moosetracker

Remember the G2SS will take away all danger, so you must stay in your chairs for safety sake.. So combine that will changes for physical fitness and you get a meritbadge for chair excercises. http://exercise.about.com/cs/exerciseworkouts/l/blofficeworkout.htm

Well that would be upsetting to twocub & son, if they applied for it and were misinformed by some idiot, and now it would be hard for him to get in!!!

I see mention of BSA Bands in the early years.. This guy wasn't that old though.. His band was probably more around the '80's.. But, he seemed to elude to the fact that they were still around, and if I surfed the web I would find them. http://www.westtexasscoutinghistory.net/other_bands.html I see your Jambo Band.. I wonder if my patrol member saw it.. I wonder if he plays one of the instuments they are still seeking.. That would be a great ticket item, just to try out for it.. I may email him on it. Here is one that is still active! http://www.scoutband.com/

Well the fiddling with what he could do it under was the problem of the WB ticket.. You are suppose to do it for your registered position and unit you are registered to.. So the committee position to a group that had no musicians had no benifit to the group he was currently volunteering for.. HE would have been fine with just going out and starting a "group" for the fun of it.. Venturing would allow him to register people not registered to a troop or crew, but alot of other work, I was not sure he was committed to doing. Though he did entertain the idea as a possibility.. District Committee member - would have been a gathering to play at one or two special events.. Putting it under helping to retain youth for his district by offering a unique opportunity to interested youth members of the District. It just was going to take more then the alloted time of a woodbadge course for him to figure out the way he really wanted to go with this idea.

The comment that George Tikei was in a BSA Drummer Bugle band got me to thinking. How many of you have some sort of BSA Band, District or Council wide? I had someone in my Woodbadge patrol who wanted to start one for a Woodbadge ticket item.. He said it was because he was in one in his youth and they even went to different countries to play. Never heard of it.. But, we worked on trying to allow him to do his ticket, but it couldn't be as a committee member for a troop with not even one scout who could be in the band. Ended up having to hand him to his ticket counselor to finish up organizing the ticket.. He was still working out if he wanted to become a member of the District Committee, or start a Venture Crew. I am thankful the ticket councilor he got is excellant.

I have kept some of my sons first (and only) postcards from camp between his tiger/wolf summer year.. Both say the exact same thing.. "I am having fun, funning" (I am sure there was some misspelling in that too, can't remember what though.."

The two or three phrases you have pulled out of the Bible and twisted into your own meaning for your arguements are worthless.. A) Because God didn't write the Bible. Man did.. B) Because the Bible has been re-interpreted and re-written by man over the years. C) Because other things in the Bible have been pointed out as having alot of pointless and worthless rules or warnings, that may have had a purpose for health, due to poor hygine or lack of science.. Or just plain superstitions.. They are viewed as an interesting oddity in todays culture.. I follow your God, I interpret my bible very differently then you do, and I am not the only one.. Every faith has some difference of opinion because they interpret the bible differently then someone else, or follow a completely different book then the Bible, and possibly a different God.. So continue to tout your 3 or 4 twisted phrases from the bible, to your hearts content.. It makes you feel right, doesn't do anything to prove your point.. That the young generation will age into adulthood and have a revote to overturn the rules and policy you are trying to force into government before the tides of change have the majority in favor of allowing homosexuals the right to marry will come.. The rules were made to make illegal inter-racial marriages.. It was revoked.. Give it 10 to 20 years it will be the same with all these state rules on homosexual marriages.. SP Oh, dear! Low self esteem! So SP, are you disputing or making fun of the high suicide rate of homosexuals due to the bulling of either unthoughtful children or the highly-moral who interpret their bible according to you?.. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2011/04/teen-suicide-rates-drop-in-in-blue-counties.html http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-04/cums-sls041311.php I know, in your mind all they need do is change their ways and go straight and poof their problems are gone.. It is beyond your understanding, that this is not a choice. It is not the same as drug addition or acoholism.. I know, I know it is just beyond your ability to grasp that concept.

