SR540Beaver

OOC?

Does the young man have a job that would interfere with troop meetings or outings? If so and if he has met the 6 months active and POR requirments, I'd cut him some slack. My son is a 16.5 year old Life Scout and former SPL. We've been footing the bill on his truck for the last half year because he had scheduled commitments as a JASM, an OA Chapter officer and ceremony team member, staffing Cub resident camp and staffing NYLT week after next. When he is finished with NYLT, he is expected to get a job and start making his truck loan and insurance payments. At that point, his scouting will be subject to his work scedule instead of the other way around. Isn't this part of what we are preparing young men for? I'm not in favor of 13 year old Eagles, but I understand how it becomes more difficult for them to be 100% active after their 16th birthday. We have roster of 60 boys and a good number of them are 16 and over with jobs. They are active as their jobs allow.

In our council, Pow Wow is traditionally held the first Saturday of November and contains training for all BSA programs.

Your example doesn't really prove anything except to support your preconceived notions. Can you provide a "real" example from the media of the same story spun from different angles?

Local council option. I am going as an ASM. Our SE made a decision based on the current state of the economy that the boys going will be able to mix and match new and old uniform parts as needed to make up our required three complete uniforms. The only requirement is that he wants them all to wear the new green tabs regardless of what parts of the uniform they wear.

Lisa, No doubt true. Of course, the uniform and knowing when and how to wear it is part of that overall big picture. There is a time and place for everything. Doing summer camp laundry isn't one of those times in my book.

Looks like the BSA is getting into the whitewater high adventure business. Boy Scouts Sign Agreement to Purchase Fayette County Property http://www.cbs59.com/story.cfm?func=viewstory&storyid=61979

I always get a kick out of all the hand-wringing over uniforms. It is my firm personal belief that getting rid of the uniform wouldn't change a thing in our membership numbers. Scouting would still be geeky just as marching band and church attendance would be. You join scouting because the program sounds fun. You don't avoid joining because there is a uniform involved. Was I self concious when I suited up as an adult after dropping out as a Webelos in 1967? Sure. Did it last long? No. Why? Because I go places where hundreds and sometimes thousands of people are proudly dressed the same as me. I'll stop and pump gas or go into a grocery store to grab a gallon of milk or stop by Wal-mart in my unifrom. If people want to snicker at me, that is their small minded perogative. I'm serving my community, are they? The same mentality eventually takes hold in the boys if they are in a troop with a culture of uniforming. My 16 year old son went thru the uniform willy-nilly's duing 7th and 8th grade. By 9th grade, he was a proud scout and could care less about peer pressure and whether people thought it was cool or not. While his peers spent the summer in the house playing video games or on the sidewalk skateboarding, he had already been to a National Jamboree at 12 and Northern Tier at 13, plus summer camps, shooting rifles and shotguns, rock climbing, rapelling, etc. In fact, many of his peers would accuse him of lying when he told them how he spent his summer. If anything, he started thinking that the folks calling him a loser were the real losers and that is when he quit caring about what they thought of him, scouting and wearing a uniform. He'll wear it anywhere now and doesn't care if he gets looks, stares or snickering. He is spending his second summer staffing camp and staffing NYLT and therefore spends a large part of his summer IN uniform. When it comes to socks, he and his staffing buddies go the full monty........nothing but old school knee socks for them. They wear them like a badge of honor. not only can you tell a staffer at a distance by their staff shirt and hat, you can tell by the socks. That is THEIR choice......and they will actually waer them on their weekend trip home and walk into restaurants with them. Imagine? But I guess they could wear their regular heavy metal band t-shirts and holey jeans and be more comfortable blending in looking like the non-scouts. Lord knows we don't want them to be considered "different" in any way.

Our troop is like Lisa's. Full uniform is just a part of our troop culture. Sure we have boys that are resistant. I don't know how many guys I'll see struggling into a shirt walking across the parking lot or unbuttoning it on the way out the door. But they are in uniform at the meeting. Our adults wear the uniform and the PLC does too. We usually take in about 20 new scouts a year. We don't "require" them to have a full uniform when they crossover, but we do tell them they need to work on becoming fully uniformed as soon as possible because we are a fully uniformed troop. We've been around for 45 years and are one of the largest troops in the council. We are boy led and because the culture has been full uniform forever, it just isn't questioned or complained about.

