clemlaw

The lore in our troop was that we had a patrol that decided it was too much work to go through the difficult process of cooking their Ramen noodles. So they just ate them raw. :-) In my days as a Scout, we learned that to make the pan easier to clean, you should coat the bottom of the pan with soap. That's good advice, but after one new scout was a little unclear on the concept, we had to clarify the advice slightly: You should put the soap on the outside of the pan. It turns out that if you cook pork chops in soap, the soap is absorbed, and no amount of scraping will remove it. O

I did jump through the hoops to re-register, and the Eagle Scout search is now at this site: http://network.scoutingalumni.org/ You do need to create an account at that site, but the good news is that it doesn't look like you need to be a NESA member. The bad news is that the search now reveals less information than it did previously. In particular, it does not show the date they became Eagle. It shows the Region where they got Eagle, but not the Council (although the Council information was often inaccurate, due to mergers over the years.) It shows the troop number and city of

NESA has a database of all Eagles, and includes their troop number, council, and EBOR date. (The council always appears to be the modern successor, so might not be accurate). Recently, NESA changed how you log into their site to get this information, and I have yet to figure out how to access the site. As far as I could tell, the information was available only to NESA members. Again, I'm not sure of the exact status, since I can't get there. I suspect that if it's a one-time request for information, you could just call NESA and they would be able to tell you. Also, Eagle Scouts wer

I was the candidate. If you have objections to the terminology, you'll have to take that up with the Mothers' Club of my old troop, which I assume probably printed them. I'm merely quoting. And everybody knew who they meant, especially after we were introduced.

I haven't been to one yet in our troop, since we've only had one Eagle since my son started, and I was out of town that day. But the ceremony is planned, and as far as I can tell, paid for, by the family. It doesn't seem to be a troop event. All of the scouts are invited guests, but it doesn't appear that they are expected to attend unless they have a personal connection with that scout (which is likely anyway, since it's a pretty small troop). This does strike me as slightly weird for a couple of reasons. First of all, it seems kind of weird that the family is expected to plan and pay

My ECOH in 1978 included an "Eagle Scout Charge," and according to the program, that was done by the DE. That was followed by the "Eagle Scout Investiture," which I believe was when the medal was pinned on my uniform. That was done by the Scoutmaster as well as the guest speaker, who was a minister who I believe was a family friend of the other scout becoming an Eagle that day. All Eagles in the audience were called upon to come forward and gave the scout sign, but I believe they gave the Scout Oath and/or Law, although I could be mistaken. I don't have any recollection of taking any sp

About five years ago, when my son was in Cub Scouts, I decided it would be a good idea to sign up as a merit badge counselor. There was a training session at University of Scouting, so I went to that. Nobody told me that there were "troop counselors" now, so I was quite surprised when people asked what troop I was with, and I told them I wasn't with one. Most of the discussion focused on how they did things in their troop. Some of them were actually surprised to learn that you didn't have to be connected with a troop. None of my merit badges are Eagle required, and so far, I have yet t

Google Books still has them back to 1971: https://books.google.com/books?id=e_0DAAAAMBAJ&dq=scouting+magazine&source=gbs_all_issues_r&cad=1&atm_aiy=1970#all_issues_anchor IIRC, that's as far as they went back on the BSA's site. I have seen older issues online other places, although I don't think there's a complete collection.

I remember one of our scouts said he always got homesick. About two days after getting home, he was sick of it and wanted to go camping again.

In 1986, one of my council's summer camps, Many Point Scout Camp (then known as Many Point Scout Reservation) buried a time capsule on the occasion of its 40th anniversary. That was unearthed this year and the contents displayed. One of the most interesting items were cards filled out by all of the troops attending. I paged through a few hundred of them and found the one from my old troop, which is now defunct. It listed all of the leaders and scouts. Since I had aged out 7 years before, I didn't recognize any of the names, although a couple of the last names looked familiar. I did kn

At my blog today, I have some stories of Boy Scouts who served as civilian defense volunteers during the Second World War. I started out planning a short piece, but I got sidetracked by some of the stories of British Scouts who served their country during the war. In particular, I have the story of Derrick Belfall, a 14 year old scout from Bristol, England, who served as a civil defense messenger. During an air raid on December 2, 1940, he was sent with a message, which he delivered. On his return to his post, he passed a house that had caught fire, and he stopped to fight the fire.

I was under the impression that it was required, but I really don't know for sure. It's listed on my scouting.org training as follows: [TABLE] [TR] [TD]D76[/TD] [TD]Merit Badge Counselor Orientation[/TD] [TD]10/30/2010[/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE] It was basically just a one-hour overview of the Merit Badge process, and was given as a session at our council's University of Scouting. Since I thought it was required, I took it. It does make sense that it shouldn't be required, though. Or if it is, there really ought to be an online version available. I

IMHO, it's more an issue of "a Scout is courteous" more than one of "a Scout is reverent." If a unit consisting of Jewish Scouts wants to have an activity on Christmas, I think that would be wonderful. On the other hand, if there were one or more Christian members, it would probably be best to avoid that date. Similarly, in a unit made up mostly of Christians, it would be best to avoid scheduling events on Jewish holy days if there are any Jewish members (or potential members, if it's scheduled far in advance).

