SR540Beaver

Hmmmm.....I know exactly what you are talking about. I like working with them all, but I think I like group A the best. They seem to make the valuable time I give to scouting worthwhile. The whole experience is worth it, but I appreciate those who really enjoy it and appreciate what we adults do for them. Maybe we are coming at it from two different directions. I'm not thinking about which ones are spic and span or messy. I'm thinking of those thattake full advantage of scouting and those who don't. My experience is thatyour description and mine coincide with each other. It is those who look like they came thru a hedge that you can't always count on to be there rain or shine. We had one such boy and his dad who announced that they might or might not be on the December campout we had depending on the weather. Since I was the adult mentor to our boy planner for that trip, I was greatly concerned since the dad was the person doing the shopping and menu planning for the adults. As it turned out, they did leave Saturday night for "something" at church. Out troop always does a high adventure trip each year in addition to summer camp. You can almost list which kids will sign up and which ones will not. The ones who do not sign up are usually the ones who show up about every other meeting and pick and choose the campouts they attend based on weather or distance. They are usually the messy scouts. There are exception to the rule on both sides though.

I tried to buy the space trip.....but my credit card was rejected. Note to self, call the credit card company after Christmas and see about getting my spending limit increased. Merry Christmas to all!!!

"The first is that "improvement" generally requires an increase of at least one." Says who exactly? Improvement means improvement. The requirement never states a number. I may be wrong, but I don't recall anyone advocating a rule of one more. Follow the requirement as laid out and there is no need for fudging. "The second and more important question is "if a scouter makes a modification like this to help a boy, is it OK to holler at him in public about violating the Oath and Law?" To date, I have not seen anyone here advocate hollering at another scouter in public about how they implement the program. Lettingthem know that they are doing something incorrectly is courteous and helpful. I'd tell them they were going the wrong way on a one way street too and not feel bad about helping them do it according to the program. "They like bein' self-appointed program cops. Fills egos or somethin'. I just find it kinda embarrassing." No, we just made a promise to deliver the program as designed and like to see the integrity of the program maintained across the board. Like I've said before, the BSA provides a skelton for the local unit to hang some meat on. There is plenty of flexibility. What a CO should never do is redesign the skeleton to their own liking. If they want to do that, they need to design their own program outside of scouting.

The only requirement is to show improvement after 30 days. Nowhere is it specified the number of repetitions a boy has to do to satisfy improvement. So, modifying the requirement isn't needed nor is it allowed in scouting. If he has even fractional improvement after 30 days, he has met the requirement as it was written. That was the original question. The last question had to do with when it was appropriate to correct someone misusing the scouting program and doing it to their own liking. Apples and oranges.

Hmmm....If I came across a CO and their registered leaders who decided to design their own uniform, change the requirements for ranks, change the names of the ranks, ignore the G2SS and register girls in the troop, I'd feel compelled to cheerfully provide materials, friendship, and support so they could do scouting the way they agreed to when chartered.

Happy Festivus to the rest of us!!!

I think perhaps that people are missing the point of this thread. Brianbuf started a website to give his opinion on what was wrong with scouting, why he believed the numbers were declining and what he thought national should change to make it better. He did this as a WB ticket item. He does not want folks in his unit, district or council to know about it because of the fallout it would cause. I believe that is what this thread is about. Would you create a ticket item that you felt needed to be hidden from your fellow scouters? I understand what some of you are saying. While I don't think anyone needs to shout their tickets from the rooftops, I don't think a ticket should be so personal that you wouldn't be comfortable telling people what it is. As a Troop Guide, I approved some personal ticket items. Especially those that would serve to lead others by example. I did have some of my patrol rewrite some of their tickets TO include other people. Many of them wrote items that THEY were going to do. WB is a leadership course. They needed to apply what they had learned in WB to the tickets they wrote. I had them change it from "I will do X" to "I will develop a team to do X". Why? It put them in a leadership role and provided an example to adults and boys. It gets other people involved. Shared work keeps good leaders from burning out. It introduces WB to others whose help you enlist. The reasons are many. It is difficult for me to see how doing a ticket that no one would be aware of helps scouting. Just my two cents.

