GKlose

I was a little surprised at the $30 price until I saw the present price on Centennial Switchbacks ($50). We're those new Switchbacks cheaper a few weeks ago? I don't remember them being that expensive. Guy

I spent some time yesterday on the UA website, and if I recall correctly, there was some fire retardant clothing too. Anyway -- is UA stuff American-made? Maybe that's a good selling point. Guy

I was driving by our local Scout shop on Saturday, so I dropped in and bought the new HB. I haven't spent that much time reading it so far, but it is completely reorganized. The first thing that jumps out at me is that the previous handbook kind of stresses T - 1C rank advancement right up front. The new one is separated into sections ("First Aid", "Leave No Trace", etc), with less emphasis on ranks. Lots of artwork, and it looks nice. Guy

I too found the article to be interesting. The Scouts were from the author's old troop in New Jersey. I didn't think the competition to be so fair, though. The non-Scouts were all adults, with many, many years of experience (the article mentions they get out 10 to 20 days a year, presumably backpacking, and probably have done so for many years). Teen Scouts don't always magically know practical things (such as starting a backpacking stove they had never used before). Anyway, it was a fun article to read. Guy

Kudu -- thanks! "The Dump" is a really cool resource. I want to read half of those documents like yesterday :-). Guy

Buff' -- on an Allagash trek (Maine National High Adventure Area), years ago, we had several portages, one of which was very long. As I recall, something close to 5 miles. It was to happen the start of the next morning, but our camp was on the "near side" of the portage. When we rolled into camp the afternoon before, our guide took the 5 strongest guys and did the canoe portage (six canoes). I was with the leftovers and my job was to get the camp set up and dinner started. The next morning, we humped everything else. We were all very thankful we didn't have to hump canoes and packs the next morning. I wasn't ever very good at balancing a canoe, but on a couple portages, I remember wearing two packs -- smaller one on the front, and a larger one on the back. Our canoe groupings were different than tent groupings, but everything stayed the same over the course of the trek. Guy

Thanks, shortridge. I suppose I should have googled it :-). Guy

"As the BSA's fake Baden-Powell quote says: The Patrol Method is not ONE method in which Scouting can be carried on. It is the ONLY method!" I just caught this last night, as I was reading through one of the old Greenbar Bill Scoutmaster Handbooks. The quote was attributed to Roland Phillips, but I have no idea who he was. Kudu, do you know? Guy

" Mohican, Shawnee state forest, wayne national forest, Hocking hills (terrible choice way over utilized), Tar Hollow, Scioto Trails state forest, Caesar Creek state park. " We used to go to all of those places (early 70s), except for Caesar Creek (our backyard). We went to Zaleski, too. My favorite, though, was Shawnee State Forest. Very nice backpacking trail there. I always thought it rivaled the AT in terms of challenge. Another thought -- our "greatest hit" was Carter Caves State Park in Kentucky. We went there every March and would have gone more often if there weren't so many other fun places to visit. Guy

About a hundred years ago, my troop (from Xenia) used to camp in an area near Zanesville that was built upon an old strip-mined area. It was okay, albeit a little muddy in the spring. We'd take side trips to go see a giant steam shovel called something like Big Muskie. Lots of hiking in that area. But that was about a hundred years ago (or maybe 35 or so). Guy

We had an old Google pages setup that a scout put together (without our own domain name). However, we decided to step things up a bit and get a hosted site from http://www.mytroop.us/ which has a boatload of features (protected content with logins/passwords, email lists, troop roster integrated with Troopmaster, etc) that we hope to take advantage of. Setting up a new domain name was easy, and we did that through GoDaddy (however, GoDaddy does love its email marketing -- so Be Prepared for lots of it). Guy(This message has been edited by GKlose)

The latest issue of Boy's Life had an ad for the new uniform shorts. From memory, they are microfiber, anti-microbial, can double as swim trunks and have a waterproof pocket. There's also an ad in the back of the issue: buy $50 worth on scoutstuff.org, plug in a special offer code, and get a new handbook for free. Guy

Kudu -- I think I worded my statement awkwardly. I'm not looking for a camp that has just patrol cooking. I'm looking for patrol cooking (which I would agree is a fundamental teamwork builder) and a strong patrol-oriented program. The whole package. I would refer back to my own experiences as a Scout: my first summer camp was special. We took the entire troop to a place several hours north, where we did it Brownsea 22 style. We weren't even within 300' of other patrols (it was more like 1/4 mile, on sites we chose ourselves)! We repeated the same thing a few years later (interspersed with trips to our council camp, and a trip to the national jamboree). A funny thing about out National Jamboree experience. I feel we had a fairly strong patrol program. I recall being a patrol leader that week. Even though we had 3 patrols in our troop site, which was maybe 100' by 100', during our week I don't recall hanging out at the other patrol sites. Out of all my Scout experiences, I'd rank our on-our-own summer camps near the top, along with trips to Philmont and the Maine National High Adventure Area (National, at the time, council-run now). The latter two, of course, were more like Venture crew opportunities. Guy

