LeCastor

I attended a fundraiser on Saturday where the keynote speaker was the superintendent of the Beloit (Wisconsin) School District, Steve McNeal. He said that, while he was never a Scout, he has seen the obvious good that Scouting can do in his community. His main point was that with school-life as one component and Scouting-life as another, teachers and Scouters can ultimately help lead our youth to a better future. Schools can't do it all, he says, but with Scouting our kids have a chance to succeed. McNeal closed with a pretty interesting statement. As a superintendent who works for the ed

I took the Trainer's Edge session yesterday and, while I didn't learn too many new things about public speaking or training people , I had a great time. Those of us who will be on Wood Badge staff this fall participated in the training along side the Scouts who will staff NYLT this summer. It was a great experience being with the Scouts and having several of them train the Scouters.

I started to let all you guys make me doubt the veracity of this story! Glad to know it's not a hoax. LeCastor

Just this past March, two long-standing Troops in my community merged. Both were losing membership numbers but were recruiting from the same Pack. So the two Troops amicably merged and took on the unit number of the Pack to make it easier for the incoming Cubs. I know both former Scoutmasters well and I have been discussing the merger over the past few months. There was a lot of cooperation between the two committees and the Unit Commissioner. It's only been two months so we can't tell how things are going to work out. However, I did hear just this weekend that several of the Scout

Does anyone have any experience with or have knowledge of a council international representative position? The reason I ask is that I would like to promote the idea of the international Scouting moment here in my home council. I'm meeting with the Scout Executive to discuss it, as I intend to volunteer to fill the role. LeCastor

My first Boy Scout experience was outside the Scout Hut. I had just crossed over from Webelos and our Scoutmaster busted out his backpacking stove and mess kit. He poured out some BBQ sauce and dropped a couple smoked wienies in the frying pan. I can still taste it today! Since I've been Scoutmaster the older Scouts insist that we MUST bring the big RubberMaid tote will all the gear, propane stoves, etc. I hate it and wish they'd agree to at least trying to cook in a much simpler way.

Green Bar Bill used to have a "patch bowl" that he would have on the coffee table and anyone who came to visit him could reach in and take a few patches. You might put some in a fish bowl and have it be a special honor to let some Cubs reach in and grab a patch or two if they show Scout Spirit.

For my Scoutmaster's Minute a few weeks ago I brought in a patch from a camporee I attended as a youth and told how the memories of that patch help relate what Scouting means to me. I then encouraged the Scouts to bring a patch a few weeks later to talk about the Scouting memories attached to that particular patch. A few Scouts participated but it was mainly the Old Goats who talked about how Scouting changed their lives for the better. In the long run I think it will still make an impression on the Boy Scouts who didn't think to bring in a patch. As for trading at the Cub level, I wou

I know, buddy, I'm with you on the Scout Law. They mean a lot to all of us. Maybe we should just put this thread to bed and move on with some Scouting?

Reading the back-and-forth between JBlake47 and Merlyn_LeRoy, I can't help but think of this scene from The Big Lebowski: I still think it would have been more reasonable for Mr. Dundas to write a check and send it to the Troop rather than show up for the event.

While I was at the OA Ordeal this past weekend I helped out with the ceremonies team. One of the Arrowmen said he was planning to sleep in his car! (Obviously, I couldn't help but think of this thread...) I think it's a sad day when youth Arrowmen opt out of tenting or meadow-crashing in favor of sleeping in a car..."We who love the woods and camping..." @JBlake47, gsdad just equated you to Green Bar Bill! I think you should thank him for that lovely compliment!

@Eagledad, I have been the course director for Scoutmaster Specific and I kinda like it. Sure, it can be dry but if you have fun, knowledgeable presenters it can fun. The videos that accompany the syllabus are funny in that they are so over the top. (I like to poke fun at them and always bet chuckles when I tell the participants that my Troop is exactly like the one in the video.) But my favorite training event to staff is IOLS. It's fun to get out there an be Scouts for the weekend. Yeah, some ppl are complete noobs and other should actually be teaching the course rather than being trai

Green Bar Bill said hitch-hiking wasn't "real hiking". Can you IMAGINE what he'd say if he read the OP?! From the stories I've heard about Hillcourt, he would have been the first to sleep out in the meadow even BEFORE JBlake47 got there--all the way into his 80s. In fact, there was one story where he went to a jamboree and stood in the rain with the Scouts while the executives stood under a tent. Get out there and do what the Scouts are doing! (Now I do understand that there are going to be exceptions, sure. But we know when to make that call and when it's just refusing to be one o

@Scouter99, I'd rather protect the Scout and not talk about it here. Suffice it to say that the texts were perceived as menacing by me and the Troop Committee. LeCastor

I can see both sides of the argument here. @JBlake47 points out that convicted sex offenders walk among us whether we know it or not. @mozartbrau and @RemeberSchiff have every reason to be offended by the crime that Mr. Dundas committed. He was judged by his peers, convicted, and served his nine years in prison. I think we can safely say that his wife supports him because went with him to the fundraiser. However, it probably would have been more reasonable for Mr. Dundas to write a check to Troop 155 and stay away from the Scouts. Forgiveness is hard.

