Basementdweller

It depends on whose definition of good your using?? Eagle driven adults? Eagle Driven youth or Typical 11 year old scout???? I doubt the typical 11 year old would want to follow that T-1 in a year....Boring meetings and ever second is devoted to advancement, no fun in that.

I would get a software package like troopmaster or trooptrack to track your records. Just create your own budget, I use google docs pretty easy. The wall chart is available from the scout shop but is pretty worthless as ours gets vandalized by the church youth group regularly. If you want to PM me I will share ours from google docs

Scoutfish....... I will drop the gear in the mail tomorrow morning sorry for the delay, post office is closed before I get off work and I have camped the last two weekends. Son and I are going to comic-con tomorrow, should be fun.

those gi mess kits are great for car camping..... The BSA is laughed at by most of the outdoor community. Our leadership has no clue about minimum impact camping or how to camp in a light weight manner. This is just another example of that.

That was quick Almost two whole months to the day.

Yep, the scouters should have been in uniform, if no other reason than to show respect for the boys. This BOR is the high point of a scouting career and it is interesting they treat it so casually.

Oh bmelon you silly boy, thank you for making me laugh this morning. The implied skill is why oppose the T-1 programs at summer camps. There is no possible way the can learn the skills in 5 days.

I agree for the same benefit of woodbadge you could take your $300 to the bbq and apply a match. That would save you 6 days of worthless meetings and untold grief.

Ya know. Went out to dinner last night with the wife, had way too many margaritas and went to my favorite cigar shop and smoked one with the boys in the shop. I came to a conclusion, It is all irrelevant. The DE can take a flying leap, same goes for the FOS chairman, district committee and SE. Before I got entangled in the Cluster F@#$ that is boy scouting I had a most excellent life. I rode motorcycles with a pretty good group of friends, Ducati, not Hardly Davidson, We camped and backpacked as a family, traveled a bunch more than we do now. The wife and I would get away together on weekends occasionally... It was good The time, effort and cash is no longer worth it. Especially the way I have been treated over this last 5 years. The type of people the BSA attracts are not the sort that I have any desire to be involved with any longer. Immediate changes.....No more answering phone calls from the DE or anyone from district or council, He called me 6 times yesterday from 2-9pm. No more answering emails from district or council. No more answering parent phone calls after 8pm. No more popcorn in my living room for 3 months. No more setting up troop tents after outings, If the boy steal, sell or destroy them so be it. I am done with all the extra effort that made our Pack, Troop and Crew great. Selfish, yes, but in the last 5 years I have put on 40 pounds and my hair has gone completely gray.......Doc said it was stress......Just ain't worth it. I blew my knee out last year because I was carrying three packs and a four year old on my shoulder...none of which belonged to me, on a Pack hike. I still have not fully recovered from it. Yes it was my fault. NO MORE (This message has been edited by Basementdweller)

Yet another example why my woodbadge experience/staff was horrible beyond words.......

never met the councilor. so who knows???

So is it inappropriate to show up to get your ticket signed off with a ball bat...... If my ticket gets turned down after 15 months of working on it and zero guidance......That will end my scouting career, they will have officially won. "Sorry boys, the jackholes at district have broken mr. b......he is going to enjoy the outdoors with out the burden of scouting. Good luck in life."

Mom.....First class is more than a rank and trying to jam it into a year is too much. At first class you are expected to be able to take care of yourself in the outdoors.

Session with the Ticket councilor???????? Never heard of that. I spoke with mine on the phone twice in 14 months. Just had a real funny thought, what if I meet with this ticket councilor, whom I have never met in person, and he doesn't like anything I turn in....... Guess I am screwed.

Ya know what I feel like we are succeeding with our program despite what the district is doing. I am mystified. By this when they keep sending scouts our way.

