Melgamatic

We had a similar problem. We needed to remove a den leader (reasons not important here, but no one was in disagreement and we learned that many people had left the pack due to the den leader).

I knew, mostly from these forums, that we had to involve our CO. We don't have much to do with our CO. The Pastor signs our charter, and she is nice to us, but we don't have any other relationship. Only one family out of our 50+ families attends our CO Church. We meet in the local schools we serve because the rooms are better and we sometimes can't get the CO's hall when we schedule pack meetings.

So, the removal process involved us meeting with the CO some, getting to know them a little, putting up a bulletin board with our pack's awards, etc, in the hall, and we'll probably do some kind of service project there when it gets nice (like putting mulch down or something).

It's an unfortunate fact that the CO has to get involved, but it can turn out to be positive since it will force you to communicate more.

We ended up not drumming the den leader out, but we removed them from the charter as a pack leader this renewal. As many people said, it was just easier to leave them off the charter than actually remove them.

My family vastly prefers the spiral bound version. It lies flat; that's everything to us. I've also had the binding break on the bound versions, due to us trying to keep it flat once too many times.

The spiral bound are more expensive ($8.99 vs $14.99). I think I read on this forum that some people took their bound books, had the binding cut off in a big paper cutter, and had Kinkos (or Staples, whatever) do a spiral binding. I think it cost $2 or so, so you could make your own.

Your council may have their own rules, but on a BSA level, and where I am, this is just plain not true. In fact, I don't think we've ever been camping where there were flush toilets. We've been at district camporees with 300-600 cubs distributed in campsites across large reservations with not a flush toilet to be had for miles, and our own pack has camped alone in state parks, also without flush toilets.

As a matter of fact, the big council camporee is coming up with 3000-5000 cubs, and our big advertising pitch is that for the first time we'll have some flush toilets!

Melgamatic

I think there are very few official national guidelines (I think they say refer to your Council's guidelines), but I'm under the impression that banner advertising was forbidden by most councils. Does the "webs" free website banner at the bottom of that website bother anyone? I know you're getting the website for free, but you're advertising the ISP....

The "Crips" were founded in 1971, and the "Bloods" in 1972, so they're coming on 40 years. "Cripes" is what you say when you see something surprising!

Agreed. If they meet the requirements they get the award. I'm just not sure if you can meet the requirement of "visit...a meeting of a Boy Scout troop you think you like to join" if you have no intention of joining any troop.

That's my philosophical issue.

Thanks, Melgamatic.

We are reviewing our Webelos II cub scouts to make sure they are all ready to receive their Arrow of Light awards next month. We do our Bridging Over and AOL presentations together at our March meeting. For most of the requirements, we can easily confirm completion by the boys. One of the requirements dealing with Boy Scouting are causing us some angst for a couple of the boys.

"After you have completed all five of the above requirements, and have a talk with your Webelos den leader, arrange to visit, with your parent or guardian, a meeting of a Boy Scout troop you think you might like to join. Have a conference with the Scoutmaster."

First off, assume that all other AOL requirements have been met.

The actual visit to a troop is not the problem, even meeting with the SM isn't really the problem, it's the "you think you might like to join" that's causing us debate.

Does this mean that a Webelos who is not planning to continue in Boy Scouting does not receive the AOL? (It's ok if that's what it means, I am just surprised). A boy who does not plan to continue goes to a troop meeting (or, in our case, possibly several meetings with several troops), even meets with the SM, but for his own personal reasons decides not to continue. He doesn't receive the AOL?

So, that covers the boy who doesn't really want to continue. We have another boy who has learning/behavioral issues severe enough that Boy Scouting is probably not going to be in the cards for him. He was able to make it through Cub Scouts, with the help of Akela and the pack leadership, but isn't going to move one. Even though he visited a troop and met with the SM, he doesn't get an AOL? (Again, that's ok, I am just surprised).

Finally, we have some boys who just aren't sure. They are a little burned out after 5 years of Cub Scouting, and just aren't sure. I think they might eventually join, but they are not ready to commit to a troop yet. In this case the situation is easier because "they might like to join" the troop, at least someday. I think they're ok because they are at least open to considering a troop.