With all due respect folks, there is nothing wrong with not making your name public on the internet. In fact, most folks who deal in any kind of security will tell you NOT to do so. A name and a town is all that is needed to invite some serious trouble from a deranged person. Chances are slim that it will happen, but anything is possible. Some folks here display their name like a badge of honor. That is fine if you want to do that. Personally, I don't. There are a number of folks here like Eamonn, EagleDad, Trevorum and others that I have corresponded with and provided my name to. I trust them. Sometimes all it takes is a little detective work to track someone down anyway. Especially people who have registered a website. I could probably be tracked down by my screen name since it is my WB course and patrol. I'd suspect you'd have to call the council office and ask and they would tell you to take a hike though. Brian makes a point that he knows enough about scouting to indicate he is in scouting. He did flub a lot of the finer detail, but that could be because of his obvious dislike of many aspects of WB and scouting in general and not paying attention as a result. Still, no one really has any business trying to bully him into providing his name over the internet.

Pack, Read books? Do any of those come with pictures? On a serious note. You are right, it appears that all is lost with the climbers on Mount Hood. I watched the last installment of the Everest program last night on the Discovery channel. Each and every guy who summited or got close lost something to frostbite. These guys on Mount Hood have been exposed to freezing temps and up to 100 MPH winds. No matter how much clothing, gear or shelter they have/had, they can't hold out against the cold forever. Eventually they would run out of food and fuel to cook and melt snow for water. What a tragic loss. I'm sure part of the challenge for them was to do it in winter conditions. To me, that is kind of like climbing without a rope. It might be exciting, but it can be deadly in the blink of an eye. I wondered about the cost of the SAR and the danger involved and who would pay. It appears that the government will pick up the tab. The families have already suffered a great loss and it would certainly hurt to be burdened with paying the extremely high cost of the SAR. Had the guys lived, I think it would have been appropriate to hand them a bill for services rendered. Perhaps that would help deter a few others from doing extreme sports without a very good plan and preparation. Here is a story about the cost involved in the Mt Hood search. http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/12/19/climbers.cost.ap/index.html

No.

"I see the glass half full also, but the glass is getting smaller each year." But anyone who wants a drink can get one can't they? Brian, you are not going to find a one size fits all solution to the numbers game. The high school I graduated from 31 years ago has class sizes about half or less of what they used to be. Heck, the ethnicity of the kids there is totally different than it used to be too. I've attended the same church for 30 years. I started attending it as a baby when it was a single building with maybe 100 people. I saw it grow with a number of buidling additions and a membership near 1000. I've been gone almost 20 years and it now runs maybe 200 people in attendance. All organizations go thru cycles based on a huge multitude of factors. It can be economical, leadership, competition, scandal, etc. Scouting isn't immune to these cycles and there is no single solution to increasing numbers. Increasing numbers for numbers sake isn't a good thing anyway. I've seen churches that concentrate on numbers and do nothing to mature the large numbers of people they bring in. As I said, there is no one size fits all solution. BSA gives you a skeleton for you to hang some meat on. Scouting is local. Make your unit the best show in town and improve your corner of the world. If everyone does that, the numbers go up while the traditional program remains the same. Got it?

Brian, Please don't take this as an attack. I say it with all due respect. There is a discussion that me and several of my Scouter buddies have from time to time about the difference between Scouters who "get it" and those who don't "get it". From what I've seen of your posts here, you fall into the "don't get it" camp. While you claim you want to make scouting better, you focus on the negative instead of the positive. Scouting is local. Scouting occurs at the unit level. What can you do to make make your unit the best unit in the council? Not to brag, but we picked up 24 new scouts this year and have a roster of about 65. We've had about the same number of Webelos indicate their desire to join us in the spring. We have had some discussions about having to consider limiting how many we can bring in due to the limitiations of our meeting area. Yes, we see other units around us struggling to survive while we thrive. Why is that Brian? Why is one unit successful and the other not. I can tell you that we are a very traditional unit that even uses that dreaded neckerchief and patch laden shirt, pants, socks and belt. Heck, we even have our own troop hat and hoodie. Our secret? We follow the program, have trained and committed adults, are boy led and provide a great program. We have boys flocking to us. Our experience can be repeated in every unit in town or the nation. Sorry, I just see the glass half full. Go back to your local unit and throw yourself into the program, "get it" and forget about changing things nationally. The program works for the vast majority of people and could for you if you quit being negative.

