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Kudu

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Everything posted by Kudu

  1. If the army was Wood Badge trained (where the privates vote for new generals every six months), we'd all be speaking Arabic now.
  2. Well, I attended that "Trail Life USA Town Meeting" last night. Attendance was sparse, mostly district people who plan to be involved in both organizations, plus a guy from the Royal Rangers willing to lend a hand to the new organization. I was able to briefly examine a Trail Life handbook. At first glance the Scoutcraft seemed even thinner than that of the BSA. The "Leadership and Character" (anti-Scoutcraft) aspects were even more pronounced, which should not be a surprise since it is an organization of BSA expatriates. My BSA Troop's former Chartered Organization Represent
  3. Maybe when our professional millionaires run out of ideas to turn the Boy Scout program into an "inclusive" indoor program, we might consider the June 15, 1916 Scoutcraft program mandated by an Act of Congress in return for our monopoly on Scouting. http://inquiry.net/leadership/sitting_side_by_side_with_adults.htm
  4. I will definitely join at some level if they try fill the vacuum left by the BSA's turn away from Hillcourt's Real Patrol Method, which was based on the "Trail Life" of Patrols.
  5. A friend of mine is hosting a "Trail Life USA Town Meeting" this Wednesday at 6 PM at the church which hosts our BSA Troop. I plan to attend. The name "Trail Life" is promising but the slogan "Adventure, Character, and Leadership" is troublesome, since the BSA has used the slogan "Character and Leadership" to explain why they took the Adventure (and the "Real Patrol" Method) out of Scouting in 1972.
  6. "(8) No person under the age of 18..." Is a subset of "(g) Camping at authorized sites, cabins or other structures." That is Webelos III camping, not a backpack trip. In New York State you need a permit for wilderness backpacking only when you camp in the same spot for more than three nights, or in a group of ten or more people. http://www.dec.ny.gov/outdoor/7872.html "Campground" being the operative word here, if the photo of the paved sidewalks and crushed stone campsites didn't give it away. I did call one state park and the weekend guy said, "We
  7. "(8) No person under the age of 18..." Is a subset of "(g) Camping at authorized sites, cabins or other structures." That is Webelos III camping, not a backpack trip. In New York State you need a permit for wilderness backpacking only when you camp in the same spot for more than three nights, or in a group of ten or more people. http://www.dec.ny.gov/outdoor/7872.html "Campground" being the operative word here, if the photo of the paved sidewalks and crushed stone campsites didn't give it away. I did call one state park and the weekend guy said, "We
  8. No, your point was "If any group of scouts tried that today, a bunch of people would probably end up in jail." As for RichardB's "Centennial Year" attack on the "Real Patrol" Method: What do you expect? His boss gets paid a million dollars a year to bash camping. So what? How did that actually impact your own outdoor program? Was it 4 Patrols times 4 Weekends per month for a total of 16 fewer Patrol Campouts per month? 50 years ago it never occurred to us to ask our Scoutmaster for permission to camp without adult supervision, even though it was "required." The "simpl
  9. Call it socialist steak, it's still baloney. A note to young readers! Citizenship in the Parlor Worker's Paradise! "Pay attention please. Thank you!" "Is next . . . Daywear!" "Is next . . . Eveningwear!" "Is next . . . Swimwear!" That's what government-imposed monopolies do: Force your parents to brainstorm excuses for dreadfully inferior products like the BSA Camping Merit Badge. To the "Trained" adult mind, Parlorwear Eagles are inevitable. Citizenship Merit Badge Vocabulary Words: Baloney Socialism Government-Imposed Dictatorship
  10. As the new Scoutmaster of a Troop with four (4) active Scouts, I recruited 15 sixth-graders and put them together with a sixteen-year-old Natural Leader (for whom the original four Scouts had refused to vote). My solution to the common adult-imposed mess that this thread represents, was to take literally everyone's observation (back when Scouting was popular), that When boys gang together, a Natural Leader always emerges. I simply refused to allow ANY job description to the Natural Leader (or assign them to a Patrol) "until the next scheduled election"... ...which w
  11. For the history buffs: Dan Beard's Prairie Schooner from his Boy Pioneers handbook: http://inquiry.net/outdoor/spring/prairie_schooner.htm
  12. So the "current BSA program" is designed for adults who favor non-swimmer lifeguards. We certainly do agree on the big picture of Scouting. :-/
  13. If the Scouts choose a non-swimmer as lifeguard, then you "swim" at a splash pad. Likewise for adjusting the applied risk of each Real Patrol to the competency of its Patrol Leader. But as Hillcourt wrote, you explain that to them before they make the obvious bad choice.
