allangr1024

If I were doing this, I would have each boy submit in writting a plan and script for the COH or campfire. I would then let the two of them bring their plans and work them into the program. Then that joint plan and script would be used to run the ceremony. This requirement is a bit vaugely worded, and open to interpretation. It does not say you must do a ceremoney from start to finish. It says to plan one, write the script, and prepare a program. Then it says to be an emcee. It does not say for the scout to use his plan for the ceremony. There is a lot of wiggle room here, that you

As I read this discussion, I see that there is something that needs clarification. The scout is 14 and does not have the leadership skills to carry on an Eagle Project. Just what leadership skills does he lack? Can he make a plan for a project? Can he recruit people for a project? Can he find the resources he will need? Can he contact the people he needs to contact to get approvals? Can he hold a reasonable discussion with the projects beneficiary? Can he schedule the work that will be involved? Can he encourage his volunteers to come to a workday or do a job? Can he

I wore one when I was a scout, but today they are seen by the boys as stupid. The reason: There is no one else wearing them. The army does not use them. No other civilian group uses them. In BP's time they were common. In 2005 I took our troop to Philmont where I got an appreciation for the neckerchief. I went to the Philmont store and bought a bandana, which I wore around my neck for the trek. It kept my neck from getting sunburned during the day and acted as a scarf in the wee hours (Cold hours, as I remember) of the morning. I used it to wipe the sweat off my forhead and to wra

One day I was looking thru the salvation army thrift store and found a prize. I was the leader of the last Philmont trip, and was wondering how I was going to afford the gear my son and I needed. Finances were fearfully low. At the thrift store I found a pair of Asolo boots that had been worn a few time, and were badly scratched on the outside. They looked bad. I tried them on, and they fit me perfectly. The souls showed they had not been worn much. And best of all the price: five dollars. I wore these for the 10 day Philmont trek, the 3 practice treks and 5 day hikes we had in pr

I am now a scoutmaster, but I served for 5 years as ASM when MY boy was in the troop. In fact, I had 3 boys, the older two in one troop and the youngest in another (He wanted to be separate from the two brothers, probably a youngest kid thing.) I admit that at first I was in it for MY kids. I also got to have some fun and enjoyment from the camping activities. I guess I got to feel like a kid again myself. Now the kids are out of scouting. One got Eagle. The troop of my older boys needed a scoutmaster and approached me. I was honored, and took the job. Now, I am interested in seei

I did this for my first campout as an adult. I froze my tail off. Suggestions: Wear lots of layers. Take Tshirts, sweatshirts, sweaters, jackets. Wear them all. Take some off if you get too warm. Take separate clean clothing to sleep in. On cold campouts I take a separate pair of long underwear for this. Sleep in wool socks and a head covering. Invest in a good 10 or 15 degree mummy style sleeping bag. If it is made from polarguard or some similar material, it is better. Down filled is ok, but if it gets wet, it won't keep you warm. Put hand warmers in the bag

I did this for my first campout as an adult. I froze my tail off. Suggestions: Wear lots of layers. Take Tshirts, sweatshirts, sweaters, jackets. Wear them all. Take some off if you get too warm. Take separate clean clothing to sleep in. On cold campouts I take a separate pair of long underwear for this. Sleep in wool socks and a head covering. Invest in a good 10 or 15 degree mummy style sleeping bag. If it is made from polarguard or some similar material, it is better. Down filled is ok, but if it gets wet, it won't keep you warm. Put hand warmers in the bag

A few things: 1. The committee advancement guy is definately giving bad advice. Anyone can work on an eagle project as long as your son recruits them and leads them. In our council, this is seen as a plus. 2. If the scout can estimate a reasonable number of hours for the project, it is viable. There is no definition for "not big enough". 3. This is a good eagle project. One of the guys in my sons troop did benches for a school. His dad is a welder, and the scout has learned welding, so he welded the benches in his garage for 3 Saturdays, the other scouts sanded them, and

Voyageur, I thought that religion was being handled in the thead about Mormons being Christian. Whats up?

If our original discussion was the influence of religion in politics, or the influence of a candidates religion on his politics, then we should examine the religious authorities in the candidates chosen religion for a clue to his political outlook and practice. Although the famous mormon scripture is the book of morman, as I understand it, the real writing that defines the LDS church is a work by Joseph Smith called the "Doctrines and Covenants". This was originally published as "The Book of Commands". This describes the infallable role of the prophet Joseph Smith, and his role to speek

I agree with the Beavah. Our troop moved to the church that is our CO before I brought my boys to the troop. This church opens its doors and gym facilities to lots of sporting teams and such, and they considered us just one more group using their building. The only time we heard fromt them was when they complained to us about our boys breaking something, whether they did or not. They gave us a sunday school room to use, no storage space and no trailer parking. Our COR did not come around and our past SM's did not contact the church that much. We considered finding another CO, and

Getting the idea is one of the tough parts. My son tried to get two projects off the ground before he found one that worked for him. Here is an idea that I have not heard tried in our area. In our town there is an organization called Blue Star Mothers. This group sends care packages to the troops in Iraq and Afganistan. Contact them or a group like them, and offer to prepare 300 to 500 care packages for the troops. They would be your beneficiary organization. Get a list of the items that go into each care package, or propose one yourself. Once approved, go to every troop and pack i

I went to the www.scouting.org site, but did not see any new requirements posted. Can someone post the link so I can see the official changes? Thanks.

