Twocubdad

"The entrance examination for the University of Virginia and other places in 179o's was to translate 10 chapters of John's Gospel from Greek into Latin; not even English." Damn multiculturalists! I'm I sensing a bit of a meltdown here?

Take small puff pastries or doughnut holes and stack them into a mountain, as high as they will stack. Use Coolwhip as mortar to glue them together. Drizzle the hole thing with chocolate syrup, the shell type that gets hard when refrigerated. You can make it into a mountain or volcano, whatever.

First Aid, fishing, railroading, nature, fingerprinting, basketry, swimming, gardening, hiking, conservation, lifesaving, safety, traffic safety, photography, coin collecting, camping, cooking, cit. community, textiles, cit. nation, scholarship, personal fitness, animal husbandry, metal working, transportation and journalism. Hiking was probably the most memorable. During my first summer in Scouts, someone's mom would drive a bunch our us 10 or 20 miles out in the country, drop us off and we would hike home. We had a blast. The least memorable was animal husbandry. I have absolutely no recollection of getting that one. I'm even wondering if somehow I got a wrong badge (although I know the total of 27 is correct.) The toughest was personal fitness and was the last one I needed for Eagle. I wouldn't have gotten that one if it weren't for my SM kicking my behind across his backyard, running sprints and doing situps. I can honestly say the best merit badges were the required ones. They were the toughest, but also the ones that taught the most. (You guys out there listening?)

I had a good experience with the staff patrol in my old troop. Generally, whenever a Scout made Eagle, he became a JASM and was assigned to the staff patrol. I don't really know all the thinking behind it, but I remember it was to make way for the younger boys to assume leadership positions in the patrols. We essentially served as an ad hoc group of troop instructors and guides and did much of the teaching. On campouts we camped with the leaders and were exempt from participating in Camporee inspections and competitions. That was considered one of the perks of the office. Thinking back on it, we did all the cooking camp work for the leaders -- somewhat of a "white-washing the fence" arrangement, but it worked for us.

An additional wrinkle is that as soon as current stocks are depleted, the diamond Webelos badge will no longer be available. so the option for boys who began after their Tiger year to wear the Webelos diamond won't be available. Frankly, I think the new system was rather poorly thought out. As long as Webelos are given the option of wearing the blue uniform, it's going to be a problem. I think the best approach for leaders is not to make a big deal out of it and encourage the boys to move on to the tan uniforms.

But of course, OGE, if you hadn't been involved in Scouting since the Nixon administration, you wouldn't know that. Trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean reverent. Please explain how those words apply only to males.(This message has been edited by Twocubdad)

So let us assume that the original 1910 charter says what you say it does. So what? What was it about Congress and the BSA in 1910 that makes them so much more qualified to lay out the basics of the Scouting program than we are today? Were they divinely inspired back then? Are we to be stuck with the first draft of everything? Or do you prefer it simply because it better fits your 4th century BC view of the world?

"You can beat me, you can starve me, you can kill me. Just don't bore me!" -- Gunnery Sgt. Tom Highway (Clint Eastwood), Heartbreak Ridge

"Opinions is (sic) what is shown but no knowledge. A sign of a learned man is his ability to quote to prove a point." I'd say you are half right. No one has spouted more opinion and less knowledge on this board than you. The second sentence of the above quote is as good an example of this as any. The ability to regurgitate the words of others is also a sign of a learned myna bird. In my opinion, the sign of a leaned person (yes, women are capable of this, too) is the ability to glean important information and ideas from others and develop their own coherent thoughts. As is so often the case for many of your posts I have to ask, what's your point? (The frequency with which this question is asked of you really should cause to re-evaluate your writings.) What reality do colleges need to be teaching? That of Socrates? Ayn Rand? God forbid, you? I don't recall any of my colleges classes revolving around the bull sessions you -- I mean Ayn Rand -- mention. (I do recall quite a few in the dorms and late night at the school newspaper office. This informal interaction among students is one of the great advantages of higher education.) But assuming these classroom sessions are the norm, isn't this exactly how Socrates would teach today? Although the formal, Socratic questions and answers may have been replaced by the less formal discussion, the heart of the Socratic method the process of formulating your own ideas, comparing and defending them against those of your teacher, the texts, and your peers. The rough-and-tumble of debate and questioning is the crucible where ideas are formed and purified. To accept, wholesale, any philosophy, religion or idea is the antithesis of the belief that "an unexamined life is not worth living."

Eamonn -- be glad it's only mowers and kitchen equipment they're hoarding. We've got people who treat whole parts of the program that way. On the other hand, here's the flip side of folks locking stuff away is. Because our day camp is held at a local park not at the council camp, we are on the B list when it comes to using council-owned equipment. Several years ago we bought a fair bit of equipment out of our camp budget. But because the purchases went through the council and would up on the council's inventory, we were required to turn it all back in to the council at the end of camp. Of course the next year, half of the stuff had been lost/stolen/distroyed and the other half had been absorbed back into the council's general inventory. We were back on the waiting list to use stuff we had paid for a year earlier. So now we treat much of the camp equipment the way your guys do. Some things are purchased and stored by various units. Or we try to keep things below the council's radar so that we don't have to turn it. I'm sure the bean counters would have spasms that there is no accountability for the equipment. But what's the worst thing that could happen? It gets lost/stolen/distroyed here instead of at the council's warehouse.

