C-BOLT

"Adult leaders were just too strict...guess it bears thinking about and watching... humm?"

Sounds like my home troop. Our new leaders, well the majority of them are too "soft."

Luckily, I got to experience some cool ones on the Jamboree, who even pulled a nice little prank on our patrol, haha. Our patrol was just too lazy to open up, and cook the vegetables, so one day, when we were coming in for dinner, our Leader said that he knew how hard we had been working, and said he would cook for us. Haha, I should have known it was a prank. When we got back, he had taken some of the vegetables from each patrol, and put it in our serving dish, making us eat them before he gave us our main course (which wasnt much better).

That is terrible news. I'm sure they were great people too.

Haha, cool username!

But yeah, like the poster above said, have you SM/ASM give her a sheet that tells the proper way to wear a uniform. I know they exist, we hand them out every year, yet it seems like there are still some people who refuse to wear the uniform correctly

I come from a troop that is not very active when it comes to outings, and neither is our venturing unit, so I'm sure some of my moments will pale into comparison with yours.

One of them would have to be the 05 Jambo. It wasn't just one thing, being in a new troop, new scouts, and great leaders. I remember seeing all the people trading patches, thinking, whats the big deal? Next thing I know I'm scrambling trying to complete various sets. Another Jamboree moment would have to be the arena show, not the show itself, but seeing all these scouts, thinking to myself, wow, look what I'm a part of. Truly an awing experience being around some of the future leaders of tomorrow.

Another one, doesn't have much to do with Scouts but still fun. There's nothing better than putting off merit badges and playing some tackle football during the dog days of summer camp. We usually just go out to the ole flag meadow and play until the staffers come out and ask "are your leaders looking for you?"

Yeah, those are some of mine, not very impressive, but I'll always remember them.

The only venturing crew within our area is the one that just consists of members of our troop, and we pretty much do the same activities.

Even as an older scout, I always try to get in a quick "hi, whatsup man" or "hows your week going" to the younger scouts. My friends and I even include some of them in our card games, trips to the lake, etc.

Your troop sounds awesome, I wish we could do some of that.

I come from a fairly large troop, about 45 scouts, so recruiting has never been a problem. Pretty much all of the cubs come up, probably for more of a social thing. And lately, we've had alot of drop outs, some of them due to lack of interest, and some of them because they didnt like the way our troop was run. You have to remember though, scouting is not for everyone, and I think that your troop would have an edge on recruiting (ok, the college football fan in me has come out) with all of the great activies you guys participate in.

And going to the Naval Academy sounds great, hopefully it motivates some guys to get their Eagle, as they love Eagle Scouts when it comes to admissions!

I am now an Eagle Scout, but I recently discovered this place.

Last year I was an SPL, and rather than being a typical cookie cutter SPL, I tried things a little different, at summer camp especially.

As soon as we settled into camp, I had the troop gather up. I told all of our leaders, but 1, to head down to the waterfront/medical hub. This one leader was one who I could trust. I got up, and told our scouts this, or something similar.

"For alot of us, we've been to summercamp before, we know what to expect of ourselves and others. This week, I want you guys to take advantage of everything, you guys might be thinking your parents just wanted to get rid of you for a week, but you guys are here for your own good. Now as you all know, I play football. Well let me start off by saying this, I get yelled at, and yell enough during practice, that I don't want to have to do it here. You guys are all scouts, you're here to be men, and I don't want to discipline you. Remember, that what you do, good, or bad, will leave a lasting impression on me, others, but more importantly, yourself. The decisions are yours to make, the advantages are yours to take, so lets be men out here this week."

My reasoning behind that speech. I've dealt with leaders who think that yelling is the only way to fix things long enough, I'm sick of it. Rather than do what they do, I put it on the scouts to not only represent themselves, but their troop.

I prefer to run the troop much like Pete Carroll, the head coach of USC runs his team. A laid back atmosphere, but the discipline are there.

