehicals. We have a SM that insists that campouts are for men only. Guess what? We have many single women with boys in our troop. I am always willing to go, but, since I am a woman, that counts me out. This last campout we had to cancel because we had only 7 seat belts. Any suggestions? Last month I sent out postcards for a family me

One thing that is driving me batty in our troop lately is the not wearing the uniform properly. It is my understanding that the regular green and red cap with the Boy Scout emblem is the approved cap to wear with the uniform. But one kid wears the ones from summer camps. And other are wearing their rivaling college team caps in order to egg each other on. The men (leaders) think this is cute and just laugh. They allow them to wear these each week during the meeting, inside the church. As a mom, and the Committee Chairman for our troop, I am wanting to take all the hats and put them in a box un

As one who lives in the Austin area, I am not at all surprised over the latest thing that the United Way has pulled. In Austin, the United Way will bend over backwards for certain groups who yell 'discrimination' although those people represent a small minority of the population. Meanwhile, many young men who are benefiting from the Scouting program are the ones that will be effected. I learned a long time ago that the United Way was not the organization to send your donations to. I tell people to make out checks to whatever organizations they want to support directly. If you don't know whe

I have noticed, on many troop websites, patrol positions that aren't the regular positions that have a patch to wear. For example: Grubmaster, Cheermaster, Patrol Treasurer, etc. Do such positions count towards rank advancement? And also, what about a patch to wear? Our troop has tripled in size since last year and for the first time our troop is large enough to worry about someone not having a position. We are very excited the troop has finally grown, and are expecting more soon from Webelos!