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Eagle69

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Everything posted by Eagle69

  1. Hopefully someone at the Unit level or District level will "advise" him that he has bitten off more than he can chew. If I was the District reviewer and saw plans to build a 48 foot bridge I would turn it back. The 17 foot one would be ok. I've built about a half dozen bridges for Eagle Projects and they were all major jobs and we are talking no more than 20 feet in length. As for the Ranger; most of them are happy to have the free labor and will show a boy anything on their list of projects without regard as to how big it is going to be. They don't understand.
  2. Thankfully in our district it's a fairly low key process. Once the project is approved at the Troop level the boy is given the phone number of the District Eagle Adviser and told to contact him. Once contact is made he is told who to contact to review his project. The reviewer will look over it and give the boy feedback as to any questions, improvements, or approval usually within a couple of days after receiving it. Approval if not done on first draft is usually in a week or so if everybody responds promptly. After project completion when the boy is ready for his board the SM contacts the
  3. Hiking is hiking, be it in the city or out in the country. It may be called different things by different people. I got my Eagle in 69 and came back into the program as an adult in 77 which was the "Urban Scout" era when you could get Eagle without ever camping. As to making Backpacking a requirement, I would say No. There are way too many kids that don't have access to the gear and if it was required would try it with a big duffel bag and be miserable and might quit. Whether a troop backpacks or not depends to some degree on its leaders. If the leaders are into it and can guid
  4. Based on everything I have read and seen the Unit did exactly what they were supposed to before starting out, but mother nature threw a curve at them. I live in Arkansas and believe nobody was predicting a 500 year flood for the weekend on the Thursday before, the forecast just called for rain and some thunderstorms. The group had planned on exiting the woods on Sunday so they assumed they would be gone before it had been raining for awhile. The SM said they still had hot food when rescued, but were starting to ration it some. They were camped on high ground in no danger and were warm and d
  5. I'm not sure a hand held radio would have done any good in that area. It is known for being a dead zone. If I recall when the flood hit last year a state trooper who was camping in the area had to drive up the road in order to get the word out using his police radio.
  6. Let's see, I've been a Scout Leader for 34 years with 3 troops. 2 Years as ASM, followed by 28 as SM, and now back to ASM again. I never did Scout Leader Basic, but went to Woodbadge and got my beads. I was grandfathered as graduating Scout Leader Basic and then spent the next 10 years on SLBT Staff serving every role from Patrol Counselor to SM. I've done YP, Safety Afloat and Safe Swim more times than I can remember and here is what BSA has for my training. Do they consider me trained? New Leader Essentials Wood Badge The Troop Meeting Troop Organization The Outdoor Program
  7. Looking at the picture I would vote for the short pole to be for the flag as well, especially since they brag about it. I think it's dumb, but this is BSA.
  8. Here is what is posted on the Philmont Website: You must bring your own stoves. Philmont trading posts carry white gas, max fuel, stoves, and spare parts. If your crew uses butane, plan to carry the empty cartridges with you since they create a hazardous disposal problem in the backcountry.
  9. As SM I presented 27 Eagle Badges all of which had my name on their application. Of those 27 I think I participated in 5 or 6 projects and that was all I did was be a worker bee. If the SM is contacting the one benefiting from the project and is there telling the boy what he should be doing then this isn't the Scout's Eagle Project and the benefactor shouldn't sign the approval.
  10. As noted if you are talking about a tent that is only going to used 3-4 times a year in nice weather then about anything will work for awhile, if you want something that will last and hold up in 3 seasons all weather then I would check some of the Eureka Family tents. Here is a link to CAMPMOR's family tents. http://www.campmor.com/gear/tents/family-tents.shtml
  11. Keeping in mind that it's been over 20 years since I did this, but my troop was serious about Backpacking for 10+ years. We car camped at camporees and the first campout of the year, but that was it. The Troop invested in Eureka Timberline tents and they were great for what ever type of camping you did. Back then we were using Coleman Peak-1 stoves so we provided the white gas. Everything else from pots, stoves, packs, etc. was provided by the boy. Later we acquired some packs as kids aged out and stopped backpacking so the parents gave us their pack. They and I learned that wh
  12. As I stated I didn't do the normal WB course. Some of what I've read, especially the part about teaching outdoor skills at WB sound more like what we did at the outdoor session of the old Scouters Basic Training course. Of course we did lots of course wide demos that weekend, but often times when the Patrol Counselors got into the campsites with the adults was when some of the real outdoor skill teaching went on. You might find that you had a few people with outdoor and scoutcraft skills, but a majority might be green as could be. When we found that then all the stuff associated with setti
  13. My course was a Walking(Backpacking) Course so that played a role in things. 1. Moderate to good. I am an Eagle Scout 2. 11 Leadership Skills, working together as a patrol, paying close attention to all announcements and being sure to pay attention when you were the PL 3. I don't remember, but since we were cooking on Backpack stoves probably not more than 2-3 hours since you only "cooked" breakfast and dinner. We were constantly on the go. You would get up in the morning and have part of the crew cooking and part breaking camp since within a short time after breakfast was over
  14. When I was doing District Advancement there were two of us. The project would come in and the Advancement Chair would read it and make his notes and then without revealing anything to me would hand over the write up for me to review, then we would get back together and compare notes. All contact back to the boy was done by him. We never went out and checked on a project once approved. When it was time for his EBOR one or both of us would represent the District. Currently there are 3-4 reviewing projects. You call the Advancement Chair and he tells you who to contact for your project.
