allangr1024

I did want to be on staff for a 21st century woodbadge course to see what is was about. I took the last old syllabus course from our council in 2001. Great fun. I was told by the council training staff that only 21st century woodbadge graduates could teach a 21st century course, and that I could take the new course along with other scouters. This person said that for the fist few 21st century courses the staff members were a problem, since they would comment to the scouters taking the course what had changed and how much the old woodbadgers did not like the changes. So the counci

Most of your post was about planning the activities for next year. So I will address that. Are you a cub scout pack or a boy scout troop? If you are a pack, the adults plan the activities. Go camp at a state park, do a 2 to 3 mile hike, then let the boys play around at camp. If you are a troop, then you as an adult should not be putting the program together, the boys should. Your goal should be to become a "boy led" troop, where the boys make the decisions that affect their program. I am in the midst of a conversion from having "boy leaders" to having a "boy led troop".

I have been through the process several times, with my son, and with our scouts. The process is up to the district advancement chairman. His process is like this: On the third Thursday of each month the scout shows up with his eagle project book filled out, with the signatures of the beneficiary, the scoutmaster and committee chair, and with a fairly well thought out project plan. The district advancement chair and one or two other scouters at the district level listen to the scout present his plan and then question him about the specifics. The project is approved or not, and the scou

" I will add that a boy having to be questioned by three adult strangers is a lot more traumatic then practicing skills to prove their knowledge of skills learned, which is a lot more practical to the real world. " In my small troop, the active adults have to fill a number of roles. Only one guy is an ASM, and the others are "committee members" even though they do the ASM job at times on outings and field trips. And they staff the BOR's in our troop. We occassionally have a visiting parent do one, and at summer camp one year we had some scouters from a troop out of state, who shared ou

I have this to say about that: "Look for the BEAR necessities The simple BEAR necessities Forget about your worries and your strife I mean the BEAR necessities Old Mother Nature's recipes That brings the BEAR necessities of life." You know, I took the former Woodbadge course, not 21 century. I kind of wish they would put on a mini version of the 21st century course for us, so we could see what is new. I talked to friends who took the new one, and got some info, but they could not reference my course. I thought I could see the new course by being on staff for one,

Thanks for the comments. My brochure is mostly pictures of our scouts doing things on campouts in the past year. That is my pitch to boys. We have fun. The back page was intended to be for parents, and I list the scout oath and law under the title, "A Game with a Purpose" and reference Baden Powell/founder of scouting with the quote. (not essential, I know.) One of the things I was not trained in was recruiting new youth for the troop. Woodbadge, taken prior to "21st century" did not address it. I became SM last year, with a troop of 20 boys. We are now at 16 registered, 8 act

It is for a recruiting drive for the troop, in conjuntion with a troop open house. I have some stuff about the values of scouting, for the parents, and some photo's of the boys on campouts to give boys a sense of the fun activities we do. I like the phrase, but would hate to misquote, even though I think that if Baden Powell did not say it, he would have if he were here. Of course he would have called it a "Jolly" game at that.

I am putting together a brochure for our troop, and would like to quote the phrase "a game with a purpose." I see this quoted on web sites and attributed to Baden Powell. I could not find it in "Aids to Scoutmastership". I did find this: "SCOUTING IS A GAME for boys, under the leadership of boys, in which elder brothers can give their younger brothers healthy environment and encourage them to healthy activities such as will help them to develop CITIZENSHIP." Not quite as consise. Does anyone have a reference to Baden Powell for my original quote. Or any other literatu

I became SM last year to a troop that had been adult run, but with scouts in "leadership" positions, but who never made any decisions. The first thing I did was hold an outing planning session. I got the troop together and put up a blackboard with the 12 months of the year on it. I then put up a board with 15 choices of locations for camping. One was summer camp, one our ski trip, one a scout district event. I asked the boys where they wanted to go. I then put up a third board with activities listed. I asked for additions to the 15 things I came up with. By the time we finished, we

I don't know that I would put together a five year plan, but the troop definately needs to plan for a year an a half out, especially outings. As a committe chairman, I would establish goals, and a means to achieve them. These would be my goals: -Define the committee positions needed by your troop. -Staff those positions. -Set up a regular means of recruiting new boys. Contact cub packs, church youth groups, fifth grade school principals; Add ??? (5, 8, 10) new boys per year. (Our troop neglected this, and our numbers are so low we cannot field two patrols. Hard on a new SM.)

If this were our country's legal system, we would say that the BSA rules form a constitution that lays out the program and the structure, and that a troop may form its policies as it needs, but those policies must support the BSA rules or be considered "Unconstitutional". If there is no direct reference in BSA policy to having a parent do a MB with his kid, then the troop can regulate the MB program for themselves. We do not have a supreme court, aside perhaps from the district executive, to appeal to, but the principal is the same.

Here is an idea: Invite a scoutmaster from a troop to come and talk to your webelos, encouraging them to get their AOW, and come on up to the troop. (If you don't have a regular relationship with a troop, ask two guys, just to make it fair). Privately ask the scoutmaster to greet the boy at some informal time in the meeting, and say, "I hope to welcome you into our troop", something like that. If the scoutmaster brings his SPL, even better if they do this together. It might touch a spark in the kid.

