SR540Beaver

Who remembers Dippity Do?

OGE, Sharks and Jets.....**snicker**! That was a good one! Hey, I was a Brylcream kid until the age of Aquarius came along. Dad used Butch Wax on his flattop.

Ed, How many units do you think will shut down if the military isn't allowed to be their charter? Do you honestly think that none of the civic organizations (operated by the parents of the scouts) on military bases will pick up the slack and keep them going without missing a beat? I have never gotten bent out of shape over no prayer in school or saying "under God" in the pledge. The reason I don't get bent out of shape is because it is MY responsibility and the church of our choice to teach my child about our faith.....not his school's. I send him to school to get an education. I take him to church and use my life as an example to him to teach him about God and our faith. They do say under God at his school and they do observe a moment of silence each morning. Know what he told me he does when they observe the silence? He thanks God and asks for his forgiveness. Know where he learned that? At home and at church. Even if they took under God out of the pledge (which they have not) and didn't observe a moment of silence in his school, it wouldn't affect his knowledge of or faith in God. I don't want the school teaching him about sex and I don't want them teaching him about religion. They are not suited for it. I want him to learn the three R's. Ed, if you were back in school and they didn't observe a prayer time, would you lose your faith in God?

An important note on leader selection is what happens at recharter time. You'd better be able to write a registered leader's name for a position.....and it can't be there multiple times for various positions....if you want to recharter. John Doe can not hold the Cubmaster, Committee Chair and Den Leader positions on the charter roster. I've seen registered leader's names jockeyed around on charter packages in order to get it done. Let's remember that a Scout is trustworthy.

Semper, Take a look at http://www.scoutneckers.com/. They are not in the US, but will ship here. You'll have to use a currency converter to figure out the prices. We considered using them at one time, but currently go necker-less. They make a boy size and an adult size neckerchief, have a host of colors and have unique border designs you won't find here in the US. They have a fun design your own section where you can experiment with the various borders, diagonals, stripes and colors.

Tim, Your less than 100% eagerness will soon turn into something like less than 50% eagerness. I speak from experience. My mom was a people pleaser, so I came by being a people pleaser naturally. I guess one way to look at it is an attitude of service. If someone asked me to do something, I felt a responsibility to do as asked. Plus, I didn't want to disappoint people. This led me to take on things that I really didn't want to do. I'm older, wiser and thicker skinned these days. The word "NO" actually rolls off of my tongue fairly easily. I know many many scouters who fulfill a number of scouting roles. One of my best buddies has come close to putting his marriage in jeopardy because he wanted to do it ALL in scouting. As a result, he has gone to the other extreme and will most likely be leaving scouting after he fulfills some commitments he made. If I recall, BSA prefers that a scouter do one job and devote their energy to that job. Yes, the reality is that sometimes in some situations, we have to do more because some people won't do anything. But, you have to do what is right for you first. My troop is made up of several go getters. They've tried to pull me into their universe. Our SM and my fellow ASM also serve on district committees, do district training, are unit commissioners, etc. We have had to arrange our monthly outings around their scouter schedule. They occasionally miss troop meetings because of other scouting committments. When asked to serve on training and as a unit commissioner, I said NO. I told them I had no problem with them doing the other things they did and actually appreciated their efforts, but I signed up to be an ASM and someone has to be there when they are not. If I tried to wear 3 or 4 hats, I'd do each job poorly and end up resenting each job and it's individual demands. Think of yourself first and the unit second. Do your job and do it well. Learn to say NO if you are less than 100% eager.

Here in Oklahoma, I've never heard of either one of them. Another good deal on camping gear is www.scoutdirect.com. It is a website run by Alps Mountaineering and is set up to give pretty significant discounts on their products to scouting. We've had several of our scouters in our troop purchase some tents and cots from them and have been pretty pleased.

foto, That seems to be a common problem. We just had a Webelos Woods back in November. We started a brand new troop with 11 and 12 year olds back in June. We tried to get the Webelos from our old Pack to attend with us, but they chose to go with an older, more established troop. The Webelos leader is friends with all of us who crossed over, but I've heard thru the grapevine that he wasn't interested in us because we didn't have "older" scouts to serve as an example for the boys in his den. Well, they go to Webelos Woods with this prestigious troop who basically ignores them all weekend. He went to the SM and expressed his concerns. The SM came back and told him that he had talked with his boys and they said they didn't want to mess with the little kids!!! My personal opinion is that the SM should have had a little "come to Jesus meeting" with his scouts about recruiting to keep the troop strong and growing and remind them of when they were the new kids on the block. Guess what? All of a sudden our little troop of young boys is looking better and better to him. They are now interested in going to Camporee with us in April. His boys are Webelos 1's, so by the time they cross over we will have boys 13 and 14 who should be working on Star. I've seen too many boys in troops who just don't want anything to do with younger kids and then complain because their troop is so small. Camporee and Webelos Woods are your two biggest opportunities to do hands on recruiting and give the boys a taste of Boy Scouting. Blow it there and the word spreads.

