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Frostbyte

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Everything posted by Frostbyte

  1. That is a dang good idea right off the bat! I am going to do an Iron Squirrel Chef event for sure. Thanks!
  2. Thanks both of you, really nice of you to say that. What I am really interested in is great ideas others have had so I can shamelessly steal them and use them as we build our troop program back up. There are so many good ideas that get sprinkled in a bunch of thread on here. Not so much theory, but very granular examples of what you all have seen work well!
  3. Some months back, I was tapped for taking over as our troop's Scoutmaster. The biggest top of mind I had was bringing fun back to the meetings. I happened to be in a World Market store and saw a $7 iron squirrel doorstop, and picked it up because I thought I could use it at some point as the trophy for some games we were kicking around. It has since become one of the mainstays in our troop monthly program, now dubbed the "Iron Squirrel Competition." Each month the adult leaders come up with a challenge that all the scouts participate in. These should combine some type of useful training/skill
  4. Each troop has its own flavor; spiced with the experiences and maturity and knowledge levels of both the boys and leaders. I have seen troops that are run with military precision and discipline. I have seen troops that lean a bit more to "Lord of the Flies." I think the hope would be to accept and learn from both sides of the spectrum. I think it is more difficult for a more precision oriented troop to accept the more "slack" troops you sometimes find. For example, our troop uses its own mess kits, but not standardized or anything. Also, we don't have any problem leaving way late. (I am not in
  5. What has worked best for me (both as a Scoutmaster and an LNT Advocate) is speaking to the benefits of getting a scout involved in the outdoors and contrasting it will some of the problems we are currently facing with youth being disconnected from nature. Letting them know that a huge part of Scouting is being in the outdoors and that we are counting on them to help reinforce it at home, whether or not they participate. There are a ton of great resources online to help with the argument. Here is a search link and an article I like about it: https://www.google.com/search?q=reasons+to+get+k
  6. Like many things, there will be rough edges at first on the implementation of this. But, I am super happy to see this direction. The rollout of this may not be optimal, with committing to the idea and then scrambling to make it work. But the fact that we are not debating whether it will happen, but "how" to make it happen is a positive thing IMHO. Look, much of the rest of the scouting world has figured out how to make it work. I believe we here in the US will be able to do that as well. To Helpful's point, if you have enough girls interested in starting a unit, you should be able to get
  7. Very interesting that this topic comes up right now. At our Scout meeting last Tuesday, my youngest son (13) and two buddies from school were talking about being able to work at a local grocery store at 14. They were excited about the possibility of earning some scratch on their own, but were a little bummed at having to wait and lose the summer. (ha, would that I could "lose" a summer being a 13 year old boy again!). I let them know there was an alternative. Since they all liked hanging around each other and it is fun to work with friends, why don't they consider being entrepreneurs and
  8. I know in our council, informally at the last roundtable, I would have to say it was about 50-50 on this change, and I am in a fairly conservative state. I was a bit surprised by that, as I expected a much more negative reaction, but I was happy to see it. As a father of two sons and two daughters, I embrace this change. Whether my girls choose to be in the program, I would like them to have an opportunity to experience the fun times I have had with my sons in Scouting and learn the leadership and skills my sons learned. I don't at all consider that there is some vast conspiracy of the m
  9. Yep, agreed Stosh. One of the leaders in my Troop made a couple of homemade wood fuel stoves out of some cans welded together (Youtube: How To Make A Wood Gas Stove - Compact & Efficient!). I was surprised at the thermal output of this, though I have seen a woodgas truck running before in an article in Mother Earth News. I think this type of woodgas stove certainly would qualify as "Thrifty" as well as eco friendly. I have not used one for my cooking, so I was interested to read your experience on it getting too hot to quickly. That is the prob with the Jetboil. The flame is concentr
  10. Hello all. First post on the forum. There are pros and cons with alcohol stoves. In my LNT Master Educator course we used them for all meals and it worked out well. One of the main reasons I like them is that the fuel is pretty nature friendly. As Stosh said, they can tip an spill fuel more easily than other stove types, making them a fire hazard. Not being able to see the flame does not help either. It also took a lot longer to boil water. After cooking with them quite a while, I went back to my Jetboil. It was worth the weight, and my alcohol stove was not worth the wait.
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