Just called as Scoutmaster...

[danimal]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

...pretty scary.

However, boys only do scouts twice a month, and we don't have very many young men.

Still, this is a very different calling than any I've had before (exec sec, Sunday school presidency).

I'd like to be out of the box a little bit, though I'm not sure yet how.

By out of the box, I don't mean "meet with no uniforms and play basketball." I'd like to broaden the horizons for these kids, esp. with exposure to careers (not sure that many of them are on a college track).

Any ideas would be appreciated...

I hated scouting growing up. My scoutmaster was a nice guy, but a strict military man who was so focused on making us earn merit badges that he sucked the life out of scouting. I don't have any bright ideas about activities, but avoid scoutmaster qua taskmaster.

[MikeWaters]

danimal, did you grow up in College Station?

:shock:

My scoutmaster was a strict former military guy, but I liked him.

[danimal]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

danimal, did you grow up in College Station?

:shock:

My scoutmaster was a strict former military guy, but I liked him.

What, you don't remember me from the home ward in College Station? :wink:

Apparently former military scoutmasters are a universal phenomenon -- I was in UT

[Jeff Lebowski]

Mike, tooblue,

Congrats on the new callings.

I just got released in February after 13 years in scouting: 5 in cubs, 5 as 11-yr-old leader, and 3 as scoutmaster. I could go on forever with stories. To make a long story short, focus on the boys. Learn to love them and you will enjoy your calling. Keep them as first priority in all of your decisions and you won't go wrong. Focus on the important rules, but don't sweat the small stuff. Above all, insist on some good assistants. Otherwise you will burn out quickly.

One of the main challenges of scouting is record-keeping. It can be a real challenge keeping track of advancement and keeping parents updated, especially if you have a lot of boys (I had 15-20). I tried some of the commercial software packages and decided that they were all crap. I ended up writing my own using Visual Basic in Excel. It has all the features that I wanted, including an option to generate a detailed troop status e-mail to send to parents. Boardmail me with your e-mail address if you want a copy.

Have fun.

[Mormon Red Death]

Mike,

I was called into a hybrid calling of advisor/scout helper. The problem is much like Too blue I never went to scouts growing up and I didn't know anything about the scout program really. I found it challenging to find out exactly what I was supposed to be doing. Do I get kids Merit badges? Do I do Duty to god? Do we just have fun? How do I teach them about camping when I don't even like it to begin with?

My advice would be simple. Find out exactly what is expected of you and then determine a plan to carry out what is expected..

[bluegoose]

Originally Posted by homeboy

Mike, tooblue,


One of the main challenges of scouting is record-keeping. It can be a real challenge keeping track of advancement and keeping parents updated, especially if you have a lot of boys (I had 15-20). I tried some of the commercial software packages and decided that they were all crap. I ended up writing my own using Visual Basic in Excel. It has all the features that I wanted, including an option to generate a detailed troop status e-mail to send to parents. Boardmail me with your e-mail address if you want a copy.

Have fun.

We used a program called Troopmaster and it was fairly user friendly. You can use it to track advancement, leadership positions, services hours, campouts, parent/leader information, and can also generate email lists like Homeboy mentioned. I didn't notice any real shortcomings with the program.

Shortly after I became familiar with it, I was released. The story of my life.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Originally Posted by bluegoose

We used a program called Troopmaster and it was fairly user friendly. You can use it to track advancement, leadership positions, services hours, campouts, parent/leader information, and can also generate email lists like Homeboy mentioned. I didn't notice any real shortcomings with the program.

Shortly after I became familiar with it, I was released. The story of my life.

I hated TroopMaster. Everytime I fired it up, it took me forever to navigate around to find the things I needed. The interface was awful. In fairness, they may have a newer version now than the one I used.

Back when I first started using TroopMaster, we had a guy in the ward who was called to track the data. I gave him the TroopMaster CD (we had paid for a troop license). Well, the poor guy got cancer and died quickly. I asked his wife if she could return the CD but she couldn't find it. You can download the software from the internet, so the only thing I needed off of the CD was the serial number. I called the TroopMaster folks and explained the situation but they refused to give me a new serial number. I had to buy a new copy. Stingy bastards...

[bluegoose]

They must have a new version. Either that or my mind works that much slower than yours that I didn't notice its tortoise speed.

I also had some run-ins with them with regards to updates and multiple user accounts. As I recall, the owners of the TroopMaster are LDS, or at least affiliated with Utah in some way. Explains the stingy attitude....