Stosh

Our teachers used to know that there's little chance they will need any weapon while teaching in a classroom, too. We live in a whole new world now. It's kinda strange that federal BOP employees still carry a BOP ID even after they retire...... I wonder why that is?

Here's where we differ.... As for the Coach to SM, they have differences yes to the untrained eye. Nope, even the untrained eye of a 6th grader can tell immediately the differences. While I was a coach I just wasn't a coach I was leader/guide. Teaching them that soccer can be a stepping stone to getting ahead in life. I had probably 45% of my boys get college scholarships for soccer. (partial or full) My first kids are now graduating. Some have went on to Masters, the others are getting well paying jobs. I was also teaching them that soccer is a job, if you want to be good at that job give me 100% all the time. Same applies to work, give 100% all the time and the rewards will be bountiful. But the coach was leading, the athletes were merely following along according to the rules. They got really good at following the rules and applied it to the world around them. But they were still just following the rules of what people say make them successful. Every team follower will be endeared to their coach for just that reason. Same goes for being a SM, the goal in scouts is getting the Eagle rank, but its not the end goal. The end goal is learning about and how to handle life on your own. Whether that is a job welding, running your own business, or savings someone life. Scouts teaching you how to handle those things and how to grasp life and make it your own. Unfortunately that isn't the case. Every "goal" mentioned here is for the individual. Not one of them entails any sort of others following them. Leaders need followers. Scouting produces leaders and every scout is taught to lead. On a team, that's not the case. One usually leads and the others follow along in harmony to produce a team effort. Coach calls the plays, the players follow the rules of that play. None of them have to be a leader, they just have to follow the playbook. Following the rule book isn't leadership. Consider for a moment the possibility that the water boy is the true leader. (Okay, quit snickering. ) If it wasn't for the water boy taking care of the players, how many of the players would be able to finish the game? If he is keeping the players on their feet throughout the game, isn't he contributing more than any single player? If one figures out how that works, they will begin to see what a SM is teaching his boys about leadership.

Federal Bureau of Prisons retirees. They are prime targets for any released prisoners with a grudge and are required to conceal carry. I don't know of any other service that requires it unless state prison guards are as well. There's a whole set of regs for these people such as if they have to report every time they meet a known felon regardless of how long they have been retired.

The whole idea behind conceal carry is that no one should know whether the person is armed or not. After all, anyone wearing a fixed blade sheath knife under his/her coat is conceal carrying. In our state open carry doesn't need a permit, only conceal carry. By law, any boy preparing food using a knife longer than a paring knife is covered by open-carry. If one doesn't think that illustration applies, there are plenty of people who have had sharp knives in their picnic baskets that have been arrested. It all depends on the mood of the arresting officer. There are some people out there that are scouters who are by federal law required to conceal carry at all times.

When I was a WDL, I didn't push it, not a hill I wanted to die on. I don't know of any in our area that do. Our packs tend to be small and the boys are refered to as the Tiger Den, Wolf Den, Bear Den, Webelos 1 Den and Webelos 2 Den. Not very creative, but everyone knows what you're talking about.

Yep, you're right on the key-3 thingy. We're so well run I often forget those things. I don't have a CC and my COR is also my UC and my ASM is also the DC.... Needless to say, everything is pretty much screwed up in this Council. Of all the UC's in the district, the DC and myself are the only ones trained. SM's don't have much nice to say about their UC's.

Went down South for the holidays, stopped at a Walmart and was surprised to see ALL the cans of spray paint were under lock and key, the same as with the firearm ammunition. That was a first for me. Maybe it'll make it to G2SS after all. I do know that the summer camps up here all prohibit aerosol cans of any sort for just that reason.

My brother put in 30 years in the Federal Bureau of Prisons. He make it very clear that the prison populace was 99% on either end of the Bell Curve. They were either extremely intelligent or flat out idiots. The super intelligent (very small minority) were especially scary and one couldn't turn your back on them for one second. From what is in the article, this gentleman isn't in that group.

....and by the way, it sounds rather hypocritical on the part of the Council to say no to someone who wants training. They have enough trouble getting people to take it in the first place.

P People like this don't even try. They have spent years desensitizing their conscience to justify the $$. The love of money is the root..... ya know the rest.

Smart boy!

2-D map in a 3-D world......

And we would know this how??????

Not necessarily, this UC thing has been batted around here and there over the past few years on the forum but there really hasn't been any in-depth look/discussion into the qualifications for many of these volunteer positions and rely on YPT, background checks, etc. as what makes a person a good candidate to be offered up to a unit to run the program for the boys. Yeah, a bit of discussion about this other gentleman kinda sparked my interest in hearing what others think on such things. Heck we have more qualification expectations for MBC's than we do for UC's, and a good UC can be a blessing for a unit, but a bad one can do a lot of harm. Added: I am also concerned that a person who was a DL for 5 years in a good pack is qualified to handle the conflict of a unit going down the drain. They may know how to handle a bunch of rambunctious boys will know how to handle a room full of angry adults.

Naw, if he's 52 years old, I hope he sits in jail for the rest of his life to think about all the damage he's done to young lives around him. If he's a life long scouter who loves the woods, it would be fitting that the only trees he ever sees again is through a chain link fence.

