ScoutLass

True, CNYScouter, but that has to mean full on scout-style, minimal adult supervision cooking. Wolves and Bears have outdoor cooking requirements in their BSA-approved handbooks. Of course, it isn't the first time that the left hand didn't know what the right was doing. I'd err on the side of the handbooks in this case.

Gotcha, Renax. Sorry if I jumped the gun, I get a little uptight about rule-adding. I'm a Roundtable Commish and I spend half of each roundtable dispelling myths. Some packs come to me with retainment problems and when you look at all the rules they have added, it's no wonder that the parents and boys are jumping ship! Yeah, Tigers don't have an outdoor cooking requirement, so I'd say it's up to the parents/pack rules in that case. Our pack allows Tigers to roast marshmallows over the fire, supervised of course, but they don't typically prepare meals. As for Wolves, unless you have

Well, I didn't see anything in the G2SS stating cubs can't cook. Webelos need to prepare and cook an outdoor meal for their den as one of the Outdoorsmen requirements. Bears have a similar requirement for achievement 9G. Wolves have prepare and cook an outdoor meal for achievement 8E. So really, Wolves on up should be cooking outdoors at some point, under adult supervision. Except for Tigers, it is spelled out that the boys should be cooking outdoors. I'd be asking my pack leadership how they expect the boys to earn rank if the adults are too afraid to allow the boys to do the necessary w

I'm not seeing how adult rules/kid rules equals hypocrisy. I can drive a vehicle, my son cannot. I currently own a cell phone, my son, by our family rules, is not old enough too. Some privileges come with age, but too many adults fail to teach that to their children so the children think of privileges as rights. Adults get cell phones because it is the adults leading and coordinating events, and they are responsible for the safety of the girls. Something tells me this girl wasn't on the phone with the paramedics calling in an emergency. Personally, I don't see the girl as the main proble

Every page in the forums is giving me the Firefox "Reported Attack Site" red page of death again. The recent threads also disappeared from the side bar, not sure if this is related?

In Girl Scouts as a kid we did foil dinners but in a coffee can. We'd assemble our meals, wrap in foil, and stick them in the bottom of our coffee can. We usually made hobo stew this way, but sometimes we did other things like pizza or beenie-weenies. The can kept the foil from burning, was easier to fish out of the fire and we wrote our names inside so they didn't char off. Coffee cans were considered a required part of our mess kit for camp.

You may not know the success of your recruitment until the fall. Even if only six boys showed up, these six boys went to school the next day and told their friends about the awesome time they had. When your fall recruitment fliers go out, don't be surprised if you end up with a bigger turnout than previously. It's hard to sign kids up in spring, in my experience. Parents don't want to commit to something over the summer and give up their free time with their family. Spring and summer sports are also in full swing. View spring recruitment more as planting a seed for fall, which it sounds

Parents are just like the boys. We're all trained to keep the boys busy, because bored boys become capital T-R-O-U-B-L-E! The adults are the same way. Some just hover, others butt in, and some turn into this "super dad." Nine times outa ten you can solve the problem by assigning them jobs. Come up with a few options before the meeting and don't give "no" as a choice. Give an A or B option, not a yes or no option. "Would you prefer to do this or this," not "Could you help with this?" Busy parents can't hover or cause (too many) problems. With this dad during fire building, I would

It just tried to hit me with an automatic download masquerading as a Windows virus scan. I was clicking on a thread when it happened. Of course, it tries to look like a Windows alert, and I'm on Linux, so it's pretty easy to spot that it's malware of some sort.

I'm starting to see a weak Webelos program as the culprit for a lot of later cub loss and early boy scout loss in the retention department. I don't think anyone is directly to blame, it's just a misunderstanding of both the leaders and parents of how the program should work. Webelos get bored with the cub stuff and either drop out or hang on to get their AOL and cross over. Those who hold on, are shocked by all the responsibility of Boy Scouts and drop out. Webelos isn't just another cub rank. It's a bridging period where the adults begin stepping back and turning the reigns over to the

Even go see its can be completed with the family. Many communities have events with fire trucks to tour. Lowe's Home Improvement stores had a free event here a few weeks ago where my kids got to talk to the fire fighters and tour the truck. Schools have events with fire fighters or police officers. Parents can also arrange for a family tour of stations. I do it all the time as a homeschooling parent. I know the requirement says visit a fire or police station, but I think the point is to visit with the officers and learn how they do their job, which can be done by visiting them at an event or e

As everyone has said, the boys don't have to earn everything at the same time. Only once have all my boys earned rank at the same time. We hand out rank at pack meetings as it's earned. We've never done B&G as the huge rank ceremony like some other packs do. I'd give the parents and boys a heads up that they are a bit behind the other boys, & let them know what they still need to do. We have a big crossover to the next rank ceremony each June at our picnic. All boys take part in this, since they are all moving up to the next rank regardless. If your pack does similar, let the pare

I do this. As wolves, the denner each month gets to plan a game for the meetings, with my help. As bears, they get to plan whole meetings with help (usually one full meeting a month is all theirs then they help plan the other two with me). As Webelos, they go into the Webelos patrol method. We don't use assistant denners. Instead, we give a citizenship award to the boy who was the best citizen in the den or showed major improvement (more of a good behavior award that we developed for den discipline). That month's good citizen does the duty of an assistant denner. While cub scouting is for