Wheeler, your "oxymorons" haven't been answered because no one else considers them to be oxymoronic, just moronic. One can do their duty to God by working with UN humanitarian agencies to feed the hungry, heal the sick and clothe the homeless. One can do their duty to Country by promoting peace and their own self interest. I'd love to show a similar example for your third oxymoron, but I honestly don't know what the hell you're talking about. Unless you refer to the original Greek etomylogy of "virtue," I don't beleive any modern definition of the word had anything to do with masculinity. Life is not a zero sum game. I can help my neighbor without weakening myself. By helping my neighbor he becomes a better neighbor and I have helped myself. You're so big into philosophy, try reading Hume and some of the Enlightment authors and their views on the development of civilization.

FDR threatened to disband the Supreme Court? That's news. I studied the "Switch in Time that Save Nine" and know that FDR threatened to add justices of his liking in order to pack the court and get his New Deal programs through. Which, oh by the way, would have been consititutional since the Constitution gives the president that power, but sets no limit on the number of Justices (Art. II.2.2). When subsequent rulings went FDR's way, he dropped the idea. But then I went to a socialist-dominated state university. I'm sure it was all lies.

Kangaroo walks into a bar and orders a drink. The bartender serves him and says, "That'll be $20." The kangaroo winces, but reaches in his pouch for his wallet and pay the tab. Bartender say, "You know, we don't get many kangaroos in this bar." Kangaroo replies, "With prices like this, I'm not surprised!" (Some needs to invent a little drum/rimshot icon for bad jokes.)

A three-legged dog pushes through the swinging doors and walks into a saloon. He looks around the hushed room and says, "I'm looking for the man who shot my paw!"

The Super Achiever patch is a national award. If your local Scout Shop doesn't carry it they should be able to order it for you or you can order it direct from national supply at the 800 number. This year our pack has a 20-pinner for the first time in several years and we are presenting him with the SA patch. We give all our WIIs a Scout handbook as a graduation gift. In addition, the Webelos Is make shadow boxes (similar to the ones in the Scout catalog) and present them to the WIIs. We have less than $5.00 in the boxes (the guy who supplies all my mirrors and shower doors gives us the glass) and they count towards the WI's craftsman badge. They make a really nice gift.

Terrific! The links to each page are especially useful. If I could only get the guys who work for me to be as responsive. Thanks!

Reminds me of the story of the guy who had a flat tire outside the gate of an asylum. As he changed the tire, a patient watched from the other side of the fence. The guy took the lug nuts off and put them inside the hub cap. As he carried the spare around from the trunk, he kicked the hubcap, loosing all the lug nuts down a nearby drain. As the guy stood there cussin', the asylum patient said, "Why don't you take one nut off each of the other wheels and use them? That will at least get you to a service station down the road." The guy with the flat says, "Hey, that's a brilliant suggestion! But if you're so smart, what are you doing in a funny farm?" The patient replies, "Just because I'm insane doesn't mean I'm stupid!" You all are on you own to apply that story to any other current posters as you see fit. OGE, as I was reading the thread, I had the same thought as you did. Your post explains it much more eloquently than I would have. Regurgitating every fact, every quote, every idea you have learned on a given subject without the ability to assimilate what you have learned is useless. A day or two a go I asked Wheeler what concrete changes he would make to the BSA program to apply his philosophy. So far he has not replied. I assume that would require an understanding of the program and an ability to formulate a plan of action. Reaching for the squelch button......

Be careful you don't get hit by the screen BAM! ...door.

In a prior life I was a marketing communications executive and consultant. I don't know what kind of course this paper is for, but you really need to have a basic understanding of marketing communications before you can do much of an analysis of the BSA's program. Without trying to cover in one post what could be most of a graduate degree, the major thing you need to consider is what audiences/markets is the BSA trying to reach. Take membership as one example. I don't have any kind of data, but I would suspect that the profile of boys joining BSA for the first time is strongly weighted toward 7- and 8-year-old boys with the curve of new members dropping to near nothing after age 12 -- maybe a spike at 14 for the Venturers. Consequently, our target market for new members is elementary school-aged boys and their parents (actually, research shows that the moms are the primary decision makers). When you understand that, the School Night Roundup program most councils conduct in the fall makes sense. We are very specifically targeting boys and parents in areas where Packs already exist with mailings, flyers, live presentations and one-on-one follow ups. That is a textbook way of approaching a narrow market segment like that. On the other hand, if you compare BSA's marketing to a national mass-media campaign suitable for consumer products (think Hot Wheels or Flinstones breakfast cereal), the BSA approach seem rather wimpy. But they are different markets, different products and different forms of communications -- not to mention different media budgets. At the next level, to get a real picture of BSA's overall marketing efforts, you need to expand your analysis to look at all the different audiences/market segments in this same light: donors, United Way executives, grants and foundations, chartered organizations, parents, not to mention all the different groups of youth BSA serves. My ultimate point is that if you are just looking at the national media BSA produces (which is extremely limited and a very small part of their overall communications program) you're going to get a very skewed idea of what they do.

