Armymutt

I'm curious why Tiffany Armas thinks the logging is being done inappropriately. No where does it say that the council doesn't have a forestry management plan. Here in NC, logging is a standard practice. Our pines are another crop. My land was logged about 12 years ago according to the county forester. There's not much evidence, other than some really low stumps. Historical satellite photos show the roads they made, but there's little sign of them today. Our council has an area that they sell timber from - that's paying a large portion of our settlement bill. Having attended Camp Robert Drake, Camp Joy, and Camp Vandeventer in IL as a kid. A storm shelter is a necessity. The mention of laying in a ravine during a tornado warning brought back some unpleasant memories.

I stopped by the council office today and talked to her. She said just cross them off the paper when we give it to the commissioner. Easy enough!

Had a parent tell us tonight that their Scout isn't going to continue effective immediately. We already submitted the recharter online, but haven't turned it in to the council - meeting our commissioner this weekend. Anyone know if there is a way to remove the Scout so we don't get charged?

What diocese are you in? The Diocese of Raleigh sees Scouting as an integral part of the church. It's amazing to see the variation across the country. Here is the most recent release from the diocese: https://dioceseofraleigh.org/scouting/catholic-scouting

No, but I like this. I have been trying to get our Pack Meetings to be something to look forward to, but I'm not a showman. We normally do the flags, pledge, oath, and law, then greeting. After that, the CC makes any announcements. We might have a den skit, then advancement. Then, it's kind of dead air for a minute and we retire the colors. Would be nice if I could get the parents to get involved. We tried to go with a monthly theme, but it's not working out.

My grand plans for sustaining the growth in my Pack are coming to a halt. Friday I found out that the Army has decided that I need to move to a different job than I planned to take this summer. The new one is 9 hours away. Depending on many factors, I'll be there by myself and my wife will step down from being the committee chair. I have one person in mind to replace me as Cubmaster, but no clear CCs. My kids will still be in the Pack as long as it exists. I may see if I can swap into a committee position that doesn't require attending weekday meetings. Our committee meetings are all done online, so maybe I can be the treasurer. Thoughts? My bigger disappointment is the OA. I am really active in our chapter and am trying to get our ceremonies team back on track/in existence. On the far end, I won't have much to do in the evenings. Hopefully I can find a unit that will let me be a leader of some sort.

To me, this wouldn't work. I need it to be a regular thing if I'm going to stay interested. I am very subject to inertia. Even the 3 weeks off for Christmas is causing me to lose interest in the Pack. Something else filled that Tuesday night void and now I have to re-spin back up. Working on my son's PWD car is helping, but I'm going to need more help to make the January pack meeting fun.

We do the same - monthly except summer. The Pack meetings are pretty short - a skit, a little talk, and awards. Flag ceremony to give each den a chance to do one as needed. Until I get more help in doing them, they will remain short and to the point. I'm an outdoors person, not a showman. My ACM is even more introverted, so it's unlikely to change soon.

I think the BSA is right to a degree. They had no way of vetting volunteers for most of the history of Scouting. All of that should have been done where the rubber meets the road. Once the information reached BSA's level, it should have acted to revoke the charter and make sure the local police were notified. Ultimate responsibility should lie with the COs.

The no alcohol thing threw a wrench into my plans at the last B&G. At home, we parboil our brats in beer before grilling them. I had several cans of Bud on the counter ready to go and then realized that we couldn't have alcohol at Scouting events. I have a mom that smokes and I had to remind her several times about smoking on the Cuboree. I can't wait for her daughter to turn 11. She's nice, but I really hate having to babysit 30-somethings.

