SR540Beaver

I don't have statistics, only rumors of statistics and experience. Boys who cross over in February and assimilate into the troop before summer camp tend to stay in scouts where boys who cross over late tend to not go to summer camp and drop out. My experience has also been that Webelos II's start to get really bored in that last 6 months of the 18 months. There would need to be some real program improvments if it were extended to 2 years instead of 18 months. Our council offers half week Cub and Webelos Resident Camps. Many families don't use them, but the ones who do tend to cross over and stay in Boy Scouts. Woe to the Pack that won't camp. They are setting the stage for boys who won't be interested in camping and won't stay in scouting. It is kind of like handing your child the keys to the car when they turn 16 without ever giving them a driving lesson. It is not a good thing to do. Done right, a cub scout should have had a number of opportunities at camping long before crossing over. Couple that with crossing over in February and you have a boy more than ready for summer camp. Indoor sleepovers? This ain't the Sissy Scouts for crying out loud! Of course, Oklahoma winter camping is usually a tad milder than Beavah's.

Trev, Did this little demon happen to have horns and a tail?

From my experience, it is a very common site to see little brothers and sisters in camp when they belong to a family that scouts. If mom and dad are both at camp, chances are that little sister will be there too. That being said, when we have siblings along, they stay in the adult area with the adults. Heck, the adults stay in the adult area. We have an SPL, ASPL's and PL's that are in charge over in the boy area. We come over if asked or if we see something that needs to be addressed. But each troop is different. Perhaps having a little girl messing around in the patrol sites needs to be addressed in the PLC rather than in the troop committee.

Avid, There are some ways to deal with those problems parents. In our troop, the adults set up a good distance from the boys. They can see us and we can see them, but anyone walking between campsites is noticible. We have the SPL and ASPL's set up in between the boys and adults. The boy should never leave his patrol site without letting the PL know where he is going. If he is coming to ask his dad something, the PL can catch it and answer it when he asks to visit the adults. Also, he should not be leaving without a buddy. If he does, he gets caught at the boy leadership site on the way to the adults. He can be asked where he is going and why and sent back to his PL to either get an answer or a buddy. If he does manage to make it over to the adult site, he has to ask permission to enter camp. If he is there without a buddy, he gets sent back. If he is there to ask a question the PL could answer, he gets sent back. It does not take very long of getting sent back for either a buddy or to get an answer from the PL for the boy and the dad to figure out the rules and start following them. Of course, this is all explained repeatedly to new boys and dads from the beginning. This honestly has not been a problem for us. We just picked up 18 new boys who have been on the last 2 campouts with us. The first campout, we had a good number of parents go to see what all happens and for a comfort factor. They knew the rules and several made comments about really having to work at staying away from the boys and watching from a distance. We had hardly any parents go on the second campout.

CNY, I have not seen a Venture Patrol in action myself, I can only tell you the story I've heard within our Troop. When our SM took office about 5 years ago, the Troop had a Venture Patrol. Many of the problems within the Troop at that time stemmed from this group. They pretty much had the idea that they were elite and that they had arrived. They had no desire to work with the "little kids" or to fulfill any roles of responsibility. They were as the SM refers to them, "slugs". One of the first things he did to turn the Troop around and get them back to being boy led was to reintroduce mixed age patrols and the new boy patrol. No more Venture Patrol. This seperated the wheat from the chaff. Those willing to step up and take part in Troop life stayed and those who didn't like their little gang being challenged eventually left. Just this week, we decided to start up a real Venturing Crew as opposed to the Crew we had on paper for the last two years. Many of the things you mentioned are what we are struggling with. The Crew will have the same unit number and CO and COR. The SM will be the Advisor. The Troop Committee Chair will be the Crew Committee Chair. Other adults from the Troop will serve as Assistant Advisors and such in the Crew. The Crew will borrow equipment from the Troop until they can organize, grow in membership, raise funds and buy their own equipment. They will develop their own calendar, but occasionally will camp with the Troop and function as a seperate patrol. Part of what I am struggling with is what I refer to as "robbing Peter to pay Paul". Obviously, a good number of our older boys will want to join. Obviously, we don't want to lose our older boys from the Troop. We have close to 60 active boys from 11 to 17 and operate as a boy led troop. We don't want the Troop to turn into an 11 to 13 year old Troop. The suggestion is that any boy coming from the Troop MUST remain in the Troop and be part of the Crew as an extra activity. Of course, any girls joining will not have to do this. Likewise, if a guy from another Troop or a guy who has never been a scout joins, they do not have to be part of the troop. The Crew will provide service to the Troop thru teaching and instruction. I can certainly see where guys inside the Troop will see this as unfair. Another suggestion is that if they want to leave the Troop and join the Crew, they would have to wait 12 months. I think that what we are working thru is one of the reasons why Crews should be developed independently of Troops. You are selling against yourself if you try to operate both. The only way to ensure the integrity of your Troop is to build these artificial restrictions for joining the Crew. We are researching, discussing and feeliing our way slowly in making this happen. If a Venture Patrol was a problem before, I'm not sure how creating a Venturing Crew is going to be better.

