resqman

45-50 registered. 95%+ active. No limits.

10 2-nite campouts a year, 1 week of summer camp, 1 high adventure trip a year.

Troop meetings once a week except July with no meetings. The troop runs its own YLT 2-nite campout twice a year. Eagle projects and community service projects are additional commitments.

I moved up from Webelos to Boy Scouts as soon as I could. I attended all or almost every campout, camporee, outing, event, etc. Went to summer camp with the troop and then a second week as a provisional camper. Worked two summers as BSA Camp Staff. Participated in 3 national high adventure trips. Member of the Order of Arrow. I enjoyed the fun and adventure. It was my hobby instead of sports or whatever. Rank and badges never really drove me. Particularly the Eagle required badges. They seemed worse than boring school work. Indoor stuff that did not have an direct application to my teenage life. Write a paper and give to the counslor. Who cares? That is the 25% of scouting that is not OUTING.

I was a Life scout for at least 4 years. I earned the rank of Eagle 3 months before my 18th birthday with 36 MBs. The last ones earned were the Eagle required "paper badges".

My parents and troop leadership often encouraged me to finish up the remaining Eagle stuff. It was boring and did not interest me. I am glad now that my parents hounded me during that last 6 months to finish up but I did not like it then. As a parent I want my sons to earn the rank of Eagle. But I also want them to enjoy scouting. I see my sons growing more mature, more reliable, more self sufficent. I see them enjoying their friends and time in scouting. My 15 yr old Life scout could finish up the 4 MBs and his project in a couple of months. My guess is it will take him about 18-24 months.

His time in Scouting is not a goal driven experience to earn the rank of Eagle. It is a way to spend time with friends having adventure. He knows he could earn the rank of Eagle any time he wants. He just does not want to right now. When it matters to him, he will.

I would say the parents need to evaluate why their sons stay in scouting. Is it for the fun and fellowship or is it to earn a rank? Ask the boys why they are in scouting? Most will tell you they would like to become Eagle scouts but that is not the reason they stay in scouting.

The troop buys camp T-shirts for everyone attending. One day at camp, the entire troop wears the camp T-shirt.

Congratulations to the Scout and Parents! It can be frustrating seeing them so close and worrying if they will finish everything in time.

My oldest completed all his requirements 2 months before his 18th birthday. #2 Son is Life with 4 MBs to go at age 15. Mom is lighting a fire under him so he can finish up long before senior yr of high school.

Best wishes to the Eagle and family.

Typical cost of weekend camping trip is $35. We have a couple a year that are more. Whitewater rafting at the Olmypic Training facility runs about $75. Canoeing at the beach about the same.

We rotate through the 3 National High Adventure bases and send at least one crew each year to one of the bases. ~$1500 per scout.

Dues are $75 a year plus $12? for Boys Life. We are a fully uniformed troop so $100 to start. We do have a uniform closet to defray costs. Troop T-shirt $15.

Summer camp $225. We do have a summer camp campership fund.

45-55 registered. We probably have 75-85% participation at every event.

Great!

The 5 most active ASMs in our troop have taken CPR in the last year. The one drawback is you have to take the class again every year to maintain the certification. Usually summer camp offers CPR so probably a few of us will renew our certs later this month.

We do not require annual renewal of CPR. We hold a YPT for adults and scouts once a year. Since the troop sends a crew to a high adventure base every summer, we usually get at least 2 adults each year to take WFA. Overtime, the means that the most active and most likely to be on at an outing have taken WFA within 3 years.

Based upon your Scouting experience please answer the following questions

1. Does your Troop actively recruit 2nd year Webelos Cub Scouts?

Yes

2. If it does what methods are used and what is the approximate success percentage per method?

The troop does not have a "feeder" pack. We send email to the leadership of about 4-5 Packs in the area that we are holding a Webelos invitiation campout at a nearby state park in Novmember. We remind them that it will complete the requirements for AOL regarding visting a troop or particpating in a troop activity. The troop goes out Friday nite and camps. The Webelos and families are invited for Saturday & Sunday. We encourage them to campout with the troop. Saturday various stations are setup and taught by the Boy Scouts. Knife & Axe, Ropes & Knots, Fire Starting, Box Oven Making, Leatherworking, First Aid, Map & Compass, 10 Essentials Kit.

