eisely

Well said.

Electronics for adults has never been an issue in our troop. We too have various medical personnel and a few dads who are on call for various computer systems. Electronics have no place on an outing or at meetings. The only exception is for extremely long car trips to the trail head or put in point and back.

I may have missed something in other posts, but is the mom of picky eater a registered volunteer? There is ample ground for suspending her membership as well, although that is a more involved process. The prior advice is sound. Suspend the boy for 60 days and see if he bothers to show up. Re charter time is rolling around (assuming you are a calendar year) and that is a great opportunity to drop him from the rolls.

Another game with canoes is "dead fish in the water." You take a good size sponge and toss it in the water. Each canoe has two people in it, both equipped with paddles. The idea is to pick up the sponge with a paddle and throw it into somebody else's canoe. There is no score keeping, just chaos. The game forces people to think through how their canoe will respond to different strokes and plan their moves.

Bob White, Help us out some here. As with you, I have always understood that the COR was always a member of the unit committee. Registering twice as COR and CM would seem redundant. More importantly in September I will be teaching the unit committee portion of "position specific training" for a three district training event. The new syllabus is totally silent on the COR. The COR doesn't even get a mention and is not included in the list of committee positions described in detail. The new Committee Guidebook that I just purchased states in Chapter 8 on meetings that, "Occasionally you may want to invite guests such as your chartered organization representative and unit commissioner." The Guidebook similarly does not mention the COR in its list of committee positions. These two publications seem to place the COR outside the committee. For what it is worth our COR regularly attends committee meetings and he has been quite helpful. We consider him to be part of the committee. This is not the first time that I have found apparent contradictions in various guidelines. Your thoughts?

At the close of your conversation, be sure to ask politely when the DE will get back to you. That puts him (or her) under subtle pressure to meet a deadline. A lot of people have trouble dealing with conflict. Don't be surprised if you get put off repeatedly.

For what it is worth, the US Government recognizes and accepts, to a degree, that some people will put duty to God before the dictates of government. Conscientious Objectors are expected to serve in war time along with other citizens who may be called up. Many have done so with distinction in the Medical Corps and never carried a weapon. Also, for what it is worth, there is a stone table over the side entrance to St. Mary's Church at the University of Notre Dame inscribed, "God, Country, Notre Dame" that suggests a priority.

One of the problems with footwear appropriate for class A uniforms is that there are very few manufacturers of leather footwear left in the US. Those that remain are all high end and very expensive. As I recall the Buster Browns they were very economical and we wore them everywhere. Today I have some brown leather casual shoes that only cost $100 that I wear with my uniform. I agree that tennis shoes in all their variations look tacky with uniforms but I find it hard to fault parents in their reluctance to fork out $$$ for leather shoes that will be soon outgrown and seldom worn. It is bad enough to have to buy new hiking boots every 18 months to accomodate growing feet.

How many of you out there remember the Buster Brown Boy Scout Shoes of the forties and fifties? I was reminded of this at Philmont where I ran across a placque memorializing a donation by Buster Brown. I really liked the comic books you used to get with the shoes.

I can see numerous advantages to a bladder and hose, but I guess I am still too old fashioned. In my mind the bladders lack flexibility. In our recent Philmont trek three scouts were using different kinds of bladders, including my own son. We had a layover with a day hike and a scheduled stop by a field commissary to pick up more food. My initial hope was that we could minimize the number of packs we were going to empty and take along. The fact that three scouts were using bladders made it impossible to come up with a fair solution, so everybody took their packs although that was more pack capacity than we needed. I used a hybrid system. I bought a hose and a cap compatible with the nalgene bottles. It was functional but not without problems of its own. Since the bottles were not flexible I had to pressurize the bottle somewhat by blowing forcibly into the hose before I could draw any water.

Three posts? I have seen duplicate posts before, but not triplets. Anyway, going to the subject at hand. Taking what rbuffum has said totally at face value, I wouldn't waste time at the district level, but I would go straight to the Council Executive. To echo eagle90, what is your scoutmaster been thinking of letting this go on this long? The OA is far from a perfect institution and I have seen OA paperwork messed up by both scoutmasters and the OA volunteers. Missing a two week lead time for callout is not a good reason for rejecting an entire list of duly elected candidates. This lodge needs to be shaken up severely.

