LauraT7

our troop does not have an 'equipment' trailer - tho we own (our CO owns) a number of trailers and vehicles FOR the troop. We do have a troop bus - so when the troop goes somewhere, the boys MUST ride on the bus and the trailer driver is alone or poss has one adult in the tow vehicle for company. since joining the troop, I have most often been the 'tow' driver. We have a 20 ft two axel flatbed with 30 bicycle frames, an 8 canoe trailer, and an open 8 X 10 (converted horse trailer). We once rented an 8 X 10 enclosed U-haul. I enjoy towing the trailers - I have to admit part o

I would add only one thing to what Dan said - lead by YOUR OWN example. Since you are not the SPL, what you can do is to influence your patrol to return to the scouting methods of leadership. wether YOU are PL or not - if you have a few like-minded boys, you can start doing things using the scout methods within your patrol. When the other boys/ patrols see things working in your patrol and see you guys having fun and great outings - then THEY will want that, too. the next time elections come around - the current slacking SPL will either have gotten the message or someone else wi

Living in northern IL - much of the year we are doing outings in weather that requires warmer clothing than a troop t-shirt or Scout uniform. The jac shirt is kind of expensive - especially for growing boys - but has anyone used a 'troop' windbreaker or hooded sweatshirt or something similar for group recognition? One thing I did see at a Klondike that I liked, was a scout olive green ski hat, with the troops red troop number sewn on it. (the same number patch used on uniform sleeeves) Very simple and very effective for picking your boys out of a crowd! I'm thinking of sugge

Bob White: 'Awards' - are those Merit Badges, or just Rank Advancements? Personally, I would agree that it is not right to make a boy wait for his recognition.- even tho I know that alot of badges would get 'lost' if they weren't given out at COH and turned over to mom for safekeeping until sewn on. What i would really like to see, since the patches ans badges have to be ordered, anyway - is to have them given out, when the order comes in, say, once a month. if the troop got into a habit of ordering regularly, parents would be used to seeing the boys bring home badges periodica

KWC - Ok, I confess, report me to the "Pant Police"! I did this to my scout uniform pants, also. And I know you are NOT talking about me, specifically, because I didn't use an alterations shop, I did them myself. It was very easy. We are all familiar with the 'fit' problem of the uniform pants. It is just not possible to find ONE pant style that is going to comfortably fit ALL body types, Male and Female from 6 to 60. I have always 'made do' with Scout colored, non uniform pants and shorts. For summer camp, I will STILL utilize non-uniform, color matched shorts in order to

On a trip through Kentucky this spring - i picked up a number of brochures that suggest there are places to canoe rivers THROUGH caves - Is there anyone on this board who knows Kentucky well enough to give us some ideas /places/ directions to explore? We are located NW of Chicago, IL and troops here generally don't think of going south - it's always north. Our troop has decided to do a High Adventure trip next year for the older boys, instead of going to two summer camps. They are leaning toward Boundary waters - I think mostly because it is fairly known. The troop has a history

Our troop used to be known as a high adventure troop in the past. Since our troop has been around for 85 yrs, by 'past' I mean the 70's, 80's and early 90's. Characterised by an annual trip to the boundary waters every year and enough canoeing in between to warrant owning our own canoes and trailers. but in the past ten years or so, they maybe take the canoes out once a year, if at all. We have done some high adventure trips - all weekends, at the most - 4 days, 3 nights- I would clasify "high adventure" as something that needs specialized training by the boys & specialty tr

WHAT?????? And hurt the feelings of those who gave him all that junk???? nope - but tell you what - you can donate YOUR junk to HIS council and vice-versa! LOL!

But that's my point, KoreaScout - suddenly he HAD the badge done, by them dropping a couple of requirement, only one of which he needed under the old badge requirements - so we only had to find someone to sign off on it - or wait 6-7 months for summer camp to come around to finish it. But no one would answer him and do so. It would be nice if the District Advancement Chair WOULD get a list out - but everytime we've asked ar roundtables, (For me, since april of 2001) we get "it's being worked on" - Really - the office is computerized - I'm sure they have some kind of software that list

Eamonn - in our area we have had to RECRUIT Badge counselors to work with boys in our troop because the district/ council list is so outdated - IF you can find a copy of it at all! For example - my son had ONE requirement to finish on Swimming after summer camp first year - he called all 6 of the counselors he was given - 3 phone numbers were disconnected, one counselor had died. One never answered the phone, the last had a weird answering machine - we weren't sure we had the right party. He went back and tried a number of times over a number of months to contact these two last c

My son is in 8th grade, and has been at first class rank for almost a year - and now it looks like he'll be there for another 6 months, because he can't get elected to a POR. He's had all the requirements for Star done for ages - and just that one requirement of a 4 month POR is holding him up. Last election, he tried for PL - and lost, because of the 5 in his patrol, his 2 friends were not there - so the vote went 1 - 2 - and Jon became APL. the other boy was a good PL - so Jon didn't have much to do. I suggested being an instructor and he talked to the SM about it - but whenever an op

ah - more info - troop 617 from cincinatti OH - 11 yrs of scouting - she's a 'Scoutmaster' - but is not wearing a SM patch that i can see - so she may or may not be THE SM of her troop... She also has her woodbadge beads wonder what her boys think of this? Esp since all the males in her team elected to stip to nothing for the challenge they lost - the other team thought it was stupid and disgusting, for the most part. She was NOT voted out tonite - not even ONE vote against her, even though she was discussed as being a weak link by a few of her teammates. I think this little

I'm not a 'survivor' fan - but my mom got me to turn on the show tonite, and i was surpriosed to see a scout leader in full uniform on the show - as one of the contestants? Think her name is "Lilly" I believe her shirt says troop 615 - couldn't read the council patch but saw a couple of square knots and i think an OA flap - From the one show looks like she might get voted off - her team lost their challenge tonite... think this is good or bad advertising for BSA? Any comments?

