moxieman

evmori wrote: "The boxes of GS cookies I buy have two sleeves of cookies for $4. A lot more than 12" It depends on which one you buy. Your best values are the shortbread and thin mints (which have two sleeves and roughly 30 or so cookies), but some of the others have a lot less--girls around here last year were offering animal cracker-type cookies but square with an animal depicted on oneside with the other side dipped in chocolate--12 in the box for $4. Some of the others like the peanut butter filled ones come 15 to a box. Along the same lines, there are different amounts/types o

Yes, it's expensive. So aren't Girl Scout Cookies (in some of those packages, you're buying as few as 12 cookies for $4). So isn't any other fundraiser you encounter--most candy bar fundraisers have a 50% mark-up--the seller's organization keeps half and the other half is the cost of the product. Roughly 67-70% of that popcorn prices stays in your local council, the rest is the actual cost of the product (including shipping to your local area). Of that, roughly half goes to the unit that sells it (depending on the council) and the other half goes to council. So, they could drop the pr

There are always a few units like this. At our Klondike Derby, I operate the "Claim Jumper" station--scout trivia based on advancement requirements. Get a question right, score a nugget. Get a question wrong and loose a nugget. Advancement questions are based on the highest ranking member of the "patrol", which "levels" the playing field. The Tenderfoots do a lot better then the Lifes and Eagles. (chuckle) Even when I toss the same question at both rank groups. Probably 'cause it's the material is more fresh to the Tenderfoots. Then again, MacGyver was only a Tenderfoot scout.

I took a picture of a a wood burned sign at a regional Canadian Jamboree many years ago. That sign belongs to the First Lancaster Baptist Troop of St. John, New Brunswick., Canada, which they hang up at ALL of their functions: "All the Decisions around here are made by volutneers. So, don't criticize UNLESS you are willing to take their place." I had problem parents like this a few times. I simply offered to remove my badge of office and give it to them. Obviously, they can do a better job, if the job I'm doing isn't good enough, right? Said problem parents would quickly back pe

Sigh, don't you love it when your system hiccups?!

Pine Tree Council (southwestern Maine) does theirs in November. I'd love to see them move it to February. Why? Because that is when the food pantries hurt the most. Everyone thinks of them during the holidays, but everyone immediately forgets them after the first of the new year. Feb to March tends to be the toughest times for the food pantries. Remember, it's not about the weather, its about helping those in need and their needs don't end when the holidays do.

Pine Tree Council (southwestern Maine) does theirs in November. I'd love to see them move it to February. Why? Because that is when the food pantries hurt the most. Everyone thinks of them during the holidays, but everyone immediately forgets them after the first of the new year. Feb to March tends to be the toughest times for the food pantries. Remember, it's not about the weather, its about helping those in need and their needs don't end when the holidays do.

Well, in my case, after serving as SM for five years in a true boy-led unit, there were some...how to say this politely...ego problems with some other adults in the unit. The problems got to the point that no matter what I tried to do, it wasn't right in their eyes. I just couldn't work with them anymore. Gave my scouting resume (http://home.gwi.net/~moxieman/scoutresume.pdf) to the troop committee and said I can't work with Scouter John anymore. I've tried this, this, and this. Here's my scouting resume. You decide: get rid of him or loose me, for if you keep him this troop will fold wi

Update: I have obtained a Plymouth. I am still looking for Lubbock.

John-in-KC wrote: ACTIVITY... NOT FIELD. They botched it again. Tooth of Time Traders has activity pants from Columbia already. http://www.toothoftimetraders.com/philmont/ We need stuff that qualifies for the Class A uniform. Yup, I guess they goofed again. Not only does Tooth of Time Traders have'em already. They've have had them since at least 2004 (saw'em while attending a training conf then). At that time, they were selling faster/hotter then Philmont Belts. You'd think National would take a hint, especially one that would be VERY PROFITABLE for them. (shrug) Oh we

FScouter, please see my earlier response in this thread. The UP is shorthand for Uniform Police--ie, the segment of the "rules book quoters" who are sticklers for exact and proper uniforming no matter what. I have personally encountered some in my home council who use a tapemeasure during a uniform inspection in their unit to ensure all insigna was properly placed.

Madockawanda Lodge, Pine Tree Council, is charging $850 to go. This covers all transportation (combination of plane and train), side trips, lodging before/after NOAC and all but a couple of meals in Chicago (touring before NOAC if I recall). Fee does not include the uniforms you need (if you don't have a few already). Our lodge has one slot left (as of 6/30). Alas, I don't have $850 I can spare--it's all going in the heating oil tank for next winter.

