News
July Eagle Report
The following Scouts successfully completed their Eagle Boards of Review in July:
- William Keedy, Troop 174
- Grant Lisby, Troop 191.
Congratulations to our newest Eagle Scouts!
Youth Protection Training
We are are just 70 days from the opening of Rechartering. Now is the time to begin reminding your scout leaders who need to renew their Youth Protection Training recertification in even-numbered years.
Failure to have scouters properly certified in a timely manner is one of the biggest problems in rechartering. Last year we posted an article explaining that the ideal time of year to renew YPT is between March 1st and October 1st of each year.
As of this morning, across the entire district our scouters’ YPT status looks like this:
- 28 have expired (mostly in the past 30 days)
- 27 will expire in the next 30 days (end of August)
- 46 will expire in the following 30-day period (end of September)
- 38 will expire before the end of October.
Encourage your leaders to renew early (before October 1st) to bring them inside this window. Review your unit’s training status on my.scouting.org to identify whom you need to contact. Make a plan to bring YPT up-to-date now while scouting obligations are quieter (camp is over, high adventure crews are returning home, and annual planning is over the horizon).
You can offer YPT classes at your regular meeting. You, your training coordinator, or your unit commissioner can run a video for several volunteers at one your regular meetings or annual planning conference.
REMINDER: District Committee August 4th
A quick reminder that the District Committee will be meeting August 4th at 7:00 pm at Second Presbyterian Church, 7700 N Meridian St, Rm 407, Indianapolis, IN 46260.
Fall Camporee planning is full swing. Please work on your troop’s event. Some ideas are available on a previous post.
We are also working on finalizing basic information about the Winter and Spring Camporees, so come with your thoughts.
Membership subcommittee is in full swing preparing for Back to School Recruitment. Your packs and troops plans to participate (yes, troops helping packs recruit) is crucial for our success. We already know that some packs are spread thin on manpower. They are small and cover many schools on August 25th. Your help is needed for their success.
Fall also has many special events like a Rocket Launch in support of membership recruitment, Cub Scout leader training, Battle of Belzer, Cub Family Camp and many others. We need your help in planning for their success.
Fall Camporee Theme Chosen
District Chair John Wiebke (Troop 358) in cooperation with District Programming Chair Jim Kacius (Troop 174) and District Camporee Chair Stu Bowes (formerly of Troop 69) have been working to plan camporees further in advance.
At the last District Committee Meeting, John Wiebke proposed a Gladiatorial theme, in keeping with this being a Summer Olympic year. His proposal was gladly accepted.
John Wiebke also announced the following planning committee:
Stu Bowles – Camporee Chief
Jeff Heck- Publicity
Rick Akers- Finance/Health and Safety
Brian Crow- Participation & Program
John Ruggles- Participation & Program
Mark Pishon- Physical Arrangements
Curtis Shrote- Awards
Next month the District Committee will work on finalizing more details about the theme and events. The goal would be to have the events selected at the end of the August District Committee Meeting.
John Wiebke drew his inspiration for this event from this website, so take a look and come to the August meeting with your event proposals and patch proposals.
Make sure that your PLC has signed off on your proposal! We would love to see senior scouts running as many events as possible.
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Remember also to come with theme proposals for Winter and Spring Camporees, too, so those can be decided well in advance. Proposed dates for Winter Camporee are
1) weekend of Jan 21st
2) Weekend of Jan 28th
3) weekend of Feb 4th
Building Relationships with Chartered Organization
Many scout troops and packs are looking for ways to make their relationships with their Chartered Organizations more meaningful.
Our District’s Troop 73 is hosting an event for its Chartered Organization. Here is how they describe it:
Event: T-73 Hosts St. Paul’s Summer Fellowship
Where: St. Paul’s Episcopal Church
When: Jul 24, 2016, 9am – 12pmTroop 73 will host St. Paul’s Summer Fellowship after the 10 am service on July 24th. We will provide hot dogs, bratwurst, buns and toppings, s’mores and the campfire to cook it over as well as several dutch over desserts (bring your favorite recipe!) . Scouts will demonstrate and teach parishioners about: how to load and paddle a canoe (similar to our trip earlier this summer); using tents and hammocks; sawing logs; & tying knots. Please be ready to demonstrate any of these skills. If you have other ideas, please suggest them!
