Cub Scout Single Night Camping Only

[Tron]

On 3/26/2023 at 5:10 PM, AwakeEnergyScouter said:

Yeah, I agree. It could be that this stays the only widely violated rule, but probably not given long enough time.

The thing about leading volunteers is that you have little positional authority no matter what the org chart says. You have to lead with vision, purpose, and motivate your decisions well or nothing will happen the way you wanted.

The positional authority is that willful violation of the GTSS means the BSA umbrella policy does not cover you in the event of an incident.

[AwakeEnergyScouter]

@Tron Positional authority isn't the sum of possible reasons for why one ought to follow a particular directive, it's role-based power that an individual holds within an organization. This would be as opposed to personal power, which people have regardless of role.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2019/03/06/do-you-exude-personal-power-or-do-you-rely-on-positional-power/?sh=215b212a65ec

You're not wrong about the insurance coverage issue, but look around - people are de facto violating the spirit of this rule while cooking up formal explanations for why they are in a legalistic way following it to address insurance-type reasons because nobody understands why this rule improves scout safety, let alone enough to give up a huge part of the program.

People think they're taking care of the insurance and other policy-type issues with getting legalistic about what you call night 1 and night 2. They may not be, in which case it's even more important to explain why the rule is in place so that people actually follow it. Otherwise, it's a question of time until some pack is in the news for an insurance kerfuffle with national.

Giving a clear answer to why this rule makes sense really isn't too much to ask.

Edited April 5, 2023 by AwakeEnergyScouter
Fixed typo

[sierracharliescouter]

With few exceptions, insurance claims can't be denied because of deviations from policies, or even laws, that are not demonstrably proximate to the cause of the insurance claim. Your car insurance still covers you even if you ran a red light.

It might be used to justify increasing the premiums on renewal, and a Council could choose to not renew a charter, but the claim would almost certainly still be paid.

[Mrjeff]

No one, no matter of their precieved or actual positions, can control another person or exercise authority over others unless the "others" want to be controlled.  The only real way to have such authority one must be able to control the "others" money or freedom.  Just sayen😉

[AwakeEnergyScouter]

I see that our council is planning two council-wide campouts for both cubs and scouts proper this fall, instead of one for scouts proper and one for cubs.

If this gives more cubs an opportunity to see that Scouts BSA isn't just more cub scouts, and that there is more to experience still, this could be something positive that comes out of a less than optimal policy change.

I know my cub fell in love with some of the summer camp activities that cubs are too young for upon seeing them. I'm sure they aren't the only one.

[JSL3300]

Looks like my council has come up with a work around? A loophole? I don't know, but I'm here for it since we had already reserved our site for our annual fall camp. Waalaa, your pack camping trip is now a council camping trip! 

Cub Scout Short Term Camping

[DannyG]

2 hours ago, JSL3300 said:

Looks like my council has come up with a work around? A loophole? I don't know, but I'm here for it since we had already reserved our site for our annual fall camp. Waalaa, your pack camping trip is now a council camping trip! 

Cub Scout Short Term Camping

Meaning your Cubs must camp at a council staffed camp in order to stay more than one night. It doesn't apply if you find your own campsite outside BSA. So the council adds some honey to attract the Cubs into the local camp... Win-win? Unintended consequences? Better than nothing I suppose.

 

Edited May 8, 2023 by DannyG

[JSL3300]

1 hour ago, DannyG said:

Meaning your Cubs must camp at a council staffed camp in order to stay more than one night. It doesn't apply if you find your own campsite outside BSA. So the council adds some honey to attract the Cubs into the local camp... Win-win? Unintended consequences? Better than nothing I suppose.

 

Yeah. From how this reads, nothing with change? We've always checked in and out with the campmaster anyway. What I do wonder is about the ban on shooting sports for cubs when not at a council event. Prior to that rule change, our council had rangemaster training and each unit that wanted to do shooting sports would send someone to get trained so they could do shooting sports on council property during unit campouts. They changed the rule to say cubs could only shoot at council events. Maybe now that camp is technically a council event, maybe one of the things they can bring back is letting cubs do shooting sports and camp. Fingers crossed. 

 

Edit: Emailed camp director. Not going back to old style of range renting. Bummer. But glad we can still camp. 

Edited May 8, 2023 by JSL3300

[DannyG]

1 hour ago, JSL3300 said:

Edit: Emailed camp director. Not going back to old style of range renting. Bummer. But glad we can still camp. 

Too bad. I know our Cubs can only shoot during Summer Day camp, or every once in a while when they schedule a special event.

[Eagle94-A1]

2 hours ago, DannyG said:

So the council adds some honey to attract the Cubs into the local camp... Win-win? Unintended consequences? Better than nothing I suppose.

Actually some of us predicted this was the reason for the rule change.

