mashmaster

6 minutes ago, mrkstvns said:

Around here, bug spray and sunblock are very common spray-ables.  I can't imagine a troop banning these entirely...or such a ban being effective and enforceable.

We tell them no aerosal bug spray or sunblock.  Not because of the fire hazard but because the sunblock is less effective and they have a tendency to go off in someones bag.

Disclaimer: This did not happen in my troop.  

This weekend at our camporee a scout from a troop decided to get out of his tent after lights out and play flamethrower with pam and a lighter.  The pam caught on fire, kid panicked and tossed the can into the field and set the camp on fire.  Fire department camp out and put the fire out,  nobody was hurt, and no structures were touched.

If this were your scout, what would you do?  I am thankful that everyone is ok, and that it isn't one of my scouts.

7 minutes ago, mrkstvns said:

The low numbers on American Business merit badge are a bit bewildering. It doesn't look like a particularly hard merit badge, and most of the requirements lend themselves well to doing in a merit badge university/midway type event.  Business is one of the most popular degree programs in American universities, so why teenagers would avoid it's corresponding merit badge makes no sense to me.  Maybe it's just that the merit badge involves a lot of concepts and theory, or in other words, it's freakin' boring!

It doesn't bewilder me.  I just read the requirements and fell asleep.  What kid 11-18 wants to research a  boring topic like this?  

I always wondered why there was two.  I visited Hawaii and stopped by both council stores to get patches.  I still want to get the Maui OA lodge flap though

One thing I have noticed is the some Troops believe the Venturing and Sea Scouting is there to steal scouts from them.  Rather than have leaders be open to how units can be cooperative, they actively fight against them which hurts both units.

Our healthy Crews and Ships here all have kids that are dual registered and are active in both units.

4 hours ago, RememberSchiff said:

Some sea scouts walk on water...

"The Sea Scouts ( Ship 5001 Akron,OH) were out on Portage Lakes during the cold weather, not as they are usually seen in sailboats, kayaks, canoes or paddle boards, rather on cross country skies."

...

One of the programs the scouts have is “leave no trace”. That is what the Sea Scouts did on the weekend was ski on the lakes and collect trash, leaving no trace behind except for ski tracks.

https://www.thesuburbanite.com/news/20190307/sea-scouts-brave-cold-to-stay-on-lakes-year-round

That is cool, and super cold.  Our kids went to Philmont in the first week of the year.  It was -8, and super cold.  OMG I was so cold.  The kids like that they were on water in a different "state", lol.  They were even pictured on the Philmont facebook page.

Our day today on a local little lake.

Thanks everyone, it is very interesting to me.  I know me son loves it and otherwise would probably be out of scouting but is now a Life rank and planning on his Eagle.

yep, the fact with no scouters is the part that wouldn't fly.  The rest absolutely would.  

An odd experience we had recently at an event.  3 Sea scouts 18+ flew to Texas for the event, uber'ed to the event and returned.  No scouters involved.  Kinda blew my mind but they were 18+ and totally rocked the experience. 

1 minute ago, carebear3895 said:

Yup. I like STEM Merit Badges and the NOVA stuff too. I have a problem with the program "STEM Scouts". It's not Scouting.

I have never seen a STEM scout.  We have a STEM Scout mobile lab here which is pretty outdated.  I work for a tech company.

30 minutes ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

Since we are telling sea stories 😁

 

Of the ASMs who got me interested in Sea Scouts was a Quartermaster. His Sea Scout Ship was at Naval Amphibious Base Little Creek , VA and needed a vessel. Somehow, they got a hold of a WWII PT boat IF they could get it seaworthy and USCG approved. Oh and they had to pick it up in Maine.  The Sea Scouts, without any adults taking along, went up to Maine, spent 3 weeks repairing her and getting her USCG approved. Then they spent a week or two cruising down the eastern seaboard from Maine to Little Creek, VA. His stories got me interested in Sea Scouts.

WOW!  That sounds awesome.   It wouldn't fly now, but amazing.

