Lynda J

I think many parents and kids see sports as a possible link to scholarships for college and they don't see that with scouting. I am a belived in what my dad always said. "Keep kids busy enough in good quality positive fun things and they won't have time to get in trouble." Kevin does volunteer work with an animal rescue shelter and through the school library. He did soccer and will again. And of course Scouts.

BSAs stand on gays in scouting has hurt us. We have lost funding, we have also lost support of some churches. Because they see it as a discrination against one group. I keep hearing the same arguments about gays that we listened to years ago about blacks. My very best friend on this earth is gay. They have been together 38 years this year. (Heck of a lot longer then my first marrage lasted) This couple raised two wonderful children. ONe boy one girl. Neither of which are gay. They are great kids. Stable, smart and very well adjusted. Neither have ever been in trouble with the police or have every done drugs. Both made Honor Roles in their school, both earned full scholarships to college. One graduated 3 in a class of over 500. They were wonderful parents and are wonderful grandparents. Did my own grown kids play and spend the night there. YES. Every kid in the neighborhood played at their house. And all the neighbors knew they were a same sex couple. Did any of us care. NO. The image that some want to portray of gays as out looking for young boys is so wrong. We need to be watching Preist a lot closer than we need to be watching gays.

I directed our Cub Day Camp 4 years. I always had Boy Scouts working camp as part of their service hours. My only requirement was that their SM contact me tomake sure they had prior approval to use the hours. The SM must approve any community service hours. I would prefer that be done before the work is completed. Kevin did his Star hours working at the school library. His Life are going to be done working with Paws and Claws Animal Rescue. He will get to clean cages, dump litter boxes, and walk dogs. His library hours turned into him enjoying it so much that for the remainder of the year he worked after school 3 days a week. This coming year the librarian is having him come in as a library aid. The main thing is to talk to the SM BEFORE you start doing the service hours.

We can't do the Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda. Believe me. 5 Years ago I lost my husband to cancer. I did the W,C,S, If only I had made him go to the Dr sooner, they could have stopped the spread. Well guess what. They couldn't have. It took me two years to accept the fact that I could have done nothing more than I did. This year Kevin's school lost their campus police officer to a heart attack on campus. Seems no one knew CPR. Kevin was upset because he does and felt if he had been there he might have been able to save the officer that he loved. Could he have, probably not because I found out he was dead before he hit the ground. Would trying have changed the way Kevin thought about it. I don't honestly know. But it could have also made him feel much worse because he might have felt he didn't try hard enough. My wonderfully wise Gran use to say. "God gives us a calendar of life. When he tears off the last page our job on this earth is done and he needs us back" Sometimes we simply don't understand the reasoning. But don't beat yourself up about it.

If you want to have a program where there is never a chance of anyone getting hurt then you had better have a padded room and let everyone sit around the edges and never move. Folks it simply isn't going to happen. Had a boy in my Cub Den break his arm. He jumped up to catch a baseball, fell and landed with his arm twisted under him. The thing he was proud of was that he caught the ball and didn't turn it lose. One of my boys had a bike wreck at summer camp. Skinned up his arms and legs. But we required them to wear helmets and gloves when riding. But nothing more than scrapes. If a child is going to have any type of real life there is always going to be a risk of injury. Yes we can do things that reduce that. Training, and common sense. Shoot. I can't even make sure I never get hurt.

Write a letter to your council telling them what happened and which troop it was. If nothing else someone may say something to the leaders. Last year at our Merit Badge College there was one troop that had the rudest boys I have ever seen. We use a local college campus and buildings for the event and are ask to please take no food or drinks into the rooms. This troop pulled out their lunches and started eating during one of the badge workshops. I told them they had to put their food up. One of the boys said "up yours". I walked out of the class room and went and got their SM. He told the boy he was rude but said nothing else. Later that day I caught them climbing on the campus bell which had a sign on it stating no climbing. The SM was sitting right there. I knew there was no point in saying anything further to him. I contacted the Council office on the following Monday. The troop will not be allowed to take part on any further MBC. Since our are invitation only we make sure our boys are on their best behaviour.

