Scoutfish

Sound like to me, that you are the professional. Years ago, I had passed my Level III firefighter certification. I was a volunteer, but passed the highest level of certification the state ( NC ) had to offer. I happened to be at a weekend training session where both volunter and paid ( not necessarily professional - mind you) firefighters were in attendance. Well, this egotistical paid guy see' s my level II patches on my uniform shirt and goes to tell me that he was a "real" professional because he was paid to do it. His chief overheard him, and stood the guy up real fast for everybody to see and said ( not an exact quote) : "See this guy? He is a paid firefighter. Notice I did not say professional...just paid. He has a great job, but a less than stellar attitude, He is cocky, arrogant, and always walks around with his best friend - his ego. Is he good at his job? Yes. Is he professional? Nope, not yet, but maybe some day. Professional is not a pay scale or piece of paper. It is your attitude and the way in which you approach things and carry them out!" So, seems to me Schiff, that you are more professional than the so called professionals who couldn't bear to those small details that were designed to ensure things go as they should....namely Youth protection and such.

WEll, I talked to the DE just a little while ago and I printed out the MBC info/application sheet. Figured I will start within my Co's troop at first to get the hang of it and then expand to the district. Then after some time getting comfortable with it, I'' work with council.

Scoutnut, Well, it wasn't that I just decided to up teach a particular MB. But I have come to realize that , I wouldn't mind helping out by being a MB counselor, but wasn't sure if what I just happen to be knowledgeable and experienced in would end up being usable or not. Seems like I might be more usefull than I thought.

I'll be completely honest: I have no idea what merit badges there are. Being that this is my first year as CM, I'm pretty proud to get a few den chiefs going...even though the season is almost over. Never saw a Den chief at our pack in the time I have been there. Talked with the CO's SM and he will bring me a few more if I want. I told him as long as the boys want to do it, then we wil make it work. Anyways...that is the most involvement I have ever had with Boy Scouts aside from being friends with one when I was 16 years old.

Been thinking of maybe becoming/ offerning my services as a MBC next year. Things is, my collective available skills are limited to : Garage door systems. Been doing this for 16 years now. Garage doors/ security grills, coil up doors, fire doors, security grills and gate access systems. Also any related remote operation electric openers. Okay, throw in mechanical loading dock equipment too. I used to be a plumber for about 8 years before working with garage doors. Before and during both plumbing and garage dors, I was an active Certified Firefighter/ Emergency Medical Technition/ Water Rescue Technition. Did that for around 12 years or so. Operated 1250 gallon per minute centrifugal pumps, cascade systems ( for refilling air packs, variuos vehicle extrication tools including the Jaws of Life. I was responcible for not only maintaining all of the above equipment, but also trained others and cghecked them off as to when they would be alowed to operate it. Father was in the USCG, so I got the tougher home school education in boating and marine safety. Speant all my life next to the water and have owned various boats. Anyways, I have no idea if this would actually end up being usefull in any related way. At least in garage dors, there are certain things of a mechanical nature that can related to engineering. A lttle3 bit of math and physics too, although maybe not enough to be worthwhile. Seeing as a MBC is supposed to be an expert or darn near close, would it be worthwhile or usefull in your opinions? Be brutally honest please!

This might come off as a dumb question, but you all know by now that I'll ask anyways! What is the difference bwteeen University of Scouting and a POW WOW? Is there even a difference? I'm thinking that POW WOW is Cub Scout related and UOS is Boy Scout related. Is that close?

B&G as a birthday celebration is not such a horrible plavce for a FOS presentation. Assuming it's not turned into a "mmet all rank by date" and all awards are held til then. If it's just what it really is- which is BSA birthday celebration..then by all means have a FOS presentation. Actually, that is a great time to tie it all in . But anu ECOH or COH is indeed all about the boy. It is a ceremony to recognize and show respect for what he has earned and acoomplished. I'd no sooner have a FOS at any kind of ECOH or COH than I would have a school booster drive at a high school graduation!

Define rural. Cape Fear Council is by far not the largest or most rural, but is a big oile mix of city areas and plenty of rural ( pig farms, swamps, fields, and pastures) areas. I live on the easternmost border og the council, but could not honestly tell you the other borders, but our council is made up of around 7 counties. It takes me about 3 hours to drive to a town that lists 3 troops and 2 packs that is still in our council. I know Our DE wil drive to meet us at our Council cub or boy camp ( two seperate camps side by side)in a flash, and it's a two hour drive from my unit to the camp.

Nah..We go to the store knowing we are gonna be spending money..or giving it away - depending on what you think of prices. Why not sell burial lots or life insurance at a funeral too? They are practically related! I'd tell the DE that he can do his FOS at another meeting: The district or Council banquet! That is also a gathering of adults and families.

