elfdream

I found one of my ancestoral names among the sept names. Lawson. Who knew!

And let's not forget the personal life. Since you are gone most nites and alot of weekends it is very stressful. I had one coworker, a pro with 15 years, who was on wife #3. Two of my coworkers had their wives leave them, and my wife threatened to divorce me after 3 months of marriage. Further as a volunteer, I've seen 2 additional DEs' marriages end, including one of our camp directors. And let's not forget that your Aqautics boss in '96 also got a divorce when he was a pro. LOTS of stress.

I'm the wife of a DE. He's in charge of a rural district and is gone several nights a week AND he is also the Camp Director in the summer. I'm not about to leave him because I believe what he is doing is important and the fact that I'm also in Scouting myself helps. (I'm a Venturing Advisor). When Summer camp comes we take the family up there and work...I'm the Head Commissioner and our son is a merit badge counselor. Its great BUT I also realize that not every couple has this "Steve and Terry Irwin' relationship when it comes to Scouting or even working together. I realize that we are the exception rather than the rule which is why I am able to support him completely in this. If your wife doesn't realize the importance of this job and can't agree to support you 150% don't do it. Perhaps it might be a good idea if the wives of other DEs could talk to her so she would know what to expect.

My husband had to prop up a sagging district and so far he's been able to meet the recruitment and fund raising goals. His biggest head aches are trying to play peace maker between warring personalities. He's had to 'fire' on Scoutmaster and a woman who did NOT want the job had to step up and take over just to keep the troop going. He's had to mediate with another group who wanted their Cubmaster out and for reason's we still can't figure out because she runs a great pack and on and on....if he could just get the people involved to settle down and do what they are supposed to without messing in business that is no concern of theirs maybe he could get more done!

He was a SM when our oldest son was in Scouts and now he goes to troop meeting and is just a 'dad' with our youngest. If you have kids in Scouting be prepared to pull back on your involvement in that area.

Can you get along with the other Pros on the Council? There's always that 'one' person in every office that drives everyone nuts. Can you work with this person?

I would say that for the most part with a few exceptions he's pretty happy and glad that he took this job. So am I.

I'm with you on the National Anthem.

Oh dear. Our youngest is working hard to 'Eagle Out' in the spring. I guess my husband will just have to give it all up when that happens.

The only 'real' problem I have had with the LDS was one time we had a young man on summer camp staff who happened to belong to that church. That was an interesting summer..we had a Buddhist, a Jewish staffer and at least two Catholics and everyone else was either mainline Protestant or evangelical Protestant. For the most part he was a great worker and very popular with the other staffers and campers alike but he was the one with the agenda to 'convert'. He would manage to somehow steer every conversation toward his religion. There were complaints. The Camp Director saw what he was doing and didn't hire him back this past summer and he would have done the same had it been a Bible thumping Baptist acting in such a manner. The young man has expressed an interest in coming back and the CD says he would be happy to rehire him will have to understand that certain activities are just not permitted while working on camp staff.

Apart from that the LDS units have been great to work with. One Unit leader was the ASM for my recent Wood Badge Course and he will be the CD for the course next summer.

I'm glad I'm not in California. I'm just in a state that after years of being taken for granted by one party is still even as I type being constantly courted for votes. Its a bit different.

We have a lot of OOC troops at our camp. We have a small council and a small camp but we apparently have established a good enough reputation to bring these people in. In fact we had some reps from a neighboring council show up to see what it was that we were doing that made their troops want to come here. The thing is we don't go 'looking' for OOC troops. They just show up.

We also get the 'We go to an out of council camp every other year and we picked you this year" kind of traffic and we have a few troops in our council that do the same thing. They seem to balance each other out.

We do the paper bracelet thing for ALL visitors to camp...male or female.

All I know is on Saturday of the Second Week-end the SM said that if he didn't make it there by the end of the day he would have to repeat it all again next year.

My Husband had to miss part of the first Saturday morning for an unbreakable appointment (court date..no, it wasn't about anything he had done and they allowed him to return but then again he is also a District Exec.

Let's see, a bear poked his nose into one of the tents in the campsite just up from us..and it belonged to a woman who was a brand new Pack leader and the campsite down from us sent their lone woman up to ask us for a left handed smoke shifter. We sent her back with the air horn that we had used for our skit.

The resort campground a mile away had an all night music festival but all we heard was the bass lines and the drums. We were awakened in the night thinking it was some kind of weird secret WB ceremony that had somehow not leaked out...

