LauraT7

This morning I got a call from the Scoutmaster of our Boy Scout Troop. A good friend of ours and an Assistant Scoutmaster in the troop is in the hospital - with a brain tumor. Scot is of a personality both brilliant and scattered - He has a wonderful rapport with the boys in the troop, especially those like my son - who is ADHD & gifted and just somehow don't "fit" at school. Scot has a wonderful gift of bringing out each boys best abilities, and encouraging them. He has spent his entire life either being a Scout or teaching Scouts; he is truly a special person. He has become a go

first - line 'em up against that brick wall and shoot 'em! That'll at least give you a fresh start! ;-) Almost anyone will tell you it's trouble when too many family members get their fingers in the same pie, instead of "scouting" you =then get a family run club. Seriously - sounds like its time for some new leadership! Have you talked to your charter Org rep? perhaps they aren't aware that this couple's overbearing tactics are tarnishing the future of your pack? If you get no help from them or the council - it sounds like your choice is put up with it or move. - In som

Don't know if any of you would be interested - but I belong to an MSN group board on Boy Scouting that is trying to get up a Chat on Tues nights @ 9 pm central time. It is a small group - not nearly as active as this one. But we thought it might be nice to get and online "Roundtable" going. If any of you would like to join us - the address is: http://groups.msn.com/BoyScouts/_whatsnew.msnw you need a free msn, msn IM or hotmail account to access the "groups". hope to see some of you there on Tues! LauraT

http://www.scouter.com/forums/viewThread.asp?threadID=9718 This is a good link to another thread on ADHD in scouting -

YES! but most parents prefer to have another counselor sign the card just to avoid any hints of favoritism. Unless, as Korea Scouter said, they are teaching a class or a group of scouts. For the same reason, most parent ASM's will not choose to sign their own son's advancements. Some troops will try to pass this off as a troop/district/ council/ national rule - but it ain't so!

I have to laugh - the scene you paint would be trying for any ADULT much less a teen - even a well trained, and well intentioned one.... How about some help from an ADD Mom of an ADHD scout? If you truly have that many REAL ADHD kids - and not just some who egg the others on - you DO have a problem. Some are bound to be more "intense" than others. And as you've already found out - punishment doesn't help - it's more work for you and doesn't (usually) make any impression on them. With ADD - EVERYTHING is RIGHT NOW. very impulsive - planning and forthought and consequences

Thanks Doug! that answer makes sense to me - as ever since we started with this troop, they have had "Scout Sunday" a week after everyone else does. I didn't even think about communion, as our Lutheran Church has communion every week - and I don't attend the Methodist Church often enough to know. But you're right, the service was longer, because the boys really participated, and there was a ceremony dedicating & blessing our new flags, and presenting a Methodist Scouter award to our Charter org rep. Good thing they DIDN'T have communion, too - or I might still BE THERE! LOL!

I did a search for boxes last summer and got quite a few plans and instructions and websites for our boys to chose from. they took all this and designed their own! Still haven't built it yet, but we're working with a stingy troop comittee. If you e-mail me I'll send you all the plans and links I collected - one on-line site's plans let you adjust the dimensions to your equipment! e-mail me at tlaurat7@hotmail.com

the side of the lake is too rocky and dangerous? Oh my! Well - here's a big sack - why don't you take a couple of boys and go pick up all those nasty rocks........and when you're done, perhaps you can use your media influence to get someone to donate a retaining seawall to stop the erosion on that side of the lake, after all, we don't want the lake shut down completely, do we? I'm being silly, of course - But USE him. I think you're on the right track to try to get him into some kind of position. If he gets in and gets trained, he's likely to find that there are reasons for the

"I'm more of an organiser or/and a contact guy Plus a designer of events." probably the reason your SM asked you to take this position. if the new group is for older boys (14+) then THEY will lead, but they need an adult familiar with the guidelines and goals of scouting to provide the structure - It sounds like you know the ins and outs of the scouting system - rules, where to get permits, who to contact for camps, resources, etc. If you are them willing to let the boys lead - under your guidance and knowledge of the program - it should be off to a good start. sounds l

Why does the methodist church have a different Scout sunday? My son and I are Lutheran - so do we attend our church on Feb 2 in uniform and then go to the Methodist church on Feb 9, too? We ARE participating in the Methodist church Scout Sunday this year, because they are our CO and are giving and dedicating new troop and American flags to the troop on FEb 9 and all the boys are participating in the service. But i'm still curious as to why two different dates....

Memories.... when I was in grade school - 4th grade? my family took a week long trip to California and I wanted to pack my suitcase myself. After all, I had been on many trips and many campouts & summer camp with girl scouts - I should know how to pack by now. I was very thourough - looking at myself, I chose a top, pants, socks and shoes for each day - and tossed in my sweater and a raincoat for good measure. My mother refrained from "checking". When we got to CA - I found I had NO UNDERWEAR! (I guess my visual approach didn't work for underclothes!LOL!) so I learned to wash out

Wow! some really good advice here - just some comments - I wish we had your family in OUR troop! Parents and a boy who REALLY want to do the program right and get involved - you are a treasure and please don't let this troop sour you on scouting! If your son has been in 6 months and already earned so many badges, on his own or with the troop - you should be proud of him. But in that time period his troop should have been concentrating on bringing his scouting (and therefore advancement) skills to where he can be a fully functioning member of a boy-lead troop. That's

