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Showing content with the highest reputation on 07/06/18 in all areas

  1. At the Scout Camp to which our Troop is going next week, all merit badge classes are in the morning until 12, followed by lunch, and then afternoons are strictly maintained as "free time." Troops can plan their own activities or adventures, or not plan anything at all. On Friday they have a bunch of troop competitions, but even those are optional. They have horse riding, a lake and pool, shooting ranges, multiple trails - it sounds fantastic (even if it is in the San Bernadino Mountains, which I personally have never found especially lovely). And every night after dinner is different - some ni
    3 points
  2. The problem is National has no mechanism for accountability. As far as they are concerned, they might be performing above their goals. Volunteers are dragged along for the ride. Barry
    2 points
  3. First of all, you look here - STOP THINKING ABOUT WHAT OTHERS THINK. You are not there for yourself - you are there for your son. So you have a track record that embarasses you. Well, and I mean this lovingly - get over it! Your son wants you there - your son needs you there. So what if you haven't been able to give 100% in the past? There are many parents, MANY, who won't give 20 or even 10%! I have parents that I have to drag to Blue and Gold, for pete's sake! You want to be involved. That is worth gold as a parent. Even if it's only in the smallest capacity, you want to do the right thing,
    2 points
  4. So.... following an expansion of the group in recent years and some attrition in our older tents I convinced the exec committee to release their grip on the purse strings and buy some new tents. We have some very nice tents that we like, namely Vango Omegas, you can still buy them so we bought some more. If it ain't broke don't fix it. As we like to say this side of the pond. Cheapest source of them is Amazon. 8 new tents. About £1700 spent. This evenings scout program wasn't going to fill the whole evening (second half of pottery for creative challenge involving firing their cr
    2 points
  5. Here is an interesting article. https://www.minnpost.com/education/2018/07/new-approach-sparking-interest-construction-trades-girl-scouts-building-tiny-homes Power tools, scaffolds... oh my! Looks like a good learning opportunity for the scouts.
    1 point
  6. So my son is reluctantly attending a YMCA camp with a friend. My son quit scouts a while back because it was "boring". Now I'm looking forward to hearing about the camp, and his opinion comparing it tho his BSA summer camp experience. I've got to say, that talking with our friends (parents of the friend he's at camp with), that it sounds like it might be pretty good in comparison. Back when they were in college, they were counselors at the camp. he was describing the camp the other day as the kids were leaving to go. It seemed like mostly the same sorts of activities (swimming, skii
    1 point
  7. I spent the past couple of days with some scouts from Israel. They do things very differently than we do and some of it is very impressive. Here's my understanding of their program. Scouting in Israel goes from 4th grade through 12th grade. There is only one program. So no cubs, just scouts. It's essentially our webelos and scouts combined. The scouts I talked to said that scouts is very popular in Israel. There are very few adults involved. My impression is it's somewhat like the venturing model where the adults are advisors at best but mostly take care of support. Note that the ven
    1 point
  8. Welcome to the forum, @sandlime. Good question. Maybe someone else can help with that.
    1 point
  9. I agree with CalicoPenn that the rules are for those without common sense. Summer camps used to fire off a cannon with a blank to wake everyone up, until some fool decided to stand right in front of the cannon and the wad killed him. One solution to this, that the BSA implemented, is to ban all cannons. Another would be to implement some training. The first is easy and the second takes some effort. If that's all there is to it then the first is the obvious choice. But I think there's more to this. There's talk about philosophy of hazing or shooting at a human likeness. There's even a phil
    1 point
  10. This is what boy scout summer camp used to be (and should be again). When I was a scout, if we wanted to swim, we went swimming. If we wanted to shoot archery or 22s, off we went and did it (occasionally there was a brief line). Wanted to go canoeing? Off we went (unless they were being used by the canoeing merit badge class). Wanted to go hiking? Off we went. The camp was almost all free form.
    1 point
  11. Let me share a more upbeat story. A friend developed anxiety d/o and needed to work very hard (meds + counseling) to get on an even keel. That meant the rest of us, along with his wife, stepping up when his three kids needed anything. We did, no regrets. It was an honor helping a guy through the worst time of his life. His kids grew up strong and good. Through youth group, I camped with his kids on several occasions and one is turning out to be a missionary the other leads worship at our church (not sport for the shy). Like you, he could camp with his family, but he drew the line when it
    1 point
  12. I'm new to BSA. But in other organizations I have volunteered in (church children's programs, stuff at the school, girl scouts, etc) volunteers typically sign up for the school year, not in perpetuity. Middle of the summer is the natural time to re-evaluate one's involvement. Does one want to do the same thing? Switch to a new role (more or less intense)? Volunteer with a different organizaton? Even scale back on volunteering to devote more time to other aspects of life? Don't be embarassed by changing roles. People do it all the time. And don't think of changing roles as quitting
    1 point
  13. I agree this is the problem. The G2SS has become a club to beat well meaning Scouters on issues orthogonal to safety. No where is this more apparent than on the gun related issues. The first parts of the guns restrictions are entirely reasonable but unrelated to safety. The ban on shooting at silhouettes isn't primarily a safety ban it is mostly philosophical. Now *I* strongly support this. I think having folks in the liberal church be willing to learn gun safety under the guise of marksmanship is a huge win. Having more Americans familiar with guns and gun safety as a tools, independe
    1 point
  14. "A week of camp life is worth six months of theoretical teaching in the meeting room." - BP
    1 point
  15. Water guns, laser tag, and little red wagons are symbolic of the larger problem that National is not only out of touch with how scouting develops character, they are becoming more reactionary without common reasoning of the program and program activities. There doesn’t seem to be a pragmatic mind at National. They prohibited the popular Bobcat ceremony in the 90s where adults held the Cubs up-side-down while they pinned the Bobcat Badge to their uniform. Any reasonable adult had little trouble with the guideline because common sense tells us it’s a safety issue. But National restricted ba
    1 point
  16. For me, I feel teaching make-believe shooting as a practice for violence in the future is like zero tolerance policies. Such policies force a negative moral aspect to a neutral or innocent motive. We read stories a lot of violators of a zero tolerance policies with innocent intentions. A person who is never in a situation of thinking of their actions never get to judge the intentions of their actions against any kind of measured consequence. In fact, prohibiting thoughts and actions can actually encourage a person toward the action. I experienced this when I've introduce adults to hunting. The
    1 point
  17. There are lots of people, myself included, who cannot do the job. Being a good scout leader is not an easy task. Not everyone can do it. It is nothing to be ashamed of. They say that there is no crying in baseball. Most of us would also say that there is no failure in scouting. You did your best. That is all we ask for.
    1 point
  18. We are the Group leading the campaign looking to purchase and run LeFeber Northwoods Camps please spread the word like wildfire to your friends, families and co-workers. We have raised $11,700 just in the first week among our group. The camp namesakes great grandson has even donated. Visit www.BPNorthwoods.org
    1 point
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