elitts

On 2/25/2020 at 8:16 AM, 69RoadRunner said:

For the trees, you could use the Philmont bear line technique of using sticks between the straps and trunk.  If the same trees used by thousands of Philmonters every year, year after year, can handle that, I think trees can handle occasional hammock use.

 

The biggest issues I've seen with hammocks and trees is when people use hammocks with strings or ropes instead of straps, or when they don't hang it right and the strap/rope is sliding down the tree during the night, stripping off bark.

The next biggest issue is with scouts tying up to trees that are too small.  The rule in our troop is that if you put the hammock up and when you get in, the trees move, the trees are too small.

Obviously, 5"-6" diameter is a better guideline objectively, but "if you make the tree move it's too small" is more functional with tweens and teens.

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I'm also a side sleeper, which will likely be the greatest challenge to sleeping in a hammock.  Maybe I can adjust to back sleeping.  Maybe I'll be able to get comfortable side sleeping in it.  It might just be a thing to relax in and read a book.  The integrated bug net was a must-have in my shopping.

I'm a side sleeper too, but it doesn't seem to bother me terribly, there is just enough "not quite flat" to alleviate my snoring problem when sleeping on my back.  What I do find critical though is something under my knees to keep them bent a little.  U usually use either my backup blanket or bring a pillow case and stuff some clothes in it to shove under my knees.

I'm not gonna say I sleep better than I do at home, but at least I actually sleep and when I wake up I can move freely, whereas on the ground I spend the night tossing and turning, mostly awake, and when I finally get up I'm so stiff I can't function for the first 30 minutes.

Honestly, my single biggest issue is remembering not to drink more than small sips of liquids after like 6pm, cause when you are nestled into a hammock in 35F degree weather, getting up to pee really sucks since it takes a good 10 minutes to get everything rearranged when you get back.

1 hour ago, dkurtenbach said:

I can see how merging councils can result in financially stronger entities.  I don't see how merging councils can result in better unit service.

Well, it could certainly help when it comes to the administrative end of things.  If you have a bigger council you might have enough work and money to actually have a staff person dedicated to the areas that tend to be frequent problems with the work actually getting done.  For example, getting MBC applications processed accurately and correctly.

8 hours ago, mrkstvns said:

Hmmm.  Hammocks again.  

Just a reminder to folks that hammocks might be a good solution for some folks, some of the time, but do take the time to think about how you camp and where you camp, because they are definitely not a good solution for everyone.

As others have mentioned, the hammock can be less comfortable than sleeping on a cot, or even flat out on the ground. Do you like being bent into a taco shape at night?

 

This is really an inaccurate and unfair characterization.  Any hammock out there designed with camping in mind is designed so that the sleeper lays nearly flat.  Obviously some folks might still be uncomfortable in a hammock, but it's not because they are bent into the shape of a taco or banana or anything else like that.  At least, they wouldn't lay like that if they actually read the instructions that tell you to get in the hammock and then shift your body about 30 degrees of the centerline of the hammock.

6 minutes ago, scotteg83 said:

My council has been talking about getting one of their camps sold to a land trust, which would help this issue if it happens.

I would hope that ALL councils are looking into this.  Having assets is what makes them targets for lawsuits.  Since they don't have actual "Creditors" at this moment, just people who've filed suits against them, I'd think this would be the time to divest.

18 hours ago, qwazse said:

Eventually, as I said earlier, it will be reasonable to sue the institution of the family as a whole for not protecting our citizens completely.

I keep waiting for this to happen actually.  I assume that at some point some wealthy family will have a child get abused and they'll opt not to report it.  Then the same abuser will harm another person and the 2nd victim's family (or rather the family's attorney) will decide to sue the wealthy family for their failure to "protect society" by reporting the abuser to the police.