For lunch, the vistors make a couple of box ovens. They spoon pizza sause on a tortilla, sprinkle cheese and pepperoni on top. They place in the box ovens they just made and cook them. Then they eat the pizza for lunch. Make the oven, Make the Pizza, Eat the Pizza. Cooking your own meal is a big deal to most Webelos. Having no adult intervention in the entire process of oven making, preparing, cooking, and eating is a big deal.

The troop leadership cooks a traditional Thanksgiving meal at the campsite Saturday evening. We usually cook 3 turkeys in dutch ovens, 1 turkey in a trash can, and smoke another turkey. Breads are usually cooked in the box ovens made earlier in the day. Patrols make various side dishes. 4-5 cobblers are made in dutch ovens. Parents, Webleos and troop all eat together. Campfire is held and may include a flag retirement ceremony.

The SM invites all visting adults to a Q&A about the troop and Boy Scouting. He explains the basic difference between Adult Led Cub vs. Boy Lead Boy Scouts. The visiting parents see that troop adults spent most of their time watching the birds cook and the Boy Scouts ran all other activities.

Success depends on turnout for the weekend. 2010 we had 10 join, 2009 Zero, 2008 14, 2007 16. We usually have 15-20 Webelos attend the campout. 2009 only 3 attended due to conflict with Pack schedules.

3. On average how many Cub Packs does your Troop recruit?

We do not have a "feeder Pack". We only "poach" cubs from other packs to hear it be told from the other troops. We draw from 4-5 Packs.

4. If the Troop does not recruit where do find your new Boy Scouts?

The council has sent several prospective scouts to visit our troop. They often have no prior scouting experience. Some are transfers from out of state. Troop down the road had some issues a few years back. Several transfered to our troop as a result.

Any additional information will be very helpful.

We believe our overall program encourages vistors to choose our troop. We also make it clear that we encourage Webelos to visit several troops because they each have their own culture. We want them to join Boy Scouts, not just our troop.

We are frank about the costs. Scouting is not free. We tell parents what to expect in average costs for camping trips, dues, etc for a year. We also warn them that in 3-4 years their scout will want to go on a high adventure trip at about $1500 per scout. We explain that each year the troop sends at least one crew to one of the three National High Adventure camps and we attend summer camp every year($225).

We are a fully uniformed troop. We have at least 4-5 uniformed and trained ASMs at every troop meeting. We have at least 4 leaders who have completed Wood Badge. On paper we have all the credentials that parents would expect of a troop.

The reasons to NOT choose our troop include wrong meeting night, cost, uniforming, parental involvment, and too active.

Why AOL scouts don't join Boy Scouts may not be fully answered by your survey questions. 5 years of boring Cub Scout programs may be enough and spending more time in scouts may not seen worthwhile.

A forum for Leaders of a leadership organization has a lot of posts by strong personalities. Not just leaders but people who sought out an organization whose goal is to grow leaders and they volunteered to lead. Not just for a short while but usually for years or even decades. Wow, who would have ever thought there might be some strong opinions.

Many of the posts/questions are mostly about how can I lead this troubled group of followers to resolution with their petty problems. The answer usually is to turn the followers into leaders. If they won't lead, then the group doesn't really want/need them anyway and find someone who will help lead.

BSA has a very well defined list of rules and policies to run the program as well as govern the way members should live their lives. Additionally the program centers around service to others. How better to serve your fellow man than by creating service oriented leaders. So not suprisingly posters tend to fullfill their service committment by leading and teaching leadership.

My boyhood troop formed an Explorer Post. We limited membership to 20. The first 18 who joined were Eagle scouts. The other two earned the rank of Eagle while members. That was an amazing group to be a part of. Kind of a teenage Officers Club.

BSA cannot be everything to everyone. It has to pick a niche and do that well. The program was designed and built around serving male youth.

Boys and men need to have some time away from the female dominated school system to give them a chance to discover themselves without the female viewpoint telling them to sit down and be quiet.

We have family friends with 2 girls. We have 2 boys. Around age 5 the mother of the girls suggested we give our boys a book so they can sit and be quiet. My wife looked at her and said, Why so they can dissemble the book to figure out how it is made? Boys and girls are different.