30 days or 2 years shouldn't matter. The requirement says after 30 days folks, not exactly 30 days. We'd be sunk if it was exact since we had 24 new scouts this year and I've held sessions for this requirement almost monthly this year due to boys missing meetings for various reasons. Heck, I had to keep a spreadsheet with each element of the requirement listed along with a date column for each element since some boys only got bits and pieces of the requirements done. I've still got several boys who only need the second set of pull-ups to complete the whole requirement. They did the first set back in May and it is now December. I see no reason to make them start over since it has been over half a year. We are not supposed to add, change or delete requirements. 2 years is well "after 30 days" and if they did zero the first go around, 1 is all they need to show improvment "after 30 days". Many boys at this age just don't have a lot of upper body strength. Heck, many adults don't either. I'm 49 and I've never been able to do more than 1 or 2 ever in my life.....and I used to work out at the gym religiously 3 times a week. I could leg press 4 times what I could bench press or lift. We count fractions for the boys who can't do it. If they couldn't do a single pull up the first time and can only get a half pull up after 30 days, that is "improvement".

Pack, You'd like to think that some of these thrill seekers would get a wake up call after a close brush with death and cool it a little. However, on the Discovery Channel's program about Everest, there is one mountaineer who lost his legs to frostbite while climbing who is now attepting to climb Everest with prosthetic legs. I guess it has to do with climbing back up on the horse when you get thrown. I still say it is crazy.

Semper, I hear you brother. I was the adult mentor to our scout planner for the December campout. Our adults function as a patrol and we plan a menu and shop just like the boys. The guy who volunteered to handle the menu, food buying and cooking/KP duty roster then announced that he and his son's attendance would be dependent on the weather. I looked at one of my ASM buddies and said I never was aware that backing out was an option. He did end up going. I really, really don't like cold weather camping or extremely hot camping...but I never miss a campout because I made a committment to serve.

Pack, Amen to that. Having said that, let me say this.....and I don't want to sound petty about it. What the heck were they thinking??? These guys are supposed to be highly experienced mountain climbers. They pick December to make a light and fast ascent and get caught in a storm. What is it about folks these days who want to be "extreme" and tempt fate and death in search of thrills and bragging rights. If and when they are found...hopefully alive...I hope they are charged every dime that the search and rescue cost to get them. Their actions show about as much intelligence as driving into water over a submerged road. Wouldn't it make sense to climb the mountain in non-winter months when your survivability is greatly increased if something goes wrong?

Joni, This sounds like the gal who holds out for years waiting for her boyfirend to ask her to get married. If they can't get off the fence after 7 months when the SM, CC and half the boys belong to their church, quit waiting and start asking others. If they take that long to make a decision, chances are you know what kind of CO they will be long term. Competition is good. Maybe shopping the troop to other churches will get them on the stick. As I said earlier, maybe it is different in different parts of the country. I'm fairly "hooked in" in our council and in two districts and I am unaware of any church that serves as a CO that requires scouts to be a member of their church or denomination except the LDS. The units I have served had a Presbyterian, Episcopalian and Methodist church as their CO's and the faith of the adult leaders and/or boys was never an issue in any of them. Like Hunt, I am a Baptist and I never let that fact stop me from serving in any of these units. Heck, around here there is a Baptist church on almost every corner and not a single one of them will be involved in scouting. If I used my denomination to determine my activity in scouting, I'd be sitting in the comfort of my home instead of freezing my tail of like I did last weekend on a campout. Try the car dealership in town. You have nothing to lose. You can probably get a pretty nice trailer out of the deal in return for the dealerships name painted on the trailer. Religious affiliation wouldn't be an issue. It would be great PR for the dealership everytime the troop does a service project.

