SR540Beaver

I mean no offense either. I'm guessing you are 18 at the very oldest since you obtained Eagle last November. That means you are either in high school or just out of high school. You are at a place in life where the jobs you are seeking are entry level positions and/or short term. At that age, I worked in a grocery store sacking groceries and as a cashier. Jobs like that eat thru employees like a weedeater thru grass. They have 20 kids a day coming in looking for a job and you can literally be replaced today if you mess up. I'd dare to say that what they are looking for is a warm body to fill a position with little regard to your personal accomplishments. Getting a job like that are more about how you present yourself and are kept by working hard and showing up on time more than anything else. If your Eagle helps you in the job market, it will be later in life after you have completed college and looking to begin a career with a company with a long term vision that has more interest in the quality of the person they are hiring over the quantity of people they need to simply operate. Having an Eagle will count more when you are applying at NASA than it will at Wal-Mart. Keep at it, the job market today is tough on all levels.

Jason, What Council are you part of in Oklahoma? I'm in the Last Frontier Council. There is a gentleman who I met at Wood Badge when he served as a troop guide who handles a lot of the religious services for council related functions. He also came and did a religious service at my IOLS course and gave a talk on how to handle things in a troop where there may be a variety of faiths observed. In fact, he came to summer camp to do vespers last week. I could probably get you in contact with him to get his take on your questions. He just recently gave up his career to begin study for the ministry.

Toe-may-toe, toe-mah-toe.

Unfortunately, the SC has side stepped the issue instead of addressing it. It will come up again. It would have been nice to have it decided and put to bed once and for all.

BW, Hunt is talking about a camp MB and you are talking about an MB that a boy decides to take at home. Not all camps use blue cards. Our camp has a form that is used in a troop meeting far prior to camp. It lists the various classes available. The boy signs up for a class and the SM discusses his choices with him. He also makes sure they have access to the MB book. When the SM turns the form into the council office, it basically is the same thing as having signed the blue cards.

Hunt, I saw this happen this past Saturday morning as we were getting ready to leave camp. Our camp does not use blue cards. The Scout gets a negative report instead. It is a form with the merit badge's requirements listed and the counselor marks the requirements that were not met. If there are no marks on the form, the scout has met all requirements. We had a really bad stinker of a MB counselor that actually played cards with the boys instead of teaching them and working on requirements. He was reported on mid-week and corrections were made. When we gave the forms to the boys to review before leaving camp, one boy spoke up that his form was not accurate because everything was signed off and he quit going to the class mid-week. The SM said that it was up to him, but a Scout is trustworthy. The boy took the form and ripped it in half and said he would take the MB over with a counselor at home. He could have done the un-Scout like thing and said he earned it. Instead, he did the Scout like thing and rejected the giveaway. An SM should never tell a boy he can't have an MB when a counselor signed off, but he can counsel the boy on the right way to handle the situation.

We just got back too. We only had one kid with a cell phone. Oddly enough, he was the least homesick kid in the troop. Not because of the phone, he just does not get homesick. We did catch a number of our scouts stopping by the pay phone outside the dining hall. Their parents stuck to their guns and made them stick it out. My own son got homesick......with ME there all week! It rained unmercifully from Sunday evening until Wednesday evening. We had wet tents, wet clothes, wet shoes, wet everything! That brought blistered feet and mildew. Even when it periodically quit raining, the air was so humid that nothing would dry out. Most of the homesickness we experienced was directly related to the amount of rain we received. I'm all for the old days when phone calls were forbidden without approval. I'm also all for dry campsites!

dancinfox, I have not staffed a Wood Badge course (yet), but I took it last September when I was still working with a Pack. I am now working with a Troop as my son crossed over in February. I found everything presented to be applicable regardless of whether a person is in a Troop, Cubs, Venturing or Varsity. The training is leadership training that can be applied to anything outside of scouting as well.

