SR540Beaver

Our troop started this a few years back and I don't care for it all that much. Our reasons for doing it? We are a large troop with a 45 year history. Well over 150 Eagle Scouts over those years. Right now, we have about 20 boys sitting on Life. Now that number is high because we have some like my 17 year old son who earned Life at 14. Regardless, we have a bunch capable of earning Eagle. That is a lot of Eagle COHs. When you start stacking individual Eagle COH's in the calendar along with regular COH's, you start getting burn out and poor attendance. Geez honey, another COH? Didn't we just go to a couple of COH's in the past several weeks? Add to that, we have an SM of a large troop who feels obligated to attend the Eagle COH and all of a sudden he has 10 or 12 additional days a year marked out of his schedule to compliment all the nights at troop meetings, monthly campouts, high adventure, etc. So it was discussed at a committee meeting that as of X date, all Eagle COH's would be part of one of our quarterly regular COH's. Part of the reasoning was that Eagles would actually have a crowd and the younger boys and their families would see Eagles being honored and be inclined to stick with it. All fine and good. My issue is that it is anti-climactic to spend all those years from Tiger to Eagle and your ceremony is tacked onto the end of a COH and held with several other Eagles. Not to mention that your relatives from out of town can't make it for the date the troop has decided. Eagle is "just another rank", but a rank that few attain. It's a big deal and it deserves to be recognized individually.

I don't see it either, but I know it is a matter of perception. A good case in point is electronics and the struggle to keep them out of scouting.....be it meetings or campouts. Adults like the image of a kid interacting with his patrol as they cook dinner in camp or do KP or hike along a trail. What they don't want to see is a kid texting, playing a game or sitting with earphones plugged into each side of his head in his own little world. We had three contingent troops fpr Jamboree. One SM had an ongoing dialog with parents concerning letting kids bring their phones. The troop I was with, it never came up other than the SM saying we wouldn't be allowing them. He took the old school approach of summer camp that a kid and parents will survive and thrive with a week of seperation. It got down to it and we had a single parent who evidently didn't listen in the troop meetings throw a hissy fit to the council. He insisted on immediate access to his son whenever he desired and if the SM wasn't going to allow phones, then the SM HAD to be near his son at all times so he could talk to his son if he "needed" to talk to him. The council asked our SM to reconsider his stance.....especially since the BSA finally started firming up their "most connected Jambo ever" plans. Before, they alluded to things. At the last minute, they began revealing contests as such for kids to facebook, twitter, etc. Thanks BSA for letting us know 18 months after we started down this road. For the most part, BSA delivered on their intnet of making it the most connected Jamboree ever. They leveraged the latest technology available. Is that a bad thing? Depends on who you talk to. Did kids like it? You bet. Will it cause problems back home when little Billy insists on using his phone to text his buddies during KP time since the BSA now endorses electronics on outings? Yes. Don't get me wrong. I'm not arguing for or against. Just that I see cultural changes taking place in BSA just like they have in the church and some people will welcome it while others will lament it. Personally, a preacher with spiked colored hair, earrings and tattoos drinking a Starbucks is a turn off for me. For others, that kind of preacher draws them where a more traditional guys doesn't. Bottom line, it all boils down to substance over style. If you do the style to draw them in, you still have to have the substance to ultimately fulfill your mission. When you resort to gimmicks, you have to continually out gimmick yourself.(This message has been edited by sr540beaver)

NJ, As a 53 year old evangelical Christian who feels abandoned due to the trendiness of churches today, this article hits home with me both from a religious and a scouting standpoint. The trick to both is staying true to the core values while making your message relevant to society. It can be a fine line that is easy to cross. Like our parents used to tell us, if everyone else was jumping off a bridge, is that any reason for you to do it? My personal history included a church that was a community. We knew each other and we ministered to each other's needs. I can't imagine how being the member of a "church" where I watch a pastor two towns over on my computer screen is going to minister to me when I have lost a loved one. Can you imagine holding a troop meeting or a campout online where the boys can't interact?

I'll ditto Brent as I had the same experience as him. After 6 months with a troop that turned out to be much less than what we bargained for and who wanted absolutely no input form the "new folks", we left and started a new troop. Since that new troop was five or six 11 year old boys with no older boys to serve as an example, it only lasted a year. We went to a different troop with a good boy led program and have been there for the last 5 years.

ScoutBox, I was in the crowd and they were booing the President and nothing else.