It would appear none of us consider ourselves "big time."

Okay, life's hard then you die. We get it. But what does that have to do with the Scout program, which you proclaim such a great interest in fixing? Let's get down to the brass tacks here: what are you proposing? Forced marches? More survival training? Hand-to-hand combat? What is it that you think we shoud be doing -- on the ground, one-on-one -- to make Scouts harder and less effeminate? Do you actually have a plan of action, or is all this just more philosophical navel gazing?

We had a great Webelos-Troop visit last week. The tone was set druing the opening ceremony when the Webelos could be heard reciting both louder and somewhat faster than all the other Scouts. At the end of the Law, the Boy Scouts all turned and applauded the Webelos. They're not accustomed to the Webelos coming in so well prepared. It was a neat moment for the Webelos. The rest of the meeting went well, especially the parent's session with the SM and troop committees. (I didn't really get to see what the boys did.) On the basis of the troop visit, a couple families to were convinced to join who were leaning toward another troop.

Sturgen, your greatest objection is cost, but the A, B, C format you propose will cost even more than the current multi-use uniform. Obviously, the current uniform is targeted at the middle of the curve. It's not much good for winters in Montana or summers in Georgia. From that standpoint, I'd like to see BSA tweak it a bit by adding some optional pieces. A standard undershirt would be a great addition. Seems like most Scouts have short-sleeved uniform shirts and wear all different shirts under them. A standard color undershirt would help the looks. They could be offered in short and long sleeve and cotton and poly. I've written before that I like to see a better selection of outer wear. Scouts in the winter look like a bunch of refugees. I'd like to see a liner/shell system that could be purchased and worn in pieces to keep the price down and make them more flexible. Seems like it would be easy to go to Columbia, Northface or one of the other major outfitters and ask them to manufacture one of their current garments in BSA uniform colors (the same arrangement BSA has with Woolrich for the current wool jackets). I have a suit like that from Columbia that probably cost me over $200 all together, but the only really big outlay was for the parka and liner which were about $130. The rain pants and liners were bought separately and cost maybe $30-40 each. Putting this together, a Scout could reasonably afford to wear a long-sleeve poly undershirt, his Scout uniform shirt and a fleece jacket and be comfortable 9 months of the year in most parts of the country and year-round in many areas. Pants are another story. I despise the current field pants. They may fit a 90-pound 12-year-old, but for those of us with a little more, shall we say "mature" shape (read that however you will), they are danged uncomfortable. Execpt for campouts, I wear a pair for the suit-weight wool pants which are more of a "gentleman's" cut. I don't think BDU pants are necessarily the answer. The pants pocket configuration needs to be something that works both as trousers and shorts. If they can work out a BDU-style pant like that I'd be fine with it. I just want the dang things to fit better.

One of the things I figured out is that when you factor in unit, district and council events, there is some outing Scouts can attend almost every month. I don't know why the program people don't promote the events as such. It seem like we get a steady stream of flyers about various activities, but I think unit leaders -- especially new one -- could take a lot of comfort in the fact that there are lot of activities out there that don't require a lot of work from the unit. The only thing I would suggest to you, Laurie, it to move or add camping trips to the spring or fall. In our unit, our summertime activities are very sparsely attended. In our area, (and I think you're in the southeast too, right?) the weather in April and October is much nicer for outdoor activities. We've found that campouts close to home are much better received than those an hour or two away, even if the more distant locations have better facilities. We've got a place about 20 minutes from our CO where we camp and will have 130 folks over the course of a weekend. Being nearby allows families to juggle schedules and still attend at least part of the campout. It also allows the families who don't care to camp overnight to come and enjoy dinner and the campfire program.

Wheeler; I think your post overlooks a very significant point of view. Please consider the following: "Gradually it has become clear to me what every great phlosophy so far has been: namely, the personal confession of its author and a kind of involuntary and unconscious memoir." Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, 1886 "American democracy and the American Economy were sucessful not bcause of individualism or communitarianism alone but because of the interaction of these two opposing tendencies." Francis Fukuyama, Trust, 1995 "The chessboard is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the uniferse, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of Nature. The player on the other side is hidden from us. We know that his play is always fair, just, and patient. But also we know, to our cost, the he never overlooks a mistake, or makes the smallest allowance for ignorance." T.H. Huxley, A Liberal Education, 1870 "If we take in our hand any volume of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance, let us ask: Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning the quantity of number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning, concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion. David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding , 1748. An interesting point of view, no?