Lisabob

So what the heck is a tiger team? I wasn't sure if maybe it had something to do with cub scouting? One of my favorite pieces of useless jargon - I work with a fellow who always needs to "circle back" on things. We have all come to understand that this means he intends to ignore or forget about the problem being discussed, and he hopes we will, too.

A few thoughts as a parent & scouter whose son went to the last jambo. 1. The jambo SM & ASMs were well-known in the area as guys who can work with kids & who kids like and respect. When I heard that they would be the SM and ASMs, I had no worries about my son's well being. Having a reputation as someone who works well with lots of different types of boys, and having experience, matters. 2. While he was at jambo, someone in our family suffered a serious heart attack and the doctors initially said he would not pull through. We had to figure out whether to bring our boy home from jambo early (and how to get him home), or have him stay put (we ended up doing the latter and it worked out ok). I was very thankful that the jambo SM & ASMs were folks who had a lot of experience because they were the ones on the ground who helped my son through that difficult time. 3. For many parents, jambo will be the first time their child goes far away from home, and it is an intense experience. Just as you are concerned about the health and safety of your boy, so are other parents. It matters to OTHER parents of OTHER boys who might sign up, that the SM & ASMs are there for ALL the boys, and that those adults have solid reputations and experience in a wide range of situations. Without that, it gets to be harder to convince OTHER parents to allow their children to attend. I'm sure you can see that, given your concerns about your own son. From what you've written, it doesn't sound as though you have been around long enough for people to get to know you well. Perhaps you might consider applying again for the next jambo? In the meantime, no need to be bitter about it, and that won't help you next time around, anyway. Just some thoughts.

My son's troop is at about 65 right now, after a very large group of cross-overs and the addition of a number of high school aged friends-of-scouts & transfers last year. That's quite big, in my experience. Most troops around here are in the 30-40 range. When he was in cubs, the pack ranged from about 20 to about 50, depending on the year. I found mid-30s to be a nice number for the pack. Get a lot smaller and the dens don't have critical mass. Get a lot bigger and things start to get pretty crazy at pack meetings. But that was just me.

Tonight I learned that a scout in my son's former troop died unexpectedly earlier this week. The circumstances are unclear and in any regard really don't matter. This young man was a role model and friend to my own son when my son joined boy scouts. He, and his family, always welcomed others into the group in a kind way. They've had their hard times, but I always admired that they pulled together. I sat on this young man's eagle board some years back. He was a quiet leader, but a leader all the same. I remember that in response to a tough question about why he should be an eagle, he thought for a minute or two and then said "because whatever else, at least I never quit trying." My family mourns his passing and I cannot even begin to imagine his own family's grief. My thoughts are with them. I hope you will tell your young men that whether they realize it right now or not, they are precious to their families, friends, teachers, and communities. It is hard to grow up in today's (or any day's) world. I fear many young men and women don't realize how beloved they are. Please tell them.

In the course of a typical day I will get 200+ work emails. Many are garbage that I wish our quasi-corporate (public university) structure would dispense with because they're totally useless to me. Some are commercial in nature and tied to my work identity. I have 3 or 4 email accounts to try to separate work email from family email from scouting email...etc. I have one account I give out for spam purposes (online orders, junk mail, website registrations, and when I feel leery about the purpose to which someone wants to put my email address.) I never, ever, check my spam/junk account. I check the family account and the scout account about once a week (I don't currently hold any scouting positions that would require more frequent checks and in a pinch my family all have a working phone # for me). I check work email daily and spend about an hour deleting crap. I use facebook for a number of things that are more immediate. But I'm quite selective about who I'll "friend" and grant access to. And for scouting, I find facebook doesn't work well among scouting adults. So. Depending on priorities and what address they gave you, your scouter folks might not see your email in a timely manner. Might be useful, next time you are all face to face, to have a conversation about how to communicate effectively in between sessions.

