SR540Beaver

jblake, I have to assume one of two things or both. Either you have some pretty darned expensive summer camps in your area or your close proxemity to BWCA cut your costs and you did your own thing instead of utilize Northern Tier. Around here in Oklahoma, summer camp is anywhere from $175 to $200 for the week. When our troop took two crews to Atikokan this past summer, the cost was about $875 per head.....with gear costs on top of that. Just the Northern Tier part was something like $500 I believe.

Avid, Yet many scouters resist attending WB because they've been thru all of that junk at work or the military and don't see how doing one more course would be different. BTW click23, I agree with Avid.

eagle-pete, I'll ditto what Sue said. The elitism he speaks of is not the staffs attitude, but that BSA will not allow pre-21st Century participants to staff now. Imagine if you wanted to staff 5 or 6 years from now and were told that you'd have to re-attend the course and re-earn your beads to be worthy of staffing. It smacks of elitism to those who have served for years and earned beads years ago to be told thanks, but no thanks unless you do a re-do. I have two scouting buddies who are both Silver Beavers. They are both heavily involved in scouting at the unit, district and council level. They took the old course. They both want to staff a WB course. They can not without taking the course and earning new beads. They find it highly insulting and hurtful. They both refuse to do it again just for the opportunity to staff.

http://archive.lnt.org/LNTHistoryPaper.pdf

And here all this time I was under the impression that men died earlier than women because they nagged us to death! Did I actually say something that politically incorrect?

The Local Tour Permit has a signature line next to the statement, "I have in my possesion a copy of Guide to Safe Scouting, No. 34416D, and have read it." Knowing more than the G2SS is great. Not possessing or having read the G2SS is unacceptable.

All driving, except for short trips, should be done in daylight. There is a big difference between SHOULD and MUST. MUST would mean that BSA black letter says you can ONLY travel during daylight hours. SHOULD recognizes that it is a "best practice" where practical. When the sun goes down at 5:00 PM in the winter, you'd have to wait until Saturday morning to leave for an outing. While BSA policy says you "should" travel during daylight hours, they recognize that you can not always do that and traveling after dark is permissible. Otherwise, the word would be must. Even we dreaded book thumping, rule quoters know how to read a rule like a "reasonable" person.

Calico, Absolutely!!! That is what I get for giving the Readers Digest version. We adults had to do much of the work, but it was always with a scout by our side to learn how to do it.

gwd, I was once involved in starting a troop of all 11 year olds. We only had about 8 boys total. There were no older boys to teach or train or lead by example. The adults had to fill in for much of that. What we did was go with one patrol and dispense with the SPL and ASPL roles. Heck, how could we have them? If we had an SPL and ASPL, that left us with 6 scouts. That would be 2 patrols of 3. Since not all 8 boys showed up all the time, the patrol method wasn't going to work very well with a patrol of 1 or 2 on a campout. We went with one patrol and PL who effectively was the SPL. He was charged with running the meetings as well as being in charge of his patrol. It worked for us. As small as you are, make one patrol with a PL and APL and have them function as a patrol until you grow to the point that you can have two patrols. Our first PL ran for and was elected to SPL when we had enough boys for two patrols.

A few years ago, me and two fellow scouters decided to start a new troop for reasons I won't bore you with. All of our scouts were 11 years old, yet we were determined to have a boy led troop. Looking for guidance, I went to lunch with a wise veteran scouter named Barry (Eagledad). I'll never forget what he told me about boy led. There is no single definition. It will look different in every troop. A larger troop that has been around for years and has an active older boy program might be boy led and the boys handle every aspect of their meetings and do all their planning, training, etc. A brand new troop that is small and has only new scouts might be boy led and the boys only do the opening of their meeting. That might be all they are capable of at the time......but they are still leading to the best of their given ability at the time. Barry warned me not to get locked into a single idea of what boy led looked like, because it is ever changing. Think of a college football team with a lot of seniors who all graduate. Now you are left with underclassman and having to rebuild your program. The same happens in a troop. One year you have strong boy leadership and the next year you don't. The adults occasionaly have to step in and fill the gap to get the boys back to where they need to be. It is always an unfinished process. That Barry......he sure loves this scouting stuff!

Lisabob: "I had supposed that all of the above was just a feature of our CD's style and level of communication skills." I guess this ties into the recent threads on tweaks and adaptations. Each council and CD puts their own flavor on WB, but it is scripted from beginning to end. When the CD goes for the required CD conference, they promise to deliver the material as scripted and not to deviate from it. Even the little pearls of wisdom the CD says at the activities comes from the book. The intent is that every WB participant gets the same training and experience regardless of when or where they take the course. Tweaks to the course I staffed were things like moving one or two presentations around in the schedule as long as they didn't affect the continuity of the material. We also changed up who did some of the presentations between TG's and other staff. Also, we don't do the hike and campout.....which by the way is allowed for in the syllabus, so it relly isn't a tweak. Just like the scouting program, there is an expectation to deliver it as designed with some built in flexibility based on circumstances. What made my course special? Probably catching the fever even worse once I met so many like minded people.

