Tampa Turtle

2 minutes ago, Jameson76 said:

Have you seen the amount of open treks listed?

• 62 crew openings in June
• 93 crew openings in July
• 145 crew openings in August

 

I assume this Wold Jambo affect? 

Just now, Jameson76 said:

We all knew it was going to be headed this way.  

The only brick left in the wall (and it is a very very short wall) is CO's can choose to not have a BS4G troop at their location...for now...until the next FAQ release...or they just feel like it...or there is threat of a suit...of the media sort of wants it

My wife says I keep sounding like Sally talking to the Carrie Fischer character in "When Harry Met Sally". She is having an affair with a married man who is never gonna leave his wife and despite all her friends saying he is never gonna leave she is still wondering "is he ever going to leave?". I must take this "Scout is Honest" to heart too much. Mrs Turtle told me this was exactly going to happen that we would be forced to go co-ed no matter what the locals thought and all the rest was placating and posturing because the official line just wouldn't work. She also predicted two stock market crashes that I told her "no the experts say...". I probably should listen to her more.

National is just mucking up the transition needlessly. I guess (to loop back to an earlier discussion) the only issue is if they are being duplicitous or incompetent. I'd lean toward 'sneaky' but then when I see the upcoming Summit bill I swing back to 'stupid'. (that said I have many planks in my eye as well).

BTW is it just me or is their a LOT more of a push for getting folks to Philmont this summer?

15 minutes ago, Thunderbird said:

If the boy is in the 4th grade and just turned 10 in December, how did he meet the 6 month tenure requirement ("six months since completing the fourth grade or for at least six months since becoming 10 years old"?  He hasn't completed the 4th grade yet, so December + 6 months would be June.

My word of advice for the family is to be careful of joining too early if they intend to go for Eagle someday. I have seen several scouts  who file their Eagle application with a date that was too early and it stops the whole train because that may be the one time it really gets checked. If they are 18 and running out of time it adds to the stress. Even unofficial early tag-alongs can get messed up if awards are recorded by volunteers before the official date.

9 minutes ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

I shared the links and documents with the troops core adults. They pointed that nothing in the information posted requires separate troops, except on paper. "Girls's troop" could have the same committee and SM (national states should not versus cannot refering to SMs), meet at the same location at the same time, do joint activities, etc. In essence National leaving a very wide loophole that COs and Units can use to essentially have coed troops with segrated patrols.

Which appears to be the plan with my troop if the CO agrees to it.

.

Seems like such a STUPID solution that only exists to provide cover for Mr. Surbaugh after his previous statements about "no co-ed troops". Trying to have it both ways. I'd rather have intellectual consistency since we have to go out and explain this Potemkin Village to the parents.

Not that I have an opinion. 

I may just name this "Surbaugh's Skort Solution" as something that is a hacked hybrid that is neither co-ed or single sex. Really. Your not going to listen to us Scouters anyway so just make a freaking decision--he needs to stop thinking this is a new chapter in "Profiles in Courage".

20 minutes ago, blw2 said:

Our SM had a soft rule about 1st year scouts not tenting alone.  He pushed it but I don't think it was set in stone.... I think it was mostly for the first camp or two till he could get a read on the boy.  Star scout seems extreme to me....personally I think that IF you must have such a rule I'd say 1st Class would be the highest limit....maybe even tenderfoot or 2nd class.

 

We once had a similar rule especially for 1st years. They had to have a tent buddy which cut down on some of the tent buying and site congestion. We then tried to discourage tents of 3 or more they just got too noisy. Some young boys preferred to sleep alone; they got around the (soft) rule by going to backpacking tents or hammocks.

7 minutes ago, DuctTape said:

With 35-40 kids, and ten adults/drivers, why all going to same location? Sounds like each patrol could have a completely different adventure. 5 patrols each with 2 adults to be g2ss compliant. 

IF one can find a good site that many should have patrols spaced pretty far apart. Pretty hard at State Parks, pretty easy at state conservation primitive sites. I like the idea of separate adventures but separate paper work, reservations is more work.

15 minutes ago, perdidochas said:

Very buzzwordy, I like it.  

Yeah the younger parents like that.

5 hours ago, Cambridgeskip said:

It doesn't look that different to the group system that we have in the UK that you don't have at present. Most commonly a group consists of one each of beaver colony, cub pack, scout troop an explorer unit with one committee sitting over the top. However at larger groups such as mine we have two scout troops and two cub packs. We have two SLs (what you call SMs) two sets of ASLs (ASMs), although we do fill in with each other if we're short on adults on any given week, and two PLCs. Most of our programmes are separate. My troop meets on a Thursday, the other troop meets Wednesday at the same location. 

We have one pool of camping gear that we draw from. In fact the patrol boxes are twinned, ie shared between one patrol in one troop and one in the other. We have one bank account.

Camps are variable. Our lower key weekend camps are mostly separate. However summer camp is always joint as are a few other headline events. eg we have gliding lined up for April.

True we have two troops for different reasons to you, we simply ran out of space to accomodate everyone that wanted to join so started a second troop. Both troops, to be clear, are coed. However I suspect that it's a model that may end up looking familiar your side of the Atlantic just with boys in one and girls in the other,

Probably could learn a lot from you guys. 

