SR540Beaver

Honestly, how many of you thinks this changes anything in the vast majority of troops across the country? I'm not endorsing the change, I think it stinks. I just can't think of any troops I know that this will affect. Heck, most of the troops I know are lucky to have two patrols.

grinder.....po'boy. Go figure!

I would agree. During elections this year, the question came up about a kid using Jamobree or high advneture for his long term camping instead of summer camp. The answer back from the Lodge was it counts.

Yet it appears that more than my Lodge uses the title. I don't see how it will hurt anything in the grand scheme of things.

Lisa, Just out of curiousity, when the workers voted to unionize at your university, did it eventually result in tuition increases to cover the union demands?

DLister, A Vigil Chief is a youth selected to be responsible for the Vigil top to bottom from the nomination process thru the actual ceremony. He must call on many adults and youth to make it all happen. We don't have a problem at all with it being youth run. Last year we had a youth Vigil Cheif, but the number of youth willing to step up and assist was less than desired. The Lodge is getting the ball rolling earlier this year to enlist more youth to make all aspects of it as youth run as possible.

Hey Barry, I'm an EagleDad too! I'm certainly glad my son wasn't asked a current event question at his EBOR. That kid has an opinion on EVERYTHING and he holds his ground!!!

Not to take the thread off topic, but I'd like to address decline in education in the US. I believe that for all the good that things like "No Child Left Behind" intends to do, it actually hurts education. In an effort to make things better, we are making things average. Federal funding is tied to standardized test scores. To get the federal funding, you have to hit the mark on standardized tests. What does this do? It causes school systems and therefore teachers to "teach to the test". They quit "educating" students in the subject they teach and put their efforts into producing the all important needed standardized test score. If funding were dependent on kids being taught to bark like dogs, you'd see a lot of barking kids. Imagine if state and local school systems were able to set their own standards and compete against other school system and teachers could plan their curriculum to teach students in the subject devoid of hitting the mark for one all important test.....to get federal funding. just my two cents.(This message has been edited by sr540beaver)

nldscout, Not true. As I said earlier, I've never been part of a union and I don't have a desire to....but I'm in a job where I don't need one. Keep in mind that many of the working conditions and benefits we non-union employees take for granted today came about because of union actions years ago. Things like decent wages, 8 hour work days, 5 day work weeks, sick leave, vacation days and group insurance are in part due to unions. Not totally, but in part. Are they as needed today as the once were? Probably not. Do they have a legal right to exist? Yes. Can they be busted? Yes. My dad was 58 years old and looking and planning on a retirement at 63 after having faithfully worked for the company for 32 years. The company decided to bust the union and did. My dad walked into work one day thinking he had a job for a few more years where he could get his ducks in a row for retirement and went hom that evening unemployeed along with 100 other guys in the same boat as him who had over 30 years service. It was either leave and get your benefits or fight and possibly end up with zip. None of them wanted to risk that, so they walked. Ever tried to find a new job making what you made at 58 years old? Fairly impossible. You can be a greeter down at Wal-mart. Within a few years of busting the union, the company was sucked dry by a corporate raider who bought the company once the union was gone. Close to a thousand good jobs were gone.

My son has been asked to serve as a Vigil Vice Chair this year. My son and I both went thru Vigil this last November. It was largely adult run. Our new Lodge Adviser and Lodge Chief are intent on changing that and have the Vigil totally youth run with Advisers fulfilling their role of advising when/if needed. Running the Vigil......just like a Lodge, Chapter, Troop, Crew, etc. is more than a one man job. You need a guy at the top, but he needs people to support him. That is the job of a Vice Chief. Our Vigil Chief is a senior in college this year and my son and the other young man asked to serve as a Vigil Vice Chief are freshmen in college. Since our Vigil is held in November and these guys attend universities out of town, it makes sense to for the Vigil Chief to have help if we are going to keep it youth run.

I would agree that the GUIDE to Safe Scouting are GUIDEelines and not rules or policies except where the G2SS says this: BSA Rules and Policies Bold type throughout the Guide to Safe Scouting denotes BSA rules and policies. When you see bold type, it is not a guideline. It is a rule.

