Gold Winger

One of the functions of the BOR is to determine if they really did the requirements of if Mr. Smith just signed off because he wanted to go to lunch that day. Another is to determine how the Scout is dealing with the program and if there are any problems with the SM or other leaders, including youth. I would have loved to have been able to say, "You have to know your knots" but that's not in the rules. SM conference? Don't know.

Come on Ed, you know the rules. Units cannot solicit funds, they can do fundraisers where the donor receives something of value for their contribution. "Hi! Would you like to donate to Troop 996?" is not acceptable.

I once ran across a guy who had one of those machines at summer camp. He used a car battery to run it. I hope that they have smaller machines now. On my Philmont trek, we only came across one staff camp that had electricity. Most have solar power to run their radios but that's it. No computers. No outlets for charging cell phones or camera batteries. Depending on the batteries and their size, you might ask if they'll send out batteries to be waiting at the different staff camps where you'll be visiting. The downside is that you might have nights where no staff camps are nearby. We spent two nights with no staff camps within miles.

"I'm involved with 2 councils. To my knowledge, you have to pay in both councils. The concept of dual-registered only works within a council." I'm registered with two councils. My second council insisted that I pay the $10 again. Being cheap, I called Texas and asked. They said that you only pay once. I called the second council, talked to someone different and they said, "no, you only pay once" and sent me a refund. I'm registered with the lodge in my first council. I do get grief about my "foreign" OA flap. BTW, I do have shirts for both councils.

" It just seemed odd to me that he cannot wear his uniform while performing this community service." That's because the fund raising is not for Scouting but for the service project. Although the service project is Scouting related, the fund raising isn't for Scouting. I disagree with Ed, wearing the T-shirt would imply that the funds are for Scouting.

Never had a desire to see it. I like musicals and drawing room comedies.

I think that the problem is with committees in general, especially the chairmen. My son's troop used to have these incredibly long meetings where every nuance of everything was discussed in incredible detail, even the details of the details were discussed. Then the new chair came into power. Her job is teaching companies how to run meetings. Wow! What a difference. Meetings stayed on track. Sub-committtee heads gave their reports. Business that should be relegated to a sub-committee meeting was cut off. Bada-bing, bad-boom. No more endless discussions about cotton vs. cotton-poly for the t-shirts. The same was true of my old district. The first chair that I knew was a president of a large real estate company. The next was CEO of a large financial company. Meetings were right on track. Subcommittees were left to do their jobs. My new district has meetings where the color of jelly beans for the camporee is the subject of endless debate. Consequently, nothing ever gets done. Bullying might not be the way to get things done, even in the world of paid folks. However, if someone isn't doing their job or willing to get in step with the way that the chair wants things done, maybe it is time to fire him and find someone new. People often say, "You can't fire volunteers." Sure you can. If he's not doing his job and making your life more difficult, get rid of him. It can be hard to do because we view many of these people as friends but you have to do it. Maybe you need to find someplace where the person's skill are better suited or maybe he shouldn't be in charge and is better off as a worker. Unless you need to stay involved with Scouting for your own sanity, don't worry about. If you need to support your wife, let the district go to hell in a handbasket. Years ago my wife was battling breast cancer. My officiating assigner normally viewed cancelling assignments as second only to taking money to throw a game. He surprised the heck out of me when he said, "If you need to take care of your wife, I don't care if you cancel five minutes before the game starts. You do what you have to do." The same goes for Scouting.

You cannot wear your uniform while doing political activities for a particular candidate. Wearing it while doing "Get out and vote" drive would be okay. Wearing it while handing out literature for "Joe Doakes for Prez" isn't.(This message has been edited by Gold Winger)

Wooly-pully? Five button? Big heads (dang, I thought that I had a big head at 7 1/2, how much of that is hair?) I think that I've said before that the feature of the wooly-pully that makes it attractive is the patches on the shoulders to reduce wear from pack straps. Give me a five button sweater with shoulder patches and I'd be happy.

