SagerScout

Your $212 a week is about what our girl scout camp runs. The boy scout camps around here are less expensive, but also do not have quite as posh accomodations. (BYOT) The average income around here isn't very high.

Three of the four older scouts in our troop have been to asthma camp but never to BS summer camp. Their experience after their first Freezaree involved all 3 of them being admitted to the hospital for nearly 30 days. So they are not the best salespeople for camp, although are willing to try again. As you might guess, it took a little doing to convince their parents to try this again at all although it's been a couple of years and they have been under better control.... MY son has been to two summer camps and loved them both so he's the one we're counting on for the sales to the boys. H

I say NO too. As has been pointed out, I think boys and girls both benefit from an environment in which they can just be what they are. I totally agree that boys think they have to lead in co-ed groups, and girls think they have to let them. My daughter (12) already has noticed that it's not cool to be smart, so she tries to hide that at school so the boys won't notice. And I agree that the silly skits and other fun we have with the boys would not be as good in a coed organization. On the other hand, I DO want to see leaders of both sexes in both organizations. Girls benefit from Dad

The current structure is 2 patrols, the SPL is our only Life scout, a fine young man of 16. The PL of the two patrols are the two Star scouts in the troop, twin brothers and brother of the SPL. These 3 boys were appointed by the SM (their dad) for the getting-started phase of this troop, which I personally think was a practical call, but it's soon time to shuffle the deck. My son is a second-class scout, soon to be first class. All other scouts are Scouts or Tenderfoot. We've got 10 on the roster, and are recruiting constantly trying to get to critical mass. The new-scout/experienced

This one is good for just after a meeting or activity that did not go well for one or more reasons: "Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from Bad Judgement."

I don't know why the numbers are dropping nationwide. I DO know of ONE scout whose parents decided not to encourage continuing in Scouts in favor of youth sports, because they do not wish to teach their son that hating gay men was OK. But one scout does not a trend make. Talked to one of my older son's friends about it yesterday. He quit a couple years ago, in 10th grade, was I think a Life Scout and OA member. Why quit, I asked? His mother is still active in Venturing. Well, says he, it just wasn't the same anymore. We couldn't haze the new kids anymore, we used to be able to play "

Der Schlitterbahn is the best water park I've ever been to, and I've been to them in four states including Disney's. It's about an hour from my driveway, and they offer Scout Days every year. Another good reason to be a SCout!

I've been all those places myself - home is currently San Antonio, but we're looking at summer camp at Lake Corpus Christi. I visit Corpus Christi several times a month on business, and on rare occasions am lucky enough to be able to slip a windsurfer in my van and spend an afternoon at Bird Island Basin.

We'll be having elections soon. Our troop is small and new, so it is a lock that we will have young and inexperienced patrol leaders, having already "used up" our experienced scouts. I can already envision them having problems getting their patrols in line. My vivid mental image is of a patrol leader saying "Do this" and a boy about his age saying "NO WAY!" and the patrol leader going to the scoutmaster and saying "He won't do what I tell him...." I'll be doing at least part of the training. What do each of you think is key for them (or the adults - I'm going to try to train them too) t

Bob White - you are such a valuable resource on this board, and I very much appreciate your input. Could you offer me some advice, please? I'm a member of the United Methodist Church, and as has been noted here, my church is divided on the homosexuality question. Probably most folks here know what side of it I'm on. What would be the mechanism for ME, lowly unit volunteer, to communicate my concerns to the BSA regarding this issue without being thrown out of the organization. While I think - hope - I meet the role model standard, as does my husband, I am very concerned about thro

Sctmom is right about the little ones going to summer camp - Girl Scout camp has weeklong summer camps for brownies (1-3 grade). The difference is that they are usually cabin camps, and girls register as individuals or buddy pairs, not usually as a whole troop. There's lots of staff to help out with the little ones. They are armed with homesickness medicines and sprays to keep away the monsters, and there's not usually much problem with either. Troop camping begins in about 3rd grade for most, for some in cabins but some in tents. By the time they are 5th or 6th grade they should be pre

Thanks for all your support. In our case, we do have the 2 adult leaders we need, or at least I'm pretty sure we do - I'm onboard, and I think the SM will be too. He's got the worst money problems of any of us, one income and three, count'em, three boys in scouting. But if we can't get some more kids to go, I'm not sure he'll be willing to take the week off work and lose even more income on top of having to pay for his kids to go. If the heat keeps untrained parents who have no scouting experience home, that's pretty ok with me. WE all know that summer camp is a fantastic, life-t

