SSScout

Stosh, me hearty, Tis an easy one. Aye, of the Alphabet, if he be literate, his favorite letter be 'ARRRRRRRRRRRRR". What be his favorite type of foot covering?

There you go. If the restauranteurs had only worn the camp uniform, there would have been no problem. Were they there as extra Camp staff, or as Hooter people?

Here in our District, last time my "Yoda" and I decided to make sure we covered the "Official" curriculum, but kept much of the old curriculum, too. We explained what we were doing, it was fairly obvious from the included materials. We have always jncluded "added value" (""now how much would you pay?"") . We opened as usual early Saturday morning, and said goodbye as usual about 3pm Sunday. No complaints. Our plan is to run the course as a Troop campout, Patrols do classes, have some friendly competition, and gain awards for their flags. The goal is to go thru the Scout to First Class requirements. Patrols are formed at the indoor part of the course, and thru email discussions. Seems to work. Our "old timers" concur that the watered down course was done in response to complaints that the "old course" was too long and not adult enough. We treat our nascent SMs as Scouts, and haven't had any problems. Too long? Maybe that is a reflection of the reality that today's Troops seem to HAVE to get home sunday before 1pm...... Might be we were doing it right all along....

Welcome and greetings from Murlin, across the Potomac. Lexington's a pretty , old city. Driven through there many times.

""My son wants to have a ECOH with his buddy he went through scouts with when he Eagle's soon and have it less formal and more religious because that is just how he rolls. As long as he invites the people who helped him I am OK with that. My other son is in OA and I think an OA style would appeal to him as well."" Well, there it is. I like the idea of a multi-Scout CoH. What a concept. One of the most memorable ECoH I ever attended was for three Scouts who grew up together in Scouting. They opted for a campout at one of the Scout's grandparents farm back woodlot. Folks had to park and walk back several hundred yards to the site. Held in the late fall, there was a campfire for the hotdogs, folks brought the potatoe salad and three bean salad. Candles, quiet crickets, it was great. After the ceremonial stuff, and the parents and relatives and other folk had (finally!) gone home, just the die hard Troop Scout campers were left to sit around the campfire to share more stories. It can be done, including the old Scout friends, the proud relatives, the Troop to show the other Scouts "how it's done". It can be meaningful, memorable, and short too. See you on the trail....

"Did they serve pizza to the crew"?

Llama, llama, llama, llama, llama, llama. LLAMA.

Buccaneer = expensive corn. Privateer = Nobody bother my corn. Lavalier = smokin' hot hearing appendage.

""But Hooters was not staffing the camp they were sponsoring it and providing an opportunity for their employees to volunteer to help with the program they sponsored."" But it was a Scout Camp, and they were "helping" with the Scout camp, and the restaurant gave some money (?) to support the Scout camp, should not the Staff helpers dress the part? They were not Staffing the restaurant. Promotion, perhaps, but we always said thanks to our sponsors/supporters with mention in our CampNotes and such, not by allowing folks to not be "in uniform". Unless they were doing their thing especially. Firemen, model airplane fliers, Walmart trucker, homing pigeon demo, State Police helicopter, state park Scales and Tales come to mind. All these folks were there to promote THEIR thing FOR the Cubs. These restauranteurs were there, I perceived, to BE CSDC staff helpers. There's the difference. If a Playboy bunny came to staff the Nature Pavilion, and she was not dressed in her "work" clothes (!), but appropriate to a CSDC Staffer, and was knowledgeable about the subject , where's the problem ? The CSDC Scout folks here allowed the Hooter girls to be restaurant promoters rather than Camp Staff, it now seems to me.

"""By the way, how many WB Owls do we have in the audience?"""" Whoooooo wants to know?

""Whooo Do You Love ((with apologies to Bo Didley)): I walk 47 miles of Philmont, I use a cobra snake for a woggle, got new Scout Hut on the roadside made outta Antelope hide, it's got a little bitty chimney right on top made outta a Buffalo skull. Come on Troop Guide, take a walk with me, tell me, whoooooo do you love oh honey, whoooooo do you love....... I got a Boy Scout staff and a Woodbadge Mind, I'm just 42 and I don't mind Hiking..... Whooooooo do you love….. Come on B-P make me understand, let the boys LEAD , win all you CAN, WHOOOOOOO do you love, oh Course Director, tell me, whoooooo do you love…......

AHA! There is the real trouble! The Restaurant Girls were out of uniform! Every CSDC I have ever staffed or attended, the working adults, and even the Den Walkers wore Camp Uniform! Special Tshirt and Cap! All the pictures I see of these offending young women show them in Hooters shirts, jackets and caps! If they were to be staffing the camp, the Hooters logo stuff should not have been in so plain view, if any.... I think the only exception to the Camp Uniform would be for "guest specials", such as when the FIremen come with their gear, or the year the Army Corps of Engineers came to teach building ... things like that. Were these young ladies frying potatoes or serving pizza? If these young "big sisters" were there to staff the camp, in whatever role, then the Restaurant should have not been their "cover". The CSDC should have been their "cover".

