Twocubdad

Honestly, PE, much of your post doesn't jive with the reality of the Cub Scout program. You write that "The pack has multiple leaders of various types to assist in planning and carrying out outdoor activities." That may be, but there is no requirement that they do so. All that is required for a pack camp out is for one adult to have taken BALOO training (and of course parent/guardian supervision for each youth). There is no requirement that the Cubmaster, COR, or committee be involved. A committee member must sign the tour permit, but nothing further. "I would suggest there are better uses of a den leaders time. They should be focusing on the cub program." and "It seems there is a fairly limited need to undertake cub camping activities for the purpose of providing training to the cubs. Certainly it would seem that a few pack camp-outs and maybe summer resident camp should cover it each year." Camping IS part of the Cub program, but I think you're misunderstanding it's purpose and/or application. Just because all the activities you list are prohibited for Cubs doesn't mean there aren't age-appropriate activities Cubs can do. Cub camping is not Boy Scout camping for shorter boys. We're not trying to teach them camping skills and no one is trying to create a "Venture Den". Cub Scouts camp to give them an appreciation for and interest in the outdoors, to enjoy activities we may not be able to do at regular meetings, to provide extended, focused time with their parents and other Scouts, and to simply have fun. I do agree that a couple of Cub campouts per year is sufficient. "The center of gravity, so to speak, is nearer to the pack than the dens." I disagree and would go as far as to say the fundamental unit of Cub Scouting is the Den. "The Den" is one of the methods of Cub Scouting. As the leader book says, "The den is the place where boys learn new skills and develop interests in new things. They have fun in den meetings, during indoor and outdoor activities and field trips.... They learn how to do their best not just for themselves but also for the den." As to the issues of equality and fairness that you and Eamonn point out, if you are saying the quality of the Cub program is dependent on the quality of the leaders, I would say "so what else is new?" That some den leaders would take their dens camping and others wouldn't is no different from any other activity. That's true from den to den and pack to pack. There are some whole packs that don't camp because their leadership isn't into camping. I have a Tiger den leader who works for an airline and arranged time for his den in the airline's flight simulator. How cool was that!?! But should they have been prevented from doing it because none of the other dens had that opportunity? I think you misunderstood my earlier points about single-den packs or pack activities where only one den chooses to attend. I agree with you that G2SS doesn't preclude them from camping. My point was ask the difference between a campout of a single den from a single-den pack versus a campout of a single den from a multi-den pack? We're certainly flogging a dead horse here as the G2SS clearly bans den camping. But as others have said, I don't understand the reasoning behind that rule but would like to.

You think you wadded into a mess! Consider what the other folks on the committee must be thinking!

This the most incoherent line of baloney I have ever read. Can you point to one case where confusion over the BSA mission statement has caused a Scout to grow up to become and adult dog or plant? Your lack of understanding of the BSA program is truly remarkable. We are not about ""rigorizing"" boys. The purpose of the outdoors program is to teach leadership skills, self reliance and to build confidence. (Those are my words, if Bob White didn't have your threads squelched, I'm sure he would provide the exact BSA verbiage.) Scouting could have been built around any other activity which leads to the same ends -- farming, homebuilding, mechanics, music, even computer games, could be used to teach the same skills BSA seeks to instill. (And in fact other organizations do so.) At the end of the day, I don't care one bit if a Scout remembers how to tie a knot, build a fire, or even if he particularly enjoys camping and hiking. The ability to organize a patrol, to plan an outing, to make good judgments and to apply the ideals of the Oath and Law while doing so are the skills that will last him (or her!) a lifetime. Your ramblings about ideals and "telos" are equally obtuse. If you weren't so obsessed with applying your fourth-century BC view of the world to everything and squeezing all language into your very narrow and usually out dated definitions, you would see that the BSA mission fits your definition of an ideal fairly well. The mission statement says exactly what our end is: people who make moral and ethical choices. Just because you think the mission of the BSA should be to produce Spartan warriors doesn't make it the case. The Scouts you are harassing in the library are giving you good information. I would suggest that you should listen to them, but I would really prefer that you just leave them along.

You may well be correct, Eamonn. But if so, I think a bold-face G2SS policy statement is an odd way to handle it. IMHO, bold face policies need to be Maintain Two-deep Leadership and No Flammable Liquids and the like. If you are correct, an adequate policy would be to encourage camping by packs in order to ensure all Cubs in a unit have an equal opportunity to camp and that if dens camp they must meet the same guidelines for health, safety and leadership as for a pack overnighter, or something similar.

