fling1

Interesting posts here. You should all congratulate yourselves on building a 5-page discussion in this forum without calling each other names! Could this be the first?? The question of "morality" is a personal one, as several of you have pointed out. And whether a magazine on a counter indicates what you think it indicates is a matter for debate as well. But if your visit to Mr. Z's home is in the capacity of the unit's COR, then you have the added burden of deciding whether evidence at hand warrants action on behalf of the CO. It's not the Head of the BSA whose opinion matters (once the criteria on the membership form are met) -- it is the CO whose moral standards must be met. It's not the committee either. If the CO decides that leaders must never drink in order to be considered morally straight, then that is the standard in that unit. Pick your grey area... the CO gets to draw the line in terms of leadership fitness. I always find that these kinds of thought experiments are very worthwhile in terms of clarifying our personal positions. A little introspection is always a good thing. But we should also remember that Hunt's question (4) is the only relevant one, particularly the part about talking to the COR, knowing that the CO has a beef against this behavior. My answer: Knowing that the CO is particularly concerned about magazine reading, I would talk to somebody. If my moral thinking was well aligned with the CO, I would be indignantly peeved and go to the COR. In this specific case, I would instead talk to Mr. Z, reminding him that the CO has strong views about magazines and could direct the COR to remove him from his position. Mr. Z could then adjust his behavior as he liked. Realistically, my unit is not tight enough with the CO to know which issues might freak them out. Meaning it would take a lot more than a Playboy, or beer cans, or a speeding ticket to cause us to drag our COR into tense situation for which he is ill-prepared.

The numbers posted surprise me. My son's patrol has been consistently asking $5/person for the weekend. They have had some creative meals and some basics. This weekend they ate omeletes and hash, sandwiches (lunch in the cave -- no cooking), loaded potatoes (they liked this one a lot... I expect they will use it again), and donuts (deep fried biscuit dough -- their favorite breakfast!) They rarely get all their food eaten. There are plenty of cheap eats that work well for camping: eggs, pancakes, stews, spaghetti, etc.

No, she was a sweet little thing. But she did let on that she did some drag racing in her wild youth :-) btw, I had to look up the Fabulous Moolah... she wrestled a title match in her seventies?? yikes!

I had a great parent (actually, she was this boy's great grandma!) who was like a second assistant. She always found a way to contribute and in particular she would help us tag-team a boy who needed a bit of a boost. I found a neat Wrasslin' Belt (think WWF championship) at the toy store for a couple of bucks and recognized her as a "Tag Team Champion" who was always ready to jump in the ring and take care of business. I gave her the belt and had her hold it high overhead while the pack cheered her, just like a true champion. Of course her sweet great-grandmother status made it all the better :-)

A couple of thoughts, in different directions... We usually cover this requirement as part of the SM conference, but we occassionally catch a scout in a very obvious demonstration of scout spirit and ask for his book right on the spot so we can sign it off. Immediate feedback has its benefits, and we can cover the discussion again at SM conference time anyway. I usually start by asking the scout what he thinks the requirement means... I usually get an answer along the lines of "be nice" or "do good turns" or if I am lucky, "make a positive contribution." Like EagleInKy, I have been making the point with my scouts that my expectations grow as they move up the ranks. Remembering some simple good deeds is a good start for Tenderfoot, but a Star scout should be able to provide several explicit examples. I have found that they want to talk in broad generalities rather than specifics, but I am trying to them to do more specific reflection. The other thing I have been doing with this topic is casting a different light on it: Scout spirit is not just about doing nice things for others. It is about loyalty and bravery and obedience and cheerfulness, too. I tell them that the big-time explorers and mountaineers have a similar concept called "expedition behavior." Briefly described, it is the willingness and ability to always work for the benefit of the team, even in the face of adversity. Under extreme conditions, the natural tendency is to become more selfish and take care of only our own acutely perceived needs. But a good expedition team will always continue to look out for and take care of each other. Some experts believe that when expeditions fail, it is most often because of a breakdown in expedition behavior. Not weather or equipment failure. It is important stuff. We don't scale Everest or K2, but we do camp as teams in heat, cold, rain, and snow. We get tired and sore and hot and cold and hungry and have the same tendencies to withdraw and get cranky and impatient and selfish. After putting this spin on it, I ask them what the hardest outing has been for them. Were you able to do your part for your patrol? Did you continue to contribute to the team even when you were suffering? I think this is a very positive and concrete way to talk about scout spirit and gives an opportunity to cover examples that we may have even been able to observe first-hand in the context of our outings.