Clockwork Orange? I though that was Gene Kelly. " The sleeves stick out "SO WHAT"" Why would the sleeves stick out? I just don't want something as bulky as a sweater under my uniform shirt. I have a nice BSA issue mock turtle neck shirt that I wear under my uniform if it is chilly. I also have the red shirt-jac. For the record, I don't like it when Scouts and Scouters wear a hodge-podge of jacket. Steelers, Ravens, Ohio State, etc. Go to a youth sporting event where the kids and parent take it seriously. See anyone without a team jacket. If your daughter is a junior tiny cheerleader, try telling the coach that she won't be wearing the $75 team jacket to the junior tiny football games. This is one place where I support the idea of the local option. Join the troop and you buy the troop rain jacket and red fleece jacket which are embroidered with the troop's logo. Or they could be organizational clothing and issued to new Scouts. If the Scout doesn't take care of it, they have to replace it.

"Gold Winger's discussion on summer camp should be (and has been) in a different thread" Ah-ha! I see now. BW's a member of the TTP, the Thread Topic Police. Heaven forfend a drift in topic.

Well Bob, I haven't been to all 300 camps. I've been to three different ones and I've chatted with many Scouters who have been to other camps. The story is always the same. In fact, some Scouters look for camps where their Scouts can "earn" more merit badges. Group testing? That seems to be the norm at camp and the merit badge universities. Expert? Nah. Competent. Not really. Put some effort into it? Sure. Maybe if competent help can't be found, the summer camp as merit badge factory needs to be rethought.

I don't see a problem with it, anymore than I see a problem with a game involving arrows or firearms (biathalon anyone?) We have games with axes and we have games with fire. With knives you might want to introduce some safety related penalties. Draw blood and you're DQed or a nick is -5 points, a cut is -10 and gash is DQ. My problem is that I can't think of games that would involve a knife that could be scored. To me that's like trying to come up with games that involve a screwdriver. Put the screw in and then take it out. Not much fun there. Good luck and more power to you.

I'm still confused by the rush to get merit badges and the race for advancement. From what I've observed, the summer camp merit badge model goes against the basic premise of merit badges. The boys races through the material in a class room setting guided by counselors who have minimal experience. The result is that boys get a merit badge but have no enrichment. For example, one year at Summer Camp, "Sports" was offered as an evening merit badge. Since I used to umpire and am a Sport MB counselor, I headed over to the pavillion to see what was happening. It was over before I got there. All the counselor did was say, "Who played sports?" If you put your hand up, you got signed off. Our SM KNEW for a fact that some of our boys had never played an organized sport in their life so they never got those badges (that's another thread). Music was done similarily. Do you play an instrument? Have you performed in public? Okay. Fine. You got the badge. Leather working isn't much better. Pound your initials into a piece of leather, stain it and stitch it up and you got the badge. No need to do it well. No need to even understand what you're doing. Just get it done in two days so you can jump over to wood carving where you knock the edges off of a block of wood, call it a slide and you got the badges. Has anything been learned? Not really. Has any proficiency been gained? Nope. Any enrichment? Just a badge. End of rant.

My God! What a revolutionary concept. I wish that my son's boy scout troop would use it :-) Good luck. Keep us posted. "So I have one week to put together PL notebooks and handbooks." Maybe you could ask the PLs to assist.

Your goal? I thought that this was Boys Scouts not Parent Scouts. Why rush First Class? What does that achieve? Sheesh, I'd better leave now before I go bonkers.

" I went to the troops committe chairperson and told him. He did some checking and told me I was correct with the location." Unless there's a typo someplace, your CC is wrong. Position patches should be on the LEFT sleeve. Uniforms, as much as possible, should be uniform. It's not rocket science. The chart is in the book. It is online. The problem is that parents "don't have time" and don't think that it's important and the Scouts don't care.

When my son's troop decided to create a web site, a adult was appointed to oversee the project, a fellow who is a mangager of software weenies in his real life. The Scout who was supposed to implement it was a very tech savvy kid, actually made money designing website BUT he wanted to do it his way. This was back in the day when most people still had dial-up and this kids site had every imaginable bell and whistle that could be added to slow down the loading and navigation of the site. He refused to take direction to make the site friendly to the non-geeks of the world. No other youth cared enough to take on the task so the adult wound up designing the site. It is very simple, easy to navigate site with the calendar, forms, equipment lists, contact inforation for the adults and lots of pictures. Sadly, very few hits occur on the site. People say, "I need the permission slip for X" Did you check the web site? "noooooo."

