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fred8033

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Everything posted by fred8033

  1. fred8033
    Sadly, I had to search hard to find the exact model I used as a kid.
  2. fred8033
    Wow. I feel like I've had high school flashbacks ... Just my preference ... PDF can be organized into a nice on-line library. Ascii and Web pages make for poor organization. Just my preference. Only My opinions ... ... PDFs ... Professional? Yes. Can very much be so. Can easily look like a professionally published document. ... Hyperlinks are ASCII ... Yes, but not clickable and not easy to use in an ASCII doc. ... Eagle workbook. Uniquely difficult in BSA because of the extra complexity of an editable PDF. Basic PDFs are well integrated into
  3. fred8033
    I prefer PDF documents as it effectively looks and feels like a book. Professional. Illustrations. Cover page. Index. Table of contents. Cross references. Searchable. Most importantly, printable into a real document.
  4. fred8033
    That's our troop. A few scouts did high adventure. The whole troop did an extra summer week (in addition to summer camp) in one of the national forests / state parks in the 5 or 6 state area. Great experiences. And, it was nice to see our scouts in public with their uniforms.
  5. fred8033
    I really hope Sea Base is not lost. I fear it will be, but it's one of BSA's crown jewels with a very unique opportunity for our scouting youth. Loss of those properties would be extremely painful.
  6. fred8033
    I wish we had a heart emoji here. It's how it should be. A scout is thrifty. We just don't need printed versions every year.
  7. fred8033
    So so true. It's why scouts are in scouts. Being active. Doing things. Making friends.
  8. fred8033
    "Have" versus "should" is the issue and a huge area of confusion. Ask five people then you will get twelve opinons. Units are "owned" by their charter org. Owned means same entity. Same entity means same incorporation ... same EIN. My experience is many COs are reluctant to give their EINs out to the scouting unit. My experience is most units have their own EIN because they go to a bank to open a bank account. Then, a banker sends them to the IRS non-profit registration site and creates a new non-profit entity for them. Most units never file paperwork ... taxes,
  9. fred8033
    Yep. Another primary purpose is to expose the scout to new areas that might interest them. This is defeated with so, so many overlapping with school and rank requirements. Instead, scouts should be able to leverage available experts. Maybe some troops have access to an expert astronomer. Maybe others have access to camp at a dairy farm. QUESTION ... Should we re-think the MBC idea? It's subverted by using registered leaders in your own troop. Maybe, keep existing MBCs, but also let troops / unit committees additionally recognize MBs where a local expert is available, but not
  10. fred8033
    Dead on right. I think your camping statement is right. Most scouts don't appreciate the camping MB because they start in their 3rd or 4th year of camping with the scouts. Most of the topics in the MB SHOULD be done in your first six months as a scout. ... It's like the fifth time I had to re-certify electrostatic discharge training. You roll your eyes having to do it yet again. Imagine that 5th time getting a MB for it. I'd roll my eyes too. Even worse, when schools cover topics they take quarters or whole classes to cover the topic. MB coverage can feel very shallow, choppy and
  11. fred8033
    Distracting tangential comment ... Two of my sons who earned eagle (19 and 24) have both coordinated multiple camping trips for them and their friends. One with his patrol mates. My fourth son has started talking with his friends about camping with his friends. ... My oldest said his friends had no clue.
  12. fred8033
    Swimming and camping are part of being a scout. If you earn First Class, you should effectively have those.
  13. fred8033
    Well said. And, it's a good way to handle things. ... The key is some day in the future, you will be an adult. At some point, you will be setting an example and/or teaching the next generation. Everything we do teaches lessons. ... In this case, you learned several valuable lessons. You developed a skill to handle bad situations. That will be valabule. You also learned those in power can easily abuse their power and ignore rules to fulfill their own goals. The bigger harder lesson is to not repeat wrongs and not to treat others as we have been treated. It's hard, but very important
  14. fred8033
    Yeah ... That's like when you have a new troop. The best way to start the PLC is to let the scouts choose a leader, give an example, mentor and support ... but let the starts start doing their own PLC immediately. Constantly adjust, but get out of the scout's way and let them enjoy their program. 2020 was a hard year, but I have a few good memories. One was my youngest son. Him and his friends were spending hours and hours online together. So a few times, I told him tomorrow you are out of the house ... invite your friends. ... expected masks, six feet apart, etc ... Told him to no
  15. fred8033
    I volunteered for years because I could sit with another adult for hours and hours and play cribbage.
  16. fred8033
    Same can be said for scouts. Scouting is drastically and YPT is drastically different than what it was when most of the abuse happened. Drastically different. Yep. It's habit in our troop when one adult goes to check on things, a second adult tags along. and helicoptering leaders. The simple fact is we don't need to check up on our scouts as much as we think. A favorite example is summer camp. It's okay to walk around camp to see how things are going. I really think it's a bad thing to assign adults to check each merit badge session to see if the scouts
  17. fred8033
    Perhaps you are in a different school district than I am. We have many cameras, but there are way more number of small rooms, nooks, crannies, blind spots where there are no cameras. If an abuser is a coach, they can create opportunities.
  18. fred8033
    That's pretty much our council's approach too. We want the scout to use the latest version, but we also want them to keep moving forward. So if they have a signed off proposal with an old template, we'd say use the latest for the PLAN and REPORT. The key is we don't make them regenerate it for the sake of being current.
  19. fred8033
    Interesting changes. Much looks cosmetic. Nice that it opens in a web browser instead of requiring download immediately. Nice larger areas for writing Great that they added a "Contingency" block in the PLAN section. Why won't text areas expand? In the previous version, I believe the text blocks would grow. Page G. Why full text justification in the signature block. Looks klunky. Should be left justification. Minor issue. Numeric columns don't add up. I thought they did before. Can't add more rows to tables. Glad to see an upgrade.
  20. fred8033
    Thank you. The rare useful comment by someone who stays on topic.
  21. fred8033
    I absolutely enjoy the company too. It's the "far away" that I rarely see.
  22. fred8033
    We filled out the paper one for every trip we went on ... I hope. I only did the camping paperwork a limited amount of the time. But I remember seeing it in with the stack of health forms. Always a pain as 30% of the time we were camping at scout camps and they wanted the tour permit for scout camps too. I have faint recollections of an online version, but it would have been a very short time window. Less than a year. My recollection was a council signed tour permit was explicit evidence (aka liability) of the council agreeing the leaders had a good plan and were qualified t
  23. fred8033
    Yep. It happens. I cringe every time added hoosp are explained as life lessons or helping them with a future objective. If a scout comes asking for a proposal approval, scouters should be friendly, courteous, kind and supportive. A pet pieve is when scouts are forced to face a Eagle project proposal BOR. It's supposed to be a friendly discussion. Proposal reviews are NOT a BOR that helps scouts prepare for their EBOR. Exactly. Let your SM be your advocate. It's not your place to correct misdirected adults. But if you can, congrats. It's a valuable skill. On the oth
  24. fred8033
    I don't remember that. Here's the only legacy versions I could find. http://www.troop880.com/PDF Forms/LocalPermit.pdf https://www.jerseyshorescouts.org/files/2003/Tour-Plan-Form-pdf The only reference to ratios or a 10 limit vehicle limits for transporting scouts. That's a driving issue, not a camping issue. Most of our weekend camps are within an hour drive. It's usually easy to get drivers.
  25. fred8033
    Maybe we don't have enough trees.
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