kenk

I can't find a way to search that site by model number. Can you give some hints as to how to find the items using their hyperlinks? I found a whistle that attaches to a buckle, but the model number didn't match the one you gave.

Well, I have to tell you...

I had never heard of ScoutTrack.com before I read the original post. The discussions prompted me to look at it.

Being a den leader and cubmaster, I deal with many tracking issues, including achievements for my den and personal information for the boys/parents. We have used PackMaster since I started with the pack. Updates were handled by myself, our committee chair (addresses), and our advancement chair. We ran into tremendous problems keeping our databases in sync.

I had looked at PackMaster's feature for sharing information via an FTP web site, but nobody in our pack knew how to do that. Even if I had figured out how to do it, how would we keep that ongoing after I left the pack next year?

Anyway, I was impressed with ScoutTrack. Last Thursday I purchased a one year license and by Friday night had imported all the information and created a calendar for my pack and my den. Pretty cool. It is pretty straight forward. Now we just have to collect e-mail addresses - most parents have e-mail, its just that I don't have them yet.

Thanks for the comments, I think this will be a good thing for our pack. Your mileage though may vary.

Ken

P.S. I'm sure the rules on this forum discourage promotion of specific products. From my prespective the big deal is the product TYPE - using a shared database via the internet. Are there any other similar products out there?

Here is another link I found a few years back:

http://www.caleuche.com/River/RiverStory.htm

I like BW's interpretation, and agree 100%. I too would not want to allow a scout to sleep in the same tent with an adult who is not a parent or a LEGAL guadian. I wish the GTSS would add the term "legal" in their wording, or provide a better definition of the term guardian.

I also agree that the tent sharing and two-deep leadership as completely separate issues. That was one of the points I so poorly tried to make.

I referred to the "1:1 rule" -- It appears some councils/districts have a rule that during Webelos camping, each adult shall be responsible for only one scout. This is certainly my own preferred arrangement, but I can see where it would be difficult with a one-parent--multi-child family.

To clarify:

The GTSS says "When staying in tents, no youth will stay in the tent of an adult other than his or her parent or guardian."

Now, suppose an adult is the father of one scout and the parent-assigned guardian of another at the same time. This is a pretty likely scenario when neither of scout A's parents can make the campout, so they ask scout B's parent to "guardian" their boy during the overnight.

Note that I am not assuming the 1:1 rule here, which appears to be OK with the GTSS.

Can the two boys and their adult/guardian sleep in the same tent? Does that violate the two-deep leadership?

Though I myself am uncomfortable with it, I'm thinking the answer is yes, the three CAN share the same tent (I like the idea of a written guardian authorization), and on top of that, it wouldn't matter if the parent/guardian was female. The guardian/scout relationship is treated exactly like a parent/scout relationship.

So long as there are two adults registered leader, or one adult registered leader & an parent/guardian, at the activity, it seems the two-deep leadership requirement has been met.

A very thorough answer.

To clarify, can two Webelos boys be responsible to a single adult parent/guardian? In other words, can Bobby go with his dad Robert and Davie's parents identify Robert as the guardian for the campout?

What is the definition of a "guardian"?

Can Robert and Davie sleep in the same tent even though they are not related, since Davie's parents have identified Robert as a guardian for the campout?

Will Luke and Laura ever get back together? ....oh sorry, that was a soap opera loooonnnnngggg ago.

Yeah, I knew people would jump all over it, but...

midway through our Wolf year I found I had two choices:

1. Resign

2. Have the parents assist with hosting meetings

I presented these options to my den and, well, they wholeheartedly chose option 2. All we are doing is continuing the process that worked so well in Tiger Cubs.

I have had all the training. I followed the published monthly meeting recommendations. I run the meetings using the preferred format, but the parents plan the meeting activities and projects and plan/arrange the trips.

I have a great Assistant Den Leader - a Police Officer who brings fantastic skills, insight and energy into the den. But both of us have professional careers, both our wives work full time, and we both have two young children actively involved in school/athletic activities outside of Scouting. For both of us our primary responsibility is to our children and families - not our Pack/Den.

