SR540Beaver

I've got a feeling that National is probably sticklers when it comes to WB standards, but I could be wrong. I'm sure there are some councils out there who will cut corners. Here is a web page from our council that spells out the REQUIRED courses prior to attending WB. http://www.lastfrontiercouncil.org/wb_prereq_jan2002.htm I'm well acquainted with our district training chair since he is also our SM. There are no specially designed abbreviated classes to get people to WB. I'll be serving on WB staff in the fall of 2006 and I can tell you that our council takes ALL training serious and we cross our T's and dot our I's. As much as we want to fill the course, if you don't qualify, you don't go.

Eagle74, You can not attend Woodbadge unless you have taken the training course(s) for your position which includes the outdoor portion.

Having to have 3 complete sets of uniforms for both my son and I for Jamboree, I can attest to the fact that the uniform is expensive. That being said, lets remember that a scout is thrifty, he pays his own way. Why do we expect mom and dad to shell out the cash for a uniform. A scout earning the money and purchasing a uniform is a valuable lesson and teaching opportunity. He should be earning part of the money needed for outings, summer camp and high adventure trips. He should also be helping to bring money in for the troop's expenses and equipment needs. Is cost REALLY a factor if we are doing the program correctly? So what if the boy has to buy an item at a time. Eventually he will have a complete uniform. The fact he worked for it and bought it himself will give him 10 times the incentive to wear it than all of the pushing an SM might do. Hunt, Uniformity in blue jeans? Last time I looked, there were about 1000 styles and a multitude of shades. Your skater kids are going to show up in pants 6 inches too long with legs so large that shoes can't even be seen. Your goth kids are going to wear nothing but black jeans. Blue jeans has too much variety to ever be "uniform". That is like saying we are all going to drive cars instead of trucks and SUV's to be uniform. The problem is that one of us shows up in a mini-Cooper and the other in a Caddy.

Not to rock the boat or anything, but you guys do realize that part of the charter agreement is that the CO will provide a safe setting with adequate space don't you? Since it can be a tough proposition to find new CO's, I'm sure that the DE and district staff are not going to run down to the CO and give them a hard time about not meeting their obligation. Hopefully it can be approached in a positive and diplomatic way. Bottom line, the CO has agreed to provide you space that meets certain standards of safety. If not, they are not fulfilling the obligation they agreed to undertake.

When I was a Wolf, we met at Mrs Huddleston's house on 52rd street right after school. When I was a Bear, we met at Mrs Phillip's house on 58th street. When I was a Webelos, we met at Mr Ryland's house on 51st street. We walked to all of those locations. We had our Pack meetings at our elementary school on 52nd street. Of course, that was 40 years ago. It is a little difficult to meet right after school anymore with two working parents and safety concerns. But perhaps your best solution is to have home den meetings. Then the den leaders don't have to "travel" to the den meeting every week and might be more apt to attend a committee meeting once a month to get Pack info.

"Bobby Knight uses basketball." I thought he used fear and intimidation to obtain winnig scores.

John, What do you mean by "I often get a different perspective on the "ethic" of an Arrowman "?

Lisa's post got me to thinking and this isn't meant to disagree with my old buddy Eamonn. While scouting is centered around an outdoor program, which is the more important life skill we want a boy to carry away from scouting? Knots or leadership? Hopefully the boy will apply the leadership skills thruout his life. He may never tie a knot his whole adult life. I know knots play into scouting because they are useful in the program and it also gives a boy an opportunity to practicve leadership by teaching the skill to younger boys. But the leadership is the prize at the end of the day. The knot is just one method of getting there. Again, with today's modern equipment, it is something that is difficult for a boy to retain unless we constantly and consistently build it into the program. There could be worse outcomes than a boy not knowing a knot. Granted, in Sea Scouts it is probably a more important and useful skill than in today's scouting.

In our council and district there is no excuse for not attending other than you just don't want to. There are 11 districts in our council and the majority of them are in close proxemity to Oklahoma City. If you can't make a NLE in your district, there are a number of other districts less than 30 minutes drive time you can attend. The first Saturday of November, our Council conducts an all day training Pow Wow that covers Cubs, Boys and Venturing training of every kind. There are even fun classes like knots, cooking, LNT and fire building to fit in between course such as Troop Committee Challenge, NLE and Merit Badge Counselor. Also, our district trainer is willing to come do a group training if there are enough people and he offers NLE at Roundtable each month. Like I said, the only valid "excuse" is that you don't want to get trained. You might suggest doing the training at Roundtable. It gets them around other scouters in an environment where info is being passed around and they get the training at the same time.