The Scout must make his own way. He will be an Eagle someday, maybe not next week, but it will happen. He will decide how to make it happen. Basketball? Scouts? Room for each , a little give and bend. Coach will understand if Scout is a little late to a game. Scout and SM will arrange for the SMC, at a PLC? At a Coffee shop? Mutually agreeable site. (YPpolicy governs) . And, as has been said, the EBoR is , in most Districts, not a Troop thing, but a District (or even Council thing). Find out from Eagle coordinator (should be listed in District hierarchy) how to schedule. Usually, SM or his designee escorts Eagle candidate to the site and introduces the candidate to the BoR, and then steps out. Troop CCMs may or may not be formally invited, but usually other Scout parents are invited to participate. But no one from the Scout's own family or Troop may participate in HIS EBoR. Yeah, it may seem like things are glacial, but it will happen. As us Quakers like to say, "way will open", when it should. Let your Scout know you support him, but let him deal with it. He is, after all, an Eagle to be.... By the way, what was his project?

I don't have any owls to show any random trucker.

""Apparently the troop has done multiple Scouts in one BOR for a long time, and everyone on the committee wants to keep it that way "to save time, otherwise we will be here all night." " Multiple Scouts? How is that showing the Scout he (singular) is important? How many times have you seen among siblings, at home, in a movie, "you love him better than me" because of the better attention shown to one brother over another, which leads to..... If the Scout is the object of review, why not all night? Each Scout , at some time, deserves the undivided attention of the parent, the Scoutmaster, the Board of Review. Why should it be otherwise? If nothing else, The Golden Rule requires it.

Pride. Yep. Proud to be a Scout. Envy. Yep. Wish my big sister looked like that. Wrath, See mom in news article. Gluttony, Better to go to Golden Corral for the All-You-Can-Eat.... Lust. Ah-hem. Eye of the beholder, the log in your own eye.... Sloth, Don't think so. Look at those girls work.... Greed. Ummmm, no. they worked at the CSDC for free, yes?

Hooters: "Who cooks, who cooks , who cooks for you awwwwl." I think the CSDC folks obviously had the "older sister" image in mind, and heck, the restaurant did a "good turn" thereby. One summer, at our CSDC, I had to send a male Scout youth Assistant staff back to the Admin area because he had purposely torn his tshirt in a "heroic/beach" style (his words), obviously to impress the several Girl Scout staffers we had. He was counseled, and reshirted and went back to serve the Cubs.

If my Scoutson has a schmart phone, and I have a schmart phone, how close to each other do we have to be for me to be "supervising" him? I will posit the news items about "free range children".. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/free-range-parents-cleared-in-second-neglect-case-after-children-walked-alone/2015/06/22/82283c24-188c-11e5-bd7f-4611a60dd8e5_story.html and http://www.freerangekids.com/ "Make sure you're back in time for dinner". "Okay, mom."

""When asked to appear upon some important occasion and deliver a five-minute speech, ((President Lincoln)) said that he had no time to prepare five-minute speeches, but that he could go and speak an hour at any time."" A good ceremony needs the three "Ps" : Purpose, Planning and Practice . Without them, any supposed ceremony demonstrates and elicits the three "Bs": Boredom, Buffoonery and Questions (okay, two Bs) yawning, snickers and why are we here? If the participants believe in what they are doing, the audience can forgive alot, but the inspiration must come early and with clarity. I like the Patrol Leader ceremony mentioned above. It helps to make it clear what a PL is expected to do. No amount of SM talks can do what a public promise can do.

""“When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.â€"" = Mark Twain = Scouter957: Well, if you want a little advice, you certainly have come to the right place. We have as little as anyone for you. If , as you say, the group of (Eagle?) Scouters in your Troop want the Boy Led, Patrol Method Scouting espoused by the "official" BSA, and the COR/CCh is resisting such (desirous of the Adult Led, Troop Method Scouting espoused by control needy folks), then , as has been suggested, your choices are: 1) Find another unit. Too easy, but sometimes the best idea. 2) Go to the Charter Org, the Institution Head and point out what they signed up for on the charter document. Go as a group, see below. This needs to be done as a group, not just by singular you. It always looks better to have a Concerned Committee of like minded folks . Less like a "rebellion", more like a "let's improve things". Try hard to let the IH take credit for the ideas. Let the problem person have a graceful way to "do the right thing", rather than leave in a huff or need to be dismissed in disgrace. Are ALL the ASMs and SM on board with this? 3) Make sure the folks involved can take and DO take the relevant BSA training. Point out to the COR/CCh that no one can do the best job if they don't have the right "schoolin' ". 4) Remember, "it's for the kids" , not for you or him or those men and women over there..... The purpose of life is not to add to one's own resume, but "to plant trees under whose shade one does not expect to sit". Our job as adult , old goat patrol Scouters is to set up the framework in which Scouts may succeed, not to require their success on our terms. 5) As has been suggested, as last resort, your Scout Leader cadre can "jump ship", find another CO (church. club, temple, VFD,...) and start a new Troop/Pack. Not unusual, not too hard. Depending on the response to choices #2,3,4 above, this might be the best and most fun choice! Heck, you've got experienced Scouters, boys eager, and that's the best start for a new unit! See you on the trail!