I've been thinking about checking into Camp Bell, which is part of the Griswold Scout Reservation in the Daniel Webster Council (Nashua, NH) for next year. Online, on paper, I think it looks very interesting (the link is broken at the moment, otherwise I would add it here). While I was at camp this last week, I met a national camp inspector, and I asked him about area camps, including Camp Bell. He kind of shrugged, suggesting "well, if that's your thing..." and then went on to explain that many camps have in-site cooking. But that's not what I'm looking for. I'm looking for a camp that builds the patrol program. So the intriguing part, to me, about Camp Bell is that program areas are done by patrol too. From what I can tell, a patrol develops it's own program, as in "today we're at the waterfront" and then in whatever particular program area they are in they split up by need -- for example, new scouts work on water safety skills, while older scouts work on merit badge-related skills. The reason why I think it wouldn't fly in our troop: advancement. I think the troop is so advancement-oriented that unless a Scout comes home without several camp-earned merit badges, then I think they (and parents) might consider the patrol-oriented camp a waste of time. This is a troop where several older boys eschew a regular week at summer camp in order to attend "Eagle Week" (where one scout claimed "it's as bad as school!"). One thing I can say so far: it's no fun to try and change troop culture one little step at a time. While I can see an enormous benefit by going to someplace like a patrol-oriented summer camp, others (Scouts especially) aren't easily convinced of the benefit. Guy

Out of all the Cub Scout events I've attended (since '02 or so), the one that seemed to go over best was this: at a "Webelos Woods" day at a local scout camp, the organizers arranged a visitor from a local pet store. His store specializes in reptiles, and he brought a bunch with him (some were able to be handled, some could be touched, with the owner doing the actual handling). It was pretty cool to see the tremendous reaction. Guy

I know a "Webelos III"-style troop going into it's third year. I'm not sure how many are really active, week to week, but they have about 10 on their roster, I think. Their intention (as I heard directly from the SM, the night that I visited with a Webelos den) is to march the same "patrol" together through the program, about one advancement a year, keeping the patrol intact. Anyone new joining was welcome to have their own patrol. I'm not sure it's a recipe for long-term success for that troop, but the adults seem to be quite happy with the way it is being run :-).

I am going to be in camp this next week, and I suspect that after I've been there, the camp will want to relax their "no electronics" policy due to me asking, several times a day, "do you know the score of last night's Red Sox game?" After all, there's a pennant race heating up. :-) Guy

Oops, as Rick and emb021 pointed out, I forgot training. I think that's because even though we have a training chair, he doesn't come to district committee meetings and he only does CS training. Other training is left for other districts. :-) Our district committee meetings usually take about two hours, once a month. In our district, some of the chairs don't do anything besides show up to district committee meetings. As the chair of the membership committee, I seem to have "seasons" (CS Roundup, Webelos-to-Scout transition, BS year-round recruiting, etc), and I at least try to have something to report since the prior month's meeting. Right now, the "membership subcommittee" is the DE and me. We talk frequently by email, and meet for lunch occasionally, so we don't have membership meetings otherwise. The activities guys, for example, are very busy. They have about one event a month, so there is always something to plan. My own personal goal has been to get them to do that planning outside of the district committee meeting so that they can just do a quick presentation at the monthly meeting, rather than bog down the whole meeting with the minutia of their planning. On months where "Activities" were cooperating, the district committee meetings were just a little over an hour. Guy

Not for nothing, but I think Chuck Connors would have made an awesome SM -- "The Rifleman", the Boston Celtics, the Brooklyn Dodgers, the Chicago Cubs and all that. :-) Guy

I should have added that our commissioner staff now seems fairly stable. They are concentrating on assisting units to get to Quality Unit status (and hence, Quality District) and we have a Roundtable commissioner that hosts monthly roundtables (attendance is hit and miss).

