Category: Scouting in General

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Preparing for next year’s journey – Packs

JTE-White_250The Journey to Excellence quality-check program has been with us for a few years now, and we have become accustomed to minor tweaks from year to year. For 2015, however, the changes are a bit more sweeping, though nearly all active units will be able to qualify for at least the Bronze level recognition.

First, you should review your pack’s or troop’s performance using the 2014 Journey to Excellence scorecard. If you find you fall short in some areas, it might be possible to make some changes now to ensure that you meet the 2014 requirements.

The 2015 JTE scorecards are out now, and as always, there are some changes. Continue reading “Preparing for next year’s journey – Packs”

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Selecting volunteers

raised_hands_200As we get back into high gear with our pack and troop programs, we may find that we’ve had some “churn” in our adult commitments. Perhaps a family moved away over the summer or decided on a shift in priorities. When that happens, an adult who made a commitment to volunteer in our unit is no longer available. This churn is most common in Cub Scouting, as den leaders move up and new dens (particularly Tiger dens) form, membership in the various den levels gets redistributed, or an adult in a key role has experienced a change in outside commitments, such as work or other involvement, and can’t continue in that role.

You might thin the term selecting volunteers is a bit strange – Continue reading “Selecting volunteers”

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Taking action on tough issues

gavel_200Most of the time, the business of running a troop or a pack goes smoothly. Everyone is in it together for the benefit of our sons, and nearly all committee members and parents are glad to work toward having a better program for them – and have a little fun along the way.

But sometimes there’s a problem. It could be a dissatisfied parent, or a rift between volunteers. It could involve a Scout’s misbehavior or something he did unintentionally. It could even be the top leadership – in a recent column, Ask Andy dealt with a situation where the committee chair was abusive toward the Scoutmaster and committee.

What’s the best way to deal with situations like this? Continue reading “Taking action on tough issues”

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Agreement without argument

megaphone_200It seems like every time you turn on the news or look at the paper, you see a story about how our national elected leaders seem to be incapable of getting any work done. Far worse than what was labeled as the “do-nothing” Congress of the Truman administration, our representatives seem to be constantly in a tug-of-war with each other. Very little gets done as a result, and even issues that make sense for the majority of the people fail because a wrench gets tossed into the works and the gears of governing stall.

Reaching a consensus doesn’t have to be that difficult. It takes the willingness on the part of all parties to settle for less than everything they want, and allow each other to hang on to their key principles.

At times it seems like the discourse at our unit committee meetings sounds a bit like the debate on the floor of Congress, but it really doesn’t have to. Continue reading “Agreement without argument”