Author: Jeffrey Heck
University of Scouting: 3 days and counting
The University of Scouting is this Saturday!
Make sure that you are fully enrolled
and ready to go.
Cub Scout Commissioner Recruitment
Council’s Commissioner Rick Tardy and Director of Field Services Nathan Young has asked the districts’ commissioners to put a special emphasis on recruiting and placing Unit Commissioner with Cub Scout Packs.
District Commissioner Jeff Heck is actively seeking Unit Commissioner recruits to help in this mission.
Perfect candidates to consider are any past Scout whom you would turn to as a reliable source of wisdom about scouting. Scouters with special skills in recruitment, fund raising, programming, teaching camp skills, or similar experiences are all perfect for serving as Unit Commissioners.
We need to place Unit Commissioners with seven (7) Cub Scout Packs to fully complete our goal of fully staffing Packs.
Some scouters are more comfortable serving Boy Scout Troops or Venturing Crews. That is welcome, too.
Please let Jeff know as soon as possible.
Patrol Log Books vs Oral Reports at PLC
Have you as a Scoutmaster ever asked your PLC for reports from the patrol leaders only to be met with silence or hesitant thoughts? If the patrol leaders had effective meetings with their patrols, why do they have nothing to share?
I would suggest part of the problem is that scouts believe that ideas at PLC’s need to be delivered in a manner similar to school. They might believe that they should remain silent unless they have a perfect answer. If they are asked to brainstorm, they may believe that they need to start from scratch. They may not have had the concept of serving as a representative from the patrol to the PLC clearly enough or frequently enough repeated to have it fresh in mind at key times.
All of these problems are a philosophical problem. These all need teaching to overcome. An active Scoutmaster sitting in a PLC should encourage his Senior Patrol Leader to use this silence as an opportunity to educate on the philosophy of the PLC. Something like a 30-second reminder would be ideal.
But these patrol leaders often don’t have a philosophical misunderstanding. They just took terrible notes or more typically no notes on the topic at hand. The topic may have been thoroughly debated by the patrol. The patrol leader may struggle to put the range of debate succinctly before the PLC.
Clarke Green of ScoutmasterCG.com has a solution to this problem. He recommends that a Patrol Log Book be maintained. The log book is more than the Patrol Scribe’s Minutes Book. It is a chance for scouts to write their own “roses, thorns, or bud.” The Log Book is passed around the patrol meeting. Each scout is encouraged to offer his own rose, thorn, or bud. He then writes it down in his own words in a short sentence or phrase. Now the Patrol Leader has a series of notes from his patrol to carry into the PLC.
Look at Clarke’s website for a sample PDF to download.
Personally, I prefer the new Scout Leader Guidebook’s vocabulary of “Stop, Start, Continue.” Both methods encourage scouts to look at good, bad, and new ideas. Stop, Start, Continue puts an emphasis on actions and moves away from debates about current status of persons, places, or events.
Whatever your preferred vocabulary, encouraging each scout to speak his voice in the patrol meeting and having a sense that his voice is being accurately represented to the PLC is a powerful method of teaching citizenship and active participation.
Wifi at Camp and Unit Tech Policies
As I have noted in the past, technology is changing the experience of scouting.
A constant debate among scouters is how to manage this change. This is decided at the unit level.
Some of troops forbid technology on outings. Some allow technology.
Which is the correct answer?
Only your PLC and troop committee can answer that question.
My recommendation is that this question should be reviewed annually by the PLC.
More and more troops are looking at technology as a good way to teach the Scout Law in practice.
One unit only allows technology to be used at camp for scouting related purposes.
Another allows it if it obeys the Scout Law: helpful, kind, etc.
Other units outright prohibit it. What do you think? Come comment on Facebook @CACNorthStarCommissioner.
Merit Badge Counselors Terms Expire
Remember that your Merit Badge Counselors are District Staff, not Troop Staff. That means their positions expire every year when the District’s Recharter Application (yes, District has a recharter application, too) expires on December 31, 2016.
We still have several troops and crews that have not confirmed the renewal of their Merit Badge Counselors. We need those immediately to prevent any loss of authority to sign Blue Cards.
Next week I will report on troops and crews that have completed the MBC rechartering process.
For more information, see prior postings.
Summer Camp Promotion Season
We are entering summer camp promotion season. If your pack or troop is looking for creative ways to drum up excitement, please let District Commissioner Jeff Heck or District Executive Con Sullivan know.
District’s Order of the Arrow Chapter and Firecrafter Ember have scouts who can visit your scouting unit to help tell the story.
District wants to work with your unit to have your unit’s participation be as high as possible.
Scout Ranks Grandfathering Period Expired
Remember on January 1, 2017, all scouts are required to advance on all ranks using the new requirements effective January 1, 2016.
Unfortunately, that means scouts who had not completed their last rank may now have many new requirements to contend with that they did not just a few days earlier.
Please make proper announcements to your troop so that there is no confusion at their next scoutmaster conference or board of review.
University of Scouting: 10 days away
Don’t forget to enroll in your University of Scouting Classes now. Classes fill up.
Most all required courses are offered. Electives are very interesting.
Help North Star District have the highest per capita attendance of any district.
Unit chairs should be contacting or having their Training Coordinators contact each adult leader or leader schedule to step up in 2017 to attend training.
Year End Eagle Report for 2016
Congratulations again to the following 49 scouts for having earned their Eagle Rank in 2016.
Think of the number of service hours each of these gentlemen have contributed to their communities by organizing and running their projects.
Status of the District
As of this writing, we have had thirty-one (31) submit their Journey to Excellence reports. Of those units, the statistics are as follows:
- Gold (meaning top 90 percentile nationally): 27
- Silver (between top 50 and 90 percentile nationally): 1
- Bronze (between top 20 and 50 percentile nationally): 2
Congratulations to our JTE awarded units!
We will report on the units who earned these awards at the District Committee Meeting tomorrow night.
That means that the North Star District is looking very good for District-wide gold, too. As of the End of November 2016 report, we have 2,450 points out of 3,000 possible. Of the 16 subcategories, we are Gold level in 10 subcategories, silver in 5 subcategories, and bronze in one (i.e., fundraising). Come to the District Committee Meeting tomorrow to find out more details.
Assuming no surprises in the Year End “Finish Line” Report, we should be gold for the second year in a row.
So what does that mean relative to other districts, we are ahead of Del-Mi and Pathfinder (and probably all others).
Congratulations to North Star District.
CAC North Star Unofficial Website 
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