Gold Winger

Gern brings up a good point. Disgruntled people from one unit don't always create a good new unit. I think that what happens is that they say, "Hey, we can do this better" but they don't have any experience running a unit and don't realize what sort of effort has to be put into running a unit. "Sure, I said that I'd help but this is becoming a full time job" is a common cry. The people mean well but they don't want to put out the effort so everything falls apart and the unit dies. The situaion may be different if you have experience Scouters. People that have been involved in fundraising, planning summer camp, camping trips, advancement, etc. along with some trained people who have served as ASM. Try talking first.

The outdoor program is supposed to be the classroom for boys to learn leadership and self reliance. If the boys are leading, the SM really doesn't need to be there. As someone recently pointed out here, BP said that a good SM brings in experts on various subjects. So if you are SM and have a avid hiker as an ASM, you don't need to go hiking. One of the fundamentals of leadership is "Delegate." As for starting a new unit. It's pretty easy or at least it is supposed to be. My details are sketchy and other will tell me where I'm wrong. You need a Charter Organization, the group that owns the troop. They agree to provide you with a place to meet and not much else. A CO can be a church, temple, PTA, VFW, or the local hot rod club. Some units are self-chartered which means that a group of parents formed a non-profit for the sole purpose of chartering a troop. That can have it's own problems because quite often, the CC and the SM are the ones running the non-profit. A Charter Organization can dictate how they want the troop to be run. If the COR or Institutional Head say that they want you to focus on hiking, that's what you do. If they say, "we expect the troop to clean the church every May," that's what you do. For better or for worse, most CO's have very little interaction with their units. Also, in theory, the Charter Org Rep approves all adult leaders and selects the Committe Chair. The Committee Chair and the COR select the SM After the Charter Org, you need at least three adults to sit on the Committee who have been approved by the COR. Four Committee Members are better because it takes three to run a Board of Review and the parent of the Scout being reviewed cannot sit on the BOR. Last but not least you need a volunteer to be Scoutmaster. After you have an idea of who your Charter Org is going to be, contact your District Executive. He'll sit down with the IH, go over the paperwork, take the applications and checks and, suddenly, a new unit exists.

I guess the question that you really need to answer is, "Do I want to spend my son's Scouting career trying to rescue a broken troop?" You can't really "vote out" a Scoutmaster. The SM works for the CC and the Charter Org. If you want to get rid of the SM, you need to get the Charter Org Rep involved but that may involve winding up with a new CC as well. Maybe you should start by talking to your Unit Commssioner and the COR. Your other possibility is to just start a new troop if you have enough youth that would leave with you to make it viable. If nearly everyone bailed on the current SM, he'd be the king of nothing. As for what the SM is supposed to do, his primary function is to train the youth leaders. He doesn't need to go on campouts, hikes or anything else.

When push comes to shove, I think that most boys in Scouting are only there because their parents want them there. My son's troop is fairly large, about 50 boys. However, the Philmont crew started taking sign-ups in September or October but wasn't full until April or May. Now your first thought might be that the expense was daunting. Not for these families. New Suburbans, a cruise every year, iPhones, etc.. All the trappings of suburban wealth. The real problem was that most of the boys didn't want to do the mandatory training hikes. Adventure? They had a caving expedition set up but it was cancelled because only three boys wanted to go. Rock climbing? Nah. COPE. Nope. Kayaking? Might get wet. Ski trip is cool because you get to hang out in the lodge and play video games. I have two nephews in their early 20s. When they go out with their friends, do they go out to clubs and try to meet young women? Nope. Do they go out with a group of young women? Nope. My son's non-Scout friends think that it is stupid to spend a week anyplace that doesn't have TV. When he comes back from summer camp, they tell him about all the great games that they played. I don't know how many families have told me that it is great renting a beach house because they always have a DVD player for the kids!!! I really feel sorry for most of today's youth. Their idea of adventure is a new version of HALO. How's this relate to FCFY? Simple. Youth aren't interested in Scouting because it doesn't strike them as fun. So we have to get the parents to want to stuff their kids into Scouting. How do we do that? Dangle the big prize? BSA and GSUSA keep trying to be "relevant" and fussing with the core program. GSUSA has botched it up even more than BSA but BSA is trying. The boys who want to be Scouts want to learn the skills, not just get signed off. The boys who want to be Scouts don't mind wearing the uniform because being a Scout is something that they are proud of. The boys who want to be Scouts are willing to mentor younger boys, not because they'll get a check mark for doing it but because it needs to be done and they know that they cand help. That's my rant for tonight.

