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Chris, here's how to "amp it up" once the boy gets his dead eye ... We had a cabin on a big lake. We got a five gal sealed container, tied a chain and anchors to the bottom, taped a vertical stick (light weight, balsa) nailed a crossbar to the top, hung cans from the ends of the crossbar. Floated about 100 feet out. Shot from shore, had a blast!!! Speaking of blasts: mini water bottles, little vinegar, little Baggie, backing soda. Add ingriedients in proper order. Seal bottle. Shake. Aim shoot. (warn your neighbors first.)

The information on the web represents current standards. You would have to check the references of each to see if one was updated after the other. A lot of it also depends on how used your boys are to open ocean activities, their level of discipline, how closely the boat captains work together, and your general comfort level with things. You get a half-dozen captains who each have a different favorite location miles apart, then you're gonna want every adult on top of things and trained to the max. You get a good flotilla of captains who coordinate their trips, keep the radio on, and keep you in the loop, then more of your adults can just be along for the ride. You got a disciplined and skilled patrol of older boys? I don't see a problem with them spending the day on a boat to themselves if one of your adults is going to be in a boat nearby. By the way, this is just me talking. Not representing council or district. The last thing I'd ever do is ask them for a rule on something. I read the guidelines and apply common sense and a good bit of judgement.

significant and growing liberal wing who disagree with that view. This is particularly so within the Anglican communion where there is a growing and I believe an almost inevitable threat of a split in the church over the issue. The fabric has already begun to tear in our neighborhood. The Episcopal bishop broke communion with his liberal counterparts and joined the more conservative worldwide communion. (Pardon me if I've botched those terms. I don't keep track of boundaries very well.) From his perspective, they left him. I personally like the guy, he's been an inspiration to a lot of youth around hear, and he tries to make it about more than this one issue. Presbyterians are not far behind. Basically American Christians are torn between two views. One that says "In a pluralistic society, we have to adapt our sexual mores." Versus another that says "In a pluralistic society those who wish for leaders who adapt their sexual mores may choose a different religion." The so-called liberal wing may be growing stronger in their respective denominations, but they are assuming charge of shrinking boats. The same may be said for so-called conservatives. No more oxen liners, just canoes and kayaks.

Sounds fun! It all depends on captain's qualifications. He should be licensed ans properly trained for water rescue. If so, you already have one adult per boat. I don't think you want to go below one adult from the troop per boat.

Looks like you're locked in to a few things. I'd encourage your leaders to be sure of the boys' general activity level. Have the older boys lead the newbies on a day hike around the area. Each boy should carry a day-pack with a snack and water and gear appropriate for the weather. One boy should bring a garbage bag. Plan the hike so there are plenty of loops back just in case you have a couple of boys who want to quit. The adults observe all this from the rear so that they can begin talking to parents about future acquisitions of footgear, packs, tents, etc ... The other strategy is to get into the habit of parking about a mile from campsite, if possible. This forces the boys to plan how they hike their gear in. If this happens for nearly every camp-out, they will eventually get the picture that packing efficiently leaves more time for fun at camp. Consider a heart-to-heart with your crew about your wish to get the young boys up to speed and your perception that the older boys in the troop may need some guidance.

primary goal is to revitalize this Troop that started in 1936 You might want to point out that one of the barriers to revitalization is a slip-shod attitude towards paperwork and paying fees. When parents see you all glossing over details, they will be less comfortable with 'lil junior in your care. A 50, 100, 50 has been adequate here. I'm not about to ask if that has changed. Did your DE say why? I can see how some folks might be hard pressed to up their policy. Anyway, make it clear that you expect everyone to work through issues, not tiptoe around them.

