Lisabob

E61 - are you telling me the boy will not eat rice (if the spice is the issue, have him get his rice out of the pot before it gets mixed into the spiced veggies)? Or potatoes? That he couldn't judiciously pick around some of the veggies if he was hungry enough? That (if he "has to have" meat) he couldn't arrange to also warm up a little smoked sausage or pre-cooked white meat chicken and add it to his rice? And failing ALL of that, that he apparently wouldn't bother to participate in the meal planning process to ensure that there might be at least one thing on the menu he is willing to eat? In that case, suck it up, cream puff. This isn't really about likes/dislikes; it is about having food that one is ABLE to eat. In the situation described in the original thread, boys who were on legitimately restricted diets ended up with nothing they could eat because other boys would refuse to make even basic accommodations like buying cheese for vegetarians to put on their sandwiches. Apparently not once, but frequently. How is that right? How does that demonstrate good patrol leadership? I'd say it isn't and it doesn't. The original poster mentioned that the meat-eating boys were sick of mac&cheese, as though that's the only option. I'm not advocating a total ban on meat here - just broadening the choices beyond "mac&cheese or nothing at all." So - everybody - how about it, more non-meat recipes for camp outs?

hopalong, you'd want to check the packaged rice and the potatoes with your celiac folks, first. I don't know a whole lot about gluten issues, but I have heard that a lot of packaged convenience foods have gluten added to them. I'd think the potatoes would be ok but I'm not sure. About the meat eaters' preferences - yeah, ok, they do have a "right" to have their favorite camp foods too. All the gloriously greasy bacon they can manage, or whatever. I'm not suggesting they give it up entirely, but only that they learn to accommodate others, too. If they insist on having *only* their meaty, gluteny favorites that the others cannot eat, then that's selfish of them and they need more guidance. There is no reason for any kid to be reduced to potato chip sandwiches on every campout because the rest of the patrol refuses to purchase appropriate food. And having an occasional meat-free meal won't hurt anybody! Unless they have dietary restrictions prohibiting consumption of grains and vegetables, perhaps? Nope, didn't think so!

SP - you might want to read the end of the thread from which this was spun. Mac-n-cheese is NOT the only vegetarian dish on earth with some flavor to it. The boys hopalong describes clearly need some new ideas. I thought we might be able to help with that. That's the point.

The discussion in the original thread has me thinking about how we cook & eat at scouting events. I know this doesn't apply to everybody, but it seems to me that a lot of scout cooking is pretty meaty. Perhaps it isn't surprising that those are the things our scouts fall back on when planning their menus. They're just cooking what they know, and what they see us cooking. So let's share some new ideas! My challenge: post a recipe that you like and that can be made on a camp out, and that doesn't include meat. Maybe someone else can start a "no gluten!" thread and do the same thing. One of my son's winter favorites: Yellow rice & veggie hash Ingredients 2-4 sweet/regular potatoes (or combo), cut into small cubes 1-2 onions, diced bell pepper, cauliflower, carrots, mushrooms, corn, tomato, other veggies (whatever you prefer) - cut up in small pieces 2-3 green onions finely chopped 1-2 fresh hot peppers (serrano, jalepeno, whatever) diced 1+ Tablespoon ground coriander 2+ teaspoons ground cumin 1/2+ teaspoon cayenne a little olive oil salt to taste (We never measure the spices precisely so add more if you like!) 1 bag of vigo yellow rice Cook the rice according to the directions on the bag. In a large skillet, heat the olive oil and saute onions. Add potato & saute til about halfway cooked (10-15 minutes). Add other veggies & continue cooking. Add seasoning and toss well to coat. When cooked, garnish with green onions & hot pepper. I've never met a boy who wouldn't eat this, even minus the meat (goes well with andouille sausage and/or chicken thrown in, too, for the meat eating types.) My guys prefer to mix the cooked rice in with the veggies to pick up the spices. Also goes well reheated in breakfast burritos, with or without eggs. If I had a mixed group of vegetarians & meat eaters who absolutely demanded meat, then I might chop some smoked sausage and warm it up in a separate pan (maybe the one the rice cooked in, after the rice is mixed into the veggies to minimize dish washing) and have them add it to their own plates at the end.

