JerseyScout

Alright, so my new question to throw at district will be how do I get Climb on Safety Instructor training. I was told by them that we needed climbing certification to do anything with a rope.

How and where do you get COPE trained? No one in my district or council seems to have any idea, they are sending me in circles. I've got two former climbing instructors in my troop alumni that would love to take the kids climbing on a trip, but we got chewed out once already for letting the kids climb on a rope that was THREE FEET above the ground because no one was cope certified. Its a good thing no one was around to chew me out as a Scout for lack of certiciation, we have 15 foot high gateways, 8 foot high rope bridges, and used to go rock climbing without any gear (very, very st

Do the two newly recognized leadership positions (Troop Webmaster and Leave No Trace Trainer) count for Life and Eagle? I'd imagine that they would, but I'm curious.

My problem is that it is called "Boy Scouts", not "Hetrosexual-Religious-Only Boy Scouts". The program is to help boys, and homosexual and/or atheist boys would, in my mind, need Boy Scouts even more than some Hetrosexual-Religious boys. Gays, especially in high school, can feel very alone, left out, and lost. Scouting would give them a group to belong to, an automatic support network, a place where they wouldn't have to worry. Athiests are not beholden to an automatic moral code like religious people (very much in theory) are. A code of behavior and moral, such as that presented by the o

Great article. I work with kids for a living, I've had to read countless articles about how they tick, and this guy still taught me a lot.

When I was a Scout, my troop ran up to about 100 boys. We happened to have a great group of leaders who managed us very well. We couldn't split, no one wanted to leave. So we went along with trips having between 40-60 kids on them. What does that mean? More patrol boxes, more food, more equipment, more trailers, more ASPLs, more everything. Otherwise, it all worked the same, and it was a great couple of years. We tried to camp at wilderness campsites as often as possible, as there were are rather large boundaries at most of them. For some trips we'd split up into "crews" to avoid num

The first step is pretty important. I have a Scout that I was worried about alternate requirements for, and I thought that it was silly that I should have to wait for him to do all his requirements before applying for alternate ones to complete a rank. It turns out that he did not need a single alternate requirement for Tenderfoot despite one of his arms being almost useless, he managed one arm push ups and even figured out how to tie the knots one handed. I never cease to be amazed at what a kid can accomplish.

$50 - Yearly dues $250 - Weekend trips (cost between $10-$30, average about $25 - 11 trips this year). This includes food for each trip $220 - Week long summer trip $30 - Ski Trip discount pass Total - $550 if a Scout does everything. The troop usually supplements one higher-cost trip each year (Whitewater Rafting or the like) from the troop funds. The adults will get together and sponsor Scouts whose families can't afford all the costs.

What is the purpose(s) of District Roundtables? What should be going on at them? I recently attended my first one and it seemed to me to be an absolute mess. I suspect that its either because a) I've never been to one and don't know better or else b) my district is in more trouble than I thought. But I don't know what I'm supposed to me attending, maybe it was run perfectly.

I'm sorry, my emoticons don't work and I was only following jerseyscout's lead. I do like "1776". I didn't think it was very funny, the tomatoes killed three members of my family.

Problems with year round schooling: - My state has an entire region (the shore) that is based around the summer season. Take away summer vacation and a lot of people are now out of work, and alot of small bussinesses just died. - Your taxes will go up. Why? You are paying for airconditioning for the schools (and possibly installation), teachers/principals/custodians/secretaries/support staff salaries will go up by 1/4 (you now have three extra months to pay them for) - Without summer, when are you going to maintain the schools? Summer is the time to fix rooves, recarpet, rep

Don't worry about filling every minute with planned activities. The cubs make up plenty of activities on their own. Their favorite seems to be running and screaming around the campsite looking for holes to fall in... Joebob, you must have been on my Pack campouts almost two decades ago. Other popular activities: Finding weird bugs Poking things with sticks Tag (especially near the tents) Yelling that I definately wasn't tagged Digging small holes with sticks

I second that Scouts do not need six hours to learn EDGE, ten minutes and knot should inform them splendidly. To be honest, most kids will somewhat instintually know EDGE, even if they never heard of it. Why? Because the same concept, usually labeled "scaffolding", has been standard in the education field for forty bazillion years. That means most kids have been exposed to the same teaching method for almost every school lesson they ever had starting in pre-school (unless they had all crap teachers that just talked at them). When I took over running my troop, many of my Scouts who hav

Good job to Boy Scouts of America on this one. After all, it's the International Scouting Movement, isn't it?

