SR540Beaver

Dan, Good point. Another way to look at it is to say, "to obtain a drivers license, a car is not required". I took my drivers test in my dad's car and was allowed to drive it until I earned enough money to buy my own. Scouting is a uniformed movement and scouts are encouraged to wear a uniform if and when financially able. A scout it thrifty, he earns and pays his own way. Fundraising opportunities should be provided to help a scout obtain a uniform......a piece at a time if needed. But to "JOIN", a uniform is not required.

Not to worry! This is just one of those innovative troops we've been discussing in other threads where using the program and methods as designed by the BSA is merely a suggestion. They obviously have found their own methods that works better for them. They are a big troop, so they must be doing something right. Sorry, couldn't resist.

HEY, cool it......school is out for the summer!!!

If you are going as staff instead of leadership, I would assume you could wear whatever you wanted while traveling. You are traveling under your own plans and on your own dime to report for unpaid work.

Our scouts and scouters have been told to bring NO "civilian" clothing other than their swimsuit, sleep clothes and underwear. We will be in uniform from the time we get on the plane to go to Jambo until we get off the plane and go home. We have two hats. One is a contingent touring hat and the other is the official Jambo hat. The wide brimmed Jambo safari hat is an option. T-shirts must be the ones supplied by the contingent plus any other scout related t-shirt. We only allow the web belt and the blackish/grey metal neckerchief slide. I've heard from others who have gone to previous Jambos that our council is far stricter than others. They claim to have seen boys walking around in t-shirts with beer advertisments on them. For our very last troop meeting before departing for Jambo, we had the boys bring their footlockers with their clothing and checked to make sure they had everything they needed and to check the placment of their patches.

Acco, The London bombings gave me a little heartburn over the upcoming Jamboree. We have repeatedly discussed with the boys in our Jambo troop the need to not joke about bombs, terrorists, guns, etc. at the airport. We have told them we would hate to get on the plane while they are being carted of in handcuffs for a little interrogation. We have also repeatedly told them to mind their P's & Q's when we enter Jambo. We have had some veteran Jambo folks tell us of stories from 2001 where kids popped of to the military rep who came on their bus at the gate and ended up sitting there for a long period as other buses rolled past them. We do have a few hyper wise-akers that have me worried. Now is not the time to be the troop clown while traveling.

msnowman, Ok, you got me. Back in '99 and '00, I spent 10 months on a work assignment in Vermont. Your neck of the woods up there is some of the most beautiful country I've ever seen in my life.

Carol, Does the lawn work come with cookies and lemonade?

ronvo, You can make a smiley face by typing a : and a ) together. You can make a winky face by typing a ; and a ) together. Since you live in Baja Oklahoma, we'll just consider both states as part of God's country. And yes, Woolaroc is a cool place to visit. It has been years since I've been there. For those who don't know, Woolaroc got its name from woods, lake and rock. Bob58, I happen to know for a fact that God lives in Oklahoma, I talk to him daily!

Ahem. God's country can be found north of the Red river....not south.

Is it OK if the adults wear camo so the boys can't find us when we need a little peace and quiet?

Prairie, I believe there is plenty of room in the program for units to individualize their program to their particular needs within the framework of the BSA's design. They realize that there are different needs for a unit of 8 boys as opposed to a unit of 80 boys. With a unit of 8 boys, it is kind of difficult to have an SPL, ASPL, PL and APL. Still, the boys can elect a PL who basically is the SPL. Changing the program to what you think is better than the BSA's program CAN mean that either you don't understand the program or that you simply disagree with it for personal reasons. That is why you have SM's who RUN the program and won't use the patrol method because he just can't imagine a bunch of kids being able to do it. He is either a guy who has not taken the time to understand the method or just wants to be in charge. He can sure do it that way if he wants, but is he really operating a BSA unit or his own program? What gives him the right to do it his way? If your work environment required a coat and tie, do you think your boss would appreciate you deciding tutus would be a better way to dress and just hauling off and showing up at work that way? Now, if you decide to wear a purple coat with a pink tie instead of a navy blue coat and red tie, you are still within the framework. Juris was passing bad information to people and I feel that he was doing it intentionally for reaction. Telling SM's to hand select a small committee so they can rubber stamp your demands is not how a BSA unit is supposed to function. Should we not expose those kind of wrong headed notions when there are new scouters here looking for correct advice? Go back and read his posts. He saw nothing wrong with units owning property such as buildings and vehicles. He encouraged it with the notion that the COR can't interfere in your program if you are not beholding to them. He presented himself as having all the answers and the BSA being wrong at just about every turn. Was he running a BSA unit or was he running his own program with boys wearing BSA uniforms? Is that the kind of advice you want passed on in this community? If we want scouting to be better, we need to hold to the program and values of scouting and adjust for the unique differences in individual units. It is not ours to do with as we will.

