SR540Beaver

EagleinKY, I like this font better. http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/pizzadude/meloneads/meloneads/ BTW, nice troop website!

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EagleinKY, Well, that is 10 minutes of my life I'll never get back, and all just to be insulted!!! LOL

Well GEEZ......I was proud that we picked up 16 new scouts. Then you guys come along and burst my bubble. We did have 5 prospects visit a week or so ago. We have created tow NSP's out of our 16 boys. We have 2 Troop Guides per patrol and myself and 2 fellow ASM's overseeing the whole thing. Last week was the first troop meeting they attended. I'm working with the other ASM's and the 4 TG's to develop our program. Per our SM's request, we will be pulling the NSP's out for their own specialized skill instruction while the rest of the troop is doing theirs. At this stage, their needs are different. At the outset, we will be teaching them how to set up and break down the troop tents and equipment to get them up to snuff for campouts. We also plan on pulling them out for specialized instruction on campouts for things like their totin and fire chits. They will still be heavily involved in everything else the troop does, just given special attention where needed. Also, we will be working up a plan of how we will approach all of the rank advancement requirements up to first class over the next year. We want to present this to the boys and their parents to encourage participation. For instance, we don't do a five mile hike on every outing. If little Billy wants to check that item off, he needs to show up when we do it if at all possible. There is no guarantee that we can fit it in in the near future. We do expect the boys to be responsible for their advancement, but we want to show them that it is possible to get to this place in your career if you stay active and participate in the opportunities we plan.

For all of you SHOW-OFF's, perhaps we should ask Scouter-Terry to start a Morse Code forum for you to hang out in. But then the Semaphore crowd will be begging for a special font and forum of their own.

ASM59, True. If he has already fulfilled the requirements, you could give him the BOR. I'm talking about not being around for 6 to 12 months AND considering yourself "active" because you were on the charter. Having already fulfilled requirements and being away for 6 months is different from being away for 6 months and thinking you should be considered active when you return.

Welcome little Beaver! Hmmmm, I guess you are actually a Raven aren't you? That homework had better be done before you get on the computer!!!

Once a year during one of our troop meetings, we handle our recharter. Announcments are made, phone calls made and newsletters mailed. We can't make it any easier oe well known than that. If we have "inactive" scouts who chose not to show up or respond to our numerous appeals, they are dropped from the charter. It isn't just a matter of any boy who doesn't show up that night. The active boys and their parents know what is happening and make other arrangements if they can't be there for some reason. Even the inactive boys get a final call. But if they don't come to meetings or outings for the majority of the year and don't come to the recharter meeting, they are dropped. Wouldn't you say that they have already made their intentions known? It really isn't that big of a deal. If they came back a month later, they can re-register and pick up where they left off. That being said, they will have to be "active" if they want to advance or be considered for leadership positions. They can't be gone for nine months and show up for elections and throw their name in the hat or ask for a BOR for advancement.

Jill, I just posted this same message to you on another scouting board where you raised the same question. Trails End Popcorn and BSA work together to produce the "Ideal Year of Scouting" program. It is a worksheet to plan and calculate how much you need to raise in order to fund your program. Obviously, it's design is to help determine how much popcorn needs to be sold to fund the program. I guess it could aslo be used to determine how much a boy might need to pay in annual or monthly dues if you didn't want to raise all the funds thru fundraisers. My company has a filter on the internet that blocks us from getting to a lot of sites on the internet. I can't see Trails End's site, but from a Google search, it appears to be: www.trails-end.com/TEIYOS/ Another site I could see is: http://www.narragansettbsa.org/popco...ner%20Form.pdf I would be very surprised if someone does not promote this program at your district roundtable at popcorn time. Another great reason to go to roundtable. You'd be amazed at the info available!