My dad was a union member because he had no choice. In the 32 years he worked at the company, they never went out on strike. I do remember that it looked like they might a few times and he fretted over whether or not he would honor the strike or not. He had a wife and four kids to house and feed and that took precedence over everything else in his mind. Boy, I love my dad! May he rest in peace. I've now been in my industry for 30 years and we aren't a union based industry. I've done well for myself. In fact, by the time I was 28 (53 now) and my dad had been working at his company for those 32 years, I was bringing home more per week than he was. I have nothing against unions. They fixed a lot of work environment issues in years past that the rest of us take for granted today. There seems over time to be a tendancy for union ledaership to become corrupt and for unions to begin making demands that are detrimental to the company. This is known as cutting off your nose to spite your face. I have no issue with private sector unions when they strike an even balance with the company. Public sector unions are an altogether different animal. Governments are not businesses with product and profits, they are governments who provide services thru taxes. Public sector unions don't sit down and negotiate with managment like private sector unions do. They sit down with politicians......politicians who may rely on the unions support in getting elected. In other words, they can and often do work in cahoots with one another to get what they want. If you union backs me in my election bid, I'll see that you get more goodies at the tax payers expense. That smacks of collusion and corruption. In the private sector, unions and management are more of adversaries than buddies.

E, Walk away or cut back? This is my year to cut back and it feels great. I overextended myself last year and felt it. I was an ASM for new scouts in our unit, a Jambo ASM, A WB staffer, a Campmaster and an OA Chapter Adviser all rolled into one. I did seem to live in my uniform and craved some time to stay home, work in the garden and sit in my recliner. The only thing I gave up last year was Campmaster and boy did I hear about it everytime I ran into the guy who runs the program. My son aged out this past weekend, so while I'm not leaving the troop, I am cutting my involvement back. I turned my role with new scouts over to one of the newer dads. There is no Jambo this year and I wasn't asked to staff WB, so I'm good there. My scouting job this year is Chapter Adviser and that is what I'm sticking to. I'm much happier. I'm actually getting to come home, eat dinner in a relaxed manner and sit on the patio and watch the birds at the feeder while I smoke my pipe. I'm actually considering pulling back the mulch on my raised bed garden and planting some veggies for the first time in a couple of years. We are even planning a family vacation. Last year I used every single day of three weeks of vacation for scouting. I've put the word out that I'm cutting back and I am. I knew how to say no, I just didn't do it very often. I'm exercising that option now and feel really good about it. No one is expendable, someone will eventually take up the slack if we make room. I can easily live with my reduced role. Right now, I'm debating if I resign from Chapter Adviser at the end of this year or if I want to go one more year. I began training my replacement almost from day one on the job. After that, I'll decide if I hang up my uniform, pick and choose what I want to be involved in or just go to annual banquets to see old friends.

Perhaps she will be our first female CSE!

Perhaps everyone should have stayed at least 300 feet apart.

heretic

I'll ditto what others here have said. I used to scout in a different district in my council. This district had a tradition of inviting Webelos Dens to come camp and participate in the Camporee with a Troop. It was used as a recruiting opportunity. The Troop's Patrols would end up incorporating Webelos into the Patrol for competitions. Bad, bad idea. The activities were not age appropriate for the Webelos and any patrol who had brushed up on their skills and practiced towards winning the competition had their plans dashed when they had Webelos added in the mix. Other than visiting, Webelos should not be there. Patrols are competing and they don't have time to put on a recruitment dog and pony show. It is my understanding that this practice has come to an end in this district in recent years. Besides, that is what Webelos Woods is for. Our troop pretty much has an open invitiation to the Webelos Dens in our District to come camp with us. Depending on the program of any given campout, we might tell them to wait until another particular campout, but the door is always open to camp or visit a Troop meeting.

Or whether the number of beads had any reflection on the quality of scouter. Seems most people got the gist of the thread.

