SWScouter

Mike's not alone as I've not been able to see it either. Thanks for pursuing this.

How would this work if one is really backpacking. The phone's battery will die very quickly with the GPS chipset active. I doubt it would even last through the first day of the trip.

I'd be happy if the scouts would, "move to" do something instead of, "make a motion to" do something. Yuk.

My son was elected to OA recently and attended Ordeal this past weekend. Another boy in his Troop was not elected and his mother was VERY upset about it. So she had one of the ASM sign an Ordeal registration form for her son. She took him to Ordeal on Friday with the signed form and registration money and the OA staff allowed him to stay and complete Ordeal. So I can tell you that I know being voted in by your peers is not the only way in...at least at this lodge.

 

I would not recommend this route as it has caused a conflict in the Troop and the boys who were honestly voted in feel like they have been slighted. And I feel like it took something away from their experience.

 

I have considered contacting OA staff for the lodge and discuss my concerns but at this point I can't decide. What do you all think?

To me, this is purely an issue with the lodge's ordeal registration process. Granted the ASM had no business signing a registration form, but the lodge should not have allowed the registration since the scout in question was not elected and the election form turned in by the election team would not have included the scout. So the big issue is how did the scout's registration get past the ordeal registrar's scrutiny. That is where the problem lies.

Ordeal night tonight!! Possible thunderstorms predicted. My youngest son is going for his Ordeal. Doesn't get any better than this folks.

Nice!

I wasn't aware of a BSA policy excluding gay youth. Yes there is one excluding gay adults. My impression of the policy change was just codifying that membership cannot be denied a youth that is gay

There is not one use for a smart phone mentioned here or on the blog that merits their inclusion. At best' date=' competent but lazy people want to use them as shortcuts, at worst incompetent people need them to keep themselves from learning.[/quote']

 

roflmao

Some troops are just tough when it comes to the elections too. A couple weeks ago I went to a troop election with 23 names on the ballot. Of those 23, only 3 were elected. Those scouts have set a high bar to get into the OA. This obviously isn't a new thing otherwise there would have been more members in the OA and less on the ballot.

 

The water/steam is to transfer heat. From what I've read about it, it doesn't make for soggy foods. Now, they aren't crisp like dry baked goods, but they aren't soggy. Here's a link to a DIY version:

 

http://www.trailcooking.com/fauxbaker/

We did something similar using three round throw away cake pans (one was cut up to use for the stand) to make pizza the third night of a four day backpack in Grand Canyon. It was awesome. The only problem is that you're cooking for awhile and so use a lot of fuel.

I found it kinda difficult to go back and see comments on earlier threads, missed a lot. This way it keeps it more sequential.

 

Stosh

I agree with Stosh. The "Go to latest post" button didn't work properly with replies to specific posts.

From the OA Handbook:

As a scouter, you wear the Arrow to make it more significant to Scouts. If you were elected as an adult, it was for this reason, rather than as an honor or award. Nonetheless, your own induction into the Order is your opportunity for personal growth. Further, you are observed by younger Arrowmen and must be an exemplary participant.

That's the crux of it, you should become an arrowman to better serve the order and help make it a more meaningful honor for the scouts.

I would hope that the lodge will make accomodations for you to use your CPAP. Please don't reject a nomination for that reason, instead let the lodge know of this so it can be properly handled.

I was at the Jamboree as a leader with a troop and my son was there as an over eighteen Venturer.

 

Adults cutting in line. The consensus was that with all the restrictions due to weather and shortage of staff, adults kept away from the HA program areas. We did the nature trails, Summit Center etc. One thing to note was that the Scouts were identified by red bands on their credentials, adults by yellow bands and Venturers with green bands. One quirk was that Venturers over eighteen were issued yellow bands and used adult facilities. Perhaps these were the people that the Scouts thought were adults cutting in?

 

Anybody with a “curriculum ticket†went to the front of the line and some areas issued VIP passes to frequent visitors that let them cut the line. We had two Scouts receive VIP passes for the skateboard area. So, any over 18 Venturer with a curriculum ticket or VIP pass might have been mistaken for an adult cutting in.

 

Our contingent troop was made up of Scouts from about six Council troops. Our only scheduled days were the ones advertised in advance; day of service, Summit trek, curriculum time and any offsite activity the Scout had bought. I suppose the opening and closing shows might be considered scheduled but we let Scouts bail when they had enough of them (who booked a country and western band for a youth event???) Our SM insisted that every Scout attend a worship service or visit the religious exhibits on the Sunday morning. The rest of the time we let the Scouts do whatever they wanted until roll call at 9:30pm (a Summit-set time, we would have preferred 10 or 10:15).