Councils are split up into districts. Ideally, each district will have a professional (a District Executive who reports to the council's Scout Executive) and a number of volunteers that make up the group that oversees the district. The District Executive (DE), the District Chair and the District Commissioner make up what are called the Key-3. The District Chair oversees a committee, all of whom are volunteers. I'll probably forget a few, but you have subcommittees that cover advancement, activities, finance and membership. Ideally, each of those subcommittees has multiple members, although some districts have only one person in those slots. There is an old thread on this forum that talks about the visibility of the district committee. Suffice it to say that in some districts, unit leaders don't necessarily know or care about what their district committees do, while in other districts the committee is highly visible. Our district kind of sits in the middle. We actively plan activities (Cub Scout events, such as a district Pinewood Derby; spring and fall camporees and a Klondike Derby in January for Boy Scouts; Scouting for Food events, etc.), we have an advancement subcommittee that oversees Eagle Scout applications and sends a rep to troop-run Eagle Boards of Review, a membership subcommittee (me) that is still trying to learn how to do the job, a non-existent finance subcommittee (and "Friends of Scouting" donations that reflect that), and a small handful of volunteers that jump in when assistance is needed. Guy

I'm with boomerscout that camp should last the entire summer. On the other hand, our council's camp is little different than your 4-day plan: arrivals are Sunday morning, but with checkin, setup and the camp tour, Sunday is pretty much shot. Program finishes up on Friday, with a family BBQ and closing campfire on Friday evening. Troops are not really encouraged to stay over Friday evening. A long time ago, I worked at our local camp several summers. My own SM was program director and eventually camp director. It was on a Sunday to Saturday noon schedule, and there was a "family night" on Wednesdays. I was talking with my SM and he mentioned that he would really like to move the family night to Fridays but he was afraid that most parents would just want to take their scouts home after the campfire. As I recall, he said he couldn't do it because then the camp wouldn't qualify as a 6-day long-term camp because scouts wouldn't be staying over the 6th night. Jump ahead to years later, and that's exactly what happens at our camp, where it is really only 5-nights and 6 days. Guy

Just avoid Lisabob's venture patrol problem where the planned activity was taken over by adults :-). Anyway, I am very thankful for my experience as a Scout. Our SM grew up backpacking in the Smokey Mountains, so when he started a troop (at age 24), he took older scouts to the Smokey's every fall. I joined, as I recall, in the second year of the troop. That first fall, I wasn't able to go on the trip. It was for 12-yr-olds and up (which had the effect of removing first-year scouts from the trip). But the next fall, I was ready, and what a great trip it was. It rained and rained, but that didn't matter. I was running with the big dogs. That first trip for me was just after a contingent got back from Philmont. The older dudes, who had gone to Philmont, planned their own Smokey's trek. The younger ones of us went a different, more modest, route and we all met at the end. I think it took some coordination by the drivers, but we all did well. My own Philmont trip took place two years later. I skipped a HA trip to what was NT back then, but I did go on a trip to the Maine National High Adventure Area the next year. So I guess what I'm saying is that it was all progressive. Younger kids took smaller steps, while the older kids went off on annual HA trips. Eventually we all got to run with the big dogs, and then one day we were the big dogs. I hear stories now about troops that don't do car camping, and I'm envious. I would have loved that as a Scout. I'd love it if our present troop could move that direction now (that's a whole separate story). Guy

Our district did a modified Pow-Wow this last year (there was a cub event going on simultaneously with an adult training event, so parents could get more information about Scouting in general, while their Cubs were occupied otherwise). The adults were split up into smaller groups, and rotated among five or six sessions. I can't recall all of the sessions, but I led one of them (it was called "Trail to Eagle"). Two other sessions I remember were a boiled down (to an hour) New Leader Essentials, and another one focused on games and fun activities for Cubs. In my session, I felt I had plenty of time, so I first showed a brief Power Point presentation on the history of Scouting. It was a PPT that I originally found online, then edited a bit, to show at a Blue and Gold Banquet. "Trail to Eagle" was also another PPT presentation that another Scouter had sketched out. I edited it quite a bit to tighten it up. It was an overview of the entire spectrum of Scout advancement, starting with Tiger Cubs heading to post-Eagle. I tried to emphasize differences in the Cub and Boy Scout programs (I don't think most Cub parents understand the major differences), and highlighted the Webelos transition part. I "borrowed" a concept that I learned on this forum -- progressive skills development. I took an example of a Cub Scout learning to fix a cut on a finger and how first aid skills are stepped up every year until you get to T, 2C, 1C requirements, and finally First Aid merit badge. Then I pointed out there were similar progressions in camping, hiking, cooking, etc. Overall, it seemed like my session went well. It was fairly lively with plenty of questions as I went along. I repeated it five or six times that day, so I got plenty of experience with it. This year, if the event is repeated, I'd like to pass off that session to someone else because I'd like to do a single session just concentrating on Webelos. Experienced Webelos Den Leaders know the drill, but other parents and other unit leaders don't necessarily grasp everything that is going on. At our University of Scouting, they do two entire sessions on Webelos-to-Scout transition (one from Cub point of view, one from Boy Scout point of view) and my idea is slightly different than that. Reduce the transition part, but also do any overview of activity badges, timelines, local council events (Webelos Woods, Arrow of Light Weekend), etc. Guy

I could see a "Walk Like An Egyptian" dance contest :-).