oilman02

My first car was a 1969 Chevelle SS396. Solid white exterrior with solid black Interior. I bought it after I graduated from high school.

I was only in Cub Scouts for one year as a youth so I have few memories there. As an adult leader attending summer camp for the first time in 1989, being tapped out for OA in 1990, taking a contingent to NOAC in 1994, working on the kitchen staff at camp during OA functions and attending Woodbadge. What really ties all of the activities together are the outstanding people I have met over the years, many of which have become lifelong friends. I think that, is the greatest experience I have had in scouting.

Bob

On oaimages.com it's listed as eS1999. That is an event patch and not an issued flap.

Everyone has stated valid reasons why scouting is seen as not cool by many. I think a better question may be, what are we going to do about it? I think that scouting must be promoted to young families first and foremost. We need to show young parents the benefits of having their sons in scouting at the earliest age possible. We need to promote scouting at all churches and schools at every opportunity. Bring scouting into conversations with other adults every chance you get and talk about what you're troop or pack is doing. If it can be established early on to young boys how much fun scouting is they will be more likely to stay involved and get their parents involved. It has been my experience that it is extremely difficult to combat negative pier pressure when boy join scouts at an older age. How long has it been since you have a read or heard a positive story about reguarding Boy Scouts in the main stream media? I don't ever recall one. We need to promote scouting in local newspapers at every opportunity. Most newspapers are actively looking for stories to print and will happily run articles about troop and pack activities and upcoming events. I've strayed a little from the original post but the bottom line is that everyone of us involved in scouting needs to do a better job of selling it to the public and quit letting the main stream media take unanswered cheap shots at a program I believe is the best in the world for young men.

Bob

While there is probably nothing wrong with reciting the Cub Scout oath I don't see any need to. When I was a Webelos den leader from one of our firet meetings we were reciting the Boy Scout oath, law and outdoor code. I felt that since Webelos is a transition between Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts and as I recall, knowing these were part of the requirements to earn the arrow of light, it should be part of what they learned at our meetings. I could be mistaken on the AOL part it's been several years. But I do remember that knowing these are part of the requirements for Tenderfoot rank.

Bob

Not only would I not allow their registration to be paid for by the troop, I would not allow them to be on our troop roster if they are inactive. If at some point they choose to become active again it's not a big deal for them to reregister.

Having said that,before I jumped to any conclusion about these people I would make sure that they were not doing things behind the scene you may not see, like working on the SME committee or something like that.

Bob

I've bought several scout patches on eBay in the last few years. Like probably most people I only collected patches from events that I had attended. Somewhere along the way I thought it would be nice to get a complete collection of flaps from my OA lodge. Then a complete collection of patches from each OA conclave my lodge had attended. As of now those are the only collections I actively persue. I have paid a lot for a few pieces. But if you have ever tried to get a complete set of any collectable that other people also persue, when a rare piece comes up on eBay or else where, that you have never or have rarely seen you have to pay a premium price to get it. One reason prices are sometimes high on eBay is because there are thousands of people that look for items there to fill in holes in their collections. All it takes is two people that need the same item to drive up the price. I guess you need to be a collector to understand but every collectors goal is to complete his collection. In my case I only need two conclave patches and three lodge flaps to complete those collections. One of the conclave patches I need came up a couple of years ago and I bid $400 on it and got out bid. I'm probably getting a little off track here but I met the only man to have a complete set of First Flaps, that being the first flap issued by every lodge thats ever been chartered by the BSA, he has six figures in that collection. Like I said above, you have to be a collector to understand!

Bob

A Timex Ironman watch I bought in 1995 and have worn to work every day since. I've never even replaced the battery though I have gone through about 5 bands.

Vigil in Nakona #150

You may want to go to:

http://campfirecafe.com/ these people cook over an open fire with very good results. They also have a show on RFD-TV that illustrates their methods and the grill they use.

Bob

troopmom, this probably won't help in this instance, but when I was committee chairman with our local troop we had a few problems on campouts. Out solution was to have the PLC formulate a written desciplinary policy for such behavior that everyone associated with the troop knew about. The scouts and parents knew that it was not flexable. While it did not end the problems all together it did reduce them substancialy. As I recall it was a three strikes policy. I belive the first infraction resulted in missing two weeks of scout meetings, the second a longer time away and the third being kicked out of the troop. This particular policy may not work for other units, but I think the concept of having a published policy should work every where. During my tenure there we asked two scouts to leave the troop at different times, and as you probably have guessed they were brothers.

Good luck, Bob

I have worked as an electrician and lineman since quitting college in 1973. I am currently working as an electrical and instrumentation superintendent on construction projects at Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. This work keeps me away for up to 2 1/2 months at a time. With my present work schedule I have not been able to work with Boy Scouts in the past 6 years.

A few years ago our camporees were becoming dull with the same events year after year. It was our troops turn to host the next one so the troop committee started holding planning meetings about 6 months before the date of the camporee. We discussed the problem with always having the same events and how some troops seemed to spend a lot of time at troop meetings practicing for the events. What we decided to do was to have all the events be secret and just publish what the theme would be. When we announced our plan at the district roundtable some of the scoutmasters were not happy with it at first. But after a long discussion they all ageed to give it a chance. We had decided on a pioneering theme which meant it could have anything to do with that topic either in the merit badge pamplet or anything else we could dream up. I won't list all the events but a couple of the more fun ones were a log sawing competition which consisted of a log about 24" in diameter using a 2 man crosscut saw. We had to travel about 200 miles to a saw mill and bring it back to the south plains of Texas and find someone locally that had a saw and was willing to loan it to us. One of the other events was a muzzle loading rifle shooting competition. The scoring in the events was structured so patrols with more members than others did not have an advantage. Also it was required that each member of a patrol had to participate in an equal way. We were lucky to have a county park we could use that is close to our town but we could just as easily have gone to our council camp. We also had a group of Mountain Men come and give tomahawk throwing demonstrations and show off all their hand made gear.It took a lot of planning and a lot of work on the part of our committee to pull off an event like this one but in the end we all agreed that it was worth the effort. It didn't hurt that the group of men on our committee took a lot of pride in putting on a first class camporee that others would be measured by. Using this idea we have hosted one other camporee with similar results. After troops from other districts heard about our camporee they asked to be invited to future ones. By the way our troop did not win first place overall.

Bob

I can't say why Disney won't release Follow Me Boys again but I can say why original copies are so expensive. There are a lot of people that collect original Disney movies. As with any collectable if it is all original including the packaging and few copies are still around it commands a higher price. While I do not collect Disney movies I did want a copy of Follow Me Boys and purchased one off EBAY for $75. You can find one on EBAY for less if catch one that was a rental and does not have the original clam shell case.

OILMAN02