First vehicle was a 1981 Jeep CJ-5 with a 258 straight six and four speed manual shift. Was white with blue soft top and blue trim. I learned the HARD way that you DO NOT use Windex to clean vinyl windows! Over the course of 3 years, they turned red, hardened and cracked and fell out!

Never really tried hot glue on it, but see two possibilities: 1) It will scrape/ peel of failry decently from the plastic backing. Or at the very least, you should be able to trim the dries hot glue away from the back of the patch after you rip the patch off whatever the display board was. 2) It burns into the clear patch backing too much during the application and will pull the clear plastic as well as fabric off to , thus ruining the patch. I have seen patches hot glued to plaques, but they were intended to be permanant applications....which so far, are still holding up. Of course, nobody tried to pell them off, so we don't know how that will work. I'd buy just any old cheap patch from the scout store and try it as a guinnea pig first

"Seems Dist Commish is still talking "going to the media" and contacting SM elect's employer (he's a teacher)" Tell the DC that there is a legal term for this very thing: It's caled SLANDER" and he ( the DC ) can be taken to court for it.

Get a Youth Scouting application and hand it to the CubMaster. Ask him to point out where he puts his signature on the finished application. Then hand him an Adult Application. ASk him the same thing. When he is unable to find where his signature goes....smile at him. One of the CM's duties is to HELP the CC and committee find adult leadership. But the CM cannot "hire" the leadership him/her self. If the Cm is somehow acting as CC also. then the COR needs to be made aware that this is not only not allowed, but also a conflict of interest for the pack. Why not just appoint a "Dictator in charge" of the entire pack and do away with all other adult leadership!

Well, thing is...there is a time gap between being a Wolf and Webelos. Boys may not pick up another marble again after being Wolf , if not for the Webelos trying to earn the AOL requirement. Also think of things in this respect: T-Ball, Coach pitch basebal, boy pitch baseball, High school basesball and pro baseball are a series of higher ranking and higher difficulty / ability in the same sport of baseball. Marbles for Wolves should be more challenging that it was for Tigers...and more challenging for Webelos than Wolves. Plus skill and ability should be better. Under the part of mask making electives..It says " You can have the Scouts do additional Electives from 2. Be an Actor and make this requirement much more fun. " The two key words here are "can" meaning you do not have to....and "fun" which is what you should be aiming and trying to do anyways. The boys do not have to do something completely different every meeting or campout. There is nothing wrong with repeating something - especially if they have fun with it.

Yeah, it's cool when somebody will put their "wants to" aside and follow the "really ought to" and make sure the guys are safe!

"Popcorn may be expensive, but how many candy bars do you have to sell to equal one bag of popcorn? " Basically, youi can't use a standard comparison between the two. Why? Well, as a true life example... We used to have bozes of 10 individually wrapped microwave popcon bags. They sold for $10.00 We'd break open a few boxes and sell the individual packs for $1.oo each. At the ned of blitz week, we'd sell maybe 7 boxes ( whole pack) for a total of $70.00 Meanwhile, we would sell over 180 individual packs for a total of $180.00 THing is...people will spend a single dollar or even two without any hard thought or reservation. Right now our cheapest popcorn runs $15.00 a box. Take 200 people and ask them which they would rather do: fork over $15.00 or $1.00 See, we could sell less popcorn if we sold it at $400.00 a case, but how many people will actually buy a case? IT's not just about price compared to price...but also ease of sale and consumer friendly pricing.

One of our military DL's had this same conversation with a parent once. He used a great analogy: A scout in a rank is that scout..he just hasn't gotten his rank diploma yet. In this case, the scout in a Bear Den is indeed a Bear, and he is working towards his Bear diploma. He's a bear, just not a graduated Bear. Yeah, the mom was a teacher so it worked for her!

Yeah..If we sell the candy bars instead of popcorn...we'd split the profit 50/50. My bad, I assumed everybody would get that it was just changing one product for the other to suprort the council. But see where I did not give you a reason to think I meant that. Our pack uses our spring/summer BBQ chicken dinnre to raise money for the pack.

Been talking about something with my CC for a little while now. We are thinking of selling candybars instead of popcorn. Now, we could all rehash the popcorn arguements about price, what you get for what you pay and about conveinence of price, but it's the same old arguements. So we were thinking about candy bars. Every now and then, a local highschool club sells them. They totally rake in the cash! And the simplicity of it is just astounding: 1) They are the same size as store bought candybars, yet only cost a $1 as compared to the stors that sell the same size for around $1.60. 2) IT's A DOLLAR...most people have at least one dollar in their pocket and do not mind handing over ONE DOLLAR long before they will habd over $25 for some popcorn. 3) Take them to work and co-workers will easily pay you a dollar to get out of their face instead of the usual " Oh..I just bought new socks for my cat last week..sorry!" line to avoid paying $25 for a small box of not so great popcorn that you can buy in a 5 gallon size at Wal-Mart for $4.00 4) Each company may be different, but you average between a 50% to 65% profit from the candybars. 5) Things is, no disrespect to Trails End but................ PEOPLE LOVE CHOCOLATE!!!!!! So...now it comes down to who has used which of the many fundraiser companies and how friendly were they?