There are no rules. :-) PWD is largely a unit and district event. Why can't the boys be there? Is it something important like a funeral or just a chance to see a new movie? In any case, since the boy doesn't really have anything to do with the race, what does it matter if he's there? The cars are put on the track and gravity does the rest. I know that our district PWD always had a few cars that ran without the boys being there.

"An old heavily pitted scout axe next to a GPS devise or some other juxtaposition might have been more interesting." A heavily pitted Scout ax would be an example of BAAAD Scouting. No edged tool should ever be allowed to rust and develop pits. Pappy, we've always known that you've had some strange ideas about Scouting but this just clinches it.

"There is nothing to vote on." Unfortunately, most units don't see it this way. The create large committees and then everyone votes on everything. Many units also allow any parent who wants to show up to vote as well. It goes along with our society believing that everyone is an expert on everything. If your kid plays soccer, you get to tell the coach how to coach. You get to tell the ref how to ref. Why not tell the SM how to do his job? Of course you know how to do it better but you just don't want the job. Not long ago, I was at a pack committee meeting where they spent 15 minutes debating napkins for the Blue & Gold dinner. Why? Just let people do their jobs.

It's a big mess and permeates our society. We've become rather psycho when it comes to dealing with our teens. Parents do way too much because they don't want to see failure because failure can be "discouraging" and "after, all they're just kids and don't know what to do." On the other hand, many parents say, "Oh, he's old enough to make his own decisions" and don't make rules, let alone give guidance. The result there is drunk driving, tobbacco & drug use, and pregnant teens. Of course, when something does go wrong, the cry immediately changes from "he's old enough . . ." to "he's just a kid . . ." You can't have it both ways. In the Scouting world, too many parents want to rush through the basic skills to get their son to 1st Class because they have to make Eagle by 16 or they'll never do it because of girls and cars. The result is a big mess. Because the parents have organized EVERYTHING in their kids' lives, the kids never learned how to do anything on their own. Playdates, organized sports, reading sessions . . . everything is a fieldtrip. Kids don't play pick up games or explore the area like they did in days gone by, at least the "good kids" don't. Now we thrust them into an environment where they are "supposed to lead." An 11 year old who has never made a decision about what to do with his free time is now expected to lead. He can't so the parents step in again and run the patrol meetings and "teach" the skills but, afraid of failure (see above), they slide everyone through with the gratest of ease. A few years down the road, we have a 14 year old SPL who still doesn't have a clue about leading or organization. So the Scoutmaster makes sure that things happen because if he doesn't the meetings will be disasters and the parents will be upset. In another year, the boys start dropping out. Why? Because they finally want to start doing things on their own but they don't know how and they really don't want to just hang out with little kids. When I was a youngster, back in the stone ages, the older kids ran the neighborhood. We didn't have football coaches and baseball coaches, the older kids taught us how to play. We learned to do bike stunts by trying to copy the older boys. If a youngster was getting out of line, one of the older guys would explain to him that his behvaior wasn't acceptable. We learned that different behavior was acceptable for different situations. For example, belching the alphabet is okay when its just a bunch of guys but if a 15 year old is talking to a girl, an 11 year old doens't walk up and belch. So where is this great rambling going? Not really sure. Okay . . . . here goes. Few boys want to take charge now because they've never had the example of boys being in charge of anything. Besides, it is far easier to just let the parents do it.

Welcome!

You could move it and when others ask, "Why?" you'd have a chance to explain where it is supposed to go. Of course, an argument would ensue and you'd be shouted down as a heretic and be forced out of the community to live as a recluse in a tarpaper shack, fighting with the dogs for scraps of food. BUT you'd know that you were in the right. :-)

Heck, for the price Movie Maker is a pretty good tool. I've used it to create quality movies that look good on a full screen. Yes, you'd think that National would be able to do a better job especially when "better" only requires that you upload a couple different versions of the same movie.