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I find this story very alarming. I'm so alarmed that I will go home this weekend and build a catapult to see if launching potatoes is as fun as it sounds. Naturally, I will have to confirm my findings by launching several additional potatoes to verify that it continues to be as fun. My scientific hypothesis is that the fun quotient could be boosted even higher by launching zucchinis, cantalopes, or maybe even seedless watermelons. I doubt that launching portabello mushrooms will be at all satisfying. That will take quite a few fun launches to confirm.

The State of Ohio can take possession of the motor vehicle they catch you driving without liability insurance and/or without a license only because the Legislature passed an act expressly authorizing such otherwise criminal seizures of private property. What is your authority in your state to seize a "device" because a kid broke YOUR rule (your "wrongly") by texting a buddy? Likely, zero, zip.,nada. No authorizing statute for you. (And, no, you are not "in loco parentis." You have no parental rights.) And no one can agree to the seizure by contract without official approval of the stat

What is an activity? In our troop, it is anything other than the scheduled troop / patrol meetings. It has to be in some form of scouting context. It can even be the patrol hanging out in a scout's basement on a Friday night. Is service an activity? Yes. I'd ask it this way --> What is your objective with the requirement? IMHO, it's to promote the positive. We want scouts involved. We absolutely want the scouts involved with service projects. So why wouldn't you let the scout count it as an activity. The opposite would be scouts avoiding service projects because of the ne

Leave. This will go from being a passion to being day job WORK. We do this because we love it. If it’s unlovable, don’t let it suck the juices out of you.

ST. PETERSBURG — Freddie Lee Crawford, a former law enforcement professional who fought the City of St. Petersburg for equality in the workplace, died last Friday, May 17 at Palms of Pasadena Hospital with his family by his side. He was 81. In 1965, Crawford, along with black officers Adam Baker, Raymond DeLoach, Charles Holland, Leon Jackson, Robert Keys, Primus Killen, James King, Johnnie B. Lewis, Horace Nero, Jerry Styles and Nathaniel Wooten filed a landmark lawsuit against the St. Petersburg for discrimination on the police force. Due to their efforts to desegregate the Poli

Phones die really quick at Philmont. Combination of weak signal, changes in temperature, and roaming. If one of your Scouts can't get off his phone, by about day 2, he won't have that problem anymore.

Based on what your saying, this guy is not conforming to the program leadership protocols. People who try to create their own program in lieu of what the BSA mandates should be not wearing the uniform. I would call your district scout exec and district commissioner about the whole key 3 issue. The SE should have the courage to have a conversation with both the CO and SM.

Welcome to the forums. Smoothly? Smooth would have been the COR walking into the troop meeting and saying "Congratulations, Mr. @BlueTrails_Vet, starting today, you are the SM. Mr. Former SM may submit an application for unit scouter reserve. Next best thing, if you ASMs are all that: find a new CO where you can be SM under a COR with some spine. If this is such a big deal to you, take action next week. Stop wasting time. It really is that simple.

Thanks - this helps to understand. I fully understand his perspective here. I'd like to think that were I a leader in that pack, I'd be looking for activities that transcend some of this. Pinewood Derby - make it less about the competition and more about building a car Camping - the camping program has to be more than family camping with Scouts. We'd attend Camporees, had a freezing weather camping trip once, would sleep on a Battleship, sleep at the acquarium, would hold Webelos camping events focused on sklls development (called "Camping Like a Boy Scout"), would hold fi

That seems a very reaonsable analysis to me. An 80-85% retention rate seems pretty normal. A pack would see on average 1-2 scouts leave each year per den of 8 (or so) scouts. Up through Bears we'd generally replace those Scouts through recruiting. Dens in the wolf year tended to get bigger. Dens in the bear year were stable in size. The Webelos dens tended to drop by 1 or 2. Typically Scouts didn't start as Webelos but seemed to wait another year and start as Boy Scouts. Again, we saw a similar 80-85% continue on to Boy Scouts. Two thoughts: 60-85 cubs seems like a lot,

Hi @BlueTrails_Vet, Pardon in advnace the long winded reply... Working with the Scoutmaster When I've been in similar situations, I find I have the most success by recognizing that the current SCoutmaster is going to do what he/she is going to do. I've been able to make the most change by figuring out what the Scoutmaster cares about and what he/she doesn't. I'm generally able to get most of what I want accomplished done by letting him/her do his thing but getting his blessing for me to work on things he/sje doesn't care about. An example. In our troop, I often felt that

30-48 was good when the packs had Wolf, Bear, Webelos and Webelos II (8 to 12 per rank, four ranks ). A pack of 30-48 spread over six ranks (adding Lions and Tigers) years has too many holes (5 to 8 cubs per rank). That makes specific ranks very thin on membership. That will promote higher drop out rates and probably holes at at specific ranks or soon-to-be holes at those ranks. I'd argue with the addition of Lion and Tiger (6 school grades), straight math says a healthy pack is now 48 to 76 cubs (8 to 12 per rank, six years). I actually believe you also need to factor in at

Cool. I've loved trips like that. The key is you still have to provide qualified supervision.

