AG_Scouter

My understanding, is that depends... Are you talking about support staff for the sub-camps (then you would stay with that sub-camp, or general Jambo Staff, then you would stay in Echo. Hope this helps, this is my second time to SBR for Jambo and third staff Jambo. I like the experience. See you there!!

I'm a Council VP - Program, I've been involved in my Council Venturing Program since the start of Venturing. I also chair Eagle Boards.

There the credentials, now let's talk...

Eagle Boards are either a Council or District function (based on what your Council wants to do).

So what you really need to do is sit down with the Eagle Board Chair, and take someone from either your District or Council with you that understands the program, and is someone the Chair trusts. You go to coffee, pie, whatever and sit and talk about the differences between Venturing and Boy Scouts. Offer to help provide folks to fill the Board that understand the differences between Venturing and Boy Scouts.

It's hard sometimes to get folks to sit on Boards, they don't think they meet the MQs and they don't understand what REALLY happens. So you go with the same gang. This is fine, if the same gang knows that if they show up in a tie or in a green shirt, or a purple one for that matter, that we're not hurt.

Granted all this has to happen away from the boy, and before the Board starts, if you don't have that, then you better find a way to get that young man in a uniform. The idea of a shared shirt, causes me some problem. Things like Unit Number, would be missing, or "velcroed" on, and then you'd be preceived as wanting me to over look that?

Hope this helps ya. Good Luck!!

I'll be in Subcamp 8 as a chaplain. First Jambo, I'm really looking forward to this!!

There was a comment I'm trying to be clear on. Did I read things right that "When the BOR starts asking detailed questions about how the scout completed each of the steps and he can't answer, it's pretty obvious he didn't adequately complete the requirement."?

Am I the only one that's thinking, "hold on folks, that's not what BORs do"? What you are describing is what a SM Conference is about, right? BOR looks at the boy and in general terms, goes over what the young man is learning and what he is becoming. Is he taking advantage of the program that is being offered? And are the adults offering the program that the Committee and by extension the Chartered Partner is interested in?

You can have a young one step up in some areas and totally smash the requirements of TF, 2C, or 1C. These cooking ones come to mind, swimming comes to mind as well. Sit and visit and see how he's doing. Help him to have fun. Many people get so wound up about advancement. If a Scout is involved, and having fun, it's been my experience that advancement just takes care of itself (from their point of view).

Have fun, and good luck!

I think the only "real deadline" is for Arrow of Light. It's my experience (and opinion) that once the Cub Scout bridges to his troop, it's too late to finish up any Cub Scout Ranks & Awards. So if someone were struggling to get done, it might help to have them sit tight, finish up whatever was left for Arrow of Light, and then bridge and register as a Boy Scout.

A couple of years down the Boy Scout Trail, the young man isn't going to care one bit if he had his Bear, or not... But as he sits for his Eagle Board of Review, he'll want to have that blue and yellow patch for his Arrow of Light.

Before I got involved in the Council, I was a leader in a rather large troop in our town. Our troop regularly did three camps each year.

We have a nice local council camp, with a great younger scout program. It's older scout program is lacking. So we encouraged our first and maybe even our second year scouts to attend locally. This helped the council, and helped our guys get ready for more adventures. Many of those first year boys just bridged out of Webelos, so they needed a little more help. We ran aged based patrols, so it was just easy to send these 1 or 2 patrols to our local camp. We also found that our Troop Guides were very willing to go to this camp as it was less money than the other options. We'd send one experience Assistant Scoutmaster with a couple of new ASMs (usually newer dad's wanting to be involved) to go and see the troop pattern.

We also have access to some very nice camps in California, and we'd go to a different "main camp" each summer. We would make it plain that any boy that wanted to go the "main camp" was welcomed, but encouraged to stay local that first year. This also gave us some more time to help them raise the money they'd need for these higher expenses.

We had a rotation of Philmont, Northern Tier, Sea Base & Jamboree as our older boy program. Again, this was easy since patrols were aged based. It also gave the boys time to earn the money they'd need to make these trips. Most of the guys would be able to attend more than one of these, but few got all four. It worked for us, and helped us keep older boys involved. Not only in leadership but active with camping, fund raising, and preparing for that next big trip.

