Mike Long

there is nothing wrong with either kind of scouting experiences. I feel the troop should offer a variety of experiences for ALL the boys in the troop.

Exactly right, but the real issue isn't high Adventure it is the very distinct possibility of the boy's troop becoming nothing more a vehicle to accomdate two families at the expense of everyone else.

The two trips you described should not have been open to all members of the unit, they should have been high adventure activities IN ADDITION to the normal troop program available to Scouts who qualify for the "extra" trips. If high adventure never happens you should not find your troop activity calendar suddenly empty.

Anyone who knows anything about outdoor leadership knows that the goal of high adventure is to set and achieve personal goals and not to force kids to endure pain and drudgery. I'm guessing that the boys didn't have much input into planning these trips and didn't train accordingly if there was such a drop off rate.

Kids can do anything as long as they plan and prepare appropriately.

But we are getting away from the real issue, and that issue is a troop that is considering putting an adult into a position of great responsability that doesn't appear to have the best interests of the entire troop in mind. That issue needs to be addressed in committee but I think OGE has the best plan. Venture patrol ASM.

That being said I (and the boys in our troop) wanna go camping as much as possible.

It is not possible to camp too much but it is possible to lose focus on the aims and methods of Scouting if all you do is concentrate on camping and not on being Boy Scouts who camp.

This year:

25 nights available for all troop members (4 nights lost to trips that fell through)

32 if you are in the venture patrol (add 1 week high adventure this year but we usually aim for 2)

42 if you are a venture patrol member and OA (add 4 OA weekends and a section conference)

Me: 55 planned (including my personal trips.)

I don't follow you.

If he is a Life and has held a POR for 6 months as Life then the requirement for Eagle has been satisfied.

All the requirements (other than merit badges) is in his Scout handbook. If it's not written in the BSA handbook it ain't a requirement.

Could they have been referring to his Eagle project?

Re-reading I don't see anything specific but the intent is clear.

It's one thing to ask someone to leave a troop over a difference of opinion/personal conflict but to then verbally abuse a minor, interfere with creating a new troop and then trying to boot them from scouting on a district and council level indicates that highly negative things were communicated about ASM1 to many other people.

I'm not a lawyer but if things are as communicated I don't see how ASM1's reputation isn't being attacked and trashed.

There isn't reasonable arguement against putting the full scout catalog online other than cost. Cost can easily be overcome.

Ecommerce engines can be built as secure as you like with as many safeguards as you like. I do it everyday.

The BSA has http://www.scoutstuff.org but you can't order online. It's just brochureware, all look and no function.

Frankly I don't see why almost everything isn't online.

I hate going the legal route on almost anything.

BUT

Defamation of Character is worth sueing over.

I see the same things as Yaworski and he's dead on target on all counts.

It's the hands on stuff that boys want and it will happen as fast as you can push to make it happen.

Here's a suggestion.

Offer to run meeting yourself, preferably as soon as possible.

Get the SPL and his ASPL (and any other junior leaders you might need too) together and get them to help you teach a skill. Let's say primitive fire building. Bow drill, hand drill and flint and steel. Each one of you take a patrol and work on a method. Later you can have races to see what patrol can do each method fastest in a string burn competition. Heck you can even have the patrols build their own kits.

You can buy ready made kits from http://www.hollowtop.com/hopsstore_html/bowdrill.htm

Or you can just make them yourself.

I'm doing that this month, I'll let you know how it goes.

Another suggestion.

The most successful meeting in recent memory was when we buildt pepsi can alcohol stoves at a meeting.

Click on my profile and go to our troop site. On the links page under gear there is a link to the plans we used.

Break out a dutch oven and bake a cake at a meeting.

Just do stuff and they will be interested.

Say, did anyone notice that Greg Shields the BSA national spokesman stated that the Scoutmaster has the final say on who can be a member of a unit?

Member removal has been discussed ad nauseum here and elsewhere and the answer that is always presented to me is that it is up to the COR and Chartering Org. as final authority on membership in a unit.

I'm guessing it was a gaff but it illustrates the disparate levels of knowledge about the program among members and paid staff.

OGE, very true. My current favorite quote is "What you are doing is so loud that I can't hear what you are saying."

FScouter the troop held a baby shower for us and they all pitched in and bought us a baby backpack. One of those hefty Kelty models for backcounty use.

ASM7 that is exactly the way we see it, a gift from God. The Scouts were parenting JLT. Laurel is my Woodbadge. Oh yeah, look around the site, my photo is in there.

Tiny it's so very good to see you posting again. I was wondering where you were.

Mom and baby are home now. Let the wild rumpus start.

