SR540Beaver

I'm with nldscout! We encourage boys to bring their own chairs. Why? Because if they see one without a hiney in it, they sit in it. I bring my chair to sit in because I'm prepared, I don't provide seating for others. Of course bring chairs......what else are you going to sit on? One of the things I like least about camping is lack of comfort. Don't get me wrong, I don't expect luxury accomodations and I can rough it for 48 hours with the best of them. I just want a place to rest my weary bones from time to time. I have joint problems from my neck to my ankles and standing on my feet all day long in camp gets really old really fast. I don't really find the camp chairs very comfortable, but they sure beat sitting on a log.

Eagle, See my thread called "How Much is Too Much" to get an idea of how others view how active a scout should be. These new scouts that crossed over, when did they cross? We have a few packs around here that want to hang on to boys into April and May. Sending them off to Summer Camp with possibly only one campout can be overwhelming. We urge them to cross in February and get into the swing of things in a Troop before culture shocking them with a full week at camp in wall tents and a days worth of MB classes. While we try to set our dates far enough in advance for people to schedule around, family comes first. Sure they will miss out on a lot of advancement opportunities and fun during summer camp, but they can still advance. Their advancment should be at their own pace instead of imposed in a group setting. Just because John gets his 1st class before Jim shouldn't be a big deal.

Maybe I'm dense, but I fail to see how a non-sectarian organization like scouting allowing a scout to individualize the wording for "duty to God" is a bad thing. Being a Baptist, I'd be perfectly happy to only have the Protestant services at Jamboree offered and forego the Catholic, Jewish, etc. services planned. Why should BSA offer religious services other than the one of MY faith? Of course those Protestant service I want at Jamboree shouldn't include any of those holy-rollers raising their hands or speaking in tongues. They'll have to be satisfied with simple Baptist amens.

E, Does your council not do a Philmont, Seabase or Northern Tier contingent trip? Obviously it would be nice to see troops planning high adventure trips on their own, but lacking that, the boys should have an opportunity thru the council.

I've had this saying sitting on my desk for a number of years now. If I recall, my wife got it for me for Father's Day. It is a little 5x7 from the Succesories line. It show a little boy with his hands stuck in his back pockets on a shore looking out at the water. It is titled "Priorities". It sure puts things in perspective. My dad was never a scout leader. But in his heart, words and deeds; he embodied everything scouting is about. I couldn't have asked for a better dad. He has been gone almost 4 years and I miss him every day. Another saying I like is, "anyone can be a father, it takes a special person to be a daddy".

This story should scare anyone regardless of where they fall on the political spectrum. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/13/AR2005061301520_pf.html Who's a Journalist? It Depends. By Howard Kurtz Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, June 14, 2005; C04 Ask members of the press whether Rush Limbaugh and Bob Woodward are journalists and the answers are somewhat predictable. But the public has a different view. About the same percentage considers the radio talk show host and the author and Washington Post editor to be journalists, says a survey by the Annenberg Public Policy Center released yesterday. The numbers: 27 percent say Limbaugh is a journalist, 55 percent say he's not and 18 percent don't know. Woodward may lag in the name-ID department: 30 percent say he's a journalist, 17 percent say he's not and 53 percent don't know. The survey of 1,500 adults was completed before the recent revelation of Deep Throat's identity. A separate survey of 673 journalists produced very different results. For Woodward, 72 percent say he's "very close" to a journalist and 21 percent "somewhat close." For Limbaugh, 1 percent say he's "very close" to a journalist, 2 percent "somewhat close" and 82 percent "not close at all." Kathleen Hall Jamieson, the center's director, said the findings provide "disturbing evidence that the public defines the word very differently from the way that most journalists do, a conclusion buttressed by the fact that 40 percent said Bill O'Reilly . . . was a journalist and only 19 percent said that George Will, the columnist and commentator, was one." Limbaugh said he was "not really surprised" by the survey. "I am America's anchorman, doing news play-by-play 15 hours a week for nearly 17 years now, and this is just more evidence that the old media's monopoly-like dominance is finished. I think the 'mainstream' media should heed Ms. Jamieson's warning and seriously examine how they appear to their readers and viewers." Television stars tended to score the highest, suggesting that name recognition may be a factor in the results. Peter Jennings is deemed a journalist by 79 percent of the respondents, followed by Mike Wallace (64 percent), Katie Couric (48 percent), Brian Williams (42 percent), O'Reilly, Larry King (37 percent), Chris Matthews (33 percent), Woodward, Limbaugh and Will. The Annenberg poll also found a split on the perceived goals of big media corporations. While 48 percent of the public said their first priority is to generate high profits for the owners, 46 percent said it is to deliver high-quality news coverage. Among journalists, only 12 percent said the top priority of corporate owners is to provide factual and timely coverage. Forty-nine percent say that the owners do try to provide quality coverage but that business realities sometimes prevent this from happening. 2005 The Washington Post Company

