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Oldscout448

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Everything posted by Oldscout448

  1. A hawk is a bird and it's feeding at the bird feeder. Seems appropriate.
  2. which sadly, is what a lot of really great scouters have actually done. It is also worth repeating that among the older scouts a lot of the best backpackers, canoeists, shooters, etc. end up quitting as well. Because they view a lot of the GSS rules as overly restrictive at best, completely idiotic at worst.
  3. Just trying to figure out how to split kindling with loppers...
  4. Having spent over four decades in woodshops I've seen worse. But pictures like this still make me cringe, just imagining what's underneath.
  5. Apologies if this comes across as snarky, but I would expect engineers to report on Engineering, accountants on financial situations, what are the aforementioned racially and sexually defined affinity groups supposed to report on?
  6. Sounds like an organization that my mother, sisters, wife and daughter belonged to once upon a time. Squirrel Gouts? Something like that anyway.
  7. Maybe it did build inclusion and acceptance at the chiefs council. I wasn't there so I can't say yea or nay. But if it did it would be utterly unique in my experience. Every time I've witnessed people separated into exclusionary groups, at work, at church, at scouts, it always seems to create a rift or deepen a pre-existing one. "Welcome to attend"? Well they were scouts so it's possible I guess. Certainly wouldn't fit the pattern of the last few years.
  8. I think you're on the mark here. The boys, save one, are not willing to step up. They're just starting to figure out how this boy/ girl relationship thing works. They don't want to be embarrassed in front of their peers. A fate worse than death when you're 12. So they play it safe. Act cool. Don't put yourself in a situation that might become awkward. Head down and mouth shut is the order of the day. When the ladies aren't around; totally different story.
  9. I guess we must live in different worlds. I've been watching the girls take charge of our mixed troop for the last year and a half.. Or maybe the boys have just abdicated. Yes, I know that mixed troops are still verboten. So on paper we have two troops. In reality...
  10. On behalf of all have given of their time and treasure in decades past, thank you for keeping the vision alive in these very difficult times.
  11. I just received a somewhat desperate request for help from a neighboring chapter in my lodge. Chapters actually. It seems that three of them have teamed up to hold a joint Ordeal but can only find enough ceremonialists for 6 of the 12 speaking parts. Now assuming no one is performing multiple roles, that is only two per chapter! And here I thought we were horribly low at 5. Half our preCovid numbers. I am wondering if this decline is widespread or just a local thing? How are the numbers in your neck of the woods?
  12. To sort of quote Rodney King " Can't we all just go camping?"
  13. One of my pet peeves belonging to such a huge lodge is that 95% of all service is done at a chapter or area level and there is never any recognition for the scouts who pour hundreds of hours per year into the Order while juggling work, college, and the occasional girlfriend. So a Founders Award which is specifically for lodge service and leadership isn't going to happen. There is the Servant Leader award of course which can be awarded for service anywhere. But it is always voted upon by a committee at the lodge level and given our size it's unlikely that anyone on said committee has eve
  14. You can wear both if you wish. There is no change in the ribbon at the Brotherhood level, however there is a tiny red triangle device that can be worn by those of the vigil honor. Few seem to bother. Occasionally you may see a ribbon that is red with a gold arrow rather than the usual red and white with a silver arrow. This is indicative that the wearer has been honored with the Founders Award.
  15. I stand corrected. Every 3 to 7 years there is a revamping of districts and boundaries. Guess I need to keep closer track. And I agree that it's a huge ungainly beast sometimes.
  16. #1 is correct! Washington DC, central Maryland, and northern Virginia.
  17. There was once a cubscout who was the only one to bridge into our troop that year. Alex was small for his age and not exactly the athletic type, and he had obviously not spent any time in the woods. Paul his patrol leader kept an eye on him at every campout. When we got to our summer camp the first thing we did was to get tested for our swimming ability. The first step was to jump off the dock into the murky lake and swim out to the floating platform. The older scouts, yelling encouragement and challenges to each other, jumped in and swam off. Alex just stayed on the dock looking down at t
  18. Our lodge has 26 chapters at last count. For the lodge chief to work directly with that many chapter chiefs proved to be difficult indeed. So we grouped three or four chapters that touched each other geographically into areas. Each with its own Chief and Advisor. Precovid I believe we had 6, now we have consolidated to 4 due to membership drop. Hope this helps.
  19. I have only one experience with starting up a troop. It had a supportive CO, enthusiastic scouters, enough equipment, and parents who thought their boys would benefit from Scouting. What it didn't have was many boys who were enthusiastic about Scouting. Their parents, mostly church going single moms, made them join up. Also the boys had lived all their lives in the city. Camping in the woods wasn't an adventure to them, it was scary and strange. There was also a pretty serious 'hood dynamic " He can't be in our patrol 'cause he lives on the other side of 4th Street! ". To sum up t
  20. Ok, scout skills. Or to call them by other names Woodcraft/ Survivor skills. There are many many on line vids on these subjects rigging a tarp, fire in the rain, emergency shelter building, lashing a table and chair, making an survival bow and arrow, or a fishing pole, and on and on.Corporal's corner and Survival Lilly are good starting places. Grab an old scout field book. The brown or dark green ones. DONT force feed the scouts! It has to be something they want to learn. Make it a fun and challenging game. We once set up two compass courses of equal distance with a gallon of ci
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