23 hours ago, MattR said:

True, but when the BSA tried to cover things up, can we blame that on society wide ills? If, instead, the BSA had brought it out and explained what it was doing to solve the problem they would have a lot more credibility now. The mindset should have always been that a proven abuse results in a ton of very visible repair going on: Helping the abused youth, prosecuting the abuser, and understanding how it happened to improve the unit, the council, and the BSA. Anyone hiding an event should have harsh consequences as well.

 

Well, I'd have to argue that there wasn't much of any "covering things up" in the vast majority of cases; they just weren't advertised.  And a big part of that was that the thinking back before the 80's was very different about "the best interests of the child".  The general belief was that the social stigma that would come from a public accusation and arrest and trial would cause more harm to the victim than just "moving on".  I mean, let's keep in mind that any of these instances that went unreported to the police could ONLY have gone unreported with the agreement of the child's parents.

We understand better now that "moving on" just doesn't happen unless the trauma is dealt with directly, so the current viewpoint is different.  But back then,  when a successful prosecution would be unlikely without direct witness testimony or a confession and all an abuser would need to do is change states to avoid scrutiny (no nationwide databases), why would you want to subject your child to police interviews, court testimony, press attention and all of that?

7 hours ago, T2Eagle said:

Just FYI, Cub Packs have all had "3" in the thousands place for decades.  Nobody uses it, nobody thinks they should use it.  I don't think any Cub pack has found it to be annoying.   Every single digit, double digit, and triple digit unit number you see is actually a short version of a four digit number.  Troops of boys have "0" as their first digit; I forget what the number is for Crews.

All the Packs in my area use the 3xxx.  My own son's pack was 3265.

8 minutes ago, scoutldr said:

I just read that, in my state, the Democrat-controlled stage legislature is pushing forward a bill that will raise the state-wide minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2024 and our liberal Governor is sure to sign it.  No mention of exemptions.  Wonder what this will do to the Council budgets who will now have to double the salaries of the DEs and pay a teen camp staffer for a full 40 hours a week, plus overtime?

In most states, the over-arching minimum wage laws specifically exempt seasonal work; which is why there are often separate, specific bills addressing field-worker pay.  They also exempt seasonal workers from most overtime provisions.

On 1/29/2020 at 7:35 AM, qwazse said:

Our Cubs sleep two to a tent ... either with their parent or their buddy. Do yours?

The GS camps that I've visited sleep dozens to a tent.

Our Cubs are in large tents with like 6-8 people each.  The adults get the 2 person tents along the perimeter.

1 hour ago, David CO said:

The kids know that G2SS isn't there to protect them.  It exists to protect BSA bank accounts.  It exists to protect executive payrolls.  You can't expect the kids to care about any of that.  

Yup.  Even kids are capable of calling "Bullshit" when they see a rules list that claims "safety requirements" say that a 12 year old can't put some shredded bark in the 4 wheeled wagon red ryder wagon they got as a 4 year old  and pull it down a path.

To be completely honest, I was all set to sign up for Woodbadge, right up until I saw my first 15-20 minute long beading ceremony.  Watching that, with the song and the fixation of the people involved was enough to make me question my decision.  By the time I'd seen my 3rd ceremony (at kid's events no less) and seen the gleeful critter obsession and "I drank the koolaid" attitude of the people involved I was certain I wouldn't voluntarily spend my own time or money on it.  Mostly because I don't think I could be around that behavior for 2-3 days straight without contemplating violence.

8 hours ago, Liz said:

We discussed this at our committee meeting and we decided to use a CYA approach and assume they meant 24 months. This also makes it simpler because you won't have kids who are eligible or not eligible to tent together at different times based on whether they've had their birthday yet this year or not. 

How does using 24 months make it simpler though? (Do we mean the same thing?)  Because using 24 months instead of 2 years it means that if someone just turned 12 on the Friday of a camp-out, they are limited to tenting with someone no older than 13 because anyone who is 14 would have to be more than 24 months older (unless they have the same birthday).

Whereas if you use "2 years" you can just say, "If you are 12, you can't tent with anyone older than 14" and you don't have to worry about specific dates.

