gwd-scouter

"So for Star and Life (or even First Class), boys get the badge just by checking boxes and doin' the proverbial "How does the troop make you feel?" 10 minute BOR. The boys and parents learn and expect that yeh get awards by checkin' boxes, not by really developin' skills and character." Interestingly, I had a very similar discussion with a few of our scouts about this very thing just a few weeks ago. They were arguing about age and rank and how they are used a measure of a scouts abilities. "I'm better than you because I outrank you" kind of thing. I also talked about our Troop's ad

What a fantastic campout! It would take a very long post to describe all the things that went right this weekend, so I'll suffice to say that our junior leaders had everything under control. My husband and I spent time with the new parents. When we arrived the new Scouts all scattered and took off down to the Lake. I could see some concern on the parents' faces, and frustration on our Troop Guides and SPL. One Troop Guide headed down to the lake and rounded 'em all up. Then the work began setting up. I made a comment to the parents that watched the fiasco that ensued while the new guys w

Love the origami bowls!

Yikes, what a crowd! In the course of a week, we went from a Troop of 10 boys, 2 ASMs and a few Committee folks to 21 boys, 6 ASMs, 6 Committee Members, and parents that just want to help out. Several have sent me emails about merit badges they'd like to sign up to counsel. A typical campout for us was 2-3 adults and 8-10 boys. We are fortunate that we always have 100% participation or close to it at meetings and campouts. This weekend's trip is no exception. Eighteen boys and 10 adults. Good grief. Thrilled about the number of boys, but the adult roster is just too much. I'm hoping that

By the way, John-in-KC, thanks for the video. Wonderful early morning laugh - although I don't much care for cleaning up the coffee I spewed out of my nose!!

Our DE picks up the packet from Council office and brings it to the SMs.

Having seen the cute Cub Scout photos on Facebook, I was wondering who else among the forum folks was a Scout in his/her youth. I was a Girl Scout for a couple of years. Older brother was in Boy Scouts and I was jealous of his adventures. I grew up with three brothers, so I was a tom boy all the way. Man, was I disappointed. Girl Scouts, at least back in the 60s, was nothing like Boy Scouts. Yeah, seriously, how much camping do you think we did wearing dresses??? Good news is, a few decades later I finally got to be a Boy Scout!

Why, thank you gentlemen. SR540Beaver and Packsaddle are lookin' awfully cute as Cub Scouts.

I don't know about the Lodge as a whole, but our Chapter always sends an election team out some time in the late spring, before our Troops start going to summer camp. I am not in the OA so I don't know what happens with the sheet after I sign it verifying those boys that have been elected. When we get to camp I always have to go find a Lodge person and make sure I write down our guys' names for the Call Out on Wednesday. Seems pretty odd to me.

Hopefully, we will all also remember that Eagle isn't the finish line or even the goal/purpose of the program.

The troops in our District have all kinds of practices. Some hold back advancement, retest the scouts on every SM conference and BOR; others are advancement mills; ours does it right - sorry, couldn't resist. One of our new ASMs (just crossed over from Webelos) told me about his visit to one of the other Troops. He said the SM was talking about their attendance policy. Scouts in that troop cannot advance to the next rank unless they have a certain percentage of meetings and outings within one year of advancement. The reason the SM gave for the policy is that in that past they've had older

It seems for the most part that the threads that go off topic have usually answered the initial question in the first couple of posts. I will have to admit to occasionally going off topic myself. Sorry 'bout that folks. My mind does tend to meander.

Thank to all of you that have invited me to be a friend on Facebook. It's nice to put a face to the screen names.

This is a tough one. For the past couple of years our boy led troop had trouble attracting Webelos. Mostly due to concerns from parents that what they saw as chaos was a boy led troop doing it's thing. Not the neatly organized, overly structured, Den meeting. We basically competed against the big troop (bigger is better) and the adult led troop (those guys really advance fast). There are several other small troops in our District, but the Dens that came to visit us never mentioned visiting those others. I take responsibility for our past struggles because I didn't realize how important it

We just enrolled 11 new Scouts to our Troop. We had only 9 guys to start with. Three of our guys are in the OA. Four will be eligible for election this year. We are having our elections in May and I'm wondering about all those new guys voting. Being in a new scout patrol that is headed up by two of our OA guys, the new scouts won't really know the four eligible scouts very well. Presumably they don't know anything about the OA either. I'm hopeful that the presentation the election team gives will be helpful, but I wonder... How could the new scouts vote for a guy without knowing him?

KurtB - I can't say if that practice is normal or not. I know some Troops in our area that seem to plan their outings only one month in advance. Others may post a calendar of monthly campouts and activities, but the dates aren't set until a couple of months or a month ahead. For instance, March may show "Backpacking Trip," but no dates. Just a general theme. Our Troop has an annual planning weekend every September. That way, the District and Council calendars are already out so the guys can plan around Camporees, OA weekends, etc. We bring school calendars too so that they are aware of s

Kahits, you haven't posted in a while - good to see you're still around and I hope things are going well with your troop. Life BOR is much the same as any other BOR - asking questions about what the candidate did to get to that rank. However, the further a scout goes along the advancement trail, the longer the BOR will be and the more in depth the questions. For instance, a Tenderfoot Scout may be asked what kind of knots he learned. The First Class Scout what kind of knots and lashings he used to build a camp gadget. The Life Scout who may have earned pioneering merit badge about his exp

Last Monday, we participated in the crossing of four Webleos Scouts to our Troop. Yesterday afternoon, our guys did the crossing ceremony for six more from a different Pack. Ten new Scouts eager to start - first meeting tonight and campout this weekend. Wonderful! Last Monday's crossing was planned and run by the Pack. Our guys were there only to put on new neckerchiefs. Yesterday's Pack leaders wanted us to plan and conduct the ceremony ourselves. The guys did a great job, using the Scout Law as the theme. I started it out by asking the Webelos and parents to come up. Parents removed Web

Lovely and touching story. Thanks for sharing.

slide rule, Pack? What, no abacus? sorry, couldn't resist.

I strongly discourage taking siblings along on an outing. It's really nothing more than babysitting and that is not what Scouting is about. Sure, you can tell parents that they will have to supervise the sibling and not get in the Scouts' way. Really folks, can you actually see that happening? What I envision is younger brother running around, harassing his older brother, wanting to do what the older guys are doing, perhaps causing a safety issue. The only time we allow siblings along on trips is when we go snow skiing. A very popular outing and having parents and sibs along doesn't di

Our guys had a great weekend backpacking. Saturday morning, our three experienced Scouts were dropped off to begin their 10 mile hike to their campsite. The adults and four less experienced Scouts took a different trail - about 3 miles - to their campsite. The two campsites were about 1/4 mile from each other. About 5:00 pm, the older guys arrived at their campsite and set up. Adults and other scouts joined them for a campfire Saturday night, then headed back to their own site. Sunday morning, older guys packed up, hiked down to the other campsite where everyone had a worship service. Then all

I saw our guys off on their backing trip yesterday. One Scout showed up in his brand new centennial uniform. The guys don't wear the official uniform when backpacking, but he was so proud of his. He told me he was going to test out the tech pocket. Had his Ipod in there already. After he said that, he looked at me very seriously and said, "I won't use it while we're hiking, gotta stay alert, just gonna use it in the car." Nice.

Packsaddle - thanks for the offer, but I don't really need to know the content of the posts.

My husband served in the Navy. After he watched "Taking Chance" he told me about standing watch over a deceased naval officer who wished to be buried at sea. He didn't know what took place before, but the casket was never left alone while on board.