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christineka

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Everything posted by christineka

  1. christineka
    I didn't ask my son. I just signed him and the older one up. The younger needs social interaction in his life, goals to work toward, and things to do. Also my brothers were eagle scouts and I think it's a good program. The sentiment I hear among the church members here is that bsa is bad and they've ruined it with letting in girls and others. (I have 5 daughters and am not afraid of girls or even differently gendered people.)
  2. christineka
    I need this in my life! I can't keep track of when I fill out forms that aren't online! I re-registered in bsa in early fall when the new troop became official. I'm sure the merit badge counselor paper I filled out was turned in over a year ago. No one told me I had to redo that on an annual basis. I have a new question, though. Since my son completed the merit badge in the middle of last year (and I have record of turning in the last requirement because it was emailed), can the man, who was merit badge counselor, sign the card and date it for last year? The badge was passed off.
  3. christineka
    As background, my son just celebrated his 13th birthday. We're LDS, we live in Utah. I'm sure you all know that the LDS church dropped the scouting program at the end of 2019. My son joined a new community troop in the fall. I have asked for my son's records. I was promised they'd get them to me. A couple months have passed and I've been doing some investigations of my own. (Looked on scoutbook, asked the scout leader, called council) and it appears that there aren't any records. My son does have a scout book, but was never instructed to bring it, nor was there ever any announcement of
  4. christineka
    Congrats! How in the world did they do a merit badge counselor training? Is there some set curriculum or something? I went to a training meeting, asked for merit badge counselor training and they insisted there was no such thing. The only boy I've ever counseled is my own. I keep trying to tell people I'm a counselor for various badges, but no one ever asks me
  5. christineka
    The LDS church has officially decided to continue with Boy Scouts. http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/church-to-go-forward-with-scouting-program?cid=social_20150826_51467126&adbid=10153389426257013&adbpl=fb&adbpr=53305042012
  6. christineka
    It seems that yet again, I've instigated opening a can of worms. There will now be discussions with higher up leadership to see if the boy scout troops can combine, so that ours can go camping on a monthly basis. I, honestly do not know why our troop does not camp very often. I do know that the one campout they had was a maybe until the night before, on account of the need for leadership. Our cub and 11 year old boy scout programs are combined with a neighboring church's program, in order to have enough boys and leaders. When that began, our most recent former scout master (he moved
  7. christineka
    It is a case, where we feel obligated to have our son in our church's boy scout troop. They have activities on a weekly basis, but only two of those nights are for scouts. One night is to work on Duty to God (which is both a church award and a scout award). i think the other night is for the boys and girls to have a combined fun activity. It would be really odd for my son to join a boy scout troop that meets in the same building at the same time, but isn't ours. Someone in here (or several someones) said the boy didn't actually have to belong to the troop to go camping with them. Is that
  8. christineka
    We had planned for him to join a community troop, but we've proven weekly for the last month that the day/time of a second boy scout meeting is not going to work for our family. It's a very bad day and time. There is another community troop in the works, but it's been in the works for 8 months now, so not sure if it'll ever come to fruition. I was going to advise my son to contact the other scoutmasters in our church area. (We have 8 or so of what are called wards in our stake area.) It would seem most reasonable to just ask them about joining up for camping. I do not know if they camp o
  9. christineka
    I'm trying to get my son to take care of communication that is appropriate for him. When he finishes a merit badge requirement, I have him contact the merit badge counselor. (Totally reasonable, I think.) We've found out that the community troop isn't going to work with our schedule. He wants to go camping more often with boy scouts, however. Should I have him contact the various boy scout troops in the area to ask if he can go on campouts with them? Or is that the sort of thing I, as parent should do? On the one hand, it's an odd request, on the other, he's the one that wants to earn
  10. christineka
    Good news- We were told today at a meeting with a "high ranking authority" in the church that the LDS church will continue their sponsorship of BSA. The gay leader thing is not a problem, since sex is not a part of Boy Scouting. I do sincerely hope, however, that LDS scout leaders will get the training they need and the desire to run the program as it should be, so that it is a positive experience for our boys.
  11. christineka
    Most of the kids also attend public school, too. The kids see all kinds of things there. I've heard and read complaints from lds about lds scouting for years before now. There are even blog posts about it. Many lds wanted out of scouting before this ruling.