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Your time spent at the Fellowship will count as service to St. Paul’s, our Chartering Organization.
Now imagine you are the minister of that church. Your scout troop offers to host a Fellowship event. What is your estimation of scouting at that church going to be? What would you be willing to do to empower scouting?
District Reminders for next 7 days
1. Thursday, July 14th at 6:30 pm is Roundtable at St Luke’s United Methodist Church (New room assignment Room W-125 (Entry #4) due to scheduling conflict.). The topic will be annual planning and adult staffing. See Church Map (Entry #4 cut off on bottom of map.)
2. Friday, July 15th Membership Kickoff beginning at 7:00 pm at St Paul’s Episcopal Church. Packs and Troops welcome. Food served.
3. Sunday, July 17th is the 50th Anniversary Celebration for Camp Ransburg.
Centennial Celebration for Troop 18
Save the date: Troop 18 will be celebrating its 100 Years of Eagles on August 27 & 28, 2016.
They have been researching their troop’s history and Eagles. We will post more about their history in the coming weeks.
For right now, Scoutmaster Steve Bye shares just a few tidbits.
In 1916, Troop 18 had the first three Eagle Scouts of the Indianapolis Council (later merged into the Crossroads of America Council).
- Hall Marmon
- Noble Butler
- G. Vance Smith.
Jaccos Towne Lodge History, page 10.
Also in 1916, Edson T. Wood Jr. earns bronze honor medal for saving a lady from drowning (Boys Life, 1916).
Employment Opportunities with Council
Reaching for Tomorrow, a Learning for Life Program, is looking for part time Program Leaders to deliver basic life skills and character education modules in elementary, Jr. High and High school classrooms in the following towns: Indianapolis and eight surrounding counties, Noblesville/Arcadia, Fishers, Carmel, Westfield, Avon, Plainfield, Danville, Brownsburg, Anderson, Rushville, Richmond, Liberty, Connersville, Hagerstown, Cambridge City, Lebanon, Crawfordsville, Greenfield, Frankfort, Greenwood, Terre Haute, and Shelbyville. Interviewing will be the last week of July. You would start the position the 2nd week of August. This is a paid position and we provide flexibility to make your own schedule.
New for Fall Recruitment: Online Registration
The BSA has established a new Online Registration for adults and youth. You can see an overview video of how the system works below. The video describes it as “Coming Soon.” It is already activated in Crossroads of America Council.
This system has many advantages:
- You never run out of paper forms.
- Your applicant will be immediately notified whether data on one of the screens is incomplete, avoiding the need to circulate the form around twice to fill in missing information or signatures.
- There is no physical application that needs to be delivered or sent.
- Necessary signators traveling out of town can fulfill their obligations from anywhere in the world.
- Your applicant can pay their BSA membership dues online with a credit card.
The current weaknesses in the system are being able to find where to access the website to start.
- You must access this from the http://www.BeAScout.org.
- From the main page, the applicant needs to navigate to your unit.
- On the unit page, the applicant needs to correctly choose “Cub,” “Scout,” “Venturing,” or “Volunteering.” Picking a program puts the applicant in “Youth” status. Adults must pick the “Volunteering” choice, then select a unit.
- You can pick the links for your unit and save them for placement on your webpage or emails. This means that you can circumvent some of the problems above.
- The system does not collect your unit’s dues or added costs (like local council insurance). It merely establishes the applicant as a member of the BSA through your unit. I have even used it to promote an existing volunteer to a new position without having to pay dues again.
I have used this system successfully twice. I have not dealt with Youth Protection Training in either case because they were existing volunteers. I cannot offer much feedback on that issue yet.
Please begin using this system immediately, especially before recruiting season and rechartering. The more information that is properly registered in the system before October 1st, the smoother your rechartering will proceed.
CAC North Star Unofficial Website 
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