qwazse

My condolences. As someone whose parents were called to the higher trail some time ago, and whose in-laws joined them recently, I can assure you that that the best way to honor the departed is to retell their stories. For my dad, who was on my troop committee and active in the VFW, it took me a while to find the best way to do that ... given that I had moved some ways from home. Eventually an opportunity came to me. I had my kids’ troop/crew “adopt“ one of the city’s larger cemeteries to decorate veterans graves with flags for Memorial Day. During that evening, I explain that I’m doing this on faith that someone is doing the same by graves of my dad and brothers. Then while walking around making sure everyone has the supplies they need, I tell the youth (and young vets present) some of the ways he encouraged patriotism among youth in our community. My goal is simple: to instill some of his values in them. Sounds like your dad would be pleased if you did something similar.

@TAHAWK, it's not me, it's the kids' earworms. This lot is stuck in the 7th and 8th decade of the last century. Stairway wasn't on my radar until I "appeared" in the midst of their hammock nest (all week, they kept wondering how I could do that) to enforce lights out, and that's the disk they were spinning.

As written for 2c: So, a 20' pool is not wide enough to adhere to the requirements as written. The operative phrase "... in a strong manner ..." So, as written , the requirement mandates some judgment in determining a feeble vs. a strong manner. This cuts both ways, as @yknot indicates. The water could be inhospitable to the point that scouts fail under conditions in which they normally wouldn't be doing aquatics. The solution is to find more suitable water and test again while making a note to self to avoid putting your scouts in those inhospitable conditions again. Or, it could be "too hospitable" that it doesn't reflect the normal course of aquatic activities and conceals a scout's true ability or lack thereof. My bottom line: recruit an evaluator who's guarded for a while, who's had to rescue a tired swimmer or two, and who can look at the pool in question and determine if it simulates a scout's "real world" swimming scenario. (E.g., getting oneself out from the middle of an aquatics area, getting oneself to shore or the nearest boat.) Edited to add: BTW: Even though I'm qualified by most standards, I don't do swim tests. I know that my desire to get everyone up and at the next adventure should be tempered by someone who's been currently guarding for the better part of a season or two over the past couple of years.

Actually, @Mrjeff, as people in the business of forestalling death, it is our duty to be somewhat particular about those “basic” requirements for little ovals upon which is a scroll with a two word declarative statement: Be prepared. If not for those two words, I would get behind your any ship in a storm approach. The nagging question that these ranks are supposed to answer with regards to aquatics: can the scout swim enough yards to save his/her life? The answer in the context of a backyard pool is only “yes” if it reasonably simulates the typical swimming area a 2nd or 1st class scout will regularly encounter.

So, at summer camp we had two adult leaders and two dozen scouts with diverse MB objectives. Plus, I wanted to re-update my lifeguard and CPR certifications, and the other leader had just joined our troop as his son crossed over, so he obviously wanted to be nearby for those scouts. Basically, there was no following older scouts around unless they were in the same direction as the pool or the one or two scouters who I knew from WSJ. If the boys did not requisition supplies from the camp QM, we didn't get it. If they didn't request low-sugar cereal from the dining hall, I didn't eat it. If camp was untidy, they took the hit on inspection. I might pick up litter in my path, but that was it. The camp staff knew that there were just two of us, and ours was the biggest troop there. Although they were busy sanitizing the snot out of everything, they encouraged us and understood that we'd appreciate their "one eye" on our boys. It was not pretty. We got noise complaints. I told the boys to keep their micro boom boxes off the trails, and sing because nobody will complain about scouts singing. They said they couldn't remember the words without the music. So, every morning I taught them the words to a pop song: Queen: stomp stomp clap ... stomp stomp clap ... "I'm a little tea pot short and stout ..." Led Zeplin: [humming intro to "rising sun" ]... ba da bum ... "I am a little tea pot ..." The Animals: "I'm a little tea pot short and stout ... By day four, they ran flags like clockwork and dismissed the troop with no interference from adults. Our boys pushed boundaries, on their own asking staff to allow them to project movies before quiet hours. (One scout's dad does tech for a school that had no use for 800' of extension chord.) Much to my chagrin, senior staff approved with enthusiasm. Did it get out of hand? According to a neighboring troop (easily 150 yards away), yes. On the other hand, the scouts who you can hear, or whose flashlights are ruining your star-watching, are rarely the problem.

You all need to what I did when I was a kid and make friends with the Dr. who put in a 50' foot pool just up the hill (I kid not) just up the hill from the county pool. Of course, by the time we could hang out at his pool, we had all made it through the gauntlet of the ARC program run by a WAC vet. You knew you'd pass any swim test when she stopped cussing at you about your form.

