nolesrule

Well, GW took the third option. Ignore both and go on vacation.

With only four regions, I'm not so sure having a "local" regional office is all that necessary. Geographically, the regions are so large that they aren't really all that local to begin with. It might work a little better in the smaller NE region, but for the other three, what's the difference between Atlanta, Phoenix and Chicago or Dallas? I don't really see how event planning on a regional level would be affected, as it isn't local to begin with. If a regional event is held in Miami, does it really matter if the planning is done from Atlanta or Dallas? As for processing paperwork, that can be done anywhere. Regional offices, especially when there are only a few regions, are only necessary if you literally need an office full of feet on the ground in that particular locale.

Me thinks somebody doesn't have a sense of humor.

It's definitely "Ooh-ee-ooh-ah-ah, ting-tang-walla-walla-bing-bang"

Problems that solve themselves are terrible. They put a premature end to requisite bickering.

One year our troop did the annual family campout at Ft. Wilderness at Walt Disney World in the group camping area. Since it was a family event, parents were responsible for their kids, including scouts. When I went to the 1989 Jamboree, as part of the pre-Jamboree travel, we spent a day in Washington, DC and a half-day each in Old Williamsburg and at Busch Gardens Williamsburg. If I remember correctly, patrols were on their own from drop-off until pick-up time. We had our buddies if we split up any further, and each patrol leader set their own check-in times/places for the patrol throughout the day. Buddy system and check-in times are the key. To "encourage" on-time check-ins, let it be known that the group stays together at the check-in spot until everyone arrives. I think I was 8 or 9 the first time I went to a major theme park as a group activity without constant adult supervision. I was around 12 or 13 for the 2 examples at the start of the post. I think boy scouts can handle it.

Wine, Women and Wages

Nah, BMI is just a potential indicator, but it is not an accurate measurement of anything. The number has nothing to do with body fat percentage, only how heavy you are in relation to your height. There's a lot more than just body fat content that factors into the number.

ntrog8r, you're right. I fuzzy mathed.

As someone who was born and lives in Florida, a state that is arguably both both North and South, I'd agree with OGE. From my observations, it's groups from the South (not the South as a whole) that tend to keep the resentments alive and kicking. I don't think the Northerners, aka damnyankees, really care all that much, let alone obsess over it.

Over 150 years now, actually.

Teach healthy eating habits. That has nothing to do with what tools you use to prepare your meals. I think people get used to the syrup-heavy cobblers and dump cake recipes because of their simplicity.Our University of Scouting has a duch oven cooking curriculum that is hosted by our local chapter of the Dutch Oven Society. They make just about anything you can think of (and take requests for next year's recipes). As for alternative sweeteners, some people can have adverse reactions to them or just plain don't like the taste. So before you use them, make sure everyone who will be consuming the food is ok with that.

Scoutldr writes: "Whatever you may think of Hannity, his "man on the street" interviews, where he interviews those barely old enough to vote (18-20something) really scare me. His point is, "these kids are clueless, and they are cancelling out your well thought-out vote". " Right or wrong, hat's not exactly a scientific sampling method. And just like the Leno sketch, how many are not shown because they don't support the "stupid people" point?

Yeah, family is allowed to come up with me at our camps. But with the camp just 15 minutes from my house, it's not really necessary. My 2 year old daughter loved looking for rabbits and gopher tortoises after an ASM from a camping troop mentioned in front of her that the camp was filled with them. My first weekend there, my family came for dinner both nights, and we saw rabbits as we went for a walk after eating. But she was disappointed we didn't see any turtles. Sunday morning, apparently she woke up and told my wife she wanted to go to "daddy's house" so she could see a turtle. We walked around for a bit but didn't see any. But after the troop checked out, I did one last drive around camp to make sure all lights were off and no water was running anywhere. At the last campsite, I spotted a 18-inch gopher tortoise. I quickly drove back to the campmaster lodge, grabbed my wife and daughter. She got to see her turtle. It's memories like that that'll make for such great experiences. On the other hand, my second weekend it rained most of the time. So I stayed indoors, organized my patch collection and watched some preseason football (yeah, the campmaster lodge has cable TV).

I'm sure that a campmaster's responsibilities vary by council. A lot depends on size of camps, where they are located and how willing the ranger is to let someone else be in charge of the property. In my case, I'm a campmaster at the smaller of our camps, located in a suburban area. We are given complete decision-making authority. Granted, I'd call the ranger or our campmaster coordinator or staff adviser for advise if I felt I needed some, but when on duty, I'm in charge. So far, the biggest decision I've had to make was on a request for a troop to use a campsite other than the one listed on their camp usage form. Like I said, my 2 weekends were fairly quiet with the limited camp usage. Our council, on its campmaster application, also requests a list of hobbies you have and if you are an MBC to list which merit badges. That way you can offer demos or even merit badge opportunities.