I am not one for looking through old historical bSA books for a smidgen of info, but I do know Kudu has time and again brought up some old time rule that stated that when they went for each rank they had to show efficiency in not only that rank, but any rank before it.. Don't know though if it was at the BOR, or to their Patrol leader of SM before the BOR.. Don't know about the retesting stuff, I do think some of that can easily become a unfairly grueling test.. Like if in school, you were asked to take a History final in Senior year HS, but not only was the final going to ask you what you learned this year in history, but could ask you the names & dates of anything you learned in history since first grade up.. If your teacher want to be a real jerk, they could ask you some very small insignificant fact.. Like what color was the shirt Francis Scott Key wore when he wrote the Star Spangle banner? Besides the test probably taking 12 to 24 hours to complete. I just know there needs to be a challenge, that challange does not need to be at the time of rank advancement.. Like, I like the special troop awards idea, the special T-shirt for going through some challenge, or maybe a creation of some special troop patch that can be given if you show proficiency by the troops defination, but you need to remove it if you don't keep up your skills until you relearn the skills again. I think you are right, if a troop does this, the boys will take more pride in this T-shirt or troop patch then any of the rank advancement due to the challenge involved to earn it and be able to continue to wear it. But, if the boys care about the troop award over the rank patches it does say something about how hallow the ranks have become, thanks to National Advancement's meddling.. At least with the ranks the FCFY should be pulled and they should return to emphasizing as fast as is consistent with thoroughness... They should emphasis efficiency not hint around that one & done is acceptable as long as the scout receives lots of bling in their first year.

Five or ten years will tell if it is values or prejudice.. People in teen years can be persuaded to be in gangs, or hang and use drugs, or even do some small criminal stuff like vandalism or shoplifting.. But, I don't see too many teens "educating" their parents to the values of it, and they will normally either grow out of it, end up in jail or dead.. But, yes homosexuals are not criminals or drug-users.. Some may be more sexually diviant similar to hetersexuals that frequent brothels and prostitutions.. But, the majority have similar values to hetersexuals forming long term relationships, and permenent relationships.. They will hold decent jobs, be pillars of our community, and raise well adjusted children.. As you age you will see that the drug-addict friend is a down & out looser.. But, they will see their gay friends become businessmen, teachers, join the police force, and yes some may go into acting, fashion, or hair design etc.. Point is they will become productive human beings.. The polls are becoming more & more favorable to homosexuals because of the fact they do not pose a threat to society. The fear that they do, is slowly being proved false.. The polls have risen favorably for treating homosexuals fairly, because the younger generation are not changeing their attitude.. That is because it is not rational logic or solid evidence that show them to be immoral.. Simply a prejudice, and those trying to instill fear in people that they will be the downfall of our society.. But, we will give them another 5 to 10 years, and see if they change their attitudes. See if five years from now the polls have risin more in favor or lowered when all of a sudden this younger generation gets hit by lighting and comes to their senses in one great being lightning bolt of changing attitude.. Personally I believe that if you were right their would be a cyclical young age of acceptance, but always a older age of changing attitude, and the polls wouldn't be on a constant even rise as they are.. But, you can feel comfortable for another 5 or 10 years waiting for your miracle when the younger generation comes around to your views. Unfortunately when the polls continue to rise up to 55%, 60%, 65% in favor I will count it as proof that I am not wrong. The great thing about homosexuals comming out, is that like blacks before civil-rights, or women before the womens revolution, had low self-esteem, and like similar to blacks and women believed the sterotyping, and acted as they were expected to.. Now with their taking a stance, their self-esteem is improving and they are not accepting playing the part of your sterotyping.

Maybe, but as stated, I did say judgement will evolve. as people age.. Prejudice will not.. The fear that homosexuals, or gay marriage or whatever.. Is an unfounded fear of an unknown.. You have to beat the fear into people when they still believe in the boogie man.. That way they are just to fearful to socialize with people of that group and figure out the fear is unfounded.. Unfortunately even putting fear in them at a young age doesn't always work.. They could get a peer group that will have friends who have friends who are gay.. All it takes is to personally get to know some people from a group to figure out that the story of the boogie man your parents were spoon feeding you was not true.