The flag code deals with this one too, although I forget the precise answer,... senior moment, etc. etc. My guess is that the orientation of the union of the flag patch depends on which shoulder it is on. I think the union should always be on the left from the perspective of the person viewing the flag.

Answering for Bob, of the positions mentioned in Bob's post, only the "Scout Executive" is a paid position. All the rest are volunteers. Conceivably some Chartered Organization Representatives may be on the payroll of the Chartered Organization,e.g., an assistant pastor of a church, but that is not BSA's nickel.

I could not begin to count the times where parents' failure to listen or read something screwed something up for the unit and/or their sons. Collecting non refundable deposits for outings ahead of the outing is the best way to get people serious about those commitments. Beyond that, I follow up with people on those things I deem critical to safety and let the rest of it roll off my back.

Another thought that occurred to me. When we had our pack shakedown with our ranger, two of our boys were planning to carry three heavy large plastic bottles of Gatorade mix between them. Our ranger made clear that Gatorade mix was amply provided. These guys took their stuff along anyway and never opened it. You get individual packets of Gatorade mix with most meals, except breakfast. Please make this clear to any scout who is convinced that he needs his own personal supply. That is a lot of dead weight to be hauling around.

As everyone knows, or at least should know, one of the most important safety considerations while hiking and backpacking, or engaging in any other strenuous outdoor activity, is staying properly hydrated. Some people use simple water bottles. Others used bladders, that go under different names, with a flexible hose providing constant access to the water. I would be interested in people's opinions on different systems and the kinds of problems they may have encountered with them.

Never been to Korea personally. I have known several US people who served there in the military, and have dealt with clients who were Koreans. I have never heard anybody say a kind word about the climate of Korea. Kind words about other aspects of Korea, but not the weather.

rbuffum, What you describe is highly unusual. I can't imagine a lodge leadership council throwing out an entire election unless there were some really serious problems with the way the election was conducted. There has got to be more to this story. Also, while non-members vote in elections for OA, persons already inducted into OA also vote in unit elections.

Troutmaster, Curious. I used to live in Thousand Oaks in Ventura County. What are "North of Los Angeles" are you talking about? Which newspapers are you talking about?

Katy, You will be glad he went. He will return home somewhat less a boy and somewhat more a man.

As has been pointed out by others, taking a wheeled conveyance on what was supposed to be a backpacking trip was a dumb idea. Trying to finger individuals for financial responsibility without really strong evidence is also a dumb idea. The troop should pay, and hopefully everybody learns a lesson.

It sounds like you did the best that you could at the time. The question remains as to follow up. Someone in authority in the units involved needs to write the parents of the non member drop off informing them that this is not acceptable. I suggest that the committee take up the question of the Horned Toad incident. Maybe all these guys need a wake up call and a brush with the law. As far as boys quitting scouting is concerned, it doesn't sound like these are the kinds of youth members you want. Big loss.

I agree with the other posts that if your scouts are properly prepared it probably is neither too cold nor too wet to go camping. The main thing I get concerned about is wind, particularly on a canoe expedition. The other hazards previously mentioned also would preclude setting out on an outing. The only event we do annually which we may reschedule because of weather is our "pre camporee". Since the focus of that car camping event is training and preparing for competitive events, we would rather not have to deal with rain as a distraction.

I resurrected this old thread to concede a point to Mike. During our recent Philmont trek the inexpensive commercially made pack covers we were using did not keep my son's and my packs dry. However, there were some newer REI private label pack covers in use my others that were more effective. Of course the objective is not so much to keep the pack dry as the contents dry. Since we had also put everything into ziplocks, we achieved a satisfactory outcome nothwithstanding the fact that the packs themselves got very wet.

I don't see anything wrong in principle with a participation/attendance requirement as part of "show scout spirit". Having said that, such policies have to be administered both sensibly and even handedly. Situations such as sctmom described are not unusual and deserve consideration. I think it is more important to have such a requirement for those boys who take on a leadership position. This was beat to death in other threads. Nevertheless, an absentee patrol leader seriously hurts the program, and such a scout should not receive credit for the leadership position if he is not physically present to lead.