Training costs

[riverwalk]

An interesting idea was brainstormed tonight, at Troop Committee. Let me borrow the larger audience for some input. I like to think outside the box as we did tonight, but this one may be inappropriate to some?

One idea related to incentives, or paying Scouters for their investments in this way. If a Scouter paid for his/her shotgun/blackpowder course (usually around 130.00), and fees were collected from outing's attendees...could some fees be handed over to the rangemaster? In this way their training costs would be recovered by them. In other words, around here many Scouters pay their own way to these things, as most Units can't fund it.

And related somewhat....how do y'all find the other Scouters in District that have whatever Certifications your Unit needs for an activity?

[FrankJ]

I think it is up to the charter org & commitee to decide about reimbursing training expenses. Some questions that should be answered.

1)Can the unit afford it?
2)Is it in the best interest of the boys?
3)Does it pass the smell test? Legimate or not would it look bad to some one outside the organization?

If you pay the rangemaster for a specific event (the scout shooting, not his training), that changes the scouter's status from volunteer to paid which could effect his liabilty if there was an accident.

As for finding resources. Ask. Roundtables, commisioners, DEs, camp rangers are good sources of information.

[deweylure]

Our Troop does not reimburse for training. The leaders just do it. The only reimbursement is ifwe drive to an outing we will not have to pay for food.
Each troop can make there own rules about this but make sure it stipulates training only not volunteer time like a rangemaster.

Dewey

[wagionvigil]

Local training should not cost anything except if you need to pay for food etc which is not much. Now if you want to take Wood Badge or Powder Horn or go to Philmont Training Center then that is your choice and should be paid for by you. Our council at one time had few Wood badge trained Cub leaders and a family established scholarships to help defray the cost of that. Of course the money is now gone and we have alot of Wood Badge trained leaders here.
The Advanced training has good points and Bad points. Good points is it helps make a better and stronger program for our youth the bad is the leaders that want and other piece of "Bling Bling" to wear on their uniform. If you are not going to use the training for the youth don't take it.

[ICanCanoeCanU]

Our troop does pay all registration costs for leaders/adults.

[scoutaholic]

Local training should not cost anything except if you need to pay for food etc which is not much. Now if you want to take Wood Badge or Powder Horn or go to Philmont Training Center then that is your choice and should be paid for by you. ...

Local YP and Basic Trainings do not have a cost here.
University of Scouting and Cub Scout Pow-Wow cost about $10-15 (tuition. Food is more. The optional Pow-Wow book is more).
Shooting instructor training is about $200 per gun (separate classes for rifle, shotgun, pistol, black-powder, etc).
Climbing instructor training I think was about $50.
BSA Lifeguard was about the same.
Woodbadge is about $200.

In our area, there used to be some scholarships for Woodbadge, but I don't know if they still exist or how to get them. Sometimes you can get your Charter Organization or Unit Committee to agree to pay part of the cost. When I went, my troop CO paid half, and my pack committee paid one fourth, which left only one fourth that I had to pay. I probably would never have paid the full price to go on my own.