SR540Beaver

E, You girl scouts over in sub-camp 4 had a short stroll in the park getting to the arena! Try walking the 3 miles (one way) from sub-camp 17. I'm not sure what the Southern Region ever did to tick someone off enough to always be banished to the boondocks, but I'd be willing to bribe them to get a little closer to the action. Sorry I missed you and I hope you got the patch and hat pin I left for you. It was a classic Jambo chase. I showed up at your camp and they said you had headed to the action center where OJ was working. I headed to the Confidence Course and they said you had left 10 minutes earlier. I asked every short, skinny, grey headed guy I saw if they were Eamonn. I'm sure I passed you on the road somewhere.

First let me say that I have not read all of the previous posts. Second let me say that I had the honor to participate in what was known throughout the Jamboree as the "death march". I'm no expert and I didn't stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night, but I was smart enough to know that the arena show mobilization was one of the most stupid events I have ever personally witnessed in my entire life. In my opinion, the only reason it happened was because of all the planning and effort that had gone into it and because the President was coming. Someone, somewhere in an air-conditioned office made the decision to go forward. Then someone, somewhere in an air-conditioned office was forced to cancel it because of the approaching storm. Someone, somewhere needs to be held accountable and raked over the coals. I knew a number of people on the medical staff and commissioner staff at Jamboree and was told that the head medical people repeatedely told officials NOT to hold the arena show and were overruled. I was one of the fortunate ones. I stopped twice on the way to the show and downed several liters of water in a shady place and even "borrowed" the fan in a Medic tent for a few minutes before mushing on and catching up to my troop. We had been seated for about five minutes when the announced that the program was cancelled. To say I was peeved is a major understatement. Livid might better describe my feelings.....even today. Like Bob White said in an earlier post, there was much good about Jambo. This is one of the things that was not. It was foolish. It will take a while before I'll be able to smile or laugh about it. It was a totally preventable disaster.

Good things come to those who wait......or can hold on long enough! I think one of the problems we have with retention in scouting is we recruit them with a lure of high adventure. Once they are signed up, we tell them they can't do all of the things they saw videos or pictures of until they are 13 or 14. We have new scouts champing at the bit for that 3rd year of summer camp when they can finally shoot guns and do the cope course. The trick is keeping them satisfied with other "adventures" until they get old enough to do the "real" deal.

That is almost like telling the policeman who pulls you over for speeding that you "nearly" passed the drivers test.

We fly to Jambo and send all of the tents, dining flies, stoves, etc. by trailer. The trailer was loaded and sealed this past Sunday. We fly out on Wednesday morning. I had hoped to get 95% of my packing done last night and wind up with odds and ends packing tonight. No such luck. I had an old friend who had been in Germany with NATO show up at my door last night. We visited until after 10 PM. I was up till 2:30 AM playing catch up. So tonight is going to be one hectic night of packing, running to the store for last minute items and checking and rechecking. Heck, I can sleep on the plane!

CNYScouter, I too was wondering what council you are from and how big it is. Obviously, larger councils have a larger base to draw from for getting enough participants. Our concil holds a spring and a fall WB course. They tried a year or so ago to hold one that was a week long during the summer. Having spent some time next door to you in Vermont, I know that the August "heat" is nothing like here in Oklahoma. Personally, there is no way in the world that I'd sign up for a week long course in Oklahoma in the summer. Heat is relative to where you live. Also, many people are vacationing in the summer. I'm willing to bet that your council might have better attendance if they held the course in the spring or fall. Hopefully you can find a course in a nearby council.

I have an SM buddy who has two very nice troop trailers with custom graphics for the troop. They have never been broken into or stolen. It is parked under a light in the church parking lot and easily seen from a major street with lots of traffic. I don't remember all of the details, but from the description of all the cables, chains and locks he uses to attach it to the steel and concrete light pole, it is more secure than fort knox. He did say that if someone really wanted to take the time and effort, they could eventually get it. If nothing else, his hope is that since most criminals are basically a lazy lot, they will take one look at it and decide to find easier pickings down the road.

E, Boy, this gets scarier all the time. I've said before that I've wondered if you were my long lost brother. The little Beav (12)has said before that he might want to be a chef when he grows up and loves watching Food Network. That is when he doesn't want to be a policeman or a marine. Her who must be obeyed came home from a business trip last night about 11:30 which is usually his bedtime. Her first request when she walked thru the door was for him to cook her some scambled eggs. I don't recall if he learned it at home or in scouts, but he perfected it in scouts. BTW, there was a time that I considered being a chef too.

