GKlose

Yeah, I don't see the problem at all...son asks to go to the pool, and you respond, "sure, maybe you can call Chad and see if he'd like to get something signed off today too". Or else, maybe it turns into just an instructional session with your son, where he becomes a much better swimmer than he used to be. No big deal. When the time comes, both of them can do their "test" where they swim the 100 yds for each stroke, or whatever the requirements are. As far as treating sons differently, I understand that too. I counsel a couple of badges where there aren't that many local counselors. My sons were interested in one of them, and yes, they worked just a little bit harder than other Scouts have had to, but all within the scope of the requirements :-). If it was too bad, I'm sure they'd find another counselor the next time! Guy

I'm not sure what the big deal is -- our guys will "teach" Totin' Chip on demand, especially on a young Scout's first outing. But I like Stosh's idea of "recertification" every year. I think I'll bounce that one off our SPL and SM to see what they think. Guy

I attended summer camp twice, with my brother in law -- Yawgoog, in Rhode Island. I don't know if they still have the tradition, but in order to gain entrance to the dining hall on Tuesday night, everyone must supply a stamped postcard or letter to home. Here's the funny part of the story, the years that I attended: my brother in law is employed by the USPS, and is a former carrier. One year at Yawgoog, he created a character. A super-hero carrier named "Mail Man!", complete with cape and mask and everything. Used parts of his uniform too (summer uniform over navy blue tights). It was a very funny character...he swooped into the dining hall on Monday night, and using a big prop envelope, showed how to properly address the envelope and include the return address. Tuesday night, everyone was all set with their postcards home. He made an appearance again on Tuesday, where he again swooped into the dining hall, struck a super hero pose, and then surveyed the crowd. Then he disappeared again, never to be seen again. Mild-mannered brother-in-law showed back up at the dining hall table about 10 minutes later. We had to tell him he missed everything :-). Guy(This message has been edited by GKlose)(This message has been edited by GKlose)

About the jamboree band (sorry, I just finished reading the other notes): it is organized by a Scouter who is also a faculty member at Villanova. The band is most definitely not adult-only; in fact, the online descriptions said that preference would be given to youth, but they had to meet the youth staff guidelines (16+). I figured this wouldn't be easy for my son to get into; I naturally assumed all the slots were spoken for (even by "known" adults). But I was really surprised to find that he was first accepted as a staff member, and then a couple of days ago, notified that he was accepted into the band. It was really just a basic application form, and also a recommendation form either to be filled out by a school band director or a private teacher. Other stuff online said that the music wouldn't be difficult, maybe a "grade 2 or 3" (which is middle school to easy high school level), but sight-reading would be expected. By the way, the application deadline was a couple of months ago, and like I said, notice came out just a couple of days ago. If a Scout is still interested, I would suggest sending email to the guy at Villanova right away (it isn't hard to find his contact info online -- just search for "national jamboree band" and click away) and asking him. It could very well be he does not have all his slots filled. You never know unless you ask. The acceptance deadline is today, so call or write immediately! Also -- youth staff pricing ($425), and the dates are July 11-25. Guy

As a side note, my son was just accepted into the Jamboree band for next summer. He's very excited about that (he went to the last one, as a 13-yr-old). But back to the topic at hand -- I've had half a thought to start a Crew when both my sons hit Venturing age, organized as a band. We'll start talking about it next year sometime, if they're into it. Their troop has at least a half dozen band members in it already, and another couple of troops nearby have even more. If I were to try this, I'd try and organize not to interfere with troop programs (but the "dead months" would be marching band season, in the fall!). Guy

Yes, D-rat, that's exactly it. I swear the larger the group, the more people that don't listen. :-) But I forgot one of my particular pet peeves: purposefully withholding information from a Leader's Guide, so that one can only get it at the pre-camp meeting! A penalty for not showing up, as it were. Really, the world (Scout camps) would be a much better place if we had clear and complete Leader's and Program Guides available in advance of camp, and on top of that, if these pre-camp meetings were kept as short as humanly possible. Guy

