Comments (0) I was at the Northern Star Council’s annual meeting today. The PR firm that produced the annual report constructed a Scout’s photo entirely of merit badges. They also produced a Facebook app that converts one’s own photo into a merit badge mosaic:
Continue reading 'Badgetization'»
This is an arcane bit of trivia from the Scouting movement. Traditional scouting groups like packs, patrols, crews, posts, and so on, are chartered through a community organization that is already involved in education and service to youth. This approach arose in England when LTG Robert Baden-Powell collaborated with others to establish an organized scouting movement.
The scouting group renews its charter every year here in the US, and the local Boy Scout council issues a charter to the sponsoring community organization, called the charterd organization.
The local commissioner is a volunteer who visits individual scouting groups on behalf of the local council. Commissioners are usually organized into districts and communities, and take care of packs, troops, crews, etc., in their own neighborhoods. Charter renewal gives the commissioner an annual opportunity to meet with a chartered organization’s leadership, report on the benefits produced by their scouting units, and thank them for their sponsorship.
So, here are my thoughts on how to present a charter.
Continue reading 'Charter Presentations for Scouting Units'»
A Burnsville Scoutmaster has been accused of molesting three troop members.
It’s impossible to 100% prevent such incidents, just as it’s impossible to prevent death and injury during scouting events. Scouts are specifically taught how to identify and deal with potential abuse situations. Leaders are taught to avoid situations that might enable abuse. For example, individual leaders are never supposed to be alone with individual scouts. We call this “two deep leadership.”
Continue reading 'Abuse by a Scout Leader'»
I just spent an evening sharing stories with a fellow Scouter who has served as scoutmaster to an enclave of American boys in the Mideast. Their troop is a “direct service” troop, which means they don’t have a normal district or council. Instead, they work directly with a representative at the National Council office in Texas.
Scouting is a bit different out there. We may have deserts and exotic locales here, but it’s something different out there. They’ve camped in everything from the endless desert to 12,000 foot mountains among wild baboons. Local rules send most of the older boys away, so most in the troop are younger Scouts. Regardless, my friend had just finished submitting a batch of Eagle applications before leaving for the States, so we know this is still the Boy Scouts of America.
Continue reading 'BSA in the Mideast'»
I’m the chairman of the local scouting district, and our new district executive has taken the lead on moving our web site to a content management system. The council is using Dot Net Nuke for this, so we just had a morning of training on it.
So I’m taking some time here to write down my thoughts on how to organize a district web site. These observations take a particular eye towards using Dot Net Nuke as the host platform. Continue reading 'Thoughts on a District Website'»
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