Oldscout448

I hear you brother, I'm constantly telling my team but if I can memorize all four parts for all three of the usual ceremonies plus the vigil they can memorize at least one. I remember well how horrified I was to see a pre ordeal ceremony read, and read badly, by flashlight! It helps a lot if the older scouts have their parts down cold and "encourage " the younger scouts to up their game if they want to play on our team. I am puzzled as to why the sitting candidates were allowed to go thru the ordeal ceremony. If we had such a situation I very much doubt the team would perform

Don't know what to say in cases like that. If there are truly no traditions and more importantly no service then in my opinion (and Allowats) they do not deserve to wear the arrow. I guess folding the teepee up and riding into the sunset might just be your only option. Do we raise a glass to the old days or just sit down and weep?

The fire may indeed be dying down, but it won't be my hand that puts it out. We are still fighting to keep it going here. Last weekend we did a full blown tapout ceremony for one ( yes just one) scout who's crew had their election too late for the spring callout and ordeal. It was about 4 hours of work for 6 arrowmen to make it all happen. But they did it cheerfully. i suspect National wouldn't approve of our little ceremony, but we are way beyond caring or asking for permission at this juncture. The scouts have this deep seated conviction that the order belongs to THEM. (especially the

Good to have an older brother on the forum! I celebrated my 45th anniversary last weekend. I expected to be at our fall ordeal, but it was moved to a later date. (See the 6 month thread) I hope to live long enough to get to the 50 year mark too, but at this point, I'm not certain that the Order will.

Sadly true

I got it in 1970

My expert patch goes on the temporary pocket, the RSO patch is on my blaze orange hat that I only wear at the range.

Getting back to the original topic, it seems I was quite wrong . I was fairly certain that the 10 months to 6 months change would have little or no impact. Whoops! I had failed to consider that they might actually change to date of the fall ordeal from the first or second weekend in October, where it has been for decades, to the first weekend in November. So that the spring and fall Ordeals are exactly 6 months apart. So if we hold the Brotherhood ceremony at 12:01am Sunday morning, the arrowmen who went through their ordeal last spring can attend. Clearly a crafty and clever i

I have a few guys who would take that challenge. Any part, any ceremony. That said, they would never ever want to hold anyone back if he truly could not memorize the song or the obligation. We had a similar situation a few years ago, and the only thing we required was the admonition and its meaning. The rest is just window dressing. Nice but not essential.

Well done Brother!

Ah yes, I had failed to consider that he might be one the "special " people. Perhaps he deserves a special ceremony. Anyone else remember the Iroquois gauntlet? Out of respect to the guide to Safe scouting, we could forgo the rocks and tomahawks and just throw rotten squash and pumpkins and tomatoes.

No he most certainly can not.

In addition to the ceremony, a few of us decided to keep a fire burning throughout the night in memory of all the brothers of the Vigil honor we lost in the last year. I sat and kept watch from 1:00-3:00am. Many of my brothers walked past and placed a stick or two into the flames. There was some flute playing by one brother. Another drummed and sang. Some talked softly to each other, remembering those they had loved and lost. Just before dawn we used a flame from the watch fire to light the "other" one. My Vigil brothers will understand. Probably the most moving "ceremony " I have

Let us know if you need bail money, or a cobbler with a file inside. They do make a "ghost patch" it's all in white and very hard to see from over 10 feet away.

The idea is to harden the entry or entries to the classroom to the point where a shooter would be unable to shoot the locking mechanism off the door and begin slaughtering the students. Who are presumably cowering under their desks. It's not difficult to make deadbolts that can only be placed in locking mode with a key, and can be unlocked without one. In an active shooter situation the teacher has to shut and lock the door anyway so he can turn the key and slam the bolt home, then get out of the line of fire. A pair of wedges aren't as strong, but far far better than nothin

When my daughter was teaching in a middle school just outside of Baltimore, I offered to deadbolt the classroom door top and bottom, or failing that build and install a new door with hidden kevlar panels. All for free. Nope, not allowed. Might cause the students to feel unsafe or worry that there might be bad people with guns in the world. It seems that in the mind of the admins, a false sense of safety is more important than actually providing it. This reasoning seems completely insane to me. This was (and sadly still is) a part of town where drugs are everywhere and gunfire ca

Matt, I am not sure I can agree with you here. The Order is about serving on that all agree. But it should be first in your own patrol, troop,district. Then council. What I have seen is the lodge having weekend after weekend putting tents up at the council camp, taking tents down at the council camp, building a new stage at the council camp, spreading much, shoveling gravel, clearing downed trees all at the council cubscout camp. Is there any weekend ( or even a hour or two) devoted to how to be a better patrol leader? SPL? QM? Den chief? Troop guide? Nope. Nothing. A

I don't perceive this change from 10 months to 6 months as having much impact. Around here the Brotherhood ceremony is only offered at Ordeals. The big one is in the spring, the fall ordeal is 5 months later. So 75% of our new members still have to wait a full year. I suppose there will be a slight uptick in the brotherhood conversation numbers nationally, So on paper things look better, but at the local level? Little and less. The other change seems good in my eyes, some lodges are on life support, and having the section giving them a helping hand seems to be no bad thing. Al

My bet would be that the scouts look back on those night hikes and say " That's gotta be the stupidest thing we have ever done at any summer camp "

You have a valid point there, almost all of the summer camps around here do indeed have permanent structures. But as I read the rules, in the case of a 10pm thunderstorm, we are required to get the scouts up,dressed, then march them 400 yards to the mess hall (that was the distance at last years camp) in the pouring rain. Then back to camp in an hour or two. Then quite probably repeat the process in another hour. I lost a good friend to a wayward lighting bolt at Philmont years ago. I've been 50 yards from a massive ground strike, the resulting shockwave knocked me righ

Got a call from an ASM that I have known for many years. It seems that her troop was camping last weekend with a group of Weebs from their feeder pack. Everything was going fine untill just before dinner, a Gourmet affair cooked by the scouts in Dutch ovens, was just about about ready. Then one of the cub parents heard a distant rumble of thunder. All of the Webelos and their parents scurried for their cars, and they all piled in. They announced that according to the Guide they were required to stay in the cars or a building until half an hour after the last rumble of thunder was heard

Alas, it's not just one troop, it's every troop in the district. I will go further: its the movement. Driven by the damned " stop any activities that have any possibility however remote, of resulting in a lawsuit" mentality that seems to have swept the nation. It's hard to blame National in all honesty, when you are bleeding millions in payouts and legal fees, you just have to do something to stop it. I am just not ok with turning Boyscouts into Webelos III, IV, and V.

Been sitting here a mite over 7 years now, lots of different folks have come and gone, but seems to me the talk around this campfire has changed quite a lot. It figures I guess since Boy Scouts has changed so much as well. I came home from a campout recently and realized there wasn't one thing that still remained from the days when I was a scout. No patrol flags or sites, no patrols at all really, (they exist just on paper) no scout leadership (the adults do that now), no axes, or saws needed. the adults cut everything up with chainsaws last weekend. No interpatrol competition.

A highly respected brother in our lodge passed away recently after 6 decades of continuous service mentoring ceremony teams. There is talk of honouring his memory with a broken arrow ceremony, but I have zero experience with such. Anyone here ever done/ seen one? What was it like?

Darn onions, Where is this from?