scoutldr

Think Supreme Court.

Oh. Never mind.

Your COR has a vote on the District Committee and Council Executive Board. Does he/she attend the meetings and voice your displeasure? Not recording Scout ranks will become a serious issue when a young man files his Eagle application. If the right info is not in Scoutnet, National will not approve the application.

http://www.learning-for-life.org/

Dylan Thomas notwithstanding, I am observing the trend that parents are opting to have children later in life. I just turned 50 and my own sons aged out and are now 27 and 23. My colleagues who have been with the troop for 11 years now are 53 and 49 and their sons have aged out, too. The moms and dads of the new Webelos who just joined are not much younger than us...some are older. My sister in law had her two children at age 40 and 40yrs 9 months...now she and her husband are near my age and still have two 4th graders. I am starting to see retirement on the horizon and am glad I have grown children who can fend for themselves now, and that high school and college are distant memories. I guess the point of this is that when I start looking around for a replacement, all I see are old people who have less energy and time than I do, and who are content to drop their kids off for the weekend so they can get a much needed rest. Don't get me wrong, they readily express their appreciation and say "I don't know why you keep doing this, but we are really glad you do!" Problem is, if their kids want to go to Philmont or high adventure, who will take them? Like someone else said, two nights on the ground now is about all my back can take, and that's only if I can plug in my CPAP machine!

At the troop level, only the SM can earn the SM Key. All other positions in the Troop (ASM, MC, CC) earn the Boy Scout Leader Training Award. There is also a Key for District Committee (all members, not just Chairman), Commissioners, Venturing Advisors/Skippers, and Varsity Coach.

Then it would be "scout.com".

Cowfoot: Sounds like my Grandmother's Pennsylvania Dutch used to sound!

Happy Mothers' Day, Mom. I miss you. 7/10/25 - 11/30/95 If you still have a Mother, call her or visit her while you still can.

Obesity is a complex disease consisting of endocrine (hormonal), metabolic, mental (stress), and genetic factors. Those components are all intertwined and interdependent. Unlike smokers and alcoholics, we cannot choose to quit buying food. If it were that easy, more of us would be successful. If we quit food "cold turkey", we will die. Exercise and dieting to lose weight is usually a temporary fix...the body resists the efforts and when we let up just a little, the weight comes back, and the body adds more, just in case I decide to try again. This is still one of the least understood disease processes. So my question is this...what other "weaknesses" will we decide set a "bad example" for our youth? Diabetes? Asthma? Cancer? Just tell me where the line is. If I'm on the wrong side, I'll resign and let someone stronger take over. Let me know when you find them.

I avoid girls in uniform. They think they know everything.

I agree that an ECOH is a special occasion and should be afforded a special time. If you have 25 LifeScouts, you will be averaging a COH every two weeks. If all your troop does is attend COHs, when are the other Scouts supposed to do Scouting?

Our new Dist Chair opened the meeting by saying, "I don't know anything about Scouting, but I can chair a meeting, and leave the details up to you, the experts." So far, he hasn't learned enough to be able to conceive any hare-brained ideas of his own, and he just "chairs the meeting" according to the agenda that the DE hands him as he enters the room. I think I kinda like it that way.

A camp bar??? As Yakov Smirnoff would say, "What a country!" Eamonn, old chap, ye never clued us in!

Parsing the parse: I hope the junior leaders and the Scouters are sleeping in two separate areas. Otherwise, this is a Youth Protection and G2SS violation. Sleeping in the same area is acceptable as long as they are not in the same tent. Leave No Trace... This is a summer camp, not the wilderness backcountry. Boy Led Troop... If these are MB classes, only adults can be MB counselors. Doesn't conform to the Guide to Safe Scouting. Further, the non-conformance is in the MANDATORY areas of G2SS. Sounds like he is describing "ability groups", Swimmer, Beginner and Non-swimmer. Straight out of Safe Swim Defense. BSA Lifeguards are recommended as meeting the definition of "qualified supervision". It's not a requirement.