Arrow plaques are great! Our pack had the boys build their own arrow plaques over the course of several meetings. They cut and sanded and routed and stained the plaques. They cut fletchings and painted and assembled their arrows with waxed string (sinew substitute). It was a great project for them and a good momento of their Cub Scout careers. The arrows were presented at the graduation/crossover event (even boys who do not continue to Boy Scouts get their arrow to remind them of their Cub Scout days). As a gift at crossover, we gave the boys leather drawstring pouches, made from some nice soft scrap deerhide. Part of the ceremony included removing their cub neckers and slides, and blue epaulets, as these have no place on a Boy Scout uniform. They go in the pouch for safe-keeping, of course! We also gave them a Boy Scout handbook, but the receiving Scoutmaster presented it to them, along with a new set of red epaulets. As a nice touch, if you are at a crossover to accept one scout, take the epaulets off of your own uniform and present them to the scout :-)

Just to play devil's advocate for a moment... There has been universal agreement that Dan's son was facing an "added advancement requirement" by doing his "life project" and that his troop had strayed "too far" from the BSA's program. He described it as: He finished his Life project last Sunday, and the write up of the project. The write up includes copies of the thank you letters for the 6 people he called to donate money for this project. A write up of who helped and how long. Issues he had with the project. List of supplies and cost. Pictures of the project being built and pictures of the completed project. During the time he was a Star Scout he had put in over 30 hours of service hours for 4 Eagle projects, and 2 Life projects. I think we all assume that the 30 hours on these other projects meets the service hours requirement for Life, but the requirement says: While a Star Scout, take part in service projects totaling at least 6 hours of work. These projects must be approved by your Scoutmaster. I imagine that this "approved by your Scoutmaster" part is interpreted more or less strictly, depending on the SM, just as "scout spirit" is. I think it is potentially inside the program bounds to require the Star service hours to be something other than just showing up at some other project and putting in hours. If the SM does not approve the other hours, that is his perogative, right? Disallowing those other hours could dissuade star scouts from working on others' projects, but maybe not. -Devil's Advocate :-)

I promised to pass on any info from council, so here it is: Amusingly (to me), the laser tag issue is a far bigger issue out here in forum-land than it is at our council. The guy who placed the ad told me he had been called out on it many times already by people who quoted the G2SS to him and told him that it is a much-discussed topic on mailing lists and forums. He agreed that BSA policy prohibits laser tag. No surprises. He told me that the ad had been placed as a trade, after a staff development outing had been held there. I don't want to get anyone in trouble, so I'll not repeat what else he told me :-)(This message has been edited by fling1)

This is all good advice, but I'm not sure it is helping River2k get his group motivated. When the scribe takes hardly any notes and nobody ever sees those notes (one of the examples given), the boys are being trained that the notes are not important. How do you make the notes important? How do you muster some ambition in the scribe to take his job seriously and make a difference in the troop? A similar question can be posed for each position. If the scouts prefer to barely scrape by with dull meetings, poor preparation and less challenging outings because the alternative is to actually work at it, how do you turn that apathy into enthusiasm and effort? (This message has been edited by fling1)

I had a request to explain how the hammock city was erected. I though that a picture might be helpful, so here it is... http://www.scouttroop.org/oh/bsa/476 The only thing you can't really see in the picture is that the legs of the tripods are secured to a piece of re-bar driven into the ground. This prevents the legs from kicking out when you load up the hammock. The hammock will put a large sideways load on whatever it is tied to, so we make sure the tripods are up to the task by bracing their tops with the spreader bars and securing their bottoms too. I would bet that the stakes are not necessarily required, but we use them to avoid potential problems. YMMV.

