ManassasEagle

Did your guys do the Bahamas part? We were on our family vacation and both on Saturday the 17th going down and on the 24th returning there were Scouts all over the place both in the Freeport and Charlotte NC airports. If I remember correctly, they were from a council in the upper midwest and the Troop number might have be 23? maybe 32?

Hey emb021, you said...

"Tot'n Chip et al were only cards. Its only be since, oh, the 1990s or so that people started to make patches for them"

...and I know for darn sure that we had the Totin'Chip patches for our uniforms in my Troop back in the mid 1970's. Even stranger, in our Troop, they didn't tear off the corners of your card, they literally cut off corners from your patch. Guess the only good thing there was that, being five-sided (and hence having five corners), the patch gave you "five strikes" before you were out

Has anybody found a Boonie that's larger than the regular old XL (7-3/4, I believe). I've got one of those and it won't fit on my big old bus head. Also, a wider brim all around would be nice.

Our Den Meetings were from 7:00 to 8:00 in the evening and every meeting always finished with a snack. We rotated through all the parents as to who brought snack each week. As someone mentioned earlier, we did make it clear to them that one of the differences between Cubs and Boy Scouts was that the Boy Scouts don't do snack all the time. Even with that caveat, we still crossed over 7 out of 7 Cubs to Boys Scouts this past March.

ps. The snacks that were brought were often anything but "healthy" and that was half the fun - sending the kids home totally "wired" on sugar!

Our council (National Capital Area Council) has not, until this summer, had a resident camp program for Cubs. They have had a resident program for Webelos at the regular council Boy Scout camp (Goshen). This summer (in fact, this Saturday is the Grand Opening) they're opening Camp Snyder which has the four-day-three-night resident program for Cubs. There was a thread under the Cub Scout forum about Camp Snyder just a little while ago.

Yep, we live less than 15 miles from Camp Snyder and have been out there many times. Have to agree with those that say it'll be a great camp for Cubs (both Day Camp and the 3-night Resident Camp) and not so much for older Scouts. It does butt right up to I-66 (wouldn't it be nice if someone donated one of those "sound walls" that line most of the closer in interstates around here) and to Antioch Rd on another side. Across Antioch Rd is one of those mega-McMansion subdevelopments which doesn't help (maybe another sound wall is in order here). Oh, and finally, it's not the old W&OD (Washington & Old Dominion) RR that you can hear, it's the old Southern Railway (now Norfolk Southern) "B-Line" out to the Shenandoah Valley and up towards Hagerstown MD.

In our Webelos den, as part of the Engineer Activity Badge, we build trebuchet catapults. Later, my son used his catapult for his school science project. He used several different amounts of counterweight and measured how far each would fling the payload (marshmallow). Full scientific method and presentation at the school science fair.

We also built and shot off Estes model rockets for the Scientist Activity Badge and he's going to use his rocket along with different size parachutes and measure the time of descent for his science project this year.

> "They are Sport Belt Loops."

Well, technically they are Academics and Sports

Belt Loops so maybe you could get Hiking in

under "academics"?

Two years ago at Webelos resident camp, at which we arrived on Sunday, there was a huge ruckus on Thursday. Must have been everybody in camp stopped what they were doing to listen. All throughout the woods you could hear the voice of one of our kids coming out of the latrine - "It must have been 10 feet long!!!!!!!!"

Just a point of information (and I'm in the other end of Prince William as in Bull Run District) but there are no Coral snakes native to Virginia. The only venomous ones we have are the Cottonmouth (Water Moccasin), Copperhead, and Timber Rattler (some count the Canebrake Rattler as a fourth, others consider it a type of Timber Rattler).

I don't know about West Virginia

I just stuck a picture of the one my guys built at http://users.comtekbroadband.com/kusterer/Scouts/CrossoverBridge.html

It disassembles into five pieces for easy transport/storage and the assembly/disassembly process requires no tools. Not sure if it's what you're looking for but it works for our Pack. Also, I see you're in Virgina - so am I

fgoodwin, I'm impressed. That was a very level headed response to my post into which I might have put just a little too much emotion (The bridge example just pushed my hot-button because my guys are so proud of that thing). Again, I'm impressed and thanks!

fgoodwin said "...that Webelos crossover bridge that a WBer built as a ticket item for his son's pack,...

Could those projects have been done by non-WBers? Of course . . . but were they? No, they were done as WB ticket items."

Before you go off jumping up on your self-righteous soapbox and ranting maybe you ought to think first. Your ranting paints everyone with some sort of broad brush that is extremely insulting. Wood Badgers are the only ones that do projects to improve their units??? Give me a break!

The one example you cite is particularly appropriate. The Webelos crossover bridge for our pack was getting rather run down. I was a Webelos-I Den Leader at the time and I had our den design, assemble, paint, and present to the pack a brand new crossover bridge that we use to this day. Did the other Webelos-I den leader in our pack, who was working his Wood Badge ticket at the time do this? Nope! It was this lowly non-Wood-Badger that took care of that one.

I think you'll be pleasantly surprised at just how long your batteries will last. I have two batteries for my Digital Rebel and I took both of them to camp last summer. Plan was that when the one in the camera died, I'd just pop in the second. Turns out that I never even put a dent in the first battery after a week of camp. Also, in the spirit of "be prepared", I did bring the little charger just in case.

