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By tent stakes, I'm assuming you mean something of the longer stakes you can buy in your camping supply store. No, they won't work. If your talking what the circus uses, that's a different story. 30" rebar (steel) works. Some people have that more ready than wood stakes. If you have a landscaper among your parents, he/she might be able to make a generous donation. But the general ideas was to go out in the woods, size up the plot of land, find the hickory trees with suitable branches (easy enough if you're somewhere with harsh winters and plenty of deadfall), and hack away.

I remember in college (a little later than you would have been going, Stosh) a buddy of mine and I were in the same class. He was always looking sharp, and I -- well let's just say I never left the wilderness too far behind. The prof was just a few years older than us (maybe more, but she looked very young) and a very competent instructor, who was generous with office hours. I remember going her office and he was just leaving -- in full dress ready his ROTC meeting. Her first comment to me was "Students didn't dress like that when I was in college! Times have changed." "For the better?" I asked. "Yes, I think so, she said. We were so unfair to soldiers." I think people have gotten a grip. They understand that not every uniformed individual or every citizen who salutes our flag is part of the military establishment. And even if they are, it's because they believe that we are worth it. I hope that the same attitude extends to scouts. IMHO, good citizens make good soldiers - not the other way around. And even if they don't enlist they make good soldiers of their countrymen who choose to serve, by voting and participating in their government.

"Thou shalt not take the Lord's name in vain." -- If he heard an "Oh my Gosh" (or even a "Golly gee" or "by Jove") from our lips, he'd bust us on it!

We'll need Richard B to direct us to an after action report. And that, IMHO, means every "near miss" should be followed up this month. Many spiral fractures (like the one my daughter acquired to her wrist this spring) aren't diagnosed at the ER, but rather a couple of weeks after the fact. I know in recent years, I've had one boy with a sprained wrist backpacking. Estimate that at 1 per 1000 boy-days, multiply by 40, and you're pretty much right at the same #. :0 For my modest statistical consulting fee, I can compile the published research on skate park and BMX injuries and give you a probability of our event being something other than chance variation from those norms.

If that was true, then why do the "leadership skills" types go nuclear when we suggest that the Boy Scouts of America (in exchange for our lucrative monopoly on Scouting) be "trustworthy" enough to "obey" the statute that we include all those requirements from June 15, 1916? For the same reason that we pay the morbidly obese a million dollars a year to mock that law, to promote Wood Badge, and to explain why it is wrong for the Boy Scouts of America to expect a twelve (12) year-old Boy Scout to sleep in a tent away from his mommy and daddy: Not a ten (10) or eleven (11) year-old Boy Scout, mind you, but a twelve (12) year-old Boy Scout! http://inquiry.net/leadership/sittin...ith_adults.htm EDGE haters unite, or untie, or something .... Funny thing about those computer games. The ones my kids (now ages 16-22) like the best, are the ones where the protagonist hast to start fires, gather gear, assemble a patrol, traverse terrain, sleep out, etc ... Every now and then they'll play the soccer or football simulations.

Yeah, what he said ^_^. Except for the "adolescent view" thing. But, I guess that's one more reason I like the BSA. It's not a perfect compromise, but one that keeps a lot of houses of worship in the game. The alternative could be very much like what we have with the school system: fiefdoms of public works that alienate all manner of folks ... leading to them build their own highly coveted schools.

When I had become an atheist (around the age of 12, I started reading the Bible and very quickly realized that I couldn't believe what I was reading), I toyed for a few minutes with every Christian teenager's wet dream of total hedonism by being an atheist*, but I immediately realized that that was a false concept. So since neither Christianity nor the Bible would be my guide, what would? The answer came to me immediately: Scouting. Every moral precept that I could ever need was embodied in the Oath, Law, Motto, and Slogan. Decades later when I read that Baden-Powell quote, it certainly looked like he was referring to the Ten Commandments as governing by "don't" and hence was demonstrating that the Scout Law is actually superior; am I the only one or did anyone else also see that? BTW, I'm still a big Boy Scout. A 61-year-old Boy Scout. OTOH, I have no use for BSA, Inc. I view BSA as being more an enemy of Scouting than promoting it. BSA does not live nor operate by the Oath and Law and they constantly endanger Scouting by creating discrimination lawsuits and alienating sponsors and donors. I wish that BSA would just go away so that an actual Scouting organization could take its place. { * FOOTNOTE: Having been involved in creation/evolution since 1981 and in contact with fundamentalists since 1970, I have had a lot of dialogues with fundamentalists. One theme that keeps coming up is that if God doesn't exist, then there is no morality and we can do whatever we want. Absolutely ridiculous, but that is what they insist upon most emphatically. A local creationist activist claims to have been an atheist, but he never was. As he describes it in his own writings, as a teenager he accepted evolution and "became an atheist" (HINT: no such decision is necessary) just because of his bubbling hormones. In reality, it was his own religious training that had offered him that legal loophole, not evolution. And in reality, he never was an atheist, since he admitted to me that he prayed to God every night during his "atheism". Using atheism as an excuse to misbehave is a Christian practice, not an atheist one. } Why? 'cause they like it! And the 10c's isn't even theirs!!! The believers are just thoroughly wowed by the 3 millennium track record, I guess. Don't come down to hard on the pastor. If he was hawking "10 rather mediocre ways to live", he'd lose his paycheck. Agreed with trying to foist Christianity on every scout. I only go into any detail about any of the few religions I admire (or the one I adhere to) if a youth asks. Generally, I'm more interested in getting a scout to open up about his religion. It's more fun that way, and I actually learn a thing or two in the process!

