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TAHAWK

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Everything posted by TAHAWK

  1. Kudu, I don't fully understand your beef. I first took Scouter training in 1962. Our SM required it for new SM's. I still have my notes (now seriously brittle and tea-brown): "Scouting is a citizenship-training program wrapping in a game." "Our goal is turning out young men with the sound body, sound mind, and sound values required for them to be good citizens and good leaders of our communities, states and nation." I heard pretty much the same thing when I re-upped in 1982 and retrained in 1983, took WB for the first time in 1985, and taught Trainer Development earlier this mont
  2. I have been clear. I will try to be clearer. I did not ask about program - only a particular training issue. There is no vacuum of volunteer leadership in training in this Counsel. There is no shortage of OLS training opportunities. They are offered by different districts at various times utilizing staffers from more than one district. This is a cooperative effort of all the district training volunteers and has produced higher quality courses. There is a vacuum of volunteer-lead ONE-DAY OLS courses because the volunteers have made a decision to offer only weekend courses
  3. BW, while you concede, as you must, that you lack the relevant facts, your comments nevertheless assume that there was a need that volunteer Scouters were failing to meet and that the SE had to set up one-day courses to correct a volunteer "doesn't." That would only be possible if a one-day course legitimately meets the BSA requirement that a Scouter complete OLS in order to be recorded as completing the basic training suite. Our training staffs have concluded, based on the official BSA syllabus, that a weekend course is required. Several are offered each year, as I noted above.
  4. BW, as always, your post is informed by your considerable experience. I find the comments on skills training inetresting. I asked about a "course" being put on by professional Scouters answerable in theory to the Executive Board but practically to the Scout Exective, not volunteers. I wonder if a nine-hour, indoor course satisfies Scouting's definition of Introduction to Outdoor Leadership Skills. So I started this thread on that topic. I cannot ask the BSA because it elects not to offer any regular channels of communication with Scouters. I have pushed past that on occa
  5. "But no matter how we slice it, this course sounds like a bit of a joke. If I were a leader in that council I think I'd start looking for an OLS course in another Council. Convenience isn't everything." No need to look outside our Council. Weekend courses are offered Spring and Fall - in competition with these one-day, $20.00 courses. Let's see. I can go the weekend for $30 (includes food) or do the nine hours course and pay $20. The weekend courses go begging for learners. The Fall, 2007 course was dropped (a first) when only four signed up.
  6. Sure. Why not. Always presuming they take place.
  7. "There is a printed syllabus for the IOLS course. If the SE signs the training card that the requirements were completed, then it's "legit". In my opinion, you may get "trained" but you won't learn much. In some councils, you are allowed to meet with a "mentor" to demonstrate the skills (mostly T-1 requirements). No formal training required." So we pretend to train them and then pretend they are trained? Who's kidding whom? "Trustworthy"? The BSA description I found on line says "hands-on": setting up of a campsite, setting up tents, cooking, use of woods tools, hiking, rope work in "o
  8. Our Council CEO has decided to enforce a rule that no Troop may recharter unless the SM has completed basic training, including Interoduction to Outdoor leadership Skills. Good. I now discover that "professional" Scouters are giving a one-day (about 8 hrs.), indoor course called "Introduction to Outdoor leadership Skills" that Council is accepting as compying with the above requirement. Is this legit?
  9. I strongly support the outdoor oprogram because it attracts boys to Scouting, is an effective venue to teach what we are hoping to instill, and is, frankly, fun -- even for an old codger. IMO, the deemphasis on the outdoor program in the Boy Power years was a disaster. My special interests and emphasis in my Troop and Council are outdoor skills and the related MB's. Having said that, from the first - "Scouting for Boys" ("A Handbook for Instruction in Good Citizenship")and consistently thereafter in the U.S., it has been clear that the outdoor skills are not the final objectives. W
  10. Since the arrival of our current Council executive, Scouting here has ceased to be invisible. Scouts rake leaves in the Fall for elderly homeowners, staff the local outdoor show, clean up parks etc. All these events receive coverage on all local TV stations and in the local press.
  11. Only five miles? What, no packs of wolves? No bloodthirty pirates? But did you take my somewhat obscured point? As for my comment on the Wilderness Survival MB, I have been a MB Counselor for this badge since 1982. I am familiar with it's requirements as they have changed somewhat over the years -- and the sad state of the MB book. Two weeks ago, I monitored the sessions for that MB at a camp in W.Va. Crippled by a total lack of gear and supplies (not one magnifying glass, firesteel, or flint and steel set for example) and a near total lack of knowledge by the staff of even the
  12. I tell them that there is only so much air to breath, water to drink, and land to farm. I tell them we should conserve resources. I point out that the world's population has more than doubled in my lifeime. I tell them that the seas have risen over 300 feet in the last 18,000 years. I point out the sources of added carbon load (Do you know? It's easy to find.) and tell them there is a relationship between "greenhouse" gases and temperature. I tell them water can hold less gas in solution as it gets warmer. I tell them it is getting warmer and that 75% of all r
  13. When, in 1964, I was to sit on my first Board of Review for rank beyond First Class, I was given a set of instructions. I still have them. They say, in part I ws to look for: "definite, concrete, satisfactory evidence that the Scout has: First actually put into practice in his daily life the ideals and principles of the Scout Oath and Law, the Motto 'Be Prepared,' and the 'Daily good Turn.' Second, maintained an active service relationship to Scouting. Third, made an effort to develop and demonstarte leadership ability." The document included this statement from the National Cou
  14. Giving heed to mindless comments simply gives the authors of those comments power over you that they do not otherwise haver. Ignore them. And Beavah, I would try not to judge millions of people simply by when they were born. I do not judge Gen Y by Paris Hilton.
  15. Hi, Packsaddle. It seem to me that the quality of a Scout's experience has always depended on the quality of the Scouters making decisions or passing along information that impact the Scout. I do question the notion that a Scout is "exclusively" bound by the inclinations of volunteers on his B of R. Were a Scout to be denied advancement -- or membership --contrary to BSA policy, he would have recourse to higher authority within Scouting. I have been involved on both the district and council levels in correcting improper actions by unit and District Scouters rergarding a Scout's rel
  16. Because your question was in the context of a BofR, the current BofR training materials might be of some relevance: "'Do you believe in God' should be avoided as there are some religions that do not use the name 'God' for thier supreme being. . . . A Scout may fulfill their duty without being a member of a particular denomination or religion." The use of the term "God" in the HB or otherwise should not be understood as requiring belief in God as revealed to Christians. As suggested by some posts above, the BSA's requirement of fulfillment of one's "Duty to God" should not
  17. So we have a policy on "large sheath knives." They are discouraged as unnessary. Safety is not mentioned. (It should be as, being edged, they present safety issues.) The most frequent injury with a woods tool is being cut with a slipjoint knife. The hand axe is probably the most dangerous woods tool considering the geometry of use and the severity of injury. It shears. It's use is allowed in every council known to me to ban fixed-blade knives. Boys will encounter fixed-blade knives in their lives. A large fixed-blade knife is sold by the BSA as a Chef's Kit component.
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