All levels are "Girl Scouts" - from Daisy Girl Scouts to Senior Girl Scouts. Its' the boys that break it into cub scouts, Webelos, and "Boy Scouts"

OK, picture this: Brand new, small troop. 10 total, only 3 are first class or above. Age ranges 11-16. Found a summer camp that is very reasonable in price ($125)and appears to offer a good program. Parents were negative on this idea because of cost (remember we haven't had a chance to save all year like most troops, and most of our kids just bought their uniforms and books). I can see their point, and enough garage sales should help with this. The second reason sort of stopped me. A parent was worried that it would be hot. Well, it's in July in far South Texas, an

Wow, what a cool site! Thanks very much. I have to recommend that everyone click on this link! Julia

I thought from my reading that if someone is signing up as a volunteer merit badge counselor that the membership fee would be waived. My TCC tells me that in our council there is a $10 charge for each counselor signed up. Seems a little rough to try to convert someone who is just trying to be helpful into a paying scouter.... Is this one of those "it used to be one way, but just changed" deals? Or am I just imagining things?

Thanks for the link, that gives me some more info for the troop to factor into their decision. julia

Ed and Mike - about having new scouts come out during the day to participate - Just had an idea that might help Mike out with the problem of keeping up with them. Require the "day-trippers" to be essentially a separate unit, naturally requiring 2-deep leadership. So two someone elses (probably an ASM and a parent) will be responsible to gather them up, get them there at a given time, and get them home at a given time. I think you are absolutely right not to want individual scouts wandering in and out, transported by their miscellaneous parents. That way lies insanity!

Socializing IS a skill that scouts need to work on, and is my primary reason for wanting my son involved. However, IMHO older scouts "going off on their own and socializing" isn't exactly what we had in mind for a scout troop. Older scouts going off and socializing and always excluding the younger scouts from their group can contribute to the dropout rate for the young scouts. We're trying to teach the younger kids social skills, and if they only learn to exclude kids that aren't their age, we're not passing on the skills we were hoping for! That said, I don't think it is fair fo

Thank you both for your replies. I'll bring both suggested methods of reproduction before the troop and see what they think. Screenprinting sounds very cool but kinda hard, but several scouts in this troop have an interest in textile arts so it might be the winner of the vote - I was surprised at the loose control of the art, GS are much stricter, but I'm happy about it! Thanks again.

Oh, and one more thing: You said that it has been difficult to get these parents onboard with the boy-led concept. I strongly believe in boy-led and became an ASM in order to promote that concept within my son's existing troop. The reason I decided I needed to do that is that I had already seen 2 other troops, and in each of them "boy-led" was not working for different reasons. In the first, "boy-led" meant meetings were ALWAYS chaotic, disorganized, and seemed to have very little point or accomplishment. Planning, if any, was done by a couple of the experienced scouts, while the rest

Well, you WILL lose them and their boys if you don't find a way to put them to work. If the parents feel unwelcome, the boys will be outa there soon. But with 10 new boys, surely you can find something for them to do? Especially after they all go through scoutmaster training? (very essential) Do they bring some merit badge expertise to your troop that you didn't have before? Could you sign 'em up as merit badge counselors, and if they are a tight-knit group, perhaps they would like to work together on setting up some sort of a merit badge university event that would benefit the whole

Thanks to your alert, I snagged that 6x shirt from ebay. You're right about being ignored in expensive stores but offtopic, one time I was in Neiman Marcus in downtown Dallas, the most fancy of the fancy stores - and I was about 17 or 18, did not have the price of a hot dog in my ragged jeans (or anywhere else in my posession!) and was waited on in the ladies department as if I were visiting royalty. It made quite an impression. Julia

Thanks to sctmom's alert, my scout will shortly be the proud owner of a genuine Boy Scout uniform shirt that will hopefully fit him or at least be close enough where a little tailoring will do it. thanks to everyone that chipped in to this discussion. Julia

I'm one of those with heartburn over the cost of the full uniform and the requirement to have every cotton-picking item. That said, I agree with the response that says "earn it," as that is one of the goals of the program to teach kids that even high goals within their grasp. I agree that scouting is not more expensive than many youth sports. The part that might be missed is that many kids, including mine, know not even to ASK about the sports that have those kinds of costs associated with them. I think youth sports are great for many kids, my nephew is a starting pitcher for Sam Hous