qwazse

Just got my patch and travel tag in the mail.

Got paint? Plywood? Giant puzzle on 2'x2' tiles. If you have two, the scouts can race each other.

I've never heard of any such restriction at our reservation.

I'm calling BS @bearess, I saw all kinds of girls coming into venturing, and GS background did not make a difference in who was deferential to men or boys and who was not. But after a few months, they all were able to speak their mind top others. That was actually one of my favorite things about venturers: young women who, while passing on a trail, would look you in the eye and say a bright "good morning." The girls who didn't like the thought of backpacking through bear country, didn't go. They were still a welcome part of our crew! It was that simple. Same things for boys. Most overconfident canoer I ever knew: a comittee member who joined our crew on a whitewater trip. The poor dear, she was not prepared for getting tossed into the maelstrom as often as we did! Most confident: a fourteen year old girl on the same trip who washed up like a drowned rat. I'm on the shore down from a chute with the both of them watching the rest of the rafts make it through (more or less) ... a look of terror on the mom on the right ... a "let's do that again" look on the girl on the left. In scouting, we all are stretched. The youth get to see us flummoxed on multiple occasions. That's part of our gift to them.

I think this falls under "it depends." A seasoned committee won't give two hoots if a member is a DE or a CSE. When Mike Sarbaugh was our SE, and he dropped in on a council committee, it was like "Hi Mike, take a seat and don't eat all of the pizza." Our council has pro's who are SMs and ASMs. They are good people. Your scouts might get recruited for camp staff a little more readily, but that's about it. I would caution to not expect a pro to be your roundtable representative.He'll be quite busy with logistics and paperwork. Send the SM and other MC's to do the handshaking with other units.

So sad. You can second-guess forever. Tall stands of old pine drop limbs on calm days. Thinning them is the only way to curb that. The balance between preventing one calamity while still avoiding the other remains in the hands of the Almighty.

@cocomax, welcome to the dark side. I have 80 year old former GS moms who shake their heads at the sad state of affairs. No matter how you try to pull this off (GS/USA our BSA4G) you're gonna hit this wall with our generation of adults. (Okay, the rest of you can stop laughing. In spirit, I'm more post-modern nomad than baby boomer or gen-x.) Cracking the code is hard. Get these girls in a room and explain to them the problem, and tell them if they want this to happen they will need to start a search. Some suggestions: Grandmothers. Seriously. My co-advisor got her mom to come on a few GS campouts to make things work. Both of those ladies are saints. Veterans. Fire departments. Union halls. Get the word out to them. "Women with integrity to bring up the next generation." College outdoor clubs. APO fraternities. These kids might not have much time. The moms might have to pay cash to get the best young women from this lot to serve as an ASM. Camps and camping schools. Your council venturing officer's association.

My reply seems to have been lost to the ether. So briefly, here's what you and the SM should do. Stand by your scouts and let them know you like what they are doing. (Sound's like that's happening.) Contact your district commissioner and ask if you and the SM may bring this up as a round-table topic for the boy-scout breakout session.

Flip that around, and we can say that a couple of GS/USA leaders who want the girls to camp regularly can get at least get the 15 girls in their charge out there and doing so. For them, programs like one North Face is offering can be a real boon.

Caber tossing! Scouts race to a log. Saw off an end at least 5' long. They get a point for every foot over 5', but they have to hold it upright and "toss" the log so that it at least flips end-over-end and they get a point for each foot the log travels. (Shorter logs generally will go further.)

Risk Relative to what? A 11-13 y/o youth carrying 50 pounds of mulch, rope, a saw,a shovel, and a rake across level ground may pose tremendous risk to himself and others. This risk can be mitigated by a travois, but that often leaves drag marks, a wheelbarrow, but that can require training on load balancing, more scouts, but sometimes in the multitude there is chaos, a wagon. Which is fairly straightforward, and easier to control, often, than one's two feet.

@bearess, I was a little bit tongue (fingers?) in cheek. GS/USA's strength and simultaneous weakness is its segregation. On backpacking trips, I've had to break my venturers coming from GS troops from the habit of deferring to boys. In my case, this happens mostly during land navigation. They would literally cluster on opposite sides of the trail when they reached a crossing. That is the first habit that needs to be broken, because one group would have the right idea and the other the "2 extra miles" idea. And, if the first group cedes to the second, I would have no problem letting them walk out those extra miles. In other instances the girls would take point. E.g. cooking supper or doing dishes. The boys would play dumb, which I found that totally unacceptable. Most of the boys knew full well how to cook and the girls needed to firmly request their participation. That said, the fact that the girls knew to take point and really dive in is a credit to their training. It just took venturing to let them know in deeds rather than words that they deserved a seat at the "boy's" table. So, I don't think @Jameson76 is wrong. A sex-segregated Scouts USA has the potential to replicate GS\USA's foibles. As it stands, the only thing that BSA4G is offering different from GS/USA, is the required participation in outdoor activity for advancement. Where I disagree with him: I don't treat it as a foregone conclusion. There is potential for leaders of BSA4G units to deliver on the promise of scouting in a way that motivates traditional units to do the same.

Things haven't changed that much. A tarp, some rope, and maybe mosquito netting, and you'll be fine.

What GS/USA does not offer that would really help young women get a good footing in the male workspace: interaction with young men.