The parents are not dummies. Most of them have been involved with the den for the last three years, since Tiger Cubs, and know the drill well by now. It has worked VERY well for us. It keeps the parents actively involved in the den - much more so than most dens - and brings their skills/talents to the den meetings/activities.

Like I said, kudos to you den leaders out there who have sufficient time to run the program by yourself (with the assistance of an ADL).

Just to raise the heat a little more, now that we are in Webelos, we are having the host parent's Scout work with their parents to plan & run parts of the meetings - at least to the extent they feel comfortable. So far it appears to be working very well with guidance from the parent and the leaders.

I didn't mean "graduate" at the Blue & Gold. I intended to say "receive their badge of rank".

This is what I do:

>>As a den leader I basically guide the den's activities, provide a calendar of events (making sure we cover achievements needed to allow the boys to graduate at the Blue & Gold dinner) and act as communication coordinator within the den and from the Pack level to the den. I just don't have the time, talent, nor energy to arrange and run EVERY den meeting and field trip.

>>Hold den meetings on the same day of the week as the regular pack meeting - in our case Wednesday evenings. Find the day/time that works best for your den. We meet in our school's cafeteria from 6:30-8:00. That is late enough working parents can make it, but early enough so the boys aren't up too late on a school night.

>>Make sure the boys get together every other week, including Pack meetings. This means we'll have one or two den meetings each month. I know we're supposed to have weekly meetings, but it is way too often for our families due to competing activities (soccer, baseball, band, ...)

>>VERY IMPORTANT!! The den leader identifies the topics for each month or den meeting based upon the achievements to be completed and monthly themes, and then the Parents get responsiblility for the month's den meetings and field activity on a rotating basis. For example, Joe Smith - Bobby Smith's dad (note we specify a person who is responsible - will cover Feats of Skill during November and will arrange/host the November's den meetings and field trip.

Before each meeting (a week ahead of time and then night before), the den leader contacts the parent to confirm their readiness and discusses details. Each parent, including the Den Leader, will typically doing two months during the year.

If parents don't want to take ownership of their share of den activities - and luckily I haven't been faced with that - then I would likely ask them to consider joining another den (which in our case involves finding another pack).

>>I am fortunate enough that all my den parents use e-mail. 99% of my communication is through e-mails. It is great!! It is much faster and more precise than phone calls.

In my opinion, running a den all by yourself - planning and hosting all den activities - would be a full-time job. Kudos to those that do!! I have to work during the day to pay bills, provide a home to my kids, and build them a future. Sharing the planning/hosting is the only way I could do this without burning out after the first year.

Just to clarify, the personal locator beacon is very different from a radio (FRS or any other kind).

When the PLB signal is initiated, they send signals to satellites which are then relayed to a mission control center -- essentially a 911 center that will arrange for appropriate rescue.

The PLB signal actually works to determine the location of the beacon and broadcasts that location to the mission control center. Some PLBs actually aquire GPS position and relays that information.

Think of it as a 24/7 access to a 911 center with automatic location capability. Even if the user passes out after starting the beacon, help will arrive.

Read more at http://www.equipped.com/faq_plb/default.asp .

I think back to a trip to the Boundary Waters that a group of six of us took when we were in college. Two of the guys in the group started climbing a dead tree that had fallen on a live tree. They were trying to saw limbs off to free the live tree. One of the guys was the only one who knew the route back home (that alone was stupid). I often wonder what would have happened if he had fallen and seriously hurt himself. How would we have gotten help for him? Likely two or four of us would have gone for help while the guy's wife likely would have stayed behind with him. How long would it have taken? I figure at least two days.

If we had a PLB, help could have been on the way in minutes. What a difference!! Easily worth the $1000.

I'm a big fan of http://www.equipped.com . It is a not-for-profit web site decicated to emergency survival (typically for about 72 hours).

They have reviews of current PLBs and many tips for making survival kits. Take note of their forum which packs a lot of related knowledge.

I've been reading Cody Lundin's book (mentioned on the web site, but not related to them). I really focuses on the fragility of life and the need to plan ahead to give yourself a chance to survive.

