Mike Long

In March we did two HA trips at the same time. Each designed for different ability levels.

The first was designed for our hard core older boys. A 59 mile 6 night backpacking trip through the Smoky Mountains.

The second was designed as an intro to HA. This group was a maintenance group. They started with a two day hike in the Smokies. Then met up with a backcountry ranger who taught them the principles of Leave No Trace and how to conduct trail and campsite construction and maintenance. They they went to work. They completed 23 water bars (to fight trail erosion) and built a new foot bridge on the Smokemont Loop Trail in the Great Smoky Mountains NP. We left some time for swimming and fishing too.

In the summer I hope to offer a week long canoe or raft trip on a river near us. (plenty of nice ones to choose from.)

Like many other issues it depends on who calls the shots in your area and how they read the rules. (Or if they have even read them) The G2SS does not prohibit it, so it's ok to take your boys. However, I believe there are many better activities to spend troop time on.

Our district substituted our yearly spring camporee for a lock in at a local arcade/mini-golf/go cart venue that included free laser tag for the boys and a troop Vs troop laser tag tourny.

We opted out of that district event as we did not see any correlation between scouting and a weekend at an arcade.

We view the lock-in and activities such as taking the troop to an amusement park as Bob described as "not being a responsible scout leader that is an abdication of responsibility."

The planning committee fell on its face when planning the camporee and rather than put the call out for help and salvage it or postpone it (Yes, we did volunteer before it fell apart and after and were told they had it covered both times) they abdicated their responsibility.

But, that is merely the opinion of myself, our committee and some of our scouts. Obviously our council and district disagrees with us.

The laser tagging Troop isn't wrong.

The real question here is "What kind of activities do you want your troop to engage in?"

Cinderblocks will do that to.

Keep all fire away from man-made stone.

In the real world people quit jobs they don't want and no-one can force them to stay. Same thing here, you can't force the boy to be SPL. However, I would give him a very frank assessment of his immaturity and poor judgement and its affect on the troop.

Elevating the ASPL simply follows the model of continuity of leadership that has been successfully in use in centuries in government, business and the military. Not only that, you cripple a ASPL by asking him to become the de facto SPL without the benefit of an assistant.

They voted, he quit, the assistant assumes the reponsabilities (with his own assistant) until the next election. I fail to see how it goes against the patrol method.

Why all the convolutions?

An ASPL is an assisstant to the SPL and takes the responsibilities when the SPL is absent. My current SPL was unable to be active for about a month and the ASPL filled in just fine. Just move the ASPL over and let him take charge. I fail to see any reason to re-vote or go without senior leadership. All that does is causes a mess and will toss a troop program into turmoil for at least a month.

I'd move the ASPL into the SPL position and have him appoint his new ASPL.

Marketing drives everything. For a while I had a bunch of guys drooling over Gregory's Denali Pro Expedition pack. Great pack if you are doing real expeditions. Gross overkill for any typical scout outing or high adventure. Marketing is designed to increase desire and the demographic our scout occupy is the most reasearched on the planet. They know what buttons to push.

Internals are good to whatever weight they are designed for.

I've had my terraplane up to 65 lbs and it was far more comfy than any external I have ever seen and I have used a lot of them. The key is to not carry that much weight and strain the pack, and you.

Equipment access depends on how you pack and how much stuff you like to get to when hiking. All I ever need access to is food and raingear. One trip is a great sample of the differences but a poor overall indicator as you need to learn how to work with the pack.

Internals to me are worth their weight in gold but I backpack constantly. (been out three times in the last six weeks) However I argue that scouts should get external packs until they know what they really want due to the cost and the "make do" mentality. The cost due to the low buy in associated with externals and the expense of buying internal packs to keep up with a wildly growing scout and "He'll grow into it" and "Making do" with an ill fitting pack is a very bad idea.

I've looked at a lot of the internals that "grow" and I have been dissapointed in the build. The suspensions all slip when you least can afford it. Mountainsmith particularly.

Ah yes, so it was. Thank you Zorn.

OGE your friend is correct. We rewrote the english language to be less "English" and more American. This included the spellings of words. Colour is now color ect. I'm not sure though if that is where we got the reef square disconnect but I would think it certainly contributed.

Daniel Webster spearheaded this effort if I remember correctly.

I won't leave the house without my knife. (swiss army) I've carried one everyday since I was 10. Yes, that includes to school too.

Most of our scouts carry them on scout functions but I have no idea about school. I assume not because they no longer allow kids to carry book bags any more.

