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BartHumphries

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Everything posted by BartHumphries

  1. I'm really not following you, shortridge, why would anyone expect you to pay for patches in any way? Last I checked, National made a profit off of every patch sold in any Scout shop, except the World Scout patch or whatever it's called now. I have this AT&T BSA "Don't text and drive" temporary patch from that AT&T Facebook thing a while ago and I'm willing to be dollars to donuts as they say that National made money off of those patches. Usually, it seems like National either charges a hefty flat licensing fee or a small percentage of each patch sold or both.
  2. Perhaps Irving didn't do anything with the Methodists in 2010 because the Methodists didn't care enough to bother doing anything for it? My dad's red wool jacket has a big "75 years of LDS Scouting - Scoutmaster" patch on the back. The patch features a big Baden-Powell portrait. I wonder if any similar patches will be made by anyone for the 100th anniversary. As to whether we'll keep celebrating the past 100 years for the next 100 years, well, why not? As Clemlaw pointed out, that's not so unusual for other organizations. Popular Science magazine, for instance, has a similar feature
  3. We make all sorts of oaths all over in Scouting. "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America..." Then there's the Boy Scout "On my honor, I will do my best to..." And the Cub Scout version of that, "I promise to do my best to..." As far as "nondisclosure" goes, I can't even begin to tell you how many nondisclosure forms I've signed with various companies. "But those are for work and this is a leisure activity." So what? Besides, the OA really isn't secret. The official BSA store sells the OA Handbook for only $2.99 and it has the Promise and Obligation in it.
  4. You can't have an apostrophe in the Subject line.
  5. I don't believe so. Apparently the Hong Kong and Macao Scouts are separate organizations from the regular Chinese Scouts, although the Hong Kong Oath (what they call Promise) was changed to "my country" instead of "Hong Kong", the Chinese flag is emphasized instead of the British flag, etc. Apparently, according to the Sino-British Joint Declaration, signed in 1984, Scouting is part of the regular way of life in Hong Kong and protected there like most of the rest of the regular way of life in Hong Kong for 50 years after Hong Kong was handed back to China. So, it seems like Hong Kong Scouti
  6. Well, yeah, you aren't "required" to support the World Scouting movement. You "may" wear the patch. But do you really want to give the impression that you're "not" supporting the World Scouting movement, that you're metaphorically giving the finger to Scouts in the rest of the world. Just wear the patch. We accept you, one of us. We accept you, one of us. Gooble gobble, gooble gobble.
  7. There's a National Camping School section for every Boy Scout Area Director position. Is there basically nothing for Cub Scout camp staff except the Camp/Program Director (which is being folded this year into one superginormous "Cub/Boy/Team/Crew Camp Director or Program Director" section)?
  8. Yes, it's basically a do rag, although it can also be worn around the neck as a thick scarf. For those "hats" and garrison caps, it seems that by offering no shade for either your ears or your eyes, it would just make your head hotter in the sun. While a garrison cap might be useful in England or somewhere else where it tends to be fairly cold most of the time, the buff cap would be too thin to make a difference in the cold (and would still be hotter in the sun).
  9. Those of our boys who are 14 or older are part of a Venturing crew whose uniform is the brown Scout shirt with jean pants. Presto, no longer are they in "half/pseudo" uniform, they are now in full uniform. The younger boys are still generally in "half" uniform.
  10. Black ice is also when enough cars have gone over it that it's become a dirty black from the exhaust, so the road there just looks dirty -- noting in passing that the road in general doesn't really look clean since some dirt always down onto the road and you get mud splashing up everywhere as cars drive down the road. The week after a good snow, our cars look as though they've been driven around in a coal mine (or at least the bottom half of the car looks that way).
  11. trainerlady, will you post the requirements, please? They still aren't posted yet at http://www.scouting.org/scoutsource/BoyScouts/AdvancementandAwards/MeritBadges.aspx Oak Tree, in November they said that Welding would "debut in the next month or two": http://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2011/11/16/next-up-welding-merit-badge/ Also, I don't know about that York place but http://www.scouting.org/jamboree/journal/hometownnews/wolfe.aspx says that Welding is the favorite merit badge of the "two millionth Eagle Scout" who is also the "Scouts Youth Ambassador", so apparently someone else somewh
  12. I didn't say adults should step in and do things for boys, I said boys either need older boys or adult leaders to model. If the hands-off adults are doing the right things and modeling correct behavior, then the boys will follow that lead. Citizenship doesn't develop in a vacuum.
