Programming
White Stag Prereq at Spring Camporee
Some of the most successful troops in our district require that their SPLs and ASPLs attend White Stag, the National Youth Leadership Training, each spring or summer.
Some troops are not aware that attendance at White Stag requires a prerequisite class: Introduction to Leadership Skills for Troops (or for Crews).
BSA states on this webpage:
ILST is the first course in the series of leadership training offered to Boy Scouts and is a replacement for Troop Leadership Training. Completion of ILST is a prerequisite for Boy Scouts to participate in the more advanced leadership courses National Youth Leadership Training (NYLT) and the National Advanced Youth Leadership Experience (NAYLE). It is also required to participate in a Kodiak Challenge Trek.
Once a youth attends ILST and has taken the first phase of train-the-trainer, “Fundamentals of Training,” the youth is eligible to offer this same training at his home unit.
North Star District will be offering ILST at the Spring Camporee. The lead instructor will Aryaman Gupta a recent Eagle Scout and SPL, who has just joined the scoutmaster corps at Troop 56. We are seeking another former or current SPL to assist Aryaman in his efforts. Please contact Jeff Heck with any volunteers.
Plan now to recruit your best candidates to attend White Stag so that they can get their prerequisites done.
Participants can (a) pay $5.00 to have their materials provided for them or (b) pay nothing and print out their own materials from the website as posted at a latter.
Reservations can be made at this link.
Service Hours Reporting Problems
At the last District Committee meeting on February 4, 2016, District Executive Con Sullivan reported that there is a bit of confusion about service hours reporting. Even this writer has been guilty of the confusion.
Apparently there are two separate service hour reporting websites. They do not share data!
The national website, accessible through my.scouting.org, reports directly to National Council and is used for your unit’s national statistics such as contribution to the World Movement of Scouting’s billion service-hour challenge, but not Journey to Excellence scoring.
We know this is a problem because many of our largest and most successful troops have reported zero service hours on one or both of these websites. At the same time, these units have had Eagle Scouts reporting hundreds if not thousands of service hours. The scouts are getting proper credit, but it is not passing on to the units.
Journey to Excellence has a separate scoring for service hours which can receive a separate gold-level recognition.
Make sure your unit secretary or registrar is reporting service hours to both National on my.scouting.org and the same data to the local website at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1v7vmkVA0iDiQKTG4u-m8tG8lsHaGKwMrQbd93olBHig/viewform?edit_requested=true which is linked on the front page of http://www.crossroadsbsa.org.
To prevent this being a problem in the future, District will be reviewing these statistics quarterly. For troops, we will be looking at Eagle project reports against unit reports. Discrepancies will be pointed out to units.
For Cub Scout Packs, we will be looking at zer0-hour reports as needing updating.
Remember, we are part of a world-wide effort to demonstrate the value of scouting to our communities. Your reports help that marketing effort.
Scout Sunday: Feb 7, 2016
This Sunday is Scout Sunday. Hopefully your unit has made some plans to participate. If not, it is not too late. Simply
having your boys agreed to attend one service together in uniform, regardless of denomination is a major contribution. A small contingent in uniform is usually The desirable enough target that any minister would want to recognize the group from the pulpit.
Another alternative is to work hand in hand with the pastor to become an integral part of the service. It may be a simple matter of greeting attendees. It may be helping the ushers. In any case, the idea is to be a participant in the service.Similar ideas can be done for Scout Shabbat for members of synagogues.
To learn more, see the link to Bryan on Scouting.
Winner of the Coveted Willie Award
The winner of the North Star District Willie Award for Best Campsite is Troop 69!
Senior Patrol Leader is Reese P.
Winners of the Inaugural Polaris Award for Patrol Competition
To recognize and memorialize the best patrol in competitions, the District is inaugurating a new award:the Polaris Award. The new plaque will travel with each new patrol listed and photographed.
The winner of the inaugural Polaris Award is Troop 56’s Elemental Patrol.
Members of Elemental are Sam R., Luke E., Will S., and Matthew H.
The phantom is the newest ASM and patrol advisor Cullen B.
Pack 105 Bear Den 2 Service
Image Posted on Updated on
Here is a report from John Salewicz:
One of the new adventures in the Cub Scout program is to do community service.
The Den 2 Bears in Pack 105 did a E-Cycle Drive. We set-up a collection drive of unwanted, broken electronics and took them to a recycle center. Prior to the collection, the boys learn about why these items should not be put into landfills and types of material are in electrons. We disassembled a flat screen television to see what is used to make something that we spend a large chunk of our time.
During the e-cycle drive we collected all sorts of old computers, printers, ipods, stereos, phones and TV’s. The large tube TV’s were taken to St Luke’s Church and donated so that they can be fixed if needed and given to families who are less fortunate. I am very proud of these boys, their parents and our community for coming out and supporting the environment and Scouts. Wahoo!
Basic Commissioner Training at Camporee
Bridge Prop for Cross Over Ceremonies
Pack 830’s Cubmaster Bill Buchalter is looking for a bridge to serve as a prop for his March 1st cross over ceremony. Does anyone have any leads for him?
Bill Buchalter, Cub Master – Pack 830, Wbbuch1@comcast.net,317-509-0767
Service hours reporting 2015
Don’t forget to make sure that your unit has reported all of their service hours for 2015. You can report that using the link on the right column. This information will be closed out in the next week or two. Now is a good time to wrap it up.
Remember we are trying to contribute to the worldwide effort to report over a billion hours of service by 2020.
CAC North Star Unofficial Website 
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