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neil_b

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Everything posted by neil_b

  1. If you have the patrol method and use it consistently that's the main thing. That's what sets Scouting apart. Read a pre-1980's scoutmaster handbook if you need help with the patrol method.
  2. I don't think preservation of Native American culture or any other culture falls to the OA or any other part of the BSA. The OA is there to honor campers and promote a life of service. It does so in an imaginative way, because that's more fun that just preaching at people that they should camp more and do more service projects. If you don't like the OA you don't have to be part of it.
  3. "What we have here is a straightforward case of reductio ad absurdum." Actually, I would say what we have here is a straw man.
  4. "I find the failure to have effective recruiting efforts to be the most consistant thing that leads to failing packs." When I have brought up the idea of recruiting over the years, I have repeatedly gotten responses like... "Whose den are they going in? I don't have room in my den for more boys." "If we recruit more boys we'll have to buy more gear and the troop trailer won't be big enough." What they don't realize is that some day their boy may find himself the only one left his age in his pack or troop and may decide to quit rather than look for another unit with boys hi
  5. "The problems I have seen is that the adults are all in favor of sharing the load and 2 minutes in they start barking orders or making remarks about how the Scouts aren't doing it right." Amen. That is exactly the problem I have seen. Adults who think they are being "helpful" but are just annoying the boys. There is a fine line between the adult who is helping and the adult who is hovering. The boys don't need multiple adults sending the boys in different directions or constantly reminding them that they can't do things as efficiently as the adults. Assuming the adults have their
  6. I can't recall anything we did in our patrol that could have resulted in a fist fight. High fives, knee slapping, hugs, yes. Fist fighting, no. If anybody got so upset they left or got into a fist fight I think it says more about their character than it does about the course or the staff.
  7. neil_b