@mozartbrau, I don't think @Renax127 is referring to "car camping" as sleeping in cars. Rather, "car camping" is driving to the camp ground and pitching tents, cooking with Dutch ovens, etc, as opposed to packing everything in and leaving the heavy stuff behind. Or am I mistaken.? There's definitely plenty of good places in Northern Florida.

@King Ding Dong, I've been super curious since you started this thread. What were some of the songs they performed at this show? I'm kind of a music junky... @Skeptic, one of my older Scouts has just discovered this "new" band called Guns-N-Roses. LOL. He runs around sings, "suh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-knees, knees".

@Tampa Turtle, I bet you received that training at Woodruff, huh? I have lots of good memories of camping there as a youth! I served on staff the last time our council combined the "indoor" and "outdoor" training (as they've been unofficially named around here). And I had prepared for several hours to teach my assigned segments. Since time was, undoubtedly, limited, the course director asked me to cut mine short. I felt cheated but, more importantly, I felt like I cheated the participants.

Our council has decided to combine Introduction to Outdoor Leader Skills and Scoutmaster Specific training into one weekend. In my experience teaching some of these segments on staff, participants' eyes start to glaze over after about an hour in ONE of the courses. When they first tried the combination people seemed overwhelmed and the staff started to skim the material and rush through things. In the end, I don't think the IOLS part was adequately implemented. Have any of you experienced this kind of combination weekend? If so, how did it go? LeCastor

When I first became Scoutmaster of our Troop, one of the older Scouts began texting me repeatedly. The texts were innocent enough at first and then became hostile. It got to the point where I approached the Scout and told him I would call the police if he ever sent threatening texts again. I also told the Troop Committee about it and let the Scout's guardian know it was happening. The Scout had no idea his texts were being interpreted at dangerous or menacing. But I sure did! (It got to the point where I asked my phone service provider to send me a record of the texts from the Scout's nu

Thanks, Tampa Turtle and koolaidman! I think it'll be fun for my Scouts to interact with some international Scouts and learn about other cultures. We actually have an Eagle whose mother is from Peru and a Life Scout whose mother is from Kenya, so we're already pretty in tune with other cultures. I've got experience with France and Canada, too, so I try to keep that international context alive in my interactions with the Scouts. Thanks, King Ding Dong, for the awesome support! I didn't actually mean pen pal as in writing physical letters to international Scouts. Skype and Facebook

On Wednesday night of my week-long Wood Badge course a ferocious storm came through camp and I honestly thought my tent was going to get picked up and thrown into the lake. In fact, I got dressed just in case the staff came to our site to make us take shelter in the dining hall. They didn't, thankfully. It made for many great stories the next day. And one of my fellow Beavers realized that pitching his tent is a low spot wasn't such a good idea. I'm used to camping in the rain, though. My OA Ordeal was in Southern Mississippi in the spring and it rained ALL NIGHT LONG. We also had

Thanks, TAHAWK! I would love to see that syllabus.

I have been looking for ways to promote international Scouting within our own local context. Working in the sporting goods industry, I have some customers in Canada who support Scouting units through Scouts Canada and Scouts du Canada. Ideally, I'd like to invite some French-speaking Scouts and/or Scouters to come to my council and discuss what they do and how Scouting is viewed in their countries. It just so happens, though, that today a colleague and Scouter from Milton Keynes, UK came to my desk and introduced himself. He would like to start a kind of pen pal exchange between his ho

I have seen the scanned pages of the Wood Badge notebook on Kudu's website but I would really like to find a copy of the older Wood Badge syllabus. The older pre-leadership-skills-Wood-Badgers get the less we will know about what Wood Badge used to teach. Is there any way to get our hands on that information in paper or digital format? I mean really go back and get a copy of the course as Green Bar Bill would have run it. Where do we get this? It's all fine and good to hear Kudu tell us that Wood Badge isn't Wood Badge anymore...but I want to know HOW it isn't the same. Surely this