Troop committee meeting 1/29/11

Duncan Robertson (charter org. rep), Joe, Wes, DaveB, Don, Chris, Mike, DavidF, Fred, Ed, Chris, Bob, Bharat, Paul, Peter, Richard.

Meeting started at 7:37pm

JoeC likes the Secretary’s new eyeglasses.

Minutes: Wes had one correction and asked for clarification. Correction: Scoutmaster has ownership of advancement records. License will be transferred to Paul. Clarification: Will the project for disadvantaged kids occur during meetings? No.

Minutes otherwise accepted.

PLC = meetings thru March 15^th planned, except JoeT and KevinC’s. OA election is March or Feb 15? Must be Feb 15. Plans for filling out missing Positions of Responsibility (PORs).

Treasurer – reports coming. Don’s been traveling. Philmont payments filtered through council. We’re ahead of schedule; all payments due March 1.

Bottles and Cans – Bharat: another couple of weeks of inattention. Fred: send email to troop for? Bharat: save as last resort. Wes: are times written down? Yes, in Handbook. Lots of discussion re: procedures, hauling, reporting.

Bharat spoke with Holly Camaro at Bolton Common. She’ll run a weekly reminder in the Common; DavidF to work with Bharat on draft. Sign isn’t ready yet. Clinton paper will rerun BobC’s letter. DaveB: take a moment ro remind dump patrons re: sorting shed.

Advancement: Fred handed out training, target 1st, target eagle. Wes: use Troop 1 Bolton Mass as the ID when taking online training. Email Wes certificates. Council, for whatever reason, isn’t aware of training taken if we used our Scout Ids when registering. DavidF, Bharat, Paul all need to get YPT certificates to Wes.  BobC – shouldn’t Cam be done with events needed for advancing? Wes will check.

Wes distributed a troop 1 rank badge matrix. ~4.5 years to Eagle. 14 mos. To 1^st class. POR and advancement should be linked, say some. Others not so sure. But all agreed we’re doing Scouts a disservice  if we don’t assign PORs. Joe: can kids with POR cycle out? Wes: yes, but only until Life. 6Mos in a POR required for advancement. We need to create more POR and refresh existing roles more often. Mike: form an older patrol/venture patrol to open PORs at patrol levels. More Quartermasters. More patrols coming after crossing over. Crossovers won’t be assigned to patrols immediately. Paul expressed concern over rapid turnover (6mos too short to learn some roles). Wes: kids can be advanced without POR at Scoutmaster’s discretion in lower ranks. Further POR discussion tabled for now. Action item: Wes is working with the PLC to come up with a solution. Venture patrol an OK idea but will the younger kids be able to step up? We’ll see. Wes has used Rover training to help prepare kids for leadership roles. Rover limited to two to three Scouts per year, during summer.

Trip report: Matt A and DanG big help, during the Klondike keeping kids active, warm, and safe. PeteS and NickC did a good job stepping up; HenryF was a big help, too. Well organized site. CamS and BenW (cotton) went home. SamM got cold. TylerH called home to be picked up Saturday night without notifying leadership; returned Sunday AM. Good facilities, some issues around organization of events. Good warming hut. Troop built several snow shelters; had fun building and tearing down. New tents performed well. We could use another sled; Bob is taking donations of skis for same. Potential Venture patrol project: build a new sled. New cooking gear served well, too. MrD’s stew was a big hit. Bob posted photos on the web site. Cccold: -5F Sunday morning. March 4 Cardigan is limted to 14 total. Squanto is aimed as crossovers. We’ll meet with parents of crossovers at crossover to prep them.

BobC: special needs scouting event, along the lines of Bolton United sports. Intent is a one-day event,  with several stations to work with the kids to teach them basic skills – first aid, knots, setting up a tent, etc. Scouts would plan and run the event. PeterSJr has volunteered. BobC has spoken to two sets of parents; one committed, one mulling it over. Wes: we’re not set up as a special needs troop. This is not the intention. Just to get these kids to have fun, learn some stuff, and give the Scouts an opportunity to grow. Not a recruitment drive. Wes: number? BobC: dunno, but wants to keep it manageably small so people enjoy the experience and want to do it again. Potential for service hours? Wes: needs to understand more, but, generally speaking, yes. BobC will get Wes info.

Outdoors: Cardigan, Squanto, Philmont training hikes on hold owing to snow. JoeC: what about next adventure trip? DaveB: run/organized by a parent. He’ll talk with Joe offline re: 2012 trips. Costs are climbing. Philmont likely to hit $1600; Northern Tier was ~$1300.Wes: two $600 scholarships made available for Philmont.

BobC: spoke with MarkS re: summer camp scholarship and he’s happy to take us up on it.

Wes: I track payments. But person running trip responsible for collecting.