I've said it before and I'll say it again......and probably be criticized again for saying it. Unless you purposely build knots into your program, they are seldom needed on most outings. You get to camp after dark on Friday night and get back to the CO parking lot by 1:00 or 2:00 PM on Sunday. Unless you are using dining flys, wall tents and doing a pioneering project, the modern equipment used by most scouts and troops never ever require tying a knot. You might use knots on some high adventure trips, but you don't do those every month. I'm sure all scouts learned their knots and showed it to the SM's satisfaction to pass rank. But he didn't need it when he set up his free standing dome tent or the patrols EZ-UP to cook under. Maybe we should be teaching stake driving skills instead. Don't get me wrong, I think the knowledge is great to have.....I love knots, I'm just lousy at them.

We went to summer camp out of state this past summer. The council/camp we were at does their call out at summer camp on Friday night. I have to admit, it was one of the most impressive ceremonies I've ever seen. The evening started out sith a campfire program on the banks of a river. At the end of the campfire, three of the ceremony team cam down the river in a canoe. They led ALL of the scouts at camp in a single file line to the OA circle. The circle was HUGE. There were benches that ran the perimeter of the circle. I would estimate that they seated at least 250 to 350 scouts and scouters. The process took forever. You marched in at one end and had to walk the circle to get to your "place". As they had many more scouts coming up the trail, it was necessary to constantly have people going around the circle having everyone squeeze in. I'd estimate that this was a 45 minute process. Of course, we were standing the whole time and shuffling over every few minutes to make room. There was a 12 foot tall fire at the center of the circle. We only set for a few minutes before the ceremony actually started. At that point, we were to stand with our arms crossed and look into the fire. We all had to take several steps into the ring and away from the benches. This allowed people to move behind us and point out to the team who was supposed to be called out. The team would advance around the circle, stop, call someone out, then advance. They made the circle probably 10 times and called out maybe 5 people per trip. The canoe down the river, the walk to the circle, the huge fire, the costumes, etc. was absolutely impressive. But by the end of the ceremony, I was ready to rip someone's...anyone's head off for making us stand with our arms crossed and staring into the fire for HOURS. I have bad knees, back and shoulders. I was about to die standing there that long. It would have really been nice if someone would have warned us that we were going to stand at attention for a truely extended time. I had about 4 scouts that were going to wet their pants if they didn't find a tree. I had to escort them out and back in to keep from having a bad accident. The visitors/spectators were on benches atop a retaining wall overlooking the circle. It was both one of the coolest things I've seen in scouting and also the most agonizing. I found the death march at Jamboree to be better than standing there motionless that long. My suggestion is to stand when appropriate and sit when appropriate. If your ceremony is going to drag on for 2 or 3 hours, let people sit.

We kind of sort of did service during troop meetings, but it was very limited. Our CO was a small church with quite a few elderly members. The church needed help weeding and maintaining the flower beds. The troop had already decided it was something they were going to do for the CO when the COR came and asked if we would do it. It seems that great minds think alike! We did our initial clean-up on a Saturday. After that, whoever was service patrol for the month would be charged with inspecting the beds and take 10 to 15 minutes of troop meeting time to maintain the beds.

Lisa, I believe it is a common sense thing. Patrols can take many forms. The boys can decide who is in their patrol. In some troops, the adults decide who is in a patrol. The patrols may be set up by age such as the new boy patrol or venture patrol. The patrol could have boys anywhere from 11 to 17. Since patrol outings are allowed and there are a million ways to form a patrol, deciding whether or not a patrol can do their own outing is ultimately in the hands of the SM who must determine if they are capable. If you have a patrol with a wide variety of age, the SM would have to be able to trust that the PL and older boys could watch out for and lead the younger boys in a safe manner.

Brian, I sent you a PM with details. Scouter-Terry was kind enough to change my name for me a couple of years ago.

For those parents and adult leaders who might be antsy about a patrol campout, there is a possible compromise you could work out to get everyone used to the idea. It is somewhat like Mike's suggestions. I don't know how many times I've gone to one of our council properties and found that we were the only campers there for the weekend. You could go to a council property as a troop and drop patrols in different campsites as far away from each other as possible. Set ground rules of no visits to the other sites. Each patrol functions independently as well as the adults. The patrols know where the adults are camped if needed. First, being at a council property, you are in a safe location. Second, the patrols get to do their own thing. Third, adults are available if needed. Once it is proven that patrol campouts can go without a hitch, the antsy adults should be willing to back off and let the boys try it on their own. Mike, While I agree about the communications issue, keep in mind that patrol outings happened in the pre-cell phone era too.

Safety. I'm no detective, but if you use your real name and ever give any information about where you live, it is a very simple matter for me to look up your address and phone number. Keep in mind that the internet is called the World Wide Web for a reason. There are millions and millions of people out there who potentially can see your name and information. It is guaranteed that there will be a few bad apples out of those millions of people. Do you really want one of them showing up on your doorstep?

Jamboree......the ultimate BOR. Our council went the traditional route with canvas wall tents and dining flys. We had scouts from 1st class to Eagle and 12 to 17. We had many, many knot tying lessons. When you camp with today's equipment, you only use a knot on a rare occasion. If you don't use it, you'll lose it. I love knots. I'm horrible at them however, because I never have need to use them. I find it difficult to hold a boy accountable for retaining something he never is given an opportunity to use.