I never said ADD didn't exist. I know for a fact it does. However in all the cases that walked through our troop I failed to see anything that constituted a medical condition.

Good for you Sctmom and son!

Personally it has been my experience that every single Scout that I have ever seen that I knew was diagnosed as ADD (or any other permutation of those letters) was a perfectly normal boy. Some are more active than others, that's all, and it certainly isn't worthy of all the hubbub and medical classification. Some of us just learn differently.

Feel free to disagree but that's my experience, maybe yours are different.

Yaworski (as you obviously know) it's just another case of either incompetence or indifference. Seen it before many times as have my parents who are both teachers. My mom was told I was unteachable and they should consider putting me in a home. That weekend my mom taught me everything that the teacher had taught the class in three months. So much for unteachable.

Unfortunately the many great teachers out there get eclipsed by the few outrageously bad ones.

Thanks everyone.

OGE I'm flattered. Stop it, I'm blushing.

Once again, Bob sees the big picture.

Guess who her first non-family visitor was?

My Senior Patrol Leader and his mom, the Troop Treasurer.

Scouting IS a family. I now have 1 daughter and 40 sons. Luckily I only have to foot the food bill for the daughter.

1. People hate to be told that they are "doing it wrong." People hate it even more when they ARE doing it wrong and it is pointed out by another. Bob is passionate and persistent about the program and that sometimes is perceived as annoying or rude by some. Bob also is very knowledgeable and some may feel that he is talking down to them when in fact Bob is trying to SHARE his knowledge. Some people hate change and when the scouting program changes from the way it was presented to then as a boy they seem to feel that it is an attack on the scouting experience that they remember so fondly.

Bob has irritated me greatly in the past on some subjects but I read his posts and looked up his citations and spoke to others with a similar level of experience and you know what? He's right, he has proven he's right and he doesn't need to prove squat to me again (but I appreciate being told where to find the citations.) I will conceed however that there are elements of the current Scouting program that to me seem to be optional or at the very least dependent on the circumstances of the unit in question. We do the best we can with what we have to work with.

For all the "by the book" commentary. We have been in existence for nearly 100 years. We plan, implement, review, discard, modify and innovate elements of the Scouting program constantly and re-write all of the Scouting literature on a constant basis. The end result is "The Book." And yet some of us think that adhereing to the end result of 100 years of field tested and reviewed program material is a bad thing? Can you possibly be serious? Do you also like to hand crank your car and go to the barber for bloodletting because you believe that those techniques are superior to currect practices?

2. Because despite the negative things said about him by a vocal minority, others notice that Bob is a man of Scouting experience and knowledge that is here to help others become the same.

BTW- The BSA did abandon camping in the 70's (or close enough to abandoning it for me). It failed, we revised and went forward. All part of that 100 years of field tested and reviewed program material I was talking about.

UPDATE:

Once again please allow me to share my happiness with my brothers and sisters in Scouts.

Unto this day a child is born.

August 27th, 10:23am.

Laurel Rose Long (a girl you silly geese!)

delivered by C-section

5lbs 15ozs

19inches long

Another brief description and photo.

http://www.troop623.com/

Good God am I tired and my wife was the one doing all the work. But wait, there's more.

You're a good man, better than most.

Hats off to you and best of luck.

I would like to know how common it is to be a scouter without a youth in the program.

In my area it is rare. I used to get funny/suspicious looks when Scouters found out I was actually an adult vounteer and not a youth. In the troop I have been with for the last 8 years I have been the only one until this year when two of our Eagles turned 18.

I just want to teach the Scout Oath and Law and provide a better Scouting experience than I had and I think I had a fantastic Scouting experience. Thanks Dad.

I've heard most of those and was occasionaly guilty of one of two but we learn, correct and go forward.

That is correct Eagle90.

Our roundtables are the same as Sctmoms.

My guess would be no.

That's it? Nothing more?

Just, "Hello Mr. New SM here. Get out of the troop. Bye"?

I fail to see how anyone in the troop could support your removal without some sort of reason. You need to find out what those reasons are.

Please correct me if I didn't notice this but have you sat down one on one with the Scoutmaster and asked him point blank what his problem is with you? Exactly how heated did your post summer camp discussion get?

I would think that before this goes any deeper that you and he need to sit down and have a talk.

Either I'm missing the point of FCFY or some of you are.

I thought the whole point of FCFY was to build a quality, exciting and fun scout program that gives first year scouts the OPPROTUNITY to EARN first class in one year. No to assure that 100% of them get first class in one year.

If they don't make First Class then get to work. Need help with anything?

True.

I'm sorry, this should have been a new thread.