Fat Old Guy

Air conditioned dining hall? Where? Sign me up! Even if the Scouts do their own cooking at camp, does the camp provide the food? If so, how can the Scout do the menu planning, costing, and shopping experiences? Sounds fishy to me. I have a feeling that these "non-camping" troops might just sign off on things saying, "We don't do that."

We charge $50 a year. I'm sure that most of the parents just write a check rather than have the kid pay the money. We do give 50% of the fund raising profits to the Scout who does the selling in his "Scout Account." The Scouts who do well at selling use that money for dues, summer camp and even equipment.

"But, having said all that, why did Mic-0-say start anyway? What does it do, fill us poor ignorant saps in" Visit their web site for more information. www.mic-o-say.org

My daughter's service unit stuff Christmas stocking for the Salvation Army. I often hear of activities that get canceled because there aren't enough girls from a troop going or that parents aren't available. I think that it is a shame that the troops in a given area don't work together more to provide a synergy. For example Troop 1 is planning a trip to the zoo but it turns out that only two girls can go so the trip is canceled. However, if Troops 2 and 3 knew about the planned trip, maybe enough of their girls would want to go to make the outing worthwhile.

"Now that I'm thinking of it, perhaps I should have given the 16 year old (and not his mother) an idea or three or fifty of who might be a good person to recruit to be a cinematography MB counselor. The experience in recruiting a counselor would probably be a good one for the Scout. " I've done that and it works pretty well. I give the Scout the two forms needed and tell them to go forth and find a counselor. In your example, it is likely the Scout's high school has a teacher for film making or some related subject.

"Not to sound anti-government, but the EIN stuff for packs and troops and crews, etc. seems to depend on which state and which person at the other end of the phone you're talking to." EINs are issued by the IRS and getting one is easy. You simply need a name for your organization and fill out a form. You don't even need to file any papers of incorporation or anything else. All the Feds care about is having a way to track money so you can't cheat them. Other paperwork may be necessary but the Fed paperwork is easy.

I've also heard people refer to their troops as "non-camping" troops and I've also been baffled by this. They've told me that they only do one campout a year, the rest of the time they work on merit badges.

nondenominational (nnd-nme-nshe-nel) adjective Not restricted to or associated with a religious denomination. nonsectarian (nnsk-tr-en) adjective Not limited to or associated with a particular religious denomination. Pretty close in meaning but not quite identical. However, I don't see how failure to belong to an organized religion is precluded. If a boy decides that his god lives on the moon and sends goodwill to Earth on moonbeams, does that not count as his religion? I believe that someone from BSA once stated that you could worship a rock in your back yard and that would fit BSA's requirements.

"I am finding that if the outing is in scouting it truly lends for a more active lifestyle than without it." If all the boys do is the Scouting outings, they are no better off than if they play basketball one day a week. Your son must do much more than the weekend hikes with Scouts to stay in shape for backpacking which is why he probably enjoys it more than anyone else. If you aren't in shape, you can't find any pleasure in hauling 30 lbs on your back. There are those kids (like yours) who are fit in spite of the tendencies of today's society. They are the ones that you see riding their bikes or running or playing hoops every afternoon. The sad thing is that they are in the minority. Ironically, I had my annual check-up today (I'm doing fine) but one topic of conversation was today's obese kids.

" No minimium level of improvement is set and improvement can be measured in other ways besides repetition. " There is no such thing as a fracional chin-up so if you did zero to start, the minimum to show improvement is one.

" Needless to say, I'd hate to see a hard and fast requirement of five chin-up for Tenderfoot, 10 for second-class, etc. " There's currently a requirement for one chin up for Tenderfoot. You have to show improvement over a 30 day period and if you do zero on day one, then you need to do one on day 30.

"Popcorn sales for the past two years were (from memory) maybe $17K and $10K. Prior to that, it was negligible. Church budget is in the millions. No where near a 10% ratio, I'd say." That's some sort of popcorn sale! Wow! Also wow! for your church budget, that must be some big church. I attend a fair sized church and our budget barely breaks $300,000.

"Question FOG, all these out of shape scouts you have...are these the same ones you say in another thread aren't attending scout activities becaus they play on so many sports teams? That seems contradictory. " That's quite a reasonable question but it shows that you don't have much experience with youth sports. Unless you are in a very competitive program or a scholastic sports program, fitness is not a requirement for most sports. It may help but it isn't required. To play CYO basketball requires neither skill nor fitness, it only requires the desire to practice once a week and play one game a week. Baseball is another sport that can be played by incredible slugs and some of the fattest kids that I've ever seen were swinging a bat. Think about it for a moment. A baseball player rarely needs to run more than 30 yards, sometimes he might need to run 60 yards. Sure, professional ball players are in good shape and to play American Legion ball you need to be in good shape BUT 99% of the games played out there are lousy baseball with overweight kids that can't move. Wrestlers need strength and agility but and they should be aeorbically fit but many in the youth leagues are not. Go out and spend some time on the fields of youth sport and you'll see so many out of shape kids that you'll want to cry. Not high school sports or upper level AAU sports. Go watch recreation leagues, church leagues or town leagues where all comers are welcome. Some will say, "hey, it's great that these kids are out doing something." Maybe so or maybe no. All too often the only exercise that they get is the hour of practice each week and the hour of the game. They'd be better served saving their parents the $100 and getting outside to play a pick-up game every afternoon and to play the game, they'd have to ride their bikes or walk to the field.

