Stosh

We've never done it that way before. We still have Councils out there that won't accept a summer camp's print out of MB progress, it has to be hand written on a Blue Card. However, I do like the idea, might even work in the long run for rank advancement .... someday.

Next year.... Wheelbarrow Derby! Everything's a lot more exciting with wheels!

Excuuuuse me!!!! Mine was the sixth edition and I don't feel old, I don't act old, and people keep telling me to grow up. I have been inflicted with the terrible Peter Pan Syndrome.

The fantasy described is about as unrealistic as the assumption a crazed person would be shooting up the mess hall. First of all I don't like salads, I'm a meat and potato guy. Secondly in an active shooter situation the first thing one must do is avoid the shooter, get people to the exits and safety ASAP, even before the shooter enters the room if possible. Then deny, the shooter access to those you're trying to protect, barricade doors, cover windows, etc. keep the boys moving to safety. One's last resort is to defend. Yes one needs to mentally prepare oneself for such a situation. That means that one is to mentally rehearse over and over what one would be capable of doing. I am a long-gun person. I don't do well with handguns but I know the basics of shooting. Target acquisition, watch the background, finger off the trigger until ready to shoot, relax, make every shot count, shoot to kill, etc. are all things that translate between long and hand gun shooting. The last thing that I train myself mentally for is the fact that when I pull the gun from my holster, with the skills I have (less than professional) I will probably not survive the situation, but I'm going to do my best to stop the threat to others anyway. Taking on a 800# grizzly or even a 600# black bear with a 9mm handgun means I have to get in close. Shooting a bear point-blank in the head with a 9mm may only stun it. A 9mm is not a powerful gun. So don't quit until the 17 rounds are gone, then reload another magazine. I have seen an example of a black bear surviving a shotgun blast to the face at point blank and surviving. Have no idea whether the duck hunter did or not.

I'm totally on board with what TAHAWK said.

Getting back to the original thread for a second, one has to remember that the publicity being generated for the Girl Scouts is for the cookies, NOT THE PROGRAM. I hear a lot of discussion here about BSA promoting the program and OMG, DON'T MENTION WE SELL LOUSY POPCORN. If this is the case, aren't we trying to compare apples and oranges? Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.......

Gee Mr. Smith, the little handle grippy things just came off and little Billy was in the wheelbarrow. See those trees down at the bottom of the hill by the river next to the cliff? The rest of the boys are down there looking for him right now.

T2FC works for both the new guys and the old farts. T2FC Tenderfoot to First Class, Tenderfoot, 2nd, First Class or now Trail to First Class. On this forum it shouldn't be a problem, no one knows what anyone else means half the time most of the time anyway.

I have a wheel barrow that can haul a 97# scout. Does that help? Don't cha just love it when everyone is so helpful?

Or you could buy the popcorn to help the boys go to camp and then give it to someone you don't like.

No, but close enough you'll never notice.

Aaaah, now you see the problem with not having the NSP! Introduce the new boys to the troop, and let the PL's decide what to do. I would reference the BSA policy suggestion of 6-8 boys as appropriate for a troop to function at it's best. IF the boys come seeking advice from the SM, I would suggest as an option/opportunity to draw the troop officers into a Leadership Corps, the SPL, ASPL, should not be in with a patrol anyway. With three patrols, that's pulling two boys out. So that the LC isn't too small, I would have the TG, the QM, and Scribe and maybe an Instructor to make it 6 to go with them. That pulls six out of the mix and forms the LC "patrol". Okay with 27 boys total pull out 6 for LC that leaves 21, well within the realm of 3 patrols between 6-8 (18-24) boys and a developing LC opportunity. Even room for 3 more Webelos boys. At which point if they came in, one could jump from 3 patrols of 8 boys to 4 patrols of 6 boys rather easily opening up more POR leadership development to happen. Offer up that and see what they think. You're now off the hook for any further ideas. Of course if they come up with something else on their own that works, that's even better. All your suggestion was intended to do was to get them thinking about other options.

Actually one would need about 100 patrols with a whole ton of ASPL's and one person we would never agree on to be the SPL. You are right, the focus would be on patrol method operations and the structure of the troop would be assumed to be just about anything other than filtered out any direct input from any outside source so the patrol could quickly determine it's group dynamics.