The first time I ever saw this was in a junk e-mail that one of my ultra-conservative friends likes to send occasionally. While a woman was the butt of the immediate joke, the purpose of the story is the popular sport of lib "smashing". Notice the reporter is from the dreaded, God-hating, America-hating, abortion-loving, terrorist-loving, tree-hugging, non-bathing, evil NPR. For the "joke" to work the NPR reporter needs to be female. My father-in-law sends me urban legend material almost daily and I can smell them a mile away. I used to look them up on Snopes and send it back to him, but he never caught on. Anything that lands in his inbox is fodder for his e-mail address book. Why just today I got an e-mail from him saying that if you are being robbed at the ATM, enter your PIN backwards and the money will be dispensed and the police alerted. I used to deal with ATM's in my job. That is pure balderdash!

I guess it is different in different parts of the country. Around here, the majority of troops have a church as their CO and all of them have open membership to my knowledge with the exception of the LDS bunch. I don't know of any church that limits their troop to just members of their church, faith or denomination. Our CO is a Methodist church and we have been there nearly 45 years. Of the 65 boys on the roster, the ones who do attend church go to some variety of Christian church. I think there might be a small handfull of boys who actually attend our CO and that is purely coincidence. Of the two other troops I have been associated with, they both had churches as CO's and not a single boy in the troops attended those churches.

Joni, Been there, done that. A few years ago our Webelos boys crossed over to a troop in the area. I won't bore you with the details, but we really were not wanted and things went south quickly after joining. We joined in February and left to start a new troop in June. We chartered as "parents of" too and then I was tasked with finding a charter organization. I was turned down by many a church including my own church which is a big church and had more than ample room to house 8 boys and 6 adults. We were kind of desperate to find a CO since we as "parents of" really had no facility to use as a meeting place. Our old CO for our Pack allowed us to use their facilities until the Cubs started back in the Fall. Long story short, we found a tiny church that was looking for more ways to tie into the community and they accepted us. They had no money to help us and all they could provide was a Sunday School room we could use for meetings. It wasn't our room to use and decorate. We shared it with a Sunday School class. They did allow us to use the parking lot for a garage sale and the gym/worship center for a lock-in. We were just grateful to find someone that would take us in, but it was never an ideal situation. What we went thru and what you went thru is not the textbook way a unit starts. We both have ready made troops in search of a CO. The textbook says that an organization decides they want to utilize the Scouting program within their outreach to the community. They contact the council who sends the DE to meet with them. After discussing what is involved, the IH recruits a COR. The COR recruits an Committee Chair. The Committee Chair recruits committee members and an SM. The SM recruits ASM's. Everyone gets training and recruits boys to join the unit. It takes 3 adults and 5 boys to start a unit. Of course, since the organization decided to sponsor a unit and did all of the adult recruiting, they are proud of their unit and heavily involved in it. Back to reality, you often have to search long and hard to convince someone to give you space to hold a meeting. Then they get upset everytime they find a light left on. The DE should be heavily involved in helping you find a CO. Of course, if he is behind on FOS, he likely won't have the time. That is his first priority and then membership is second. If FOS is good, then he is more than happy to help you start a new unit so the numbers will be up and growth can be shown. I don't mean that to sound cynical, just being realistic based on my experience. The good news is that you can continue to operate under "parents of" as long as you can provide meeting space. That type of chater isn't porvisional or temporary. Most Methodist Churches have troops. If your local Methodist church does not, try them. The Presbyterian, Episcopalian and Catholic churches are big supporters of BSA too. I'm a life long Baptist and I can tell you that Baptists for some reason seldom sponsor units. Same for Assembly of God. There are exceptions, but they are exceptions. Masons are another avenue. They were interested when we were looking, but could only give us space on Friday nights. That is a death sentence for operating a troop. Keep looking and take time if you can afford it. Find an organization where the IH and COR has Scouting experience. Find one that is willing to support you with dedicated facilities and financially if possible. Good luck!