A little perspective is always a good thing. There were 14 boys in my sons Webelos 1 Den. It dwindled down some in Webelos 2 because there were a few boys and families who wanted to pursue sports over scouting. Only about 7 ended up crossing over. Out of those 7, my son who turned 18 on Saturday and had his Eagle Court of Honor on Sunday was the only boy left standing out of his entire Den. All the rest of them dropped out at some point on the trail. Just because they have been together since Tigers really has little to do where they should go and where they will end up when they age out. Are there guys who go from Tiger to Eagle together. Sure, we have them in our troop. Then we have others like my son who chose to go to a troop 25 miles away when their was literally a troop about 4 blocks from our house. He's never regretted the path he took and I haven't either. I'd ask this parent to quit badmouthing the troop and wish them well on their decision to go elsewhere. Honestly, it sounds like she wants her son to go to the other troop for her own selfish reasons, but she doesn't want her son to go without having his buddies come along. Isn't that what you guys want to, all the buddies to stay together? You might be surprised what that group looks like in three years and realize the angst was much ado about nothing.

desertrat77, Thanks for the post. I have nothing against the old course, as I know many people who attended it and thouroughly loved it. Same for WB21C. It is a rare fellow that I run across who disliked their experience in either course. When I have been on staff and recruited, I took no as an answer. Wood Badge isn't a magical potion, it's just another training. You need to want to go to get anything out of it....just like anything else in life. If someone doesn't want to go, no harm, no foul. All I'm going to do is present the reasons why they might want to consider it and leave the decision up to them. If I were a used car salesman, I'd starve to death. Part of what WB21C set out to correct was the good old boy WB club you saw way back then. There were councils where the same people staffed it over and over and thought they were scouting gods. They had their little domain inside the scouting world and you had to be deemed worthy to be included in the sacred circle. National knew it to be a problem. WB21C made changes so that once you were a Course Director, you could no longer serve on staff other than as a mentor or support staff. In my council, that is who the cooks and pot washers are for the first weekend, former course directors and they must be asked by the current CD. Where there is a large enough pool of people to draw from, natinal wants the staff to be comprised of at least one third new staff. This too keeps the good old boy club from forming back up. To ad to it, there is supposed to be a review and approval of a staff roster that looks at it's diversity. The want male and female, old and young, Cubs, Boy Scouts and Venturer leaders, different religions and ethnicities represented where possible. Hard to form a good old boys club there.

Breaney, Welcome to the forums and congrats! I am a Chapter Adviser. Your Lodge sounds smaller than mine. Don't know if that is because you are in a smaller council or the OA has just dropped off that much. That being said, many Lodges struggle with youth involvement. My council services 24 out of 77 counties in the state of Oklahoma. We basically cover the SW quadrant of the state, so that is a lot of territory. In our case, Chapters make a lot of sense as it can take hours to travel from one end of the Council to the other. Here is how Chapters can serve the Lodge. You give Arrowmen a focus. They can attend monthly Chapter meetings in their District rather than having to travel to another town. They can work with the Troops in their District to get Troops to allow elections and begin implementing the position of Troop OA Rep. A couple of times a year, have the Chapter do something fun open only to the Arrowmen of their Chapter. We do an annual gaming lock-in in December. We are looking at doing a swim or tower climbing day in the summer. Start building Chapter ceremony teams. Again, this allows boys to do something at the local level and not have to travel to other towns. To get the team experienced and ready for OA ceremonies, have them start providing Webelos Arrow of Light or Crossover ceremonies. This gets you even more exposure. Trust me, the Cubs see the team in their regalia and it is just one more reason they want to join Boy Scouts. It also helps to strengthen the bond between Packs and Troops and Troops and the OA. The ability to do elections within your local area is another plus. You are dividing to conquer. Each Chapter develops their own identity, but togehter they are the Lodge. Why have one Lodge ceremony team when you could have X Chapter teams? Why limit leadership opportunities to just the Lodge youth leadership when you could have X Chapter Chiefs and Vice Chiefs? If you can find one enthusiastic OA adult and one boy, you have the beginnings of a Chapter. You can magnify your efforts by the number of Chapters. You can grow your Lodge and your youth involvement.

