Eagledad

>>When offered the choice between electing the best person for the job or electing someone who needs a POR they always seem to choose the one who needs it. I can't imagine a troop voting down a boy for Eagle except in the most extreme circumstance.

Hi all There is a story by the AP today where a NY court is deciding whether strip tease dancing is a form of art or not. http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_LAP_DANCE_TAXES?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-09-05-02-47-07 ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) -- They may never be confused with "Swan Lake," but an upstate New York strip club says its nude lap dances are every bit as much an art form and should be exempt from state taxes. Ah, teaching the lap dance at your daughters next dance class. I can't wait for the next recital. My wife and I used to buy season tickets each year for the Oklahoma City Theater where we enjoyed Broadway caliber plays. A few years ago the company put on a play that had a lot of what we felt was pretty R rated acts. The Oklahoma City Theater lost our season ticket loyalty. That was several years ago and Im guessing the company took a pretty good hit because I still folks defending that play. One of the justifications for the play was portraying that time in history accurately. This led folks to the saying; "one mans porn is another mans history lesson." When I say that homosexuality is a contributor to anti-family culture, this is article is an example of what Im talking about. Stripping is not the main contributor to an immoral culture nor is homosexuality. But when one dangerous form of immorality becomes accepted as normal, it leads to the next immoral taboo and so on until all immoral taboos are sacrificed for freedom of personal expression. Its like the frog in a pot of hot water. Porn is porn. Acceptance of porn leads folks to other dangerous behaviors that are harmful to themselves and to their family. I remember about 20 years ago when a CM was fighting to remain a CM after it was learned that she was a stripper. Yes, I know folks on this forum find strippers as accetable role models for cub scouts. But if a cub scout can't visit their role models at work, are they setting an acceptable example of a community leader? I think we are about at that place where there are no more immoral taboos. Parents will struggle to define the line between freedom of personal expression and behaviors that are not considered healthy. I don't care how progressive you think you are, when you open your front door and a pot smoking half dressed tatooed teenager babysitter is waiting to be invited in, you are likely finding that line. Sadly we as a culture are letting pop Political correctness dictate our choices, not common sense or even religious instruction. Even now folks today are ridiculed when they openingly express their intolerance of immoral behavior. Hey, it's OK because it's just a form of art, right. It's imitating history, or it not in public site, there or no victims, and on and on. There seems to be a lot of reasons for acceptance of immoral behavior in our culture. How far out is the new fad of lap dancing to loose weight? I can see another political cause to gain votes. Barry

I read a few days ago that Chicago is now some kind of racist word. This kind of silliness is creating a generation of the population that doesnt have a clue what racism really is. Barry

Hi all Everything that has been said is true, however the one factor that isnt being discussed is the problem of getting cubs to the troops. The BSA loses over half of the families crossing from Cubs to Scouts. Also, and I don't know the exact figure because it has changed (for the worst), but we lose a lot of Webelos going from first year to second year. Now I blame the daunting 5 year Cub program, but we are stuck with it and need to find some way of attacking the problem broadside. A troop representative for the pack is an idea that might be worth testing. I don't think the rep has to be very active, just take on an advisory role, especially at the Webelos level. If the pack could get the advice of an experienced scouter, it might help make the pack leaders job easier for everyone. As for the troop, Im wondering how hard it would be to ask an ASM to be an advisor for the pack. Take responsibility to coordinate some Webelos/Troop activities and do Den Chief training for the Den Leader and Scout. At the very least, if the troop rep could just identify a week Webelos den, that would be a huge step in trying to help those scouts. I know a lot of us have already or still work with the pack, but it's not accepted as a general idea at the District level. That's what I'm suggesting here. Until National figures out that their biggest problem in scouting today is the five year Cub program, we will have to come up with our own fixes. I think its worth a try. Barry

>>The Eagle rank was never meant to be "the best of the best" or represent expert level outdoor and leadership skills.

Wow CC, that is a deep well thought out post. I have one question; What? I must say the discussion went a different direction than I expected. All I was suggesting was "What if we let the scouts pick eagles based from their experience with the scout?". Then I played the devils advocate to defend the idea. Maybe "what ifs" are best left to engineers. I don't really think there is a problem to fix. Oh sure I would love to get rid of the silly no adding requirements and no retesting political correctness, but overall the system works. yes, I think there are some good ideas that could tune the system, but they have very little effect on the whole. And I know Guy and his SM are going a direction they don't want to go, but in most cases like Guy's, the scout started off on the wrong foot and wasn't corrected in time. It happens, even the bible says wisdom comes at a price. I'm glad Guy is making the effort. He is a good man. I do kind of like that weekend of testing idea. Um, that wouldn't be on a football weekend would it? Barry

>>The problem is time. It's hard to be involved in a Pack and a Troop at the same time. I did it for almost a year as WDL and Troop Advancement chair. I thought it stretched me to thin.