Bill -- I think you missed my point with my question on "who is the audience?" I know who the audience is -- I was just wrapping that up in my point that I view the guide as an "all things to all people" overwrought policy document. The Guide is far more complex than it needs to be, when it mixes the advancement of a Tiger Cub all the way up to an Eagle Scout, with Palms, in a full spectrum. The basic policies of Cub advancement are completely different than what a District Advancement committee needs for Eagle project plan approval and a Board of Review. That's my critique -- I think the audience(s) would be better served with simpler, more clear documents that are better focused on the end customer. A Den Leader has a different view than a troop advancement coordinator, who has a different view than a District Advancement Chair or Committee, who has a different view than a merit badge counselor. Want a good working example? A new Scout enters our troop -- his mom is a middle school science teacher, who desperately wants to help out. We suggested that she could offer a lot as a merit badge counselor. That's fine, but do I hand her the Guide to Advancement to learn the role?NO, of course not. It's not written for her, even though one fundamental aspect of Boy Scout advancement is the merit badge program. Guy

Here's how I view it -- it is mandatory for anyone who calls an "all hands on deck" meeting to make it worthwhile. My first summer at a camp, I attended a mandatory leader's meeting that went over, in painful detail, everything that could have easily been put in a Leader's Guide (thus saving time for everyone involved). With questions, this meeting was going from it's second hour and into the third when I finally said "I really have to get back to the troop, is there anything else that I really need to know?". Later on, I pointed out that the present Leader's Guide (which was scant on administrative detail -- the stuff that was covered in the meeting) would better work for everyone if they split it into two parts: a Leader's Guide and a Program Guide (the program aspects were better suited for the Scouts going to camp, and the SPLs and PLs trying to organize activities during the week). I was distraught when I saw the next year, and the year after, and the year after, that the Leader's Guide only changed slightly from one year to the next (and no changes in program in those in-between years). So now we go to a different camp. One that actually works on program improvements from year to year. One that I feel takes comments from unit leaders more seriously. I know there are leaders that have their units go to the same place, year after year, and for them it suits their needs better. But I can also see a scenario where these same unit leaders skip the pre-camp meetings because nothing has really changed with the camp. Guy

Honestly -- I view the present Guide To Advancement as an overwrought policy document. I know this is an arguable position, but if I were in charge of it, I would look at splitting it up into parts (Cubs, Boy Scouts, Eagle, Special Needs), editing and simplifying it, and releasing it as separate pamphlets. There's a rash of "all things to all people" going on lately. Who is the audience? As a troop advancement coordinator, I need to look at one subset of the Guide. A Cubmaster, or a Den Leader, needs to look at a different subset. A Troop or District Eagle Coordinator needs to look at another, as does the District Advancement Committee. I'd bet that the average Cub Scout Pack can't get a Den Leader to read through the present Guide, just to figure out what Cub advancement is all about. What about a merit badge counselor? All that said, I think the present document is much improved over the prior version. Guy

One of my regrets is that when my older son's first pack (very small, "one man show") was in trouble, that I didn't do more to save it. We moved to another pack, didn't find it suitable, and then moved to another, and it was worse. But by that time, it didn't make sense to switch (again). Knowing that regret, when he chose a troop that started to have issues, I worked with the adult leadership to rebuild the troop. All the while, I lament that first pack. Should have done more. Guy

As a youth, my favorite troop weekend of the year was Columbus Day weekend. We'd go off on an outing that had an extra day to it -- some of those outings were on the A.T. Backpacking in October is great!

I've been the primary communications channel of our troop (not pack) for a couple of years now. I've gotten a few complaints (one didn't like the volume of email, and asked for "summary email" to be sent out, but had missed the fact that we have a summary email that goes out every Wednesday morning, automated, which pretty much lists everything on the troop website; another mom, who's son missed yet another meeting, asked me why we didn't send out reminders for every meeting. I responded that I do, except they are in that Wednesday morning email summary. She didn't like that. She wanted separate email. You just can't win sometimes...). But here's my guiding principle: email is a one-way communications tool. Very few people seem to read it, especially for detailed content, and I'm even talking about coworkers here too. You can put two questions in an email, for example, and you're lucky if you get a response to one of them. If you send a followup, asking about the second question? No response. Almost as if they are saying "hey, I already dealt with that email." Our Scouts don't want email. They want texts. But I guess I'm kind of slow at this. I'm not sure how to send out one message, by text, to 40 or so recipients. With parents -- who want to be informed -- you can't send too few email messages, and you can't send too many. It has to be the right amount :-). But that's different for everyone. You can't send messages that are too long, those will get ignored. Too short? If you don't get all the pertinent content in one note, then you might get questions (but not necessarily email responses). I sent out reminders the other day about summer camp balances. One person brought in a check for $5 too much :-). The chair of our Cub Scout pack says that she typically finds that she has to send out messages at least 3 times, in 3 different ways, in order to reach everyone. And she doesn't get email responses either. Guy

