Eagle92

here are some examples I don't see wiht BS advancement Ordinary: Explain the use of charcoal, pressurized alcohol, and propane. Include safety precautions for each. Successfully complete a boating safety course approved by the National Association of State Boating Law Administrators (NASBLA) offered by one of the following agencies: a state boating agency, the United States Power Squadrons, the United States Coast Guard Auxiliary, or other private or military education courses. 16. ElectivesDo any three of the following: a. Drill: Demonstrate your ability to execute commands in close-order drill. b. Yacht Racing: Describe the procedures used in yacht racing and the signals used by the race committee to start a race. Serve as a crew member in a race sailed under current International Sailing Federation Rules. c. Sailing: In a cat-rigged or similar small vessel, demonstrate your ability to sail single-handedly a triangular course (leeward, windward, and reaching marks). Demonstrate beating, reaching, and running. A qualified sailing instructor should observe this requirement. e. Engines: Perform routine maintenance on your ships propulsion system, including filter, spark plug, oil changes, proper fueling procedures and other routine maintenance tasks. Refer to operations manuals or your ships adult leaders for correct procedures and guidance. f. USPS: Join a local Power Squadron as an Apprentice member. USCGAux: Successfully complete either the Coast Guard Auxiliary Boating Skills and Seamanship or Sailing Skills and Seamanship course. All core sessions, as well as at least three elective sessions, must be completed to fulfill this requirement. Able 14. ElectivesDo any three of the following. a. Sailing: While leading a crew of not less than two other persons, demonstrate your ability to sail a sloop or another suitable vessel correctly and safely over a triangular course (leeward, windward, reaching marks), demonstrating beating, reaching, running, and the proper commands. b. Vessels: Teach and lead a crew under oar using a boat pulling at least four oars single- or double-banked. Perform the following maneuvers: get underway, maneuver ahead and back, turn the boat in its own length, dock, and secure. c. Drill: Demonstrate your ability to give and execute commands in close-order drill. d. Engines: i. Understand the safe and proper procedures for the use of gasoline and diesel inboard engines, including fueling, pre-start checks, ventilation, starting, running, periodic checks while running, securing, postoperative checks, and keeping an engine log. ii. Using the type of engine aboard the vessel you most frequently use, demonstrate your understanding of basic troubleshooting and the preventive maintenance schedule recommended by the manufacturer. e. Yacht Racing: i. Demonstrate your understanding of the shapes, flag hoists, gun, and horn signals used in yacht racing as well as a working knowledge of the racing rules of the International Sailing Federation. ii. Serve as helmsman, with one or more additional crew members, of a sloop-rigged or other suitable boat with a spinnaker in a race sailed under ISAF racing rules. f. Complete the American Red Cross Standard First Aid course. g. Obtain CPR certification from a certified agency. h. Fiberglass Repair and Maintenance: Demonstrate your proficiency and knowledge of fiberglass repair and gel coating while working on your ships vessel or other similar vessel. i. Specialty Proficiency: Become a certified scuba diver or become proficient in boardsailing, surfing, kayaking, or whitewater rafting/canoeing. j. USPS: As an apprentice member of the United States Power Squadrons complete the Seamanship and Piloting courses or USCGAux: Successfully complete the Coast Guard Auxiliary Weekend Navigator course. QM Quartermaster Cruise: Take command of a vessel with a crew of not less than four Sea Scouts for at least 40 consecutive hours, including two nights. You must delegate and supervise all duties. During the cruise complete the following: Inspect the vessel for required equipment; supervise all menu preparation; prepare the boat to get underway with a proper checklist approved by the adult leaders; anchor, dock, and maintain course by commands to the helmsman; remain underway for an extended period during darkness; and discuss appropriate nighttime running procedures. While underway, perform the following drills: man overboard, damage control, abandon ship, fire, collision, and any other drills used by your ship. During this cruise no substantial errors may be committed. or Successfully complete SEAL (Sea Scout Advanced Leadership) training. Swimming Either complete the requirements for BSA Lifeguard or complete a Red Cross lifesaving course or other certified lifesaving course. MY COMMENTS: BSA LIFEGUARD AND ARC ARE THE SAME NOW. I PERSONALLY THINK THIS REQURIEMENT NEED TO BE REVISED TO INCLUDE BOAT RESUES VIA AQUATIC SUPERVISOR CERTIFICATION FOR BOATING. ( caps to state opinion.) 13. ElectivesDo any four of the following. a. Sailing: Know the principles of handling a schooner, ketch, yawl, or other suitable sailing vessel. Under competent direction, take charge of a crew and demonstrate your ability to handle a suitable sailing vessel in all points of sail. b. Engines: i. Explain the principal features of steam turbine, turboelectric, direct reversing diesel, diesel-electric, gas turbine, nuclear, gasoline, and diesel engines and the relative advantages of each type. ii. Explain the operation of spark ignition and compression ignition for internal combustion engines used aboard small vessels. iii. Demonstrate your familiarity with the engine aboard the vessel used by your ship, including its principles of operation, fuel, lubrication, cooling and electrical systems, and their component parts. iv. Demonstrate your ability to locate and correct minor engine troubles according to the engine manufacturers troubleshooting guide. c. Vessel Maintenance: Take charge of reconditioning or overhauling at least one of your ships vessels, or take charge of hauling out the principal vessel used by your ship. In either case, lay out a plan of the work to be done in advance, including an estimate of the materials, tools, cost, and time involved. d. Electricity: i. Know and demonstrate the correct method of rescuing a person in contact with a live wire. ii. Understand the construction of simple battery cells. Demonstrate the proper care of storage batteries. iii. Explain the difference between direct current and alternating current and the best uses for each. iv. Demonstrate that you know how to replace fuses, reset circuit breakers, and properly splice shipboard electric cable. v. Submit a diagram of the electrical system aboard the vessel used by your ship. vi. Explain wire tables, the current-carrying capacity of circuits, and the hazards and prevention of electrical overloading. vii. Explain electrolysis as applied to the deterioration of a boats underwater fittings by galvanic action and its prevention. e. Navigation: i. Explain how the sextant works. Show how to use it and demonstrate measuring horizontal angles and altitudes. ii. Find latitude by the altitude of Polaris or by the suns altitude at local apparent noon. Demonstrate how longitude is determined. iii. Demonstrate finding error in the boats compass by the suns azimuth. f. Drill: Demonstrate your ability to handle the ships company in close-order drill. Do all required maneuvers. g. Piloting: Under competent direction, assume the duties of navigator of your ships vessel. Plot its projected course between two ports at least two hours apart and cruise that course mooring to mooring handling all piloting duties. The cruise should be made in daylight hours with good visibility. h. Yacht Racing Crew: Take charge of a crew in a race using current ISAF racing rules. i. Rigging: Demonstrate your ability to splice and handle wire rope, attach wire rope fittings, and complete a safety and tuning inspection of a ship vessel. j. USPS: As an apprentice member of the United States Power Squadrons complete the Advanced Piloting course. k. USCGAux: Join a local Coast Guard Auxiliary flotilla as a Basic Qualified member and qualify for any Operational Auxiliary Program (AUXOP) or Trident Marine Safety specialty rating.

