Twocubdad

The aluminum DO is really fussy. You tend to get burned spot at every coal. You can deal with it by rotating frequently or crunching up the coals, but why bother if you have a real DO available?

If your oil is going rancid, you're not doing it right. After oiling, you should reheat the oven to bake on and carbonize the oil.

Flax seed oil is the best. Flax seed oil is food-grade linseed oil, which was the base for paint for centuries. I've read a couple really nerdy articles about the chemistry, polymer length, yadda, yadda, yadda, but the bottom line is Flax seed oil doesn't go rancid and provides a much more durable finish.

1) Do you use Dutch ovens?  Definitely. Box ovens, reflector ovens, sandwich presses, campfire popcorn poppers, you name it

2) Wood or charcoal?  Usually charcoal, with a starter chimney.  Saves a lot of time.  But we will use coals from the campfire it it's ready.

3) Troop cook or patrol cook?  Both.  Summer camp is mostly a troop deal so guys take turns cooking campfire snacks for the whole troop.  Otherwise, all cooking is by patrol.

4) Size(s) used?  Mainly 12"  I personally have a 16".  We also have two casserole dish cast iron pans we've had metal lid made for.  They're great for cookies, brownies and big skillet breakfasts.

5) Uses: stove top style (Stews, soups, oatmeals) or Oven (breads, pies, cobblers, casseroles, pot roast, etc.)  Mostly oven

6) Do you own an aluminum Dutch oven?  Yes, but no one ever uses.  The heat distribution is weird.

7) Do you use DO's on activities other than plop camping?  Troop meetings, cook-offs, demonstrations.

8) Aluminum foil liners or clean as you go?  We use parchment liners.  They aren't leak proof so you still have to clean the DO, but sugary stuff doesn't bake on.  I find the heat build up under the foil liners is hard on the finish.

9) Oil or wax?  Flax seed oil

10) Troop use any other cast iron other than the Dutch Oven?  Every patrol has cast iron skillets plus the afore-mentioned casserole pans.

Love the Latest Posts/Threads/Updates box on the right side.  Thanks for taking care of us, Terry.

You're going to have a blast!  This will be the most rewarding and exhausting Scout training you've ever had. 

I been on NCS-CS faculty 12 years.  One of the biggest complaints we get on the feedback sheets is three days wasn't enough time for the volume of material covered.  Of course no one wants to go for an extra day, so....  And actually, it's really a two-day class.  There isn't a lot of focused instruction Sunday morning, mostly review, wrap-up, a Scouts' Own service and graduation.  The syllabus calls for check-out by noon.

But it is VERY, VERY intense.  It's like Wood Badge except all the info is critical and stuff you need to know so no slacking off.  Typical schedule is from 7:30 am to 9:30 at night. And after that you will need to spend time with your den working on you case study projects.

Suggestions: 

• If the camp offers the option of arriving Thursday and bunking at the camp for the night, take it.  Check in is typically early Friday morning.  People who think they can get up at 3:00am and drive to the camp crash and burn.  Whatever the logistics, start the weekend well rested. 
• Take a stadium seat cushion.  The camp staff works hard (at least ours does) to keep you on your feet and moving, but there a lot of lecture.  We used to have a lot of skits and crazy stuff to break up the lectures, but the last revision of the syllabus about four years ago eliminated a lot of the time we had for that. 
• Like Wood Badge, you'll be in a den and A LOT of time with those folks.  But also like WB, it's a lot about sharing info and making contacts.  If nothing else, get to know the folks sitting at the table behind you.  But most especially, get to know the staff and pick their brains during breaks.  I bet our staff has a collective 200 years experience in Scouting.  Some of them have been teaching this course for 25 years.
• Eat well. Of course I don't know what the chow will be at your school, but if BSA is paying for it, it ain't going to be Michelin rated.  There will be plenty of opportunities to guzzle coffee and cookies, but when the sugar/caffeine crashes, it gets ugly.   I always show up with a couple bags of apples and oranges.  I happy colon makes for a happy camper.
• Ear plugs.  You don't know who you;ll be bunking with.
• Be nice to the staff.  They started a day earlier and stay till late the day you leave.  They also put weeks of work into preparing for the course.  And when they leave you working on your den project, they're headed off to a staff meeting then come back and reset the room for the next day.  Twenty-hour days is not uncommon for the staff.
• Remember why you're there and get into the spirit of things.  It's all about the Cub Scouts so one of the things we try to communicate is that day camp should geared for 7- to 10-year-olds.  We try to have fun and be silly to remind people their camp should be fun and entertaining to a Cub-aged kid.  GO WITH IT.  Sing along, get into the cheers and skits. Make sure the rest of your den does too.  Every now and then we get some retired Marine colonel who is there to whip those little buggers into shape.  Wrong attitude.
• Last, PAY ATTENTION!  I absolutely guarantee you this will be the best Cub Scout training you will EVER have.  Whether or not you ever set foot in a day camp, this training will make you a far better Cub Scout leader regardless of your volunteer position.

