raisinemright

Had somewhat a similar issue a few years ago. The Blue and Gold was to be planned by the W II families. They never got around to it, so 3-4 weeks in advance, pack leadership took over and planned it out. We gave notice of the date and time. A week or so before the event, one of the crossover families told us they were going to be at another family event, implying that we should change the date for the other 20 families. Sice we had already boked and paid for the hall and catering, that wasn't going to be happening. I spend a lot of time on the phone with them trying to massage the schedule so their son could be there to crossover. Finally realizing that they weren't going to budge, I gave up. Sorry to say he missed crossover. We even offered to set the bridge up at the next Pack meeting, which IIRC, he never showed up for. You do what you can do, but their comes a point where the needs of the majority prevail.

We've got a brand new troop. When we began 4 months ago, we appointed our SPL. Only two boys meet the troop qualification of 1st Class or above right now. We're going to make it a six month term witt the SPL having the option of another 6 months at his discretion, so essentially it's a 12 month term but he will have the opportunity to bow out if he decides being SPL isn't really his calling.

Look up Young Eagles online. It's a program run by the Experimantal Aircraft Association and takes kids flying. A couple years ago, I hooked up with them and we had our Pack Picnic at the local airport. Each scout and sibling got to take about a 20 minute flight and everyone had a great time. Due to having to move, we're not with that unit anymore, but they did the airport picnic again last year. Absolutley the best and most exciting event ever. We had some leftover popcorn from our sales and each pilot got a can.

I have an 11X17 tentmahall. We mostly use it for family camping. The other 7-8 tents are more conducive to scout stuff. It's really big and very hard to set up alone. Can be done but it's really a 2-man job. You also have to be careful where you go. I've been to a couple campgrounds where there's not enough room for a tent that large.

We're in almost the same situation. New troop. In four months we're up to 14 boys. One Liufe, One Star, 1 2C, 1 Tenderfoot, 10 Scout. Yep, that's pretty scary. The life scout is SPL and doing well. We broke into two patrols two weeks ago when we hit 11 boys. Three more just joined. First patrol based campout is next weekend. They're not really planning anything big but it should be fun. All the best. Run with it and have a great time.

Yea, it doesnt breathe much and could really use an inside zipper. I dont zip it all the way. In winter its not too bad. I tried it in the summer once and almost drowned. I want to stitch some small vents into it.

OK guys, this is going to sound kind of stupid, but it works. I have a military issue body bag. I get in my sleeping bag and zip up the body bag. Keeps me nice and toasty on those cold winter campouts. Plus, there are six convenient handles should I expire during the night.

My son has been anxiously waiting for this badge. He is a member of a FIRST Tech Challenge team. He's done just about everything for the badge in the last few months.

3. I have a 15 degree bag that is ready to be retired, a 35 degree for most trips and a 45 degree for summer. My son has a zero but we just moved to a state that's a little more temperate, so I'm going to get another 15-20 deg. bag.

Upon my "retirement" as a DL, I was given a card with a restaurant certificate with enough for a nice dinner with my wife, but not enough for me to want to take the kids along. (perfect) I've gotten a couple other nice token gifts over the years. The best was a Gerber multi-tool. Our old pack has a tradition of giving a hiking staff to leaders who are "aging out" and moving up to Boy Scouts. Due to a forced job change, we had to completely leave both troop and pack and move out of state. They got me a special retirement gift of a handmade staff with the troop number engraved on it and an awesome framed poster of a Cub Scout saluting a ROnald Reagan campaign poster. In our new home, we had the opportunity to start up a new troop about 3 months ago. We were able to get the same number as our old troop, so the hiking staff fits right in.

Of course you should award it. A few years ago, we had a kid join my sons Webelo II den. Once he found out about AOL, he wanted to earn it. We spent a lt of extra time with him and as a den tailored a few meetings around helping him earn it. He just pulled it off.

My son's shirt says that he's a member of Boy Scouts of Am rica.