So, you don't have a youth elections problem. You have an adult interference problem. Encourage your scout that he is doing everything right. If he's enjoying being OA Rep, he should keep up the good work. I would tell the UC that he/she is not to hold another BoR in your troop until he/she is willing to hold up the requirements as written.

First, give yourself a paradigm shift ... In the scouting-verse, one does not show leadership by holding a PoR. One shows leadership by serving others. All scouts must do this. That's the main reason why every rank requires hours of service. (IMHO the number of hours is actually secondary. The scout getting into the habit of knowing what he did, how it helped, and thinking about what he can do next is primary.) So, if a scout really wants to develop leadership, he should involve himself in as many diverse service projects as he can. Most of these will probably be outside of troop life. That said, a troop has to operate well. So every scout should take on some responsibility that, if done weekly, will make the troop as a whole -- not just his patrol -- run smoothly. They are responsibilities, and they lead to personal development mostly through managing something. (Hint: the ones that lead to personal development mostly through managing someone have "leader" in the title!) Only two of those positions are elected (SPL and PL). The remainder are appointed. A scout interested in fulfilling one of those responsibilities should talk to his SPL about which job he thinks he can do best. So, who gets elected? In a healthy troop/patrol, it is the boy who fulfills his responsibility, obeys the scout law, and serves others the most. If that hasn't been the case at your last election, your scout might not be upset for himself. He might be worried that the boys picked Mr. Popular instead of Mr. Prepared. In which case, you need to encourage him that as long as everyone does their part, he'll see this boy grow into the leader he should be. If the boy is concerned that he got picked over. Help him to figure out if he's really been serving his buddies and his community the way he should. Suggest a PoR that he could ask the SPL to appoint him to. Finally, if the boy is interested in being in on the PLC, and is good at taking notes, he might want to consider serving as Scribe.

I still have my little red wagon. It's not much worse for the wear considering the downhill races I did with it when I wasn't using it to complete chores.

No pictures (paradoxically, as you will read below). Just memory ... We had a council event when I was a scout where each troop was assigned a booth to present a merit badge. I convinced ours to choose Photography. We made pinhole cameras, took portraits of any scout who stopped by, and developed the film there on the spot. Our darkroom was a cardboard box with armholes for two scouts to open the exposed canisters and transfer the film to a developing canister (which allowed them to pour developer and fixer in the light), then to lay the negatives on photographic paper and expose and develop the positive image. Scouts visiting our booth could stop by an hour later and pick up their B&W photo. It was an ugly looking contraption, but it worked! The SM was pretty proud because he never developed film before (except his Polaroids) so he had to count on us to order materials, fabricate our box, and teach each other how to use it.

Hair spray. Good luck.

Camping is just cruising on very slow moving waves of earth. ⛵ : 🏕️ = ⛺ : 🏝️

It all depends on ... where the lawyers think they will gain traction in the courts. the media optics when abuse happens among girls minded by men in a brand spanking new program vs. among boys minded by women in a very traditional program. The seminar with Wendy Shaw was very telling. BSA counts "favorable" vs. "unfavorable" media references. And (at least as of March) the MSM thermometer was pointing to "happy". (Pardon my paraphrase. Of languages, marketing doublespeak doesn't come naturally to me.) And, she was quick to tell us how much it was on the "happy" scale. (Again, my apologies for not having an exact number. She provided one. I simply did not care to record it. It was my ink being spent taking notes.)

What we call "obvious" reasons can often be cultural. My Italian scout was thoroughly perplexed about the "no purple tent" philosophy. If you grew from cubs with your brother- and sister- scouts sharing the same canvas, then sex-segregation sounds absurd (and even dangerous) at face value. If on the other hand you were brought up (as most of us were) with the sexes being segregated "for their own good," then sex-integration sounds absurd (and even dangerous) at face value.

This is a good example of how a boy can show leadership and not be the best manager of paperwork. Thus, why MB applications are in three parts, why T2F requirements should be signed off by the PL (who is more likely to know the mastered skills of each of scout in the patrol), and why districts/councils generally maintain a copier. In my experience, our nation's youth do some pretty great things ... they just aren't that great at recording it!

I don't know much about it. A friend of mine whose son joined a local chapter because of Boy Scout burn-out told me that the boy really enjoyed it. Another youth explained some of the search and rescue drills he and his sister would go on. In the process they earn ranks that sound a lot like military grades. I gauge the quality of a program by the enthusiasm of the youth in it. This kid was happier than the kid who once bragged to me about being allowed to cruise around town in his dad's Ferrari. But, he was not as on-cloud-nine as most kids who I've met after coming from mission trips. So, it has a good ranking towards the front of the pack in my mind. I think your son will be pleased with the ship you're going to visit. Many local sailing clubs also have youth programs. Are you near any dive shops? Some of them are connected with swift water rescue teams, and those guys play with some awesome "toys." This is really the point of the HA's -- to widen a scout's vision. Hopefully he'll have time to share some experiences with his troop.

Don't sweat the small (or slightly large) stuff. If you duffels will store as a carry on your flight, it will make moving through the airport that much easier. The Seabase staff aren't sitting there with measuring tapes. I got seasick day one as we were mooring over Looe Key Reef. Heat+below+writing+heavy meal the day before+scout didn't close the valve on the head = I'm rushing up to hurl over the rail. Attracted a bunch of yellowtail, then tarpon though. Made for great snorkeling.