Here is another honest opinion. ANYONE who would spend in the neighborhood of $200, take two Fridays off of work, spend two weekends of their personal time away from home and family and then work five tickets items over 18 months JUST to get and wear a pair of wooden beads around their neck to be part of an "elite" club are FOOLS. Of the good people I have been fortunate enough to deal with in WB courses, they were there simply because they loved the program and availed themselves of any and all available training to be the best unit scouters they could be.....for thebenefit of the boys. Occasionally you run across the odd one who wants bling, but they are few and far between. After all, who outside the small world of your council would even have any idea what those beads, knots, silver beavers, vigil, etc. even mean? For gosh sakes, I get snickers from grown adults when I walk into a store in my uniform! Maybe I'm just lucky and have a good council with good volunteers. I'd like to think it is that way everywhere, but judging by some of the posts, evidently not. I guess your mileage varies.

E, BSA has been refining and changing the program from the beginning. Many of the same principles from the old course carried to the new course, just worded and packaged differently. Times change, words change. Back when I was a Cub in the mid-60's, this was the Cub Acout Promise, "I ______ promise to do my best to do my duty to God and my country, to be square, and to obey the law of Pack." Ask a boy today what "be square means". Honestly, back in the mid-60's, I thought it was kind of odd. BSA changed it to be "to help other people" in 1972 which makes sense in this day and age. Looking back at my old Wolf and Bear books, they commonly referred to your friends as "fellers" or "fellows". Kids today wouldn't have any idea what that meant. Ahould we return to those books and Promise in an effort to be some sort of purist or because that's the way we did it and we liked it? I think not. Much of the old courses theoretical is contained in other training such as Troop Committee Challenge, SM Specific, IOLS, Safety Afloat, etc. Register with a troop and begin camping and you will learn scouting skills from the experienced adults. In a year or two, you'll be the experienced person teaching the new registers. WB has always been about leadership development, it has just shifted and changed with the times in relation to other training offered.

http://www.scatacook.org/WB/WB-Book-Appendix.pdf

With all the Wood Badge threads going on now, I thought I'd throw a little bit of the "traditions" of Wood Badge in. Regardless of the various course content changes over the years, many of the traditions from the first 1948 course held at Schiff that Green Bar Bill helped write and was SM for still exist in WB21C. From a 1990 printing of a BSA 1988 copyright of A History of Wood Badge in the United States. http://www.scatacook.org/WB/WB-Book-Part1.pdf The First US Wood Badge Course Schiff, 1948 Scoutmaster: William Hillcourt The organization and working of the Wood Badge troop was strictly American. The Boy Scouts of America interpretation of the patrol method was used to its fullest extent. The patrol names picked were of birds and animals found in every state of the Union: Eagle, Bob White, Fox and Beaver. The patrols designed and made their own flags instead of depending on the store-bought variety. The use of patrol totems and signatures was introduced. So was the singing of the "Back to Gilwell" song with mention of each patrol. The participants, in turn, became patrol leaders for a day, and were installed at a proper installation ceremony. The patrol leaders' council met daily and conducted the daily inspection. The senior patrol leader assumed his function as the main troop leader. The "special assistants" handled historical and organizational subjects in short campfire talks. They also acted as game leaders and contest judges. At one point or another, each of the basic Scout requirements was introduced. The handling of the U.S. flag and its history was covered in the morning, as a historical flag was hoisted next to the U.S. flag and the Gilwell flag-hence the three flagpoles of Wood Badge. Other Scout requirements were covered in learning-by-doing periods in the morning, followed by an afternoon climax event in the subject. The unsupervised patrol hike and overnight camp were made a major feature. The patrols took turns acting as program patrol-with a kudu horn for its special designation- and service patrol-designated by a camp spade. After the staff had run an ideal troop meeting and an ideal campfire, the program patrol of the day was challenged to do an even better job. After the staff had policed the campsite and had laid a perfect campfire, the service patrol was to outdo the staff. And there were other special American features: the cracker barrel after every evening event, during which the men could relax and talk over the day's happenings; the rotation of staff members as guests at meals that gave the staff an opportunity to know each of the men, who had answers for many of their questions; the Tenderfoot investiture and the First Class court of honor; the Wood Badge "feast" that became a gastronomical highlight; and the final ceremonial campfire with its high emotional impact.