69RoadRunner

I hope you enjoy it. It's not that difficult. The proof of that is the fact that I can do it.

This attitude is, WE can go here, but you cannot. This is for us, the truly worthy. This isn't Leave No Trace. It's Leave. Period.

This is my greatest fear at the camp we attend. Rainstorms are frequent and trees come down. Just awful.

Well, we are on one of the 75'+ boats, so you never know.

I couldn't find anything with a Google search. They're more expensive, but AGM batteries can handle being fully drained better than a traditional lead acid battery.

And yet none of you are advocating the most important merit badge, Dentistry, to be Eagle required. I think 1 Citizenship merit badge would be fine instead of 3. Wilderness Survival should be required. Family Life could be dropped. I'm on the fence with Communication.

No doubt that is part of it. While many of us are critical of some BSA policies, there is some legitimacy to this when it comes to predators. It's easier (not foolproof) to prevent predators from harming kids at scout events due to it being a group event. A predator could groom a victim and get 1 on 1 contact with a scout away from an event. I can understand the effort to prevent that. Like everyone else, I hate the assumption that we're all potential predators. I can give my daughter's friend a ride home but not a scout in our troop in a non-troop event. We all want a perfect solution. Unfortunately, there isn't one.

At meetings, always the Class A shirt sans neckerchief. I sometimes wear the pants, but sometimes I wear non-BSA shorts. Traveling to events, we all wear Class A shirts. Once at one of our camping events, the Class A is put away until we travel home.

That stills shows an inconsistency in policy. The policy should apply the same, but it doesn't. It is also true of adults. Unmarried opposite sex couples cannot tent together. Gay, unmarried same sex adults can tent together. The policy, however it is implemented, should be consistent.

I'm not sure that discussing the YPT issues of sharing a tent with the parents would resolve the issue. Venturing crews don't allow boys and girls to tent together for obvious reasons. I can't see how those reasons wouldn't apply to a transgender boy. Likewise, shouldn't YPT rules apply to gay scouts? We had an incident with a scout who might be bisexual who allegedly made an inappropriate request of another scout in a tent. That scout and several others chose to go to another troop. How can the rules apply to heterosexual opposite sex scouts but not homosexual same sex scouts or transgender scouts? Shouldn't they be treated the same?

Two members of our troop are also in Sea Scouts. I don't know a lot about it, but they seem to enjoy it. As long as your son's schedule allows it, I'd say give it a try.

I went into our shed and found the duffel bags the troop used the last time they went (before my time). They're much bigger than the 24" that is mentioned in the participant's guide. Ugh. This is my first time going on a HA trip and I'm the adult organizer. I spend much of my waking hours certain I've missed something very important. We have 2 crew members who are also Sea Scouts and an adult who is retired Coast Guard, so we at least have some experienced sailors. Did anyone have trouble with seasickness? I've encouraged parents to talk to their pediatrician about motion sickness medicine when they got their physicals. I got a prescription for myself since I'm susceptible to motion sickness. Did your crew take inflatable sleeping pads? Much appreciated!!

How did you handle getting your gear there for people who brought their own snorkel gear? Did you take the fins or use Sea Base fins? The participant guide says that all gear except snorkel and sleep gear must fit in the 24" duffel bag. That's fine once you're there, but how did you fly with that gear? I know you need very little personal gear. I can only assume people don't bring fins.

Thank you so much! We have a group of 20 doing the Sea Exploring (Keys Tall Ship) adventure next month, which I believe is very similar to your adventure, but on a larger boat.

Our dutch ovens are one item that isn't patrol-specific. Perhaps they should be, but they are inspected for cleanliness after clean-up. I suppose you could also mark them with a Dremel.

It's OK to tell them a certain skill isn't your strong point, but we're going to learn it together. Lot's of good ideas above. My first year as a scouter I helped with the Brownsea Island program at camp. The counselor, a recent high school graduate, was fantastic, but there were too many scouts per counselor. He had to teach me many things before I could assist teaching the scouts. Herding the cats was something that had to be done due to the size and age of the group. More breaks for non-classroom type stuff would have helped. The ketchup bottle is good. If you want to be goofy, get an empty bottle of Hershey's syrup and wash it out. Use this for your water bottle. If I had an empty Hershey's syrup bottle, I'd use it as my water bottle at the gym, but I'm like that.

Each patrol, including the adult patrol, has a chuck box with all cooking equipment. Scouts provide tents and all personal gear. We recently bought backpacking tents since few if any of the scout tents are backpacking appropriate. We have a stash of backpacks that can be borrowed. I prefer the scouts, if able, to provide their own gear and be responsible for it. At the same time, we can assist any scout with financial limitations. We HAD some sleeping bags that were never used since I joined the troop. Those had to be discarded when we moved to a new storage shed.

Any and all advice is much appreciated, particularly stuff not covered in the participant guide.

Much effort went into improving schooling for girls when school was viewed as less important for them and that was much needed. Girls are doing much better than in decades past. Now boys are falling behind, dropping out in much greater numbers and much more likely to end up in prison. I don't claim to have all the answers, but more effort now needs to go into addressing the problems boys are facing. When I say that, some people have a knee-jerk reaction to think that girls will be pushed aside again. That's not the case at all. I have a daughter and a son. I want them both to succeed in life, however that may be defined for them based on their skills. I can't cite them by memory, but a simple Google search will show that scouting is one way to help boys with these issues. BSA should look at why the program succeeds in this regard. Some of the things they are doing, IMHO, are likely to do harm to that success.

I don't think having 2 boy troops under the same CO makes sense so why would having 1 boy and 1 girl troop under the same CO make sense? If a CO chooses to add a girl troop and transfers half of the boy troop's money and gear over to the girl troop, don't you think that's going to create a lot of resentment?

No. My wife is a girl scout leader and I'm not interested in getting divorced.

We're on one of the big sailboats with 20 crew members. I don't think it would work.

I never considered a hammock. Do captains actually allow them?

Eddie Murphy had a standup routine that applies here. It's on YouTube, but contains language not appropriate on this site. Anyway, he talked about a family in a horror movie. They bought this great house in a great neighborhood, stood in it for the first time and heard, "GET OUT!!!!!!" in a demonic voice. Too bad we can't stay. In all the horror movies of the day, the people would inexplicably stay. Welp, from what you've described, you're in that horror movie. The walls are bleeding, a kid got sucked into the television and you just need to leave. These are not problems you're going to solve staying in the troop. Wishing you and your son the best.

We're doing the Sea Exploring (Keys Tall Ship) adventure this summer. What do you recommend for sleeping gear? Do you just take an inflatable pad, pillow and sheet? I was going to take a silk sleeping bag liner. They say people sleep up on the deck since it's too hot down below. Any other advice on specific gear is appreciated.