I take it your council does not require your activities to match your tour plan?

No permit required at all if we are within the council or going to a council camp.

Just say you were employed by the State Department of Corrections. Be careful giving your tenure as "3 to 5" or that your hourly rate was 14 cents an hour.

I'd call it sarcastic, but I'm okay with "purposely obtuse" too.

I occasionally get a newer parent yelling "Do you know what word my son learned on the campout?" or "I thought Scouts are supposed to be (fill in a point of the Scout Law)." I tell them the image they have in mind is the finished product. I'm working with the raw materials.

I don't think you can make blanket judgments about any group like that. Some of the biggest jerks I have in the troop are terrific soccer players. Remarkably self-centered, think the rest of the world is here for their amusement and convenience and have no clue their poop stinks. Should I make the assumption all soccer players are like that? Kids are kids. A big part of their job in life is to learn where the boundaries are by pushing them.

Since climbing or shooting sports are not on your tour plan, you cannot. Remember this all links back to other documents. You can't go canoeing simply because the canoes are open. Have you done your swim tests? Have you done your water sports training? Are guys grouped by known swimming ability?

 

Our unit sticks to our tour plan and itinerary. IF something "neutral" like going to a wild life refuge or taking a nature hike presents itself then great. If something like go-karts or shooting or climbing or water sports presents itself we have to ask: 1) Does our tour permit cover it? 2) Do we have the appropriate people trained to manage this new activity? 3) Are the boys trained/prepared according to BSA guidelines? 4) Will we run afoul of our tour plan, permission slip or any other BSA policy.

(Sigh)

Since we are camping on camp property, we didn't file a tour plan. In the case of shooting sports, I specified the shooting sports director opened the range for us. In our council, only certified climbing instructors can open the climbing wall, so one can assume the other troop has a climbing instructor on hand, but we asked to be sure. And oh, by the way, we have both certified climbing and shooting sports instructors in our troop, so that's not a problem either way. We also have numerous folks trained in Safety Afloat and have sense enough not to jump in canoes willy-nilly without taking the proper precautions. So the only reason we cannot participate in these activities is because of the permission slips?

But our permission slips only specified "camping." It made no mention of building fires, using axes, propane stoves, playing Frisbee tag in the field or backpacking the half-mile in from the parking lot. Are we precluded from those activities too? Are we limited to lying in tents starring up at the canvas?

Can you provide a reference for this list of "neutral" activities?

Does this not paint you into a corner? What happens when the opportunity for something different presents itself on a campout? Another troop has the climbing wall open and invites your Scouts to climb? The shooting sports director is working at the range and offers to open it? Or the campsite includes a couple of canoes? (Our troop has been on both the offering and receiving end of all of these.) Does "camping" on the permission slip cover it or do you have to decline the invitation?

I'm no lawyer, but it would seem to me an annual, detailed, state-specific permission slip covering all activities authorized by the Guide to Safe Scouting would be more appropriate. How many volunteer-drafted permission slips just say "camping"? "What? No one told me my son would be using an ax on this camping trip! What kind of irresponsible people are running this program!?"

I also think the basic membership documents should place more responsibility on the parents to understand the various Scouting activities and to know what their troop has planned. It is hard for me to comprehend a parent dropping their son off with a bunch of folks they don't know and have no idea what they will be doing for the next two days. But then I've learned not to bet against it either. It is also bewildering BSA doesn't have a training course for parents teaching them what Scouting is all about, what their sons are in for and all the potential benefits and liabilities. (Our troop has it's own program for new parents). And hey, if the parents fail to take the course, that's a high card BSA's lawyers can play if needed.

Presbyterian, Fred. What you or I think is immaterial. The CO gets to decide. Honestly, registering them as committee members was something we had to negotiate for. The church wants to put them through their own day-long YP training and charge $65 for a background check. Every few years, when a new set of deacons takes over, we have to make our case again.

Pack makes a good point I had intended to include -- while the constraints of an organization may preclude them from getting involved beyond their own parochial interests, nothing precludes an individual from dropping a dime on the kid.

He is also spot on with the real, time-tested cure for bullying. No career as a bully ever survives it's first good butt whoopin'. I saw it happen over and over growing up. Remember the Scott Farcas Affair from the movie Christmas Story? That's exactly how it works. Or more currently the "Sheep, Wolves and Sheepdog" analogy in American Sniper. Unfortunately, schools have absolutely created the current bullying environment by protecting the wolves from the sheepdogs. Back in the day, a good vice principal knew how to get distracted just long enough for a lesson to be made without anyone getting really hurt.

