scottteng

Yeah a little bit the reason behind the push to get boys to first class rank is they tend not to quit once they have achieved it. A lot of us are guilty of requiring First class rank for certain trips or perks as is the BSA. OA membership being the primary example. Leaders have usually attained a comfort level with scouts that have been around long enough to get to first class know what their strengths and weaknesses are and also how they will react in most situations. FCFY is a challenging but realistic goal but it does require almost %100 participation from a scout. Your less committed scout

"Boy Scouting, one of the traditional membership divisions of the BSA, is available to boys who have earned the Arrow of Light Award and are at least 10 years old or have completed the fifth grade and are at least 10, or who are 11, but not yet 18 years old " http://www.scouting.org/boyscouts.aspx "Remind Webelos Scouts that they can join a troop any time after they turn 10 and have completed the Arrow of Light requirements." http://www.scouting.org/boyscouts/resources/patrolplus.aspx Looks like younger brother will meet his six months since his 10th birthday in August. Why can't ol

Yes glad to see that correction the coldest I have ever been in my life was a council cub family camp at camp Wallwood near Tallahassee when the temp was at 25 degrees. now to you northern die hards thats not even cold but to me in Florida with my promotional sleeping bag it darn sure was. My Tiger cub son was cozy as could be in his 0 degree mummy bag. I was ready to hike the two miles to my car to drive to the holiday inn express down by the I10 exit. I did survive and you will too make sure all your party are equipped with a sleeping bag rated for 20 degrees less than the projected low plus

I guess I look at overnighter different than some do. To my mind an overnight trip is one that people stay overnight at. Whether that overnight be at a campground, in a cabin, on a ball field, on a ship, in the aquarium or whatever. The only specific exception to BALOO trained person is for Council Family Camp where Council has planned, staffed, and collected fees for. If a pack wants to do their own outings BALOO is the training to attend. As a matter of fact that is where they are told the specific whys and wheres of tour permits for their council. I would like to see BALOO be part of requir

What a fabulous idea someone came up with kudos to the pack who thought of inviting you to their Blue and Gold. Why get Bonzo the birthday party magician that you have to pay when you could have a crew of excited motivated teens come in and show the cubs what they do for fun.

A better use of knives would be to make a craft then if you wish to turn it into a game of sorts you could have a judging with winners in as many categories as desired. In cub scouts for the younger boys they do whittlin chit which is knife safety but they make a soap carving. That would be a good first knife training exercise and if you have some artists in the group produce some very nice carvings as well. Soap is not as difficult to carve as wood so you can cut back the bandaid order. Make sure they are taught to always cut away from their body and by all means teach sharpening as sharp kni

The reason for crossing boys over before summer is to let them get some meetings and a couple of campouts under their belt before summer camp. Despite troops fund raising efforts and scholarships summer camp is somewhat pricey. The troop and hopefully the parents do not want to have boys being picked up from summer camp on Tuesday or Wednesday because of the tearful calls home to mom "I got to come home mom I just can't take this any more the boys are mean the food is inedible." In shor I'm homesick and I know how to push your buttons so you will drive several hours to come pick me up. We don'

Yes the banning of DDT has killed one million people per year in Africa due to malaria spread by mosquitoes. That is why they are starting to produce and use this very effective pesticide again. What needs to happen is for for actual "toxic" levels of substances to be carefully determined. When they talk about PPB parts per billion there is usually no associated toxicity and the effects are negligible. Everyone needs to check out the link I posted lots of people are killed every year by exposure to DiHydrogen Oxide. It is one of the leading killers of scout age children as well. We need to Ban

One would prefer to have the range back up on a natural "out of bounds" area such as an area of dense brush or woods or a body of water so that you could rope off the sides and prevent unpleasant surprises. Depending on the venue of the event the local police dept may want to inspect and approve your range after it has been set up especially if it is on public property such as a park. They may also come up with additional regulations such as BB traps that they want installed to prevent "environmental contamination". A hill or berm is very nice also. A temporary berm may be constructed of hay b

"Basic Adult Leader Outdoor Orientation (BALOO) is a one-day training event that introduces leaders and parents to the skills needed to plan and conduct pack outdoor activities, particularly pack camping." http://www.scouting.org/cubscouts/training/baloo.aspx BALOO is not just for camping it is for any outdoor outing even a trip to the park. There is a logical progression to training a WEBELOS leader gets WALOO as part of his training regiment. A Scoutmaster or Assistant gets IOLS introduction to outdoor leader skills. We get a lot of calls when Woodbadge classes are forming for IOLS as SM

