mashmaster

With my ship, when we do our high adventure trips, the girls are much more comfortable to doing their business in the back country than the boys.  One would think that would be the opposite based on social stereotypes.

At Texas Powderhorn you get to learn about wearing Civil war uniforms, marching, and firing civil war cannons.....  It is awesome.  something about packing and firing a cannon just is super cool.  Here is a video from this last weekend at training:  https://photos.app.goo.gl/oBgA4Coq4mEFkLoB6

9 hours ago, The Latin Scot said:

Actually, parent pins shouldn't be worn on the uniform, and there's really nothing to be gained by doing so. Let your child represent him- or herself in the youth uniform. You best represent the Scouts by being properly uniformed yourself, and part of that means remembering that parents' pins are meant for non-uniform wear. Nowadays, there are nice parent ribbons available at the Scout Store on the which you may place your pins, but again, those are not to wear on the uniform. In our troop, when we present our parent pins we remind them that while they are lovely reminders of their child's accomplishments, there is a proper time and place to wear them - as with all things. 

As an Assistant Scoutmaster, you should be particularly conscious of the way you wear your uniform. You set the model for the rest of your troop, so be sure you read The Official Guide to Awards and Insignia carefully, and follow it to the letter. Believe me when I say that being perfectly uniformed will set you apart enough already, but beyond that, simply being a well-uniformed leader will represent your daughter far better than any extra pins ever will.  

You clearly would not approve of my uniform that is adorned with knots.  

I would rather let my actions stand for me that the uniform per se.  The youth see me doing servant leadership, support of the youth, standing up for what is right, and letting them lead speak for my scouting not my uniform.

4 minutes ago, rickmay said:

are parent rank pins allowed on the bsa uniform for adult leaders? my daughter is a 2nd class scout and I thought i'd represent her. I am an assistant scoutmaster and wanted to know if the parent pins were allowed. thanks.    --rick

Officially....no.

But personally I have seen them on the shirt collar flaps and never said a word.  Seems perfectly acceptable to me.

33 minutes ago, mrkstvns said:

Do Sea Scouts have any requirements to learn navigation using a sextant?

Seems like a cool skill to learn, even if it is unlikely to ever be needed in a world where ships can rely on GPS.

That is an elective is listed below, the core requirements call for understanding how to plot a course with a compass, ruler, and charts and make a dead reckoning table.:

BTW IOWLS = Introduction to On the Water Leadership Skills.   It is a class for Skippers and Mates to learn how to teach the Ordinary requirements.  It is a weekend course along the lines of IOLS for Troop leaders.

I have lesson plans and materials for all the ordinary requirements that are talk about during IOWLS course.  I will share it with you.  Any else need it, send me a mesage.

It has Piloting and Navigation very well covered for exactly this purpose.

Along with #3 is to join a Sea Scout ship.

I am not sure what the right answer is.

17 minutes ago, fred8033 said:

My cheap parent view is sports is about more immediate gratification.  Scouts takes a longer time to see.  Not all parents will wait that long.  

Getting an email or call from the principal about how your son was articulate and communicated with eye contact in a meeting with them is priceless.

7 minutes ago, SubSM said:

Nine years later:

I was thinking about this subject last weekend watching my niece's boys play a basketball tournament in their hometown. I watched as kids played their best and won some games and lost some games. They were excited to win, but not so happy when they lost. I also watched the parents react (in some cases very obnoxiously) to their kids paticipation. All I could think of was being in the woods trying to build a campfire, with no parents around. Noone to yell at the referee for a bad call; just wet wood, flint and steel. There is an honesty in having wet feet because a scout didn't bring boots for a rainy weekend, that can't be blamed on a third party. There is also compassion when another scout shares their fire to warm up the cold scout.

 

I have heard advertisements over and over about the benefits of youth sports on the radio. How kids learn leadership and teamwork etc. Many of these benefits can be found in scouting. 

Teamwork: Nothing helps build a team than having to get a fire going in order to cook your meal.

Leadership: The scouts are being led by one of their peers. 

Just curious what some of y'alls thoughts are.

Mike 

Both are good for the kids IMHO for similiar reasons, both are bad for similiar reasons too.

Scouting tends to push youth to do things because it is the right thing to do, the work together for common goals, and get personal recognition for hardwork.  Those are some of the positives.  On the negative, many parents are too involved in the youth's advancement and cover up or make up for what the youth don't do.   