Jgood, sorry it did not work out on your previous interview fo a DE position.. I don't know of any openings.. Currently Councils are shrinking.. But the rumor mill is going two ways.. 1) That they are doing away with DE's .. This the majority of us think is a very false rumor, as it doesn't make sense.. There would be no one to push FOS & membership.. 2) That they are thinking of adding more DE's to councils.. A more hopeful rumor for you if true, but still just a rumor. I know the Michigan, Illinois area combined.. It was said that they were making a larger district, but putting more DE's on the groung.. Possibly there are openings there? Put your resume out to any and every council, DE is a tough field.. Most DE's either get burned out or get kicked out for not raising membership / $$$, or because they tick off their volunteer corp focusing on Membership / $$$ when the volunteer corp has little interest in that type of stuff. Our Council may have an opening in NH, don't know if there really is an opening, or if they are just perpetually looking.. here is their opportunity website page.. They usually loose about 3 or 4 DE's a year.. http://www.nhscouting.org/openrosters/ViewOrgPageLink.asp?LinkKey=12065&orgkey=1818

Beavah - No young person is naturally prejudiced, but they pick it up pretty well from others over time. I disagree with that statement.. Prejudice is learned from your elders very early in life before you reach your teen years and start thinking for yourself. If it is not rooted before your teen years, then it takes personal being victimized by a group to form prejudices later in life. I do agree though that when the money the government is chewing up and spitting out, when taxes become their problems not their parents, then they could be more conservative in politics, or when it is their kid rather then themselves they may have a more conservative view on raising them with a set of guidelines (then again not always, parents do seem to get more & more lax with guidelines and more just want to be friends & buddies..) They may also become more religious for the sake of raising children.. But, if in their teen years on through to adult, they did not pick up their parents prejudices, and know and like and respect the black kid from high school, the jewish kid from college, the homosexual co-worker.. etc. etc. etc.. Well prejudice is built on fears of the unknown.. Once they know and like, admire and respect individuals of certain classes, they can not go back to grouping them all up and labeling them as the scum of the earth based on verbage meant to have them fear that group of people, and see them not as individuals but as a group that have no value. The only way the fear can later be implanted is if the enough members of the group victimize the person, as to get them to fear there are more in the group that are bad then good, and it is not worth the effort to weed out the good from the bad.

First aid / cpr training is all well and good, but it doesn't fill the coffers of BSA.. Consider the knot similar to an FOS knot, rather then a training knot. I am sure with the economy as it is, there are fewer going to Philmont, so they are trying to find ways to drum up business. It may be an easier knot to earn if you live withing driving distant of Philmont.

Hmmm... I never felt in the minority being a white middle class person in the scouting movement. Nor have I felt in the minority when I voice my opinion on this subject on this forum or in other scouting circles.. Usually we are equally divided.. I agree as the young grow to be the adults things will change.. Some youth may become more conservative in their view on economic wealth, religion etc as they age.. But, I have never heard of anyone who is not prejudice learning to become prejudice as they age, even if they have become more conservative.. At least not without good reason, like becoming a school teacher or cop in the ghetto and being disrespected or victimized in various ways.. Personally I don't think there is much danger of too many of our youth becoming victims of thug like homosexuals to force a large change in viewpoint. These youth if they stay religious or become religious will continue to liberate their churches from archaic fears. Tell them that their good friends or relatives are not worthy of equal rights because God tells us to mistreat them, and they will debate your fear spreading verbage with logic and reason.. The same logic and reason they debated the topic with their parents or grandparents, and possibly converted some of them to be more lenient. I guess Beavah's point is that the Greeks & Romans did eventually fail, and even if it was not because of homosexuality, it was due to some way God smiting them due to their views on homosexuality.. Japan and China I guess are slated to fail some day also due to Gods wrath.. Probably the whole economic crisis that alot of countries are facing is due to God's wrath on homosexuality.. Could not possibly be due to Greed.. If our cultures fail it will be due to homosexuality..