Absolutely! They are part of the Jambo patch which you can wear forever......but only one at a time. You can't have the 2001 and 2005 patch sewn on at the same time. Any other Jambo patches should probably be removed after 6 months from the end of Jambo. There is debate about the CSP since it is/was an "official" CSP for your council. Think of all of those folks you see running around with special FOS CSP's. If the council approved the CSP, it can be worn regardless of what the current patch is.

I have a scouter buddy who doesn't have cable TV. His kids sure spend a lot of time at the neighbors house instead of home. I am one of those people who does love TV. Not only do I have cable, but I have digital cable with HDTV an a DVR (think TIVO) an a big screen TV. I hear a lot of people who claim there is nothing good on TV anymore. I beg to differ. I think TV is at an all time high in quality. Is there junk out there? You bet. I look at it like a fruit stand. I pick thru it and pick the best and leave the rest at the market. There is a lot of reality TV junk out there, but I try to never miss Dancing with the Stars, Survivor or American Idol. I never miss 24, Stargate SG1 or Lost. If I have to be busy with other things, I record them on the DVR to view later. There are a number of other great shows that I try not to miss, but I don't get in a funk if I miss them. Any Law and Order show is usually top notch as is West Wing. Without a Trace and Cold Case seldom disappoint. Numbers is entertaining. On top of all of that, I watch a lot of stuff on the Discovery, History, Science, Military and National Geographic channels. Mythbusters an Dirty Jobs are fun. I used to watch a lot of CNN and FOX News until it starte to get a little to much like Jerry Springer, so I cut way back on people telling me what I should think. Yep, I'm a TV junkie......and I still fin time for that 1 hour a week of scouting.

I think part of the reason for high cost uniform pieces is that they are made in the USA. I think the other reason is because they have a monopoly with the uniform and they can ask whatever price they want. Yes, I've had buttons come unsewn shortly after buying the shirts. Notice I said unsewn. They didn't pop off or get ripped off, they came unsewn. I also had the shoulder seam start coming unsewn shortly after buying my first shirt a few years back. While many advocate for a new uniform, I have too much invested for it to change. In addition to the uniform shirt, pants and socks I had with our unit info on it, I ha to have 3 uniform shirts, 3 pairs of short, 6 pairs of socks and 2 web belts for Jamboree. So now I have 4 uniforms hanging in my closet. I can't afford a change in uniform!!! Our unit expects as full of a uniformas a boy can muster if he is in leaership and for SM conferences, BOR's and COH's. For campouts, we expect them to wear their shirts coming and going. During the campout they can wear most "anything" they want that is appropriate. I have had my eye on a pair of hiker pants from Cabela's for some time. They have very nice sized bellows cargo pockets with velcro flaps. There is a knife pocket and a D ring sewn in by the belt loop. The belt loops are the wide variety and the waist band has elastic in it. Also, the pants have double kneesin them. They come in olive. As opposed to the scout pants, these are great for the field and cost $29. They are my new camp pants.

Rooster, The depth of your denial is utterly astounding. Be my guest to visit the website of The Project For The New American Century which is chaired by William Kristol of The Weekly Standard. The site is http://www.newamericancentury.org/index.html. This group of "conservatives" (actually neo-cons) have been urging war with Iraq since their founding in 1997. You can read their letter to Clinton from 1998 at http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqclintonletter.htm. you can read their letter to Bush in 2001 at http://www.newamericancentury.org/Bushletter.htm. Many of the men who signed the first letter to Clinton became part of the Bush administration inner circle. They didn't sign the second letter to Bush because they were already part of the admin and already advocating for the war on Iraq that they couldn't get Clinton to wage. In the letter to Bush, they allude to the possibility of Saddam being part of 9/11. This war WAS on the agenda and it was going to happen one way or another. You can deny it, but the facts are the facts. The sad thing is that people honestly believe that Bush, Congress and toay's Republican party are true conservatives. They are not. They wrap themselves in the flag, the military and call anyone who disagrees with them a traitor and not a patriot. Around Oklahoma, we have what we call Drugstore Cowboys. They are wannabes. They are the guys who put on starched jeans, $400 boots, $200 cowboy hats and a big buckle and strike Marlboro Man poses. They've never been outside the city and gotten their hands dirty. That is what the "conservatives" of today have become. People like Pat Buchanan are conservative, yet they have been marginalized by today's "conservatives" and are considered kooks because they espouse true conservative ideals and oppose the war. Here is a little true conservative reading for you. It won't match the talk show talking points you are familiar with. http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=49030