"Overnight camping" does not literally mean "one night". Both Pack Overnighters and Webelos Den Overnighters can be more than one night. I've taken BALOO, I've taken WLOT (now called OWLSWSLSSLLWSR or something like that), and I've even been a BALOO instructor - somewhere in all that I distinctly remember seeing mention of 72 hours as a differentiator between "short term" (overnight) and "long term" camping. I can't for the life of me find a reference at the moment, but I'm almost sure that's the number I've heard.

In addition to what ScoutNut said, you also need to apply all the rules about seperation of males/females and youth/adults and all that stuff.

Oh, believe you me, I know there are "better" troops around us. This particular one was troop visit #2 of our "Four Troops in Four Weeks" whirlwind tour.

I pretty much knew what to expect from this one, I was just kind of surprised to hear it stated so bluntly (and with pride even). I also had not said anything to the boys or the parents so as not to bias them beforehand. When I asked my boy "so, how did you like this one" he said "not at all, and neither did any of the other guys". He was surprised when I told him that's about what I expected.

Anyways, it seems like the boys and parents "get it" which is a good thing. Wish us luck on troop visit #3 that's coming up this Wednesday.

This month my Webelos-II's are visiting troop meetings in the area. The troop we visited last week said, and I quote, "the boys are responsible for deciding what Merit Badge they want to earn. That is, if a boy wants to work on a particular Merit Badge, he must let the Scoutmaster know. It is then the Scoutmaster's responsibility to find a counselor for that badge and schedule a time when the counselor can come to a Troop Meeting and teach a class on that badge". I don't think I've ever heard of things done quite that way

I've gotten tents, backpacks, and stuff sacks from them and the quality of all has been excellent. And the price makes the stuff way beyond excellent. In fact, I'm getting ready to place another order for some of their stuff.

And just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water... our Council (NCAC) is renaming WLOT and now calling it "Outdoor Leader Skills for Webelos Leaders". Just try and pronounce OLSWL, I dare ya

Do LDS units operate on a very different timetable than non-LDS units? If so, what is their timetable.

I'm a WebII leader and I just picked up a boy who transferred from a LDS unit. His parents tried to get him to transfer for last year but he resisted until this year. The problem is is that last year as a 4th grader, he was a Bear in his LDS unit. Now, being a 5th grader, he's in my Den as a WebII. This is definitely the den in which he belongs as he already knows and goes to school with all the other den members (he's even in the same class as some). But, since he's only earned his Bear so far, he's going to have a problem when it comes bridging time. We normally bridge the WebIIs to Boy Scouts at the March pack meeting. If I understand the guidelines correctly, you have to be 10 and have completed AOL -OR- be 10 and have completed 5th grade -OR- be 11 years old. Well, he won't turn 11 until next September (maybe that's why he was where he was in the LDS unit?). It seems like his only hope, if he really wants to bridge with the rest of the den, is for him to bust his butt and earn both his Webelos and Arrow of Light before bridging time. Seems like that's a pretty tall order.

Not trying to be a smarta... but you should probably spell calendar correctly. (As an aside, that was my winning word in the 1st-2nd grade spelling bee at St. Pauls (and I was a 1st grader)).

mbmom- You mention that you have 7 homeschoolers interested in Tigers. Earlier, you mention 2-3 non-homeschoolers. Not sure if they're all tigers this year or not but it really doesn't matter, let's, for purposes of example, assume that they are. Now what do you propose to do? Yes, 7 is within the "ideal" size range of 6-8 so you could have your exclusive homeschool den but what about the 2 or 3 non-homeschoolers? Their den would be too small. The "right" thing to do would be to have 2 dens of 5 Tigers each with a mix of homeschoolers and non-homeschoolers.

If, as you seem to imply earlier, mixing those "unworthy" non-homeschoolers in with the homeschoolers would cause some of the homeschoolers to drop out, I think you're better off without them. They sound more concerned that they be able to do their "special" things than learn how to integrate into a community as a whole. Part of Scouting is being a good citizen and that includes learning how to meaningfully interact with all sorts of people outside of your particular socio-economic group.

Another aspect of this issue that I haven't seen discussed in this thread is the "number of units metric". Even with the best procedures for identifying and enlisting good adult leadership, the fact remains that there are only so many interested, able, and willing candidates in a given area. The problem I see in our area is that the District types are measured by how many units exist and are created in their area rather than on the quality of those units.

For example, in the small geographic boundary of my son's elementary school, the PTO charters a cub pack, a Catholic church charters a pack, and a Methodist church charters a pack. The PTO pack will next year graduate half it's membership and almost all of its leadership. The Catholic pack is only a handful of boys and has huge problems recruiting leaders. The Methodist pack is folding due to lack of leaders. It would seem to make the most sense to combine these packs so that you would end up with one pack of around 40-50 boys and a full complement of terrific adult leadership. Instead, what is coming from the higher-ups? The push is on to start a fourth pack at a community center within the same geographic boundary.

Until District stops measuring the job performance of their staff based upon the "number of units metric", all of these packs may end up folding, primarily due to lack of adult leaders.

"Camp Lightning Bug" or "Camp Firefly"