Three camporees per year!? Isn't that excessive? Add in summer camp and that kind of limits a troop's annual program doesn't it? I realize that a troop doesn't have to go to a camporee. I'd think that the enthusiasm would begin to die down if the troop was going to a camporee every three months and attendance would start to faulter. I'm not criticizing it, it is just foreign to me. Why do districts do this? Are they in areas that don't provide much in the way of available camping opportunities? Does the district see it as their responsibility to provide program for the troops? That is a lot of coordination for district folks to have to deal with.

Ed, Same event, same location, same campfire, campsite next to sponsoring troop, eating with troop, activities ran by Boy Scouts. Just not competing in the same activities or camping in the same site. Participating, but not participating. Just different levels of involvement. What is the point of allowing Webelos to visit or camp at a camporee if you are going to put them on opposite sides of the camp where they can't interact at all?

Our district camporee is almost always in late March. This coming year it is in early April. All units know that we hold one each year and it is always right around the same date each year. If a unit doesn't plan for it, it is intentional. Ours is well attended and it is where the OA call out is held. The one problem we have with our camporee is that it has become a huge Webelos recruiting tool. Most every troop brings one or two Webelos dens with them to camporee. The Webelos are integtrated to a large degree into the troops patrols and compete in the activities beside the scouts. This tends to water down the competitive nature of the camporee since you have boys with limited scouting skills competing. Heck, I've even seen Bear Cubs at camporee. I've never understood why we do this since we have a district Webelos Woods each Fall for recruiting purposes. Before anyone says anything, yes I know that Webelos are only supposed to go to Camporees as a day activity or camp separately and have separate activities. Why our district ignores this is beyond me, but that is how they do it. Camporee seems to be alive and well in my district, just not concentrating on competitive scout skills.

Proud Eagle, I don't want to speak for Dan, but I do believe he was making a joke. Notice he had a little winky face on his comment. I don't know about other parts of the country, but here in Oklahoma, the candidates are responsible by law for knowing where their signs are located and retrieving them after the campaign. Who wants a million signs blowing all over creation. I do believe that some candidates even pay people to remove them for them. It could be considered a service project for a troop to remove politician's signs from the landscape, plus benefit the troop by having stake making material. A win win. Messing with a candidates signs before an election can get you in a heap of trouble however.

Semper, It isalways appropriate to wear your uniform. I was the CC of my son's Pack. Funny thing is, when the committee met, no one wore their uniforms. We kept it casual. But when we camped, had den meetings or pack meetings, I was always in full uniform. Pants too. The CM was the only other one who wore a full uniform. None of our DL's did. I'm now an ASM and always wear a full uniform. I was running late one evening and managed to pick my son up and get him to the troop meeting on time. I then turned around, went home and put on my uniform and returned. My feeling is that if you are a leaader and it is a function of any kind with boys present, wear your uniform.

E, I agree with much of what you said. It has been discussed many times here about the "mystery" of WB. Many WBer's don't want to "give away" too much and want people to experience WB for themselves. They do this to drive up the anticipation. I think this leads to ticket anxiety. People begin to fret and sweat over tickets. For heaven's sake, it isn't that big of a deal. I've seen ticket counselors actually scale down some more ambitious tickets. While you don't want to make them too simple, you also don't want to make them unobtainable. If you came up with an idea to recruit 10 boys to your unit and only managed to recruit 5, have you failed to fulfill your ticket? Counselors will look out for those kind of things and help rediriect them into something along the line of designing and implementing a recruitment program instead of actually recruiting a certain number of scouts. I heard of one person who had a ticket item of attending six Roundtables. WHAT!? You should be going to those anyway. That is too simple in my mind and should have never been signed off on. Bottom line, give it some thought, but don't obsess over it. Most people know of things that need to be done as projects that pertain to their position and can easily formulate and refine them during the course with their counselor. Put off today what you can do tomorrow!

Our troop uses personal tents. If you lose one, you have to kindly bum one/some off of someone who may or may not have extras. When you get home, you have to replace your own if you lose them. Funny, when it is their own personal gear, they seem to keep up with it better and take better care of it. Well, most of them. Of course, when something is misplaced, the familiar boy cry goes out....hey, someone STOLE my............

