Programming
IYOS website rebuild
What is “IYOS”? It is the “Ideal Year in Scouting.” It is the way for the Crossroads of America Council to tell you what the Best Practices for units will be in the next 12-18 months. What camping opportunities and activities are coming up. When deadlines for summer camp are. When rechartering will take place. When popcorn sales will begin and end. How unit budgets should be developed. How big summer events can be paid for.
Council is in the process of rebuilding the website dedicated to IYOS. Make sure to stop in regularly and monitor the progress. Hopefully you will learn something every time you stop in. We expect the 2018-2019 district calendars to be added in the next couple of weeks.
How to Use Adult Leadership on your Resumé
So you were recruited to serve as an adult leader for “one hour per week.” Several years later you are amazed by not only what your scouts have learned but what you have learned, too. Do you feel like you have grown as a leader? Have you learned personnel management skills? Project management skills? Adaptation to adversity? Have you taken leadership training courses, such as Den Leader Specific Training or Wood Badge?
When you look at your resume for your next job application, have you included your scouting leadership positions like you would any other job? Why not?
Prospective employers want to see applicants that have challenged themselves and learned along the way. They want to see applicants that have learned lessons from failure, especially on someone else’s dime.
When you go back to your resume, consider the following topics for inclusion on your resume:
- Job description
- Risk management
- Team leadership and delegation
- Problems solved
- Leadership training and mentoring
But, don’t look at this only as a way to boost your resume. Look at resume enhancement as a means of recruiting new volunteers. When you talk to scout parents about their life experiences on campouts or during activity breaks, ask them what they do for a living and what their dreams for the future are. If they want to move up into management, suggest that scouting teaches those skills and is a way to get experience. Scouting is as much an experimental lab for adults as it is for scouts.
So look for scout parents who want to grow and recruit them based on what it can do for their careers (never mind networking with scouters who are extremely successful in their professional pursuits.
So make sure you know your scout parents’ resumes. It will work wonders for you.
The Shockingly Simple Way to Stop Helicopter Parenting – Let Grow
Scouters are some of the few parents in schools these days that push kids to learn independence. Lenore Skenazy, a mother of two boy scouts, has been pushing for schools to change the message sent home about how children should be raised. The results are dramatic and eye-opening.
It is so profound, that she has moved from just writing about the problem at Free Range Kids to developing a curriculum at Let Grow. It comes down to dealing with the problem of “helicopter parenting” that is so damaging to children.
We at Council should be looking at this as a way to get into schools. What happens if a bunch of scouters decide not to push to put a scout unit in the school, but instead approach the school principle or the school board one-on-one for coffee then as a group at school board meeting in uniform; the message is “we love scouting, but we encourage independent growth of citizens whether in scouting or through other programs.” The school leaders may be resistant. Yet, what happens if we can replicate Lenore Skenazy’s success with simple Let Grow curricula? Do we gain credibility?
NORTH STAR DISTRICT 2018 OBJECTIVES & 2017 AWARDS
Setting the Stage for Continued Growth
[INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA, February 8] District Leaders, mentors, family and friends assembled at the 2017 North Star District Awards ceremony to offer well-deserved congratulations to the Leadership team and to recognize members of the District for their commitment to service. Included in these honors was the highlight of the Journey to Excellence Gold Award status earned by North Star with the overall highest score in the Council and an announcement that North Star’s contribution led to the Crossroads of America Council being the highest scoring council nationally, too. A highlighted list of honored outgoing leadership and 2017 Award Winners can be found below.
2018 District Objectives
As 2018 North Star District Committee Chair Mark Maucere outlined in his keynote address, there are four pillars on which the upcoming leadership team will be focused in order to build on the success of this past year, which are:
Membership Growth. This includes development of strategies to communicate with Charters and Schools as well as in assisting our Units with Leadership Outreach and Program Awareness. This work will help keep up the interest with new/prospective Cub Scouts and their parents in the competition for time and attention with other extracurricular activities. Our new Membership Chair is soon to be named.
Increased Unit Commissioner Involvement. Stephen Heath is the 2018 District Commissioner, and he is looking forward to building the Unit Commissioner team and for these Unit Commissioners to create stronger and more cohesive working relationships with each of our District Units as “one team.”