Ditto to EagleinKY. I have my own personal little rain cloud that follows me just like in the cartoons. Two years ago when we went on our first Boy Scout summer camp, it rained from Sunday thru Thursday.

anarchist, Maybe you missed this sentence in my post....."We are flexible and can/do change when required, but we do like to set and follow our plan."

FScouter, I don't disagree with you. However, our troop does their annual planning in May of each year. We are flexible and can/do change when required, but we do like to set and follow our plan. When you plan with gas at $1.95 per gallon and then half way thru your year it jumps to $3.00 per gallon, you plans kind of goes to pot. The troop does not pay for gas. The parents/leaders driving their vehicles do. We are fortunate in that we have access to some private land just outside of town and the council owns a camp on the outskirts of town. We have places to go close to home if it comes to that. Our troop has two crews going to Northern Tier this summer in three SUV's. Our SM is an engineer and likes to get things right the first time. He is quite experienced at planning high adventure trips. He began pricing everything out a year ago and put together a price a payment structure. He even built in a hike in gas prices just to make sure there was a cushion in the budget. There was no way he could even imagine at the time that gas would be heading towards $3 per gallon with no end in sight. He is now having to consider coming back and asking for an additional $30 to $40 per person just to cover gas if the prices don't come back down.

In my experience, Webelos II's can often be boring. I like to think we ran a good program in our Pack. When my son was an excited Webelos I, the Webelos II's would show up at Pack meetings, mill about, stare at the walls, fidget, talk among themselves, etc. while the rest of the kids were having a blast. They were at a stage where they were ready to move on. They had spent the last year doing requirements and working to earn their AOL. Depending on how you try to spread out the second year, it can become tedious to the boys. We were a camping Pack. We took full advantage of every district or council Cub camping opportunity. We also threw in some Webelos Den campouts. We could pretty well tell which boys would advance to Boy Scouts and which ones would not by who went camping. In fact, that was exactly our dividing line on who moved on and who dropped out. But they were all growing bored with it by the end of the 18 months, even though it was the same program they had experienced since Tigers. Stick it out with an eye towards Boy Scouts. Your Webelos leaders should be coordinating with Troops in the area to attend meetings and outings so you can shop around. Ask around about the different troop's reputations. Boy Scouts IS NOT Webelos. Let your son at least try it on for size. You might be pleasantly surprised. We had one of our new boys and his dad attend their first campout this past weekend. The boy's mom is the one in the family who likes camping. The dad said he is a city boy and not that interested. All it took was one campout to see the boys and adult leaders in action and he is signing up to be a uniformed leader.

I just found something of interest on our council website. I'm positive it was copied from national. I've been around scouting long enough to know that the exception to the rule usually applies when new units are started instead of doing it by the book. That being said, it appears that the "standard" is for adult leadership to design a one-year program before recruiting youth for a new Crew. See below. Organizing a new Venturing crew is easy to do. Just follow these steps: A survey is conducted annually in community high schools to determine students' recreational, hobby, and avocation interests. A meeting is called of key people within an organization, with a Scouting representative in attendance. The representative explains the Venturing program, describes the key volunteer leader positions, and plans the recruiting of adult leaders. The crew committee and Advisors are recruited and meet with the Scouting representative. Responsibilities of adult leaders are explained. The Scouting representative also discusses program ideas and helps develop a one-year program. The crew's one-year program is reviewed and adopted. The organization's top executive writes a personal letter to each young adult selected from the survey, or identified through other recruitment efforts, and invites the youth and their parents to attend an organizational meeting. This letter is followed by a personal phone invitation from a member of the organization to each prospective youth. The first meeting is held, involving young adults, the adult committee, and selected consultants. Adult Advisors share the program plans with the new Venturers (youth) and discuss member involvement and leadership roles through the election of youth officers.