In my girl scout days, it was common to see girls in windbreaker or denim jackets covered in activity patches (not badges - those were on a vest or sash) Though I can't fit in it anymore - I still have mine, covered neck to hem and all around the sleeves in patches from 15 years of girl scouting. In addition to the badges and awards I earned and wore on my uniform, these colorful soveniers attracted many younger girls and sprouted many disccusions in all the adventures scouting offers to kids. In our area - CUBS wear the red vest - BOY SCOUTS would not be caught in one - it's consider

yup - worked fine for me, too - Loved your Historical photos! how is the access to Troopmaster working? are alot of your scouters using it? I sure would like to get our troop doing that - but we have alot of non-internet people active. How does it work? it is tough to maintain? Laurat

Can't remember if I posted these ideas that our troop uses or not - but we've got some good ones: for years our troop has parked cars in the parking lot of our local Ace hardware during the 5 days of our county fair. The Ace hardware owner's sons went thru our troop years ago, and people would fill up his lot - making it impossible for his customers to get into the store during the fair. So the boys keep a designated area open for customers only during business hours and the owner lets us use the rest of the lot (probably space for over 100 cars)for parking. We direct people and acc

ANOTHER new book? Gee! I know this is a non-profit organization and they need to pay for their stuff but if I have to buy new books all the time - well it's not only expensive, but what happened to saving trees and conservationism? Why don't they just put out the new requirements as suppliments? or make the books in 3 ring binder form and just re-issue pages as they are corrected instead of issuing whole new books? This idea is used for alot of technical, legal and employment manuals and works well. If the point is to update the requirements for the boys and get them out -

We had this problem - slightly different - as we have a troop bus and all travel together. But we were finding that boys were leaving as soon as the bus arrived back at church, leaving a few to unload and clean the bus. this caused additional work - as often after long trips the buss was a mess and someone had to bring it back or leave it at the church and we would waste a monday meeting night cleaning the bus. Then too - by cleaning on Monday, boys who didn't even go on the outing got stuck cleaning, and some who went on the campout would deliberatly skip that meeting, as they knew it would

We have about 20 (all active) boys in our troop. 6 are not 1st class yet, about 3 of those are only a few requirements short. The rest are 1st class, star and 2 life scouts. That means we have a preponderance of boys that need "leadership" roles, and not enough roles to go around. In addition, we have 3 boys (Tenderfoot and 2nd class) who are moderately to severe ADHD / learning disabled and organizationally - they may likely never be capable of being a PL (my son among them) these three have been with the troop 2 - 3 years and are still working on their lower ranks. Are you sayin

We have a 3 ring binder that stays with the troop at all times - in the meeting house or on a trip - even trips to the city park (we meet there in the summer). We call it the "Trip essentials" book Each person in the troop has a clear page protector in it with the medical forms of all the adults and boys, with copies already made that we can give to camps and emergency people without giving up the originals. Each pocket also contains any info that we might need on a particular boy - a list of family phone numbers, relatives, work numbers, etc. it also had permission slips wi

We have them in our council office - Blackhawk Area Council - Illinois and WI 815-397-0210 I got one over a year ago at a training session where they had a small trading post set up from the council office. They are really nice, if a little dark. The background is a waving American flag, and the words are "America is returning to the values Scouting never left" with the BSA logo to the right. They are made out of tough vinyl material, too - Mine still looks nice when another "God Bless America" one I put on at the same time had to be removed. I get alot of comments on it.

Merit badge cards are SUPPOSED to be used by all troops - but lets face it - we all know some who have their own way of dioing things. Still, It's a good idea to hold onto anything your son earns - We have a boy in our troop - working on his Eagle rank, who MAY NOT GET IT. Why? because of poor record keeping - a prior SM and Advancement chair didn't want to bother with the books and cards and the record of his STAR rank somehow never got to the council, despite his being awarded the rank badge. So the council is saying - how can he be working on Eagle when he's not a Star? (someh

The bus IS great in alot of ways - the comraderie it builds, esp on long trips, is great. Ours is an old tour bus (1979?) with storage bins underneath and racks on top for canoes. it has built-in tables with game boards, etc. -it's really a nice thing in alot of ways. BUT - it is sometimes tough finding/ keeping CDL licensed drivers who can drive it for us - right now we have two - possibly three and all three are unavailable right now for various reasons. The maintenence on the bus is sometimes expensive - brakes, repairs, inspections, GAS. one concern the troop comittee has is th

adventure ideas on the cheap? ok - survival - Take the boys out to a campsite with deliberately (or accidentally on purpose?) missing equipment. have them set up a survival camp - no tents - just shelter out of what they can scavenge. We recently did this on a winter campout and the boys LOVED it. Our troop owns it's own canoes and trailers - we plan and doing LOTS of canoe trips, as we spent time last summer getting the boys up to par on their paddling skills. our goal is the Wisconsin river - it has sandbars and islands that are just begging for campouts - they are not "

you and I have alot in common - as i think we've noticed in the past - Single moms raising ADHD sons with little "Dad" involvement. My son is still in scouting, if sometimes reluctantly. he is approching his first class with only a few requirements left, though it has taken him almost two years. He also prefers camping and outdoors to the "schoolwork" of advancements and badges. However summer camp is awesome for him - he has a really good time there. And the knowledge he gains there helps himn in school. i truly believe, as hard as they are to deal with sometimes, that ADHD ki