Hal_Crawford

Srisom: The New River Adventure looks neat but they will have to kick it up a lot to compete as a national high adventure base. The BRC program has one day of white water rafting, one day of white water canoeing and two days of COPE. There is an optional fifth day of mountain biking, climbing or caving. Scouts sleep each night in base camp in Pulaski County, VA. They bus the scouts to WV for the rafting. I would hope that whatever they do in West Virginia will involve some sort of a trek of at least 10 days. Hal

IMHO: The first problem is that the adults are the ones enforcing these rules. Our troop is by no means the model for uniform standards but the scouts enforce tucked in shirts. I'd love to see them tucked into scout pants instead of an odd assortment of jeans, sweats and running shorts but it has to be scout driven. We are working on our PLC to schedule uniform inspections so that the boys can take ownership of the uniform standards. Ultimately, I would be happier with a boy led troop in multi colored tutus than an adult led troop that looks like it just walked out of the Boys Life.

Great story, a win for the good guys, thanks for sharing. Hal

Skipper: Goshen is bigger than the average council camp with multiple camps on the reservation. Camp Post which has the reservation administration building, the health lodge, some staff and guest cabins as well as the climbing tower and COPE course is already a good start to being a training center and there is some room to grow. Looking at what they have had at past jamborees I think that they will be expanding the reservation one way or another. The 2005 jamboree had 20 sub-camps and I think one of the criteria was the ability to have more. There have been at most 8 camps at Goshen (c

Like some of the posters above I would hesitate to accuse the person or go sleuthing around unless there is a good reason to be concerned. The loser in this will likely be his son who will get pulled out of the pack as soon as dad is accused or his exaggerations, misrepresentations and/or lies come to light. If you do feel the need to dig there are a few things you could check before interrogating the leader. If you are the CC or CM you should have access to the unit copy of his adult application. If not the CC or CM you will need to share your concerns with one of them. The a

The NCAC website now confirms that it is Goshen Scout Reservation http://www.boyscouts-ncac.org/openrosters/vieworgpagelink.asp?orgkey=370&linkkey=26692. Hal

SSScout: Yes, I think the the centennial camporee will be an interesting test. My guess is that 10,000 is more than twice the normal peak capacity. I wonder how they will handle parking the buses? Certainly there will have to be a lot of changes and upgrades before they can handle the jambo. Interesting that nothing has appeared on the council or national website about this. artjrk: In-laws used to live in Staunton (pronounced Stanton for the uninitiated) and SIL is still there. I share your love of the valley though I am not a fan of dodging semis on I-81. It is beauti

Shortridge: Wiki's acreage reminded me of Star Trek Episode where the universe kept shrinking until it was about 200 meters square. Like Tokala, I've been hearing rumors for for a while that they were looking at Goshen. I am pretty sure that the reservation will be at least part of the Jamboree site.

Bicentennial birthday greetings go out today to Abe Lincoln and Charles Darwin, both born 2/12/1809. Happy 200!

Shortridge: Wikipedia is wrong (Shocked I say, shocked)! According to them it is less than 1 square kilometer. The entire reservation within a 1000 meter square? I have hiked enough of the trails there to guarantee that is wrong. Heck, the lake is 450 acres! According to the their web site it is 4000+ acres. The adjacent state land that is used for Lenhok'sin High Adventure makes the total close to 40,000 acres. Look at it on Google maps: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Goshen+Scout+Reservation&sll=37.97668,-79.453812&sspn=

As someone who has camped at Goshen Scout Reservation every year since 1996 I applaud this choice. I hear what Skeptic says about a central location but by the same token I look forward to the new high adventure base in the mid Atlantic region. It is a long trip to Philmont and the mountains of West Virginia will provide a different set of challenges for hikers. While more humid than what many westerners are used to, the Goshen area will be a lot nicer than AP Hill. I don't know what they will do there to accommodate the Jamboree numbers but if you want to see what is there now v

Before I started with our troop there was a scout who passed his EBOR and shortly after was arrested on some serious felonies. I understand he was informed his Eagle had been revoked. I believe that his application was pulled before approval at National so you could argue he never was actually an Eagle though if the BOR is the defining moment then maybe he was. He was subsequently convicted and did time. To my knowledge he is neither gay nor an atheist... but he surely isn't an Eagle. As I said, this was before I joined the troop but the repercussions were still being felt when I jo

I did a search on line and found this: http://www.scoutbugle.com/index.html It looks like a bugle can be had for a lot less than a trumpet. The most expensive on this site is $69. It seems that it is a lot easier to find a bugler if the troop provides the bugle. I am not a horn player and I cannot personally vouch for this site or the instruments they sell but it looks legit. Good luck.