 

1 hour ago, JSL3300 said:

What I do wonder is about the ban on shooting sports for cubs when not at a council event. Prior to that rule change, our council had rangemaster training and each unit that wanted to do shooting sports would send someone to get trained so they could do shooting sports on council property during unit campouts. They changed the rule to say cubs could only shoot at council events. Maybe now that camp is technically a council event, maybe one of the things they can bring back is letting cubs do shooting sports and camp. Fingers crossed. 

Edit: Emailed camp director. Not going back to old style of range renting. Bummer. But glad we can still camp. 

 

Actually what your council, and many others I might add, were doing was not allowed by national. However that rule was never enforced. Probably because it made money for the local councils, i.e. pay for the training, pay to rent the range, pay to rent the equipment, buying the ammo and targets, etc.  Now it appears national is coming down like a hammer on councils.

[T2Eagle]

2 hours ago, JSL3300 said:

Yeah. From how this reads, nothing with change? We've always checked in and out with the campmaster anyway. What I do wonder is about the ban on shooting sports for cubs when not at a council event. Prior to that rule change, our council had rangemaster training and each unit that wanted to do shooting sports would send someone to get trained so they could do shooting sports on council property during unit campouts. They changed the rule to say cubs could only shoot at council events. Maybe now that camp is technically a council event, maybe one of the things they can bring back is letting cubs do shooting sports and camp. Fingers crossed. 

 

Edit: Emailed camp director. Not going back to old style of range renting. Bummer. But glad we can still camp. 

This rule was around for a long time, but either not understood or not emphasized.  The emphasis came a few years ago, maybe 2018 or 2019.  There was a good long thread about it on this forum.

Our troop plus council's solution was to pay to have the range open during our Boy Scout/Cub Scout weekend,  I mean overnight; we paid the fees for the range, the council supplied the rangemaster, but the range was open to every unit in camp for some part of the day, not just us,  This made it a council event not a unit event; which frankly was fine with us, why not have more scouts taking advantage of the opportunity.

Try to get in touch with a volunteer from your council's Shooting Sports committee rather than going through the camp director.  The shooting sports guys tend to be more enthusiastic about their bailiwick, and are often more willing to find a way to make things work.

[JSL3300]

1 hour ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

Actually some of us predicted this was the reason for the rule change.

Maybe. From the local units I've talked to, including our own, it is just making people feel like they are running underground organizations. We do our spring camp at a rotation of state parks. For the last two years at the bottom of the info sheet for spring camp, we put this: 

Anything else? 

Actually, yes. There is one caveat we have to be clear about for spring camp. Over the last couple of years, Great Trail Council (which is the local body that we answer to) has made a policy that Cub Scouts cannot family camp anywhere except council owned camps. Our fall camp is at Camp Manatoc which is a council camp. State parks and private campgrounds are not. Therefore, this cannot be an "official" scouting event. We frame this more as a group of friends getting together for a camping trip. What this means is that the insurance that we are covered by during official events will not apply. By coming to this event, you take on personal risk. We apologize that we have to be weird about this, but we just want to be super transparent about how it all works. We really hope that this policy changes soon. 

 

I'm sure the legality is questionable. I don't feel awesome about it, but I do feel awesome about getting the scouts out into the woods and letting them run around and have fun. We went this past weekend and it was a blast. While I understand some of the heart behind the restrictions they're putting on cubs, I don't know that it's accomplishing any of what they are hoping for... 

[DannyG]

11 minutes ago, JSL3300 said:

Cub Scouts cannot family camp anywhere except council owned camps.

Actually, the rule for Cub Scouts is council "approved" camps. They don't have to be council owned. My council has approved the state park our unit camps in, and some privately owned (church groups) camps.

Check with your unit commissioner. They may be able to help get your camp approved.

Edited May 8, 2023 by DannyG

[Eagle94-A1]

15 minutes ago, JSL3300 said:

Over the last couple of years, Great Trail Council (which is the local body that we answer to) has made a policy that Cub Scouts cannot family camp anywhere except council owned camps.

At least you have a list of approved camps, even if limited to council owned. Some councils do not have any list of approved camps because some high level volunteers feel "Cubs don't need to camp."  So packs are using the OA's Where to Go Camping book as their list of approved camps since it is a council publication.

 

6 minutes ago, DannyG said:

Actually, the rule for Cub Scouts is council "approved" camps. They don't have to be council owned. My council has approved the state park our unit camps in, and some privately owned (church groups) camps.

Yes, but some councils do restrict their Cubs to only  their own camps. I know of one council that has great Cub programs at the camp, but once they reach Scout age, tend to go elsewhere because they are bored at going to that camp.

Edited May 8, 2023 by Eagle94-A1

[JSL3300]

6 hours ago, DannyG said:

Actually, the rule for Cub Scouts is council "approved" camps. They don't have to be council owned. My council has approved the state park our unit camps in, and some privately owned (church groups) camps.

Check with your unit commissioner. They may be able to help get your camp approved.

Yup. Until a few weeks ago, that list of "approved" camps was just the council camps. I think there are a few more now. Hoping that list continues to grow.