Hal_Crawford

We had an issue a few years ago. A new dad/scouter in the unit signed up to be a merit badge counselor for a large number of merit badges. It seemed unusual at the time but there was no rule against it and he presented solid creds for all the (80+) merit badges so I as CC signed off and the district merit badge czar did as well. This was mistake number 1. At the time I advised him not to counsel his own son... no rule against it but it is bad practice. At the time our merit badge procedures were sort of loosey goosey. Scouts found their own counselors and then brought the blue card to the scoutmaster. Sometimes it was a blue card already signed off as completed by the merit badge counselor. Since no one had abused this system no one thought much about it. Soon the new counselor's son brought in a completed blue card for a MB signed off by his dad. The SM accepted it. Mistake #2. Soon there was another, and another. When concerns were raised the question was always a "is there a rule against it?" "No, but it is bad practice". "But there is no rule against it". The MBC was retired fromd a government agency based in Northern Virginia, had a very strong personality and did not take no for an answer. You can guess how this turned out. Soon there was a 14 year old scout with 21 merit badges. Some were from summer camp, many from his dad and one or two from another troop MBC. By this time the concerns had moved to the district level with scouters lining up on both sides. Issues got personal. There were angry e-mails, arguments in the hall outside the district RT. It was ugly with a capital U. Ultimately the kid quit scouts before earning Eagle. He was a nice kid and really wasn't the problem. Collateral damage. As a result of all this we learned that the SM should be the gatekeeper for merit badges. No one starts a merit badge without the SM assigning the counselor. The district no has a limit on how many MBs one can counsel. Lessons learned the hard way. vcrew, I doubt you would do things like the MBC above but please... avoid any appearance of impropriety and don't counsel your son.

I don't think it is anything new. I have been taking mileage deductions for years. I deduct uniforms etc when I remember to keep the receipts. You can't deduct the cost of your son's scouting experience but you can much of deduct yours. My wife is a figure skating judge which is a volunteer position (judges, like the skaters must maintain amateur status). When she goes to a training course at least some of the costs are deductible. She hasn't taken one recently so I don't know this years rules but mileage, air fare, lodging etc. It may be that trips to PTC are deductible. I'm no expert, check with your tax preparer for accurate and up to date information. Hal

My experience has been that EBORs usually run about 30-45 minutes... longer if everyone is having a good time. Longer boards usually involve a lot of laughter (in a good way). Good luck to your son, we are all pulling for him.

Send 'im to the rope locker for 100 fathoms of shoreline. Arrrrrgh!

Gotta admire anyone who can land a fixed wing aircraft on a carrier deck.

I would not recommend anything that is solvent based (oil, enamel, lacquer, spray paint etc..). There is no reason to expose cubs to these more hazardous materials when there are safer water based alternatives. I know that most of us grew up sniffing glue (indirectly I hope) and panting model cars and airplanes with enamel but read our posts and the damage is clear. Seriously, school art rooms have banished most of these materials with good reason. It is unlikely that cubs are going to work with the type of ventilation and/or respirators needed and even nail polish requires acetone for cleanup. Personally, I prefer acrylic paints but it does not come out of clothes so poster paint might be smarter.

Packsaddle: This is a total aside to the general blather of this thread but I believe your father flew for the United States Army Air Forces. The name changed 20 June 1941, almost 6 months before Pearl Harbor. My Father-in-Law was a mechanic for B-24s in North Africa and 29s on Saipan and he would always correct those who called it the Air Corps. The USAAF became the USAF on 17 September 1947. USAF was at least the seventh name for that service. Hal

Best tip I got was to bring a lightweight, folding stool/chair that you can carry with you to the program areas. There is a lot of time spent waiting and watching while cubs participate. While there are sometimes opportunities to help if you are qualified there is still a lot of down time during which it helps to be comfortable.

It is hard to find trails without climbs in our region. Consider the C&O canal tow path. http://www.nps.gov/CHOH It is a relatively level historic trail, over 184 miles long with established campsites and sources of water. For a more of a challenge the is the AT. Good luck, Hal

Vol I think if you re-read my post it only referred to the financial outcome, not the medical outcome. Both patients were doing well at the time of the interviews. You would know that if you actually listened to the interviewed rather than writing off the source because of a perceived bias. "Freedom, liberty and personal responsibility" are hollow words when one is to ill to enjoy them and "high quality care" means nothing to those that don't have access to it.

Wow! When my son was in Cubs there was never this level of drama. The kids built there cars, raced them, won or lost but had a good time. The parents were pretty good about seeing it as a fun activity rather than race day at Daytona. Each years' car was a little worse than the year before as the parents helped less as the boys got older. Pardon my French but competitive a**hole parents is why I was glad my son chose Cub Scouts rather than soccer or Little League. I assume that your son has friends inn the pack don't pull your son out over parent politics. It sounds like the pack needs a new CM as he sets a bad example through his behavior. I'll bet he moves on when his son crosses over to Boy Scouts. He'll need the time to work on his son's Eagle.

