JMHawkins

The only kid who will fall and gash his leg open on the hike is the one who faints at the sight of blood. I'm sorry Dean, you've got that one wrong. The kid who faints at the sight of blood will be the buddy of the hemophiliac who falls and gashes his leg on the only shard of glass within 10 miles.

Twocub's point about "a simple understanding of power" is a great one. Made me think of a Shakespear quote: "I too can call spirits from the vastly deep. So can any man. The question is, will they come when you call?" Anyone can claim authority, and anyone with a little authority can try to claim more, but just because you issued a decree doesn't mean anyone will follow you, even if they're technically supposed to. If you wield your authority in ways that are unacceptible to significant stakeholders, you'll probably find yourself with a whole lot less authority soon. A while back on ano

The recent thread about the SM voting in the Committee has a sidebar discussion about Troop bylaws defining Eagle requirements. It made me ponder a hypothetical. Let's say you've got a great boy-led troop going and one day the SPL comes to you and says the PLC would like to have input into the Troop bylaws. How much leeway do you give them? Suppose for example the PLC (with the troop voting to confirm it) wanted to add via the bylaws an additional requirement for Eagle - namely that the Troop had to vote 50%+1 to approve the candidate. As a SM or TC member, how would you res

I've sat in on many committee meetings, and the only time I saw a real vote take place was in regards to a large expenditure for a new trailer. I say real vote, because one unit committee always comes to a concensus but then for some reason takes a vote. I've never actually seen a nay vote on anything. As CC, I will sometimes call for an official vote on something we've reached consensus on in order to record it in the minutes. Usually I'll only do this if it's a subject that I feel might be controversial outside the committee (e.g. approving budgets or large expendatures like the trail

How many times do we tell the parents, don't worry, nobody will get hurt. A Venture Crew leader at a training session last year said he promises parents "I won't let your son starve to death. I won't let him freeze to death. He probably won't break his leg..."

The Two Burner Gourmet is a book meant for sailing (cruising), but most of the recipies will work for car camping too, and they're really, really good. The first part of the book talks about menu prep, repackaging, safe storage without refrigerators, etc. Looks like it's out of print based on the Amazon page, but used copies are under $2. Polynesian Breakfast Cakes are my favorite. http://www.amazon.com/Two-Burner-Gourmet-Cookbook-Cooking/dp/0964373300

I've found that many, many people who take an anti-LNT position haven't actually read the principles and program - they're going by what someone told them. Or they latch on to one item (e.g., colored tents) and condemn the whole package because they disagree. I just don't understand that mindset. People "latching on to" one item like colored tents is exactly what I was complaining about, except I put the fault on the zealots who try to piggyback their own personal agenda onto a package of otherwise well-regarded guidelines. It's their fault when the "pack out your trash" part of LNT get'

I'm in a difficult situation here. Like many LNT supporters on this thread, I think it's important to make the effort to preserve the land. But I find myself profoundly disturbed by LNT as I've seen it presented (not here mind you, in real life, so to spead). Proud Eagle said: Those aren't your normal conditions. Nor should we act like the same degree of care is needed in all places and cases. Yet LNT is meant to be more or less universal, so if it doesn't prepare you for the widest range of possibilities, it isn't doing its job This is, I think, a big problem and a cata

Let me rephrase it another way. Let's say Congress charters a new organization tomorrow - the Acco40 Folks of America. The purpose of the "corporation" is to reduce obesity in our youth. The "method" that this corporation uses is to employ exercise (to burn calories and increase muscle mass) and provide dietary education (portion control, habits, etc.). Now, to exercise we would use treadmills, free weights, Universal machines, etc. Fast forward 100 years and the methods have not really changed - exercise and diet, but technology has now made treadmills, free weights and Universal machines ant

Teaching "Leadership" is a cancer upon Scouting I think "Citizenship" is far more important than "Leadership." For one thing, citizenship includes providing leadership - if that's what your society needs and you have the ability to offer it. It also includes, er, "Followership" for lack of a better work, which for me defines not just how to take orders (aka do your part), but how to recognize competent, wothy leaders in the first place, and how to replace bad leaders if you end up with one. Patrol elections are important not just so the PL learns how to lead, but so that the rest of the P

I think Scout skills have great value for three reasons. One, boys are attracted to them and consider them fun, so they'll willingly, enthusiastically, spend time working on them. A food drive might be a worthy project, but the typical boy just isn't going to be as excited about organizing a food drive as a backpacking trip. He won't be as enthusiastic about cleaning up the local park as he is about lashing together a monkey bridge. Two, it's much easier to tell success from failure with Scout skills than with a generalized "leadership" skill. A knot either holds or it doesn't, a

Tell you what . . . why don't you profile your test against your committee members. Tell them you need to do it, to calibrate the test, and to identify test proctors and judges. Once they find that they can't pass it maybe they'll go along with your easing up a bit. Ha, maybe we need to institute a "Regulat'n Chip" for District, Council and National folks. You can't implement new regulations without your Regulat'n Chip, and every time you do something careless with your authority, you lose a corner.

