Training
District Training: Train the Trainer (THIS SATURDAY!)
This Saturday, September 26, 2015 at 8:00 am, North Star will be offering the Trainer’s Edge (formerly the Trainer Development Conference) at St Luke’s United Methodist Church. Reservations’ opportunities and information about location can be found here. A flyer is available here for distribution to your units.
This course is required for participation on Wood Badge Staff or National Youth Leadership Training (White Stag) Staff, for both adults and youth. This course is often only offered at University of Scouting.
Participation is advantageous for District and Unit Training Chairs, training committee members, SPLs, or scout leaders of all types.
Come participate in this event to help boost your unit and your district!
New Cub Training: Hints and Tricks
BSA has finally made the new Cub Training system available online. I have completed the first third of the Den Leader Training. From this limited experience, I have learned a lot about the new system.
Different System
The new training system is wholly different than our old system. It relies on a third-party vendor that provides online training systems which is branded as ScoutingU. This means that you have to login to the new system, even if you are already logged into to my.scouting.org. The ScoutingU website has its own quirks and navigational issues. Its flow is terrible. You have to read the instructions extremely carefully, because it is not at all like either the old system or most any other operating system that you have used.
Please note that the vendor does not appear to have access to your “Trained” record in ScoutNet (as viewed in my.scouting.org or myscouting.scouting.org). It can only report whether you have “Completed” or are “Incomplete” on the vendor’s training modules. Please check with my.scouting.org for your training records’ status.
If you are having technical difficulties accessing the new training site, read the comments section below for updates and tips for troubleshooting.
Cub Leader Training
Don’t forget to get your new leaders trained online at My.Scouting.org or with in-person classes from Council and its Districts as listed at the new Council Training Hub website.
This training is required for Rechartering.
If you run a training session, please add it to the new Council Training website.
White Stag 2016
Have you ever wished that you could send your patrol leaders to a leadership training course?
Well, you can!
White Stag is the National Youth Leadership Training Course. Crossroads of America will be offering the training in 2016 twice.
The first session will be June 15-29, 2016. The second session will be July 10-16, 2016.
If you are serious about getting your troop’s leadership improved, you need to be talking to your scouts about it now. Schools are beginning to recruit for their summer activities already. If NYLT is part of your vision, you need to be having your scouts thinking about it now.
If you are a NYLT graduate, you can also look at serving on staff. June staff sign up is here.
YPT Optimal Expiration Date
As we head into rechartering season, opening October 1st, the Commissioner’s Staff is going to work hard at making this process as quick and painless as possible.
In order to allow this goal to be accomplished, we need the cooperation of our volunteers. One of the logistical nightmares for our unit chairs is to assure that each of the scouters registered is properly trained in Youth Protection Training.
BSA puts the requirements this way:
BSA Policy is:
Youth Protection training is required for all BSA registered volunteers. Youth Protection training must be taken every two years. If a volunteer does not meet the BSA’s Youth Protection training requirement at the time of recharter, the volunteer will not be reregistered.
To find out more about the Youth Protection policies of the Boy Scouts of America and how to help Scouting keep your family safe, see the Parent’s Guide in any of the Cub Scouting or Boy Scouting handbooks, or go to http://www.scouting.org/Training/YouthProtection.aspx.
This begs the question, “When is rechartering done?”
Onslaught of Autumn Training
As we head into a hectic autumn of scouting, it is easy to forget to get trained. We shouldn’t, since it is often required to be Rechartered.
Several districts and council have scheduled training in many locations at many times. This is especially true of Pathfinder’s Mini University of Scouting on Saturday, August 29th on the southside and Council’s position-specific blitz in August, September, and October at the Scout Service Center. A new list of courses is now available on a new website at http://www.crossroadstraininghub.com/events/events.htm. Units and districts can now post their own additions to training for the benefit of all in the Council.
Some of these trainings are available online, too, at my.scouting.org. 
CAC Online Resources
Dr John Eliades, Golden Eagle’s Training Chair and ex officio member of the Council Training Committee, reports about Pack training resources:
Dear fellow CAC Trainers
In advance of our meeting next week I would like to share with you some new training material we have developed in time for the Annual Kick-off.
We could not wait until the New Den Leaders Power Point was developed since we have to start training our trainers. Our Den Leader Orientation has been uploaded to http://sdrv.ms/KZ0zVm in folder “ADULT POWER POINT SHOWS” and subfolder “CUB-ADULT PPS“. If anyone wishes the PPT version for further revision/adaptation, contact me.
