Fat Old Guy

Somehow Scoutmom, I'm not surprised with your attitude. A fellow's ex-wife has more money than god so he's suppose to put himself into the poor house to make payments that to her are nothing more than tokens. Add in that if he didn't ignore his laywer's advice he could be taking a significant chunck of her money. What's that couple of grand going to get the kids that they don't have? Another trip to Vail? Another Gucci purse? Oh boy, that's helping the kids, isn't it?

SM Ron asked, "Do you communicate in anyway to the parents that are just writing the checks?" We try but all most of the time the response is, "Junior doesn't want to sell . . . " Marty said, "Some of the families that sold little or no popcorn couldn't afford to write a check for the "balance" - they are already on some kind of pack scholarship." They have no incentive to sell because someone else is paying for their Scouting experience.

Beaver Guy, there's one big difference between sports and Scouting. A fundamental part of basketball is not "paying your own way" as it is in Scouting. That said, I applaud your methods.

I've seen other organizations get into trouble when a small core of people were doing everything for too long. New people didn't want to get involved because they saw that everything was taken care of or sometimes offers of help from new people are rebuffed. The lifeblood of virtually any organization is getting new people involved. Even in cases where there's been a president in place for what seems to be life, new people should be getting involved in different aspects, possibly organizing new events or programs. What can you do? First thing is to emphasize that Scouts and Sports can co-exist. During baseball season, half of our troop vanishes. That's life. We may not like it but that's life. Maybe the den leaders need to look at moving meeting nights or even planning activities around the sports "Jimmy has a game on Monday so we'll go to the game in uniform!" Ask parents to step up and take a job. Don't just give a general plea. Go up to Mr. Smith and say, "We need a Den Leader, can you do it? If not, could you share the job?"

Facts. Get all the facts. A friend of a friend is a mechanic who paid his wife's way through college and med school. In a classic case, except the sexes are reversed, after the wife's practice started rolling she decided that her husband who had grease on his hands wasn't an appropriate escort and couldn't mingle with the country club crowd. She dumped him for someone else. He didn't take his lawyer's advice so he didn't go after part of her income and got hammered for child support that if he paid it would leave him living in a one room flat. She makes about $500,000 and her new husband makes a similar amount a year so the kids aren't suffering. Do I fault the guy? Not really, the three grand that he is supposed to pay every month really is pocket money to the ex and her hubby. Are the kids going to go shoeless? Are they missing out on college? No and nope. Stories like this are why you need to get the facts first.

I would say that further investigation is required before making a decision. Find out why this fellow hasn't paid child support in 3.5 years.

Bobo Blanco in his efforts to slam me makes an erroneous assumption, I'm not invovled in fundraising except to help my son deliver his popcorn so I can't be involved in the motiviation of the Scouts to sell. Car washes, while financially successful, don't bring out the Scouts. Wreath sales, while financially successful, don't get the Scouts involved with a few Scouts doing 75% of the sales. Popcorn sales, the same story as wreath sales. Eamonn said, "Trying to teach him financial responsibility at this age entails more work for us his parents. We are charged with getting him to where he needs to be when he needs to be there." Oh for the good old days when the parents taught financial responsibility from a very young age and it was a child's responsibility to find his own way to get places. I used to hoof it or take the bus if I wanted to get somewhere as did most of my friends. Now parents drive their kids to school even though the school is less than a half mile away.

Basically, the process is you fill out a form and attach a check. Nothing special.

Once again Bobo Blanco shows us that his concept of the truth is variable. After proclaiming to one and all that he wasn't going to read my posts, he's reading them. Tsk, tsk, tsk.

