T2Eagle

I dont know what rules we could add that would change what you describe Basement. But I do think a bit more self reflection and self critique can always be helpful.

I believe this starts with acknowledging that we ARE different --were not like other general public users of camping areas, front or back country. Were made up of a different mix of ages and genders than any other comparable number of campers. A typical outing for our troop could be thirteen scouts and three adults. Compare that to a comparable number of non scout campers. We are three adults sitting back allowing 13 young men between the ages of 11 to 16 organize and carry out their own camp. The other group is probably a couple of sets of a mom and dad organizing two children covering a much broader range of genders and ages, plus probably a couple that is either at or near retirement age, and maybe another couple young enough to not yet have children. We are going to act very differently: were going to make more noise, were going to tramp off the trails more often, were going to be more rambunctious in every way and we should be. But we need to acknowledge that and think about how to ameliorate that impact on our fellow campers.

Lets be honest, if youre hoping for a quiet weekend in the woods and a boy scout troop moves in next door, even a courteous, well behaved one, youre out of luck.

I have no idea what the mark-up is on BSA uniform items, but it's certainly apples and oranges to compare that to CampMor. Campmor is a good retailer and I always check their site when I'm in the market for outdoors stuff, but they are a discounter that sells odd lots, clearance items, discontinued products etc. Those pants and shirts may be there today, but that doesn't mean they'll be available tomorrow, they also might not have now or ever the most common sizes, colors, etc.

If you want a better comparison you have to compare paying full retail price for comparable items at Cabelas, Bass Pro etc. to see whether the pricing is predatory.

As Cubmaster I got the Pack to start using a debit card. I found it very convenient. I like that you can see where everything went and probably could go back and get copies of receipts if necessary.

The troop hasn't gone to a debit card and as a result I finance a lot of outings and purchases on my credit card and then get reimbursed. It's inconvenient but I guess I get more frequent flyer points.

Not that facts usually matter much this far into a discussion, but lets try to use some before we condemn these poor guys.

Theres nothing in the reports that say they stopped and waited for rescue as soon as they realized they we lost. It says they called the other part of the group and told them they had gotten off the trail and were lost. What should they have done instead? Not Called? And just let everyone believe everything was going exactly as planned?

We dont know what else they said in that call. We dont even know what is meant here by lost. Folks on the forum seem to assume it means we have no idea where we are and no idea how to get back. It could just as likely mean we just realized were not where were supposed to be but heres our plan for how were going to get back on track.

We dont know whether there were any other phone calls between the first and the last. We do know that the last phone call was made 4 minutes before sunset --- AND IT WAS NOT A CALL FOR RESCUE! That call was made by the other people in the party more than half an hour later, so it seems they were under the impression that the group was still attempting to get themselves out.

Then when they were found they were in a shelter they had constructed for themselves. According to one report, and Im skeptical about this but its what was published, they used Morse code to signal the helicopter hows that for old school scout skills.

For me the really big obvious miss was not having a fire. But what else did they really get wrong? Should they have remained silent about their situation and not used the evil cell phone? Should they have kept moving through the woods after dark rather than improving their situation by building a shelter and conserving energy?

Unless you assume youre so skillful that youd never get lost in which case all discussion about ten essentials and other preparedness is moot since you know youll never need them besides the lack of fire what did they do thats contrary to what we teach once they found themselves in trouble?

My interpretation is the same as those above: two women is fine for leading an all male scout unit on a trip. It passed muster for our Cub Pack this past summer when the Webelos II female den leader and the mother of one of the other Webelos took their den to our council summer camp for a three day Webelos II camp.

I tried to spin this to a new thread but kept getting error messages. If some one else can spin it I would appreciate it.

Anyway here's my question:

How Can BSA Help Us Learn From each Other's Mistakes?

So what happens next with the story of those lost scouts and leader? How should the BSA take this and help the rest of us learn from it? Gary said its a good what would you do scenario, but we dont have enough information to really develop a good answer for that.

Shouldnt there be an after action type report made of the incident? One that does have all the facts: why did they separate, what equipment did they have, what was their plan, what did they do wrong or right? And then shouldnt that report be transmitted out to the rest of us so we can learn from it and review it with our scouts?

Does anyone know if there will be some official BSA study made of this and will it be transmitted? Or is this another opportunity for the organization to go out and close everyones mouth, bury the information, and pretend this kind of thing doesnt really happen in our organization?

Basement asked what lessons my scouts and I learned when we got "misplaced" on a hike. We learned to invest in better maps. We were using a map issued by the State Park service and it did not have any topographic features. Somewhere along we missed a trail junction and ended up down in a valley rather than up on the ridge where we should have been. We were still well inside civilization and so it was no big deal except we wanted the more strenuous route rather than ending up on a canal tow path. But we learned a lesson and haven't left home without a good topo map since.

