Gold Winger

"10 years later, we had two different weights of BDUS, not to mention BDUS for a European environment and a desert environment." And they took everything that they learned and threw it away for a uniform which none of the soldiers that I've asked have cared for.

I don't know if there is a rule but my district's meetings are announced well in advance, along with location and an ivitation for any interested people to attend. If you want to speak, you need to be on the agenda or ask to be allowed to speak. I've only seen one non-member attend but all are welcome.

Life isn't perfect.

That would be Robert Greenleaf and we now see where AT&T went. :-) However, what I've read about servant-leadership says nothing about the leader not being in charge or responsible. It is mostly about the leader wanting to ensure that the group succeeds and that they have the resources that they need. To me that describes any good coach, combat leader, or boss. Or as the old adage says, "take care of your people and they'll take care of you." It doesn't say anything about a leader having to follow the whims and dictates of the followers.(This message has been edited by Gold Winger)

"NINE! before it was just 6, now you've decided to add three more scouts to the scenario." Not at all. There were always nine Scouts involved, the other three were trying to convince each other that they needed a buddy to go to the can.

" I would not register a Lone Scout who I knew was a drug pusher... would you?." If he wants to be a Lone Scout it wouldn't be up to me and I don't believe your opinion would matter either. As Bill Clinton said, "Words have meanings. . ." Funny how many are willing to impugn the intelligence of our chief executive because of his inability to communicate well cannot do it themselves.

"A Scout is a registered member of a pack, troop, team, crew, or ship who tries to learn and live by the values of the Scout Oath and Law." What about Lone Scouts? I guess they aren't Scouts.

" They get the job done faster because of the team work and then they all go do the fire ring." No, they get in each other's way because it is nine trying to do a job for three. In the meantime, night is falling, the fire ring is a mess and no one build a fire because the nine are still squabbling over who need to hold the halyard. I'm beginning to think that you haven't been around boys much.

I think that Moses was the exact opposite of "servant leadership." He said, "Do this . . ." and everyone did it. Sure he invoked the name of Yahweh but the words were coming out of his mouth. Was throwng the golden calf into the fire an example of concensus building? Nah . . . he was a leader. Jesus was always telling his followers what to do. Steal a donkey. Sell your cloak and buy a sword. Do this in rememberance of me. The important point is that any effective leader, even a dictator, looks out for the well being of his followers.(This message has been edited by Gold Winger)

All together now, sing "We are the world . . ."

If we tell you . . . well, you know the rest :-)

Doesn't matter bob. Let's take your example. So the rattlesnakes want to put up a flagpole in their campsite. Everyone wants to put it up but it only takes three guys. Another three guys are needed to clean the fire ring but no on wants to do that. Now the PL can sit down with them and say, "Okay guys, we need to work together. Someone has to do the task that isn't fun. Who wants to do that?" No one will raise their hands. Teams need a leader, pretty simple concept.

"Not everything that comes from Vatican City is infallible, we can discuss that somewhere else." I'll ask my exercise buddy, the Jesuit priest for the official ruling on that.

"I wonder if we are capable of understanding that maybe these were the sorts of kids that BP had in mind when he first started thinking about Scouting?" I think that these are the people that BP had in mind because they would have made up the "Other Ranks" in his army.

I was awards guy for my son's pack for three years. It was a good sized pack until the last year, it had 50ish Cubs until the end was drawing near and enrollment dropped dramatically. I never used the ziplock method. Every award was seperate. Sometimes,if the entire den earned a pin or patch, they'd all be brought forward but each would be handed each award by itself.

Wilton, what we need to remember is that the new uniform comes from Irving, Texas and like things that come from Vatican City, it is by definition, it is perfect and infalible. To question the design of the new uniform makes us heritic Scouters and we are in danger of falling from Grace and we may wind up buring in the eternal campfire.

"On the other hand if one wants to build a teamwork type of group, the commander/dictator dynamic doesn't apply anymore." That's a lot of horse pukey. On a good team everyone knows their jobs but there still needs to be someone calling the shots. What if a football team didn't have the QB calling the plays? It would be pandemonium. On a ship, every crewman knows his job but there is still the captain to coordinate things. The Cap'n says "All ahead 2/3s." The lee helmsman doesn't wait for the cap'n to say, "Petty Officer brown, set the engine order telegraph appropriately." The lee helmsmans sends the order to engineering and snipes spring into action because everyone knows their job. Why do they know what their job is? Because someone told them. Whether you like to admit it or not, in any group larger than three there will be a director of some sort. Someone has to make decisions. What if both the Rattlesnakes and the Flaming Squirrels want to set up the flag pole but neither wants to clean the fire ring. Someone has to step in and say, "Work together on the flag pole and then clean the fire ring" or "Rattlesnakes did the fire ring last time so Flaming Squirrels you get to do it this time" or something. Maybe chain of responsibility would be a better term but I'd say that to a large extent there are two parallel ones in Scouting CC, SM, ASM and SM, SPL, PL.

"The set up cost is where the expense is. " With modern technology, that shouldn't even be the problem. There are no complex designs to lay-out, letters are letters. A few years back, my umpire association gave us new caps with the name of the organization on the front. I didn't wear adjustable caps for umpiring so I took my own New Era umpire cap to the kiosk at the mall that did cap embroidery. I looked at his available fonts, picked and in five minutes I had a cap with our name on it. Okay, maybe you're right. The cost of the person to type the name into the computer would be far more than the cost of the thread and cloth.

Remind them that the kids are young and as long as they stay hydrated, they don't have to worry. I lived in Arizona when I was a kid and we used to be outside riding bikes and playing football when it was over 100. Stay inside? No way!

Let's see. . . it's about a buck and a half or two bucks for a custom made unit number. It's about $2.50 for a custom camporee patch. A stock CSP starts at $4 and goes up from there. Don't see how a community strip would be more than a couple bucks. How would it work? Mr. CC goes to the Scout Shop and says, "I need 20 community strips that say, "West Slobovia.'" Pays and goes home. In bigger areas like Los Angeles, the shop could have them ready and waiting. In New York, they'd probably want strips that say "Youkers," "Bronx," "Astoria," etc. (This message has been edited by Gold Winger)

With modern on-demand custom embroidery, you can make strips for any town as simply as you make custom camporee patches. I know that I've seen at least ten different old community strips for my council. Considering that my council covers 17 counties, it would silly to say that the community is the council Even when I was a kid, my council covered a third of the state and we had community strips for all of the towns. It wasn't that big of a deal.

Sounds good to me. To make things simple, we could go back to the 1960s do-dads. OA flap, knots, position patch, rank, and temporary patch.

Delegate!

"I am tickled by people who wanted a more "outdoorsish" uniform that is light weight AND durable but they still want to hang as many do dads on it as they can. " The 1960s uniform was an outdoors uniform and was still very do-dadable. A few patches don't make the uniform less outdoorsy. However, if you want to reduce do-dads . . . first get rid of the "trained" patch. I know that I'm trained, my CC knows that I'm trained. Why does it matter if anyone else knows? Get rid of the silly QU patch. Once again, I know, what does it matter if anyone else knows. Position patches? Go back to the old ones that were just the symbol or position on plain fabric. Same for rank patches.

"Anyone not recognizing that the boy member is the most important person in scouting should try to run a program that doesnt interest the target demographic, you fail rather quickly." The boys are the customers. Always an important person in any organization.