Lisabob

John, thanks for the info. I''ll have to ask for a break down of the $1250 next time I get a chance. My son won''t be going this time though - he doesn''t turn 14 until summer and he''s probably not physically (or mentally) ready for a Philmont trek just yet. Maybe in another couple of years, and in the meantime he can start saving his pennies. I was just thinking about this thread when I saw our council contingent info, that''s all.

We just got info on our council''s 2008 Philmont contingent. Cost will be $1250 which includes Amtrak. I don''t know for sure but given that we''re in MI and a long way from NM, I suspect that transportation is the largest portion of the cost.

As a kid I have very strong memories of my mom marching into the living room, turning off the tube, and throwing me out of the house for the afternoon. I didn''t at the time but now I thank her for that. Then I used to give up TV for 8-10 weeks every summer when I was in high school and college (working summer camps will do that to you!). My first couple of years in grad school, although I owned a tv, I had neither time to watch it, nor money to pay for cable. So it gathered a lot of dust. Overall, I seldom missed it, though I was always noticeably "out of touch" with mainstream media culture. These days, I have a husband and a son who love watching movies and tv, while I could be happy without it in most cases (except when my beloved Buffalo Sabres are playing...but even then, there''s internet radio!). But my internet service? No, I couldn''t live without that!

Just to follow up on OGE''s last comment, it may be "real" either way - the young man could be lazy/couch potato who just isn''t in shape and used to any physical exertion, OR it could be a manifestation of motor control issues. Or both. The result, either way, is that he struggles on hikes. The question is, is he capable of overcoming this, or is this something he really cannot develop an ability to deal with? I haven''t seen a whole lot of really out of shape and obese boy scouts (we''re talking youth here!). But the problem does seem a little more prevalent around here for cub scouts. Maybe they select out by the time we get to the troop level, I don''t know. But if they''ve never been physically active in their lives, then hiking is going to be a real challenge for some of them, both physically and perhaps also mentally! It is hard to keep doing something when it is uncomfortable (using unfamiliar muscles) and you''re not real good at it - so I hope that this young man will be encouraged for his perseverance, and challenged at a level he can cope with (mentally too).

"I like the idea of assigning the tent to go home with a scout to be returned dry and tagged for use or repair. But does that really happen?" It does in our troop. My son''s tent is drying out on the back porch right now. The boys alternate so that no one is stuck with the tent and the cooler/leftover food. Works fine (as long as each patrol has a qm who knows how to do his job and the troop QM pays attention to them).

Me: I''m sending in my registration for commissioners college tomorrow. This will be a new thing for me to try! I''m looking forward to meeting some new folks and learning new things. Council: this is council camporee year (every 4 years) and this year''s is huge - expecting 10-15,000 people. There''s still room, if your pack/troop/crew/team/ship/post wants to come! Here''s the link - it promises to be big fun. http://www.gstcbsa.org/mis/ (and if you are coming, please PM me - first round of coffee''s on me) District membership committee (which I''m on): we''re helping troops run "community open house" nights in each town in our district, complete with outdoor activities (think tents, lashings, klondike sleds and cobblers). Troops are excited - now we just need to get community members to attend. My son''s troop: New SM this year, and he''s got lots of exciting ideas for strengthening patrols and leadership. Also the troop is working on planning for fun, upcoming activities including climbing- and aviation-themed camp outs. I''m excited for my son. My son: having a great start to the school year, chose to run for PL again (and got elected) despite swearing he wouldn''t ever do that again after his first stint last year, really maturing and generally making me proud of what a fine young man he is becoming.

We used them when my son was in cubs and the boys loved to show off their patches. Each one had a story of how they''d earned it and they were rightly proud - and happy to share their stories!

Just thought I''d share this with you... I have a son in his third year of boy scouts. I''ve tried to encourage him to serve as a den chief for any area packs on numerous occasions, and he always responds with a horrified look and a very firm NO WAY. It is, I''ve been told, "not cool" to hang around with "little kids." Sigh. So the other day I stopped in to a local pack round-up to lend a hand and because of the 101 other things on our schedules that evening, my son had to go with me. He sulked about this fact the whole way there (ah, teen agers). So once we got there, where did he end up??? In the gym surrounded by a bunch of "little kids," teaching them to play games. When they all returned to their parents'' sides at the end of the evening, here comes my son with a big grin. And after being introduced to the webelos I den leader, she (WDL) asked him if he''d like to stop in to her den meeting in uniform every couple of weeks to lend a hand and share his skills with the boys. AND HE SAYS "YEAH, SURE. MIGHT BE FUN!" It was all I could do to choke back my laughter... Yep, my son, the "non-den chief" den chief.