My first question would be "why did the election team go back three times?" If the troop leadership (PLC) is not interested enough in the election to have a quorum there, then maybe they should wait until next year and try again. I agree with the others...if they have met the requirements, age is irrelevant.

Vigil is an honor that is bestowed, not elected. Vigil candidates can be nominated by any other arrowman and the selection is done by a committee. I would think if one were to decline the honor, it could be considered rude. Unless, of course, there were extenuating circumstances that would prevent one from completing the process. Such things should be handled privately on a case-by-case basis.

Since baseball is the passion of your small town, are you the only Scout parent with a conflict? How about suggesting that the Scout meeting start a little later? My son played baseball from age 5 till his senior year in high school. Four years on the Varsity team. One year at summer camp, I drove 150 miles round trip every day so he could play with his team in a post-season tournament. (Pony league). Did he get a college scholarship? No. Was it worth all those hours on the bleachers? I wouldn't trade it for a minute. I did it because he loved baseball. He did scouting because it's what I did since I was 8 years old and I loved it. We each made sacrifices for the other. Isn't that what it's all about?

When we had LDS units in our district, they would come to camporees, but would pack out after the campfire on Saturday night. We always heard it was because they could not do much else on the Sabbath except go to church.

There was (is?) both a Mother's pin and a lapel pin. The Mother's pin was larger and had a pin back. THe lapel pin is smaller and has a clutch back. These were all included in the Eagle Scout presentation set. I see them from time to time on Ebay. Replacement Eagle credentials can be ordered from the Eagle Scout Service at BSA Irving. You need to know the COuncil and date of receipt. Get a current copy of the "Eagletter" for details (all NESA members get this). The bad thing is, it won't have Richard Nixon's signature and it will be in the current "landscape" format rather than the smaller "portrait" format. (Mine is from 1970).

I think I preferred FOG.

One of the principles of a Troop is youth leadership. If a scout "graduates" into a Team when he turns 14, who is left to teach, mentor and lead the younger scouts in the troop?

Thanks for the rundown, tort. I have to admit, I know nothing about the Varsity program. In fact, everything I know, I read here. We have only one Varsity Team in our medium-sized Council, and it's an LDS unit, I think. I'm having a hard time visualizing a tournament with only one team? I also had no idea that Varsity included things other than sports, such as theater and high adventure. Is that the norm?

Jimmy and his little brother Johnny go into a drugstore and select a feminine hygiene product off the shelf and take it to the cash register. The pharmacist looks down at them and says, "Well, Boys, is this for your Mom?" "No, sir" said Jimmy, it's for my little brother here." "Do you know what they are for?", said the druggist. "Not exactly, but we saw on TV that if you have them, you can swim and ride a bike, and right now Johnny can't do either one."

Karl, welcome to the forums. As we like to say, grab a cuppa coffee and pull up a log. The reality is, 99.9% of volunteer scout leaders are not trained mental health professionals and are ill equipped to handle special needs scouts. Sometimes the only way a scout can be accomodated in a regular unit is if the parent attends full time to assist. You don't mention how much support your former SM got from your parents. But to expect him to "handle it" and know what to do is probably unfair. In our council, we now have a District Executive whose job it is to see to the unique needs of special needs units. That probably doesn't exist in smaller Councils, especially 20 years ago. Today, while we are more enlightened, and don't automatically chalk it up to "bad behavior" needing discipline or expulsion, we are still just parents who want the best for the boys in the unit. After all, if I haven't said it before, we are "volunteers" and our free time is important to us too. If your son has special needs, I would contact your Council office and discuss them and see what your council has to offer. Scouting has changed a little in the past 20 years...give it another chance. Every unit is different because they are all just groups of unique human beings with their own strengths and weaknesses. And forgive Dennis and your former SM...I'm sure he was doing the best he knew how. I recently had a 30 year high school reunion...those are not the same people I went to school with. BSA Summer Camp programs are also unique. Just because one has game competitions doesn't mean they all do. If that's not your cup of tea, there are lots of other camps to choose from.