gwd-scouter

Hey Scoutmom, welcome to the forum! I think I saw that Dr. Phil episode. You, your husband, and your sons were in the front row all in your Scout uniforms? I seem to remember you had blue shoulder loops. Are you still a cub leader or have you moved up to boy scouts?

Hello folks. You can tell I'm a scouter by just stepping into my house. Well, actually, you need only drive by my house for now. You see, our chartered organization is undergoing some major construction and asked us to temporarily move our troop trailer. Being the SM and my husband is an ASM and oversees equipment, naturally we moved it to our house. Great big ol' trailer sitting in our driveway for almost a year now. Sure, the neighbors understand, but I imagine they'd like to see it gone (as we would). Walk up the sidewalk, step onto the porch, and past the open side door to the g

Not knowing all the details I can only say from reading your post that the Eagle Board Chair is out of line. The Eagle Scout and his family determine what type of ceremony he wants. It can be formal, informal, in a church, in the woods, during the day, in the evening, whatever. He can have whomever he wants give the Eagle charge - even someone who is not an Eagle Scout (though he usually is). He can ask whomever he wants to speak at his ceremony, or no one at all. My older son had his Eagle ceremony in 2001 and I've been to several others over the years. While members of the Eagles'

So, is this troop committee training something I do as SM, or our district does in addition to the training done by the council?(This message has been edited by gwd-scouter)

What is Troop Committee Challenge? I've heard it mentioned here before. We don't have anything called that in our District or Council.

Thanks for the encouragement folks. Meeting went very well. New CC had prepared an agenda and first on the list was a report by the SM (me). I did use this as an opportunity to discuss upcoming trainings for them. But, more importantly, I outlined what the troop had done over the past year and the goals for the upcoming year. A couple of these folks have had boys in the troop for a few years but never really understood what was going on. Just that the troop had a new SM and she seemed a lot tougher than the SMs before her! They asked me quite a few questions after the business part of our

We have all new membership on our Troop Committee and having our first meeting tonight. None of the folks on the Committee have been to training yet. The dates for district and council training are coming up soon and I will give out the schedules tonight. Hope I can convince all these new folks to go. We are having our Troop's annual planning campout in a couple of weeks and I was hoping for an easier year now that the scouts are beginning to get the hang of the whole boy-led thing! Didn't plan on having to start with a bunch of new adults and an untrained committee. Hooh boy. It ne

I agree with Chippewa in that a SM should serve for at least 5 years. I say that knowing that I've only been in the SM position for two years and a minimum of three more years to go seems a bit overwhelming at times! One of the biggest problems our troop has had was a succession of SMs that only served 1-2 years. With each new SM came a period of transition that lasted 6 months or more - sometimes during the SMs entire tenure (one of the SMs served less than a year). Add to that a SM who was all talk and no action, another that was such a nice guy he would never hold a scout accountable f

Another favorite: cooked pineapple. Place whole pineapple on embers (either campfire or charcoal). Rotate pineapple every few minutes for about 1/2 hour. When outside of pineapple is blackened, remove and slice. Juicy and hot. Yummy! And, of course, no mess except for the knife used to slice it.

One of our Scouts did a similar project this summer. His church was sponsoring a medical mission trip to Honduras. His project involved collecting, sorting, and packaging all the medical supplies before the trip. This involved two weekends of volunteers (church folks and scouts). He organized and scheduled the weekends, coordinated the volunteers, and oversaw the sorting and packaging. I, too, was a bit concerned when he approached me about the project. It certainly was not the typical building-type project I've heard about before. And, this was only the third project brought to me as SM

"The lawsuit claims the troop would not let the 11-year-old boy go to scout meetings or on a camping trip unless his father came along, and that as a result, he was unable to move to the next scouting level." How does requiring his father to come along prohibit the Scout from achieving the next level in Scouting? Or, any level? Must be more to this story than we see here.

For years, our troop has struggled along with poorly attended campouts or cancelled campouts. When I took the job of SM a little less than 2 years ago, I made a commitment to the boys that I would not cancel a campout as long as at least 3 guys and another adult were going. Oh yes, went on a lot of 3-scout campouts! But, eventually, the guys got the idea that we would follow through with plans and go and do something every month. Last August they held their first ever annual planning weekend. They filled the calendar with trips of their chosing. Still, attendance was pretty poor for the

Wow Kichkinet, a family full of OA guys! Great time to spend together during your fall fellowship. Older son was on the nominations list for Vigil Honor this summer, but was not elected. He was very surprised to find out he was even being considered. Both he and younger son are looking forward to fall fellowship in our Council coming up in October. Good luck to you and your brother.

