SR540Beaver

To build on what Hunt said, many troops are always in need of adults. How many times have we seen posts here asking how to get parents involved in serving on the committee, providing transportation or working directly with the boys? We are fortunate in our troop to have a large number of parents and registered leaders who support the functioning of the troop. When you take anywhere from 40 to 50 boys to camp each month, you'd better have adults willing to drive or someone is staying home. Tell them they are not welcome to hang around ant meetings and you won't see them when you do need them. As has already been said. Lay down some guidelines about how the troop is to operate as a boy led troop and ask them to just observe unless they are really needed. The biggest task we have with new parents is teaching them to consistently say, "go ask your PL/SPL". But they do learn.

I think the more accurate business model is the franchise. You don't by a MacDonalds or a Burger King and open up something that looks like a Chili's and serve entree's, soups, salads and appetizers. You have entered an agreement with the corporate headquarters to operate a franchise where you build a building according to their plans, wear their paper hat and knit pullover and serve the food that is delivered by their trucks from their distributors. You are a team and your joint success depends on each other doing their job. A chain can't grow national without selling franchises and franchisees can't own one of their successful stores without following their plan. Local and regional history are usually taken into consideration when decorating the out of the box building and local customs and laws usually play a part in how the franchise is operated. But the corporation who licensed you to operate the franchise has the final say about the brand while they could care less what bank you choose to use or what janitorial service you employee. There is plenty of leeway for the CO to flavor the troop, but the BSA decides the layout of what IS "scouting". A council can not have their annual charter renewed if they chose not to live up to their end of the bargain and the same goes for a unit within the council.

Jersey, We have almost identical troops. I'll say ditto to what Hunt said. Some adults sit at some tables off to the side of the troop meeting. Others go to an "adult" room. We don't restrict where the adults go or who can come, we just ask that they stay out of the boy's way as they run their meetings. We couldn't function without the adults we do have there. We usually have some sort of financial stuff going on that requires the treasurer and committee members are doing BOR's. Yes, we have some adults just standing around and visiting, but many have jobs to do and are busy. The boys do their thing and we do ours and we interact where needed.

At the Woodbadge course I helped staff this fall, one of the other staff members gave each staffer a gift of a scout swastika with a printed page explaining the "thanks badge". As others have noted, the swastika was used by many cultures thru the ages before Hitler adopted it. Some folks feel it is time to remove the stigma he gave it and return it to use.

Our troop actually has two neckerchiefs. One is a standard run of the mill red one that can be picked up at the scout shop. The other is a custom red, white and blue one. The red one goes to new scouts. The custom one is given when a boy reaches first class. While we have some boys who always wear them, we generally only "require" then for SM conferences, BOR's COH's, etc. Not only do we have a custom necker, we provide it in a larger size for adults. While I do wear my Woodbadge necker with pride, I'd just as soon not wear one at all. I am very hot natured and having a collar and 5 or 6 folds of material around my neck just about does me in when it is hot. That was the only drawback for me for attending Woodbadge and then staffing it later....having to wear the necker all the time. I was miserable......but had a blast.

LisaBob, You are correct that many ticket items are written and done on an individual basis. As a Troop Guide this past Spetember, I really tried to "limit" my Owls on the number of individual ticket items they wrote. While Woodbadge teaches many things, it is a "leadership" course and I wanted them to exercise what they had learned and write tickets where they LED teams rather than do things by themselves. Scouters like anyone else, tend to just do things to get it done. Eventually, they burn out. I wanted them to learn to develop teams to get things done and share both the responsibility and the sense of accomplishment. After all, isn't this what we expect out of the patrol method and don't we lead by example?

