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Horizon

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Everything posted by Horizon

  1. Give a boy a campfire and he is warm for the night. Let him burn his own fingers and his learns his own safety lessons with fewer words from you.
  2. Update: I just sent the following message to my troop (spot the Beavah translated lines!): At last night's troop meeting we announced that on Monday, April 21st the troop meeting will focus on patrol organization. I wanted to reiterate the plans and reasoning. Boy Scouting works best when the boys lead, and the adults provide guidance. On recent campouts I have observed that the most successful camping occurs when older, experienced Scouts are actively engaged in helping younger Scouts develop skills and good habits. When this occurs, the older Scouts learn to lead and teach, and
  3. I am trying to get a good listing of sights here in Southern California where I can separate my patrols safely. Our toughest issue is reservations are required at a lot of the parks, or you run into 1st come, 1st served areas. We spent a little over $200 on reservations for a local spot for my troop over the weekend. I could have booked multiple group camping areas, but then I have to raise the fee to go camping. I do plan on bringing that up at the parent's meeting. We also have issues in some of the campgrounds around here of safety from other campers. When we hit the large sit
  4. Here is how we were able to handle BP camping as a Mega-Troop: We were in the MidWest, and there are some great large campsites out there. We hit farmer's fallow fields, took over the entire council camp (the council had 3-4 camps as I recall), and a few other areas. I am remembering this from the eyes of a boy looking back - not as the leader. It was almost a contest among some patrols to see how far away you could get! Looking back at my earlier post - we may have missed the exact mark on 100 yards / 300 feet with some of the patrols admittedly. However, I remember we were alwa
  5. I was a member of a mega-troop, and now am SM of a troop of 40+ boys on the rolls. The Mega Troop: - SPL and his staff camped as a separate patrol. There were plenty of real PORs in the mega-troop: e.g. 2 boys serving as Chaplain, A quartermaster with 2 assistants, ASPLs with specific roles of responsibility, etc. The SPL would pull from all patrols to keep from diluting one. As I recall the SPL's staff held at least 10 boys. - We had 8-10 patrols of 8-14 boys in each. We followed BP camping (300 feet), and with our size you could get as far away from the "men" as you wanted to.
  6. t4eagle137: - Project: I will put my Eagle project up against others. My meetings with the City Council. The budgeting. They use of 6 other Scouts to achieve my goals. The finished project still visible today over 30 years later. - Learning: I can tell you how I earned each of my merit badges. I still have many of the books, and compare them to the ones my son uses. - Leadership: I can tell you about being APL, then starting my own patrol. Serving as Troop Chaplain. Serving as ASPL. I understand your comments, but at the same time I wonder. If we don't think that Sco
  7. Thanks for all of the comments - to provide a bit more background: The patrol that approached me is losing two of their 7, and wanted to replace to keep the patrol at the right size. They started talking to a couple of the boys in my more successful new scout patrol (13 months), and if they pulled those two out they would end up putting THAT patrol in a bad way. I asked them to hold off a bit while I thought about it. At PLC we discussed it more and I told them of my concerns and they understood. Another one of my older patrols joined the conversation and love the idea of bringing you
  8. First, our current organization: 1 venture patrol 3 older scout patrols 2 younger scout patrols (New Scout Patrols after 13 months) 1 New scout patrol (recently bridged Webelos) One of my older scout patrols has expressed interest in recruiting some of the younger scouts, so that the patrol might live on after some of them graduate high school. In essence, create a legacy patrol. I told them that I support the concept (that is how my old troop did it). However, I did not want to see them cherry pick a few boys, leaving some of the younger scout patrols weak. I also know that t
  9. I have had a couple of the LEDs - happy with them. Now I want to mention another one: http://www.bogolight.com/ This is an LED light with built in solar for charging. Leave it in the sun, and you are good to go with light. The price is higher, but in exchange for every light you buy they send one to Africa (and other places where a good source of light is needed). My son carries his in his Scout Essentials, and we never worry about battery life. If it is dead on Friday, he can simple charge the battery on the campout by leaving it outside.
  10. I have had a couple of the LEDs - happy with them. Now I want to mention another one: http://www.bogolight.com/ This is an LED light with built in solar for charging. Leave it in the sun, and you are good to go with light. The price is higher, but in exchange for every light you buy they send one to Africa (and other places where a good source of light is needed). My son carries his in his Scout Essentials, and we never worry about battery life. If it is dead on Friday, he can simple charge the battery on the campout by leaving it outside.
  11. My troop suffered from a similar problem. After observing for a year, I am now the Scoutmaster trying to fix it. - Every campout was getting provisional patrols. - The patrol boxes are marked with very old patrol names, since nobody "owned one" and they were just issued a new patrol box for every campout. - No patrol flags are used EXCEPT at camporee. - Patrols die out. Once they are made, they exist until the last member leaves the troop. This gives us patrols of 1-3 Life scouts working on eagle, a New Scout Patrol, and 3 decent patrols. What I have done so far: 1) N
  12. Class of 1983, Indian Nations Council. Incoming Scoutmaster out West now.
  13. A fair amount of basic training is now online, which helps get people partially trained. While online training is far from perfect or optimal, it beats having NO training. I would love to see BSA get more modules delivered in an online format for those of us who are constantly scrambling for a free weekend or evening. http://olc.scouting.org/ As for mandatory... I am a trained soccer coach with AYSO (I hold my Advanced certification). To get there I had to take 3 courses: U12 training (around 10 hours), Intermediate training (12 hours) and Advanced (15 hours). I was not al
  14. Beavar82: The 7 part troop meeting includes 15-20 minutes (at least) for skills. For younger Scouts, I see that as working towards the skills that they need to demonstrate for T-2-1. For older Scouts, that can be the skills they learn as part of a merit badge. The entire troop meeting should not be a merit badge class, I agree completely. However, when I have ASMs who can teach Merit badges, why not have them hold small sessions during the skills training? BasementDweller: You say that you earned merit badges at summer camp. You didn't request those MBCs, they were made available t
  15. We go with 3 stages of the race: Speed trial, computer tracked, each car goes 3 times and uses its best score Shuffle Puck style - the boy pushes his car, and gets points for the closer to the line. Jump (aka the wheel whacker). The car drops off of a ramp and is measured for distance cleared. These 3 events added together determine the over all winner. Awards given: Best SCOUT design (with multiple judges who are told to ignore cars obviously created by parents, or from pre-built kits). Fastest car in the den and pack Overall champ It helps that we find it easie
  16. How available should MB Counselors be? As I said, I had them easily available at all troop meetings and at all campouts. We still had to do the work (including discussion, demonstration, etc.). Is part of every badge having to call someone at the district office to find the MB Counselor for badge x? 5 scouts at the last PLC asked for a Physical Fitness MB class to be held so that they could earn the badge. By making that available, am I cheating them? Should they be told that they need to call the Council office? I don't understand how having a list of counselors, and having
  17. I was a 13 year-old Eagle Scout (I turned 14 a few weeks after my COH). I was a member of the "Eagle Factory" that a poster referenced above. We did not call it an Eagle Factory at the time, but after years of insults delivered by others - the troop decided to take the term and make it their own. I can walk you through my 25 year-old merit badge sash and tell you what I did for each badge. Here is how they did it: 1) It was a boy run troop. Every meeting started with the SPL, announcements, and then split to advancement classes. After class was patrol meetings, then the Sco
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