Right now - due to the cost - I can envision having one ELB for an entire group of people, but I can't imagine every individual carrying one. On the other hand, if hell breaks loose and you really really need emergency help, 2K won't seem like much cost.

Per Marlene's comment in the Hug-a-Tree thread the formula for a good outcome is pretty simple:

ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS have kids carry a whistle, a brightly colored plastic bag or two, and the knowledge to admit that they are lost and then stay put waiting to be found.

By the way, I do suspect that eventually GPS's (w/ compass) will get small and cheap enough that they will become standard equipment even for kids.

Though I don't have data on this, I strongly suspect that the #1 killer in a lost child situation is hypothermia. The purpose of the plastic bag is to prevent that.

I've seen some suggest that the color of the bag isn't too important, but I would disagree. I've read stories describing how tough it is to see a child crouched/sitting in the woods. I made sure the bags I provided to my boys were bright orange.

I've read many people praise the Fox 40 pea-less whistle, and agree that it makes sense for use in freezing weather, but otherwise I prefer the Storm and, if space is limited, the Wind Storm (a smaller version). The Storm is noticably much louder than the Fox 40.

For the kids, the whistles I bought from Oriental Trading seemed to do fine, especially for $0.25 each They are really quite loud and don't seem too prone to overblow. On-line, Fox 40's, Wind Storms, and Storms run about $5-$7 each. For young children, I prefer to avoid lanyards due to strangulation risk. The elastic wrist bands seem a lot safer.

For a very good overview of whistles from a survival perspective:

http://www.equipped.com/signal.htm#SoundOff

I'm not associated with Equipped.com at all, but it is a fantastic site for information, and a not-for-profit organization - if you are looking for some tax breaks.

Welcome to Tiger Cubs. On a slightly off topic ...

I STRONGLY recommend that your adult partners take turns running each month's program. Lay out the year's monthly activities (using the - can't remember the name - monthly Cub Scout Activity book - its yellow this year) and have each parent sign up for one or two months. For that month they will need to run the den meetings and arrange/lead the Go See It. Make sure they understand that they need to meet the achievements per the book.

Your job is to pester them to make sure they are doing the prep work and that they will be there. Please don't make the mistake of stepping in for them after they call you saying "something came up". If you do the work all year, you'll burn out after the first year.

I did this my 1st year as Tiger Cub Den Leader and it worked great. I think the parents really enjoyed it. In my Den's Wolf year I tried to do most of it myself and really burned out. Last year - during Bear - I went back to sharing the months amoung parents. They welcomed it and it helped me greatly. This year they are in Webelos 1, and we are doing the same thing. It really works.

Doug's kit is on my Christmas wish list, though I will admit that I recently purchased his RKS Mk1 knife. It is VERY nice.

My wife doesn't understand me spending that much for a knife. I wrote it off as the "worse" part of the wedding vow.

If you like knives, or someone who does, this is a cute article about why men love knives. It can be converted to just about any outdoor equipment too.

http://www.fieldandstream.com/fieldstream/columnists/article/0,13199,659761,00.html

Related to the very sad lost scout story:

After hearing about situations like this, I presented my Bear-level Cub Scouts with a home-made version of the "Hug-Tree and Survive" materials. This training is offered by Search and Rescue people around the country, but the local SAR team here didn't offer it - so I made my own. I strongly recommend you look for it in your area.

It really doesn't take much for a young kid to disappear into some woods. Even in the relatively urban area of suburban Chicago, there are lots of forests and undeveloped areas in which a small child could become lost.

I found lots of material on-line, put it together into a PowerPoint presentation - making sure to give LOTS of credit to the main organization. I purchased cheap SMALL FANNY PACKS (purchased from Oriental Trading Company) and we filled them with:

>>Large ORANGE PLASTIC GARBAGE - purchased on-line - not easy to find though. I'd recommend two if the fanny pack was a bit bigger. Pre-slice a face-hole.

