shortridge

Like anything else, a camporee should have some clear value. Klondikes are (supposed to be) different from the usual. But I've been to far too many camporees that are just round-robin Scout skill contests - start a fire, tie knots, set up a tent, load a pack, do first aid. They have to appeal to both younger patrols and experienced Scouts, and so fail at doing both. I'd love to see a camporee that had a single clear focus or special program - like kayaking, reflector oven cooking, orienteering, woodcarving. The outlay in getting qualified program staff and equipment for a district full of Scouts would be a significant challenge, however.

Bigotry? Sorry, this ain't that. To use your YMCA example: Men can still have their good ol' boy clubs. Christians can still have their churches. Young people can still associate with other young people. As society changes, so do organizations like the BSA and the YMCA. It isn't bigoted against men or Christians to open up an organization to women and Jews and Muslims. It's simply a change in values of an organization and its members. The same applies to the BSA. There's no bigotry in any of the recent decisions against straights, cisgender folk, or boys. What's changed have been the values. Anti-gay and anti-women values have fallen by the wayside. America is open to all. It's taken Scouting a while, but it's followed. I look forward to seeing how our new Scouts are going to lead. The kids are all right. But to claim that you are a victim of bigotry because your views are suddenly in the minority? That's simply bad logic.

Just a few years ago? I know it's such a pain to have to associate with women, old folk and pagans. But that's the world.

It will ultimately be abandoned. Just my prediction. It'll stick around for a few years during the transition, but in five more years, it'll be gone. Scouts will be for ages 10-18 and the OA will be open to all youth up to 20 years and 364 days.

I'm glad the board made this decision. It is the right one, for our youth and for the future of Scouting. If some COs and leaders can't adjust to modern life, so be it. The Scouts will be just fine, regardless of the bellyaching of adults. The decisions the National Executive Board have made over the last few years have made me more proud, not less, to be involved in Scouting.

I believe what you are describing is a Venturing Crew.

As a former 14-year-old instructor (and again at 15, 16 and 17, before finally being a real MBC at 18), I'd like to represent the camp staff perspective. I agree the system is flawed. I was certainly not qualified to teach some of my badges that young (but for others, I was, and did a solid job if I do say so). There are two solutions, both of which will run up against local unit opposition. 1. Most camps can't afford to hire all 18+ staff as instructors. It's difficult enough in some cases to hire the required 18 and 21s for area director roles. The fix is to pay more money and recruit more heavily among that population, particularly college students. When you're competing against career-oriented internships or jobs that pay five times more, there is no contest. That will lead to higher camp costs. 2. Many camps don't limit the number of Scouts who can take a certain class, leading to 30+ Scouts in a Pioneering or Cooking session under one instructor. The solution is to limit session size to 5-8 - a standard patrol size, same as if the patrol had signed up for lessons from an expert outfitter or guide on a trek. This will lead to Scouts not able to get in to their desired badges. My personal favorite solution is to go the Cub Scout camp route and offer activities rather than formal classes. On Cub camp staff, we didn't sign off on anything, as that was Akela's job. We just ran fun stuff. Boy Scout camps could do the same thing. Instead of Cooking MB class, they do sessions on various types of cooking - Dutch oven, backpacking stove, freezer bag. Instead of Kayaking and Rowing and Canoeing, there's instructional boating and open boating periods. Instead of Environmental Science, there are structured observation hikes and guided experiments on certain subjects. The bigger question is whether anyone would go for this approach. Would units and parents pay for a camp where their Scouts learned rather than earned?

I first did YPT at age 14, working on summer camp staff. Why not encourage youth leaders to take it? In modern form, it's a half-hour of common sense.

Just have the boys check as best they can, making sure they know to check everywhere. Small mirrors are a great idea; lighting has to be good, so during nighttime showers doesn't work. Once when I was staffing a wilderness survival outpost overnight, quite a distance from main camp, I had a youth come up to me and report a tick on a very sensitive portion of his anatomy. He grabbed a buddy and we paddled back to main camp, where I deposited him on the doorstep of the first-aider. The first-aider in turn gave him a mirror and sent him into his private bathroom to try to take care of it. Thankfully, that worked.

"Not one Scout should get turned away from an activity because of a lack of capacity at that event." As much as I share the skepticism, that scenario happens weekly at summer camps around the U.S. Resources and time are both limited. Jambo is no different.

"This is some local AHG leaders not understanding what the MOU grants them. Don't blame the national AGH people for this. The local leaders don't understand that they can't just show up at a BSA event an expect to be allowed to attend." And yet the national AHG people are the ones who deliberately create the impression of tight bonds between the two organizations ...