"I have been led to believe that the trend in schools is toward more and more pictorial learning." I don't know if they are actually learning anything. In helping my son and his buddies with homework over the past seven years, I've noticed that they aren't being taught to skim material to find answers. If it isn't in a pull quote in their book, in a nice blue box, they can't find it. The problem is that a picture really isn't worth a thousand words. Look how much of a novel is lost when they make a movie. Watch a show on the History Channel and no matter how interesting it is, they only scrape the surface of a topic. You can get much more information by reading for an hour although it will be less entertaining. We have two more questions to answer. Are Scouts reading the current handbook? I'm not seeing that. The second one is should we be lowering the program standards or trying to bring the Scouts up to a higher level? BTW, I've seen way too many of the "wonderful" Powerpoint presentations designed by jr. high and high school students. Far too many bells and whistles and not enough information. Most of the time, they'd be better off with posterboard and crayons. You might want to go to a used book store to get the latest edition of the Handbook because I've found brand handbooks for $3 each. Buy them for the poor kids in your troop.

"So what is a proffesional to do in this situation? Start more units? Whos job is it, beside the Unit Leader to make sure a Troop is running the proper program?" There's the rub. If a pro doesn't show enough growth in his district he can lose his job. However, if weak units are created, the product suffers. This same problem exists in industry where production numbers are king. "Let's crank out cars, even if they are lemons at least we have cars out there."

Without surprising anyone Bobo Blanco said, "with the intention of merit badge books and the BSA Fieldbook to supplement the information as scouts advanced in skill level and rank after that." So you want Scouts to not just pay $8 for the Handbook but then pay $20 for the Fieldbook. I haven't seen the new Fieldbook but that last one didn't seem to fill too many gaps. I'd like to know who these Scouts and Scouters were that didn't like the last edition of the Handbook. This subject has been brought up at RT, Scoutmaster Training, Univ. of Scouting, summer camp, and the rest room at O'Hare airport but I've yet to hear anyone say, "That last book was too big but the current one is great." Bobo also blathered, "A few things that KS did not mention is that had the 11th edition carried the CPR instructions as the 10th did, people would be complaining of it's inaccuracies" Considering that new handbooks are printed every year, it wouldn't be that difficult to make editorial changes to cover changes in CPR. You like to harp about first aid and CPR but the funny thing is that the CPR that I learned in 1972 would still save someone's life even though Red Cross changed it many times. There's another change coming down the pipeline soon too but that 1972 or 1991 version will still get the job done.

With what I pay in taxes and the amount that my school system gets from the county and state, I REFUSE to give the school another penny either directly or through the PTA. What money they have, they squander. Last year, they found the money to run ethernet to every class room so that every teacher could have email and internet access. Oddly, they can't find the money for math textbooks. In a fit of insanity, they adopted a new math curricullum and are trying to teach it witout the textbooks.

Laurie, The handbook is not to teach, it is a reference. Just as it is very difficult to learn calculus just by reading the textbook, you still need an instructor to help you. The current handbook doesn't have much in the way of reference material. As I suggested to Eamonn, go to a used book store and pick up a copy of any earlier handbook with the exception of the eighth edition which is easily identifiable by the lack of the word "Boy" in the title ("Scout Handbook" vs. "Boy Scout Handbook" or "Handbook for Boys."

For some reason, in my immediate area it seems that only the affluent are involved with Scouting. Most of the less affluent seem to have hitched their wagons to sports programs. This creates problems when trying to motivate Scouts to do fundraising, popcorn or otherwise. If you say "you'll get money for camp," they say "so what, Dad writes the check." If you say, "you'll get money for gear," they say "so what, Dad writes the check." It also turns out that most of the parents don't get the idea that Scouting is supposed to pay for itself and that the Scouts are supposed to do the work. The parents would rather just write a check than worry about picking up popcorn or storing boxes of candy while they are being sold.

