ManassasEagle

pssssst... don't tell brianbuf about this as he just KNOWS that no boys today would enjoy that kind of stuff

Back in my day, before there were Denner cords, we had Denner patches. It was a single gold bar on blue background for Asst Denner and double gold bar for Denner. Maybe you could find some of these on eBay. I've still got mine.

stevejb- I think Ed was making a funny with the line about the "rad new merit badges". If you read any of the "savescouting.org" threads started by brianbuf, you'd get the joke.

The current 4th grader is not going to be able to earn his Arrow Of Light until too late. If you look at the first AOL requirement "Be active in your Webelos den for at least 6 months since completing the fourth grade (or for at least six months since becoming 10 years old), and earn the Webelos badge." and he doesn't turn 10 until February, the earliest he could possibly earn his AOL would be next August, right?

I second that. Split the den. 6 to 8 is the ideal size. Anything larger than that leads to chaos and, as was the ultimate result in our Pack, high dropout rates. (Our tiger den had 10 and the leader absolutely positively refused to consider splitting the den. This year they have zero!)

As for how to split, when we've done it, we let the boys decide how they want to be divided up.

Hey packsaddle - did the New River cave many times during my years down there at school. Worst part was the climb from the road all the way up to the entrance

Wasn't it in Braveheart that they ummm... taunted the enemy before battle by ummm... showing their ummmm... well, you know

This whole thread probably won't be here furlong

"proclaimed ,"I'm a host!" (good science teacher.) "

Maybe a good science teacher or maybe he just watches

Stargate SG-1

Hmmm...

1. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (100%)

2. Orthodox Quaker (86%)

3. Liberal Quakers (85%)

4. Unitarian Universalism (80%)

5. Reform Judaism (78%)

6. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (72%)

7. Bah' Faith (69%)

8. Orthodox Judaism (67%)

9. Eastern Orthodox (63%)

10. Roman Catholic (63%)

11. Islam (62%)

12. Seventh Day Adventist (58%)

13. Sikhism (55%)

14. New Age (52%)

15. Neo-Pagan (51%)

16. Secular Humanism (50%)

17. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (49%)

18. New Thought (47%)

19. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (45%)

20. Scientology (42%)

21. Mahayana Buddhism (39%)

22. Hinduism (38%)

23. Theravada Buddhism (37%)

24. Jainism (36%)

25. Nontheist (36%)

26. Taoism (35%)

27. Jehovah's Witness (30%)

Ed- Plenty of public schools have those sorts of "Bible Study" or "Christian Fellowship" or even "Jewish Studies" clubs. And yes, they are technically part of the school just like a school-chartered BSA unit would be or a Chess Club would be. The thing that makes the BSA different is that it is the only one of those that discriminates (albeit legally) against a protected class. The way the religious clubs are allowed is that they do not discriminate against a protected class. That is, if an athiest wants to join the Bible Study club, the club will not deny them membership. Granted, it may not be very likely to happen, but that is how those clubs get around the restriction. The BSA is not willing to make that concession (ie. to not deny membership to athiests) and therefore are not in the same boat as those religious clubs.

I never really used the Program Helps much but neither did we just focus on advancement requirements. Remember the guiding principle of KISMIF - Keep It Simple, Make It Fun. I just always tried to come up with activities that the Cubs would find interesting and fun. If it just so happens that some requirements got met in the process, that's a bonus.

When you're on a campout you don't want to hear one of your Scouts going "Here Kitty, Here Kitty, Kitty"

Around here, your untreated lumber, even well painted, would be lucky to last two seasons. You'd probably be a lot better off, from both an environmentally-correct and durability perspective to use masonry. Building your raised bed with something like cinder blocks would be cheap and last forever.

Put a plain nail in a bottle of Coke and see what happens. You want to drink something that eats steel?(This message has been edited by ManassasEagle)

It may be just me, but I read the original question a little differently. I think his giving a very specific example may have confused the issue. Try this on for size...

If one of the qualifications to be "service" includes that there be no remuneration, can hours worked be counted toward "service" if the hours also count toward a "Scout account"?

Technically, the Scout performing the service is being remunerated by getting $$ added to his account.

DanKroh- oops, I forgot the smiley.

