theysawyoucomin'

Thank you to all who responded.

I'm also kind of worried about the attrition of some of the boys whose parents are not really involved. (ie, never opened their kids webelos book once. You can tell by some of the questions you get from time to time)

I guess I have a personal interest because in my own Scouting experience I was only a Boy Scout for one year, but was a cub for three and earned the AOL. I think WEEBs was only one year then. I was part of the 30%.

The Troop folded and I didn't want any part of the other Troop in town.

When I mention I'm going to help the SM I'm already eyeballs deep in three projects:

I'm running a freeze out in Hague NY in Feb. With a further goal of getting to the one outing a month ideal

Providing leadership and planning for a trip to Gettysburg, PA. (with a day at Hershey Park).

I know the PLC should be running this but we as a committee are trying to show the boys that the sky is the limit on trips and how far we'll go. Gettysburg is about 6 hours away.

April 29 we are hosting a 100 bird shooting event as a fundraiser. Sporting clays, five stand, wobble trap and trap. Includes a steak dinner. I am the lead on that.

By June I'd like to be a Flyfishing merit badge counselor, maybe the salesmanship one also but I don't think my phone will ring off the hook for that.

If I find one more thing will I rate another set of beads or a straight jacket? (joking)

Again thank you to all who responded. There were many good ideas. I don't know if I could be a cub den leader again. Maybe if it had no more than 8 kids. I don't have many weekends free as my son and daughter are involved in soccer year round, LL baseball, CYO basketball, swim lessons at the "y". My daughter is going for gold in GS.She plays varsity soccer and runs Track in the spring.

Things are quite busy. So busy in fact that the folks at the gun club wonder if I'm still a member. I did not duck hunt once and that's supposed to be my "thing".

Well enough whinning I've got to get working on invites for the Sporting Clays fundraiser.

unless we have dutch oven night we don't have refreshments.

One time a year in Sept we have a kickoff that is pot luck.

Oren,

I got the beads and the woggle.

uz2bnowl means------------ used to be an owl.

I was a good ole owl too. Now I'm fin.....you know the rest.

I take the Patrol Method to heart. That's good advice about divorcing your son. At Scouts he "belongs" to the patrol leader.

Wingnut---we do beat it to death until all parties are exhausted!

Everbody touched on it here.

You ticket items should be what's important to you. What's in your gut?

If everything was determined before the course it wouldn't be the same.

Best advice is GO. I would be very surprised if you didn't think it was a positive experience that helped you change your little part of the world.

Please give it a try.

Last night was my last webelos den meeting. Wolf to Crossover.

After three and a half years I'm glad to see them go. Boys do grow to become men. That is the natural order of things.

I've got the beads, I've taken Troop committee challenge and the indoor portion of SM training. I'm sure I'll do outdoor sometime this year. I don't want to be an Assistant SM because you don't get a vote on the committee. I'm basically going to help the SM.

What to all you SM's wish the Denless Dad's would do besides leave the Patrol Leaders alone?

For the ACLU to have any credibility at all, they must defend the second ammendment as strongly as the first.

the right of the people......... shall not be infringed.

They must have missed that one. It's on my copy.

Until that day they are just a bunch of liberal whining hippies looking for the next rally to attend.

They don't guarantee anybody's freedom, despot's tanks would crush them the same as anybody else.

Hey great you're getting beaded in front of the boys!!!!!

It lets them know you care about the program!!!!!

one of my ticket items Two years ago was to teach a bottle rocket class at Pow Wow.

This March will be the thrid time I have taught that class. This year I am also teaching a class on making Crystal Radios.

Good for you?

Where are you having your beading? What position do you hold now?

scheleining,

Did you read my private message?

Twin rivers council(albany NY)

Had a norhtern NY council get tacked on.

I think it was the Adirondack council, but I could be wrong about the name but not about the adding on.

I saw on a TV show(OMG,I am trusting TV) that the LDS church's youth program is Boy Scouts. So I would assume if your church is the center of your community/culture as it may be for folks that continue their faith by attending BYU that those boys were raised in a community/culture where scouting received a large amount of community/parental/cultural support.

Contrast that with my town where Scouts are looked down upon and Scouting seems to come last after sports etc.

I would say that their "village " places a value on Scouting and fosters it as much as possible. Hence the large amount of Eagles.

It sure seems as though they have alot of accidents there. Did you see the Leatherman between the eyes?

I know, you stick one kid it the forehead and they never let you forget it.

Wouldn't be joking if the kid suffer permanent damage.

