KoreaScouter

Depending on what type of obstacle/agility course your Scout has in mind, you could also call the nearest Air Force Base. All have military working dogs who are required to be exercised/trained regularly on such courses, and all USAF kennels have these courses on premises. Tell me where you live, and I could point you in the right direction. KS

Bob; As I mentioned in my last post, I'm going to consider us just being on a different part of the supervision continuum. Having said that, your assertion that councils/districts are not measured on advancement stats is not correct. I invite your attention to the Index of Growth product that is completed each year by each council/district (BSA Form 28-1010 for the small format, 28-5320 for the large format, 1999 printing). Items 23 and 24 are "Advancements per 100 Cub Scouts" and Advancements per 100 Boy Scouts", respectively. The formulae for calculating this % is on the reverse of

Bob; Advancement isn't one of the three aims, but it IS one of the eight methods through which we achieve the aims. You are absolutely correct when you say that advancement should not be an end in itself, and as an aside, I think we collectively put way too much emphasis on earning Eagle rank as an ultimate goal in Scouting. However, I think that offering a program and letting the advancement/MBs sort themselves out is somewhat utopian and way too laissez-faire for most if not all units, districts, councils, even BSA national. If it wasn't, why is rank advancement one of the criteria f

Bob; You can leave out the incredibly obvious; the simply obvious will suffice! I know full well there is no BSA literature restricting the number of MBs a Scout may pursue at any given time. Many in my troop are working on multiples, including those that take a long time (camping, hiking, etc.) and those that are partial carryovers from a roundup or summer camp. My example of 15 blue cards was hyperbole -- sorry if it missed the mark (although one of my Scouts was trying to get 12 MBs in a one-week summer camp last year...his dad the Troop CC at the time was "facilitating" it).

First, to answer the question, of course parents (as long as they're registered with BSA and approved as a counselor for that badge) can be MB counselors. Seems many of us have a sort of built-in "mistrust meter" in our unit policies that restrict this, restricts number of badges, etc. Great thing about the BSA system is that it's self-cleansing...at annual recharter time, if the troop committee determines a given counselor is not doing his job properly, that's the time to fix it. I've really enjoyed the Bob White/Ed Mori tennis match here, and I've gotta go with Ed. While it's true (a

I put all our new Scouts in a New Scout Patrol shortly after taking over as Scoutmaster about six months ago. I had 8 Scouts in the patrol at the outset. Some were truly "new", and a few had a couple months in the Troop already. I did this based on BSA literature that encourages it, two ASMs I latched onto them, and a heartfelt promise from my newly anointed Troop Guide that he would jump into it with both feet. The Troop Guide piece didn't work out as expected. This older Scout, who's a good kid and completed JLT, has the typical teenage distractions, missed some meetings/activitie

BubbaBear; Geez, you get away from a thread for a day and it gets completely away from you! Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to personally attend any World Cup games. Contrary to rumor, the tickets were available, and if you planned properly, not expensive. But, my military duties lie mainly in the area of anti-terrorism, and I was on a fairly short tether. The only way I could take my troop to summer camp last month was with a cell phone and the fact that our camp was in a military training area 20 minutes from home. All's well that ends well, though. No hooliganism, no ter

Allowing COs or even councils to set their own policy regarding this would turn into a real briar patch. Here's why: A CO allowing their troop committee to "hire" gay leaders because it doesn't conflict with the moral beliefs of their families (assuming BSA permitted it) implies that such a decision has no consequence outside the troop. This is simply false, unless that troop participates in no district, council, regional, or national events. How many of you have taken your troop to a camporee or other district-or-higher-level event in which every leader available wasn't pressed into s

Five Scouts from my troop are going to WJ in Thailand. For any of you old heads who may have been involved with a WJ in the past, a few questions? 1. Do you know how the WJ fee breaks out? It seems incredibly expensive, and no doubt a lot of that is for insurance and other costs that are transparent to those attending...not disputing them, just want to be able to offer something other than the deer-in-the-headlights look to families when they ask me... 2. What trading items are most popular and most portable? We want to send our Scouts with something that others will want to trade

And, if they're water repellent (either naturally or with Scotchgard), they'll keep your noggin dry too. Ironically, Cub Scouts have an official blue-color boonie-type hat (very expensive, over $30), but Boy Scouts, with the more robust outdoor program, does not...go figure.

We sold popcorn in Virginia, but didn't do it here last year (first time popcorn sales were offered in Korea). We'll probably have to do it this year, since our other main fund-raising opportunity may not be available to us again. Here's my question for any of you who may know. I've seen unit profits from 22% (Virginia if we took prizes) to 40%. Is this a local Council determination? I think last year, units here got just 15% (I'm probably off on this). It's hardly worth it for that, but for 40%.... KS

Thanks all for your feedback; I'm looking forward to reading your reports, too. I like the idea of a nightly cracker barrel before lights out...I may try to work that for Fall Camporee over here. Double Eagle, appreciate the comments about Scouting overseas -- it is more difficult. We may end up in Europe and Transatlantic Council next summer after our little vacation in Korea. About the watermelon: who knows, but if that's the worst thing I did during the week, I consider it a compliment! KS