My wife is great because she'll say anything to anyone -- for example, she hears another mom complain about doing laundry. She'll ask why the other mom hasn't taught her (Scout-aged) son to do his own laundry yet. When the other mom starts to make noise like "well, it's just easier if I do it myself", my wife will respond, "so, do you intend to go off to college with him and do his laundry for him then too?" She and I talked about this when our kids were younger. We came to the conclusion that by the time our guys reached college age there are certain skills that we'll expect them to handle on their own: laundry is just one; cooking rudimentary meals; make their beds; be able to clean a bathroom, and other rudimentary cleaning. All sorts of things. Then we realized they don't just learn this by osmosis. We had to teach our kids how to do laundry. I typically ask one of my sons to join me in the kitchen while I'm cooking, and I'll try and teach him something new. It isn't necessarily easy -- it takes work. But the dividends are huge. So it isn't perfect -- repitition is the key. But the minor victories are so worth it. Our 15-yr-old will head downstairs to do a load of his laundry, and he'll see the dryer is full, so he'll empty it and fold the clothes. It is such a great feeling! Our Scouting program is filled with many teachable moments just like this. Some kids seem to get it and some don't. Same thing with their parents. At "new parents meeting" (for parents of recent crossovers) a few weeks back, I shared a few lessons that I've learned, many of which I learned here. One of the things that I said is that it might seem easier for you to contact an adult leader for information about an upcoming outing, for example, but then I said "every time you do that, you are denying your son, and his patrol leader, another chance to reinforce their communications skills". Guy

Scoutfish, YES! My thoughts exactly -- Way back in the dark ages, our SM used to take us on nighthikes. We had two rules: no talking, and no flashlights. Well, we were allowed to whisper if there was a rock in the way, or something like that, but it was liberating to not have a flashlight. I still do the same thing now. I do carry a small (!) penlight in my pocket, and I only use it when I can't see anything at all. My newest pet peeve, though, are headlamps. Everyone I've run into that wears one of those things seems to have a difficult time figuring out that you really shouldn't have them pointing directly into someones elses eyes. If I buy one, though, I'll probably look for the red "nightvision" LED version. Guy

I live about a mile and a half from a New Balance outlet -- I've been shopping there for years, because they seem to reliably have EEEE.

This is something of a pet peeve for me... Last year, we attended a new (to us) camp, although the troop used to go there many years ago. This is out of council for us, and is a regular advancement-oriented camp (we also returned to the same council's patrol-oriented camp for the second year, and are returning there again this year). It was a challenging week overall. The camp was pretty much at capacity at 500-some Scouts, and with adults and staff, I think was around 650 in their dining hall. I'm normally a kind of "go with the flow" kind of person, but there was enough that happened during the week that I wasn't pleased. I did fill out an evaluation form at the end of the week, but found that the questions couldn't really capture what I was trying to convey. So I sought out the camp director, when I was done, and spoke to him for about an hour. The conversation, for me, was kind of unsatisfactory. No matter what complaint I had, he could turn it around to why I was wrong, or why my expectations were off. He finally told me that since there were 500-some Scouts in camp, they must be doing things right. I just shrugged knowing that I wasn't going to return. Customer service. Customer focus. Customer perception of a quality camp. I had a similar message for one of my old DEs, when he asked why we go out of council. I told him "because the camp we're going to is patrol-oriented"...he said, "but we have patrol cooking". I said, "there's a difference, have you seen the camp?" and he said, "no." Why wouldn't you visit other camps? Or at least check them out online? Why wouldn't you strive to make improvements each and every year? (so the council camp that we aren't going to? they pretty much have the same program they had when my older son first went there, some five summers ago -- while the one we do go to tries to find some new twist to offer every single year). I work in a customer-oriented field. If we didn't pay attention to our customers, and work continuously on product quality improvement, we wouldn't exist any more. It is so ingrained in the way we do things that I don't really know any other way. That's why I don't understand that when I was gracious enough to offer an hour of my (volunteer) time to offer feedback to a "vendor", then at least he could be gracious enough to listen with an open mind and not shut down each and every piece of feedback. Guy