One other note for the "WMD's buried for a rainy day folks". Dig a hole in your backyard 10 to 15 feet deep. Place your car and a jar of pickles down there. Fill the hole back up with all of that heavy dirt. Come back in 5 years an dig them up. See if the pickles are edible and if the car will drive. WMD's (even of the nuclear variety) have a limited shelf life even under optimum conditions. You can't just bury them in the sand, dig them up years later and use them. It just oesn't work that way according to the weapons inspectors I've heard talk about it.

Rooster, Yes, individuals allude the police all the time. They are one person out of millions of US citizens and they have the ability to move across 48 states at will. Now, if the police were looking for say 1,000 people as a group, it would be much harder to allude detection. Let's remember, Saddam was supposed to have bunkered "stockpiles" of WMD's and factories to produce them with. We are not talking about a single vial of anthrax. Let's also remember that about 99% of the deck of 55 or whatever it was were captured. Many of these people were the leaders of his WMD programs. Let's remember that we "own" the country and can go wherever we want, whenever we want without restriction. Don't you find it interesting that with all of the top leadership and scientists captured, crack US inspection teams having free movement about the country and three years to look, we have no stockpiles of WMD's to show for it or even a single factory. Do I think Saddam never had WMD's? Of course not. There is no question that he had them at one time and even used them once against his own people a decade or more ago. What many don't want to acknowledge is that the sanctions actually worked. If Saddam were such a threat to US national security, why did he do nothing to harm us in the 12 years after Gulf War 1? What was he waiting for? Each year his infrastructure, military might and power rusted away. He used the fear of WMD's to keep his people and his neighbors in line. He never used them and/or destroyed them because he knew what the US would do if he did use them. I think he destroyed them, but kept the fact secret as insurance to keep his enemies guessing. GWB came along and decided to call his bluff and to shoot first and ask questions later. Even when Saddam said he didn't have them, the admin's take is that he is a liar and can't be trusted. He was damned if he did and damned if he din't. The war was on the agenda and would happen regardless of the status of WMD's.

PS, The blue state scouters are more than welcome to their 2 dots, but the red state scouters are perfectly satisfied with 3 dots. It is those danged independent scouters with their 2.5 dots that burn my cookies.

funscout, 20 minutes ago, I had a Chicken, Bacon, Ranch on Monterey Cheese Bread from Subway. 5 minutes ago, I finished eating it. I no longer have it. I did at one time, but no more. What Saddam had in his arsenal and used a decade ago and what he had when we invaded are two different things. No caches of WMD's have been found in the three years we have occupied Iraq. No evidence of it existing or being moved has been provided from the covert boots on the ground prior to the war or from satelite surveilence. From all indications, it was all destroyed prior to the war.

Hillis, In a previous troop, we had a horrible time getting boys to wear the proper footwear on campouts and all we did was car camp with an occasional day hike. We had too many showing up with a single pair of tennis shoes that often got soaked in one way or another. We really prefer that a boy have a boot that provides good footbed support for uneven terrain, good ankle support and is waterproof. We ended up requiring them to show up when we were leaving for a campout with their boots on, or they couldn't go on the campout. They could bring another pair of shoes to wear once they got there, but they had to show up with booys so we knew they had them if they needed them. Barry, Interesting!!! Our troop is taking two crews to Northern Tier this summer and my son will be going. They are required (well, very heavily encouraged) to buy Altima military jungle boots. The troop has made a number of trips to NT and they say anything less will not fall apart by the 2nd or 3rd day and will get sucked off in the moose muck, leaving you shoeless for the rest of the trip.