The way I see it, what is the first thing every kid runs to at summer camp?  The waterfront or pool.  We visited our Ship out of the blue and they put him and his buddy on a sunfish sailboat and set them free.  They had the small boat sailing MB already and quickly showed how little they learned at scout camp.  🙂  After some coaching from our pontoon boat about how to right the boat, they spent the rest of the day sailing around.  They loved the freedom they had.  Now a few of the kids have boat used sunfish boats.   They are amazingly cheap, and old.  Ours is almost 50 years old.

6 minutes ago, mrkstvns said:

Hmmm.  That could be a problem for our troop since we typically have 40+ scouts going to summer camp so we charter a bus to get them to/from camp.  We wouldn't be able to transport scouts anywhere during the middle of the week. 

Well, that would make the observatory visit difficult.  Plenty of chill time at camp that night, it is beautiful.

14 minutes ago, SSScout said:

Well, it does help if you are close to water.  My home CO chartered  a SeaScout Ship back in the late 1950's , the Skipper was a CPO retired....  They went down the Potomac on a raft of 50gallon drums built into a raft, and up  the Chesapeake bay . Eventually, the local SS s named their local Regatta (read wet camporee) after him, the Nygard Regatta :    http://www.ncacbsa.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/52nd-nygard-boarding-manual.pdf   

SSS759 had fun and excitement until recently.  They were last  bottomed with 2  - 30' sloops, but the Unit disbanded two years ago, due to lack of active members. The boats were sold to pay off the slip fees, etc.  ....   We are locally working to "refloat" it.... 

Like all Scout things, you need some dedicated Scouters, and a local Charter, and some really interested teenagers.  

""Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.”

Interesting story.  I hope it gets started again.   We have had an influx in 14 year olds lately and that is breathing life into our ship.

Locally, I have found most troops have no idea what a ship is and then think we are poaching their scouts.

54 minutes ago, mrkstvns said:

No.  For some reason, I thought it was a brain-child of the 60s or 70s era.

I take it you are involved with a ship...

Yep, I am a Mate in a ship.  Think of it as an ASM.

Sea Scouting was forming by Baden-powell in 1912.  

52 minutes ago, walk in the woods said:

According to beascout.org there are 0 ships within 20 miles of my home zip code, 2 within 20 miles of my Chicago work zip code.  One of those ships is charted to a yacht club on Lake Michigan.  My impressions of Sea Scouting is it's mostly a coastal elitist kind of thing.

Interesting.  There aren't a lot of ships, many of them are no where near the coast.  Our ship sails mainly small sailboat on local lakes, there are ships that do mainly paddlecraft too.  I can see that impression if they are only out of yacht clubs, most of our scouts in our Ship are not financially well off, it is actually a cheaper program to run that our troop.

It sounds like Sea Scout leadership needs to promote the program better in your area.

1 hour ago, karunamom3 said:

Last summer we took our cub scout pack on a trip around the Statue of Liberty on a sea scout ship. It was by far the best outing our pack has done in the last 10 years. It was, interesting, fun and a real educational experience. One of our Cubs plans on joining the SS when he is old enough because of his great experience on that trip.

That is awesome to hear.  I hope some of your pack joins a Ship.  Or even founds one.

I was wondering what people here know about Sea Scouting. 

What are you impressions of it?  

Do you know what it is?

Have you met a Sea Scout?

Have you involved Sea Scout Ships with your Troops, Crews, Packs?

Did you know it has bee around for over 100 years?

The interesting side note to me, is all the banner years for Eagle scouts recently....   I certainly feels that getting Eagle must be easier now than it was with larger amounts of scouts.

My son is involved with a Troop, Crew, and Ship. 

The Troop seems to have a focus on camping and honestly the scouts lose interest around 14 and don't want to be around all the younger scouts.  They try to lead but the younger boys don't listen.  The linked girl troop is super young and they are so focused on advancement (actually the parents are) that they still are trying to figure out what scouting is really about.  That will just take time IMHO, and become similar to boy troops.

The Crew basically hangs around and plays ping pong.  They do some things but it is clearly chill time for them.  They aren't interested in advancement and want to do a couple of bigger things a year, they are too busy will school to devote a ton of time to camp every month for example.