There was one incident however. A scout refused to report to server duty that night. Rather than yell, I just asked him "how do you want to be remembered man? How do you want to be remembered?" It was enough to send the guy on his way to the mess hall.

The last night of the 05 Jamboree, my Scoutmaster told us this story. He e-mailed it to me the other day.

The Mayonnais Jar and Two Cups of Coffee

When things in your life seem almost too much to handle, when 24 hours in a day are not enough, remember the mayonnaise jar and two cups of coffee.

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him.

When the class began, wordlessly, he picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls.

He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.

The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar.

He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with a unanimous "yes."

The professor then produced two cups of coffee from under the table and poured the liquid into the jar, effectively filling the empty space between the sand.

The students laughed. "Now," said the professor, as the laughter subsided, "I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life.

The golf balls are the important things - God, family, children, health, friends, and favorite passions. Things that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.

The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, house and car.

The sand is everything else -- the small stuff.

If you put the sand into the jar first," he continued, "There is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important to you.

So... Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Play with your children. Take time to get medical checkups. Take your partner out to dinner. Play another 18. There will always be time to clean the house and fix the disposal.

Take care of the golf balls first, -- the things that really matter.

Set your priorities. The rest is just sand."

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the coffee represented. The professor smiled. "I'm glad you asked. It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem, there's always room for a couple of cups of coffee with a friend."

Well, I'm sure that everyone knows what I'm talking about. During midweek, when it seems it has gotten hotter, when the scouts are fatigued, grumpy, and just want to go home. When the best of friends can be mad at eachother for whatever reason, yes, I've seen and been part of it all.

Well during these said "Dog Days" of my past summer camp, I heard some yelling, well I go over there and my younger brother is wrestling his best friend. The way they were going at it, there was no apparent danger, but you can tell they were angry. Much like in the movie "Remember the Titans" when the black and white player are going at it, instead of breaking it up, the coach lets them continue. Thats exactly what I did. I remembered several years earlier, when I was in the same situation, a leader had broken up our fight, and it only made me hungrier. After 10 or so seconds, they tired out and I found out why they were fighting in the first place. Pretty trivial, my brother used the other guys fishing pole without his permission.

Needless to say, the two were the best of friends after that.

*note* Had they started throwing punches, rocks, dangerous moves, whatever I would have stopped it. Sometimes, you just have to let things play out.

The shot thing has gone on for a long time in our troop. You see, for a long time, alot of the incoming scouts were our little brothers, so hey, after some of the stuff they put us through, it was nice to get em back.

Hindsight, had I known that this kid would have taken it seriously, I would have never said anything. Ever since the kid started crying, I told the older scouts to leave him alone, so for the past few years, I've pretty much ignored him.

The thing about our troop though, is that we are pretty tight knit. In our age group for example, we all went to the same pre-school, went to church together, cub scouts, basketball teams etc, which is why we can pull pranks on eachother and laugh about it later on. But to say that our troop condones terrorizing scouts, believe me, the kind of protection the younger scouts receive is the kind that a QuarterBack can only dream about. The shot thing is one of the few times that our leaders let go.

I've gone from being a first year, to an SPL at summer camps, and I can't figure out why first years won't shower.

For some, maybe it's the fact that they're not used to showering in stalls, maybe they are uncomfortable (even though we shower with swim trunks). I've tried and tried to get them to shower, I always hear the "I'll do it after dinner" excuse, yet when push comes to shove, they're down at the lake throwin sticks at eachother.

I guess they just grow out of it, realize how dirty it is. For most, it's their first taste of being a man, being away from their families, and sooner or later they will learn that not taking a shower is gross.

Man, shooting silly string, that would be awesome.

I guess you can't teach an old dog new tricks. Funny thing is, as I've been reading posts on here lately, I've come to realize that maybe returning someday as an adult leader would be a good idea. Throughout my whole scouting career, I never thought I'd be saying this, and my parents even gave me "come back set things right then" speech. I don't know, it's still a long way off, but for now, the only scouting thing I'm going to be doing is preparing my speech for my ECOH.

