Stosh

Welcome aslforme! I think this would be excellent, especially for the patrol members, PL, and SPL to be taught ASL by the new boy. Even if it's just the alphabet at first. Then as the boys spell everything out, the new boy can teach ASL to speed up the process one word at a time. I am thinking the others would find it fun and use ASL eventually as their "secret patrol code" so others wouldn't be privy to what was going on. (SM and ASM should definitely sit in on these teaching sessions!) Scouts love using secret codes and this would be a great opportunity for the new scout to shine. I'm sure he's had lots of experience teaching others "his" language over the years long before he gets to scouts. Great idea! Stosh

As with any new program it can be pretty intimidating at first. Sometimes we over-hype the Boy Scout program and overwhelm the new boys. Our NSP run a completely different program than the older boys. Yes, there's a strong emphasis on advancement so the new boys have the skills to tackle a greater challenge. Our canoe "trips" for the NSP start out with a 2 hour float down an easy river, then after a few more progressingly difficult trips, including eventually an overnighter on the river, then they are ready for the whitewater trips. To announce to the NSP they will be going on a whitewater trip the first summer is going to scare off a lot of potentially great scouts. Just remember to pick up the skill level of a Webelos boy and then develop it gradually. Even at 13, the eyes of the boys on top of that first major rapids is just as big as a Webelos boy when he steps into a canoe for the first time. Once the novelty has worn off on the whitewater canoeing, then it's time for sea kayaking (after taking the roll-over and other safety training!) Start with a day hike with a campfire meal and eventually work yourself into Philmont. There's always something else out there that has more bite than the last trip, but have patience and don't rush it. It's really boring for the SM and ASM to take these boys out on a calm river for a 2 hour float or a 5-mile hike with a day pack, but the dividends will pay off in the long run. Stosh

I didn't want to hijack the thread but maybe we ought to list out the uses of duct tape. Add your contribution if you have used duct tape in the situation. 1) First aid - instead of tying splints, tape them. 2) Tape off cuffs and waistband to reduce ticks 3) Tape off cuffs to reduce poison ivy contact 4) Apply to skin before blisters appear, let the tape slide on the sock instead of the skin 5) Patch an aluminum canoe each day. Be sure to apply when the canoe is dry. 6) Mend tents and tarps 7) Colored duct tape to identify patrol and personal gear Feel free to add to the list. Stosh

I guess I don't see it as a case of being lazy on the part of the Scouters. If one is out on open water, there are marine radios that are far more reliable in emergencies than a personal cell phone. I would trust the radio over the cell any day. Courtesy is not the issue, planning and coordination at an event, and emergency preparedness are vital parts of any expedition activity and if these plans are to be overlooked and instead, rely on unreliable cell phone usage, I'm sure the liability issues will be just as pronounced. While GPS units are very popular items like cell phones, I would much rather have a map, compass and skills to use them in the back country rather than relying on the batteries of a GPS unit. I don't see a problem with an adult or two having the phones as a BACKUP in an emergency situation, but to rely on it is nothing more than an invitation for disaster. Stosh

Sorry, but I stand by your SM's policy. I have lost 2 boys in my troop because of cell phones being used to call home when homesick and parents came, picked them up and they never returned. I didn't know about the issue until the parents showed up to take the boy home. Emergencies? If your boy is lost in the woods 500 miles away, what can you do about it? SM and troop and other better qualified personnel are looking for him. If he's lost and need triangulation, where is his buddy? Why did your son wander away? Did his cell phone add to the problem? Many questions, not many answers. Those that rely on electronics rather than standard operating procedures usually get themselves into problems. Two weeks in Philmont will not support cell phone usage anyway. We try and get into the woods and away from everyday situations, why drag it along with you when you go. I understand parents' concerns, but I view it more of parents' concern than the boy's. I'm 58 years old and never had a cell phone until my kids bought one for me for Christmas this past year. I did just fine without it and it makes a great scheduler and keeps me on task. Once or twice a month I call them and say hi. It's a paid long distance call on the land line, but free on the cell so I use it. Other than that it doesn't do much for me. Stosh

