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MattR

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Everything posted by MattR

  1. I was given a really really nice 3/4 axe with a thank you engraved in the handle. It's so sweet I'd like to just buy a chord of wood and split it. The fires would be nice but splitting with this axe is just wonderful.
  2. I don't drink enough when using a bladder, but taking sips while I hike is good. So I use both a bottle and a bladder. I don't put drink mix in either so cleaning is not an issue. The nalgenes are good for measuring water and easier to fill with my filter. I do miss the old days of just sticking my face in the stream and drinking. If you did it right all you needed was a cheap cup. </showing age>
  3. Agreed ... ... but getting fewer. Partly because nobody sees the benefit. I tried to get one of our extra camps to set up as patrol based and I was told in no uncertain terms that "everyone" wants more MBs and that's it. Still trying to not be grumpy. Our neighboring council has a really good one and it is all about patrol method. Everything was by patrol. I heard great things about it and even talked to the staff. I was seriously impressed. I tried to get my troop interested and the only response I got was the scouts cook on their own on all other campouts so give them a break. That w
  4. @xj-boonie, welcome to the forum. Thanks for starting the thread and participating. I do hope you stick around. Some of the responses here sound a bit harsh but there are some gems of wisdom there. While I don't go in for absolute rules there are guidelines that, if understood, will make your decisions more effective in developing the scouts. I'm not going to get into them but suffice it to say that you can take everything here with a grain of salt and you'll be good. There are always exceptions. If there weren't then everyone would know the rule. Case in point: step in before a scout gets se
  5. Really good point, @ItsBrian. In fact I offered them the option of deciding their own reward and I'd get the committee to pay for it. I even gave them some ideas to choose from. Adults would cook them something good for a campout. Pizza party. A campout without any adults around. I think they saw the check boxes and stopped right there.
  6. Liar liar pants on fire! People that say that nonsense should just go away. ... Oh, wait a minute. Sorry, my bad. I seriously did try to get it started. The scouts weren't too interested. And a few months later I stepped down as SM. This really is a good point. If it's not motivational then it's just busy work. One thing I've realized over the past year is that I've never been externally motivated. Grades, salary, those things never did much for me. To be honest, I also ignored JTE until about a week before we had to turn it in. So I had to ask myself why I should expect any diffe
  7. I've had several challenging scouts. Some are challenging because they're wired differently and don't know how they come across. Some are challenging because they don't want to be there. And a few are just growing up. Don't let this one scout get you down. You try and whether or not you made a mistake it doesn't matter. You're a volunteer. If you can learn something and do better next time then great. If not, it doesn't always work out. Talk to some other adults about what happened. My guess is it will help. My suspicion is, based on what the parent said, that this is above your pay grade
  8. I'm not sure I believe the 51% number. This takes away nothing from the rest of what you said but it sounds orders of magnitude worse than what I see. So I poked around. The US census bureau's quick facts page for OK said 24% of 3.9M people in OK, or close to 1M, are under the age of 18. I found a USNews article that said 88k households in Oklahoma are grandparents raising grandchildren. (There are 1.3M households in OK). In order for 88k grandparents to raise 50% of 1M children each grandparent must be raising around 5.7 kids. That's average. According to grandfamilies.org, in Oklahoma,
  9. You'd think. Or at least hope they'd think about it, whoever they are that might be writing the document you'd like. Hillcourt is dripping with enthusiasm. But as you say, it's spread out and you have to dig for it. But if you don't know what you're digging for .... A lot of what I've seen talks about what the scouts are responsible for. As Eagledad said, the SPL and PL handbook are good for that. What isn't covered so well is how to do it. I think there are some issues that are particular to today's youth that need more focus. Teamwork, delegation, and planning seem to really hang u
  10. I'm in England at the moment. I visited @Cambridgeskip's troop and really liked what I had a brief view of (thanks for the tour, Skip!). However, if the BSA plan is to emulate the UK plan then we're in trouble. This is nothing against UK scouts. Their program is great for them. Our program should be great for us. There are cultural differences that won't translate. We are hung up on eagle. I've read their forum and have never seen the types of arguments we have. They don't have summer camps like we do. I'd much rather see a return to GBB. Fun with a purpose. I ran a camporee based on that and
  11. More likely they have their hands full with lousy units.
  12. Most got too into the game. Some got upset that the others couldn't figure it out. That created a lot of tension, at which point I sort of checked out. There's a point where one just can't make it better. This was many years ago.
  13. I was surprised at how many people got sucked up in the moment, given that it was a scout training event. It took me a while to figure out that was the point. In a way it was good because we were doing, rather than talking about it. Still, I would have preferred coming up with fun games teaching outdoor skills.
  14. I talked to a guy in town that took wb from Hillcourt. Each patrol made and led games that taught outdoor skills. That was the program - fun with a purpose. That would have been a great course.
  15. I agree. It's about smiles. The things that bother me are those that get in the way of those smiles. To be honest, requirement creep and lack of patrol support at summer camp bothers me a lot more than any of the membership changes.
  16. I don't understand. The boys enjoy scouts. The parents enjoy scouts. The boys want to get eagle. The parents want the boys to get eagle. There was a discussion about whether non LDS troops would respect your beliefs. Why not just run your own troop? Like you already are doing? The loss of LDS scouts is fine by me, assuming the ones that enjoy it stay and the ones that don't enjoy it leave. Scouts making decisions and adults supporting them.
  17. We replaced 'dodge ball' with 'red white and blue ball'
  18. I have one very important question. @Cambridgeskip, did you win the bet or did I? I think you got one wrong and one right.
  19. I'll take that bet. Let's face it, your proposal is reasonable.
  20. It would be. However, if, in the process of tying that knot incorrectly he could slice his hand open, or that of a scout nearby, then maybe not so silly. Cutting a corner off does involve a bit of pain but a little pain is a well known way of learning and a lot better than stitches. All of the complaints on this forum about helicopter parents is really about not letting the scout learn from his own pain or not to have pain. The real question is how much pain is the right amount. It's different for different people and a good lesson for the scouts is to understand that difference. Nob
  21. "What soap is to the body, laughter is to the soul."
  22. "We don't see things the way they are, we see things the way we are."
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