Why is it I can't seem to mind my own business and stay out of some of these conversations. Eamonn pondered why homosexuality was singled out and hetero was excluded in the BSA statement. Others have questioned why one is an abomination and the other is not. Understand, I'm just throwing this out for discussions sake and not taking a stand one way or the other. There are those who will say that sin is sin in God's eyes. To God, it does not matter whether you tell a little white lie or murder someone. God can not look on sin and there is no "degree" where He is concerned. For men, degree is involved. For men, obviously telling a lie is a bad thing, but murdering someone is much worse. Using somewhat similar logic, heterosexuality is natural/normal/moral and homsexuality is unnatural/abnormal/immoral. Promiscuity is wrong either way, but one is "less" bad than the other. just a thought.

Welcome Pat. Hmmmmmm, a search on Google turns up zero results. Could it be that a trick is being played on the new leader? Some of our older boys had the newer boys going from patrol to patrol looking to borrow the "bacon stretcher" while cooking breakfast on the last campout.

E, At least it is still standing. My old high school was built and opened in 1953. I graduated from there in 1975. My two brothers and sister also graduated from there. On November 4th, they held a 53 year reunion for all classes from 1953 thru 2006. I never heard the whole story, but it was determined that the building had served it's purpose and needed to be replaced. They have built a new building where the practice fields were behind the old school. When the students return from Christmas break, they go to the new school and the old school will be demolished and replaced with new practice fields. The reunion was an opportunity for all alumni to tour the old school one last time and also tour the new school before it opens. It is kind of sad to see your old haunts destroyed......and it makes you feel old too. My mom really hates to see it go as she worked there as a secretary in the library for 16 years and retired from there.

Scouting? What is that?

"The United States would not be the world power it is today, but the citizens and the States would definatly have more freedom." That kind of depends doesn't it? If the US had not evolved in the way it did and was more "free" and less "united", would we have been able to withstand a Nazi Germany or a Soviet Union superpower? We might have lost all of our freedom back in the last century instead.

Gern, If you'll scroll to the bottom of this screen you will notice that scouter.com is hosted by fastroot.com and Terry Howerton is their CEO. He is the Scouter-Terry who runs this site. I believe he is not only the CEO, but the owner of Fastroot. He appears to be a busy man and I believe that this has been something of a labor of love for him. I think he has set it up and kind of lets it run and has enlisted a few volunteers to moderate. I also imagine that what revenue the ads make on here probably help keep things up and running, but don't turn tremendous profits for upgrading software. I don't know, I just assume those things.

Gern, I've been associated with 3 troops and in each one, the adults functioned just like a patrol. Each patrol has their own site and everyone asks permission to enter their area. Adults don't enter a patrol site witout announcing themselves with, "permission to enter camp" and the same goes for the boys coming to the adult area. Does that mean we don't ever associate with one another on outings? Absolutely not. We spend most of the day on Saturday doing program and are heavily involved with the boys. We do the campfire program together. We hold the PLC in the adult area. We do BOR's and SM conferences in the adult area. But for meals, KP, sleeping, down time, etc. the boys stay out unless they have permission. It is quite common in these parts. The boys understand and respect it because we do the same.

