MikeS72

Interesting information. My pack and troop are sponsored by a UMC church. I knew about the pastor assignments, as the pastor has a son in the troop, but did not know much of the rest. I have no worries about our relationship with the CO.

I guess we are lucky here. We have at least 9 locations for Cub Scout Day Camp in our council. Our district if fairly large, so some of our families may have a 20 - 30 minute drive to the camp location, but that is considerably better than if they had to go to the council camp, which is 85 miles for me, and better than 100 for those in the south end of the district. We have multiple Cub weekends at the council camp through out the year, and also have several resident camps available.

Very true. When I teach Red Cross First Aid/CPR/AED training, the initial class runs 5 - 6 hours, depending on the group I am working with. Like YPT, that certification is good for 2 years. At the end of that period, we do expect people to sit through the whole course again. They take a re-certification test and demo the skills required, done in less than an hour.

This may be a local council thing. Some councils have everyone retake YPT annually. National only cares that your YPT is current when your charter is processed, which is why we recommend that anyone who is expiring close to the start of the calendar year (Jan - March) renew now, to avoid any issues should their charter not make it through processing before their YPT expires.

I have stayed on the sidelines for this one, as this is a topic that is going to stir more passion than many we see here. I has been debated on multiple scouting forums, and there is very little middle ground. People either think he should be burned at the stake, or that this one (hopefully) lapse in judgement should not have lasting consequences. I agree that every situation deserves an objective look, but this quote jumped out at me. In the case of scouts clowning around and smacking each other on the rear, yes, we discuss what is appropriate and hopefully it can be a teaching moment. I deal with elementary school children all day, five days a week, and it is not unusual to have someone brought to me for putting hands on another child. Even my kindergarten and first graders understand that there are limits and consequences for passing those limits. This was not a case of a child who does not know touching someone you do not know, (or even if you do know them, not without permission) is unacceptable. Other than reading the first article, I have not followed this, so I do not know if there are any criminal charges pending. If so, I would expect them to be pleaded down. Regardless of anything that may or may not happen in the judicial system, I have to agree with BSA revoking membership. Caught up in the moment or not, this showed a distinct lack of judgement. I can only imagine the headlines if he were not removed should he get caught up in the moment and touch a scout, male or female, in the same manner.

Used those may a time when I first started teaching middle school. It was a big deal to the kids to be trusted with advancing that puppy frame by frame.

I know of new girl units that were allowed to start up with less than 5, so it can be done. Just a matter of pushing the issue with the local council.

A nice set of lightweight (carbon fiber) trekking poles would go great with those boots. Unlike the boots, you can adjust the trekking poles, so they will not outgrow them in 6 months.😃

I use cast iron on mine regularly, and have had no issues with scratching.

Typically, our treasurer gives a list to each den leader prior to re-charter, and the den leaders contact the family. This year, I sent out multiple messages to each family who had not paid dues notifying them that we could not process them for re-charter without some payment and/or arrangements being made. We only had one family that made no effort to either set up a payment plan or request a pack scholarship.

Just be sure not to wear a red shirt! 😂

I should probably give a few of those recipes a try, since one of the folks on my mother's side of the family was a moderately known member of the Plimouth Colony. ⛵

time to move further south😁

Our council camp allows bikes, helmets are required. We do have several program areas that would take quite a while to get to from the waterfront or pool areas, so it can be a big help. I saw a troop this past summer that brought in a whole trailer of bike, and their scouts rode pretty much every where during program hours.

I has been down for a while now. I just changed a bunch of the links on the leader resources page of our pack website from meritbadge.org to point to usscouts.org

My first thought as a fan of both Fred MacMurray and Kurt Russell was "Follow Me Boys!"; but it would now be "Follow Me Scouts!".

Not sure I could handle shorts in your part of the country at this time of the year, or in the spring. Barely wear them in FL.

I did many a cold weather camp as a scout and in earlier years as a leader. It was not unusual to clear snow before building a fire, or chip ice in the morning. We were a military troop, and all used army down mummy bags year round. My very first scout camping trip was in December of '64 in Massachusetts. Lots of snow on the ground. Now that I have been in Florida for 30 years, I layer up at pretty much anything below 50. Coldest we have done was a couple of years ago on an OA ordeal weekend when it dropped down to 27 on Friday night. We are camping next weekend, and as my great-nephew was talking on the way home from the troop meeting last night, he asked if it was going to be cold. My reply: no, it will only get down to around 67 at night. His reply: that is cold!! We have two sleeping bags, one is a 40 degree bag that we use most of the time, the other a 10 degree for those rare cold FL winter nights.

Saw this yesterday on several of the Commissioner FB pages I am a member of; I can only hope that whatever the issue is, it has a favorable conclusion.

I agree that there are MB's that do not lend themselves to this type of setting. There are some however, that do benefit by providing good group discussions and the exchange of different points of view. First of all, I would not want 30 scouts in a session with a single MB counselor, regardless of the subject; but I am sure that with a good counselor and the right amount of time, many of those scouts would remember quite a bit of first aid. I am confident that any scout who sits through a full first aid session with me (and who earns a signed blue card) will have learned a good deal, and will be ready when the occasion to use that knowledge arises.

Yep. We are camping next weekend, and I am sure I will hear a few comments about how cold they are, as it is supposed to drop down to 68 Friday night!

I am very particular about everything being correct on my uniform, and will counsel one of my own scouts if they put something in the wrong place on theirs. Something like this I would just shake my head, breathe deeply, and let it go. This sort of thing is why the insignia guide says that temporary patches should not exceed the size of the pocket. I guess they did not think about someone putting something this extreme under the pocket. Some councils and camps start out with the normal size patch that you center on the pocket, and then offer those segments for different activities and or events you participate in. My council camp when I was a scout offered those rockers to go around your standard summer camp patch, indicating the number of years you attended, and also if you did multiple weeks the same year. if you took off the mess on the bottom (has to be an uncomfortable shirt to wear) and what ever that is above the left pocket, it is a good looking shirt.

East coast of central Florida here. We 27 a couple of years ago when staffing an OA ordeal weekend, and it did not slow them down a bit. I on the other hand, wore a long sleeve t-shirt, BSA zip up hoodie, and the red wool jac-shirt.

Followed the link. Seems to me that this 'story' is nothing more than an advertisement for Skaa Speakers. Not only does the SM extol their virtues, but this in not an actual news site, but a trade website, pushing a product. I agree with @malraux, in that a one time thing is fine, but not every time it is too cold for manhunt. Besides, this is an Alabama troop. How often is it cold enough that scouts would not be able to run and chase?

While not at a camporee, we did something similar on a troop level. We had spent time with several Green Beret's who had recently returned from Vietnam, working on survival skills. At the end of the session, we turned a crate of chickens loose in the camp site. Instructions to the scouts were simple: there is your dinner, catch it, kill it, clean it, cook it.