chrisking0997
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Posts posted by chrisking0997
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Im sure the grass IS alot greener on the other side....for now. Then what happens when TL gets a case of the same diseases that plague BSA now? 'course, it took 100 years to get here so maybe the new TL-fers are just happy to kick the can down the road for now
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... She went on to say that if a boy needed money he could "borrow" against the troop and "pay back" by working at fundraisers, but everyone would be working together to get everyone to camp.
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Stosh
as someone who admittedly struggles with accounting, Im not grasping how NOT having ISAs works. I get that all the money goes into one fund...what I dont get is come time for camp payments how do you know how much Johnny raised and how much Tommy still needs? And once you have that figured out, if a boy needs to "borrow" against the troop, by what calculation do you determine that he has worked off that debt so to speak? It seems to me that if you know how much a boy has contributed or how much he still needs to contribute, somehow you are still going thru the motions of an ISA but just not calling it that.
of course, this is why I wont be a treasurer, cuz clearly it works for some people out there but I just dont get it
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something needs to be done about that NYLT example. I cant see any reason that should have happened, example or not. Clearly the staff (and the advisor) do not understand how to teach leadership, probably as a result of being taught poorly themselves. By teaching that "method" they are spreading that bad behavior back to the units and possibly other locations like schools. And by telling the participants not to tell anyone about it, it shows they know its wrong. I shake my head as to how that was allowed to go on for 3 minutes, let alone 3 days
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my, what a wonderful service that CO did for those boys. Saved them from the mere possibility of having to interact with a gay person, and at the same time gave them alot more free timeI have a good friend who was the scoutmaster of a troop of 18 boys charted thru a Christian school. As soon as the gay issue was voted upon the troop was dissolved. Only 2 scouts joined other troops the rest just quit scouting./sarcasm
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hmm...could be. Without the whole story its tough to know. But it sounds like the SM is paying close attention with good intention so I say good for him. Id say the OP is lucky to have him.Im baffled by how a SM can look at a blue card and deem a signed off requirement as lacking.Easy: A scout new to your troop brings you a handfull of bluecards that were signed off in a Merit Badge Clinic over the summer. You know that some of those badges cannot be earned in a class on one Saturday. A few simple questions about what was done, truthfully answered by the scout, expose the shortcomings.
-It's a tough situation for the SM: He never got to approve the MBC, so he didn't get to steer the Scout away from Clinic level work. If he accepts sub par MB work from this new Scout, what precendent has he set for the rest of his troop?
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as an MB counselor, Im baffled by how a SM can look at a blue card and deem a signed off requirement as lacking. what MB was it? also interesting that the MB counselor in the current troop didnt question it.
regardless, I would take heart that the SM takes that level of interest in your boy attaining the skills of a given MB. Get your boy in touch with the current MB counselor and have them work it out.
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each generation is the product of the one before. and each generation has questioned why the next one is full of a bunch of slackers.
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hmm...guess I better pull out of scouting, since I currently let my sons go off into the woods with women that are sexually attracted to malesIMO, this is a warning sign to BSA should they decide to admit gay leaders. That's where the rubber hits the road when you ask parents to let their sons to go off into the woods with men that are sexually attracted to males. -
well, yeah....when you have a 100 year old preexisting program, handbook, uniform, units, leadership, members to base your organization off of, you're gonna look like you've hit the ground running.I see a lot of opinions of why folks are leaving the BSA for Trail Life and likely they are all correct depending on the unit. The local Trail Life near me organized as a result of the BSA membership decision. There was no thought of changing before. I know of a couple of Texas units considering Trail Life because the church has asked the BSA units to leave. I know of another boy run unit looking into Trail Life to get more freedom in there program. I don't think there is one main reason. But if Trail Life can get their feet under them, they might make a go of it. I don't feel Trail Life will hurt the BSA program. But it might keep them from going more liberal with membership like allowing atheist. Barry -
yeah, my first thought was this scout is trying to phone it in....literally.Email interviews? For an SMC?I don't do eMail interviews.
How can he show me a bowline via eMail? How do I know if he has the book open on another screen?
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all I can envision is "City Slickers". Rollin, Rollin, Rollin...
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sounds like mom is being obtuse. you'd really have to have your head in the sand to not know that your son, the SPL and leader of the boys, would not need to be at the meeting prior to the COH and the COH. Would she have told the basketball coach "oh, I didnt know he needed to be at practice"? Im guessing not.
So were you harsh? dont think so. the boy (and by extension the mom like it or not) made a commitment to his fellow scouts and the troop, and he is shirking it for another activity. Its your job to call him on that and get him to step up and do whats right, because others are depending on his leadership. Hopefully you dont lose the boy, but it doesnt sound like mom was very supportive to begin with
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agreed. Had this conversation with my son the other night. All those other activities (sports, schoolwork, jobs) have mandatory requirements. Scouting is optional.A few thoughts.1) You have to look at #of available youth. Recent article here talked about fewer applying to college - these are the kids of Gen X - a smaller generation than Boomers.
