Information, Observation, and Inspiration for Scouters
As we head into another year, packs and troops will be holding Blue and Gold Banquets and Courts of Honor where we recognize our Scouts for their achievements. We should also remember to recognize our adult volunteers, because without them we wouldn’t have a Scouting program.
Recognizing Scouts is easy. The badge of rank, belt loops and pins, and merit badges are symbols of what they’ve accomplished. Recognizing adults is a bit more difficult. Continue reading “Appreciation award ideas”
The end of the year is hectic, with packs, troops and crews wrapping up their roster review, collecting membership fees and filing their recharter paperwork. It can be a big job, especially if there’s lots of turnover either with youth members leaving as well as joining. And getting those disclosure forms is causing a lot of gray hair – almost as much as trying to figure out how to pay registration fees that have doubled with funds that are most likely already collected.
Sometimes relegated to an afterthought is the Journey to Excellence scorecard. A one-page checkup on the health of your unit, JTE is a handy way to see where you’re doing well and where you might consider improving. When you sit down with your unit commissioner and go over the form, you can gain some valuable insight into how to help your unit better serve your youth. Continue reading “Journey into 2020”
![[Merit badges]](https://bobwhiteblather.com/bb/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/mbs275.jpg)
Every couple months, the national advancement team at the Boy Scouts of America puts out an update for council and district advancement chairs and committee members. The current issue has a few items of interest: Continue reading “Advancement updates”
Update: On October 23, the BSA announced the new fees, as you’ve probably heard:
More information and links in this post on the Scouting Magazine blog.
We now rejoin this post, already in progress.
By now you’ve heard about the Boy Scouts of America’s plans to increase the annual registration fee for youth and adult participants. The fee, currently $33 per year, is charged of all registered youth members and adults (with a few exceptions, such as Merit Badge Counselors, parent partners and such). Many councils add a local insurance fee to this, but the $33 goes to National. We’ve been told that it will be going up effective with charters that renew starting this fall. We are in suspense about the amount of the fee increase; it hasn’t been announced at press time, but the BSA has informed us that the increase will be considered and acted upon by the National Executive Board and conveyed to us no later than October 23.
Naturally, this announcement has landed like a ton of bricks with nearly every unit. Continue reading “Dealing with the fee increase”
To err is human, said the poet Alexander Pope over three hundred years ago. Everyone makes mistakes. Scouts make mistakes. In fact, the Scouting program is built partly to allow young people to safely make mistakes and learn from them. In the words of Samuel Beckett, No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.
But while making mistakes is a common and not often fatal attribute, in certain cases they can cause disruption in an organization. The fatality arises from the inability to recognize mistakes for what they are.
You’ve probably encountered someone who just can’t admit having made a mistake. Continue reading “Even leaders make mistakes”