If sagreagan is a patrol leader in a Boy Scout troop I'll eat my WB beads.

Take your political rant someplace else, i'ts quite sad that a militant like you has to hide who he is and begin your argument with deceipt.

Seattle read here:

Everything was legit. The real story was how a Scout got off his "woulda, coulda, shoulda" and helped make it happen. That kid is a man.

WILMINGTON -- Anyone who has ever wondered whether one person really can make a difference in the world should drop by the Ministry of Caring on Tuesday nights, when Cub Scout Pack 506 meets.

"I promise," the Scouts chanted in unison, "to do my duty to God and my country, to help other people and obey the law of the pack. ... " They trailed off, exchanging mystified looks as they tried to remember what came next. "With liberty and justice for all," one boy burst out.

It wasn't the traditional Cub Scout pledge. But this isn't a traditional Cub Scout pack.

The Cubs scattered, giggling, to work tables piled high with planks of wood, power sanders, hammers, nails and safety goggles. They were making Christmas mangers to take home -- to whatever space they call home this week.

Cub Scout Pack 506 may be the only troop in the nation for homeless children. Its members, who range in age from 7 to 11 and numbered 15 this week, live in Wilmington-area shelters, temporary apartments, condemned buildings and even cars. They move from shelter to shelter and school to school, unable to hold on to friends or join ordinary after-school groups.

Until a Scout named Greg Sweeney came up with an idea that changed everything.

"I wanted to give these kids the stuff they don't normally have," said Sweeney, who was 12 years old, barely out of Cub Scouts himself, when he had his big idea.

Already a volunteer at Ministry of Caring, a Wilmington nonprofit that serves the city's homeless, Sweeney suggested that somebody ought to start a Cub Scout pack for the boys who had nothing to do and nowhere to go in the evenings. Good idea, he was told. Why don't you do it?

"Why? Because I'm 12, that's why!" Sweeney remembers responding. But with the help of his parents, his friends and a committed group of adult volunteers, he founded Pack 506 and kept it running for the next five years.

All that hard work earned Sweeney, now an 18-year-old college student and Eagle Scout, a place in the Hall of Fame for Caring Americans in Washington, D.C. The Caring Institute, a nonprofit chaired by former Sen. Bob Dole, annually chooses adults and teens who promote the values of caring, integrity and public service.

"I don't know if I should get this award," he told the crowd at his induction ceremony earlier this month. "I think I've gotten more out of this experience than the Scouts have."

But the Scouts seem to be getting a lot, too.

"I like the atmosphere here," said 14-year-old Rasaan Gouldbourne, smiling around the noisy, sawdust-filled meeting room. "I like the projects we do. I like participating. It's genuine here. A lot of the people here, they're nice."

At the next table, 7-year-old Tyriq Bernard carefully signed his name in orange marker on his wooden creation. It was the first thing, he said, that he'd ever made with his own hands.

Beside him, Billy Jervey sat meticulously sanding the wooden planks the Cubs were turning into mangers. He designed the winning car in the pack's annual mini-Soap Box Derby for the past two years, and his mother said he's now dreaming of a career as an engineer or a designer.

"It's been a great opportunity for him," said Stephanie Jervey. "It gives these kids an opportunity to do the sorts of things inner-city kids don't usually get to do. It gets them out of the inner-city mentality that there are things they can't do."

Neither the Boy Scouts of America nor the Delmarva Boy Scout Council could say for certain that Pack 506 is the only troop of homeless Scouts in the nation.

Always there for them

Sweeney spent hours every week planning Cub Scout meetings; arranging hikes, field trips and guest speakers; recruiting volunteers; tracking his Cubs and making sure they had a ride to each week's meeting. He lined up donors who provided uniforms and scout handbooks and made sure all the trips would be free.

"I like Greg because when I first came here, he showed me around, helped me," said 11-year-old Khayree Johnson, who has been scouting since he was 7.

When families had to move from one temporary home to the next, Sweeney helped carry boxes. When it was time for the boys to graduate to Boy Scouts, he lined up sponsors to defray the cost of new uniforms.

"If it wasn't for [Greg] and the Scouts, I don't know what we would have done," said Mary Malandruccolo of Claymont, who fell ill, fell behind in her rent payments and found herself living out of a car with her grandson, Anthony, then 10 years old. "It was so rough. I cried a lot."

Inspiring others

Two years later, Anthony is still scouting, and making plans to be an Eagle Scout, just like Greg.

"He heard you even get a hand-written letter from the president when you make Eagle Scout," his mother said. "He likes that idea."