Not to beat a dead horse, but keep in mind that the profit on popcorn is 70%, split between the unit, the council and the Scout. I had a dad in our pack who is a ASM with the troop tell me this year that "he" wasn't selling popcorn out of protest. I asked if he would be writing the pack a check for the $100 or so his protest was costing us. I also told him I'd remind him not to complain when the council starting charging his troop to camp at the council's camps. I think most folks know that with all fundraising products they're probably going to pay a bit more than they otherwise may. In four years selling popcorn, I heard complaints about the cost of the popcorn only a handful of times. I will say that I think the Trail's End popcorn is superior to that we buy in the store. I think that probably has to do with freshness and the fact that the popcorn left the processor maybe three or four days before we begin selling it. As far as comparing Boy Scout popcorn to Girl Scout cookies, I think in our area anyway, BS popcorn is beginning to build a similar recognition factor as GS cookies. And yes, we do have people call and ask when we will be selling it.

Dude: there are two things you have failed to notice. 1) no one has disagreed with your definition of effeminate. A 20-volume dictionary and 74 references from literature are not necessary. I've got a $4.95 paperback American Heritage Dictionary here which provides essentially the same definition. 2) No one cares. Please quit wasting our time and Scouter.com's resources. Oh yeah, meow. (This message has been edited by Twocubdad)

And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day -- I said fifty people a day -- walking in, singin' a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out? Friends, they may thinks it's a movement!

Marty & SA: Your reasoning makes perfect sense, IF the resulting policy were that Wolves and Bears are not permitted to camp. Family camping is very much a sanctioned activity for Wolves and Bears and packs are encouraged to camp. But that's not the question being asked. What we're asking is for the reasoning behind allowing a Pack to camp with trained leaders and parental supervision but disallowing dens to camp under the same circumstances. There are no requirements for a pack camp that couldn't be met by a den, save the need to have boys from mutiple dens present to make it a legal pack outing. And common sense tells you that requirement can be waived in the case of a small pack with only one den or a situation where only boys from one den show up. If my younger son's Bear den choose to go on a den camp out (which we would not do since it would violate G2SS policy) and all the dads attended, we would have with us two trained den leaders, the Cubmaster, the Pack Committee chairman and two dads with BALOO training. What level of training and/or supervision would we be mission that we would have at an official Pack campout? I'm in violent agreement with you over the appropriate implementation of various skill levels -- ages and stages and all that. My fellow Webelos den leader the past year-and-a-half has been all about "preparing the Webelos for the Scout troop," emphasizing Boy Scout-level camping skills. He and I have had that conversation many times and I take your position of "so what are they going to do for First Class"? But that relates more to the appropriateness of the activities taking place while camping, not whether or not a given group of Cubs may camp. So the question remains, what is the rationale behind permitting Packs to camp but not dens?

Since DSteele is in transit and isn't here to put in a plug for popcorn, I will. One thing to remember about popcorn sales is that it is a significant fundraiser for the council as well as the unit. I don't recall exact figures, but I know that for our district, the income from popcorn and FOS is comparable. I don't know how much work is involved in your spaghetti dinner, but we can make close to $500 for our unit selling popcorn at a busy shopping center in one day. We'll break the day into three, three-hours shifts with two Scouts and one parents responsible for each shift. Boys usually sell $300-500 per shift with roughly 30% staying with the pack. Of course our popcorn colonel spends time before hand making arrangements with the store managers. We've got a large pack and a VERY good popcorn chairman. Two-thirds of our sales come through show-and-sell booths that our chairman arranges. We've sold over $20,000 worth every year that I've been involved in the pack and are very strong financially because of if.

What do the SPL and ASPL want to do? As long as they're not undermining the PL in their old patrol, I don't see that it makes a big difference. The SPL in my old troop was considered part of the "troop staff" and camped with the adults. We always had a handful of JASMs also on staff and rarely more than 3-4 adults on a campout, so it was't an issue.

So what's your chief complaint with the SM? That the troop isn't Scout run? That he's pushing advancement too much? Or that "I'll kill you" is inappropriate? In any event, it would seem that "gentle shoving" isn't working.

Pointsetters? Your troop sells puppies? What a cute idea! Our pack receives $400-500 in donations every popcorn season. We take the donations each boy collects and convert it into popcorn sales. That way the Scout gets the credit toward their sales prizes for the money they collect. Obviously, that means the lion's share of the donations go to the Council and Trail's End, but that's not a huge issue for us. At the end of the sales period, we have a huge stack of popcorn that has been "donated." We then donate that to the local fire and police departments for their break rooms, the local food pantry and include it in our holiday soldier boxes (if the units have access to microwaves.) The donations to the police and fire departments are especially nice as most of our Scouts have been on tours of the stations and the popcorn is a nice thank you. This year several boys had their photo in the paper with the police chief dropping off the popcorn.

So after a week spent researching 100 years worth of BSA literature you've found two minor references to "turning boys into men" and another using the word "virtue" which you interpret using an obsolete definition as "manliness." In all that research did you not notice hundreds of pages and thousands of references to the Scout Oath and Law? By a simple preponderance of evidence can you not conclude that primary mission of the BSA is to instill the values described in the Oath and Law? Even if you insist on distilling the core mission to "turning boys into men," is is not a reasonable conclusion that the BSA considers manliness to be defined by the Oath and Law?

meow

I won't necessarily disagree, TP, although I do hold out the possibility that there may be a difference between those who engage in pedophilia and those who write about it. Then again maybe not. As I said, that's why we have courts. It is good to know that the two subhuman pieces of garbage who perpertrated the crime are doing life in prison although justice would be better served if they were required to do the time in a Trail Pounder-run facility!