When I was the adv. chair for our pack we had a few families who made similar claims. In most cases, we asked a few follow up questions and took them at their word. In a few cases where it was clear that there was no way in the world the boys could have earned a particular award (ie, the criteria were such that it would have been impossible) we tried to help parents understand the requirements. But yeah, most of the time you just have to go with it. And really, those belt loops can be earned VERY easily. It wouldn''t be outrageous for a boy to earn 3 or 4 a week, if he wanted to. As to what to do with this boy going forward: one of the nice things about the belt loop and pin awards is that they can be re-earned doing different activities. So there need not be much in the way of duplication. Or, if in your den meetings you plan to work on a belt loop that this boy already has, you could encourage him to start work on the more advanced pin, along side the guys who are doing the beltloop for the first time. About the wolf requirements - he can always begin work on the arrow points! You can also guide him toward other goals like the world conservation award, or any national historic trails awards in your area that are suitable for cubs, or the outdoor activity award, or the leave no trace award, etc., etc.. If you run out of things for him to earn, there are also about 150 of those little rocker patches, which have the virtues of being fairly cheap and having no specific requirements (you could, with mom and/or your whole den, set your own requirements I suppose) And then too...you might make sure his mom knows how happy you are that the boy is burning up the wolf and beltloop trail, but maybe help her consider that not all activities need to end in an award to be worth while. Not only does that get expensive for the pack awards budget, but it can also confuse the experience of "doing" with the "reward" of "getting," if over-done. Good luck with it!

Aquila, you''re absolutely right that we are a "republic" and not a pure democracy in the classical sense of the word. On the other hand, commonly accepted synonyms for "republic" include "indirect democracy" and "representative democracy." We can split hairs (and I''m fairly well qualified to do that too) but at the end of the day, that''s not an exercise I find fulfilling. As for that MBC who receives public funding vs. you, who presumably do not: while I think I get what you meant, of course in reality we ALL benefit from all sorts of public funding every day. You do drive on public roads, right? (Just one example) But I suspect that we aren''t as far from each other''s viewpoints as it might seem, either.

Thanks to everyone for your input. David, I''ll gladly owe you a cup of coffee for the info you''ve provided. Now I''m really wondering why my own council doesn''t seem to have done anything to promote this event!

Our troop uses troop tents and the boys practically always rely on these even if they have their own. (Backpacking might be an exception) Adults vary - most have their own and use them instead, but that''s a matter of personal preference. As one of very few women, I almost always use my own one-person tent because there''s no one going with whom I could share a tent with anyway. And the one parent who took the Taj Mahal to summer camp this year has taken so much ribbing for it that I don''t expect to see that particular tent at a scout event ever, ever again! Our troop uses the Eureka Timberline tents. They cost approx $120 each as far as I can remember. We have some extras and rotate them in/out of service to spread out the wear and tear. Zippers seem to be a regular issue as kids are not always as gentle as they might be, but on the whole they stand up pretty well to reasonable use. The cost for zipper repair isn''t outrageous and we just factor that in to our maintenance budget. As to how the tents have fared: You have to have a good QM system in place if you go for troop tents, or else things get lost or aren''t properly cared for. Tents being put away wet and dirty comes to mind as the main issue. Hope this helps some.

Our troop - a very active one with about 40 boys - sets annual due at about $35. We do several fund raisers and we strongly encourage everyone to participate but we do not require it. So while I can see where other troops might take a different approach, I also don''t believe that it is absolutely necessary to twist arms and threaten exclusion from trips. Maybe it is time to invite the committee chair and COR out for coffee and ask them to "help you understand" why they feel such a tactic is both necessary and desirable.

Well the guys are off for the weekend, menus planned, and should have perfect weather for it. I''m jealous that I couldn''t go too. They ended up going with fairly simple meals that take little time to prep, not a lot of ingredients - along the lines of what Eamonn is saying. The few older guys who are going were planning somewhat more elaborate items so hopefully the younger guys will learn from them. I admit that most of what I was seeing on menus didn''t appeal to me! But hey, I don''t have to eat it, either. And I''ll be interested to hear how it all goes when I pick up my guy on Sunday. Thanks again for all the suggestions.

Does anyone here have experience either as a participant or instructor with this program? If so, I''d like to hear your thoughts. There is one coming up in my area and it has been suggested that people attend, even those who are not commissioners but who often end up working with units on things like cub round-up planning and execution, and webelos-scout transition matters (ie, people like me). How worth while is it, what sorts of topics might be included, who typically attends, what are the ballpark costs in your area, etc.. This is sort of a last-minute decision since the session is next weekend, and I don''t have a lot of time to make a choice. Nor do a lot of local people seem to know much about it. This is being sponsored by a nearby council and the instructional staff seems to include people from every council in the region except my own. Any input would be appreciated.