"There would be some Moderators (SMs/ASMs), but their role would be very limited." There would be some Moderators (SPL's/ASPL's), but their role would be limited to supportive. Sorry GumbyMaster, couldn't resist. But I do like the idea of having something like this on-line.

I believe it's very difficult to express in words many of the small variations and nuances of words when used purely as written. Of course typos don't always help much either. I for one never think of anything on a forum as "disagreement". That may be hard for some to accept, but it's true. I see many different viewpoints on issues that need to be seen in those different ways. Too often one tends to think as Greek philosophical when they used linear logical. By this it is meant one starts from an idea and works step by step to a logical conclusion. The conclusion reached is what one deems is good or favorable or right (either correctly or morally). Greek dominated cultures, i.e. European and European descendant tend to be this way. But other cultures think differently and in many instances process information differently. Orientals think and process differently, as do Hebraic cultures. As a trained theologian to have been exposed to these other philosophies and end up using them from time to time. One of the things about the forum is that if one can stay on topic it becomes rather fascinating to see how everyone approach subjects from our many different backgrounds which gives a richer view of the issue than our myopic self-approach. Occasionally one may get a bit entrenched and a bit defensive if others don't see the world through our rose colored glasses. But if one is open to see other possibilities that one has concluded is logically wrong, yet others can often see in other situations different than the first person, they may in fact be logically correct as well. So any original premise that is concluded as something wrong, iss always wrong may not always hold true. Forums offer the unique opportunity to see the myriad of ideas out there on scouting and what works for one will indeed fall flat for the next guy. But if someone has fallen flat on their face, seeing other options out there is a god-send. This is why I would never use the word "disagreements" to describe the sharing of ideas on forum. The only part that becomes bothers is when the comments slip off topic and take on a negative tone to the one making the comment. To state that someone is a _ (insert your favorite derogatory word here)__ just because they see the world different than others tends to fall outside the Laws of Scouting and even good forum decorum. It is a known fact that one's myopia gets worse as time goes by when one surrounds themselves with nothing but "Yes" men. I have found it far more productive to deal with people who challenge my ideas and give me a wider perspective of what's out there especially in the world of scouting where our ways of doing things has a huge impact on the minds of young adults in our care

@@blw2 Posted Today, 12:53 PM Stosh, on 25 Jan 2016 - 11:52 AM, said: In very broad terms re patrols and boy lead, i think a better way to think of this might be that all troops are the same, or at least should strive to be. Two ships passing in the night here. As a whole all troops need to strive for the same goal of boy-led, patrol-method scouting (probably an ideal which no one ever really succeeds at attaining, always room for improvement). But when the decision to make the shift away from where we are today and move towards the goal varies from one troop to the next. One troop which has boy-led down quite well, may need a 5-minute tweak here and there as needed, whereas another troop who has been heavily adult-led, troop-method for many years may take a very long time with major overhauls to get anywhere near a boy-led, patrol-method unit. That's the issue I was trying to describe in my comments and probably wasn't clear enough.

@@Sentinel947 You and I area on the same page!

Keep it in mind that a lot of what I have inserted depends on the level of boy-led in the troop. If adults were to switch over to boy-led from adult-led, I'm thinking it would take at least a minimum of a year of serious intense effort on everyone's part of begin to get close to these ideals. For example, it may take a whole year to develop an effective Leadership Corps of boys that will do the teaching, coaching, counseling and mentoring of others in support of the PL's work in the patrols. It may take a little less time for an effective PLC to get organized and begin it's work of coordinating PL activities and directly supporting the work of the patrols. Be assured that none of it is going to happen overnight. Those troops with varying degree of boy-led already in place, should take less time accordingly. Every unit will be different.

Seriously???? You were expecting some Tiger Cub to drag a 50# bag of mulch up your driveway? Upon further reading.... FORMER Cub Scout. So I'll rephrase that, You were expecting some 97# Webelos cross-over to drag a 50# bag of mulch up your driveway?

