Jump to content

Lisabob

Members
  • Content Count

    5017
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by Lisabob

  1. Just to clarify, in the last 3 years the SPLs in my son's current troop were all in 10th, 11th, or 12th grade. My son was SPL in his former troop as a 10th grader. So I did not mean to suggest that older boys can't be active (as SPL you need to be able to commit to a very active scouting schedule. If you can't, then you shouldn't seek to be SPL, in my view.) But not all boys have the time or desire to be SPL and live & breathe scouting, despite enjoying their time in scouting. And even for those boys, what about AFTER they're SPL?
  2. I work in an environment where "adults" (college students of varying ages) sometimes are called upon to present their work and defend their conclusions in front of others, as capstone/honors, master's, or dissertation defenses. My advice to nervous adults in these situations is to understand that usually, by the time they get to that point, they've already been deemed "worthy" by their mentors and instructors, and that the folks interviewing them have a stake in their success, too. And that they are likely to be the single-most knowledgeable person in the room on the topic of their own resea
  3. SMT I admit, now I'm really curious. Could you give a couple of examples?
  4. Here is another thing to keep in mind. Scouting will mean different things to kids at different times in their lives. Just like our hobbies and interests as adults wax and wane, the same is true for scouts and our kids. They might need a breather from time to time, or legitimately be really, really busy at some points in their lives, yet still want to feel welcome in "their" troop. What you need is a strong sense of identity, not an arbitrary threshold. My son and his friends are good examples. His patrol are all late high school or just graduated. They've been the "leadership pa
  5. Hello jjansson! I won't dive into the "is AHG a Scouting program?" question, but I do want to clarify something you wrote. You said: "They make no apologies on being Christ-based. Girl Scouts was too, by the way, until the 1970s. Boy Scouts still is." In fact, Boy Scouts is NOT a Christian organization. This is a common misperception, particularly in areas where the main sponsors of troops and packs are Christian churches (some of whom expect more religious training of troop or pack members, than others). The actual BSA policy does not espouse or require any particular fa
  6. We allowed parents to appoint another adult, if the parents c/would not attend. We had some limits though. For example: the DL has plenty to do already and shouldn't be the default approved adult. We also didn't want any one adult responsible for more than a couple of kids at a time. And we had one boy who was only allowed to attend with an adult dedicated solely to him (because he was a handful and required strict attention). Those sorts of expectations need to come from the den or pack level - shouldn't be imposed from higher up, in my view, because each den is going to have differe
  7. This has been camp tradition at every camp I've ever worked at or attended. Among other things, it can help boost campers' (or staff's) energy levels on days when they're dragging, and it helps the kids who are not so sure about camp crack a smile and be part of the group. It also helps deal with the excess blasts of energy that almost always exist in a room full of squirrely kids. Think - if they weren't chanting, what else might they be doing to release excess energy??? Chanting is probably the least objectionable outlet. As you are unlikely to be able to stop other units at the c
  8. Then don't be a part of it. You're welcome to that opinion, but you aren't required to support scouting. And even if you continue to support scouting (despite your opinion), if you think the organization is a waste of time, then why do you spend so much time posting on this board? Actually I think scouting does teach a lot about responsibility, but a) it isn't an instant lesson and b) you can't expect an organization that spends, roughly, an hour a week with your kid to have a greater impact on his life than you do.
  9. Yikes. Cbus is having a rough month. Though from the sound of it, the explosion didn't do much damage to anything other than the tracks and the train, and nobody was seriously hurt (amazing).
  10. SP I applaud your desire to help boys see the broader picture of scouting. However, I must say, this proposed badge sounds exceedingly boring.
  11. Honestly, I don't see a lot of difference either. And I am really surprised that folks pay for these flag "services!" Not something I'd want to be a part of.
  12. You just aren't going to reach some parents. You might, possibly, reach their kids. That is actually pretty fun to watch, when it happens. The kid whose parent packs for them will eventually be embarrassed by that and tell mom or dad to let him handle it for himself. The kid who has a huge tote of electronic gear should be "allowed" to carry his tote of gear, himself, all the way to the camp site. Then let him discover that there isn't an outlet for miles. (If there is an outlet, think about making your campsites less convenient in the future!) If space in the trailer is truly
  13. It doesn't pass the sniff test, for me. Does everything really have to come with a price tag? What's next, charging little old ladies for helping them across the street? $5 for every good turn done daily? Granny stays in the middle of the street til she pays up?
