VAordeal

My prayers are with you and your family today. There is no pian worse than loosing a loved one. Today on the feast day of Saint Blaze in the Catholic Church, i will pray to Saint Blaze for Ryan;s intercession. I send condolences to you and your family. and may he soon meet the Great Scout Master of All Scouts.

My prayers are with you and your family today. There is no pian worse than loosing a loved one. Today on the feast day of Saint Blaze in the Catholic Church, i will pray to Saint Blaze in Ryan's name. I send condolences to you and your family. and may he soon meet the Great Scout Master of All Scouts.

patriotism is scouting never ceases to move me. Several weeks ago, my troop was doing the pocket flags program. We folded over 600 mini flags over seas to Iraq and the feeling of folding one knowing it was going to someone who might give their life for our country was such an amazing feeling. I wish you the best of luck while stationed in Iraq. God bless our troops! Thank you for fighting for America's freedom and defending the Red, White and Blue. Long Live The United States of America!

Thank you for all of your responses. I agree with you, JD, that most of my peers are NOT ready to debate war and they are just parroting their parents' opinions. (only about 3 of us have views that differ from our parents. I think only about 4 of us are aware of whats really going on in the world) The organzied debate sounds like a good idea and i will suggest it. Thanks again for all the responses and good evening to all of you.

Hello all. Recently i have noticed a problem during my troop's campouts. Well i know it is good to keep up with current affairs, and i am completly up2date with mine, i think its going overboard in my troop. My troop is heavily divided between the Right, the Center, and The Left. Some kids including myself have self formulated political opinions that differ slightly with our parents. Others just go with their parents politics. Often time on campouts the war debate comes up. This usually leads to trouble. I ususally dont join in the disucssion to a srious degree but i will occasionally comment if someone makes a dumb comment. But recently these arguments have grown nasty, i mean really nasty. So called liberal scouts refuse to talk with the so called conservative (thats me). If i tried to talk with someone who identified themselves as liberal my conservative friends would call me a traitr! I Think this is absolutly ridiculous and has no place in scouting. Some of my friends and I have brought it up to our leaders but they blow it off and say that it will die down. Does anyone have any suggestions on how this can be dealt with, because my troop's leaders sure dont care.

robbery never pays...

"Some scouts in my troop who are avid members of the OA play poker for OA patches. Because these guys are great friends and of a mature age, they seem to have a lot of fun doing this and there never really are any bitter feelings. "

Muckracker, i am a Life Scout OA member who has played poker for OA patches before. Its a very intersting way to come across rare patches. I was able to get an Alaskan OA patch from it. Back to the main topic though. In my troop, poker is the #1 game. We dont gamble for money but often times we will "gamble" for soda or other drinks. Different yes, enjoyable yes.

most Catholic Churches will charter a BSA troop. I am a Catholic and my troop and our pack are both sponsored by the same church. It is interesting how some groups encourage chartering BSA troops and the BSA allows it when the faith does not specifically believe in the God we believe in. For example i have a friend who is a Zoroastrian and is a member of a Zoroastrian troop. Its interesting how some groups that dont share the Christian faith can get around Scotuing's rigid standards.

My troop holds our elections in october (i was voted into the OA through that one) and one in May. Although the new scouts usually know all of the kids in my troop because our pack & troop are chartered by the same school, they do not vote. They dont get a vote because they ususally vote for the nominees that they know personally. For example, there are these to 6th graders (last year 5th) who worship me and another nominee. The troop doesnt want favortism to be a spoiler.

ah good old TI, you just have to love that place.(it is where the OA started) One east coast camp that i reccomend strongly is Camp Henson on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Read my 3 camp review thread for details. It is a terrific camp that has a modern feel in an old fashioned setting.

no problem Bolo, reviewing summer camps is one of my favorite things to do. One of my jobs in my troop is to get information about camps from other scouts out of the troop and the past 2 years i have put together i detailed 25 page manuel reviewing a whole bunch of camps. Currently I'm working on a web site to post my reviews on. The 3 i reviewed here are the ones i have personally attended as a Boy Scout.

Hi everyone. Is anyone else here having trouble logging on to the restricted accsess forum? Every time i type in my user name and password it wont let me in. I know i have spelled the admonition correctly because i looked it up in my ceremonies book. Just last night with the exact same information i was able to get into it.