I've already had my second weekend, too. With a baby coming soon, I scheduled both weekends I had to do for the remainder of 2009 in August. Follow the rules, be a good host. At least at my camp, the campmaster is the final decision maker while on duty. Activity levels were low because it was August. My first weekend, we had a new scout patrol. That was it. For the second one, we had one troop for a PLC planning weekend, another just in for half a day to use the pool. So I did my rounds of the camp a couple times a day, just to look out for anything unusual (the camp is in the middle of a developed area, so trespassing does occur infrequently). I visited the units camping a few times a day, to get to know the adults and shoot the breeze, otherwise it would have been a lonely weekend. I visited at downtimes or during meal prep so as not to interfere with program. I even got invited to dinner Saturday night for the second weekend. Turns out I'm the newly assigned ADC for the UC assigned to that troop, so we had a lot to talk about during dinner. Next year, I plan to haul my telescope. Even though the camp is in the middle of a developed area, the ambient lighting is much lower than around my house, which is near an airport that has a coast guard air station. Maybe I'll sign up to be an Astronomy MBC. I expect the job is most stressful during cub family camp weekends. Now if only we could do something about the infamous "Camp Soule water". I brought my own drinking water, but had to go the weekend without a shower because the odor was nauseating. Dry shampoo for the win.

That's not too bad really. Obviously local grocery stores are going to be easy sells. Unfortunately, the single dominant grocery chain here, while a good company, doesn't do any gift card fundraising programs. The program my synagogue uses has numerous retailers with varying percentages. From 1.5% up to around 14%. We're talking gas stations, mall retailers, Amazon.com, CVS and Walgreens, and much more. Here's the full list. http://www.glscrip.com/shop/specialoffers.aspx Just suggesting it as a possibility. I have no relationship with this company, other than that I use it to support my synagogue's fundraising efforts.

1) Where does the pack hold its meetings? The safe meeting space is supposed to be provided by the CO (in theory apparently). 2) Find out who is listed as the Institution Head for the CO and try to contact that person if you can't reach the COR.

"If yeh live in da southern states, yeh can take a crossover in January or February and the new lads will be introduced to camping in reasonably nice weather." Now Beavah, it is inevitable that the cold front will come through the weekend of the camping trip in those months. Course you people up north might consider that early autumn weather, but us thin-bloods in central Florida aren't used to those near-freezing overnight lows. :-)

OGE, that's classic. I might actually use that when my second comes at the end of the month, just to play a joke on people. He is on twitter, but it's quite possible my sister has broken every finger in both of his hands so that he couldn't text. We can't be that old fashioned. My 81 year old grandmother is on Facebook. Surprisingly, she uses it more than my wife does. Our family couldn't survive without Facebook at this point. My sister is in labor in Atlanta, my brother's wife is due Oct. 5 in Orlando and we're scheduled for 4 weeks from today.

When I was a scout, my troop had a long-standing policy/tradition of having our monthly activities on the third weekend of the month. That was instituted before my time, so I don't know if it was a PLC or an adult decision. Regardless, it guaranteed that there would be available adults every time and it provided for the dates on the annual calendar to be set in stone at the annual planning meeting. Besides, the average vehicle only has 5 seatbelts, so unless you only have 8 scouts or adults that have vehicles with third-row seating, the two adult minimum won't really be enough. And down here in the south, the proliferation of single-bench pickups make it even harder.... I guess there is one plus to the SUV craze earlier in the decade, as people were buying those instead of pickups.

Facebook is how i found out my sister went into labor last night. Still waiting....

Do they buy gift cards? There are programs out there for selling gift cards, where a portion of the proceeds goes to the non-profit (and they even get a cut for refilling the card online). My dad is running the program at my synagogue, and it's doing well. It's amazing the huge list of retailers involved in the program. The nice thing is you can collect the full price of the cards in advance, then purchase them at the discount and distribute them when they are received. Even better, if you give people your group's code, they can buy the gift cards online themselves and your group gets the commission, all without ever having to touch any money. I looked to see if any scout units were doing this, and found one troop website that does it year round with order turn-ins twice a month. They collect the money, place the order, then distribute the cards when received. The nice thing is that since these are gift cards for major retailers, there's not a perception of having to overcharge for a retail product in order to raise money... how often have we heard the complaint about overpriced popcorn? Yeah, this is a bit off-topic, but it could help.

In regards to training, it can also be helpful to take any of the online trainings offered for unit positions associated with your assigned unit types. For example, one of the first trainings I took after becoming a UC was the committee training, because I had no experience in that area. You can learn enough to be dangerous, or you can learn enough to know you don't know everything.

I was looking over the requirements. There really isn't a set of requirements for Scouters who are not unit adults. As a commissioner, I feel left out. Although I guess I could do the Alumni requirements, but those seem written for non-registered adults.