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"IMO, 05 was less well run as compared to the previous Jamborees at APHill. " Well thank God, my experience was a participant in 1977, and yes it did rain almost the entire time, but I will never forget my Jambo, and in 05 as a member of the Arts and Sciences Expo staff. As a youth participant you don't see the mechanics behind the event, but in 05 we got a real taste of BSA bureaucracy in action. I'm attending 2010 as a contingent Scoutmaster. I'm very excited. I hope the powers that be will step up to the plate and make this the most incredible experience for the kids.

Thank you, these are great ideas so far.

There is a lot of documentation and manuals available for almost anything Scouting, I will admit, but there is something to be said for personal observation and best practices. Everyone here has thier own opinion on how to deliver the program, and usually they're all worth reading about. Don't think for one minute that there is never more than one way to skin a cat. Since you've been lurking for a while, you'll know who to trust and who to chuckle at and who, if any, to put on your ignore list. Almost all of us are volunteers just like you. Have fun.

"There seems to be a lot of knowledge here" HA!, and a lot of other stuff too! Welcome, this is really a great place to find all of the answers, and most of them are right! =)

Well, our Scout Executive is retiring soon and we'll be breaking in another one. Many of us in my council would like to provide him and his wife with a proper send off and maybe some nice parting gifts to remember us working slobs by. Have any of you gone through this. What have you done as far as giving a gift to the exiting SE? His wife/spouse? A cheasy plaque, certificate of thanks...any idea is better than no idea. Any gags you've pulled on them? I'm pretty sure there's no regulation or publication that can be quoted here, so this may be a safe topic. Thanks in adva

Welcome to the Forum. You may want to take a bit of time and do a search on the subject before you start a new thread, it is probably an issue that's been discussed several times before. Issues between units and CO's are plentiful and all too often.

Welcome back, I know those younger scouts will have some real war stories to tell the older boys for years to come.

Wow, I've got 4 uniforms now and will have to "update" as I'm one of our councils Jamboree Scoutmasters. I'll need at least two for the Jamboree. Why can't one of our choices be getting a discount on the new uniforms? One can hope.

Eagle92 wrote: Does anyone know if the expedition, various BSA stetsons, and and CS boonie hats still allowed as they are not mentioned in the pdf. Once a uniform piece is authorized it is always allowed. It may not be a current item for sale through the SD but it's still an official part of the uniform. Go ahead, wear your campaign hat with pride.

I'd wear these 6 in order of receipt Eagle Cubmaster's Award Dist Award of Merit (Silver Pretzel, I loved that) Silver Beaver Scouters Key Scoutmaster's Award of Merit

I had a boy's father apparently throw his entire book away. The boy had just completed the entire book, finished getting his signatures and he and his mom just put the finishing touches on the "after" photos for the project. The notebook was on the living room coffee table for all to view. The father was never one to get involved with his son and Scouting, he was always too involved in himself. He found it laying about and threw it in the trash. He told his son what he'd done after the trash collector came and hauled it away later that week. When I asked his mom about it, she just shrugg

John in KC wrote: "During my week at PTC, I got to meet a wonderful young lady: Last year she had been the Western Region President of the Venturing Officers Association. She was serving on staff as a backcountry ranger (guide for base camp and 1st couple of trail days). She has her Silver, the Venturing Leadership Award, and is going to make a great mark in this world. " Are you talking about Robyn Knoll? She's awesome isn't she. She was an associate advisor to my son's World Jamboree Venture Crew and she was just great. She is quite a driven and focused young lady.

Up until a few years ago, councils were given a green light to "modify" the JLT locally as long as it covered the core trainings. Now National would like to control the quality of the programs and trainings issued nationwide and requires that the course be called, at least for now, NYLT. Personally I think the Pack and Paddle version your council puts on would be a fantastic adventure, and probably more effectively teaches the skills in the syllabus than the suggested classroom setting, but that's just my opinion. I've got a friend that puts on a Kodiak training for Venturers while do

I was in your shoes as well. Stayed semi active after 18 in my home troop, was asked to SM of another unit when I turned 21 by my old SM, our Dist Chair. Kept that job for 5 years or so and never had issues with adults in my unit accepting me. I was a Cub daycamp director for a couple years in there too, and still no issues with the adults I recruited to help. The only place I found I was not welcomed - get this - was at Roundtables and Commissioners meetings (I was asked to be a UC as well). Old Scouters have trouble accepting Young Scouters sometimes. Don't let it bother you.