Camilam42, apologies on the handle, got it wrong scrolling up and down. Since you wish to switch freely between philosophy and theology, it's only fair to point out that both are quite similar and the outcome depends on the ethics, morality and beliefs of the theologists/philosophers rationalizing those beliefs. Once you used religious arguments to back up a philosophical point, it became theological. This is why I have tried not to use those same forms of rationalizations. Theologythe pursuit to understand the nature of god, religion and faith. Philosophythe pursuit to understand life,

Barry, I am familiar with the studies or some similar to that you refer to. Unfortunately, your teacher espoused only one theory culled from these studies. There are several theories in both the civilization and the monkey studies depending on who is espousing them. Another major theory is that homosexuality rises when the population begins to rise, in other words it is a natural form of population control that clicks in. Which then makes homosexuality completely natural when that theory is the one chosen. A large population is naturally more difficult to govern and manage, so it declines or f

Camlan, a natural mistake and no hard feelings. We have priests in Zen too, as well as monks and nuns. In fact in my sangha (church), we have a Catholic priest that is also a Zen monk which can lead to all sorts of terminology confusion, as well as interesting theological debate! The reason I state your argument is invalid because it is as you say, the teachings of the Catholic church. The reasoned arguments in these teachings are only reasonable within the scope of the specific theology and history of the organization/faith from which they are drawn. Not everyone shares this theology. No

Camlan-- No, I am not Catholic. I am not a member of the Christian faith, and I only have minimal knowledge of its teaching (primarily what I learned in said history and anthropology texts and classes). Homosexuality is still morally acceptable in many areas of the world, in first world, second world and third world countries. It isn't a theoretical argument, but a facet of history that is happening at this moment as we speak. Oh, and "Pagan" Rome did not convert to Christianity, it split apart,as empires do as they fall -- Islam and Christianity played major roles, along with all the var

The moral argument doesn't fly, as not all organizations represented within the BSA feel that homosexuality is morally wrong in any way, shape or form. The BSA is not a Christian organization, though many seem to think otherwise. Now, I have a degree in anthropology. History shows that there is nothing unnatural about homosexuality. It has been documented for thousands of years. In fact, some people at different points in history believed those that had "two genders in one body" had special powers and were closer to the god(s) than the average heterosexual male or female. Most major relig

Received this message on Facebook from our council: "Scouting.org and all national BSA applications are currently out of service. National is working to fix the problem. We appreciate your patience while the issues are resolved."

We sing and do skits at every pack meeting. The boys and adults seem to enjoy it, even with my off-key singing! A few things we do: Each den must do a skit or a song at each pack meeting. Let the den leaders know in advance so they can plan. The skit/song is done by each den before they are handed their awards. We usually open with a repeat-after-me song or other simple, quick to learn song. This way any stragglers can just join in as they show up. Den chiefs. These guys know a thousand songs & love being centerstage. We have a secret signal we give if people start to loo

We rotate the numbers, and the number sticks with a den until they cross over. The crossing over Webelos den numbers become the new tiger den numbers. So right now, we have: Tigers:#4 Wolves: #5 Bears:#1 Webelos:#2 & #3 If we get enough boys to split a den, say in bears, we would then have bear den #1 & #6 I was under the impression that den #'s shouldn't repeat in the pack, otherwise it messes with den yells (Den four, let's Roar! doesn't mean the same thing when every rank has a den 4) and it makes it more confusing.

1)The 5:1 ratio I though applied to summer camp/day camp. That's how it's implemented around here anyways. The wording is clear as mud because it applies to parents with multiple kids. in other words, each cub is answerable to one adult (preferably a parent/gaurdian), but a parent with two sons as cubs may have two cubs he is responsible for. Not that the adult is responsible for two or three cubs that are not related to him. 2)To my knowledge, other training doesn't expire just because YP does. Of course, since they've been messing around with YP this year, this could be a change or a gl

We have a couple different contact lists we issue. Each den has a contact list that includes all leadership contact info then the contact info for each family in the den. The pack list has everyone's info and goes to leadership or anyone that is organizing a specific thing (such as the Blue & Gold coordinator). The only we reason we do it this way is because chances are a tiger parent doesn't need a webelos parent's contact info, so the pack list would be overkill to give to everybody. Giving each parent a list with 50 or more families on it seems overwhelming and unnecessary. Persona

I seem to remember something else that had to be forced onto a divided society by the courts back in 1964. Didn't go too well in several areas of the country, with everyone being divided and everything. Still, looking back, I think most people would agree it wasn't just a good thing, it was a good thing that should have happened a lot sooner. You would think society would learn from history, but few do, so the courts too often have to step in.

I agree with you Gary, but I never stated to take sticks away all together. Boys (and girls) should be allowed to play with sticks. It is whacking each other that isn't allowed. That is what the control is set on, not sticks in general. I just don't think it is up to the cubmaster or den leaders to be handling all the controls when it comes to safety on a campout. It's during the down time that the boys get bored and stick fighting commences. Parents need to now what is expected of them to so they know that a campout isn't just an outdoor pack meeting.