Gone

Les Stroud says, "Nothing is more useful in a survival situation than a good, heavy-duty multi-tool."

I would say anything between James Bond's diving knife in Dr. No and this....

An Accident Report?

I see it too but when I click Edit Profile it takes me to another screen. Clicking through the tabs I don't see any where to edit gender. Maybe I need to move to California so the government can pay for it?

We have the same issue. I had a response ready to post here but decided to avoid the "thread jack" and start a new thread around how to manage food allergies and dietary restrictions in the cooking and meal planning process. New thread here.

In the Forbidden Fruit thread the issue of food allergies and restrictions came up. This got me wondering: How do you deal with scouts with food or dietary restrictions in your menu/cooking process? In my unit we have found a few issues: Scouts that have religious food restrictions, usually to beef and/or pork. This is usually solved by simply substituting chicken as the protein. We don't have any strict vegetarians yet (except one adult) so we haven't needed to address that. If that were to happen we would work with the patrol (and the affected scout's family) to find recipes that were vegetarian to which a protein could be added for the rest of the patrol. Scouts that have allergies to one food (usually peanuts, dairy or shellfish). To manage this we make sure that the patrols all know what the menu restriction is. We encourage them to check the labels of all packages they buy for any indication that the food they are buying was processed in a facility with peanuts. We also work with the affected scout's family to get a list of brand name foods which they usually; this makes it easier on the grub master. We work with the scouts on their cooking process. For example, if you have a Jewish scout you don't go cooking the eggs in the same pan you just cooked the smoked pork bacon. These are the most common issues we have run in to. Anyone run in to any others? If so, how do you address them?

An innovative SPL took a page out of our cooking MB class and created a "Top Chef" competition. Every camp out he pulls several recipes from the troop cook book. PLs then come up during menu planning and pull a recipe out of the hat. They are welcome to substitute items but need to keep the general spirit of the recipe intact. It varies from main courses to desserts, but it is mixed up each month. Cooks may submit their meal to the SPL (or his designee) for "judging". The winner(s) get a leather doggle they can wear. This has become a troop tradition....all started by an innovative SPL.

We have our troop historian keep up the troop cook book. It is a pdf file we keep which the boys can consult any time.

Before I arrived we had pop tarts, hot dogs and a whole slew of things that were "cooked" for meals. Rather than ban foods we laid down challenges and awards for best meals. Over time this got the guys away from the lousy food and heading towards better food. This last camp out patrols actually opted for more one-pot meals and DO meals. One patrol actually asked for a new menu plan because they saw they had too many "easy" meals" and wanted to start again.

In my state, despite liberal conceal-carry laws, if you show up on church property (assuming the CO was a church) it is a big no-no. Worse if the CO is a school. We cannot even bring firearms in for our safety demonstration without going through miles of paperwork with the CO.

In the past I have worked with non-profits. Their management is, well, leaves much to be desired. Sometimes you get real gems who are great at communicating. Other times you get folks who are more confusing than a teenage girl's logic (apologies to my niece). Sad thing is when you try to volunteer to make things better, they never take you up on it. That is why place like this exist....we get a triangulated point of view, and that REALLY helps! In the end the folks that benefit from this the most are the scouts....and that is all that matters.

Gotta say, this SW is by far the best that has been used recently. Pretty intuitive. Good features. Well done!

Just heard that at the last camp out....new Scout told it and received the usual "let's laugh at the new Scout's joke we've heard 100 times" laugh. Glad the boys were welcoming and not otherwise. Is it "Arrrrrrr"?

Because BSA is less strict then even pirates. The code is more like "guidelines".

Pretty easy to post screen shots: Use your keyboard to print screen. Varies based on your PC but usually Fn (function) and "Prnt Scrn". Sometimes it's Alt and the "print screen" key. Open any graphics program. Control-V to paste. Crop or edit as you need to. Save the file as a png or jpg. Go to www.imgur.com. Upload the picture (browse desktop, select file, upload). No account necessary. Imgur will show you the uploaded picture. Click on the picture and the URL at the top will be the location of your graphic. Copy the URL. Come back here and, using the advanced editor, select the picture icon and paste the URL. Save and post. That should do it. Let me know if you have any problems. You can PM me and happy to help.