Can be done? Some enviro nut will gladly spend billions of your money to try to solve this unsolvable problem.Probably better to focus on banning a real killer: http://www.gopetition.com/online/2479.html

I cannot imagine that any troop would not welcome a webelos and his supervising parent of course on any campout. Of course if the troops your talking to are not camping then they are not the sort of troop one should be joining. We had 3 prospects on our trip last month and expect more this month. Unless the troop has just too many members WEBELOS crossing over is a major recruiting tool.

http://users.scronline.com/troop77/EquipmentTrader/backpacks.htm The person at the above web site has sizing parameters in inches listed as torso measurement if you click the torso box on the site it will show you how to measure this. Most packs are adjustable to some degree.

Cracker barrel is a fancy name for snack. The younger the boys the more snacks they consume per day. A camporee or troop Cracker Barrel is the before bed snack late in the evening. If your boys are trustworthy with them you can have them toast marshmallows or even make s'mores. Some troops adjust the eating schedule to eat late in the evening they more often have an afternoon snack.

Sword fights, jousting, pull sword from rock. Lets see make into patrol activity. Sword fight with pool noodles with baseball helmets with the face shields winding up not allowed. Jousting piggyback race with man up with lance to catch hoop off a stand make it a timed relay race or just top team. pour sword into fake rock gimmick it so can be pulled out occasionally . make crossbows to shoot marshmallows at 2litre bottles

http://www.scouter.com/forums/viewThread.asp?threadID=184794 The PL reference came from his intro thread above.

QM is a tough position my son did a turn there and hated every minute of it. He actually likes being librarian. He also hated patrol leader. He was under the impression that all the other boys would do what he said without smarting off to the PL like he would. He got a rather rude awakening.

Howdy from the west coast. Your halfway to Eagle. Keep your patrol motivated.

One should never forget 50% of the doctors in this country graduated in the bottom half of their class!

I think she is referring to age just for WEBELOS. The maximum age a cub scout is allowed to be is 11 which is the minimum age for boy scouts. If the young man is interested and willing to work he can complete the program in a year. There is no reason to wait for August though as soon as school is out he is officially a WEBELOS and can start working on the requirements and if he wants to AOL probably should. It is up to you and him he could join boy scouts at eleven even if he was never in cubs. The boys know at right around that age they get bored with cub scouts and are chomping at the bit to

I don't really think that the price is that much of a problem. We have a scout who proudly proclaims that his tennis shoes which he is wearing on a campout are $200 shoes but this same scout cannot afford proper uniform pants. It is all in where their priorities lie. I am starting to see switchbacks on E-bay. My son and I have had ours for over a year and they seem to be fairly durable. The boys tend to outgrow stuff quickly so the uniform closets should stay full. All of the old uniforms are still official as well and in my area Florida it makes more sense to buy up several pairs of old style

The best I can say about the egg in a bag thing is that I ate mine. My scrambled eggs were a little runny and my bacon was burnt and stuck to the paper. If I was at a waffle house I would have sent it back was my comment to the other adults. We were trying with all of this to focus on fire cooking and to have the new kids get through 2nd class 2G without too much notice. The boys are fairly adept at stove cooking as they do more of that. There are much better meals IMHO to cook over a fire burgers, steak, sausages, and dogs come to mind. As to the fruit thing that is a symptom of adult me

At what point do we have to draw the line and say we are sorry but the troop is not able to certify that the food served can be maintained allergen free. If an allergy is so severe that any contact is life threatening: for example the nut free patrol running out of cooking oil to dress their dutch oven unknowingly borrows peanut oil from patrol B or Cross contamination occurs at a washing station. Like most troops in this area we have a single wash station that all the patrols use in turn. Maybe the youth that are that allergic should be permitted to bring their own food and allowed to use the

Yes it is terrible the way the scouts waste food but there is always the inclination for all the grubmasters to get just a little extra too. This weekend we were doing individual cooking over the fire it is our "survival" weekend. For lunch they had MRE's left over from last month when they got evacuated due to tornado warnings. A lot of those went in the trash and not just the kids. Dinner was foil dinners we had a couple of extra burgers but lots of extra onions and peppers about the 11&12 year olds share some of them just had a burger in their foil dinner. Breakfast was one of those fou

Let the boys take care of it and stay out of the way of them taking care of it. In other words when you see the stinky scout being dragged to the shower by his mates you do your best Ray Charles imitation. May be worthwhile to let SPL know that you need a chance to practice that imitation. Don't let em go as far as wire brushes.