" I would say it absolved the church of their tax liability, but it means that you don't have non-profit status and should be filing you own tax return" Non-profit is different from charitable organization status. The local Drum & Bugle Corps is non-profit as is the Porsche Club of America,however, neither is a charitable organization.

"One thing the really alerted this to us was the uproar we got a couple of years ago when we considered canceling our District MB fair. Several units protested because summer camp and the MB fair were their only advancement program. They felt we were canceling half their troop advancment program." I don't know about other troops but the vast majority of Merit Badges in my troop come from Summer Camp or MB fairs. Why? I don't know. For some reason very few pursue Merit Badges unless they are spoon fed to them. Just about everyone around here plays some sort of organized sport or two or three. Even the out of shape kids play CYO baskeball, LL baseball, etc. However, only 2 Scouts out of 60 have the Sports merit badge. We have two Scouts that are accomplished muscians, to the point of composing original pieces and performing them in public. Neither has the Music merit badge. You might argue that they don't know about the merit badges but why wouldn't they? I'm busy trying to encourage boys to work on merit badges on their own and parents keep asking when we're going to do more "merit badge classes" during troop meetings.

The simple thing would be to require improvement over their last test or to test every six months and require improvement. That might add a time factor to advancement but that isn't a bad thing. We have become a nation of obese people. Ever wonder why the famed "plumber's butt" condition exists? Because their waist is now larger than their hips and the pants just slide right down with nothing to stop them. There are heavy peole who are fit. Heavyweight boxers come to mind, powerlifters, and defensive linemen. However, when a 15 year old boy has bigger boobs than a Playboy Playmate and can't walk a mile without collapsing, he is dangerously out of shape. There are also thin people who are not fit but I think that the thin unfit person is better off than the fat unfit person. Why? He's hauling around less tissue that does nothing except store calories. Less strain on the heart, less strain on the joints, less strain on the car seat.

Tsk, tsk, tsk. Bobby, you chastise me for my behavior and then have to take the cheap shots.

I know every one opened this ready to tell me about the fitness requirement for Tenderfoot and the Personal Fitness Merit Badge required for Eagle. Sure we have that but why is there no fitness testing for any other rank. I don't think that we need requirements for each rank (5 chin ups for 2nd Class, 20 for Life) but if there is a fitness requirement for Tenderfoot, there should be a similar requirement for other ranks. I don't know what your troops are like but a good 75% of of the Scouts in my troop are competing with the Scouters for biggest gut.

Thank you NJCubScouter.

Correctness of all sorts has gone to the point of insanity. About 15 years ago a fellow joined my company and it turned out that he was still involved with a lawsuit against his old company. No, he wasn't suing his previous employer, he was one of the people who were the cause of the company being sued. It seems that there was one woman in an office of about ten men. Most men are guys (as defined by Dave Barry) and these were no different and enjoyed the occasional off-color joke. However, out of deference to the lone woman, they made a point of keeping it clean while she was around. Well, that wasn't good enough. One day, our heroine is walking down the hallway and hears voices from the mens' room so she stops to listen (this she freely admits), much to her surprise a fellow was telling an off color story so she runs to the boss to complain. He asks why she was listening at the door to the mens' room. She says that she couldn't help it. He asks if the men were shouting which they weren't. He asks if they called her name which they didn't. The boss says that he's not going to restrict what goes on in the mens room. Bam! Lawsuit time. I once had a co-worker who was very sensitive to racial issues so he filed a complaint against a Chinese co-worker for referring to himself as a "Chink." It's a strange world that we live in.

"Any other technicalities in my post? " You have a misplaced comma. I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader. :-)

We use the First Class in Less than a Year program (Soon to be "First Class in One Week"!) system and we still whine about too many conflicting activities. Soccer, wrestling, football, baseball, swimming all take place on the weekends. Do you have actual numbers that show historic retention levels?

You'll need to find old uniforms for my idea to work but here goes. Have a guy in an old cub uniform with beanie and a guy in an old Boy Scout uniform (green with garrison cap). Next have a guy in a spacesuit (you're on your own here) planting the flag on the moon (I believe that Armstrong is an Eagle) maybe with a big Eagle Scout emblem on his chest. Lastly, have a big model of a futurstic space ship (Scout logo prominently on Wings and tail) flying off the end of the float as if into space. A sign could say "Scouting -- connecting the past to the future"

"Would that be. . ." Thank you Mr. White, you proved my point. The 3% difference is really meaningless.

Since it seems that you are a minor that there isn't an official position with the Pack for you. However, that doesn't mean that you can't help out with knot tying, song singing, three legged races, etc. If your Crew wears a uniform, wear it to all of the Cub Scout function to show that you are all part of the same big family.