There's a difference between what is and what it was supposed to be. The 1992 OA Handbook does not identify this among the purposes of the Order. Three out of the four focus on camping. The fourth focuses on leadership in cheerful service. Somewhere along the way, the purpose got muddled and then diluted. Probably why our attendance is so low and our officers are in their position because they were the only ones who happened to show up that night. To bring this back around to the topic, the OA is an example of an option for youth that started locally and grew nationally. The problem today is that there is little room for a Scout to stretch their wings and get creative. Too many helicopter leaders produced by too many rules that came about from a too litigious society. My SM in the late 80s had been in the troop since 1932. His rule was essentially do what you want, but don't get hurt. He put it on us to take responsibility for our safety. That meant sending someone down to check the depth of the water before we jumped off the cliffs. That meant learning how to tie a Swiss seat and snap in correctly before rappelling down a rock in the state park. The older Scouts looked out for the younger Scouts, and when the "older Scouts" happened to be 8th graders, he and the ASM (in the troop since 1955) stepped in to train that Scout. They forced us to be leaders at an early age, including risk assessment. There's a reason they weren't too concerned when my buddy and I were riding a log down a swollen river. We had a contingency plan and executed it without panic.

I'm confused on the issue. Are you talking about Pack Meetings or the B&G? For our Pack Meetings, we're still trying to find our stride. Neither I nor the ACM are extroverts, so we aren't big on singing and dancing. I try to assign each den a role - usually a skit. We only have the building for the hour, so we have to factor in set-up and tear down. I usually find a program online, modify it to suit me, and roll with it. Our B&G last year was a cook out at a local park. We figured out what was needed, created a spreadsheet and asked everyone to contribute. Did not go over well - some contributed a bottle of ketchup while other brought multiple packages of bratwurst. Some families RSVPd for 2 people and shoed up with 6. This year, we approached it differently. While the kids were making gingerbread houses at the December pack meeting, we pulled the parents together and told them that we needed a chair for the B&G and one for the PWD. No volunteers, no events. We now have volunteers. Our B&G will be on a Saturday around lunch. No idea what it will look like because we don't have a legacy to match it against.

How do we tie this in with Citizenship in Society, being the only merit badge with no pamphlet, requires a MBC that has attended special training, and can't be conducted in a large group?

I view this thing from the spirit of it. The intent is to avoid a situation that puts youth at risk. Since I turned 18 at the start of my senior year, if such a rule existed back then, I would technically be unable to be on my school sports teams, room with my buddy in the Hague when we went for model UN, or meet up with him at the Scout hut to get things ready for a campout. I'm sure the school would not let me have my own hotel room simply because BSA said so. These days, it's the same thing. One of my Tigers came over to play with my daughter while my son stayed to play with her brother. I made hot chocolate for them and let them go do whatever it is that Kindergarten/1st grade girls do. My wife came home about 10 minutes later. I guess technically, I was in violation, but then I'm in violation every school day. I transport all 4 kids to school and the 1st grader girl or her brother are always the last to exit the vehicle. For a brief second or two, we are alone in the car. According to the G2SS, this is a violation. I guess I should dismount the vehicle so that we are not alone at all, but it's impractical.

To me, it's less of a concern about girls taking charge than it is having to live with an extension of high school into Scouting. My experience was that the moment girls factored into the mix, the dynamics changed in the troop. Guys were suddenly showing off, picking on other kids, etc. We ran into co-ed Italian and Norwegian troops at Kandersteg and this happened. Same thing when the sister of one of the Scouts in my troop came with us to a water park. One of the guys had a crush on her at school, and he started being a dick to others when she was there. Maybe the 21st century male is different, but I doubt it.

I try to teach mine to use natural sources of tinder and we use the flame wands to light that. My favorite is reindeer moss, which grows well on the edges of the pine forests here. Our fire rings are very deep and very small, which makes it really awkward trying to use much else to start a fire. Not enough enough room to do decent DO cooking without pulling coals out of the fire ring. Then there was that one dad in another pack we got jammed in with during Cuboree. He had something that looked like an incendiary grenade. I try to teach mine to make small fires.

What are you using, flint and steel? 9V battery and steel wool?

