CA_Scouter

Last week, I downloaded the tax filing extension form from the IRS web site and the PDF file came with "document rights", which meant that I could download it to my pc, fill it out in my Adobe Reader, then print a nice neat LEGIBLE copy. Question - Does anyone know if there is a source for PDF documents for BSA forms that have "document rights"? Can't find anything on the BSA web site. I have one of my scouts just starting his Eagle project, and it would make for a very nice looking application if it didn't need to be filled in by hand. ( I don't want to have to completely rebuild the document in electronic form as it already exists.) Thanks All!

My brother and I are living proof that it works. :-) And neither of us regrets being pushed a little. In our case, we were only a couple of merit badges away from Eagle, and we had no plans on quitting or anything, we just got a little complacent and my parents gave us a little incentive to step up the pace a bit. As it turned out, we both got our driver's license before Eagle, my parents really just wanted us to get going to finish the task. Now, I don't have a problem with it when a scout is in a similar situation that I was, but any sooner and that would concern me... I have a mom in the troop who I can see doing this at some point, so I'll, heh heh.. 'Be Prepared' when that time comes!

BusyLady took the words right out of my mouth, er fingers... I was always to understand that rape was an act of violence, not lust. Oooh, I just saw a picture of a bank. Guess I'll go rob it now...

While I would never condone having such material in my home, I think the BSA needs to stay the heck out of Mr Z's personal business. As Prarie says, unless Safe Scouting rules are being violated, its none of yours or anyone elses business. You could take this down so many paths... what if Mr Z had a Matisse nude hanging in his home? One of those garden fountains? Or, dread the thought, if he had removed all those 'do not remove under penalty of law' tags from the throw pillows on his couch?

Agree with Lynda J. The issue is lack of parental involvement. Last year, myself and one other leader ( a lady, btw ), stayed in camp the whole week, but we also had several other leaders rotate in during the week so we always had 3 leaders present ( and sometimes 4 ). I planted those seeds at the beginning of the year, asking several parents if they could set aside a couple of days, instead of a whole week, for scout camp. My experience has been that there are a few whole give it their all, and more that give it a little. If you add up a lot of 'littles', it makes an 'all', and you get the help.

Is the point of this discussion to make some rule that only those that agree with what we say can participate? By attempting to do so, are we not in effect, supressing the open and free discussion of all ideas? I don't think censorship is one of the Scout Laws.... nor did I see this discussed when I earned my Citizenship merit badges. I think that if we only discussed things we all agreed upon, the forms might get boring and uninteresting. By permitting all opinions to be discussed, it ignites our passion for Scouting and our beliefs in its principles. As long as all posters are trustworthy, friendly, kind, curteous and cheerful, I don't see any reason to suppress them.

Yall ever hear of the 'Lego Shuffle'? That's when you are walking across the room in the morning with a cup of coffee in your hand, and you slide your feet across the floor to avoid stepping on a Lego and getting a REAL wake up call! Yow!

"One more question... hypothetically, if the CM knows I do not believe in God, and he is aware of the DRP but turns a blind eye (so to speak) to this fact, where is the harm? " Hypothetically, the harm is that you are teaching your son that its ok to be dishonest, as long as it suits your own personal needs. Not believing in a higher power does not make you a bad person, and the BSA does not state anything to that effect. What it does, is to violate one of the principles of the BSA, just like, to use a simple example, eating meat violates the principles of vegan organizations.

Anyone who tries to associate the entire BSA with the actions of one disgusting individual is not a very intelligent person. Unfortunately, there no shortage of 'not very intelligent persons' around to play up this incident, so yes, we will hear about it for a while.