  12. christineka
    This came across my facebook feed today. It's not just me, saying LDS parents want to ditch the scouting program. http://utahpolicy.com/index.php/features/today-at-utah-policy/6694-poll-majority-of-utah-mormons-want-lds-church-to-leave-the-boy-scouts My question is: If we ditch bsa on account of the flaky way it's being implemented at the local level, will anything change if the church comes up with some other program? It will be the same leaders! The LDS church embraced boy scouts shortly after it came to America- way back in the early 1900s. I understand things were less regula
  13. christineka
    As far as I understand it, the LDS church is re-evaluating their participation in bsa regarding the way the vote was taken (when bsa knew they'd be out on vacation), rather than the outcome of the vote. The LDS members in general can't wait till the church pulls out of BSA and I think it has nothing to do with bsa allowing gay leaders and everything to do with the way the program is being run on the local church level in addition to the inequality between programs for boys and girls in the church. The girls from 8-18 get a wholly spiritual program, while the boys are told to do religious
  14. christineka
    In my son's case it's that he's "supposed" to be a member of the church troop, but it sucks, so he is going to be in a traditional community troop as well.
  15. christineka
    Are you sure? I've been told several times that a boy can be in two troops at the same time. Do you have a link to an official statement on this?
  16. christineka
    I wouldn't know- I've never tried it.
  17. christineka
    Uh, how the heck? I thought merit badge counselors were supposed to be "experts". If the counselor can't play, how does he know if the scout has played correctly?
  18. christineka
    I think all this discussion on Trail Life is pointless. I'm fairly certain the LDS church is not going to want to be associated with another church's program for boys, especially one that requires a statement of faith. As an LDS, I never can join the groups with those faith statements because my faith does not line up with theirs. The LDS church does already have a program for boys under age 12, who do not have the option to join a cub scout program. It's the same as their program for Girls: Activity Days. The older boys already have an organization. They attend mutual weekly. Boy scout
  19. christineka
    I think there's some overlap in there. Kids are in primary until their 12th birthday, which is why 11 year old lds scouts are kept separate from the 12+
  20. christineka
    I encouraged my son to take camp type badges, but also let him make his own choices. It didn't help that our troop was not on top of things and signed up late, so the options were not so many. he took lifesaving, basketry, archery, rifle shooting, wilderness survival, archaeology, and art. He could have done archaeology and art at home, but he managed to get them done at camp (and before, since they had pre-requisites.)
  21. christineka
    I looked at the list of merit badges available at camp and was surprised what was on the list. I never was a boy scout, but was a girl scout, and did attend a boy scout family camp every spring for years. I think camp should be full of fun camp kinds of stuff- like boating, swimming, hiking, backpacking, rock climbing, nature and nature-y type stuff, shooting sports, as well as the typical camp crafts, like leather work or basketry. I let my son choose what he wished, though. I expected partials. He has now completed all camp badges, except archery, which he may just have to retake at cam
  22. christineka
    I talked to one scout's mom to see if there were any more campouts than what I'd known about. She said there weren't (and her son even camped one less night than my son, due to being sick.), but she also wants to know about more campouts that her son can go on. It seems very wrong for a scout troop to go on one, non-residential campout within 6 months. I have a feeling scoutmaster has no idea what order of the arrow is all about and just nominated several boys, not telling them what they were getting into. I will ask son how that went.
  23. christineka
    One of the requirements to earn the bugling merit badge is to be the troop bugler for 3 months. I recommend appointing kid to troop bugler after he is somewhat proficient on the instrument, not when he begins work on the badge, if he has never played a brass instrument before.
  24. christineka
    Thanks for bringing up the mouthpiece! I bought a rexcraft bugle and tried playing it. I wondered what was wrong with me, because the tone sounded awful. Then, I tried a regular trumpet mouthpiece and it was pretty good. (The rexcraft bugle still has some intonation issues.) I later bought a Mogul replica bugle. Again, the mouthpiece that came with it was garbage and made playing difficult. A standard trumpet mouthpiece makes it a nice instrument. (It can play the lowest bugle ton for "Call to Quarters", but is pitched at b-flat, so harder for a beginner to play.)
  25. christineka
    My older boy went through the program. (Wolf-Arrow of Light) Now it's my little boy's turn. I was a little bored with it, because I'd already done wolf, but the program has now changed, so it'll be a new adventure for Bears on. My boys have very different personalities. My older son is a "getter done" kinda kid. (Or he was, before he turned into a lazy tween.) Little boy wants to get it done, but he has some pretty bad attention deficit issues, which makes getting it done difficult.
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