Pack, I don't want to hijack the thread, so I'll try to be brief. We seldom have fires because there just isn't time. Our outings are pretty well scheduled. After doing whatever our program is for that outing, it is time for dinner and KP. Next comes a campfire program and then lights out shortly after that. There really isn't time to build and maintain a fire. Our November campout is an exception to the rule. We do an annual Turkey cookout where we have a 30 foot long, 3 foot deep and 3 foot wide pit dug by backhoe and we cook turkeys in it. We cut wood for several weekends ahead of this. On Friday night, the adults start the fire in the pit at midnight. We work two shifts of 12 to 3 and 3 to 6 of sitting up and continaully feeding the fire to build our pit of coals. It is a sight to behold!!! We build a small campfire off to the side for those staying up half the night to sit around, stay warm and visit. This fire seems to keep getting fed thruout Saturday. Parents and family arrive shortly before 3 PM to eat Thanksgiving dinner with the troop. We fed 150 this year. The parents and little kids use the fire to stay warm. After dinner and KP, we have a campfire program around 6 to 6:30 and the parents leave. The rest of the evening is open and unscheduled. As I said, the adult area is off limits except for questions and problems and such. Most of the adults parked around the fire. The boys could not. Some like my son found it unfair. Especially that the new Crew got to sit around it without being run off. I don't know why that was. The SM "said" that they were the guests of the adults. That was news to some of us other leaders. The last we knew it was stated that the Crew would camp off to the side of the patrols but would basically function as a patrol for the purposes of this campout. Our SM is a great guy and a great SM and I'm not even qualified to tie the man's shoes. That being said, he can be wrong at times. As I said, we usually don't have time to build and maintain fires. This time it would have been possible. He is one of those leaders who believes (as do I most of the time) that idle hands are the devil's workshop. He prefers to keep the boys active since the adults volunteer their valuable time to the program. The boys can sit around like lumps at home. His experience is that when there is a fire to sit around, all activity ceases and nothing gets down, plus there starts to be horseplay and someone is going to gewt hurt. So, his preference is no fires for the boys. While I can see his point, fires go woth camping like tents and sleeping bags do. We are a boy led troop (98% of the time) and the boys have been trained to build fires. It was cold. It wouldn't have hurt anything. Senior leadership could have even built and supervised the fire. But that didn't happen. The adults had a fire, the Crew enjoyed it and the scouts watched from the dark and cold. I ended up watching with them. We have a similar type campout in January and you can bet that it will be discussed up front and ahead of time. It got kind of ugly this past weekend.....even though the majority of the outing was highly successful and fun. How is that for being "brief"?

"thanks for the replies I just don't see how to tell the youth not to smoke when several adults at all camp outs smoke." You have a valid point Robb. We lead by example.....or we are supposed to. If we tell the boys no food in tents to keep the critters away, they shouldn't see us cracking open a package of cookies in our tent. We had an incident this weekend on an outing that involved my son. There was a campfire in the adult area. Boys are not allowed in the adult area without permission, therefore they could not enjoy the fire. The boys were not allowed to have their own fire for a variety of reasons. My son got more than a little ticked off about the fairness of the whole situation when the boys are standing around trying to stay warm in the cold night air and the adults have their big butts parked in camp chairs around a blazing fire. We set a very poor example. In fact, I ended up leaving the fire and sitting in the cold with the boys because I realized it was unfair for them. Some of the adults still don't see it that way. They think the adults are entitled to perks that the boys are not. To make matters worse, our associated Venturing Crew was along for this outing and they got to enjoy the fire while the scouts were excluded. Again, not leading by example. The rules are pretty clear about youth smoking (and to some of us, less clear for adults). I chewed for almost 20 years. I quit cold turkey in July 2005. I was going to be at the Natioanl Jamboree with 45,000 of my closest scouting friends. Finding a place to spit without being noticed was kind of hard to do. Besides, it was the wrong example to set. I quit. Likewise, I have been overweight for the last decade. One of the driving factors for me to do something about it (besides it being bad for my health) was the bad example I was setting for scouts. I've lost 36 lbs. since the end of May and hope to lose that much or more in the coming months. Perhaps you should recruit him and tell him that smoking is prohibited for youth......and that you will quit with him. You can use the outings as an opportunity to be smoke free and to encourage each other when the urge strikes either of you.

Brent, There has been a lot of good suggestions and info already presented. I'll parrot something EagleDad said. We run large patrols of 10 to 12. That way if even only half the boys show for a meeting or outing, they can still effectively function as a patrol. We have about 65 on our current roster. Oue SM says that absolutely nothing good can come from combining patrols and he advises strongly against it. My son was elected as PL a few months ago. At that time, his patrol was fairly light with about 7 scouts. Some of those boys were iffy at that time and he now has a patrol of 3. A couple of campouts back, the SM relented and decided to take my son's patrol and another patrol thata was going to be low in numbers for that campout to combine for cooking and KP purposes ONLY. He even said at that time he didn't want to do it and couldn't see anything good coming from it.....but he was trying to keep every patrol member from having to cook and clean at every meal and run high on their grocery bill. I won't bore you with the details, but sure enough it was a disaster all the way around with my son getting burned because of the stupid actions of a kid in the other patrol and that kid being disciplined. My point is, run the patrol size high so you have enough even when half don't show up and resist the temptation to combine small patrols. Even if only 2 or 3 show up, they can take care of their own business and can even do a two man activity for the campfire. BTW, we are about to move the 20 new scouts we picked up this year into regular patrols. My son's patrol will be one of the patrols with the biggest gain.