Gern says: "their parents just don''''t care and have given up." While I''m not disputing that this is true in a certain subset of cases, I''d be more inclined to agree that "their parents just don''t care OR have given up." I''ve met a number of parents who do care, but who lack the tools or skills to intervene effectively in their child''s education, especially when we get into late middle school and beyond. Ideally people would develop their own skills to a point where giving up isn''t necessary, but that too, takes some resources that may not be available to everyone at all times.

While on the whole I''d have to agree with Brent''s last line, I think it is important to realize that one of the reasons we seldom discuss some of these more controversial issues in "the real world" is that there are *so many* issues about which people just need some leadership. And our leaders are often stretched thin and don''t have the capacity to lead (or lead well) on all of those issues at once. Leading can be exhausting, especially when trying to lead people to agreement (or acceptance, or at the least, compliance) on difficult issues.

As a frequent BOR member, I think it would be nice if he did. It gives him an opportunity to show off his accomplishments (those MB sashes don''t get much wear!) and it gives both him and the BOR members tangible opportunities to reflect on what he has earned, what he liked, and what he might prefer to do differently in the future.

Trev - We have been undergoing that exact change over the last 18 months. First, the problem isn''t going to be YOUR new district telling you to stop recruiting from a pack on the other side of the line. Your new district membership committee (such as there is one) probably won''t care where your scouts come from, as long as you get more of them! On the contrary, it will be the pack''s new district that might object (though it would be short-sighted). Second, even if they do object, they cannot really stop you from doing it, or stop those pack families from joining your troop if they want to. So it might be worth a little push-back if such an attempt is made to break up your good relationship with the pack. What this might do though, is renew ties among communities and units that are in your newly defined district. That''s what happened for us, at least, since our re-districting brought about a change in the identity of some of our more peripheral units. Instead of being seen as "way out yonder" and far from the action at the center of our old (geographically sprawling) district, they became a more important part of a more sensible and tightly focused (geographically speaking) district. Good luck with the redistricting and don''t let the inevitable moaning and groaning that goes with change get to you.

"Being a good person is much more important than being a nice person." True. On the other hand, the two are not mutually exclusive most of the time, and is uniforming really the best place to draw this line in the sand? One might think that the differences between "good" and nice" are far more weighty in other contexts than which pair of socks a person is wearing. Perhaps that''s just because to me, the opposite of "good" in the sense you seem to imply is "evil" and I don''t think a person''s clothing choices come close to meriting such a judgment.

Interesting post Oak, and I''d be sorry to see you leave this forum as your advice is practically always thoughtful, level-headed, and helpful. You''re right that the conventions of social interaction are quite different (most of the time) in real life, as compared to a computer screen. And maybe that makes for a more pleasant conversation that respects the experience of the individuals involved in a different way than an online forum can do. Yet I have to say as well, that some of the problems we discuss on this forum lie just under the surface of the toughest problems that units tend to have. The difference is that here, we can talk about them in the open and relatively anonymously, sending up trial balloons to play the "what if we tried it this way" game, while in our home units we often can''t openly discuss difficult issues without causing more (short-term?) problems. So they simmer, unspoken and unaddressed. This leads to misperceptions about our fellow scouters'' motivations, mismatched assumptions about what scouting is and how we achieve it, personal disputes that fester for a long time and then erupt in most egregious fashions in a far-too-public manner, etc.. So I''m not sure that the debates and problems aren''t there in real life. I''d say that they are often there, but they are simply masked. And while common courtesy dictates that this is sometimes the way to go when you know you''ll have face-to-face contact with the same group of people over a period of years, it sometimes creates more tension and problems than it solves too. Oh, and also - as much as I love talking about scouts and scouting, there''s a relatively few people in the unit I''m part of who have a similar inclination. Folks on this board, by its very nature, share that passion.

Darn system won''t let me edit my own post. Grrr... I meant to start off my post with "Packsaddle says..." and not "Gern says..." I apologize to both of you for the mis-attribution.