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Benjamin Franklin

I won't leave the house without my knife. (swiss army) I've carried one everyday since I was 10. Yes, that includes to school too.

Most of our scouts carry them on scout functions but I have no idea about school. I assume not because they no longer allow kids to carry book bags any more.

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Benjamin Franklin

This is the first I've heard of this. Typical of our roundtable to keep us in the know.

$3 more for a year jammed full of cool scouting fun?

PPTTTHHHFFFF!

Please, that is nothing. You mean the parents can't say no to a pack of smokes, a beer or two, a sixer of soda or brown bag lunch once instead of fast food?

Even if they double the cost it is still the best value in youth programs anywhere.

Yep, that's what I expected, an attack that assumes the worst about me. Thanks.

So now I'm not compassionate, not understanding,not keeping the best interest of the boys at heart. Oh yes, I'm ignorant and want kids to die in the backcountry too (as added by another poster). Or maybe the medical forms I have are falsified to say ADD ADHD. It could be the case but those boys all seem to take their meds on time and if they don't, we still don't have a problem dealing with them. And where exactly did I say I wouldn't remind him frequently? Read again please.

Bob said it best.

If the medication is vital to their life then the youth needs to be capable of self-administering the meds or the parent should be in attendance.

What kind of parent leaves a child in the care of individuals without the proper training to adequately care for them?

I am not a doctor, a behavioural therapist, a psychologist, a pharmacist, a priest, a warden, an officer of the law. We also have NONE of those resources in our troop. We are people who want to provide the best scouting experiece we can for the scouts. My job as Scoutmaster, (as per the BSA), is to administer the BSA program properly and to abide by all BSA rules. And that is exactly what I do to the best of my ability.

I have seen Scouting volunteers sued into bankruptcy because of this very issue. To use your tone of post, obviously you haven't.

The BSA agrees with me, the COR agrees with me, the Troop Committee agrees with me, and the Parents agree with me. And that is all the justification I need.

The dues issue is irrelevent if the scout was current with his dues. If not then there might be a case.

If he earned the awards while a scout with dues current then he has paid for his awards.

You have the addresses of all scouts. A stamp won't break a troop.

I've built and used several and they work well. You can cook on them but their primary purpose is to boil water. Most backpacking food tends to be the boiled water variety and it works well for that. I have made pasta and fried eggs on mine but rice is tricky as you need to soak it first to reduce cook time and then boil to get it to heat. I like mine but I don't use it in very cold weather because then I want a stove that is a rocket. I have $500 in backpacking stoves and I now use a pepsi can. Go figure. Just be sure to practice with it before you go out.

I see no reason to even buy a commercially made product unless you are very short on time. If that was the case I'd go with the trangia set that comes with pots and everything. Just be aware that ALL homemade stoves boil faster and weigh less than the commercial units. One of the lightweight backpacking sites did a test a while back and confirmed this. Sorry, I can't remember when and where.

You definately need a windscreen to keep the heat where you want it.

Our troop builds them as part of our backpacking intruction. The kids enjoy it and the parents like the fact that they don't need to buy a $30+ stove.

We use the Scott Henderson design that Yaworski linked to. Mine brings 10oz of water to a boil in 5 min and has a total burn time of about 12-13 min using about an inch of denatured alcohol.

Exclusion is part of life.

Losing is part of life.

Being very good at what you do and being passed over is part of life.

Should life be this way? Well, sometimes yes and sometimes no. It depends on the situation. It is a noble effort to want to provide the best for all and every opprotunity for all but not practical. It is better to teach the scouts how to create opprotunities instead of handing them out.

If it really bothers you that boys aren't elected do you sit down with the boys who aren't elected and discuss it with them? Ask them why they think they weren't elected and discuss things they can do to maybe get elected next time? Maybe there is an issue you don't see as an adult that the boys do.

Now if you think that the adults should appoint scouts to OA then you open the same exact can of worms. "Why not me Mr. Scoutmaster? Timmy is in and nobody thinks he's a good scout and no-one likes him either."

I am quite content to leave this in the hands of the youth.

DOOH is the same child that posts every now and then, usually incoherent. He posted the same sentiments a while back. Still sounds like sour grapes.

Exclusion is part of life.

Losing is part of life.

Being very good at what you do and being passed over is part of life.

Should life be this way? Well, sometimes yes and sometimes no. It depends on the situation. It is a noble effort to want to provide the best for all and every opprotunity for all but not practical. It is better to teach the scouts how to create opprotunities instead of handing them out.

