Platypus96

ScouterAdam- The only reason we are both in the same den is because I'm aging out part way through the year, and my friend ages out much later. We have both stepped down from troop leadership to let younger scouts take over, so now we are going into a weblos 2 den. I don't remember much if cub scouting, and the den leader is inexperienced, so I'm looking for ideas to implement. Thank you all for your responses so far, if you can think of any helpful suggestions, please let me know!

This is a question for den leaders. If you had two 17 year old eagle scouts in one den as den chiefs, what would you expect them to do? And if they did that, what else would you like them to do? How much of the burden can or should they take on? Thanks in advance!

Packsaddle, I am sorry about that remark. I feel I let my anger get the best of me. So to Peregrinator and everyone else, I apologize for that attack. Peregrinator, I am sorry, but I do not know what atheist regimes you are referring to. Could you please explain that statement? As for people Not having the right not to be offended, I'm not sure what you mean by this. I am going to assume that you never went through the process of losing your religion. Please correct me if I am wrong. But for those of us that have, it is a very long process. It often includes learning a great deal about the religion you were raised in. You learn how it judges people. What warrants damnation. How non believers are punished. You realize that a majority of people believe that you deserve eternal pain and suffering only because you don't believe in their god. That includes your family, friends, bosses, teachers. That is a hard realization. Schools are supposed to be places of learning. Safe places or students to better understand the world. They should not be just another place for them to be taught they are different. If you want to learn religion, go to a church. No one is stoppin you But religion should have nothing to do with a school.

Peregrinator, from what I have read here, you are indeed a bigot. No atheist (that I know of) condemns an individuals right to practice their religion however they please. However, they do condemn it when the government attempts to impose religion on them. Now, you may think that saying group prayer in school, or even just seeing a prayer banner in the school, may not be an imposition. You are wrong. When an atheist (especially one in school, who is often a teenager and just discovering his lack of a belief) sees that banner, it is a big sign reminding them that a large number of people around him firmly believe that he will spend an eternity suffering for his "sins." That is a terrible realization. That has no place in a school.

"..You can not tell anything about a person just by looking at them..Every Flap looks the Same for each member so when OA members see a Flap they Say Lodge Member.." Did you ever think that that may be the point? After the ordeal, all candidates become full members of the order, regardless of the honors they later achieve.

Honestly, I didn't really want to touch this topic at first. There is just so much wrong in the op, I didn't want to get involved. But I can't help myself. Maple, you are a kid in a boy scout troop. Act like it. The best place for a socio- governmental experiment is not a group of scouts that are expecting you to lead them on fun camping trips. To treat them as such would be a disservice to them. If I was in a patrol that ran like that, I would leave it. The best way to lead your peers is to let them lead themselves. Instead of making presentations yourself, you realize it needs to be done and identify the right person in the patrol to do that job. That brings me to my next point: split up your patrol. The main reason is that a group that large makes it extremely difficult for you to have an intimate knowledge if your patrol members strengths and weaknesses, which is the basis of leading. I think I'm done for now. Just remember, the point of a patrol leader is to lead a patrol in what THEY want to do, not what he wants to do.

So I was talking to a friend of mine earlier. He is the SPL of a troop that I left a few months ago. Apparently at his last meeting, he said something along the lines of "pay attention guys, because you need to learn this stuff to help you be an eagle scout one day." Well, after that, his SM pulled him aside and said that he couldn't say stuff like that. According to him, you can't tell the scouts they can be eagle scouts, because it "just isn't a possibility" for some of them, and he doesn't want them to get false hope. Is that OK to tell an SPL? He can't encourage kids to be eagle scouts?

I've always thought this argument was ridiculous. From my point of view, there is only one reason a scout would listen to music or play on his phone on a trip, and that is boredom. So you have two possible problems there. Either he is using it when nothing is happening, and it is entirely unreasonable to be upset at its use, or the program for the trip is not keeping his attention well enough to get him to put down the phone. I remember the first time I put on headphones at a scout function. I was patted on the shoulder, looked up, and another kid said "Really? You're gonna listen to your iPod while you're surrounded by your friends?" I took them off and struck up a conversation. Banning cell phones isn't the way to get rid of them; it certainly hasn't helped in schools. Instead, find out why the scouts are bored and help the PLC create better meeting and trip plans. And like Kudu said, if the boys are 300 feet apart, then the phones may actually be useful in communication (sorry if I misread that Kudu, i think its what you meant.) Times change, and what we learn in scouting do too. My old scoutmaster used to love to tell us about how one of the first class requirements when he was a scout was to explain how to stop a runaway horse. Maybe someday kids will laugh about how they had to learn to use a compass, when now all they have to do is click a feew buttons on some gizmo. If every kid in your troop thinks that phones make camping better, who are you to tell them differant? Eventually it will go dead, they'll look around, and something will click for them. And that momement is what will make them love scouting. Obviously though, no one would think less of someone who gave a friendly reminder that texting during religious services is not okay.