1 hour ago, Treflienne said:

Also, it is my experience with girls that they tend to like all being together, 3 or 4 or 5 in the same tent,  rather than being divided into two-person small tents.  It would be much simpler for my unit if the tenting allowed a 2.5 year age range (or better yet, a 3-year age range) if there were at least 3 scouts sharing the tent. 

I di put forward an interpretation of that rule that says "An 11 year old can tent with a 14 year old because their ages are only 2 integers apart", but I didn't get much buy-in. 

So instead I've had to content myself with insisting that if they'd meant "24 months apart" they would have said so.  Which matters because when the rule first came out I had people arguing that we needed to start bringing the roster on camp-outs to make sure we didn't have a kid born in May 2004 tenting with a kid born Oct. 2006 even though their ages were still 14 and 12.

8 minutes ago, TAHAWK said:

Respectfully , the binary choice of "confirm" or "rebut" is often a false dichotomy.

I suppose it's possible for someone to have some third or fourth meaning in mind when they past text after quoting someone.  Just like it's possible that the guy walking backwards along the side of the road pointing his thumb out behind him is actually trying to be helpful and let everyone know which direction they are supposed to be traveling.  However, that's not the way anyone is going to interpret his actions without some sort of explanation.

On 1/23/2020 at 10:06 PM, TAHAWK said:

I think it means no more than it says.  if you believe I have quoted out of context, by all means supply the context rather than your opinion.  

This thread, including any opinions I might post,  is not the official "word" of BSA.

By pasting the section of the GSS along with a quote from another user, the implication is that the pasted material either answers a question and provides data, confirms the post or rebuts it.  Since the comment you quoted wasn't a question looking for an answer and there isn't any question as to what the acutal wording of the guide is, logic then indicates  that you were either confirming their statement or rebutting it.  PaleHorse was asking which it was.

To be honest, I've seen you do the same thing in other threads as well, as though somehow simply posting the text of the guideline should answer all the questions; when in fact the actual meaning and intent of many "official" BSA guidelines, rules and publications are vague and easily open to differing interpretations.

On 1/24/2020 at 9:46 AM, SSScout said:

*sigh*  The ultimate question is:   Was the person who signed the Blue Card, Approved The Merit Badge,  a bona fide registered in the Council Merit Badge Counselor when the card was signed?  Make the phone call(s).  If the answer to the question is "Yes", shake the Scout's hand and wish him well.   If "No", then smile,  hand him some more Blue Cards and give him a list of approved/registered Merit Badge Counselors for his desired subjects.   

See you on the trail....

Well, that's not entirely true.  If the MBC and the scout had good reason to think the MBC was a bona fide, registered MBC, the cards must be accepted.  I just saw somethign on this somewhere, but I know it was an issue in my council a year or two ago because they suddenly decided MBCs needed to re-register annually without actually announcing it publicly.  So there were a bunch of concerned Eagle Candidates freaking out because I and a few other MBCs in my troop had signed off on Blue Cards for them not realizing our registrations as MBCs had been dropped.

They were later assured that if the MBC was previously registered, the lapsing of a registration (as opposed to a cancelling) would not cause the scouts any issue.

2 hours ago, Pale Horse said:

"In most cases" also means that at times a youth will not be under the supervision of a parent or guardian.  This is expressly stating that there will be camping trips in which a parent of Scout are not in attendance.

 

The way I always explained this to parents when I was Cubmaster was:

On any council or pack camp-out, every scout (past tiger) must have a parent or guardian along who is responsible specifically for them.  If the child's actual parent or guardian can not attend, they can be placed in the care of some other parent or guardian, but at all times there must be some adult along who is specifically responsible for them.   So your scout can be here with mom or dad, or they can be here with Timmy's mom or dad, but they can not just be dropped off for "whoever" (Cubmaster) to take care of.

6 hours ago, Jackdaws said:

Sorry we keep getting off your question.