Just in case my post above is not clear, here is the arrow to click to toggle the editor bar from hide and unhide....

Stosh, it sounds like you are seeing this? If this is what you are seeing, go to my post above and click on that arrow on the right. That will hide and unhide the editor bar.

Not sure that works. In the tools guidelines. You have a sentence where the term "guidelines" is clearly meant as a directive. "Manufacturers’ literature and age and skill restrictions shall supersede the recommendations on the chart below. If there is a conflict, leaders shall follow the most restrictive guidelines." For the average Scouter, they'd be best served treating any BSA doc as the minimum requirements and, as shown above, if there are other directions, policies, guidelines which are more safe (e.g., manufacturer directions, Coast Guard guidelines, etc.) they should use those.

Stosh, does this help?

Yup it works quite well. If you click on the little switch next to the eraser icon in the upper left of the edit window it will toggle between normal and html. The script for bold is [ b ]text[ /b ] but without any spaces. Hope that helps.

LOL....no worries. There's no controversy. There would have been had the swim test instructor been non-heterosexual. [i kid, I kid, but you guys know it's true]

I think they call everything "Guide" or "Guidelines". Exhibit B. For my money, our unit treats anything coming from BSA as policy. As discussed in another thread, when it comes to safety and some other things we assume the BSA "guidelines" to be minimum policy and will add to it (as long at not advancements) if we deem it in our scouts' best interest. Water safety comes to mind. Training is another. For instance, we require all scoutmasters to have IOLS, leader-specific, YPT, CPR/AED, first aid and all the "optional" training in order to hold a position in our unit. This way we have many trained (and hopefully, enlightened adults) on our outings.

Agree on the unit lead adding safety requirements beyond BSA. My brother's district had a fatality year back due to safety afloat issues. Adding a few common Coast Guard rules would have prevented that boy's death. Swim test is sort of required. You need to know every Scout's (and adult's) ability. Unless they have taken a swim test you don't know their level. I guess you could assume anyone not having taken a swim test is a non-swimmer....but then you need a lot of "swimmer" adults to chauffeur them around. We do a test every year prior to our canoe trip. Anyone who doesn't pass or does not take it is classified non-swimmer. Murphy's Law says that they won't be able to start a fire when they need to, but will easily start a fire when cooking.

That's where training your Instructors and limiting who can sign off comes in. In our unit only a small group of guys can sign off. It is the same group of scouts who teach the skills to the new scouts. They use the EDGE method for everything. The rule is: If you cannot show proficiency you don't get signed off. Usually it takes a full year or more for the new scouts to really learn the skills, but when they learn it the skill usually stays learned. Now, where folks of good conscience may disagree is in how the requirements are applied. For example take this SC requirement: "Demonstrate how a compass works and how to orient a map. Explain what map symbols mean." Some units will teach this once and as long as the scout can show how to orient a compass, maybe know the compass parts and show how to orient a map, they will pass him. In my unit the Instructors use EDGE. The scout learns how the compass works. They learn the parts of the compass and what they are for. They learn not only how to orient a map, but how to orient a compass on a map, find their location and find a path from Point A to Point B. They learn the map symbols too. They then follow EDGE and have to literally teach it back to the Instructor. At the end of the session there is a Q&A. Usually we have a troop meeting a week or so later where we hid pizzas or something else in a near by park and the patrols must use their map and compass skills to find the stash. The new scouts are usually the guys using the map and/or compass. [getting up on soapbox] Some may consider our method overkill, but when it comes to core scouting skills (navigation, camping, water safety, first aid, pioneering, cooking, citizenship, survival, etc.) these are life skills that should be learned well and practiced often so that when you need to call upon them they are there. Quizzing Timmy once on how to use a map and compass (or carrying his ten essentials) will not help him when he's lost and needs to draw on these skills. Here is a tragic case in point. A series of misjudgments led to his death. A sad case which I believe could be prevent by hammering home to everyone (scouts and adults alike) that being outdoors requires training and preparation. [\getting down off soapbox]