If it really bothers you that boys aren't elected do you sit down with the boys who aren't elected and discuss it with them? Ask them why they think they weren't elected and discuss things they can do to maybe get elected next time? Maybe there is an issue you don't see as an adult that the boys do.

Now if you think that the adults should appoint scouts to OA then you open the same exact can of worms. "Why not me Mr. Scoutmaster? Timmy is in and nobody thinks he's a good scout and no-one likes him either."

I am quite content to leave this in the hands of the youth.

DOOH is the same child that posts every now and then, usually incoherent. He posted the same sentiments a while back. Still sounds like sour grapes.

You have a problem that the scouts elect their own into OA cause you see it as a popularity contest but you are Ok with them voting for troop leadership.

Really? There isn't an aspect of popularity to leadership elections? Why no hue and cry to reform unit leadership elections? Why not have the adults appoint both? Think about it.

Also if your older guys are more interested in OA than your troop's program then that is a wake up call. Look at you program and the OA program and see what it is they like so much better about OA. What are you no longer offering them? And really, is it such a bad thing that they are interested in a different aspect of scouting?

When I was a scout the OA in my area was a dynamic service organization filled with scouts who were excited to be there and make grand things happen. It was much more exciting than a typical troop program.

The "In the South" thing is bigoted crap.

There is nothing that bars females from participating. I do know of some COs that prefer male leadership but none that ban females. (Other than the aformentioned Mormon units.)

If ladies shouldn't hear what comes out of a scouts mouth, then it should never come out of a scouts mouth. Period, end of discussion. There is no justification to allows kids to behave like cads and boors. Right on Benny.

Moms are more than welcome to attend any trip they feel confident enough to attend. I state it that way because the trips are planned to the scouts ability and comfort levels and not the parents. Some people (of both sexes) have a much higher comfort requirement than young boys.

And by the way, can we please quit bashing Mormons? They seem to continually be the convenient "Bad Guys" of the scouting movement.

The "In the South" thing is bigoted crap.

There is nothing that bars females from participating. I do know of some COs that prefer male leadership but none that ban females. (Other than the aformentioned Mormon units.)

If ladies shouldn't hear what comes out of a scouts mouth, then it should never come out of a scouts mouth. Period, end of discussion. There is no justification to allows kids to behave like cads and boors. Right on Benny.

Moms are more than welcome to attend any trip they feel confident enough to attend. I state it that way because the trips are planned to the scouts ability and comfort levels and not the parents. Some people (of both sexes) have a much higher comfort requirement than young boys.

And by the way, can we please quit bashing Mormons? They seem to continually be the convenient "Bad Guys" of the scouting movement.

Nope, not gonna do it.

I'm never going to be responsible for anothers medications.

I'm also not going to allow others to browbeat me into doing so.

"But he won't take it."

Sorry, it's called personal responsibility. Remembering to take medications is something that needs to be learned at home and brought into the woods, not the other way around. Welcome to Boy Scouts son, time to learn a new skill. I'll remind him (frequently) but that's it.

I'd question the person who signed the book and not the scout. Judging by your description of the activities and the cooking requirement it sounds like it's something that needs to be looked at.

If those are the only things your troop and his patrol has done then he hasn't completed the requirement, not only because of the total number of activities but that three of them need to be overnight campouts.

The requirement does state that activities that are "Troop/patrol" are acceptable. Maybe his patrol did some activities other than meetings that you aren't aware of.

I've done the bike trip thing before.

The adults sat in base camp while the patrols went out trail riding. Each patrol not only had their PL but also had a older Scout from the Venture patrol with them. (The new scout patrol had two.) All PLs and Ventures had radios and were required to check in every hour or when they started or finished a trail. All scouts were required to regroup at the campsite if they were seperated and times were set for lunch and dinner. The park had about 12 bike trails and we knew were the scouts were at all times. It worked out fine. The Scouts had a good time, the adults had a good time, the youth leadership flexed their leadership skills, and they made us adults very happy with the maturity they showed.

Train them right and let them run.

I guess I'm a freak.

As a kid I quit everything else to be a scout. I wore my uniform without embarrassment. Frankly as a kid I saw those who were embarrassed to be seen in the uniform as spineless and I told them so. Unscoutlike? Maybe, but be proud of who you are.

Amen Rooster.

Well, from what I know of you from this board you will make an excellent Scoutmaster that any troop would be lucky to have.

Welcome to the "What did I just do?" club.

I greet you with the secret sign of slapping my palm against my forehead. ;-)