Basementdweller

Your forgetting the Free wildlife fun

I would register this year as an ASM in the troop and get active with them this year. Make sure you camp with them and attend their meetings, I am talking all of them. You need to earn some credibility with the scouts and learn how the troop operates. forget woodbadge...plenty of time for that later. you need to find your feet in the troop before you waste time woodbadge.

perdidochas Since you are quoting the guide to safe scouting.....Hobo stoves are forbiden too. No homemade stoves..... http://www.scouting.org/scoutsource/HealthandSafety/GSS/gss06.aspx Prohibited chemical-fueled equipmentEquipment that is handcrafted, homemade, modified, or installed beyond the manufacturers stated design limitations or use. Examples include alcohol-burning can stoves, smudge pots, improperly installed heaters, and propane burners with their regulators removed.

just say no to foil dinners.....hate them with a passion. They are not practical for a large group....I gotta laugh here.......Our baloo staff got in trouble for starting bags of charcoal and spreading it on the camp road in front of the cabin.. Had the worst experience ever at a Webelos woods event.....not enough charcoal space for all the meals....So we waited an hour for our turn....it is now 7pm....the charcoal had already burned for 2 hours.......guess what happened next.....half the participants didn't get to cook their meal..... Cost me 30 bucks at a mcdonalds at 9:30 at night to feed my group. Hot dogs on the stick....the cubs love them. We did a 16 inch dutch oven with italian sausages, with pepper and onions. Mac and cheese, big buckets of apple sauce. we do pasta and sauce also.....real easy for a big group.

Wool socks......or wicking socks....Proper fitting boots. He needs to learn his body.....When he gets a hot spot or starts to feel one, he needs to stop and use mole skin on it. My recipe for backpacking foot comfort is......Winter time, Goretex asolo boots with two wool socks....one silk weight and other heavy.......Summer I wear a merril mesh with a silk weight sock with toes in it with a light weight wool over it... A full day of back packing takes a change of socks and I carry walmarts brand of crocs for camp to air my feet out.

gotta laugh here......Not sure what the pack budget here is......but lets assume 15 belt loops for 5 boys.... that is $140 bucks worth of just belt loops. As Eagle pointed out it is pretty easy for an active boy to pile up the Arrow points. We had 3 bears last year earn 10 arrow points a piece.....they went to Day and Resident camp......Gonna make for a tough career arrow.

I would like to think that the Eagle would understand that he does not need a leadership position any longer and the JASM is the spot for him.....Far as being not included in the process any more.....that is up to the leadership dynamic of the troop.

had a similar situation...... 1st pack I was involved with Grandpa CC, CM and SM....Grandma, Treasure and Secretary, Moms, dads, aunts, uncles committee.......Well they violated about every rule their was.....spent pack money on the troop...on and on. My experience was bad with it.....but it depends on the people.

He should have included it in his bio.........

We have folks on here from every possible socioeconomic and geographic location. True in the Rich Suburbs a drunk parent is never ever tolerated. So it is real easy to have a zero tolerance attitude, because you have never had to make the call. In the rich suburbs, the rich folks hire good attorneys who will make a plea deal and get the drunk off. I have seen it first hand. co worker blew 2.5 x legal.....after legal wrangling, he got a seat belt violation and wreckless operation. I couldn't believe it....The entire episode cost him $7k. But ya know in the hood mom and dad are known to take at best a drink at worst shot or smoke. We have a lot of functional alcoholics.... In the hood, the poor folks may get a public defender or a cut rate attorney...the results are much more dire, loss of license and jobs..... Laurel, I probably wouldn't have called the DE and had a talk with him.......if that didn't get him to straighten up, then I would have had a chat with the DE especially if the COR wasn't goint to do anything about it......The COR should have been the one to fire him.

I don't know any 14 year old that could raise $3500 in two years of mowing grass or delivering papers or even dad with paying excessive rates for chores. $900 for a week camp?????? ouch.

nj So what type of camping did the packs do?????? If it is like ours, the boys play while the parents work, the boys expect that to be the norm on outings. They are mad because they have to work on the BS campout.

What the heck, I imagine summer in your neck of the woods would be really challenging for Cubs, being outdoors for a week. Makes sense, keeping a 7 or 8 year old hydrated would be a tough. Interesting, our council took our resident camp from 4 nights to 5 nights this year and we were told it was something national dictated??????????? Interesting how the different scout franchises are being run.