Yes! i sure did!

hello fellow scouts and scouters! I am going to write reviews of the following three summer camps: Sinoqipe Scout Reservation, Treasure Island Scout Reservation, and Camp Henson. For those who are unfamilliar with these camps, Sinoquipe is in Pennsylvania, everyone knows about TI, and Henson is on the eastern shore of maryland. So to begin-

Sinoquipe Scout Reservation-

Sinoquipe is a very very average camp. Its merit badge program is wonderfully run and neatly organized but that is the only plus i can name. It has the worst possible first year scouts program around. I have first hand experience with it. You get three basic merit badges out of it but there is no fun involved and you feel like you are in school. Not the kind of envirnment for kids going into the 6th grade. The food is absolutly terrible. The rest of my troop agrees that we have never tasted anything so terrible in our lives. The lake is a mess. If you are a "beginner" swimmer like i was when i attended it as a first year, your job is to clean out the begginer swim area's weeds and scum. The campsites are far to removed from the action. Of course my troop had the farthest camp site, one whole mile downhill to the dining hall and then a mile up hill. The trading post has everything you will need including a wide selction of snacks that you will need to survive the week. My overall grade, a D+

Treasure Island SR

Good old TI, home of the OA, oldest scout camp, and just a wonderful place.

I attend TI in my 2nd year. It was clean and tidy and the food was the best you will ever get at a scout camp. If you happen to be there during the session the coinsides with july 25th then they have a "xmas in july" turkey dinner. My main complaint is their merit badge program. It stinks! There is no class size limit so you can have between 2 and 25 kids in a single badge class. TI boasts a swimmimg pool due to the fact that the island is snuggled in the middle of the Deleware River. The camp consists of two interstate islands, one island in NJ and the other is in PA. (a word od warning, never get stuck on the 2nd island in a storm, everything floods and the bridge connecting the islands gets destroyed andyou have to wait hours to be rescued.) There is alot of stuff to do outside your badge classes. They have a baseball field and sports shack where you can rent gloves and balls and bats for free. They have a basketball court so it is perfect for your athletic scouts. They even have sports compettions. (i won the pull ups competition) They usually have a movie night but they tend to show very kidish G rated films. Another complaint is the water. It rains alot. Rain=mosquitos. lots of them so be sure to bring extra bug spray. And when it rains, your camp site will flood. Its a garuntee. If your lucky like me, maybe even your tent will flood and you will have to sleep on your neigbor's wet floor. Treasure Island is a wonderful camp with a wonderful tradition. Also they have the best Camp Commisioner in the world! My grade, A-

Henson Scout Reservation-

I was lucky to attend the terrific camp last summer. They have an excellent merit badge program and class sizes tend to be small. And the greatest thing of all, RUNNING TOILETS! Your computer savvy scouts will be thrilled with their computer lab that you can use for internet stuff. I was able to keep up with my Baltimore Orioles and my Baltimore Bayhawks teams at camp, what a joy! The trading post is the best! It is air conditioned and they have everything ranging from switch blade knives (sorry virginia folks, they wont sell them to you as they are illegal in our fine state. Dont try to get passed them, i did and my friend's OA lodge flap gave us away.) to regular pocket knives and just about everything under the sun. They have a nice swimming pool although im a bad swimmer and only swin when i have to take the test. You will make many close friends because of the small badge class sizes. I still talk to one kid who i met their so you will make life long friends. just about everyone in my troop did. Another great thing, you can rent bikes in your spare time and bike all over the reservation. If you like a modern but rustic (did i spell that right)camp then Henson is perfect for you! Final grade, A+

Thanks for reading my review. I hope it helped you. I hope to see some of you at Henson this summer!

i am currently a Co Den Chief. I am 14 and i work with a 13 year old and we are considred some of the best den chiefs in a while for our pack.(sorry i just had 2 show off there) It really has to do with maturity. You could have a kid who is 12 who looks really young and unexperienced who is in his first year and fully understands scouting's purpose and he does wonderfully. But you could also have that 14 year old who has been tested by Scouting in every way but doesnt get the point. It all boils down to maturity in my opinion.

being in the 8th grade none of the kids in my patrol, including myself, play that ridiculous game! And finally all the 6th graders stoppped! Its dead in my troop! Hooray!

The way it is run in my troop and from my understanding the way the OA governing body sees it is that you have 2 chances to make an ordeal. If you dont then you must be reelected.

im not really a new scout, 3 years on my back but the rest of the troop still treats my patrol as if we were rookies. The younger kids get more respect than we do. Of course it doesnt help when your patrol leader is an active communist but thats another story. I also cant stand leaders who think they are "all that" and cant leave us alone. And there is this one kid whose dad is divorced so the dad makes the kid's little brother (whose a 1st year webelo) come on all our campouts and hikes.

www.bsatroop681.org

hello everyone, im new here. I just did my ordeal this weekend and loved it! Just wanted 2 drop by this forum section and say hi.

hi everyone. I just did my ordeal 2 days ago and got the admonition last evening at the ceremony. Well Allowat Sakima didnt say it loud enough for me to hear. My lodge rep (Amagamnek Wipit 470) gave it to the other new members but he didnt spell it corretly. If someone can PM me with the admontion, i'd greatly appreciate, thanks!