OGE: SO, as long as one side does it, its ok for the other to do so. Each side has attack dogs and that the way the game is played is my take on the answers. No, it isn't OK. But it is kind of hard to throw the blame on one side of the equation while the other side doesn't have clean hands either. Let's be fair and admit that both sides need to go sit with their nose in the corner. All of the right wing talkers like to bloviate about the bad mouthing that Bush gets by the left. They seem to conveniently forget that the right wing spent 8 years and tens of millions of dollars trying to unseat a President. Could any of us stand up to that kind of scrutiny? I couldn't. Dig that deep and that long and you'll likely find dirt on even the Pope. What, they didn't think there would be repurcussions when the pendulum swung their way? I'm not saying it is right, just expected in politics. No one should be surprised. One other note. From my perspective, the great political divide that our nation is currently going thru coincides with the rise of conservative talk radio and 24 hours news channels. When you have 20 or so talkers ranting and raving 5 days a week for 3 hours a day each, the rhetoric is going to get picked up by the folks they are entertaining and get repeated. On a slow news day, the cable news channels have to fill air time, so they turn to political opinion shows. Before those two things happened, while still volatile, politics was at least somewhat more civil.

Oops! I left out the right's favorite, Ann Coulter. She is in a class of her own. Dean's antics can't hold a candle to her.

The Dems have Dean and the Repubs have DeLay. Let's call it even. Speaking of that evil left wing media, notice how all of the conservative talk show guys rant and rave about "liberal" PBS being run at taxpayer expense and wanting to shut it down? The truth is, most of PBS's operating budget is underwritten by big capitalist corporations and only a tiny fraction is taxpater dollars. Pick up your TV Guide and look at PBS's line up of programming. Their target is Bill Moyer's program called Now. It is a 30 minute program that runs one night a week and the guy is retiring. I guess someone with a wild imagination could consider Antique Roadshow or those reruns of Lawrence Welk as some sort of subversive liberal propaganda.....but they might want to get their head examined. Comparing Moyer's 30 minutes per week as an equal to Limbaugh, Boortz, Hannity, O'Reilly, Snow, Tammy Bruce, Laura Ingraham, Savage, Jerry Doyle, etc. being on 3 hours per day, five days a week is just slightly over the top. I think they just might have the propaganda market locked up. Do what I do, watch Discovery or the History Channel and tune the radio to music. All of the media outrage is bad for my blood pressure.

We are a small troop with only 11 scouts. 9 are at camp this week. I'm horrible at percentages, but I know it ain't half bad.

LPC, I've often read about digging a hole and cooking in it and it has always interested me. Be careful with it now days though with Leave no Trace around. Just like trenching around the old wall tents to keep water out, any disturbance of the ground such as digging is often frowned upon by many scout camps and/or other wilderness camping areas. The rule of thumb should be to obtain permission wherever you are camping if you plan on using this method of cooking.

Good comments all. For the record, even though I said I'm content to putter around the house, I do support a year round program. I have only missed one campout since joining on the troop side and it was due to work. It killed me not to go. Our boys are at summer camp this week and I can't go since I'm using the vast majority of my time to serve as a contingent leader for Jamboree. It sure was hard to drive away from camp Sunday afternoon after delivering a truck load of scouts. I agree with the dog dish approach. I also agree that many scouters have trouble with that concept. We have two active threads that play into this. One is one FCFY and the other is about summer ccamp attendance. Many leaders get heart burn if the scouts are not attending enough to meet requirements to get that 1st class rank in a year or if only half the troop attends summer camp. We volunteer our precious free time to the program and we like to see 100% participation. But the truth is much like Eamonn noted, people have a life outside of scouting and not everyone can be at everything all the time. In fact, the scouter I mentioned who is leaving because his son has lost interest is not the whole story. He got so involved at one point being a unit commissioner, assisting with district training, serving on Wood Badge and IOLS staff in addition to being an ASM that his wife was beginning to get a little jealous of scouting. I believe in a year round program, but have to accept that boys will pick and choose what they want to do and when they want to do it. Our boys chose their outings. But just like a menu, 6 boys may be gung ho for a certain meal while another 2 want nothing to do with it. The majority wins. You can decide if the outing or menu isn't for you and act accordingly. You can't please everyone all the time.