Program Offering. Mark Pishon as 2018 District Program Chair will bring a passion and energy to this critical pillar to enhance our current program offering as well as expand in areas that will further encourage greater recruitment, participation and retention.
Communication. Cheryl Bilsland will be serving as 2018 Communication Chair and brings corporate digital marketing and Toastmasters communications mentorship experiences to the role. We look forward to building upon and expanding our communication and outreach presence in a way that best meets the needs of the District.
Mark emphasized his “open door policy” and is humbly looking forward to meeting and working with each of you, thanking you for your service, insight, talent, energy and involvement in order to grow our District in 2018.
2017 North Star District
Leadership and Award Winners
We want to thank our 2017 District Key 3 team for their dedicated servant leadership:
John Wiebke District Chair
Con Sullivan District Executive
Jeffrey Heck District Commissioner
Hearty congratulations and gratitude for your service, goes to the following 2017 District Award Winners:
| Alec Damer | T514 | Merle H. Miller Eagle Scout Project of the Year Award |
| Austin Damer | T514 | Judge John Price Outstanding Eagle Scout of the Year Award |
| Agrayan Gupta | T56 | Dr. Bernard Harris SUPERNOVA Award (the first awarded in North Star District, based on our information) |
| John Wiebke | T358 | District Award of Merit |
| Mike Yates | T56 | District Award of Merit |
| David Sperry | T514 | Unit Leader Award of Merit |
| Michael Faulk | T56 | Arrowman of the Year |
| Bill Buchalter | P83 | Cubmaster of the Year |
| Ron Wells | T343 | Scoutmaster of the Year |
| Denise Purdie-Andrews | T69 | Firecrafter of the Year |
| Katherine Ritchie | T343 | Boy Scout Committee Chair Person of the Year |
| Todd Sanger | P514 | Cub Scout Committee Chair Person of the Year |
| Nick Griffith | T56 | Hooked on Scouting |
| Jason Chamness | T358 | Hooked on Scouting |
| Laura Gunderman | T358 | Hooked on Scouting |
| James Stiles | T358 | Hooked on Scouting |
| Amanda Walsh | T358 | Hooked on Scouting |
| Jill Williams | T358 | Hooked on Scouting |
| Mary Fenchak | T514 | Hooked on Scouting |
| Jill Carson | T343 | Spark Plug Award |
| Mark Carson | T343 | Spark Plug Award |
| Brendan Cavanaugh | T358 | Spark Plug Award |
| Joe Forler | T358 | Spark Plug Award |
| Brad Gibson | T358 | Spark Plug Award |
| Kathryn Gibson | T358 | Spark Plug Award |
| Bob Jalaie | T358 | Spark Plug Award |
| Dawn Pasquale | T358 | Spark Plug Award |
| Chris Pishon | T358 | Spark Plug Award |
| Chris Strachan | T358 | Spark Plug Award |
| Jane Sullivan | T358 | Spark Plug Award |
| Valerie Swack | T358 | Spark Plug Award |
| Matthew Glaze | T514 | Spark Plug Award |
| Marilyn Mathioudakis | T514 | Spark Plug Award |
| Ken Savin | T514 | Spark Plug Award |
| Lisa Savin | T514 | Spark Plug Award |
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If you would like more information about this topic, please call Cheryl Bilsland, 2018 North Star Communications Chair, at 317-225-6102, or email c.bilsland@yahoo.com.
More Details on YPT ver. 2
UPDATED 2/23/18 at Council Training Director Jay Soucy’s request to reflect new language for the deadline to complete training. The updated language is underlined below. The deleted language is crossed out. The original language was intended for council’s professional staff only. The new language applies to all volunteers. This is consistent with the first bullet point on the last list. The language change hopefully avoids any confusion.
More information on council website.
I just received the following email via Central Section’s Director of Field Service Ken Ruppel (District Executive Jessica Hofman’s supervisor). It is a copy of an email sent to all council staff after my article posted yesterday.