@CommishJulian, welcome to the forums. I am afraid that your optimism is misplaced. First, BSA’s program for girls (let’s not mince words: separate troops + imbalanced YPT regs = separate program) Is a niche, although a noteworthy one. Most that I’ve seen have males SMs and it may be that way quite some time, I expect. So, that influx is more like a trickle. Second, I’ve known female leaders who have tried to muzzle males and females. The more female leaders we have, the more frequent that will be. It’s nothing to do with being female in particular. It’s just that whoever rises to the top has a chance at being tyrannical, and that’s not bounded by sex. We absolutely need more women of color working with our scouts — if not as scoutmasters, most certainly as merit badge counselors and unit committee. Again, it’s not that they bring anything more special than do white folk, it’s just healthier for our scouts to meet folks of various races and sex in positions of authority. Our only chance is to encourage those kinder, gentler, “super grown-ups” and firmly correct any “adult-children” who we may come across.

@MattR and @SSScout, let’s be clear that as far as fees go, Jambodemic would be as expensive. Good tech and reliable public health won’t be cheap. Transportation to a camp in a scout’s area would be less, but delivering a similar experience to isolated council camps may vary.

I posted the following on Bryan’s blog ... What would you think of a massively multisite national camporee? (Assuming tech sponsors would come on board to provide infrastructure.) Maybe call it a Panoree or Jambodemic.

If a scouter forum can’t countenance dumb scout jokes (now called dad jokes) over the likely autocorrect of “tentage” to “tent age”, it’s probably not a forum that I’d continue following. Therefore I’d encourage moderators to tread lightly, in conference, and discretely.

Well, I guess we could do @MattR a solid and quibble over an end to gaudy council names and patches ...

Doublespeak: as in when one promotes "Family Scouting" instead of simply offering the Boy Scout program to girls. Think about it: Why "Scouts BSA" instead of continuing as "Boy Scouts" and adding "BSA for Girls" (or as I still affectionately say, BSA4G) as the new parallel program? Because the collective wants to give the impression that we are more Northern European than Indonesian or Indian (or, now that they have girls in their program, Saudi) in our approach to the sexes. Even though, for the majority of Americans, the thought of sexes mixing so liberally is anathema. Why not BSA and GS/USA going to Jambo (National or World) together? Because Seton and Lowe believed that their respective scouts were learning mutually exclusive skills when we know for a fact that both groups develop youth into fully capable homemakers in short order. Why propagate this vision into the 21st century? Because pro's in both groups know that we parents will need fewer of them if boots on the ground were at liberty to work in lock-step across organizational boundaries when they felt that it suited their communities. Why, in the 30s, stop calling the GS/USA troop leaders captain and merely call them adult leaders -- not (as BP was heard doing in an audio address to leaders of Guides and Scouts) scoutmasters? I suspect it had less to do with any true egalitarian sense and more to do with the profitability of organizational autonomy.

Considering the need for isolation bubbles that folks in some parts feel, would this be a time to switch from age-based dens to dens of nearest neighbors? Regarding JTE ... so you get bronze or lower. What’s the big deal?

All the cool kids have a camp towel (synthetic wannabe tericloth) and shammi type towel. Both require a lot of rinsing and drying to deodorize. But, they do dry quickly.

Brainstorming for future reference ... right now is a good time to snatch up 5 gal bottles from office water coolers. Because of restrictions, many suppliers aren’t taking them back. Careful pioneering, some work with stoppers and hoses, and you should have a camp shower.

Camp Conestoga was a welcome break for our scouts. The aquatics director did me a solid and helped me re-update BSA guard including my CPR cert and a thorough first aide review. I told him it was a little weird seeing the other side of their “little square lake” during swim qualifiers. He actually apologized for landing the black 10 pound weight on the black and marker. I thought it was the most visible weight I had to retrieve in a long time! Their trades program area was a hit with four of our boys. I let the welding instructor know that he was the topic of conversation at many dinners (which the older scouts picked up at the dining hall and brought back to camp). Their handicraft area had stained glass, which if it weren’t for the recertifications, I would have jumped at. I did walk by one day and those grinders were humming! Funny how something that’s not a merit badge could be so popular. The night sky was excellent. The food was good, although in retrospect we probably would have done better to bring our own and worked on patrol cooking. I did miss chatting with SMs in the program hall. I was sad to see it empty. Their was sufficient space for distanced flag ceremonies and campfires. Because sanitizers were used at full strength, staff took responsibility for cleaning shower houses. Yes, I missed sending the scouts off to their day of latrine duty. By day four and no fevers, you could tell the sense of relief.

The robotics theme is not as crazy as it sounds. NASA already has training programs where students learn to operate its exploration vehicles and gather science data. (https://www.nasa.gov/centers/johnson/stem/student-activities/index.html). In fact, each scout could be assigned to an autonomous vehicle at the lunar reservation and operate it for a year or two. We could solicit scholarships to fun internships for those pesky 18-20 year-olds. We could call them ... Rover scouts!