Ron. My home country is North Arkansas, Harrison Love it and is can be so pretty. Still love Texas though. As far as "Gods Country" Guess what, we are all right. It is all Gods Country. Remember this coming winter when you all in Ill and Vermont and up north are having - temps I will be sitting in my backyard with a drink watching the birds and sunsets in my shirt sleeves. HA HA HEE HEE. Giggle Giggle

It is always sad when a member of a forum has to be ask to leave. But I was getting tired of his private messages. Some thought not threatening were disturbing. I am on other forums and there is always a problem with people that simply want to cause problems. I honestly thing Juris was one of those.

Like I have said before. I have know great men who were not great leaders and I have knows great leaders that were not great men. Leaders are seldom born. It is a learned skill. In most cases people that show good leadership skills early on have observed people being good leaders. Some leadership skills are learned by training. A boy will not always be a good leader in his first leadership position. But he will develope skills as he learns to take more control and as he observes others.

I have had several PM from Juris, or who ever he is. In most cases his posts hardly make sense. To much of his stuff is so off the wall. I have started ignoring his posts. By the way Beaver. Come a little further South and find Gods country.. Come visit us in Longhorn Council.

I know of volunteers in our district that have been removed. When you have someone that never does anything but complain and start fights with other leaders and stirs things up. They need to be removed. Had a den leader in my old pack that was removed. Sorry throwing temper tantrums, and throwing things across the room, in front of the boys at pack meetings when you don't get what you want simply isn't an adult leadership that we need. Now if they are removing people simply for disagreeing with the council leadership that is a problem. Because believe me I have disagreeded with ours. I have gone in and sat down with our DE and the council director and talked about problems. I have also presented ways of correcting those problems.

The only forums here I haven't been able to access are the ones about OA. Kevin can I can't. There is nothing wrong with that. He is OA I am not. The only other is one that is for moderators. I agree that maybe those threads shouldn't be displayed on the side of the screen so that all of us see them. But they don't make me scared.

I don't get Juris. One private post to me is tell me that if you let the boys run the troop you lose them. That he lost over half of his troop by letting the boys do the planning. Now he says Cub Scouting isn't good for Boy Scouting. Not sure where he did his scouting or where he got his training but I sure wouldn't want my kid in his troop. ]

bbng. Thanks and yes he was a wonderful leader and great role model. So was my mother and grandmother. All were very community involved. At 75 my grandmother did a nature teaching program from her home. Every Saturday any kid in out community could be in her yard at sun up and they would hike up the creek and she taught about all kinds of things. From the type of moss growing on rocks, to types of fish or snails in the water. I can't remember a Saturday that it wasn't pouring rain or freezing cold that there weren't at least 20 kind in her yard at daylight. My parents were involved in almost every youth program in our town. They were on the Charter Board for NoArk Girl Scout Council. When my dad passed away in 84 there were 20+ Girl and Boy Scout troops in uniform, plus the Jr. Riding Club and every 4H club in 5 counties. Lined up at the funeral. He was also a volunteer Juvenile Probation Officer for over 20 years. At his funeral one young man came to mother and ask to do the eulogy. This man stood up and told everyone in the church that my dad was the only adult in his life that was willing to yank him up by the neck and take a belt to him when he got into so much trouble he was about to go to jail. He said he was the reason he chose his profession. At that time he was the lead attorney for the county and handled all juvenile cases. He is now with the DA office.(This message has been edited by Lynda J)

We do uniform inspections but not at every meeting. The thing is that the boys never know when it is going to be. Not long ago one came in without his uniform. And inspection was posted. He had his mother take him home to change.. We also as the adults always wear our uniforms. When I was with the pack we had den totum poles and each meeting the boys in uniform got a certain colored bead. At pack meetings there were prizes for the den that had the most beads. Normally it was pizza for the den. When I left the pack the uniform rate was at about 98%.

Little tail about a smart daughter. Years ago when my daughter was in her mid teens Henry and I had her out at a street festival with us. She always looked older than she was. This guy keep hitting on her and wanting her number. It bothered her and she said something to Henry(stepfather) He wrote a number down on a piece of paper and gave it to her and told her to tell the guy he could call her at work. She did. She ask him what the number was to. He laughed and said the local police dept. The guy never tried to contact her again. When she moved to Chicago in 93 she said the first thing she did was get the main number for the PD and write on a card in her wallet. If a guy kept pushing for her number and she didn't feel like she wanted to give it to him she would give him that number. She is now 36 and is a force to be reckened with.