Colleagues,
On February 1st, 2018 the New Mandatory Youth Protection Training was released online. Currently, the training is only available through my.Scouting.org. This training is replacing all previous Youth Protection trainings and will become the one training all adults complete. The previous versions of trainings have been removed from my.Scouting.org already.
Crossroads of America is a pacesetter council for Youth Protection training and has set a goal of April 30th, 2018 to be 100% trained. Join us in becoming a Youth Protection Hero and take your training today! (DELETED:
We need to continue to be a PACESETTER Team so I’m asking you, yes every one of YOU, to complete this training by February 28th, 2018. Your staff leaders are aware that you will be completing this task during your normal working hours however you like – completing all the modules and quiz at once or taking a module a day. This will help prepare us all to answer questions about the training.)The training has 3 modules and a final quiz that must be completed:
- Overview and Policies (20 min.)
- Sexual Abuse (20 min.)
- Bullying (20 min.)
- Quiz (10 min.)
You must score a 75% or better on the quiz to successfully complete this training.
Things to know prior to taking the training:
- You need your login and password for my.scouting.org
- On the dash board there is only one training option to select.
- Yes, it should say you are trained and have ### days left before you expire. It’s still tracking your old training information.
- On your computer you will be prompted to turn on your pop blocker
- Some text is in White and can be hard to read.
- There have been some reported issues already with a few videos not completing.
I’ve attached a FAQ sheet to help you answer volunteer questions as they come up.
Here are some highlights:
- Our goal is to have all Registered Adults complete the training prior to April 30th.
- There will be additional recommended trainings released later on this year.
- There is a new ScoutsFirst Helpline (844)-Scouts1 or (844)726-8871. Anyone can call a Youth Protection violation into this numbers as it’s open 24 hours a day.
- Training is good for 2 years.
If you have questions about the training or suggestion for improvements please send them to Sherry Webb.
Thank you,
Jay Soucy | Training Director
BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA
Crossroads of America Council
Copies of Jay’s attachments are linked here:
YPT version 2 Published (UPDATED)
UPDATE #2 (2/9/18, 9:50 AM): I have received more information from the Crossroads of America Council Training Director Jay Soucy, via Director of Field Service for Central Section Ken Ruppel. This information is posted in a newer article.
National Council has published a new version of Youth Protection Training.
Initial reviews of ease-of-use have been less than favorable. So, remembering the Scout Law is going to be important for the first few weeks.
Initial indications are that this update has several significant changes:
- A requirement all scouters update their YPT by October 1, 2018, regardless of their current expiration date.
- No scout, venturer, or explorer will be allowed to tent with another youth of greater than 2 years age difference or maturity. This is due to FBI statistics that show that youth abuse other youth of large age disparity.
- Co-ed rules from venturing have been incorporated across the entire program.
There is probably more, but I have not taken it, so I cannot confirm.
The MyScouting app has been updated to allow this training to be taken on your mobile device.
The system will also use the ScoutingU education interface from Taleo.net, so expect a navigation problem.
More details as they become available.
UPDATE 2/7/18 at 4:00 pm:
I am working through the new modules. The YPT2, as they are calling it online, consists of four modules on Taleo.net, the host website for ScoutingU.
The first module is an overview of why preventing abuse is important and the concepts of Youth Protection. It is very well done and a bit disturbing but it really has more adult maturity to it than the old YPT ever did. I had no real technical problems. I had to learn to advance the slides or submoduals using the forward skip button. This means that it is harder to let the video play and ignore it if you hope to get done any time in the 21st century.
The second module is about sexual abuse and grooming. The content is much more similar to the old YPT. I had many technical problems. I started on a Safari browser on my Mac. When it locked up during the scenarios, I moved to Google Chrome for Mac. It eventually allowed me to move forward, but the scenarios submoduals never did work correctly. I have little confidence that the browser choice had any effect.
The third module is about bullying. It talks about verbal, social, and physical bullying. It describes cyberbullying as a subcategory of social bullying.
The fourth module is the YPT certification test. The questions are very straightforward. They only have a few that have tricky turns of phrase. If you read moderately carefully, you will have a reasonable chance of passing.
