resqman

I have two sons. One added his ECOH to the end of the quarterly troop COH. The other held a dedicated event at the site of his project. Troop tradition is whatever the boy decides. Some add to the regular COH. Others schedule dedicated ECOH. As mentioned, the dedicated events tend to have a much smaller crowd. Typically guests with personal invitations attend with just a few scouts from the troop. Most troop scouts don't make the effort to arrange transportation to the event and forget/don't show. While earning the rank of Eagle requires a lot of effort by the boy, it hopefull

Was member of SAR team for a decade or so. There is only one victim but the victim leaves many clues. SAR teams don't look for victims, they look for clues that become a trail to the victim. Victims often drop and leave behind what would seem very important items. Clothes, packs, food, etc. Victims always go to water. Something as small as a puddle is all it takes. Victims do things that don't make logical sense. They will enter a trail into the woods that heads downhill. They panic and instead of following the trail uphill, they will go farther downhill and towards water. Tr

Like several others, I became an EMT based on the first aid training I learned in Scouting. Helped lots of other people. Instead of a single MB, I think the MB program is the best. It encourages scouts to achieve something. It gives them a goal. I stood in amazement one troop meeting. I gave the PL a box of rope cut into lengths, two dozen dowels about 5 feet long and 1.5 inches in diameter, a rope making machine, a ball of twine and the pioneering merit badge book. The scouts taught each other knots, lashing and how to make a rope. That one hour of boy led fun taught many skill

Congratulations! Happy days when each of my two sons earned their award. Know the feeling. Bask in a job well done by the whole family.

Add another Nobody to the list. I have a family camp cook box. Plastic thing I bought at Costco/BJs/Sam's Club warehouse years ago. Has divided sections, drawers, 4 metal plates, bowls, cups, and flatware. Lid comes off, turns upside down to become a washing sink. Lid creates area to store and carry a two burner camp stove. Filled with all the various kitchen tools and supplies it is really, really heavy. But, set it on the end of a picnic table, remove the lid, open the two sides with wings that fold out to form side tables and it is a joy to cook in, on, and around. I built a tra

Regardless of what gear ends up being purchased, I recommend color coding the gear. Our troop has plastic bins for patrol boxes. Each and every thing in the box either has a piece of colored electrical tape or a spray painted area. Everything in box A is marked with Red, everything in box B is marked Green, everything in box C is marked Yellow, etc. At one time the boxes had Patrol names written on them. But the patrol names changed too often to keep up with it. As a patrol disbanded, aged out, patrols reformed, etc. the box was reassigned to the newest, latest patrol. They get the

It looks like the evidence is in, overprotecting our kids is causing real harm. What can we do? All scouting is local. National sets policy and the general tone. How the local troop operates is often different. Boys join scouting because of a marketing promise of adventure. Some troops do better than others at delivering adventure. As mentioned earlier, using matches and knifes is an adventure to 11 yr olds. Troop outings can have similar but varied programs for the various skill and age levels. Younger less experienced scouts operate from a basecamp and work on skills like To

The first pic looks like out West but the second pic looks like North Carolina around the Natahalla river.

We had a rule that every member of the crew had to carry a canoe at least once during the trek. All the lads in our crew were 14 yr old and small. Too weighed just a tad over 100 lbs. The other two were not much heavier. It took two lads to lift the canoe to rest it on the shoulders of the one carrying the canoe but they did it. My son ended up carrying a canoe almost every portage. But he is sturdy. Just to see if he could do it, he carried a pack on the front of his chest and a canoe at the same time during one portage. He wanted the bragging rights. So even the smaller/younger

Most adult leaders in Scouting have at least one son in the program. Those adults are often leaders to fill two goals, time with their son AND to help other scouts. I have fond memories of my time in scouting as a lad. I wanted my sons to have similar experiences. I volunteered partly so I could help provide a program I thought would be fun and challenging and partly to be around my sons. Oh and because it was fun for me. Just because a parent wants to volunteer to be a leader does not mean they are helicopter parents managing their every child's movement. Sometimes it means the

Any hobby or activity costs something. Time, money, effort. It also means you forgo other opportunities to spend your time, money and effort on other choices. Scouting has a reputation for being low cost. In my dealings with scouting, keeping costs low has always been considered. But scouting also has opportunities for participants to experience more challenging or distant events that do cost substantial amounts of time, money and effort. Jamborees and High Adventure Bases are two that come immediately to mind. Not every scout can afford the cost in time, money or effort to attend t

Scouting is a good program. Each scout gets a slightly different application of the program based on his troop. Is it the best program for all lads? Not sure. I have two sons. One an athlete and one a scout. Sports served the one son well. He needed the constant physical outlet and the challenge of competing against others, both on his team and other teams. The numerous practices and games took up much of his time and gave him a sense of purpose. Sports did teach him some basic respect to others. Sports goal is different from scouting. It is not to develop citizenship or personal

"then not being able to succeed"... Scouting is a journey of development. Rank is a way to celebrate that journey. Earning the rank of Eagle is not a requirement of Scouting. It is a marker of achievement. Took me 4 years between Life and Eagle. Mostly because I did not really care about the rank. I was having fun and going on adventures with my friends. Parents stepped in towards the end and strongly encouraged me to wrap up a few loose ends. Glad they did. Had I not completed those last few requirements, it would not have wiped out the almost decade of scouting. Life for life

Picture from the lads trip. They survived 9 days on the trail. Looking forward to the stories!