This gem got buried in the other thread. With your indulgence, I'd like to focus on this a bit more... River2k wrote:The PLC. Our Scouts meet once a month for a PLC. They are supposed to fine tune the following month's meeting plans and then plan a rough outline of the month after that (which all follows a yearly plan done in May). The SPL has no idea what to do, even after being given several suggestions by adults. The ASPL usually takes over the meeting and tells the rest what the plan will be. The Scribe takes few notes, if any. Nobody ever sees the scribe's notes after the meeting. Campouts & other activities are given little if any consideration. The Troop would quickly fall apart without adult intervention. The PL's don't come to the PLC with any feedback from their patrols because when they ask for feedback they get "I don't know". Patrol members know they have control over meeting plans & activities through the feedback but don't seem to care. They plan the same games, same skill instructions, some opening/closing every month. The only time things change is when the SM or ASM get involved. I think we're following the program but it's not making the Scouts care or take ownership of their Troop. All leadership has gone through JLT at least once. Some more than once. I think of this stage as what comes before Storming: energizing, overcoming inertia and apathy, getting buy-in, etc. Without a sense of purpose and some ambition, no storming ever happens, and neither does anything else. I'd be very interested in hearing about successes in lighting a fire under a previously apathetic group.

I have used http://my.calendars.net . It is free and pretty easy to use. It will link events to a longer description or to some external thing, so if you have some web space as well you can link events to permission slips if you like.

Obviously, I am making a few assumptions, as I have no role in the production of the Fireside Chat: Ads are reviewed and approved before they are placed in the newspaper. Ads encouraging units to ignore policy, break rules, rebel against BSA, etc., would not be accepted for publication. For example, my assumption is that an ad that said, "For a great scout outing, come elk hunting on souped-up ATVs at Antlers-R-Us" would be refused. In order to validate these assumptions, I have a call in to Council. I was told that there was a specific Program Director there that was "promoting" this, and that I should talk to him. I left a message asking him to call me and clarify. I'll let you know what I find out.(This message has been edited by fling1)

I have seen this argument go around several times already, and I know that the concensus on this board is that "laser tag" is outlawed by the G2SS prohibition against "pointing any type of firearm (including paintball, dye, or lasers) at any individual" (which actually appears in bold and denotes policy). But just LAST NIGHT (how timely is that?), I was reading my new "Fireside Chat" (the council newspaper that comes every other month in Dan Beard Council), and saw an advertisement that said, "Make your next Scout outing great. Come to Laser World (or whatever it was)." It specifically advertised the facility for "scout outings" and it is a multi-story indoor laser tag emporium. My personal feeling (which I have not passed on to our scouts) is that if the game does not involve actual lasers, (like the military issue MILES gear) then it is not prohibited in G2SS. Maybe my council approved the ad because it shares that opinion? If I learn something more specific about their position on this, I'll pass it along. Just another data point. Carry on...

Just so, Hunt. I'd like to hear a bit more from Backpacker about how he has organized his patrols from year to year. For that matter, Backpacker, I'd like to know how you got such notable recruiting numbers... all Webelos? or other sources? How do you explain your success in drawing boys to your program? (Keeping them is a matter of good program, but recruiting is a matter of good PR and selling)

The most memorable fire from my rather short tenure as a boy scout was a 5' tall "log cabin" fire. The logs were more-or-less regular split firewood, pretty well dry. In every layer of the cabin, kindling was laid across the logs. It looked like a multi-story building where every log layer made up a story and every floor was made of kindling, if that makes any sense. There must have been more than a dozen stories. When it was lit, all that kindling produced a flame shooting up out of the skyscraper that looked like a jet afterburner pointed straight up. I was very impressed.

Thanks for the generous reply, Barry! (others, too) Your answers in the "what do you do" and "what do you say" categories were beautifully detailed and explicit. I love the "SPL locks the door" idea.