Excuse me, but my Dad didn't work in a sweatshop during the Industrial Revolution. He was forced into retirement at 58 about 20 years ago when the company broke the union. (I might add that I was making more money 3 years out of college than he was making after 25 years with the company as a union employee.) That was after 32 years of service. It takes management and leadership to operate a company. Those people should be paid well. It also takes skilled laborers to produce the goods the company sells. What is wrong with a guy who is making $50,000 a year wanting to make $52,000 when he sees the upper management pulling down $100,000,000. Any idea how far half of that would go towards giving the worker a $2,000 increase. Increasingly, employees are having to pay a larger and larger portion of their insurance coverage. The management gets a free insurance package that even covers cosmetic surgery for the wife. All unions try to do is get the company to spread a little of the wealth around. A guy screwing nuts onto bolts shouldn't make $150,000 a year......but an upper management person shouldn't make $250,000,000 either. No one is worth that kind of money. The only person pulling down that kind of cash should be the owner.

hmmmmm, my Dad was a union worker. He died in the same woodframe house he had lived in for almost 50 years. It was a two bedroom, 1 bath house that he hand built another bedroom, bathroom and den onto when my twin brother and I made our 2 kid family a 4 kid family. He never owned a new vehicle....always purchased used ones. He did have 5 weeks of vacation, but he had worked for the company for 32 years. He did own a 10' x 20' cabin at the lake. It had no electricity or water. Heck, the windows were screened flaps. He built another 10' x 20' bat and bed combination onto the back of it after he wired it and ran water to it. That was all done after hand cutting all the underbrush on the lot. Actually, the cabin was about 1.5 miles from the water. He worked hard for what he had. Being a union worker didn't give him the American dream. He created that on his own.

The other way of looking at it is that he brings European software to America.

Dan, Even in Cub Scouts which is adult led, the Cubmaster is not in charge and does not call the shots if he is following the program. He leads, but he does not dictate anything to anyone.

Acco, I had not even thought about it until you mentioned it. We've only been with the troop a few months and I've seen two BOR's take place. The boy was in uniform, the committee members were not. To cut them a little slack though, they are fairly easy going and available when the boy requests a BOR. That means that they might do them as soon as he asks instead of scheduling it in the future. So they might be in uniform and they might not when they are asked. Most of the committee members do not wear unifroms. When I was the pack committee chair, I always wore a complete uniform to any scout function.

I agree with Bob concerning a consensus rather than a majority vote. I was the Committee Chair for my son's old pack. We never took a single vote. I am now an ASM in my son's troop. Shortly after joining, there was a blow up between some of the adult leadership. The COR was even called in to attend a special meeting to help sort things out. Eventually the issue of who has votes came up. The whole blow up was a power play by a committee member. I threw in my two cents worth concerning my understanding of the Troop Committee Guide and no need to vote and to run things by consensus. The COR who is a Silver Beaver informed me that it was a nice sentiment, but that we were living in the real world and even the boys vote on their leadership. I reminded him that we don't pick and choose between the aims and methods of scouting and we shouldn't pick and choose which part of the Troop Committee Guidelines we want to use. After all, we live by the oath and law too. Long story short, the power player got her way with the support of the "old timers" and all of us new folks are working towards starting a new troop that will follow the program as laid down by BSA. I have to give credit to EagleDad when he explained to me over lunch recently why my experience between the pack and troop committee was so different. Vision. The troop committee does not function in a cohesive way because everyone has a different agenda. They have lost a common vision. Our pack committee was made up of trained, experienced people who wanted to do things by the book and we had a common vision of what we wanted to do and where we wanted to go. When you work in that environment, consensus is easy to come by and votes are not needed. If you can get people trained and follow the program, most things have a way of falling in place.

Pack, No disrespect is meant towards Hops, but what he posted is one of those partisan talking points e-mails that circle the globe repeatedly. I've gotten this particular set of "facts" numerous times for quite a while now. Both sides have folks who write this stuff and push it out into the public domain for consumption. Both sides play fast and lose with the facts. Sean Hannity likes to point out how many weapons systems that Kerry has voted against while ignoring Republican politicians on his show that even admit that what started out as a good bill turned into a bad bill when all the pork was added. It all depends on who you are rooting for and how you use the "facts". Hannity has never mentioned that papa Bush and Cheney were scaling back the military and disapproving weapons systems after the cold war. Again, both sides employee these tactics to "prove" their points against their candidates opponents. I consider most of this stuff junk mail regardless of which side it comes from and delete it.

zipmedic, Please type a direct qoute from the Troop Committee Guide where it says that. I've searched several on-line copies of the guide and can't find anything that even remotely suggests what you say is very clear.

