eisely

This from the Investor's Business Daily: "President Obama's nonrecess "recess appointments" can't be excused as over-the-top electioneering. This president has crossed over from socialistic extremism into lawlessness and, perhaps, impeachability. The U.S. Constitution established a strong presidency so strong that even one of the most esteemed founding fathers, Patrick Henry, worried it would be kinglike. But this week saw a president exceed even those broad constitutional powers because doing so fits his election-year narrative of a "do-nothing Congress" so well. Now we have t

Our troop uses troopmaster on a dedicated laptop owned by the troop. Since everyone in the troop has access to rosters anyway, I think the concern about information lingering on desktops is somewhat overblown. Anyway, the laptop is a more ideal solution and laptops are not nearly as expensive as they used to be. It is the care and custody of the advancement coordinator who brings it to all troop meetings. Boys can report their work regularly and it is input into the files immediately.(This message has been edited by eisely)

President Obama's recent "recess" appointments clearly violate the constitution. Anybody worried about that?

In my capacity as district eagle project reviewer/approver I have in the past told some of the eagle candidates who have come before me that one of the life lessons they are getting out of their project is how to deal with a bureaucracy. This is still true.

Mad Max: There is another step that is being overlooked in this discussion. That step is the council review to determine completion of all requirements prior to the EBOR. Even if no EBOR ever sees a completed project workbook, I would expect the council office to still demand it. In my experience, the council review has been pro forma, and not concerned with the quality of the project per se. Rather, have all the i's been dotted and t's crossed. Although the entire project process imposes somewhat heavier burdens on units, that is where the burden belongs. Many units don't help

Scoutnut is correct. One can set up an account, but you won't get any credit for it as a registered volunteer until the data is complete.

You will need to know your BSA membership number in order to set up an online account. Assuming you are a registered adult volunteer, the number is on your membership card. If you do not have it contact your committee chair who should have the chartering information.

I would definitely talk to the SM ASAP to ascertain if the SM is aware of the time pressure, and if so, why does he want to deny a POR to the scout. There may well be more to this than appears to meet the eye.

Get Outdoors misses the point of Introduction to Outdoor Leader Skills. No one expects proficiency out of inexperienced trainees. Like Seattle Pioneer, I participate as a trainer for OLS twice a year in a three district combined effort. The people who go through it, both experienced and inexperienced, all widely praise our course. The training staff also picks up ideas from the trainees over time. Some straightforward lecture is unavoidable, but we make our training as hands on as possible, with numerous live demonstrations. Some suggestions: Try to set up round robins.

Returning to the question as asked.... The new advancement guidelines may have something to say about this and I confess that I have not picked those up yet to study them. Be that as it may, in my mind the SM has a great deal of latitude in handling the SMC for eagle. I always viewed signatures and initials in the scout's handbook as a backup record system, in the event the troop records are incomplete. Since we use Troopmaster on a dedicated laptop, it is easy to print out a report of all the information that the troop has recorded. As a scoutmaster I would want to see that, copies o

On Novembefr 22, 1963 I was in Charleston, SC preparing to depart for my first permanent duty station in Germany. I was at a car wash getting my car cleaned so I could turn it in for shipment when the word came over the radio. I don't recall reacting in any particular way to the event since I was very focused on the things I had to accomplish to be ready to board the airplane the next day. Further I was not a fan of JFK so I did not feel any sense of personal loss. The country did go into shock, but that did not delay the flight schedule. By the time we finally arrived at Frankfurt am

Last June, we put together a 50 miler on the Sacramento River above the City of Sacramento. Put in at Red Bluff. Biggest problem was identifying places to camp as most of the land is either farmland or off limits habitat. We were able to put eight people in four canoes, with an adult in each canoe. River was running very fast. On our last day we covered over 20 miles in about 4 1/2 hours, including breaks. Maximum speed obtained (per GPS) exceeded 10 mph on occasion.