Madkin is right. Get the money up front and there are no refunds. If a boy can't go to the activity for a good reason his troop account if credited the amount less any that the troop was before he decided he couldn't go. Once you start doing this it is astounding how quickly last minute changes stop. Our CC required half of the amount of summer camp be paid in Feb. Of the 16 boys that signed up only one backed out. We refunded his money because his dad wanted him the entire month of June for a business trip out of the country. He had no control over it. My mother was the greatest at getting adults to committ. If someone ever told her that they couldn't help with something because they "didn't have time" she would pull her 4'9" frame up full straight and look them in the eye and say. "You mean you don't have an hour or so to give to your child in something you can do together? That is so sad." Believe me she had about 99% of the parents in any group she worked with willing to do about anything she wanted them to do.

I don't agree with you. Our SM had never been in scouting until 6 years ago when his son moved up into the troop from cubs and the troop was in trouble. He is a GREAT SM. The troop has gone from 6 registered boys then with only 4 active to 17 very active boys. Had our first Eagle in the troop in over 10 years this year. Have two more coming up within a year. To be honest some of the most ineffective SMs I have seen are people that were scouts themselves. They get the attitude that they don't need training because they "were scouts". So they know how to run a troop. So a good SM does not have to have been a scout. He just needs to have the desire and committement to want to teach boys how to lead. And the ability to sit back and allow them to sometimes make mistakes. My dad use to say. "A good leader is one that everything gets done and no one realized who got it done. A bad leader is one that wants to make sure everyone know how hard they are working and takes credit for everything everyone does."

Last week at summer camp we had one adult in camp most of the time. I helped with knots and first aid at the first year camper program a couple days but most of the time I sat in my lawn chair under a shade tree with a cold bottle of water and read or worked word puzzles. We are lucky in that our boys are really good about going to where they are supposed to be and they know if they don't stay with buddies they are in trouble.

Consider fingers crosses and prayers said. It isn't the parenting that is hard. It is the turning lose that is hard. My daughter is 36, son 32. It was hard to realize that they were adults when they reached their late teens and early 20's. They are great kids and I am ever so proud of them. But it is still hard to let go. My mother died when I was 48 and she always said the hardes thing about being a parent is not needing to be a parent. She was a great lady and she and my dad are my heros to this day.

Our Round Table Commissiner is LDS, Advancement LDS, District Commissioner Non LDS, Training Commissiner Non LDS, Camp Commissioner LDS. Our districe is probably 70% LDS units. To me if I am given a job to do and it is a job that I don't have a lot interest or an emotional committement in, I won't do as good a job. There has to be a committement of emotions and love to do a really good job. If I am told by someone to feed a dog, and I am not a big fan of dogs, I will feed the dog, but will I love it and nuture it. Probably not. You have to have a love for something to enjoy it and do a great job. Without that love it is simply a job. I love Scouting. Have loved scouting for over 50 years. Will love scouting until the day I cross over and become one of those Scouters in the Sky.

I have two digitals. One HP that is only 2.1 pixals and a new Samsung that is 4. Don't like the Samsung. Love the HP. I have 5 SD discs that I carry with me. I can take them full of pictures. Print the ones I want to and have all placed on CD for storage. Then errase the disc and start over. Wally World prints them for .19 each and for another 2.84 transfers them to the disc. My daughter had a Sony that she loves. It is 5 pix. Great pictures. I just bought a 256mb at WW for 28.00. That is about 4-5 rolls of film. Two disc of pictures (92) plus the disc cost me just over 20.00 to process. No negatives to have to deal with. And I reuse the disc.

Our PLC has ask that APL come to PLC meetings. They also have the troop Scribe come to take notes so nothing gets forgotten. They want the APL there in case the PL doesn't make the next meeting there is someone from that patrol that knows what went on.

Take two, two gallon jug with a lid. Spot uniform and put in jug with water. Screw lid onto jug and shake like heck. Take uniform shirt out of jug and place in second jug with clean water. Shake again and repeat. Hang shirt to dry. Our camp only requires Class A for dinner. So they don't get as dirty, HA HA. We have an old shower rod that we put in the back of the trailer. The shirts hang in there. Each night before dinner the boys put their shirts on and when we get back they take the off and hang the back up. We did wash then once last week at camp.

When I did my YPT and SS and SA on line I needed my National membership number. I check with the council and they got the conformation that I had taken the training within a month after I took it.