I don't have a magic bullet, but when my older son joined a troop, it had severe outing attendance problems (lots of reasons, but mostly because it was an adult-led, advancement-oriented troop -- so because older Scouts didn't need to camp for advancement, they didn't go -- they concentrated on attending "Eagle Week" at the local summer camp, to get their Eagle-required merit badges). It was so bad that my son's first year, there were only "6 nights under nylon" for the entire year, not including the six days at summer camp. How were outings chosen? One adult leader would talk to his son, and then report to everyone else, "well, they seemed to like 'X', so let's just do 'X' again". An average outing would have 6 to 8 Scouts, and most wouldn't commit until the last minute, because they weren't sure when, or where, the outings would be, and even if it would be held (a few last-minute cancellations of outings will do that to you). Long story, but it took a few years to solve the problem. Youth leaders had to take back control of outings (and it took some adult poking and prodding to get youth leaders to take back that responsibility). It took some fresh ideas -- it meant having to try some new activities and new locations. It meant scheduling something year-round; scheduling something every month. It meant changing the perception that Boy Scouts was an "academic year" program, with summer camp added. It meant fixing the outing weekend, and going no matter what (for example, we now go the second weekend of the month -- although we've had to shift once or twice). It meant getting rid of the uncertainty -- at one time, we had an "outdoor activities coordinator" that declared an outing was off because not enough Scouts had signed up two weeks in advance. He's no longer the outdoor activities coordinator of the troop. Then it took awhile to catch on. Lately, we've been getting 20+ on outings (in a 28-Scout troop), where the only ones staying home are the older ones that "grew up" under the old system. Then again, they tend to be the multiple-sports, multiple-activities kids (the local HS band is a schedule-killer in the fall!). The PLC is now trying to think of new places to go, rather than just going back to the same places they have been multiple times. One proud moment: the PLC, recognizing that most new Scouts had not been to the patrol-oriented summer camp we've been going to for a couple of years, decided to hold an off-season winter camp there. During the outing, the older guys took the younger guys on an extended hike throughout the reservation, as a kind of tour. To have them see what the camp was like and tell them stories. This last year, I think we had 10 monthly outings, one overnight with Cubs, attended two summer camps, did a 5-day high adventure trip, at least four service projects, and had 7 Eagle projects (and I'm not even counting Courts of Honor). The only "problem" at this point is that we have very few who make it to everything, although we've got a couple that really try. I think we're a healthy and active troop, and we've made great headway at toning down the advancement-oriented nature of the old guard. We didn't manage to wedge in a PL training weekend, despite attempts to do so -- but we had one the prior year, at the beginning of our "take back control of the calendar" period. Still a long way to go, though -- Guy

I haven't been to a R/T in over a year (we were consolidated with another district, and R/T was established on "their night", which happens to be the same as our troop meeting night), but in the roundtables at which I have attended, and presented, I noticed a few things. The first is that information is being held hostage -- plenty of stuff goes out by email, but some details are withheld for the monthly R/T. Because so many unit leaders stay away, only about half the unit leaders in the district know everything that is going on. Presentation length: I've presented about a half dozen times, and in every case, I wrote up what I wanted to cover on a small page of notes. I'd present that stuff within 3 to 5 minutes, and then we'd do Q&A. The whole slice was maybe 10 minutes max. Contrast that with the camp promotions guys that would come in -- the most egregious case was watching a 10-minute horrific video that looked like it was made by 10 year olds for viewing by 10 year olds. That's fine, but the R/T audience isn't a bunch of 10 year olds. The other one that was really bad was a 45-minute presentation on Cub camps, followed by at least a half hour on the council Scout camp by another presenter. After that, the council camping chair got up to speak, to cover the points that he felt the others hadn't emphasized. He talked for at least another half hour, with mostly redundant information, and without taking into account that most people attending roundtables have pretty much made up their minds where they are going to camp (let's be honest, the ones that stay in council tend to stay there, and the ones that shop around -- because they find the council camp lacking -- tend to look outside; nobody is really making up their minds based on almost two hours of blah blah blah). Here's my attitude: get the information out, by multiple channels, quickly and cleanly, with minimal "fog". Be respectful of the time of other volunteers. Guy