I have seen the traditional bullet type pendant flag, and the totally home-made from scratch flags. WE didn't suggest anything, but in order to have any of their patrol members get beyond the Scout rank, they needed a flag. Not my problem, the PL and his crew were responsible for coming up with something on their own. The troop provided the 6' closet rod patrol flag pole for the boys to put it on. Computer generated iron-on transfers of the patrol patches are pretty polished looking and hold up pretty good. They were put on traditional sized pendant shaped patrol flags. In one of my former troops, they didn't do the patrol-method, but grouped boys together to insure troop wins in the competitions. One "patrol" had a towel on a stick and that got them approved by the judges. If the boys don't care, why should the adults. I'm kinda partial to anything the boys can be truly proud of for a patrol pendant.

I got hit with the perfect story. 1) 2 parents went on the war path. 2) CC left because his boy Eagled and aged out. 3) New CC in (no training) for 2 weeks. 4) COR who knew nothing about the troop but pencil whipped applications. Never met the gentleman after 3 years with the troop. Doubt whether he even knew he was COR or what that meant. 5) DE was less than 3 months on the job, just out of college. 6) UC was less than a week on the job, no training, never met him in my life, been involved in the council for 20+ years. UC was called in to mediate the situation. I was not invited to the meeting, I was removed and a month later, the CC finally worked up the courage to tell me. The most experienced person in this situation was the DE with 3 months on the job, no prior scouting experience and the least experience was the UC, one week on the job, no scouting experience or UC training. Within 6 months a different DE called me up and wanted me to start a new troop for her district, so everything turned out okay. This is what happens when one has a boatload of untrained, inexperienced people running the show. Every UC needs to have 2-3 years unit experience (DL, CM, ASM, SM, CC, Eagle, etc.) experience under their belt along with complete UC training before being assigned to a unit. The blind leading the blind really doesn't bode well for council/volunteer relationships. With those on the forum suggesting UC as getting a foot in the door, at the present time, there's no real guidelines in selecting them other than they are warm bodies. I just don't think that is enough.

I was a Crew Advisor for 15 years and had absolutely no member ever consider earning a Venturing award or even wanting to try for one. Some people just aren't into bling. They serve for other reasons. It would have been nice, but it wasn't my call. I did have dual-registered Boy Scouts as part of my Crew and it was expected they continue in the the troop to work for their Eagle. Most of them did, one or two didn't.

Absolutely not! In the situation where I have an ax to grind ( ) I would have preferred an Eagle UC.

Okay, riddle me this Joker..... What's all this sage advice to the newbies who know very little if anything about scouting, looking for an entry-level position, etc. and UC turns up as a viable option. With the UC one of the Key-3 of every unit what's with the newbie being part of that? With units struggling, financially hurting, flipping CO's, riding out personality conflicts, dumping leadership personnel, folding up units, etc. why are we putting that all on a the new guy? One would think that if nothing else, the old SM's who have all their boys Eagled out, and they want to keep their fingers on the pulse of a unit would be the better candidate. A newbie Eagle, walks into the Scout office and volunteers. They make him a UC that is the go-to person for when things turn sour, or the go-to person when the unit needs a bump push to the next level, or the go-to person that feeds the latest and greatest info from the council to the unit. Yep, it's the new guy. Why does this recommendation not seem all that productive to me? And yes, I have a personal ax to grind with this issue.

Gotta learn how to make egg coffee. Thicker than tar, don't drink after 3:00 pm or you'll never sleep that night, but it beats out a cup of store-bought Starbucks any day. And it can be made on any campfire in the country.

As far as being a SM, get as much training as possible, attend all the RoundTables, talk especially to the older guys, but be careful of the Old Guard guys that are mired in the mud. The forum has every conceivable point of view you could ever imagine, read it and take what you think will work for your boys and if it doesn't, try something else, and keep trying until it works. Remember, YOU ARE NOT A COACH when you wear your SM hat. There's no game to win, only the development and maturity of young boys and they will do that on their time table, not yours. Your "wins" will be entirely in the comments they make, there is no other team out there, just the dragons your boys will need to slay on their own. Be there to pick them up when they fall, dust them off, and congratulate them on surviving the failure, because that's how they learn. Every boy that walks into your troop has the potential of being a really great friend that you will remember many years later. Enjoy them while you are able. They are transitioning from childhood to manhood and it's not an easy road for any of them. You are there to help them with the rough spot and celebrate the rest. As far as fundraising goes, instead of popcorn, why not sell ice.

It depends on your perspective..... I remember Sputnik, that was high tech, velcro and Tang came along later. Cell phones? Nope, picked up the receiver, when the operator came on you told her who you wanted to talk to. If Mom wasn't home, not a problem, she knew where she was. and made the connection..... It was a few years later we had to start remembering the 3 digit phone number. Buddy next door was 119. There still were outhouses in the backyards of some of the homes in the neighborhood. First floor had 4 classrooms for the first 8 grades, two to a room, the rest of the building was high school. No pre-school or kindergarten. We learned to square dance in phy ed. Used a high tech fork prong to pull the little round cap out of the glass milk bottle during lunch break. Coal was delivered and the cinders were used for the driveway. Seriously people, I'm not that old either. But I still have my Silva handy and my Yucca pack is in the back of my truck with winter emergency equipment right now. My dad was 20 years older than me, and he had the good stories about the Great Depression and WW II. The Renaissance "explosion" of technology of the 20th century is rather remarkable and it encompasses the complete history of the BSA. The original Handbook for Boys gave instruction on how to stop a runaway horse.

Maybe BSA needs to rethink it's policy on SM conceal carry policies. It's a scary world out there. It just might turn out that the grizzly bears are the good guys after all.