Not an HP. An HP would be nagging an SM until his or her baby's book was brought up to date. An HP would give the kid a list of merit badges to work on in order from easiest to hardest for the next two years and would have already called the counselor for the first one. Or, an HP would have said MBs? Why don't we wait 'till your 1st Class? An HP would not only help junior with his knot, but would make sure he got tested that night (lest he forget how later) and breath down the PL's neck when junior was getting tested. Naw, jp, your an ASM. It sounds like the kind of thing you'd do for any boy in your troop if they'd ask. (Between putting out fires, that is. )

Christians reserve the right to impose on culture. They demanded the Roman Empire end the practice of molesting young boys, among other things. They appealed to Britian to abandon the imperial slave trade. They drive capitalism towards pacifism. (Okay, that one's not going very well.) They oppose slaughter of innocents. And they put constraints on one's sexual expression. Conservative Chrisitians in the USA see themselves as called to uphold these cultural mandates (hypocracies notwithstanding). So there's no reason to expect Christian COs to back away from seemingly strident stances.

Edad:Im curious, do you think a male leader would have the identical influence on the girls in a Girl Scout Troop as a female leader? That's like asking if Jane would have the identical influence as Suzie. If Bob's influence is more like Jane's than Suzie's do we count it as identical to a female leader's? More importantly, would either woman's influence be corrupted if Bob came camping with them on weekends? The men I know who help lead a GS are admired by their daughters. By GS camp staff, not so much. My coadvisor has absolutely no problem with men of integrity (especially her husband) camping with her troop.

Technically scout accounts are troop monies that assigned to individual youth to use toward the betterment of troop life. If they wern't you'd might as well pay put cash along with 1099 forms at the end of the year. The other stuff, pick your battles. Personally, I'd harp on the med forms. The insurance, take 'me at their word. Have them write their coverage on a piece of paper and sign at the bottom. The title for the trailer, don't pull it if you don't like it. Scout Parents don't get to dictate what you and your CC (oh yeah, that's you too) decide to be picky over. Only the MCs who have paid their dues in time and money get a chance at calling any shots, and even that has to be in an orderly fashion in accordance with the wishes of the CO.

BD, your unit doing activities with another district is a good case for the relevance of districts. It gives clusters of units the opportunity to train together and to work towards common, yet diverse goals. I'm basically in two districts. The Venturing District, which services all crews in our council. And the geographic district which services packs and troops in a reasonable geographical area. The council-wide "district" helped me to get my unit to out from under some squabbles, and if my youth want to team up on an adventure, they are usually looking beyond geographical boundaries anyway. The down-side is that forums and stuff require distance communication, which we are all still learning how to do. The geographic district is a convenient outlet for announcing my crew's service projects. The commish is happy to forward things along, and welcomes our youth to come make announcements. Since meetings are less than 20 minutes away, your evening isn't totally shot. The roundtables have pretty useful teaching sessions (we all take it in turn to present stuff on topics people request). The adults in our troop who go regularly seem to benefit from it. So I don't see the district model going away anytime soon.

You know, SP, it's never one incident, but a pattern of behavior that will get a UC tagged as "Too Bold". (That's a very polite way of putting it!) What you don't want to happen (that happened to us) is for the unit to request your removal and then that unit get tagged as a go-it-alone group. UC's simply do not darken our door. So if upon reflection, this is clearly a one off thing with this unit, carry on. If on the other hand you're seeing yourself in kind of a "rut", then maybe you need to say "Hey, guys, I've been UC long enough, let me suggest a new commish for you. If you need me, you'll still have my number ..." That way the ball's in their court. If they want you remain active, you can offer to do so as committee member for the events you are best at organizing.

Also worth considering is that boys are looking for non-familial adult female role models. Not to pan dev psych, but it is a science of norms, not variation. (There was I time when the journal of that name asked authors to not put error bars on the plots of trends in the data!) All that is to say, we should accept individuals, not their gender into positions of responsibility. If ther is a female with integrity and direct-contact skills and experience, then you may be doing your boys a disservice by passing them over for less qualified males. Your making a trade off between preserving a culture for some hypothetical gain and being flexible to address immediate needs.