MRCTroop340, You are incorrect about 21st Century WB not being required. Here is what the 2010 Council Jamboree Guide from national says: Unit Leader Qualifications Scoutmaster Have served as a Scoutmaster for at least one year during the three-year period prior to July 1, 2010. Completed basic Scoutmaster training or Boy Scout Fast Start and Scoutmaster and Assistant Scoutmaster Leader Specific Training, No. 34879. Completion of Wood Badge for the 21st Century. Be able to serve as a role model of physical fitness. Have participated in the prejamboree training experience. Have filed a Jamboree Personal Health and Medical Record, Class 3, No. 67-34412, before the prejamboree training with the council jamboree committee. Complete the 60-minute Youth Protection Training. Be approved by the local council. Although not required, Scouters Key is a desirable qualification.(This message has been edited by sr540beaver)

ASM915, We suffered the loss of a boy in our troop a couple of years ago. Tragically, it was by his own hand. His family did donate his organs as well. It is a trying time for family, friends and a troop when a young person is lost. I understand what is happening with you all at this point in time. Everyone is in my thoughts and prayers.

My son is 16 and a Life Scout. His current pair of old school uniform pants are so faded and worn, I'm surprised they don't go poof when he puts them on. He staffs summer camp and they wear scout pants and shorts as part of their uniform. He has not really shown any interest in the new uniform even though dad has one. I ordered him two new pair.

Whatever camp we go to each year, we always take advantage of their new scout program. Most camps ask that you provide someone to help ride shotgun on the class. One of our NS ASM's is going to camp this summer and will provide this help. This gives him the opportunity to evaulate the strength of the program so we can fill in any gaps and make sure they actually meet the requirements rather than just getting them rubber stamped. A side note, while we don't let it dictate our own new scout program in the troop (we typically get 15 to 20 new scouts per year), we do take a look at what the summer camp program covers and focus on other requirements back home.

Scouter760, A boy who is disinterested enough at 14 to drop out most likely isn't a kid who is going to be on a troop's OA ballot. Aside from the minimum requirements of rank and nights camping, a youth candidate should be a Scout's Scout. The kid with the camping skills everyone else looks up to. The kid who camps regardless of weather or any other hardship. The kid who best exemplifies the Oath and Law. The kid who always provides service to others. That is the boy that the Order wishes to induct and who the election team should point the troop towards when they explain the process. The kid elected to OA "should" be the kid who is in it for the long haul.(This message has been edited by sr540beaver)

Ed, We live by the Scout Oath and law and we lead by example. Do you really want to defend the boorish behavior and lack of concern for safety that these leaders displayed? Fleetfoot has confirmed that they were up util 3:00 AM on Friday night and Saturday night and got up at 6:00 AM and drove kids on 6 hours of sleep in a 48 hour period. You honestly don't see a problem with that or you just want to argue for the sake of arguing?

We do have a lights out dime setermined by the PLC on each campout. The PL makes sure his guys are secure in their tents and reports to the SPL. The SPL reports to the SM when the PL's turn in. Then the SPL turns in. Some of us adults stay up longer than others, but we are always quiet. Midnight is usually the latest any adult stays up. We always have our campouts planned by a boy who is mentored by an adult. There is always a planned program. Staying up half the night giggling in the tents does not lend itself well to mountain biking or a 5 mile hike the next day. Besides, we never have a fire on Friday night as we are busy setting up camp and would have to put it out almost as soon as we had time to actually fire it up. Please tell me they don't go to bed at 3:00 AM with the fire still burning? This is just the culture of our troop. We do get irritated at the inconsiderate actions of outher troops that are up and yelling at midnight, but usually camporee staff takes care of it. My suggestions. Use ear plugs. If a boy has a problem in the middle of the night....you already have several adults still up, so why should you be sweating it? Find a troop more in line with your philosophy.