I'm a fan of Trail's End popcorn. It is the only fundraiser that supports the council. Our troop gets 35% which is far better than the 16% that Girl Scouts get (50 cents per box in my daughter's council). Evidently, Venture Dude, no one prepped you with product awareness. Did you have a product sheet. In the six years that I've been dealing with popcorn, there's been at least 2 microwave products, three caramel products and, until recently, unpopped popcorn. Around here, people have learned that Trail's End is the best popcorn going. Sure you can get a huge can of caramel corn at the Mart Mart but it tastes like crud. Every other organization around here sells overpriced candy bars that you can get at the supermarket. People have learned that Trail's End is unique and can only be bought from the Boy Scouts. Selling GS cookies is a big pain in the butt. The Girl Scouts have more rules than you can count for where you can sell. One local girl was bowling with her family and thought, "I'll bet that I could sell some cookies here," she asked the manager, he said OK so she went down the lanes and sold nearly 100 boxes of cookie. She and her troop leader received an official reprimand for "conducting an unauthorized booth sale."

Well shut my mouth. So a boy is kicked out of Boy Scouts on his 18th birtday but is allowed to remain in Venturing for nearly a year after he "ages out." I wonder why that is. Can he still earn advancement? In any case, it sounds like another case of inconsistancy between programs by BSA.

"Work! Wadda ya mean work!" I've had conversations with Scouts that go something like this. What sort of leadership position do you want to have? I don't want one. Why wouldn't you want to be a leader? Too much work. Earlier you told me that you didn't like what was happening at meetings? Yeah? If you were in a leadership position you'd be in a position to effect changes. Huh? (public schools) If you were a Patrol Leader or Senior Patrol Leader you'd have a say in what happens. Nah. Don't wanna do it.

Why don't we all join hands and sing "We are the world"? If it wasn't for dissention, nothing would ever change.

Are you sure that you aren't Bob White? You sound just like him. Why would you want an old book? There are a wonderful reference for camping, games, activities, and other stuff. Lastly, so you can judge for yourself if the current handbook is a good as the old ones. Now why would you want to do that? So if you ever have the ear of someone involved in rewriting the handbook, you can say, "I think that that the current handbook is great" or "Let's put back in more of the information from the 1990 version."

OGE, I'll see your "Huh? What?" and raise you a "Howzzat?" Bobo Blanco, I offer you this from the BSA's web site, "Venturing is for young men and young women ages 14 to 20." (emphasis mine). Maybe if you attended some training, you'd have a greater understanding of the programs that BSA offers. Without any other evidence, I'd guess that it is a bookkeeping problem. A Venturer may turn 21 but still has months to go on his registration. Even though he is no longer a youth member, the software counts him as one. (This message has been edited by Fat Old Guy)

"I suppose we could keep on putting out Handbooks that the Scouts don't like and wouldn't use. It might appease the old people but it wouldn't be of much use to those who it is aimed at and for." Using your logic, Halliday and Resnick should re-write "Fundamentals of Physics" to make it more appealing even if contains less information. I haven't noticed that the Scouts like the current handbook. When they get a look at nearly any of the earlier handbooks I hear them say, "Hey, this is great. Why don't we have this book." At every board of review that I sit on, I get to look at the Scout's handbook and 97.3% show very few signs of having been read. Perhaps you should visit a used book store and find the last edition of the Handbook. Give it to your Scout and ask him to compare the two. (This message has been edited by Fat Old Guy)

Laurie, Glad to be of help.

Dana, do you hit submit twice? I've noticed that everyone of your post is shown twice. Eamonn, you sound a bit too much like Bob White. There is much in the old programs that were much better than we have today. The handbooks were unarguably better. Self reliance was stressed more. Advancement took some effort.

Spats were popular in the early part of the last century. Like white sidewalls on tires, they served to tell the world that you had the money to keep them clean. Spats cover the ankle, legging cover the calf. http://www.dancecatalog.com/accessories/b&wspats.jpg The leggings that Venture Dude is talking about look like this http://image.sportsmansguide.com/image/4/46406.JPG I don't know if Oscar desgined the current generation of yucky pants but he designed the the khaki/green uniform and the yellow/blue uniform for women Cub Scouters. In my collection of uniform items, I have a yellow blouse that has Oscar's name on the tag.