Stosh

Way to go @@blw2 you now got me into trouble with @@joesport5 I guess I kinda got sidetracked with the original post and It's just me hearing the wrong things intended. My apologies. Maybe in the future the 300' will encourage everyone to start saying, "the boys" and "the adults". When I hear "We" coming from an adult it's kinda hard to distinguish what's really going on.

Nobody is perfect. In one way or the other we are all handicapped. Does that mean we all get to do the MB requirements differently. My handicap is I'm basically lazy, but I earned all 120+ MB's last week.

Welcome again!

It would be a piece of cake if all I had to do is teach, even if I were to use the EDGE method. But when all is said and done, the real onus falls on the scout to learn. My boys learn to learn when they take MB's from me. I do not spew out knowledge and then expect them to regurgitate the information back to me in some lame "discuss" answer to the requirement. I don't want the boy to just know the information, I want him to also know why this information is important to know. Are push ups strength building, aerobic or stamina exercises? Great I can do 50 push ups. Big deal unless you know why it's important to be able to do 50 push ups. I would want my MBC to be able to answer those questions.

Naw, you don't need to put in another post for us to welcome you to the forum. Glad to have you with us, Now back to our regularly scheduled programming....

@@joesport5 Okay, I'll play the Devil's Advocate here. Why are YOU deciding what goes into the patrol's gear? Shouldn't the boys in the patrols be doing that? I would go along with @@Hedgehog and have totes for storage and transport for plop camping, but a second tote for backpacking, i.e. single burner stoves, etc. Let the boys figure out what they need to do what they want to do for camp cooking. If they think they need a spatula, they fundraise the money and buy it. SM doesn't need to be part of the discussion. The SM isn't the one using the gear, his/her say-so is not necessary and will probably mean buying more than the boys will even use. It they don't have a stir spoon, it's no one's fault but their own. Let them figure it out, it's part of the patrol method.

It is no longer a tradition in America like it used to be when I was a kid, but at 11:00 am on November 11th we would all stand in our classrooms by our desks, face east (towards Europe) and silently remember the fallen veterans for one minute. To this day I still do it. Because Americans came into the war late (WW I) they did not feel the impact that Europe did. Then there's the overshadowing of the 11/11 @ 11:00 am with the onset of WW II. Yes, WW II was pretty bad, but nothing compared to WW I where single battle casualties were numbered in the hundreds of thousands. D-Day (10,000 Allied casualties, 4,000-9,000 German estimate) was a skirmish compared to ... well name one of your favorites Verdun (714,231 casualties), Sommes (Allied 623,907, German 465,000), The scars of such warfare still marking the terrain 100 years later. If your boys go there and stand for one minute just to contemplate the magnitude of this human disaster, it will encompass an appropriate amount of respect from every American veteran buried there. They died in a foreign land so others would know freedom as well.

It's been a few years since I was a MBC and I have just re-enlisted so it should be interesting how much things might have changed. Needless to say, I don't teach MB's, never have, never will. I don't inspire either.... I simply make the opportunity available to the boy to explore the topic at hand. It is up to him to make the most of it and if I can ask the right question, it might open yet another door for him to consider. I am supposed to have skill in the subject matter and so it is a great temptation to be a MB TEACHER. But that's not the expectation or they would have used that word teacher. I have knowledge so I know what questions to ask to "bump" the boy off of dead-center. He gets stumped? Ask a question to direct his thoughts on where to maybe think about next. But it's HIS journey, not yours. I am a counselor, I have all the answers, but only the boy knows which of those answers best helps him in his situation. It is not up to me to decide for him.

First of all welcome to the forum and be assured that what you are going through with your pack is the same for many others out there as well. To look at it in the broadest terms, one has to begin to prioritize the problems. The first "problem" is your son's opinion. Is he happy with the way the pack is running and is he having a good time and having fun with his friends? Then the second "problem" is your answer to is your son getting the full potential of the program? Answers to both those questions will determine your next step. You describe a lot of issues that all apply to the political agenda of adults running the program. The boys may not even notice and of course they don't know what they're missing either. Your point of view rests somewhere between the two. You have a vested interest in your son's experience and you are privy to the pack politics. It is obvious that with the way things are structured, things won't change much and so are you willing and is your son having fun sufficient to stay the course or is there more potential elsewhere. There's always a long debate that will run on these forums pointing out the pros and cons of each side of the issues, but the ultimate decision is going to fall on your shoulders so listen to everything and decide what's best for you and your son.

How does one know a boy can't do a requirement unless he has tried? All this "up front" speculation is rather moot. This is like cutting him slack before he starts. I'm with @@scoutldr on this one. How long is this boy's autism excuse going to hold up in life. Sooner or later he's going to need to step up to the plate. Don't take away his opportunity to do better than what society has labeled him.

