Scoutmaster Podcast 350

I'm Owen Wilson and I'm a Scoutmaster with troop number 868 in Peoria, Arizona. This edition of the Scoutmaster Podcast is sponsored by backers like me.

And now to you, Scoutmaster. The other day my Scouts asked me if I knew how to make a mosquito repellent and I told them I thought that the mosquitoes did a pretty good job of that all on their own. You're gonna have to think about that. I'm not explaining it.

Hey, this is podcast number 350.. Well, welcome back to the Scoutmaster Podcast. This is Clarke Green looking in the mailbag, as we are want to do.

We have heard from Mike Bailey, who's the committee chair of troop 9626 in Shoreview, Minnesota, Who said I wanted to make a quick comment related to this week's podcast topic of registered committee members on boards of reviews. So that was the last podcast, or maybe a couple podcasts ago. We've always had boards of review facilitated by an experienced and trained Scouter. That said, we've recently begun the practice of requesting that a new Scout parent sit on at least one board of review, preferably with an older Scout in the first year their son is in Scouting. We feel it helps that parent understand the program better, get a glimpse into the future. It's also been a great initial entry into approaching parents about becoming registered volunteers themselves Initially.

Our efforts have been very successful and appreciated. We don't feel we're affecting the safety or the effectiveness of the border review process And it's been a great way to familiarize new parents with how this Boy Scout program operates, differently from Cub Scouts.

Well, thanks for that, Mike. I don't have an argument with a parent sitting in as an observer on a border review, other than the fact that sometimes things can get discussed in a border review that maybe need to remain confidential, especially in the period of time when the board is discussing the Scout after they've spoken with the Scout and before they approve the advancement.

So there is some merit to observing the questioning portion of the border review, but I think after that it's time for the parent to stop observing. Heard from John Patrick Hickey.

You said thanks so much for all the great things you share to advance Scouting- Great and fun stuff. Thanks, John. Hey, if you're around on Tuesday mornings around 8 am Eastern time, you can come over to scoutmastercgcom and join us for a live chat. If you keep an eye on our Facebook feed and our Twitter feed, you'll see that the live chat is announced most every Tuesday morning- not every Tuesday morning, but just about every Tuesday morning- And you can come along and sign in and join us.

We have great fun. We talk about important things and things that aren't important at all. In addition to the frequent fliers who show up on a regular basis for our live chat, we welcome Fernando Harutner, who's an assistant scoutmaster, soon to be scoutmaster in Troop 552 in Doral, Florida. Ted, who's the scoutmaster of Troop 45 in the Chicago area, And Robert, who's a council commissioner in Southwest Florida. They all joined us for their first time on the chat this past week. Come on along and say hello if you have a chance.

Before I go any further, thank you to all the folks who are scoutmastercgcom backers, including Greg Nash, who added his name to the list of backers since our last podcast. I also want to thank all the folks who support us over at Patreon as subscribers, And if you'd like to become a backer or join our Patreon subscribers, just go to scoutmastercgcom.

You'll find links to follow at the top right of any page And there will be links in this episode's podcast notes. Before we get started, I want to tell you I had a great visit with Wade and Bucky. They reached the Pennsylvania, New Jersey border on their Appalachian Trail through Hike, which is relatively close to where we live, and they were in town. We had a great visit. I was able to record some of it and I will be editing it down for inclusion in a future podcast, But they're doing great Well.

For the remainder of the podcast, I've got a couple of email questions to answer, so let's get started. Shall we E-mail? That is folks,

And here's an answer to one of your emails. Now, back in podcast 348, we asked for input about how scouts work with parents And I heard from Andrea Cooperman who said: I've been a PAC committee chair for six years, an assistant Scoutmaster or committee chair for the last two years for a troop, And now I'm getting ready to be a crew advisor. I've dealt with many parents and I find mostly they just need to be heard. Whatever their complaint or concern, they just want to know someone is listening. Many times all it takes is an understanding ear. I try to get to know most of our families and their situations.

I do understand the anxiety many parents feel about making sure their scout is achieving, But if I asked them to look back on their own childhood and how they went about learning the skills they have now. They usually stop and say oh, and relax a little bit Once again. Mostly they just want to be heard. When they can get a person to listen, they'll unload. I've learned to be flexible and compassionate and, above all, not to judge. You never really know what a family may be going through at home.

However you go about your life, it's not our place as scouts to judge. We're there for our scouts to help make their dreams a reality and hopefully have some fun in the process. If you're not having fun, you're doing it wrong.

Well, thanks for that input, Andrea. I really appreciate the benefit of your experience in dealing with that. Listening is such an important skill, as is applying that kind of non-judgmental compassion. It can be tough.