  14. NJ, it was precisely the "on paper" part of the Personal Mgmt project that caused my scout to be impatient with the requirement. At least the Fam Life projects were real and he could readily see the value in planning and then doing them. He actually took pride in the projects he did for that badge. The "practice planning a project for the sake of practice" aspect of the Personal Mgmt just struck him as dumb. It was pointed out to him by somebody (MBC? SM? not sure who) that it might have been more relevant, had he not waited until he was a week away from being 18 with nothing else
  15. "A super poor choice unless that Bear Den leader was a boy scout as a youth. " Glad to know I was a "super poor choice" by way of my chromosomal make-up, basement. I think you paint with too broad a brush. But few packs I know of have a method. Most are relieved to have options at all. And yes I can agree that the "anybody with a pulse" approach is probably disastrous more often than not.
  16. If the current personal management MB is still to be required and unaltered, then I think it ought to be a required badge for Star or Life rank. It was the final badge my son had to do and the very last hurdle between him and completion of Eagle requirements (besides SM conf. and BOR). He got to the end of it and came running down the stairs laughing hysterically...I'm wondering, has he cracked? No: he'd just read the requirement about planning a "pretend" project! After he'd just finished his actual Eagle project! What's the use in that?! (I just smiled and shrugged.)
  17. When I used to work at (non-scout) camps, we had a lot of rich kids who would come to camp straight from boarding school. They'd stay at camp for 8-10 weeks and then go right back to school from there. I don't know if some of them ever went home from the time they were about 10 to when they graduated college. Those kids tended to have a lot of nice stuff and a lot of world-wide experiences. Unfortunately, many had messed up family lives brought about by access to the many temptations that money can buy. They tended to have problems making friends, relating to "ordinary" kids, and taki
  18. What about this: Scout plans for fundraisers to pay for project but comes up short (bad weather, lower turnout than expected at fundraising venue, small-town environment where folks are just tapped out, whatever). Scout covers the gap in funds needed partly with his own money, partly with parents' money, either as a match, or as a loan. Scout completes project on time as a result of having the funds he needs to purchase material. Alternative would be for scout to have to delay work days to schedule and get approval for another round of fund raising, and maybe (depending
  19. For a while, I don't even think there was an Eagle Project requirement. My dad, who is an Eagle, mentioned to my son that when he earned Eagle, there was no such thing (probably 1961-62 or so). Dad was also surprised to learn that Eagles have their own COH now, he figured it would be part of the regular troop COH because that's how he remembers it being in his day - not some big hoopla almost like a graduation party.
  20. scoutson just finished his project. Hours worked totaled about 125 but that excluded fundraising, planning, drive time (parents driving), picking up/delivering material and finished product, meetings with advisor, doing the paperwork, etc. So that's just 125 hours of actual physical work on building the project. I had no idea that other folks count all that other stuff - his troop doesn't, nor did his previous troop - so I guess I'll be taking those "averages" with an even larger grain of salt from here on out. I think Brewmeister makes a good point too, though. Having watched his pro
  21. My scout just came back from spending a week in the Canadian wilderness, where he climbed waterfalls, swam in rivers, hiked up mountain trails, encountered black bears... The best antidote to the "loser" claim is to be able to point to undeniably awesome stuff that the scout can do/has done, that the non-scout will probably never get to do. Does your program provide those opportunities?
  22. Basement writes: "Troop hopping is a result of someone putting their foot down. " Yeah, basement, and sometimes that "someone" is the scout, putting his foot down on adult silliness! Generally, I see about the same four groups mentioned by others: 1. Boys unhappy with the program being offered (too much adult direction, too much hand holding, not enough adventure, etc.) 2. Parents unhappy with behavioral norms in the troop (language, nastiness/hostility, treatment of younger guys, fighting, etc.) 3. Boys and Parents unhappy with standards for advancement (t
  23. OK OK, it is probably clear - and I think you agree, 5yearscouter - that the best solution is for somebody to just say NO to this fellow. But if the only way that's going to happen is to fall back on playing the guy's game (where does it say in the "ruuuuuules?"), well then, here are some "rules" to wave around in the guy's face. From the "age guidelines" and "family camping" and "insurance" sections in the current Guide to Safe Scouting: Age Guidelines (skip to the last paragraph) "If a well-meaning leader brings along a child who does not meet these age guidelines, disserv
  24. Somebody needs to put a foot down or else next year, your campsite will be full of little siblings and the MB sessions will include your neighbor's daughter's niece's cousin's 4 year old daughter, too. Tell your rule-pointer that enough is enough and allow no amount of wheedling to change it. (Maybe you need to have a private chat with the SM to help him relocate his spine, first.) Again, look to BALOO (since these are cub parents, too). The pack camping info we got back then said pretty clearly, you had to have age-appropriate activities and proper supervision (NOT BY SCOUTS!) for you
  25. SecondClass, that's probably true. I don't have the stats handy anymore, but I believe the problem isn't just absolute numbers, but percent of youth served. In other words, we reach a lower percentage of "total available youth" than we used to.
×
×
  • Create New...