We have one military Scout. He is a good kid and a good scout....when he shows up. He is heavily involved in Civil Air Patrol and spends more time with it than the troop. He is not a stickler on the uniform. He usually wears his shirt with jeans. He certainly knows how to come to attention and salute though. His attire for campouts is usually camo BDU's and a boonie hat. His brother is involved in CAP too and only shows up occasioanlly, but he is much more relaxed and less "ate up with it" than his brother. Our SM is a great guy and a good and respected SM, but he can be a fairly black and white kind of guy and has high expectations. He isn't over the top about it usually though. One expectation he has that I happen to share about 90% is that the PLC be uniformed and lead by example. He has hammered them on occasion when they start getting sloppy. At last weeks PLC, we had a PL come in with everything on except his scout pants. He had jeans on. The SM asked the PLC if he had not given them his crystal clear expectations on wearing the uniform and was there anything about it they did not understand. Everyone said yes they understood. He then asked the boy why he chose to wear jeans that night. He explained that he had outgrown his pants and his mom was going the next day to buy a new pair. The SM asked if he owned scout shorts. The boy said yes. He had another scout stand who was wearing shorts....his son. He pointed out that he wore shorts rahter than jeans to stay full class A and again asked why he had chosen not to. The boy shot back, because I chose to be warm instead. It was a cold night. The SM kind of looked shocked and dropped it. It is hard to argue with sound logic.

Barry, For some odd reason, my wife is fascinated with Everest and we've been watching the Discovery Channel program about the group climbing Everest. One is an ashmatic who is determined to climb it without the aid of oxygen. Another is a guy who lost both legs to frostbite during his years mountaineering. These guys pay $40,000 for the privilege of tempting fate. Everytime we watch it, I tell my wife that those guys are morons! There are plenty of other ways to find out what you are made of without risking near certain death or going the rest of your life without a nose. Desperation will make us do some mighty dumb things. Our inclination is to get ourselves out of a jam, especially if we have loved ones we have also placed in harms way. The best rule of thumb by most search and rescue folks is to stay put. It is easier to hit a stationary target than a moving target. Of course, that is supposing that people have a fairly good idea of where you went missing. In the Kim's situation, it was good old detective work of backtracking their known destinations thru credit cards and such that allowed searchers to get an idea of where they might be. Even though it took a while, the wife and children who stayed put were rescued and Kim was not.

BarryD, Welcome to the campfire!!! Please feel free to pull up a log, have a seat and a cup of joe. I shudder every time one of these stories appears in the news. I've never been in an extreme survival situation and never want to be. Just imagining what it would be like is enough to send shivers down my spine. Being an insulin dependent diabetic, I have to plan everytime I go outdoors away from home. I can't just take off on a little nature hike from our scout campsite without making sure I have the supplies I need to literally keep me out of danger. We need to do that anytime we are traveling regardless of what time of year it is or what our health condition is. Hot or cold, it is easy to get in trouble fast when you are out of civilization. There have been two schools of though on Mr. Kim out in the internet world. One is that he was a hero and the other was that he was grossly irresponsible in his actions. All it takes is one bad judgement call to put even a seasoned survivalist in danger. Mr. Kim (God rest his soul) made a number of bad mistakes. He was warned against taking a scenic trip thru the area he went into. When he kept getting deeper and deeper into the wilderness, he didn't turn back and go back the way he came. He was not carrying the things he needed to survive in the kind of environment he took his family into. He didn't tell anyone where he was going and the route being taken. They are all mistakes any of us could make. Any of us could lose our life just as quickly as he did. My hope is always that people will remember these sad stories anytime they decide to venture out or decide to take a quick detour off the beaten path. Another story that always comes to mind is the experienced hiker who went out solo, had a boulder fall and pin him and had to cut his own arm off with a pocket knife to survive. Simply letting someone know where he was going and when he would be back.......or taking a buddy or two along would have most likely saved his arm.

Just don't get me riled up Pack, I'll have to dig my brass knuckles back out and take care of you!

As a life long Baptist with a degree in Religion from a Baptist University, allow me to say that Phelps runs a "church" that he calls "Baptist". Any similarity between the millions of Baptists around the world and Phelps' little inbred tribe of human trash ends there. Sorry to be un-Scoutlike, but that is how I feel. BTW, I don't know the particulars, but there was an Indian Nation that passed a law to keep Phelps merry band off of their tribal lands a week or so ago when he was going to come protest a the funeral of a fallen Native American soldier.