Among our troop adult leadership, at least 6 have completed Wilderness First Aid. At least two adults were former EMTs. The adult leadership knows who has training. The scouts know to use the chain of command. Ultimatley the SM will direct the injured to the most qualified responder.

A patch does not make a particular person the best responder. I wear no patches related to my first aid or rescue training on my scout uniform. I don't carry any wallet cards. I was a firefighter, EMT, Technical rescue technican for about 12 years. I could easily fill a vest with all the patches I have for first aid and rescue related training. I have a 3 ring binder full of diplomas related to first aid and rescue training. No victim has ever asked to see my Id. Parents should be looking to troop leadership to handle emergencies.

Uniform = One Form. Not whatever works for you form.

I have the shirt I bought 8 years ago. 4 years of weekly den meeting and monthly pack meetings. 4 years of weekly troop meetings, 4 summer camps, one Norther Tier trek, and 3 dozen weekend campouts. I wear my BSA uniform from Friday afternoon when we leave the parking lot until the troop returns on Sunday afternoon. On every campout, every hike, rock climbing, COPE, all that stuff. My goal is for the scouts to never see me in anything but a BSA uniform. The only damage is a 1/2 inch tear that I got while retrieving something from my car trunk about 6 years ago.

Yes there are better made shirts. Yes there are shirts that fit better or are made from "high performance" materials. But they are not uniform shirts. Take pride in wearing the offical uniform.

Modifing a shirt to be similar to the official uniform is no different from wearing any other piece of clothing that is similar but not the uniform. It is not the uniform. Just another variation on the never ending stream of endless excuses not to wear the uniform. Fake is Fake.

Seems pretty similar to an existing product

http://www.kellykettleusa.com/

One son played sports. Practice couple times a week and a game on the weekend. Coaches encouraged the players to practice drills on their own time.

Other son joined scouts. 1 meeting a week. 1 pack meeting a month. Den leader enocuraged scouts to work on requirements on their own time. Always seem to be a lot of time between scout events as a Cub/Webelo where scouting was not on the kids mind.

As a Den leader, it was a lot of work to have an active program where the scouts were Doing instead of Listening/Watching an adult. Made the joke it is only one hr a week, per boy in the den. 8 scouts in the den only required 8 hours a week from the den leader.

Cub scout leadership is definitely burned out by the time the cubs crossover. The boys are ready for the new adventure of Boy Scouts. I think National, Council, District needs to push the Den Chief program more strongly to reduce leader burnout.

Regardless of whether college is a real test of intelligence or stick-to-itive-ness or not, the real world of employment has decided it is the miniumn requirement to get a "real job" that does not include the phrase "do you want fries with that". It may be a waste of time, an eye opener for the student, or a real broading of the mind. Doesn't really matter. It is now the miniumn to get a job or be promoted beyound a certain level in jobs where you work inside most of the day. Don't have to like it or even agreee with it, American society has decided it is a Must Have requirement.

Can you get a job without a college degree that pays enough to feed your family and pay for most of your everday expenses? Yeah, some people have been able to work themselves into that position. Can a person straight out of high school get a job for more than $10/hr? Not likely. Does everyone need to go to college? College is not a trade school. There was a big discussion during the 1980's that colleges were not teaching or producing graduates that were pertienent to the current job market. "Society" often complained that college eductation was too broad and generic and was not producing graduates who could enter the job market with specific skills. Colleges/Universties responded that was never their intent or purpose. They were to provide a base of knowledge in a particular disipline with a broad base of general "common" knowledge. Colleges and Universities were not trade schools churning out accountants, managers, computer programers, etc. They were producing Bachlor of Science students with a working knowledge of accounting, management or computers.

What many kids learn at college/university is how to do their own laundry, get up and show up on time, and that mommy is not going to follow up on every thing every time. The military does a better job of that many times. Does every kid need to go to college? Not for the book learning but they need to learn to grow up and be responsible and college is an expensive way to do that.

Are there kids in college that would be better placed in a trade school? Certainly. Are parents willing to admit that their darling is better suited for a life of techincal labor than a life of air conditioned cubicles? Not many. I am sending my child to college in the fall because without a college degree, his options are limited. Will he recoup that $80,000 dollars over a lifetime of employment? All the indicators and reports so far say yes.

