RememberSchiff

Den Leader is a female teen.

Autumn Cragle, a 16-year-old aspiring teacher is the youngest female Cub Scout den leader in history. Her 10-year-old brother, who was begging to be a Webelos Scout, gave her the idea to start volunteering her time to the Boy Scouts of America.

“Ever since I was 13, I wanted to be a teacher,” Cragle says. “I usually would tag along to my brother’s meetings, and when the pack leader said they needed help with the children, I jumped right in.”

Photo and more details at source link:

http://www.dallasobserver.com/arts/dallas-teen-autumn-cragle-is-the-youngest-cub-scout-den-leader-in-history-10211208

With the recent bitter cold, we reduced our planned outdoor activities.  Indoors, our scouts played UNO, Phase 10, Risk, and Kim.

What indoor games do your scouts favor?

5 hours ago, qwazse said:

or how about this:

Boy

Which says, "Welcome our old club. We won't keep you out of it by changing the name."

Worked for Boys' Town.

Born-again?

1 hour ago, SSScout said:

And look at all the James Bond flicks.   Can anyone actually put them in (supposedly) chronological order?  When the Bond actor gets too old, you hire a younger actor.  Connery, Craig, Brosnan, who cares?   Ian Fleming has no say in it any more, if he ever did...   And I can't see ever having a Saturday Morning "Young Bond " series, can you? 

"No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to DIE  !"  

Kylo Ren to Rey: “The Empire, your parents, the Resistance, the Sith, the Jedi . . . let the past die. Kill it, if you have to. That’s the only way to become what you are meant to be.” 

Some interesting parallels and irony with the new directions of the BSA, Star Wars, Star Trek, ...

On 12/20/2017 at 10:48 AM, Tampa Turtle said:

Received the January Boys Life and January-February Scouter Magazines yesterday. My observations:

- Skimmed the Boys Life, seemed like a typical Holiday/Winters issue. Long article on spotting Depression which given what I have seen in Scouts and that we had a suicide this year was probably a good move. No mention of BS4G.

- Scouter. Banner on front page about girls in scouting. Carefully crafted FAQ inside (which should have been done a month or two ago) about the logic of the decision and the fact that many 'rogue' units where having sisters do things at many Packs anyway. I thought the article was OK though I found the discussions of all the reach out meetings and especially the survey was so overwhelmingly positive. As I now have little expectation that National will tell the truth if it conflicts with their goals--like gblotter I am more sad than angry now--it is frustrating to hear the CES say that the survey that I actually took and saw was very slanted was crafted to carefully ask people what they really thought --it was almost impossible to say "NO" to the proposal in that survey.

Overall the editorial content and style of Scouter seemed to thankfully return from the vague 'Family Camping' and generic  theme of the last few issues to the norm of requirements, leader tips, and interesting scout news items. I DO NOT think it was a coincidence that the 'Girls FAQ' was between the introductory message from the CES on how he met Green Bar Bill not once but twice and an actual article on Green Bar himself. I think some old timers were being placated or it was an attempt to send a signal. 

The article of Boys and Anger issues was a good one. I appreciate both magazines trying to educate on issues common to folks on the ground.

At least that was my opinion.

Trying to cross-link @Tampa Turtle comments from another topic here. - RS

13 hours ago, qwazse said:

Holed up with all the kids on Lake Erie ... catching deeper snow in two days than PA has in any other similar period of weather records. Left my snowshoes in Pittsburgh, so I raided the garage for scrap and fashioned a pair out of plywood. You're never too sure how well they work as they sink through two and a half feet of powder.

Was about halfway on my route through the woods when FLOP! Well, the good news is that I learned that there was another two feet of snow below the shoes to sink in ... or try to swim up from, depending on your perspective. As my head came up from under the drift, I remembered that my high-tech kit also came with walking poles. 

Designing from memory, especially one like mine, has its drawbacks.

So, I plodded carefully for the remainder of my trek, and stayed fireside since.

 

CBSNews reported more than 5ft of snow in 3 days in Erie! Hope the @qwazse family is warm and well.

Even with cellphones and emergency beacons, IMHO being able to recognize and send a SOS is still needed today.

Back in  the day, I dreaded the face-to-face or phone interviews with whoever a merit badge might require. Firemanship and Public Health were exceptions; both  were very interesting merit badges. I spent a couple months researching town and county records for a history of my town as required by Citizenship in the Community merit badge.  Information which is easily found on the internet now.

Leadership was a demonstrated ability within the unit and not a 6 month POR residency.

My $0.02

Perhaps scouter.com Members are on National's naughty list. 

24 minutes ago, NJCubScouter said:

A lot of people probably think of New Jersey as one big paved-over city, but there are a lot of areas where one may run into wildlife.  (Yes, I see what I did there.)

Yes like a bear cave at Split Rock Reservoir. 

We seem to have a surplus of deer and turkey  in New England where the top predator may be a car bumper but the coyotes are coming back.

2 minutes ago, Tampa Turtle said:

This could be an excellent discussion for Sustainability MB which unfortunately is a bit of a snoozer.

How large a human population can the world's environment and economy sustain?

My older college son and I have had many arguments other "energy saver appliances" that use more kilowatts,  Tesla should focus more on batteries (Powerwall 2) and less on cars, product packages, rebuilding homes in flood-prone areas, replaceable batteries, product recycling, component standardization, simple vs elegant design,...

Global warming: On my bucket list was a journey to the North Pole but I think there is only one safe $$$ walking route left.

And there is our biggest argument,  he believes global warning is the #1 environmental problem, oh and Dad should shoot the new coyote in our neighborhood.

Dad disagrees. All problems are results of explosive population growth as Paul Ehrlich predicted back in 50's/60's. The US population has doubled and the world population tripled in my lifetime.