All Warren Commission records are now public, except for those dealing with confidential tax return information.

They told me that it should be discussed in P&L and those that didn't agree that they should not be allowed could either accept it or leave. What is P&L?

[sorry, double post](This message has been edited by shortridge)

As a former homeschooler - the whole way through, K-12 - I can attest that the quality of homeschooling varies from family to family. Thus, the quality of the kid will vary from family to family. There are few other adults - like teachers - in their lives, so how the parents act is how the kids are going to act; the things the parents do are the things the kids are going to do; and the topics the parents teach are the topics the kids are going to learn. As a fairly intense introvert, I found Cub Scouts to be very helpful in pulling me out of my shell. I loved Boy Scouts and thrived in it, because the self-directed program was just like the self-directed learning "system" we used at home. If I wanted to learn more about something, I read up on it and asked questions. That was the same way I could earn merit badges or Scouting skills! Amazingly cool - and easy! Homeschooling is not for everyone. That is perhaps the most important point I'd make. It's not for every kid, certainly; while my daughter would love the self-directed learning approach of my parents, she would be bored to tears without any other kids to interact with. It's also not for every parent. Some otherwise great parents are horrible homeschoolers. They don't know how to teach, they don't know how to let their kids learn, they use awful curricular materials, they demand too much, they ask too little ... My bottom-line advice would be not to judge a book by its cover, and especially not to judge every homeschooling family by any other homeschooling family. Generalizations especially do not apply here.

1. Create a free blog (I prefer WordPress) and create each newsletter item as a new post. 2. Copy the permalinks into an email. Write headlines. 3. Send the email. That way, too, it's all online for reference.

The majority of boys that age will say they want the most extreme outdoor adventure available. The problem is that if you ask them what they want, they will expect to get it almost immediately. They don't understand experience levels, skill mastery, etc. They just want to do cool stuff. Also, a questionnaire is going to get ignored by most boys. Paperwork smacks of schoolwork. Far better, IMHO, to listen to what they talk about around the campfire, and then later in the PLC.

Err, sorry to interrupt, but ... facts ... The full line - which the American Spectator only selectively quoted - is this: "For more than 200 years, our party has led the fight for civil rights, health care, Social Security, workers' rights, and women's rights." - http://www.democrats.org/about/our_history That's clearly not an all-inclusive statement that should be read as "We have done all these things for the last 200 years"; Social Security hasn't been around for 200 years, for example, and the ideas of health care and women's rights have evolved considerably over that time. (The factual error I would quibble with would be the "more than 200 years" part. The Democratic Party was founded in the early 1830s, making it only about 180 years old, not more than 200.)

This best of the best babble is just so much puffery. Utter piffle.

I'm curious about how rules on out-of-state firewood transport - designed to control the spread of forest pests such as the Asian Longhorned Beetle and Emerald Ash Borer - have affected your units. Specifically: - Has your unit been greatly inconvenienced by rules in your area on firewood transport? - Do you traditionally bring firewood to a campouts, or use what's available at the site? - Has your unit been involved in any public educational programming or service projects to spread the word about these forest pests and the problems of firewood transport? Any other thoughts you'd like to share are welcome also. Thanks!(This message has been edited by Shortridge)

Regarding one and done - I agree that mastery should be the goal. But I would have a real concern if a BOR at any level was quizzing Scouts about specific requirements or topics of MBs earned years ago. That's a different kettle of fish from Scout skills used every month or so. I certainly would not have been able at age 17 to recall every detail about the tribes I studied for Indian Lore, or the type of weave I did for Basketry, or the range rules used in Rifle Shooting. Those skills and knowledge are not necessarily used regularly, and are not necessarily legit topics to quiz a Scout about.

Don't communicate with other leaders or parents on substantive / emotional topics by email. Talk with them.

Interesting that this is focused in Cub packs. Younger parents = more accepting attitudes?

Since the adults dropped the ball, why not hand the job to the PLs and Troop Scribe?

In the BSA run by SeattlePioneer, vice-president Randall Stephenson and board member James Turley would both be kicked out. Good to know. SP, what most people here want is the local option. If your pack's CO wants to discriminate, it can. But my pack a few miles up the road will be happily scooping up all those families yours turns away - families with gay members and families whose heterosexual parents oppose discrimination on principle. Eventually, even without a national ban on discrimination, the gays-are-yucky crowd will shrink to irrelevance as people realize two men kissing isn't contagious and the Scoutmaster isn't going to hit on them.