As you Scouts grow up, you will probably get summer jobs, maybe even "permanent" jobs. I recommend finding some work, sometime in your young life, in the building trades. Plumbing, carpentry, masonry, surveying, you can even earn Merit Badges in them. "Helpers" can earn serious money, and you learn how things work, how they go together, and how to take pride in your work, no matter how small a contribution you might think it is. One summer I was carpenter's helper. I worked in a crew "bossed" by, oh, I'll call him Mr. Smith. Now, Mr. Smith was by then in his late sixty's and had learned his trade back before power tools were so common. He told me his partner and he could frame a roof with him on the ground and his partner up in the rafters, calling down measurements that Mr. Smith would cut and then send up, by his HELPER (!), and the parts would fit perfectly. He often said that was the secret to reliable construction: trust in the measure and trust in the craftman's skill. One day our crew had just finished some wall frames and had tied them together for the first floor of a house. Mr. Smith came up and looked around. Then he asked me, ME!, to hold the zero end of his tape measure "right there", while he measured. Then another place. Then a third place. And a fourth. He then turned to the foreman of our group and said "tear it out and do it again". "Why? What's wrong?" "It's an inch out of square in two corners" "What? When the rockwall is up and the corners plastered and painted, who's gonna know ?" Mr. Smith straightened up and looked the crew carp in the eye. "I will, and you will. Tear it out and do it again." We tore the frames out and re-measured and renailed that floor. How about you? What will you know after the job is done?

Bingo: Welcome to the wonderful world of angst. And the forums...... G2A is fairly clear. The Scout Handbook is fairly clear. The Eagle Project Workbook is VERY clear. The folks on this Scouterdotcom have a good grasp of the Scout ideal and reality. My final advice: Talk to the boy. Talk to the Scout. Do not talk to the parent(s) unless they ask specific questions, and then speak to the parents AND the Scout. NEVER leave him out of the conversation, even when the parents barge into the conversation. It is his award to pursue. They are his parents to live with and learn from, whatever example they give. And it sounds like the Scout is doing a good job of following the parent(s)' example. Checklist all the requirements, check the time frame, make sure the Scout understands everything and then step back and help when asked. Buen camino!

I guess if Mel Brookes can find humor in the Inquisition and Nazis, we can find fun in Captain Kidd ,Anne Bonny and Blackbeard.,.. Eye patches? Lobster on the shoulder? Robert Louis Stevenson adaptation.... Cutlass Totin, Chip.... (inflation) "AWWK! Pieces of nine, pieces of nine! AWWWK! " Offishul Internashunal Tawwwwwlk like a Pirate Day http://www.talklikeapirate.com/piratehome.html What is a pirate's favorite type of music? Arrrrrrrrchestral..

So we should bring the LI-ION battery powered saws and power hammers? The idea of Scouts is to make kids independent, safe, self assured , or so I've interpreted the "purposes". No axes? No saws? We have already eliminated Morse Code and finding the north star/astronomy from First Class. The FCScout was intended to be "prepared". I suppose that having your cell ready is one form of that. You can buy a backpack that , thru the up and down motion, will charge your cell and tablet. You can bring along a roll-up solar panel. For a price, you can avail yourself of the ingenuity of many others. That is the benefit of civilization. Yep, many of the young Scouts I meet have rarely seen, much less used a compass. Magnetic, that is. Follow directions? If it isn't in that 25mm screen, , is it real? We , as Scouts, are often called on to deal with the situation in times extremis. No electrical power? Camp stove comes out, set fire in fireplace. No heat? Sleeping bags come out. No water? Haul and boil. Will the OA Ordeal become doing without the Ipad? That is an ordeal for some kids, I guess. I would like to think the Scout of today is aware of, and able to utilize, all the "ancient" technology that today's stuff has been built on.

Very nice , indeed. I hope sufficient thought has been given to the preservation of that wood bench and it's security. New Joisy?