WOW! Sounds like some committee members need to re-read all the rulebooks. The time to stop this nonsense is right now. SPLs are voted by the troop, not the committee. Now I really sound like a hypocrite. Our troop is brand new. Like, 6 weeks old. Only two scouts are above 2C. (Life and Star) Only two of the other scouts were even cubs, so they are all brand new at the Scouting game. The senior guys were appointed SPL and ASPL for a very strict 6 month term at which point all the scouts have ben told we will have scout elections. For an established troop, comittee should have very little to do with scout leadership positions. I can be easily pursuaded that the SM should be able to approve candidates, but that is all. I've had an occasion where a scout was voted PL and then disappeared for 4 months for Basketball. That is what could have been avoided with a little bit of vetting by the SM.

Not supposed to, but with a smaller pack, sometime you gotta do it. I was DL and ACM for several years. For about 2-3 of them, I was a ASM too.

OK which one to use. One cold winter night on a patrol campout I hit the sack a little before the other leaders. We had two tents pretty far from the scouts. I heard two leaders crawl into their tent and beging to cary on a muted conversation. Then my tentmate came in. He was going to use a silvery mylar emergency blanket inside his sleeping bag for a little extra warmth. Now, if you've ever opened one of those up, you know it's absolutely impossible to do it quietly. But he tried. I never let on that I was awake. The otehr two guys were still talking. After about two minutes of the loudest crinkling you've ever heard, I said "Would you guys be quiet, I can't hear Sam opening his blanket." Needless to say, we all giggled like a bunch of girl scouts. One of those guys got me back though. On a high adventure trip, my campstove had a prety massive mechanical failure and caught fire, I ended up with my hand on fire. Since I was wearing synthetic clothes, I refrained from batting it out on my shirt and proceeded to wave it fast and put out the flames. Stop,Drop and Roll on gravel just wasn't going to happen. This guy looks at me a couple minutes later as I'm beginning some first aid and said "Hey, that happened pretty quickly. Can we redo it so I can get a picture?"

I wouldn't worry about going from hot to cold. Years ago, I decided to do my wife a favor and turn on the self cleaner to the stove while she was gone. (Just married, never had used it before) I forgot to look in the stove before I started it. An hour or so later, a loud racket started coming from the inside of the stove. A cast iron frying pan was inside and getting so hot, it was shaking in the stove. I broke the lock open and using about four potholders, i removed the pan and tossed it out the back door into a snowbank. It sizzled and sank into the snow in a rush of steam. We still use the pan today, 24 years later. No damage.

We would get a whole bunch of dollar store stuff and a few donations and give out tickets for the raffle. Sometimes we would also sell some tickets for a quarter and raffle off a BB gun. (to the parents) Council people were usualy in attendance and never said anything, probably because it was internal. We had a snack shop set up, lot's of big screen video. THe former cubmaster also built a car with a wireless spy cam so we races the car with the in-car camera.

No hard fast rules. My two boys were up for new rank, Tenderfoot and Life. At their last meeting before we moved out of state, I sent an e-mail to the SM and asked if we could bend the normal traditions to get them SMC and BOR the same day. My Life left about 2 weeks before his ASPL duties were over too. If he agreed, I was going to have the boys request the SMC and BOR. He beat them to the punch, scheduled it and presented their patches immediately. They had to back date the one son but circumstances overruled the normal traditions. It made them very proud to earn rank from the troop they had been with for years (Troop and Pack)

I've got two comments. I used to take a city bus to school. One winter day, I missed the last one, so, I walked 7 miles to school. Missed the first two classes but I showed up. No big deal. As far as overprotectives, we were going on a winter camp once and one of the mom's who's son and husband were both going asked at what point Scouts cancels for dangerous weather. I laughed and told her that if you're prepared, five below zero isn't dangerous. She laughed, as I expected her to. I woke up at 4am and thought about going and checking on the scouts. Naaa, if they're cold, they'll come to me. It was a memorable camp.

