SR540Beaver

I heard that they considered a requirement of having a boy wear a complete uniform to school and doing a Power Point recruitment presentation.....until they realized it would never happen and no one would ever make 1st Class.

Boy, you guys must be older than dirt! Was your SM named Flintstone and the ASM named Rubble?

E, Just do it! You'll have the peace of mind down the road that you made the effort regardless of his actions. Hopefully he'll look back someday and be grateful that his loving old man helped nudge him over the hump.

jkhny, I'm not sure what you want me to do with that information or how it applies to me......but boy, let me tell you about the last meeting our unit had, it was a dandy........

My heart and prayers go out to those affected by Katrina. When the May 3rd tornado hit in Oklahoma City a few years back, it missed my house by only about 4 or 5 blocks. I lost a single fence panel. Less than half a mile away there were concrete slabs where houses once stood. I've seen the devastation that nature can do first hand. What you see on TV does not do justice to what a personal panoramic view does. We were kept out of the area for only two days. I went in first to check things out. I went back for my wife and tried to prepare her for what she was going to see when we drove down the streets to our house we had traveled for years. She was shocked and burst into tears. To be honest, it shook her faith in God for more than a year. You have to understand, we were both just blocks away from the Murrah bombing prior to the tornado. Bottom line, what you see on TV doesn't even begin to approach what it is really like on the ground in the damaged areas. You can't begin to imagine what it is like to suddenly have absolutely nothing to your name except the clothes on your back. Eventually, life will return to normal for those who survived. But it will be a long hard row to hoe. Continue to keep them in your prayers beyond just today.

I have always just assumed that they were assisting in setting up the staff dining tent for their sub-camp. Is it true that it was a dining tent for the contingent? If so, how did they get that much space? Each troop has a plot of land marked with stakes and string. We had 22 standard BSA wall tents and 5 dining flys and you couldn't hardly walk anywhere without having to step over guy lines. Most of the large staff type tents I saw at Jambo would have just about entirely covered a troops plot. Given that you often have neighbors on both side and behind you, you can't just throw up a huge tent next to your troop site.

It would be a pretty cold day in August before I took this scout on another campout without parental supervision.

Sorry about your ship, mine seems to be riding high and dry in the water.

PS That was on top of the $1,900 per person to attend Jambo from our council.

You might want to skip the 2010 Jamboree. In our council, we were required to have 3 shirts, 3 pair of shorts, 1 pair of pants, 2 web belts, 2 neckerchief slides and 6 pair of socks. Plus patches. Since my son and I both went, multiply by a factor of 2. The good news is that I will never ever have to buy anymore scout uniform pieces for myself for the rest of my life......unless they change the uniform.

Technically, everyone is correct. A quarter inch over your height is over your head if you are standing flat footed in the pool. Common sense tells me that jumping feet first into water over your head means jumping into water where you can't touch. I know the requirement doesn't say this, but when has that stopped the BSA from stating things the way they do. Who remembers all the controversy and discussion in the G2SS about "may not" allow tobacco and whether or not that means prohibited or not? Who has not as a kid stood in water almost over your head and bobbed up and down to poke your head out long enough to breath? As long as you can touch and bob, you are not demonstrating that you can handle water where you could not touch and safely swim yourself out. Yeah, yeah, yeah, the requirement doesn't say it. What does common sense tell you the requirement is for though?

Just a short update on our ODD scout. He quit the troop several weeks ago. He came to the meeting and announced that he would not be back.....but seemed to enjoy the meeting. His mom spoke with several of our committee members in another room and explained that he was going thru "another" period of talking suicide and had quit everything he was involved in such as soccer. Bless his heart, he has problems and my prayers are with him. Hopefully he will chose to rejoin some of the activities he has quit at some point. However, if it were up to me, his parents would be required to attend meetings and campouts from now on.