Sweeney started college this year and handed off leadership of the troop to two younger Scouts and the rest of the volunteers.

"A lot of people ask themselves, 'Is there anything I can do about the great problems of the world like hunger, poverty?' " Sweeney said. "Well, the answer is yes."

Editor's note: Greg Sweeney's father, John Sweeney, is the editorial page editor of The News Journal.

Contact Jennifer Brooks at jabrooks@gns.gannett.com

If each boy's family cared as much about Scouting as each Scout does.

If each boy got one less computer game and one more piece of camping gear.

If each boy did something nice for somebody else and really felt the joy it brings.

Thank you for the link.

What a story!

Thanks to all who replied.

Eammon, I wish you could come to Albany NY in late March. The folks that run Twin Tivers PowWow do a great job!

12 people have signed up in advance,extra fee was OK for radio parts, and the info has not yet been out to the general public.

If some of you don't like to do it and some have tried and still don't like it then why on earth would anyone care why myself and others like to do it?

I have a massive list of very popular things that I don't like, but I'm not out make you justify why you like anything.

Old Grey Eagle you probably like Gene Hill, heck you sound just like him. Some of these folks could read Gene Hill and still not get it. His writing is very good. Especially this year since I did not hunt one day. Not Good.

As far as bow hunters shooting caged buffalo and all the other bad stories---I think we're all old enough to know there's good and bad in every group. Any group is derived from the society around it. So before we bring up Eagle Scout snipers and Eagle Scouts that kill young black men let's let all those stories be put to bed.

I know some golfers that cheat like heck.

We having a hot time in the old town tonight!

Really,

I included Blacks comment because it came from the highest Federal "bench".

I wish the ACLU heard the founders statements on gun rights as loudly and "church and state". Heck we'd have a lot less gun control. But they're only for a few civil liberties. Some of which include debauchery.

"The First Amendment has erected a wall between church and state. That wall must be kept high and impregnable. We could not approve the slightest breach."

Justice Hugo Black

Anybody who uses those words should do a tiny bit of research on "Justice" Black and see just who they are planting their flag with. Research for yourself and tell me all the positives about Black.

This appointment was not one of FDR finest hours.

Oh, if only we had a somewhat educated Republic.

Maybe one more suggestion:

Ask him if there is any activity or game that he would like to lead.

Give him a very short leash. Let him prepare an activity of his choice, you get the materials. Sometimes taking ownership can change things. Of course have a fall back plan if that doesn't work.

Short of that, sit down with the parents and the boy and get them talking. Ask the parents what their hopes for the boy are. Ask the boy what he wants.

Does he like you?

Will he open up to you?

Let mummy and daddy know we ain't baby sitters of America.

If the boy is disruptive it's time to vote him off the island.

You can't save everybody. Even though we all want to.

I'll pray for you and this boy.

Thank you for the link Mark.

I really do learn something new every day.

Notice how there is a "B" in each one. Do you think that is becease a "B" is so easy to hear?

We sent a flyer to roundtables discussing the options for this class. I have 7 attendees from the first roundtable.

BZ was a two letter prosign for "good Job"

Covered in ACP125 (allied communiction publication)

Can't remember what my wife said yesterday but I remember that from 1981.

FED EX employees get that award for small"good turns". Their CEO is a former Marine.

Seattle,

I forgot the most important comment:

Good for you and your Troop committee for facilitating a day of fun outdoors in the winter like that.

I hope you and the boys really enjoy it.

Seattle,

Make sure every Scout has a steel thermos. Nothing warms you like a "hot wet". Hot very sweet tea, hot cocoa, heck even hot kool aid works. Get your core temperature up right away.

While everybody is waiting to heat water you're sippin'. After everybody is served you replace the hot water in your thermos for next time. You are always ahead of the game. People say it weighs too much I say it can save a life. Makes meals and emergency warm ups very quick. Always make sure you refill everytime a stove is broken out.

I know you're not going overnight but when morning comes, if you were you sit up in the sleeping bag, get your thermos, mix your oatmeal---you're putting HOT food in the belly before your buddies even have the stove lit. AND YOU"RE NOT EVEN OUT OUT OF THE SLEEPING BAG!!!

Worked for me in Tromso, Norway in March!

One more Arctic Tip: How do you keep a pace count for land nav in deep snow?

Depending on terrain and woods thickness use a cord of know distance say 200 feet. The lead marks the snow and the rear holds the other end of the cord. When the lead runs the line taut he marks the snow again. The rear marks off how many lengths of cord you have jouneyed and can tell the party leader how far you have ranged.