Gold Winger

The clause is in there because when they are travelling to Scouting events, they are covered by BSA insurance and BSA is concerned with the safey of the young people. Face it, young people (especially boys) are idiots when they get behnd the wheel of a car. I know that I was and we get stupider the more people that are in the car. It's BSA rules and the troops rules. If you don't want to abide by them, your ethical obligation is to show your objection by leaving the troop and BSA. I'm really sorry but you're not going to find any sympathy here. Especially from me because I don't think that anyone under 18 should be allowed to drive.

I know that this will be deleted but . . . (This message has been edited by a staff member.)

A Cub Scout helps the pack go! How many Cub Scouts do anything to help the pack? Most of it is done by the parents. :-(

Woodbadge woggle with the plaid necker. Odd patch above the right pocket. The belt is kosher, the buckle looks like it has a CSP on it. On p 24, the guy with the Mexican flag is wearing his Cub Scouter knot backwards. Where are all of the older Scouts? However, the important thing is that he has registered Scouts and is generating revenue for BSA ;-)

My ordeal was held at a large sportsmans' club. My part of the project was clearing brush from an overgrown trail. Others got to clean the cookhouse that hadn't been cleaned for a year or more. Some built a new fence. My son's ordeal was raking leaves, his comment was that it was "boring." Ordeals should be hard work.

post duplicated(This message has been edited by Gold Winger)

The short answer is "yes." In general, you can always make safety rules more restrictive. For example, even though national has no policy regarding 12" Bowie knives, a troop is withing its rights to prohibit them. I am wondering how many area, regional or national events does your troop attend that would allow youth to drive if you followed G2SS? I'd guess not many because there aren't that many area events, or regional events, or even national events. Bear in mind that camporees and merit badge classes are not "area events." An "area" is comprised of a number of councils. So(This message has been edited by Gold winger)

Uniform inspections are a joke, at least the ones that I've seen. The SM reminds EVERYONE that the uniform inspection is coming up and asks that they make sure that everything is on their uniform correctly and that their uniform is clean. The boys show up looking like Contras and everyone passes, no matter how disreputable their uniform is. Why? We don't want them to feel bad. Boo-hoo! We don't want to punish the child because mom wouldn't sew the patches on right. Boo hoo! What happened to the idea that the boy is responsible for his own uniform? Maybe I'm strange but when I was a Cub Scout, I gave my mother the Wolf book and stood next to her to make sure that EVERY patch was exactly where it belonged. That was my uniform, not my mother's. Similarly, it was my job to make sure that my uniform was clean and ironed for the meeting. Now, the boys don't seem to care and if mom puts something on incorrectly, she's not going to move it because "it's too much trouble." I guess it is all part of the trend of "we can't expect it from kids" so parents have to scrutinize homework, make sure that kids get to baseball practice and games, and even submit their college applications. opps, starting to rant.

http://www.christmascomestotown.com/stories/lone-scouts-christmas.shtml

Cod-ed, co-ed, co-ed. Why is that whenever grils can't get their own program running right, they want to horn in on whatever guys do? I haven't once heard about boys wanting to join GSUSA. Why? Because GS has problems recruiting girls. Men only gyms? They get picketted. Women's gyms? No man wants to set foot inside. Boys only sports? Not allowed. Girls only sports? That's only fair, isn't it? Guys need to spend time with guys and girls need to spend time with girls. Unfortunately, women follow the rule "What's mine is mine and what's yours is mine."

"Please keep in mind that once posted here conversations don't go away." I don't know about that. I've had posts vanish. In any case, someone needs to tell these people that they aren't wearing their uniform according to regs.

Anything that promotes teamwork is a good thing. If your gateway is something kept in the trailer and assembled by the adults, that's not good and does nothing. If the SPL and scouts look for deadfalls to build tripods, that's a good thing.

Those of us who follow the one true faith :-) don't say, "Merry Christmas." The Orthodox greeting is "Christ is born, glorify him!"

I'm still pondering this issue. I wonder if years and years ago, that BSA noticed that the boys who made first class fastest were more likely to stay in Scouting. Rather than examine WHY they made first class quickly they decided to make the goal to reach first class quickly. Back in the day, why would a boy reach first class quickly? BECAUSE HE WAS MOTIVATED and the program allowed him to do so. Now, no motivation is needed other than showing up.