LisaBob: Thanks for posting this. I remember hearing the segment comparing MS patients in the UK and US. The American lost his job (couldn't work because of the disease), lost his insurance (couldn't pay the COBRA payments) and then his house. Two years later he was finally eligible for Medicaid. The British woman had some problems getting the government to pay for one of her meds but once the government decided they would they reimbursed her for her out of pocket expenses. She needed to make appointments well in advance but could get immediate care in case of emergency and she had to pay for physical therapy (about 30/week). The American said that two years earlier he would have been against universal heath care but now he is for it. Interesting that of all the countries in the chart we have the lowest life expectancy and pay the highest percentage of GDP on health care. Hal

Many compasses have a magnifying lens in the base for map reading.

I'm sorry if I was not clear. While the discussion was initially about wearing the uniform in public (not necessarily at school) the scout was saying that the scouts he knew would not acknowledge being scouts in any way to their non-scout classmates. That is the point that is important. Again I think it could be an interesting conversation to have with your scouts... at least the older ones. "What do you see as the image of scouts among your non-scout friends?" One of our scouts told me that some at school referred to scouts as "the brown shirts". Nice! If scouts are fighting or ducking this kind of image it is little wonder that they might not speak up and say, "I can't attend this practice (rehearsal, whatever) because I am already committed to a boy scout campout". BTW: We didn't wear our uniforms to school past elementary school when I was in scouts and that was over 40 years ago. Hal

The Pioneering merit badge book is a good start.

Colbert had a great Christmas Special.

Do any councils offer camperships for those who cannot afford to attend? I can't find anything about it on our council's website and we are one of the largest councils in BSA. Hal

Here is a link to the article cited in the previous post: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123241385775896265.html As it is an op-ed piece it is heavy on opinion and (possibly selective) analysis so it should be taken with a grain of salt. Looking at other articles from the same author I see he generally writes from a conservative perspective and seems to be tied to the pharmaceutical industry. WSJ has always had a conservative tilt (big business is their market) but I have less respect for them since their purchase by Rupert Murdoch. Also American Enterprise Institute is a conservative think tank with strong ties to the neocon movement. None of this means that the analysis is wrong but I will need to see more before I get too concerned that the sky is falling.

I think that there are a number of issues at play here. The grade issue is a big one. We may not be able to send a patrol to our district Klondike Derby because it is the same weekend as the Science Fair. We have some pretty smart kids in our troop and as many are in Accelerated or Advanced Placement science classes they are required to enter as part of their grade. As of last night we only had four signed up and we need at least 5. NeilUp touched on another issue when he mentioned the "nerdy" status of scouts. A few years ago a high school aged scout (not from my unit) attended our district RT. There was a discussion of the why scouts did not want to proudly wear their uniforms. He he pointed out that we were all missing a major point. He said that in his opinion the boy scouts is "America's largest secret society". All the scouters in the room seemed to lean forward in unison as he continued to say that "you will rarely hear a scout mention scouting in front of his non-scouting friends at school". He said that in his school scouts used the phrase "youth group" as a code for scouts; "See you at the youth group tonight". He did not offer an explanation as to why that was that way; just that it was. Why would this be so? I think that the "nerdy" image is a part of it and in this area I think BSA's position on gays and atheists also hurts our image. Our scouts enjoy scouting but by high school (often sooner) they are aware of the controversy and many our uncomfortable with it. We lost an extremely good scout a few years ago because he was torn between what he learned at church and in his family about Christian love and inclusion and what he heard about scouts on the news and I suspect from his friends. I am not raising this issue to hijack the thread to a discussion of the controversies but just to point out that a scout is not likely to raise the issue of a conflict with scouting if they are hesitant to even admit they are scouts. I should point out that our district is in the most liberal county in Virginia, generally votes about 70% Democratic in elections. Attitudes are probably different elsewhere but are we sure? It might be worth discussions with senior scouts as to their perception of the image of scouting. The answers might surprise us. YIS, Hal

So if Hannity is the extreme right and Stephanopolous is the extreme left who is the middle? Who do you consider moderate?

All four of the publications baschram645 mentions can also be downloaded from the BSA website: http://www.scouting.org/BoyScouts/Resources.aspx

Our SM just ordered new unit numeral patches with built in veteran bars (65) from our council scout shop so it can be done.

So, how did it go? Did you and your scouts get to the inauguration?

I once asked my son why he would never go to kung fu class without his full uniform but he would often wear only parts of his scout uniform? His answer was that the Scoutmaster "doesn't make me do pushups for being out of uniform". Hmmmm. Hal

A girls only unit chartered by the Boy Scouts of America. I love the irony. I took a training course last year with a couple of women who were moving a GSA over to Venturing because their 8th graders were no longer interested in what GSA had to offer. I assume the Crew was going to be all girl, at least to start with. Certainly simplifies youth protection. Hal