Eagledad

>>A CO may have an issue with non-member youth having keys to their buildings/rooms. Plus possible liability issues.

>>What happened next was that all the scouts were given a blank paper by the scout master and told to make a two column 4 row chart to create a set-up amd clean-up duty roster. All while this is occuring boys and parents kept entering and leaving the small room. After 20 minutes it was over. No votes, no reports, no opening, no closing.

>>She also went as far as to write to the SPL to complain about issues within the troop. COMPLETELY unacceptable and she was told not to do that again, "I was just trying to get some answers"..by harassing the youth?

Hi all Great discussion. I would be surprised if any troop could brag that they dont do some item on the list. At training I defined boy run as a program where the adults give the scouts the freedom to initiate actions in their troop. I dont have a problem with any item on the list if the adults are trying to hand those items on the list to the scouts as they learn the program. Through my own personal humility, I am guilty of many items on the list. Lets face it, scouting is hard and very few adults are perfect scouters right at the beginning. If the choice is either the adults plan the campout or there will be no campout, well the choice is obvious. The hard part is the adults realizing they are the problem, not the scouts. They have to learn how to teach the scouts the skills required to take responsibility of the items on the list. Lisabob says it best: But there are only so many things one can challenge at a given time and my plate is full for now. . Truth is all troops are boy run to some degree. But some are just a lot more boy run than others and to some degree, our plates are full. A Good boy run troop is one where the adults handover ownership and responsibility of the program to the scouts as both the adults and the scouts gain maturity and experience. Its a tough list and I cringe when I think back of my experience with it. I love this scouting Stuff. Barry

My I suggest that every adult interested in the program first go to Scoutmaster Specific training so they can come of one mind of what the program is all about. I've always felt that the SM works for the committee, and the committees job is to hire the person who agrees with the program they want for their sons, and enforce that philosophy or program hodling the SM accountable toward working that goal. Now, the BSA pretty much sets the Vision and how to build a program to reach that vision. But most Troop committees dont have a clue about the BSAs Vision or Mission and even worse they havent heard of Aims and Methods. You might be surprised who wants the job after they learn and understand the boy run program. And you would be amazed how much easier and more fun the program will become after the adults learn what the BSA has to offer. Barry

Hi All I'm not trying to highjack thissubject, only enhance it. But here is another turkey recipe our troop has used a 100 times. It is from Jim in Kansas and in his own words. Man can he cook. Okay folks, here's the instructions for THE most spectacular and amazing way to roast a turkey. No, not even grandma's time-tested recipe will beat this! The turkey is golden brown all the way around and incredibly juicy! All of my scouting friends now roast their family Thanksgiving turkey in this fashion. Here goes: EQUIPMENT NEEDED: 4ea 4ft steel rebar stakes 4ea 10in X 3ft strips of chicken wire rolled into 3ft tall tubes 1 roll heavy duty, wide aluminum foil 3ea 8ft staves charcoal and starter 1 thawed turkey - popout button type or use meat therm. 1 large onion salt trowel or tongs PROCEDURE: 1. Pound 4ft rebar stakes into ground to make a 3ft X 3ft square. 2. Attach chicken wire tubes to stakes. 3. Wrap aluminum foil around stakes and tubes to make a box. Wrap two strips high. Crimp strips together at center seam. You should now have a 3ft square reflector oven. 4. Wire staves together to form tripod and place over box. 5. Remove giblets, wash turkey, rub with salt inside and out. Quarter onion and put inside turkey. 6. Suspend from tripod into center of box. 7. Start charcoal, when ready, use trowel or tongs to fill chicken wire tubes with hot charcoal. 8. As turkey cooks, add more unlit charcoal. COOKING NOTES: This is guaranteed to work the first time! An eighteen-twenty pound turkey takes about four hours to cook. After the first two hours you'll say"NO WAY...this bird is still raw!" An hour or two later it will be absolutely golden brown and beautiful. You won't believe how juicy it is! Blue Skies!

>>I saw a 30lb. Turkey cooked in one of these under 2 hours.

>>and, Barry, it's so hard to slip that cultural leash, isn't it? Especially when mommy usually IS the problem.

>>A firearm is a weapon regardless of the use to which it is currently being put, just like a Steak knife, Pocket knife, Camp Axe, Ice pick, CD case or even a pencil...