No one has been able to answer the question of why BSA thinks that Scouts today are less capable than their peers 100 years ago. The organization would have died out if the same rules were in place, yet this seems of little consequence. Why can't a patrol go camping? Page 18 of the 9th edition of the Boy Scout Handbook says, "The goal of a patrol should be to be so well trained in camping that it can take off on its own overnights." Why are we assuming youth have become enfeebled in the past 36 years?

I'm hoping that troops like that still exist when my kids are old enough. Lots of new people to the program and are timid about it. I told our chapter chief last night about a game we used to play - star gazers. Sort of a quiet duck duck goose, except the guy walking around had a belt and would drop it into someone hands. They then started whipping the guy to their right, chasing him around the circle. Once he got back, it was repeated.

While working on the two projects I mentioned earlier this semester, I am developing a plan for expanding Scouting into underserved areas. In doing so, I have been reading a lot about youth programs in general and Scouting in particular. One thing stood out to me. Scouting survived WWI because the PLCs took over and ran the units while the adults were off at war. During Desert Storm, my troop was in the same situation. Our adult leaders were fighter pilots or ground crew and deployed. That left me and another 16 y/o to run the troop for 8 months. According to the G2SS, we were not allowed to meet. I understand the necessity in normal times, but there needs to be some flexibility built in and it needs to be stated.

Literally in the Cub Scouts forum.

Yeah, Roundtable is kind of boring. I get boring lectures all day. Don't really want to do it for fun. It's not so much a Man Park. It's a combo in-person and Zoom, and the presenter always is on Zoom. Ever try to sit in a big room and listen to someone lecture from their home computer to a laptop projected on a screen? Shoot me! At this point I go to try to figure out who is in our district so I can put faces with names.

Is this hypothetical unit a Pack or a Troop? A Pack is far more reliant on parental involvement. A Troop can work with very few. For a Troop, I would look at the 1920s. How did it work then? Why the focus on a district? My first Troop as a kid (well, second, but because the first sucked) basically ignored the district and council. It was first chartered in 1933 and ran like a pirate ship. Probably still does. I never attended a camporee or council summer camp with them. Until they bought some land in southern MO in the 60s, they would pack up the boys in a bus, have a parent drive it while an older boy drove his dad's car with a boat behind it, and headed for Kentucky Lake. They spent a week on the shore, canoeing, motorboating, waterskiing, fishing, etc. They even had a "water carnival" consisting of stuff I don't know about beyond a greased watermelon. In my time, we went to the camp in southern MO. It's about 17 acres total. We did motorboating, water skiing, pioneering, a float trip, visited state parks, fished, played games, had campfires, etc. We didn't need expensive council camps. If a boy didn't have his own tent, the troop had canvas ones from the 70s. We cooked on stoves by patrol most days. The menu was predetermined by the PLC, SM, and ASM - probably cost us about $20 for the week. None of us could drive. The SPL was a freshman. There were 8 Scouts and we piled in the ASM's RAM 1500 van. It was far more magical and impressive to me than any other summer camp I've been to, other than Philmont. That includes a week in Switzerland at Kandersteg. Loved it so much that I went back two additional summer when I returned home from England after high school. Would have gone more, but my parents moved to FL and I didn't have a place to stay in IL during the summer. The point of this tale is that Scouting can be done on the cheap, and without the district. Summer camp may not be a merit badge factory, but the boys will have fun. Getting around the inexperienced leaders is tough. A humble leader would be able to learn from an experienced older Scout and the available material. This might be a good thing to bring to the OA. Ask the Scouts and adults to come help and serve as coaches and mentors. I'm going to try to put this into practice next year, hopefully. My plan is to start slowly and avoid the DE and commissioner until I really need them. They are too motivated and dead set on perfection.

If the parent doesn't attend, who takes care of their Cub Scout? We aren't a drop off Pack.

Are permission slips required when parents are attending an event? Seems redundant. I can't imagine a parent taking their Scout someplace and then saying that they are not allowed to be there.