On scout day at NASCAR the cost is 8 to 10 dollars per head if you come in uniform. The CC who led the trip last year (SM in transition) said the thing the boys liked best was looking at the booths in the parking lot, kind of a NASCAR bizzare. The race was not that interesting to the boys (Sez he). Thanks for the responses. BTW, how do you guys handle transportation costs for long trips. Do you do special fundraising, or make the boys pay the drivers something extra, or just let the drivers "donate" their gas?

I became SM in April, and made some changes to the troop operation. I felt that the youth leadership positions were not being used to their potential, since most decisions were being made by the adults. I held a campout planning session where I had the boys make the choices of where to go and what to do on outings. I put 20 choices up on a board for camping spots and 20 choices of campout activities (fishing, skiing, backpacking, ect.) and at the end the boys put together a camping schedule for the year. I then told them that the PLC could change the schedule if an opportunity came up for

We meet in an independant church. They have always considered us an outside group who just use their facilities. We only heard from them when something got broken and they thought one of the boys did it. We started to feel that we should look for a CO that really liked scouting and would partner with us. We pitched our troop to another church, met with their elders, showed Power Point presentations and explained our vision and our mission. Unfortunately they did not choose to bring us in. Then we decided to do the same presentation of the Scout troop and program for the present churc

My son turned in an Eagle application the day before his birthday, and forgot to get the signature of the rep from the community organization he did his project for. I know what a roller coaster ride that is. He scrambled to get all the I's dotted and T's crossed that day. My question is this. What is the makeup of the troop committee. Is there a good seperation between the ASM staff and the committee, or is there a small pool of adults and everyone does a bit of everything, regardless of adult position? Is there a troop advancement chair, or Life to Eagle coordinator? Does the troo

This sounds about right to me. My son did a nature center project, and he had 20 to 30 hours of planning in it. The goal here is to learn to lead, and the means is the project he is planning. I like the excersize because it is similar to projects I do in the professional world. And in that world, getting approvals is part of the project. And, any time the scout spends getting ready for the district approval is time to log for the project. He may do 10 to 20 hours of planning getting through the approval, and that is time to log for the project. My son tried to do three project

I look at behavior like this as coming from two possible causes. The first is stupid kid stuff. Boys jockey for position in a group, they boast and they make fun of thier rivals, and they make mock threats in an attempt to look tough before their peers. Little harm is intended although much may be communicated, and it goes away from the boys mind rather quickly. The second is a real propensity for evil. The boy has learned how to hurt others (for whatever resons) and may find he likes it or that he feels the need to inflict pain for survival sake. The real trick is to dis

I took Woodbadge after a year in the troop. My SM had taken it a few years earlier. I got involved when I brought my boy to the troop. I found that I liked taking a part in the troop instead of standing and gabbing with the other parents in the back of the building. What Woodbadge gave me was a vision of how an "ideal" troop can be run. (This was the former Woodbadge program, not 21st century). We were patrol centered in that we camped seperately from everyone else as a patrol. I think they tried to balance us out as to our backgrounds, scout service, and personalities. We learne

I took Woodbadge under the former syllabus. I did not see Woodbadge empahsising anything like what Kudu is saying. I came back from Woodbadge fired up about the patrol method. I wanted our SM to implement all of the stuff we did. I had a lot of fun being in a patrol, and I did not remember my scouting years in the 70's being this way. I found our present troop to be lacking in soooooo many areas. Now, after serving the troop under three Scoutmasters who really did not move beyond an adult dominated troop, I have the job. I am drawing on my Woodbadge experiences to develope the P

I agree that the SM is the person to deal with the SPL. He is the guy who is training the boy in the leadership position. He is the one to make the call. AND, I am not sure that an infraction on a school trip, for which he has been disciplined in that setting, is grounds for him being dismissed as SPL. I would ask this: Has he done something similar in the troop setting? If he brought something inappropriate to a campout or a troop meeting, then that is one thing that will cripple a troop. Was his school episode a one time act, or a series of violations that ended in t

I am not too interested in the statistics. I believe that there may be more eagles now than when I was a scout in the seventies, just because of the changes in the program. The biggest change I attribute this to is the adoption of the two deep leadership policy to the BSA. In the seventies the BSA looked forward in time and saw a ton of lawsuits coming due to child predators getting into the ranks of adults. In order to no be sued out of existence by the victims, the BSA required two, or preferably more, adults on every outing. As a scout our troop had 20 to 25 boys, one SM and

Oak Tree, Could you repost that web address. I don't think it all got in here. Thanks

I had the same experience, and sought the ebay solution. My belt buckles sodering came aprart (probobly more like glued metal came apart) and I bought a lot of scout belt buckles on ebay. These too came apart over time, I went through 8 of them in 3 years. Now I use the new switchback pants with the built in buckle, or I use a Philmont belt. For the boys, I would probobly accept a 2 dollar faceless buckle from the army surplus store.