In my troop (1972-79)our Scoutmaster would take corners for minor infractions. He allowed the SPL to do so at some point when one boy attended a JLT course. I remember having 3 corners for almost 3 years, which in our troop was nearly pristine. On day while whittling at summer camp I used one of those exacto whittling knives (the kind the camps and Scout service centers used to sell), got into a knott on a piece of wood, and when it let go cut my upper thigh about 6" across, albeit not very deep. The blood scared the hell out of me, but it turned out to be nothing more than a deep scr

I hate this stuff. My boys show up with a huge black fuzzy glob on thier uniform where a patch used to be and it looks really really bad. Personally I've never used it and probably never will. I've had people tell me dry cleaning is supposed to get it out, but they used Goof Off with better success. I'm with Gunny, good 'ol needle and thread works great!

Our troop colors are purple and neon green. They were picked some 20 years ago by the fist PLC to represent the wine grapes grown in our town and the leaves of those vines. We're the only troop in our area with those colors, so when we do a camporee or whatever, our boys are always "spotable". All the other troop settle on Red, Blue or Green. I like the new uniforms, and I like the old ones too. One things for sure. Once we get used to them in some years from now, they'll change again. That you can count on.

Personally I enjoy reading what GW has to say in general. Sometimes the comments are a bit much, but this is the internet and nobody is forced to read any of this. Regarding how he deals with BW, I think it's just a knee jerk reaction from other interactions. I understand where they come from. From your question, I don't think these last comments were that big of a deal. as a side note...There's a feature in this forum software that allows us readers to grade up or down the quality of each post, and I would think that there would be a filter option to hide any comment that rated a sev

"Why did the Scouts elect a bully to be their SPL?" -FScouter When our Troop attends summer camp, and the older youth cannot attend for whatever reason (this particular year the SPL and ASPL were both in summer school) we appoint an SPL for the week. This young man was SPL previously and knew the job. He was not a bully at that time, but the assistant he appointed was when he was not at scout meetings. These two seemed to feed off of each other all week, and the ASM that was put in charge, who happened to be the father of one of the bullies, thought it was just boys being boys, even af

This is hillarious, my favorites so far are SCOUT from Goldwinger...of course 1HRWK from raisinemright...hahaha HLPME from Talen333 OMG this was funny 2BOUT from SSSCout...I don't know, I think we're still in the don't ask, don't tell stages...haha How About HONOR right now I'm goin with HLPME :0)

Never had to send a kid home, try to keep each boy in my sights for any arguments. I attended the 2005 NSJ while my troop went to camp. When I got home 75% of the boys that went called and said they were going to quit, all for being bullied by the acting SPL and his appointed assistant. Well, after a lengthy investigation ( had to go to each kids house and interview them) I recommended to the Committee that the boys be removed from the troop. That was one of the best things we could have done. Why weren't the boys sent home from camp? Because their fathers happened to be the le

ha, does that mean this forum is costing you up to $5000? Wow, you're dedicated. lol As an update, our council has completed selecting the adult leadership for 4 troops, plus alternates. We've recruited enough youth for 1/2 10 2/3 of the contingent. Now we're working to fill the rest of the troops and recruit staffers. We've got our tours arranged, hotels booked, and printed some nice 4 color brochures for recruiting. We've got a payment plan in place and worked out a first fund raiser of popcorn sales for those wishing to participate. Even though National has opened the webs

Wow, this is weird coincidence but I've just been asked to work with the committee for our Council to review our bylaws. Seems it's not been done for at least 10 years or so. This brings me to an odd realization...I'm definitely not joining any thread dealing with ditch digging or latrine scrubbing anytime soon.

Yea, too much coffee this morning apparantly.

bmwgardner, as a help, you can use free on line translation sites to help with fliers and letters home. I have used www.freetranslation.com on occasion and it's worked out alright. More technical documents and "legal" documents (like permission slips and medication lists) should be done by a human translator so there is no question about the true meaning of the document.