I went back and reread some of Centreville Scout's posts. Early on he claimed to be 12 years old. The style and content of later posts can lead one to believe that he is not what he claims to be. If this is our old troll, he must be part cat. He has had at least 6 or 7 lives. What happens when he gets to 9?

I had not heard about Jon Hubble until I read about him here. I did a google search and read about him. While he did a lot of things right, he did a lot of things wrong. He was found in spite of himself. He built a fire, he took efforts to make rescue signs seen. Yet, he kept moving instead of sitting still and waiting to be found. It is hard to find a needle in a haystack, especially if it keeps shifting position just out of your reach constantly. Heck, he even said he heard people on bull horns and figured they were looking for someone else!!! What? He even stumbled on some campers and headed back out and got lost again. I think he knew he was sorta kinda maybe a little lost, but not really. If he kept wondering around, he'd eventually pop out somewhere familiar. He was one lucky kid.

In addition to the stepfordscouting.com site, there could be a DIYscouting.com site for all those who think they know how to do it better.

Here is yet another two cents of my opinion. The BSA uniform DOES NOT look like a military or police uniform. Line up a Marine, a policeman and a US or state Park Ranger and tell me who the Boy Scout looks most like.

Many bulletin board systems have a feature where you can put an avatar (small picture like the BSA logo or a beaver) that shows beside your name and a sig line where you can put a favorite quote or something like EagleDad's closing line of "I love this scouting stuff, Barry". Whenever you post, the sig line is automatically added to the end of your post. Many people just post and have no closing line. Others do. I'd say that based on Centreville Scout's experience on other boards, he would like to see that feature here. I don't think the software that this board uses offers those features, but I could be wrong. It has been known to happen once or twice.

Why eat a hotdog when you can have a fried bologna sandwich?

BW, I think you know that I wear MY uniform proudly. That being said, I could and have gone on the internet and found higher quality, better functioning, better looking and lower priced tan and olive clothing than what you can find in the Scout uniform. I've even bought the clothes and love them. I don't wear them as a replacement for the uniform. I wear them for casual wear and camp wear. The idea that going thru a manufacturer like Columbia is going to be more expensive is a false one I believe. They can adapt clothing they already manufacture, sew a BSA emblem on them, put BSA buttons on them and call it good. In fact, the fact that they can now produce millions of these pieces to a captive audience instead of just to possible 10's of thousands of customers would help reduce price. Trev, It isn't just the uniform that stops boys from joining. My son tells me that the scouts he knows never publicize they are in scouts because scouts are viewed as geeks, losers and dweebs. It isn't just the uniform, it is simply scouting in general that his peers find dorky.

We could just go with BSA tattoo's and peircing jewelry. Maybe a ring in your left eyebrow for tenderfoot, in the right for 2nd class, a nose stud for 1st class, the left ear for star, right ear for life and a tongue stud for eagle. Boy Scouts of America can be tattooed on one arm and POR's on the other. An eagle on the chest is optional.

My son is PLL for our troop. As such, he attended the daily SPL meeting at summer camp. This is where all of the skits for the campfires got approved or rejected. They rejected a lot because they were inappropriate. That doesn't really surprise me. I've always monitored what my son watches or listens to. I'm no fool, I know he has heard probably every dirty word in the book. I had by the time I was his age. But that didn't mean I used them. I'm reminded of a time my son 9 years old and was a Webelos 1. One of his Webelos buddies came over to spend the night and brought a couple of Austin Powers DVD's to watch. His parents had bought them for him. To me personally, while the movies might be a hoot to a 48 year old guy, they are totally inappropriate for 9 year olds. There is such a thing as decorum. Driving home from summer camp a few weeks ago, this same boy and another were doing the old Saturday Night Live skit with a guy acting like Sean Connery playing Jeopardy. The skit contains a number of references to body parts. The fact they did it once would have been OK. Not knowing it was coming, there wasn't much I could do about it. The fact that like most 12 year olds, they had to repeat it over and over and over while giggling the whole time. After about the fourth time I decided they were not going to stop on their own and move on to something else and asked them to stop because it was not scout appropriate. Scouts grow up in a variety of atmospheres. Some parents cuss like sailors and will watch anything and everything in front of their children from the day they are born. Some will not. Just because it is allowed at home does not mean it should be allowed at scout campfires. We encourage the boys to find new skits or create their own because it does get boring seeing the same old skits over and over, but we don't ban the old skits. We only pull the plug when they want to do cruel or bathroom humor.

