DeanRx

I don't know if we have a Internet policy for our unit. We do have a website and FB page... mostly to share info and pictures of activities via FB. I have two or three scouts that have friended me via FB. I accepted their request. I would not seek out or send a friend request to a scout (for reasons other posters have stated). I don't see a problem with it. FB is MUCH more transparent and retrievable than a private e-mail or phone call (both of which I have routinely with scouts as an ASM and MBC to set up meetings / classes / SM conferences / Etc). I don't see how this is a YPT i

Sounds like you guys handled the situation well. As to where the lad is picking this stuff up? Youtube or a porn site? Hmmmm, maybe. I'd venture to guess its a little closer to home. Does this lad or any of his close friends have an older brother? One say in late high school or early college? Good bet he picked it up from a slightly older male aquantance that he views as being "cool", thus imitates the behavoir to seem "cool" too. In our troop, I can almost without exception tell you which boys have older siblings (especially older brothers) and who has younger siblings. Thos wi

In a perfect world, maybe. Truth is, if a parent is in a leadership role, the lad is more likely to show up, thus have more opportunities. In order for the adult leader to step back, it requires a new adult leader to step up! That is the crux of many a discussion on this board and others. Usually, new blood is not willing to take the reigns until the outgoing SM, ASMs have one foot out the door. You resign as SM when you son is a Life scout, there may not be a troop left for him to complete Eagle in !! Truth is - most kids with adult leader parents put in more time and are held to a mo

No need to get upset or fight about rules and regs verbatim... TW (tightwad) - "Its too cold outside for the scouts..." Me-"OK, do you have a substitue activity ready for them indoors? I'm all ears. The boys wanted to go outside. They'll come in if they are cold." TW - "They need flashlights / supervision / etc..." Me-"Great, can you go stand outside and SUPERVISE the activity for me? Do you have any flashlights in your car you can loan out?" TW - "G2SS says.... the rules state...." Me-"Hmmm, can you SHOW ME where this is? If I see it in writing, we'll (the SM and AS

Was at the Troop meeting last night (I'm a ASM). One of the ASPLs were going around to the adults and asking if there were enough committe members in attendance to take care of a couple BORs. He had two adult committee members lined up, then asked a 3rd. The 3rd guy looks at the ASPL and states, "I don't have time tonight - I'm just here for a few minutes to drop , I have to go to Costco soon." Then committee member hung out for about 20 more minutes before departing before the end of the troop meeting ?!?!? I believe they still got the BORs done, but had to wait awhile as they were

Or if you don't take it out of the back of dad's new pickup truck bed, you better be ready to spend more than 1 night in your "shelter" !

Got a question for the boards. Our unit is in the process of planning a unit golf tournament fundraiser. Already got an OK on it from local council. At a meeting the other night, it was brought up about alcohol on the course. The following applies to our fundraiser: 1) The beverage and food sales are ran by the course and the unit gets no % of said sales as part of the fundraiser. 2) The beverages would be offered via "beer cart" on the course that the golf course routinely opperates as part of its daily business 3) We will be having a dinner afterwards, with auction, etc... only non

DC - I won't knock a "small" troop, but one that is too small to be considered just one patrol is really doing a disservice to the scouts. It really does very little to build a lads leadership skills when the SPL is really just a glorified PL position. If there are less than 10 youth in the unit, how does a older scout have enough younger scouts to lead? Conversely, what happens if you have a gap in membership... you can easily end up with all scouts less than 13 years of age and no one above 1st class rank. Who is going to the be youth leadership in such a troop? You pretty much would be

I say do both open invite and targeted asking of a given individual. There is a two-fold reason for this... 1) You might miss out on a leader that is just waiting to be invited. 2) When you target a certain person for a given position, you get to have a say in who does what. But, if that is prefaced with an "open invite", you will avoid the possibilty of playing favorites or "hand picking" your committee / etc... Same reason I ALWAYS anounced committee / adult leader meetings at the pack show. I never wanted a parent to be able to say they weren't asked to provide input. The couple

Ea. sorry your "ideal" doesn't line up with your son's / D-I-Ls plan for how life will shake out... but its theirs to lead, the more your push, the more pushback you are likely to encounter. Its not worth it. Fins a unit in need and volunteer some time. Maybe try something you haven't done in BSA before? Go get certified as a rangemaster and go out on weekends to the local council camp and rangemaster for the visiting units, etc... As someone who was a CM for 5+ years and now cycling in for round two with my younger boy as a DL.... understand that just because the current CM / SM d

I think the First Class scout as a lad who should be able to take care of himself on a cmapout and not be a burden to his peers / leader. He knows how to plan a meal, how to shop it, how to cook it, what to pack, what type of gear / shelter he needs for a given outing. A first class scout is self sufficent / independent. I have had / seen a few boys rush this "trail to first class" and it only hurts themsleves and possibly the troop. My own son was a little disappointed b/c it took him a little over 18 months in Boy Scouts to get to First Class. However, I reminded him that its better

Yeah Skeptic I'd bet this is true of the media with regards to most anything... they like to villianize anything they can to get readership or get you to turn in to the nightly news. Anything that purports itself to be "good", BSA, youth pastor, school teacher, cop, etc... is automatically a lightening rod if / when something bad happens anywhere close to the "good" thing. It makes the news that more sensational, eh?