SctDad, just a crude attempt at humor. But one has to remember that if they take the epaulets off, then the tan shirt is going to look just like the USMC shirt and we can't have that. Stosh

Everyone always has a comparison made to issues of the past and point out how relevant it is to today. However, a case can be made on both sides all the time. Ok, take a rather obscure figure, using charismatic orations, rises to power, promoting national socialism drawing in the workers party, manipulating the media of the times, etc. etc. etc. and one begins to wonder all over again. Hitler youth? What about the college campuses of today? Take a conservative side on an issue and you can kiss your 4.0 gpa goodby! Since when has not the wars of all nations fought by the youth of their respective countries? Sure, BSA wears a uniform, but as pointed out, so does the Orkin Man, as well as most repairmen. There's nothing sinister about these people. Unless maybe the Orkin Man's weapons of mass destruction. What most people will not own up to is that the leadership and character development of the BSA in it's rather conservative/religiously based premise can cause some people to be rather "offended". What is it that the BSA offers that is such a threat to them? Is it jealously because they don't have a program to promote their ideals and thus find it necessary to run down the other guys? I remember the days when law enforcement was referred to as PIGS. Get a life people, there are those out there that have strong character and solid convictions that will maintain a certain amount of civilization for the rest of us regardless of how much others try to introduce anarchy. I remember all those street performers that juggle flames, walk tight ropes and do all sorts of amazing things. What they always tell the crowd is "Don't try this at home!" Well, where do you think these people learned it? At tightrope school? Flame juggling school? Sure BSA teaches skills and ethics, it's a program that has endured the test of time and will continue on long after the flames and arrows that are flung at it expire. Teaching youth the skills, dangers, pitfalls of any profession, including law enforcement, is part of what these young people are looking for. They are not interested in a water down version of, "Gee, look at that you can be doing sometime later on in life, but in your formative years, you can only observe. Look at all these pictures of campfires, but you can't have one for fear of burning down your neighborhood. Just remember, all BSA troops are really gangs of boys gathered together, armed with small but effective weapons and are learning skills that someday could possibly burn down Southern California on a dry, windy day. Don't cha just love a person's imagination run wild? Stosh

BSA has a court case pending as we speak suing Orkin for 1) copying the BSA trademark, 2) looking dorky, and 3) scaring the bugs with the red epaulets. Stosh

Even SM's with extensive training and experiences doesn't mean they should be doing it all even if they already know it all. That is a formula for burnout for the SM and no leadership training for the boys. What is needed is leadership training, not management skills training, and unfortunately I see management skills training being used as leadership training and in the short term it gets one by, but it doesn't do anything for the long run. Stosh

Never let it be said I don't apologize for my wrong doings. My sincere apology goes out to all who were offended by the use of the term "fool". Please allow me to make amends. Okay, who was the idiot who named it ping-pong!!! I'm glad we could clear that up, it makes me feel a lot better. Stosh

Well done Knight, or should I say "Well, not done" as long as you're one of the adults? Stosh

Go to a couple of cemeteries where veterans are buried that don't have a ceremony and do one just for them. Invite a veteran to come to your gathering and talk to the boys about his experiences. Do a flag retirement. Stosh

I'm thinking the sport did not originate in the US, thus we are slaves to foreign sources. After all football means something altogether in the US than it does anywhere else in the world. And who was the fool that named it ping-pong? What was he thinking? Stosh

I'm thinking there are some small pockets in certain parts of the states, but the DNR has done extensive research and found it's not as big a problem as before. CWD is spread where there are high concentrations of deer and for a couple of years heavily hunted them in those areas so as to thin the herds and reduce the risk. Like tularemia, the disease spreads when the population get too great. This is another reason why heavy hunting is necessary, it keeps the remaining deer healthier. For a long time DNR "protected" the deer until wasting diseases began to emerge. Now they know that mass hunting is a better proposition for both motorists as well as the deer herds themselves. Stosh

Ethical choices? My boys are trained to be leaders that care about the welfare of others, ethics naturally flows from the process. Stosh