This got me thinking about how as an organization we should transmit the lessons learned from incidents like the one in this thread. So I spun a new thread to discuss that.

Wow, so many pure enough to cast the first stone, especially with such a dearth of real information. I re-read the article, here are the actual details that were reported or could be found independently.

They got lost, and knew it, in mountainous terrain. They reported themselves lost to their fellow scouts. Less than two hours later the sun had set. In two hours of searching ground teams hadnt been able to find them. After two more hours of search by ground and helicopter they were found. After they were found they hiked the last hour out. They themselves were not the ones who called in the authorities.

We do not know if they quit, we do not know whether they had matches, lighters, a good leatherman tool, or any other useful items that would have helped them if they did end up out all night.

I dont know whether these guys were completely over their head to begin with, or whether they got unlucky and misplaced but then made good decisions, or whether it was somewhere in between. But neither does anyone else just based on the article.

We dont know if they were hunkered down waiting to be rescued or whether they were on the verge of self rescue when they were found. A while back we debated the merits of both those plans as they applied to a 17 year old scout rescued in the same mountains.

I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. I have also been misplaced with my scouts. The idea of a trail can be pretty shifty there this time of year, you cant really see a track since the forest floor is knee deep in fallen leaves I think snow may actually be the easier ground cover to navigate. And it couldnt have been too easy for them to get back on track when you consider how long it took to find them using both ground and air search.

Those are not kind mountains. One of my all time favorite signs is a cautionary one at the top of Wildcat Mountain ski area: These mountains will be as cold, dark, and lonely tonight as they were two hundred years ago

I usually can't stand the stuff, but the scouts love it, and there are some times when the well water we're drinking can stand some improvement, so we buy bottles of a liguid concentrate from a restaurant supply company called Gordon Food Service (GFS). I think the concentrate is used in "juice" machines in cafeterias and the buffet and cafeteria style family restaurants.

If you can't find that particular company in your area I would think other restaurant suppliers would have similar fare.

Think they'll sell the camp with the oil well?

I tried to resurrect the original thread about this but could not find it.

I am curious if anyone knows anything new about the plan to consolidate all the Michigan Councils into one mega-council.

No matter how much free time my scouts gave themselves I don't think they'd ever just break out in a game of cricket.

It looks like a great place to take a unit JoeBob, but I don't see the bait. I see dormitory type sleeping quarters and our organization has rules that govern how that needs to be set up.

The rules that another organization says are sufficient for their needs don't mean they're OK for us.

As I said in my post this isn't uncommon, lots of cabins out there where youth and adults share one big room, but we separate those areas: scouts over here, adults over there, with screening in between for changing and sleeping.

In case anyone doubts the motives of the Huffington Post, here's the link to Professor Mueller's op-ed piece in that liberal yellow rag the Wall Street Journal.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204422404576594872796327348.html#articleTabs%3Darticle

JoeBob,

Maybe you should report yourself for a YPT violation, or at least pay more attention and think a little harder next time before you do violate the guidelines.

The G2SS very explicitly covers exactly the situation you describe, and based on your deriding the guidelines as politically correct its easy to imagine you didnt follow them.

6. Single-room or dormitory-type accommodations for Scouting units: Adults and youths of the same gender may occupy dormitory or single-room accommodations, provided there is a minimum of two adults and four youths. A minimum of one of the adults is required to be Youth Protectiontrained. Adults must establish separation barriers or privacy zones such as a temporary blanket or a sheet wall in order to keep their sleeping area and dressing area separated from the youth area.

And before you dismiss this as hairsplitting ask yourself how well you really know all 50 of those adults. Can you say for certain none of them harbor any evil intent? And what about the boys and siblings? YPT rules are in place to protect both youth and adults. Theres been discussion in this thread about not overreacting and ruining someones reputation. If some kid goes home and says Mr. JoeBob was watching while I changed into my pajamas the situation could quickly spiral out of control all to your or some other innocent adults detriment.

These types of accommodations are a fairly common circumstance. Our troop does a couple of cabin camps most years, and most council camps are set up so that cabins have at least a curtain separated area for adults, but when they dont we always have a tarp to string up.

If you think that's inappropriate ALB don't ever sign up for Woodbadge.

I know this is a bit off topic, but does anyone know why they don't make an online version of these.

I understand the desire to get a hard copy signed but surely there's an easy fix to that barrier. I electronically sign or click "I agree" all the time. I'd be willing to do the same wearing any or all my hats: applicant, unit leader, or committee chair.

Think of all the time and money that could be saved by volunteers and professionals alike.

Every hand written application needs to be manually typed into Scoutnet by someone being paid at the council office, plus, many if not most of us, retype them into something like Troopmaster.

Almost every other activity my sons or I belong to allows an online registration.

Learn the program

Read the handbooks.

