Back Pack

Why go to camp to spend time OUT of camp. It makes as much sense as paying for a hotel room but sleeping in your car in the parking lot.

Should be documented in his plan.

Many camps require the scout to adult ratio to be kept at all times, regardless of what the scouts are doing. The adults' job is the constant safety and well beingnof the scouts. Running errands related to camp is ok. Food runs or off site fun for adults is just irresponsible. They'd never be allowed in our unit.

You need parent support too, otherwise it's like building sand castles when the tide is coming in.

You could ban kids with such parents. That would fix the problem.

Imagine you have anxiety issues. The last thing you want is some kid you go to school with confronting you, making you more self conscious about your ticks and making the situation worse. Better to have the parents and scoutmaster talk and discuss ways to help. This isn't a boy led issue. This is a medical condition which falls under the adult area for management.

I agree up to this point. There are times you need to equip the youth leaders with the background on an issue they may not fully understand, along with the tools or tricks to deal with them. I would hate to let the youth leader attempt to address an issue such as this and have a negative issue result. If it is a kid with a known case of ADD/ADHD, Aspergers or anxiety issues, the last thing you want is the youth leaders trying to handle something they are not trained for...or maybe even sensitive to. I suffered from this as a kid and the last thing I would have wanted were my friends trying to manage me.

Trick to test if it is a site or your internet connection: Open the command prompt type in "ping www.google.com" and hit enter, it will send a ping to that site, you will see response times. then type "ping www.scouter.com" and hit enter, then compare the times. If it cannot reach the site in the established time frame set you will see a "timed out" response. Your results will vary depending on how your router and computer are connected to the internet, and will even depend on your provider. I just did it and it showed a 25% packet loss against none for google. A traceroute showed that there were a large number of "hops" where the system is hosted. That may indicate that the internal LAN at the host site is cross connected in an inefficient manner. If running a software defined network it just may mean the router is poorly done.

Are you suggesting that scouts should be re-directing the kids using the cubes behavior? The cube is designed to replace other distracting behavior like humming, legging shaking, tapping, etc. I am not sure using the cube is any less distracting than those behaviors. I was always told to wiggle my toes in my shoes. That helped and was less distracting for those around me. My sister has anxiety issues and that is a totally different issue to address and should not be addressed by scouts. That's an adult leader and parent issue so coping mechanisms can be discussed.

Talk to your PLC. Discuss why they are used. Let the PLC make an educated decision. Guide them with knowledge. Remind them that, unlike phones or iPods or other items that are distractions, these devices are to help people cope.

If the scouts elect to do so, how is an adult stepping to tell them "you can't or shouldn't" any different from an adult telling them to ban them? My old troop did not allow them at summer camp. We never had an issue with home sickness. The one year some scouts broke the rule we had several severe homesickness issues. Parents/kids kept texting and the kid realized he was too far from his Xbox.

Except when mountains, trees or other phenomenon play with the signal.

Odd. ATT, Verizon nor Sprint worked consistently well at Philmont or In the Roosevelt forsest. My compass worked 100% of the time.

Cell phone a tool? Camera maybe. Notepad? Sure. The compass on it is unreliable. GPS won't work in back country. If we're going with the "it's a tool" there are better options.

We had more guys homesick when they had access to their phones than when they didn't. In fact, the further away we go and less access to phones, the fewer cases we had. Go figure.

Anyone like that in my old Troop would be on probation. If they acted like that again they'd be invited to leave. I have to agree it sounds like the adults are not doing their job. That's not a "good Scoutmaster", that's a bad one.

Can't you hold scouts accountable by allowing them to lead and pick their own rules? Nothing wrong with scouts enforcing their own rules.

Identify= @@TAHAWK's name is x, he's a x year old man living in x with his wife, 10 kids and likes ice cream. Not Identify= @@TAHAWK is a semi-gelatinous carbon based life form of unknown origin.

Identify= Using the five senses recognize the animal. Show= Have physical evidence you can visually show the counselor. That's anything left by the animal.

When I was a kid (under 18) my parents would not let me use social media. I am very glad they did. Now I am old enough to deal with it and only use FB. I only friend people i actually know. Thanks to Scouts i can cook, sew, manage my time and finances, and can lead (or is that manage?). For all that i thank Scouting and my family. #noneedforadulting

@@4CouncilsScouter, I guess you live in OK or the Arklatex? The NWS are some of the best forecasters in the business, so they should have a more refined forecast by Thursday. The advice above of waiting until Friday is good. Maybe the weather is such you move check in from Friday to Saturday am? Maybe just do certain events Saturday? The Storm Prediction Center is one of the best sites for helping to plan your events. They are usually spot on. Of course, if you live in OK they have the best weather folks in the world! http://www.spc.noaa.gov

Native is a relative term. Most grasses are nearly always an non native invaisive. Same with Japanese Elms in my region. As Duct Tape said, the idea is to get outside and learn something; not poke around a park and pick out three types of grass, a dog, cat and squirrel and consider yourself 1/3 done.

With donations on the rise it appears targeted donations are what people want. Especially when some "charities" get overly involved in politics and not their charitable cause. People want to know their money will be well used.

Ten plants. Ten wild animals. Let's not over think this.