I'll be the first to cry "FARB" when it comes to modern Civil War reenactors. That is why the Venturing crew of boys 14-20 in great shape are in great demand, they simply LOOK just like CW soldiers!!! When they go to great lengths to be precisely historical, we get comments not only on the age, but the number of comments concerning the exactly correct equipment is nice, too. All my boys have to do is stand around and they can beat most reenactors on authenticity. Once they get into drill and camp life, no one holds a candle to them. They have often been viewed as the standard by which others are judged. It might be nice if I was bragging, but these are things said about the boys, I don't have to make it up. The artillery and their big loud guns can draw a good spectator crowd as well as the cavalry with their horses, but when my boys start doing their bayonet drill, the crowd is often other reenactors. Being young and agile they are the first called on when the regiment needs skirmishers too. The boys are in seventh heaven at all their events. These boys read documentary books like others eat candy, but when it comes to movies they all take a unanimous pass unless they are looking for a comedy. Stosh

LOL! I go fishing because I like fish, it's sold in the stores, it's been processed and frozen, but the best is the walleye right out of the lake and into the pan. How come killing fish isn't high on your no-no list of things to avoid. I never said I hunt for survival, I hunt because it's cheap meat. Rabbit in the local grocery store runs about 4 times as much as beef, and I get it for the cost of a license and a .22 bullet. Let's see $8-10/lb. in the store vs. $15 license and $.10 bullet and I have the same meat for about $.10/lb. I'm no survivalist, but I'm not stupid either. A scout is thrifty. I'm assuming BP you live in an urban setting because like most of those backward southern boys, there are a lot of us backwoods yankees that are still out there. My mom and dad gave me a .22 for my 12th birthday. Oh, and by the way, I still have all my teeth and they're reasonably straight, I don't drive a pickup and I don't own a dog. I also own more guns than the average American. Go figure. Stosh, the red-necked damnYankee

No, I'm saying the quality of adult leadership and their many years of organizational skills will produce a troop with a better activity program. The boys don't have the experience to compete with adults in providing a lot of activities and high quality activities. I put together a summer camp at an out-of-state camp for that troop when I was part of it. It ran smoothly and everything went on my schedule just like clockwork. My ASPL is putting together this year's summer camp trip and is struggling every step of the way. He does not have my organizational or leadership skill level yet. He's deep in the learning curve. When he comes out on the other end of this challenge he'll be a better organized leader for it. So we have a fantastic summer camp program organized by an adult vs. a very good camp organized by a boy who struggled to get it together. When the outsiders see this, the choice for their boy is simple, go with the adult leadership and forego the leadership training for their boys as long as they have fun. The size of the troop isn't the problem. A well organized boy led program will be a larger troop than an adult led program Each boy is responsible for a patrol sized unit, where an adult can't handle more than 30-40 boys unless he is heavily supported by other leaders to help carry the load. Adult led feeds on the idea that the more boys you need, the more adult leaders one needs to make it go. This adult led troop has 3-4 times as many ASM's as I do. I have one program ASM that assists the patrols with programs and another that assists with advancement records. Otherwise the three of us are the only direct boy contact leaders in the troop. If I had 9 leaders all doing the work the boys are trying to do, my troop would be bigger and more competitive. I choose to be boy-led and in time we will grow. It's just going to take longer because of the boys' learning curve for leadership. This is the same troop that I attended an Eagle COH for three boys at the same time, and when it came time to thank everyone, extensive thanks went to all the adult leaders individually for all their prodding, and pushing to help them get their Eagle. Thanks went to their parents for the same reason. Only one of the three candidates thanked the boys of the troop for their help. I noticed it, but the gal that wasn't into scouting made the same observation to me afterwards. Obviously there wasn't enough youth leadership in that troop worth thanking. I would have thought that someone of them would have thanked their PL or ASPL for some help and guidance along the way, but there wasn't word one said. Stosh