Smoked sausage is perfect for campouts. We made a meal at last weekend's campout that had the boys drooling. Now they've put it on their list for next time: Smoked sausage (1 or 2 depending on the size) cut up into bite sized pieces. Brown in skillet or dutch oven with chopped onion. Add 2 cans beef broth (we prefer Campbells, condensed), 1 cup slow cooking rice (NOT minute rice), 1 bag frozen corn, 1 bag frozen broccoli, 1 bag frozen peppers. Seasonings we use are a bit of salt, pepper, garlic powder and sometimes red pepper flakes. Let it all simmer for about 1/2 hour. Wonderf

Interesting - I was raised a Roman Catholic and that came up last on my quiz! 1. Liberal Quakers (100%) 2. Unitarian Universalism (96%) 3. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (94%) 4. Neo-Pagan (93%) 5. New Age (87%) 6. Secular Humanism (78%) 7. Mahayana Buddhism (76%) 8. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (76%) 9. Taoism (73%) 10. New Thought (70%) 11. Bah' Faith (68%) 12. Scientology (63%) 13. Theravada Buddhism (61%) 14. Reform Judaism (58%) 15. Nontheist (48%) 16. Orthodox Quaker (47%) 17

Hey Pack. Do you live in my backyard? We did the Nantahala. I agree Chattooga is awesome (section IV anyway), but we wanted to do a trip that all our Scouts could participate in. It wasn't until we booked the Nantahala that we found out that you could just do section III of Chattooga. Older guys got to experience more challenge on our trip by paddling 2-man ducks, but have said they want a more challenging river next time. Perhaps we could take the young guys on Chattooga III and older guys can continue on through Chattooga IV. Have also been down Ocoee and French Broad. But, the Nol

Just returned from our White Water Rafting trip. The was the best attended outing for the last three years: 9 Scouts (only 12 in our Troop) and 5 adult leaders (2 of the AMSs are Eagle Scouts from our Troop: my older son (almost 20) and an 18 year old who earned his Eagle last October). First time in a long time that our SPL was actually on the trip. He wasn't signed up to go but a week before he came to me and said he felt he should go since he hadn't been on many outings as SPL - I just loved that! Another older Scout joined us who has not been active with the troop for almost 2 y

Camp Old Indian Scout Reservation, Travelers Rest, South Carolina. 7 weeks of Boy Scout Camp - about 300 scouts/scouters served each week 1 Cub Resident Camp in beginning of June - averages about 200 Cubs/Parents 8 Cub/Parent weekend sessions in October and November. There are two sessions each weekend: Friday evening to Saturday noon or Saturday afternoon to Sunday morning - all very well attended, each session with about 300.

"Sometimes a guy's just gotta barf" stated by a 12 year old scout just after he retched into the trashcan at summer camp.

Thanks for the responses so far. I haven't worked Day Camp for many years, but usually am asked for input in the early planning stages (I guess because I DID do Day Camp and Cub Resident Camp for many many years). Kristi: I like the idea of early bird incentive rather than late fee punishment. The limited T shirt and patch supply makes a good incentive too. I will certainly mention both to the folks for next year's planning. LisaBob: Love the idea of requiring a person from each Pack to work on staff. Volunteers for staffing is also one of our biggest problems every year! Our s

At last night's roundtable the topic came up about people waiting until the last week before day camp to sign up. Day Camp is promoted in our District beginning at February's District Banquet. Flyers are mailed to all registered Cub Scouts from Council in March or April. The Day Camp Director and/or Program Director goes to at least one Pack meeting for every Pack in our District and promotes camp. Still, there is almost no attendance until about a week before camp and then they come flooding in. This makes it extremely difficult for the staff to plan T shirt orders, craft supplies,

Oops. Just reread my post and noticed I mentioned the Carver picnic when referring to Youth Protection. Apologies. I'm getting my trainings confused. Carver picnic is in Ages and Stages video for new leader training. I've done both so many times as a District Trainer that one sort of melts into the other.

Went to Roundtable last night and no one I talked to has heard of these new pants. Maybe here in upstate South Carolina, word hasn't gotten out yet. I do have one concern about the new pants. Considering the different rates that Scout clothing fades when washed (especially the socks!), won't it be interesting when the shorts are washed throughout the summer and then the legs are zipped back on for winter wear and don't match!

I attend every monthly roundtable for our Troop (I am SM). My husband, ASM, attends periodically and our former Committee Chair made it a couple of times. Many troops and packs are not representated at all at our roundtables and I know this has been discussed in other threads. Mostly, those that do show up in our area are SM or CM. I'd just like to find out from the forum folks of those units that do make it to roundtables, who attends? SM, ASM, Committee members, etc. Is attending roundtable a responsibility I could pass on to someone else in the Troop to help free up my time a bit?

Going out on a limb here and assuming that last year's Tiger Den Leader is now this year's Wolf Den Leader. Tiger year began last fall and ended this past spring. Wolf year begins this fall. In many Packs, the "year" is really just the school year with the exception of having Cub Resident Camp, Day Camp and maybe a Pack activity or two in the summer. In any case, most Packs graduate their Cubs to the next level at the end of the school year. So, having said that, your Tiger Den Leader signed up last fall and ended his term last Spring and did not serve a full year. The requirement does no