When my son and I left Cubs and moved to Scouts, it was just a forgone conclusion for me that Boy Scouts have monthly outings. No, I don't always want to go on every single campout, but as an ASM I feel an obligation to fulfill my role and do it anyway. My son was a PL last election cycle and the SPL this election cycle and accepts the responsibility that he has to be at each outing also. Actually, we both always want to be there. I'm in scouting for my son. If we were not it scouting, I'd be perfectly content to putter around my comfortable house as opposed to sweating, swatting flys, sitting in a tent thru downpours or freezing my big patootie off. But this is what we chose and we do have a lot of fun at it. Lately, I've had tow seperate conversations with scouters who think that monthly outing is a little over the top. In fact, one will be leaving scouting shortly because his son has lost all interest in scouting. One of his son's biggest complaints is having outings EVERY month. The other scouter is the current Cubmaster of the Pack we came from. He was a Boy Scout as a youth. I was hoping to get he and his son this coming February when they cross over. No such luck. We are a new and young troop. He wants a large troop because he feels they have more to offer and he wants a troop for his son that has older leadership. I can understand that. But them he proceeded to tell me that he thought monthly outing were detremetal and burned the boys out. He said that he and his family had too many other irons in the fire to commit to an outing every month. Both of these guys would rather camp in the Spring and Fall and skip the hot Summer and cold Winter. Well, who wouldn't!? Last summer I was running a fundraising campaign for Jamboree. I was working thru my fellow contingent leaders to get the materials into the hands of the Jambo youth. One of my fellow Jambo ASM's told me it was going to be difficult for him to get the stuff to the boys as they take the rest of the summer off after returning from summer camp. I'd never heard of a troop that takes the summer off. My son had his best buddy join scouts and he was active for about 3 or 4 months before quitting. He is a sports animal and he is used to seasonal activities. His big beef with scouts was that it was a year round program without a break. So, my question is how much is too much? Part of the charter agreement between the BSA and the charter organization is that they will provide 10 nights of camping per year. That would amount to a one nighter per month for 10 months or a two nighter every other month with no camping either during the cold or hot season. I've read about some units that do two activities a month. Do we all do a two nighter 11 months a year with a six night summer camp just because that is what everyone else does? Does too many campouts run some boys off? Would not having so many also run some boys off? How much is too much?

While you may not be familiar with the web site, I believe InsaneScouter has been around since 1998. At least that is the earliest date on the copyright on the site. Admit it, we all had to be a little nuts to fall for that "one hour a week" sales pitch.

BW, Honestly, I don't have a beef against FCFY. As many have said, if you are following the program and/or offer a good program, it isn't relevant. It will happen naturally. I believe it is the SPL handbook that has a schedule form for campouts. The activity resource book has it as well. If the PLC is planning the outing and following a format, skills are built into what you are doing. Bob, set aside your 30 years of service and all of the training you have taken or taught. If someone throws the term "FCFY" at you, what comes to mind? A goal of making sure you advance your boys to 1st class within the first year?

Acco: I'll be the good looking guy in the khaki (tan) shirt and quirky green shorts with matching socks. :-) Wait a minute! We may have a problem here. That describes me to a tee.

Come on Barry, move south about 20 to 25 miles and join the best district in the council!

Barry, Speaking of camporees, I don't know how your district differs from ours. Our camporee has turned into a giant Webelos recruiting tool. Every troop that attends brings one or two Webelos dens with them. Even Bears are beginning to show up at camporees. Our district finally made some changes this year. They provided the same, but seperate activites. The same activity was done in the same area, but there was a section for Webelos and a section for scouts. That was a step in the right direction at least. Since we do provide a Webelos Woods in the fall, I'd prefer that the Camporee in the Spring return to just Scouts. Another change our district needs to make is to plan further in advance and announce what the events are. Skills need to be practiced, especially if you are going to compete in the skills. It is kind of hard to compete when you have no idea what you are competing in. It is kind of like bringing a knife to hunt ducks. Although, I did have a professor in college who would never review us before a test. When asked what we needed to study before an exam, she would tell us everything taught since the last exam.....and they were all essay tests. But I digress! If the boys know 3 or 4 months in advance that the theme for camporee is First Aid or Wilderness Survival, they can practice those skills. If they know what the individual competitions are, they can fine tune their practice even more. This gives them a purpose to practice the skills.