    canvas towns

    Stosh - Where are these camps? Sounds great!
  8. I am impressed that your son has done so much research on his own and knows what he wants. However, troops aren't going to advertise on their web site that they have boring meetings and don't use the patrol method. Also, don't think that the issues with the den leader will not be a problem if he crosses over with his den into the troop. My son crossed over with his den into a pretty good troop that used the patrol methods on all outings. But within a year his den leader took over as the new scoutmaster and he turned it into Webelos III. He drove away numerous people and things didn't st
  9. B-P did criticize the "canvas town" summer camp as being less than ideal. Kudu quoted B-P as saying it was the opposite of Scouting, but I'm not sure B-P went quite that far. However, I have to wonder what B-P would say about the summer camps we have today. I saw one boy last year get 10 merit badges in a week at summer camp. I suspect some of his counselors were rubber stamping and not really testing the boys on the requirements. I know for sure that the adults running the shooting range were relaxing the requirements for rifle and shotgun. Unfortunately, I have also seen too
  10. My religion tells me I should celebrate, because God has given me great things that are worth being happy about. So, whose religion wins? We have had lots of Catholics in our troop and they have never told the Protestants that they should not eat meat during lent. Why does this JW think she is so special? I would say don't change anything. I read about a Jamboree in England in 2007 where they forced everybody to eat vegetarian because they have become so PC. It's a slippery slope. Pretty soon you cannot do anything because everything violates somebody's religion.
  11. "The phone chirps....the boys dig them out by force of habit. Reflex. then the just respond out of reflex. It has absolutely nothing to do with what is going on. Besides, who is in charge of the program?????" The training material says one of the SM's responsibilities is to "Build a strong program by using proven methods presented in Scouting literature." In most cases rules are of course coming from the adults even if the SM gets the PLC to rubber stamp them. Once at church my son was messing with his phone and I said something to him and he showed me he was looking up the Bibl
  12. Unfortunately, a lot of times kids start to text and play with their phones when the meetings are boring. So, if you have a constant problem with this, maybe the adults should start to look at the program and ask themselves if they can do something to better keep the interest of the scouts. At the last OA camp-out I went to the lodge had a Twitter account setup for sending out informational messages during the event and told people how to have the messages sent to their cell phones. My son and I both subscribed and they are still sending us messages in this way. So, you can try to
  13. I got fingerprinted for a security clearance just last year by my local police department and they used ink. Strange requirements? How about this one, "5.Using the construction project provided or a plan you create on your own, identify the items that would need to be included in an environmental impact statement for the project planned." Making a kid learn how to comply with government red tape, now that is truly strange. At least killing and eating a chicken is something a kid could relate to. I bet if the kids had to do that they'd never look at their chicken nuggets the same way
  14. I've had some of the same frustrations even though I've only been a scouter since about 2002 and never was a boy scout.
  15. It's difficult for me to understand why anybody who doesn't believe in the basic teachings of a religion would want to be identified with that religion and instead seek to change the religion to suit their own ideas.
  16. You'll definitely need Youth Protection as that expires. You'll have to check with your Council whether they want to count your other old training. As somebody said, there's a lot of training you can do on-line now.
  17. There is a big stigma of non-coolness to the term "boy scout". The BSA could easily get rid of that by renaming itself something like the US Scout Association or Scout Association of America. I can think of four reasons for a name change. 1. The BSA is already partially co-ed (Venturing) so the name doesn't really make much sense for them. 2. Even the dictionary gives one definition of "boy scout" as "An honest, friendly, and typically naive man." (as defined by Google) Typically naive? Really? Pretty insulting, but so many people use the term that way that it made it into
  18. I don't know if buying our Scout shirts from Bangladesh necessary benefits the Scouts there in any way. I figure that money goes to wealthy individuals there who spend their money as they see fit. Regardless, workers in Bangladesh making Scout uniforms are not treated well. Check out this link www.sweatfree.org/docs/enemiesofthenation.pdf Here are a couple interesting quotes from the document. "The US$210 million Nassa Group is the second largest factory group in the country with 33 factories. Nassa has been the top supplier of apparel items to the worlds largest retaile
  19. "Well they violated about every rule their was.....spent pack money on the troop..." That is an interesting situation that might deserve its own thread, but I would think that could happen regardless of who runs the troop. I am not sure there is a rule against it.
  20. I imagine the image has something to do with a cat stalking its prey, not a scout stalking a big cat.
  21. Yeah, interesting question. We have ended up with that in our troop as well. I think husband-wife teams are normal and have some benefits. If they do Scouting together it is one more thing they have in common. When only one spouse is involved the other tends to be jealous of the time that gets devoted to Scouting. Communication is another benefit. They always know where to find each other, and they can bounce ideas off each other. There is some potential down side of course. What's best for their spouse may not always be what's best for the troop as a whole, and when that'
  22. I compared prices on the uniform shirts between what they were in 2006 (before Mazzuca took over) and now (2011). I found they are less expensive now, although you would expect with inflation they would be more. I happened to buy a shirt the other day and it was actually made in Bangladesh, which is a parliamentary democracy. Bangladesh has a Scouts organization with over a million members. Their web site has an article about BSA officials vising Bangladesh last year. http://www.bangladeshscouts.org/eng/?p=246 Of course, it is a primarily Muslim country and these days I often
  23. When I was Cubmaster of our pack we fixed a lot of the "fairness" complaints by getting an electronic lane judge and using GrandPrix Race Manager Software. However, what is fair to one person may be unfair to somebody else. A car that is falling apart may be running into other cars and causing them to break, so running them down the track is not fair to the other boys. I have seen people build cars that were way over weight or didn't have enough track clearance. In two cases we tried very hard to help these people get their cars in working order and failed. In both cases the boys
  24. I would concentrate on the yelling issue and not as much on the belt loops. You get into a laundry list of issues and it just becomes too much to deal with. The yelling may seem like a minor issue to some adults, but it can have a ripple effect. As a personal example, I never got into Scouting as a kid, because my older brother tried it and his den mother yelled too much. You lose one boy and you could also lose his brothers and his friends. As CC I think you have the responsiblity to confront this woman about the yelling and make it official. Write her a letter (not an e-mail) and
  25. That is interesting. I wish we had this problem in our troop. Count yourself lucky that you have Eagle scouts who are willing to stick around and still be involved. And don't forget that you can have as many ASPL's and Quartermasters as you want or as many as you need to give boys positions for rank if that's how you like to do things.
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