So how about the DC? Ithink it's time he be removed from his post. Purposely and intentionally twisting the truth, flat our lying and purposely pursuing slander? Noyt in any shape way or form a quality that follows the Scout Oath, the Scout Spirit or reflects the values and morals of scouting. And you have to ask: What will he do or say the next time he doesn't like somebody else? What has he said about other in the past? THis guy lost all credibility in everything he has said, or will ever say.

RRR3, You were asked: "What efforts do the people in your unit make to be a part of your district and help carry out it's program?" The closest thing toi an answer I sw was: " I have a very successful troop - very active in the community and supported by the community." But what about your council? What about your district? Do you attend RT? Do you go to district or council events? Camping? Ceremonies? Do you sell or participate in things like popcorn or SCouting for food? In what ways do you support or work with your council? Used to be a time when some leaders in our pack would say council or district was unknown in our pack...but our pack did the minimal popcorn and that's it. Nobody went to RT, meetings, trainings, or council/ditrct campouts, or day events. Soince I have become CM, I have been to every RT, several banquets ( councils are sooo boring - districts are pretty nice) volunteer at camps, became camp promotor, been to trainings and POW WOW and am on a first name get recognized across a crowded room by council registrar and DE and UC. DE has me listed by first name only on his cell phone. You know what I want from them? Same stuff ScoutNut listed. You know what they want from me? Nothing more than I want from them..plus a friendly attitude.

In a short while, our ACM will be leaving as his son crosses out of our pack. Also, we will be losing our second year Webelos DL, our Pack Advancement Chair, and our Pack CC as their son's cross out of our pack. All but the DL have agreed to stay on with the pack until the end of the school calendar because of their positions. Anyways, I went out and bought 4 hiking sticks to present to them at the end of the year at our pack campout ( had to twist DL's arm to get him to show up without giving a specific reason as to why). Today, I went out and bought a Dremel tol so I could carve some stuff into the hiking sticks. I just don't know whatit will be. I am planning on drilling a hole and adding a leather wrist strap to them and making a diamond grid hand grip area..but that's all I have come up with so far. Any and all ideas will be appreciated as I have never done,or even thought of doing this before. Just remeber....with my lack of carving experience..Van gogh will end up looking like Picasso! Thinking of having all the scouts sign the sticks too. EDITED TO ADD: Oh yeah...the hiking sticks are smooth shaft 1 1/4" round X 60" long .(This message has been edited by scoutfish)

Two things: 1) Did you call, e-mail. or ASK them to attend? Did you give them advance notice or make sure they had ample time to plan for it? Thing is. somebody had to co-ordinate all tose people and the media as to when, where , and what time. And lets be honest: The media need new stuff on a daily basis and have the people to go anywhere on a moments notice. But try to arrange that with people who may have had planned their engagements over 3 months ago.. 2) What's the diss against the knots? Just because some folks make their goal in scouting to be "all about the knots" ...it doesn't mean that's what the knots mean. For example: I am not racist, bigoted, or predjudiced. Just because some racist white supremicits drive pick-up trucks does not mean I will not drive a pick-up. I drive my pick-up truck for my own reasons and do not in any way suscribe to why others do. Same thing with the knots. Some great scouters wear them. I suppose you could say that alot of people are scouters for the wrong reason. Hasn't stopped you from being a scouter has it? Many adults leaders are only in it for their own kids advancement. Doesn't mean thay all are! Of course knot!

Don't forget modern technology either. Want to do a project? Search online to see what other people did or what the community needs. Time to organize? Why not e-mail, page, twitter, text and call everybody in 5 minutes instead of spending 3 weeks meeting up with whoever. I hear that there are apps for phones, droids , Ipod, etc.. for keeping up with any and all advancemnts requirements for practically everything scout related. Working on Eagle and not sure about something? Pull out your phone and check it real fast. Email your SM or Troop Committe instead of actually going to their house or calling them.. Fax this, email that. time saved is amazing.

Could two other things be a part of the answer as to why there are more Eagles: We have slowly developed a "If your not the best, then you are a failure!" attitude/ People are not judging others by character or god deeds or number of friends, but we judge each other by the size of our houses, the number of cars and how much they cost, the salary we make, and how much bling we wear. Either you have a PhD , MA, BA and in whatever carrer you are in or you are just a hair above janitor on the "success radar". And never having been a scout myself..I do not know for sure, but seems alot of the lose of older days was parents dropped kids off at scouting and then did their own thing. Nowdays, more and more parents are involved with their son's "Scout careers" then way back when. Parents may be encouraging, helping scouts focus, helping scouts attain their goals and generally being more atuned to and knowledgeable in scouting. Instead of coming home and telling mom and dad what you did...they are there to see it.