Don't take things personally, put on the best program you can, people can take advantage of it or not, you can't accommodate everyone or make everyone happy.

No, I was in Bucks County PA outside Philadelphia, Camp Ockanickon.

I did Brownsea back in 75, and I thought so much of it that I convinced my troop two years ago to start sending our leaders to NYLT and pick up half the cost. I tell the scouts before they go that I learned leadership skills there that I saw again in college, had to read the academic support for in graduate school, and then saw in virtually every leadership training I ever participated in professionally.

For me the theater of Woodbadge --- spending hours watching and then participating in campfires, attending faux PLCs, wearing the same uniform morning noon and night, watching the staff do a Gilbert and Sullivan number --- just didnt seem to be something I could use to provide more service to my unit.

I just finished my second weekend and I am still very much up in the air on its value.

I was continuously told this will all make sense when youre done, but it still doesnt. Maybe someone out there can explain the parts that bothered me most.

1) For the initial meeting I had to travel an hour and a half each way for a Blue and Gold. There was, being generous, 15 minutes of substantive information provided at that meeting, most of which could have been sent in an e-mail and the remaining maybe 5 minutes of introductory training could just as easily have been given at the beginning of the first weekend. The rest of the time? Three hours having eight dens of scouters each have to perform two skits, two cheers, and two songs. Watching the Invisible Bench skit performed by a group of Cub Scouts is cute and funny, but watching it performed by a bunch of middle aged scouters not so much. How could this be seen as a good use of six hours of my time?

2) The final day of the first weekend, late on a Sunday afternoon, all most of us wanted to do was get finished whatever we had to do and get home to our families, but instead we had to sit and watch October Sky a nice movie about a nice topic but what did it have to do with anything? And if I really had to watch it couldnt I have just been asked to watch between weekends? Its not that hard to find, it was on HBO just last week. Again how can that be justified as a good use of my time?

I have some other things that I just dont get, but Id like to start with these.

(This message has been edited by a staff member.)

The thing is I'm not allowed to collect the money up front, that's also part of the agreement I sign.

And I'm not ordering popcorn to resell it. This isn't a small business my son is going into where he takes some risk and then earns some profit. My son is asking community members to order popcorn from the Boy Scouts, the profits from that transaction then go to the Boy Scouts, not me or my son.

And it's not about me pocketing the money after delivering the popcorn, that would be an easy agreement to sign. This is about even if my son does nothing wrong, he's completely innocent, he does exactly what he's supposed to do, but a third party unrelated to us does something wrong, then somehow I take the financial loss for that.

All in return for me doing them a favor.

So do any of your councils use this type of agreement?

Eagle77,

This may seem strange to but the big game I'm referring to is a college football game. I grew up in Bucks but I live in the midwest now and you would not believe how much folks here care about their teams, and they will hold out hope right up until they have to spend money.

Im curious how this works in your council. Who does, and who do you think should, bear the risk of loss if someone reneges on their popcorn sale?

Last year my council started requiring that parents agree to the following in order for their scout to participate in the sale:

To accept responsibility for all popcorn he receives and for popcorn money due. I also understand that, in the event that payment for his popcorn is in default, the amount due will be submitted to a collection agency and I will be held responsible for payment of all reasonable collection charges and/or attorney fees. I realize that popcorn is not returnable & cannot be returned for a refund or exchange. No money is collected until the popcorn is delivered

So, in return for doing the council the service of raising money for them I agree to bear all the risk of loss while they can rely on receiving all the gain (OK maybe the unit gets some of the gain, but still none of it is for me).

So if my son goes to the neighbor and he says sure order me six of those $50 tins to watch the big game and then two months later when its to be delivered he says sorry, my team stinks, Im not having a party so I dont want the stuff Im on the hook for $300 plus whatever collection and attorney costs the council wants to tack on to collect from me.

I read this once and said no way will I sign it, and I dont think anyone else should either.

I saw the "sing for stuff" going very wrong one summer camp and put an end to it.

My biggest concern is having lost stuff not become my problem. So what we can't match up with its owner before we leave camp, if it's valuable, I have one of the scouts go show to the parents as they're hanging around the parking lot waiting for us to unload and release the scouts. That usually finds an owner and an ally in the cause of labeling everything and remembering what belongs to you.

The one that amazes me is socks, inevitably we turn up 2 or 3 unmatched socks almost every trip. And yet no one belongs to them, and we're not talking cheap 10 for a dollar cotton tube socks, these are name brand under-armour, nike, etc. They are inevitably wet and nasty and I have given up on them, if no one claims them at the camp we toss them.

This weekend one of my sons was the culprit. I noticed when I did laundry monday that one of his good hiking socks was unmatched. It happens we had his tent in the yard drying out and sure enough when we went to fold it there was the match. The kicker is his tent mate left Saturday so he was the only one in his tent. How do you not see something that is the only thing in a tent besides air????