The Ship is small but very active.  They aren't super concerned about advancement but always attend meetings, activities, and even boat maintenance.   IMHO, this focus of water activities helps provide a distrinct focus for them and they have fun doing it.   Crews don't seem to have a similar focus even with being the same age group.   Many of our kids are in all three units.

That all aside, National basically told everyone to get their Venture or Sea Scouts registered in a girl troop, which is annoying.  They are purposely cutting the legs out from venturing by doing that.

23 minutes ago, TMSM said:

Venturing dropping like a rock. 

Our troop has doubled in the last 3 years. We focused on getting into the Weblos heads early that the boy Scouts program is awesome and then focused on doing the program the way it is said to be done. 

Forget about focusing on girls (or gender) - focus and program and access to webelos and we will be fine. National or Council needs to sell the value of the outdoors and scouting to parents. We need more positive publicity and relavance so where is it? Our District cant even hire a DE!

Ventures lumps in Sea Scouts which I would like to know the numbers for,  I know our numbers nationwide are up but a blip.  Were Teams bundled in with Ventures?  If so, the drop would make sense. 

Look for a big drop next year overall, when the LDS church is fully out of BSA.

1 hour ago, mrkstvns said:

There's a couple other options that might also be good for a troop (or even a patrol) to do the night before or after summer camp.  In addition to Balmorea, you could...

• Observe the stars:
  The stars at night are big and bright, deep in the heart of Texas. In West Texas, you only need to look up and be amazed at how full the night sky is when you have no nearby cities to cloud it with light pollution.  Visit the nearby McDonald Observatory. They do Star Party nights Friday and Saturday...plus, you can use it to meet partial requirements for Astronomy merit badge and/or Nova awards...perfect for the scout unit arriving or departing BTSR!     Info:  https://mcdonaldobservatory.org/
   
• Hike U.S. history:
  Buffalo Trail Council has a historical trail that gives your scouts to earn a patch or medal (maybe also meeting a requirement for American Heritage merit badge).  Requirements to earn the award are on the BTSR web site. Fort Davis is a fascinating place. It was one of a series of frontier forts built in the mid 19th century to protect settlers from native americans.  The frontier forts in Texas were primarily manned by "buffalo soldiers" --- the famous "colored" units established by the U.S. Army during and following the Civil War. These units served with dignity despite frequent discrimination by the white settlers who often owed their lives to the black buffalo soldiers.  Info:  https://www.nps.gov/foda/  and http://buffalotrailbsa.org/btsr/high-adventure/ft-davis-historical-trail/    

 

When you go to BTSR there is a night in the middle of the week reserved to go to the Observatory, you need to provide transportation but worth it vs. spending another night just for it.  The camp basically doesn't do much that night since they know a lot of people go tot the oservatory.  It is pretty awesome.  Buy your tickets to the star party early.

1 hour ago, qwazse said:

You do you, @mashmaster, and be prepared to give an honest testimony to scouters in your district about how you enjoyed (or didn't, if that's the case) working with these particular youth.

I shall.

3 hours ago, mrkstvns said:

One kid told me that he liked BTSR, but his "thorn" was that there was always a long, uphill walk involved to get to any activity. 

I also heard they have an awesome climbing program with lots of "real rock" climbing and rapelling (vs. climbing towers at most camps).  They also have an "advanced climbing" activity that goes above & beyond the basic merit badge skills.  (I think it would be great if more camps did this....not just for climbing, but also for paddle sports, archery, riflery, etc.)

Yeah, everything is uphill there.  I forgot about the climbing, it is on real cliffs, pretty exciting.  If you go there spend the night before at Balmorea state park and swim in the newly re-opened pool.

Not sure if this is the right forum or not.  But today I was asked by a scoutmaster of a Troop with girls in it to help a couple scouts with a merit badge since I am a counselor for it.  Of course I said yes.  The Scoutmaster told me after my response that a majority of counselors are saying no to her because they don't want to work with girls.  I don't understand why a scouter wouldn't want to help any youth out.