I use cable high speed as well and here at work it is T1 or better. That being said, it is S L O W W W W W!!! It has been weeks since I have been able to get "Today's Active Topics" to open up without timing out. I have to go to the forums page and open each individual forum to find current threads. But that has been a recurring problem in all the time considerable time I have been here. While I would like to see things upgraded, I don't look a gift horse in the mouth. I appreciate Scouter-Terry providing this free venue that seems to be the largest collection of active posting Scouters on the web. But yeah......I'd like to see an upgrade of software too.

TheScout, I never said that "any" good idea is constitutional. My point is that the constitution does not address every single possibility or circumstance. The constitution is the document by which actions and decisions are weighed against. If we can invade another country, depose their leaders (elected or not) and set up a new government in our image on the primise that we are "providing for the common defense" of the US, then why can't we "promote the general welfare" by providing decent sanitation, clean water, good agricultural practices and medical research? The general welfare of our nation is an ongoing and evolving process that has been part of what has made us into the great nation we are. Do you think it is in the best interest of the US to drop back to people dying from the flu and having life expectancies of 45? How is providing for the common defense or general welfare unconstitutional? Do you think the founding fathers could think of each and every circumstance and address each item in the constitution or do you think they would design a document that provides a framework for making laws, running the government and ensuring basic liberty to it's citizens?

But it IS a "good idea". I have found in life that good ideas are better to follow than.....I don't know.....say, bad ideas. Spending billions on devloping vaccines, medical treatments and disease eradication and allowing Americans to live healthy and productive lives that benefit themselves first and their society second seems like a spledid idea to ensure both financial and physical security. Surely one worthy of "the people's" representative government pursuing. Spending our blood and fortune to depose a leader of another country whose own people won't fight for their own independence and liberty just seems like a really bad idea. Now if they had attacked us, that would be a different story. Maybe it is just me, but one seems to make sense and the other doesn't. I guess we could discuss the pros and cons of different positions until the cows come home.

Hunt, Stem cell research is pretty much in its infancy and we won't know what benefits it will produce without much further study. Torture on the other hand is as old as man and has been shown repeatedly to produce highly unreliable information that is given simply to stop the torture. What if I know where the bomb is and you torture me to give you the info? I know the bomb will go off in an hour and you don't. I tell you a location that will take someone two hours to reach. Before they can get there, my objective is met. While someone is headed to the false location, do you continue to torture me because you fear I might not have given you the correct info? So now I give you another location. Can you rely on the second info over the first? Do you see the problem with using torture to obtain info? You can never be sure whether you are geting the real scoop or not and you must continue to torture repeatedly to see if the story will hold. But then of course, the person being tortured will again tell you what you want to hear in order hopefully, but doubtfully make it stop. Arguing torture against stem cell research is night and day. The Scout, "We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." What does "promote the general welfare" mean to you? Could it "include" finding and funding ways to keep citizens healthy and productive?

Ed, You are almost correct. The BOR convened only long enough for the scout to be told there would be no BOR. The decision was made before he walked in the door. Technically, there was no BOR since he didn't sit for it, but got turned away at the door. The BOR should go forward and let the chips fall where they may. Fuzzy, I understand where you are coming from, but IMHO you are overreacting. Just because terrorists use pipe bombs does not mean that anyone who makes one is a terrorist or criminal. Just because you were bit by a black dog does not mean all black dogs bite. Yes what he did lacked judgement and he should be punished. That being said, doing stupid stuff is a teen boy thing....at least it was when I survived my teen years. Trev, My dad didn't happen by when me, my brother and a friend unrolled a whole package of firecrackers and made one giant firecracker. We found one of those cast metal caps that fit on the fencepost of chainlink fences and set it off underneath it. It was a gloriously loud boom and sent the cap flying at least 100 feet in the air. It was fortunate that we were "smart" enough to run for cover after lighting it. When we retrieved the cap after coming out of orbit, half of it was gone.