Measure him on him, not others. He could be the greatest troop guide to walk the face of the Earth and not have a single boy in the NSP with the gumption to advance. That isn't his fault. When I was developing my Wood Badge ticket items, I tried doing the same thing. I was going to present the frontcountry Leave no Trace to our cubs and follow up with the Den Leaders to make sure the boys earned the patch. My WB Troop Guide discouraged me on the second half. Her point was if I put a quantity on something I had no control over and it didn't happen, my ticket "failed". She was right. While we had a great group of Den Leaders, they were doing their own thing in their dens and my plans didn't really fall into what they were doing. On top of that, I had no control over whether the boys would do the work. What if I said I was going to have 70% of the boys earn the patch and only 65% did? I did the presentation and completed my ticket. I provided the den leaders with the information and ability for them to follow up and help the boys earn the patch if they so desired. The measurement of my ticket was for what I could control, not what I couldn't. Measure the boy on the job he does, not on what the boys under him do. Does he know his stuff? Is he organized? Does he work well with them, teach them and provide leadership? Don't measure him on their response.

Madkin, Fair value? Have you checked the price of Trails End popcorn lately?

Beavah: It certainly is true that Juris' writing style was at times difficult to parse. And yet I found that very often his posts were interesting, and attempted to bring to the discussion alternate views that really exist out in the wider world of Scouting. His concerns about Cub Scouting, for example, could have come straight from the mouth of one of our ASMs, an Eagle, Navy Commander and Educational Psychology Ph.D. with 20 years as a Scouter, whose son is now in Cub Scouting. Beavah, Let me basically repeat something I said to Juris in another thread. When I signed my application form to become an adult leader, I didn't join to run things the way I thought they should be run. I joined to deliver the BSA program as designed by the owner of the program....the BSA. I am duty bound to do so. If I think the program is wrong, then I can find other things to do with my valuable time. 99.9% of the people you find on this forum believe in and respect the program. When our desire is to learn and to help other Scouters learn, it is kind of difficult to have someone come in calling the BSA by the derogatory term of BSA, Inc. and telling everyone to ignore the problem and do it however YOU think it should be done. As I also said, it is beyond me why someone would dedicate 38 years of their life to a program they disrespect and won't even use. Juris, if in fact he is real, didn't operate a Boy Scout Troop, he ran a Juris Scout Troop. A little other history that might be pertinent is the suspicion by some that he was a previous poster who lied and misled people under a variety of names who has been banned from this site in the past. He posed as 5 or 6 different people with different stories. He was young, he was old, he was married, he was single, he had children, he didn't have children, he lived in different places all over the country. He took perverse pleasure in making off the wall comments and misleading people as to who he was. If someone figured it out and called him on it, you would get an extremely nasty, vile, hate filled e-mail from him. I know of at least one other scouting forum where he pulled the same thing and was banned from there as well. The man had/has serious issues that he needs to deal with. Juris's posts and claims fell pretty much into line with this person. Was he this person? I don't know. I suspect(ed) he was. Scouter-Terry has the ability to check IP addresses and possibly verify those kind of things. The fact that Juris evidently posted something bad enough to get it deleted and suspended also falls in line with this person. We may never know. But I thought you should know a little of the history of our bad egg and why some people react "badly" when they smell a rat. Mods, if this post is out of line or you feel the need to modify it, please do so.

Trev, Rain? Oh, you mean that strange wet stuff that fell out of the sky this weekend. It was nice and I heard my vegetable garden sighing as well as my lawn. I would have preferred it without the 70 MPH winds, but it was nice all the same.

Trev, I have no problem with Admin (secret) threads. That is how moderators communicate on most forums I frequent. That way they are not having to run to PM's or e-mail all the time. Now, showing up in the border on the other side is a different thing. Quite honestly, I had never noticed that feature since I always click on the link for active threads in the last 24 hours. Funny how you can overlook something in plain site. The admin folks need to be able to communicate with each other unseen and unheard. I have no problem with that.

Kahuna, I'm with you or not starting a flame war, so please don't take this wrong. The opposition party never likes the sitting president. We all seem to have short memories. Let's not forget that before the Democrats "hated" Bush, the Republicans spent 8 years, millions of dollars and every ploy they could imagine to unseat Clinton who they "hated". Heck, they still gripe about him daily after leaving office 5 years ago. Has politics gotten more vitriolic since then? Yes. Why? I think for the most part it is all of the 24 hour news channels, the internet blogs and talk radio that has fueled the fire. But the hate is on both sides and has always existed in politics to one degree or another. The Republicans can't point a finger at the Democrats witout having several pointing back at themselves and vice versa.