Interesting topic A point that always seems to be made is that phones are "tools". Yes that is true, but the GTSS has a whole bunch of tools that cannot be used. There are also arguments made that that the guidelines are too broad, etc etc, do not take into account all things. The bottom line is that the tool matrix in GTSS is bases on maturity and expectations of maturity. Are all Scouts mature enough to handle phone correctly? Not sure. So the tool comment is entertaining as there are lots and lots of tools not allowed. While not all are listed I doubt that many units would

What really matters is not where you stay, but what you eat. You must try the donuts on Pikes Peak. They are the best.

He was tired of other kids that were essentially out of control. He had to sit and wait while some parent tried to take care of their son. The pinewood derby was also a let down. I did the power tools and let him do everything else. He really enjoyed it, until his car got trounced by the cars made by the parents. We went camping as a family so anything the pack could have done for camping, but didn't do, probably wouldn't have been as much fun. I let him climb trees. He was never that interested in the crafts. I don't think the advancement program helped much either.

Personally, I believe the program should tailored around the average parent, not pack size. The average parent works, so family time is limited. I found the average mother doesn't enjoy spending the day outdoors cooking and tying knots while bugs are buzzing around while her sweating head in the full heat of the day, or shivering from the cold. So, when the Bear leader mom who has been planning meetings that turns into one hour of herding cats three times a month for the last three years looks at the Webelos handbook, there is some hesitation. The average father of kids this age works mor

I hate backpacking on trails where horses are allowed. They chew up the trails so they are really dusty. You get stuck behind them on the trail and you're eating more dust. You get to your destination and finally find the perfect campsite only to find horse manure all over the nice flat area where you want to set up your tents. Worst of all, though, is the amount of gear that people put on those horses that they would never think to bring on their own into the wilderness. At one lake we had a horse group camping nearby with boom boxes and ice chests full of beer. Really took away from the back

Summer camp isn't supposed to be prison camp. I would never keep a scout at camp against his will. Even if he didn't bring a cell phone to camp, I would let him borrow a leader's phone to call home and ask to be picked up.

You mean you people actually use the zip-off parts?!? I have to chuckle a bit; around here in sunny SoCal I never see the full long uniform pants being worn. Even rarer are long sleeves. Out here it's all short sleeves, short pants, and low-cut socks. The nice thing about the BSA uniform is that, even with a group of Scouts wearing a different assortment of garment lengths, they still look uniform. Personally I'm grateful I can avoid wearing long pants or sleeves all together.

During the discussions of bringing gays scouts into the BSA, many suggested that the membership would grow dramatically. Several posters pointed out that no scouting organization ever improved their numbers with the member policy change, and BSA followed the trend. However, the BSA has always received a lot of support from alumni donations, of which I know fell dramatically. But, I'm curious if the many corporate sponsors who stopped donating because of the gay issue ever started giving again. Or, was the no gay adults policy, then the no girl policy, then now family scouts, and now the no at

Ours is $200/scout. I've been told that I could also charge $40-$60 per person for a camporee and the extra would go to the council. I not so politely said no. The problem in our council is that those in charge really have no idea how to run an organization. Business 101: There's no point in having a budget if you can't track it. In other words, they have no idea where they're spending money. They have staff making North of $85k a year that do nothing. Lot's of money is getting sucked out of camps, the real profit centers, to pay for these people. It used to be that lots of people donated

Ok, I'm stone axe dumb on what is being stressed. First, I don't want to get started on how scouting is turning into a rich scouts game. So much is being stressed over fund raising that no emphasis is placed on the program to deliver. Most scouters are tired of pushing popcorn and rightly so. Our council does a fund raising card in addition to popcorn. I met a new cub parent at the local scout office and they were in sticker shock after buying her cub a uniform. As a scout, I had to sell "Scout-o-Rama" tickets and that was it. We rarely ever went camping outside the one council camp. J

The level of complaining if there are not good hammocking trees is epic when we camp. Literally there is one area we have not returned to due to lack of hammock trees. On most outings (and we camp 35 - 40 Scouts) it runs about 80% hammock Hard part is judging the age of the trees to make sure they are compliant with various age issues, no more than 2 years apart and whatnot. Once you cut them down and count rings, tough to use for hammocks