"We have vegetarian kids eating potato chip sandwiches because the rest of the kids in their patrols won't agree to things like cheese for sandwiches and the veggie kids who are vocal get voted down. Yes, they could bring their own cheese. The non-veggie kids want to be able to not have to cook two different items - one with and one without meat. They're tired of mac & cheese. Then there are the gluten free kids who can eat the meat, but no gluten so only rice or rice noodles and thickened sauces ONLY if they're thickened w/o gluten ingredients. " ----------------- OK so here's where some leadership needs to happen. Frankly, the gluten free thing sounds like less of an issue than the veggies. There are lots of gluten-free options these days and if thickening sauces is the biggest issue - well, not that big an issue. So I'll focus on the vegetarians. Within the troop: 1) PLs and SPL need to be talking with each other about what it means to be responsible for a group of people. A discussion led by the SPL at an upcoming PLC about "do you think it is right that Joe has only potato chips for every meal?" combined with a renewed look at the food pyramid to examine options OTHER THAN meat, may be in order. And why is the SPL signing off on meal plans that leave boys with no options other than potato chips, in the first place? The SPL will need some backing here, and possibly also some guidance in prepping for this PLC conversation. And if the SPL is, himself, part of the problem (ignoring the needs of the scouts with dietary concerns), then somebody (ahem, SM) needs to have a conversation along these same lines with the SPL first. Leading people means taking their legitimate needs into account - not ignoring them because they're inconvenient. 2) Eating & Cooking lessons! The (meat eating) boys may actually believe that mac & cheese is the only vegetarian option out there that tastes good. They may turn their noses up at the notion of tofu or seitan and their response to the merest suggestion of lima beans (or other veggies) might not be positive. But there are so many options. This is where I think you could have some fun, teaching the boys to cook more adventurously and still eat tasty meals that don't include unpopular or unacceptable items. Some ideas here: **Have a troop pot-luck. Ask each boy to prepare or bring his favorite home-cooked dish, along with the exact recipe for it. Do a little strong-arming to convince kids to try new foods (within the realm of their dietary restrictions, of course). Collect the recipes. Figure out how to adapt for cooking on a camp out. From this, put together a troop cook book. **Invite local chefs from vegetarian restaurants or from local culinary schools to visit your troop and share ideas/techniques. Explain to them what you're trying to do. Maybe work with them to arrange preparation of some tasty snack/dish that the boys can all eat, and allow them to help prep and sample it at a meeting. **Contact the folks who do the cooking at your troop's usual summer camp (if your camp has a dining hall). Ask them how they deal with these issues at camp, and seek input. Better yet - ask your Roundtable staff to bring these folks to an upcoming Roundtable! **Have some troop cooking contests at your regular troop meetings. Encourage boys to cook alone or in pairs so that they don't get into fights with each other about what's on their menu. Do themes - one week, cracker barrel foods/soups/breakfasts/sides/desserts, etc. Depending on how skilled they are, you may need them to consult with somebody (SPL? Troop instructor?) before or during cooking so it turns out edible (no point in exposing people to badly cooked food that tastes nasty - kind of self-defeating!). **Give each patrol a "mystery ingredient" that they MUST feature in one dish at a campout (or cooking contest). Make it something that can be eaten by everybody in their patrol. Again depending on skill, you might want to include a cheat sheet of instructions/ideas on how to cook it. **Lead the way as adults. Cook mouth-watering items that are edible for all the boys, and encourage the boys to taste them. Then teach them to cook them. Anyway, my point is: the quick & easy answer is either to let the adults do the planning, shopping, cooking (mom/dad sends food) or to break up your patrols. The longer-term answer is to help teach boys better leadership skills (SPL to PL: "No, Billy, it isn't being a good PL to force Joe to eat potato chip sandwiches all weekend.") AND to broaden their range of foods they'd even consider eating and cooking.

I sympathize with what you're trying to accommodate, hopalong, but I think the idea of recombining patrols for meal times is the wrong approach. That breaks up any sense of real patrol identity. People bond over food. And a lot of patrol activities revolve around planning, cooking, eating, and cleaning up after meals. This is a big part of where boys learn to work together as a team. Breaking that up - and also inserting adults into that mix (the vegetarian adult eats with the vegetarian kids, etc.) just further weakens the troop's use of the patrol method. In a former troop - there were several boys with mild allergies and food issues, a couple of them with severe issues or medical/religious restrictions. The one with the most severe issues was allergic to a host of items, most of which could have been fatal. He typically packed his own things. When he was grub master his patrol ate what he did. The rest of the boys with mild issues or a limited palate, had their say when menus were being planned. The boy with very severe issues who never ate anybody else's food did get a break on the grub costs. But for the rest - parsing the cost of what they will/won't eat for every meal gets to be way too complicated and annoying. I think your "policy" should be that patrols work with their own scouts to be aware of food allergies & preferences, and(with exceptions for life-threatening issues), the responsibility lies with the SCOUTS to be a vocal and constructive part of the menu-planning process. Maybe instead of "policy" the troop needs to model what constructive participation by the scouts in this process actually looks like. I also think somebody might want a quiet word with your troop's SPL about helping his PLs address this issue more successfully in their patrols. Maybe some troop meetings where different types of cooking are practiced, based on different recipes that work for a wider variety of people, would also be good? I know the boys - esp the younger ones - tend to fall back on meals that are easy & familiar, which often tend to be heavy & laden with all kinds of troublesome ingredients. Maybe their cooking & eating comfort zone needs expanding.

