BartHumphries

Those are good points. If he does do amazing stuff over the next eight months, though, he can't be retroactively appointed to a position. I'd suggest that he try to do amazing stuff over the next month since he has just over a month before his 6-month deadline in early January. If someone was a Junior Assistant Scoutmaster, I'd expect them to take the ASM training (same as Scoutaster). Youth Protection, Fast Start, and This is Scouting can all be taken online. Is there an age limit on Introduction to Outdoor Leader Skills?

http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/children/cb11-117.html Relevant quotes: In 2009, 7.8 million children lived with at least one grandparent, a 64 percent increase since 1991 when 4.7 million children lived with a grandparent, according to a new report from the U.S. Census Bureau. In 2009, 69 percent of the 74.1 million children under 18 lived with two parents. Four percent (2.9 million) of all children lived with both a mother and father who were not married to each other. Apparently http://www.census.gov/hhes/socdemo/children/data/sipp.html provides more detailed data for people to parse.

I think it would depend on what holiday(s) your Scouts celebrate. I mean, on the one hand you could go completely nondenominational and have a sort of winter celebration (which would still offend some people) or you can go crazy and have something unique for each of some 80-odd religions or you can ask your Scouts what they celebrate and ask them how they'd like to handle it, then handle it based on what they suggest and what they'd like to do. You could also celebrate a given religion's major holiday right about when that holiday occurs. This year, Hannukah and Christmas for instance are a couple weeks apart so they can easily both have their own celebrations. Traditionally, my unit usually cancels our regular meetings when they're too close to a "major" religion because too many of the boys/leaders are likely to be off visiting other family members or something.

Ok, a few responses: Eagle92, yes that was from National Camp School. I know I have an online version of the file around somewhere. All summer camp programs are basically local option (except those things that are covered by the camp inspections). People sometimes choose to do things differently for various reasons (some of which might be local reasons). Regarding Sabbath-friendly courses, I suppose it would matter whether there are more people in your area who say the Sabbath is Friday night or who say it's Sunday and how any of those people feel about camping on the Sabbath. Ask around. Get Outdoors, you said, "Real wilderness first aid certification (I'm not talking the BSA thing they do a camp)..." You might be confusing Wilderness First Aid (WFA) certification (which is the same whether from a BSA provider or any other organization like the Red Cross) and Wilderness Advanced First Aid (WAFA), which is a more advanced class that covers more advanced topics, and Wilderness First Responder (WFR), which is an even more advanced class which covers even more advanced topics, and then above all of those you can get a "Wilderness" cert added on to whatever "professional" medical certification you already have, such as W-EMT or W-RN or something. And of course all of those are "above" a normal First Aid (FA) certification. I don't know what the summer camp was doing that you referenced, but if it's a "Wilderness First Aid" cert, then it's the same as any other WFA cert. Then again, I suppose they might have just been talking about first aid in the wilderness and not actually offering a Wilderness First Aid certification. Basically, the hierarchy is as follows: FA -> WFA -> WAFA -> WFR -> W-EMT/W-RN/W-whatever

A good proportion of IOLS is now Leave No Trace -- it would be nice (although not required) if you contacted the Outdoor Ethics committee of your council to see if you could get a Leave No Trace Trainer or Master Educator to come in and chat about some things. My ideal IOLS course for me is one that I can test out of, but then I'm a National Camp School Outdoor Skills Director and a LNT Master Educator. You might look at National's "Tenderfoot to First Class" camp program to get some ideas for activities that can be used to teach some of those things.

I think, if you lacked a neck, an inability to wear a bow tie would be the least of your problems. And, yeah, Eagle92, bow ties are cool. Fezzes might be cool too -- Stetsons definitely are.

So, someday, when they separate the knots again, some people's shirts will suddenly explode with new knots.

Same as any other pants. Put a bit of material that closely matches the pants underneath the fabric, then sew the torn bits of cloth down onto the patch with the torn bits laying as flat as possible (try to iron it lightly first to make sure it all lays down smoothly). I hear there's this plastic tape stuff that you can use in lieu of cloth for those nylon pants -- Walmart might have it -- any fabric store will have it.