To echo some of what Lisabob stated.. My sons first troop was a grilling retest of everything.. We left the troop and had to be retaught this was not what BOR is about. Once deprogrammed, I thought the new way for a BOR may have been too easy, but saw the flaws in the grilling retest.. (Basically I retrospect, they had boys that it was a simple test and some where it was very difficult.. How hard the test was started with the troops Advancement Coordinators pre-conceived notion of the worthiness of the scout.. If worthy, and easy test.. If not a difficult test to find reason to flunk him.) OK, so I should be all for the new BOR process Right?.. Wrong.. Reason is as Lisabob states, boys see right through it and don't like it.. (there needs to be a happy medium) My son about a month ago stated to me, he prefered the BOR of his first troop over the BOR's of his other troops.. Why? Because he was challenged.. He was not what was considered a worthy scout, so he got grilled.. We knew he would get grilled, so would spend the week before the BOR having him practice to pass.. But, for him regardless is was a challenge and he felt the thrill of success when he would be triumphant in passing through their fires of hell and coming out victorious.. Again, not saying that type of grilling should be there especially if unfairly administered.. But, the kids need to feel they passed some type of challenge and it is not a rubber stamp. My son's last troop was a good troop while he was in it (If not we would have looked for a 4th troop).. After he got Eagle, but before he turned 18 a new SM has totally destroyed the program that was their.. It is now a weak troop.. They still to FCFY.. By having one night camping outside the church and signing off All the new scouts on their camp cooking.. One night and yet 4, 5, or 6 scouts get all their camp cooking signed off on one dinner.. For weak troops FCFY, does nothing to improve their program.

LOL twocubdad.. At least we would have a huge pool of candidates to be meritbadge councilors.. The objective is that regardless of how long or complex the requirements are, the boys should earn it in about 15 minutes tops.. By finding the loopholes!!!

The troop has to have a strong procedure to remove them from a POR if they are not fulfilling it.. In some ways I disagree with the policy, if it is to piece together POR time for boys that are being removed from POR for lack of committing to it.. 2 months before being kicked out of first POR due to non-performance.. 1 1/2 months before getting kicked out of second POR due to non-performance.. 1/2 a month at some othe POR they are failing to do also, wha-la.. the boy has time in for 4 months of a POR.. On the otherhand, I think it fine, if say the boy gets his first POR not on the first day he made the rank, but later on.. He gets the POR, does 4 months in the POR and then moves up to the next rank.. If the POR is for 6 months, then I see no reason why the next 2 months can not count for his new Rank.. Then he needs to get a different POR to get the other 2 months of service in.. Or say the boy starts his POR in troop x.. before the time is up he moves and joins troop y.. Then the time in his POR from troop x should count.. Or if the scouts starts a POR, then gets seriously sick and cannot finish it.. Returns to the troop at a later date, gets a new POR.. There are reasons the piecing together I would have no issue with.. But, I disagree with piecing together a stop-watch account of a POR when the scout did nothing in the position.

Problem with us volunteers is we are sold on a vision.. Which is what they promote to get adult volunteers, then are disillusioned by the fact that BSA National has lost sight of the vision they sold us on.. What we still want to acheive is the vision, because the "real" world BSA would not motivate us at all.

I understand your reasoning Scoutfish, but with the bb gun example I also see cost and confusion. The cost of all those different types of guns, the confusion of all those different ranks at the bb range at one time, getting the right gun to the right rank, different instruction for different ranks.. I'm thinking the Chuckwagon where a team is put together specifically with the mixing of different ranks, 1 or 2 tigers, 1 or 2 wolfs etc.. The team shoots as a team together. Summer camp possibly could change to have rather then Packs come as a unit, have different ranks at different times.. But that is still confusion, as to trying to get the wolfs to the bb range while the rest of the Pack goes swimming, or over to Pirates cove. Boating I think is all Council activities to for CS.. You might loosen it up by allowing some boating at the Dan level for Webelos, otherwise the different boats for different ranks again would be confusing in a program aimed at working with the whole pack during the time period, rather then having the same rank of multi-packs meeting for a time period. Possibly costly too if the idea is for different types of boats, rather then allowing for more challenging tasks within the boat.