Guys, Your advice has been very good and I appreciate it. Heres a little more info. Our goal is to mostly recruit home schooled kids and there are some decent networks in the area. I had to move here about 8 months before my family came, so I got hooked up with another troop to help as an unofficial ASM. Since the family moved here, weve been with them but the troop is nearly 40 miles from home. Since my presence there was only temporary, Im leaving under very good terms and intend to have some co-activities with them. Weve also been invited by another troop to shadow as well if we want. Its true that we have no feeder pack. Thats phase two of the Master Plan but Im not in a position to lead that due to time so well need to recruit some leaders for Cubs. Of the kids whove expressed interest in joining, most are new to Scouts but a couple have some experience. But, my plan is to be adult led with deep youth sub leadership for as short a period of time as possible. What Im really looking for is some program ideas. We want to do sort of Scouting 101 starting at point 1. Weve got nothing at all gear wise and no budget or cash in the bank, so its going to be even more fun. I hope our CO decides to grant us a small account to get us started. Eagle, I like your idea of having our other boys write down pluses and minuses of other troops. My two have had experience in two troops, the other boy in three, so we might have some good stuff. I think its time to re-read my SM handbook too. Beavah, I realize that it sounds like a bunch of ex-pats, but our goal is to get a good, strong, solid troop with as many boys and adults involved as possible. Circumstances just happened to work out (heavenly Providence maybe?) that both families moved 600 miles to land with 5 miles of each other. For the record, I lost my job and got a new one, hes military and got transferred. Scouting ties in so well with home education that Ive become somewhat of an evangelist for it, so when the opportunity arose, we jumped on it. Hopefully it will work out and we can get something going and make it strong. Thanks for your help.

Frankly Beavah, there is no such thing as balanced news, nor should there be. Everyone has a bias. THe idea of non-biased journalism is relatively recent. Back when most cities had two or three daily newspapers, a reader bought the one that's editorial policy closely matched his own, or he bought the one that did not so he could see what others were thinking. Personally I lean very conservative, so most of my reading goes that way, but I do read the opposition as well. My favorite resource is www.freerepublic.com. Members will post a column or news story and then others are free to add comments, corrections or sometimes just snide retorts. They have also broken quite a few stories while the mainstream media is busy ignoring major issues. For instance, I knew about the loss of Columbia a full 30 minutes before CBS began to broadcast. Dan Rather was fired for lying on a news story thanks to some investigative work by Free Republic members. The other side has a site also called Democatic Underground, but htey can get very nasty and obscene when they're not happy. Good luck in your search

Hi y'all, For the record, I've been involved as a leader for about 8 years. Den leader, Asst Cubmaster and Asst Scoutmaster. Sometimes all at the same time. We had to move a few states away and there's an opportunity to start up a new troop. Coincidentally, one of the other scouts from our old troop moved to the same area as us. Between us, we have two trained leaders and three scouts. Life, almost Star and almost 2C. We've had plenty of interest among several families in our area and last week got the approval of a charter organization. Don't have a committee chair yet though. Here's my question. I've never been involved in a troop startup. I'm looking for some ideas from all of you experienced Scouters. We're planning on doing some variation fo Scouting 101 for the first few weeks; Oath, Law, uniforms, salute, sign, basic knots, some minor outdoor skills, rank advancement, Patrol method, Scouting for Food and maybe a fundraiser. My son is Life and has been ASPL and PL for most of his time in Scouts so he will be our initial SPL, probably for 6 months then we'll have elections. He's pretty good at training so that will help instill Patrol Method. I'm confident that we'll succeed, but any advice would be helpful.

Barn. We had this discussion when hunting for a used trailer. You'll rarely have stuff heavy enough that you'll need wheels. You can also hang stuff on the inside doors. I'd really like to have one where the door opens up and becomes an overhang.

I quit after Webelos. There was no encouragement to continue. When my son joined Tigers, one of our first things was a show and sell for popcorn. He was really shy and I figured he'd spend the entire time sitting under the table sucking his thumb. Instead, when we got there, a Webelos scout who we did not know literally put his arm around him and said "let me teach you how to sell popcorn." Knocked him completely out of his shyness as he approached everyone at the store. Years later, he's a Life Scout, has had oportunities most kids don't even dream of, has been in troop leadership as a PL, ASPL, APL and will be SPL for a new troop we're starting in January. My ASM and I decided to appoint him SPL for a six-month term to get the troop going, then we're going to hold an election. My other son has had many of the same opportunities, one upped his brother by earning all the Webelos badges and is one requirement away from 2nd Class. Due to a job change and cross country move, I was away from the family for about 8 months. He earned Tenderfoot without much more than some encouragement from my wife and I. I cannot say enough good about Scouting.

Your talk of the donation reminded me of one. I went to a local firewood dealer to get a trunkload of wood for a weekend campout that was going to concentrate on fire building skills. As I was loading my van, I was talking with the owner who asked if it was for camping. I told him it was for a Scout trip. He then told me that he never charges scouts for firewood. And he really loaded me up.