I agree that this has no room in Scouting, however the reaction of having the older boys act as dishwashers bothers me. Isn't that reaction a corporal one? I would be racking my brain to come up with something, it's just I'm not sure that having them handle that task really introduces more problems that it solves?

Just asking. Man, I'd be all over this one, not just the young scout, all involved would know. Oh and If nobody wants to fess up as to who the older guys were, I'd pull plug on the whole outing thing for a time.

I thought I understood the question. But just to be safe I went and checked my sources. Perhaps the best resource was the online Scouter Magazine article.

First, I learned that "The Scouter Award of Merit" has been replaced with "The Unit Leader's Award of Merit". It is for primary leaders of the unit. Cubmaster, Scoutmaster, Coach & Advisor.

Second, "The Scouter's Key" is for the Scoutmaster while "The Scouter's Training Award" is for those that are not Scoutmasters.

http://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2009/08/knot-of-the-week-scouters-key.html

Hope this helps.

Speaking as someone that gets this question regularly, let me toss a few points into this, please.

1 - A limit on hours is not appropriate. The reason is simple. Troops are different sizes. At least in my council they are. We have troops that have 50 boys that show up week after week. If they all showed up for a morning to someones project, that person would have 200 hours. If that same person were in a different troop and the six boys that regularly attend that meeting helped his project for 4 hours, he'd need nine work days to come close.

2 - The point is to show leadership. We look at how many work days, the adult to youth ratio, and where the funds came from for the project. As has been previously stated, "Can the Eagle Canidate get workers to come back?" is a much more important question to me than "Can he hit 100 manhours with his project?" Along the same lines, "Did he really show leadership?" is important and having too many folks that happen to have the same last name as the canidate is an indicator of perhaps not having the leadership opportunities that are needed for this requirement. Then to the thought of money, it has been my experience that boys that take out a withdrawel from the "Bank of Parent" don't have the same experience as those that ask for help from businesses, service groups, church members, or even their friends.

3 - I have made presentations and said that 100 hours is a good guide line, but it is not anything that must be. I have seen good projects that blow past that figure. I've seen good projects that don't come anywhere near that number. On the other hand, I've seen very weak projects that come with minutes of exactly 100 manhours.

Hope this all helps. It's amazing to me to see how this topic can get all twisted up. Good luck.

It has been my experience that it boils down to what you are seeing and why you're bothered. I see a POR patch in about the right spot, but not level, on a Scout's uniform. My thought has now become "Hey this is GREAT!!" I will find a way to talk to that Scout, I make a point of letting him know that I think he did good. Almost always I hear that he tried, and it's not right, but it's too hard to fix. We talk about straight pins for trying next time, but I make a point of telling him I'm glad he tried himself.

It has been my experience that boys rise to the level of uniforming their adults hold. When I was an ASM, my SM was retired military. His uniform was starched and nice. The Scouts looked that way too. When I was an SM, my troop didn't look that way, but they looked right. Now as a council volunteer, I see all sorts of things.

Do we think of shooting people that volunteer their time simply because they don't read the whole darn book? I sure hope not. We need them too. I think as we try to help them, not berate them, we can get a lot better traction.

Hasn't it been your experience that we get more flies with honey rather than vinegar? I think "U.P." deal too much with negativity and intimidation. Those are behaviors we need to try and avoid, don't we?

I am a Council VP, that gets to help with Eagle projects & Boards. I have read through this and totally agree, but need to voice a bit more.

The project may have been shot down because of manpower. How many helpers were there for the project? Sometimes you worry about the scout being able to actually get the project done. I've seen projects that were VERY involved and the scout needed outside of Scouting help to accomplish. I've seen the opposite too.

I'm sure the board had reasons, I'd hope they followed the guideline that when you tell a scout "no", you also follow that up with a written explanation of what needs to be done. Granted, that has to do with turning down an Eagle Application, but I don't see why you wouldn't do the same thing for turning down a project?

I hope this gets resolved for you. I'm learning that there are many times when the politics of the group come into play.

I may not post on here a lot, but trust me I am a good source. Here's a link to a PDF of the actual form:

http://www.scouting.org/filestore/pdf/512-728_web.pdf

You'll notice from that, there is no mention of what sort of a Cub Scout den it needs to be. You'll also notice no mention of a work book.

