{"id":57,"date":"2002-09-03T13:38:24","date_gmt":"2002-09-03T17:38:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/netcommissioner.com\/askandy\/?p=57"},"modified":"2011-11-03T13:40:43","modified_gmt":"2011-11-03T17:40:43","slug":"issue-4-september-2002","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/netcommissioner.com\/askandy\/2002\/09\/issue-4-september-2002\/","title":{"rendered":"Issue 4 – September 2002"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dear Andy, Just before each of our annual Courts of Honor, we go to our local Scout Shop to buy the rank and merit badges to award, and often there aren\u2019t enough in the bins for all of our Scouts. Why can\u2019t the Scout Shop stock more, so that we don\u2019t have to disappoint the Scouts when we have no badges to give them? (M.V., Scotch Plains Treasurer)<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Hold the phone! ONE Court of Honor a year? You guys better study up on the BSA advancement process! Scouts who earn ranks and merit badges are supposed to get these at the very earliest opportunity \u2013 definitely NOT once a year! So the easiest solution is to get with the program and present rank advancements in your regular Troop meetings, just as fast as they\u2019re earned. The purpose of a Court of Honor is to formally recognize each Scout\u2019s advancements (all of them!) since the last Court; not to actually present the badges themselves.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Dear Andy, Our District has an adult volunteer recognition event coming up, and we\u2019d like to have a really sharp opening ceremony. Any ideas? (D.H., District Advancement Chair)<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Here are two ideas. First, ask your Unit Commissioners which of their units is the sharpest, that might be interested in doing this. Then, ask them to \u201cget the word out\u201d that you\u2019re looking for something special, and see what units would like to put something together \u2013 something original \u2013 that goes beyond the usual \u201cpledge-oath-law\u201droutine, or does these in some unique way. Second idea \u2013 The Council just held our annual College of Commissioner Science, and the opening ceremony was done by Law Enforcement Post 188, sponsored by the Roxbury PD (Lt. Joe Franklin, Advisor, 973-448-2092), and the closing by the Woa-palanne Lodge OA Ceremonies Team (Jason Hollingsworth, Ceremonies Chair, 908-686-4396). Both were terrific! Call them and see what you can put together!<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Dear Andy, My son has \u201caged out\u201d of our Troop, and it\u2019s time for me to turn my Committee Chair over to the\u201cnext generation.\u201d I\u2019d like to stay involved in Scouting, and I\u2019m thinking about being a Unit Commissioner, so I can continue to keep an eye on the Troop I\u2019ve been involved with for the past seven years. But I\u2019ve been told that I can\u2019t be a Unit Commissioner for my own unit, \u2018cause I\u2019d \u201cshow favoritism.\u201d What do you<\/span>think? (J.S., North Plainfield Committee Chair)<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

What do I think? I think somebody\u2019s got their head screwed on backwards! The Unit Commissioner\u2019s first and most important job is to be THE UNIT\u2019S BEST FRIEND and I can\u2019t think of anyone better for a job like this than someone who\u2019s been there for seven years. Ignore the \u201cfavoritism\u201d stuff and sign on! Then ask to be assigned to one or two more units in your town that may not be quite as successful as your own, and help them, too, by being \u201cScouting\u2019s Front-Line Ambassador.\u201d Cross-pollinating good Scouting ideas from one unit to others is what it\u2019s all about. Go for it!<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Dear Andy, I\u2019m noticing that when it comes to getting new ideas, information and such, you mostly suggest calling other volunteers \u2013 you almost never say,\u201cCall Council.\u201d What gives? (W.C., Neshanic Venturing Crew Advisor)<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cCouncil\u201d is an important part of the Scouting \u201cinfrastructure\u201d \u2013 for things like administration, record-keeping, facilities management, and such. But the real \u201cScouting experts\u201d are other volunteers just like you! Besides, there are a lot more volunteers \u2013over 5,000 of us! \u2013 than there are \u201cprofess-sionals\u201d (about 40) in this Council. We\u2019re the ones \u201cout there\u201d running the programs, going camping, taking our units on outings, and helping each other unit-by-unit and district-by-district, so we represent an incredible resource to ourselves! Think of it this way, if experts were dollars, would you rather have 40 in your pocket – or 5,000!<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Dear Andy, When we run our Pinewood Derby, we know that some of the parents have built the cars their sons are racing, and others haven\u2019t. How can we \u201clevel the playing field\u201d so that the boys build their own cars and the parents keep their hands off? (H.Q., Rockaway Cubmaster)<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Get parents to keep their hands off? You gotta be kidding \u2013 that\u2019s tougher than getting a kid to eat lima beans and like \u2018em! But, you want fairness, and I agree, so why not have two races \u2013 boys cars AND parents\u2019 cars \u2013 separately. Of course, it\u2019s not manda-tory that a parent build a car, but for those who get itchy fingers when it comes to little blocks of wood, this gives them the satisfaction they need and keeps their sons\u2019 cars relatively \u201cclean.\u201d (By the way, you do have other competitions besides speed, right? Like most radical design, best paint job, and so on. This helps the 99% who don\u2019t have the fastest car win a trophy, too! And besides, it\u2019s just more fun that way.)<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Happy Scouting,<\/span><\/p>\n

Andy<\/p>\n

Have a question? Send it via email to askandybsa@yahoo.com<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

(Issue 4 \u2013 September 2002)<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear Andy, Just before each of our annual Courts of Honor, we go to our local Scout Shop to buy the rank and merit badges to award, and often there aren\u2019t enough in the bins for all of our Scouts. Why can\u2019t the Scout Shop stock more, so that we don\u2019t have to disappoint the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-14"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/netcommissioner.com\/askandy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/netcommissioner.com\/askandy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/netcommissioner.com\/askandy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/netcommissioner.com\/askandy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/netcommissioner.com\/askandy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/netcommissioner.com\/askandy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58,"href":"http:\/\/netcommissioner.com\/askandy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57\/revisions\/58"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/netcommissioner.com\/askandy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/netcommissioner.com\/askandy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/netcommissioner.com\/askandy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}