LPC_Thumper

As the boys start checking on who has which utensiles for cooking, and learn that the pancake turner has been left behind. The SPL speaks up and says, "Hey guys don't worry about it, we'll just have scrambled pancakes!"

I think we have the question of popcorn sales is handled (rather nicely I might add), the other part of the question I read was about a "Key 4". I think it's important to review the concept that many Councils/Districts try to have a District/Council Chair that are known in the community. This person while well intended and a real aid needs some help getting the Scouting Volunteers to line up. A District/Council Vice-Chair is a GREAT way to do that. Many times that Vice-Chair is also the program chair (since Program Committee has several others that report to them). Hope this helps. You mi

Here's one more voice for you... First Welcome to the forums!! Second, go right ahead and do the work. Even if you do it wrong. It shows how important these are to you, it reflects that you are trying to be proactive, and basically proves that you are KEWL (like how I did the spelling?) As I was saying, even if you missed the point, even if you got it wrong... You are trying to lace your boots tight, and hike down the trail. I counsel both of these badges, and I can't tell you how many times I have sat with a Scout and thought "Why can't you just try on your own? Why do you thin

All I can tell you is what they taught me at PTC this summer. Partial Merit Badge work is fine. It is very acceptable to think that a boy could start a badge with a staff member from a summer camp (that might actually not be from his Council) and then get home and find a counselor for that badge so he may finish. This relationship is to only work on those items the Scout has not yet finished. The conselor may retest on previously completed items only when he feels that there might not be a working knowledge of the prerequisite items that are still left unsigned. This could help motiv

Sounds to me like we need to continue to be aware that people watch us, and judge us by our behavior. I understand that in a commercial camp ground there are different sets of rules, but we need to be careful when we car camp that we still are courteous and kind. Or does that only apply when we are on the John Muir Trail?

The western troops want part of this too. PLEASE let us know what you don't have. I'm serious. Are you missing Dutch Ovens, tents, what? Let us help, please! I'm so tired of feeling totally helpless in this, I want to get involved. I would love to help you guys. Do you have a place to camp this year? How do you feel about surfing in the Pacific, can we help you? I know of many units here in the Wine Country of California (for those of you that don't know California Council Geography) Los Padres is 1/2 between LA & SF along the coast. Please let us help.

DO lasagna Brown 1 pound of ground beef, drain, and set aside (optional) In same DO AFTER you drain greese from hamburger, or place 1/2 Cup of oil in pan. Layer on level of uncooked lasagna noodles, sauce (you can use ANY sort of Italian sauce for this, cans, bottles, home made), the the meat (if used), then white cheese (motzarella is best, but provolone works, as does jack, or white, or cheddar) repeat until one package of noodles have been used. Top off with sauce and then cheese. Use about a 12" DO (regular, or deep, again both work) Place about 6 pieces of charcoal on t

In my troop, the TG are appointed by the SM because of their GREAT scout skills, and attitude. It is known that the good scouts are TGs, the SPL and ASPL or left after the new TG are appointed. Their appointment is only for 6 months, and we have a special campout for them (which includes a trip to our local water park). As the CC, I fix a special BBQ for them the last evening of their training. They leave their regular patrol, but leave their patrol patch on their sleeve. The meet the incoming scouts and help them decide how many new patrols we will have. We keep our patrols aged based, s

I have been on staff for Woodbadge 21 Century, let's sort of review... According to the official course guide, you should have youth Venturers on staff. They come in during the second half of course. They are really there for LNT, and any other needs that could arise (remember you have Cub Leaders, Comittee folks, etc that may have very limited camping experience, and could create problems for staff). Yes they are on staff, no they don't wear beads, as far as them actually attending WB, I think (notice now I'm changing from what I've read to what I think) that if the invitation to th

In our troop, when the boys get old enough to go on our high adventure trips (we rotate Philmont, Northern Tier, Sea Base, and Jambo) we provide them with a "lung powered, energy efficient, pocket radio". (That's right, we stole an idea from the old Woodbadge course...) The boys love it, they can pull any song, any time they want. The "radio" is 4.25" X 11", has 2 custom bent metal antentae (they are called staples for those of you with no imagination). The boys love it, the adults do too. This summer as the ran around Jambo, they developed this top 10 list, take it away Casey Cassem... 1

E, I have read many of your posts and been very interested in your unique, and direct approach. May I offer you my shot at the "speech", when young men in our troop have held Eagle for six months, I talk to them (under direction of our SM). It takes about 20 seconds. I ask them if they are interested in earning Eagle. (most tell me they are) I ask them what hurdles they still have. (most tell me about one of the big 3 merit badges (you know which those are) and we talk about how to get past them) I ask about their project. (it amazes me, how often these boys know what they

I am going to answer your question about what we get from Philmont and Jambo with a question. If I told you how to have a troop have 27 Eagle Scouts in it's first 7 years of existence, would you like to copy the program? Or how about having 10 under 21 year old ASMs, would you like that? Would you like to have the boys that graduate out (at age 18 of course) that are away at school drop in on your troop meetings when they are in town? Maybe you'd like to have those young men that make Eagle before they turn 18 to work on palms and serve as Leaders of YOUR troop? Do I have your attention y

Capella, First off, WELCOME... Now with that said, do you have a copy of the LDS Scouting Manual? Talk to your ward clerk. You'll find that in LDS units fundraising more often that 1/year will get your Stake President excited (Polictically Correct speak, for UPSET, as it's rather clear) The idea of having a first aid kit first, is a great one. Many people will tell you that you have to have matching tents, patrol boxes, matching dishes, etc is VERY important. Out here in California, we would say "Huh?" You can run a nice troop without any of this nice things. There is reall