If I didn't have to take the Scouts camping this weekend, I'd drive them up to Bethlehem for this. All the best wishes for your Scout there OldGreyEagle.

Our troop had a crew attached to it (founded by one of our leaders who wanted to get her daughter involved), I was even a member for first two meetings (I then had to drop out because Boy Scouts, hockey, and playing in a band were eating my time up). The crew went along in spurts for about eight years until it finally collapsed last year, much to the dissapointment of the girl running it (who was 15) and really killing herself to try to hold it together. Our biggest problem was that most sucessful venture crews seemed to be based around offering a high adventure alternative to the regula

Lashing is definately not outdated. Want to impress the heck out of the Cub Scouts? The Scouts can lash together a monkey bridge. My mother has a picture of me climbing across one of these as a WEBLOS scout when visiting a potential Boy Scout troop. Guess which troop I joined? Want to show up the entire council/district what can be done with rope, poles, guts, and some planning? The Scouts can lash together some of the most ridiculous gateways and towers known to man. As a Scout, we had one of two results from every gateway we we ever built at a camporee. Either a) we got first pla

I haven't seen one yet, I need to pick on up. I've only heard good things so far. The people putting it together looking at childrens books for ideas on how to produce better, more eye pleasing layouts? Genius! They really thought this one over.

"... torn jeans and a 70's tank top shirt with "I Brake for Tenderfoots" hand painted on it..." That's a really good shirt, where can I order one? =)

Here are some other movies to consider/stick in a file to recommend to the Scouts, although I think most are too long for your purposes. Many are rated R for language/violence/both, so they would not be for every Scout. I didn't list any of the fine films already listed before (Glory, Gettysburg, anything by Ken Burns) - Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (2007) (I also highly recommend the book for anyone who has never read it) (133 minutes - No rating?) - the story of the Sioux Indians - Gangs of New York (2002) - R. 167 minutes. Nominated for ten Oscars, a microcosm of the clash in

Troops can also solicite donations of Scout uniforms from alumni or Scouts who outgrow theirs and then pass them out to newer Scouts. We usually have several "Class A" shirts lying around our meeting place that can be loaned short or long term.

The 13-year old thing didn't line up for me either.... At this risk of getting myself in trouble here, that last sentence is pure BS (and I don't mean Boy Scouts). I came through Scouts with at least three boys who later "came out." They were all fine people and fine Scouts. None of them made it to a very high youth leadership position (like many in our troop, a demanding school/sports/school activity schedule limited the time they could to devote to Boy Scouts), but all three were well liked and well respected by their fellow Scouts (while none of them had come out yet, it was

I echo those who say "don't rush!" Enjoy Cub Scouts, its not about the destination (Arrow of Light), its about the journey, the friends, and the memories, and its a good time to boot. Boy Scouts will be waiting patiently for you when you are 10 1/2, and you'll be able to zip through the ranks then if that's your goal.

We are not a uniform troop (they generally come out for our annual Court of Honor and our Eagle Courts of Honor), but well impress on the boys that jeans are never acceptable. Boy Scout pants are nice, but cost extra money, money that some of our kids (especially lately) just don't have. A pair of kackis or church pants will do just fine, and (if its one of those kids that never dresses up) are much easier to borrow from a cousin, neighbor, or fellow Scout.

GOOD! Skipping recruitment for a year is probably not a good plan. There are tons of things you could do and invite recruits along: - have a picnic at the local park - have a campfire/weenie roast - go on a haunted hayride and send flyers out at schools inviting parents to bring their cub-aged kids. - have a water day Really, plan any activity that your boys love to do and then send out invitations at the local schools. Kids will have more fun (and be more interested in Scouting) if they are doing something fun rather than the boring ol' "come meet the Cubs at the local