Neil, Even though I spent 15 days with this boy, I don't feel like I know all the particulars in his case. He was quite an enigma. On the one hand, he seemed bright and intelligent at times. On the other hand, it didn't seem like his elevator went all the way to the top at times. He was so immature and niave at times that you got the impression he had over protective parents that cater to his every whim. He continually came to the adult leaders expecting us to take care of every little issue or problem he had. In a descrete visit with another boy from his home troop, he told me that the boy's dad (an Eagle) is active in the troop and cuts his son no slack and makes him do the work. By his actions and skills, you'd never know it. While seemingly intelligent, the boy didn't have a lick of common sense. The boy is rather chunky and has a tendency to get chaffed between his legs. His dad sent medicine to treat the problem....which the boy didn't use. He literally waddled around DC and Jambo in extreme pain. When I suggested that we take him to our sub-camp First Aid station, he was appalled at the idea of letting someone look "down there". As a 14 year old and a Life Scout, he should already know how to prevent and/or treat a problem he has a history of getting. The last night of Jambo, we slept on the ground under the dining flys since we had already taken the tents down and loaded them. He threw a tantrum because his pillow wasn't big enough for comfort. We never figured that one out. It was the same pillow he used on his cot in his tent for 10 days. Honestly, he took up a huge amount of the adults time and it was like looking after a Wolf or Bear Cub. Without actually knowing if this boy is "slow" or not, I would have reservations about writing a letter at Eagle time. There may be circumstances that we adults were not made aware of.

OGE, Thank you. I should have added that the failure in the case I gave would be on his home troop's part. We did our best as contingent leadership to politely remind him of his rank and what we expected out of him as an example to the lower rank and age boys. Oddly, we had several other boys from his home troop in our Jambo troop and they didn't have the same "issues" this boy had. That made me suspect that his issues stem mostly from being babied at home and his home troop does little to counter it.

If I never knew what a paper Eagle was, I do now. We had the poster boy for "paper Eagles" in our Jamboree troop. This boy was a 14 year old Life scout who was two MB's and a service project away from Eagle. He had no concept of boy led as he continually came to us adults to ask questions rather than to his PL or APL. We spent the whole time pointing him in the right direction. He was one of our worst violators of the buddy plan. He possessed NO scouting skills whatsoever. I had to help him cut a package of bacon open to keep him from losing a finger or two. I then had to show him how to seperate the strips of bacon. I then had to show him how to dispose of the bacon grease. He had no idea that bacon produced so much grease. I don't know, maybe his home troop eats cold cereal on every campout. These are just a few of a myriad of stories concerning this particular scout. He left us adults shaking our heads at every turn. If this boy actually makes Eagle, it will be mostly on paper.

When the BSA conducts this imaginary vote for plan B sites, my vote goes for Fort Carson in Colorado. The climate would be considerably more dry and cool. Heck, you might get to crawl inside the sleeping bag instead of just sleeping on top of it.

Bob, You make many valid points. However, as one of those who participated in the "death march", let me give you a different perspective. Information was changing on the fly and it is difficult to distribute that info to 50,000+ people on the move. We were first told to bring two water bottle that must be empty by the time we got to the metal detectors. Then we were told they did not have to be empty, but might be randomly emptied when we got there. We were not allowed any means to carry the bottles except pockets or hands. No backpacks or caribeners. Then we were told two adults could carry backpacks with snacks. Then we were told that no fruit would be allowed as snacks. As we were nearing the metal detectors, Army personel told us to get our class A shirt on, buttoned and tucked before entering the arena. They wanted us to keep moving while dressing which was hard to do with two water bottles in your hands. Once inside the arena, boys started pulling their class A shirts off because "someone" said the could. Many SM's told them to put them back on. While there may have been "clear" instructions, they were coming fast and furious and changing by the minute and there was a great deal of confusion on the part of those marching. While the old, overweight and young should not have mobilized.....the bottom line is that no one should have mobilized period. I kept waiting for the message that the show was cancelled hours before we mobilized and thought it was one of the most foolish things I'd ever seen in my life when the word did not come down.

Bob, What was your program area at Mahone? I was in SC 17 and went thru Mahone everyday on my way to somewhere. If I'd had any idea you were there, I'd have stopped by to meet you. Sandy, Trading Post B folks were the best!!! I had stopped in at the scout shop during the death march to cool off at the huge warehouse fan they had as I was getting overheated. On the way back, I had a boy from our troop getting overheated. We were coming up on your area and I remembered the fan. They were shutting down because of the approaching storm, but let us in to treat him. They put bags of ice on his neck and head, gave him gatorade and wrapped wet towels around him in front of the fan. He almost got hypothermic! As the storm approached, we were moved to the trading post with about 15 other scouts to ride the storm out. I still recall Trading Post B with fond memories of a great bunch of scouters.

Everyone is entitled to make an ass (pardon my French) of themselves at least once in life. I can only assume that this reporter has over extended his privilege on numerous occasions.

We had a boy in our Jambo troop who wanted to report to headquarters his missing wallet. I told him that it had been my experience in the past that if scouts would go back into their tent and look around just one more time, they usually find the missing item. He went back in and came out with his wallet in his hand. We had a boy from Jambo who DID leave his wallet on a plane and realized it after we had trekked to another terminal for a connecting flight. No sooner had he told us and we were going to report it at the gate counter, we heard an announcement for him to come to the gate we were standing at. An airline employee presented him with the wallet he left behind. You should have seen the scout blush and thank the employee repeatedly.