 

I’m not Catholic but took the Catholic Scouts in the group to Mass. It was heartwarming to see about 10,000 Scouts and adults standing in one heck of a rain storm to attend. The celebrant for the service was Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, apostolic nuncio to the United States (basically, the Vatican’s ambassador to the US). There were a number of other high ranking Catholic clergy in attendance. Archbishop Vigano mentioned that he had told the Pope was going to West Virginia for the Jamboree instead of World Youth Day in Brazil. :-) So, hey, the Pope knew about this Jambo. :-)

 

The weather was a pain, no doubt about that. It seemed that lightning came in every afternoon and shut down the aerial and water programs. Due to the staff shortages, program ran from (I think) 9am until 5pm, not the 8am to 8pm I was talking up a couple of years ago during recruiting drives. A lot of frustration from yoots getting told “sorry†after standing in line for quite some time.

 

Our view of the Day of Service was that it dovetailed with how troops work in our Council. Most of the boys enjoyed it, a few loved it and, of course, we hand two or three that hated being there. Our project was in Fayetteville and was useful. One thing the adults had talked about was the day being useful to the community and not a make-work event and our project passed that test. I heard through the grapevine that one Crew’s project was changed at the last minute and involved helping to save a school from flooding!

 

I took a 4 gallon solar shower and had hot or warm water all but one day. Ambient temperature meant cold, no two ways about that. Most boys took cold showers at the peak heat of the afternoon and were ok with that. We had a couple of stinkers that had to get big hints to clean up their act.

 

Feedback from our Scouts was that overall it was great. Only gripe was the weather shutting things down. My Venturer said it was a lot of fun but didn’t match the advertising. I agree with that statement as I was going out and pushing the National line and then having to talk about the scaled back version that was delivered.

 

The one big change I would like to see National make is getting more staff so they can deliver 8am to 8pm program. I have no idea if lowering the price to attend would do it or not. I heard different views from different staff so perhaps each area would have to do its own assessment as to what would be needed to increase staffing levels.

 

I spoke with somebody in D’s medical tent on the last day. Single biggest source of problems was the heat and boys not drinking enough water. She said that accounted for over 50% of the problems. BMX was cited as top source of physical injuries with some Scouts getting broken bones. The helicopter flew around quite a bit but I don’t think it was ever used in anger. The ambulances did have to take a few Scouts off site for treatment but most were fixed up on site.

 

I don’t know how true this is, but was told a few boys were sent home for vulgar remarks to the female Venturers.

Is anyone able to page through the Order of the Arrow topics? Every time I try, I get the following message:

Error

Unable to contact server. Please try again.

If this error continues please contact the site administrator.

Let me throw this out there as possibly another example of something that might have gone wrong…………….. As the story goes, between the skate parks and the BMX courses, there were some 40 broken arms per day. I’ve heard variations of the number but I suspect its close. Statistically I have no idea what that number should be, but anecdotally it suggests one of a number of things: 1- facilities that were too difficult for the target audience, 2- Inadequate training for the beginners, 3-Inadequate policing of the activity, or 4-Poor equipment selection for the target audience.

Any thoughts??

I'm not saying it's the same, but just think for a minute.....................what would happen if you took your family on vacation to a resort that offered all sorts of great activities. The brochures had great glossy pictures of people doing all sorts of great stuff. You wanted to do this, that, and everything. You expected to be able to do everything because no one told you otherwise. On the contrary, the day before you left you checked the website and everything was hunky-dory. Then when you got there, you couldn't do most the activities that were advertised. What would you do, how would you feel???

 

One thing most of you would not be doing is touting the virtues of the resort and glossing over the shortcomings.

Hot water? I suppose they could put in outlets for hair dryers and curling irons too.

like you tex...I wouldn't mind volunteering, But $800 is way too much. I never understood why they needed to make a profit off of the the staff......

 

So how much did it cost to staff at ap hill????

I didn’t receive any forms for providing feedback before I left the Jamboree. If anyone knows where I can get one please post.

 

Both I and my scouts had a wonderful time over all. I have been thinking a lot about my experience and what I think could be done differently. In no particular order here are my reflections.

The enthusiasm and dedication of the volunteer staff cannot be overstated.

 

Every computer system I encountered was poor: the dashboard that remained stubbornly stuck at 50% from when I first registered until it dropped to 0% after I checked in, the activity registration that was often down, the payment system that I could never get to work, the medical system that lost all the info from my and both my sons’ accounts, the list of curriculum activities on site for my scouts that wasn’t correct. For a supposedly high tech jamboree there was no meaningful use of the bar coded credentials, and the $0.99 app was klugy and provided almost no functionality.

 

Too many of my scouts spent too much time in line for activities, often not even getting to do the activity after all the waiting. Grin and bear it isn’t really the answer to this. A Scout is Thrifty, and that should apply to how to spend his/her time, hours in line is not thrifty.