I also didn't want to join the site in your link, wingnut, to see the price. But when I went to the actual boys life site I found that a subscription there costs $24/yr. http://boyslife.org/home/bl-store/382/subscribe-today/ I've lost track - what are our boys in scouting paying? I have a vague notion that it is less than $20? Seems ok to me, for 12 issues. There are some other discount sites for magazines on the web. Their "deals" are often not very good. For example: magazines dot com promises 90% discounts! Wow! And on boy's life, they show a 44% DISCOUNT! You can get 12 issues for just $24! (hmm, where did I see that same price listed?). Some deal. Amazon shows a price of $24/yr too.

Sounds like you may have found an adult-led troop. A troop I used to be associated with had an adult QM on the committee. While it wasn't quite as odd as you describe, it was very close. The adult QM did all the work and was responsible for all the gear - including getting it to and from camp, storage, inventory, repair, purchasing, etc. The so-called youth QM did absolutely nothing.

And yesterday Scott Brown (R-MA)announced that he supports Cordray's appointment. I guess that calls into question his Republican bona fides.

"It was passed before the 2010 election with essentially no support from the republicans." Yep, but so what. The point is that it passed fair and square - and Senators are supposed to honor their own, binding, laws. Don't like them? Fine - change them. Til then, the law is the law, no matter whose name is on the "sponsor" line. If one seriously has nothing better than "yeah but I don't like/trust/agree with the guys who sponsored it!" then yes, one does sound like a sore loser. And by the way, the Washington Post -that bastion of liberalism - published an op-ed decrying the recess appointments. Politico (another media outlet frequently considered left-wing) ran a piece questioning the wisdom of these appointments. So much for your mainstream media argument.

Yep, just go. Your time is too short with your son to allow people like this to waste it. Make the switch & you'll likely be a lot happier. And then, your son (and you) can just enjoy the program for what it is supposed to be, without all this extra drama.

Perhaps if the Senate would get off its duff and do its job by holding votes on nominees for critical offices, we wouldn't be going down this road now. The problem with this particular appointment is that some sore losers who didn't want this bill passed in the first place, have determined that they'll actively prevent implementation of the laws that passed, rather than accepting that they lost this time. This is not good governance and it isn't very (small-d) democratic. Use the actual legislative process or the judicial process - or public pressure (elections) to make changes, but don't actively seek to sabotage existing laws. When Senator McConnell claims that Obama has "arrogantly circumvented the American people" I wonder what he's thinking? Here McConnell is, trying to circumvent a duly passed law, simply because he doesn't like it. Pot, meet kettle?

If these four individuals are all long-time ASMs then you probably already know them pretty well and have a clear sense of who will be best equipped to do the job. Trust your instinct & go with one who you think most likely has the boys' respect and shares the vision of the program that you hold. As somebody else said, this might or might not be the one who is best at interviews. But with that said, here are a few I might ask: "How will you keep yourself (and other well-meaning adults and parents) from stepping into the boys' territory when you know you could do things better/quicker/more efficiently?" "Billy's parent comes to you and says...(pick an issue that's realistic for your troop)...how would you respond?" "Billy (or the SPL) comes to you and says the same thing, now how would you respond?" "What do you think the boys like best about the troop right now?" "Who do you see as the next generation of youth leaders in the troop?" "(Pick a recent troop issue). How do you think the troop should handle that? What's the role of adult leaders in this issue?" In general - look out for people who want the adults to step in and fix all the problems, or who don't seem to have a handle on working with & gaining respect of the young men already in the troop. If they start going on at length about "troop tradition" and "when I was coming up...", RUN the other way. The last time I was on a committee where SM candidates were "interviewed," one candidate proposed to bar committee members from attending events, said he'd decide on his own which boys were eligible to run for PORs, intended to dictate the troop calendar single-handedly, and wanted to set weekly meeting attendance standards to determine which boys would be "allowed" to go on camp outs as a cure for flagging attendance. Oh, my! I liked the guy and thought he could have been a good mentor to some of the older boys. His scout skills, knowledge of scouting rules & regs, and organizational capacity were also better than most anybody else in the room. But he wanted to make it "his" troop. I don't think the boys would have stood a chance.