Another $0.02

P.S. Coyote is just being a coyote.

I skipped school to attend the first Earth Day in Philly. In author's essay, I identify with her father, well except his politics.  Some organic food for thought.

https://www.greenbiz.com/article/my-dads-conservative-naturalist-im-environmental-hypocrite

If things had gone differently since the first Earth Day in 1970, the fight against climate change easily could have been led by ranchers and fishermen. These leaders may have been Boy Scouts like my dad was; they may not have had fancy degrees but probably could identify almost any leaf or animal species at first sight. They may have led a movement to protect biodiversity for self-interest and not necessarily for social good. But does the intention really matter if it increases the number of people who act and vote for environmental protections?

We need to reconcile across the naturalist-environmentalist divide in order to bridge political differences that will hasten the transition to a sustainable world. To do this, we must recognize the hypocrisy of the environmental movement to date. We might then embrace the connection to nature and rootedness that many "non-environmentalists" have. The result will be a new, more inclusive movement of people who will act against climate change.

My $0.02,

19 hours ago, Tampa Turtle said:

Received the January Boys Life and January-February Scouter Magazines yesterday. My observations:

Overall the editorial content and style of Scouter seemed to thankfully return from the vague 'Family Camping' and generic  theme of the last few issues to the norm of requirements, leader tips, and interesting scout news items. I DO NOT think it was a coincidence that the 'Girls FAQ' was between the introductory message from the CES on how he met Green Bar Bill not once but twice and an actual article on Green Bar himself. I think some old timers were being placated or it was an attempt to send a signal.

Agree. Perhaps no coincidence the change is soft starting at the beginning of a new year.

“Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.”   - Tennyson

@Eagle101 welcome to scouter.com

Ok then @Cubber  and @Eagledad  , I think you might have misinterpreted each other so I hid the last two posts.

As @Tampa Turtle suggested let's not rehash a previous topic here.

Thank you.

cc: @NJCubScouter , @Sentinel947

The activities of scouts in Poland, as in other countries, include camping and earning merit badges. But many Scout troops here remain staunchly loyal to Roman Catholicism and prewar Polish ideals, despite the Communist Party's claim to the leading role in society.

Scout troops have Catholic chaplains, and the Auxiliary Bishop of Cracow is the movement's national chaplain.

''At the moment, yes, younger people's interest is very great,'' said Dr. Maria Hrabowska, a pathologist at the Gdansk Medical Academy and a Scout leader.

The generation over 25 years old, she said, those with martial law seared in memory, is ''in a waiting position, but the younger ones are very interested.'' Scouting's Roots in Poland

Much of Polish scouting's character has to do, arguably, with the movement's roots here.

''Polish scouting was always linked to the independence movement, before World War I,'' said Witold-Lech Rusiniak, another Gdansk scoutmaster.

During World War II, Polish scouts, organized in units called the ''gray ranks,'' fought alongside underground troops against the German occupiers.

After the war, scouting flourished for a time under prewar, non-Communist scoutmasters. But in 1949, with increasing Stalinization, the Government sought to discipline the movement, purging the leadership and setting scouting on a Communist course.

... more  at Source link  and

Polish Scouting and Guiding Association (ZHP)

https://zhp.pl/serwis/en/

Has anyone seen this year's holiday message video from National?

13 minutes ago, Cubber said:

@Eagledad  These sound like problems with Wood Badge and new leaders not being well trained. Are you saying these are female leader specific problems?

Agree, it does sound like Wood Badge training problems.

What I have seen with female troop leaders is a tendency to focus on specific program areas - scoutcraft, nature, hiking . Maybe advancement related, maybe just sticking with what they know.  Fishing, shooting sports not so much.

My $0.02

A clever and "courteous" escape plan. How he remained a cheerful and merry Scout, after enduring the Nazis and then the Communists is remarkable.

The Ashley Book of Knots, first published in 1944 contains nearly 7,000 illustrations of over 3,000 knots. (The book is now entering public dpomain - RS)

Ashley spent time aboard whaling ships, including the Sunbeam for a piece commissioned by Harper’s Monthly Magazine. In addition to writing about the industry and sketching its knots, he photographed the vessels and crews, creating a rare archive of the early 20th-century New England maritime trade. For his book research, he tried to get as broad an overview of knots as possible, visiting the circus, fishermen, bakers, tree surgeons, and anyone else who employed this technology in their work.

Ashley examined old seamen’s dictionaries, and became an expert knot tyer himself. As he wrote in The Ashley Book of Knots:

… I have continued to collect knots wherever I could find them, and as unfamiliar sailors’ knots became increasingly difficult to find I was attracted by the knots of other occupations. I hobnobbed with butchers and steeple jacks, cobblers and truck drivers, electric linesmen, Boy Scouts, and with elderly ladies who knit. Mr. Ringling himself … took me about his circus and was pleased to be able to dazzle me with a score of knots with which I was quite unfamiliar.

Thou Shalt Knot: Clifford W. Ashley  exhibit continues at the New Bedford Whaling Museum (18 Johnny Cake Hill, New Bedford, Massachusetts) through June 2018. (Hmmm, a trip idea to pass along to PLC - RS)

Clifford W. Ashley was an artist who studied under the influential illustrator Howard Pyle, painted expressive maritime scenes, and published histories of whaling related to the waterfront of his hometown, New Bedford, Massachusetts. Yet he’s best remembered for a wildly popular book on knots.

Source:

https://hyperallergic.com/412646/thou-shalt-knot-new-bedford-whaling-museum/

Report said he was on scene for nearly two hours. I hope post trauma counseling is available to responders.

CBS This Morning had a video interview, Eagle Scout Hero.

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