All I was trying to do was to point out the irony of the fact that the article (from the side that you apparently agree with) calls the BSA "weasel-like" and "cagy" for stating "we won't illegally discriminate" by comparing it to your statement that the BSA will sue you if you start your own group. Sticking the word "illegally" in there is "weaseling" on the part of the BSA similar to your not mentioning that you'll only get sued if you try to call your group "something scouts something".

"So yeah, start your own group...and be sued by the BSA"

That is not a true statement no matter how many times you repeat it. Or maybe you're just being "Weasel-like" in your use of the ellipses (...). If you change your statement to "So yeah, start your own group, name it something containing "scouts", and be sued by the BSA", then you might be right. Your statement with just the ellipses is nothing if not "caginess", huh?

"1. What does the lease actually say?"

It's been mentioned several times in the various articles on this topic that the lease says that the Scouts have the lease "in perpetuity" AND "the lease can be terminated with one years notice". From that, it sounds like the city is well within its legal rights to terminate the lease.

"2. What other organizations have similar leases, and what are their membership/leadership policies?"

Ahhh, this is the interesting one (and, to my memory, a piece of "new" information contained in the referenced article). The article states "the city provides space under these very favorable terms with 75 community organizations, including religious groups". Here's where a lot more information is needed. If any of these 75 organizations are provided space under similar terms AND if any of those organizations restrict membership based on sexual orientation and/or religious beliefs, then they must be included in these eviction proceedings in the same way the Scouts are. To not include the other organizations (if any) means that the current proceedings are aimed at the BSA and those justifying the eviction lose their "moral high ground" for their arguments. On the other hand, as long as any proceedings are enacted equally, the BSA really has no leg to stand on.

Beavah said "Troops that have a lot of younger guys, or have segregated their younger guys so that it's less likely anyone in their patrol knows how to cook & clean, are often better served by dining halls"

I don't know about that one. This year at camp we had four "Noobs" (as they were referred to). The duty rotation that they all worked out had the Noobs cooking one of the dinners together. It was actually an excellent teaching moment. With just a little bit of discussion and instruction to get them thinking about things like making sure different meal courses were done at near the same time, how to divvy up workload, and simple things like that, the Noobs ended up preparing and serving what was unanimously agreed to by the adults, older scouts, and the Noobs themselves as the best dinner that they had all week.

Don't sell younger scouts short!

Put me firmly in the Patrol Cooking camp also! Our Scout Reservation has 3 (of 6) camps that are for regular Boy Scouts. One of these is Dining Hall and the other two are not. The Council Exec comes down each year for a bull session and he mentioned adding a dining hall at one of those two. General opinion was firmly against doing that. Unfortunately, those two camps are booked to a lesser percentage than the dining hall camp and they want to attribute that to the dining hall. We'll just have to wait and see what happens.

packsaddle said "...has a spread like a Texas back 40"? How about, "...if he wanted to haul 'butt', he'd have to make two trips"

At Summer Camp our guys got into one of those "Your momma is so fat..." things. One of the guys, whose dad is a minister, came up with "Your momma is so fat that when she sat on a Bible, Moses popped out and said "Let my people go"". May be sacreligous but I had to laugh at that one.

The Pack we used to be with did have minimums. They required that each Cub sell $80 worth of popcorn. They also had a "buy-out" option whereas a parent could just pay $25 (the equivalent to the Pack's take from the $80) instead of selling popcorn. There's really no excuse for not being able to sell $80 worth of popcorn as, with Trails End prices, that's a pretty trivial amount. We had Cubs that regularly sold upwards of $1000 worth (one even topped the $3000 mark). The unfortunate side effect of having a "buy-out" option is exactly what Lisa states in her second paragraph. Lazy parents or parents of lazy kids just whip out the checkbook and the Pack only pockets the minimum whereas if the kid would even try to sell, they'd most likely easily surpass that.

I went to Camp Tuckahoe in 1974 and 1975, not sure how valid any of my impressions would be now, but we thoroughly enjoyed it then (This message has been edited by ManassasEagle)

Assuming you have multiple flags to retire, you may want to consider multiple flag retirements. Divide the groups up by grade (or grades). With fewer in attendance at each ceremony, the odds of keeping it dignified are better. Also, you can tailor each ceremony to be appropriate for the particular age/grade group.