Actually I think you should be able to trust a 14 scout to get the proper food for a trip. Oh, I do too, it's just that it's a different mindset than what the rest of society seems to have today. What I'm really trying to say is that a Scoutmaster has a different relationship to a Patrol of his peers than he does to a Patrol of boys in his Troop, and I'm not sure that having him hang around with a group of his peers helps him figure out how to empower the boys in his Troop to run their own Patrols amid the growing nannyism around us. I tried a driving metaphor, but maybe a differ

Kudu, I mostly agree with you on what the Patrol Method is, I just don't think having a bunch of Scoutmasters forming an ad hoc Patrol for the weekend does much to teach it. It's one thing for a group of 30 and 40 year olds to trust each other planning an overnight. It's another for a 40 year old Scoutmaster to trust a 14 year old Patrol Leader to do the same. I wasn't too worried about the Grubmaster in our IOLS patrol, he'd cooked over a camp stove often enough and knew his way around a grocery store. But if he did screw up, myself and a few other adults (who's mothers would not comp

Many people talk about IOLS as 2 weekends The course I just finished was all day Saturday one weekend, then Friday night-Saturday evening two weekends later. When Required training hits, they will only have one year from when the register to train (unless they register for a committee position for a year or two and still go on outings.) Therefore asking them for 10 camping nights over a 2 year period would make the test-out basically impossible to accomplish, they only would have 1 year to do 10 camping nights.. Well, 10 was just a number, you could set it at whatever level you thi

The camp director is in a no-win situation. They have the authority / responsibility to limit any skit / song done. They also get the brunt of every overly prudish parent that happens to be in camp when a skit is performed. So, the knee jerk reaction is to err on the side of caution. Thus, the program gets a little more watered down, a little less adventurous, a little less boy-brash. Yeah, so, we're supposed to be teaching leadership, and teaching it by modeling it for the boys to see. So the Camp Director has a responsibility to model good leadership by continuing to use good judgement e

Pergo Badge? I just finished IOLS. Although it was enjoyable hanging out with the other members of my Patrol, and exchanging info on equipment and good places to take the kids hiking, I wouldn't say I "learned the Patrol Method." As a matter of fact, I'd consider "the Patrol Method" part of the book learning - the concepts, why it's important, what it's supposed to accomplish. Those are things you can read about. I'm not sure there's a whole lot to be learned by a bunch of 30+ year old adults spending a weekend as a "patrol." Adults are fairly used to working in small, independent gr

Dot, dot, dot; dash, dash, dash; dot dot dot So... they're teaching Morse code at Wood Badge now?

The ones I get will be the ones needing the training And since there will be fewer, you can deliver better training for them! I could probably have tested out (though I'm a bit rusty on some skills, so I didn't mind a "refresher" course), but as a parent, I'd be nervous trusting my son's backcountry safety to a leader who had nothing but the IOLS training as I experienced it. It is rudamentary. The actual outdoor skills were taught the way you might teach a new Scout just starting his Trail to First Class - i.e. with the expectation that more experienced people will be with him for the

I'm a Unit Leader, and have been asked to Staff IOLS and Wood Badge... At the risk of being labled a heretic... If I was in Mazzuca's place, and I was serious about these training requirements, I'd order all Wood Badge courses suspended until no units failed recharter because of a lack of training. Seriously, the resources devoted to Wood Badge should be diverted to the basic training as long as there's a lack of available basic training. It doesn't do the boys any good to have a handfull of super-trained adults if units are folding left and right because it's too hard to get the

Mandatory YPT training isn't an onerous requirement. The training isn't dependent on districts or councils offering up the training - it can be taken online, anytime, day or night... It's the other training requirements that are going to lead to interesting situations. I agree about YPT, it's not onerous, and I actually thought it was valuable "training" (though I don't personally consider watching a video real training). The other requirements, the ones that require in-person instruction, are definitely the problems. So far, the in-person classes I've taken have been good, nothing

Sorry I had to put in a plug. Eagle92, I hope you put in the plug before you launched the boat, otherwise it might sink in PAMLICO SOUND. Sorry, had to put in a pun:)

JMHawkins can you spread the rumor some more? What is the Wilderness FA requirements? That rumor hasnt filtered over to New Hampshire yet.. I'd rather not spread rumors since they might not come true, but to help you prepare for the contingency... G2SS recommends the 16-hour WFA training for backcountry trips. Assume recommendations eventually become requirements and plan accordingly! Work out a plan for how your troops get one or more SM/ASMs trained in the 16 hour course. The Red Cross supposedly offers a 30+ hour course that makes someone a qualified trainer, but it doesn't appear

I'll paraphrase something I said on another thread. If you're going to make a rule you expect others to follow, you need to demonstrate that you're worthy of their respect in following it. Leaders need to be more responsible than followers, that's why they get to be leaders. It's a sad sack of a "leader" who expects his followers to go the extra mile to make up for his own lack of planning and execution. Good leaders think through the implications of a rule before imposing it on the people they've been entrusted to lead. The problems Beavah mentioned about record keeping are present

As far as standardization goes, I'm against it going any farther than it has. Some scouting programs are better than others, and we all cheerfully dissagree on why. But while we each individually may think the world would be a lot better if we were just in charge and could tell everyone else how they have to do things, the reality is that fighting over who gets to be king would take up so much time and energy, the end result would be a lot worse than just letting each other go on "doing it wrong."