And here I thought maybe this was going to be a thread about what to do when boys regularly hurl racial insults at the only minority or mixed-race kid in the troop, and the adults in charge fail to see the problem with that. What to do when ASMs make extraordinarily offensive comments to each other, in front of scouts, about strangers they see on the street, based on the assumed national origin or religion of those strangers. What to do when scouts mercilessly taunt (and not in a friendly way) the only non-Christian kid in the troop based on his religious dietary restrictions. Or how to respond to deeply misogynistic comments made by adult male leaders in the presence of scouts and female leaders. Because all of those, I've seen and dealt with, and felt frustrated, angry, and in some instances, personally betrayed by. It would have been useful to know how others deal with those sorts of hate. I don't like Penn & Teller's brand of so-called "humor." I do like camping and scoutcraft. (and heh heh, I'm a liberal. Don't tell Kudu.) But I don't think what you're talking about is "hate."

things my cat is trained to do: 1. play-wrestle without using claws (you really need to train from a kitten for this - hard with adult cats, and hazardous to one's hands) 2. find and fetch bottle caps (she's clever - you can hide them but she'll find them. Agony = the sound of a pop bottle or something being opened & closed just to tease her.) 3. come running at the sound of the bell on her favorite toy 4. meet me at the door when she hears my car pulling in the drive (she only does this with MY car) 5. Tell me when it is dinner time (if I'm not paying attention she will find me and get all agitated, even try to herd me toward the food bowl). 6. Wake me up at the same time every morning for her breakfast (kind of annoying, actually) 7. Come when I call her in a certain way (a noise initially associated with meal time) 8. come running when I even minutely touch the handle of the drawer where her laser pointer toy is located. She also has a particular routine she follows when chasing the laser pointer dot around the room. 9. Run away when I pick up the compressed air can or spray-water bottle etc, etc., etc. Just to show that cats CAN be trained.

I'm surprised. Color me naive, but who has $500 to throw at their kid's eagle project? I don't. In one of the other threads I was shocked that some district fellow felt it was ok to expect parents to just pay out of pocket for food for the scout's work crews (25 pizzas or whatever). Maybe in that guy's neck of the woods, parents also routinely pay for the whole eagle project? Most of the scouts around here do a variety of fundraisers, can & bottle return drives, odd jobs, and materials donation hunting to meet their fundraising goals.

I would find it inappropriate for any of us who are not from that council to contact them and stick our noses into it. Given the press coverage, one may reasonably suppose that folks in the council are either already aware of this and ok with it, or are addressing it internally. We here on this forum are outsiders. Calling with an intent to cause trouble would be most unscoutlike.

We had a dad like this in my son's pack. It was quite clear who built those cars and he bragged annoyingly about it. His sons were little bullies, who have grown up to be bigger bullies, who show an unsurprising willingness to cut corners and do whatever they needed to do, to get what they wanted. Apples don't fall far from the tree. We had another dad who was an engineer for Ford and had access to all sorts of special tools at work. His kid's cars were always really cool. But this dad arranged for any boy who wanted to, to go with him to work (after school) some day and "try out" those same tools. A couple of boys would do it every year. Very kind of him. Meanwhile, we don't own or have access to any special tools. My son's cars usually came in somewhere in the middle of the pack, but he always had a lot of fun. But I remember when my son was in 4th grade. He & dad spent all kinds of time together on his car. He did a really cool paint job with flames "for speed." His car won the derby that year and came in 2nd or 3rd at district. The other boys who went to district that year from our pack? A brand new Tiger cub, the boy whose dad worked at Ford and helped everybody, and a boy who was developmentally disabled, whose car looked like a rock on wheels. The dad who was annoying and bragged about building his kids' cars was fit to be tied when his creations got beat - not just by one kid, but by four or five kids.

I find the fact that the council sat on this for over a month to be troubling. Surely, someone at council should have been aware that an extension request needs to be filed with national rather than with the council, and they should have told the boy, his mother, his unit leader, and/or others who inquired on his behalf. Had council provided adequate response, the boy might have filed the extension request in a timely manner and this would have been a different story. So, if I'm this young man, I would now ask the SM and perhaps E92, to help me contact national to file the extension, with an explanation attached that I had requested help from council well in advance of my 18th bday and they sat on it/didn't respond for over a month (until after 18th bday), rather than helping me figure out the bureaucratic process. On some levels I agree with pack - but I think the role of adult leaders, and especially council staff, should include helping the youth figure out where the bureaucratic hurdles lie, and how to clear them. It isn't entirely reasonable to expect 17 year olds to take on the institutional mess on their own.