Discipline? As in doing latrine duty or push-ups? I would agree with your leaders in avoiding that kind of discipline. That being said, we have high expectations of behavior in our troop. The only way a boy wouldn't know what is expected would be if he were brain dead. Hmmm, come to think of it.....nevermind, that wouldn't be polite. When a boy won't do his job or is disrespectful, he gets an immediate Scoutmaster conference where a discussion of the Oath and Law is discussed. When our SM took over about 5 years ago (before my time), the troop had a Venture Patrol. These were boys who thought they were special and that they had arrived. They didn't want to mess with the little kids, didn't wnat o participate in much of anything, didn't want positions of responsibility, etc. They were slugs. The younger boys thought they were cool and imitated them. It was hurting the troop. The SM turned it around. Did he get resistance from the older boys and some of their parents? You bet. Did he present his vision of what a boy-led troop should be and stand his ground to get there. You bet. He spelled out what was expected of them, provided the trainign they needed and held them accountable. Those that were willing to change stayed. Those that were not willing to change left. He never ran anyone off or asked anyone to leave. He simply changed the troop into what it should be and that was different than what a few bad apples wanted. Younger boys parents saw what was going on, liked it and jumped on the band wagon. Instead of discipline, use the Oath and Law. It leaves little wiggle room for excuses and gives them an example of fairly black and white attitude and behavior expectations.

Trev, Actually, Dale did not keep his homosexuality private. "James Dale entered scouting in 1978 at the age of eight by joining Monmouth Council's Cub Scout Pack 142. Dale became a Boy Scout in 1981 and remained a Scout until he turned 18. By all accounts, Dale was an exemplary Scout. In 1988, he achieved the rank of Eagle Scout, one of Scouting's highest honors. Dale applied for adult membership in the Boy Scouts in 1989. The Boy Scouts approved his application for the position of assistant scoutmaster of Troop 73. Around the same time, Dale left home to attend Rutgers University. After arriving at Rutgers, Dale first acknowledged to himself and others that he is gay. He quickly became involved with, and eventually became the copresident of, the Rutgers University Lesbian/Gay Alliance. In 1990, Dale attended a seminar addressing the psychological and health needs of lesbian and gay teenagers. A newspaper covering the event interviewed Dale about his advocacy of homosexual teenagers' need for gay role models. In early July 1990, the newspaper published the interview and Dale's photograph over a caption identifying him as the copresident of the Lesbian/Gay Alliance." Now back to our regularly scheduled program. I think this problem has already been nailed. If you choose to plan, organize, promote, provide transportation, collect money, etc. to play paintball as either a troop or patrol, you are involved in a scouting related event. G2SS says you can not participate. Friends calling friends to go play paintball and having their parents drive them there is no different than being driven to school, church, the movies, the local swimming pool, etc. It has nothing to do with scouting. Climbing is a BSA sanctioned activity. We have 4 climbing trained adults in our troop. Our troop owns their own climbing equipment. We plan campouts where climbing is the focus. We also have 60 active scouts in our troop. When some of us want to go to the climbing gym, we don't announce it in the troop meeting and invite everyone. The gym wouldn't be able to accomodate everyone very easily and boys would be lucky to get a single climb in. There are those of us who e-mail each other occasionally and ask if they want to get together and climb. Are we from the troop? Yes. Is it a scouting event? No. Do our sons invite non-scouting friends to go with them? Yes. Even though it would be fine for us to do this as a troop, the way it is handled makes it a non-troop event. Paintball would need to be handled in this way if friends in the troop want to do it. All planning needs to be outside the troop framework or meeting place.

The requirement calls for a MINIMUM of 5 days. You can do it over 10 days if you want, but not 4 days. The 50-Miler Award is presented to each qualifying individual for satisfactory participation in an approved trip. In order to qualify for the award the group of which the individual is a member must fulfill all of the following requirements. Make complete and satisfactory plans for the trip, including the possibilities of advancement. Cover the trail or canoe or boat route of not less than 50 consecutive miles; take a minimum of 5 consecutive days to complete the trip without the aid of motors. (In some areas pack animals may be used.) During the time on the trail or waterway, complete a minimum of 10 hours each of group work on projects to improve the trail, springs, campsite, portage or area. If after checking with recognized authorities, it is not possible to complete 10 hours each of group work on the trail, a similar project may be done in the unit's home area ( There should be no unauthorized cutting of brush or timber.) Unit or tour leader must then file a 50-Miler Award application with the local council service center. This application gives additional details about planning the trip.

