MarkF

Make friends with someone with younger sons and convince them to start a new pack

looks like I actually got lucky not posting on the forums for a while. No bad juju here atm

Welcome to the forums liquidzoo, and welcome back to scouting. Sorry for the late reply. Apparently I haven't been as good as I thought about visiting these forums. At any rate, good luck and god bless.

PS Welcome to the forums. Also, in your discussion with the parents in question, it might be helpful to clarify with them that finding alcohol AFTER they arrive is not really any different than bringing alcohol with them in the first place. They are probably splitting hairs in their mind in thinking that this is ok since they didn't bring the alcohol with them to the campout.

Strictly from a safety standpoint, I'd say Absolutely No Alcohol at ANY scouting event!!! All scout events, including campouts, should be "dry" events. I don't know what the BSA guidelines are here (others have good suggestions who to ask) but IMO this is a safety issue. Case in point, our spring 2009 district campout. Excessive rain caused flooding in the middle of the night. A ranger came to our campsite and told us we had to evacuate immediately. I can't imagine what we would have done if any of the parents had consumed too much alcohol. Use this as an example to the parents in q

Welcome. Just finishing my year as the Bear Den Leader, my son was a bear and will be advancing to Webelos I soon. I am also hoping to advance and be the Webelos leader. The bear year is a fun year, you'll love being the bear leader. Good luck.

Welcome Paul, and thanks for your service

good link, thanks

There should not be a problem ... unless a lawyer gets involved. Once a lawyer sniffs out deep pockets of policies with high limits of liability suddenly there are no chasms, no lines, and no grey areas. Sorry, spoken by a cynic in the insurance business.

Timely topic. My son will also be advancing from a bear to a webelo, and while I may not be the official webelos leader on paper I may end up being the de facto webelos leader. I would like it to be a more lively program than what the webelos had to put up with this year. Along this same line, what do you do if your CM doesn't want you to have the webelos out and about but rather be a baby-sitter for webelos, bears, and possibly the tigers and wolves as well? This is the situation I am facing right now. I was supposed to be the bear den leader. That ended up including the webelos as well. And

Welcome. My son is a bear this year and starts his first year of Webelos after the graduation. I was his Bear leader (and also was the de facto webelos leader) and hope to be the webelos leader for the coming year. I may be seeking yours and others advice as I would like to have a more active group of webelos.

This probably goes without saying, but don't forget to give the Flag's History and significance. Retiring the flag without cutting it is a good idea but with such a large flag may simply not be practical for the size of the flag or safe for the boys who have to carry it.

Hello and welcome ... sit by the fire and tell us a tale or two.

Hope I am not violating any forum etiquette posting on what appears to be a somewhat older thread. After reading through what others have dealt with/are dealing with, somehow having a CM whose wife came to our last meeting with her pants leg rolled up to show off her new tattoo (CM had a new one too but he wasn't blatantly showing off his) doesn't seem so bad. Nor does having three scouts who are brought by their grandparents, or the single mother who brings her son and shows her butt crack while bending over to take care of the baby she brings to the meetings. Each group of scouts has i

It's a toss up between the summer I worked a trap shoot competition (for two weeks, by the end of the day I was covered in a fine black clay soot from the clay pigeons as well as powder residue from all the shooting) and cleaning out my fireplace trap a few weeks ago. Ugh, what a mess. 10 years worth of ash accumulation, my son and I were filthy when we were finished.

In my area it is not just about the summer's events, but about the long commutes just to get to our meetings. Our area is geographically spread out. An 8 to 10 mile one way commute to a meeting is not unusual for our troop. For families who are barely getting by as it is, the rise in gas cost alone could force some to quit coming to meetings altogether (one already has). That said, our summer events will certainly have to take the gas costs into consideration, but will involve location (distance) rather than frequency.

Welcome Anthony. And I also agree with you. You can learn some things in a classroom, but here you can get a better feel of what does and does not work in the real world of scouting.

This year I hope we stick to our summer commitment (last year it kind of fell by the wayside after our campout in june). Hopefully we will: - Have a campout in June (coincides with our crossover ceremony) - Go for one or more hikes - Go fishing - Maybe plan a day camp (more likely a morning camp) for july - A pool party would be nice - An astronomy event (nice late evening/night event for hot summer weather) I am sweating already, but looking forward to it.

First my apologies for my poor forum etiquette (that's putting it politely I know). Next, my (belated) thanks to Paul, phips, scoutfish (aka other MarkF) and everyone else for your kind words and welcomes. To Seattle pioneer and moosetracker: It has been a pretty good year all things considered but also rather weird. Our group is small. The year started out with my son being involved in football and since there was only one other bear, we put him and the webelos together and I assisted the other ... um ... leader. Looking back, I am not sure what den leader he was as our cubmaster do

my first year as a Bear den leader is coming to a close. Wish I had found this site sooner but should prove useful for the next group of scouts. Anyway, relatively new to the scouting experience, and definitely new to the forum so greetings to everyone, hope to get some good advice later on and might even give some from time to time.