Hi Pete Basically you lay some foil on the ground. drive a stake in the ground and set the turky one the stake. Cover with a trash can and put hot coals on top and around the can. Works really well. Do a Google search and you will find some pictures. Barry

>>er, ah, Barry, nothing quite like the gender stereotyping there in your last paragraph, hmm?

>>would vote for Firearm safety. More PC correct.

>>Right now this is just an idea, nothing more, but if we are going to pursue it over the next couple of years, I want to see it done right.

>>Her behavior? You know how & why she had a child? You seem to be judging without all the facts. Maybe she was artificially inseminated. Maybe she was raped. Do you know? No.

>>Jesus loved people regardless of their situation.

This was one of my jobs back when I was both a SM and the District membership Chair. There are a couple things that should be mentioned. At least in our area, 90% of those Webelos who didn't crossover didn't have a good Cub experience while they were Webelos. My research and observations found that most of these scouts didn't have a good adult leader. There are a host of reasons, but it all comes to the same conclusion, it wasn't fun, so why move on? It has got to appear FUN first if you are to bring them for a look-see. I'm not one to plan an activity specifically for recruiting because I think a Troop meeting should be good enough to do that for you. But this is one area I think a fun recruiting activity works well. I like the idea of an open house. Find a local area to set up a campsite and plan fun activities for these scouts. Make sure the scouts run the activities so the Webelos see what they didn't see in their Webelos Den, youth leadership. The activities should be cool stuff that involves outdoor gear like canoes, backpacks, rappelling, and even a climbing wall if possible. The activities should be physical and should not involve crafts. Likely they have been crafted to death in they previous boring Webelos den. Free food like hot dogs, hamburgers and cobbler always attract folks as well. Our troop once did a hot rod night by the guys working on their Auto-mechanics MB. Our District tried a Troop night where all the Troops provided an activity and displays of their troop. It worked pretty well for those webelos dens that showed up, but I always felt the lazy dens who who needed it the most missed out. You can make this as easy or as complicated as you want, but it needs to appeal to pre-teens. Done right and you might get a half dozen new scouts, but my experience is you will only get 10 to 20 percent of the scout scouts on the list. As for who to call. I agree about getting you local area, but we did have scouts in our troop from as far as 10 miles away when they saw our program. I know that doesn't help much there. I hope this triggered some ideas. Barry

righteous? I believe that comes under name calling. We all have our bad days, but one of the ways I worked with the PLC was teaching them to not react instantly to their emotions. Name calling is a sure sign of inmaturity or uncontrolled emotions, or both. Instead they should create some kind of time out until they can instead respond in a mature manner where they talk about the behavior and not attack the person or take words out of context. That does require some degree of patience, maturity, grit and courage, but it draws respect instead of anger or disdain. It also requires practice. We all fall now and then, which then lead us to act with humility to gain back the respect we just lost. Getting up is hard, but we must to have a civil world. Barry

>>The reason I find the second scenario "morally correct" is that the potential bad example I see here is irresponsibility.

>>Barry, sure, there are times when judging is actually important and valuable as a social or moral tool. But when done with extremely limited information, it can lead to false judgments too.

Wow Beav, your post is really good. I saw a similar discussion like this come up when a pack committee found that a CM was also a stripper. I was astonished that some folks felt it was none of the parents business that she strutted around naked every night to entertain men. I have many times explained that young teens are highly influenced by the behaviors of those they respect. A SM is usually one of those persons by default. From a boys perspective, that person wouldnt be a SM if the community didnt think they were a good leader. Influenced? You bet. Of course judging seems to be one of those things today that is becoming taboo. That is silly of course because we judge at judge at just about every moment of our life. Even those who say we shouldnt judge are judging those who say we shouldnt judge. It would be impossible to raise our kids if we didnt judge their every action and guide them toward the right actions. But there come a point to where we want to do things that, well society might not think so accepting. That is where our actions might get judged more harshly. There is a movement today to encourage turning and eye to such things so that we dont feel so bad about our less than accepted behaviors. It is funny to me to read all the discussions in this part of the forum of how morals should not be based from religious teachings. There is usually little discussion of where morals should come from if religion isnt the source. I have often said it was my opinion that without God to be a source to point the needle of our moral compass, the guy with the biggest stick makes the rules. That is the struggle we see today in politics today I think. I read it here many times that it is the liberal left against the religious right. But lets be fair, in this "if youre not for us, then youre against us" all or nothing politics of today, it is the un-religious left against the religious right. It is a fight for Gods stick, dont you think? So here we are in this discussion with our kids hanging in the balance. Our leader, the top Troop role model who our sons look up to for guidance for making moral decisions intended for our sons to have a better life as adults, has just got knocked up. And we are trying to decide if that is OK for our sons to think that is OK. My sons are at that age now where they get to choose to make life and death decisions, even if it is just in fleeting moment of hot passion. If one day one of my sons walks in and ask his mother and me to sit down because he has something important he needs to talk about, I want so badly not to wonder if we did all that was possible to develop him into a man making the right moral decisions. Isnt that what we are talking about with this SM? Barry

