Eagledad

>>There are a very few scouts in my area that aren't Christian, and I worry that they won't get a fair shake at their EBOR, if only because a well-intentioned board might not have a broad enough perspective or be open-minded enough to accept that some faiths are very different from Christianity, and that the job of the EBOR is not to determine a faith's "acceptability" through the lens of of the DRP.

>>There are plenty of places that don't require the use of fossil fuel to cook on. A #10 can makes a great stove that will still work on natural fuels rather than carrying flamable liquids into the forests. A #10 stove can burn wood, charcoal and wax. I'm not talking campfires here, I'm talking cooking fires/stoves, limited, and confined.

>> Doesn't that really indicate a training problem rather than a patrol make-up problem? Shouldn't the leaders in the troop be using the Leading/Teaching Edge principles from NYLT (Explaining, Demonstrating, Guiding, and Enabling)

I am with Stosh about using a fire. We cooked all our meals from fires when I was a scout and it is a huge confidence builder. Scouts today just can see how to do it. When my son was a Troop Guide, he taught all his new scouts to cook on the fire on their first campout. He said that for him, it was one of the fastest ways to bond them as a patrol. However, you would be surprised how many areas are regulated for stoves only. And fire bands have been very common in Oklahoma for several years. I think the problem is we develop habits and dont think out of the box when we can. I like the idea of an all fire cooking campouts to teach not only how to cook with the fire, but how to do KP as well. Anyone remember soaping the pans. Learning those simple skills will give them more choices on their future campouts. Barry

>>Alas, I'm still in the minority but there truly are two sides to every story.

>>I thought I had the Ship's officers 100% trained, I still do, but the records aren't agreeing with me.

>>If you have a few hundred dollars to spend on kitchen gear for each 6-8 scouts go for it! But keep in mind you will need several fuel bottles ($10.00 each) and two Dragonflys ($100+ each) and two smaller cook sets at$50 each (Even the "fly" has issues with an six to eight quart "pasta pot")...to do the same job as a coleman stove ($39.00) and a ($70) patrol cook kit.

We are a light weight patrol Troop. We spent lots of money several years back to build great and wonderful patrol boxes that could cripple a scout for life if he tripped. For a lot of reasons, we decided to experiment with light weight patrol gear that could be carried in with backpacks if so desired. We were at a point of needing large trucks to haul gear. So we made a decision to make the patrol portable by cars only if the need every came. There is some really good lightweight gear out there. The only disadvantage is lightweight gear is typically better quality which means higher priced. But it is typically more durable. Except for our four man dome tents, all the patrol gear fits in a milk carton including a rain fly. We typically use personal tents on backpacking trips. Stoves seem to be the main worry here, but we found the Coleman Exponent Xpedition Two Burner Stove works very well for both the troop campouts and highadventure. They are pricy at about $85 dollars, but they are very robust with only one minor failure of our six stoves in eight years of use. We use them every month on all our campouts and including all our high adventure treks like Philmont and Northern tier. Since they are two burner stoves, they are very stable on the ground. When we made the change to light weight camping, we thought the scouts would hate the shift from patrol boxes and the old Coleman stoves, but they never looked back. They hated those boxes and now all they do is take up space in storage. We have given a couple boxes to new troops looking for starter gear. Going light has worked very well for us. The boys love it. Barry

>>I went, had a blast. It rained some, it was dry some, people complained, some Scouts helped fellow Scouts as necessary. The TEAM worked.

>>Honestly I don't know how you handle this if you are actually going to let the boys really choose for themselves and you also don't want to lose those tough cases from your program.

>>It boggles the mind . . .

It is interesting that from my experiences, boys will not seriously train to get more physically in shape for a trek. The shakedowns typically are enough to let them know if they can hack it. I used to worry about the scouts not being physically in shape, but they typically do very well. At least as well as the worst performing adult. The only time we had a problem with a scout who couldnt handle it was the one who missed most of the shakedowns do to a competitive soccer schedule. And it was mental fitness that was his problem, not physical. Looking back on it now, I think he might have had mountain sickness. That was when our troop was young and learning. So as a result, we enforce the requirement of attending a minimum number of shakedowns, especially if the scout had never been on a trek before. The adults on the other hand take getting in shape pretty seriously, and they need to. We had one adult whose business prevented him from attending shakedowns for our Northern Tier Trek. He was miserable the whole trip. He took charge of the Philmont trip next year and was in training for six months. As for the bad attitude that Neil was talking about: Most of the time you can identify those guys as ones who didnt want to be their in the first place. We tried to weed them out at the shakedowns as well, but it isnt always possible. I did have a couple of the sense of entitlement adults Neal talks about. The problem there is that they tend to lie back during the shakedowns, but the stress of the long physical week erodes their patience. Since we usually took several crews, I spent a lot of time sitting with the crew adults trying get them to understand our roles in these crews. I've said before, if the adults are more excited for the trip then the scouts, you might have a problem. All in all, most of these things can be prevented before the trek starts. Barry

>>Making long lists of rules and harping on about the way it once was is not the answer. In fact at the end of the day I feel it will really scare the youth away.

