Scoutmaster Musings

The National Youth Protection Committee recommended additions to Boy Scout rank requirements that were approved and will become effective January 1, 2008. These changes will emphasize the importance of Youth Protection training.

Tenderfoot Rank
Revised requirement 9:
Explain the importance of the buddy system as it relates to your personal safety on outings and in your neighborhood. Describe what a bully is and how you should respond to one.

Second Class Rank
New requirement 8b:
Explain the three R’s of personal safety and protection.

First Class Rank
New requirement 12:
Describe the three things you should avoid doing related to use of the Internet. Describe a cyberbully and how you should respond to one.

The changes will be represented in the 2008 Boy Scout Requirements book and the revised ninth printing of the 11th edition of the Boy Scout Handbook.

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As you may remember, the Cub Scout Immediate Recognition Kit has been recalled this fall due to high lead content in the paint.

Scouts or parents that have one of these items can return it to a Scout Shop starting on December 1, 2007 and receive a replacement. The new replacement items will have an imprinted diamond shape on the back so you can tell they are new.

Also, when someone returns an old one, they can enter to win one of three BMX bikes from Kahoot - as kind of an "Oops, sorry" contest. The bike winners will be drawn on April 1, 2008.

See Kahoot News for details.

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The BSA has put out a video overview of the merit badge program. You can view it online - Merit Badge Primer Video

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The troop celebrate another Eagle Scout today. This one finished his requirements just a few weeks before his 18th birthday, so it was close. He hovered at Life for over 3 years but finally completed the tasks.

The Court of Honor ceremony went very well. Check out the script at this page - the interrupting scouts worked out well and added a little intrigue to the event. The best part was having his little brother and sister put on his Eagle neckerchief. The worst part was having the Scoutmaster talk too much. :-)

The Eagle did a great job of encouraging all the younger scouts to set goals, persevere, and not wait too long. Whenever an experienced scout can prod other scouts along in their advancement, that's a good thing.

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Trails' End Popcorn is the staple funding for many packs/troops, districts, and councils around the country. There's a good chance the scouts in your unit sell popcorn. Some love doing it while others hate the whole thing. From the average scout's, parent's, or even scoutmaster's point of view, the popcorn just magically appears at someone's house and they go pick up the items they sold.

Today, I had the enlightening opportunity to discover that the popcorn does not magically appear at that person's house. Actual people spend many actual hours of actual hard work getting it ready!

Our District Executive put out a request for folks to help sort popcorn. Since I was free today, I said, "Sure!" I didn't know that I was the only one that had that reply.

All the orders for a district are combined into one huge order from Trails' End. Popcorn is delivered on pallets in cases. Many pallets with hundreds of cases! All wrapped in plastic and waiting to be broken down and re-assembled into piles for each specific troop.

Our D.E. gave me one troop's order and told me to gather all the items 'over there'. I searched for Cheese Lovers and Three-way Tin Chocolate Lovers and Microwave Kettle Corn. After lots of searching through pallets, I finally had the lay of the land and the next order was easier.

You may not know this, but on every item and every case there is a symbol - a moon, circle, triangle, sun, or something else. You should look on your items. We had our own special language. We didn't say we needed 7 2.5 Pound Popcorn Tins - we said we needed 7 Triangles. I didn't even know what was in most of the cases for half the day. :-)

After 3 hours of picking and packing, the troops began to arrive for pickups. Then, we moved the orders to a loading bay and they checked off that we had the correct number of triangles, circles, and clovers (sometimes called 'clubs'). I was impressed - we only had a couple mix-ups and they were fixed.

So, when you get your popcorn, remember that someone put in a whole lot of work just to get those items to you so your scouting adventures could happen. Next year, consider volunteering to help sort your district's popcorn - it really was an interesting day. And, try the 'stars' - they're very good!

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Back in September, I wrote a post about the Rocks In My Backpack book written by Tom Sholes. I just wanted to remind you that this really is a great gift for any scout volunteer you may know - or anyone you know that was ever in Boy Scouts.

Tom tells me that many copies of his book are going overseas to soldiers that were scouts, giving them some humorous relief from the stress they face.

Buy It - > < - Buy It


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In our troop, each campout is organized by a patrol with the assistance of an adult. The patrol does all the planning and arranges training in troop meetings before the campout for skills that could be useful on the outing. To aid in the planning, a Campout Planning Checklist has evolved.

We've been seeing a lower participation level in troop camoouts for the past year than we'd like. I asked the PLC what they thought might be done to bring the numbers up a bit and they decided that more promotion would help.

For the past couple months, each planning patrol has been asked by the PLC to present the outing with a little more 'OOMPH' than just standing up and saying, "We're going camping on the 24th. Here's the permission form." At last night's troop meeting, it finally happened!

A couple scouts from the patrol planning the December skiing campout got dressed up in ski gear, goggles, poles, ... head to toe. One came running in hollering that he was tired of raking leaves and wanted to go skiing. But, where could he go? The other scout said he had a solution to his problems. They went back and forth explaining all the fun activities they had planned for the campout and how scouts should sign up. Very entertaining and a great demonstration of how the other patrols should do it. A lot of scouts signed up right then.

Now, I'll be talking to the SPL about how he can challenge the patrols coming up in 2008 to outperform this patrol.

Adding a bit of entertainment, even in announcements, is a good way to make troop meetings more interesting.

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Today I'm recovered from our annual Lock-In on Friday night. Yesterday, I was a little sore and tired as an old man. In years past, this was our Webelos recruiting night but we now have the Scoutorama for that.