Google Docs will do all of this for free. Everyone is selling something

Scoutfish.....Are you confusing an overnight or weekend event with resident camp?????? In my neck of the woods resident camp is a week long. Weekend events are just that an event or camp out..... Just differences in language or use of language, but it confuses the newbies. If your district invites Bears to a Webelos event....your district folks need some retraining.(This message has been edited by Basementdweller)

njdrt.......as stated, June 1 or end of the school year is when the scouts advance to the next rank. Have you taken appropriate training????? Baloo, Owl or IOLS????? When you say take your den camping.....what exactly do you mean?? On your own with no other adults???? one other adult???? What is the rush????? MOM How does a Bear den get "invited" to an even they are not supposed to attend? An over achieving den leader picks up the flyer, or a program director with low attendance...... A lot of things wrong happened here. The bear den went and camped as a den, participated as bears in a webelos event, earned a Pin they were not eligible for....... Very simply they should not receive the pin......They had a lot of fun on the weekend and leave it at that.

geez, only giving it 5 hours for a reply????? patience. A scout is thrifty. We use google doc and their spreadsheet. the beauty is it is free, online and can be shared on multiple levels, some can view and others can edit. We track our Individual scout accounts and troop finances there. Did I mention it was free.

It is easy to say you would call the law until you start to understand the repercussions..... Compassion.......I believe you made the correct choice. A single parent, who just lost his wife, gets arrested for DUI and losses his license or gets driving privileges to and from work..... The result will not be good for anyone. Your simply digging the hole deeper for him. I had some success speaking with a drunk dad, just laid it on the line with him, " I am not here to judge you and your lifestyle or choices, but I absolutely positively cannot have you with any alcohol in your system at meetings or events". I have not seen him drunk or smelling like alcohol at scouts or scouting events.

AK I am the Webelos Den leader and an Assistant Scout Master. I am not blaming anyone, It is simply a statement of what I see. When I get a fresh batch of webelos, I don't expect them to know much. But it is my job as Their den leader to teach them to become more self reliant. We have boys that arrive on a troop campout for the first time, never having fried an egg or washed a dish......we had a patrol that didn't eat dinner till 8pm one campout because they were too busy playing.(This message has been edited by Basementdweller)

That is great they are keeping it in house. I figured they sub'd it out.

AK....... That is what a Properly run webelos program does....... At our last Pack camp out, I was amazed at the number of parents that simply let their kids play while they set up their tents and did the dishes. You take that same kid and then send him on a troop outing and then expect him to cook, clean and take care of himself......well of course he is disappointed and upset. I am seeing it in this year webelos crossover group. really struggling to get their patrol site setup and tore down. It is they just want to sit down around the fire or picnic table.(This message has been edited by Basementdweller)

Wow they even added Medical Marijuana. looks like they made a lot of changes.....gonna have to read thru it...

It is beginning to do it again. I am getting a link in my bar that says womans forum and ksoco.com books appear

We run a very frugal program....our last camp out cost $5. The middle class is being priced out.....but it is thru their inability to manage money and priorities. I retell the story of the mom filling out a campership app while sitting in her Ford Expedition, freshly manicured nails and a then very expensive blackberry, txting.

Really?????? Honestly?????? Are WE that out of touch?????? It is here so you better embrace it or be left behind. Your scouts knows all about it. I live in an urban poor area, everbody has internet and a computer, they all are on face book. Most of the cubs, even at 8 years old have their own facebook page.... Just saying how it is. I ended up creating a Scouter profile on Face book for the cubs to be friends with. We, scouters, need to get over this entire anti tech stance. Whether we like it or not social media is here to stay in one form or another. If you read the terms and conditions I imagine you will find a clause that you must have a parents permission. This is the same discussion as the cell phone discuss, While at scouts it is off, If we continue to try and push back, scouting will become more and more irrelevant. I don't like facebook or social media......an example.....we had a scout email saying he had a death in the family and could not make a campout.......he then posted he had a great time on his date friday night and was going to the fair on saturday. The boys called him out on it at the next meeting. My point to the group was, if you don't want to camp it is fine, there is no need to lie about it. ......Too many people in each others personal business, and it can create a huge vortex of gossip and you can waste huge amounts of time with it.