Well, I was putting together a LNT presentation and I thought I'd chart the visitor days that I had -- I noticed a drop in the rate of increase of visitor days in 2000 and wondered if there was a corresponding drop in Eagle Scouts. Nope.

Actually, having now had a look at the numbers for new Eagle Scouts, I think the number of Eagles since 1975 is increasing on a nice trend. Here's what I was looking for. Given that the BSA is the single largest user of public lands, and given that the number of Boys who make Eagle should be a good gauge of "active boys" who are going camping, the number of Eagle Scouts in a year should roughly correlate with the number of visitor hours/days at National Parks in the USA. I had the numbers for visitor days in 1975 and 1985 from a LNT book that I have, and I found the numbers for visitor hours in 2000 and 2010 from the National Parks website. A simply bit of math converted those visitor hours into visitor days and then I dropped them into a spreadsheet and let Excel chart them for me. This is what I came up with: http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a66/bubbajoe12345/scout/eaglesvsnationalparksvisitordays.png It suggests that Scouts back around 2000 didn't go camping in National Parks as much as they did in other years. It would be really interesting to see BSA camp statistics for those years -- were the "missing" Scouts actually attending summer camps instead of National Parks? If National has seen a fall off from camp attendance in the past 10 years, possibly it's because Boy Scouts are availing themselves of other camping opportunities, such as National Parks.(This message has been edited by BartHumphries)

How many new Eagles in the year 1975, 1985, 2000, and 2010?

Because double dipping is great -- we want to teach and train our kids in things that are recognized outside Scouting. We should be leaders in conservation and other "tree-hugging stuff". (emphasis humorously mine) So a Scout has the Outdoor Code memorized. That's great, but it really doesn't mean jack to someone completely outside the Scouting organization. Leave No Trace (for most things) and Tread Lightly (for vehicular use, mainly) mean a lot to people outside the Scouting organization -- in fact, although the BSA can train Trainers and Masters, the programs themselves are administered from entities outside of Scouting. Thus, when we train and teach our kids properly, those achievements are recognized outside of Scouting and we (hopefully) get good press about how knowledgeable our boys are. It's somewhat like First Aid (or at least it's becoming that way as fast as National committees can agree on how exactly changes should be implemented). We teach basic first aid all the time, repetitively in merit badges and early ranks, but when it comes to things like the Emergency Preparedness pin we require that boys go seek certification in a manner which is recognized outside Scouting. "Discuss with your counselor what sort of hazards might be encountered while working on this merit badge and how to prevent them. (Heat exhaustion/stroke, insect stings/bites, etc.)" You see something like that in almost every merit badge. Someday you'll see something like, "Discuss with your counselor how you can practice Leave No Trace while working on this merit badge."

Yes, LNT also applies to urban areas. It's just that one person said that LNT should be scrapped since it doesn't apply to frontcountry, then get something like a tougher IOLS (but not more training, since people wouldn't be too happy about that). I said I'd respond in a new thread after Thanksgiving dinner (which was delicious), but I guess I could have just replied in that original thread.

Once you start it, the ball is rolling. When the people involved settle the case themselves, then they say so to the judge and he dismisses the (now pointless) case.

One person said that Leave No Trace (LNT) doesn't apply to the frontcountry. LNT was created with the frountcountry in mind, because the frontcountry is where the vast majority of people are. I don't remember the exact figure, but somewhere between 80% and 90$ of the visits to our National Parks are to the frontcountry, it's day trippers. People that pull up and say, "I'm passing by, I have a few hours, what's neat that I should go see?" The ranger tells them about a nice look out point, they go and see it, take some pictures, have a picnic, then head back out of the park and off into the sunset. True, one of the main impetus for LNT was the campsite problem, that people just kept creating more campsites, looking for a better view, a little farther away from everyone else, more ready firewood growing nearby, etc. It turns out that most ground vegetation is killed off (maybe not turned into dirt, but impacted enough that it's going to die) after only a few nights spent camping, while it might take 5-10 years or more (depending on elevation) for that campsite to return to a truly wild and natural appearance. Still, most of the problems occurred in what today we'd call the frontcountry.

