Lynda J

Get at least two people BALOO trained. Our first pack camp trip was my Tiger year. Everything was planned. There was only one person BALOO trained.

She was a control freak. Several of the "new parents" ask about training and were told that she was the only one that needed to be trained. (Having spent years in Girl Scouts I knew better)

The day before we were leaving she called the office and informed them that she would not be going to camp and that we could not go. Luckily our CM was an Eagle and when the office called him he went over to th office and they did a quickie training so the boys didn't suffer.

But if there is only one person BALOO trained and that person has to leave everyone has to leave.

When I left the pack there were 8 people BALOO trained.

Kevin had been trying to deal with it. One of the boys told him he wanted his lunch money. Kevin told him that he didn't bring lunch money because it went into his school account. Stopped that. But the problem was that the coach in the PE class where the rubber band problem wouldn't do anything about these two boys. One of them actually held another boy in my troop down and choked him until his lips turned blue. Two other kids pulled him off of Jacob. The coach's response was to tell Jacob "don't retaliate". That was the day before Kevin got the whelp.

Texas is in the process of passing a law called

The Bulley protection act. It makes schools responsible. They can't simply ignore it any more.

They have to deal with the bulley.

Also found out that over Spring Break one of the boys (12) ended up in jail for knocking a kid off his bike and taking it. He hasn't been in school all week.

I get upset with Councils when they try setting up units in housing projects. Two years ago they did a day camp in one. Ended up not having a director or any staff. I offered to include these boys in my camp. Council didn't want to do that for some reason. What I didn't understand is these boys are confined to the innercity all the time. Why not get them out and a nice environment.

Another problem with adults in housing projects is most probably wouldn't pass the background checks. I hate to say that but in one of the project houseing developements here criminal history is at about 95%..

And the saddest thing is that the boys in these situtations probably need scouting more than anyone else.

I forgot. Our Web's spent the night one night. We had each unit do a family camp plan. They had a ball. The first year we did this we had 16 Webs. The second we had 44 this past summer we had 81.

Tell Webs they get to sleep out and they will come.

Plus the younger boys find out that Webs get this speical treat. Our precentage of Wolves and Bears coming back to camp the next was at about 95%.

I directed our districts day camp the past 4 years.

S&S Recreation was a life saver. (www.ssww.com)

Great complete kits.

Also if you want to do hiking sticks. Check with a janitoral supply in your area for wooden broom sticks. Last year we gota quoat for 5' wooden broom handles for $2.25 each. I went over to pick them up and the owner ask me why I needed 250 wooden broom handles and I told him that when the left his store they became 250 cub scout hiking sticks. He let me have them for $2.15.

Then we had one guy that woodburned the boys names into them. Each activity station had goodies that they handed out to hang from the sticks. The boys loved them.

Also if you want to do doodles. The small chip packages will bake in the over and shrink. You can string them or put a pin in them to hand from their hats.

One thing we did 2 years ago was break out Webelos out into a separate camp with a Web director. It worked great. Last summer our Webs left camp with 4 activity pens completed.

Don't like it. After about 3 washes the patches were coming off. Kevin sews his patches on himself. THe only thing different we do is his Rank and Patrol position patches have snaps on the shirt and them put snaps of the patch. This way they are easy to switch out.

All the patches on my uniform are sewn on.

A tip on eggs at camp. If you will break the eggs into a sealable plastic container before leaving for camp it is easier to store in the ice chest. You don't have to worry about them getting cracked in the chest. For our boys if they are doing two breakfasts we have them use two containers. Then you can take the container and shake the heck out of it for scrambled.

No problem Vicki.

Another of our favorite breakfasts is

Corn Bread Brunch

1 pks breakfast sausage

1/2 small chopped onion

1/2 small green pepper { I use half a package of

the frozen onion/pepper mix)

8-12 eggs

salt/pepper

1 large can Marie Callendars cornbread mix.

oil

1 stick butter

pancape syrup

Line DO with foil. Oil. Mix cornbread and spread DO with half. Brown sausage. onions, peppers in fry pan. Drain well and top cornbread mix. Slightly scramble eggs in fry pan and top sausage mix. Top with remaining cornbread mix. Dot bread mix with butter. Bake about 30-40 minutes

remove DO from coals. Slice like a pie. Top with syrup, gravey or what every you want. ENJOY

YOu can do sausage without having to have an ice chest. Freeze it before you leave.

We just finished our March camp out. The Wise Ole Owls (adult patrol) decided I was going to be quartermaster every campout.

Quick saugage gravy. Cook sausage. Add flour to the cooked sausage and stir in. Add milk to make gravy. You can use powedered or canned milk.

You can also add hashbrowns to the mix.

I agree it wouldn't be great canoeing or hiking but for normal camping it is great. Our total cost on putting it together was under $50.00. We plan of adding extensions for summer camp to the ribs. This will make it just a little taller.

We don't really have this problem. Our last Eagle is gone. But the other older boys are still very active. We have started breaking out all boys 1st Class and above into a seperate meeting so they can totally work on badges. The other boys I take and we are working on rank. We also give our older boys a challenge to help on three points of rank for younger boy. One boy that will hopefully soon be Eagle plans on staying on as a JASM.

Was the Scout respectful? Does the Scout know how to live the Scout Oath, Laws? Does he know the information for the rank he is sitting in front of th BOR for? These are the only questions that need to be covered in a BOR. Had an Eagle come to a BOR with a rather strange color of blue hair. Could care less. Dye it pink for all I care. My intrest is in is he a Good Scout.

