Sylvar

I just have to pipe in about Southern Baptists. I was raised Baptist. My Troop met at a Baptist Church....as did the other 3 troops in my county. We were never in competition with the RA's. Probably because we were free and the church really has to SUPPORT an RA group (but I digress). After I got my Eagle I was invited to speak to a youth group at another Baptist church about helping them start their own troop. In my area it was not a problem, Of course it was the majority of the population there as well. I think that Southern Baptist churches not sponsoring troops might be a regional thing.

Sylvar

I just saw this:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&ncid=519&e=6&u=/ap/20050125/ap_on_re_us/boy_scouts_investigation

I don't see how they could pull this off with out it being someone at the top. In our council the units get grilled over every new addition/change to membership.

Sylvar

I am in Simon Kenton. Let me just say the United Way tried to cut funding to the Scouts once before and were put in their place. They lost a lot of money that year.

I work at one of the largest contributers in central ohio. One of our VP's is on the Council BOD. United Way will do what they always do....follow the money.

Sylvar(This message has been edited by Sylvar)

Alright guys... I know I am going batty now. I found the online reciept (I always save those). It was on the last computer I checked. Seems it wasn't a recipt at all, just an "Are you sure this is what you want to order?" page. I sent the order in so everything should be OK now.

For those of you who are interested the sire is:

http://www.theparksco.com/

they have a ton of good stuff there as well as ALL of the National Park trail medallions. However, for whatever reason you can find them via search engine

Sylvar

I agree with Fscouter. It depends on the event/day.

As for sleepy heads...When I was a scout about half of us were practical jokers. Sleeping late was just asking to be tricked, so we were all up EARLY! I don't know how this would be taken by the hazing police today, but we never had a problem in our troop. Pulling a prank on your buddy isn't hazing, its just good fun. I rousted each of them at some point and they all rousted me. whether it was a dropped tent or an icecube in the ear, it was never taken the wrong way.

Sylvar

My old hiking stick was lost long ago. With it I lost all the trail medallions I had collected, most from national parks. I tried to reorder some from a site I found. They never charged me and they never came.....And in my senility I cannot find the site any more.

Any one know where you can order national parj related medallions? I have been searching for awhile now and I can't find anyplace that takes on-line orders.

Thanks!

Sylvar

For me the most important thing is getting the fathers and sons to work on their cars together. Teaching the boys how to plan an execute a project and teaching them some woodworking skills.

Secondary to that is teaching sportsmanship. We have a Den Leader who really dislikes the derby because of the competition aspect. Personally, I think the boys need to learn, sooner or later, how to accept disappointment. Too many of the parents out there try to shield their children from disappointment. Then when faced with it, they break down crying. I talk to my son a lot about how to behave when he wins and when he loses. Some people don't do that.

Can I ask what race format you used? There are some that help the boys get in lots of racing against lots of different racers. That increases their chances of winning or being competitive in a few races.

Sylvar

(This message has been edited by Sylvar)

Thanks for the input gang. We have no shortage of service projects, Our pack does several throughout the year. But they always seem to be alloted to this requirement or that award (scouting related). I don't like double dipping and try to avoid it at all costs. In this case the service req is only a small part of the award. The real focus of the award is to teach american history and pride in our country.

Looking for a clarification here. I know that anytime a scout award requires community service that service cannot be counted towards any other scout award/requirement that requires community service. I am crystal clear on that.

What about non-scouting awards? If my boys (wolf cubs) do a community service project to earn a non-scouting award, can that same community service also be used towards a scouting award?

The Nations Trails American Heritage Award have a req that reads like this: "Render a service that benefits a neighborhood or community."

As part of Wolf requirement 7 we will be picking up trash in our town.

Can I use that toward the American heritage award? Or should we do another project?

Thanks!

Sylvar

WOW! $157 for a Jac shirt. I am feeling pretty smart right now. I bought mine at Philmont 15 years ago for $50. My buddies made fun of me at the time for buying it a size larger than what I wore. Fits me just fine today.

I haven't seen the Aloha shirt. I couldn't find it online either (My catalog is not here at work with me). Is the pattern Scout related at all? I am a sucker for a good Hawaiian Shirt. I have a great Class B shirt from the Aloha Council that I wear from time to time.

Sylvar

I've got my Grandfather's Lodge slide from the 60's

TwoCubDad,

You are quite right, I forgot about your lane rotation reference.

If I can point out something that may be helpful. In your format a rank of 25 runs 40 heats. A PPN or McGrew method rotation would only have 4 more heats and each boy would get 8 races. And each boy would race against more cars.

This would actually run faster because you won't be waiting on the boys to retrieve their cars and return to the starting line. You can start staging the next heat as soon as the previous heat gets to the bottom of the track (which is what we do).

Just a thought!

I commend you on holding the Derby workshops. I do that in my work shop as well and I agree that BUILDING the car is the point of the derby. Getting to race is the icing on the cake.(This message has been edited by Sylvar)

Twocubdad,

I apologize if this sounds rough, but you don't sound like you enjoy the derby. Seems like you just want to get it over as fast as you can and be done with it. It can be a great time if you give it a chance.

You are wrong about time being an ultimate show stopper. There are district races that bring in over 400 boys that run in 5 hours or less. And that is with set start times for each rank. Bottom line is it CAN be done.

Straight Single elim with 100 cars on a 4 lane track. That is only 35 heats total. You can run that in 45 minutes. In 4 hours you could give them a 4 elim by rank with a perfect-n final.

25 cars in a rank running a single elim is only 10 heats. I can't see how that takes an hour?