19 hours ago, Eagledad said:

The goal is to get each car to finish all the races. 

 

EXACTLY. We did elimination heats but every car got to race at least twice. I think we went with a computer program as we often has 100 to 150 cubs in the pack.

A Boy Scout Troop is a fascinating human laboratory. 

There is a lot on the forum about the JASM...try search. It is an odd position...I am sure it has worked in some circumstances but a lot of folks have same experience.

Be aware that the Troops O/A rep is a lot of work to do it right,

We always had workshops, often several but no pre-cuts. 

Yes, two completely different things. A good prep hike should have a couple overnighters so you can test that tarp setup you were thinking of having or you really want to bother cooking vs cold dinners. There is nothing that focuses your mind on your material possessions like carrying your whole house on your back. 

After seeing an 'Officially Licensed by BSA' series of pre-cut cars (Formula shapes, truck shapes) at Lowes this weekend (the 'racer series')  I withdraw my earlier comments about ANY restrictions about ANYONE following the rules. Why should everyone bother to work from the same block of wood? Why not just let the richest kid buy the best pre-built car on EBay...it will be good training for the boys to find out early that some parents will but their boys every advantage eventually into college. Just make sure BSA can get a cut on the sale. Maybe National should just tax the fastest cars?

I don't know why, yet again, I care about enforcing BSA rules when the biggest eroder is the National organization. 

Why do I even bother.

1 minute ago, Treflienne said:

I was sorry to hear about Tampa Turtle's experience.  I would have expected better behaviour.  Even though GSUSA dropped "courteous" from the Girl Scout Law when it was revised in 1972.

 

I know these ladies and think they are better than this. They may have just been talking smack. We shall see...we are looking over a huge turnover in adult leadership due to boys aging out and BSA policy differences.

I have strong opinions on this but since my unit years ago voted for no neckers I feel I must keep them to myself...

(OK OK over the collar looks better)

Regardless we are trying to build "resilient youth" (to get all buzzwordy) and we do that through the outdoor method. 

We have allowed minor repairs by boy only especially if wheels fly off in the excitement. The glue thing is tricky--do it wrong and you get glue on the wheel and it stops turning.

18 minutes ago, gblotter said:

From Wikipedia: Virtue signalling is the conspicuous expression of moral values done primarily with the intent of enhancing standing within a social group.

Virtue signalling a popular term in politics these days. Basically, it is making yourself look superior to others by spouting off about how your opinion is the only moral way to think about an issue. The intent is to create an atmosphere where anyone who disagrees with you must necessarily be immoral.

Of DANG! I have been guilty of that, Mea Culpa. I guess I do that with my standard pre-ample when I write my congressman, "I am a Boy Scout Leader....". 

On the other hand Signalling has its virtues.

'virtue signaling' I have never heard that term?

2 minutes ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

110% True. You are not helping the Scout.  We have a case where one Scout does NOT want to leave daddy's side. He may be technically meeting the requirements, but he is not mastering the requirements as was the expectation in the BSHB and G2A until recently.

 

What's ironic is that we do have one Scout who MUST sleep with his dad for medical reasons and he "HATE EVERY MINUTE OF IT!" (his quote).

In my experience 100% of those "special case scouts" never stay much past year one. 

We do not allow that. The boy would have to sleep in a tent with a buddy. We would allow Mom or Dad to be in visible line of sight of each other and make frequent checks but under no circumstance (unless the boy was VERY disabled) would let the camels nose under that tent. By the 2nd or 3rd campout it is not an issue in just about every case the boys shoos his parents check ups away.

We strongly encourage the Webelos visiting boys to sleep in boy-only tents even if the tent is 6" away from mom and dad. That helps expectations. I think the almost complete abscense of any camping at the Cub level in some units does not help matters.

Now if the boy HATES camping that is another story.

One time we had some newbies at a beach campout and it was so fair and dry no rain flies were needed and one pair just had the mesh top up under a cabbage palm. They were a bit freaked out by the chattering raccoons directly above them. When one of the tussling raccoons (a lot like young boys I noticed) fell out of the fronds right on top of the mesh they screamed pretty good. But we moved the tent, fixed some midnight hot chocolate and they had a good laugh about it in the morning.

13 minutes ago, walk in the woods said:

So you responded "You go girl!" and walked away laughing maniacally?  

I thought I was very well behaved as I silently repeated my mantra "I am a volunteer, I don't have to do this" 100x. One of these same kadies is the GSUSA Mom who said her son "better hurry up and get his Eagle before age 15 or all this time has been wasted". 

Be optimistic. Be friendly. Be prepared to have Council cut you off at the knees.

Sometimes the boy might need to shop another Troop.

I see this as well. 

15 hours ago, Jameson76 said:

That would be time to punch out

Yes. There are other Troops and OA near by if  so choose. Or I could just take "Elder Statesman" status and just do a MB or two. On the other hand Mrs Turtle would like more vacation time and while she is not into camping we may be able to compromise and take some walking holidays where you hike and spend a civilized night under a roof.

4 minutes ago, Tampa Turtle said:

Scoutx (the x is for the shared chromosome.)

YPT Module 013 Mixed Gender Camping "How to keep your Scoutx campout from turning into a Scoutxxx campout."