Horizon

Once upon a time each patrol owned their own transport. We have gone away from that, but sometimes I wish we would return.

We have a new crew starting up, based on the little sister of one of our Scouts turning 14. The girls will transition in from a local Girl Scout unit (they might double register), boys from our Troop plus a couple I assume. I think as more successful Crews go coed, we might see more interest. Oh - @HopefullyEagleSoon - I met my outdoorsy wife in college. She has her GSA Gold, I have my Eagle, and we compare notes regularly.

Here is what I care about from the forms as a leader: Allergies (food, bees, etc.). I know the two kids who pack epie pens (one for peanuts, one for bees). Knowing those risks is important. Vaccinations. Mainly around Tetanus, but other vaccinations as well in case someone is sick. We luckily don't have any anti-vaxxers in our Troop right now. Permission for meds - what can I give your kid. Doctor approval for high adventure. More for the adults than the kids (I had one overweight Scout, but his parents were active in ensuring that he did not overstretch). It can be tough for some parents to get through these depending on their insurance, income and community. Also there is a perspective of value as well from the parents. We have a large Troop, so all forms are in two large binders that travel in the Leader's truck on the way to the campout. It sits there in case of an emergency, but we have been fortunate to not have to pull it out. Thinking further, this is a teaching moment for parents on Be Prepared. We make our kids carry a poncho, even though it doesn't rain in Southern California - because it can happen. We do an Earthquake prep day even though we haven't had a real one since Northridge in '92.

This is our system as well. We don't put you on the Charter if we don't have your forms. I do wish there was a master health form that could be used for schools, Scouts, and sports sometimes. Luckily for us our doctor's office will allow us to drop off the forms if our child has had a recent physical.

You know, that first part would not be a terrible idea. I work in software, and we measure the following: Breakage: People who sign up but never use the system. How many boys bridge over but then never attend more than a couple of meetings? This would have to be done at the Troop level, since National does not know our attendance. Churn: How many boys don't renew on an annual basis? After 1st, 2nd or 3rd year / after certain ranks. National has this information, not sure how they might report it.

Palo Alto is not that liberal (more rich, and tech than liberal). Yes, there is a Democrat in Congress who took over when a Republican stepped down to run for Senate - but she still only takes the seat with around a 60/40 split each cycle I believe. Stanford is the home to Hoover, Milton Friedman (plus Boskin and Taylor in econ), Condi Rice in Poli Sci, and several others. Their social sciences are as liberal as any other university, but they don't stand out in that measurement. The student body is more interested in the next start-up (Yahoo, Google, Snapchat from the frat boys, etc.) than protesting. There is still a Greek presence, a football team, and a drunken band that is regularly banned. Now - the real laughter is the Dean of Freshman talking about this, when much of the helicoptering is due to the insistence of schools to only admit perfect candidates. When those are the admissions criteria to even be considered, it is tough to NOT end up with hovering parents making sure zero missteps are taken. Personally, I have shared this book with the parents of our Troop - telling them that part of our goal is help the boys mature to not be as brittle. Sadly, the ones who need it the most are the ones who drop out.

Each patrol has two kits: 1) A bear barrel with two pocket rockets and a water filtration kit. This is used for lightweight camping and backpacking. 2) A plastic action packer with a random assortment of pots, skillets, a two burner coleman stove, a propane lantern, and random utensils. This is used for base camp camping. We had patrol boxes, but they were swapped out for the action packers after awhile. Patrol QMs have periodic checks of the stoves (for safety mainly). We have enough random excess stuff as well to help out - families will dump old kitchen stuff on us sometimes, and we put it in a box for the patrols to raid as needed. I have also taken a load of boys to Goodwill to go shopping too - opened their eyes to thrifty shopping. Finally, our troop meets near a Goodwill drop off location, and sometimes a donor will come over to us with some stuff as well. Works out well for us.

Stosh - I don't understand why you continue to critique the WFA curriculum. Those of us who have taken it, appreciated with the various scenarios, the hands on work, the in-depth instruction, etc. It was a great, detailed and applied first aid course that covered many subjects. It was a heck of a lot more than than just make someone comfortable and wait for help. Please take a look at the link provider previously, or ask someone who has taken the course to see their book. You will find some great material that can be used in your own training for Scouts (that is how I am using it - as a reference guide that goes beyond the Scout handbook and the First Aid merit badge book). I found it a very useful course. I was charged $50 for the class, and if I wanted to keep the book it was another $20. I spent ~15 hours in the course during summer camp picking up a ton of knowledge that was in addition to my Red Cross First Aid that I do every year. It would be interesting to compare the differences between WFA, EMT, and other first responder training curriculums - and use it to better build out our own training in the BSA. I am taking my book next time I visit my parents. Dad is the fire chief, and mom runs the training for everyone who staffs the QRU for the county. They are far out in the hills, the golden hour is non-existent, so they bridge the gap of medical care in the countryside. Should it be required if the BSA is not going to make it available and affordable? No. Have the people in this thread who have taken it found it a useful course? Yes.

The boy on the off-road vehicle without a helmet, in violation of the G2SS?

Our Charter Org doesn't want us at the church earlier than noon, so that we don't interfere with 2nd service traffic - that impacts our timing at some local camps. As the adult leader, I like to be home early afternoon at the latest, just so that I can grab a nap to play catch-up before starting my week. We have never been chased out of a camp due to timing.

I was happy when they offered WFA at summer camp this year, so I was able to get my certification done. It still cost me $50 or so, plus every morning for the week. If the BSA is going to require it, they will need to make it easy and affordable to acquire it. Now - I found the class a good one, and I have other standard certs such as CPR and Red Cross First Aid. There is a difference in the material and the approach when you are on the trail vs. within 30 minutes of a hospital or at least an ambulance. We did everything assuming that help was a long way away, etc. This shift in mentality changes how you treat various injuries, etc.