It turns out that the occasional objection that Boy Scouts are being "trained as soldiers" is nothing new. A hundred years ago today, an editorial to that effect appeared in a Tacoma newspaper. I have the full article at my blog: http://onetuberadio.com/category/scouting/ Interestingly, one thing I didn't know was that (at least according to this author), the "Boy Scout movement has been opposed by members of union labor in almost all countries where it has been organized." It never occurred to me that Scouting might be "anti-labor", but at least this guy seemed to think so.

Good. Then nobody would notice if I took two happy meals (with two toys, of course).

Ah say, that's a joke son. But it would have been fun to show that Scouts know how to deal with catastrophic problems. So if they forgot to order any food, a Scout is Cheerful, so someone picks up the phone and says: "Hello, McDonald's? We'd like 40,000 Happy Meals. We'll be there to pick them up in about an hour. Toys? 35,000 boys and 5,000 girls."

I was there for a week as staff, and my overall impression would be "some things sucked, but mostly nice stuff". Actually, I went there with the expectation that something big would go wrong, and I was actually a little disappointed that it didn't. There did seem to be some glitches, such as the understaffed zip lines. But overall, I didn't see any major disasters. Again, I was expecting some major catastrophe (along the lines of, "oops, we forgot to order any food") but it never happened. I only saw a couple of casts on Scouts, and I assumed that most of them had arrived that way.

The quantity of the lunches was actually OK. I had one or two items left over every day, so I had a small collection of snacks to eat on the way home. However, it did seem somewhat unsatisfying to have it be all "snack" items. I think it would have been more satisfying if at least one item was of a larger size, such as a sandwich. I solved the problem by taking one or two extra items at breakfast. I know some people took fruit, but I took some slices of bread or a bagel, and I was able to turn one of the lunch items into a "sandwich". Beef sticks between two slices of bread seemed mo

I'm a counselor for Scouting Heritage. I'm not connected with any particular troop--I'm just on the Council list waiting for the phone to ring, which hasn't happened yet. I did do it at a "Merit Badge University" type event, and I was quite disappointed that most of the scouts (despite be instructed to do so) didn't really bother to read the merit badge pamphlet, or even the requirements. To encourage them to do so if I do it again, I made the following web page which outlines my expectations, and has some ideas about sources of information: http://www.w0is.com/scouting/ScoutingHerit

I'm now able to answer my own question. Since I'm on the staff for the second week (starting Thursday), I asked the staff that's already there. I only have to carry my stuff a couple of hundred yards. Since I already decided to leave my rock collection at home, I should be able to handle that. I was afraid that the answer was going to be in terms of miles rather than yards. :-)

I'm probably the only person here who was the parent of an actual Lion in the Northern Star Council. We did Lions with another Pack and then had to change Packs due to a meeting night conflict. The main advantage of the program is that you get them signed up when they are young. Some other activities start in Kindergarten, and if you don't get them then, they might be booked. For us, the program worked out really well, and to a large extent, our Pack is doing it based on my son's experiences and what worked well for him. What I have encouraged is for the Lions to take part in as m

I might leave the rock collection at home, and I'll probably bring some extra underwear either way. But I'm also wondering about the chair. If the bus drops me off at the front door of my tent, then I'll probably bring it. But if I have to carry it a mile (uphill both ways, I'm told), I don't mind sitting on the ground. :-)

I'll be working the second week at the Summit Center (K2BSA amateur radio), and I believe I'll be housed in Camp Echo. Apparently, that's a 45 minute hike. With all of the various warnings about needing to be in shape, I assumed that I would have a long hike from the bus when I get there to my camp. Therefore, my general plan was to pack light. But last week, I got an e-mail warning people who use CPAP machines that they should bring extra batteries. Apparently, that went to everyone, because it doesn't apply to me. At first, I was thinking that it's probably not a good idea to expect

Scout: That skit deserves the 288 cheer! Confused audience member: What's the 288 cheer? Scout: 144 is one gross. That skit was too gross! Audience: Groan

I'll be on staff the second week, so I guess I'll never find out who Carly Rae Jepsen is. But I guess this will be my big chance to see Train. Bob Hope was at the 1973 Jamboree (at least in Idaho, which is the one I attended). I remember being a little bit surprised, since he was already what I considered to be "very old" at the time. But he was a big hit with the rest of the scouts in my troop. The only thing I remember about the actual show was that there was a stern warning the flash photography was not allowed. When the show started, flashes were going off everywhere. I susp