  15. As a proud graduate of Wood Bage from 1978 I don't recall a lot of "teaching" of Scoutcraft skills. We used a lot of Scoutcraft in learning the leadership part, but I don't recall the staff spending any time teaching these skills. I did do a Walking(a euphemism for Backpacking) Wood Badge and we were on the move most of the time so maybe that is a reason for the difference.
  16. I had a kid pull a pot of boiling water off a backpack stove onto his foot on a backpack trip in the middle of a wilderness area. Another scout saw it happen and immediately had him go put his foot in the cold creek water. The adults put him in his tent and treated for shock and watched him. A few hours later he said he was hungry so we knew he was ok. The next day we divided his pack among the group, put a big tennis shoe on his foot and hiked out, we had to cross a river to get back and so one of the adults carried him across it. The doctors later told his parents that the action of the
  17. Living in Arkansas and just up the road from where this took place I figured the link was about this case. Nowhere does it say a thing about his Eagle Rank being revoked and I don't recall reading anything locally about it in all the publicity either. The kid back that climbed up in the tower at the University of Texas with a rifle and shot people was an Eagle Scout and I never heard anything about his Eagle being revoked. I'm willing to bet that once someone makes Eagle and that there is nothing National can do. It wouldn't matter anyway because then it come out as former Eagle Scout a
  18. It's once a year in Quapaw Council in Arkansas. There isn't enough participants or staffers to offer it more often.
  19. I can go back 30 years and there has always been a requirement for someone from the District to review and approve the project before it could be started on, but there has never been any formal presentation required. When I was on the Eagle Review committee we just got a copy of the project write up and looked over it and either contacted the boy or his SM if we had any questions. That is still the way things are being done in our Council. Once approved at the Troop level the boy contacts the District Advancement Chair who tells him who his Eagle Project Counselor will be and then it's betw
  20. Back in the 80's and early 90's when I was doing Scout Leader Basic Training it wasn't about Leadership it was all about Scouting and how the program was supposed to operate. The course was usually a 1 night, 1 day classroom setting and finished up with a Saturday/Sunday Overnighter. It was here that we got a chance to show them some basic things like knots, compass, tent pitching and some non traditional cooking skills. Lot's of times when we would be back in the campsite helping them set up we would discover that the patrol might not have anybody that really knew anything about camping.
  21. You are the Chair that doesn't mean that you are supposed to do it all yourself. As has been said you need to recruit a dependable staff big enough to handle everything and then assign them various duties to carry out. Back in the old days 80's - 90's I used to be on Scout Leader Basic Staff and acted as Patrol Counselor, QM, SPL, ASM and SM. The SM only had a few actual parts in the program, he mostly floated around keeping tabs on everything because he made sure that he recruited enough dependable Scouters to do the job. If the QM had a lot of chores he made sure that he had enou
  22. There is one in Arkansas. Pine Trail Reservation - Camp Cedar Valley belonged to the Eastern Arkansas Area Council and was located outside of Viola, AR. It was a nice camp of 1500 acres or so with a Jr. Olympic Swimming Pool dinning hall, medical building, admin building, plus a 40 acre lake. Back in the 90's EAAC went bankrupt and the territory it covered was taken over by the Quapaw Area Council. Quapaw had a nice camp and didn't want another one so the camp was sold to a private individual, who happens to be a Scouter. The camp has been remodeled with all of the small buildings being
  23. "Variation a previous question: Should a Life Scout, etc. not fall into the same category ... wearing the uniform for special occasions? What's the difference? " I guess it gets back to what we have always told our Eagle Scouts: "Once you achieve this rank you will always be an Eagle Scout as opposed to those that didn't who can only say they were a Boy Scout". It's just a matter of perception.
  24. Get with your Troop Advancement person ASAP. If you are using Troop Master they need to check it first and see if your MB's are recorded there, then get a copy of your Advancement record from the Council to make sure everything matches. Don't wait until you are ready to start filling out the Eagle App. I can't speak to Blue Cards because it's been 4 years since I've done anything with Advancement and back then the Council never saw a blue card, everything was turned in on the multipart form or we just submitted a signed Troop Master report. We filed all of our copy of the Advanceme
  25. Last year I lost one of my long time ASM"s to cancer. At his memorial service all the Eagles from 3 years ago that knew up showed up with at least their uniform shirt on and their Eagle badge pinned to it. None of them were actively registered anymore, but I was proud that they dressed the way they did to show their respect of him. In this case and the Eagle COH I wouldn't say a word.
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