In a previous troop I served in, we had two boys in particular who took great pride in not bathing at camp. They also were major BO factories within the first day or two. Luckily, we had an SM who wouldn't take no for an answer on showering. He would allow them to wait until they were really ripe before requiring them to hose off. I guess I remember my past differently. I entered junior high in 69 and graduated high school in 75. I hated showering in public in PE and at church camp. Part of it was because I was overweight and made an easy target. Teen aged kids are seldom kind. For boys who mature at different rates, there is also the "size" factor that comes into play. Again, teen aged boys are seldom kind. I helped muck out the church camp cabin a number of times before camp started and always thought it wasn't fair that the girls had doors on their toilet stalls and a system of curtains in their showers and us boys just had to just let it all hang out. One of the things guys liked to do was keep an eye out for a shy guy to sneak to the bathroom to do his business and then walk in and strike up a long conversation while he is trapped on the pot. They thought it was a hoot. Privacy needs to be respected, especially for the younger boys. when designing a shower house, putting up dividers and curtains doesn't cost that much more.

How many lawyers does it take to shingle a roof? 15 if you slice them real thin.

So Rooster, one can only assume that you'd be fine with it if you were to read in tomorrow morning's newspaper that the BSA will begin wholeheartedly acceptting gays and atheists as Scoutmasters? I can't help but think that you might be part of the "mob mentality" who would question the wisdom of the change in policy. It is this admin that has repeatedly told us that 9/11 changed everything, to be vigilant, to stay the course in the war on terrorism. People who dare to raise a question are labeled as traitors. Now the admin says that the American people don't need to worry about security. The mob mentality against this kind of thing was fashioned by this admin. If they wonder why people are reacting the way they are, perhaps they should take a close look in the mirror. It is unbelievable that they are this far out of touch with the American people. The question now is, just who has forgotten 9/11. I don't think it is John Doe, but GWB.

I'm somewhat surprised that Halliburton wasn't enlisted thru an overpriced no contract bid to run the ports. Honestly, I don't know why Bush feels obligated to support this deal when he wasn't even aware of it to begin with. I fully supported him with our actions in Afghanistan after 9/11. He lost me when we invaded Iraq who posed no serious threat to US security. We have wasted 100's of billions of dollars that I do not feel have made us any safer. The money could have been better spent securing our borders and ports and come much closer to actually providing us better security. The argument that it is better to fight them over there instead of on the streets of our cities just does not hold water. Who honestly believes that battalions of Islamic radicals are going to be parachuting into our cities and fighting hand to hand?

OGE, I could be wrong, but in scanning jkhny's 142 posts, I never saw where he identified his home council. He complains about it a lot, but he doesn't identify it. In fact, it appears that any bad news at a council level is fair game since he also expended a lot of energy on the Atlanta council. Prairie, I can go along with your comments on swimming upstream to effect change from within and how tough it can be. While there is an element of that in jkhny's, he doesn't appear to be happy about anything within scouting and virtually every post is critical of scouting. I for one enjoy the Politics and Issues forum and a lively debate, but I do try to post in other forums and swap good positive info with other scouters. I just don't see the point in coming here and doing nothing but bash on scouting.

ASM59, Never send a man to do a job a boy can do. Sounds like a job for a trustworthy ASPL.

jkhny, I don't mean for this to be offensive....honestly, I don't. It has been a while since I've seen you around, but I thought your name and theme of your post sounded familiar. So I scanned your 142 posts. It dumbfounds me how someone so frustrated with and critical of the BSA could continue to associate themselves with it. I'm hard pressed to find a single positive statement made by you about the BSA in these forums. It seems that your main focus on scouting seems to be politics and business. If you are truly that dissatisfied, why choose to be a part of scouting? Just curious.