HICO, If you don't see any value and don't want to go.....don't. I've been to WB and staffed two courses with a third coming up. While it is rare, we occasionally get someone there who reluctantly signed up and has walked in with a bad attitude. They are miserable and affect everyone in their patrol. Sometimes though, they actually get i nthe groove and decide that it was indeed a good move on their part. I'll tell you a true story for what it is worth. In the troop I served before my current troop, the SM I was ASM under was also the District Training Chair. He was also an Eagle Scout. He told me that the hardest person to get to attend training of any kind was the Eagle Scouts like him. He said that they figured they knew it all from their experiences 30 years ago as a boy who earned Eagle. Additional training never hurts, even for those who have been there, done that.

Not to hijack the thread....but. Here are two of my buddy system pet peeves. Summer camp usually has around 500+ folks at any given camp. Staff, adults and campers everywhere. The property is usually fenced in. I personally don't have a problem with a kid walking around camp without a buddy. I recall one week in an old troop of mine where the adults made a sport of sitting by the road and asking single kids where their buddy was and sending them back to wherever they came from. That was childish. The other was what I consider one of those scouting myths I've seen argued here before. Scouts can't tent alone because of the buddy system. What? Why not? Now, in the troop I now serve, we use troop tents, so we make the most of them and put either two or three boys in them. On any given campout, we might have 40 to 45 boys. We can cover that with 15 tents. We don't allow personal tents for the boys because we own troop tents and because we can't haul 45 tents or take up that much room in a campground somewhere. All of that being said, when I served a troop with less than 10 boys that did not own troop tents, we allowed boys to bring their personal tents and stay alone if they so chose. One of the arguments is safety or illness. Tent walls are pretty thin if you have not noticed. You can hear a bodily noise from 100 feet away on a still night. Having a guy laying next to you isn't going to make you any safer than if he is 10 feet away in his own tent. I also don't like the idea that they have to wake a buddy up at 3:00 AM to walk over to the tree line and take a leak.

Do you really mean a troop or do you mean a pack? Packs pretty much follow the school year, but might possibly have a few events or day camp or half week resident camps. I know of only one troop in my council that "shuts down" for the summer. They don't have meetings from the time they go to summer camp until school starts. This troop is very, very adult led though. Generally, troops go year round.

Barry and I are in the same council. We've both staffed WB, but not together. We know many of the same people. We have a person from Barry's district that is very connected to WB who gives one of the most inspirational WB recruiting talks you'll ever hear. He refers to WB as magic. He also calls WB the BSA's elite leadership training for adults. He is correct on both counts. We have a ranger in our coucil that I am friends with who has also staffed WB who will tell you that he wishes people didn't sell WB with words like magic and elite. He likes and respects WB. But his take on it is that it is an "additional" volunteer training for adults. It is a great course that anyone can take something away from back to the troop, job, home, church, life, etc. I think they are both right in their own respects. We shouldn't sell WB as the end all, be all course for Scouters. That being said, of the literally hundreds of people I associate with who have gone thru WB, there is only one who didn't like it. He was a guy from my old Pack who was the eternal pessimist and found fault in absolutely everything. Don't judge WB based on other people. Just about every council's website has info on WB. Read what it is all about and then determine if it is right for you as an individual. Additional training, if you have the time and money is NEVER a bad thing.

Take a look at www.flutetree.com for flute music.

Pack, I'll use them in my debris shelter if that is OK with you?

Gern, Which reinforces the idea of having a buddy. If you can't push the button, they probably can.

I agree, there is risk and then there is RISK. Knowledge, skill and experience help mitigate risk, but don't remove it. If folks just have to solo, at least carry a personal locator beacon so the family can have a body to bury. I do have to admit, I'm an insulin dependent diabetic, so I am especially sensitive to solo adventure. For me personally, it is a very possible recipe for disaster and therefore an unacceptable risk for me.(This message has been edited by sr540beaver)

I'm a person who enjoys my solitude. My solitude however does not require me to be miles away from people in the wilderness. I do understand the attraction. That being said....and not meaning to offend those who enjoys solo adventures, I find it a foolhardy practice.