  14. 1) Most important: Start a cuss jar. The word "Troop" costs a dollar. Apothecus, you owe $8 for your first post alone 2) Next on the "To Do" List: The best feature of the current Patrol Leader Handbook is the spiral binding, which allows you to tear out all the Wood Badge anti-Hillcourt disinformation! So turn to Chapter 3. "Your Patrol and Your Troop" and rip out all those nasty pages: Page 35 with the FAKE Baden-Powell Troop Method quote. Page 36-37 with the Troop Organizational Charts. Page 38 with the Troop Method six month elections. Page 39-40 with the Troop Me
  15. Hillcourt's use of "real" is as a technical term. In the "Real Patrol" method, Advancement is not a Method of Scouting, but one of the two elements of the "Activities Method." In other words "7. Advancement" it is a list of "Activities" to do while a Patrol seeks "6. Adventure in the Out-of-Doors." So a Scout who "has completed all the requirements" is teaching younger Scouts while out on patrol. http://inquiry.net/adult/methods/index.htm In the Wood Badge Troop Method, the "Real" Patrol Leader's job is done by the TROOP Guide, or by a stranger at summer camp in an outdoor classroo
  16. That's how I did it. "Arrange to be ... four miles into the middle of nowhere. Scout and patrol have to hike there to present his gear and cook lunch for you. Tell him to bring his blue card..."
  17. The requirements are precisely the program: "The real Patrol Leader will...find that the requirements are not something separate from Scouting. On the contrary, Scouting is the Requirements" (Green Bar Bill). http://inquiry.net/patrol/index.htm
  18. Baloney. 50 years ago (1964), few if any Boy Scouts had ever heard of a backpack waist belt, which changed Delway's back country travel as radically as the invention of the stirrup changed the history of warfare. If anything, the worldwide test of a First Class Scout, a 14 mile overnight backpack Journey with a heavy pack hanging directly off our shoulders, was harder 50 years ago. But the whole point of backpacking is that a Boy Scout's direct experience of nature can be the same now as it was 50 years ago. Note that the "simple reality" apology for Parlor Scouting is a desc
  19. Sentinel: There is a leadership term for doing Scouting "the right way." It's called "adding to the requirements."
  20. Did you guys all flunk Wood Badge? Delway's Scout understands the true meaning of "inclusiveness." Ask any Den Leader with a plush toy critter! The whole point of Camping Merit Badge requirement 9b is to get parlor boys to Eagle without ever walking into the woods with packs on their backs. If a Scout hates camping (as it is defined by Baden-Powell), then he can ride his bike around a parking lot for four hours, rappel at the mall, or float downstream for four hours. That's what camping is! Watch any Wood Badger explain our Congressional Charter and you will see that Del
  21. DuctTape, Your quote from the first paragraph of the 1911 Scoutcraft requirements chapter is a paraphrase of the legal "mission" of the BSA, as defined by the statute that grants our corporation an absolute monopoly on Scouting in exchange for that particular Scoutcraft program (as "Scoutcraft" was still defined in 1916): The purposes of the corporation are to promote, through organization, and cooperation with other agencies: 1) The ability of boys to do things for themselves and others, 2) To train them in Scoutcraft, and 3) To teach them patriotism, courage, self-reliance
  22. Wood Badge has successfully positioned its history as a transition from dated Scoutcraft skills to "twenty-first century" (1965) corporate "leadership skills." The real transition was to replace one form of leadership skills with another: That would be Hillcourt's "Real" Patrol Leader skills necessary to physically _lead_ a Patrol into backwoods adventure on a regular basis ("patrol" as a verb). Versus: Bruce Tuckmans Troop Method skills to form and storm menus and duty rosters in family campground-sized lots, where Wood Badge helicopters monitor the "controlled failure"
  23. OK, congratulations! Your Patrols are camped 300 feet apart, and your Patrol Leaders lead Patrol Hikes and Overnights without adult supervision at least once a month (if only in Scout camps on monthly Troop campouts). However, most "supplemental" reading of Hillcourt and Baden-Powell ends up as out-of-context gems that illustrate the deep wisdom of Wood Badge taking power away from Patrol Leaders and giving it to Troop elections, the Troop SPL, and his patronage Troop Method positions, such as multiple Troop ASPLs and multiple Troop Guides.
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