Merlyn, that's hilarious. Thing is, I was having a hard time telling the crazy truths from the equally crazy fictions!

No, pack, I agree, I definitely do not "get" the South. At least not South Carolina. In some regards, candidate Newt would be an excellent outcome for the opposing party because he's said so many nutso things, made so many enemies (within his own party, especially), and shoved so many skeletons into his closet over the years, that I think he'd get demolished in the general election. Moderates and independents aren't going to vote for this guy in a million years. They might stay home, but they won't vote for him. And his candidacy will do a lot to energize the Democratic base. A lot of Dems remember Newt from the 1994-96 era, and not fondly, either. So if electability is the key thing, then Romney's a better bet. I know a bunch of moderate Democrats who would probably vote for him over Obama - he'd fracture Obama's base. If social conservativism is the key, then there's Santorum. If small government is the main issue, there's Paul. On any of these fronts, Newt comes in second (or third, or fourth). About the only things I can imagine that Newt wins on are that he is full of bluster and ego (which could, I guess, look like spine to some), and that he's a Washington insider who has a sense of how the game gets played (but I thought you Republicans didn't like "Washington insiders?!"). And in South Carolina, perhaps he scored extra points for casual racism too, I'm not sure.

On the heels of the SC primary, once again, I'm astonished that the Newtster apparently has the support of a conservative, evangelical Christian, values base. So: my fellow scouters who lean toward the Republican side of life, how would you really feel about having Newt as your guy? Not trying to make fun, or pick a fight here - I'm really curious. Does he light the fire? Leave you wishing he'd crawl back under a big rock? Is it "anyone but Romney" for you? Where do you all stand on this guy?

hmm, in response to a couple of things: 1) She's described as a 4th grade webelos. Webelos can wear the khaki shirts. 2) It wouldn't be the first time on earth that a reporter got some small detail a bit mixed up. Did these cubs actually shoot pistols at a council cub event? Who knows. Could've just as easily been bb guns and the reporter messed it up. So no point in getting all hung up on those things, in my mind. Ironically, I notice that the reader comments on the article get hung up on tangential issues, too.

"You have got to be kidding me about not knowing what the deep water horizon was about or what happened." No I'm sure he is not kidding. I teach political science at the college level and while some of my students would be able to ID this, I'm sure that many more would not. If I said "do you remember the oil spill in the Gulf?" I'd get a higher affirmative response rate. But honest-to-goodness, I had a student ask me recently whether that had something to do with this whole Katrina thing, and who was Katrina, anyway?

Did I get it? yeah. Uh, funny? not sure, maybe (sorry there OGE). I'm kind of surprised that others didn't seem to make the connection, but then, did you check to see if they can name the current vice president, tell you in general who attacked us on 9/11, or correctly identify the current number of states in the US? It is surprising, how little many adults pay attention to global or even national events. Or maybe you were in a group of dislocated ex-Alaskan fishermen?

In thinking about this some more, I think what annoys me is the assumption about people's economic situations inherent in how the presenter framed things. That all parents have the extra cash to shell out for 25 pizzas and won't hardly notice it. What world does this guy live in? Does he *want* scouting to be the domain of the well-off (more than it already is)? Perhaps the presenter might frame things differently, pointing out that using donations for pizza without the donor's prior knowledge could make an unfavorable impression on donors. Perhaps suggest that the boy's budget (food/drinks, etc. included) be shared with potential donors. Perhaps discuss the importance of appearances and the "feel good" factor, in encouraging donor support for future projects. Those are all messages that could make some sense, although they are not (to my knowledge) formal rules and they should not be presented as such. It just irks the heck out of me that instead, this presenter made such short-sighted assumptions about all scouting families' economic situations. And that his comment, if accepted as gospel by those who know less about scouting and assume that a person in his position must know what he's talking about, could become a de facto barrier to a young man even trying to earn Eagle. I never want to hear "no I didn't work toward Eagle because my family couldn't afford it."