Ian's right. There's a long history of Girl Scout cookies as part of the American culture. Boy Scouts, on the other hand, help old ladies across the street and they don't get paid for doing Good Turns. And don't worry about the PR media image of the Girl Scouts, according to my daughter, GS/USA Gold Award recipient, the cookie sale effort around here is run by the "Pigtail Mafia". I have learned how to make thin mints on my own, but the Samoans/Tag-alongs, or whatever they call them is a bit too tedious, so I stock up on them. The prices are up, the weight/count is down, and the quality is reduced, but they still sell like hotcakes.

First of all, welcome to the forum. Always room for 100 more. A Cake Walk? Seriously? Some scout is going to win the best looking cake and some scout is going to lose and have to settle for the second best cake? Will that boy's fragile ego be able to survive such trauma at such a tender age? That borders on child abuse and a flagrant abuse of any and all principles of scouting. On a more serious note: have the traditional cake walk, let the boys have fun, make sure the boy and dad make the cakes together, have prizes for the best cakes before the cake walk, (voting done with $'s with the most $ collected wins). Do the cake walk, then have plenty of milk to wash down the "Participant" trophy cupcakes afterwards! This sounds like enough fun that even Boy Scouts could do something like this and have maybe a Dutch Oven walk instead.... If this is more of a carnival game of chance thingy, don't worry about it, as long as everyone gets something in return, then it 's really not a game of chance where one can actually lose. So, someone pays $10 for a cupcake. How is that any different than the person that buys a tin of popcorn for $100? The boys are there to have fun, let 'em have at it!

When I do MB's I have the boy buy the latest pamphlet from the Scout Office and he fulfills those requirements. Otherwise if the only thing being printed on-line is the requirements then what's the sense of the pamphlet? With Google, the boy can get any and all the pamphlet's information anyway. My council does not do "blue cards" anymore. We print off copies of the blue cards on blue paper and cut them apart for boys going to MB day and summer camp out of council. As MBC in my council the boy has a signed copy of his MB pamphlet indicating by my signature he has completed all of the requirements in that book to earn the MB. With the turnover in the pamphlets and their requirements changing, the council has no idea which MB pamphlet the boy earned the MB with. For this reason, my troop has never had a Librarian as a POR. If all this person is to do is keep a box of old MB pamphlets, it's a total waste of time and a pencil whipped POR for the boy.

at Philmont in 2000 when they had the 4 bear attacks, we were on the trail for 8 days and saw 3 bear. One we watched crawl into a trap and crawl back out without tripping it. Needless to say, we all followed bear protocol to the letter of the law. 15 minutes before my wife and I were to set out on a trail at Yellowstone, we were stopped by a ranger who told us the trail was just now closing due to a gentleman being killed by a grizzly within the previous half hour. That was about an hour after we spotted two bear (one grizzly) in a different part of the park. Knowing this type of information (my kids back in Wisconsin) knew the Mrs. and I were in Yellowstone, and heard about the fella being killed and called us frantically wondering if we were okay. While I have spent a lot of time in bear country and my wife spent 25 years in Alaska part of which was working for the US Forestry Service, there are still thousands of others who watch the news and openly refuse to go any place were trees are closer together than 30'. It's interesting to note that when my wife's 4 children were growing up in Alaska, they could play anywhere in the neighborhood, but if there was a bear in the neighborhood they couldn't leave the yard. If there was a moose in the neighborhood, they had to play inside. My wife told this story to me after we stopped at Yellowstone to see what the crowd was gathering for and as soon as she saw a moose lying down and tourists totally surrounding it taking pictures, she said, "We're outta here, NOW!" About 2 months later a high school kid back in Alaska where she lived was killed by a moose between the school bus stop and his house less than a block away. Maybe I am paranoid. Maybe I'm just knowledgeable. Be prepared.... your mileage may vary.

I hate the fund raising, too. My solution to the situation is to have a meeting upfront with the parents and let them know that IF they want to pay for their son's scouting on their own, they may do so, but if THEY wish to cut the cost of some of these activities, THEY can hold fund raising activities to defray those costs. It makes no difference to me what they decide. Under those circumstances, the parents have always shouldered the fund raising efforts for the boys. I do tell the parents that the boys going on any activity will need to pay some of the cost. This way, the boys have a bit of skin in the game. They will need to work at raising some money of their own, on their own. Every year with my new troop we have had very successful fund raisers, but the boys still have to pay $50 out of their own pockets to go to summer camp. It works well for us, your mileage may vary.