I'm deep in the throws of my second wood badge ticket goal.  It was originally authored to say, "I will author and present to troop 199B and 199G a fundraising guideline as a one-page pamphlet which specifies distribution of funds earned through any troop fundraiser.  The pamphlet will clearly lay out fund distribution in a way that is designated to incentivize scout fundraising and limit scouting costs to the family (THRIFTY) while providing for the needs of the troop."  But as I started actually putting this together I realized it was much more involved than simply creating a Fundraising guidline.  Because In order to determine how much money the troop needed, I needed to budget how much money the troop would need to survive for a year.  But that got into the variable of event expenses.

My first ticket goal was to identify a suitable Chartered Organization for the cub scout pack and two Scouts BSA troops of Villa Park.  They were all previously associated with the catholic church here, but a policy change at the diocese made it so we could no longer run the scouting program unhindered.  So my first ticket goal was to identify a suitable Chartered Organization, and serve as a liaison until a Chartered Organization Representative is identified.

Well...  Last Wednesday the pack joined New Hope as their Chartered Organization.  I'm now in the process of getting bank accounts moved over and web permissions migrated but a Chartered Organization Representative has been identified and has stepped up to get applications signed and submitted.  When the Troops are ready to move they will, but I'm calling this goal done now that I've presented New Hope as a suitable Chartered Organization to all three groups and New Hope officially has a Chartered Organization Representative.

I've noticed that the way that I've authored my ticket goals, there are some that are very Urgent to complete, and others that are less urgent, and some that are very time sensitive and others that are not at all time sensitive.

My first Ticket Goal is to present a suitable Chartered Organization to each the Cub Scout Pack and the 2 Scouts BSA Troops that are currently chartered through St. Alexander's Catholic Church.  Unfortunately, the landscape of Scouting is radically changing.  Whereas having a scouting troop used to be a ministry of a church was a way for a church to serve a community, it is now (as a result of an unwillingness to deal with indiscretions) a liability to have scouts.  So the Joliet diocese has forbid overnight events beginning October 31 (it was originally set to begin October 7).  Obviously, this is incompatible with Scout BSA Troops, and it severely hinders a Cub Scout Pack's program.  So while I'm not encouraging the scouting groups to Leave the Catholic Church, if they need a home as a result of being forced out, then I know where they can go.

Tonight I'll present to my Cub Scout Pack a suitable Chartered Organization that will welcome them with open arms.  Namely The Church that I'm a part of, New Hope Community Church right here in Villa Park.  There is already talk of a welcome to New Hope Pot Luck specifically for the Leaders of the Pack and Troops.  There are still details to be worked through.  Like will we keep the same Chartered Organization Representative or change to someone from the Church.  And there are plenty of concerns, like the willingness of the Catholic Church to release the Pack and Troops, but I'm confident that we can make the transition happen.

I've been home from Gilwell now for 2 weeks or so.  I have to say that while Scouting is inherently not a competitive activity.  The Bob Whites Totally Won Wood Badge!

We dominated patrol based games on day 4, and every time we succeed we as an entire patrol let out a hearty "Hooty Hoo!"  It wasn't our intention to disrupt others, but it clearly got into their head because activities at other stations just stopped.  Leader after leader kept saying, you have the fastest time doing ____.  And our patrol benefited greatly from the first weekend's failure as a patrol to such an extent that we bound together and operated as one effective unit.  It was POWERFUL!

I marveled at the Foxes decorations, someone spent serious time on their archway.  The Antelopes did a prance every time they needed to be acknowledged and it made me laugh every single time.  The Bears leaned into bear puns hard.  I'm proud of each of these patrols, but it was the Bob Whites that infected all the other groups to some level.

After having a little bit of time to reflect on this, I don't think I learned anything new that I haven't heard at corporate trainings already.  What was different was overlaying scouting onto that leadership training.  You are inherently working with other scouters who are sacrificing their time, money, weekends, and in the case of at least 1 person I know, their comfort (they don't much like camping) so they can better serve the scouts.  It isn't trying to redirect a toxic corporate culture with folks who are looking out for #1.  It's striving to make a difference in young people's lives.  It's literally WHY I went into Youth ministry, and its powerful to see how these principles work together with people who practice them.

This week I got an email from Julie telling us what we had to expect coming up in about 8 weeks.  It was standard fair like 'get your health forms ready,' and 'make sure you have full field uniform.'  I'm not ready, but I'm getting excited.

This post is to celebrate the conclusion of a major project for the pack.  Yesterday, I spent all day on chats with Google and I got the last of my setup done.  After 40 - 50 hours of work spread over several months, our site is now live and I've instituted a Google Workspace for all of the registered members in the pack.  Whats better, we used Google for Nonprofits.  It was much more work to setup, but it means that everyone in the pack has a free workspace account (presumably forever) with not only Email, but also Sheets and Docs (google's attempt to rival MS Office), and Sites which is how this site is published, and Meets (so we don't need a Zoom subscription), and YouTube should we decide to begin that avenue.  But also some really powerful tools that aren't available to business, like up to $10,000 per month is Google Ad Grants.  We can set up a Geo Fence and market to a select group of people in an area, say ... people with a child between the age of 5 and 10, in the School District boundaries.  We can go more granular than that too.

The goals behind this project were to expand the Pack's reach to the Villa Park Community, Improve Youth Protection Policies (through having a domain email address for adult leaders), and to support the pack with resources it needs to be successful.  I honestly believe that this has been a successful endeavor.

Until next Time.  

This maybe calls for a little backstory: I heard a rumor that the prior Cubmaster and his wife bought a Domain.  Namely, VPpack122.org.  I guess they bought it years ago with the best intentions of publishing on that domain.  Interesting fact, they were at least the 2nd set of people who tried to publish a site with the first group being this site: sites.google.com/site/vpscoutspack122 which really needs to be taken down but we can't get a hold of the owners.  I've put Kelly on that task.

Well initially the email address associated with VPpack122.org was free but a couple years ago Google started charging for Google Workspace accounts if they weren't a non-for-profit.  the owner of the site didn't want to pay $5 / month (per user I might add) for an email address that was unused so she turned it off.  She was happy to pay the $12 per year for the domain but an extra $60 seemed like a waste to her.  Frankly, I agree.  I saw her earlier this year and she told me she has this domain and she wanted to hand it off.

Well I built the rough site in Google Sites so that future generations would be able to edit it easily but I wasn't able to convince the committee that my vision of having a complete technology suite, was a good one so I was met with a hesitation.  It sounded like, I don't want to burden the Cub Scouts with big bills in the future.  So I set off on a solution.  and found it with Google for Nonprofits.

I believe I launched the site that currently resides at sites.google.com/view/pack122 about a year ago.  Its taken me this full year to get to today but today I was able to sit down with St. Alexander Church office staff and work through the verification process to get us registered.  I've requested a token and within 3 weeks I should be ready to go realizing my full gambit of email addresses so transfering leadership to future generations is easier.