The "piece of paper" is your admission ticket. It prevents you from being cut in the first round. Just like having your Gold Award or your Eagle lets you through the first round of cuts when getting into college. Is it required? Heck no but it shows the world that you stuck with something long enough to complete a difficult task. It is an indicator that you are willing to put up with a load of difficult tasks and hang in there long enough to make complete a long term goal. As an employer, I can always teach you the specific tasks to do the daily job but I can't teach you to stick with it through the hard times to earn the prize at the end.

Most often when someone posts here if they should hold up rank advancement, they have waited until the very last second. They somehow feel that the scout has not performed up to the standard and they have to make a decision to make a final stand. The problem here is the adult was not doing their job much earlier.

Scouts don't all of a sudden earn a rank. It usually takes months, sometimes a year. If a scout is demonstrating habits and actions that are not appropriate, then address the concern when it happens. Hold an SM conference and explain that the action is not acceptable, what is acceptable behavior, and set specific goals/achievements that show the scout has understood and changed the behavior. If adult leadership is avoiding a difficult decision only to balk at the last moment, then they are at fault and should sign the paperwork because they accepted the behavior and have approved the behavior by not changing it long before the signature is due.

It ain't the scouts fault, it is the adults fault. Fix it long before you have to sign.

Our troop goes to a different summer camp each summer. Over the last 4 years, each camp has offered a New Scout Program. All of them have been full day programs. They gather up all the scouts divide them into groups and then teach the various requirements for T-FC. At the end of the week, we get a printout of all the requirements they worked. It is up to the troop to decide to sign off or not.

I have attended these progams to ensure they are getting taught the correct information and occasionally because the camp requires an adult help if you have more than X number of scouts from a single troop participating. Some camps like to split up boys from the same troop into different groups/patrols.

We usually take 8-12 new scouts so ask they keep them together. We run an aged based patrol system in our troop and we want the lads to start developing a patrol identity.

The full day for 5 day program covers a lot of ground but the scouts always complain they did not earn a merit badge while everyone else in the troop earned many. This years camp runs a 1/2 day program. Yeah! So we are able to enroll the scouts in at least 2 MB. As all knowing adults, we are signing them all up for Swimming and First Aid MBs. Our troop tends to enjoy water based activities and we believe this prepares them for future activities in the troop.

Typically the lads in these programs just bubbled up from Webelos couple months ago. Depending on their troop, they may have been on one or two campouts but in my discussions with the other campers in the programs, most have only been on one or none campouts prior to summer camp. They need the basic outdoor skills, everything you can offer in the Scoutcraft area. They all want to go swimming so plan to get them in the water at least 3 times during the week.

Most camps have a designated area for the program. Make sure you get them out of the area for the specific training. Take them over to the Nature lodge when duing the 10 signs of animals or tree id. Take them over to the Medical Hut for first aid training. Take them to the waterfront for swimming. Hike them all over camp so they get a chance to see all of it. Take them to the climbing tower to tie knots. They wont climb but they get to see what they can do next year. Take them to Scoutcraft for Totn Chip. Take them to the parade ground for flag stuff. Also plan some play time. 30 minutes of game time goes a long way to breaking up the school like feel of working all the requirements.

Last time the the camp had 100+ in the program for 1 week. They had a staff member for each "patrol". During instruction time, they would rotate the instructors every other knot, or every couple of skills just to keep it from being so boring. That way if you have a weak staffer, everyone gets to suffer instead of one patrol having a horrible week. They make them go through and pick a patrol name, make a flag, yell/cheer, etc. Also spend some time explaining the troop structure and the various troop POR. New guys are still asking the adults questions when we want to direct them back towards the PL and TG.

If I had to boil down to top 4: Lots of swim time, only 1/2 day program, earn at least 1 merit badge, rotate instructors frequently (every 15 minutes).

Rant On.

Once again Eng61 you complain that your son may have to do something that might actually challenge him beyond getting out of the car. Notice this post is in the High Adventure Forum, not the whinners forum. NT is a High Adventure trip. It is for people who WANT to challenge themselves, not sit behind a computer and whine that it will be different than their everyday boring life. A trip for people who think blisters are a badge to be worn with honor, not avoid.

