purcelce

1042 at six am central time...things should pick up...

Here's a twist. I got back into scouts after my divorce. I've been back for almost 4 years now.

My daughter is in her third year of brownies, and my son will be starting tigers in a few years. Both of my kids have logged in some hours in 2004 at Summer Camp when I was working as Aquatics Director. They've even been to a few family functions and really look forward to them.

Scouting has kept me on the straight and narrow, brought me back to church, and is an important part of my family's life.

Cary P

Take the advise of all the sages here.

Do not be a UC for the unit you are attached to.

Ask for reassignment now.

Also it's not the DE's job to be finding UC's, that's the ADC and DC's job.

...for scouter.com I got this message in the upper right hand corner of my web browser, "You are 1 of 1590 Active Users"

yea!!!!!!!!

...for scouter.com I got this message in the upper right hand corner of my web browser, "You are 1 of 1590 Active Users"

yea!!!!!!!!

Ya'll have a safe and blessed Thanksgiving.

Headed to the backwoods of KY for a family gathering type T-day.

Cary P.

Advisor Crew 805

We bring them in one at time.

Here are some of my favorites:

What is the most important part of the Scout Oath to you? Why?

Last point of the Scout Law is Reverent. In the past month how did you show Reverence to God, and going to church every Sunday doesn't count.

Scouting have given a lot to you...right? Kids answers yes. How do you plan to give back to scouting once you become an adult.

What was your favorite merit badge? Why?

What was your least favorite mb? Why?

What would you change to make things better in your troop?

Last night I had the honor of sitting on Eagle BOR for our district. We had 7 candidates and with two boards going.

All kids made it!

Sitting to my right was good ole Manyions. He really impressed me with his questions. Made the kids think about their Scouting careers.

Glad to know Manyirons. He's a good ole Scouter.

"We are discussing the Venturing program here, which have Venturing Crews. Please don't use the term 'venture' to refer to them."

emb021 take it easy. There is no need to start one of those "class a vs field uniform" wars over on the Venturing/Venture side of the forums.

We know what they are talking about.

Cary P

Advisor Venture Crew 805

Scoutldr sums it up best.

Remember our Vets. And thank you to those who have served or are serving.

If it wan't for them you wouldn't be reading this post.

Cary P

MSgt, USAF Retired

Here is an email I sent out today to our Crew Committee.

At the Vet's Day parade yesterday I made a few observations:

1 Little background.

I was scared that the crew was going downhill. The past attendance of the events were dismal in my book. Communications were not up to "my standards". And I felt that we would be going down the tubes. The Pres has been swamped with school, the crew, OA, and I felt that he was burning out.

He emailed earlier this week with an update of how many kids would be at the Parade and he stated he didn't have time call everyone. I sent the email back to him and state to use his officers to get the word out.

2. Communications

Parade day hits and we have about 8 kids. I thought to myself, "Great...the biggest event that the VFW wants us at and we have a dismal showing, guess the word didn't get out." As we were sitting around the VFW after the parade, the light bulb went on.

Yesterday morning I got an email from one of the kids saying she committed to the event, but couldn't make it due to a Dr appointment and work. I got a few phone calls from some of the kids asking what time we were starting. As we were having a bull session I noticed that the kids there knew what was going on with the others. Three were out of town, this person was at work, this kid's phone number was bad, (you get the picture).

To sum it up, it may be unconventional by our standards, but the word is getting out, and the kids are talking to each other. My best guess by the end of the day is that I knew where 20-25 of the youth were (at the parade, or other commitments). This is not including the 3 or so kids that are going to college out of the area.

Two of the kids reminded me of what I preached a few months ago, "If you can make it great, If you can't that's great".

3. Leadership traits

There are a few kids that are taking the lead, or taking an active behind the scenes part of the leadership equation.

The big "political" discussion was the Council Venturing Leadership Council. This group of youth are in charge of planning the Council Venturing events. One of our youth members plans on running for the head of this group, because he didn't like the direction it was headed. A lot of the kids are planning on attending the next meeting to make sure "their" candidate gets voted in. There was talk from a few others about running for the other offices.

The Kids were discussing the next few events...I guess you can call it planning. As unconventional as it looks, it seems to be working.

4. How can we help. Keep the fire of enthusiasm lit, and at times light a fire under them. I think the best bit of advise I gave this week, was for the Pres to use his officers. When you see these kids ask them how things are going. I think at the next general meeting, I 'll suggest we get away from sitting around a table and make more of a sit around the campfire. I think more things got accomplished yesterday with us sitting around, bouncing off ideas, and keeping it light hearted, then the 'board room" setting.

5. I feel a lot better about things and I think the next few months will be interesting to see what happens.

Cary

Interesting topic. A lot of subjective interpetation. So here's mine.

To advance in rank up to First Class the scout must:

Tenderfoot: Spend at least one night on a patrol or troop campout. Sleep in a tent you have helped pitch.

a. Record your best in the following tests:

Push-ups

Pull-ups

Sit-ups

Standing long jump

1/4 mile walk/run

b. Show improvement in the activities listed in requirement 10a after practicing for 30 days.

2nd Class:

Since joining, have participated in five separate troop/patrol activities (other than troop/patrol meetings), two of which included camping overnight

1st Class:

Since joining, have participated in ten separate troop/patrol activities (other than troop/patrol meetings), three of which included camping overnight.

The above indicates to me that the scout is "active" if he has passed these requirments.