I think it's more a question of where your blind spots are. My SM wouldn't took the 3rd commandment very seriously (not even an OMG). But he'd let us tell some pretty rare jokes. Also, some scouts are coming from a different starting point than others. Each boy is a negotiation between you and his parents. Then, we make it clear to a boy when an action is unbecoming of his oaths. Some boys need quite a lot of "warning." From the outside, it could look like we are very lax. But from the boots on the ground, if a boy is always on "lock down" you will never know if he's learned. (Of course from the boys' perspective, we often come off as too strict!)

When I had become an atheist (around the age of 12, I started reading the Bible and very quickly realized that I couldn't believe what I was reading), I toyed for a few minutes with every Christian teenager's wet dream of total hedonism by being an atheist*, but I immediately realized that that was a false concept. So since neither Christianity nor the Bible would be my guide, what would? The answer came to me immediately: Scouting. Every moral precept that I could ever need was embodied in the Oath, Law, Motto, and Slogan. Decades later when I read that Baden-Powell quote, it certainly looked like he was referring to the Ten Commandments as governing by "don't" and hence was demonstrating that the Scout Law is actually superior; am I the only one or did anyone else also see that? BTW, I'm still a big Boy Scout. A 61-year-old Boy Scout. OTOH, I have no use for BSA, Inc. I view BSA as being more an enemy of Scouting than promoting it. BSA does not live nor operate by the Oath and Law and they constantly endanger Scouting by creating discrimination lawsuits and alienating sponsors and donors. I wish that BSA would just go away so that an actual Scouting organization could take its place. { * FOOTNOTE: Having been involved in creation/evolution since 1981 and in contact with fundamentalists since 1970, I have had a lot of dialogues with fundamentalists. One theme that keeps coming up is that if God doesn't exist, then there is no morality and we can do whatever we want. Absolutely ridiculous, but that is what they insist upon most emphatically. A local creationist activist claims to have been an atheist, but he never was. As he describes it in his own writings, as a teenager he accepted evolution and "became an atheist" (HINT: no such decision is necessary) just because of his bubbling hormones. In reality, it was his own religious training that had offered him that legal loophole, not evolution. And in reality, he never was an atheist, since he admitted to me that he prayed to God every night during his "atheism". Using atheism as an excuse to misbehave is a Christian practice, not an atheist one. } Salutation edited. Reading the NT without the OT is like trying to breath in a vacuum! Paul for his part made it very clear that his doctrine was not about handing down a moral code. Half of his audience thought they were the bee's knees because they had their moral coded handed down on stone tablets. For those folks he used the Old Testament in debunking that world view. The other half were tempted to believe they could do anything they wanted now that Christ (or, indirectly Paul, Apollos, or several other highly reputed messengers) was their champion, and he used mostly common sense (and a few "God forbids!") to debunk that world view. His premise was that anyone could come up with a moral code -- it's innate for humans to do so. But, regardless of the code, everyone falls short to dire effect. But, deliverance from those failures requires the miraculous intervention: enter the doctrine of salvation. Now obviously an atheist is not buying that last part. But, any Christian that takes Paul with any level of seriousness ought to know that the world's highest moral standards are not inherently part of the Good News. So, not only is the image of an immoral atheist false, it is contrary to Scripture to imagine someone without knowledge of the Bible as somehow unfettered from moral obligations.