Wore then as a lad. Too much trouble with pin backs to wear for daily uniform. Will put them on for COH. Occasionally a scout will ask why I have so many different colors. Yellow, Red, Green and Blue. I was a cub, boy, explorer and adult scouter.

As adults, we have seen the consequences of actions. Sometimes our actions and sometimes others actions. The scouts don't always have the experience. Well in this case, they have the experience of last month. But some people have to experience the same problem multiple times before they learn to prevent the problem. How many adults do you know who constantly loose their keys? Ridiculous. Put your keys in the same place every time you enter your home. Never lost. Even after years of loosing their keys, they never learn.

I was a Life scout by age 13-14. Didn't earn the rank of Eagle until couple of months before age 18. I was in scouting for the fun and adventure. Rank was not terribly important to ME. I was earning merit badges because there were lots of opportunities to earn them. My unit was very active and did some really cool things. One weekend we went Soaring (powerless flight airplane). That only took a few hours so we also white water rafted. We had to travel to another area to participate so also camped out that weekend. Busy weekend. Just as my parents made school grades important, th

No tweets but the Donald's parents have asked for a text once a day to confirm they are still alive and well. Meant they had to pack a spare battery for the phone. They were making haste. The were backpacking 3 mph while I was with them up and over mountains. Oh, to be young again.

My son is 19. He and his chum Donald were in scouting together since Wolf scouts. They joined the same troop and same patrol. They tented together, camped together, went to summer camp together. They were SPL and ASPL. They attended Philmont together. They both attended Northern Tier and Florida Seabase but at different times. My son was the crew leader for their Philmont trek while Donald was the Chaplin. They both earned the rank of Eagle. Both have aged out and are currently enrolled in college. They travel back and forth between their two colleges several hours apart to hike, ca

Most boys probably could not tell you who the CC is in my troop. The lads interact with the SM and ASMs. CC and the committee are totally behind the scenes and have virtually no interaction with lads other that BOR. I would acknowledge the CC's request and thank him for the input. The scouts understand that there are multiple events and are willing to accept limited turnout. Scouts in our troop either have the ceremony after a regular COH or have one at another location at the day & time of their choosing. The scouts and leaders they want to attend usually get a special request a

What BOYS want from a troop and what Parents want from a troop seldom match up. There is a lot of talk about leadership, responsibility, etc. in this forum. Those are the kind of things parents often want their sons to get from the program. Talk to the boys and they talk about fun, adventure, camping, climbing, canoeing, fire, outdoors, etc. Adults talk about cost, planning, travel time, scheduling. Boys talk about fun, adventure, fire, extreme, etc. Adults talk about advancement, requirements and time to Eagle. Boys talk about fun, adventure, fire. One scout visiting a

Duh. Look at todays school system and how boys are punished for being boys. They are told to sit, be still and be quiet. In other words, act like a woman. ADD and ADHD are higher in males. Maybe because Activity is a natural characteristic of males. Adult males don't sit around and gab with their male friends, they go out and do an activity. When men are bored, they do stuff. They start small and escalate the activity until it explodes or someone gets hurt. Then they up the ante and do it again. Sounds like the task that MI5 had was better suited to the general female way of doi

Good camp. I have attended as an adult camper twice. Hope they are able to raise the money and make the repairs in time for summer.

2 of 8 Webelos attending. The parents of newly crossed over Webelos may not have enough confidence in the troop leadership to let their child go out in the cold for so long. To the parents, they are still children, while to you they are scouts. I would also agree that lack of gear may be a tipping point for newly crossed over. I would bet that some of the lack of attendance is from parents with holding scouts vs. new scouts not wanting to go. How many of the Webelos have ever spent a weekend or even a single night away from their parents? I bet only 2-3 of the 8 have ever spen

Troop posts a calendar a year in advance. These months the campout is the third weekend, these months, the second weekend etc. Calendar says campout. Not where, just reserves the date. Then all the scout families add the dates to the family calendar up to a year in advance. They know that Scout is going camping and all other activities get moved around that weekend instead of the other way round. We tended to pencil in basic ideas like canoe trip, backpacking, etc. when sending out the calendar. 3 months prior to the trip, start firming up the details. We also tried to alternate b