With gas prices being what they are these days and the fact that we drive 25 miles one way to get to our troop, I'm probably not getting a good return on my investment. I can think of 5 troops within 5 miles of our house. While they are all good troops, none of them compare to the one we drive across town (in a different district than we live in)to attend. The troop has a wide mixture of boys, is boy-led, has dedicated parents and scouters, provides a great program and some wonderful opportunites that other units don't, won't or can't. My son is thrilled there. I am too. He is a third year scout and a Star. I'm an ASM who works with the two new boy patrols. Our paths cross occasionally. We just returned from a campout this weekend. Tonight we have troop meeting, tomorrow night is committee meeting. Thursday is paddling training for Northern Tier and Saturday is an invitaion only premiere to the movie "Hoots" sponsored by the National Wildlife Federation and a special service project afterwards. I'll have put between 250 and 275 miles on my truck with gas at $2.76 a gallon. I still think my return on the investment is more than worth it. My son is getting more out of it than his baseball, basketball and tae-kwon-do all rolled together.

E, I'm with your old SM on Green Grow the Rushes, O. I had never heard of the song before this past Saturday. We had a Wood Badge staff development meeting and our SPL knew this song from when he took Brownsea as a boy. He wanted us to sing it. It was a disaster to say the least and left everyone scracthing their heads. I'm hoping he doesn't try to introduce it during the course at a cracker barrel. There are plenty of other (better) songs to sing.

Brian, With the assistance of your Troop Guide, you will develop your individualized ticket while at Wood Badge. Meanwhile, you can look here for a good description of the Ticket. http://www.woodbadge.org/WB21/wb21ticket.htm

Aw, come on Lisabob! Using wikipedia isn't any worse than informing a person's world view with elementary and simplistic "news and analysis" pablum from Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity. Talking points make life easier.

Brent, Since you've opened the door to using Wikipedia as a resource, allow me to answer who we are fighting in Iraq. Your strongly held belief that we are fighting al Qaeda is somewhat myopic. It is much more complex than that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_insurgency The Iraqi insurgency is composed of at least a dozen major guerilla organizations and perhaps as many as 40 distinct groups. These groups are subdivided into countless smaller cells. Due to its clandestine nature, the exact composition of the Iraqi insurgency is difficult to determine. Because most of these insurgents are civilians fighting against an organized domestic army and a foreign occupying army, many consider them to be guerrillas. The overall insurgency is often divided by analysts into several main ideological strands, with some overlapping: Ba'athists, the armed supporters of Saddam Hussein's former nomenclatura, e.g. army or intelligence officers; Nationalists, mostly Sunni Muslims, who fight for Iraqi self-determination; anti-Shi'a Sunni Muslims who fight to regain the prestige they held under the previous regime (these three categories are often undistinguishable in practice); Sunni Islamists, the indigenous armed followers of the Salafi movement, as well as any remnants of the Kurdish Ansar al-Islam; Foreign Islamist volunteers, including those often linked to al Qaeda and largely driven by the Sunni Wahabi doctrine (the two preceding categories are often lumped as "Jihadists"); Patriotic Communists (who have split from the official Iraqi Communist Party) and other leftists; Militant followers of Shi'a Islamist cleric Moqtada al-Sadr; Criminal insurgents who are fighting simply for money; and Nonviolent resistance groups and political parties (not technically part of the insurgency).

Anarchist, There is no need to get your knickers in a knot. I think you are the one making a mountain out of a mole hill. Dug asked why paintball was against the rules. Someone explained why. Paraphrasing, Dug then said the way around it was to make it a non-scout event. True enough......depending on how you do it. If you truely do it "outside" the troop, it is no big deal. If you promote it within the troop and (wink, wink, nod, nod....as has been suggested by folks in other threads) say you'll just call it a non-scout event, then you are being unethical. You are creating a loophole to take your scouts on an outing that BSA says you can't. That would be unethical. Again, it all depends on how it is handled. We lead by example. Dug mentioned they would just do it as a non-scouting event without any further detail about how it would be promoted. That is what Fscouter was responding to.

Anarchist, I don't think Fscouter's comments were out of line. I think what he was getting at was what often happens with things like our "sod surfing" event. Sometimes the urge to do something that is not allowed by G2SS is so strong that you look for loopholes. Remember, with the sod surfing, they claimed it was not an official troop outing (wink, wink), even though it was an annual troop event, planned within the troop, used troop equipment, took the place of a troop outing and even got featured on the troop website. Heck, if I remember correctly, the troop even took out an insurance policy because of the activities they engaged in. I think Fscouter's point was that when a troop plans an "illegal" event but bills it as a non-troop event in order to do it, it is sending the wrong message to the boys. There is nothing wrong with engaging in the activity with your son and his friends. I've done paintball and laser tag both and had a blast. The problem is when you want the troop to do it and plan it within the troop, but claim it has nothing to do with the troop.