Gern said: "HOWEVER, if an unenlightened public demands a service without being willing to pay, they will get (and deserve) crap. " Here''s my problem with this. On one hand, this is ALREADY the view that many people in our society take toward the public school system (rabble rabble! Why should I pay more school taxes, my kids are done and we got ours! rabble rabble!). So yeah, as a society we have - on the average - a mediocre system that churns out a lot of crap, because collectively we aren''t willing to invest in making it better. And that hurts all of us when we have large populations of under-educated and unemployable youth feeling disaffected, perhaps understandably turned off to the present b-s system of "edumacation" that they''ve experienced, and now hanging out on the street. Not to pick on poor Detroit and Cleveland too much, but in July 2007, they had the #1 and #2 highest unemployment rates among large cities (over 1 million for metro area) in the country, at 8.4% and 6.3%, respectively. (see here: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/metro.nr0.htm) This is a recipe for social problems that we''ll all pay the price for, one way or another. On the other hand - if by "they" you mean "not us" well great, so you''re planning to live in an enclave then? This also assumes that "they" don''t WANT a decent education system and therefore deserve what "they" get. I really have a problem with that assumption. Yes it may be true for some people, but we are painting with far too broad a brush here. Having spent the entire summer teaching young men and women who managed to graduate from some of our country''s worst and most nightmarish public schools but who weren''t strong enough candidates to get accepted by my university without doing a summer college-prep course first, I was profoundly impressed by their -and their families''- desire to gain access to a quality education! If my "typical" and wealthier college freshmen, most of whom are the product of much better suburban public schools, would be willing to work HALF as hard as these kids did this summer, I''d be overjoyed. Yet, many of those more privileged kids see education as simply an entitlement that they need not lift a finger to receive (not earn), and heaven forbid you ask them to rub a few brain cells together. Just because someone is poor (for whatever reason and let''s be clear that it is almost never the kids'' fault so why blame them?) does not mean they''re necessarily lazy and uncaring! But how are you supposed to pay full market cost for a service when you can''t afford to feed or clothe your kids, can''t afford to move from a neighborhood that isn''t so nurturing (at the least), and maybe have other intractable issues to deal with? And let''s be clear that in the United States deep poverty in our cities is generational. If you got a crummy education and had no means to pursue a better one yourself, it will be so much harder for your kids to do better. To say, well the lousy public school down the street exists for just such people as that, denies the idea that every kid deserves a shot at a decent education. Poverty shouldn''t condemn a child to a holding tank of a federal facility for 13 years. That''s like saying that poor orphans in the 1800s could always go to the workhouses...such a lovely option... I am NOT denying that personal responsibility is crucial and the young adults I taught this summer were quite vocal about that, themselves. But I am saying this "you get what you pay for and if you''re poor, too bad" mentality that I see in this thread is really disturbing to me because it is based on some stereotypes about who these people really are and it seems to ignore the larger social costs of such a division.

When we joined our pack, they were in the habit of giving out prizes to top sellers and sometimes these got rather expensive. We later stopped that tradition and personally, I was a lot more comfortable when doing those fund raisers without the extra prizes. I say this even though my child was the pack''s top popcorn seller to the tune of several thousand dollars of product for three years in a row, and he did it by going door to door (not me selling it). Here are my personal objections to the big prizes that some packs give: 1) Those prizes were being paid for with the profit from our fund raiser. They came from the pack, but in reality they were being subsidized by all the boys who sold popcorn. It''s one thing to ask the boys to help "make the pack go" but it is another to ask them (implicitly) to support giving a single pack member (or handful of kids) a playstation or whatever big prize. 2) Reason you mentioned, where one kid''s parent does all the work and yet the kid reaps the prizes, while another kid''s parent does little, the boy works hard, and isn''t recognized for it. (though, this happens anyway without the prizes and I don''t mean to say you shouldn''t be glad that the pack is reaping a profit either way) 3) I really dislike the gaming system type of prize and would much rather see a pack give out scout-related, or at least outdoor-related items if they insist on going this route. This is probably just me but I saw one of the major benefits of cub scouting as being that it provided a fun and healthy alternative to staring at the screen all day, and so I wouldn''t have been happy to see this behavior so explicitly reinforced by the pack. 4) Trail''s end already offers prizes that cost the pack nothing, and the boys are usually quite happy enough with those. At the high end, the prizes improve in quality too That said, our council does an extra prize that bugs me less. They give every boy who sells $200 of popcorn an entry into a bike raffle. For every additional $200 the boy gets another ticket in the pot. There''s one bike for the whole council, minimizing the bite on profit. And I like that every boy who sells a reasonable amount has a chance at winning, not just the one whose mom/dad sells a truckload of it at work.

A few posts back Beavah asked whether I was saying that the population of Detroit had declined by half in the last ten years. That pesky day job got in the way of me responding sooner, but no Beavah, I''m not making quite that dramatic a claim. Based on city data though, the population did decline by about 7.5% from 1990 to 2000, and for the period of 1980-2003 it declined by about 27% from about 1,203,00 to about 870,000. Some estimates suggest that the 2003 population level was lower than the 1920s population, but I haven''t had time to verify that (and playing with old census data, while fun, is time consuming). So no, not a 50% decline, but a 27% decline is still pretty outrageous.