The cost of 25 pizzas, even the cheapo ones, IS "that much." It would keep many worthy young men I know from even bothering to do an Eagle project. It would almost certainly exclude those whose parents aren't very involved or supportive - the ones who make it that far against all odds. But it would also exclude a bunch whose families are simply struggling to get by. Please let that fellow who said this know that we are living in an era of great economic uncertainty, unemployment around 9% (much higher in many areas), people losing their houses, demand at most local food pantries up 200+% from 2 or 3 years ago, grocery costs have gone up by about 25%, etc., etc., etc. He's out of touch with reality, to phrase it nicely. But then, since it "isn't that much" to him, perhaps he'd like to provide a donation to some Eagle candidates' projects to pay for some pizzas?

Oh Oh, I have one. How'bout: Scout A has a major difference of opinions with Scout Leader Z who happens to be in one of the key adult positions with the troop. Scout Leader Z was already "friends" with Scout A on faccebook at the Leader's request (Scout A accepted it) and after the argument, Scout Leader Z writes snippy, snide comments about Scout A on Scout A's facebook page. Scout A tells his parents and unfriends Scout Leader Z. Scout A's parents are furious and demand an apology and possible resignation from Scout Leader Z. Scout Leader Z responds that if anyone owes an apology it is Scout A, for having disagreed vehemently in the first place and that snippy/snide comments were merely Scout Leader Z's way of pointing out that Scout A's style of disagreement make it hard to work with or follow him. Scout Leader Z further suggests that Scout A's decision to "unfriend" him over this shows that Scout A can't handle criticism and is, in itself, unfriendly. Who's in the wrong here and what does any of it have to do with the BSA media guide? (yes, a real situation, though thankfully not a current one) (This message has been edited by lisabob)

Getting den chiefs is really difficult. You are asking middle school and high school aged boys to give up another night of the week to attend a meeting of elementary school kids. And in most cases you are asking their parent to drive them. It isn't impossible and it is a great idea, but it tends to be difficult, unless the boy has a younger sibling in the pack and a parent who was driving to the pack/den meeting that night anyway. (I've thought about this. My son's a boy scout and a venturer. He's in OA and is sometimes on the PLC and is staffing an upcoming mini jambo. We drive him to a scouting event of some sort probably 10-15 days a month. He's great with bear/webelos/crossover aged kids and would be a wonderful den chief. Honestly I don't have time to get him there, he doesn't drive, and there aren't cub packs meeting within walking distance of our house. Not to mention he has other obligations, both in terms of school and a social life.) So if you can get one, great. But don't hold your breath. Meantime - Webelos has to be sort of like boy scouts or it gets really boring. I think it would be better as a 1-year program, than as an 18-month program, but the thing is that a lot of boys are still 9 (or even 8) at the end of 4th grade, and there is a huge maturity leap between cub scouts and boy scouts. I don't believe most 8/9 or even some 10 year olds are emotionally ready for boy scouting. So it is 18 months and that gives the guys a little more emotional readiness. 6 months at this age matters enormously. But it can get pretty dull for boys who have had their fill of cub scouting. Also, around here, 5th grade is "king of the hill." Typically the oldest grade in elementary school. Those boys feel like they own the place & don't want to be associated with a program that serves 1st graders! So giving them new challenges (like boy-scouts-lite) works. Getting them outdoors and doing more hands-on stuff is great; they eat it up and it distinguishes them from the "little kids" in the pack. But I don't think the content needs to be pure boy scouting; to my mind, the most important point is to get the boys used to the idea that THEY have a serious voice in decision making and that they must start figuring out how to do things as a team, more independently from their parents/leaders (while still having fun). This is really the essence of boy scouting. The outdoor skills, the scout oath/law, etc., will all come with experience and don't necessarily have to be drilled into them, IMO. But the mental leap from cubbing (let the den leader/parent tell us what to do and arrange it for us) to boy scouting (we're in charge so we'd better figure out what to do and go do it) is huge. Hopefully, your WDL is working on getting the boys to move in that direction. And parents...oh, parents. I have nothing but anecdotal evidence, but I'm pretty sure that a lot of boys who drop out of scouting between 4th-6th grade do so because their parents do not understand the nature of the shift in program between cubbing and boy scouting. Thus, their frustration threshold is much too low, once the boys cross into boy scouting and they don't encourage the boys to give it time to learn and adjust to the new program. (that, and some troops run a lousy program, it must be said.) Education for parents is most definitely in order here.