It is interesting to note that law enforcement training is parallel to learning how to kill humans when in fact the CA unit is learning how to enforce the laws of the country. Surely teaching law enforcement procedures of doing it right means the attempt is made to save lives not take them. To take the practices being taught the CA crew of law enforcement is nothing more than teaching them the rules to enforce safety of those around them. No different than the safety circle when whittling or putting up ropes for an ax yard. What someone does with the training is altogether different. I'm sure that there is plenty of training going along that isn't included in the news article. As far as archaic hunting is concerned, when was the last time you were able to purchase venison in any store in your area? We have one of the largest deer populations in the nation and still no venison on the shelves. The only way I'm going to get venison is by going out and shooting it or running it over with my car. Shooting it is a lot less expensive and a lot safer. I had a farmer once ask me to clean out his farm area of rabbits that were damaging his storage facilities and ruining his grain. I shot about 180 rabbits in about 8 hours of hunting. He wanted to pay me for it, but 150# of rabbit in my freezer was payment enough. Not everyone hunts today for sport, there are still a lot of those out there that enjoy the fruits of their labors and do a great service to those around them. Every deer that a hunter shoots is a reduction in the possibility that the deer will do extensive damage and/or death to a driver and family of a motor vehicle in our area. Teaching gun safety is not synonymous with teaching people to kill each other. Teaching proper skills of law enforcement isn't either. Only those with an agenda will make the jump, but when an example of other outlandish jumps are pointed out, their arguments fall apart. Lizzie Borden, aka Stosh

My apologies for the double post, but I wanted to add something and I couldn't go back and edit my former post. We have a Venturing Crew in our council that is located at Ft. McCoy, a US Army fort here in the state. This crew is made up of men and women who are given a chance to avoid jail time if they go through the program. It is basically adult led and I'm pretty sure there is no president, vice-president, etc. The crew came out to one of our camporees and hosted all the competition events. They arrived by bus, got out and stood in formation without moving an inch until the leaders worked out the last minute details with the district staff. Once assigned they marched to their stations and instructed the boys on what the competition was all about and how to do each of the tasks. Their presentations were precise and military in demeanor. At the canoe competition, one of the crew members accidentally fell in the drink early in the morning and spent the rest of the day sitting in the bus after informing the crew advisor at the top of his lungs he was unfit to complete his task. Every question was answered with a "Sir" at the end of it and every time a crew member spoke to an adult it included "Sir or "Ma'am". It was obvious that none of these crew members wanted to be there and were looking forward to getting out of Scouts. However, as successful as this program worked, it was and has been sanctioned by BSA for over 10 years now. I often wonder if these crew members ever wished they had opted for jail. The group is called Challenge Academy and by everything I have heard has been very successful. I'm thinking that the discipline these people have to endure makes the California crew look like Micky Mouse. Am I in favor of such work? I don't know, but it does work for most of the kids and so I'm not going to pick it apart and call it some kind of a Neo-Nazi outfit. Even my reenacting group has been described as more disciplined that ROTC training by those who have been involved in both, so does that make my kids Neo-Nazis? When they wear their NC uniforms and go as confederates does that make them a racist hate-group? Get real people. Yes, Venture crew youth can handle handguns, they can go on organized hunts and do all kinds of things that prepare them for the future. Why would BSA sanction the learning of handguns if it were not for self-protection, (yes, killing someone else if one is forced to), because unless one is handicapped, handgun hunting is not allowed in our state. Every activity right down to the Whitlin' Chit can be viewed as handling weapons if one wishes to stretch it far enough. As far as the politics go, I do believe BP, you dropped it in with your first post. Stosh(This message has been edited by jblake47)

Most people who think they have a problem with wool do so because of the coarseness of the fabric. Some wool is a smooth as a baby's bottom and will cause no irritation unless one is truly allergic to wool. Most top-of-the-line men's suits are wool and most men do not react to it. The dress wool shirt is the most comfortable uniform shirt I have and I'm not alergic to wool. Even the more coarse fabric of the jac-shirt does not bother me. I sleep under a wool blanket more often than I do a sleeping bag on outings. Some blankets are not as good as others. A really nice heavy wool blanket beats a sleeping bag anyday! If one gets a reaction like poison-ivy from handling a wool suit coat, then yes, you might have an allergy to wool. Otherwise, the coarseness of wool garments varies quite a bit, you may in fact enjoy a wool shirt after all. Stosh