About 4 years ago, our troop purchased a trailer. It has annoyed me every since. It is almost as if it changes the perception of what constitutes an acceptable place for an outing. I also didn't like that the next purchase after that was a carport/canopy ("why the whole troop can fit under it!") and a large 3-burner propane stove ("why we can cook for the whole troop on that thing!"). Last thing I heard the same guy ask about was a large dutch oven (again, "we can feed the whole troop out of that thing!"). See the way this was going? It was not exactly reinforcing patrol method. Granted, we have storage issues with our CO (our only space in a building is an old moldy basement), so having the trailer has made for a nice storage bin, but the adults who have trailer hitches on their vehicles haven't been on outings in awhile. So we haven't hauled the trailer in, I think, almost two years. I would have loved to save the money on the trailer, carport and large stove by buying lightweight flies and backpacking stoves. Maybe even some lightweight tents. As others have pointed out, you can use those things on any outing.

But wouldn't it be "Thstar Warth Day"?

Thanks, guys -- I appreciate your responses. I'd been thinking Barkeeper's Friend too, or even Softscrub. What I hadn't thought about is the bead box. We've got an ASM in the troop who is a pro metalworker. Didn't even occur to me to ask him :-). He's awesome -- made us a really nice dutch oven table and also made some dutch oven lid lifters. He even set aside some scrap at work, and was almost finished with a rack for propane bottles, but he said someone else at work swiped it. Thanks again -- Guy

Our troop has some old pieces of Trail Chef aluminum cook kits in storage and I've noticed that some appear to be heavily oxidized. Assuming these can be cleaned up, anyone have any recommendations on how to do so? I would think that anything deeply pitted would get tossed, and that we probably don't want to use any heavy abrasives on them. Any other thoughts? Thanks, Guy

One other distinct memory of that fall '72 trip. We arrived, late one night, and hiked in to our first campsite from a gap. It was dark. We arrived at a lean-to where one other hiker had already settled in. This was long before I knew what a thru-hiker was, and I image that he was one. He said that he'd been on the trail for awhile, and hadn't kept up with news, so he had no idea about Nixon's presidential run (re-elected, of course, less than a month later). I can also imagine that since he was the only person at this campsite, he wasn't too pleased to have a 12-person or so Boy Scout group interrupt his serenity. Guy

This goes way back (fall '72 as I recall), but as a young Scout, we drove down from SW Ohio and hiked a section along the TN/NC border, in the area of the Pisgah National Forest. I'm pretty sure we ended in Hot Springs. An older crew of Scouts from our troop, back from a Philmont trip two months earlier, hiked to Hot Springs from the other direction. That was my first backpacking trip, and I was young. It rained a lot, but I don't really recall it being particularly strenuous. I do remember things like spectacular views, old barns and pasture fences. That sort of thing. Guy

I like the clarifications in the new advancement guidebook and Eagle project workbook. Turns out we have one of those districts where the Eagle board chair used to make a big deal about the fundraising aspects (although, I don't know if he required a "Unit Money Earning Application", which I never understood anyway; an Eagle project isn't "unit money-earning", and an Eagle candidate is not a unit). A concrete example: two Eagle candidates, from our troop, within a month of each other. The first one sails through, raising donations from friends and family and by collecting aluminum cans (at his dad's workplace). The next one has largely the same wording in his project workbook about fundraising, also mentioning that he would ask for donations from neighbors by leaving a flyer in their mailboxes (the project is a conservation project that helps the neighborhood). I saw the email trail back from that latter one (workbook review, and feedback, is offered via email). The response from the chair is along the lines of "we expect more out of our Eagle candidates than begging for money" and "it is illegal to put flyers in mailboxes". Very terse, and (in my opinion) fairly rude. Definitely not positive, helpful feedback. My initial reaction was "oh, so the next time I'm hit up for FoS, maybe I'll just reply that begging for money is particularly un-Scoutlike, according to , and that they'll just have to figure something else out. BTW, last night at a troop meeting, the SM handed me a letter from our new DE, whom I haven't met yet, who told us what our unit "base goal" and "stretch goal" FoS contributions are, which are about double of what was donated last year. All that being said, that's why I welcome the new clarifications on Eagle project fundraising. It wouldn't have killed the district Eagle board chair to write a more polite response, telling the candidate that putting flyers in mailboxes is not a good idea, and that to hand them out personally, or leave them in a door would be better choices (hence, educating the candidate). But instead we get the rude "gatekeeper" mentality of "we expect more of our Eagle candidates than begging for money". Guy