My bad NJ. Localisms sometimes get lost in translation on forums. For the longest time I thought Beavah was Cajun. Come to find out hes from Minnesota? LOL Barry

>>And I have news for you

>>He gets it, he works well with the youth, and he knows how to keep the gear lined up. He also knows how to work with the adult member of the committee. But...He is not a "leader." He is not the one that has a group of Scouts following him into the woods. He is more of a lone wolf type without the natural outgoing charisma that leads to elected positions in a unit.

>>Maybe the answer is an additional award.

>>You're not really suggesting we do away with that, right?

Ive been watching the Eagle and EBOR discussions with some amusement. As someone who enjoys observing human behavior, it is interesting to watch how we on this forum tear apart traditional parts of this long standing program. These discussions got me thinking of what the Eagle represents and how Barry would go about finding the scouts who best represent the award. When I was a young lad in scouting, the Arrowmen was the most respected scout in the troop, not the Eagle. Back then only two scouts from each troop were allowed to be selected (by vote of the scouts) from each troop to go to ordeal. Ordeal back then was like the Special Forces boot camp of the BSA. Or so the rumors say. An arrowmen was the best of the best. Not only in scout skills and leadership, but also as teachers, guides and even mentors. These guys had the respect of the scouts they led. They had to be at least 14 years old, long enough to develop the reputation required to be voted by their peers to represent the whole. These guys were almost Zen like in their stature. So I was thinking, how could we guarantee Eagles were truly the person the general population expects from these scouts? How could we take the burden off the present hit or miss system of selecting these outstanding BSA representatives? Well how about letting the scouts in each troop vote for only one or two Eagles every year? No longer would the SM feel the weight of measuring scout spirit or a being active. No more worries about record keeping of MBs or selecting the best counselors. No more of these tedious EBORS. NO MORE APEEALS. Whoo Hooo! Scouts know the true leaders. They know who serves them and who serves their egos. They know who has presents skills and who uses them. They know who practices the scout law and who recites it. Let them pick the true Eagles. Let the scouts carry the weight of selecting our best. Oh of course the BSA will have to change their vision of branding big herds of Eagles, but maybe the stellar reputation of the new modern Eagle will drive parents to put their sons in a program where the Eagle is a higher goal than president of the United States. Maybe the program will raise itself a notch because it has to become the worthy of training the best of the best. Still, there are challenges to this vision. Im not sure it could go in todays politically correct environment where mediocrity is dominant over ambition and excellence. There would be a strong drive for balance just like the Order of the Arrow program. Such a program would have to withstand the challenges of additional requirements and retesting. Still, I throw the idea in the hat for discussion with the rest of the forums out-of-the-box ideas. Barry

One of the traditionally best recognized troops in our district had two outstanding scouts who alternated between SPL and ASPL for three years. Their SM was new when they started their senior leadership and quite frankly let the boys run the troop, because as I said they were outstanding. The troop has had a great reputation for 80 years, but it almost doubled in size while these scouts were the leaders. When they turned 18, the SM didnt know what to do. There were no senior leaders to follow those two scouts. The SM panicked and left six months later with the troop falling apart. The SM failed that troop because he didnt understand the concept of training your replacement. Those two scouts did everything for that troop and did it well, except train their replacements. Even the PLs lack the skills to step up when the troop needed them. Every leader, no matter the responsibility needs to have replacement. The SM certainly should be working side by side with their future replacement, the CC does the same. The PL has the APL. The APL should count on the QM and so on. The assistant should perform some of the duties of the leader they are assisting. I trained my SPL to stand in one place so that he was forced to allow those around him run the program. The scouts knew where to find him if they needed assitance. Not only do the assistant scouts practice new skills that will give them a resume for the future responsibilities, they also learn skills they dont enjoy. Not all scouts like responsibility, being an assistant is how they learn if its their cup of tea. I would suggest that all your youth leaders find their replacements and start training them. It will take a while to figure out how it works, but once it does, you will find that your senior or top youth leaders will serve the program by actively selecting and pushing young scouts into training responsibilities for their future and the future of the troop. If a 12 year old shows some ambition toward leadership, make sure he is on the path to PL. If you have a proven PL, push him into PLC. Dont allow one scout to dig such a big hole of responsibility that the program gets stuck when he leaves. Barry (This message has been edited by eagledad)

Hand out the awards at den meeting and recognize the scouts at pack meetings by handing out their cards. Don't need to interrupt roller skating night with a boring awards ceremony. Barry

>>So you explain to the the well-meaning-but-misguided-adult that his "take-over" idea doesn't teach boys planning skills and doesn't further the purposes of Scouting.