Need to talk to the person on the board and if they can't abide by the rules then they don't sit on another board.

Guess I am telling my age. But I remember when I camped with GSs and we lashed our wash stations between two trees using slats and poles. Worked great and great practice for lashing.

nldscout. Cell phones are on the written list of items that are not allowed at camp. The only time a scout has brought one, it was taken up. The parent was called and told we had taken it. It wasn't stolen. The scout handed the phone over.

I also ask one of our parents who is an attorney and was told, as long as the item is on the written list of banned items and we inform the parent that the phone has been taken we are breaking no laws. And to be honest most of the phones that come to camp are to be used as phones but to be used for the computer games on them.

Our rule is that if it requires a battery to operate it had better be a flashlight.

One other question. If a boy brings a phone to camp and it is lost, stolen or damaged who do you thing the parent will hold responsible. The leader.

Kevin was having trouble with two bullies at school (6th grade) He came home one day with a hugh red whelp on his arm. One of these boys had shot a paper clip with a rubber band and hit him that morning and at 4:30 it was still red. Believe me I was at the school the next morning and in the principles office. Took Kev with me to show her the now burise that was there. Made it very clear that if it happened again I would be back up there and then I would bring a police officer. They moved both boys from Kevins class and have put them is special classes for trouble kids. Both of these boys are in trouble all the time. Spend most of each day in detention.

We had one boy in our troop that we finally had to ask to leave. He became such a problem that he was actually endangering other boys. We were having parents tell us that if this boy went on an activity their son would not be allowed to go.

I worry about this boy. He has more anger inside him than any kid I have worked with in the past 40 years. There become a point that it won't matter what you do with some bullies you can't get through to them and at that point you have to look at what is best for the entire troop, not just the one boy. If removing him for a while is part of that then so be it.

Two deep for a reason. It will only take one time of some boy saying this guy "touched" him to take his pompass tail down. The problem is that he could take the district and troop down with him.

If the Council won't do anything about it there is little you can do. Except protect yourself.

When I do MB counseling I will not meet at my home and will not meet without at least three boys there.

Fear can be disabling. I know a man who is so scared of dogs that if one comes up to him he actually faints and has a mild seizure. It takes him about 2 hours to recover. So don't discount fear as a disability.

One of my greatest pleasures when my boys were Webs was painting their arrows. It really showed how much work each had put in.

Our elections are run by the OA council. The names are presented as to who can be voted on.

The OA guys bring ballots. They pick them up from the boys and count them out of our site. They then come back in and have the SM sign the form.

I signed it this time as ASM because SM wasn't there. I then reported to the SM who was elected in. 4 of 6 were voted in. No one else knew until tapout who was elected. By the way our SM was also elected and he didn't know until the night of tapouts.

No one but the SM and the OA should know who was elected until tapouts. Period.

ME NOW ME NOW.

We just did a great fly.

Made out of 3/4 electrical pvc pipe, rebar and a tarp.

Took the boys less than 15 minutes to put it up and we can change the configuration.

14 10' sections of 3/4" electrical pvc pipe

14 2'x1/2" rebar

1 20'x20' tarp

lay your folded tarp out on the ground. hammer the a piece of rebar in at each gromet of one side of the tarp. Measure a 12' span from rebar across and match placement of rebar. Connect two pieces of pvc and stick over rebar making an arch

place tarp over arches and bungie gromets to arches. Tie off a guy rope at each end of the tent. We use a 20x20 during the winter because it goes all the way to the ground. In the summer we use a 20x16 and is leaves an opening on the sides.

It is great. And the nice thing is that it stores in the trailer so great. We have 3 brackets mounted on one side. The pvc stores there, the rebar in the closet and the tarps in another storage compartment. If anyone wants pictures just e-mail me and I will send them.

I also have a pattern for a picnic table that you can make out of one sheet of 7/8 plywood that breaks down and stores. Our boys love them. Each patrol has a table. We are going to make two more.

Anarchist. The BSA lid lifter is $9.99. The same lifter at Academy is $3.99. Even the same brand.

Academy also carries Lodge.

Don't waste your money on anything but Lodge.

Growing up as a GS we had lodge. My dad passed away in 1984. All the camp gear was stored in the trailer. Mom passed in 93. I was going through everything and found all the dutch ovens still in the trailer. All had been cleaned, and wrapped in brown paper bags that had been oiled. They had been there for 10 years. Not one had any rust.

Never use soap to clean them.

Dad always washed them out with hot water, scrubbed them with a wad of aluminum foil and fire ashed. then rinsed them again and rubbed them down with some oil and put them in the bags. I donated them to the GS council in Ark. in 93 and they are still using them.

I was WDL. All 6 of my boys earned all activity pens. Most were done as a den. The ones that required them to be done on the scouts own I would sit down with the boy and discuss what he had done then sign off on the book.

Had one made of plywood. Boys spilled so much water on it it came apart. We now use an aluminum folding table with 4 plastic dish pans. It works great.

I have never understood this either. I love training. Have takes some over just to do it. Each time I retake a training I learn something new. Mainly because there is a new group of people and your get new opinions and ideas.

Taking my 3rd outdoor skills training next month.

Have takes NLE and NLS twice as a Scout. Twice as a Cub. Am taking Commissioners training next week

It isn't required but I will take NLE/S every two years. Just me.

And the thinking that not knowing the rules does not relieve you of responsibility. Ingorience of the law doesn't mean you didn't break it. I would never want to explain to a parent that something happened to their child and have an answer of "I didn't know we couldn't do that". Just plain dumb.