The Lock-In is probably the most un-Scouting thing our troop does. Mini-golf, bumper cars, and mostly shoving coins into blinking, whirring, flashing arcade games for a couple hours in the quest for the jackpot of tickets. Then, exchanging all those tickets for some silly plastic jumping frog or other such junk. Can you tell what I think about it? :-)

But, every year, during the PLC's planning session, it finds its way back onto the schedule. This year I even mentioned that global warming is making it feasible to camp in November, but that didn't have much impact.

It's not really that bad. After the arcade, we retreat to a local church with a huge gym and play highly active games. We have pizza and pop and then the scouts battle it out in the gym. This weekend, we played pinguard for 2 1/2 hours straight. They even let the old guys play and I'm still sore from throwing about 500 nerf soccer balls.

Another change this year was that we ended at 1:00am rather than staying all night. At past lock-ins, some scouts would leave around midnight anyway and then I'd be stuck with a bunch of zombies at 7:00am trying to clean the place up. It worked out much better this time and it looked to me like the scouts were tired enough when they headed home. I'm anxious to hear what the scouts have to say about it at the troop meeting tomorrow.

Scout On

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I've noticed a lot of Greener ads on TV the past week or so. The hybrid cars are becoming more common on the streets. The price of oil keeps setting new records. Cutting our energy consumption is no longer something to think about doing some day - it's something to actually do now.

I always put up my Christmas lights the week after Thanksgiving. That means they burn for over a month. I use C7 lights - incandescent lights that are smaller than C9s. I'm one of the few left in my neighborhood that has not switched to LED Christmas lights and it's about time I made the switch too.

I grew up with these C7 lights and they just always seemed more 'real' to me than LED lights. But, with the recent advancements in technology, the LEDs are pretty cool.

LED lights have about a 50,000 hour life compared to 2,000 for incandescents - yes, I get tired of replacing a handful of lights every year.

LED lights use about 90% LESS energy than incandescents. That means the extra large electricity bill that comes in January will be a thing of the past. Instead of an extra $100 it would just be an extra $10.

LEDs are more durable too - they're plastic shells instead of glass. Also, they are literally cool, cool enough to touch.

So, what's on my Christmas list? Besides a new pair of Scout Socks, it's new strings of LED lights.

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In our community, we have a handful of Boy Scout Troops and a handful of Cub Scout Packs. The membership in any single pack or troop fluctuates year to year. Across the board, numbers stay fairly even, but there are spikes in individual units which often cause some concern.

Some years, a troop will get a bumper crop of new scouts because there are a few younger brothers in Webelos that are definitely going to that troop and they wind up pulling more new scouts along with them. Other years, the same thing will happen to a different troop.

This year, it seems like competition between troops is at a very high level. Our troop is in the situation of having a few younger brothers moving up so we're not too concerned about bringing in enough scouts. But, that doesn't mean we aren't pulling, pushing, and prodding Webelos to continue on.

The scouts in our troop have scheduled events so they could invite Webelos along. And, they've done this to help the Webelos fulfill their Arrow of Light requirements, rather than actively recruiting them. I think that makes a big difference in the amount of fun and pressure that exists. We had a handful of Webelos join us at the district Camporee. We had a very fun Scoutorama last weekend. And, next month, they decided to invite some Webelos to go skiing.

Last night, the troop had a table at an event specifically devoted to recruiting Webelos. One of the local Packs invites all the troops to have a table in a local church. Then, they invite all the Webelos from every pack to come and meet each troop. It's a terrific event where Webelos get to see each troop. The troops have little activities trying to impress the Webelos. Many of the troops have developed traditional activities - one has rubber band guns, one has a board game, and we have a wheel of fortune. I had a great time because I just sat and watched all night. The scouts talked to Webelos and parents and never got a question they needed me to help with.

I would highly recommend that you consider organizing such an event in your community - it will give you good press and really help with the Webelos transition. Getting Webelos to go on to Boy Scouts is the goal, not so much which troop they join.

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I just wanted to pass on an idea that worked well for me. The name of the game is What's It?

I've collected a number of strange items over the years that are not easily recognizable, especially to younger folks that maybe have never listened to an LP or seen a record needle. You probably have similar things collecting dust in the attic, on the shelf, or in the garage.

Take an object to a troop meeting.
Allow each patrol 30 seconds to inspect the item.
Give everyone 2 minutes to come up with an explanation or use for the item.
The patrol leader or representative of each patrol comes up front and gives a 1 minute or less presentation on what the item should be used for, according to his patrol.
Unbiased judges determine which patrol gave the best or most convincing presentation. Not necessarily the correct use of the item wins.

We've done this a half dozen times over the past year or so and the scouts enjoy it. It is a bit of silly competition but more importantly it inspires creativity and gives the opportunity to speak in front of the group. By recognizing the presentation rather than the correct use, most of the scouts doing the speaking put in their best effort.

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Tomorrow is election day. This is a great opportunity to emphasize the rights and responsibilities of being a citizen in our country. With the three Eagle required citizenship merit badges, discussing local, national, and global impacts of casting our votes is a good exercise. Webelos also have a Citizen activity badge.

If your scouts haven't seen how voting is handled in your area, tomorrow would be a good time to take a couple scouts while you cast your ballot. With the advancements in technology, each time I go and vote it seems something has changed. Last time, we punched holes in cards but a computer read and verified the card before the vote was officially cast. I'm looking forward to seeing what's new this time.

Vote!

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