God's peace to you and your family. Losing a parent is devastating to say the least. The loss in this case is doubled because not only will your family mourn the loss but so will hundreds if not thousands of lives that she touched through her scouting family (and even her extended electronic scouter family here on the forum.) She will be missed and that is an excellent legacy any life should leave in this world.

@@Exibar I have no doubt that for the newbie the training is fantastic, but many years of experience, most of which was on the fringe in rural areas, I do know that time is a major factor in the patient's survival. EMT-A's are trained to scoop and go, stabilize on the way. EMT-Parametics are trained to stabilize and then bring the patient in. 2 days worth of waiting? NOBODY knows how that's going to work out very well. So one treats the life threatening issues like bleeding, if you can't stop that the patient is not going to make it. Make sure s/he's breathing, without that, the patient is not going to make it. Snake bite? It's a crap-shoot as to how much venom the patient got, there's nothing that can be done anyway with a two day wait. Broken bones? Stabilize and hope there isn't much internal damage to blood vessels. There's nothing that can be done anyway. CPR - Don't even bother without an AED.... Head injury? Not much one can do the brain swelling is going to do what it wants to do. Other than stop the bleeding, make sure they are breathing, treat for shock, keep them comfortable and send for help there's nothing more that would be of any benefit while waiting. An ER doctor has all the latest and greatest right at his fingertips immediately. A Paramedic might have some of the most important equipment for emergency situations, but is still fighting time. A SM in the back country has limited equipment and waaaaay too much time to deal with. My major concern with the training is the false sense of hope it offers to those who really care about doing it right. On some of my serious runs? Guy gets leg and arm caught in a corn picker. Wife brings him supper in the field and finds him, calls 911 it's now 2 hours into the trauma, but fortunately the pressure of the corn heads keeps him from bleeding out. We respond, add 15 minutes we were all volunteers not at the station. 2 responded directly with jump kits the third crew went for the ambulance. Meet at the farm, Need equipment and backup. Call 911 to send fire department with Jaws of Life. Second ambulance with higher level of training paged out to the scene. They are 35 minutes out, FD is 10 minutes. They get there try the Jaws. They aren't strong enough, corn pickers are not meant to bend, 1/2 hr wasted. Cutting torch is used to cut heads apart. That's another hour. Heads release, patient starts to bleed but our crew and back up better equipped at scene. Get the guy to the hospital, 35 miles away. He doesn't make it. ER doctor attributes it to the time between the accident and arrival at ER way too long. This is the NORMAL way of doing things in rural America every day. 14 CPR calls, none of them successful. So, now take a few hours of training, remove most of the medical supplies, and multiply the time factor for waiting 7-10 times. Which takes me back to the original comments being made. The Wilderness First Aid needs to be replaced with Wilderness ACC"IDENT PREVENTION training...then I would consider taking the training. I hope and pray that you wasted your money and you never have to use that training. If you do have to use it. I hope it works for you and your boys.

Yep So is: 2# ground beef or pork or both chopped onion chopped green peppers Jack Daniels BBQ sauce Cooked in DO, Scoop out on a bun or pita/pocket bread The boys really don't care if it's slow cooked or not. Add some Liquid Smoke and they'll be happy.

1) the boys were told to stay off the platforms. He didn't. 2) the parent was to be watching their son. They didn't. 3) doesn't appear that either of them listened very well. 4) maybe next time both get time-out. I would explain very nicely that as their son progresses through scouting the activities will become more and more challenging and that if they don't learn at a young age to follow directions, they could be opening themselves up to serious problems. Especially when it comes to fire, rock climbing, whitewater canoeing, knives, axes, saws, rifles shotguns and bows, aka "the fun stuff". If their son can't figure this out he will not be able to participate safely and the time will come when he will have to drop out of scouts and you don't want that for any boy. At that point I would enlist the parent to "help" with their son's discipline awareness to make sure he stays safe. Another thing one may wish to learn is how to "yell" at kids silently. "THE LOOK" always works for me. Yes, I'm a guy but I've learned from some of the best females out there how this works. It will silently strike fear right down to the bone if necessary. Then when the appropriate fear (aka terror) has been instilled, talking quietly to the child usually does the trick. You don't need to yell, you have their attention. In this situation I would gently ask him why he thought it a good idea to be on the platforms when he was told to stay off. Put the explanation on him. If he says, he doesn't know, then a few minutes sitting on a stump might be helpful for him to think it through better. Even a 6 year old can figure this one out. No parent can ever come back at you for yelling at their child and as long as you just used THE LOOK, the marks you leave can't been seen.