Norm: any transition help we can offer Wes and Paul. No, they’re talking to each other. Wes noted that the new tour permit has to be owned by someone else – three weeks prior to event. Affects Cardigan and Squanto. Form can be completed and submitted online. Permit requires notification of leaders’ certifications, what program plan is, itinerary, etc. We’ll have to move up sign up period in order to get needed information in the permit in a timely.

Norm: plans for winter merit badges?  Wes is thinking about it, but a lot of kids need 1^st aid. Terry Mackie interested in teaching Aviation merit badge. Herb Colby would like to do canoeing. BobC is willing to do Family Life, but can’t do it Tuesdays. We’ll do Sundays; DavidF will help. BobC will seek older scouts first for class.

Wes: any movement with Michael’s Eagle? He’s got two ideas; waiting to hear from Chief on one of them.

Attending: BobN, DaveB, Paul, BobC, Mike, Fred, Chris, Don, Norm, DavidF, Peter, MattA, Ed

Meeting started a 7:36pm

Minutes from previous meeting accepted.

Treasurer’s report: Free cash is ~$2k. Tracking to budget, but slightly behind on monies for trips. BobC asked why, and the answer is three-fold: timing of payments, fees that don’t cover actual expenses, and pre-payment for some trips. In the past, we’ve held that kids pay half of actual expenses. Don will crunch some numbers and get back to us with more info on discrepancies. Bottles and cans and Philmont on target.

Discussion of who tracks event attendees/who has paid. Typically, the trip leaders. Discussion of how we want to manage this in the future was tabled for the next meeting.

DaveB had questions about Philmont monies paid out vs. what’s been recorded as having been received. Some colorful language that makes even this veteran scribe blush was used to describe a potentially troubling fiscal situation. Don will check the records and report.

Web/Bottles and cans: Bharat was absent but reported separately to Norm. Web running smoothly, no bottles and cans news to report.

PLC: Chris reported March 8, 15, [and a date I missed] as potential dates or OA election. District Open House on 1/10/11. Presentations on Venture bases, Wanocksett, OA, Friends of Scouting; from 6:30-9:00pm at NVC HQ in Lancaster.

BobC broached the subject of establishing a program to work with developmentally challenged Scouts along the lines of Bolton United sports. PeterS volunteered to be the scout leader. BobC is looking for an entre into this community to help it succeed but urged that the initial scope be kept small to give it a chance to grow and succeed. BobC will follow up with his progress at a later meeting.

Advancement: Fred is ready to assume ownership of records and software after the transition.

Question raised as to what had been done re: the passing of CamS’s mother. Wes was thought to have sent a card to the family. The Committee discussed what it might do. Ed and others suggested that we fund summer camp and all agreed this was a fitting and appropriate gesture. BobC will contact the family. Camp is the 1st week of August, but CamS could always do Provo if the troop’s week doesn’t work for the family.

Mike noted that we’re advancing kids without providing them with positions of responsibility (POR). He thought we should consider 6-month terms to provide opportunity for all. He also urged us to look into other avenues for POR (i.e., roles beyond PL, APL, etc…).

Outdoors: Things rolling along. First Philmont training session had 10 of 14 crew participate. Training sessions are limited to crew. Klondike being lead by BobC and Joe. Leadership needed for Squanto (March 25) and Saugus (April ??). Did you know that several Committee members are behind on training requirements and current health forms? It’s true.

Chairman: Norm mentioned we’ll be inviting Duncan Robertson (Ed’s replacement) to the next meeting.

Plans to have meeting/presentation on building enthusiasm among Life Scouts who intend to pursue Eagle. Plan for a panel discussion of former Scout and adult Eagles to address Life and Star scouts.

Paul mentioned that we should teach first aid merit badge; get student EMTs to come to a meeting. Going forward: teach Eagle-required merit badges in the fall; scout-elected/fun merit badges in the spring. One camping trip should be a service project.

BobN – recently completed the Leave No Trace (LNT) outdoor ethics training program. Program begun by the Bureau of Land Management, National Parks, and others, but it is now private. BSA has its own LNT program with three levels, the highest being Master Educator, a title BobN has earned, which enables him to train boys 14 years old and older. (Boys completing this training can hold an LNT role in the troop that considered a POR. Next training session is 5/21; sponsored by the NVC and open to Scouts, but it conflicts with Mystic trip. We should train two older scouts who need a POR, with consideration first given to those attending Philmont. We agreed that scouts should be trained in this program on an ongoing basis. Expiration of training was unknown, but BobN will find out and report.

No transition meetings planned at this time. We asked Paul to think about ways in which we could help him.

Next meeting at the end of the month.

Meeting adjourned at 9:05pm.

Scoutingly submitted,

David Foster