It kind of makes you wonder just why they built all those roads at summer camp if they don't want you to use them, doesn't it?

You know Brent, your poor manners and unscoutlike attitude are getting old. What is it with you and personal attacks? Can you just not help yourself? Partisan? I qualified that I am a conservative independent. I'll match my stand on conservative and liberal issues with you any day. Open your eyes man! There are many well known and highly respected conservatives who have spoken out against this war. Of course, they are relegated to the nut case category by all of the unqualified, ratings hungry, anything for a buck talking heads that far too many people get their "news" and views from. "Too bad France and Russia violated those sanctions, providing plenty of cash to Saddam." Cash he obviously spent on lavish living and not WMD's. He was still impotent militarily as was proved when we rolled over his nation in a matter of days. "Documentation??" Use google or your memory from all of the reports the weapons inspectors gave. It was reported by all aspects of the media over 12 years. "Actually, the UN had issued a dozen empty-threat resolutions against Iraq. We just decided to enforce them." So you wouldn't mind me enforcing your rules and spanking your children? Since when were we the UN. We are the US. "We are fighting Al Qaida in Iraq. Too bad your partisan glasses won't allow you to see that." Actually, I don't have partisan glasses. I seek a variety of information from numerous sources. I don't use talking points. Al Queda only makes up a portion of the insurgency. Do a little research and you will find it isn't black and white, US military vs Al Queda. There are so many factions of Iraqis and some foreign fighters that it is difficult to know who is who. But they are not all Al Queda and we wouldn't be fighting them in Dunwoody, Ga. if we were not fighting them there. Let me ask you a question. Why did we go to Iraq? Was it to liberate the people and bring democracy? Or was it to turn the country into a terrorist magnet like some claim so we could fight terrorists there instead of in our backyard? Gee, with friends like that, who needs enemies? One stated goal is in direct opposition to the other, yet there are those who make both of these claims out of different sides of their mouths. I wouldn't appreciate a country drawing terrorists to the US to fight a war while all I want is to make a living and raise a family. Would you?

Yellow_hammer, Sorry, but I have to respectfully disagree with you. To set the stage, I consider myself a conservative independent and I'll call a spade a spade on either side of the fence. The "no criticism while troops are in harm's way" is a ploy of right wing pundits to silence the opposition. These same people had no problem critcising Clinton when he engaged troops. What is good for the goose is good for the gander. bin Laden attacked America on 9/11. The was hiding in Afghanistan and being protected by the Taliban. They refused to give him up. I was in full support when Bush sent the military in. I just wish we would have finished the job there. There are those of us (again, conservative) who questioned going in to Iraq from the get go. Things just did not add up. We had crippled their military in the first war. We had them under sanctions that kept them from rebuilding it. We owned their airspace. At least 85% of their WMD's had been accounted for and destroyed under the weapons inspection teams. Other than the rantings of an impotent mad man, they had not seriously threatened us and didn't have the means even if they wanted to. The Bush admin cooked up a variety of "reasons" for war and shopped them to other nations and the US public. Many of us dissented. Bush was determined to have this war. He got it. I love the troops. I respect the troops. I expect the troops to be used in the defense of this great nation. That is their purpose. Toppling Saddam and "bringing democracy" to Iraq is not defending this nation. It is forcing a foreign policy thru the use of troops. It is because I love this nation, our constitution and our troops that I WILL speak out when their blood is spilt for another nation other than the US. I will not be silent. I can not. To do so would be immoral for me.

If the Great Master of all Scouts were granting wishes, here would be mine. That posters at Scouter.com would realize that posting here is a privilege and not a right. That the purpose of Scouter.com is to provide a way for Scouters to discuss scouting and that Terry created the Issues & Politics forum due to requests, but still expects the Oath and Law to be respected. My greatest wish is that somehow the system would only allow a user one post to the Issues and Politics forum for every five posts to the various scouting related forums. That is why we should all be here anyway. I've yet to understand those who come here to only post in the I & P forum. There are hundreds and hundreds of political forums of every stripe on the internet where you can be as nasty as you want to be. I don't think some of what has been presented here puts Scouters in the best light. Try posting some useful information in the scouting forums for a change. Just my two cents.

Sure, we all want boys to earn their Eagle because THEY want to. We also want them to wash behind their ears, say please and thank you, eat their vegetables, make good grades in school and cheerfully get up and go to Sunday School each week. When they don't, we push them to do the "right thing" or else. It is a natural part of parenting I'm told.