I think it's kind of like saying that no 13 year old boy can be a good leader or have the qualities of an Eagle. There are some exceptional young men out there that are better than the adults that are trying to develop them. I had one 17 year old SPL that ran for the position again because he wanted to make some changes to improve the troop. He was so good that I had to give him some of my SM duties to challeng him. He is now 22 and would make a fantastic SM. I hope he is thinking about it. On the other side, I had some ASMs in their 30's and 40's that would be terrible scoutmasters. I don't think one can make a blanket statement about age requirements of any position. Cliff Golden who hovers in this forum from time to time was a SM in his early 20's and has been doing it for I think over 25 years. He has helped me in so many ways to be a better scoutmaster, I can't thank him enough. I will add that I have past his wisdom along in this forum many times. You just have to give folks a chance to learn whether they are worthy or not. For some, it is the same leap taken for women SMs. Barry

Hi All In my opinion a SM only needs dedicated to Scouting ideals and a humble heart. The BSA mission is to make moral decision makers using the Scout Law. That basically requires a SM who understands how use the ideals to develop successful moral decision making adults. Humility is important to prevent the SMs self-gratification and self-servingness from restricting the program and allow others to to bring skills the SM may lack for a quality program. Barry

If its not guilt one way, it can be the other way. We had a couple similar situations, one being with an adult. He lost his temper and hit a scout with a nalgene bottle on the Philmont trail. Scout wasnt physically hurt, but it scared the crew enough to report it. We followed the book and gave our reports. Our SE did his job and reported the incident and the guy got fired from his job. I didnt want that, I only wanted him away from our scouts. Maybe I shouldnt care, but family security is one of our most important responsibilities and I was involved in taking it away from one family. Its a screwed up world and there just arent enough instructions to explain how to deal with every situation. Who knows, maybe reporting it to the school would have only deflected the problem somewhere else and made things worse. I dont know, but scouting sure can be hard. God's peace be with you. Barry

I guess Im not sure what you are asking. I must admit when I read your question, I felt that you don't quite get the campfire. When you suggest team building, I wonder what you did during the day up to the campfire. Instead of trying to understand your question, let me just give a little explination of what I feel about the campfire. The skills to perform a well done campfire are not juvenile and require practice, heart, creativity and showmen professionalism. I think our scouts finally understood that when they got a standing ovation by other troops at summer camp once. From beginning to end, a campfire should grab the audience and pull them through a series of emotions. The times are rare where a boy will be linked together with the outdoors and the deep expressions of himself. As a group, you are pulled to laugh, cry, wonder, ponder and dream in the grand theater with spotlights from an open fire, the roof of the starry sky and air condition of the open breeze. Done well and a man will never forget those nights as a boy. Done well and the campfire can make a lousy day feel good. I believe that mans failure comes from searching for happiness when we should be working for content. But I have to admit that it would be hard to find many events in life that could match the happiness felt from a well done campfire. I more than most sometimes like to think out of the box and try something different. But dont ignore the gains and growth that come from just doing some things better. Better songs with better music. Better jokes and better skits. Better master of ceremonies and better Scoutmaster Minutes. Better fires and better arrangements. I have exited so many campfires in so many ways, but I want to go back to that one campfire where we quietly walked back to our tents listening to bag pipes on a distant hill playing Amazing Grace. Just typing it in this reply brings a tear. I love this scouting stuff. Barry

Well said Packsaddle. Barry