Hi All! I'm looking for a Webelos Crossover ceremony to do this coming Friday. I've not found anything in my reference books just yet, so I thought I'd post this to get some ideas while I run down to the troop locker and search for more info... Any help would be appreciated! Thanks

Thanks all for your comments - I have a plan of action now. I'd been spoiled a bit by my own son being a patrol leader in his first year in scouts, and doing a decent job. I expected that this scout, with a couple of more years experience, would have a good idea of what needs to be done as a PL. I did spend time explaining what I expected out of my PL's, but perhaps I didn't communicate that very well. I purchased the PL handbook and the Scoutmaster's Junior Leader Training kit. Instead of waiting a couple of months for JLTC training ( which some of you advised against with this scout ), I'm going to take on the training myself ( with an ASM ) and get this kid up to speed. At the same time, I'll be doing the same training with my other patrol leader ( and their assistants ), so I don't run into this problem again. Thanks all for your input. I love this Scouting stuff!!!!! :-)

Thanks EagleinKY for reminding me to update my profile. I am Scoutmaster now. In response to other questions, no, he's had no training and I haven't sat down with him yet... that's what I'm going to do next...( with an ASM )...

I have a new PL who has shown practically no leadership at all over the last two months, and I'm trying to figure out some way to get him to assert himself and be the leader he needs to be... Some background: This boy is 14, a Star Scout, with a mother who is determined to make her boy an Eagle. ( Please note the term 'boy' as opposed to 'young man'. His behavior is more in line with an 11 yr old rather than a kid going into high school next year.) We've had discipline problems with him in the past, and in fact, had to take away his Den Chief position when he got into a fight with another scout in front of his Webelo charges. His behavior has improved, but he constantly has to be told what to do, when to do it, and how to do it. This last weekend, our campout was called short due to rain, and he was one of the scouts that was not prepared with the correct equipment, i.e.. no socks, tennis shoes instead of boots, wet clothes, etc. Its almost like all the training he had up to Star was thrown out the window. What I've done so far, is to review leadership responsibilities at our PLC meetings, encourage him to act on the situations he needs to act upon, have our SPL and ASPL help him out, and encourage my ASM's to help him along. We've had very little success. I'm debating whether its appropriate to keep him as PL or not. I'm thinking of having a sit down with him and his parents to explain the situation and encourage him to attend JLTC training in May ( but I'm not sure if I can hold out until then :-) ). So I'm soliciting opinions from the forum for methods to motivate and encourage this boy. I'd appreciate your input...

I gave up on freeze dried food years ago. There are many choices available in your supermarket, you just have to take the time to look. Any of those Lipton items previously mentioned are great and easy to fix, and can easily be enhanced with these new foil pouch chicken/ham/tuna items. I usually bring along some garlic, shallots ( as opposed to a large heavy onion ), and plenty of fresh herbs from my garden... even managed to keep a yellow bell pepper edible after 3 days on the trail. Some of these 'instant' packages say to add a cup of milk, but on the trail, it really doesn't matter, you're so darn hungry anyway, you won't notice any taste difference. :-) I hit up the deli down the street for a handful of those little packages of mayo and mustard, and they even have hot sauce too... nice and light, and these things have a longer half-life than uranium. However, I draw the line at coffee. I pack in the grounds, and pack 'em back out. There is nothing like waking to the sun peeking over the mountain, the mist over the lake, a little chill in the air, and a hot cup of really good java in your hand. ahhh... I wanna go!!!! :-)

I've reinstituted a 'Scoutmaster Minute' to close our weekly meetings. I've found a wonderful resource for Scoutmaster Minutes, its a book by John Wooden, the legendary coach of the UCLA Men's Basketball team. I think he retired in 1979 or so... "WOODEN, A Lifetime of observations and Reflections On and Off the Court", is full of appropriate and reflective comments that are suitable for Scoutmaster Minutes. For example: ============================================= TWO SETS OF THREES My father had what he called his "two sets of threes." They were direct and simple rules aimed at how he felt we should conduct ourselves in life. The first set was about honesty: Never lie. Never cheat. Never steal. It required no explanation. My brothers and I knew what it meant and that he expected us to abide by it. The second set of threes was about dealing with adversity: Don't whine. Don't complain. Don't make excuses. Some people today may think they are naive or kind of corny. But think a moment about what they mean and who you become if you abide by them. That isn't naive. You don't become corny. ============================================== I used this one a couple of weeks back, and one of my more 'behaviorly challenged' scouts related those concepts to the Scout Laws, without any prompting by anyone else! Pretty good stuff... there's a lot more.... Anyone else have some resources to share???

