Stosh

Convincing the boys they are really in charge of their patrols.

I'm sure there were plenty of people back in the 1800's that smiled nicely around Mr. Verne and enjoyed his science FICTION.novels like we like our science fiction today. It always reminds me of the Living History Farms in Des Moines, Iowa. They had an Indian farmstead, a colonial farmstead, a pioneer farmstead, a farm of the 1930's, a modern farm and a future farm. The future farm is now an administrative facility because everything in in is no longer future.

So does the BSA say for how long? 1 day? 1 week? 6 months? a year? Perpetual? With all the forum chatter on boys not fulfilling their responsibilities in their 6 month "term" for advancement, maybe people should revisit the basis for the problem rather than just suffering with the symptoms.

Codes of Conduct that interfere with the BSA rules of advancement are not valid. They are nothing more than means to bully the boys into advancement rules beyond those spelled out by BSA. Sorry. I have never in 40+ years of working with youth ever needed Code of Conduct contracts. Those that do need them abuse them on a routine basis and the youth suffer. If all the advancement requirements are fulfilled and signed off on including the BOR then even if the boy goes out and robs a bank before the COH, he still has earned the rank.

How can one "department" of a business have it's own funds and be non-profit in a for-profit entity. Like any other business, the Troop/Pack/Crew is a part of the ownership of the CO, even if the income is totally offset with expenses, that would mean that every year the unit's account needs to be ZERO. If they made more than they spent, i.e. tucked away in some commissions account for individual income, then that needs to be identified properly. And if the unit does have it's own EIN (EMPLOYER IDENTIFICATION NUMBER) then it needs to view each individual working for them as an employee generating sales income after expenses. Each scout needs to receive a W-2 at the end of the year for the ISA account/commission they earned during the year. And as @@DuctTape points out, one has to account for sales tax on all for-business sales transactions. Now BSA and thousands of units do a lot of self-justification of ignoring the details, one might want to consider the lesson being taught to the youth of these organizations. It doesn't appear that the lesson has much to do with honesty. There's even a strong argument that what athletic booster clubs got hit hard on was the individual personal accounts generated by these clubs constituted money laundering in that it hides charitable contributions that are being used for personal benefit, i.e. Clinton Foundation paying for Cheslea's wedding???? And wouldn't a company that has separate bank accounts be construed as rather suspicious? So, what is it we are teaching our boys concerning Citizenship, honesty, etc. with these for-profit and even non-profit CO's and how the units relate tot hem financially?

LIke Jules Verne, his science fiction became science reality on many occasions. Star Trek, too, and what someone imagines, someone else makes real. Been happening on a regular basis now for about 100 years. A pace faster than any time in human history.

Naw, PETA took the circus out of the circus.

In my troop any of the POR positions are open for selection, volunteering included. The boy holds the position for as long as he wants and as long as he does the job as long as this buddies want him to. Theoretically a NSP PL can get elected and age out at 18 in that position in his patrol. There's a lot of talk about elections in the troops being the process which marks good citizenship and showing the American way of prescribing leadership. Yet the military doesn't elect anyone to the next rank. Businesses don't convey promotions based on elections. Families aren't run by the ballot. VERY few government officials are actually elected, most are appointed and/or hired. So every time someone tells you it's good citizenship to elect SPL's and PL's, because it's the American-way, just smile and walk away. The boys in my troop hold those positions because they do the job, when they don't, they get replaced...on the spot if necessary.

The new Webelos boys if given the opportunity to channel their energy can do great things right out of the box. Don't underestimate their ability to take over and run the show. The older boys will do well to corral their enthusiasm into constructive energy without stifling their interest in adventure.

Like swimming and being safe, the boys do the swim test and they take a Totin' Chit training session every year at summer camp. Some of the older boys I have had usually know the stuff better than the counselor teaching it. As a matter of fact, one PL was so displeased with the way the camp counselor did it, he would not issue the cards until they had sat through a session of correct material.

Maybe traveling faster than the speed of light is not the solution, maybe just warping time and space will do the trick.

Another thread popped up concerning the number of for-profit Charter Organizations (CO) and while I sit here with nothing to do except have the Mrs. nag me about not doing anything, I thought I would pose a question. Not-for-profit organizations are tax exempt from moneys coming in because they hold an exemption. They own the BSA franchise and use their tax number for this purpose. However, for-profit organizations are not tax exempt from moneys coming in and must therefore declare their profits for tax purposes. So when the boys go out selling popcorn, is that not a profit activity for the for-profit CO? And doesn't that income need to be reported? This may be why we have so few for-profit CO's.