I consider myself to be a conservative independent. Being so allows me to look at both parties with a critical eye. In this day and age, neither party speaks for me. The Democratic party was hurt years ago by far left wingers. The Republican party is now being damaged to the same extent by the neocons. I believe that the neocons and the far left wingers each only make up about 15 to 20% of the population. The other 60 to 70% of the population are somewhere in the middle and not being represented by either parties candidate. The vast majority of the population end up having to vote for the lesser of two evils. I'll admit that I am a current events junkie. However, I don't forget the current events of years past just because there are new current events to devour. Since the beginning of the Iraq war, it has become extremely popular to say that those who dissent over this war and this President's policies are aiding and abetting and giving comfort to the enemy. There are those who say that Democrats and liberals are committing treason, hate America, hate our military and are unpatriotic. There are those who say that the Democrats have politicized the war and will do anything to regain power. What concerns me is how quickly we forget. I came across this the other day and would like for everyone to read it. Hopefully it will humble some people to remember history that isn't even a decade old yet. What I remember and was reminded of in this press release is just how badly a political party can act and what kind of accusations can be made in an attempt to regain lost power. What you will read are quotes of Tom DeLay while Clinton was President. Take the current situation and reverse it. People say that the Democrats have stooped to an unprecidented low. Apparently they had some good teachers. This is an excellent example of the pot calling the kettle black. The press release is far to big to post here. Here is the link: http://democraticwhip.house.gov/media/press.cfm?pressReleaseID=76 After reading this, I ask for those who make accusations against those who dissent over this war, was DeLay being a traitor, a troop hater and unpatriotic?

I'll go with showing improvement in the majority of the tasks or even only being able to pull up 1/8 of an inch higher. I'm 47 and used to be a lot thinner than I am now. But even in my thinner, younger days when I used to lift some serious weight three times a week, I couldn't manage more than 1 or 2 pull ups. I could on the other hand leg press around 400 pounds. Some people have lower body strength, some have upper body strength, some have both, some are fast, some are slow. The requirement says show improvement. To hold a boy back who has all the requirements completed up to 1st class just because he can't do a pull up is......well, dumb. If you get a 98 on a test, you still get an A and move on. Let's apply a little dose of common sense.

Whew! I for one am glad to hear that the BSA is feeding at the public trough. That means we can quit paying the annual dues for my son in his troop. I no longer need to write a check to FOS either. I'm assuming that we can do away with those work days to prepare for summer camp as state labor will be doing all the heavy lifting. How dare the BSA ask me to give my time, talent and money to support them when all along they were raking in the big tax dollars!

I'm all for adding DO's, cast iron skillets and griddles to the boy's chuckboxes. However, teach them proper care and while it may not be preferable, have an adult keep an eye on them. Our troop uses them and we have had to take them and have them sandblasted and reseason them because the boys get lazy with cleaning and oiling them. A dutch oven left out on the table at night with gooey dessert remnants is not a pretty sight the next morning. Neither is one that gets run thru soapy water and bleach and left to air dry.

The problem we have today is that the 24 hour news channels don't just report the news. They put "analysis" and commentary shows on the air. These people call themselves journalists and tell you they are giving you the news or like O'Reilly, they are "looking out for you". They mention during their analysis that they are presenting the news fair and balanced. No, they are giving you their analysis which is their opinion of the news, not the "news". Face it, people tune into MSNBS, CNN and FOX to get their news, but instead are getting commentary and analysis. It is getting to where people are confusing the entertainment shows with all of their hand selected experts for hard news. Those channels only program about one hour or actual news programing. I watch all three channels. When it comes to actual news programming, the stories and details are virtually identical. News anchors and true journalists still know how to do their jobs in as unbiased of a way as humanly possible. It is we the viewer who have mistaken the entertainment portion of the 24 hour channels as hard news and that is where we see blatent bias happening. Sadly we see so little news anymore to be able to distinguish commentary from news reporting. To ad further to the problem, you have shows like Brit Humes Special Report on FOX that intermixes news and commentary throughout the program and it can sometimes be difficult to know where ones leaves off and another starts.

Rooster, I consider myself conservative and can honestly say that FOX goes over the top with their blatant skew on the news. It is almost embarresing sometimes.