OGE, Remember.....a scout is kind. Who?

KS, Amen brother! There are some meetings and some campouts where I'd love to strangle the little monkeys. But the good meetings and campouts outweigh the bad ones. Overall, a 10.

Grumpy, As has been stated, you will design your own ticket and your counselor will help make sure it fits certain criteria. A lot depends on who your counselor is. I've known guys who had very legalistic counselors who thought the ticket was trying to obtain the holy grail and would never ever allow a change in a ticket. By golly, you committed to it and you have to see it thru. Then you have others who are extremely flexible like mine was. One of the guidelines is that your ticket needs to pertain to your position in scouting. If you are a committee member, you need to write your ticket so that it is things you can do to benefit scouting thru that position. If you are an SM, same thing. If you are a DE, same thing. That kind of precludes doing something at the district or council level if you are in a unit. I was in a unique position because I took WB in September while I was the Committee Chair of a Pack. My son and I crossed over to a Troop the following February where I became an ASM. My counselor allowed me to rewrite a couple of ticket items to fit into the troop instead of the pack. Also, since I am part of the Jamboree contingent, she allowed me to change one of my tickets to coordinate and run a fundraiser for Jambo. Everyone who signs up for WB starts sweating over ticket items. Don't! It doesn't hurt to think about possible ticket items early, but the whole process will be explained when you attend. One possible snag to watch out for is if other people from your unit will be attending also. We had four people from my pack attend the same WB. Some of us ended up thinking up the same exact ticket items to do in the same pack. We had to get together and iron things out between us and our different counselors.

A little off topic, but I have to share this since Eamonn brought up stupid roads. We have a road in town that literally stradles the line between two towns. One side of the road was 40 MPH and the other side was 30 MPH. As you can imagine, many many tickets were written on that road. In recent years it was expanded from 2 lanes to 4 lanes and has a common speed limit on both sides. And yes, I once did get a ticket on that road! It was the policeman who pointed out the different speed limits to me.

Wingnut said it first, but I'll repeat it. We always caravan. Yeah, yeah, Iknow the back of the permit says something about not doing it. I don't have a copy in front of me. We don't line up and ride each others tails, but we keep each other in sight. It has never been stated as any kind of rule, but we generally go down the road in the same order that we pull out of the parking lot. The SM pulls the trailer and leads the pack....or troop in this case. Pun intended. As long as he is observing the speed limit and the rest of us are behind him, no problem. It's kind of like the buddy system. This guy shouldn't be allowed to peel out of the parking lot and drive with the hammer down and beat everyone else to camp by 30 minutes. What if it is dark and he has a flat. Most of us will drive right past at 70 MPH and never notice that it is one of our own on the side of the road.

E, Funny, my 11 year old son complains about the same thing with his 47 year old dad. My wife and son keep waking me up telling me that my snoring is interferring with their TV show.

Ed, Let's be objective for a minute. Has the BSA argued in court cases defending their joining requirements that they are a religious organization or not? The anser is yes, they have. Does the BSA descriminate based on gender, sexual preference and religious belief? Yes, they do. The courts have rightly upheld their ability to do so as a private organization under the freedom of association guaranteed in the constitution. Can the government or any of it's entities have the legal right to descriminate based on gender, sexual preference, race, age or religion? No, they can't. It's the law. Therefore, should military installations be chartering scout units who are a religious organization that descriminates against certain elements in society? Probably not. Like you, I'm a Scouter and a Christian and I don't have a problem with it. But under the letter of the law as our Founding Fathers wrote it, it is hard to defend. If the military can't charter units, it won't affect scouting in the long run. There are enough citizen based organizations in the military who will charter the units instead.

KOJA? Anyone?

Barry: Sorry for the long post, but I think its just you and I reading at this point anyway. No, some of us are just being sponges and soaking it in.

TP, Liberal? Nah, guess again. I like to call it fair and balanced. Reasonable comes to mind too. Ed, You said, "The ACLU defends their interpretations of the Constitution. Nothing more." As do you. They think they are just as right as you do. Thinks about it. Expressing your religious beliefs in a public park is allowed under freedom of religion and freedom of speech in the constitution. A government entity sponsoring a religious organization (which BSA lawyers have called the BSA in court proceedings before) who has discrimnatory joining requirements goes against the constitution on both church and state issues and equal opportunity legislation. The fact that you and I don't like it doesn't really count for much.