I give this explanation of the moral code we follow to parents: In our culture (Western) we are taught the difference between virtue and vice. Vice is somewhat easy to define, but virtue, and virtues, are not. We first of all list the virtues that we deem important, then describe them, and then we need to find examples of people who have excelled at the virtues that we list, since a picture is better than a thousand words. Then we must take a step back and ask ourselves, what does the building of virutes accomplish? The answer is to produce a whole man, a good man, a capable man.

When my son was 11 I took him to 4 troops in our area. He did not want to join his older brothers troop. At 3 an adult came, took both of us aside, and talked about his troop. At a fourth, my son had to sit through the meeting with the boys and then play a game with them during the meeting. I let him pick, and he picked the fourth. He liked the troop meeting where the SPL did the up in front stuff, and the game, which involved running around in the church parking lot. He also liked the scoutmaster, who could really talk to him on an eleven year old level. That is where he spent 3 years.

Our former scoutmaster used to send second class boys to get the first aid merit badge at MB fairs and summer camp, then count the MB requierments for first class first aid requirements where they overlapped. He thought the boys should get as much first aid training as possible real quick. I am not happy with that. I think the boys should earn the rank separately from the MB. The first aid knowledtge is designed to start with easy stuff and progress to better skills. However, I think if a young scout took the MB, I would let him, but still test him on his rank requirement knowledge.

For my 2 cents worth, I use a Pocket Rocket stove from MSR. It uses the smaller butane canisters. It is tiny and very dependable. You can get them at Academy Sports, along with the fuel. I am very satisfied with mine. We used it at Philmont as a backup stove. I am intrigued with the Sierra Zip stove. I have not seen one, but if it burns small sticks or charcoal, and heats well, that would be great. No fuel to carry.

Hi, I am a fellow Ttown resident. What troop is your pack with? And most importantly, where is the best camping in the area? Welcome to the board.

Can you hear the scouts say in unison: "GROAN!!!"

I liked Trevorum's reply for younger guys. For the scout who is progressing to first class, I would do two things: First, I would ask questions that challange the scout to consider the quality of his scout skills. At this point (first class), we consider him to have learned the outdoor skills he needs to survive on a camping trip. Can he build a fire in any terrain? How does he dress for extremes of heat and cold? What makes up a well rounded nutritious meal in the woods? Don't retest him, but ask how he would do in various situations, based on the knowledge he should have as a fi

mark, How many men wear any kind of hat (other than perhaps a ball cap) these days. The art of wearing headwear has long been gone. So, how are men to know anything about proper headwear etiquette. No one is teaching this in school, church, government, or society in general. The rules may not have changed, but they are irrevelent, since the activity is not practiced any more. If you are really bugged about it, volunteer to do a presentation to the roundtable, in the guise of adults teaching the boys proper use of the uniform, on the points you are making here. I would not li

I am in a bit of a quandry over this issue. On one hand I do want to see the boys (especially the PLC), lead the troop. I want to see them step up to the plate and make decisions for which they have wieghed all aspects of the decision and have well reasoned arguements for decisions they make. On the other hand, If they decide that they will do things that drastically depart from scouting practice, I feel the obligation to step in and steer the PCL back on course. If they decide "No more uniforms", or if they decide "No more camping", "No more rank andvancement and scout skills",

I think this troop, the "Eagle Factory" is from our council. They actually put that on their class B shirts. I have mixed feelings. The troop is over 180 registered scouts, 40 registered adults, and they just about need the entire summer camp week for their own needs. Everything is very structured. With that many adults working with the troop, there are always two or three merit badges going. I can not speak to the quality of the classes, but I have met several Eagle scouts from the troop and they seemed solid. The scoutmaster has been there since 1969. I met him when he acted

Has anyone used the "Sierra Zip Stove". I saw an article about it, and it looked neet. It is a small wood burning stove with a battery powered fan at the bottom blowing on the fire in a metal bowl at the top. They say you can just drop twigs into it and cook a meal. The Pocket Rocket is great. I took one to Philmont just to make Coffee. The crew used the Coleman stove, since Philmont sold the gas canisters for it. I made two small pots of coffee each day, and used only two canisters of butane the whole time. Light, compact, small fuel canisters, you cant get much better than that.

In a previous troop, the boys had the responsibility of planning and running the COH. The night my youngest son was to recieve his first rank, tenderfoot, I watched him across the room as the boys on the stage started calling out the names of the rank recipients. They went through the tenderfoot badges, without calling my son up. They went throught the second class badges. Then the first class, then the upper ranks. They handed out all of the merit badges. Then they called for the closing and and SM minute. As all this went on I saw my sons face go from ready to questioning, to panic, to

I used it on my tent just before the Philmont trip in 2005. It mostly worked, and I have not seen any adverse effects. We had a wet 3 or 4 days towards the beginning of the trip, around the Miners Park area. The tent collected some water in the corner by my feet from somewhere. I mainly applied the stuff to the seams of the tent. The rest of the tent stayed dry, and I could avoid the little puddle in the corner.