Sylvar

For my own personal camping box I use a Rubbermaid Action Packer. Extra durable and it can be locked to keep the racoons out. A determined bear could probably still rip it open though.

We used an old backpack cover over ours to keep the rain out. The kind with elastic all the way around the edge. It didn't go all the way down the side, but it did the job quite well.

TwoCubDad,

With that many boys instead of a full perfect-n I would run a Partial Perfect-n or a Chaotic rotation like Sterns or McGrew. Another good option is the N-elimination method shown here: http://members.aol.com/standcmr/nelim.html

In our district most have moved away from 2E style races toward a points based method. With 2E 50% are eliminated by their 3rd race. In the case of 100 cubs that is 50 with nothing to do. The way we run all the boys are involved right down to the last race. We race by rank and the heats rotate by rank (tiger heat followed by a wolf heat followed by a bear heat and so on.)

Sylvar

We moved to a points based system last year. We used Darin McGrew's chaotic slotting method and it worked very well. All boys got to run at least 8 times. I wouldn't worry too much about the time. We averaged a heat every 1.5 minutes and I really think we will do better than that this year.

We have a lane judge, but no timer.

Oh, One other thing....on the same site you posted Stan documents a chartless elimination method that I know some have used with success. With it you have 4-6 eliminations and cars with similar records race which gives more boys a chance to at least win one race

Semper,

if you are going there for a week you should side trip over to the Land between the Lakes area. Good hiking in that area and you can take in the Scout Museum in Murray while your at it.

Sylvar

Hmmmm....I have one of the scary kind.

Mid July, pretty dry year in central Ky. We were camped in a field on the edge of the woods. The field had pretty heavy layer of thatch so to be extra careful everyone was instructed to rake the thatch back 20 feet from their fire pit if they wanted a fire. We did that, worked hard at it to.

On the 3rd day of the trip one of our Star scouts was working on his wilderness survival MB. Of course the part he was working on was the fire starting part. Several boys are standing around watching. He has just produced a fine little flame with a Magnifying glass and is slowly feeding kindling to it when one of our new scouts says "I'll help!" he runs and grabs a big arm load of the raked up thatch that was at the egde of our camp and throws in on the fire which is just starting to take off. I was ASPL and saw what he was about to do and shouted at him to stop, but he didn't listen. Sparks flew into the air and all the senior scouts knew things were about to go bad. We ran to our tents and grabbed our water bucket. Someone shouted to the SM. In seconds we had a roaring grass fire that was headed to the woods. We emptied every water bucket we had and every fire extinguisher too. It came down to shovels and sleeping bags used to smother the fire. As a scout I was never more afraid....and never more proud of our troop. When the chips were down our troop reacted with determination and poise.

Sylvar

Too true foto...Too true. I laughed out loud when I read that! One of my ASM's growing up was like that.

Backpacker said:

"There are several scouters at my roundtable that wear between 30 and 40 knots "

Hold on...BP you wouldn't be exaggerating a little there would you? Last time I counted there were only 36 total, and a lot of those are VERY exclusive.

Sylvar

About the beads. I do see those with wood badge beads at round table, but those aren't the ones I was talking about. They give out attendance beads at roundtable. turn in 11 of those and you get a larger wooden bead for your cord. There must be something else as well, but I am not sure what. I have seen flag grommets worn on a carabiener through the sholder loop. I don't know, some times it seems a little over the top. I know some would say the same about knots, but at least they belong on the uniform.

Ok, I spun off a new thread before I realized OGE had beaten me to it! Here is what I posted there:

I have only been on this forum a short while but, Wow....I had no idea that there were so many folks who did not think it right to wear the adult knots that they earned. I have even heard folks complain that there are too many cub level knots. True enough, the focus should be on the boys, but many of these knots (especially the cub knots )require your dedication to the boys in order to earn them. Some you can't even apply for, you have to be nominated for.

I only have 2 knots (Eagle and Tiger Leader), but I wear them with pride. Part of that pride is pride in the uniform. Part of it maybe a desire to be like the great scouters I grew up with. They wore their knots and as a scout I knew that those really did mean something about that persons dedication to scouting. I never looked at it as someone trying to decorate their chest.

Another similar item is the service pin. I wear mine. As a scout I was encouraged to wear them and I have continued out of habit. However, I have seen very,very few in my district who do.

So, What are everyones thoughts on Knots and service pins.

I have only been on this forum a short while but, Wow....I had no idea that there were so many folks who did not think it right to wear the adult knots that they earned. I have even heard folks complain that there are too many cub level knots. True enough, the focus should be on the boys, but many of these knots (especially the cub knots )require your dedication to the boys in order to earn them. Some you can't even apply for, you have to be nominated for.

I only have 2 knots (Eagle and Tiger Leader), but I wear them with pride. Part of that pride is pride in the uniform. Part of it maybe a desire to be like the great scouters I grew up with. They wore their knots and as a scout I knew that those really did mean something about that persons dedication to scouting. I never looked at it as someone trying to decorate their chest.

Another similar item is the service pin. I wear mine. As a scout I was encouraged to wear them and I have continued out of habit. However, I have seen very,very few in my district who do.

So, What are everyones thoughts on Knots and service pins.

And right after I post this I see that OGE beat me too it! Ignore this one I will post in the existing thread!(This message has been edited by Sylvar)

What would constitute an appropriate event?

Everyone seems to agree that an Eagle COH is. What about other formal awards ceremonies? Blue and Gold? District Awards Banquet? Silver Beaver Presentation?

Personally, I think that it would be appropriate to wear at formal events.

I see folks who pile on the beads and other assorted things for a round table. That is not a place to wear the Eagle (or the beads and such in my mind, but thats another thread).