>>WHISTLE on a elastic wrist band - from Oriental Trading Company

>>Photon LED FLASHLIGHT also connected to the elastic wrist band - found a great deal on these through Campmor.com - mostly included to aleave fear of the dark and they don't take much extra room.

Then we had lots of discussion about how they'd feel if lost. We created scenarios of how it could happen and then had the boys act out what they'd do using the kit.

Of course, for this all to work though it is critical that the boys carry these with at ALLLL times. Oh, and even adults should carry at least this kit or preferably an enhanced version (knife, compass, lighter, cell phone, 1st aid kit, ... see http://www.equipped.com).

Here are some Hug-a-Tree links:

http://www.gpsar.org/hugatree.html

http://www.theozarks.com/Outdoors/HugATree.htm

http://baysar.thot.net/bsar08.html

http://w3.hwdsb.on.ca/tailslap/other/outdoors/hugatree.htm

My understanding is that soap, though biodegradable and diluted, is not good for critters in the water such as plankton, zooplankton, and the invertebrates that provide the base of the foodchain. Think about the last time you got soap in your eyes - it doesn't feel great on sensitive tissues. Imagine being a critter with gills getting soap dumped around you.

The idea is to dispose of soap at least a few hundred feet from the water so that it doesn't impact to much wildlife, and has time to degrade before any chance of it being washed down to the water.

Sounds like you had a great time.

Regarding bug spray, my experience was about the same. We really didn't need it, BUT while canoing some backwater it would have been nice to have a head net to keep the biting flies off.

I have vivid memories of the mosquitos coming out in force at the very same time each night. My tent-mate and I were very careful to be in the tent before that time. Others in our party (not a Scouting trip) didn't watch the time well, so it was funny to watch their panic when the mosquitos would hit while they weren't ready.

Why wouldn't you bring soap? We brought biodegradable soap that was used for cleaning ourselves and cleaning cooking gear. In both cases we were careful to keep soap way away from the lake.

I went with a group consisting of myself, two couples and one other guy. The trip leader lived in St. Paul where we stayed the first night. He made sure we spread all our stuff out on the floor in preparation and so he could make sure we had what we needed and didn't have what we didn't need. It worked well.

Oddly, one of my favorite things about the trip was the "rest room facilities". I'd never experienced that before or since. Very strange - to me - but wonderful - to be sitting in the middle of God's splendor to my thing.

Hindsight on that trip included a few would-to-differentlies:

-should have brought benedryl since one of the guys got stung real bad and we had nothing to treat it. I can't imagine trying to haul out someone with a broken leg - or worse.

-some of the party members took a few more chances than they needed to while messing around climbing trees. Hind sight says that was pretty foolish and could have easily messed up the trip.

-should have made sure someone in another canoe had a copy of the trip map and plans. Foolishly, only the leader had a map and plans. Had he lost his map, we would have been in BIG trouble.

-while they weren't available back then, it would have been REAL nice to have had a GPS.

-with today's technology, I can see where bringing a personal locator beacon (described at http://www.equipped.com) would have been a good idea.

Hands down ... my children. They are my focus and my pride & joy. They are the best thing I've ever done in my life.

If you're reading this on your wireless laptop in camp in the middle of the boundry waters . . . Have Fun!

(Sigh) Maybe the boundary waters are fully equipped for wireless internet communications yet. But a geek can hope.

Ken

Good point!!

Parents, even though they look cool, PLEASE do not buy a serrated blade for someone just starting to learn about knives.

They are VERY difficult to sharpen, and give very very nasty cuts that are likely to leave scars. Their only real advantage is when cutting rope or nylon straps.

I can't imagine its the mantles' initial burn since you said it worked earlier.

You didn't mention whether this was a Coleman lantern, but you could contact Coleman service with your question at consumerservice@coleman.com.

I did find this on their web site:

Why does my lantern flare excessively with a yellow flame when lit?

It is normal for a liquid fuel lantern to burn with a large yellow flame when first started. Until the generator assembly is hot enough to vaporize the fuel, the lantern will burn with a yellow flame. Once the generator heats up enough, the flame will settle down to a glow. Under normal use, this can take from 20 to 60 seconds depending on the outside temperature. The colder the lantern and fuel, the longer it will take.