BW, I don't disagree with you, I was just providing the "by the book" answer.

Dan: The majority of the post on this forum it seems that most people do not follow or possibly do not understand the program to follow it. So lets not try to place the blame on the district I am in. Beav: I'm not blaming your district. I am pointing out that a poor district trainer could be one possibility why so many people in a geographical area may have difficulty understanding the program. On the other hand, you may have the best trainer in the whole of BSA and nobody will bother to attend his classes. The reasons that people don't understand the program can be many. Dan: Most of the BSA training just hints at how it should be done, I believe that it needs to be stronger, and actually spell out how to follow the Methods. Beav: I agree that it could be stronger, but then all of those volunteers would complain about how intense and time consuming the training and material are. You can't please everyone......just like with the uniform. I disagree that the training "hints" at how it should be done. I'm not the best or most attentive student in the world and I got a pretty good grasp of it. Dan: If the program is so easy to follow, how come so many units do not follow it? Beav: I can't even begin to list all the reasons. Arrogance, laziness, apathy, following bad examples, etc. are just some of the possibilities. There are leaders who look at the boys as "just" kids and can't fathom them being able to actually run their own program. Instead of elections, the SM will appoint boy leaders. Some SM's decide that Committee members don't know real scouting, so they decide they should do the BOR's instead. Do you think he would allow the Committee to do Scoutmaster Conferences? Some think the G2SS is over protective because that isn't the way they did it when he was a kid. Go to any Roundtable and see what percentage of unit leadership actually shows up. When my son was in Cubs, we had an SM come to a Pack meeting to invite our boys to participate in Webelos Woods with his troop. He invited them to come one of their Troop meetings and explained that they work on advancement items and mmerit badges and then invited them to go play Laser Tag the next week in place of a Troop meeting. WHAT! Troop meetings are not for the purpose of working on merit badges and Laser Tag is not allowed under G2SS. How did I know this and he not when his unit is one mile from mine and in the same district. Because I was trained and read BSA materials and he was not. People get out of it what they put into it. If some leaders find it hard to follow the program, I would venture to say that they have done little to try to understand it. Our District Trainer (an Eagle Scout himself) tells me the hardest people to get to class and the hardest nut to crack once they get to class are the SM's who earned their Eagle. Many of them feel that they have been there, done that and know it all. They don't need anyone telling them how to do scouting. Dan: Do you believe that the majority of the CO, really have much input into the program? It seems that most post on this forum, posters are saying that the CO is just there to sign the recharter once a year. Unfortunately no, many CO's have little involvement with their unit. It is a two way street though. Many units do little to build the relationaship either. Regardless of how involved the CO is, as a person who has registered as an adult volunteer with the BSA, it is incumbent on us to learn as much as we can and provide and deliver the program as designed. Dan, when my son was in Cubs, I was the Pack Committee Chair. We pushed training big time. We even offered to pay half of Wood Badge for anyone who wanted to take it. We made training schedules available that listed training in every district. If a date didn't work for you in our district, you could choose another district. In our case, that means a drive across town, not 4 counties away. We had den leaders that just flat wouldn't take the time to go do a 2 hour training. Our district trainer even started providing New Leader Essentials at each montly Roundtable. Periodically, he would provide Leader Specific training at Roundtable. This was in addition to his regular schedule of courses. We couldn't get some people to go to it. We had a few leaders that couldn't even make it to a single Pack Committee meeting once out of 9 months. That is why some units find it hard to deliver the program as designed.....because some people just don't care enough to put forth the effort....not because the program is hard to understand.

BW, According to the Troop Committee Guidebook, the IH or COR approval comes after the Committee has made a selection, approached the candidate and secured a completed registration form. Step 5 Have the prospect complete an application to join the Boy Scouts of America. It is the responsibility of the committee to review and screen the application. Individuals who have lived in the community for three or more years and are known to members of the committee well enough for them to serve as a reference should require little additional screening. Conduct a reference check on those who are new to the community as well as those who may be new to volunteer Scouting. References should be checked in a discrete, non-threatening manner, and previous Scouting experience should be confirmed. Upon approval, the application is signed by the chartered organization head or the chartered organization representative, and is submitted to the local council. All leaders registered with the Boy Scouts of America must meet its standards for leadership.