WELCOME BACK!!!!

Rule #1 in the Stosh Troop - 1) Safety First! That means anyone seeing any knife/axe/saw infraction can tear up the card. Scouter, Parent, PL, NSP scout, or guy walking down the street. Everyone has the "authority" to maintain safety.

unless you're part of Mr. Stosh's troop. He simply tears the whole thing up on an infraction and the scout has to re-take it again at summer camp if they want to use their knives and/or work in the axe yard. All the boys know this will happen, it is no myth! (well, sort of, Mr. Stosh's warning is enough. He has never seen an infraction so he's never torn up a card. )

How many volts volts does it take to run the sonic tractor beam?

What the various options listed in the MB pamphlet seem to indicate is some sort of camping experience beyond the standard plop camping most troops seem to find acceptable. I have to admit that when I travel hard and fast over long distances, my Class-B camper and a I-highway rest area are often the accommodations that apply. I used to have a small camper trailer, and a pop-up, for some trips that had a camping destination. The year the Mrs. and I went to Yellowstone, the campground was a great place for the buffalo to spend the night as well and if one needed to get up to head for the KYBO in the middle of the night, they had to be careful not to disturb them. A tent might not have been practical at that point. I have done the plop routine when the patrols are young (no scout trailer though) and I have stripped down to the bare essentials with backpacking and canoeing. But the real test is kayak camping. That's like a combo of backpacking and canoeing. I do have a 17' canoe that can handle 750# where most canoes max out at 350#. A kayak, on the other hand will barely fit enough gear to meet backpacking standards. Now that is challenging camping at it's best. The Mrs. and I are planning a week+ trip this summer doing the kayak camping routine. Snow camping? Just another challenge with the requirements of temperamental temperatures dipping below freezing rather than trying to limit one's weight of a backpack experience or load limits and balance of a canoe or bicycle trek, What I think the optional requirements are meant to portray is the variety of different challenges that can happen in the world of camping besides going out in the woods, opening up the back of the trailer and plopping down for the weekend at a State Park..

Let me see. We can keep a perpetual space station operational (no gravity, hard on the human body). There are grandiose ideas to colonize Mars, but over the past 40+ years there have been no practice colonies on the moon. One would think that the middle step should have been taken, unless of course the conspiracy theorists are correct in that there's something about the moon that keeps it off-limits.

Our town used to have a unit. I tried to contact them, they never made a response and now it has been taken off their membership/unit map. The unit was "chartered" by the mega-church in town, but that didn't seem to be sufficient to make it go. Nearest unit from us is 100+ miles away.

I find that the pack itself often falls apart faster than the belt and/or straps. Jury rig one out of two partials.

BSA is so picky about it's anal policies and then turns around and allows "stuff" like this to happen to a scout? Sorry, but blame for this goes all the way up to the SE of that council. Get out from behind your desk, stop the political fundraising schmoozing and help this boy out!!!! BSA is all in a tizzy about being socially correct, how's about doing something other than bullying one's own members. Oh, and by the way, I think it's written in the BSA policy material somewhere, at least I saw it someplace once. Something about "HELPNG OTHER PEOPLE AT ALL TIMES!" That applies to more than just the boys.

I saw one boy take the pieces out of the box, put it together get the weight right, and entered it as is. Didn't win anything, but it was his car and he got to participate in the Derby. EVERYBODY in the event knew who made THAT car and the notoriety and attention he got he thought was pretty cool. Yes, like @@qwazse I have seen a couple of the cars over the years made with a whittling knife.

https://www.rei.com/c/hip-belts?r=c&ir=category%3Ahip-belts&page=1 https://www.rei.com/c/backpack-shoulder-straps?r=c&ir=category%3Abackpack-shoulder-straps&page=1 Why not just buy the correct equipment to begin with.

Once one gets into the minutia of the rules and regulations and dotting all the i's and crossing all the t's, it is always surprising that the ones trying to be helped are the ones being hurt. The old AND THE NEW troop in this case have lost sight of the main objective, the boy's advancement success. There's going to be NO COH that is going to heal the wounds caused by these arrogant adults in BOTH troops.