My experience is similar to Lisabob's. I serve the youth. I have very little contact with our CO. The CO has been kind enough to continue chartering the troop for nearly 60 years but there are very few if any youth in the congregation and none of them in our troop. For several years the CO had a string of interim pastors who did not pay much attention to us. We now have a new COR that is taking some interest so perhaps things are looking up. As a troop we try to repay generosity by doing service projects for the church but there is no feeling that we are part and parcel of th

Is this in response to the announcement that Justice Ginsberg had surgery today for pancreatic cancer? While that is a grim diagnosis she does not plan to retire yet so perhaps we should put off picking her successor.

SSScout: Did you mean to say double the working limit? That reduces the safety factor. For manila, our industry standard is 10:1. If the breaking strength is 1000# then the Safe Working Load would be 100#. Some use 8:1 but I would never go down to 5:1 with manila. This is because manila is more susceptible to wear and abuse than say wire rope or even some synthetics. None of this really matters for lashing. The strength comes from the wraps and fraps and I doubt you could actually compute the load on the rope. I would still go with manila for lashing.

There is truth to what you say about junior staffers. If you contact them through the web forms there is at least a track of which issues are getting a lot of correspondence. When that happens the staff takes notice. I did write Senator George Allen (former R from VA) asking him NOT to vote YES on a particular bill. About two weeks later I received an form e-mail from him assuring me that I did not need to worry, he was voting YES on that the bill. I was glad to vote against him in the next election and glad to see him go. Senator John Warner ® on the other hand wrote back that

The web forms on the Senate web site http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm are the best way to contact your senator.

I haven't ever felt the need to wet down manila rope. It is subject to humidity and moisture; more so than synthetics. Damp or wet rope gets shorter and fatter; dryer rope gets thinner and longer. It is an issue in stage rigging because lines have to be adjusted whenever there is a shift in humidity. Those who have been to a jamboree can attest that we do in fact have humidity here in Virginia. Maybe manila behaves differently in the dry air of the SW. I don't think it should make much of a difference with lashing as the lengths are short and the frapping should give it all the purchase i

I would recommend either manila rope or a synthetic equivalent made from polypropylene. The following link will give you a price comparison. http://www.us-rope-cable.com/HTML/manila-rope.html?gclid=CPazkOnDxZgCFQxKGgodWTf_1A Manila is fine but splintery. Good idea to wear gloves while handling it. It is an organic material (I have heard it described as coherent compost) so it loses strength over time but this shouldn't be a problem for lashing. It is a consideration for lifting which is why a 10:1 safety factor is used for overhead lifting. It is much cheaper than any synthetic

But pork fat AND maple syrup... even better. Yum!

I believe Geithner and Daschle have paid their back taxes, penalties and interest. This is what would be expected of you or me or Republican politicians. The Senate, including a number of Republicans has confirmed Geithner and Daschle has withdrawn. It's over. This thread is, to quote Shakespeare, "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing".

Ed: A couple of months ago you were pretty rigid about enforcing BSA rules when it came to an unmarried adult couple sharing a tent. You said it set a bad example. Now when it is about smoking, your attitude is, yeah we did it scouts saw it so what? How are these two situations different?

Target. $19.99. http://www.target.com/Waffle-Iron/dp/B0002YTFXM/sr=1-2/qid=1233718914/ref=sr_1_2/192-2050058-2469964?ie=UTF8&rh=k%3Awaffle%20iron&page=1 At that price it's certainly worth a try. Sounds like a great gift.

OGE: I normally avoid posting to pro-life/pro-choice debates but I want to say amen to your post. My feelings exactly. Hal