We also have developed multiple Leadership Notebooks to aid the new Cub Leaders/Comm. Members.
Open folder “CUBLEADER LEADERSHIP NOTEBOOKS” and download any you have an interest in. To supplement these we also have developed a series of PP Presentation to help with the initial orientation of these new leaders.
To help organize the CAC Family Talent Survey we have developed an Excel Spreadsheet to make it easier to store, and search the info “PACK FAMILY TALENT&VEHICLE INVENTORY“. This can be encrypted and stored in a Cloud Storage such as SKYDRIVE for free and thus updated easily and downloaded by Pack Leaders without the constant hassle of sending paper revisions. This file can be found within any of the notebooks in a folder titled “6-Z8-Leadership & Parent Talent-Driver Info”. A troop version containing Merit Badge rather than Cub Adventure info can be found in our folder”TROOP ADULT LEADERSHIP NOTEBOOKS.”
I would welcome your comments next week’s CAC-Training Comm. Meeting.
John Eliades, GED-Training Chair
Update from Area 6 on Training Online
Michael A. Crothers, Area 6 Training Chair, which is over Crossroads of America Council, reported this morning that:
On Monday morning at 8am Central BSA’s Information Delivery Group plans to start an upgrade to my.Scouting. As a result of the installation ELearning training will be unavailable for most of the day Monday August 10. Please pass along to your unit leaders that they will be unable to take YPT or other online courses on Monday. This announcement has also been posted on the myscouting.org landing page.
But here is the Good News: After we complete this work on Monday then volunteers will be able to take online courses from the new my.Scouting in his/her MyDashboard. There will be 4 new tabs in the MyTraining menu selection.
- The first one highlights the 3 Youth Protection Trainings available. And when you click on the Take Course button it takes you to the training.
- The second tab “Training Center” allows you to take all online trainings.
- The Requirements tab lists each of your positions and the trainings required for each position
- And the Completions tab will display all training you have taken.
As a reminder in addition to council and district training chairs, all commissioners – as well as unit Key 3 0 have the ability to input training in the Training Manager Tool.
District Training for August
As part of our effort to streamline and improve North Star District, the Commissioners Service and the District Training Committee are offering three trainings in August 2015:
1. Unit Commissioners Training on Monday, August 3rd at St Luke’s UMC.
2. Merit Badge Counselor Training at Roundtable on Thursday, August 6th at Second Presbyterian, 4th Floor.
3. Chartered Organization Representative Training on Monday, August 10th at St. Luke’s UMC.
For more details about times, locations, RSVPs, go to www.cacnorthstar.org/calendar.
The Scouting Game
In my work as District Commissioner, I am often in a position to ask volunteer scouters to complete training. It is very easy for me to sound as if training makes scouting. The joy and enthusiasm for our activities make scouting.
Clarke Green has a weekly blog post where he posts Lord Baden Powell’s bi-weekly magazine columns about scouting. It is interesting to see many of the problems we face today were the same problems that Lord Baden Powell advised his scouters about.
This week’s post is “Scouting – Game, Not Science.” B-P emphasizes that scouter training serves a purpose, but it is too easily misinterpreted. Scouters then become depressed, and the boys catch the depression. He says,
Scouting, as I have said above, is not a science to be solemnly studied, nor is it a collection of doctrines and texts. Nor again is it a military code for drilling discipline into boys and repressing their individuality and initiative. No — it is a jolly game in the out of doors, where boy-men and boys can go adventuring together as older and younger brother, picking up health and happiness, handicraft and helpfulness.
B-P recommends how to properly view training:
[The Scoutmaster’s] job is to enthuse the boys and to get experts to teach them. The collection of rules is merely to give guiding lines to help them in a difficulty; the training courses are merely to show them the more readily the best ways of applying our methods and of gaining results.
B-P helps enlighten us about the correct point of view for training. It is to teach us the best way of applying the scouting methods to get results. In today’s business language it is the “best practices” of scouting.
Our emphasis at District on training is not for enforcing discipline. It is for giving each pack, troop, or crew the tools to achieve “best practices” as quickly as possible. Skip some of the pain of the School of Hard Knocks. Focus on what works. Shift responsibility for the program’s planning and action to the boys in an age-appropriate manner. We want to train you so that you are more comfortable with scouting.
How much more enjoyable is a sport or a card game if you understand the rules, goals, boundaries, and methods of play? Learn scouting’s “best practices” so that you can focus on the game – not the rules – of scouting.
CAC North Star Unofficial Website 
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