I think the SPL can be useful in certain cases. In my old troop, it was essentially just a puppet for the SM to run the troop while pretending it was boy led, all the way up to rigging the elections to avoid scouts who could actually lead. Now in my new troop, it's much better. We are in a situation where we have two older scouts, and then 10 scouts 13 and younger. Me and my friend are the SPL and JASM. As SPL, I work directly with the two patrol leaders. I guide them and try to teach them leadership skills as best I can. The SM is great. He watches and listens, then gives me and the JASM ideas for how to better teach the Plc. I think that the SPL is not really do much a leadership position, as it is a teaching one. The patrol leaders lead. The SPL just gives them the tools to do it.

So, I have been asked to play the part of Meteu in a broken arrow ceremony this weekend. I have never actually seen one, and no one else I know has either. Do any of you have any advice to help me do the ceremony better?

Just wanted to throw out that in my lodge, the vigil nomination letter is read with the name omitted, so the peson is judged on their actions, not their popularity. However, the one year I was a member of the voting commitee, I recognized every person that came up based on what they had done. People who are known to the scouts are normally known for good reasons.

Hey everyone. I understand that this is a topic that has probably been done to death, but I'm an SPL and my meeting plans have been getting rather stale. I need fresh ideas, and I'm all out, so I'm calling in the brain trust. Please post interesting meeting ideas, ideally with a skill or set of skills to be learned and an interesting activity to go with it. To give some background, this is a new troop made up of all first class or above scouts, and we hope to win our first camporee in a few months. Anything to help us prepare in a fun way is appreciated. Brainstorm!

In my lodge, we have never had any special borders or backgrounds for our lodge flaps. Everyone gets a flap after the ordeal, and you can buy as many as you want, whenever you want. I believe they cost $3. We do have special event patches. When we have a contigent going to NOAC, or Indian Summer, or even Jambo or Philmont, we make lodge flaps to sell as fundraisers. These are normally two piece, full pocket patches, rather than just a flap. I recently bought a set for our NOAC contingent. There were four pairs, each denoting a chapter and a ceremonial principal. I had to buy them all, just because my chapter and the priciple I portray went together. Couldn't help myself . I don't understand why you would withhold lodge flaps from members. I would just be confused over who was in the OA and who wasn't. I used to be a Platypus, and an awkward Platypus too.

It pains me to see that so many adult leaders take away an amazing opportunity from the scouts in their troop. I'm not interested in trying to persuade you that the OA is a good program, or that everybody needs to be active in it. But when I look at the amount of friends that I have met through the OA, I realize that it has made a huge impact on my life. Over the past few years, I have spent more time with friends I made in the OA than with friends I made in school. They are scouts like me, and the fact that they have been chosen to represent their troop to the OA and the fact that they have chosen to become active in it instantly made it easy to connect with them, as they showed the same level of interest in scouting as I do. The OA opened me up to friends of all ages. As a 15 year old, I would be hanging out with kids on their weekends home from college. When we get together, the ages range from 14 to 26. The opportunity to connect with scouts outside of your own troop is an invaluable experiance, and it should not be denied to any scout because of the prejudice of adult leaders. The OA is not about feathers and dancing, it is not about service, it is not about troop elections, it is about brotherhood. The rest just comes naturally.

jrush, I think you might have missed my point. I don't think Eagle Scout's should be in the OA because it is a great program. I just think that any scout who wouldn't be elected by their own troop into scouting honor society should hold scouting's highest rank. I was pretty much trying to think of a nice way to say that eagle scouts should be approved by their peers. Actually, I like that idea. If scouting was left up to the scouts, then instead of the current EBOR, all eagle scouts would have to be reviewed by a commitee of scouts from their troop. Scouts of all ages, and all ranks. It would be a great place for a scout to apolagize to kids who hold a grudge, or be congratulated for all the work he has done in his troop. If they don't think he is scouty enough to be an eagle scout, then he doesn't pass, and can try again later. As for making all eagle scouts OA members? That would be ridiculous. Some of the worst scouts I have ever seen are eagle scouts, and many of them do not deserve to wear a sash. that is something that should always be left up to the kids.