I had two boys at or under 100lbs. They carried the 85lb canoes and packs with no problems. Lifting the canoe and packs onto thier own backs was a minor struggle. So the other crew members lifted the packs/canoes onto their shoulders. They carried the canoes or packs in 2 different instances 100 rods which is equal to 1800 feet or 600 yards. Never complained about the weight. They knew that was part of the experience they paid for upfront.

The min age is 14 and in good health. The first day or two things are more challenging but by the midweek, everyones bodies have adjusted and do really well. The boys in my crew VOLUNTARILY agreed to paddle an additional 15 miles the last day FOR FUN! We were only 2 miles from base camp. Instead they planned a day trip paddling AWAY from base camp knowing they would have to double back.

The boys in my crew jumped at the chance to wake at 3am, break camp and paddle in total darkness, without flashlights until the sun rose at 6:30am. They paddled until 4 pm that day. Teenagers who were excited to get up before noon. Teenagers who were excited about trying something different. Teenagers who learned that they are more capable than they though if given a chance.

Just because you are adverse to even the slightest discomfort does not mean the rest of the world is. 70% of scouting is outing. If you don't want to play and have fun like the rest of us, take your gloomy gus attitude somewhere else. You would be suprised at how much your son could accomplish if just let him try.

Doesn't matter because it is for people who are not afraid of the water and can swim. Since you have handicapped your son and not taken the necessary steps to ensure he is a good swimmer, it is better both of you stay home anyway.

Rant Off.

Teenagers have a 15 minutes event horizon. If it is happening or going to happen more than 15 minutes into the future, it does not exist. They will deal with it when it happens.

The Scout Law is a set of guidelines to help them make decisions. Doesn't always come to the forefront of a teenagers mind.

I was a scout as a lad from about age 9 to 18. I have been a leader for the past 8 years. I raised my sons using the Scout Law, they just didn't know it. We did scout stuff and use scout methods long before they joined scouting. Family rules follow Totn' Chip rules. My sons were using axes, knifes and saws before they joined cub scouts. When they had to earn their whittln chip and totn chip, they wondered what the fuss was all about. That was the only way they knew how to use those tools.

One heads to college in the fall and the other is a freshman in high school. They do stupid kid stuff. It is part of being a kid. But I catch them thinking and using the Scout Law more often than not. They don't label it the scout law in their mind, it is just the way our family lives.

It is probably harder for those scout boys whose families don't also life by the Scout Law.

Traditional #4 is what NTier issues for personal gear packs. 6000 cu in. for 3 peoples personal gear.

I had a number of concerns before I attended NT. The problems and concerns I had before going were never a problem once there.

- Sitting in wet socks, boots, and clothes all day will be uncomfortable and cause chafing. We wore synethic shirts, pants/shorts, underwear, and socks. Everything but the socks air dried quickly and was not a problem. Get some underarmour underwear to prevent jock rash.

- Walking in waist deep water to launch or remove a canoe. Why do I intentionally want to get wet every time all day? Turns out it was nice break from the summer sun to get wet. We went 2nd week of Aug

- Sitting on a metal seat with no back rest paddling all day is going to give me severe lower back ache. I have a history of lower back pain. Never an issue for even one moment. There is a enough total body movement that you lower back is in constant motion so need for backrest.

- Duffing might be fun. Hah. Sitting cramped between two packs on the bottom of a canoe with water sloshing around. I never duffed and am glad I did not have to.

- Portaging is going to be the worst thing ever! Well, suprisingly it was a nice break from paddling to get out and stretch my legs. The portages were long enough that you get a break but not so long you dread them. We had two portages at least 100 rods. All the rest were under 50 rods including many that were less than 5 rods. I bruised my arm the first day and it was painful to lift the canoe all week but part of the challenge.

- The water purification stuff is going to taste horrible. Nope, no taste what so ever. Easy to use. No problems or complaints even from the picky eaters.

- A camelback hydration system is the best. Guide strongly recommended against taking my camelback. Just one more pack to lug around. Too difficult to fill with water. He was right. The nalgenes with a carbiner clips to your belt for portages and is easy to fill while underway making sure you are hydrated. Using nalgenes also gave you an excuse to rest from paddling while you fumbled for it, opened it, drank, refilled and purified.