Anyone that says LNT doesn't apply to Frontcountry doesn't understand LNT. I'll start a new thread after Thanksgiving dinner.

Eammon, she who must be obeyed -- Rumpole of the Bailey? Those were some good books.

Personally, I wish there was more double dipping in life. It rather irks me that BSA Climbing Instructor (what BSA Councils use), and BSA National Camp School for Climbing and/or Cope Directors (a higher standard that BSA camps use) and AGMA climbing instructor (what literally everyone else in the US goes by) aren't cross-compatible, offering some sort of cross-certification. At least Aquatics somewhat has it sorted out -- Red Cross Lifeguard counts for Aquatics Director, albeit only conditionally. It's rather irksome that some of the certs I have give me credits at School X, but not School Y, while other certs give me credits with School Y but not School X, and I recently went back to School W, online. If I sign up for School X and Y, then I can transfer those credits to School W and apparently from what I'm told they'll be accepted for a Recreation Management degree, which sounds interesting, but it's going to be rather a pain to get that taken care of. Honestly, the University of Idaho and BYU-Idaho should just work together a little more. Geez, can't these people do like the agencies did with Leave No Trace -- get together, sign a memorandum of understanding, hammer out whatever kinks remain, then just use the "same" program? It should be like the special add-on BSA-based Leave No Trace Trainer and Master Educator materials for BSA LNT classes or like how an EMT can go spend five days becoming a Wilderness-EMT and doesn't have to bother with an eight-day Wilderness First Responder course (because they're already an EMT and don't need the extra days of classes).(This message has been edited by BartHumphries)

I'm happy with what I know, thanks. How do I know it and what am I doing about it now? Frankly, in as nice a way as I can say it, I don't think it's anyone's business here. Thanks for the advice, it's been much appreciated. Any more advice is always welcomed. (This message has been edited by BartHumphries)

The Emergency Preparedness service project says, "Take part in an emergency service project, either a real one or a practice drill, with a Scouting unit or a community agency." So, what's an emergency service project? I was thinking something like, and it's winter, so I have cold on the mind... someone calls up, "My pipes froze last night and now it's leaking in my living room!" "It turns out we don't have enough wood, do you have any to spare?" Time to go fix a broken pipe, or cut/split wood or something. At first I was thinking of some sort of disaster-related scenario that would also require first aid, but it does say "service project". I guess bandaging neighbors would count as service. What sorts of things have you all seen?

Thanks for the responses.

So, the father of a boy is an illegal alien. Is it possible for him to be an adult leader, an Assistant Scoutmaster? I, personally, don't think this conflicts with my duty to my country -- I think it's better for the boy and his mother (both citizens) to have the father around, but lets not get sidetracked by this. As long as he takes youth protection en espaol, he can come to all the meetings and go on all the campouts, right?

When I was a Scout, I was told that trying to get one thing to qualify for two different types of requirements (school/Scouts/church/whatever, pick any two) was what adults did. because nobody has enough time to do everything. Don't reinvent the wheel when you don't have to.(This message has been edited by BartHumphries)

Well, in his defense, that happened to me. Some of the merit badge icons aren't the most intuitive icons, especially if you haven't looked at the actual badge image for a couple years. For instance, I usually remembered that the green cross was the stuff that the Red Cross teaches, first aid, but the white cross was... (Safety). Swimming is pretty obvious but the one with the broken tree with three separate fires lit under it was... (Wilderness Survival). Then there's the Recycling? merit badge... I mean the Environmental Science merit badge (well, it looks like a big recycling symbol). I eventually used a black sharpie to write the name of each badge on the back of the sash where it was sewn.(This message has been edited by BartHumphries)

The Pioneering merit badge requires you to run through the Tenderfoot through First Class knots, then tie a few more knots including a sheepshank -- that might be where the confusion is coming from, Jay K?