Amen! Sho-nuff! Preach on Brother Kenk.

I see both sides of the argument. For me, the America I grew up in would never resort to torture. Of course, the America I grew up in didn't have a 9/11. Still, as Hunt pointed out, we are a nation of laws and part of our strength and greatness has been due to adhering to the law regardless of circumstances. Do we allow the acts of others to define our actions? Do we stoop to their level? From everything I've read and heard from intelligence experts, the information obtained thru torture is extremely suspect. Put a person under enough pain and stress over a period of time and they will tell you anyting you want to hear or make up things they think you want to hear.

Same merit badge, different requirement. Requirement 9.b.2 says: 9. Show experience in camping by doing the following: b. On any of these camping experiences, you must do TWO of the following, only with proper preparation and under qualified supervision: 2. Backpack for at least four miles. We ran into this when my son did the camping MB and I even started a thread questioning it. His troop was a new troop of nothing but 11 year olds. They had not "backpacked" yet. What they did do working up to it was hike 6 miles with backpacks one morning while on a regular car camping outing. Technically, he had fulfilled the requirement because all it says to do is backpack at least four miles and he did six miles. Nowhere in the requirement does it say you must backpack into a remote campsite, spend the night and cook a backpacking meal. Some of the people who responded to my question said that that is exactly what "backpacking" is and what the requirement intends. However, the requirement is only concerned with the "length" of how far you "backpacked". My argument is that they either need to expand on what they mean by the requirement or say "hike" at leat four miles while wearing a backpack.

I have heard of troops that automatically bluecard a boy on several MB's when he joins the troop. Since the troop will be camping monthly and eventually all requirements will be met, why wait for him to "decide" to do the MB. He is doing the requirements whether signed up or not, so sign them up now. I think the logic is two fold. First is what I mentioned above, they will be camping anyway. Second, some read it as starting counting after getting the bluecard, so give it to them up front and cut out the extra wait.

Map and compass are primary and come first. The batteries will never run out on a compass. That being said, don't sell a GPS unit short. Toy? How do you think the military drops those "smart" bombs down the enemy's chimney? If they can do that, just imagine what you can do with one when you actually learn how to use it.

I think the original question was when do you start couting nights? It depends on who the SM or MBC is. My son has been in Boy Scouts for 22 months now. He has camped in a tent for 57 nights. That is with a troop and does not include family camping. Granted, part of that is 2 summer camps and Jamboree. He took Camping MB at summer camp and the MBC counted his past camping nights. Our current SM says that within the troop, they start counting when you get the blue card. I'm glad he did it prior to joining this troop. I'd hate telling a kid with 57 nights under his belt that he is going to have to wait about 10 months to get this MB.

Kahuna, How many of your dollars has defending the right to own a gun cost you?

Allow me to post an excerpt of Pat Buchanan's most recent column. Many people like to marginalize Buchanan as some sort of nut job at best and an anti-semite at worst. Both views are equally wrong. There was a time in my younger days when I couldn't stand the man. I think part of the problem with the way he is viewed is that he is far more intellectual than most of us and he looks at a deeper, wider and bigger picture than most of us are capable of seeing. Buchanan has an understanding of history and politics that most of will never be able to attain. He has actually worked in the White House and advised Reagan. In short, the man is no light weight. Conservatives and liberals would both do well to set up and take notice when he speaks. In this day and age of 24 hour cable news opinion shows and talk radio where people compete with one another for dollars and ratings and try to over simplify world events into easy black and white slogans, it is valuable to have people like Buchanan who tells it like it actually is. You can't get much more conservative than Pat Buchanan. Here is a link to the whole article entitled "The crisis of the GOP". http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=47344 Here is the pertinent excerpt: In foreign policy, Bush I was an internationalist out to build a "New World Order" after the Cold War. However, post-9/11, Bush II converted to a neoconservatism that calls for unilateral American intervention in the Middle East and the Islamic world to bring down dictators and establish democratic rule. Thus, in March 2003, Bush, in perhaps the greatest strategic blunder in U.S. history, invaded an Arab nation that had not attacked us, did not want war with us and did not threaten us to strip it of weapons we now know it did not have. Result: Shia and Kurds have been liberated from Saddam, but Iran has a new ally in southern Iraq, Osama has a new base camp in the Sunni Triangle, the Arab and Islamic world has been radicalized against the United States, and copy-cat killers of al-Qaida have been targeting our remaining allies in Europe and the Middle East: Spain, Britain, Egypt and Jordan. And, lest we forget, 2,055 Americans are dead and Walter Reed is filling up. True to the neoconservative creed, Bush has launched a global crusade for democracy that is now bringing ever closer to power Hamas in Gaza and the West Bank, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Syria, and Shia fundamentalists in Baghdad and Basra. Democratic imperialism is still imperialism. To Islamic peoples, whether the Crusaders come in the name of God or in the name of democracy, they are still Crusaders.