John, Would this politician be from the same party as the politicians around here that always made sure we knew they stood for faith, family and freedom in their ads? Hmmmmmmm?

Pack, Thanks for thinking of me buddy. The crowd that opposes embryonic stem cell research are usually the same crowd who opposes abortion. While I do understand their reasons, I do note that the situation often dicatates how devoted a person is to the issue. It is easy to stand in opposition to abortion until your 14 year old daughter comes home and tells you that she is pregnant. Likewise, it is easy to stand in opposition to embryonic stem cell research until you have a chronic and deadly disease like diabetes. It is easy for someone to oppose it until they have walked a mile in my shoes. A typical day for "normal" people is to get up, shower, brush their teeth, skip breakfast and drive to work. Not so for the diabetic. I get up, stick my finger and check my blood glucose level. If it is low, I go to the kitchen and eat something. If it is high, I inject insulin. Then I shower, brush my teeth and go back to the kitchen to fix some breakfast. I have to balance my food intake with my insulin dosage. I have to calculate the amount of insulin I take based on the number of carbohydrates I eat. I take 1 unit of insulin for every 8 grams of carbohydrate I eat. Well, that is from around noon until 7:00 AM. From 7:00 AM until noon, I take 1 unit of insulin for every 5 grams of carbohydrate I eat. If my blood glucose is above a target of 120, I take 1 unit of insulin for every 20 above 120 that my blood glucose is. If it is 200, I need 4 units of insulin. If on top of that I am going to eat 24 grams of carbs, I need an additional 3 units of insulin for a total of 7 units of insulin. You get the picture, my day is made up of a juggling act that runs 24/7/365. I have not even mentioned having to throw the 3rd ball of exercise into the juggling act. Exerecise will burn sugar, so you will need to reduce your insulin dosage and/or increase your food intake. I can't simply go out to the garage and fire up the lawn mower or take off on a Philmont trek without knowing my body and having some sort of strategy for actually staying ALIVE. How many folks out there have to figure out how to stay alive 24 hours a day on a daily basis? Oh yeah, I forgot to mention how getting sick with a cold or the flu throws everything out of whack and you have to have a whole seperate plan of attack for those days. It is one thing to have to deal with this yourself as an adult. Imagine having to be a third party who has to watch for "signs" and handle this for a preschool or grade school child!!! All of a sudden, you don't want to leave any stone unturned. Does embryonic stem cell research offer an iron clad guarantee for a cure over adult or cord blood stem cells? No. But since you have all of these embryos that will be tossed in the trash anyway, why not put them to use in addition to the other types of stem cells in a possible search for cures to life threatening diseases? If you had diabetes or a multitude of other life threatening diseases, you'd sing a different tune. I pray for the day that I can take a final injection that is a CURE and live a normal life. Unfortunately for ME, it will be too late to stop the damage that has already been done to my eyes, arteries and nerve endings over the last 32 of my 49 years.

I get a kick out of all of the Republican water carriers.....I mean independent talk radio hosts and their glowing support for Joe Lieberman. The ONLY reason they praised Lieberman was because of his stance on the war. Lieberman is a dyed in the wool liberal who would never fit in on the Republican side of the aisle except for this one issue. On anything beyond that issue, he is one of those mental disordered traitors Hannity and his ilk like to defame on a daily basis.

CA, Stole? You might want to consider that the Republicans GAVE the election away or had their power TAKEN away. The election results were more of a vote "against" the incumbents than they were "for" new candidates. It was about a needed house cleaning by American citizens who got tired of politicians talking the talk and not walking the walk. It is cyclical. The mistake by any party is the arrogance to think that they will gain and retain power indefinitely.