Yes they are good!!! I love the delicate sponge cake with the creme filling inside. I've even had them battered, deep fried and sprinkled with powdered sugar at the state fair. What? Tweaks? Not twinkies? Oh. Nevermind. Carry on.

Hmmmm, hitchhiking? Not something I recommend. I did it once in my college days when I ran out of gas and was fortunate enough to be picked up by a gal in a bikini. What were we talking about? Oh yeah, Man vs Wild and Survivorman. I've been a fan of Survivorman for some time now and have seen each show repeated times. It beats Man vs Wild hands down. The Brit is a showboater with a crew to back him up. Les Stroud is all by himself and does his own filming. He sometimes comes across a little sensational too, but I respect his info and what he does a lot more.

Are webrings still around? What with search engines like Google around these days, I don't see the point in a webring.

Beavah: "I think the principle is service and the kids, and that's what's important." I honestly don't know anyone here that disagrees with that statement. The only difference is those who think you can best be of service to the kids by using the methods, aims, oath, law and program as designed and those who think they are merely suggestions to pick and chose from based on personal philosophy.

Speaking of straw man hypotheticals, just how many rule spouting scouters in your council trot around with a backpack full of BSA materials to lambast rule breaking scouters like a drill instructor? Are there some anal retentive scouters out there who polish their tent stakes after a campout? Sure, but they are the exception to the rule. Call it tweaks or adaptations if you want, but scouting has always been a flexible program within a basic framework. I don't know any scouter who doesn't realize that. But, it IS a program with elements that are not (or are not supposed to be) negotiable. I don't care how much backcountry training or experience troop 2's leaders have, they have an obligation to know and use G2SS principles over and above their personal experience. A scout is trustworthy. When those leaders sign the tour permit, they put a signature on a line that says, "I have in my possesion a copy of Guide to Safe Scouting, No. 34416D, and have read it." I suppose that since their experience far exceeds the G2SS they could further continue to tweak their program by not filing a tour permit when they take the boys out to play paintball for the weekend. But that is just another straw man argument I guess.

These are all great responses to the question as stated. Jblake, can you provide a little more detail? Is it just an adult perception problem, or do you have a patrol running amok and going agianst the PLC. I guess what I'm asking is why these adults leaders think there is a problem? Do you have patrols acting totally independent of one another or cooperating thru a PLC? A patrol should have a certain amount of autonomy depending on how things are set up to accomodate the program. Most troops don't practice it, but patrols can do patrol camping without any adults present. Several factors come into play to do this. Is a patrol mature enough and experienced enough and are all safety concerns satisfied. The SM would have final say on whether to allow a patrol campout away from adults. Most troops don't consider something like this and are not set up for it. What if every patrol wanted to do their own individual campout each month with no adults involved? Now that is patrol autonomy! But what about adult association? How are the boys going to get to camp? What if two patrols want to go to opposite ends of the state on the same weekend and both want to use the same equipment? If things like this were happening, I can see how some adults would be concerned at the troop level. More info please.

Beavah, You've started a multitude of threads recently with slight variations on a theme. You keep advocating tweaks and adaptations to the Scouting program and admonishing those who would employee "thoughtless adherence to scripted procedure". I'm really not sure who you are targeting with your comments? Just who here at Scouter.com is advocating "thoughtless adherence to scripted procedure"?

Awww, come on Gonzo....those are just tweaks and adaptations. After all, it's for the children.

So, is First Tarrant the only BPSA group in the US or are there more? Is there a BPSA-USA organization like national in Irving? No amount of Googling has turned anything up. You said you were a BPSA-USA commissioner. How many units are there to commish for?

Kudu, Back in April 2005, you said that BPSA-USA was set to launch in the US. Is the First Tarrant group out of Fort Worth still the only BPSA group in the US? A google search didn't turn up anything other than the First Tarrant group.

Ahhhhhh.....well, Packsaddle deserves whatever he gets. To insert a smiley face, just type : and then ) together and it will insert a smiley face. The winky face is a ; and ) typed together.

robbyynn, Not all websites are created equal. That being said, our council website has a page for each district with the name, phone number and e-mail address for every district level position. The same is true at the council level.

local, Brass knuckles??? Who have I been rough with and when???

A NON-reunion? To me that implies not attending something or bypassing a reunion to do your own thing with a few people who also don't want to go.