Then our Troop Guide who happened to work for FEMA got called away by Hurricane IKE and one of our patrol members came down with a blood clot in his arm and had to miss two days but was allowed back by the SM under the condition that his patrol 'catch him up' on what he had missed.

But I assume you mean the actual course which I just finished.

As far as I could tell the staff followed the syllabus down to the letter. They didn't add or subtract anything...and what was important to me was that everyone took the training seriously. There was no 'weak links' among the staff but at the same time they made it 'fun' and it wasn't at all boring. I don't know how they did that but they pulled it off. Good energetic staff members are a must for this kind of thing.

I can't pick out 'one' special moment...maybe it was back in the campsite teaching our newly recovered patrol member all of the things we had learned ourselves...or the campfire that we had to hold inside because it rained...or the "Scouts Own' service in our outdoor chapel...it was pretty much all good.

There have been several versions of this over the years. I do remember one that stated that Mel Gibson would be tried for treason (I'm assuming over Brave Heart and The Patriot) but that one quietly disappeared when it was pointed out that he is in fact an American.

The Spellchecker thing is a real pain to a lot of my Anglosphere friends. I LIKE having spelling that is unique and different from the rest of the English speaking world and they shouldn't feel forced to adapt to it.(This message has been edited by elfdream)

At our camp we have under 18 year olds teach classes (my son was among them) and the 18 year olds sign the cards. They keep the level of teaching up by giving small rewards to those who had high evaluation marks at the end of the week. Some don't approve of this method but it worked. We also had a teacher trainer come in during staff week to give a seminar on 'how to teach a merit badge class'. It helped us to find new ways to teach Citizenship in the World! We had complaints about this and that but few about the actual teaching.

I was Handicraft Director one summer and all my staff was under 18 but I was right there with them and could observe how they taught their classes. One of them did so well (he's 18 now) that he will probably be the director next summer.(This message has been edited by elfdream)

When all else fails blame the women.

Seriously has anyone noticed a change in the Scouts themselves? At our camp the first time campers traditionally took this long hike up a small ridge where they could look down and get a wonderful view of the camp and the surrounding area. As time has gone by fewer and fewer campers have been doing this. At times the medic calls it off because of extreme weather. Leaders have grumbled that when they were kids they always did it anyway no matter what the weather. The medic (a guy) said that with all the allergies and asthma around these days kids are just a lot 'sicker' these days and it was just best to be cautious. Its kind of sad...it was almost a rite of passage for some of the young scouts. I would hate to see it discontinued.

(This message has been edited by elfdream)

I think the movies are going to stop with this one. If I remember correctly it didn't make enough money to justify doing the other two but I might be wrong.

I'm not a history major but I seem to remember being told that Lee never actually owned slaves himself...that the slaves were owned by his wife.

I also remember reading that he freed all of them before he accepted a commission in the Confederate army in order to send the message that he was not fighting for slavery.

Is this true or are these just historical urban legends?

The controversy came when the author himself spoke of having an agenda when writing these books. He was an open atheist who wrote these books to be a sort of "Anti-Narnia-anti C.S. Lewis' thesis. You can find this documented in just about any interview he gave. In the movie the anti-religious elements were watered down considerably. In time though the original intent of the author will be forgotten. Who remembers what the book Bambi was really about? Hint...it wasn't about deer frolicking the forests. There were deeper social metaphors at work there but now its a Disney movie.

I've had friends who could barely make it through the first book and others who read them and liked the but never noticed the anti religious elements at all. However I don't think these books have the appeal and the wide fan base that other fantasy works have garnered over the years such as Lord of the Rings, Narnia and Harry Potter. To me it was a bit of a non-issue.(This message has been edited by elfdream)

Palin must have some tiny bit of foreign experience. After all her state is located between Canada and Russia.

Yes..I'm being facetious.

I also heard the thing about the West Virginia coal miners and the red bandannas. This was to identify them during the Battle of Blair Mountain.

I always thought that would make a good movie.

FOX ROCKS OUTSIDE THE BOX!

Hey..it made sense to us!

She was a distraction for the high strung group of guys I was with. No ne ever crossed a line in front of her, but there were certainly comments made behind her back. I can only imagine the problems that a female life guard would present.

That was basically my point. When there are already girls on the camp staff the guys are not as 'high strung'. They are used to the presence of females and its no big thing. Its when they remove the girls that is when the guys start acting goofy around girls. However once again that is just my experience.