When I had become an atheist (around the age of 12, I started reading the Bible and very quickly realized that I couldn't believe what I was reading), I toyed for a few minutes with every Christian teenager's wet dream of total hedonism by being an atheist*, but I immediately realized that that was a false concept. So since neither Christianity nor the Bible would be my guide, what would? The answer came to me immediately: Scouting. Every moral precept that I could ever need was embodied in the Oath, Law, Motto, and Slogan. Decades later when I read that Baden-Powell quote, it certainly looked like he was referring to the Ten Commandments as governing by "don't" and hence was demonstrating that the Scout Law is actually superior; am I the only one or did anyone else also see that? BTW, I'm still a big Boy Scout. A 61-year-old Boy Scout. OTOH, I have no use for BSA, Inc. I view BSA as being more an enemy of Scouting than promoting it. BSA does not live nor operate by the Oath and Law and they constantly endanger Scouting by creating discrimination lawsuits and alienating sponsors and donors. I wish that BSA would just go away so that an actual Scouting organization could take its place. { * FOOTNOTE: Having been involved in creation/evolution since 1981 and in contact with fundamentalists since 1970, I have had a lot of dialogues with fundamentalists. One theme that keeps coming up is that if God doesn't exist, then there is no morality and we can do whatever we want. Absolutely ridiculous, but that is what they insist upon most emphatically. A local creationist activist claims to have been an atheist, but he never was. As he describes it in his own writings, as a teenager he accepted evolution and "became an atheist" (HINT: no such decision is necessary) just because of his bubbling hormones. In reality, it was his own religious training that had offered him that legal loophole, not evolution. And in reality, he never was an atheist, since he admitted to me that he prayed to God every night during his "atheism". Using atheism as an excuse to misbehave is a Christian practice, not an atheist one. } DW, I saw in another thread that you gave up at the part about the incest between Lot and his daughters. Not sure how that's unbelievable, but then again I'm jaded. One of the database hangups when I first started working on a genetic research project involved a program that didn't know how to handle when a subject and her bio-mother had the same father. That was 1 in a sample of about 400 families -- just north of the Mason Dixon line. Pity you didn't stick with it for the part about Tamar and Judah! Yep. Most of these folks don't take their Bible seriously if it doesn't suit them. St. Paul makes it very clear in his opening chapter of Romans that the irreligious are just as accountable for any lack of morality as the religious -- the latter being worse off because they claim to have a standard from which they fall woefully short. Flying in the face of their great commission, too many Christians spend too much time around Christians ... makes for some pretty insipid salt -- generating immoral atheist bogeymen, etc.... A pastor of mine re-cast the ten commandments in terms of a series of do's. It built off of a kid's teaching tool "Ten Best Ways to Live", but framed clearly for us adults. It came off sounding very much like the Scout Law with Reverent, Brave, and Clean in the beginning and Helpful, Loyal, and Trustworthy towards the end.

I have a pretty low bar for vacations. My scouting training has taught me to be content with the bare minimum!

Of course! But in high-demand years, each council is allocated so many slots. And if the majority of venturers who sign on are not Sea Scouts, then they'll all wearing green and grey. The way this could work would be that a council would announce that one of the crews in its contingent would participate as a sea scout ship. Maybe they have 2 dozen slots for venturers, and they allocate half to Sea Scouts. Let's way a half dozen Sea Scouts from that council sign up early. Those youth would then advertise throughout the area and region that they have six openings for any venturers who want to arrive at jambo as a Sea Scout ship. (This works mainly because many older venturers have "boundary issues" and participate in almost everything provisionally anyway.) Obviously, if word gets out, several "Jamboree ships" from throughout the nation might make an appearance. I'm not entirely clear on what the point of this would be (besides dotting the arena with flecks of white), but I could imagine that if a few youth took charge of it, they could make up a few good reasons to drag their whites through the mud!

Mt Hope would be hard on those dress whites!

NJE92, Agree with BD to a point. My boys do look for those silver knots, so wear that one proudly, but don't clutter up that field uniform pocket with so many other knots that it gets overlooked. You don't need any pins on your hat. Hats are not where anyone looks for your scouting history. They are for keeping the sun out of your eyes and the rain off your back. I've taught my boys to regard highly the fella with the weathered hat. Finally, keep in mind that the OA sash should only be worn when OA business is being conducted. I disagree with your opinion that the cubs need to know that their CM or any leader is an Eagle. What they need to know is that their leaders love them dearly.

P18A, you will find that crew advisors love to grouse about getting short shrift from National. But then again, why should National bother about the most rapidly shrinking program of the BSA? It's not enough to have one or two flash-bang crews in a district. To be of national importance, dozens of crews need to be in every district, touching base with one another and encouraging one another. We're simply not there yet. Think about it this way. Until parents in our packs start worrying if the troops they visit are partnered with crews, venturing will be of marginal relevance to the program. We have to be that good, and there's practically nothing that National can do to make that happen. (Aside from perhaps admitting they have precious little to offer us advisors.)

