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moxieman

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Everything posted by moxieman

  1. Quote: "Not to mention the "feat" of finding registered MBC for every badge." That may not be as hard for a scout in an urban area like Houston as compared to someone in a rural area like up here in the Maine Wilderness.
  2. Greetings from Kennebec Valley District, Pine Tree Council, Maine. As I have posted before in other threads, KV District is the second largest district area-wise in the northeastern USA, covering roughly 6,660 square miles (larger than Rhodes Island & Connecticut combined). This makes us slightly larger than the original poster's (xlpanel's) district. We have a little more population due to the state capital being in the southern part of our district, which stretches from 20 miles south of the state Capital (Augusta) to the Quebec border. We have roughly 40 troops with an average size
  3. I agree with John-in-KC. Something doesn't add up here. Why would national spend so much $$$ on putting out a brand new handbook when the rank requirements in it will be changed again only a few months after the requirements in the new handbook take effect? The only change I see on page 438 to Star Rank is a few new positions of responsibility to choose from. Haven't got the new handbook yet? You can download the requirements from the companion website: http://www.bsahandbook.org Click on Table of Contents then click on Rank Requirements Scroll down and click on the Star
  4. Been there, done that as some others have said. Many of them have great advice. I was in your situation back in my college days 20 years ago, except my college was out-of-council. I maintained registration with my home unit as they understood that my time would be limited with them (but appreciated when I was available). I also signed on with the unit in my college town, which understood the demands of college and were quite happy to simply have an extra "warm" body on some weekend events, even if that driver simply had to disappear to some quite corner to study while the scouts went o
  5. My Insignia guide is a bit out-of-date, but I doubt this has changed much. Knots are to be worn centered above the left pocket. Emphasis on centered. So, if you have a row of two, they would be centered. So a row of three on the bottom and then a row of two centered above those like the steps of a dais.
  6. As others have said, it depends. We have had shooting sports at some camporees. It depends on the theme, where the camporee is located, is there a safe place to set-up said shooting sport and is one of our council's few rangemasters available (ie, did we beat the other four districts to asking him/her). Webelos have been allowed at our camporees, but only as a guest of a troop and with proper leadership. We are a very large area-wise rural district. Usually if there is a shooting range, we're out in the middle of no-where and very few Webs will show-up. As I'm usually involve
  7. Well, I don't have the most "recent" printing of the 11th Ed to compare to. I have the third printing. I see several changes and/or rewording in rank requirements between the two. I know some of these were added in the past couple of years. Some examples: Scout Spirit is now better defined for all ranks. EDGE appears in Tenderfoot AND Life requirements. Swimming Requirements for Second Class and First Class can NO LONGER BE WAIVED by the troop committee. Leave No Trace is required for Second Class You no longer need to light a fire for Second Class. I assume this is a nod to
  8. moxieman

