qwazse

Well, in our troop very few scouts make 1st class until they are moving into high school. Most of our FYFC's (first year, first class) don't run. It's 15 camping days which, you're right, does tend to favor Jr. High kids with a more flexible schedule. High-school boys with only same-school peers for a constituency, have not get elected in our troop. Jr. High boys who disrespect older boys and boys who aren't in their "special clique" have not got elected. The boys who command the respect same-age AND different-age peers, they get elected.

I'm not an active arrowman, so my opinion is strictly from what I see in the youth in my troop. It's nice to see young people keep bantering this about. The point of your argument is that it is entirely possible that a venturer, without being in a troop, can: 1. display tremendous scout spirit (vouched for by his/her advisor), 2. be a first-class scout even though he/she hasn't obtained that rank, 3. have done lots of camping with his/her unit and under the auspices of the BSA. Therefore, what would make them any different than the current youth membership? There's only one thing that I can think of: who gets to vote them in? I don't know if you've experienced any boys not getting elected, but it is a trying time for them. Why? Because it is real easy for a boy and his same-aged buddies to pat him on the back and he thinks he's doing scouting honorably. His SM may think so too, but then we older farts are 300 ft away and need our beauty sleep -- so sometimes we miss a little. Well (and this is especially true if you have your elections at summer camp, like we do), guess who the largest voting block in an average troop is? 11-12 year-olds! And trust me, they don't pull their punches! More than once, I've seen a scout who is neglecting the young ones not get elected. Venturing deprives a youth of the critical evaluation of that peer group. The vote from a crew would only tell me how a candidate is seen among his high-school and college buddies. The lodge wants to know what the Jr. High kids think of him/her!

Our crew welcomes youth-leaders from other troops. Shoot, I have one from another state on my roster! From the troop side, we'd rather a youth stay on both rosters, even if it means we won't see him around as much. One of the boys in my troop was in a crew a few miles north of us. For him, it was an opportunity to take what he learned in one place and apply it to the other. All I'm saying is don't rule out the "both-and" option. I saw your post in OA, I have a few ideas you haven't considered. I'll try to cobble a reply for you later.

Welcome! Nice to have someone willing and able to set us all straight! Keep diving in and serving where you best can. Not sure why you would hold back on joining a crew based on your election to SPL. My crew officers take on SPL/ASPL from time to time, when that happens I just remind other venturers that they have to step, but if they don't that's cool -- we'll just do fewer activities. Even when they aren't in a position of responsibility in the crew, the SPL's often like a weekend or two when they don't have to be top dog. But I guess that depends on the attitude of your advisor and your SM and your lodge chief!

It was recommended to me by another crew advisor who I met at an Area Venturing Officer's Association meeting. At the time I was getting a lot of cross-talk of how things were to be done between my crew and my troop. I've been asked to open meetings with prayer a lot. I don't think it was because I always matched the religion of the folks who asked me. I'd like to think it was because the folks knew I had the best interests of everyone present at heart. And honestly, love makes up for a whole lot of unorthodoxy. So if there's someone like that who, although likely to step on some of your "hot buttons", you feel has their heart in the right place, ask them. If not, I like s99's advice. Hold it someplace where sacred cows aren't offended.

Yes, Rick, they would do that. And, yes Stosh, I'm pretty sure sure these fellas knew the flag code well enough to make accommodation for weather, age and gender. They were directing their attention to adult males (especially the immigrants, who as far as I could tell were glad to oblige). Son #1 might of been old enough to pass for an adult, but since he did the respectful thing without being asked, I suppose we'll never know. Geez folks, it's not like they were carrying batons and pepper spray!

Yep. Son #2 was ASPL and he and SPL performed as expected at camp this year. We had an older group of guys, so there weren't too many hiccups. But since thenI have been getting reports from their church and school youth leaders (different schools, different churches) about how hard-working yet nurturing both boys were in various different environments. Now that I think about it, same sort of thing happened with Son #1 (although he was never SPL or PL, he was crew president). Outside of scouting folks would come up to me and say "he gets stuff done."