Done. He finished badge #3 yesterday, SMC & BOR tomorrow, no surprises expected. So in case others are wondering, yes, you can do three Eagle-required badges in under a month without much sweat. (camping, environmental science, e-prep) One nice thing about this - he's relatively new to this troop (15 months or so) and while he's been quite active, he hasn't had a lot of individual interaction with many of their adult leaders. Doing these badges has helped him get to know a couple of them better - adult association method at work.

hey Barry, you might want to read what I actually wrote before deciding what I "conclude wrongly." I even put the winky-smiley-thingy in there to indicate that I was speaking tongue in cheek! Whaddayawant from me? Anyway - Happy New Year, everybody!

Could this guy be the CC? Maybe you should broach the idea of switching roles?

John, if this cut should never have happened, I'm sure you'll also gladly take back the Bush tax cuts too and restore us to the income tax levels of the (gasp) Clinton era? (And: Merry Christmas! I'm off the webs for the rest of the year)

I agree the 2-month timeframe thing is dumb. I don't agree that Speaker Boehner is doing anything not-dumb, in return. When your only options are dumb & dumber, I think you go with dumb.

I would have a hard time believing that the boys could run a decent meeting via conference calls. And - how boring is that? What boy signs up for scouting thinking "oohhh, I'll get to be on a conference call when I'm PL someday?" For that reason alone, I'd strongly encourage face to face PLCs. As for location, it could be most anywhere. Son's former troop met at the SM's home, which was nice in some ways (but put the SM in charge, de facto, and also imposed on his family a good deal). Son's current troop holds PLC in their regular meeting place at same time as committee meetings (gets hovercraft parents out of the PLC & into the committee meeting, at least). That is convenient for most people, but with occasional scheduling issues. In one or both troops he has also experienced PLC planning camp outs, held PLCs at a local diner, done a PLC day hike & meeting, etc. I think it might be nice for the SPL to feel he could hold the PLC on his own turf, but I would not want to impose that expectation on the SPL's family without their approval.

Not to go too far down that road, but there are a bunch of other WB/Eagle threads of old, in the training forum. And I don't think they're at all comparable (said as a WB'er/not an Eagle scout); Eagle is much more of an accomplishment, in my book. But I also don't think they're intended to be comparable. JB: I think the comment about former scouts having moved on while NS leaders are just beginning to enjoy & learn about the outdoors varies much too widely to be helpful. It would depend on the individual as well as on the troop's program. So I'm having a hard time swallowing that one.

Uh, I was never a boy scout. Had something to do with not being a boy.

Most likely, somebody at the scout shop just didn't know what he was talking about (got it confused with venture patrols, maybe?) and gave him the wrong thing. This does not mean the uniform is changing, though.

I have to agree with Basement here. The idea of getting an existing high school group to start a venturing crew on the basis of an interest survey and cold call in-school recruiting seems unlikely. High school students who aren't already involved in scouting or connected to someone who is, are unlikely to perk up their ears; they're already very busy and probably happy with their school theater group (or whatever). What does seem to work is to have a core of kids already connected to someone in scouting to start the recruiting process. Sisters, friends, neighbors, boys who used to be in a troop, girls who used to be in girl scouts, etc. They can be ambassadors to the local high school population. But adults going into the high school without those connections are a) highly likely to be ignored and b) that's if they get into the school, to start with (harder than in the elementaries). Basement, do the existing youth in your crew feel any sense of responsibility for keeping the crew going for their little sisters? They may not have thought about it that way. Or, like most crews, it may be that once the core group of youth move on, the crew dies off, only to reborn again with a new group of youth in a few years.

I thought about this thread yesterday, while sitting in a faculty meeting in a room full of social scientists. The economist in the room started complaining about unfair Chinese trade practices, and ended by saying "I mean, the other socialist countries in Europe are our allies; why can't China be more like them?!" *headdesk*

y'uns is funny! (with a nod to Ed, where ever he may be)