Depending on weather conditions, we intend to break camp the last night and sleep under the dining flys. It will be a busy night....but a glorious morning! I think trying to meet at one time in one place will be difficult too. We intend to leave one adult in camp at all times and rotate the responsibility. Not knowing the schedule makes it hard to commit to a day or time. My hopes is for everyone who wants to to share their sub-camp, troop number and first name and as we are out and about, we can drop in and hopefully catch each other. I certainly understand if people don't want to put that info in a public forum. That is why I suggested using private messages if you don't want to put the info here. At the least, hopefully everyone going will check in here and find out who is going so individual arrangements can be made.

Eamonn: In House Skills. Looking at the adults in OJ's Troop and there is a lot of them, very few have the skills needed to be able to show the Scouts or demonstrate the skill to a Scout. The older Scouts don't have the skills. So who is going to teach the Scout? Worse still is the fact that having no one in house who has these basic skills means that these skills are never part of the program, so even if the Lad does learn them some place else, he is never going to use them and when the time comes to really put them to use the Lad hangs back, at times the map and compass becomes a hot potato. I like the new Outdoor skills Training but you can only learn or teach so much in a weekend. Scout skills...who uses them? Don't get me wrong, I'm not in favor of eliminating them. We just did our Jambo shakedown this weekend. Our council goes the traditional route and uses the canvas dining fly and BSA canvas wall tent. We have 108 boys from between 12 and 17 from 1st Class thru Eagle. How many of them do you think knew how to pitch a wall tent or erect a dining fly and knew how to tie the knots needed? Very few. They all learned and were tested on these knots for rank earlier in their scouting career. Why were they lacking? Those items are traditional gear while most Troops have embraced newer technology. Most modern tents are light wieght waterproof fabric with poles that slip into a grommet and the tent body clips to the pole or runs thru a sleeve. Even the guy lines for the rain fly have the little metal or plastic slide in place of a taut line hitch. Even the dining fly is replaced with an EZ-up that takes less than 30 seconds to erect. Unless you force the issue, there just is very little need for some of these skills. For rank, the boys have to learn lashings and make a useful camp gadget. Most of them make it and never look back. We take materials on every campout and remind the boys that they can make camp gadgets for our review anytime they want to. No one does. It is work and they are there for fun. Besides, they have a table to use and don't need a gadget. Modern gear was designed for light weight and ease of use. If you don't use these skills, you lose them....as evidenced by myself having to relearn knots for the shakedown. I sit at a desk 8 hours a day, five days a week. I'm a city boy. I camp once a month with modern equipment. I like knots, I just don't need them much. Neither do the scouts, except to get to 1st Class. Fire building is much the same. I can't count the number of scouters I've seen who pull out the old fireplace lighter to start a fire or use some sort of commercial fire starter brick or log to get a fire going. It is just easier and less time consuming. Heck, we have scouts who will purposely skip camp outs if all we are doing is day hiking. They like their comfort and don't want to be challenged. Some do take an interest in the skills and learn them. Many learn them long enough to get that 1st class rank in the first year and promptly forget them. One answer is to add them to your program. Make them use them. But like I said, too many boys find it difficult, lame, boring, etc. and just won't participate. While the scouting skills can actually be life savers, do we place too much emphasis on these skills in today's environment. One of the complaints we get from some of the boys in our troop is that the meetings are too repetitious. They don't want to spend an hour working or teaching skills or planning outings. They want to play. Again, I'm not advocating the position of doing away with traditional skills. I just wanted to throw some comments out there for discussion.

BTW, I'll have a limited number of council strip patches and/or hat pins to trade with any of you guys who want to.

Barry: "Maybe the question is how to get adults to read." I know I'm showing my age here, but who remembers the educational cartoons that Disney used to put out decades ago. The were highly educational, explained the subject extremely well and were highly entertaining. Perhaps BSA needs to contract with Disney to have Scoutmaster Mickey and ASM's Goofy and Donald teach SM Specific for the reading impaired adults!!!

E, I don't have a copy of the Insignia Guide, but I'm betting there is nothing in it about wearing the big rectangular Jambo patch (found in the Jambo catalog) on the back of the shirt-jac is there? It would sure look good stitched on the back!

Eamonn and I have already traded sub-camp and troop number information by private message so we can meet up at Jamboree. I'll let Eamonn give his info publically if he wants. Anyone who wants to meet me can find me in sub-camp 17 with troop 1715. I'm Keith. Please feel free to post your info here or at least say that you will be there so info can be traded by private message. I'd love to meet as many of you as possible while there.

KS: I'd be very reluctant to criticize the council's camping program unless I was doing everything I could as a leader, an Arrowman, and a Wood Badger, to help make it better... Ouch!