BartHumphries

In the Uniform subform, when I tried to make a post, I received an error. Title:The world scout crest isn't part of the uniform? Message: If every scout everywhere in the BSA wears the same world scout crest and never takes it off or swaps it for something else, why isn't it a part of the uniform like the American flag? Sunday, October 03, 2010: 2:42:19 PM (according to the forums, I'm in a different time zone). Microsoft OLE DB Provider for ODBC Drivers error '80040e10' [Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver]COUNT field incorrect or syntax error /forums/post_library.asp, line

I thought the website was pretty neat explaining the basic uniform quite well -- what's involved with it, which pieces go with what and how things are worn. It didn't go into any of the more complex details, but as an initial overview for people who are completely new to it, it works quite well. Most people don't live by an ocean and it's pretty difficult to sail on a river. It seems pretty reasonable that the BSA doesn't waste resources advertising Sea Scouts to all those people that will never really be able to do anything with it (except maybe one week in the summer).

I am not EDGE trained, Kudu, but that set of points you gave, Explain/Demonstrate/Guide are familiar to me from other contexts. It's probably familiar to you as well, something that you know quite well, but the context (how the words are used) are different enough that it's not immediately recognizable. Here's a good way to teach someone something: 1. You tell them how to do something. 2. You show them how to do something (you do it while they watch) 3. They do it (while you watch). They are now trained in whatever that thing is. In step 1, you want to describe why you do it

I don't see how to edit that previous post, so I'll just add on to it. It seems that the form (for brevity) listed 6 days/nights instead of the actual requirement of 6 days/5 nights according to http://www.oa-bsa.org/programs/ttr/ttrsupportpak.pdf which is good to know. My scoutmasters never told any of us about the Order of the Arrow and I've been wondering whether or not I should tell any of my current scouts about it. If they wouldn't be able to join anyway then there really wouldn't have been a point in telling them about it. 15 days/nights of camping and one 6 consecutive day/5 night

Well, one thing you might want to do is to contact the troops in your area and ask if you can come visit them and tell them about the OA -- all of the troops, get a list from your Council or District. When I was a kid, my scoutmasters never told me about OA. Sure, I saw a few people with sashes every so often but since they didn't want to talk about it I never learned anything from them. "Hey, that's a neat patch on your shirt pocket flap, what's that WWW mean, you're in charge of the troop website?" "Um, yeah." And I walked away thinking that it was neat that other troops apparently

That'd only be $2000 -- it's $1k/donation. It doesn't seem right that there should be a reward for just giving money, but if that was a pattern of lifetime donations instead of a single donation, I guess it's ok to recognize that.

So it appears that one of the requirements to be an OA member is to have gone camping in the last year -- 15 days/nights and a consecutive 6 day/night trip. LDS troops have been asked by our church leaders to not camp on Sunday, so the most we could do would be 6 day/5 night (Monday morning to Saturday evening). Does this mean that it's sort of impossible for an LDS scout/scouter to become an OA member?

Baden-Powell went to schools (especially Charterhouse) that were dry and boring. Boys went through the perfunctory motions and were released into society with a modicum of book learning and very little idea of how to comport themselves or really do much of anything to succeed in society or to develop a good name as a person who could be leaned or who could lead. BP's comment on not being able to give a boy character through classroom methods in no way means that scoutcraft and leadership skills are in any way mutually exclusive. The whole idea of scoutcraft is that you learn leadership

In Europe, they still tend to tie their neckerchiefs in a knot instead of using a slide. o) balding man who bent down to look at his shoes just as the picture was taken and thus you get the top of his head instead of the front.

Hopefully, they're getting some kind of an ego boost from wearing the uniform -- adults sometimes need additional motivation just like boys. You know Benjamin Franklin's saying, "Old Boys have their Playthings as well as young Ones; the Difference is only in the Price." The very first thing is to tell a person about myscouting.org -- to register and take the Youth Protection course. It's take a max of 30 minutes, probably shorter. After that, I've emailed every new adult who's now in a position of responsibility in our troop or our allied groups (the Webelos, the Cub Scouts) and told

You missed the "presuming that the boys did homework" part. I did miss the Tenderfoot requirement, though. We have a separate 11-year-old scouting patrol and they all at least get Tenderfoot before coming into the older patrol where I work with them. Speaking of homework, take a look at the Tracking merit badge. It requires that a bunch of pictures of animals be taken (and also probably casts of tracks). There's no way you're going to be able to do that for all the boys during an evening. But if a boy's on vacation for four weeks and mostly bored out of his mind (and thus really mot

Are there any graphical dependencies charts out there showing what's generally involved with earning what and how things are connected? I started putting one together and am breaking today after a few in hopes that when I return tomorrow morning someone will be able to point me to something that's already out there. I'm looking for something like: http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a66/bubbajoe12345/scout/meritbadgedependencies.jpg

So, how do I quote a message? Or, how do I insert a quote into the message? I've tried clicking the "format this post" link to the left, but I just get a big purple popup. Should I use the HTML blockquote tags?