So I am laughing at the notion that this lady is "planning" the menu while apparently not expecting to do any of the work? If that's the case, let me put in my order. Hmm, I'll take the seared scallops in brown butter sauce and the lemon-herb risotto, thank you. I'll just nip out and pick up the ingredients so that you can get started cooking. Yes, that would annoy me, too. But perhaps this woman views good food as part of the way people celebrate, and so she wants to have a good celebration? Not saying you should necessarily go along with all of her ideas, just trying to imagine where she's coming from. As for B&G - we always went for relatively simple items because in the excitement, the kids didn't eat much anyway. But that doesn't mean we should be forced to eat crap. I drew the line one year at "tacos in a bag" because the notion of eating canned taco meat filling spooned into a bag of fritos just about made me want to vomit. I don't care that the kids loved it - it didn't deserve the label "food." And to be honest, I feel the same about the idea of eating chicken nuggets, hot dogs, and mac&cheese all weekend long.

Maybe that's what she thinks of as fun? Keeping in mind that this is a cub pack and not a troop, maybe she sees this as her special way to contribute by doing more fancy cooking than the rest of you ordinarily would do? Maybe she likes eating this way but doesn't do it at home because there aren't enough people to eat it all (cooking for one or two means eating leftovers forever)? Maybe she can't afford to cook this way at home and is using the scout events as a way to enjoy her favorite expensive foods, paid for (in part or whole) by someone else? I agree with others - give her a dollar limit and make it clear that if she goes over, she's paying out of pocket. And/or put her on a committee where hers is not the only voice determining meals. Or do what you did with the B&G and tell her what you want the menu to be. And then maybe once in a great while, let her splurge a little since she so clearly enjoys cooking.

Part of the issue with MBUs is that there are different motives driving some of the sponsors, vs. many of the scouting participants. While one group is concerned about quality and integrity of the program, the other group may be concerned about costs, profits, and volume. Here's my experience: A service club at a nearby University runs an annual MBU. They use it as a fund raiser. The quality of the "instruction" is poor (I can say this, as someone who has, in the past, participated as an instructor). Part of the reason for the poor quality has to do with the way it is set up. The first time I did it, I arrived to discover that I was counseling the Communications badge to an audience of a couple hundred, in a huge lecture hall. Um hm. Not what I had been told to expect. Oh, and none of the technology in the classroom was accessible unless one had a university instructor code. Another part of the reason has to do with how counselors are recruited. Upon arrival, I discovered that they'd recruited two of us to teach the same session in the same room at the same time - and told neither of us. So we both had different, unconnected, ideas of how we'd be doing it and had to coordinate on the fly. The third reason that the quality suffered was because they wanted people to get completed badges - to drive return customers (and fund raising) in following years. So, as a fundraiser, the incentives were to pack as many boys into sessions, get as many completed merit badges, and do as little leg work to coordinate the whole thing, as possible. I did participate as a counselor for a couple of years. The first was a disaster, and I tried to be constructive and helpful with feedback (even offering to help advise the student service club in future years, since I also work at that same school). They made a few small changes, but the situation never really improved and after 2 or 3 years I gave it up as a bad job. They didn't want to improve their fundraising model, which worked just fine for them.

Hey hopalong, might want to check out Quinoa, too. It is a grain, but not wheat. The people with gluten issues who I know can eat it, and I've been told it is the only grain that also includes protein in it (so good for vegetarians, too). Plus, it is tasty but not an intrusive flavor - a little bit nutty flavored - and can be used in the same way that rice or smaller pastas might be used, for example in casserole or one-pot dishes (not so sure it would be great with spaghetti sauce). It is a bit more expensive than other grains but in some markets it is beginning to be available in bulk which tends to be cheaper.