As someone who did JROTC ceremonies as well as scouting ones, may I comment? There are several factors that go into how a Cub holds a flag: their strength and size are factors, but also the weight and height of the flag and flagpole. One thing myu pack did when it started was get a set of white flag carrier belts. They are adjustable, and help the cubs. An aside. When I worked summer camp staff we had a crusty, old retired Marine MGnySgt drill the staff on how to put up and take down the flags. Since we were older Scouts, Sea Scouts, Explorers, and leaders, he held us to a very, very high standard and was demanding when we practiced during staff week. But with new Scouts in his FYC program, he had the patience of a saint. And don't get me started on him and Cubs. Yes I saw a tear trickle down when he watched some Cubs do a flag ceremony, even if it was a Chinese fire drill and the leader had to help out.

Back in the day Camp Avondale in Istrouma Area Council had a "Hunting Weekend" that they did every few years. In addition to you LA license, you had to have a special Camp Avondale License if memory serves. The Hunt did 2 things. 1) Raise money for the council. 2) Thin the herd to prevent overpopulation.

Contact National Supply and see if they have any green 'Venturing, BSA" strips that they are giving away. When Exploring split in 1998, Supply was giving away those strips so that folks with Exploring shirts could remove that strip and repalce it. Problem is depending upon how much use the shirt has, the strip may be a different shade than the shirt. That was my case and I still have my Exploring strip on it. BUT it also has District insignia on it.

Sailing SSSSSHHHHHHHHHHSSSHSHSHHSHSHSHH Don't say that out loud or national by put restrictions on the stuff ya do. As it is right now, somethings that Boy Scouts use to do they are no longer able to, and oen reason is OSHA laws. Now how did laws dealing wiht business safety come to affect a volunteer org, I can onlu imagine.