Juris, How can you keep referring to Scouting as the greatest youth organization in the world when you disagree with the BSA program at every turn? How can you keep telling people to get training and then bad mouth the training and trainers? Do you see the contradiction in your postings? I find it amusing that everyone else in a Scout uniform would try to set you straight and you would sit there thinking that you had it all figured out and they didn't know what they were talking about. You remind me of a Charismatic Christian man and wife who joined my Baptist church years ago and kept trying to teach their beliefs to everyone. When confronted about their beliefs being different than Baptists beliefs and asked why they desired to be members of a Baptist church, they responded, "oh, we are Baptists, we just believe a little more than Baptists". But everything they tried to teach was contrary to Baptist beliefs. I was amazed at how clueless they were, but they were quite content that they were right and just wanted everyone else to be as enlightened as they were. I admire your dedication to the "Scouting" you did for so many years. I'm just not sure it was Boy Scout of America Scouting. You will find a large community of dedicated, experienced, trained and successful scouters here who have used the program as designed by BSA (not Inc.) and are in agreement that it works. You will also find people new to scouting who are looking to harvest some of that experience and better understand the program. You can continue to share your sage advise, but it will most likely continue to not be very well recieved because we don't want our new scouter brother and sisters to get bad information.

From time to time I have pondered when we would get our next incarnation of Fat Old Guy. There have been so many. I wondered the same thing when Juris showed up. I am not convinced that he is FOG. If so, he has taken a good amount of time to develop a whole new style and character. Lynda, Funny you should mention it. Our SM is an Eagle Scout and he is also our District Training Chairman. He has told me numerous times that the hardest people to get to training or willing to accept the training material when they do show up are SM's who were Eagles. Time and again he has told me that many of them think they have it all figured out because they were scouts 30 years ago and earned Eagle and there is nothing about scouting that anyone can teach them.

Rooster, Too many political threads. I mixed my apples and oranges. In the Flag Burning thread you said to me, "Spoken like a true liberal." I thought the comment had been made in this thread. Sorry. Still, my point was factual that you see me as a liberal.

With all due respect, I registered as a leader with the Boy Scouts of America and I'm duty bound to follow the program as designed. If I can't do that, I can resign. If I do it my way, it ceases to be Boy Scouts. One other note Juris, please quit referring to BSA as BSA, Inc. It is obvious that you are doing so in a derogatory manner and that is not scoutlike. It is beyond me how someone can spend 38 years involved in a program that they speak ill of.

Ed, That is precisely what the topic has been. The very first line in the original post is, "How do you (the youth) remove bad youth leaders from office?"

Teaching a scout how to kill an animal for survival is of little use unless you've taught them how to catch the animal first. If you really want to teach them that level of survival skills, then you don't need to teach them with a chicken. Teach them to catch a critter first, then kill it and cook it. Eisley said that Peta had a point in his title. Would showing a boy how to build a fire but deny him the ability to actually build and start one be of much practical use?

This is most likely my last post in this particular thread. Let me state for the record, I am a born again evangelical Christian and contrary to Rooster's opinion, I consider myself conservative. I've attended Southern Baptist churches since I was about 2 weeks old and have a degree in Religion from a Southern Baptist university and a year's work towards a masters in Religious Education. I've been an Assistant Youth Minister, Sunday School teacher, Deacon and even preached a revival in an overseas crusade. I know what I believe and why I believe it. I am secure in my faith. My relationship is with God thru Jesus Christ my Savior. It is not dependent on my government and it's recognition of my Christian religion. In fact, I really don't want my government involved with my faith. It does not bother me if my son's school does not have a morning prayer. They do have a moment of silence where the kids can pray if they so choose. I'm fine with that. But I'd be fine if they didn't as well. It does not matter to me if they say "under God" in the pledge or not. They do and I'm fine with it. But it wouldn't bother me if they didn't. It doesn't bother me if they don't post the ten commandments in his school or in courthouses. If thy did, it wouldn't bother me either. The reason that it doesn't matter to me is because I am a dad and part of my responsibility is to be the spiritual head of my house. My job and the job of my church is to instruct my family in the beliefs of our faith and to lead by example. I don't want or expect my son's school or our government to do that for me. I won't abdicate that task to them. It just isn't their place. Heck, look at all the denominations and their different interpretations of scripture. Some believe you can fall from grace while some believe once saved, always saved. Some believe that it is wrong to have musical instruments while singing. Some believe they are the only ones going to heaven. Some believe in immersion baptism while others sprinkle. The list goes on and on. If we Christians can't even agree on basic tenets, why would we want our government dabbling in it on our behalf? The bottom line is that even if the government and it's various entities don't allow prayer in school, the 10 commandments in courthouses, etc., it won't make one iota of difference to the practice of my faith or the religious instruction of my family. It just doesn't matter. I want the governemnt to do their job of making fair and just laws, dispensing justice, providing for our common defense and providing infrastructure for our way of life. Let them do their job and I'll do mine.