Just how does one go about "making" the ringer patrol staff next year?

sailing, I do know our staff in subcamp 21 had steak one night....unless they were pulling my leg. The patrol menu wasn't all that bad, it iwas just vey kid friendly...as it should be. By about the fifth day I would have killed for a salad. You can only eat just so many hamburgers, hotdogs, tacos, chicken strips and pizza over a 15 day period. I agree on the arena dinner. It was inferior to the lunches. Are you sure you didn't have a hole in your bag? Ours had chips, pudding cup, fruit cup, drink, candy and two packages of cheese and crackers. I was less than impressed. If you noticed, the lunches were darn near frozen and they suggested you eat them within 30 minutes of gettting it. I believe they went more non-perishable for the arena dinner. Here's an idea. Just park a boat load of refrigerated trailers down at the entrances to the arena and pass them out as the folks walk in.

Vigil, I'll tell him when I see him at our Summer Fellowship next Friday! I'm a Chapter Adviser. Unfortunately, he is in a different Chapter. While I have some really great guys, he is an outstanding young man. I was 1st ASM for Jambo and the SM had the rockers. I'm pretty sure he was fairly liberal with them.

Information funneled to our Jamboree committee before we got to Jamboree that a troop of 36 would be limited to 18 tickets for youth and no adults would be able to attend. The reason as I understand it is that they made this year's "show" bigger and more immersive than previous shows. In the past you sit in stadium seating and watched a show. This time it was interactive and involved water slides and such. Instead of being able to seat 500 people at once, they took small groups thru. Probably a little too ambitious or they should have built two to accommodate everyone.....but that would have cost twice as much and been twice the effort. It was not limited to OA members. In fact, our Lodge Chief was the SPL of our Jambo Troop and he chose not to go so someone lese could go. Actually, a number of our older scouts and Arrowmen did the same. We took the number of kids who wanted to go, wrote that many numbers on pieces of paper and then the boys drew numbers. If they were 1 thru 18, they went. We actually had some who drew a winning number decide they didn't want to go and gave up their ticket to a buddy. There were times that the stand by line was packed, There were other times, especially towards the last few days of Jamboree where there were only a handful of people in line. My Jambo guide that we were given where the boys had things signed off for rockers is packed away at home. I'd be interested in seeing what it said if anything about earning the MC rocker. Just wondering if going to the Scouting Vault open to everyone including adults was a secondary activity that would count. Many of the rockers were of a "do 5 ou of 9" variety.

Beavah: "Yah, SR540, did yeh have a relatively new Jambo committee this year?" No, this wasn't our first rodeo. We had some new folks, but we also had people going back to Jamborees in the 80's on the committee. Of course there are commissioned sales folks and contractors who don't bring home a weekly paycheck. I'm not talking about folks who can't make a payment on a specific date. I'm not even talking about people who are a month or two behind. We work closely enough with the families to know who is who and what their situation is and work accordingly with them. The ones who become a real concern are the ones who sign up, go 4 or 5 months without a payment, won't avail themselves of opportunities to at least show some intent.....yet insist that they are still in and want their son to go. We had 120 youth and adult spots at $3,000 each and that comes to #360,000. We try to educate them that the council isn't sitting on that much cash in the bank and can front Jamboree costs. We take money in in installments so we can make needed payments as we go. We can't wait until April or May 2010 to collect the cost from everyone and then make payments to the vendors who have supplied us with the items we ordered. It just doesn't work that way. We need at least a good faith effort. Something. Even a quarter of a payment. That isn't being non-compassionate. That is just the way the world works. You can't wish your way to a major event like Jamboree. But you are right, we are off track. Jambo was the freshest thing on my mind when this discussion started. I think we are actually close to holding the same thought, we are just taking opposite ends. You think that by having things handed to them a boy will reciprocate when he is older. While I don't disagree with that, I believe that in order to give, you have to have something to give and that means working and saving and being responsible with your earnings. If you don't do that, you can't give to those in need. Boys need to learn both in Scouting. A scout is thrifty and "pays his own way" thru raising part of the cost of his scouting is an invaluable lesson for being a good citizen of good character. No one is suggesting that they grow up to take an attitude of I got mine, screw you. We've beat this dead horse enough, so I'll leave you with this thought. Give a man a fish and you've fed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you've fed him for a lifetime. There is a time to give a man a fish. The greater and longest lasting good is served in teaching him how to fish so he can feed himself and others. That is truely being thrifty and paying your own way while still being helpful, friendly and kind.