Eagle92, Not to worry. All can be explained. Unfortunately the space limitations here will not allow a full explanation. As far as I know, all maps published by USGS are published oriented on true North. Hence the need for declination when working with a compass. The UTM system establishes "grid North" within its grid zone. The globe is divided into 60 grid zones at the equator. Within each grid zone, grid North never changes. One will occasionally see civilian maps with declination diagrams showing grid North in addition to true North and magnetic North. What you thi

I have to agree that the use of the word "trust" here is probably not the best choice. But I do not have an immediate alternative. There will always be an issue in any volunteer organization that uses paid help to perform various tasks at different levels. By definition the paid help has built in differences in priorities that volunteers do not have. Does that mean that scouting should not use paid help for anything? Clearly not. In general, the closer the paid help is to actual units, the more I trust them simply because I see more of them and tend to know them by first name.

Beavah, I think that YP standards are about more than just protecting the institution and have benefited youth who might otherwise have been targeted. The mere existence of such standards would discourage many pedophiles from even attempting anything. I also have always advocated that every parent should sit through the YP training which is now accessible on line, even if that parent is unwilling or unable to volunteer in any capacity to support the organization. All parents should be aware of the standards at all times. This will help them understand and identify situations that are

In reading about the Penn State scandal, one is forced to the conclusion that BSA's YP standards have not only protected by and large both youth and adult members, but have also served the institution very well. The fact that Sandusky was able to set up his own charitable organization to serve youth and use it to serve his own perverse goals shows just how vulnerable youth serving organizations can be to ill intended pedophiles seeking to identify and exploit targets of opportunity. It is too bad that Joe Paterno and others have fallen from grace in this scandal, but they all had numerou

If I am not mistaken, Brunton was purchased by Silva several years ago. I do not know if any Brunton products are made in the USA today. In fairness to Brunton, they have historically made some outstanding products. It is just their current basic orienteering compass offerings that I don't care for. The original Brunton "pocket transit" was designed by Mr. Brunton (actually a Canadian) over 100 years ago and is still a competitive product for high accuracy work.

Silva is a Swedish company. There is a Finnish company called Suunto that makes compasses of comparable quality to Silva.

Regarding purchasing compasses in bulk, you may be able to get some kind of discount through REI. Our council owns a set of Silva orienteering compasses we use for training. I suspect it is something one has to order. I think there are 40 compasses in the carrying case. Here are my personal tips for purchasing orienteering compasses: 1. Make sure it is liquid filled. 2. Make sure it has a full set of orienting lines in the bezel. Some Brunton compasses do not. 3. Do not purchase a compass with a tinted baseplate. You will want to be able to use this compass with a map, an

My wife and I were in Washington DC last week. Among other things we went by the Viet Nam memorial on Friday. There was a huge mob of people there. Every time I visit the wall I look up one of my comrades in arms, Lieutenant Robert Van Patten. Lt. Van Patten was one of several newly commissioned lieutenants assigned to our battallion when it was activated in October of 1966. We deployed as a unit to Viet Nam in May of 1967. In November of 1967 Lt. Van Patten was killed trying to retrieve some injured GIs in a fire fight. For this he was awarded the Silver Star and of course, a Purpl

Our troop meets on most Tuesdays and the cutoff for most overnighters is usually the Tuesday before the outing. For some things the cutoff is much earlier, particularly where serious up front cash is required. Depending on the nature of the event and available seating, we are sometimes lenient when the outing is a day trip of some kind and no food has been purchased.

I think I finally figured out what Obama really meant with his campaign theme from 2008, namely "hope and change." He was anticipating that few of his ideas would actually work and he would be forced to repeatedly change his policies and hope the new policies would produce the desired result.

I have used the franchise model in many of my discussions with parents and new scouters, because that is exactly what the chartering process is. One major difference between McDonald's and scouting though, is that McDonald's pays secret shoppers to verify consistency on a sampling basis. I can't imagine BSA doing something like that.

fred8033, To respond to your question, if a boy has legitimately completed all the requirements, the mere fact that he drops off the map for a period of months is not, in my mind, a reason to deny advancement. Further, there is no reason for not automatically advancing the boy if he completed his BOR, even if the boy does not show up at a court of honor to receive the recognition. Beavah's point, as usual, is well taken. Where is the SM in all this? Of all the youth facing adult leaders the SM has the clearest responsibility for monitoring the boys in the troop. If a boy disappea

fred8033, Denying advancement to any rank is a serious matter and should not be done lightly. Particularly so as regards the eagle rank. In the situation that you describe, if the only problem was lag between cleanly completing all requirements and applying for the eagle, I don't think there would be any grounds for denying the eagle to such a scout.