    New items

    "There's also an ad in the back of the issue: buy $50 worth on scoutstuff.org, plug in a special offer code, and get a new handbook for free" Well, that's a bummer. National just took over our local scout shop at the council office. From my understanding, it was a better deal for council. If I had known of this when I was down there today, I could have bought a couple more items and not paid for the handbook. Our council just updated the standard CSP. This is the first update to the regular/standard CSP since 1981. I wonder if any of our reps who are on their way to NOAC got som
  9. "Flatlandah": Tourist in Maine, regardless of where outside of Maine they are from. I couldn't resist after seeing the term in this thread. Alas, your event is too far away for us "Yankees".
  10. Our Council Camp, and the camps adjacent to our council are five full days of programming: Monday through Friday. You check-in Sunday afternoon. You check-out Saturday Morning. When I was in graduate school in Lubbock, TX, one of South Plains Council's two summer camps, Camp Tres Ritos is up in the Pecos Wilderness at an elevation of about 9,000 ft in the mountains, roughly 20 miles east of Taos, NM. They follow a similar schedule to Philmont, which is a modified 4 day program: Arrive/check-in is on Sunday. You're welcome to arrive on Saturday, but you're on your own for food unt
  11. Rather than an out-right ban or requesting people not take pictures at our ceremonies, I've heard those conducting the ceremony state: "Please be respectful of this ceremony. NO FLASH PICTURES."
  12. I recall reading this somewhere in national BSA documents at one time, but can't find it now. I had looked it up back around 2000 to present to the committee of the troop I was SM in at that time as the troop was sending a small contingent to the 2001 Canadian Jamboree (6 scouts, two leaders) and we needed new tents or to get the current tents refurbished. The committee I had to deal with (not work with, but deal with) was very tight with money and it took things like this to get equipment repaired or upgraded. It's not like the troop was hurting for funds--they had over $3K in the troop sav
  13. I missed this thread back in Nov. I'm glad, diogenes, that your scouts will be able to have a summer camp experience this year. That Texas Law you quoted helps explain something I wondered about 15 years back when I was in graduate school in Lubbock, TX (South Plains Council). One of the units in the city held its own summer camp on a ranch that belonged to a relative of one of the leaders out in Oklahoma every summer. The troop in question was the largest in the council at the time and ranked #6 nationally with over 120 registered/active youth. The excuse I heard from that unit a
  14. Eamonn, you are not the only person out there who does not own Thriller or any other MJ album. However, my folks own a working player piano and a Micheal Jackson Medley player piano roll put out by the QRS company at about that time. It has "Beat It" and "Billie Jean" on it. QRS still exists, still makes player piano rolls, but mostly concentrates on electronic player pianos these days that play cd/DVD's. No, seriously. http://www.qrsmusic.com/ I don't follow Twitter. I do some blogging, but not much through LiveJournal (moxie_man), but only 'cause several friends migrated over
  15. As I am not currently active at the unit level, I can't state when my unit meets as I don't have one. As I'm active at the district level, I know that the majority of our units meet on a weeknight. There is one unit that is unique among them. They don't meet during basketball season at all (most of the winter) because most of the troop *IS* the school basketball team for that town. It's a small town of 700 people on the Canadian border. The troop has roughly 24 youth or almost every eligible-age boy in town. This year's high school graduation class had 14 students. Their combine
  16. Two fall into the category of hardest for different reasons: Archery MB, which took two summers for me to complete. I had a 'handicap' the first summer. A day into camp, I had an accident involving a flying flaming marshmallow and the palm of the hand of my bow arm. Had a bandaged 2nd degree burn the rest of the week. Second summer, I obtained completed it with a qualifying score during a tropical storm. No, seriously. Five minutes after I finished, the winds picked-up and knocked over all the targets. Emergency Prepardness MB (I was a poor swimmer, so Swimming/Livesaving were
  17. Okay...now this is bizarre. I just logged back into the profile area to attempt again, and my profile was updated. But when you click continue, it stays stuck in the profile section. (shrug) Computers and I have never gotten along. VigilNavy: I went through my Ordeal at Bomazeen in '84. Brotherhood at Camp Post, South Plains Council in '94 (was in grad school at time and agreed to seal my membership if younger bro made Eagle--he pulled it off with 4 hours to spare), Vigil at Bomazeen in '07. Madockawanda will be hosting Conclave this year, the second full weekend in June at C
  18. I attempted to update my profile and receive the following error message: "Microsoft OLE DB Provider for ODBC Drivers error '80040e14' [Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver] Line 1: Incorrect syntax near ','. /members/modify/process2.asp, line 19 " Should I try again later, or does someone need to look at the database?
  19. GB: I hope all your adults either have passports or those new passport cards.
  20. From my understanding, that is Green Mountain Council's ONLY Boy Scout Camp. There is more info, including copies of the letters sent to leaders on GMC's website: http://www.scoutingvermont.org/ I heard about this about a week-and-a-half ago as the leaders of one of our very active troops is on staff at their Frontier Camp. They have been very busy scrambling to locate an alternate site for this summer. Matter-of-fact, he was off at some meeting in regards to that this weekend instead of at our camporee. I jokingly mentioned to said leader that he should try and suggest relo
  21. kahits, what GWD said. Unfortunately, unlike the Cub Scout level, there aren't a lot of adult awards for Boy Scout Troop Volunteers. I find it annoying. There should be something to recognize the adult leaders in your troop other than the training award. For example, the white square knot used for the SM Award of Merit started as a regional award for newer leaders and was called the "Why Knot": http://www.mninter.net/~blkeagle/cnclknot.htm Why "knot" offer something similar for ASMs and committee members? Anyway, enough ranting. There is one thing out there that you could use.
  22. It may be a year away, but that year will fly by fast. Good for you to plan ahead! As some of the others have said, get some Venturers from different crews involved in the planning. If you want the activities to be successful, what better way than to have those who want to do'em to plan'em?
  23. Eagle92, our district's oldest unit does likewise, but it's a combined town/state strip. They've been around continuously roughly 97 years.
  24. Excerpt from my LJ blog from last August upon the death of my scoutmaster, Phil Mason: ---- My very first hiking trip with the troop was to Baxter State Park. I had been in the troop less then 6 months and was definitely not ready to attempt to climb Katahdin, especially not up the near vertical Abol Slide Trail. A little less than half-way up, this very young 11 year old gave it up. Scouting rules were a little different back then. They allowed me to sit there and wait for them. I waited some four or five hours, but I obediently stayed put. I found myself climbing back down with Mr.
  25. What fgoodwin said. I went through my ordeal back in '84. The word mumbled to me sounded like the title from a '70's TV show about a family struggling to make a living in rural Virginia during the Great Depression. I didn't learn the proper way to pronounce/spell the admonition until I borrowed a new handbook at an ordeal work weekend, wrote down the word needed for the jump site and then went to the jump site. My old '84 handbook has an illustration on the page referenced on the website (chuckle).
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