CITO, that's because i beleive national took over all the council websites. You use to have different looks and what not. Now they are all almost identical.

Sailing, When I talk about QM to non-Sea Scout folks, I talk about how it's "equivelent to Eagle," and then go into some details about the requirements. Calico, Unfortuantely for Eagle, all you have to do is be on the charter to meet the "Active" definition, unless the GtA changed that. For the Sea Scout ranks, active means attending 75% of all unit meetings and activities. So just being on a ship's charter won't count. I cannot remember all the requirements and electives, but 2 come to mind. Drill, yes military drill based upon the NavMC 2691 Drill manual, is one of the electives, and I was the "Specialist" for my ship when we tried to implement it since it is a traditional Sea Scout skill that is still used and part of their competitions. The other one that blew my mind was the engineering for nuclear vessals.

Learn something new everyday. Actually Scoutstuff is navigatable IF you speek suppliese. Seriously though, absolute search engine is EBSCOHOST. Grant you it has a lot of information and resources there, hence the fee for organizations to use it, BUT it will eventually get you the info you need.

I knew of one long term volunteer who never married. I thought he was a widower, but found out at his funeral otherwise. The only time he was not registered with the BSA since becoming a CS way back when, was when he was overseas serving in WWII, Korea, and Vietnam. Reflecting on conversations with him that I had, and knowing a little about him, I'm willign to bet two things kept him form getting married: love of the Corps and the BSA. I know I had some weird looks and questions arise when as young leader new to an area I looked to join troops. But eventually the folks came to understand why I was involved. Anyway back to the OP. Trust your instincts.

I'm a librarian, trained to use databases and search engines and make them dance on my fingertips. But the Scouting.org is the second absolute worse search engine I have enver encountered. Only reason it's not the worse is I've found a simple 'backdoor" method of searching that I cannot use with the worse search engine since I have to pay for that one and it's password protected. Anyway here's the back door search method. Go to GOOGLE, type in the term you are looking for an in quotation marks SCOUTING.ORG. For example if you are looking for Bear den plans, you would type in the following bear den plan and "scouting.org" Please note the bold is emphasis. The google results, and you can use any web search engine, will do a heck of a better job getting results than the BSA's search engine. Hope it helps.

All the above. I'm in a small community and just about everything is newsworthy.

One thing I like about my DC, he doesn't forget the Cubs. DC and my UC showed up at a CS event this weekend to walk around, talk, and see how things were going. Plus I was doing the same thing, as well as scoping out the camp for CSDC use since it has been logged and more places are available. But Yes UCs need to go out there and interact with the units.

We had good relations with the other troops overall in the district. While my troop didn't do any HA activities per se, several of our leaders did organize district level HA trips that members participated in. Principly 2 trips to Canada, and 1 trip to Jambo and Canada. Usually we knew which troops were goign places and doing things, and announcements would be made that X number of spots are available to go with Troop 123.

It's been a long time since I did UC training, but if memory serves one of the things that UCs do is an annual uniform inspection. That's why my district incorporated the inspection as a camporee event. But the keys here are communicate with the unit leaders, don't just spring up on them, and BE POSITIVE. Give you an example from last nite. One of the Cubs in my pack had his WC in the wrong place, as well as his new Wolf patch in the holder. I talked to him and his parents, corrected the Wolf patch with a joke, " just because they put your advancment bag with the Bears by accident, doesn't mean you get to wear your Wolf badge where the Bear badge goes." And for the WC i just pointed out where it goes, what it means, and that it's the one badge that every scout wears. Again being positive. Oh and I congratulated him on getting his Wolf badge.

It's a collector's SET (emphasis) and meant to be purchased as a whole in the case. Kinda like the Skill Award Sets they came out with in 2000 or there abouts, whci I do have since I traded entire belt with all the Skill Awards for a British necker, only to find out that they not only disconintued the SAs, but also quit makingthem several months before and there were shortages of them. But hey the necker was nice and she was a cute Scout. I just wish I could afford Eagle badges. But that price will pay for two of my kids to go to CSDC, and the gas back and forth.

RS, The folks running the original site did an OUTSTANDING job. However national has since taken it over.

Even if he is he or she is A) giving us good info and B) getting input from the field. I've known some national folks who wouldn't take advice and recommendations from those of us that are closer to the field than they are, and know what is needed/wanted. Good news is that it looks like some of the PTB are getting the message and Supply is getting some good stuff now, i.e. Wisperlites, jet boils, etc. Bad news is that they are still coming up with some crazy stuff, i.e. CS jeans,and other clearance stuff that folks could have told them, and in the case of the AOL belt buckle DID tell them, won't sell.

to reiterate what everyone else said: OH HECK YEAH, LET THEM DO IT!