Am I ready this right?

Thanks,

Melgmatic, CM

I don't mind you mentioning it to him, but I really don't have any interest in harrassing them if they aren't interested in making the Katalogs public. If they haven't decided, or aren't sure, that's fine with me too. I do not really want to bother them.

My offer was really only because it would be easy to make them public for free and help out the collecting community, but I have no vested interest. I have my copy (which I use nearly every day building my collection), so I'm happy. If they ever want to sell new copies, I'll buy one of each from them.

-Melgamatic

I like the new uniform shirt a lot. To me, the fabric is a giant leap over the previous generation. My only negative feedback is that for a tall person such as myself, the tail of the shirt is not really long enough to stay tucked in. The shirt sizes are sort of strange, and the size that fit me previously is way too big, and the next size smaller is way too short.

-Melgamatic

In an earlier post, skeptic wrote "Reminded me of 1959 when I told my parents I wanted to go to Colorado Springs. They said, what does that cost. Cost, for going from So Cal where I lived, for our contingent, was $450, plus $50 estimated uniform expense, and any spending money; so, at the time, about $550."

Just for informational purposes, $550 in 1959 adjusted for inflation to 2007 is approximately $3872 (inflation data for 2008-2009 not available yet).

I believe this is more than the amount many scouts will spend this year.

Also, the $50 estimated uniform expense in 1959 is $351 today, and I believe you could be extremely well-geared for that amount even with new uniforms.

-Melgamatic

I was able to contact one of Joe Price's sons, who forwarded my email on to another son who was in charge of Joe's estate issues, but have not heard anything for the past 2 months or so.

-Dave

How much more mature are the boys going to be in the three months between March and the end of the school year?

Sounds like a crummy excuse; something else is going on!

Where we do agree is that the commercial PWD software seems so good, and is so reasonably priced ($59 for Grand Prix Race Manager, $49 for Derby Master) that this is a case when you might as well buy well-supported commercial software.

-Melg

I have two comments:

1) DerbyMaster is $49 and works great, so I'm not sure why I would suffer through a lesser freeware or shareware tool. If it was $200+, sure, but for $49 (and our pack has been using an old version for years, for our original $49) why bother.

2) The general comment made by gpraceman2:

> Well, as the adage goes, you get what you pay for.

> With commercial software you are not only paying for

> the license to use the software, you are also paying

> to get support if you have questions on using the

> software and especially if you run into any problems.

> Can you get that support with freeware or shareware?

> Possibly, but often times not.

I'll just say, that as a guy who runs 10's of thousands of computers running overnight modeling runs for trillions of dollars of securities, we use a lot of open source (aka free) software, because not only is it sometimes better, but the support we get from the developers (whom we do not pay) far outshines any support we get from commercial software (whom we do pay).

-Melg

Ha! I read this completely wrong:

> He had a scout who did his Eagle project send him a $1000.00 bill

> (for re embursement)

I read this as "the scout sent him a one thousand dollar bill to cover the expenses he had for the scouts project" - the kid was reimbursing the sponsor for his costs...

Not "the scout sent him an invoice for $1000 in order to recover the scout's expenses!" I couldn't figure out why everyone was so shocked!!

-Melg

The size of government, whether you look at it from a purely Federal viewpoint, or combined Fed/State/Local, is purely cyclic. If you look at the official data from the White House's Office of Management and Budget (table 17.5, it's called) you see that both went drastically down in Reagan's first years, then slightly up, finishing slightly above where he started.

Here's the Fed graph:

http://uucurl.com/x.php?p=2912

and here's the fed/state/local graph:

http://uucurl.com/x.php?p=2913

GWBush did better than I would have guessed, but I also believe that there is an extensive use of contractors throughout all of government that isn't reported here.

Reagan was the third best government shrinker in history, GWBush second place and Clinton first place. So both sides can feel good about it.

JFK oversaw the biggest growth, and certainly Obama is compared to him a lot (both positively and negatively), so it will be interesting to see what happens. I know that my local, county and state governments are all doing a lot of cutting now, and I don't think they're hiring a lot of contractors, so maybe that will offset any federal growth.

