SR540Beaver

Thank you! Thank you folks! You've been a great audience. We'll be here thru next week with matinees on Saturday and Sunday. Try the veal and remember to tip your waitress.

Well, isn't that what they get paid to do?

Gern, It is for your own protection Comrade! wingnut, So this little "shout out" is why the speakers on my PC occasionally purr when my cell phone is near it? They really tune up when an actual call is coming in, but lightly purr every once in a while when not in "use".

Gern, It is for your own protection Comrade! wingnut, So this little "shout out" is why the speakers on my PC occasionally purr when my cell phone is near it? They really tune up when an actual call is coming in, but lightly purr every once in a while when not in "use".

No, no, no......ain't gonna do it. Not gonna get invovled. Gonna keep my mouth shut. Oh heck, why not. OGE, how can the same people who call the UN worthless and irrelevant choose to deem their resolutions worthy of enforcing? And if they are worthy of enforcing, isn't it the UN's job to enforce them? If you threaten your child with spanking for poor behavior, do you want your neighbor spanking your child when he witnesses him doing something wrong? It just doesn't add up. We used the UN resolutions as justification for something we already wanted to do, not to enforce the resolutions for the UN. Allow me to suggest some interesting reading at http://www.amconmag.com/2006/2006_07_17/cover.html. It is an article in the current edition of American Conservative Magazine called American Petrocracy. I'm with LisaBob. Political discussion like religion and sex have no place within the unit meeting beyond a very generic high level approach such as encouraging duty to God.

Suhhhweet!!! I still regret that Eamonn and I never managed to hook up at Jambo last year.

Now that is just purely sacreligious!!! I'm surprised that the Great Master of all Scouts didn't smite them!

Gern, I don't know how the cell companies seem to focus their beams so narrowly, but if you step 5 feet off the highway around here, you are out of range. It is fun to watch the boys with cell phones realize that they really are cut off from civilization when they intended to stay in contact with their homeboys while on a campout.

I am assuming perhaps you have an upcoming float trip and a boy is hoping to satisfy the requirement with it. Remember, the float trip is just one option out of a list of options. There are other things to choose from. But then again, my assumption could be all wet. Get it...all wet! Float trip! What a comic!!! Sometimes I crack myself up. OK, not that funny. Carry on.

acco, E-Science had a major overhaul or requirements and the ecosystem is no longer required. My son earned it at summer camp this year without doing any prerequisites. We have a committee member who is an E-science teacher that goes to summer camp each year and works with the boys on getting all their observations done and recorded. He always supervised the ecosystem in a bottle prior to camp in years past. He was surprised to learn of the changes. Check it out at http://usscouts.org/mb/changes/mb007-06.html.

FScouter, I'd be interested in knowing what the success rate of 12, 13 and 14 year old scouts who are anywhere from 1st Class to Life is in recruiting their peers to join scouting? While not impossible, my experience is it is rare to non-existent.

It is absolutely normal. I've seen few AOL crossovers who CAN say the Oath and Law. It is kind of like cramming for a test. They only have to be able to do it once to get signed off. Unless you do drills, competitions or actually set up real dining flys, ask any of your experienced scouts to tie any of the knots they had to do for rank and watch the blank look you get back. Some have good retention, others do not. If they never have to use them....which many don't with today's modern equipment, they simply don't remember how to tie them. Our council uses the traditional canvas wall tents and dining flys for Jamboree. We had to have remedial knot tying classes for all 36 boys....and 4 adults in our troop so they would be able to set up camp when we got there. It is normal.

EagleinKY, We pretty much do it like you. We do use NSP's. Crossover usually occurs around the end of February/first of March and we keep them in NSP's until around November when they are integrated into the various mixed age patrols. We have two Troop Guides per NSP and utilize other boys to teach different skills. We have a couple of those 17 year olds who have been absent for a year or two that all of a sudden decide they want to earn Eagle. In addition to the TG's, we use them quite a bit to teach skills to the NSP's. We had 20 boys crossover this year and we formed two patrols out of them. I know some folks will say that 10 per patrol is too many. We tend to oversize the patrols to around 10 because on any given campout, someone or two or three won't show up. This gives us good size patrols even when everyone isn't present. It has worked well for us. At the end of this group or new scouts, we will have to do some reorg due to integrating them into patrols. 20 scouts is twice as big as some troops, so we will be adding new age mixed patrols when they integrate.

Reminds me of a 13 year old "Life" Scout we had at Jambo who didn't know how to open a package of bacon or how to cook it either. We kept wondering how he got to his rank with absolutely NO discernable skills to speak of. The bacon thing is just one of many, many stories I could tell about this boy who was on the fast track for Eagle. In fact, we had a 14 year old boy at Jambo who WAS an Eagle who had only slightly more skills than the Life Scout.