Forgot to add, the promo videos, "What did you do this weekend" are working. My oldest, who is a Bear, saw two or three of them and said, "I want to be a Sea Scout." And when he found out I did not earn QM, he said with a smile, "I want to be a QM!" An aside, while I want the kid to have fun, grow physically, mentally, and morally, I pray I do not put pressure on him as I've seen others do, nor do i hope he feels he's living in my shadow.

Did someone mention me? My biggest regret in Scouting is not joining the other ship in my council and earning QM. I got as far as Ordinary, and that was pushing my ship to do the BORs as we were not a traditional ship. The other ship would have been a 1.25 hour oneway drive, but in retrospect, they would have been a better fit for what I was looking for. Yes I had fun with my ship, but it was more fun and not challenging. I met 2 QMs in my old council, ok one was an Able working on QM when I worked with him at camp and he got it after I left the council, and I attended the funeral of 1 gentleman who earned Eagle, QM, and Exploring Silver. My interest in Sea Scouting came about because they had a display at a scout show next to my troop's. I filled out paperwork, showed up when they said they meet, and nothing. they were not there. I never received a call,and later found out the ship disbanded shortly after the scout show. A year or two after that, one of the new ASMs we got showed up wearing a blue knot with a white background. he was the first living QM I met, and the stories he told about his ship and their adventures, WOW!!!!! At 18 I found out that a ship existed nearby and I joined it. I didn't know it at the time, but it was not a traditional ship, but I believe would be called a "white fleet" ship that didn't focus on the traditional Sea Scout program, but was more in line with career interest Exploring. Again It wasn't meeting my needs, and I left after getting Ordinary. The OA was what fullfilled those needs. When my council's Pamlico Sea Base was created, although I had nothing to do with the planning, I was assigned ot it as staff for a week, and am a plankowner. I am proud of PSB and think it is a great opportunity not only for Sea Scouts, but everyone. And I hope the new director restarts the ship. Getting back to the OP, OH HECK YEAH THE QM IS HARDER THAN EAGLE! (and yes I am shouting this scouting "blasphemy" as an Eagle ) Just look at the first requirement of the ranks, and i'm paraphrasing here, Be active... attend 75% of your ships meetings and activities for XYZ time. Comparing attend 75% of meetings and activities to "being registered onthe charter," and that is a big, more difficult. difference right there. HOWEVER I will say this: Boy Scouts and Sea Scouts do have their strengths and weaknesses. While Sea Scouts do have the advantage over Boy Scouts in what is a traditional Scouting skill, i.e. knots and splices part of Pioneering in Boy Scouts and Marlinspike Seamanship in Sea Scouts, I know with the exception of 3 Sea Scouts who were also Boy Scouts, none of the folks in my ship, youth and officer alike, knew how to really camp. The three of us had to really take care of the ship on our cruise. BUT I can only name a handfull of Boy Scouts who could operate a ship underway. One was also a Sea Scout, and one was working on his pilot's license after doing summers in Maine of some of the tall ships. He eventually did join Sea Scouts after moving, but don't know if he got QM. I do know he's a nautical engineer.

A few comments. 1) back int eh day when I was a GASer (Gray Area Scouter, i.e. 18-20) I had to pay 2 fees because I was both a youth and an adult. once I turned 21, one fee covered all three positions. One of my friends was in a similar boat, registered as a youth with the Ship, but an adult with his troop. 2) yes it is a nightmare to fix the MBC list. One person took it on as his ticket item. It was the hardest one to do, but he did in in 16 months or thereabouts.

I aint going cause I will have 2 cubs. BUT I may visit since I found out a fried of mine has some land within 30 minutes of the site.

NJ, Now this is hearsay, so please bear with me, but I was told that discrepancies in appeals occur because the appeal board looks at all the factors involved. Plus I am assumming that each appeal board is composed of different folks.

beav, DON'T DO THAT AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Seriously, that was quite a scare.

SP, There is a wee bit more to the story. I'll PM ya with details if ya want, but they are not pretty. Let's just say that in the 18 months I was a DE, we went through 9 DEs (all but one new) a FD and a FiD. I stayed around for another 6 months as a volunteer before working for national and know of at least 2 more DEs quitting. . One DE was in the hospital, had folks in the ER call the office to keep work informed, and was given an ultimatum by the DFS: show up to a staff meeting or be fired. he had the ER folks call back and say he quit.