Stosh

Hot spots are a result of not knowing the full limitations of the equipment one is using. Making foil dinners? How many use one sheet of foil and how many use two? Ever notice the difference? How many people use spacers in the bottom of their Dutch Ovens and how many people whine about food sticking and making a mess of the DO? How many people who don't use spacers in their DO put food right on the bottom of their oven at home? People spend big bucks on teflon and ceramic no-stick cookware and I use cast iron. My food slides off just as easily as theirs. How many have tried something once, screwed it up and then quit. With an attitude like that how did you get through kindergarten? There are DO users that only use charcoal and others only use wood. Those that use wood only use certain kinds of wood. What if their favorite fuel source is not available? Drag it from home? I once cooked all week long at summer camp using a homemade stove burning twigs the size of pencils or smaller. How many people today even know how to cook on a campfire? Sure the 2 burner Coleman whitegas and the single burner propane are really no different than the gas stove at home. It's a little like the old mountain men of a long ago generation. They carried flintlock weapons even well beyond the technological advances around the world. Why? They knew how to make black powder and they could find flint in any riverbed. If they had percussion cap weapons and ran out of caps or lost their caps, they would starve to death and they knew it. Know your equipment and more importantly, know how to use it. If one were to be given the ingredients for a certain recipe and turned out into the woods, how many people could turn that into edible food and how many will turn it into charcoal on a stick?

My youngest daughter was in sports, and art, and theater, and got a full ride scholarship to Marquette University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Iowa State University (hers to choose)..... in Math/Engineering, besides being Valedictorian of a 800+ member graduating class. She's a stay at home mom, raising my grandchild doing EXACTLY what SHE WANTS TO DO with her life. I couldn't be prouder. I raised my kids the way I was raised..... Seriously, there are things in this life that are far more important than acquiring a lot of money. Try explaining that to parents of today's kids.

@@gumbymaster BINGO! And this is how it begins.... this coaching, mentoring, directing illusion of boy-led is nothing more than smoke and mirrors for an adult-led excuse of program. Minimally train the boy to get them started and then get the hell out of the way! From that point on the only reason there are adults in the program is for legal 2-deep requirements for BSA as long as they stay 300' away. With all the lip-service I hear about being boy-led, I'm still convinced that there is far too much adult involvement. When I was in scouts, (early 1960's) I seriously don't remember the adults involved much in the processes of running the troop. They were never around. I don't know where they were, but they weren't with the scouts. Just listen carefully to the comments being made even on the forum and take those who are heavily into the boy-led, patrol-method programs and then count the number of adult "expectations" that seem to float in and out of the discussions. The WB example @@gumbymaster mentions is exactly what I am talking about. Ever wonder why the older boys quit or just zone out on getting Eagle and then quitting? Gumbymaster spells it out quite clearly and precisely.

Great article, I enjoyed it as well.

A Scout is Courteous and Kind...... MY mess kit has the steel fry pan and I DIDN'T GET IT FROM MY GRANDFATHER! My mother taught me to be nice to old people....

Oooooh, @@Krampus that one's gonna be hard to top!

Thank you for your service and welcome to the forum

So does a treadmill and weight setup. Local gym memberships that people drive to are also an option. or one can just go out and walk, jog, run around the block if they are interested in that. My daughter and her husband run about 12-15 miles every morning. All that and they don't belong on any team or are involved in any organized sport program.

My ASM has severe diet restrictions so I'm on my own with my meals. I Dutch oven cook in my aluminum mess kit all the time. It is a skill I learned back when I was a kid in scouting. I have done the baking bread, blueberry muffins in the morning, and hobo dinners with onion gravy and mashed potatoes and glazed carrots all using just the mess kit. Sweet and sour pork over rice is always a good sell for me as well. Bisquick biscuits done up in the mess kit do well with whatever fruit is on the bushes nearby too. Otherwise, it's the aluminum DO that gets the work out because I love my blueberry muffins and the mess kit is too small for nice even baking of 2-3 muffins. Mess kit cooking has become rather passe over the years especially since they have gone to the stupid plastic knob on the boiler and the even more ridiculous plastic cup. Antique stores are about the only place nowadays to find a good mess kit, but they are worth their weight in gold.

I use my PL's as the highest ranking officer in the troop. SPL is there only to support their work with their boys. PL is responsible for taking care of his boys and that includes advancement. His patrol program should include all boys advancing at an even pace. Signing off is the responsibility of the PL's, but during the SMC those should be looked at carefully. The BOR can't retest, but the SM can and I have found that some PL's pencil whipped some requirements and were brought into the SMC to explain the signature. Usually every PL gets one "orientation" to this process and any mistakes are seldom repeated. My younger PL's learn quite a bit from the boys working on rank higher than theirs and when their time comes to advance, they have received many lessons prior that is great for them. SPL, or SM if there is not SPL, sign off on the PL advancement. My troop tends to be more of a gathering of patrols than a troop. Activities are all designed around what the patrols wish to be doing. There is inter-patrol competitions and cooperative activities going on all the time when they chose to do so.