-Melg

I just finished my ticket, and my last step is to find a good event or location at which to have my beading. I'm not sure what to do. As a Cubmaster, I'm not so anxious to have a ceremony at the pack meeting. The training benefits the cub scouts, and that's why I took the course, but I'm already far more trained than the other leaders and I'm not so excited about taking up pack meeting time.

Our district already had their annual awards ceremony. Our roundtable gets only a few leaders each month, so I'm not really sure what do to.

So, especially for those of you who are either Cubmasters or not unit leaders, where did you hold your beading?

-Melgamatic (used to be a Beaver)

There is (was?) a Kahuna's Katalog of the Every Boys Library. First printing was in August, 1990. It has 538 pages, detailing every version of every book, so that means there were a lot!

I have a nice PDF copy of the KK of EBL, but I have been unable to get permission to freely distribute it, although I've been trying.

-Melg

A fun problem, but I think I recall this happening to many appointees on both sides of the aisle. I think unreported nannies are the most common reason for congressional rejection of both Democratic and Republican candidates.

I guess it would be easy to be cynical, but I think my opinion is that this is what happens when you have an absolute microscope on a moderately wealthy person's finances and taxes. I'm not sure anyone, even most middle class people, would survive the microscope without finding some minor (or major) issue.

The history of appointees for all major positions is full of this. It is not a Republic, Democrat, Liberal or Conservative problem.

-Melg

I know that even with our 3-year old aluminum Best Track, there are some lanes that are faster than the others. There is an easy solution: run all the cars in all the lanes. We have a 6-lane track, so each car races 6 times. We have around 50 cubs, but we start at 9am and are done before noon, staging each set of races every 45 minutes with the tiger cubs starting first (and then they can leave if they want or need to).

I know lane 6 is more bumpy, and lane 2 is very fast. Doesn't matter.

Their overall score is the average of their 6 races. DerbyMaster takes car of setting up the races and doing the math, so it's mostly a matter of someone sitting at the computer calling out the cars, and someone carefully lining them up. We also setup an overhead LCD projector with the scores so that people don't have to crowd the scoring area. You can see it from anywhere in the room.

-Melgamatic

I received my invite early this week, and at this point I think I will attend and bring my wife and 10-year old son with me for a nice western vacation. My sister moved to Denver and we haven't visited her there, so we'll go a few days early and then drive down.

The point about not attending a session you know a lot about is very interesting. I was planning to attend the Cubmaster sessions, but I'm very comfortable with that topic already, so maybe I need to try something different. I'm having lunch with our Council SE next week, and maybe he'll have a suggestion for me.

I never made it to Philmont in my short time as a boy scout, so I'm excited about finally getting there and also getting my son at early peek. Does anyone who has brought their spouse or children to a PTC session have any advice or recommendations about that?

Thanks, Melg

There is an easy way to deal with people like this: push them hard into getting more involved. It either turns them around and gets them onto your side, or they can't take it and leave. If the third possibility happens, where they refuse to help but stay in the pack, it puts you on firm ground to say "I asked you to help me, now shut up."

If he joins up he has to take the training, maybe drinks a little of the koolaid, understands better where you are coming from.

I think this guy is your next ACM.

-Melgamatic

There are four great Kahunas Katalogs. Cub Scout Literature, Every Boy's Library, Merit Badge booklets and Boy Scout Handbooks. They are each extremely detailed extensive catalogs of all the various editions, printings, versions, etc, with all the tiny little differences listed, etc. For example, a 1915 Every Boy's Library version of the Boy Scout Handbook came in two minor variations, with some text on the spine being very slightly different typesize (7.5mm vs 8.5mm). For serious collecting they are must haves, along with the Fisk and Bearce book.

I'd love to publish them freely on the web, but no one seems to be comfortable with that idea without clearance from Joe Price's family, and I don't have that (although I haven't tried very hard).

-Melgamatic

Perfect! Got exactly what I need.

Thanks, Melgamatic

For our pack meeting this coming Friday night, as a gathering activity, we have 50 nice sets of rope segments, but need a nice single page knot tying reference that I could photocopy and hand out. Can anyone point me to a nice free cub scout level knot tying card on the web?

Thanks in Advance,

Melg