- 90lbs of pack will be too much for us to carry. Nope. Every crew member includeing the smallest at just over 90lbs himself carried full packs and canoes with no difficulty, once the load was on their shoulders. Lifting the packs in place was a struggle occasionally for the smaller guys.

- Everything is going to be wet all the time including my sleeping bag. I packed all my personal gear in a lightweight drybag, which goes in a large heavyweight trash bag inside the common gear bag. The trashbag kept everything dry but I am still glad I had the lightweight dry bag for personal stuff just of piece of mind. Don't use the heavy duty drybags. They are too bulky, heavy and are overkill.

- How am I going to get a weeks worth of gear to fit in a sleeping bag size sack? Easy, 1 sleeping bag, 1 change of clothes, and a flashight. I wore my knife on belt and I had bifocal sunglasses. Everything else was extra weight. I am glad I brought a paperback for evenings and a small notepad/pencil to record thought and events. Food bowel and spoon stayed in the food box.

- While I have first aid training, if something goes wrong, we will be in deep do do. We saw so many other canoes on the water, I never really felt like we were in the wilderness. Certainly there is the possibilty of major injury but we were a lot closer to rescue than is depicted in the leaders guide.

- The picky eater will get over it in a day or two. Nope. In fact we had a hard time getting all crew members to eat enough. There was plenty of volumne of food. Too much for two of the lads.

- Not looking forward to running out of TP. We only took one roll of TP for the entire week for the entire crew. The cellophane wrapper was never removed. We used leaves everytime with no ill effects or hardship.

- Wearing hiking boots in a water environment seems like overkill. Maybe while paddling but definitely needed during portage. Heard all kinds of horror stories about cheap boot failures. No footware failures during our trek.

- Wearing the same wet clothes every day and only being able to have 1 change of dry clothes at night doesn't sound like fun. Everthing I wore was synethic. Putting on damp socks the next morning was not a highlight but everything else dried by morning. Not really a problem.

- Might have personality clashes with some of the crew members. Yep and yep. Overall it was mostly teenagers being teenagers and adults having different expectations. Our trip lasted one day longer than my patience. Oh well.

My son enjoyed the experience. No part of it was a true hardship for him. It was all just a giant fun adventure. He was physically up for the challenge and more. I see a change in him that he may not recognize. He has been challenged and knows deep inside that everything else is trival and not really a threat to him.

We had one fair skinned fella who got sunburned day one. He ended wearing a lightweight windbreaker the remainder of the trip as sun protection. Make sure you have sunscreen. The water bouncing off the lake will get everyone on the face.

We covered 100 miles paddling and 4 miles portaging last summer. We ONLY did single portages because our Guide explained that is the only acceptable way ... in his opinion. We had a sister crew who did a single portage only once during their week long 75 mile trek. While trading stories after the trek, they wished that their guide had made them perform single portages. They complained of much wasted time and effort backtracking on multiple pass portages.

While all the lads in my crew were 14, one weighed 90 lbs. Another was maybe 115. We required every member of the crew carry a canoe at least once during the week. They may not have had the arm strength to get the canoe on their shoulders by themselves but could certainly carry the 80-90 lb aluminum canoe. If you have smaller guys, two lift the canoe on to the shoulders of the third who carries the canoe. Once on the shoulders, the canoes do not seem very heavy. They balance well and are relatively easy to carry. There are shoulder pads built into the canoes to provide some cushioning. On steep hills, one end may bump the ground but you learn how much to tilt the canoe so you can see and still not drag the canoe. The smaller boys preferred carrying the packs.

We had 2 adults, 4 boys, and a guide. The ones carrying the packs also had to carry the paddles, fishing gear and water bottles. If you carried a canoe, you only carried a canoe (except the guide). We had 2 gear packs, 1 food pack, 1 crew gear pack, guides personal gear pack, and second food pack about 1/2 full. Guide carried his personal gear pack, 1/2 food pack and canoe. One more person in the crew would have eliminated the need for the guide to double/triple up.

We did no special training or exercising before the trek other than two 2 hr sessions of flat water paddling on a nearby lake. What we learned was the lads had a hard time holding a straight course. Techincally our trek was 100 miles of paddling but the lads canoes went much further since they zig zaged across every lake for a week. They were too busy yakking and having fun for the one in the stern to look up, pick a point on the horizon, and head for it.