 

Staffing and staffing levels: I have about a dozen friends who were on staff, most of them veterans, between the cost, the time and effort spent getting to their areas, and the overall difficulty of the experience, I think they are going to need to better accommodate folks to get the numbers they need.

 

Transportation: hiking up and down mountains as an activity is fun, hiking up and down campsites and gravel trails because that’s the only way to get there is the reason we have invented every mode of transport from the wheel to the jetliner. Some sort of shuttle system is needed both for the sake of thriftyness and for staffing.

 

Over all a great experience, but there is a lot of room for improvement.

I was on staff and was at the summit for 15 days. I took a shower every other day and washed my face on the non shower days. A lot of the staff used solar showers to take the edge off. I have long hair and wear it pulled back so I needed to stand under the water for longer to rinse it. The water was brisk but bearable. On the hot days, it was, um, refreshing. I don't expect to see hot water at the summit any time soon. I must say I really enjoyed a warm shower this morning, my first since July 10.

I find the adult line hopping curious. I'd be interested to know where it happed as the only place adults were allowed to participate was in the Summit Center. The outlying activity areas were youth only. Early in the first week all the canopy tour lines were limited to curriculum ticket holders both in the action area and in the Summit Center. The zip lines in the center were jammed as much due to lightning and weather as anything.

Most of the long lines were caused by lack of staff. For example, 80 skeet stations were built but they only had staff to run 30 of them. Same with the zip lines. They were unable to run them to capacity because there just wasn't enough staff to move the equipment around from bottom to top, etc.

Weather did come into play too. There were a few times where things had to be shut down due to lightning alerts. Unfortunately that happens and there isn't much we can do about that. We need to manage the risk to the scouts as best as we can.

Before you complain too much about the long lines, then please sign up and help staff the 2017 National Jamboree and even the 2019 World Jamboree.

From what I saw, the scouts were really enjoying themselves and I consider this jamboree very successful. Yes there were some issues and some glaring problems. I have no doubt that they will be addressed and the 2017 National Jamboree will be even more successful.

As far as "selecting" adults go' date=' we have the opposite problem. The units know how to go about nominating an adult, but the OA advisers reject them every year. I know this has happened in our troop two years in a row as well as it happening in another troop also. Just because you send in an adult application doesn't mean that adult will be selected for OA.[/quote']

 

This doesn't make a lot of sense to me. If a unit has a scout elected, then the unit may nominate an adult. As of this year, for each addtional three elected scouts, another adult may be nominated. If the scoutmaster is not an arrowman and has been in that position for at least a year, he is automatically nominated. These nominations should be accepted by the chapter and lodge adviser at face value. In previous years, if at least one scout was elected then an adult could be nominated. Another adult could be nominated for each 50 active scouts in the troop.

 

Now the district may also nominate a small number of adults for the OA. District nominations are completely separate from unit nominations.

Was at a RT last month...saw a 15 year old Vigil member. I just had to laugh. Back in the day You could count the Vigil guys in our lodge on one hand and most of them were 17 nearly 18 and Eagles. There were 5, all barely 5ft, standing talking to each other.

 

Trophies for everyone.

"Back in the day..." I find this very sad. I've had to take scouters aside and kindly ask them to stop belittling the current active youth arrowmen by making statements like this. It is, I think really shameful. Please don't ever say this sort of thing around the scouts.

I ended up deciding to fly to Charlotte instead of into Charleston' date=' WV. TMS offers shuttles from both airports. The ticket was about $250 less expensive to fly into Charlotte instead of Charleston. Yep, I paid more for the TMS shuttle, but still came out ahead dollars-wise. Also, I would have had to have gotten up earlier to fly from Chicago to Charleston vs. Chicago to Charlotte. So... longer day, more money to fly into WV. I'm not exactly looking forward to the 3-4 hour drive from Charlotte, but figured I'd just bring a book and let somebody else worry about about the driving. I did give some thought to taking Amtrak into Prince, WV, but the Amtrak gods weren't on my side. The train from Chicago departs every other day. I need to be there on July 11th. The train departs Chicago on either the 9th or the 11th - meaning it arrives at 10:00a in Prince on the 10th or 12th. So... flying for $300. I'm still $200 or so ahead of the options.[/quote']

 

I had the same deal. About $250 less flying into Charlotte than Charleston. I'm starting from Phoenix and guarantee I'll be very tired the 11th when I arrive.

I finally received my assignment last Friday: WORK ASSIGNMENT: You have been assigned to work in Orienteering/Geocaching. Should be fun!

I became a chapter adviser the start of November but have been an Associate Chapter adviser for several years along with a Clan Adviser. In my lodge, clans are groupings of chapters.

My take is to be a successful chapter adviser you need to make the chapter successful (duh). To do that, surround yourself with good Associate Chapter Advisers.

Good luck!