I earned my Eagle about a month ago. I got the paperwork in a few weeks before I turned 18, and we actually had a guy who got his stuff in last minute.

I know what alot of you guys are talking about when it comes to Eagle Scouts and parents/leaders pushing them. We have had several scouts complete their Eagle requirements during their Sophmore years. They were also my close friends, and I know that their parents did a majority of the stuff for them. Does that mean they don't deserve it? Well that was obviously up to the board to decide.

Point being, I'm not holding a witch hunt, but when I am up there receiving my award, I will know that I completely earned it.

I went as a scout, my first one, first time being away for 17 days. I'm not sure how other troops do it, but our council, or district, not sure, sent 4 troops. Scouts were for the most part, randomly placed into one of the 4 troops. My home scoutmaster was one of the leaders, and I was a bit dissapointed I wasn't going to be in his troop. However, it was definately a blessing in disguise, and I wouldn't have had nearly as much fun had I been in his troop.

Meeting people was great, making new friends, and hanging out with old ones while walking down the roads as we saw patch traders all over the place was definately something I'll remember. Seeing younger scouts grow up was something I'll never forget.

But my best Jamboree moment was the last night. The 4 troops our council sent had a mach campfire, we used lights because fires were illegal, or so the leaders said. Anyways, there had to have been about 150 of us in all. As Scouts performed skits, I was laying in the back along with friends old and new, making jokes, laughing, and just reflecting on what we had gone through, and the things we were going to do when we returned home. And that night, we returned to our campsites, and slept under the stars, I could hardly sleep as I was eager to return home.

Moments like that are ones that have defined me as a scout.

Haha, there are some great pranks in this thread.

Here are some that I have both done, and received in my days of scouting. At summer camp, on the first day when we are doing our medical checks, the older scouts ALWAYS tell the first years that they have to get a shot. My first year it scared the crap out of all of us, and we continued the tradition for a few years. Well, one year, one of the scouts started crying and asked the leader if this was true. Now normally, the leaders knew all about this, and always loved it, however this scout told the wrong leader. I was one of the scouts involved, and the leader (who was new to the troop) completely went off on me. That leader pretty much disgraced himself at that point, to this day, none of the scouts have respect for him.

Another prank, in each campsite there was usually a flagpole that went unused, so occasionally we would send a scouts sleeping bag up there.

I will be completely honest here, I was one of the scouts that in my younger years overreacted to a prank. An older scout put my sleeping bag up the flagpole, and well, I didn't like him much to begin with, and I'm sure he didn't like me. I ended up calling him out one day, and we "went at it." Although I received a harsh lecture, the guy never messed with me again.

OGE, that post brought back alot of memories of my past 6 years of scouting. I can relate to all of those except for the part about Leaders singing on the way to flags, we usually just heard, "WERE LATE!!!"

But one of my favorites is Camp Chawanakee in CA. Great lake, staff, food, and scenery.

In all honesty, it seems that our troop cares more about being serious than anything else. What do I mean by this? Our leaders get after our guys all the time, sure, not all the leaders, but most of them. If we have something wrong with our uniforms, we usually meet after and get lectured for it, and no, I'm not joking. I understand that our leaders are "overachievers" and always want to look the best, but at what point should you just ease up and let the scouts have fun. It doesn't help that our head scoutmaster was a marine either.

Now, I have had the blessing to be able to participate in the 2005 Jamboree. It was there that I experienced what leaders should be like. They were laid back, but the leadership and credentials were there. They joked around, had fun, and not once did they ever have to lecture anyone, and we had some trouble makers in our troop.

I know this is going to sound like a rant, but I just needed to get it off my chest. I am an Eagle Scout of 1 month, and I have experienced alot, I just don't want scouts in our already dying troop to become discouraged.