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Oldscout448

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Everything posted by Oldscout448

  1. In April 2018 I posted about getting a Scouters paycheck when I watched one of 'my' boys, as Meteu, drape an ordeal sash over his younger brothers shoulder, as his older brother,the head eleongomat, looked on, smiling. I just watched the same middle brother ( who is the best ceremonalist I've ever seen) welcome his younger brother into the circle of the Vigil, in our very secluded ceremony ring, as once again the older brother stood by trying to look serious, but the smile kept breaking thru. Some scouts who were past members of our ceremories team, drove or flew hundreds of miles to
  2. Just wait until the peach cobbler is ready.
  3. Snowed in after the Ordeal! I wanna hear this tale. Pull up a log to our virtual camp fire and pour yourself some coffee.
  4. To my mind the most alarming thing is that this SM seems to lack a basic understanding of how a troop ( a collection of patrols) should be run. Except for obvious safety reasons and the most egregious and uncontested violations of the scout law, a SM does not remove patrol leaders. The patrol elected him, the patrol can elect someone else if they so desire it. In my troop it required a 2/3 majority because we realized that not every decision a PL makes is going to be a popular one. Even if it is the right one. In 20 years I think only two PLs were removed in such a fashion.
  5. The short answer is No, you have every reason to be upset. So should every other patrol leader in the troop and the scouts in your sons patrol. This may not be be due to personal dislike, sadly some scoutmasters view advancement in rank as the primary gauge of their success and will manipulate things to achieve that goal.
  6. That kinda depends on what you consider to be "olden times" I think it was a SMC until '73 then it became a PGAC. I'm not sure when it switched back.
  7. "Over the line cultural appropriation" ok, I'll bite. Exactly who has given themselves authority to draw that magical line? Some Berkeley professor who babbles about the critical importance of tolerance and diverse points of view while demanding that everyone accept and kowtow to his "personal reality"? It's about time, no it's past time, that such people are told the shut the hell up, we don't care what they think. Every native American I've asked ( Huron, Cree, Cherokee, Sioux, Iroquois etc) has had no problem with the OA ceremonies, if they are done in a manner that shows resp
  8. Speaking of deal breakers, for most of the team members it was the loss of being a part of something special, with a long proud history and traditions. Regalia was a big part of that. I think it started way back in about 40 years ago when the pre get rewritten and the Ordeal changed from being a test of willing candidates to a make believe self help weekend. One that no one was allowed to fail. Because "hazing". The complete rewrite of the Brotherhood ceremony with the loss of the Brotherhood Obligation which an average 15 year old could easily understand, for some philosophical rambling (how
  9. not unlike loosing a good friend after a long illness. There is sadness, a feeling of loss but also a sense of relief.
  10. You are fortunate indeed! The last time I can remember seeing our SE was at a spring Lodge Fellowship in 2017. Haven't seen a DE at a day camp, ordeal, or camporee in even longer. Glad to hear it's not this bad everywhere.
  11. Which is why our district has gone outlaw for the last 15 years. Our patches don't have anything that National has registered, but they've big, colorful there's always enough for all the scouts and we pay less. In fact I we stopped holding District camporees because Council takes 15% off the top for 'services' . Not sure what these services actually are. But it did lead to quite a few Godfather jokes. Instead 15 or 20 troops just happen to go camping at the same place on the same weekend. What a coincidence!
  12. This hits home, we don't really have big parties but no one has joined the ceremony team in three and a half years. Currently there only only two left next spring Ordeal only one. I feel like a passenger in a car who has warned the driver over and over that we are running out of gas. Now that the car has come to a spluttering halt on the side of the highway, the driver expects me to magically fix it somehow. So he can keep on driving and ignoring me. All that's left for me to do is open my door and start walking.
  13. Actually I was in the ring working raking, chopping, setting things up with the two retired ceremonialists who came and the three brave guys who volunteered because they saw a need, from 8:30 am -3:50 pm. The B'hood ceremony started at 4:00
  14. It's 1:30am, in 14 hours I head out to an joint Ordeal for four local chapters. The ceremonies will have to be done by people who have never done them before, never practiced together, or even alone because no one knows who has what part. I will have at best 2-3 hours to work with them before the pre starts. I am honestly dreading this. But until December 31st I'm still the ceremonies advisor for one of the chapters and so I have a duty to do what little I can, even if my chapter no longer has a team. Prayers would be much appreciated my brothers. Walititin Mikemossin Wuna
  15. There are a few things that caused raised eyebrows. Such as ' punitive, high stress''and ' fashion show'. But if yknot is correct in his assessment of the GTA, then the BoR has been reduced to little more than a ceremonial rubber stamp and we might as well let them go the way of woolen uniforms and canvas tents.
  16. In 20 some years of sitting on BoR I've declined to pass two scouts. One had clearly doctored his older brothers blue cards, the other wouldn't or couldn't talk to us. Just hugged himself and cried. So to play devil's advocate here; if a scout can pass a BoR without responding in any fashion to a single question or comment, why is the scout even there?
  17. Yup, sat on quite a few. It worked very well for my troop mostly because we had a goodly number of scouts stick around until they turned 18.
  18. not to pile on here, but if the number of shooters or firearms is to great to monitor then it's the RSO's obligation to reduce it to a manageable level. RSOing was the most stressful job I ever had at camp. Lifeguard was easy by comparison.
  19. Spent last weekend camping on Treasure Island. The small overworked underpaid staff has does a marvelous job . The museum is just incredible. But for me the highlight of the weekend was just sitting silently by myself in the ceremony ring. A lot was hauled off to Summit but there is still something intangible there, a quiet weight of memory, so many years, so many thousands of Obligations taken there, by young trembling boys as well as grizzled old timers. Closest thing Scouting has to Holy ground. Just amazing.
  20. While roasting marshmallows last weekend my grandson told me he wants to be an Eagle Scout like his Dad. He's almost 6. It hurts knowing that it probably won't be possible. It's not the rank that matters, it's realizing that even if scouts survives it will most likely be vastly diminished . Will Philmot be there? Jamborees? The OA? Sure, the few surviving troops in the area can get together somewhere for a mini camporee, and the grey hairs can tell tales of BSA's glory days but that's about all. So an Eagle he may one day be but it breaks my heart that his scouting trail will be so
  21. The visualization I got from the OP was a scout wearing a scout shirt with tights and tutu. With this combination I do indeed have an issue, enough so that any scout in my troop would as a last resort be sent home, but perhaps based upon your account that wasn't exactly the situation.
  22. A protest? I don't see any mention or even an implication of such in the OP.
  23. I think the question we should be addressing is what kind of a message does tights and a tutu send, not the safety and enjoyment of the program. As for me I would willingly spend some capital politely explaining that such attire is inappropriate for the situation. Just as a field uniform would be at a dance studio.
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