And how many law enforcement posts/crew are out there with kids that believe they will never be put in a life or death situation? Kids today don't want pie-in-the-sky from adults, they are a bit more focused and serious than many want to give them credit for. If BSA is going to meet the interests of these kids, they had better keep doing it in a way that prepares them for reality. Are police trained to kill? No, they are trained to protect and serve. Is there a possibility that sometime in their law enforcement career that they may need to kill? Yep. Has BSA done their job to open their eyes to this possibility? I hope so. Kids will see through the hypocracy of mamby-pamby rather quickly and move on to other interests. I'm thinking BSA is on the right track. Let's drop the politics out of it and get our kids ready for the real world. I grew up in a world that meant I could possibly be killed by some Viet Cong, kids today know it's some terrorist. A law enforcement officer know it's some domestic violence perpetrator. It's time to show our older scouts that there's more to being an adult than being a happy-camper. Stosh

I've been working off and on for 40 years with Exploring/Venturing and think what these kids are doing is just great! I organized fire, police, emergency medical posts back in the 70's that actually did much of the non-lethal work of the departments. Maybe all they did was haul fire hoses, directed traffic and manned a first aid station, but these kids were learning lessons that fit in with their career interests. To me that's a program that really meets the needs of the youth they serve. I currently do a military Civil War reenactment group where I teach military leadership and tactics as part of the program. Currently I have one former member fully disabled for his service in the US Marines, having been severely wounded in Baghdad combat. Another right now is serving in Afganistan and a third in Iraq. I have a current member in ROTC training as I write. I have former scouts that have enlisted in all branches of the military and many have commented how scouting had prepared them for many of the challenges of military service. One of my former scouts is a US Naval Academy graduate and served in the first Gulf War. To critize the efforts of this CA group is to say leadership training for tomorrow's leaders shouldn't be done until after they become adults? If my training these boys to respect weapons, handle them correctly, watch out for their buddies in any small way gives them an edge in a fire-fight in Afganistan, then I'm a happy camper and proud of it. Just be thankful we have a program that safety introduces them into service to our country that may some day require a great sacrifice on their part to accomplish. Remember the old scout adage that everyone expounds on in the forum? "There's no such thing as too much training! - Be Prepared!" I go to bed every night thankful for young people like these that make my night a safe one, both tonight and tomorrow night as well. Every boy in my troop and crew may indeed be called upon to fight terrorists. I hope I have done my part to get him/her ready. Stosh

As a historical reenactor and history buff, I can assure you Hollywood knows very little about reality. Hollywood entertains, not teach. Stereotypes and other subtle bigotry permeates the silver screen regardless of how liberally senstive they portray themselves to be. If one wishes to know what is really going on in the world, stick with documentaries, which Hollywood doesn't do. Remember, GONE WITH THE WIND, might be a classic movie, historically speaking it is a total farce. Name any historical movie and there are hundreds if not thousands of examples of where Hollywood took liberties with the facts/realities. The only person that I would think would know something about scouts might be Spielberg (Eagle Scout) but then as a director his hands are a wee bit tied too. The guy that signs the checks makes the rules. Stosh

A couple of primary aspects of the sport that I found the most interesting for scouts would be the team emphasis. Everyone has to stay with in visual of each other throughtout the time period. Everyone has to agree on the targets and they have to work together to find them. If this was done by patrol, Kudu would be in seventh heaven. I would say that to do a 24-hour rogain on a camporee weekend, start at 7:00 am on Saturday and finish up at 7:00 am on Sunday. Let the boys work out the details. No adults following them around, all camp duties would need to be shared to maximize the time at meals, stay up all night if you want to, and the boys running/deciding and completing their tasks as a team/patrol. Boys can work as easy or as hard as they want. NSP boys would be scored together with other NSP boys, older boys would be scored with their peers. A NSP can win! For those who want to do a 12-hr program they can still get the evening campfire in on Saturday night. Start at 6:00 am finish at 6:00 pm, tally the scores and be ready at 8:00 pm for the campfire. This program just seemed to be too good to be true and why waste it on just adults all over the world when our boys could be getting in on all the fun. Stosh