acco, Let me urge you as strongly as I can to move the committee meeting to a different night from the troop meeting. Our first troop (note I said first) did this which led to all of us crossovers leaving within 6 months. Why? We met in a church that like most churces uses those extremely thin divider walls that slide on tracks. The committee was on one side and the boys on the other. The troop treasurer (SM's wife who had some serious issues) got ticked off at the committee chair (one of the crossover parents) and started screaming at her about how much she hated her and how we were ruining their troop and proceeded to throw some three ring binders across the table before storming out. Rare that something like that would happen in a troop committee meeting? Yes. Did it? Yes. Other than the obvious, what was bad about it? The boys had about 1.5 inches of wall between us and them and heard the whole thing. Even if that hadn't happened, young ears tend to tune in when adults are talking and some discussions are not for their consumption. They can be sneaky little devils at times even if your meeting is held some distance from where they are "supposed" to be. I know the argument that some people make that it makes it convenient to do it all at the same time, but it really doesn't. They need to be held at different times so each can be given its proper attention.

acco, I agree that ideally the boys should determine the make-up of their own patrols. How do you handle it when there are two boys who DO NOT need to be in a patrol together? No, I'm not talking about not getting along. I'm talking about boys who can't seem to keep from getting into trouble when they are together.

OK, I admit it....I'm talking about something I know absolutely nothing about. All I know of GSUSA is what the good folks here at scouter.com who are involved in GS have said. It appears that Studio2B has a resemblance to Venturing in that it is something of a free form program for older girls that is designed by them. My point is that many of the GS folks I've heard discuss GS is that there is very less emphasis on outdoors or high adventure than there used to be. I'm sure that the "majority" of girls won't have the same interest as the boys. Heck, there are a lot of boys who are not interested in anything other than video games and skateboards or team sports. It "seems" that Venturing probably provides girls with more outdoor and high adventure opportunities than GSUSA does. GSUSA knows their core audience and plays to that just like BSA does. I don't know about you guys, but every summer camp I've been to has a good number of female staff members who are members of Venturing Crews. I believe they are members of crews because they can't find the same experience as readily in GSUSA. That is just my opinion and it and $3.95 will buy you a cup of coffee at Starbucks......if you order the small.

Longhaul, We have a troop of 63 scouts. Without active parents, the registered leaders jobs would be difficult to do. They pitch in to help with things like fundraisers, COH's, transportation and serving as MBC's. Don't get me wrong, we have many registered leaders, but the parents are a valuable asset to the health of the troop. I was the committee chair of our pack and an ASM ever since we crossed over a few years ago and I rarely miss a committee meeting and I mostly just soak up the info. Every committee meeting should have an agenda. Most agendas have a new business segment where anyone present can address what ever they like. I'd never try to make parents feel excluded from what is going on in the unit. We want them involved and active. That is where we get new registered leaders from once they decide to take the plunge. If you want to cause real trouble, tell parents that they are can spectate if they feel they must, but to sit down and keep quiet.

"I found that no matter how much training you give to scouts, they will still bring stuff like hair gel on a hike. Yes, hair gel and he was an older scout." Come on Barry, everyone knows that the squirrels admire a well groomed scout!

Acco, I have to disagree with you about ASM's attending committee meetings. Committee meetings should be open to all concerned parents and as a parent, I should be able to attend. That being said, only the SM should have a place on the agenda to give a report. Well attended committee meetings are a mark of a healthy troop with committed and caring adults.

No, no they don't care too much about borders, but it would have to travel a good distance to get from one place to the other.

Ya know, you'd think the GSUSA would look at the older girls flocking to Venturing, scratch their heads and wonder where they made a wrong turn......but evidently not. I'm not sure since I'm not involved, but I think the girls either equal or out number the boys in the crew our charter and troop just started.

My son just returned last Wednesday, but I've never been there. All I know is what I see on maps. If you are going to Quetico, it is in Canada and the fires are in Minnesota.

nldscout, Long ceremonies? Do I have a story for you. We went out of council for summer camp two years ago. Great camp with a great program and obviously a very active OA. Like most camps, Friday was family day. The evening started off with a campfire program. At the end of the campfire, 3 indians come down the river in a canoe. They stop on the opposite bank to ignite a large arrow on a frame. They then come across the river to the campfire where they speak. They lead the entire camp down a trail lined by indians holding torches across camp to their OA ring. Visitors go to a grandstand overlooking the ring. The ring has benches that will seat probably 500 scouts and scouters. They had to keep directing people to squeeze around the ring to get everyone in. No sitting until everyone is in the ring. This took forever to get everyone in. Finally, we get to sit. At the middle of the ring is a fire lay about 12 feet tall. We are asked to stand and the fire is ignited with much pageantry. The call out begins by three guys going around the ring of 500 people. We've all been asked to stand and take 3 steps in. This crowds everyone shoulder to shoulder, but allows SM's to walk behind and point out those being called out. Those doing the call out probably circled the ring 6 or 7 times. Understand, this ring seems about the size of a football field. We kept being instructed to look into the fire. I don't know the actual time, but it seemed like it took HOURS from the time we left the campfire until the ceremony was over.....98% of it standing and most people had daypacks with them. It was absolutely the most impressive OA call out ceremony I'd ever seen...and the most miserable. I had to take 3 of our new boys out to find a "latrine" tree line as they were beginning to do a little dance of their own during the ceremony. Being out of council, if we'd known the ceremony were that long, we'd probably have passed. My back was killing me by the end.

E, I'd be lobbying that retiring Boy Scout Activities Chair who offered a boat and his services to start another Ship. Offer him as much advice and assistance as possible. Then you could really rub everyone's nose in it when there are two Ships up and running.