We want our boy scouts to know that they cannot be one on one with a female scout.   It maybe innocent but the other parent may not view this as that.   We are going to tell our boy scouts that another female cannot be your buddy when we do joint ventures. 

 

Are you actually worried about monitoring scout behavior, or are you just trying to short-stop arguments from paranoid parents?

I mean, in my linked troops there are perhaps 3 girls (out of 18) and 4-5 guys (out of 45)  who actually think of the opposite sex as anything other than slightly confusing classmates and they are already part of the venturing crew where no such rules apply anyway.  Besides that, any sexual or romantic behavior is already against the rules in scouts entirely.  So if you DO happen to have kids looking to canoodle at summer camp and they are willing the break the rules against such behavior, they are certainly going to be willing to break rules against a guy and a girl going on a hike together.  Not to mention the fact that with the way teens and pre-teens work, if they really want to "arrange things" the girl will just go off with a female friend, the guy will go off with a male friend, and then they'll meet up somewhere and the friends will make themselves scarce.

In the end, I suppose it's up to your troop, but to me it seems about as useful as banning baseball cleats on camp-outs because "this one time a kid wore his cleats in the tent and put holes in the floor".

I just hope you aren't presenting it as a Boy Scouts of America rule, since there's already WAY to much misinformation out there about "rules".

12 hours ago, mrjohns2 said:

It is crazy how opaque both councils are and national. They know how many LDS units and Scouts they had. They could easily release for a few years adjusted and unadjusted numbers so that we could know the LDS impact and the girl impact. They are so afraid, they try to keep everyone in the dark. I work for a large fortune 50 multinational. It is night and day about transparency. For example, our council is on a conditional charter. What were the issues? What is the plan? They are not saying anything beyond they need more funds and more scouts. The Scout executive decided to “pursue other interests”. That info was shared more than a month after he began perusing the other interests. At work, they would have an all hands at the moment a press release would be out. We would then get a copy of the action plan and scorecard on how we need to improve. 

Personally, I think you are over-estimating their ability to actually pull together credible data, but that might be my cynicism shining through.

8 hours ago, Cambridgeskip said:

 

*I came across at RTA where a motocyclist had come off and was on the ground complaining of pains in their neck. There were a couple of other adults who were trying to remove the casualty’s helmet and were refusing to listen to a teenage girl, who turned out to be an air cadet, who was telling them not to and they wouldn’t listen till I backed her up. Even the paramedics didn’t attempt it! They got her on a spinal stretcher and off to hospital before attempting it.

 

Yeah, some first aid stuff just seems prone to bystanders wanting to do exactly the wrong thing because of their emotional response.  People wanting to dunk extremities in warm water to deal with frostbite when the person is hypothermic, pulling out whatever caused a puncture wound, pulling stuck on fabric off of severe burns...

I watched a work first aid seminar once with a role play before the training.  I just had to shake my head and walk away when one group of ladies insisted on lifting the unconscious person's head up to put a small folded up blanket under it for comfort before they immobilized the head and neck.

19 hours ago, yknot said:

One interesting thing is that I don't know of any other non-military youth related organization where the volunteers or adult leaders ever earn and wear regalia that reflects on their own achievements, or if they do, it is a very small or subtle emblem. This is one of those things that seems very unique to scouting. I know a lot of people really like the bling but I've never been totally comfortable with it. When scouts and leaders are in a room, I want to be impressed by the scout uniforms, not the adults. 

I mean, they are like 1/2" x 1.25" in size.  It's not like they are individually ostentatious, it's just that some people go overboard.

But the fact of the matter is that the existence of long term, dedicated and trained scouters is where BSA varies significantly from most other youth groups and keeping those people is pretty critical to keeping things running.  (Just witness the average lifespan of a girl scout troop to see the difference)  And when you are trying to keep and motivate a volunteer workforce, small bits of bling and visible recognition are absolutely critical for a number of reasons.