Fish, I see a ticket item in the making! Interview your units' 80%. Sure it's half baked, but be prepared to dozens of ideas like that coursing through your mind. Enjoy the experience, love your patrol.

from the stats spouted off on this forum, declines in membership have not encouraged the BSA to make any radical shifts in policy. There are lots of donors who contribute to the organization because BSA sticks to its guns. So you may have a point! I haven't seen a single sexual orientation lobby offer the BSA large sums of cash for a policy change.

The Presbyterian Church is bleeding members over the homosexual leadership issue. Churches that have left the denomination (for denominations that can contiue to deny homosexuals ordination) claim to have seen membership rebound. I'm skeptical about that, but you can expect to see something of the sort in the BSA. Certain COs will select a different youth movement that maintains a nation-wide ban. For them, following Europe's post-modern trajectory is most undesireable. Like Eng said, the kids could care less, until it's time to chose the religion of their fathers or that of this New Age. For the BSA, then, the question becomes "do we need those COs?"

"one more thing" [after a recap of a weekend you delegated to another leader]

The knot guide is a good start, but I alwayse find asking about a particular knot is a fun conversation starter. There are scads of discussions here about how many and which knots should be worn.

Well established SMs do not take kindly to COR's meddling, so unless it is an issue that is at the core of the CO's mission, using that position to push change in leader philosophy is a very very bad idea IMHO. Better for a COR to spend time seeing if the 14 - 20 year old youth in the congregation could benefit from adult leadership from both sexes ( be it via Venturing or some other program).

Growing up, we had an ASM who called his boys "honeybunch". He was a coal mining, rugged, salt of the earth in a coal mining county. His boys were pretty scrappy. Nobody dissed anybody over it. As I mentioned in another thread, Middle Eastern custom requires terms of endearment in conversation. Omission would indicate a sense of superiority along the lines of master-slave relationship. So we grew up speaking to kinds of English: one with a lot of extra verbiage like "beloved", "beautiful", "darling", etc... around family and old country friends. Another short and to the point around Anglos. You could tell the difference by age. (I used them far less than my older siblings.) Just heard a piece on the radio about a linguist who analyzed speed dating conversations. He asserted that in our modern use of American English the speaker who uses "I" more often is usually in an inferior social status, whereas someone who omits the use of the word is in a superior status. Daters' preferences were predicted more by their choice of such functional words than any other factor. Makes me wonder if some of our preferences in the units we choose (or in the bias of a unit towards including femal leaders) has to do with differences in linguistic cues that makes feel more welcome (or more willing to welcome). So there's a pack that really doesn't fit your boy's style, but the dad or your son's buddy explains things in such a nice way that you feel instantly welcome before you darken the door of a meeting.

There's something to be said for that kelly green. Or any shade of green in a shirt. DeLorenta gave the boys the short end of the stick there.

J. A lot can happen in two years. Usually the Cubmaster makes those contacts. He might simply give you a list of troops in the area. Troops might look up your pack and contact him. But here's what you can do ... 1. ask your CM for den chiefs. he should be able to touch base with the SM in your CO about identifying boys suitable for each den, with priority given to Webelos. There's nothing like. Boy Scout to help with all the Boy Scout material you'll be learning. 2. Appoint a male ADL and get him trained. That will allow you to delegate a campout with any exclusively male adult troops. Contrary to popular belief you don't owe it to parents to be present for each and every event. You sand the COR do owe it to them to provide caring adults who will do the job. 3. Camp and hike, a lot. Have fun.

Yep, if you've got inept, spiritless fellows for FC scouts, your problems are bigger than elections!

Yep, that puts in perspective. That's what we're shooting for: almost by accident achievement!

DS, I've known dads who did exactly what you did well into their son's first year. Mark my word, at some point you'll have a parent who you will have to wean from their son. Hopefully you'll be more tactful given the experience you and your son had.