@@Krampus Parents would never pack for the boys! I had one mom pack for her son, It was a huge military duffle packed solid. It was for the 5 days of summer camp. To make a long story short, it had 24 pairs of socks and no mess kit..... And that was just the beginning, I haven't the time to list the rest..

I go along with Barry on this one. Our adults either don't know how to provide adventure or lack the motivation to learn. I wanted to take the boys to BWCA. I had no idea how to pull this off even with all the years of experience under my belt. I found a person who had been up there many times and knew the ins and outs of all the outfitters. I had him take me and a few scouters and their sons up there to teach us. We came back knowing how to pull off the trek. The first time the troop had a blast. The second time another troop my brother was involved with never had gone on any HA and was wondering if our troop and their troop could do a joint HA so they could learn about the BWCA. Okay, one guide, trek one 8 people, trek 2 18 people, trek 3 18 more people. Okay, since then I have taken hundreds of boys primitive sandbar camping in our local area. The knowledge base just keeps on expanding. What if I didn't take the initiative of making the first move? It is a lot easier to plop camp than expand and make greater and greater opportunities for adventure for the boys. I'm willing to add to Barry's comments by saying that even with experienced scouters, they don't always take the road less traveled. To-date when it comes to these big trips, we don't get any negative feedback from the parents either.

The standard answer from my Mom who always like to experiment with new recipes... "You can try next door to see if what they are having is any better. Otherwise there's peanut butter in the cupboard." I learned to eat a lot of different things or go without supper. Always my choice. Never had the courage to see what the neighbors were having....

Of course one can always go with: Class A = Dress uniform = blue blazer Class B = Field uniform = standard scout uniform Class C = whatever you want to wear aka civilian clothes. Works for me.

After a 10 year hiatus, I'm back in the MB business. I figured now that I have retired, I should have more time to do it right. The last time I taught a MB was back in the middle ages. A boy wanted to do Bugling. No problem. His mother called to make the appointment which didn't set well with me. The mom with the boy in tow showed up for the first session. He did bring his trumpet so that was at least a step in the right direction. No MB book, but he had the trumpet. I asked him what the requirements for the bad was he had no idea. I at least had them printed off the internet. I told him he would have to get the book so he would know what bugle calls were and how to play them. He never came back for session two. I think his expectations were different than mine. I wasn't going to pass him just because he showed up. That's when I figured I had better things to do with my time than MB's.

Barbecues have multiple meanings where I am from. Barbeque can mean an event where grilling is involved and a sandwich also known as a Sloppy Joe. It's made with hamburger, not pulled pork. If one wishes the latter, then need to order a pulled pork sandwich. BBQ is more of what people would refer to as an adjective to ribs and would necessitate the slathering of sauces to be good. Still this would not involve pulled pork, but usually smoked pork ribs. Of course people else where would not necessarily know what brats, cheese curds, lefse, are nor pasties for that matter.

I have taught both the Boy Scout and the Webelos curriculum over the years and yes, they are two different animals, but a lot of overlap. The part that does not overlap is very important to know. It doesn't hurt to know them both especially SM's who are hosting Webelos visitors.

If one is local to the area they may be more cognizant of the hazards or in the case of others a healthy sense of paranoia helps too. I grew up in the northern Midwest. We camp in the woods and along side of rivers all the time and very few around me take into consideration factors that I have, over the years, just took as part of my site selection. High winds, lightning and tornadoes are a way of life for us. Dead trees are lightning magnets as well as producing Widow Makers as an added attraction. It takes a bit to make the creek rise around here, but they do and can do quickly. The problem is with the vegetation knowing where the high water mark is impossible. One just has to guess. I have camped around the country and found that each of the locations have different hazards to be aware of and before camping in any of them it would be wise to brush up on them. It's always "Safety First" when taking care of your boys. I know of others who have found out that snakes love to share sleeping bags when visitors provide the opportunity. It doesn't happen around here, we just enjoy the equine encephalitic and West Nile virus mosquitoes, Lyme's ticks and the occasional rabid visitor. A very dear friend of mine died of encephalitis after being bitten by a mosquito on a scout outing..... it was WINTER camp in a cabin! No one saw that one coming.

Hot dogs actually have the curly tails mixed right in...for real. Can't get any better than that.

" Easy way to introduce challenging activities in a safe environment." I think they have an app for that..... One has to get their hands dirty to have a real adventure.

I shot bird shot in a .22 when I was in scout summer camp, the rest of the time I hunted .22 and .410 and occasionally a 12-gauge and did plenty of range shooting on the high school shooting range while in the rifle club. My buddies and I camped alone 5-6 times a year with no adults around. All in all, I always found more "adventure" outside of scouts, but the program was really poorly run by the local adults. Finally joined Civil Air Patrol and got a ton of hours in flying and my radio license.