• First, knots allow the BSA to recognize people for their achievement and involvement with something tangible;
• They provide a little bit of incentive to become a more well rounded volunteer with the requirements for Roundtables and UoS;
• They act as conversation starters with new parents or adults to attempt to engage them as scouters;
• They provide just a little bit of a competitive element among adults to keep them engaged;
• (this one is marginal IMO)They provide something of an example for scouts to see that even the adults work to achieve badges;

None of those things work well if they aren't large enough to actually be visible.

And I say this as someone who has spent 30 years working with another organization that runs almost entirely on volunteers.  It's an Arts group that has been putting on a weekend festival for 50 years now.  The single most sought after "bling" there is one of the annual official name tag and hat provided to committee members (as opposed to weekend volunteers) and I've met many current committee chairs that have admitted the single reason they started getting more involved was because they wanted one too.  And the single year we lost the most volunteers was the year after we eliminated (budget reasons) custom Committee T-shirts for volunteers working more than 4 hours.  I think we had something like a 20% loss in help the next year after they were surprised with the lack of shirts.  (T-shirts were re-instituted 2 years later and are considered sacrosanct now)

For cubs, my preference for particularly grimy hands is:

1. Some clean wet sand in a tub of warmish water.
2. Cake some on and grind it around in your hands for 10-20 seconds; 
3. Then swish them back in the water to knock of most of the sand;
4. Then a quick dip in a second bucket of rinse water to get any residue off;
5. Then hand sanitizer.

This is good if they are about to eat burgers and corn on the cob after playing in the dirt all day.

The really nice thing about it is that it's much easier to get 6-10 year olds to play with mud for 20 seconds than it is to get them to wash that long with soap.

FYI: It can get a little messy if you don't station an adult nearby to make sure it doesn't get thrown or wiped on people.

48 minutes ago, ParkMan said:

Gotcha.  That's too bad.

I think it would be smart for the BSA to look at the job responsibilities of the DE role and ask - how much of this do we really think adds value?  How much can we reasonably expect someone to do in  40 hours a week?  

I'm fairly sure it would be unreasonable to expect that job to be a 40-hour a week job.  I'd expect it to start at about 55.

Expectations like that are one of the reasons why I've never been willing to accept a cell phone paid for by my employer. 

How to manage parents that won't step back and let the cubs "Do their best".

Give them a whole series of steps and who to go to when they need support.

On 1/7/2020 at 5:52 PM, Pale Horse said:

Jsychk most certainly did associate strong leadership as the realm of males. 

The one strong leader female example was grudging given praise as "getting by".

To quote: "Last year, the Webelos II had 1 strong dad who took the responsibility of leading the boys and providing a rich program... Moms were there to support by decorating the B&G venue, helping with the food, etc,. I think this is what a Pack should look like."  This is explicitly stating that men make better leaders and women are ok to "help setup".

You are conflating 2 points that Jsychk made.  They clearly stated that they had strong male and strong female leaders of different dens, as well as one weak male leader.  Thus "strength" clearly wasn't being automatically associated as a "male" trait.

Then, in another point entirely they stated that the "strong male leader" supported by a bunch of moms was their opinion of "the ideal" arrangement for a den.  Now, I would argue that the army of support, whether moms or dads, was probably a bigger factor in being able to maintain a den of 19 scouts, rather than the gender of the leader, but regardless, stating a preference for one gender over another in a specific situation isn't the same as saying that "strength" or "leadership" are inherently gendered traits.

But part of the problem with evaluating situations like "who makes the best leader" is that you have to actually be exposed to the different options in order to include it in your mental calculus.  Clearly, a single boisterous, outgoing parent as den leader with a bunch of parents running backup and support is going to be pretty much ideal for any den.  However, my experience too has been that generally when a dad is the den leader, you get plenty of moms looking to "help out"; whereas with a female den leader, you don't get the same outpouring of parent help.  I'm uncertain as to the reason, but my gut would tell me that the moms tend to assume the dads will need help with organization and setup, but if the leader is female they figure "She's got this".