BSA claims that boys who make first class in one year are more likely to stay in Scouting. I have a feeling that their data and analysis is horribly skewed. I think that making first class quickly is more important to the parents than it is to the scouts. Just like in the martial arts getting a thousand belts with stripes and dots and other things is important to the parents. I think that the kids really care more about doing stuff than they do about the patches. However, now we've made advancement sooo easy that very few Scouts care about it or the stuff that they have to do. If BSA went back to a system where you couldn't work on three ranks at once and made an emphasis on learning skills to some reasonable degree of mastery, I don't think that that we'd lose many boys.

" put your lips on the public water supply (which is prohibited)?" That's mentioned in G2SS? I did not know that.

LFL is a subsidiary of BSA, a hair splitting disctinction but one nonetheless.

The only place that I've ever seen a gateway is at summer camp and at camporees and neither of those are LNT. As for out of date and out of fashion, so is marriage before having kids but that doesn't mean that it should be discouraged.

I can't imagine why anyone would pick a dark blue shirt in a land as warm as yours is. I gave up umpiring baseball when I was told that I'd have to give up my powder blue shirt for and stand in the sun for eight hours in a navy blue polyesther shirt. Hey, if it works for you . . .

I clicked to read and there were no replies so I started to type my response and noticed that two people already answered. Rats! There went my chance to show off.

Amid rumors that a new uniform is coming down the pipeline which will generate $millions for BSA, I'd like to express my wishes. Put the necker back OVER the collar and make the shirt necker friendly. By "friendly" I mean that when the slide is up properly, that you don't have a gap between the top button and the slide. Encourage wearing of an undershirt with the uniform. It helps cut down on those nasty armpit stains and we won't have to see some fat guy's belly when his buttons are nigh unto popping. Also, an undershirt helps keep you comfortable in both hot and cold weather (yes, it really does). Allow the necker to be worn with the activity uniform. BP included the necker because it is a practical piece of outdoors attire. It also would help identify a group of casually dressed boys as Scouts. I have a big green, cotton, milsurp (Swedish, I think) necker that I wear when I'm hiking. It serves to mop up sweat, I've used it as a hat and bandage, it could be used to filter water, can also serve as a napkin (in both the American and British sense). Just my random thoughts.

The problem with your analogy is that McCord wasn't drummed out of the service for wearing his uniform badly. What I don't understand is how people can have so little pride in their appearance that they'll go out in public in a threadbare uniform with patches in the wrong places. Unless I'm in the middle of working on my car, I want to look decent when I go out in public. We don't need the uniform police but someone should be around to say, "Dude, you don't wear your Scoutmaster patch on the left pocket."

Your complaints about gateways indicate, to me, that you've missed one of the primary reasons for having a gateway, what MBAs call "Team Building." Many things in Scouting are done to foster a sense of team, teamwork and support. Gateways, patrol flags, patrol yells . . . all there to foster a team spirit. Sadly, too many adults involved in Scouting are always looking for efficiency. Cheerleaders stretch a banner across the exit from the lockerroom before every football game and the players run through it. Why bother? It's ruined now and was a waste of time, right? Every basketball coach on the planet does the "put your hands in, on three . . . Hamsters" And everyone puts their hands in and shouts "Hamsters!" Why? That extra three seconds could have been used for coaching. In a team environment, no exercise that fosters team spirit, team unity or team identity is ever a waste of time. Unless its at work where they just want to pretend to build a "team" to avoid giving raises. "Hey guys, look at the new shirts!" "What about our raise!" "Can't hear you, too much noise. Great shirts, eh?"

Hey Sarge! Nice manual. I was on a military drill team in college (many trophies/many awards) and on the military color guard for football games. Your manual brought back some memories. Sniff! Now I'm going to get my Garand out of the closet and talk to it for a while. FWIW, I think that basic drill should be part of the core cirruciculum for Scouts. How to stand at attention. How to salute. How to get from here to there without looking like a cluster-f. Unfortuately, BSA frowns upon that. BSA, as is often the case, doesn't make much sense. Drill is bad except for flag ceremonies. But if you don't know basic drill then drill for the flag doesn't make any sense to you unless that is your primary function and you've practiced for it. Oh well, we live in a world where everyone claims to support the armed forces but are afraid that any "military" influence with make their kids run off to enlist.

I like the looks of that thing. Free fuel, no need to carry fuel, maybe just some tinder. You could even cobble together an aluminum plate to put under it that had folding legs to get it up off the ground. What to do with the ashes? Take them and scatter them in the woods, they'll become fertilizer.