It really depends on what you and your people make of it. And really, what matters is what it sounds like to the folks in the cheap seats! If I were a new parent, I would think that "pack overnighter" was for me and my son and "family camp" was for me, my wife, son, daughter ... maybe the dog and crazy old uncle Joe! But, not everyone thinks like me, so no matter what you call it, your announcement needs to be specific about who should and who may attend.

Beyond happy meals ... one could estimate the number of plaster casts. Given a nationwide incidence of .2% per year (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2856220/), treating all 10 day periods as equal, divide that by 36, multiply by 30,000 and you'd have at least 20 kids break a bone. Assuming that Jambo would be the peak activity time for youth, we could expect about 600 fractures - estimating on the high side. So 40 would be quite reasonable. 800 would be higher than the national average. But, then again, very few kids in the country go to skate parks.

All of our population statistics have been 25% inflated. We are actually talking about an event with 30,000 youth and adult leaders. That'd only be about 26,000 happy meals assuming that they probably wouldn't let you order them for your 19+y.o. venturers.

By the way, VLST is a pretty significant course because the mental framework needed to handle the program is completely different from cubs or boy scouts. The more folks who understand the program, the better. The folks at the Legion probably have some background in scouting, but unless these are fairly young vets, it's unlikely they've experienced venturing. Also for your personal sanity, Meeting other advisors regularly is critical. They will confirm that you're crazy, but they'll also help you know if you're doing things right.

First, thanks for all your hard word on behalf of your youth. Second, you're in for a wild ride. Throw the gauntlet down with your DE. Say "my people will be available for X hours on the . Send us a trainer, and well jump through your hoops". Hopefully it will be the same day as VLST. If not, ask your people if any of them can make the Charter training. If not, punt. JTE is filled out by your crew president. If you can be humble enough to apologize to him/her and ask her forgiveness for costing them a couple hundred points, you're done. Warning, if your DE does take up the gauntlet, it's good form to provide snacks for the trainer.

I think scouting does engender the level of respect for military personnel that most enlisted folks would like to see. They don't want youth holding them up on a pedestal, but they do want to be understood and respected for what they are doing for their country. I remember watching one parade in a AnySmallTown USA, my host told me to make sure my son knew to take of his hat as the vets came down leading the parade with the flag; otherwise, a member who walks down the sidewalk beside the color-guard will chastise him for being disrespectful. I told my host "After all of the training in scouts, that boy will have more than the veterans to worry about if he doesn't already know how to behave." Sure enough, he followed protocol and took his hat off at the appropriate time. My host is now a cubmaster for his son's pack. I'm pretty sure that the prospect of his boys bestowing appropriate military honor was a selling point.

Here's a thought ... I think honor expresses itself in groups. That's why I push youth to "put themselves out there". This is one of the prime distinctions between my ventures who come in from a troop environment, and the rest (i.e., some girl scouts, and boys and girls who were never in scouting). In a troop it is taken for granted that you will hold a position of responsibility (not talking about patches here, talking about a job that everyone expects of you), and you will put some effort into it and nobody is going to take any excuses from you, and you are not going to make any excuses for your self. If you fail, you apologize - not quit - and we move forward. If you haven't got that when you were 11-13, then you face a tremendous fear of failure when, at 14, I hand you your application and say "fill this out, don't make your mom or dad do anything except sign the bottom and read the fine print with you. Bring it back next meeting, and I'll make sure you're legit." Then the next meeting, my VP program comes up and says, "Hey, I saw your eyes light up when we mentioned canoeing. Do you want to help us pick some dates, make some calls, and set it up?" You know what? It doesn't matter if it happens at their first meeting or their 12th, that challenge to their honor for the benefit of the group is huge. So much so, that I have seen youth quit before even trying. That's not a complete tragedy, they usually find honor in something else. (It's really tough on the advisor's ego when they do! ) So, IMHO, the honor is something you have long before you "sign on" (be it in pen, or with an oath). It's your very essence. When you set up any expectations for yourself (again, words are superfluous here), you call on that honor. When you meet those expectations you reveal it. When you don't, your honor is squashed and you become less than the person the Almighty intends you to be. When you ask forgiveness, you "come to yourself" (as the prodigal did) and that honor gets restored -- sometimes to levels greater than those around you may think you deserve. It's all part of the great human drama. We're just asking our scouts to be very intentional about letting that drama play out!