Is there possibly another issue? Is this scout bullied or ignored? Does his PL not like him, and refuse to sign off on certain skills? Mind you - I agree with all of the above, I am just trying to figure out what a full hour is needed for in this situation, so I am going with some bad potential undercurrents.

I don't have any female ASMs in my unit, but women were the backbone of my committee for 10 years (one just retired, and we had to replace her with two men). It depends on what roles we would allow women to have in a unit. My nephew is in a Troop that does not allow women on campouts, and then they cancel campouts because they don't have the necessary adult leadership. With our ongoing challenge finding enough adult leaders in general, I don't see how cutting 50% of population out will help grow things. It would be interesting to compare the success of units with rules against women in leadership roles vs. those that open up, but I don't know if the data could be parsed out effectively.

Carter went into the Chalk River reactor after its accident as a young Naval officer - I'll give him a pass on that one.

Here we are in Orange County, CA: http://www.ocbsa.org/ It has a lot, but sometimes tough to find what you need.

That is awesome that your unit did that Bad Wolf. That is type of stuff that makes Scouting work, and gives great memories.

I married into a family with plenty of Scottish origins, but all genealogy work has not found a bit in my background. As for the Native American aspect of the OA - I think that some lodges do a great job of working with the local tribes, but I have seen plenty of Hollywood Indians at OA events as well. The feathered headdress of the Plains Indians is a combination of the religious garb of the Pope plus the medals and hash marks on a decorated Marine. Each feather has meaning, and to many tribes someone else wearing that garb is fairly insulting, regardless of our intent. I don't care about the attitude of the offenderati on the campus, but I do listen to my friends in the Cherokee and Navajo nations when they talk about these subjects. It is something to consider, and would be a great discussion at the Lodge level.

We keep a balance around $20k, with a troop of 90. We consider $90k to be zero, and do all annual budgeting on that concept. Why? Trailer gets stolen: that could be a $5k trailer, plus another few thousand for the gear. Nice to know that we can cover it immediately without impacting the program. We would then work on backfilling the cost. Tent replacement: We watch for sales on known, quality tents. The Quartermaster likes to keep a few back in case of problems (like returning to camp when after a windstorm lifted staked in tents full of gear and shredded them on the barbed wire 100 yards away). No impact on the Troop again, aside from kicking off some fundraising. Summer Camp deposits: Some camps provide a discount if you pay in advance and early. We can do that, before some of the Webelos have even bridged, and then they pay for their slots. This balance has been maintained in the Troop for at least 10 years, possibly longer. We aren't trying to actively grow it, just keep a safety net. The same thing I teach in Personal Management - you should have access to 3 months of spending money in case you lost your job.

250 miles each way this year - about a 6 hour drive. We have two camps in that area that we frequent (Camp Whitsett and Camp Chawanakee in the Sierras), and we charter a bus. We also camp on Catalina Island at Emerald Bay, that requires a ferry ride. Total cost to the Scouts this year was $550.

For example, here is the Alexa rankings: http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/scouting.org vs http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/myscouting.org More people come to Scouting (obviously) Quantcast: https://www.quantcast.com/search?q=www.scouting.org So the old myscouting site didn't get a lot of traffic, might not have been easy to find, and didn't result in driving people to the main BSA site either. These are all just guesses on my part, I admit. I just know what I go through when analyzing my own traffic.

Quick answer: Drives more traffic and makes scouting.org in general a more "popular" website. That will help with search engines, etc. Making "my" a subdomain of scouting.org is smart web work. They should do more of this with certain types of resources, and make more links out and back.

Had a meeting about this recently with the SPL and the ASMs. New Scouts: We get 1-2 Scouts bridging in late December, the rest will come in next Spring. We will encourage all of them to just follow the new guidelines, doubt we will get much pushback. Scouts currently on the Trail to First Class: For those boys not yet First Class, they can follow the old guidelines in 2016 it appears - but we will use the new guidelines for planning purposes at the PLC. The biggest shift I see is the need to Demonstrate (which we do anyway), and to actually apply some of the knowledge (which we do anyway). We have a couple of campouts coming up where we already have the boys build their own tent shelters using the various knots and lashings, which makes for a good applied exercise. The Fall is when we have our annual Troop emergency mobilization meeting (we pretend a Big Earthquake hit). So we will be covered for the added Emergency Prep requirements as well. That leaves the additional service hours for conservation - just need to do some outreach to a few local organizations and get on their radar. So some calendaring work between PLC and the ASMs, some meeting planning by the PLC, and then photocopy and insert some new signature blocks for the older books to make sure nothing is missed.

Are we going to review as Originalists or Textualists or by parsing the words of the Founders (This entire argument seems to be in sync with Constitutional Law)? The Buddhist faith has been a part of Scouting since 1920, within 10 years of the BSA starting in the United States. http://www.scouting.org/About/FactSheets/operating_orgs/Buddhist.aspx Or we can look to the writings of Ernest Thomson Seton (one of our Founders), in his book The Gospel of the Redman: http://www.amazon.com/The-Gospel-Redman-Way-Life/dp/0839535740 Both of these examples from our early days as an organization would indicate to me that God comes in many forms from the perspective of the BSA, and that Reverent's admonition to respect the Faith of others applies to polytheistic faiths along with the Abrahamic ones.

Not all religious COs are anti-gay.

Prost is more of a Germanic toast, so shouldn't that be used for a nice German or Austrian drink?