My 14 yr old, 5'9", 175lb son carried a pack on his front and canoe on his shoulders for a couple of portages just to say he did it. It was a personal challenge for him. Our guide carried a food pack on his back, his personal gear pack in the front and a canoe on his shoulders every portage all week. By the end of the week, the food pack was only the trash.

Our guide was also 6'4". He also completed a Guide Challenge the last day of our trek. The entire crew paddled 7 miles to a specific location just over the Canadian border. We jointed carried the 3 canoes but no gear to the end of the course. He tied 3 canoes together and carried them 400 yards back to the beginning. One canoe on his shoulders and the other 2 tied to the top one dangling by his side. Then we all paddled 7 miles back against a head wind with 12-16 inch choppy waves. All for the fun of it. We started the day within 2 miles of base camp. We just wanted to say we had treked 100 miles during the week!

I was 3 lbs under the max per the height/weight chart. The first couple of days of portaging I felt some minor chest pain while carrying canoes up steep hills. Instead of running up the hill, I walked up the hills and I did much better. Within a couple of days, no problems.

I would recommend aerobic or cardio conditioning more so than strengh training. It is an endurance test, not a strength test. They will be paddling for 6-8+ hrs plus carrying heavy loads up and over hills. None of the lads complained once about the weight of the packs, just the distances of the portages.

I believe the longest portage we had was about 110 Rods (~600 yards). We only covered 4 miles of portages in an entire week! We portaged 8 times before lunch one day. You said your goal was 90lbs for 3 miles. Totally unnecessary. Most portages are under 200 yards. Techincally portages are measured in Rods, about 18 feet, the average length of a canoe. We had a couple of portages that on the map were listed as 2 rods. We just left the gear in the canoe. One fella in the front and one in the stern and we just hand carried it over the rocks and dropped into the next lake.

Just checked my photos. Yeah, both packs have waist belts. Here is a link to my facebook page photos of our trek. Red shirts is one crew, Purple shirts the other crew.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?id=100000720154662&aid=20610#!/album.php?id=100000720154662&aid=20610&closeTheater=1

Yes, I trim the knots prior to sewing.

Engineer61 based on numerous posts you seen to be very risk adverse.

The goal of scouting it to take the lads out and challenge them. If there is no risk, then the lads will quickly tire and quit scouting.

If the troop members are prepared, then most of the activities you list as being concerned about are part and parcel of scouting. The scouts are given proper training and information for a couple weeks before an outing so they can make sure they have the right gear. Then they go out and test themselves.

Lighten up a little bit and give your son a chance to explore and reach beyond his backyard. Plans are guidelines on what you expect to happen in the confort of the planning room. Once on scene, you modify the plans to fit the realities of being there.

If Mom is packing for Jr. and you are second guessing the SM's every decision, then the problem sounds more like helicopter parents and less like troop issues. If your son is a weak swimmer, then that is a great opportunity for you to sign him up for swimming lessons at the local pool.

Annual dues $75 per year, Boys Life extra 12.50?

Summer camp $275-$300 We go to different camp each year, price varies

Average $35 per campout x10 a year

Uniform $100 but last 3-4 years depending on how fast they grow

High Adventure trip for 14+ run about $1500 a year. We rotate between Philmont, Florida Seabase, and Northern Tier.

Gear? We have troop tents, patrol boxes, trailer, Dutch ovens, stoves, fuel, etc. Lads provide pack, sleeping bag, sleeping pad, canteen, cup and spoon, raingear, clothing, and shoes.

The troop has fund raisers. Some boys raise 0 while some raise hundreds. We have a uniform closet and a summer camp scholarship program. We are upfront about the costs during parent visits. Most of the parents pay for everything with little or no griping.

Drivers recieve fuel allowance for camping and summer camp trips from troop. Troop pays food costs for adult "patrol". Adults use the same price structure for food as lads, $4 per person per meal. Troop pays full amount for all adult training including Woodbadge.

Troop runs its own YLT twice a year with about 12-15 lads in attendance. All costs for all participants are covered by the troop.

45-55 registered scouts. 8-12 ASMs. Fully staffed committee.