By tent stakes, I'm assuming you mean something of the longer stakes you can buy in your camping supply store. No, they won't work. If your talking what the circus uses, that's a different story. 30" rebar (steel) works. Some people have that more ready than wood stakes. If you have a landscaper among your parents, he/she might be able to make a generous donation. But the general ideas was to go out in the woods, size up the plot of land, find the hickory trees with suitable branches (easy enough if you're somewhere with harsh winters and plenty of deadfall), and hack away.

I remember in college (a little later than you would have been going, Stosh) a buddy of mine and I were in the same class. He was always looking sharp, and I -- well let's just say I never left the wilderness too far behind. The prof was just a few years older than us (maybe more, but she looked very young) and a very competent instructor, who was generous with office hours. I remember going her office and he was just leaving -- in full dress ready his ROTC meeting. Her first comment to me was "Students didn't dress like that when I was in college! Times have changed." "For the better?" I asked. "Yes, I think so, she said. We were so unfair to soldiers." I think people have gotten a grip. They understand that not every uniformed individual or every citizen who salutes our flag is part of the military establishment. And even if they are, it's because they believe that we are worth it. I hope that the same attitude extends to scouts. IMHO, good citizens make good soldiers - not the other way around. And even if they don't enlist they make good soldiers of their countrymen who choose to serve, by voting and participating in their government.

"Thou shalt not take the Lord's name in vain." -- If he heard an "Oh my Gosh" (or even a "Golly gee" or "by Jove") from our lips, he'd bust us on it!

We'll need Richard B to direct us to an after action report. And that, IMHO, means every "near miss" should be followed up this month. Many spiral fractures (like the one my daughter acquired to her wrist this spring) aren't diagnosed at the ER, but rather a couple of weeks after the fact. I know in recent years, I've had one boy with a sprained wrist backpacking. Estimate that at 1 per 1000 boy-days, multiply by 40, and you're pretty much right at the same #. :0 For my modest statistical consulting fee, I can compile the published research on skate park and BMX injuries and give you a probability of our event being something other than chance variation from those norms.

If that was true, then why do the "leadership skills" types go nuclear when we suggest that the Boy Scouts of America (in exchange for our lucrative monopoly on Scouting) be "trustworthy" enough to "obey" the statute that we include all those requirements from June 15, 1916? For the same reason that we pay the morbidly obese a million dollars a year to mock that law, to promote Wood Badge, and to explain why it is wrong for the Boy Scouts of America to expect a twelve (12) year-old Boy Scout to sleep in a tent away from his mommy and daddy: Not a ten (10) or eleven (11) year-old Boy Scout, mind you, but a twelve (12) year-old Boy Scout! http://inquiry.net/leadership/sittin...ith_adults.htm EDGE haters unite, or untie, or something .... Funny thing about those computer games. The ones my kids (now ages 16-22) like the best, are the ones where the protagonist hast to start fires, gather gear, assemble a patrol, traverse terrain, sleep out, etc ... Every now and then they'll play the soccer or football simulations.

Yeah, what he said ^_^. Except for the "adolescent view" thing. But, I guess that's one more reason I like the BSA. It's not a perfect compromise, but one that keeps a lot of houses of worship in the game. The alternative could be very much like what we have with the school system: fiefdoms of public works that alienate all manner of folks ... leading to them build their own highly coveted schools.