You know, after looking at the Patrol menu and the Staff menu online.......I'm going on staff next time. I prefer the adult friendly menu over the kid friendly menu, but I'm an old fart. http://www.bsajamboree.org/Food/StaffMenu.aspx

I've always preferred Survivorman over Man vs Wild. Man vs Wild has grown on me over time. Here are my pros and cons of each. Les truely "survived" his experiences, but he wasn't really all that great at surviving. Yes, he presented skills he had learned prior to the show, but I don't know that I would call him a survival expert. He sure did go hungry a lot. I do admire that he carried his own camera equipment and shot the show himself. Bear seems to have the skills, but he isn't really surviving as he has a crew there for safety and goes off to a hotel in the evening. Bear does a lot of really stupid stuff for dramatic effect. If you are actually trying to survive and get out alive, you don't jump off of a cliff into water below. It could be 18 feet deep or 18 inces. If it is 18 inches, you're going to have two broken legs, internal injuries and you'll die alone in the water. There is no telling how long it takes them to set up a shot and take all safety concerns into account before Bear makes the jump. Unfortunately, you don't have that luxury if you are lost and alone. Hopefully people watching realize not to emulate many of his feats. The new dual survival seems to be a much better how to show giving you two different perspectives on how to do it. They actually catch food to eat. Perhaps Les should go with them and learn a few things.

TwoCub, The menu was posted prior to Jamboree. The cooking instructions were not to my knowledge, but the menu was. We used it to work with a boy we had who was allergic to EVERYTHING! http://www.bsajamboree.org/Food/PatrolMenu.aspx

Our troop uses Eureka Timberlines exclusively for our scouts. Probably have 25 or so in service. We use a magic marker to write the year and a tent number on the tent body and fly to keep track of them. We just retired some from 1982 this past year.

jblake: "one with authority problems (knows everything about anything)." Just one? Lucky you! We had 36 of them!

I think it is a region and subcamp communications breakdown. I'm in the Southern Region and was in Sub Camp 21. Our commisioners did an excellent job providing us with information and getting answers to our questions. The idea behind the rockers is to give the youth participants an incentive to experience at least x number of activities in the various areas. Hey Timmy look! If you do 5 out of 9 things here, you can get this segment to go on your shirt. If you do the same thing with these other 5 categories, you can get all 6 segments. The 100% patch was incentive for adult leaders to point out the incentive of rockers to the youth.

I'm not getting down on anyone. Let me tack a different tack here. I'll use Jamboree as an example again. Two kids sign up for Jamboree at the same time. One seeks help and receives it. Both know up front that monthly payments of $150 are supposed to be made thru a certain date where the total amount is paid. Few if any councils have money to front for making payments to National, the travel company or the vendors supplying gear. The money for that comes from the monthly payments made and put in the bank. After a year of making payments, Scout Timmy is up to date on payments with $1800 paid. Scout Billy has only made his initial payment which was actually the campership he received, meaning he hasn't paid anything. The payments being made over time to vendors and travel agencies is on Timmy's dime. At some point, Billy has to make up the difference or lose his spot as there are kids on a waiting list wanting to go who can pay. If Billy and his family really want him to go, won't they make the sacrifices needed and avail themselves of the opportunities available to raise the money they can't afford to pay out of their pocket? Are they being fair to Timmy who has been working to pay his way by piggybacking off of his funds? I can assure you that this was a scenario repeated several times over and discussed on a regular basis by the Jamboree committee. We'll do what we can to help, but at some point you are going to have to make up the difference or lose your spot. It's tough to say that to a family, but they can't go for free. Now, that is Jamboree. For a regular old average campout at a council property in our troop, the cost is $15 to cover food and gas. Popcorn aside, we have a couple of other fundraisers per year where that amount of money can easily be earned if desired.

The 100% is indeed for the adult leadership.