AZScouter, I beg to differ with you about the Jamboree not being exclusive to Boy Scouts. Indeed it is. Venturing had a presence at Jambo, but as staff and not participants. If your daughter went to Jambo as a participant rather than staff, something somewhere went wrong and rules were circumvented. this is from the registration form. "SCOUT REQUIREMENTS: Scouts must be the age of 12 before leaving for the Jamboree and can not have reached the age of 18 before the end of the Jamboree. This means that if you were born "on" or "after" August 4, 1987 or "before" July 25, 1993 you are eligible to attend. Cub Scouts who became Webelos Scouts in 2002 are eligible. Scouts must have attained the Boy Scout Rank of 1st class prior to leaving for the Jamboree." Venturing is not Boy Scouts and girls are not Boy Scouts. Neither can attend the Jambo as a participant. Only as staff.

Pete, With all due respect, just how are we going to determine if someone here or on e-bay are selling/trading stolen Jambo materials? I appreciate you putting a warning out to the scouter community, but don't know how we can know the difference between owned and stolen items. As I said earlier, our commissioner came to our site and warned us that theft increases in the last day or two of the Jambo. We warned our scouts to secure their collections under lock and key or to keep tightly in hand if not locked up. We also let them know that if they did not heed the warnings, they were responsible for any loss and we had no means to replace stolen items. We toured the DC area before attending Jambo. We made it quite clear to our scouts that they were not in Oklahoma anymore. If they set down their duffle or daypack and turned their backs, it could be gone in a heartbeat. Bob is correct. If you load laundry and leave it, don't expect it to be there when you get back. Washers and dryers were in high demand at Jambo. If a dryer completes it's cycle and there is no one around to unload it for the next person, you can expect it to be unloaded for you. A scout is courteous. He doesn't leave a dryer unavailable to a long line of other users for an extended period of time. He can expect it to be unloaded for him eventually. If it lays there too long, chances are someone will send it to lost and found.....to keep it from being stolen.

One of our commissioners came around towards the end of Jambo to let us know that the time was approaching where theft shoots thru the roof. We used footlockers that can be locked as opposed to oversized duffle bags. We told our boys to lock away any valuables unless they needed them out. We experienced no theft. Being a troop instead of staff, we had no opportunity to leave our laundry unattended. We did ours at the edge of the trees with several commisary containers and a tent pole and had clothes lines strung from one end of camp to the other!

Funny, we adult leaders were asking the same question. Most of us said it was fun to do......once. Ask me today if I'd do it again and the answer is a reserved no or probably not. Ask me 3.5 years from now and it will probably be a reserved yes. With the passage of time, we usually forget the bad and only remember the good. Some of us said we wouldn't mind coming back as staffers. While we appreciate how hard the staffers worked, they had perks the leaders did not. Occasional access to vehicles, laundry facilities, electricity, unburned food AND....not having to do constant head counts because of immature and irresponsible scouts. I'd be interested if the staffers thought the leader's side of the fence looked greener than their own.

scotiacat, I can answer that for you! I am an insulin dependent diabetic who uses an insulin pump and just returned from Jambo. First off, if you are flying, all medications should be with you on a carry-on. Never put them with baggage that will be checked....and lost. Contrary to popular belief, insulin CAN be stored at room temperature. Obviously it can not get too hot, or freeze or left in sunlight. But it can be stored in a dark place at room temperature. Put it between several layers of clothing in the carry-on and it will keep from getting too hot for a long period of time. Each sub-camp at Jambo has its own Medical tent. They have a refrigerator at each of these medical tents. They will be more than happy to store it for you once you arrive at Jambo. Being an adult, they let me walk right back and get it whenever I asked. For a boy, they would probably bring it to them. Make sure that each bottle has a prescription label. Most troops bring at least one small ice chest. You could keep one bottle in a waterproof container in the ice chest in camp and keep the back up supply at the medical tent. As far as supplies like syringes, alcohol wipes, glucometer, test strips, lancets, etc., put them all in one giant ziplock in your carry-on. I've traveled by air for years and never been questioned for having these materials with me. Hope that helps. Let me know if I can answer anything else. BTW, even though having food in a tent is a no-no in scouting, being diabetic trumps the no-no because of low blood sugar conditions. If you have an adult leader who disagrees, educate him.