If the Scoutmaster has previously approved this activity, I would have your son ask why he (the Scoutmaster) hadn't shared with him (your son) any sort of a book that he should have been logging things in? I think goals and attitudes and leadership skills are great topics while the Scout is working through Eagle Requirement #4, but to come now and say, "You never checked back with me...", that is something I would bring up with the Scoutmaster if it were in my Council.

Speaking as a council volunteer, we get pretty excited when we hear about folks adding to the requirements. This sure sounds like a case of that to me. If a talk between your son and his Scoutmaster does not turn up a better understanding of what's up, I would speak with either the District Advancement Chair, the Council Advancement Chair, or the Council VP for Program. They may be able to shine some light on this situation.

Good luck.

I've taken Scouts there, and the train works well. We arrive the day before we're scheduled to be in camp. We start at sea level, so yes the elevation presents problems for us the moment we get off the train, and base camp is higher, and the treks are higher still.

I've taken family there and we've done the train and we've flown to Denver (only because the flights there were cheaper). From Denver we rented cars and drove. This has worked well for us as well.

The one issue you need to understand, is that you can not show up to Philmont early. They don't have a place for you to be. There are two base camps, one for starting crews and one for finishing crews. Once the cycle starts, there is no room for extra folks. The towns are small, and lodging is interesting. If you actually were to plan on getting to Raton a day early that would help. There are a couple of hotels there, you guys will be fine.

Good luck and have fun.

Maybe I don't get it, I've been known to confuse easily.

I wear the adult version of my Eagle award everytime I wear my uniform. It's my Eagle knot, I wear it right next to my adult version of my Arrow of Light. Come on guys, we can wear the medals too for formal times, BUT we should wear what we've earned and allow our actions to reflect the fact that the program has had an impact on our lives. Right?

I've been to Philmont three times. Twice for PTC and once on a back country trip. Here's what I know.

First trip, went to PTC with the Mrs. (You need to understand she's an RDH, dirt (measured in mm & mg is bad), she won't camp ever.) LOVED it, wanted to go back, they treated her PERFECTLY. She watched children having a BLAST all day long. The course I took (COPE Director) was outstanding.

Second trip, went as the crew advisor for our troop's older boy high adventure with our son. We walked and walk for 10 days. Mrs, recognized the spots from our pictures because she had been there. Completely demoralized our son.

Third trip, back to PTC. Couldn't keep Mrs. away. First time she did everything, this time she read a book under a tree, took short walks, loved it all over again. She'll go again, but not for a while.

How'd we get there?

First time, flew to ALBQ (forget the other letters), took the train, spent the night in Raton, got the school bus to PTC. We spent all our time at PTC. We were both a little stir crazy by the end of the week. Going home we almost missed our flight. Highly stressed event. Amtrack isn't late if it arrives on the same DAY, good luck catching planes with that schedule.

Second trip, we loaded the boys up on our local Amtrack (Coast Starlight), spent the day in LA, got on the east bound Southwest Chief, next day we were in Raton. Hiked to our hotel, spent the night. Next morning got the Philmont school bus. Reversed the process going home. Worked like a charm.

Third trip, fly to Denver. Rented a car. Drove down. This worked VERY well for us. I would suggest you try this approach unless all involved understand that you aren't going to leave Philmont for anything until the end of the week.

Have fun, take the whole family. It is one of the nicest scouting things your family will ever do.

What a great idea! You've read lots of good ideas. May I add a story for you to help too?

This past year I was able to help with our wood badge course. I got to visit with the participants about "Leaving a Legacy" (which also happened to be the theme of our course this year).

One CM there got the idea to organize a coat drive for part of his ticket. From the pictures I saw there were less than two dozen Cubs involved. They had bags and bags of coats that they gathered from their community.

Our Council VP for PR is a news director at a local TV station. He ensured his news crew took pictures and spent a few moments at the end of their Saturday evening newscast. This project is still going, folks are still dropping jackets off at the shelter.

Stuffed animals for children involved in accidents help the safety officers console them. What a thoughtful project. Good luck, get your community involved and don't be surprised when people want to help you make it better than you could imagine