mrkstvns

Yet another feature news article about girls joining BSA, this time in the Houston TX area: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Boy-Scouts-new-recruits-234-Houston-area-girls-13683424.php

I don't know if Gus was ever an Explorer, but he was evidently a Boy Scout for at least 4 years...here's his scout record card: http://www.americanheritage1.com/nasa/guss-grissoms-card.html

$400.....for a cot....that's like, aluminum poles and a piece of canvas. And that's $400? I could buy 10 regular cots for that. Of course, then I'd need a bigger tent....(and some more friends)...

But what about the SMELL?!?!

Kind of hate to suggest giving up, but this really is the most practical approach. Might want to also drop a line to the COR's "boss" (like pastor of the CO church, or grand poo-bah of the Water Buffalo Lodge, letting them know that their COR is doing them no service). Ditto to local scout executive. The SE will claim to be powerless, but he should know that there are good reasons for the pack's imminent demise. It might not actually get the COR/CC their richly deserved pink slip, but doing nothing is 100% guaranteed to do nothing.

Yep. Enable the scout and you can't go wrong. Just remember the adage, "no more, no less". Just an aside: I always like signing off the nature requirements for young scouts. I've seen some very creative ways to meet the 2nd class requirement to "show evidence of 10 wild animals..." Had one kid come in with a bag of "stuff": a bird's nest, a feather, a snakeskin, a turtle shell, etc. I signed him off. Had another kid show me pictures of road kill: dead squirrel, dead deer, dead raccoon right next to a dead vulture (guess he didn't fly off quick enough for the passing car....) I sign

You might want to poll your members and see if you really do need all that. My son bought a lightweight tent when he earned Star, and bought his own hiking boots, lightweight cold-weather bag, and backpacking stove before he turned 14 (planning ahead for more HA trips). If my kid is typical, then a lot of your Venturers will already have a lot of their own backpacking equipment and you might not need to buy all that much as a unit (or deal with typical quartermaster problems of storage, cleaning, damage repair/replacement, etc.).

Yes, too many adults can certainly put a monkey wrench into things... Meeting night conflicts are kind of inevitable. Unfortunately, there's only 4 good weekday nights to hold meetings, and chances are good that if you pick one of those 4 nights, it's going to conflict with SOME local troop's regular meeting night...if not yours, then another troop's. Same things happen with Roundtable. Pick a night of the week to reserve for Roundtable and inevitably, that will be the only night of the week that some local troop is able to get their meeting room reserved / scoutmaster available, et

Sometimes.... Often though, you need to take information found on the internet with a very large shipment of salt....fake information is far more easily spread than it was in the old days when we had paper publications with real editors who would do real fact checking... Progress is not always progress.

On car campouts, I bring a cot and a 4-man tent that fits it. Tried using a hammock a couple times, but it feels unnatural to me and I got a worse night sleep. On backpacking trips, I'll use a small lightweight tent with a sleeping pad. The sleeping pad isn't a bad night sleep, but the cot is better, and nobody really wants me to wake up grumpy from a bad night's sleep.

Cool. Glad it didn't turn out to be in the shape of a gizmo, or a widget...

Sorry Liz, but your Scoutmaster would be well served to keep you away from camp...and to keep away any other adult who has the misguided notion that they would be welcome in camp so that they could be there "his first time if that's what he needs." No scout is well served by a parent in camp who can't, or won't, let her son try things and experience things on his own. It just ruins the camp experience for everyone and it undermines scouting's aims and methods (especially the patrol method, when you star counter-manding the instructions and leadership of the PL and SPL). Sure, you k

Scouting resources are fine for understanding things specific to scouting, but to understand the English language, it is better to use sources that specialize in English language. The best openly available source on the internet is Merriam-Webster: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/demonstrate My favorite dictionary is Oxford English Dictionary, but their real web site charges too much to use, so I will omit any pointers to it.

When your lodge "isn't the best", you've gotten the gift of opportunity. Anybody can jump into an organization that runs like a well-oiled machine, but only a real leader can take the rusty, worn out machine and oil it and turn it around.

"Demonstrate" implies some degree of explanation to accompany the "show". Maybe ask "how" or "why" with "demonstrate" vs. just "what" with "show". For practical purposes though, the two terms are synonymous.

My body likes food....especially the mouth part of the body.. Seriously though, breakfast isn't the meal I'd skip, particularly not on a backpacking trip. (Maybe my mom just told me too often that "breakfast is the most important meal of the day"...) Powdered peanut butter, eh? I've never heard of such a thing....is it sold in grocery stores?

Yep. The cliche that says "kids will be kids" is true. I tried my best to child-proof my house, but those kids still manage to get in!

Sounds like you might have averted a real tragedy. Reminds me of Texas A&M University and how their long tradition of enormous bonfires came crashing down in 1999, killing 12 students.. A fire doesn't have to be enormous to be "memorable".

Why not just buy a simple square tarp and a length of rope and experiment with re-creating some of these configurations? Then you'll be able to amaze the scouts when you go on campouts. Who knows, you might be able to come up with an improvised structure that's even better than the photos posted by ValleyBoy... Hands-on experience, my friend. Nuthin' like it!!

Sad indeed. It's a steady progression towards a wimpier, less self-confident kind of boy. Challenges help a kid grow and meeting them head-on are what make a man. Looking back at the original 1910 BSA rank requirements, I see this for First Class... 4. Travel alone by foot or rowboat to a point at least 7 miles distant and return (15 miles if by vehicle or animal), and write a short report. It is preferable to take 2 days to do this.

We live in an era of instant online news. Unless you're on a professional news site like nyt.com or wsj.com, you shouldn't be surprised that articles aren't researched, fact-checked, or edited for consistency and grammatical correctness. Quality is not the hallmark of today's newspaper alternatives.

Saw a news article today about a scouter who was indicted for stealing $4K from the scouts... https://www.jerseyshoreonline.com/ocean-county/ocean-county-man-indicted-for-theft-from-local-boys-scouts/

Sounds like a good idea! I hope you'll post in the future to let us know how that works out. I imagine that you could implement something similar at a unit level. Maybe 30 minutes before pack/troop meeting, offer a skill demo to interested adults.

You might want to actually talk to the people at your food bank to see if there's a better, more effective way to handle donations. Food banks are often FAR more effective at actually addressing hunger using cash donations than handling food that you would buy at retail prices. Events like Scouting for Food do provide some limited benefit to the community, and it's a visible effort, albeit one that's more about PR and "feel good" than it is about actual bang for the buck. Giving the cash directly to the food bank can feed 20 times more people than buying those cans from Walmart. Rea

Precisely. If a kid gets voted in but doesn't want to be in OA, all he has to do is just not go through the Ordeal. But then, if he later decides he wants to be in OA, he'd have to get voted in a second time.