fling1

Snopes is your friend, Eamon :-) http://www.snopes.com/language/stories/brass.htm http://www.snopes.com/language/phrases/sonofgun.htm

Great Question! I have mulled over whether this could work for us, also. Our troop is too small to make the shift, I think, but I'll be watching this thread closely! Beavah, I observe your point about patrol competitions -- it would make almost no sense with our 3 patrols. Semper, OGE, your posts sound like this was a process that got repeated on a somewhat regular basis. Am I right about that? Or was it a one-time switchover from age-based to mixed-age patrols? OGE, you said that there had been a structure for how many star, life, etc. per patrol, but that was abandoned in order t

One of my favorite topics!! This might be a bit more ambitious than what you asked for, but I'll post it anyway in case others have perked up their antennae on this topic. I like to think of this as the world's only Cub Scout-powered trebuchet. I don't have a picture handy of the scouts playing with it, but here are some of my cow-orkers and neighbors giving it a try... http://scouttroop.org/oh/bsa/476/kidsonbench.jpg http://scouttroop.org/oh/bsa/476/wildride.jpg http://scouttroop.org/oh/bsa/476/treblaunch.jpg http://scouttroop.org/oh/bsa/476/mid-fling.jpg and http://scouttroop

Bummer, Packsaddle! Someone stole your ZIP stove?? http://www.zzstove.com/index.html I love mine. It's light, never runs out of fuel, and fun to use. It takes a bit more attention, but that's part of its charm. Whenever I get mine out, I have boys hovering around wanting to help feed it.

Hmmm.. This sounds familiar. Oh yeah -- you're talking about me! I was very keen on finding a place to contribute in our troop when my son first crossed over. Like you, the existing leadership encouraged me to wait a while and grok the Boy Scout Way first. But I was very well aware of the boy-led issues (they were the reason my son chose this troop!) plus I had a lot of enthusiasm and energy. I started by helping the SM with the website, then took the climbing training, essentially just stepping up to a ASM role without really waiting to be asked. Long story short -- After a sudden and

Well, Brent, We could very well be arguing all of this from a much different starting point, if Utah had taken a stand on this topic way back when. The polygamy practices that were somewhat common in the Utah territory were outlawed as part of Utah's bid for statehood. Somehow, they were led to believe that it would be easier to convince Congress to admit them to the Union if they dropped that particular aspect of their culture. If the good and principled Mormons of the day had taken a stand on this, and challenged the US to prove to them that their definition of marriage was incompatibl

Hi Campcrafter, The majority of our troop use these! They are awesome. Here are some images of our hammocks in action: http://www.scouttroop.org/oh/bsa/476/HammockCampsite.jpg http://www.scouttroop.org/oh/bsa/476/WoodedCampsite.jpg http://www.scouttroop.org/oh/bsa/476/HammockCity1.jpg We have been such a good customer for Hennessy that we now sell these as a fundraiser. Check it out at http://www.scouttroop.org/oh/bsa/476/HH476.htm I currently use the Expedition A-sym, which is their mainstream model. Longer or heavier folks can scale up a bit. The A-sym models

FWIW, I will weigh in with Venividi and SR540Beaver... The old pack allegiances are just not that important. The institutional allegiances are just not that important. If you can find a troop that suits your son better, join it. It sounds like you have decided that the "better" troop is not there for you, so working for change may be your best path. But in general I would not advocate letting tradition or peer pressure or allegiances drive your troop choice. Choose on best fit. Better yet, let your son choose the best fit for him.

Oh Boy! We did patrol cooking this year at Camp Liberty (Heritage Reservation in Greater Pittsburg Coucil) and I was SO happy! We skip around and attend different camps, so I've seen a few dining halls. Eating in camp meant no more marching up to the dining hall, waiting around in the sun to get going, waiting in line to eat, sweeping up other boy's messes (grated cheese!!), etc. etc. etc. Instead, we ate like kings, sprawled out on the lake shore in our camp chairs. Better food, the accomplishment of cooking, patrol development. All positives, no negatives, from my point of view. T

I'm enjoying this thread. A couple of data points: My son was at NYLT this summer, and apparently they also learned about gray areas. The result was not so much that all gray areas were avoided -- merely that when "grey" material was used, it would get a response from the group as they all sang out "gray area!". It seemed it made it OK to use the material so long as you said "gray area" afterward. Funny, really. The best example at the Wed campfire was the "saloon" skit (where the director has the actors go through a scene at the saloon several times and of course there is no film in t

I think Michelle is on the right track here -- you are talking about a ~4-day council camp experience for cub scouts that sorta-kinda looks like a boy scout summer camp, right? (You said "overnight adventure camp" instead of "day camp" and "such a long period of time" which sounds longer than two days.) I did this four years in a row with my son's den. Our camp ran Mon-Thurs, (leaving Fri-Sun for "fun with son" weekends on the same property) -- four days and three nights. As Michelle described, our day was wall-to-wall with activities, including one period of scheduled downtime, suitable

Hi Lisabob, "And since he must have signed off on Scout Spirit and SM Conference, there's a presumption that by the time they arrive for a BOR, they're ready to advance in his eyes. Given that, how far do you press behavior issues in a BOR?" The BOR serves two purposes: 1) double check the completion of requirements as evidenced by sign-offs and dates. I've had one come back to me because I overlooked a service hours sign-off, although I had just reviewed it as part of the SMC. Cool -- it worked! 2) monitor the program quality, as revealed through the impressions and opinions of the yout

