Leaderboard

We have to take a lot of garbage from people too, but we don't get paid for it.

Our troop owned a garbage truck. It was a small town with no other garbage service. We probably couldn’t do it today but we sure knew where our funds were coming from.

Yes they do. I know they have had a few different ones in the past. Here is a link to the one on ScoutShop.org https://www.scoutshop.org/uniform-leather-hiking-belt.html

This is always a big question mark for me. I always choose the train if I can. It is comfortable, relaxing, "knee room" a-plenty. Every time I have taken a train somewhere, it has been , to my eye, fully loaded, at capacity. In my experience in Europe, the trains are THE way to travel between cities. Are they nationally subsidized? Absolutely. Asphalt roads are subsidized. Airports are built with public money, why not the rails?

Not necessarily. In our area, most Packs have the crossover at Blue and Gold, and yes the troop(s) send representatives, but the night is the Packs to plan.

Yeah, I’ve done Baloo. I feel confident that I understand Patrol Method well enough to lead the Cubs thru AOL. I’m also trying to involve Boy Scouts whenever possible (have a Scout or two come teach knots for the Wolves, that sort of thing). Finally, I’m trying to gradually give them simple responsibilities now— they will vote on their electives this year, they choose their campout menu— to transition them to Boy-led when they are you, rather than jumping into that with Webelos without any preparation.

I agree! I think back to the Baby Boom era. Huge packs, lots of dens. The grand ladies that served as den mothers, and the men who were cub masters, all were superb organizers. Yet very few, if any, had attended WB, or any kind of leadership training outside of their job. (WB back then was a "by invitation only" event.) But the pack ran like a Swiss watch. Without computers, smart phones, email, social media--gasp! Much of the today's "leadership" and "management" training strives mightily to reduce the human/art side the equation, and emphasize the "science" side. This results in

Oh if only that were true. Though I have not seen many, and I have been at this rodeo for a while, I have run across a few leaders that felt if a little training was good, then more was better. They spend more time in training, attending training, running training, finding courses, etc etc than actually you know, being out and about with a unit, in the woods, in the mud, maybe huddled under a tarp in a downpour chatting with young scout on his first outing and not happy about all the rain. That's where Scouting happens, out with Scouts having fun on adventures. Yes the training is good

I’m a den leader, and I agree with whoever said that it seems superfluous at this level. I’m sure it’s a good training, but.....I don’t feel I need leadership training to run herd on first graders! I’m my son’s den leader now, and I’ll stick with that for four more years. After that, I’d like to go back down and be a Tiger Leader in perpetuity. I’d even do Lions! I just don’t feel that a ton of training is needed for that......

Statements like the really get at what makes OA so challenging and so easy to be done poorly. There is no “Native American mystique”— the tribes of North America are/were so diverse that there is nothing common to all of them. Some lodges, I’m sure, work really closely with the local tribe and put on a fantastic, authentic ceremony honoring the tribe in their area. Most don’t. In another BSA forum I’m on, an Arrowman stated that his lodge didn’t have any Indians nearby, as the three reservations in his state were far away. Through random professional contacts, I happen to know about a lar

I recall a simple ceremony...on a very hot night in an un-airconditioned meeting room at Howard Air Force Base, Panama. The MC said a few words. Three of us lined up on one side of a wooden bridge. We walked across. Our new SM put a brand new Boy Scout neckerchief on each of us. We each received a card and the AOL patch. SM said a few words (Mr. Bates was a powerful man and 12 words from him carried more weight than 100 words from others). I couldn't have been more thrilled--Cub and Webelos days were over, a new adventure was about to begin. There was no OA or Native American

I don't think so. the secret to a goat raffle is (drum roll!) When you buy a ticket for the raffle, don't put YOUR name on the stub that is drawn. There's gotta be someone else out there that would totally appreciate getting a goat. We did this in a small town, at the big fireman's day event we raffled it off and the "winner", if they didn't want the goat paid $25 to us to raffle it off again. The mayor won a half dozen times, the police chief a few times, clergy got it and finally there was a scream of joy from the back, two little girls won the goat! Needless to say we raised about $1