Anarchist, I too, detect the same tone that you do. This is a truly unfortunate case, which looks to me, that was obviously mishandled by the local council. To villify the entire BSA, and its thousands, if not tens of thousands of volunteers, for the terrible decisions of the few individuals who had knowledge of this person's actions, is not fair. The criticism should be pointed to those who were directly involved, not the BSA as a whole.

Greetings from California. Last year, Camp Marin Sierra, Marin Council, $205 This year, Camp High Sierra, Santa Clara County Council, $210. Our troop pays for the leaders who attend. I think Marin Sierra was $50... not sure about this year.

We had a similar problem with the boys being bored, as our skill bases looked like lectures from a boring professor. As the new SM, I worked with my staff to try to make these skill bases more fun and to get the scouts more involved. We instituted a 'get their behinds out of the chair' policy, meaning that we had to get the scouts to do more 'hands-on' stuff and actively participate in the skill base. For example, for our winter 'layering' skill base, we had the scouts change clothes several times... seems too easy, but you know, once they get going at it, they are no longer bored. They are not just sitting there being lectured. The adults have always done the skill bases in our troop, but at our last Patrol Leaders Council meeting, the PLC leaders suggested that they assign a scout to be the adult's assistant, and even made rumblings about doing some of the skill bases themselves, which I think is great. We're also considering doing some different skill bases just to 'break it up' a bit, for example, we have several excellent snow boarders in our group, we have one scout who is a nationally ranked jet ski racer, and my son wants to do a skill base on motocross. Basically, the more you get the audience involved, the less bored they will become. Just my $0.02...

That SM owes that young man an apology, and should be begging him and his Dad to come back to the troop. Old school or not, that was just plain mean and rude. I'll guess that this is not an isolated incident with this SM, which may explain the scout and Dad leaving the troop. Regarding the statement about other body piercings, tatoos, fingernails, etc... how many kids of Scout quality do you see with things like that? I hardly think this would be a situation we'd come across on a regular basis... I've got one kid with an earring. I don't like 'em either, but I just chuckle and move on. I've got more important things to worry about ( like the PROGRAM ), and this is not the hill I want to die on... :-)

Oh Boy, here we go again, more Pinewood Derby complaints. I've seen far too many posts on this very sorry subject. Parents doing all the work, trying to pass it off as their boy's work, parents arguing and fighting, etc... Well at least you are teaching your boys how NOT to act. I guess that's good in a strange sort of way. I think I'm going to ask the BSA for permission to market this subject as the next reality TV series... can you just imagine it? All the infighting, cheating, whining, backstabbing? Great stuff! 'Oh, little Billy is .003 out of tolerance on his wheelbase. Billy your FIRED!' 'Jimmy has used an illegal lubricant. Jimmy, you've been voted off the island!'

The scouts just renamed their patrols, we now have: 1) Flaming Retro Metal Monkeys - don't know their yell, but it involves monkey sounds and scratching their armpits... good luck on finding a patrol patch for this one... 2) Generic Patrol - Their yell? 'Yell', their flag is a white banner reading 'Flag', etc. etc...

We'll be climbing Half Dome, Yosemite National Park.

Our troop by-laws state that 50% of fundraising goes into scout accounts, and the amount per scout is dependent on the amount of time the scout put in on the fundraiser. That way, the scout who spends 4 hours gets more in his scout account then the one who spent 2 ( or none ).

Our supporting cub pack deals with this by having an adult division as part of their Pinewood Derby. Its open to all dads, moms, grandparents, older siblings, etc., and has helped to reduce these types of situations. You might temper your anger though, in the knowledge that everyone usually knows who has built the car for their son, so the prize is, in reality, an empty one. And unfortunately, as the son grows older, he'll know its a worthless prize also. Lesson learned, eh?

OMIGOSH! This is just too funny! Our current Scoutmaster is finishing up his term next week ( after 8 yrs ), and we're having a big party, so I ordered the COFFEE DRINKING, SNIPE HUNTING, OUTHOUSE RACING and UNTRAINABLE patches. The SPL and PL's want to present them to him just like he presented merit badges to them over the years... gonna be fun....