first of all, I use climbing webbing, at least 1in thick, as it causes less damage to the tree. I use a timber hitch on one end, but then secure the hitch with a bowline to the standing end of the line to prevent movement / slippage... I make sure this end is wrapped at least twice around the tree trunk to help distribute weight and not cause bark damage. I do the same for the other end, but use a TL hitch so that I can adjust the hieght of the hammock. Once I have the right height, I tie a modified truckers hitch around the webbing going to the tree trunk. This will stop any slipping of t

We just got some new patrol gear for our Troop. One of the items in each patrol box is now a dining fly. The first thing the SM did was cut off the "friction" ties on the guy-lines to the fly tarp... "It'll force the lads to use the taught-line hitch for its intended purpose". We are toying with the idea of ripping through one of the eyelets on each tarp as well to force the use of the sheet bend, but can't quite bring ourselves to break brand new gear. I don't think knots are the end-all be-all of scouting, but kind of like first aid, if you don't use it you tend to loose it.... so lo

Ding Dong, I've met Larry the cable guy.... please don't insult HIS intellect by lumping him in with these idiots in need of a village.

I'd echo a lot of what others have stated... If I'd have to vote, it would be "I like BSA". Do I love national? Nope, but without them there is no program to carry out at the unit level. I think they could do a MUCH better job at marketing and do even get me started on both my personal beliefs with regards to membership policy and more so the PR nightmare Irving has created for the brand. However, even this seems to be moving in a more inclusive, it at least DADT direction. Do I like my council / district? Depends. Council can be a pain in the butt to deal with. They are second onl

So been an ASM for my son's troop for a little over a year now, was CM in cubbie-land for 3 years prior to that after beginning as a DL for Tiger and Wolf year. Troop is pretty well organized and runs pretty smooth with about 30 active kids with a paper roster of about 45. I just signed up and got approved via the council service center as a MBC for 4 MBs (camping, medicine, geocaching, and family life). If there is one thing I've learned in the last 6 years as a leader of one sort or another, its that each new hat you put on comes with unique challenges, roses and thorns that you might kno

If you don't know WHO your unit UC is, count yourself lucky. I've only met one, but as a cubmaster, he was successful in inviting himself to unit functions (most often when we were having food and wanting to each without paying as a "guest of honor"). In addition, he would attempt to tell me and the CC how to run our unit, to the point that my female CC finally QUIT over being micromanaged and some off-color female remarks he made... One of my final acts as CM was to ask him to stop attending any unit functions and I had to threaten to get the DE involved to make that happen. We had

If you don't know WHO your unit UC is, count yourself lucky. I've only met one, but as a cubmaster, he was successful in inviting himself to unit functions (most often when we were having food and wanting to each without paying as a "guest of honor"). In addition, he would attempt to tell me and the CC how to run our unit, to the point that my female CC finally QUIT over being micromanaged and some off-color female remarks he made... One of my final acts as CM was to ask him to stop attending any unit functions and I had to threaten to get the DE involved to make that happen. We had

The problem with your assumption about only using 1/4 of what you were taught in day to day business, is that if you were working for another business, you might need a different 1/4, or maybe 1/8 in common, 1/8 of different material. Yeah Perdidochas, you might be right about that. However, some of the very in depth infectious disease stuff, or the neonatal pharmacokinetics stuff, or the pscyhology stuff, etc... really isn't "needed" for 90% of day to day practitioners. The problem, even within medicine, is that EVERY sub-specialty thinks THEIR discipline is the most important. Thus,

I've seen about 4 interviews with Mr. Rowe on thsi subject now. I think he makes some valid points, the largest of which is the disparity between what most colleges THINK you need as curriculum for a degree and what business NEEDS you to have. In my own profession, I only use about 1/4 of what I was taught (even in the science and math sections) in my day to day business. In retrospect, if my college tract could have replaced some of the non-essential stuff with more communication (verbal and written) requirements, and more interpersonal relationship / psychology classwork, and some more em

Yeah Packsaddle, a pretty decent article regarding the issue. However, the author fails to mention ANYTHING about Mr. Obama's follow on comments, comparing Trayvon to himself 35 years ago and the " we need to spend some time in thinking about how do we bolster and reinforce our African American boys". That statement to me is openly biased and tiptoes upon being racist.

The only time you need bylaws, is after an event that you wish you had them for.... most often has to do with money or discipline. My 2 cents is that for the most part, by-laws are a waste of time and energy. The EXCEPTION to this rule is when $$ or discipline is involved. We had out cub pack chartered as a "frineds or..." for 3 years, no problem. Then the committee decided it would be a good idea to have ISA (individual scout accounts) - i.e. accounts with funds earmarked for a specific scout based on a % of their fundraising $ brought it. Ok cool. So, what can the scout use his ISA dol

If we have it... the wife and I (plus every other married registered leader in the unit) has broken that "rule" for the past 5 years.... I'd double check w/ your council on that... sounds like someone has a post-doc from UMSU (Univ of Making Stuff Up).

Sentinel, I might take a slight objection to your theory that blowing wind on these forums doesn't have anything to do with shaping real world events / causes... I know of at least one or two folks from national that troll on here (one that has posted that I know of). This forum and others like it were calling for a census so to speak for about the last 3 years regarding the membership policy criteria.... it finally happened. Now, it might be a coincidence, or maybe not, but the GOOD part about this forum is it allows for the discussion of topics that may not be kosher (to borrow the word)