This is primarily about the pandemic. At the outset of this slow-motion train wreck, my pandemic guy said it would take 18 months to roll out a vaccine — assuming at least one manufacturer gets it right on the 1st try. The only advantage to a 2021 Jamboree from a public health perspective would be if the first batch of winning vaccine (assuming that at least one is effective) could easily be administered at one location. But, barely 2% of scouts and scouters participate, so it’s impact would be minimal. There could be a national event with perhaps a fraction of the scouts (say, 0.1% of membership) allowing for much slower viral transmission. But, that would not be a Jamboree. There could also be a multi-multi-location (e.g. hundreds of camps simultaneously) national event that could involve a record number of scouts. It would hard to imagine how to recreate the intentional connectedness of a single location. But the right corporate sponsors might want to give it a try.

@StrykerJW, welcome to the forums. It sounds very egalitarian. But the analysis of your selection of terms omits one thing: How much do you think changing brand will increase market share? Also, you state that youth should elect their chief/chieftess/high/prime/grand guide/priest/prophet/poobah/anything-but-SM from available candidates, as if this doesn’t happen already. In the normal course of affairs, SM’s are brought up (pulled down?) from the ranks of a troop’s SMs. Kids don’t suffer fools for ASMs (they barely put up with me, but that’s because they are willing to overlook the ruination from years of being a crew advisor). Boards of review give committees very good ideas of who has helped youth the most. In my experience, youth also will talk loudly about inept adults. The ground truth is that there is rarely one person at the helm of scoutmastering a troop. Last week, neither our SM nor two former SMS nor the SM from a neighboring troop were available. I was dying to take a week off and one dad of a crossover was available to join me. So the two of us were the bottom of the barrel for these boys. Basically, the economy elected us. I have a hard time imagining that operating under your rubric would improve any of this.

As camp counselors have asked my scouts for a note from their SM confirming that the did x,y, or z prerequisite, I have developed the following template: To whom it my concern, —— is a scout. A scout is trustworthy. Therefore, you may take ——‘s retelling of exploits pertinent to requirements for the badge that you are counseling as fact. My signature is most assuredly superfluous. Sincerly, qwazse

Two first-years were mapping out their moon stations the other evening. I’ll let them know that their plans might be of use sooner than they think! Sorting out camping nights is going to be a bear!

Writing from Camp Conestoga in Westmorland Council, PA in the company of pandemic refugees from states north and south, all the while exposing those viruses to UV rays and soap. TBH, I’m not one to walk around with a fathom stick social distance warrioring. But, I think they are sufficiently cautious. They boys have masks at the ready when needed. No complaints. My only assistant is a crossover’s dad who was a scout, an all-around great guy, and a tremendous help. Lots of paychecks: last night a couple of 1st years stayed at camp to do space-ex “campsite paperwork”, and got way into the weeds with me about all things interplanetary. Today, fillets of caught fish are frying. GTG. I just saw our lunch crew on the way to pick up from the dining hall.

I okay with agreeably disagreeable. I'm hoping most folks post things with which I might not agree. I sincerely hope few of those are things I could downvote without explanation. "membership stability". What's been more stable? The membership of a council with an obtuse name, or the members of a community? Yes, our rust-belt towns have had a lot of churn, but they are still on the map. Just talked to a young man in line outside the DMV who, like my daughter, is moving back home. Neither of them are moving back to scouting. (I'm working on it, it's a tough sell. Gotta smooth out that MB counselor registration process.) "financial stability" You want councils to have money? Well civic groups want to know where their money's going. They see a scout doing a good turn, they see their nearest big town named on his shoulder, they have their answer -- in red and white (or green and tan).

It's funny how management consultant types harp on mission and vision, but never want it to have teeth ... No, unless they have, as a default, a city-state identification (okay, Transatlantic Council gets a pass) in standard-issue, I don't think a council has met the minimum standard for it's existence. (No offense, Laurel Highlands, New Birth of Freedom or Michigan Crossroads. But all your names do is sweep under the rug how much clusters of community organizations have pulled their support out from under BSA.) The name of an established location speaks a lot about vision. Areas that resent their scouts and scouters wearing a rival city on their sleeve might give a care about everything else it takes to from a council from troops nearer-and-dearer to their town of choice. That's my opinion. I don't expect it to be popular.

@CynicalScouter, this builds on the patrol method philosophy: "... a patrol is a group of friends ..." instead of an administrative unit of a troop. The minimum requirement of a council should be a group of civic organizations in and around a city/town enthused about scouting in their region. If a council is not that, it will merely be an administrative unit of BSA, and from a consumer perspective, nobody will care. Which means that a couple councils a year will fail to meet standards based on your so-called "LOT more important things". The "patch" example came from my council's Jambo patch, which depicted the French and Indian war ... censors removed the native's weapons from their hands. Turning the set into what one of my scouts decried as "least traded patch, ever." The point is, if council uses imagery, to use honest historically accurate imagery of local persons/events. If they can't settle on that, revert to the default. Do, I expect this to be in the minimum standards? Obviously not. But I expect all other minimum standards to miss their mark so long as it isn't.