I agree with people, the best way is to have both a boy race and a parent race. Let the parents go crazy and wild with their own cars and mandate that they can build their own cars while their kids/relatives/whatever watch, but that they can't help the boys at all. That being said, sometimes young boys really are all that good -- sometimes they started making pinewood derby cars at 5 with their parents "help" and at the ripe old age of 7 or 8 they've had years of practice at it and have made a dozen cars already. I used to dig into my piggy bank and buy three kits when I was making a ca

Leadership Skills and Scoutcraft Skills are definitely not mutually exclusive. One only has to look at BP, who was offered the supreme commander spot of the British Armed Forces and turned it down to focus on Scouting. He obviously had Leadership and Scoutcraft skills in spades. The "Leadership Development Method" is really a fancy way of saying, "The leader doesn't have to be the best at everything and likely won't be the best at everything -- learn how to work well with other people." In other words, the "leadership development method" is exactly what scout leaders should have been (

How about going to one of those patch companies and getting a patch made with the business's name then sewing that to the kids backpacks when we hike? Corporate "sponsorship" like that -- is that alright? That's not a handout anymore, that's them paying us for advertising. Is that legal? Allowed?

That was interesting, thanks. Two questions -- how does a Boy Scout who's an Eagle advance in rank, and the program starts for units with the normal October rechartering. Does that mean Oct 2010 or Oct 2011?

Four weeks is plenty of time, presuming that the boys did homework. Shoot, at the 100th anniversary campout locally recently, there were programs to take the boy from Tenderfoot to 1st Class in one long weekend (Fri-Sat-Sun). There are no time requirements for those ranks. I've been planning on doing the Pathfinding merit badge in one evening for our boys. They all know the area -- basically, all they have to do is to draw maps, know the streets on the north side of the lake, where the hospital is, etc. This is a rural area, but there are no farms, no blacksmiths, so those requirement

In his book Aids to Scoutmastership, Baden-Powell said, "The whole object of our Scouting is to seize the boy's character in its red-hot stage of enthusiasm, and to weld it into the right shape and to encourage and develop its individuality so that the boy may educate himself to become a good man and a valuable citizen for our country." Now, a person learns more by teaching something than he does by learning, which is why we want to get boys involved in the teaching. Do with Scouting what you'd do with any endeavor. Learn as much as you can. Ask as many questions from other people

There's really very few patches that can actually go on the uniform. Take a look at http://www.scouting.org/filestore/pdf/34283.pdf If it's not listed or shown there, it doesn't go on the uniform. The exception is the right patch pocket -- you can basically put about anything that fits (a patch put there can't go outside the edges of the pocket or cover up the button flap). Mix and match, whatever, switch it up every month, whatever you like. The insignia guide shows a blank portrait-oriented oval there, but not all temporary patches have that shape. The Warstone patch I just picked up at

You're right about schools banning anything that resembles a weapon. The tough plastic forks that could really do some damage if you stabbed someone were just fine for kids to use back in high school. But the plastic knives with tiny nubbin teeth? Only available in the teacher's lounge, because they were "knives". Never mind that the forks were capable of doing far more damage than those thin plastic sticks with little bumps they called knives, because they were called knives they were banned. Nowdays, the school district has seen how ridiculous this is and the forks are almost sporks

You really need to get more people involved. If, God forbid, something should happen to you, the whole Scouting program will die. Don't put Scouting in that position, train up other people and delegate enough responsibility that they can learn what will be necessary to do if you get in an accident or retire or whatever.

A scoutmaster basically needs the same skills as a parent, only you're a parent with multiple other parents who are actively looking over your shoulder once a week and critiquing your parenting. How does a parent get trained in what they're supposed to do and how things are supposed to go? Luckily, scoutmasters have an active training system and theoretically at least one assistant if not more to delegate more responsibilities to. If a scoutmaster is going camping once a month like he should, then he won't forget how to camp.

AYSO is American Youth Soccer Organization. I was in it when I was a kid, but I have no idea how it all works now and I wasn't in charge of administrative matters back then.

Yes, online adult applications would be amazing! Paraphrasing my recent conversation with the local council office: "Hello, I'm a registered adult scouter and I'd like to be a merit badge counselor. What form do I need to fill out? Wait, uhm, I've already filled this out. Well, can't you just make a copy? Oh, I can go make a copy myself? Uhm huh, so I'm going to fill this out again, it's going to get passed around and eventually it'll be filed in that other filing bin right next to where my other copy already is? Ok, yeah, I'll go fill this out then." YES! Online adult appli