What would happen if we did away with the uniform? The BSA would lose its identity in the community. Just about anytime I walk into a Wal-Mart, there are kids selling something at the entrance. Who are they? I usually don't know until they ask if I want to buy Girl Scout cookies, candy for their soccor team, a hotdog for football or some kind of discount card for their baseball team. The uniform as with all uniforms identifies you to the public. People know what the BSA is and what a good organization it is. Everytime I've walked in a store with my son in uniform, I always see smiles on people's faces and they often stop him and ask him about scouting. Funny, he doesn't get the same reaction when he goes around in public with me in his "civvies". Imagine a 4th of July parade with a troop marching down the street in their oversized t-shirt and baggy pants dragging the ground. On second thought, scratch that. Marching in a parade even in their civvies would be as uncool as wearing that geeky uniform. The uniform serves as identity within scouting and to the public. Without it, most people would never think of scouting without the reminder.

Ed, To quote my mom, "geez, you'd argue with a fence post".

GernBlansten, Well, since you asked, you can read all about it here: http://www.aphill.army.mil/boysscout.asp Here is a short blurb to whet your appetite: Why does the Army provide personnel from many military units for the National Jamboree? Why send engineers, telephone specialists, automotive mechanics, physicians and nurses, helicopter pilots and even air traffic controllers for a Boy Scouts of America event? The answer is training. The National Jamboree offers the Army an opportunity to sharpen the skills of its Regular, Reserve, and National Guard troops in a major operation containing vast logistical challenges ranging from building roads to installing water, sewer, electrical, and telephone systems for a tent city of 35,000 inhabitants. That is why it is taxpayer money well spent. In addition to armor and equipment needs, it gives them real world skill practice to do their job when they do have to fight.

Since it is usually too hot, too cold, too windy and ALWAYS seems to rain on our outings, I'm going to suggest to the PLC that we eliminate campouts from our program. We can just go to our charter and play video games all weekend once a month. I feel sure the boys will go for that. Now if we can just get them to participate in a fundraiser to buy a few more PlayStation units. I'm sure their parents will sell the stuff for them at work. We can have some cool gamer shirts made too.

smaster101, I know where you are coming from. We have a new scout who is ODD. I had never heard of it before. He went to summer camp a few weeks back and did fairly well. He is currently getting psychiatric counseling and is on medication. He really only gave the SM problems a time or two while at camp. However, I (ASM) came down on Friday night to help drive the boys back on Saturday morning. The camp is 5 hours away from home. This boy's parents and brother came for family night on Friday. He wanted to go back to the motel with his parents and return to camp the next morning to ride back with the guys. The SM was willing, but the boy's mom said no. When it was time for showers and bed, the boy wandered thru camp aimlessly and started sobbing. I sent my son (SPL) over to check on him. He started yelling and screamed a scream that would have waked the dead. He started beating on a bench with his fists and picked up sticks and started beating trees with them. I called my son away and tried to deal with him. I took a tough approach and told him that his actions were unacceptable and couldn't be tolerated. He got rather smart with me and kept repeating that he was going to hell for being a bad person. One of our committee members (ex-policeman) had been there all week and came out of his tent to deal with him. He spent over an hour sitting on the bench talking to the boy before he got him calmed down and into bed. Our SM was away from camp because he was assisting with the OA call out. Next morning, the boy was OK again. The SM knew the boy was ODD, but had failed to share that info with me. I'm usually a fairly informed person, but I had never heard of ODD. The boy is a little odd (no pun intended), but seems to be a pretty good kid until he gets stressed or tired. My concern is him beating on another scout or hurting himself. While I understand that parents with "problem" children want them to live as normal of a life as possible and be able to participate in kid activities, I don't think it is out of line to require a parent to accompany the boy on outings if he proves too hard to handle.

OGE, "Its clobberin' time" does have a better ring to it. I just saw Batman Begins last weekend and am pumped to see the Fantastic 4. Prairie, Agreed. Scouting enhances or supplements what a boy receives at home and/or church. It is not the replacement that some irresponsible parents want it to be. If the boy is allowed to be rude, undisciplined and unruly at home, we might help a little, but our 1.5 hours a week and monthly outing isn't likely to turn the tide. As far as the level of program detail you need to adhere to, there are extremes at both ends. You can be so structured that it scares the boys away. The other side of that is something like what is described in the "New to forum, have a question about inappropriate camp behavior" thread where letting the boys be boys might attract them, but creates a real monster. Somewhere in between is the sweet spot.

OGE, So when these things happen, do you say, "don't make me angry, you won't like me when I'm angry" and start turning green? Maybe you should be OldGreenHulk.

Backpacker, Since neither inflection in your voice or the twinkle in your eye can be conveyed thru the internet, a or is usually employeed to make sure people know the intent of attempted humor.