I see very similar things in sports.   If they can do both, I recommend it.  Band is another big thing here in Texas that provide youth positives and negatives.  

I see the same reports on statistics about which one is better and it is always the one for the facebook group of that activity.  

Totally cool, you have positively impacted many youth in your 18 years.  I thought I was done and now I am a Skipper.  Life evolves.

My son told me he tried the non-alcoholic beer at Jambo.  His reaction, he didn't like it.

In my religion (Jewish), you get wine at an early age that is pretty horrible.  Didn't seem to affect me and my family, very few of us drink at all really.

regarding condoms available, I won't bury my head in the sand that it doesn't happen.  It shouldn't but it does and I would rather them be protected.  We are a co-ed unit and dating is against our by-laws and we strictly enforce no 1:1 interactions.  But there is no way that I could stop something from happening behind my back, thankfully I haven't had that happen.

We are having a parent meeting next week to cover the very little that we know.  Already got emails from parents.....It is sad for sure.  We have a little information from our council but we honestly don't know much other that to ensure that we continue to follow the YPT procedures we have in place.

1 hour ago, Setonfan said:

My apology for my earlier snarky e mail, please put it down to a very exhausting, but super time at the Jamboree.  I appreciate honest evaluation and critique, and all events can always be improved, but I was very inspired by the dedication of everyone to produce what by all measures is probably the best World Jamboree in history.  Hopefully, the small glitches will fade and the memories that remain will be significant and inspiring for the Scouts who attended.  

No worries 🙂   

To change the mood, anyone else going to be at National Jambo in 2021?  I will be there.  I would love to meet y'all

30 minutes ago, MattR said:

I'm not sure anything can be done for that. Think about it. The only place 50,000 people meet is in the center of a big city with the infrastructure to handle it. That many people at a stadium in a big city with several million inhabitants is no big deal. Place those people in the middle of nowhere and there's a big challenge to move all of them.

There are 15 flights a day out of Yeager airport in Charleston (an hour away). Just for fun, let's say there are 200 seats on each flight. That's 3000 people a day. And some of them are the locals that usually use the airport. That airport is set up for a very limited throughput. From flight control to ground support, gates, and everything else. That won't work. Do this once every 4 years and nobody will find a motive to invest in the infrastructure to solve it.

Anyone have the numbers of how many flew in vs. bused in?  That reduces the number somewhat.  probably have to stage the departure over two days vs. one.

2 hours ago, RememberSchiff said:

Likely true. As I recall, organizers were complying with WOSM Jamboree requirements and local laws. I do not know the WOSM requirements, if any, regarding shooting sports.

My guess, shooting sports will be limited to archery at the next Jamboree in South Korea. Archery is HUGE in South Korea which has developed some of the world's top archers.

Could be wrong. My $0.02,

You could be correct.

My son's favorite activity was the bmx biking tracks.  He said they were scary and awesome.   

17 minutes ago, Eagle1993 said:

Sounds like the airport exit was a complete mess.   There is a FB post that one small group of scouts were still stuck there this morning with only a 18 year old ASM responsible.   

It was a mess on Friday for sure.  The amount of people going through the airport shouldn't have been a surprise to TSA and the airlines.   Those tickets were purchased a long time ago.  Seems like they should have staffed up for that.  I am not familiar with the area, is Charlotte the only airport near by?  maybe it could have been split between multiple airports?

9 hours ago, Setonfan said:

Would love to see some pundits try to execute an event with this many moving parts if they have never been in charge of a 50,000+ person event, largely driven by a volunteer committee composed of people from widely varying cultures.  It was an incredible event in every way, a true game changer for World Scouting.  Never before had there been a camp infrastructure combined with the activity options available at the beautiful Summit property.  Combine that, with the previous jamborees sharing of culture and in the words of every multiple Jamboree staffer and participant I met, this was the best jamboree of any kind ever seen in Scouting.  I visited every base camp, talked to hundreds if not thousands of Scouts and Scouters and I found no one who was hungry or had major problems that weren’t resolved quickly.  And those small problems paled in comparison to the positives.  We got lucky on weather overall, no major incidents, and it was a spectacular display of Scouting friendship.  These kids had their lives changed= as did many of us adults.  The BSA should be proud of the partnership with Scouts Canada, and Association de Scouts Mexico, they delivered a truly epic show.