2) Youth sports around here is only for the top players once you hit junior high. You CAN stay in the rec league, but most of the mediocre kids have dropped out.
3) Youth sports is STRICT about practices and games. I have an ASM setting us up for Philmont because he could never go if he wanted to keep his position as a starter in football.
4) I have boys taking 5 AP courses, spending weekends taking study courses for PSAT, SAT and ACT. In addition, they have school clubs with mandatory weekend activities if you want the letters of rec for college.
Kids are busier than hell around here - so that is where my high schoolers are.
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how does looking up someone's training on myscouting.org work then, if there were multiple people assigned to the same number?
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our troop surged to almost 50 2 years ago. I cant even fathom a 150 boy troopMy troop spawned off an offshoot troop when I was in high school. We were pushing about 140-150 kids in a meeting space that could barely contain 125, and spun off a troop of about 50 or 60 with a different CO. There was another troop in town, too, a smaller group (~15-20 at most) who always kept to themselves, and they were pretty much uninterested in being a part of it. So we had to form a new troop. We gave them a bunch of scouts, some leaders (including our former longtime scoutmaster to get them started), a pile of equipment, the whole nine yards, and they supplemented from there. We then capped our membership and encouraged new boys to join the other troop. The problem was there wasn't a cohesive group of people who clearly wanted to go, so it was basically a group of forced refugees and just a handful of families that were open to doing it and passionate about the whole idea. There were problems with families whose sons were sent to the other troop whose younger sons wanted to join ours, there was all sorts of drama when we tried to come up with some metric to decide who would end up where (always a great idea to turn people into math equations)... It ended up being a pretty big headache.In the end, the troops have always gotten along, but the cooperation and camaraderie between the two groups never really got to what we thought it would be. The hope was we could have two troops of about the same size, but what ended up happening is they ended up ballooning at first, then dwindling down to about 30 or 40. And then we were right back to the same huge number within a few years (though with a new, much larger meeting space, as our CO expanded their building). Last I heard, there's pretty much no interest in doing it again, both because there isn't another church or organization willing to be a CO, and no one really wants to go through all of it again, even fifteen years after the first try. Luckily both troops have great leadership and energy, good COs, support from the District, etc., so it didn't end up impacting the program at all in the long run.
I would suggest only doing it if you have people who are willing to take a chance, a CO that is flexible or a new CO willing to come on board, a group of adults and youth leadership who can work well together, and if the old troop is willing to do a lot of legwork to make sure the new unit gets off the ground. Work hard on Cub crossovers and give the new troop a bit more whizz-bang promotion than the older unit to build up numbers. Use your Unit Commissioner and DE to help you through the process. Be prepared for friction and drama, too.
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Ive googled/searched on this issue, and can only find old (3-4 years ago) references to the problem of the BSA red lettering coming off of the shirt. My son's letter has been slowly falling off, and its just getting under my skin. I went to the scout shop as I had heard they had a replacement patch, and they gave me a 4x6 strip of cloth with the lettering embroidered on it. I left dumbfounded....what the heck am I supposed to do with that?
Ive seen several scouts with missing letters, its starting to become a pet peeve. Why hasnt BSA just issued a patch with the lettering on it (or have they, and I just fail at finding it) and fix the issue? I really dont want to have to buy another shirt
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Im sure its possible, I just question how much the boy retained from cramming all of those badges into that short of a time (combined with all his schoolwork as well). I know its not a requirement to retain anything from a merit badge....just seems like this is more of a "just so I could say I did it yay me" instead of actually learning 134 topics. How much could he tell you if you asked him about Pottery, or Scout Heritage, or Oceanography?
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hello all, long time lurker. Just wanted to post this to hear other scouter's thoughts on the subject. We have a few scouts and families who will be leaving the troop on Dec 31 due to the membership policy change. Some of them are extremely close to earning Eagle, and have been plowing down merit badges and eagle projects in a rush to get their eagle before then. Do any of you have members of your troop doing this, and what are your thoughts on it?
Personally, I understand taking a stand and sticking with it (even if I dont agree with it). But what kinda sticks in my craw is that if its so important to take a stand against "what boy scouts has become", then why is it so darned important to get eagle? My feeling is that if they really had a problem with scouting, they would have left immediately and to heck with the rank. Why should it still be important? I know, I know....so their kids can pad their resume. Just seems so hypocritical. I dont know, maybe its just me. Thoughts?
Dirty Jobs No More?
in Open Discussion - Program
Posted
Mike Rowe is a man who has his stuff together.