People in my area tend to throw out perfectly good stuff like laser printers, big screen TVs, dining room sets, etc. . A friend owns an antique store so I keep my eyes open for good stuff as I drive around. The other day, I spotted a house with what appeared to be a bunch of nice maple furniture sitting on the curb. Evidently the owners had moved to an assisted living facility and the kids were clearing out the house. Unfortunately, they hadn't treated anything with care. Beautiful 1940's vintage bedroom furniture had just been thrown to the curb and was broken. :-( There was a barrel full of broken glassware and plates, looked as if they just flung every item into the barrel. However, sitting ontop of the pile of broken crockery was a solitary coffee mug. I picked it up and took it home. It is a mug from an area camp that no longer exists. It is obviously well used but unchipped and the embelem is still intact. It's sitting on my Scout mug shelf now. I won't use it but I will look at it and wonder about the Scout or Scouter who brought it home from camp and what memories may be embedded in the ceramic of that old mug. ******** For some really strange reason I couldn't post this message when the title included "man's" with the apostrophe. So I had to remove the apostrophe. Very strange.(This message has been edited by Gold Winger)

Is this a rotating assignment? Opening. Chair's remarks. Give each Vice-Chair or sub-chair about ten minutes to present what is going on in their individual balliwick. Ten minutes to commish for commissioner's report. New Business. DE's Minute. Go home. Avoid hammering out details of projects with the committee as a whole. Let the responsible sub-committee do that. Another option after the Chair's remarks to break out for 1/2 hour into sub-committees that meet independently. Get back together for the Vice-chairs' reports, etc. One thing that can ruin any committee meeting is when you start fussing about details of one individual event instead of letting the sub-committees worry about it. "John, what's going on with the district dinner?" "We've found a location and they said that if we use white napkins it will cost less." "Oh, I like blue napkins" "No, we need blue and gold for cub scouter tables, red and green for boy scouts and fuschia and magent for Venturers." "What are the Venturing colors?" "I read on the internet . . ." Two hours later, the district committee is still on the subject of napkins.

It's not kosher because it isn't the official item. I know that he didn't do it but I don't recall who made it for him. The beads are tiny ones that I think are called "seed beads."

Wouldn't it have been simpler to just avoid getting the demerits in the first place?

At one time, adults could earn and wear merit badges, was he old enough to fall under that system?

An adult with a merit badge sash, you're kidding aren't you?

Man of LaMancha wasn't a TV show, it was hit musical. Sheesh! If we're talking about Emergency, let's not forget Bobby Troup (get your kicks) Do you mean that your patrols just wear a blank patrol patch? Don't they even doodle something with a sharpie?

How about a random sequence of numbers and letters applied to each day. For example, today would be 8071ajsfu791 and tomorrow could be 2487287w4q87jaw. Of course, each days sequence would have to be examined closely in case it might offend any particular group of people. I suppose that this could be a function of the UN and it would actually give them something useful to do.

OGE, exactly my point. We need to come up with a completely new and culturally neutral way of marking time. New months, new days, new numbering system. I propose a ten day week in which we work six days and take four off. The extra five days at the end of the year would be a holiday.

"GW, we have a start on numbering the days of the week, Two's Day" Not sure if you're joking here. Tuesday is named for a Germanic or Norse god of war (don't remember which). So to prevent confusion, we really couldn't use Oneday, twoday, or three day because of potential mixups with the old "Monday, Tuesday, or Thursday."

Our lodge chief wears a beaded sash. The whole thing is handbeaded, white part, arrow, bars and triangle. An amazing piece of work. Not kosher but I like it.

No, send them somewhere that's more tolerant of foreigners. Saudi Arabia comes to mind.

" A troop in their activity shirts and shorts doing something useful is much better than military style marionettes on parade." Sounds like you have some issues.

Citations are difficult. For example, the insignia guide says that the Jamboree patch may be worn above the right pocket but it is only by inference that other patches there are prohibited. A Mexican flag patch is prohibited because it does not have an FDL or the letters BSA on it. Shoulder loops? As it says in the insignia guide, "council or district Scouter." Since he's with his troop, he should be wearing his red loops. Interestingly, the insignia guide is mute about which necker is to be worn with the woodbadge woggle. Someone should speak with that council about their CSP. Unless things have changed, there are only a few authorized shapes for CSPs and that isn't one of them. At least he isn't wearing ACU pants a "You might be a redneck . . ." cap. :-)

" meat was whipped off the menu in favour of vegetarian cuisine because it might offend the different faiths of youngsters from 162 countries if it wasn't Halal or Kosher." They had no meat. The Lord of Znurfran would be offended. This prompted me to look up the Halal rules on-line and I wonder about all of the muslims that I see eating at McD's. I'm sure that the slaughterhouses that are used by McD's don't make their employees say the name of God before they clobber the cow.

Yep, I agree. Let's get rid of these religious names for days, I find them offensive and view them as the governments attempt foist religion on people. Might have to change the names of a few of the months too. We have a couple ways to do this. Change the names of the days of the week to Firstday, Seconday, Thirday, Fourthday, Fifthday, etc.. We could eliminate the weekday names and month dates and just go with day of the the year. We should also pick a new starting year for the calendar, let's go with the year the Sputnik was launched to commemorate the begining of the space age.

It's not a policy, it is a recommendation. That's what I was refering to. Buck knife a survival knife? I have a two inch Buck folder, would that be banned?

You must be one of the guys with the underarm stains :-)

I wonder if they ordered those caps from an BSA licences vendor.

My religion requires me to eat meat. How would I have been accomodated?

Thank you, you've proven my point.