Got back Saturday night from Summer Camp. Four leaders took 12 Scouts from the troop (over 50%, but would have had more if it wasn't for vacations and summer moves). Plus, I had two Scouts and one leader on camp staff. - Five of our six first-time summer campers received their Tenderfoot badges at the closing campfire, and our Scouts earned a total of 43 merit badges. We came home with some partials, but not too many. - Very little homesickness; family night/campfire on Wednesday helped take care of that. - No injuries, and the skeeters weren't too bad. - I advised all o

Weekender; Congrats on a great camp; ours just ended, and I'm going to post a report in a minute. Get ready for some questions from other forum members about the camo uniform items -- many extended cracker barrels here over that subject... How do you keep your Scouts from heat stroke? Is prevention just a way of life for you guys, or what? KS

Methinks this may be a case of adults making a mountain out of a molehill. Every Troop, every year, that bridges W2s from their feeder Pack (if they're lucky enough to have one) deals with this. In my experience, the Scouts themselves are eager to divest themselves of "little guy" stuff like the Whittlin' Chip (although many still want to do Pinewood Derby...). In military working dog circles, there is an expression: "What goes down the leash, comes up the leash". In other words, the dogs (Scouts) pick up the attitudes of their handlers (adult leaders) and adopt them as their own. I r

OGE; I completed the new WB course in early May. Other posters are right, it's not about secrecy, it's just that laying a full syllabus in front of you will ruin the course and prevent the necessary human dynamics from occurring the way they're supposed to. You'll see this for yourself. I have an MBA and years of management and leadership experience -- nonetheless, I "surrendered myself" to the staff...I'm glad I did. One member of our class in another patrol (very Type-A) tried to game it by front-loading everything, having all his ticket items written before he showed up, having all

On the rare occasions when I've encountered the "what's his position?" question, the pack/troop recharter report has always been the tie-breaker. In other words, the position in which you registered in January is how Scoutnet carries you until the recharter next January. I think they have your fellow Scouter on a technicality. If the Tiger knot was important to me, I wouldn't have rechartered as the Cubmaster, even if I was doing the Cubmaster's job in a de facto sense. You're dead on regarding multiple-hat leaders. A couple years back, I was our Pack's Committee Chair, Cubmaster, T

Frankly, there's not a lot to teach, aside from the components of fitness and nutrition. The bulk of the badge work is the initial, interim, and final fitness testing, and the 12-week personal exercise program that each Scout must develop, follow, and complete. Importantly, the requirements don't prescribe group workouts and testing (in fact, you shouldn't do it that way in my opinion). Since each Scout will develop a program that will optimize his own strength, flexibility, and endurance, they're generally best pursued individually or as buddies, particularly the 2-week tests. Whoever

Ron; There is always a lot of those type items on e-bay; have you ever checked there?

Yaworsky; While I appreciate your point about mollycoddling, I pretty much disagree with the premises you make in your last two posts. First, the scenarios you use as examples include other Scouts teasing (latrine), a Scout-initiated act (skunk), and an unintentional, unplanned minor hardship (runny eggs). None of those are institutional, condoned, leader-driven behavior -- that's what I think we're talking about here. Second, your assertion that this is an indicator that Scouting is a refuge for non-athletes and the socially impaired just doesn't hold water, at least in the troo

I just got Brad Andrews' patches, and they're great! I've sent him two already and will follow up with more after this weekend. For St. Louis and Portland ME, I'll get one out to you guys, too... I'm trying to find out the best way to store/display these. They don't fit in the standard trading card/MB certificate binder sheets...

I think some of this discussion amounts to splitting hairs, such as whether or not singing for a lost item is actually "hazing" or just "teasing". I say, who cares? My concern is not so much with the book definition as it is with the question "Is there a better way to achieve your goal?" The troop I serve sang for lost items when I came on board, and I've moved us away from that... -Lost items were handed over to a leader, who scheduled the singing at a troop formation before dinner or whatever. Could have been hours before the Scout was reunited with his flashlight, canteen,

Rooster; There's gotta be an Indian Lore tie-in there somewhere -- ride that horse as far as you can! Personally, I'm a big fan of online resources. I'll stick my neck out and say we're further from Irving than anyone else -- it's not the end of the world, but you can see it from here! The supply lines are long, too. Many of the printed resources are hard to come by, and to visit our council, I need an international plane ticket and a passport. Online access to everything, including national by-laws and the other Jedi Knight stuff would be great. We do a lot of online trai

The 2002 catalog has a cool-max t-shirt with a logo on it; I don't know if it's embroidered or not. The price is reasonable, too, compared to most commercial products I've seen.

Good discussion by all. When we ground our son, it's from all activities EXCEPT school, church, and Scouts. Why? Basically, I think the aims/methods are a better use of his time than sitting in his room, regardless of the "atrocity" he committed. Moreover, I personally believe the Scout has a responsibility to his patrol/troop which he partially fulfills and internalizes by showing up. Plus, call me a caveman, but boys are not designed for sitting indoors on their cans for extended periods -- they gotta smell the air, hear birds, step in dirt, stuff trash in their pockets, and handle stic