 

But, for a few grumpy couch sitters here on Scouter.com, I’m sure the BSA still has totally incompetent leadership, is doomed, made all the wrong decisions, yada, yada, yada.  Thanks for staying home, we had 45,000 people together optimistic about a grand future for the BSA and World Scouting.  

Of course they did everything right and couldn't possibly do anything better.....   After every event we do a Thorns, Roses, and buds.   Even after successful events there are lessons learned that we can try to be better.

I have planned events before for conferences, not 50,000 people but they can still learn and improve.  They knew how many people were coming, they knew how many were travelling and how.  So yes moving that many people is difficult but it could have been handled better.  Troops didn't know when they had to leave until the last day and many of those were to leave before the final show.  They wanted to have my sons troop leave for the airport a 6pm for a 1pm flight the next day.  Then they found out 2 hours before the departure time that they changed it again and they got to see some of the final show.  We all knew when the flight was and when the closing show was.  They knew that too.  Weeks/months ahead of time.

They ran out of food towards the end.  and the food they provided was sub-par.  That is a solvable and plannable problem when you know exactly how many people will be at an event.

Yes they had a good time, everyone says that.   We are being respectful about the event, but you are being disrespectful to those that couldn't go to the event.  Congratulations that you got to go , please remember in your optimism to be respectful as well of those that didn't go and those that are interested in improving future jamboree's.   

My son is back home, he had a good time and is looking forward to national jamboree.  It is fun listening to his retelling of the stories.  

On the negatives, all of which can be addressed(mostly with the troop leadership....):

• no veggies at all (plenty of veggies that travel and stay well.  Carrots/celery/string beans/broccolli.  Healthy habits are taught to the youth and everything came from a box.
• every dinner, they ended up with hamburgers, other troops from other countries had different food choices.
• on the hike up Mount Jack with his troop, he was slower and his troop left him,  he got lost and ended up getting directed by an IST to the top of the mountain the hard route.  Had to walk down to his troop.  When he got there, the leader yelled at him....
• On the way down from the mountain after waiting for "3 hours" from the rain with his troop....  (I am sure it wasn't 3 hours).  The bridge was closed and he got directed around the lake, rather than over it.  Leader again yelled at him when  he was late because he had to walk around, they didn't believe him or his buddy that it was closed.
• When he went to get food when they were running out of food, the leaders told him it wasn't acceptable and he had to go back for more food.
• He leader broke his camping chair he brought....  Apparently he sat in it more than my son.  
• We sent him a replacement chair as a gift and that went missing when they packed up.
• They had to leave the closing show early and ended up having to sleep on the ground outside the airport because it was closed when they arrived.  missed the show to sleep on the ground.....

Overall, he had an awesome time and said he is looking forward to going to National in two years as long as he has a different troop leader. 

So my son's troop was supposed to be bused out and miss the show but at the last minute they changed the plans and let them preload the buses then board them immediately after the show.  I am happy they were able to come to a solution.

I didn't hear much from my son, so I assume he had an awesome time.  The one complaint I heard that could have been solved IMHO is that they ended up with hamburgers for dinner all the time and the morning they had sausage patty's.  The complaint was really around the fact that they didn't have access to produce at all.  He missed having veggies and fruit.  He likes to eat healthy and didn't appreciate eating only pre-processed food at all times.  It seems that they could have figured out how to get produce to the youth.  I know it is more difficult but I think it is solvable for National Jambo.

I have heard very little from my son,  Seems to be having fun at camp.  Only negatives were long lines/waits for activities (4 hour line for mountain biking) and his buddy broke his wrist mountain biking...

I wish I would hear more from him.  I have seen a few pictures of him in line for breakfast and dinner....  So I know he is at least eating 🙂

On 7/15/2019 at 5:49 AM, qwazse said:

The purveyors of shower houses with individual rooms (toilet sink and shower in each) are slinging their wares at our scout reservation, and another that I just visited.

Our local camp is upgrading over the last few years to the individual bathrooms.  It makes life better for all.  The boys appreciate it too.

My son is on his way, he was excited and nervous.  I hope he and all the other scouts have an awesome time!

1 hour ago, T2Eagle said:

Humans are astoundingly fallible and incompetent at almost everything we do.

Assume good will on everybody's part and that not mentioning your son was an oversight.  Send a polite note to the COR reminding him mashmaster jr. is also going.

Probably right.  I am focusing more on him going and having a fabulous time.