Well I suppose I'll have to change my username since I'm now "OneCubOneScoutDad." Number one son crossed over and attended his first troop meeting this week. I'll have to brag that he finished Webelos with his Arrow of Light and all 20 activity pins. Our Pack graduated 14 Webelos, all with their AoL. All the boys who joined our troop received their Scout badge the first night and are only a few requirements (tenure and a campout) away from Tenderfoot. At the troop meeting the SM introduced the new Scouts and noted that if the older Scouts didn't get it in gear that the would soon be eating the new guys' dust. I'm not sure who was more proud, the boys or me. I've signed on as an ASM, although I made it clear that my #1 responsibility will be as Cub Master in the pack. We've got another two years before number two son crosses over.

I have to admit that when this feature was first announced, I didn't really understand how it could work. If two posters are debating an issue and I have one of them squelched, how much sense will half of a thread make? After all, these things are called "threads" as each is strung to the other. HOWEVER, in the past two weeks my eyes have been opened and I have come to understand the benefit of being able to turn off select individuals. Thanks Terry!

Other than the basics of operating a safe range, we've never felt the need to don anything to make the BB program more interesting or appealing. Honestly, we could require all the boys to take a bite of spinach between each shot and they'd still be there all day.

"(The parents) gave us some tips on how to handle him. Such as, you can't tell him "no", you have to explain the rationale behind the decision. And, he doesn't follow other kids, he only listens to adults (if he listens to anyone)." Did the parents keep a straight face during this conversation? Did you?

And that's why we have courts. The First Amendment isn't absolute, there are limits on it -- shouting "fire" in a crowded theater is the classic example. Prior court cases have determined that some speech is the equavlent of action and not protected by the First Amendment. I suspect that may be the argument here. I've not read NAMBLA's garbage and don't care to, consequently I don't know if it crosses the line between free speech and illegal activity. If they are within their First Amendment rights, then they deserve an adequate defense. But if they cross the line with their pamplets, I hope they get thrown under the jail.

Bob, you're absolutely correct with the policy on den camping, but let's look at the application. I'm not disagreeing with you, I'm trying to get at the rational behind the policy and understand it better. What ill does this policy prevent? (Actually I think we could all use a conversation that relates to scouting ranther than ancient philosophy for a change.) So what is the difference between a pack and den campout? If your 10-Scout pack are camping beside my 10-Scout den, what's the difference? We both have two-deep leadership, all the Scouts are accompanied by a parent one of which has BALOO training and we've both completed a tour permit which requires the signature of of a pack committee representative. If I've gone to my pack committee and asked that they officially sanction my den campout as a pack campout, does that mean anything? Is there more here than just semantics? Obviously, the short answer is that a pack campout includes boys from more than one den. But no one would suggest that a small pack with only one den is precluded from camping or that a pack campout would have to be cancelled if only boys from one den showed up.

By the letter of the law, Bob is right, but let me respond to the heart of your post. First of all, don't take it personally. Your numbers are not out of line with those I see in my pack on campouts. With around 100 active Scouts, we usually have about 20 or 25 Scouts attend "real" campouts -- those held at the Scout camp (about 90 minutes away) -- and about twice that number when we camp at a local park. In Cub Scouting, I think there are simply many families who "don't camp." They don't have any experience or gear and the idea just doesn't appeal to them. When you throw in the usual schedule conflicts, only having a quarter of your boys on a campout isn't unusual. Our most successful campouts attendance-wise are those held at a local park where families can come and go as they please. We make a point of planning activities which aren't affected by the number of Scouts in attendance, such as doing a sports belt loop. Meal planning meal is another matter and we ask for firm reservations. We also make a point to let folks know that it is okay to come for the day, stay for dinner and the campfire, then go home. For those weekends we'll have 70-80 boys particpate at some point during the weekend. Ultimately, of course, you are dealing with the parents. Communicate and make sure they are on board. If the really don't won't to participate in a particular activity, don't force the issue. Don't be afraid to say, "this is a lot of work, if you don't want to go, please say so now." That also gets back to camping being a pack activity. The pack has the leadership and support (i.e. committee) to share the work of planning a campout. Even with a small group, doing the planning, logistics and program is too much for one person.

I'm fortuante to have purchased the optional kook alert when I bought my current computer system. It has paid for itself over the past few weeks. I hate to think that any of the Scouts who read the forums would fall for the claptrap posted recently.

Good luck on your move and with your new job. If you happen to pass through Battlecreek on your way, maybe you can stop by the library and check in with us.

Of course you understand that as a concurring opinion, this carries no weight of law.