So, CNY, there are two issues here: CC says you need a lifeguard to take the troop canoeing CC is willing to do a parent+child outing rather than disregard G2SS Which of these is annoying you more? For issue (1), as you have discovered, certified lifeguards are needed for your non-swimmers. So the CC is correct in this, if you have non-swimmers in your group. If your group can all pass the swimmer test, you need simply put your CC's mind at ease and educate him/her on the details of Safe Swim Defense. And issue (2) becomes moot, for now. For issue (2), the difference between "wink

I'm with Dan on this. If, as a troop leader, I am expected to keep a parent apprised of every communication I have with their scout, then I am no longer interested in the job. I am not very likely to write up minutes of every conversation I have at meetings and outings for the scouts' parents, either. I am happy to identify myself whenever I make a call (to anyone) because I am as tired as everyone else of marginal phone manners and unsolicited sales calls. If I call someone who doesn't know me, I'll try to make it clear why I am calling, too, just because it otherwise sounds like I am tr

Hi Eamon, According to Snopes, this story is almost entirely fiction: http://www.snopes.com/military/marvin.asp Although the point of the story is a good one, it probably isn't wise to make it by passing off fiction as truth. Fwiw, I always check Snopes when I get an "email from someone" that contains amazing stories or little-known facts -- Snopes is your friend :-)

Lisabob wrote: But there do have to be some basic rules that everybody agrees to follow. Like the G2SS or not, those ARE the rules and we shouldn't be picking and choosing which of them suits us on a given day. My beef is that when people start saying, oh these rules are merely advisory suggestions that can be bent, twisted, applied or not, as people think is appropriate, then they lose any solid meaning. I don't mean to pick on you, Lisabob, but my beef is that people sometimes take the advisory recommendations and treat them as hard rules. The Age Appropriate Guidelines (AAG) are on

Hi Lisabob, OGE pretty much covered the points that I would make, specifically that the Patrol should be setting its own agenda to some extent. You don't specify whether these T-2-1 boys are grouped in a patrol(s) or are distrubuted among mixed-age patrols. If they are grouped, then their Patrol Leader should certainly be making their desires known to the PLC. And should the PLC fail to accomodate them, they should definitely be pursuing their own interests in patrol meetings and outings. You said that the "kind of cooking they are allowed to do" is limited to small stoves, so perhaps t

Boy, I wish I had chimed in on this before it devolved into a debate about honor and obediance and paintball. Maybe this will nudge us back on-topic... Beavah is absolutely correct to point out that the Age Appropriate Guidelines (appendix to G2SS) are *guidelines* that even include the YMMV language. If you can provide the level of expertise and supervision that makes it fun and constructive for your den, then do it. But keep your eyes open and don't just assume it will be a cakewalk. Cubmaster Randy described the perfect scenario -- information, preparedness, and a serious approach led

A bit late, but I want to chime in on a few points... ASM59, you said that the troop committee didn't want to support the Pack after the disappointment at the B&G. This really jumped out at me, and I think is also the impetus for Dan's comments. You make it clear that you did not feel this way, but it certainly sounds as if your committee felt that they were entitled to receive these boys as members. As if some contract had been established between Pack and Troop -- a marriage pre-arranged. Several replies have emphasized that Webelos are encouraged to visit several troops. So true

My observation is that most teams at our Klondike are not patrols, but some other temporary grouping. My further observation is that when these teams include older and younger scouts, the younger ones are doing precious little participating in the events. In an effort to do well, the team lets the best competitors do the lion's share of the tasks, and the younger kids mostly watch. We have never done this in our troop... It is fun to see how our patrols improve their skills and teamwork from year to year, but it's not unusual for some of these kids to get discouraged because they never wi

One more data point... I can't say any of my Weebs dropped scouting because of activity pin burnout, but I did make an effort to enable the boys to get one of those cool "20" patches with all the pins embroidered on it. (I got them from the council shop in Oklahoma). And they are cool patches. In retrospect, we rushed some of that material at the expense of making it more fun. We probably had a 1-2 month period that would have gone better if I hadn't been trying to squeeze in "Engineer" or something. In our case, we recovered from this period by diving into the construction of our Cub

Ed, did you browse around the SCOTUS architectural site I linked for you? Did you notice that no text is ever included with the tablets? The artists indicate that this is deliberate, so that tablets can represent ancient law in general. If you associate these with "have no other gods" and Merlyn associates these with "don't boil your kid in milk" then the artists' aim has been achieved :-)

I've made this point before, but I'll go ahead and lob it in here again for your entertainment... The US Constitution was created to both establish and limit the power of the Feds over the sovereignty of the states. The establishment clause of the 1st Ammendment is the clearest possible example of this. The states reserved for themselves the power to establish a religion if they chose to. Massechussetts did in fact choose to. It's first constitution called for the public support of "protestant instruction." Clearly establishing a religion (Christian, but NOT Catholic) to be preferred by the

jd, The ten commandments are not displayed next to Minerva, at least not in a way that includes the "no other gods" text. All of the ten commandment depictions scattered among the Supreme Court building are symbolically represented as simply tablets, sometimes containing the roman numerals I - X. As the artists explained them, that allows them to represent ancient laws in general, while evoking an association to the commandments. The commandments are not on display, but rather the concept of ancient laws in general (of which the commandments can be considered an example) are on display.

Our boys learned this song at Cub Scout resident camp and looked forward to it each year. It was quite a long version and a challenge to learn over the course of the four days. The staff sang it with *great* enthusiasm when the program director came out to make some annou -- er -- public statements. Announcements announcements announcements. A terrible way to die. A terrible way to die. A terrible way to be talked to death.. a terrible way to die. Announcements announcements announcements. Speak free, the rat stands alone! Have you ever seen a fruit stand a