Sounds like you think it is the real pre-meeting. Could be, camps do things differently. With my camp the "All are invited" pre-meeting was optional.. Happens during our kick-off each year. Then came the manditory pre-meeting which is about a week before your camp week.. (Some still don't go, but it is best you do..) This gives you a week to work out problems with medical forms, Merit Badges scouts signed up for and didn't get, and payment problems.. Don't go and the medical form problems are a phone call on Saturday, when you are to arrive on Sunday, and you are scurring over the merit Badge course problems and payment issues after arrival..(This message has been edited by moosetracker)

It will be interesting when they officially add it to the G2SS if this section will be in bold or not.. (a true Guide or a policy/rule).. I also found it interesting that the comment about the G2SS marking bold as what is real policy/rule was removed from the book, and now just resides on the Website in Scouting.org that has the link to it.. That RichardB defended the decision with the flimsy reasoning as to why the policy was there, came as no surprise to me.. Everyone knows he is the spokesperson for National BSA policies especially regarding Safety.. It would be like the spokesperson for the police during a crime investigation getting up to announce they had caught a suspect, the community can now breath.. then add in "Personally I don't believe for a minute this guy did it." The comment on the alcohale stove, I don't really have any idea over, except maybe to recommend he back of an take a breather as the angry mob is starting to get to him.. All I know is I wouldn't fire him over it, I would more send him on a nice Long restful vacation.

You only have an hour after the initial post to edit it.. For that hour, up top of your post just to the left of the (upthumb icon) quality (downthumb icon).. will be a icon that looks like a sheet of paper with writing on it and a pencil.. Once the hour is up that icon disappears.. (This message has been edited by moosetracker)

he said 6 kids showed up to the fishing derby, he did not say they all signed up.. With those things you hope to net more kids then a normal Registration night, and hope to interest some kids who have no interest in scouting.. So noname, did any of them sign up?

Yeah, everyone here liked RichardB up until the wheelbarrow/wagon age limit notice, and all RichardB did was explain it, he did not say he authored it, or was the person from on high who demanded it to be created.. Yet all of a sudden, everyone now is ready to lynch him.. I am not happy with that at all. Twocub I agree with your analysis of Advancement. Yes there are some who make advancement ridiculously hard.. But more so are the ones who make ridiculously easy.. If BSA wants to retain youth, how about not encouraging the 13 yo eagle mentality? All the easing up on advancement does is promote the image that BSA is for wimps, due to the caliber of the Eagles produced, and helps to not retain the scouts as BS becomes a program you can do in a year, then your out of scouting.. Sorry Venturers, maybe in some areas you can pick up the 13 yo eagles, but not in most.. Don't even know if they would be interested after being programmed to do nothing but check boxes for their rewards, a program that has no program and a very weak reward system isn't what they have been trained to function in. They need to find something else to put on their resume. Kind of makes you worried about the "radical" changes Bobwhite hints at which are coming down the pike in 2013-2014 for Advancement doesn't it? Really how much more can they weaken the program?

I like it, except I would keep RichardB.. How many others from National take the time or interest to even care what us worker bees are thinking.. He would just need to go through reprogramming to undo the brain-washing of Mazzuca rein, along with probably some other savable people.. Get rid of those who are more into their own pompous selfs, and not caring about the program.. I don't think RichardB is in that catagory. Added thought Remove BSA Soccer!!! And any other attempts to move Scouting out of outing and into anything and everything we can possibly think of to just get $$$$$ selling out on the original vision of what Scouting is all about.(This message has been edited by moosetracker)