I've seen this a few times, you have very aggressive adults who are building their unit by aggressively taking advantage of fair minded adults who just don't think that way. They simply dont care what happens to your unit. It has nothing to do with the performance of your troop program, it's only about making there troop the biggest and best. If this is the case, getting them out of the pack is the first step to get the conflict out of the cub program. It won't completely go away but it will help. Then I would call the DE and ask for advise (help). Your pack is going to be a battle ground in the future for two troops. That is fine when the troops aren't overtly aggressive, but it drives families out of scouting in situations like yours. In my experience however, adults like this don't usually backdown very much even after a third party counseles with the two units. Hopefully your COR is understanding, but there is only so much that can be done. Don't loose you composer, I have seen friendships lost over it. Run the best programs that you can and just be proactive in letting the families in your pack know about you troop program. Good luck. Barry

>>In our troop, the Scout is required to talk to the AC (or soon, the Troop Scribe) about recording advancement.

Kind of funny, my experience on this subject occured about 20 years ago. But I don't have any regrets because I was a new SM and looked at the expereinces as learning how to do it better next time. Fred is right, these problems typically start way back at tenderfoot. That is the lesson learned, but the application still isn't as simple as it sounds. Barry

One of the phrases I gave to visiting Webelos parents was that our job was building your son into the man who makes the right decisions when his boss calls him into work while his wife is sick in bed and three kids are crying for breakfast. But now I have the widom of life and agree with Pack: ""I sometimes think scouting is there to help keep them alive long enough until their female counterparts have developed the means and skills to take over and keep them alive as husbands."" Yep Yep

>>Now I use 3 x 5 cards and a pocket calendar and it works for me. I would expose them to different methods and let the boys figure out what works.

If someone wanted to donate a tent to your scouts, is there an address you could post that wouldn't require exposing their identity? Barry

Tents are a difficult piece of equipment for backpacking Troops. Most backpacking troops in reality are troops where the scouts may backpack a couple times a year and maybe one high adventure a year. So youre basically left with nine or ten nonbackpacking weekend campouts a year. That means you need a tent stout enough to hold up to a couple years of plain old camping, and light enough for a couple backpacking campouts. Im not sure there really is an ideal tent for that kind of troop. I admit Ive been out of the troop camping business for a few years and tents technology changes every year, so I dont know whats out there now. But our backpacking patrols eventually moved to stout four man camping tents for nonbackpacking campouts, and personal light weight tents all for the rest. That seems like and expensive way to go, but in reality the scouts found pretty good deals for the kind of tents they personally wanted to use. Typically an observer on our campouts would see two or three of the hardy stout tents with one or two personal tents in each patrol. As our troop gained to more experience, both the adults and scouts got better at determining the best tents for each trip. For example, we found campsites in the Northern Tier trips was very limited in size, so we tried to keep the number of tents small by using 3 and 4 man backpacking tents. However, two man tents were better on full week backpacking trips in the mountains beacuse they packed a lot better. Sometimes scouts to use single man backpacking tents if it worked with the crew number. Philmont doesnt allow single scouts in tents. Then there is the style of tents to consider. T2Eagle has given some great advice. Through the years we learned two entrance tents work better for backpacking because it allows each person to enter and exit with minimal disruption to the other occupant. Keeping mud and dirt out of the tent becomes a high priority for comfort through the week, so a little time is required to sit in a tent entrance while taking off the boots outside. No big deal on a nice evening, but if it is raining cats and dogs, somebody is left standing in the rain waiting for the other to get dang shoes off. Then there is that stuff you leave outside the tent but under the vestibule like the boots and raingear. Two vestibule entrances just work better. We spend most of our backpacking in the Rockies, and mountain showers in the afternoon are more common than not, so we learned the faster you can set up a tent, the less messy it will get inside. We found that tents with sleeves for the poles were painfully slow compared to tents with hooks. And then what about those tents that required a dozen poles to hold it up. I personally like no more than two poles for the tent and maybe one for the vestibule. Oh, if you dont think a self-standing tent is a big deal, try finding some hard ground for that stakes of a non-selfstanding in a mountain forest with six inches of tree compost. Its not any fun running out in the rain every hour at night resetting that stake. I know other folks have other advice from their experiences, but T2Eagle reminded me of the advantages of different tents. Barry

>>Being lazy forces a person to get by in life by developing other skills than actually being a contributor.

>>Actually, I do a good deal of recruiting adult leaders as well as youth. The "Was I too BOLD?" thread illustrates how I helped a unit recruit a new Cubmaster and Committee Chair after the departing Cubmaster was ready to give up.