I have no knowledge of the official protocol for a situation like this. HOWEVER, I wouldn't expect the council to issue such a letter. How would that possibly be in their interest? Secondly, that the bully has moved on to greener pastures really isn't the council's problem. Now I get all the arguments for why they shouldn't "kick the can down the road" or "burying our heads in the sand", but if the council WANTED to do something about the situation, what standing would they have to get involved in a school issue?. If the council executive called the school, do you think school personnel would even talk to them or would they claim confidentiality? I think maybe your expectations are greater than they should be.

But I have a question: what did they tell you which would cause you to put up with months of investigations, spend the time to write reports or make your sons available for such? I'd be willing to sit down over a cup of coffee with them, but I'm not sure I would tolerate the Barney Fife routine very long.

Our CO wants all adults involved in it's youth programs to be background checked. That means anyone who attends a campout. The church's process cost $65. BSA membership is a steal. Adults pay their own registration fee.

I don't know how pro pay grades/scales work (maybe E92 or BP can comment) but one reason for large districts with multiple DEs is it creates a justification for Sr. DE and District Director positions. This has the benefit of keeping experienced pros in the district, but also (I'm sure) increases salaries.

Not everyone is a leader. The world needs associates too.

One of the great advantages of Scouting is it takes the meekest of those gentle souls and at least exposes to them to the concepts of leadership and an opportunity and nudge to give it a try. Maybe they can become a 2nd Assistant Supervising Associate.

And there are kids, especially they younger ones, who don't have cell phones. A few don't have email but more than a few have multiple accounts and rarely check them. One thing I've seen over the past year or so is the use of text groups. Now, instead of making eight calls, the post one (frequently unintelligible) text and think their done. But two kids don't have phones, another wasn't at the meeting when they traded phone numbers, another forgot to turn his back on after class. Ultimately, maybe half get the message.

Kids are amazingly myopic. The world stops at the end of their fingertips. I bet if you asked most of the kids in the above sample if everyone got the message, their response would be, "well, I sent it."

Once I got a text from one of my older scouts, "can i use u 4 a refrensce?" Aside from all the obvious problems we all see was I didn't know who sent it. The kid just assumed the entire world had him programmed into our phones and his ID would automatically pop up.

Even Ringling Brothers is getting rid of their elephants so they don't have to talk about them anymore.

http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2015/03/06/uc-irvine-students-vote-to-remove-american-flag-from-campus-lobby/

Resolution reads, in part, “freedom of speech, in a space that aims to be as inclusive as possible can be interpreted as hate speech.†Now I went to a good, state-supported university, every bit as good as UC-Irvine. I understand English as it was taught at my mother's knee. It is my native tongue. But please, what the hell does that mean?

So the main purpose of the merger is because no one has the cajones to get rid of the day camp director and activities chairman? What happens if those two take over the new district and apply their programs to the other two districts?

We went through a merger a few years back. The stated purpose was because several districts were weak and were to be joined -- essentially taken over -- by stronger districts. All it accomplished was to average the numbers of the various districts. It was like a school reassignment where the shuffle two school districts, one with a 60% pass rate and the other at 95%. VIOLA! You have two schools now above the 75% cutoff point. No real improvement, but the numbers look better.

Depending on the numbers. Like Tahawk noted, we lost all kinds of vols. The folks from the weaker district totally bailed and a lot of our folks, who had been on the job for awhile, decided this was a good excuse to step down. It took years to rebuild.

Interesting, we didn't loose any professional staff. The DEs from the stronger districts became District Directors with the weaker DEs working under them. And ultimately that was the real plan, I believe. It justified a career track for the professionals which allowed them to move into higher-paying positions without waiting for one of the council executives to drop dead.

Look at who is pushing this and that will tell you the real story. Or as Deep Throat said, "follow the money."

Nikki not liking something someone posted about her?

I'm with you. I'm mostly just bustin' you chops.

Right, Stosh. But my contact is with the SPL. He can figure the delegation. I'm also assume there may be shared, troop equipment/responsibilities which he shouldn't dump on the PLs.

No.

Some how BSA managed to live with (some would say "wallowed in", others "reveled in") the ambiguity until this year. The elephant showed up in May of last year.

Go without one. Hand the SPL a copy of the QM's job description and tell him he's responsible for that too. But make sure he knows the PLs are responsible for all their patrol gear.

QMs probably work as hard as anyone. From time to time we've gone without.