I've seen many of our male staff members come to the defense of their female co-workers when they suspect someone (usually someone outside the staff) is not treating them fairly or makes any kind of objectionable comment toward them and I don't mean just the pretty girls. This goes back to the camaradarie that I mentioned earlier. Working together for a common goal and that does not mean they are the same. They are not and never will be but it can work. I suppose you just have to see it in action to believe it!

And as far as wanting to be just guys and worrying about the pressure of what 'women might think of you' don't worry about that. Women who work on camp staff know that men like bathroom jokes and belch and talk sports..etc. If a girl has worked on a camp staff for any length of time she will learn to accept that and it gets to the point where she doesn't even notice it anymore. She also won't care if you come back from an outpost smelling of campfire, sweat and bug spray. For the most part these are girls who know what they are getting into and accept it.

The guys do have their own separate area where the girls are not allowed to go without permission...so they do have a place where they can be 'just guys'.

I add once again that the girls we hire have some kind of background in scouting and who is known to the council or a family history of camping/backpacking etc. She is normally already known to the camp staff as "Billy Smith, the guy from Troop 13..that's his kid sister' or whatever. We don't hire the girl who just graduated finishing school to live in a camp environment!

I've served on camp staff on and off for about 10 years and we have almost always had girls under 18 on staff. I found that they are a distraction for about two weeks and then after the routine of the camp is in full swing all of that dies down. A camaraderie develops (and no its not the same as male only camaraderie..its different but it still exists). Its probably because they are working together toward a shared goal and that comes from good leadership at the top. We rarely have a problem with someone sneaking into the quarters of the opposite sex because the girls are on the other side of camp under the watchful supervision of the Program Director and his wife. We've had flighty girls and 'lets focus on the job at hand' girls. Right now our assistant archery instructor is a 15 year old and she is focused. She's been around Scouting her whole life and already knew most of the guys and really wasn't 'interested' in them in 'that' way.

One thing I have seen is that the boys are less likely to drool and act like idiots if a pretty woman visitor happens to stop by. They will check out the pretty woman but they are more controlled and discreet about it. I've served on camp staffs where there were no girls and they boys would resort to cat calls and other disrespectful behavior if a female showed up. That's just my experience and I'm sure someone will have had things evolve in a completely different manner.

If I remember correctly the camp director/Scout Exec told us that the 'relaxed' fit had more room in the hip area and was supposed to be more suitable for women while the 'classic' was more for men because it had more room in the waist. I don't know what happens to the women who gain weight only in their waist area and so on. I assume you just keep trying them on until you find something that fits.

So I guess the answer is no...the pants will not fit everyone equally in the hip/waist.

Our camp staff is a 'real' Venturing Crew that has several outings during the off-season and they also work on advancement. The Advisors are the Director, the Program Director and various other adults who serve on summer staff.

I'm also from a 'rival' camp. A lot of the National Cap scouts come to our camp not because its any better but simply because its closer. We didn't have the time or the resources to go down there and mess with their food. However after the camp closed we had a couple of Goshen refugeees show up on our doorstep and we took them in.

We became interested in Scouting when my husband applied to work at Summer Camp as the archery director some 10 years ago. We had never been involved before but soon our son was in a troop and after some intense training husband was a Scoutmaster and I was a Committe member. He graduated to being the Shooting Sports director and eventually stepped up to be Program Director at camp. Son and I were also working at camp and this lasted until son turned 18. He is now proudly serving in the US Air Force and told us that being in Scouts helped him greatly during his survival training. We took a five year break from scouting to concentrate on our daughter's many high school musicals but soon we were back. Husband went to work at camp again but last year had to step up and be the acting camp director when the director quit. That eventually led to him being offered the job of District Executive and with that job he also got the camp. Last year we were back with youngest son in tow and we just got back from our second year there. Younger son has also joined a troop and is one his way to Eagle.

Our camp staff is a 'real' Venturing Crew that has meetings and outings during the off-season and I'm one of their Advisors. It so different from working with a troop but its a lot of fun. I'm so glad we decided to go 'back'. I'm looking forward to participating in Wood Badge in a few weeks.

I'm also looking forward to meeting and learning from everyone here.

Oh...we are in Virginia in the Shenandoah Valley.

We got to see a preview of the new uniform at camp last week. The camp director (who is also a District Exec) attended the National Leadership Conference in Nashville and brought some back with him. His son wore one. He said the fabric was very very comfortable but he wasn't sure about the pockets as of yet. There is a button under the front pocket flap for the 'dangly' patches and a place for your pen. He liked being able to roll up the sleeves. He didn't have an opportunity to have the patches put on yet so we have yet to know about the difficulty level of that. All I can say is that he liked it.