>>The obvious conclusion is that they mainly car camped then too. The menu plans seem to support this with pounds of flour and raw bacon and lots of can goods.

I was just thinking that our PLC meetings were closed meetings. We have weekly meetings instead of monthly, but the SM and an ASM are the only two adults allowed in the meeting unless one got permission from the SPL prior to the meeting. I cant remember a scout who shouldnt be in the meeting ever wanting to be in a meeting, so I cant say we restricted it from them as well. But reading Schiffs post, I was reminded how we taught our SPLs to run the meetings the same as the troop CC. Our SPL was required to have a final agenda ready the night before for the SM and Patrol leaders. I taught our SPL and participants at JLTC that the SPL should know every subject that was to be discussed and have it on his agenda. If any surprise subjects pop up during the meeting, they were to be given to someone who would deal with it during the week and report on it next week. OK, I know this is off the topic, but I can say that 90 percent of the scouts who attended our JLTCs had terrible meeting skills. And almost none of them used agendas in their meetings even though examples are given in the SPL Handbooks. Our JLTC particpants had written at least 12 or more agendas before they left our four day course. I always wondered why the adults weren't teaching agendas when surely they were using them in their own meetings. Barry

>>That said, we allow all parents, as observers only, to attend our committee meetings. If some special circumstance exists, such as in Barry's example, we don't necessarily deal with it on a committee level but possibly on a subset of the committee and Scoutmaster.

>>I know of Eagle Board members who consider themselves Horatius at the Bridge to keep "atheists" from becoming Eagle Scouts.

>>It is an important difference.

>>our kids today instead of learning to be self sufficent would rather escape into a fantasy world of their own making. As Eamonn stated,scouting will become irrelevant to our youth unless we can find a way as a society to reverse this trend rather than feeding into it.

Hi All I sit here in ah reading these threads listing hypothetical scenarios intended to justify different approaches adults want to take with their program. Hey, Im all for thinking out of the box to fulfill noble visions. But supporting philosophy with hypothetical worse case scenarios and suggesting they are typical of all most troops is not a respectful approach for selling a plan. Oh Im sure there are units with some of these problems or situations, but many of us with been there done that T-Shirts know they are not typical. Now if you want to justify changes to fix or improve your own program, well that is just good managing of a scout program. But you need to understand that after doing this awhile, one begins to realize that in the big picture of youth programs, It doesnt matter if yours is the BP scouts, the Girl Scouts, Best Scouts, Conservative Church scouts, liberal Church scouts or the BSA. A good adult leader will get the same level of performance from any program because they understand the dynamics of how boys grow and they can use those dynamics to work with in the procedural restrictions of any youth program to reach the same level of performance. There is no youth program rigid enough to prevent an adult from making their unit adult run, or visa versa. How the adults work with the boys determines the quality of performance, not the designed program structure. When we understand that, we can stop trying to prop up our epiphanies by putting down all the others. I love this scouting stuff. Barry

>>My second area of expertise is in the old west and the westward migration. I have been told that I am an expert in this area. But I don't see any merit badges where I can apply my knowledge.

>>I can't understand why you would even want to tell a parent, "No, you can't come to this committee meeting. It is private."

In general, the only way to fill a lot of positions is to personally recruit. My experience is you risk liability from someone who got hurt falling out of their chair while sleeping as you explain the positions on the list and the need for help. I found people have a hard time saying no when you are looking at them strait in the eyes while asking for their help. Make sure while you beg that you explain clearly that their job won't require much of their time, but it will help out their sons program a lot. If you are not good at personal recruiting, then find someone who is and work together like a salesman. But I believe personal to person recruting is your fastest method to filling a lot of slots. Barry

>>And why those $50 hiking boots from Target aren't going to do the job.

The worst crew experience I heard was from the crew coming off the trail as we were getting on. That crew had eight days of snow, rain and hail and the daily temps hung around 60 degrees. Other than it was raining when we passed that crew, we never saw another drop of rain our 10 days on the trail and the daily temps were in the 70s. Luck of the draw I guess. Also at 19, your son will be treated as an adult and that has some added benefits. Barry