When I had become an atheist (around the age of 12, I started reading the Bible and very quickly realized that I couldn't believe what I was reading), I toyed for a few minutes with every Christian teenager's wet dream of total hedonism by being an atheist*, but I immediately realized that that was a false concept. So since neither Christianity nor the Bible would be my guide, what would? The answer came to me immediately: Scouting. Every moral precept that I could ever need was embodied in the Oath, Law, Motto, and Slogan. Decades later when I read that Baden-Powell quote, it certainly looked like he was referring to the Ten Commandments as governing by "don't" and hence was demonstrating that the Scout Law is actually superior; am I the only one or did anyone else also see that? BTW, I'm still a big Boy Scout. A 61-year-old Boy Scout. OTOH, I have no use for BSA, Inc. I view BSA as being more an enemy of Scouting than promoting it. BSA does not live nor operate by the Oath and Law and they constantly endanger Scouting by creating discrimination lawsuits and alienating sponsors and donors. I wish that BSA would just go away so that an actual Scouting organization could take its place. { * FOOTNOTE: Having been involved in creation/evolution since 1981 and in contact with fundamentalists since 1970, I have had a lot of dialogues with fundamentalists. One theme that keeps coming up is that if God doesn't exist, then there is no morality and we can do whatever we want. Absolutely ridiculous, but that is what they insist upon most emphatically. A local creationist activist claims to have been an atheist, but he never was. As he describes it in his own writings, as a teenager he accepted evolution and "became an atheist" (HINT: no such decision is necessary) just because of his bubbling hormones. In reality, it was his own religious training that had offered him that legal loophole, not evolution. And in reality, he never was an atheist, since he admitted to me that he prayed to God every night during his "atheism". Using atheism as an excuse to misbehave is a Christian practice, not an atheist one. } Why? 'cause they like it! And the 10c's isn't even theirs!!! The believers are just thoroughly wowed by the 3 millennium track record, I guess. Don't come down to hard on the pastor. If he was hawking "10 rather mediocre ways to live", he'd lose his paycheck. Agreed with trying to foist Christianity on every scout. I only go into any detail about any of the few religions I admire (or the one I adhere to) if a youth asks. Generally, I'm more interested in getting a scout to open up about his religion. It's more fun that way, and I actually learn a thing or two in the process!

I think it's more a question of where your blind spots are. My SM wouldn't took the 3rd commandment very seriously (not even an OMG). But he'd let us tell some pretty rare jokes. Also, some scouts are coming from a different starting point than others. Each boy is a negotiation between you and his parents. Then, we make it clear to a boy when an action is unbecoming of his oaths. Some boys need quite a lot of "warning." From the outside, it could look like we are very lax. But from the boots on the ground, if a boy is always on "lock down" you will never know if he's learned. (Of course from the boys' perspective, we often come off as too strict!)

When I had become an atheist (around the age of 12, I started reading the Bible and very quickly realized that I couldn't believe what I was reading), I toyed for a few minutes with every Christian teenager's wet dream of total hedonism by being an atheist*, but I immediately realized that that was a false concept. So since neither Christianity nor the Bible would be my guide, what would? The answer came to me immediately: Scouting. Every moral precept that I could ever need was embodied in the Oath, Law, Motto, and Slogan. Decades later when I read that Baden-Powell quote, it certainly looked like he was referring to the Ten Commandments as governing by "don't" and hence was demonstrating that the Scout Law is actually superior; am I the only one or did anyone else also see that? BTW, I'm still a big Boy Scout. A 61-year-old Boy Scout. OTOH, I have no use for BSA, Inc. I view BSA as being more an enemy of Scouting than promoting it. BSA does not live nor operate by the Oath and Law and they constantly endanger Scouting by creating discrimination lawsuits and alienating sponsors and donors. I wish that BSA would just go away so that an actual Scouting organization could take its place. { * FOOTNOTE: Having been involved in creation/evolution since 1981 and in contact with fundamentalists since 1970, I have had a lot of dialogues with fundamentalists. One theme that keeps coming up is that if God doesn't exist, then there is no morality and we can do whatever we want. Absolutely ridiculous, but that is what they insist upon most emphatically. A local creationist activist claims to have been an atheist, but he never was. As he describes it in his own writings, as a teenager he accepted evolution and "became an atheist" (HINT: no such decision is necessary) just because of his bubbling hormones. In reality, it was his own religious training that had offered him that legal loophole, not evolution. And in reality, he never was an atheist, since he admitted to me that he prayed to God every night during his "atheism". Using atheism as an excuse to misbehave is a Christian practice, not an atheist one. } Salutation edited. Reading the NT without the OT is like trying to breath in a vacuum! Paul for his part made it very clear that his doctrine was not about handing down a moral code. Half of his audience thought they were the bee's knees because they had their moral coded handed down on stone tablets. For those folks he used the Old Testament in debunking that world view. The other half were tempted to believe they could do anything they wanted now that Christ (or, indirectly Paul, Apollos, or several other highly reputed messengers) was their champion, and he used mostly common sense (and a few "God forbids!") to debunk that world view. His premise was that anyone could come up with a moral code -- it's innate for humans to do so. But, regardless of the code, everyone falls short to dire effect. But, deliverance from those failures requires the miraculous intervention: enter the doctrine of salvation. Now obviously an atheist is not buying that last part. But, any Christian that takes Paul with any level of seriousness ought to know that the world's highest moral standards are not inherently part of the Good News. So, not only is the image of an immoral atheist false, it is contrary to Scripture to imagine someone without knowledge of the Bible as somehow unfettered from moral obligations.