BBQ Sloppy Joe Hamburger Onions Green Pepper BBQ Sauce Pita Bread/soft tortillas, bread, buns, whatever Brown hamburger with onions and green peppers Dump in some BBQ sauce so it looks nice Spoon into pita, tortillas, bread, buns, or whatever Vary it up with various BBQ sauces etc. One can add/substitute ground pork or chicken Sour cream for more of a Stroganoff flavor, substitute noodles, but breads work just as good. Cheeses work nice in it. I've done it with just ketchup and it worked. Bacon bits is nice. Been done with chopped olives both green and black. This recipe is so basic it can be dolled out and done by each boy in his mess kit and do whatever he wants for sauces all in the same meal.

Rain Sprinkling Drizzle Deluge Cloudburst

Snow Flurries Rime Snirt

I'm retired.

Contact your District Commissioner and have that person assign you a Unit Commissioner. This person is responsible for the direct link between your unit and the District/Council. If that request is denied or delayed, I would suggest having your Institutional Head (IH) make the request, that will at least catch their attention that you're serious about making contact.

Keep records of which camps do what in regards to checking out. Usually there are not a lot of camps around here that worry about Sunday check out because they aren't that busy and if one wants to hang around on Sunday, no problem, they don't have reservations to fill for Sunday night anyway. If a camp or resort make a fuss about the check out, they get crossed off the list of available camps to use. The nice thing about late check out on Sunday is that it is guaranteed that the boys will have unstructured free time that isn't heavily programmed by some over zealous scouter who planned the weekend. Our last camporee was planned by a scouter and his wife who left the middle of Saturday afternoon. The rest of us got together and did the campfire and had a great time, probably better than if they had stuck around. My boys are usually the last ones out of camp, not because they goof off and don't break camp, but because they have all day to get home and no adults barking at them to get their things packed up.

If adults can see that it is adult led, the boys have figured it out a looong time ago and will adjust accordingly. If the adults want to run this show, we'll let them, but when they complain about us not doing anything, we will tacitly make it known that it's not our problem, we're not running the show and there's nothing we can do to fix it, we don't have the authority. 95% of the discipline problems of the standard adult-led troop are adult self inflicted.

Welcome to the forum, I'm sure you will get some good communication from the people here, they have all gone through this kind of hassle before and can steer you in the right direction. Just remember, your focus is ON THE BOYS and your ability to provide a really good program for them. That is where one needs to focus all of their energy. The other pack will soon tire of their politics once they realize it isn't accomplishing anything. Work hard at not getting down on their level of conflict. Any time the discussion in your pack makes reference to them, simply change the subject and bring it back to what needs to be done to make your own pack successful. The breakup is old news. Move on.

My apologies @@Eagle94-A1 you took it seriously when I was steeping it in sarcasm. If Scouting isn't a game and fun and an adventure and fun and exciting and fun, then one might as well move on to school sports.

Congrats! Sounds like the older scouts are engaged and the younger ones excited. SPL taking charge? Shouldn't that be the PL's? That bugger of a Patrol-Method is next on your priorities, right?

If scouting was a "game" with a purpose and there's a ton of "adventure" as part of that game. Why is it so hard to compete with other games?

Like Barry says, you need to take baby steps, but it won't be long and they will be running and you'll need to figure out how to catch up. Seriously, I'm not kidding. If you have 3 patrols and they all want to do something different for summer camp next summer, you'll be scrambling if you're going to make good on the promise of Scouting.

I guess as a compromise between adult "strongly suggested rules" about nutrition in the meals. why not suggest at least one meal (rotate around: breakfast, lunch, supper) as a patrol potluck competition. You eat your own creation but get a sample of everyone else's. The adult "patrol" is part of the competition and can put out some better than average meals for the potluck and have copies of the recipes to pass around. If the boys realize there are good things to eat out there, they'll make the appropriate changes. I have collected recipes that are like super easy and yet feed a lot of people out of a Dutch oven or fry pan.

Most of my boys follow the Green Bar Bill approach and have one of the boys assigned as being the GrubMaster already. He's responsible for maintaining a book of good recipes and keeps track of food costs and equipment needs for the patrol meals.

Aluminum Dutch oven and wood work just fine An aluminum Dutch oven weighs about 1/10th that of a cast iron one. No canoe camping without it. Also doubles as a cleaning pan, too. Soap doesn't hurt it one bit. I'm just way into eating good grub that I have figured out how to circumvent some of the problems others have to face.