The UP (Uniform Police for any 'newbies' on the forum) will roast you alive for this. If a member of the UP in your area complains, respond with "A Scout Is THRIFTY." Especially, when many scouts don't even own uniform pants or shorts, despite the requirement in many units to have a Full Uniform for the board of review. I know many an Eagle Candidate who don't own uniform pants/shorts, who scramble to borrow a pair for that BoR. Attention UP: I'm all for Full Uniforming. When I was at the unit level, our unit had a uniform bank to help with this. Now that I'm at the distr

Listen to orennoah--allowing your boys to buy personal gear can be a violation of non-profit status for your unit or worse, your unit's sponsoring organization--good way to have your charter yanked and remember, none of your "unit's" gear or money is really your unit's. IT ALL BELONGS TO THE CHARTER ORGANIZATION! I learned this the hard way with one unit I was helping back in my college days--we were down to two adult leaders, myself and another college student. Chartered org yanked the charter. We found another unit for our 8 boys to join, but the old unit's sponsor (chartered organiz

Thank you for all your suggestions. I plan to pass these onto the Key Three and the rest of the District Committee. However, there are a few things I feel I need to respond to as I was a bit vague in areas of my post. Scoutldr, I should ahve been a bit more specific about the population demographics in regards to our district. It is two hours north-south. Kennebec Valley District stretches from 20 miles of the state capital (Augusta) to the Quebec Province Border. However, the majority of our units are within 40 miles of Augusta. In the past we've rotated the event within that 4

Thanks again for the trade, Kaji. Guess I need to update the link since I updated the website, changed the link and forgot to note the change. (chuckle) My "new and improved" patch trading website is at: http://home.gwi.net/~moxieman/patches/

This past week we had our end of the year district meeting to discuss what has gone well and what could be improved at district events. One of our biggest challenges is getting the volunteers to attend the District Recognition Dinner. I know one of our problems is that we are a very large district area-wise (over 2 hours north to south and close to an hour east-west). So, to be fair, we rotate the location of the event to a different part of the district each year. Our district's population is large enough that we are allowed to award up to four District Award of Merit awards per y

Stevejb, I was just crossing over from scout to scouter 20 years back. At that time, 2-deep leadership was required, but it was a new requirement. 20 years from now I forsee that the BSA will be renamed "Scouts USA" as it will be completely coed by then (from my understanding, we're one of only a small handful of nations that doesn't have a completely coed scouting program). The Handbook will continue to be watered down as it has been over the past 20 years (can anyone find references to 'old communication styles' like semaphore or morse code in the past two editions?). Open fires on c

Back when I was a scoutmaster, our feeder pack had a really exciting crossing ceremony down to Fort Halifax Park in Winslow, Maine. This is at the confluence of two rivers, the Kennebec and the Sebasticook (Sah-bast-eh-cook). Fort Halifax was built as a combination protection outpost and trading post in the mid-1700's. Prior to that it was the site of a Native American village. Benedict Arnold and his men spent a night here on their (failed) expedition to ccapture Quebec City during the American Revolution. The pack obtained permission from the town to build a temporary fire pit near

Area-wise, Kennebec Valley District is one of the largest districts in the northeast. One of the ways we help get the word out to units of upcoming events is the District Email Newsletter. I'm the current "Keeper of the List" and newsletter editor. Volunteers who sign up are BCC'd in the email to protect their privacy. At the beginning of the monthly "E-Letter" is a quick disclaimer explaining why they're receiving it and how to unsubscribe from the list. We do our list the old-fashion way--"manually". Only I and the Key Three (except the DE who doesn't want a copy) have access to a

I've heard nothing of the sort (yet), and if it comes down to that, then we volunteers will probably still keep our website up. The webhosting is paid for by an "anonymous" benefactor, all maintainence is by volunteers and we can get out district info much easier (and cheaper) through it. Especially when we are a rural district that is larger area wise then CT and RI. http://www.kv-scouts.org The only 'run-in' we've had with council has been over youth pictures. After a year of asking them to send us the regs in writing we finally got them. By their policy, youth photos maybe pos

I am one of two webmasters for our district website. Most of the HTML/javascript work is the other webmaster's doing. Be sure to check out our virtual camp patch blanket under Camp Bomazeen on the drop down menu. http://www.kv-scouts.org

Our Lodge hosts a service night every week during summer camp. Participants receive a service corp patch which changes every year. This summer, the Lodge is also offering the Brotherhood ceremony every week of camp for the first time in many years. For the past several years, one could only seal their membership during the Ordeal weekends.

"The thing I don't like about it is that they tend to live on their own "scouting island" and don't really build relationships with other units." That's the same observation I had about that Texas unit. They never participated in district events either.

To the various badge police: I didn't say I have the purple loops myself. You won't find'em on my uniform. But I am a minority voice within this council. You're welcome to hunt these scouts/leaders down at NOAC. After all, it's "Outside the council".