Hi John, What I do is what is explained in the handbook for leaders. The scout has up unitl his 18th birthday to ccmplete the requirements of a certain badge. If the young man did a poor job on something, and you signed off on it, then you just work on the areas that were not completed. If on the other hand the young man is sure he had completed certain things and has no record of it, I tell him I can't remember what he did, and ask him to redo the items he doesn't have completed. If I face a situation of a young man being discouraged by this, I just tell him that I want to help him

Reading this post reminds me of my son's first summer camp. I was on campstaff, and my 12 year old son was taking basketry from my Woodbadge Ticket Counselor (for those that haven't done WB, let's just say that the WTC helps with goals that you work on after the course) I was sitting between the 2 of them, and we were all enjoying the shade, a cool soda, and just visiting. My son was working on his basket, oh and by the way, he was doing it wrong. I (the Assistant Camp Program Director) took as much of this as I could stand and finally took the project away from my son, undid the parts th

Wow Jerry, here you are a Cubmaster and you're willing to tackle the sacred cow of patch trading? Your points are VERY on point. I have been too all the major National High Adventure Bases, and while I'm willing to say that I have engaged in the described behavior, I am not willing to say it was the highlight of my time. I would be VERY concerned as a Scouter if one of my charges felt that patch trading was the highlight. On the other hand if a comment was made along the lines of, "While trading patches I met some really cool people, and we are e-mailing each other, or we hung out, or ??

Nice discussion. As an Eagle B of R Chair, I ask the boys about the Scout Law. I ask them to explain how they live by the points. If they stumble on how the live "A Scout is reverent" I ask them what that means to them. Some times I hear about weekly church attendance, other times I hear about weakly church attendance, but lots of time thinking about what they can do to make the world a better place. Anything along this line gets a smile and a nod. If they don't get this, we work towards understanding that there are lots of ways to do one's "duty to God".

From PA could you get to the Florida Sea Base? My California kids (we live in a VERY nice beach town) LOVED the Sea Base. What about a trip to Northern Tier? I'm not sure if the canoe trip was "the bom" or getting a greeting and their pictures on the Twin's Jumbo-tron during a Twin's baseball game. Or was the Axe models, in their Peter Gabriel costumes telling giving them samples and telling them they just couldn't resist a man in uniform... Some of the adults held their breath so they wouldn't laugh out loud as these boys talked about how cool that was, and how they were going to buy thi

We have engineers from JPL, a West Point Cadet, a mormon missionary, a Sea Bee, and a Green Beret among other good guys as alumni from our troop. The thing I like about us, is that they all are warmly greeted and encouraged to talk to the current scouts. It is very common for those that are away at college to drop in during the summer as they wait for their buddies to get back home. This summer I've learned that many of the more "propeller headed" of them have figured out how to set up VOIP and talk on the internet. They visit from each other's college dorm room and compare the food to what t

I've had the chance to sit on an Eagle Board where one of the references basically said "Don't pass this kid, he isn't an Eagle." (I'm paraphrasing, but you get the point). We tried to stay open minded, but when we were being introduced to him, another adult on the board recognized him as the young man he had to take to court over a hit and run incident involving the adult's parked car, and the youth's driven one. We let the boy make his presentation, and when he was done, we had him leave the room. That's when I realized the situation with the other board member, the letter of non-e

Perhaps a conversation with the CC with the idea that you are planning on speaking with the COR about her behavior. I'm thinking that if things have gotten to the point of replacement, that you have facts, and witnesses rather than just your opinions. It's always sad when we have to take these steps, but when it comes up you need to move on it. Usually Chartered Organizations don't want these types of things happening in their units. A talk with a COR can help you keep the right people with the program. This is going to be sticky, good luck with it.

I know of a few... I really like Camp Chawanakee (Sequoia Council) is a great camp on Shaver Lake. I was there as a boy, and have taken troops there as an adult. I have also served on staff there, and really like it. I have inspected, and been inspired by Camp Whitset (Los Angeles Council). It is on Huntington Lake. They run a great program. These two camps are really for troops that have a mix of boys that leans toward older scouts. Camp Cherry Valley (LA Council) on Catalina Island is a GREAT camp. GREAT water front, actually better water front than Florida Sea Base. (Thi

As a former camp program area coordinator (that would be the adult in charge of an area, in case that title is a camp specific one), I watched from different eyes than I had as a Scoutmaster at the same camp. The camp tries to react to the demands of the troops, after all if we don't supply what they want, why would they come back? If they don't come back, it's safe to assume we won't have this camp in the future... You following the logic? So if the troops are asking for more merit badge times, we'll supply them, if they want more free time, or more High Adventure time, or whatever, we'l

After writting a nice thesis on this thread, I realized that I was rambling and not to the point. Let me say this: On behalf of LDS Scouting, I'd like to apologize to all that have been effected by poor choices of our various leaders. Heck on behalf of Boy Scouts of America I'd like to apologize for the poor choices of our leaders. I don't know why such folks are attracted to Scouting, I've just seen it happen. Yes I've seen LDS leaders back off of claims they made at Scout Camp about them being above the rules right after I pulled out my copy of the LDS Scouting handbook. These folk

Sorry I've missed this for so long, but between summer camp, camp inspections, work, family vacation, etc I'm just getting back. In the past I've taken the voice of an experienced LDS Scouter. I'm sadden by all the tragedies that we as a community have had this summer, one hurt boy is one too many. I don't even want to talk about boys that have lost their lives while Scouting. But let's look at a couple of statistics; 1 - If BYU news is reporting that the average term of scout leaders is 7 - 9 months, I'm accepting that at face value. However, this is in direct conflict with the guid