When I had become an atheist (around the age of 12, I started reading the Bible and very quickly realized that I couldn't believe what I was reading), I toyed for a few minutes with every Christian teenager's wet dream of total hedonism by being an atheist*, but I immediately realized that that was a false concept. So since neither Christianity nor the Bible would be my guide, what would? The answer came to me immediately: Scouting. Every moral precept that I could ever need was embodied in the Oath, Law, Motto, and Slogan. Decades later when I read that Baden-Powell quote, it certainly looked like he was referring to the Ten Commandments as governing by "don't" and hence was demonstrating that the Scout Law is actually superior; am I the only one or did anyone else also see that? BTW, I'm still a big Boy Scout. A 61-year-old Boy Scout. OTOH, I have no use for BSA, Inc. I view BSA as being more an enemy of Scouting than promoting it. BSA does not live nor operate by the Oath and Law and they constantly endanger Scouting by creating discrimination lawsuits and alienating sponsors and donors. I wish that BSA would just go away so that an actual Scouting organization could take its place. { * FOOTNOTE: Having been involved in creation/evolution since 1981 and in contact with fundamentalists since 1970, I have had a lot of dialogues with fundamentalists. One theme that keeps coming up is that if God doesn't exist, then there is no morality and we can do whatever we want. Absolutely ridiculous, but that is what they insist upon most emphatically. A local creationist activist claims to have been an atheist, but he never was. As he describes it in his own writings, as a teenager he accepted evolution and "became an atheist" (HINT: no such decision is necessary) just because of his bubbling hormones. In reality, it was his own religious training that had offered him that legal loophole, not evolution. And in reality, he never was an atheist, since he admitted to me that he prayed to God every night during his "atheism". Using atheism as an excuse to misbehave is a Christian practice, not an atheist one. } DW, I saw in another thread that you gave up at the part about the incest between Lot and his daughters. Not sure how that's unbelievable, but then again I'm jaded. One of the database hangups when I first started working on a genetic research project involved a program that didn't know how to handle when a subject and her bio-mother had the same father. That was 1 in a sample of about 400 families -- just north of the Mason Dixon line. Pity you didn't stick with it for the part about Tamar and Judah! Yep. Most of these folks don't take their Bible seriously if it doesn't suit them. St. Paul makes it very clear in his opening chapter of Romans that the irreligious are just as accountable for any lack of morality as the religious -- the latter being worse off because they claim to have a standard from which they fall woefully short. Flying in the face of their great commission, too many Christians spend too much time around Christians ... makes for some pretty insipid salt -- generating immoral atheist bogeymen, etc.... A pastor of mine re-cast the ten commandments in terms of a series of do's. It built off of a kid's teaching tool "Ten Best Ways to Live", but framed clearly for us adults. It came off sounding very much like the Scout Law with Reverent, Brave, and Clean in the beginning and Helpful, Loyal, and Trustworthy towards the end.