I am the CM with a CC who has been in the job for 1 month or so........he has his training. I just don't want to toss him to the wolves yet. COR is retired in position. I need the Cc to get a few committee meetings under his belt to gain some confidence then give him more stuff to do, well the rest of his jobs.......that are part of his job description.(This message has been edited by Basementdweller)

Good luck If you looking forward for an entire year to taking it, you will be disappointed. The hype is simply hype

That is why I did not turn in the unpaid applications, because I knew he would access the money in our UDA account again. I am to the point if mom, dad, grandma or grandpa don't have cash in hand of not letting them sign up...... No I am not in charge of the unit....my committee is I am following what they want.(This message has been edited by Basementdweller)

So Jug were did you attend????

This was on top of a real nasty phone call last night from the Districts FOS chairman regarding his desire to have someone at the Blue and Gold banquet......And my telling him that he was welcome at the November Pack meeting or the January Pack meeting but not the Blue and gold. He said I can't not allow them to present at the blue and gold......Well it wasn't pleasant and he started yelling at me thru the phone......I hung up when that started. It degraded to the point of telling him if the presenter showed up at the blue and gold he would be escorted of the CO's property. We have some friends in the LEO precinct close by that I would have help have the presenter removed. This is regarding the excluding my boys from district events by requiring an adult with every cub scout at every council event and NO siblings permitted. Just about had it.

Well, Just about had it with my DE....... Just got off the phone with him regarding fall recruitment. He is hacked off because I have not turned in ALL of my youth applications. Well I don't have ALL of the youth paid for their membership and no I am not giving you applications for unpaid youth. The history is last year I turned in ALL of the applications whether they were paid for or not and the DE proceeded to access our UDA account to pay for them all and draining the account. He did not have permission to do so. So he gives me the lecture about insurance and advancement and I am not being very scout like about this. I responded with, If you, DE, would like to front the money out of the pocket for these youth please do so....... I think that I am just about done with scouting........The amount of money I have fronted youth and gotten stiffed, the amount of financial aid applications, the thankless hours of paperwork and planning. The ungrateful scout executives, district executives, parents and scouts. The district is only giving us 2 weeks to complete our charter and turn it in.. Just about done....

it isn't the program that is the problem.....it is the rest of the garbage that comes with it. The unfriendly scouters. The Good old boys. The long time Female scouters who are very catty with any new gals showing up. The hour of announcements and introductions The Inside jokes The 40 somethings that still live a high school life with high school rivalrys. The bad out weighs the good

Oh you could change it back.....but lack the will or ....... to do it. It is an ego thing on the scoutmasters behalf. I want my scouts to advance...... So again, who will be the better Eagle scout?????? The boy in a traditional merit badge program or the kid who showed up to the Pack meetings and attended that weeks class. Sure they are both eagles.......but one is far superior to the other.

Ahhhh, moosetracker and them other scouts...... SO your telling me your boys ain't never stank, ever??????? Heck after a weekend with out a shower I stink......my shirt tails are untucked. Heck I am fat too..... the way I see it if you exclude the fat guys from scouting then half of the troops and packs will no longer exist.

hospital visits are so expensive because of the folks that can't pay and all of the law suits. something like 40% of the people who enter the hospital I work for either are not insured or under insured. So basically the rest of us pay for the others who can't pay. The US Citizens demand world class health care for 3rd world prices. Million dollar steerable heart catheter systems.....million dollar surgical robots.......People demand CT and MRI Scans for minor injuries. So those trauma suites that you like so much blake.......how many times a day is it utilized??? Do you know what it takes to be designated a trauma center???? 24 hour staffing of anesthesia, radiologist, Neuro surgery, heart surgery, orthopedics and perfusion. So what does it cost to have all those folks on site 24 hours a day????????? My son's asthma meds cost me $200 a month..... I buy them from a Canadian pharmacy for $35. again just sayin...... your friends test of that 85 bucks....the insurance company negotiated rate was probably like $12. Not sayin I agree with it.......it is what it is.