Lisa, Points well taken and mostly agreed with. I've always made my son do his own fundraising for sports or scouting. Heck, I'm one of those evil parents who expects him to continue making A's in school, stay involved in the troop at 17.5 and work a job to pay for his own vehicle and all it's expenses. He gets no free ride from me selling sausage at work. I may have sent the email to my coworkers, but he had to pick up and deliver as well as do his own selling. The great thing about this fundraising company is that they really do have a superior product at a reasonable price and people seek it out. It is a seasonal fundraiser as the company only produces their products during certain times of the year. People actaully get upset with you when they find out you were selling and didn't contact them. I don't know what they put in it.....but it really is THAT good! I don't want to appear cold hearted as I am a charitable person as I said before. I understand the single parent, low income, small network scenario. Most fundraisers are put in place specifically for those people to supplement their lacking funds. I make a decent living, but I'm just as pressed for time as the next guy. It all depends on how badly you want something and how hard you're willing to work for it. A lot of people will whine and complain about the cost of an event. For the 2005 Jamboree, I personally ran a council wide fundraiser all by myself for our three contingent troops. About 30% were all that could be bothered with it. Out of that, we had some over achievers and we had others that raised $10 to $15. Everyone ended up paying and getting to go. It is a shame that there is a means to supplement paying for a high cost item and so few people are unwilling to take advantage of it.

Beavah, If they can't afford it and they don't have the time to work towards it, why would they sign up for it in the first place? Our Jambo fee was $3,000 and the availabe funds to help were very small. They were still on the hook for the bulk of it. We had a variety of fundraisers that really wouldn't be a burden for anyone to do. We have a local fundraising company that manufactures bacon and sausage. Everyone in our state knows and loves the product. It sells itself. I sent out a single email to 30 or 40 people I deal with at work and sold $900 worth with only a few keystrokes. Don't get me wrong. I'm a charitable person.....I really am. I've tuaght it to my son and to our scouts. There are some real people out there with some real needs. There are far more people who have discovered it is easier to do nothing and let other people care for them. Some of the folks looking for help to go to Jambo were from my troop and I know their situation. They have the time and ability to fundraise, they choose not to.

I do know we came in under budget. Just how much, I'm not sure and probably never will. It will be interesting to see if any of that makes its way back to the participants. There is some overhead to a council and it is fair for that to be budgeted in, but........things like a Jamboree shouldn't be a revenue stream for a council.

TnScout, Looking at the pot, the soup might not look pretty. Until you've actually tasted it, how do you know whether it is spoiled or not. I hear a lot of people talk against training and Wood Badge......who have never attended. How can they form an informed opinion? I'll give you some background on me and this isn't intended to sound like I'm tooting my horn. I'm fully trained. I was fully trained when I was Pack Committee Chair and now as an ASM in the Troop I serve. I took the Troop training before we even crossed over. I'm even trained as an MB Counselor even though I've never taught an MB. I'm trained in First Aid, Wilderness First Aid, CPR with AED, Hazardous Weather, Saftey Afloat, Safe swim Defense, etc. I'm Wood Badge trained and I've served on three Wood Badge staffs. I've staffed IOLS and Webelos outdoor training. I've been an ASM for the 2005 and 2010 Jamborees. I believe in training. Did I like it all? No. Did I agree with it all? No. Do I think some of it can be done better? Yes. Do I think I know better than ther BSA how to design and run the program they provide and should just go it alone? No. We sit on opposite sides of the fence looking in on the other. You look over and see beaded and knotted 300 pound beavers and bears. I look over and see someone who wants to run a program that openly admits he has no desire to be trained to run. I'll take the beaded and knotted 200 pounders every time. To get hwere they are, they've put in countless hours in training and years in participating in operating a unit. Those beavers and bears have been on the untrained side and the trained side and know the value of the training. Those who refuse to go because they know better don't know what they are missing. Like Moosetracker, we were part of an untrained troop when we first crossed over and after 6 months, we said goodbye. That was 2004 and we've never regretted our decision. That troop is still struggling to survive. I value training because I know I don't know it all. I want our troop to be a BSA troop and not a SR540Beaver troop.

Keep in mind that every merit badge is "represented" at Jamboree and not all are taught.

Beavah, I just returned from Jamboree. I've spent the last 18 months having monthly Jamboree committee meetings with the leadership of our other two contingent troops. I aslo went in 2005. We always have kids sign up who can't afford Jamboree and need help. That is fine, it needs to be open to all and those who are in true need, should be helped. The part that dismays us is that many of those same kids/families who have trouble making ends meet are the ones who will NOT participate in the fundraisers we do to help pay for Jamboree. What the heck? We'll help you, but we expect you to put some effort into it yourself rather than have it handed to you. You are not entitled to it.

Our mama's taught us all that if you don't have anything good to say about someone, don't say anything at all. Cheering is an acceptable response. Booing is not. Silence often speaks louder than words. The same message said in silence would have been deafening and a whole lot classier.