Star - Eagle is where the interpetation gets a little fuzzy to me.

If the scout is working on merit badges, doing his POR (not just wearing the patch), and doing service projects then he is active.

If national wants to expand on the term "active" then the above is my interpetations.

However I do like Ed's take on active.

Bravo htc Bravo

Cary P

Eagle Scout 1981

I'm old school. Go with the external for Philmont. I've got a Gregory external that I used at the ranch two years ago and it's great. At Philmont you will sweat and having the airflow in the back makes life a little easier. I put a tent, thermarest and sleeping gear lashed to the outside and had tons of room on the inside. Don't forget that you will also be hauling food and crew gear at philmont so make sure you have some extra room.

Bravo OGE Bravo!!!!!1

Very interesting...I sat on Eagle BOR for 4 Scouts last night.

So here's my 2 cents.

If the kid is truely remorseful, and has "paid for his sins" then sign off his application and send him to the BOR.

Last summer 3 Scouts that worked with me at summer camp were fired for underage drinking on camp property. Now this is a bigger nono than the forger. All three of these young men "did their time, and paided their debt to scouting" All three of these young men are now Eagle Scouts.

The special thing is I was the mb counselor for one of the kid's last mb (after the incident), and was invited to the other two's Eagle COH, I was even bestowed the Eagle mentor pin from one of the youngsters.

YIS

Cary P.

See you guys around the Festivus pole right after the airing of grievences, and the feats of strength.

The training I from my Scoutmaster as a youth. Good ole Harry showed me a lot about camping, backpacking, and how to handle some of life situations.

The training I've gotten as an adult just reinforces what Harry taught me. (My partents did have some involvement )

My Opinion is

AMEN

Herms,

Don't cap! Advise the kids to see where it goes. My crew started out with about 10 kids and we exploded to over 35 in the first 6 months. Here's the story. This might be long but I'll put a "moral' at the end if you don't feel like reading all stuff.

I started a crew last Oct with a core group of older Scouts that were in different troops but wanted to do more high adventure stuff together, yet not become overburdened with more meetings. This talk around the campfire happened in Jul of 04. I told them I would get the paperwork side of getting a CO, adults, and all that other Jazz.

I worked with my DE and we had a CO with some cash for us, plus enough adults to have a committee.

The basics of the crew would be some type of event once a month, no weekly meetings, and if you can make it to an event great, if you can't that's great.

Last Oct we had out first meeting. I figured there would be about 8 -10 males to show up. We had 18 kids show up (2 female). I picked an interim Pres and we would have officer elections and plan out the year's events at a campout in Jan (Cabin camping). Between Oct and Jan I was at the scout office each week with a new applications.

When the Jan lock in came I was scared to death as we had over 25 kids going (1/3 of them female). Some of these kids I knew and some I was going to meet. We had 5 high schools covering three counties represented. By the end of the weekend the kids jelled, we had officers, and a basic calendar of events.

To make the long story short, we've done something each month and the crew is the largest in the council. Our crew makes up 50 percent or more of the participants of the council venturing events.

Right now I have 36 youth on the books. This fall I've had two youth age out (now are on the committee), one youth move, and one youth that didn't want to stay with us (can't win them all). Do to other commitments the youth have (school, sports, jobs, away at college) we have about a 50% or more attendance at crew functions.

The youth run the crew, and I just make sure all Safe scouting guidelines are followed. Every now and then I have to remind the crew officers that a task needs to be done.

The things that have really made me proud about this is crew is (youth):

3 Crew members are Lodge chief, Vice Chief program and Vice Chief admin for our OA lodge. 1 Crew member elected as OA Section Vice Chief.

1 Bronze award earned this year (quite a few are close).

3 Crew members earned Eagle (through their troops).

3 Crew members are working on their Eagle projects this fall (through their troops).

6 Crew members are in freshmen/sophomores in college and are attend events when they can.

4 of the crew officers are soph and jr's in HS

12 attended the Jamboree.

14 worked on summer camp staff this year.

1/3 of the crew is female.

Crew has been camping, rock climbing, provided community service project, held a family potluck.

Weak areas:

Communications-email and the telephone are how we remind folks about the events.

Planning of events - I like a plan on paper, but the kids do it by word of mouth and we haven't had any problems yet.

Recruiting of 14 year olds - Next year most of the kids will be 16 or older.

Moral: Each group is different and will evolve.

You need new blood to keep your unit alive or it will die.

Make sure you can put on the best program you can, stale program will make the kids leave in droves.

Be ready to be confronted by Scoutmasters who feel you are stealing their older boys.

Big groups can be scary, but you have a bigger pool of ideas to keep your program fresh.

Have fun and watch the kids have fun.

Cary P

Crew 805 Advisor

(This message has been edited by purcelce)

Way to go mama!

Stand your ground. I think Scouting would be perfect if it wasn't for the parents who don't know or think they know the program. I've run into it lots of times. Heck most of us here have had to deal with a parent situation at one time or another.

I told my crew if they didn't come up with any fundrasisers they were going to sell Trails End...They screamed in fear, and came up with a few fundrasiers. Popcorn can be a motivator.

"Question - I thought that OA was based on the Lenni Lenape (Delaware) tradition? That Vigil names are from that language? I gather the interest has expanded based on the geographical location of the OA lodge? "

Most Vigil names come from Lenni Lanape. Howerver mine is Chinook Jargon.