On both liquid fuel and propane lanterns there is a tube that pulls outside air into the burner assembly to mix with the fuel. On the liquid fuel lanterns, this tube runs up in back of the generator and bends where the generator intersects it at mantle height. On propane lanterns, this is the only tube that runs from top to bottom inside the globe. It sits directly over the gas tip at the top of the valve.

If either of these tubes is blocked or partially blocked by a spider web, an insect or a wasp nest, the air flow to be mixed with the fuel to the mantles will be restricted and only a large yellow flames will appear at the mantles. The mantles will never settle down to a glow. If this occurs, the burner will need to be removed from the lantern and the tube cleaned with a small bottle or gun-cleaning brush or a pipe-cleaner.

Over-filling the fuel tank can also cause excessive flame on liquid fuel lanterns. You should always fill a lantern on a flat, level surface. Inside the filler hole is a short neck reaching inside the tank. The maximum fuel level should always be just below the bottom of this neck. If the fuel level reaches up inside the neck or is enough to require you to tilt the lantern to keep fuel from pouring out the filler hole, the lantern is over-filled and can flood when lighted. This will cause large yellow flames and the mantles will not settle down and glow.

I'm guessing your lantern's air supply is blocked.

Ken

I stick to the higher DEET (20-25%) aerosols. My preference is:

1. 3M Ultrathon

2. Off Deep Woods

3. Cutter Backwoods - though I used to hate the smell of Cutter sprays - maybe their better now.

I don't like the lotions since they are very hard to apply to cloth. I'm not thrilled with most pump sprays.

Though I haven't tried it myself, I've read that 100% DEET is nasty oily stuff, and that concentrations less than 50% are quite sufficient for most needs.

When mosquitos are thick, the 3M Ultrathon provides very good protection as long with two applications after each meal.

I didn't buy my son an official Cub Scout pocketknife because I figured no self-respecting Boy Scout would be caught dead using a Cub Scout knife. That limited the useful life of the Cub Scout knife to something less than three years.

At this point he doesn't need the extra blades in a typical pocketknife. I can't imagine where he'd use a screwdriver, a can opener, or an awl. I suppose a small scissors could be useful. Instead I bought him a Gerber LST II (low cost high quality knife with a locking blade less than 3").

When he gets older, I'm sure we'll make arrangements for another knife with a larger blade and/or additional blades.

Just because my son has earned his Whittling Chip, I still control access to the knife while he increasess his skills. As time goes on, and skills/common sense increas, he will earn less supervision. He seems comletely fine with that, at least at this point in time (just finished Bear year).

By the way, I don't think there is such a thing as too sharp a knife. An important part of working with my son on knife skills is teaching him to sharpen his knife. If done correctly it will end up very sharp.

I agree 110%!!

In Cub Scouts the primary cause of lost boys (where is Peter Pan when you need him?) fall within two of your categories:

1) The parents don't like Cub Scouts or (this one surprised me) think that their son will somehow get hurt while on a Scout outing (in my case the parents gave no specifics - they just quit with that excuse). I suspect this might be a version of the "boy hates camping" category.

Along these lines I had one parent to thought the boys were too "wild" during den meetings and eventually pulled her boy out. She was the type that complained about everything we did but never would volunteer to help. At the time I asked ALL of the other parents in the den for their opinions on the wildness of the boys and none were concerned. In a typical den meeting I tend to let them blow off some steam in a controlled manner (races, games,..) and then bring them back with an activity (crafts, skills,...) at least twice per meeting. It takes them a few minutes to "calm down", but that is typical for you boys. I've definitely noticed the time it takes to calm down has decreased as they've gotten older.

2a) The boy is just involved in too many activities and Scouting is one that gets axed.

2b) This one is the most unfortunate. It is when a boy's SIBLING is so involved in an activity that the parents are forced to pull the boy out of scouting. I have a boy in my den that loves Scouts, but he tends to miss over half of the activities because it older sister is very heavily involved in dance recitals. It breaks my heart.