Premise: primary job of SM in boy-led troop is to train SPL and PLs in their roles. Question: How do you accomplish this on an on-going basis? What do you do every week to add value? What do you say and when do you say it? Do you "manage" or "supervise" or "oversee" them in their jobs? If so, by what process? I am looking for specifics in terms of getting good performance out of troop leadership, beyond a one-time training.

Our troop has a pretty long tradition with hammocks. Their very light weight and ability to work on uneven ground attracted our scouts years ago, when they were doing a lot of backpacking. We still have one or two boys who use the inexpensive net hammock. They climb in, drag a tarp over them, and clip a couple of carabiners to close up the hammock into a regular cocoon. (no surprise thuds that way!) But most of our scouts have a Hennessey Hammock, which is a bit more luxurious. We were really early adopters of the HH, so much so that we have an arrangement to sell them as a fundraiser. If you are interested in purchasing one at a discount, PM me and I'll send you the details. At last month's outing, a District-wide camporee with >600 troops and >5000 attendees, we brought along enough timbers to lash together a "hammock city." We make tripods and connect them together to create a framework to hang all of our hammocks from. It is quite a spectacle, and was unique among the entire encampment. Yes, you need to insulate under your bag in cold weather (the cold air will suck heat through your compressed bag just like the cold ground will). We woke up with frost on us :-)

Thanks, but I was not confused. I agree that patrols can camp at reduced strength, even down to 1 or 2 scouts. Regarding the "7 patrols" question, I was referring to your advice to "get back on track" in your post Sunday, 10/17/2004: 9:31:33 PM: The goal is to have a patrol of new scouts enter each year as a patrol of older boys age-out. Then again Sunday, 10/17/2004: 8:23:25 PM: When a patrol shows signs of diminishing membership the idea is not to re-organize the patrol but to recruit more members into it. I inferred from there that your recommendation is 7 patrols per troop. Did I misinterpret your meaning? I appreciate your advice to make up a 2-boy NSP and encourage them to recruit up to full strength. But I suspect you are in a great minority here... does anyone second this recommendation? Do you stick with this approach if a patrol suddenly collapses down to one or two scouts?

Sorry to join this late... BW, I have a data point for you. Two years ago, we had an unusual influx of new scouts, enough for two full NSP. After one year, 6 were left. Last year, we had two new scouts, and integrated them into the remaining (now "regular") patrol. Both are doing fine. Do I understand correctly that your preference would have been to form a NSP with these two boys? Do I also understand correctly that it is your preference that every troop have at least 7 patrols? Meaning at least one patrol for each grade level (or age-level equivalent, if you prefer) from grade 6-12? Are there situations where these would not be your recommendations? Thanks for any clarification.

Here's my understanding, fwiw: The salute is not just a hand position. It is the quick motion into the salute position, held for the appropriate amount of time, followed by the quick motion back to attention. In other words, a two part action: "up" and "down". In order to synchronize multiple saluters, you need commands for both parts: "hand salute" "two" (second part of the salute) Note that this is not just "to stop saluting" but "to perform the second part of the salute" (subtle difference, I suppose).

Thanks for the ideas, folks. NOLS and Solo were the sources that I spotted initially, but there doesn't seem to be anything very local from these outfits. MidwestMom came up with several leads that are at least within striking distance, thanks. I also got a private message regarding a recent course offered in town through a climbing gym (RockQuest). RockQuest tells me that they will likely offer the course again before too long, so that's a good lead also. I'll contact Council, too.. I should have thought of that!

Where do you find a wilderness first aid class? My local Red Cross chapter (Cincinnati) doesn't offer one, and a quick google search uncovers a few offerings in other states. Is this the kind of thing that is available only in regions with plenty of wilderness? Or is there a reliable source I have yet to identify?

I may end up flinging some canteloupes or small watermelons this summer. But post-halloween is always punkin season! Luckily, the G2SS does not specifically prohibit fooling about with midieval seige weapons (obligitory attempt to inject some relevence to the topic :-)