We have also done some badge REQUIREMENTS as a troop - particularly the bike trips that we've tacked on a few extra miles to make it the 25 or 50 mile amount in the biking badge - or Covering First aid requirements in meetings, where it's easy to tack on something while you've got all the equipment out. But we've never done a badge in three troop meetings and automatically included all the boys. But we have found a lack of interest in the badge colleges because they don't offer what our boys want. But your comments have helped me refine what we want to do - First - we never

I know doing merit badge work for the entire troop during meetings is not encouraged - there are other things to do. Our district has been doing "Merit Badge Opportunity Days" for the past 2-3 years - spring and fall - kind of a merit badge college - where for three alternating saturdays, they meet at the local LDS church and sign up for MB classes. the first one was insane - good - but crazy. they expected about 150 boys and got something like 700. they offered any MB they were able to hook a counselor to teach - from First Aid to fingerprinting - probably 20 or more badges. t

Your question confuses me, as I hadn't really thought about it - we usually have between 17 and 25 boys in our troop since my son and I joined. Most campouts we have only about 2-3 boys missing - so I am sure we are covered anyway, and we always get the national camping award each year. We also had a habit of doing only one night campouts - which we have recently changed. our two exceptions are when we do patrol or "special requirement" campouts - such as our recent WI river trip - where the boys who went had to have passed their swim test, have their swimming badge and we re

Fscouter - an "annual permit" for our purposes is a local tour permit filed with the council for "any and all outings and campouts within our local area and council" We file it once a year, with all the registered leaders and drivers, vehicles, etc listed, and all known planned activities then on the calendar. It is signed by a committee person and the SM . we mail it in to the council each fall after the calendar is approved. we keep a copy - and sometimes - we fax over a copy with the specifics added when we change plans or add a driver, etc. if we do something that requi

maybe you need to change your recruiting tactics. I was always a 'helper' in our cub pack and den - because we had plenty of leaders - until fall of 5th grade. We got so many NEW 5th graders recruited from the fun stuff we invited them to, we had to start another den - and i took it. Three of the 5 new boys were school friends of my son - friends we had taken with us on scout and family outings over the summer. My son was the ONLY prior cub scout - and I have never had so much fun as I did with those boys! They were the most enthusiastic scouts i ever worked with! From that cub e

In my research, i haven't found much more than what is stated here - except one interesting thing in an old 1996 (?) newletter online - something about JASM qualifying as a POR for LIFE scouts - this would make sense, especially if the boy was working on his Eagle and had already had a number of PORS in the troop - and especially if he had been SPL one or more times. Gives him a leadership role, and opens the SPL and other top positions to boys who have not had those chances yet - Another thing from those old lessons i inferred - that using or appointing a JASM is kind of going out

The troop is in the 'habit' of having the committee approve the yearly agenda and trips. Generally, a permit is not necessary for EVERY trip - as we have an annual permit filed. When I was Activities coordinator, & on the committee, i would sign any permit and just take it to the SM to sign - no problem. When I left the committee - but still handled Activities until they found someone else - same thing - except I would just take the permit to the CC to sign and the SM - and then fax it over. for the immediate trips, our annual permit is enough - but it just leaves a ba

C'mon - are your telling me that no one here has anything to offer on this subject? help!

"It's a great idea, the boys had it, and I think there is a whole heck of a lot of reason to do it to support the Aims. If they decided they want to do it, it's valuable, and it's done within some framework so that it remains civil, it's going to happen. Parents can decide to keep their kids home that night if they want them to miss a great educational event. We don't much care." THAT'S what I like to hear - I don't care if it's a politcal debate or a campout - IT'S WHAT THE BOYS WANT. It's THEIR program - plain and simple. Give 'em some structure and direction and watch them FLY!

It's a touchy situation for a number of reasons - In 2001 & 2, our troop weathered a BIG storm of adult infighting - where this woman and i, among others, were strong voices of the 'winning side' - to return to boy-lead and BSA programming, instead of the 'ole boy's club' the troop had become over the last decade. At the time, i was surprised to find her supporting us, as she came across as very old fashioned in her ideas, but she did. It is turning out that while she agrees in principal - her idea of boy-lead is very different than that of some of the rest of us. Tho the troop surv

One of my favorite scouts just had his 16th birthday and wants to be a Jr. Asst SM rather than take on a 3rd (non-consecutive) term as SPL. But we are all a little unsure of what this position actually IS. the scout in question has had a number of leadership positions and training, been a den chief, had den chief and JLT training. he is done with his Eagle all except the final touches on his Eagle project and it's BOR. A great kid who wants to be a camp counselor next summer. Would we find a description in any of the accessable (meaning someone already has it or it's free) BSA lite

we have been trying to get back to being a 'boy lead' troop. i got tired of the endless talk and little action on the committee and left it last spring to be an ASM when I thought we were well on the road to change. But it seems that while the Boys have started taking back leadership - the committee doesn't want to LET them. Under our new SM, the boys researched and prepared and came up with a plan for the coming year - it wasn't the best plan - some old stuff, some new - but for a first REAL attempt at planning their own stuff, the SM and AMS thought they did pretty well.