Nice write-up! I hope a lot of boys read it. After a potentially sample-destroying equipment failure that one of our IT interns stumbled upon, I sat down with him and broke down the gravity of the situation. He had asked if we had to report this failure every time we reported from any analysis of these samples. My line was simply "We are nothing we we don't have our integrity." Life is riddled with attempts to avoid sweeping things "under the rug."

K. It's not a matter of slacking. It's a matter of the boy actually learning something. It sounds like you helped one boy learn. Now if I were the SM of the other boys in that class and knew what happened, I would not honor the blue cards because doing so is hurting the boys. I would probably have them go over to your campsite with a fresh pot of coffee or flowers or whatever and ask if you'd help them complete the requirements as written! Then I would have a sit-down with the camp director and tell him to not offer the course any more this summer until the MBC knows his material and promises not to cut corners. So yes, it's a two-pronged approach. But most of us know how to complain to adults and maybe over time force a change. But we need our boys to learn how to handle these situations. Encouraging them to rise up against "grade inflation" is very likely one of those things that they will thank us for later in life. That includes helping them understand what they did wrong. It is wrong to go into class without knowing the requirements. It is wrong to do less than your level best just because someone *explained* his/her off-the-cuff rules instead of *referenced* the book. [insert my standard rant against EDGE here.] It is right to ask for a partial blue card when that more accurately reflects your accomplishments. It is right to let us know when an MBC is not being effective. Skills like these will help a youth navigate through college or trade school.

I think BD, brings up an important point. You are now a servant of your district. This shouldn't be too hard for you to handle because as CM, you've already know folks at your roundtable. So, if there is something unique that you can offer by way of adding variety to the program (especially for the Medicine and Geocaching MB's), don't hesitate to put yourself out there. Some troops might like the opportunity to have an introduction to the MB as a meeting topic. So if you have time to offer that sort of thing, you can. But, like BD said, avoid walking through all the requirements of the badge and making it a classroom. Make it more of an activity that the boys can enjoy and at the end of the time say "This is about half the MB, if you think you'd enjoy working on this, here's my contact info, arrange an appointment, show up with the pamphlet, and we'll get you started based on what you remember from tonight, and where you'd like to go from here." Our troop allows councilors to schedule appointments at meeting times. We insist that the boy arrange for appointments in advance, so that if the adult is on our committee, he/she can allocate time accordingly, and if the youth has a position of responsibility that demands his attention during the meeting, he can arrange for proper coverage. Usually, the SM or I are happy to stick around and do some busy work while MB appointments wrap up. It's also a neat way to meet boys from neighboring units. Other troops absolutely would not allow this. Bottom line: find out what your troop allows/prohibits. Balance that with what suits your style.

Just putting it out there: "It's the Economy, stupid.". The centennial was three years earlier. Usually volunteers for things like is have four years to recharge the wallets. In a good ecomonmy, most of us would have a little fat to burn. In this one ... most of us are just trying to stop the bleeding. Lots of us have done that by passing on the big ticket items.

Plus keep in mind that anything you spend as an essential volunteer counts like a charitable deduction.

I think the general rule was about half fare.

I think most of us write here because we do like the BSA -- even if some of us had to deal with a dose of rejection. Some ways National has helped me: Jamborees - 'nuff said. Seabase - I wouldn't have a crew without it. Venturing - made scouting work for my entire family. Advancement - put my council in line when it questioning crew positions of responsibility for Eagle. So, I may be a bit of a scofflaw, but not hardly an anarchist.

K, you have out-of-touch Christians in your hills. I have out-of-touch internet snobs in mine! Answer "no." File the plan anyway by having the SPL write a hand-rwitten description of the the outing (sufficiently detailed), collect SM and CC signatures, and drop it in the mail to your council HQ. Their problem. Not ours. Adults take up the rear on most of our hikes, I'll have them trained on anything relevant to our needs by mile four.

For me, personally, it is a religious thing. My Lord, before beginning his ministry in full, spent an extended time in the wilderness. I suspect his ability to do that in his 30s was predicated on extensive experience early in life. Other religious traditions seem to have similar models. In a similar way, I want my youth to be "comfortable in their own skin" so that they will get the most of whatever their Maker has in store for them. I think that outdoor experience is what adds that particular value to scouting.

Went to camp last month. The only impact was a couple of boys on staff at cub world coming over to ask if I had any patches I'd like to trade.