It can be really, really tough, But hey, you wouldn't be a scouter if you weren't tough, right? I heard from Scott Williams, who is with Scout Troop 534 in Flowery Branch, Georgia. He said: thanks for all you do for scouting.

The question I have is: how do you handle transportation to scouting events? I have parents that sign up to provide us rides on campouts and consistently have them cancel out at the last minute and then have to scramble to get the other parents to drive scouts to and from events.

Well, Scott, what you're telling me sounds completely normal. I mean, I hear this sort of thing a lot and I've experienced myself. It's probably one of those things that is a feature rather than a flaw that can be fixed. Sometimes plans work and sometimes they don't.

I know that this is a very unsatisfactory answer, but does it help at all? And Scott got back to me and said: yes, thanks for your reply. It helped somewhat. I have a sister troop that basically locks everything in two weeks out and if you cancel you're still charged for the trip. And if there's an emergency that requires you to cancel, I take it to heart to run my troop, like you talk about on your podcast.

So I'm conflicted on trying this troop's method. My reply to Scott was: you know, either approach is going to require approximately the same amount of energy and frustration.

I think at least one approach is positive and inclusive and one is prohibitive and exclusive. You can't force people to be considerate, responsible and helpful. You can only force them to be compliant, which I'm not saying is necessarily a bad thing. But trying to force people to be compliant has its own set of frustrations that is at least equal to, if not greater than, the frustration of dealing with the vicissitudes of families and human beings. If your troop is like mine, some families are consistently considerate, responsible and helpful. Some are less.

So We tend to call on the ones who are considerate, responsible and helpful and not the ones who aren't. And nothing about that is fair, because some people will do more than others and some people don't contribute at all. And I can't really think honestly, if you think about it right, I can't think of any endeavor, anything.

You know, whether it's working with a community group, whether it's working with scouts, whether it's working with a church, any kind of volunteer situation where that isn't pretty much the way things go. So kind of far-bibbed for me to tell you how to handle this exactly. There are different ways to handle it. All's I'm saying is is that it can be equally frustrating to handle it either way. I would rather see us use as many positive and inclusive methods as possible. And Scott got back to me and said once again: you have enlightened me.

You are the bodhisattva. The bodhisattva- Well, that's not a word you hear very often of scouting, Thank you.

How about that? The bodhisattva of scouting?

Okay, all right, let's get back at it. A person who sent me this last question asked to remain anonymous and said this: our cub pack charter is held by a community organization but naturally run by our volunteers.

Do we have to provide the community organization with all the funds that we raise, place the money in an account under the community organization's tax identification number, and do they dictate how we spend our money? Ah well, the short answer is yes. The chartering organization owns all the assets of a cub pack, a scout troop or a venturing crew. I'm talking about BSA policy. If you're outside of the BSA, you need to look at the policies of your scouting organization, of course, But in the BSA, yes, you must include the chartering organization's tax ID on your bank accounts, because the chartering organization owns all of the bank accounts. You have to remember that the chartering organization is responsible to make sure that a cub pack, a scout troop, a venture cruise finances are administered properly.

They own the unit. It's their job to make sure that everything is handled responsibly.

Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that they're going to dictate exactly how every penny is spent, but they should have proper oversight of all the finances of the unit that they charter. In practice, most charter organizations don't get very involved in the management of finances or the program that the unit presents because they entrust those responsibilities and decisions to the volunteers involved. A lot of times people volunteer for a cub pack or a scout troop or a venture crew and they have an incomplete understanding of the way this whole chartering thing works. But someone is registered as the chartered organization representative and they handle the relationship between the unit's volunteers and the chartered organization. Most of the time.

You know, the charter for a given cub pack or scout troop or a venturing crew could be years and years old and the present volunteers and the folks at the chartering organization don't know how any of it is arranged because they weren't around when it's set up and they're not often called on to deal with those arrangements. So there's a great resource called the Chartered Organization Representative Guidebook and I'll have a link to that in the podcast notes. That explains the way that this relationship works and when money gets in the picture.

And of course, your cubs and your volunteers have done all the effort and raised all the money and now the chartering organization seems to want to control it. Well, take a deep breath, because this is how every cub pack, scout troop and venturing crew in the country is administered. You're going to be fine and I'm happy to answer any questions that may help you thread your way through this.

But I think if you'll read that Chartered Organization Representative Guidebook, that will be helpful and just understand that this is the way the relationship is. Nothing has changed.

It just may be that the Chartered Organization is discovering they need to be involved in things that they didn't understand before, So I hope that helps. If you have a question or conundrum or difficulty or something to say, you can get in touch with me and it's easy to do and I'm going to tell you how to do that.

Well,