Initiallly, my completed training did not populate my “Youth Protection Training Cert.” on the My Dashboard:My Training:YPT page on my.scouting.org. That may be a technical glitch. The training was showing as 100% Complete on Taleo.net/ScoutingU.
Overall, I would say the content is a vast improvement over the old courses. There are new procedures in place that make compliance much easier. The most profound change is the implementation of a Scout First Help Line at (844)SCOUTS-1. This national toll-free number is designed to help put counseling and reporting to the BSA in one place. It is designed to answer questions, too. Put this phone number on the top of all your outing worksheets and contact information. Put it in your smartphone.
Surprisingly there is little emphasis on the co-ed aspects of scouting. The new rules sound nearly identical to old Venturing YPT requirements.
There are two courses listed on Taleo.net/ScoutingU. One is “MANDATORY”; the other “RECOMMENDED.” The mandatory one is what I described above. The recommended one does not seem to have any modules yet. I have no idea what this is for. It could be for Cub specific or Scout specific modules. We will see.
I have no additional information about whether the expiration date for training has changed, but I highly recommend taking the new training immediately.
Tentative Dates for 2018 Camporees
District’s 2018 Camporee Chair Rick Aker has suggested tentative dates for the camporees remaining this year.
The spring camporee is targeting April 20-22, 2018. Given the desired location, we are awaiting feedback from the hosting facility.
The fall camporee would be October 5-7, 2018. This may be changed if the spring host must postpone to fall.
New Adult Applications
From Council’s Registrar Sharon Cone:
Hello all! We just received new applications from National, and I wanted to make you aware of the changes in the adult application. Some of it looks similar, some of it looks completely different. Here’s what to look for:
- Only 2 sets of initials required by signature line (was 4);
- Approval signature needed from Chartered Org Rep or Institutional Head only (no Committee Chair approval needed);
- Criminal Background Check Authorization page is very last page of the application (page 9).
I’ve attached a PDF of the new adult application, as well as the updated youth application previously released. The adult application is a scanned copy that I made, because the Scouting Forms page on Scouting.org does not have an updated version of the adult application, nor does it have updated versions in Spanish. I ordered Spanish apps but did not receive any.
You can find these versions in Field Service/District Executive Resources/Forms, etc. We will put the new versions out on the shelf and lose the old ones.
Any questions, let me know. Thanks.
Sharon Cone | Registrar
BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA
Crossroads of America Council #160
Application – Adult (English) 524-501 (rev’d 2/2018) (no word if older versions are still acceptable or not).
Scout Night at the Pacers
From the Pacer’s front office:
Hello,
As a Scouting member, you are invited to participate in our Spring Scout Night with the Indiana Pacers on Sunday, March 25th vs Miami Heat at 5pm. Each Scout can earn a patch! This event will sell out, so do not miss your chance to root on the hometown team!
By purchasing tickets through this offer, you will also:
• Receive a FREE Scout Night patch!
• Have Access to a SPECIAL MEET & GREET with a Pacer’s player**This event DOES NOT include a post-game free throw, or a food/hat voucher. It is just a ticket to the game, a patch (same patch as the November game) and a post-game meet and greet with a player.
To Purchase: Visit www.pacersgroups.com/scouts; Passcode: Scout.
We are offering a limited number of lower level tickets for just $55! These will go quickly, so don’t wait to purchase!
Make sure to register by Friday, February 23rd.
Thanks!
Kalee Grant | Indiana Pacers
Group Events Specialist
o: 317.917.2824
Pacers Sports & Entertainment
Pacers | Fever | Mad Ants | Bankers Life Fieldhouse
125 S. Pennsylvania St. Indianapolis, IN 46204
Download the flyer for Scout Night 2018 here.
District Pinewood Derby Announced
District Pinewood Derby Coordinator Bill Buchalter has announced that the District
Derby will take place at its usual location the American Legion Post #3, 6379 N. College Ave., Indianapolis, IN 46220. All Cubs are welcome, but each pack’s top 4 finishers and each pack’s “Best of Show” are entered in the District Derby automically and free of charge.
You can download a copy of the graphic here as a PDF flyer to distribute to your pack.
Here are some highlights from the 2017 District Derby.
CAC North Star Unofficial Website 
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