  13. Hiking around in the backwoods doesn't teach character. Camping for a week out there, making pioneering projects, etc., none of that on its own teaches character. The book Lord of the Flies, after all, described a group of kids living outdoors and doing all sorts of Scoutcraft-like things. Character is learned when things get tough and there's some sort of standard to adhere to -- do you cut corners, do you buckle down and keep at it, do you blame others for your mistakes, etc. This generally requires role models who show boys how it should be done -- whether older boys or adult leader
  14. There won't be a Nail Gun merit badge, it'll be a Framing/Rough Carpentry merit badge that requires Scouts to correctly frame a 10' high structure that has a solid foundation that casts at least a "10'x10' horizontal shadow" (so either built on a concrete pad or built on concrete posts in the ground). Nail guns will be prohibited and Scouts will have to hammer in everything with a hammer and cut all the studs with a hand saw. Screws may be used, but holes need to be predrilled with a hand drill so that a hand screwdriver can be used to drive the screws in. A ratcheting or double ratcheting
  15. The Patrol Leaders Handbook (well, the original one, which you can find online -- I don't know about the current one from the store) has a lovely story which basically says that the point of having a Scoutmaster is to keep the law away -- to make sure the kids don't run off too quickly and do something that'll get them arrested.
  16. Anyone know what the requirements are? We're exploring our options to see if this is a feasible merit badge for returning summer camp people (who normally do Climbing, Metalworking, etc.) Does a person have to weld with both gas and electricity or just know about both and use one (i.e. would we have to worry about storage of oxygen/acetylene, or can we just use a MIG welder or what)?
  17. Except Boy Scouts can't do paintball at all and can't do laser tag unless the lasers are "Star Trek phasers" or some other "obviously non-gun" thing. I'm glad I at least got to do those things as a youth before they were taken away.
  18. My District caps merit badges at five for a given counselor. You can choose whatever merit badges you want (subject to those that require some cert), until you hit five at which point your applications will be denied, unless you agree to drop one or more.
  19. http://www.scouting.org/jamboree/journal/hometownnews/wolfe.aspx says that the favorite merit badge of the "two millionth Eagle Scout" who is also the "Scouts Youth Ambassador" is Welding. How can this be if the merit badge isn't out yet? Is that really what he said or has someone been doctoring what he said (or perhaps misinterpreted by a clueless person)? Perhaps he was asked what his favorite merit badge is and he said something like "I'm really excited about this new Welding merit badge" and somebody wrote down that Welding is his favorite, even though it isn't his favorite yet, jus
  20. I can't edit that last post, but some people point to the "Age-Appropriate Guidelines for Scouting Activities" found at http://www.scouting.org/filestore/pdf/ageguides.pdf which explicitly says that "hand tools" are appropriate for all categories of Scouts, down to Tiger Cubs. "Power Tools" do not appear on that list and thus are not appropriate for any ages, these people say. I disagree with them. By the way, is Welding out yet? Did I miss something?
  21. Most people aren't interested in recreation that imperils their health...if that weren't the case, we'd all drive muscle cars and own jet skis and parachutes. I think the numbers of people who engage in those activities would be far higher if the entry requirements weren't so incredibly expensive. That airplane fuel (and everything else) for multiple jumps to get some experience so that you can call yourself a real skyjumper isn't cheap. The cost of a jet skis, transportation costs, storage space, heck up here in Lake Arrowhead many of the docks in the lake are actually worth more (in this
  22. Bart, I'm still playing you-know-who's advocate.... All you've shown is that your system seems to work better than the alternative. But did you really give the alternative a fair chance? Shouldn't the alternative be taught alongside 'conventional' gravitational theory in physics classes, in order for the students to make up their own minds? The alternative is already taught in school and students are already encouraged to make up their own minds (at least at the schools that I've gone to, even going back to elementary school). That's why I was already aware of the evidence supporting the
  23. Thanks, packsaddle. Henry Cavendish did a very famous experiment (which now has his name: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavendish_experiment ) which basically took two massive automobile-sized balls of metal carefully hung on a rotating pivot, which was then slowly (very, very, very slowly) rotated nearer and farther and nearer two other much smaller balls on the outside of the rotating area and we were actually able to see (and measure) the attraction of the small balls to the mass of the large balls. Just like pretty much all famous experiments, it's been repeated over the years with great
  24. Does the "land of snow and ice" require that its Scouts wear helmets when they go sledding? I believe ours does now for winter camps.
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