qwazse

Blame his crew officers. Great idea!

reduce the three citizenships to one MB Hmmm ... Globalization at work ... How does that improve the "cool" factor? How does requiring more outdoor MBs (or any mix of patches that accumulate on a sash) make things cool? (Although, I agree that it's sad the historic MBs were only that.) IMHO here's what makes things cool: Setting up a campfire ring for you and your dates to hang out at after the homecoming dance. Being able to name the constellations they're seeing while the cobbler finishes cooking. Attending a friend's naturalization ceremony because your Cit World MB counselor told you how significant it was. Being sure enough of your own faith ( or lack thereof) to visit a friend's house of worship. Getting in the newspaper for speaking at a town meeting. Setting up an orienteering course around the school for your classmates. Trebuchets -- built from scratch in 15 minutes any day of the week. Eye splices -- blindfolded. Demonstrate, dare your classmates to beat your time. Looking at a community project and saying "I built that." Seeing a homeless guy in the blanket you and your buddies gave him.

Also, consider group projects that may take up a Saturday or several evenings. Things like building/ refurbishing a Klondike derby sled or other equipment. Our boys planned and baked cookies at our CO. Lots of team-building over a two week period. (Week 1, pick recipes from mom's cookbooks and order ingredients. Week 2 cook and eat.)

Also girlfriends with little brothers.? Anyway, make a flyer that describes your troop. Circulate it to your neighbors and classmates.

Sorry Meryl, I have never been cussed at by Jews when I've brought up matters of Palestine. Never by Catholics when I've brought up the counter-reformation. Women? Well, two out of three ain't bad. And, I probably deserved it anyway. And the apathy towards someone seeking to express religious sentiment often is framed in profanity. Moreover when you reference the Abyss, I know you don't really mean it. So spare the hollow vanities. Of course it's not your fault that suit-weary educators want to steer cleaned clear of secular (per S947's reference) improprieties. Even when within legal rights, the cost of defending a "walk up to, but not over, the fence" becomes prohibative. But your insisting that their "invisible muzzle" is not your problem serves to affirm that the "constraints of Oath and Law" upon your felllows need not be a concern of scouters.

That is at the discretion of the Crew President and Troop SPL. We encourage them to work together, but ask them to use judgement as to when and how. I do show them the chart of appropriate activities for each age range. It gives them an idea of what allowed activities might be common to both groups, but also gives them a vision of things they can do that they might not have considered. Boys who are members of both units may use both mailing lists for announcing their service projects. Practically, about 1/3 of the activities are shared. Typically, that's the backpacking and service projects and the occasional council/area camporee. (It's interesting that given the choice, our VOA officers with ties to a troop have asked to share a campsite with their partner troop rather than a campsite exclusive to crews.) We haven't met on the same night, but that's been a failure on the crew's end and a waste of my time. I'm thinking of us meeting on the same night with slight overlap for shared announcements. The crew meets every other week, so on the off-weeks that time-slot could be reserved for the PLC.

I've gotten away from the term High Adventure. Because I'm with a crew and HS kids have broadening interests, I prefer "super-activity". I think of it as something that will challenge you to extend your skill-set. So: If you serve at soup-kitchen, maybe next year you'd spend a week helping with famine relief. If you visit historical sights, maybe next year you'd travel someplace to participate in a large re-enactment. If you do wilderness survival weekends: maybe you'd go try an "outward bound" experience. If you run cross-country: maybe you'd plan a travel itinerary to various orienteering courses. Just a few brainstorms ... but generally since most troops hike and camp, we bring up places like the ones mentioned in the earlier posts. For some folks, those targets don't sound too ambitious, but for others it would require substantial effort and preparation. It would set the agenda for the upcoming year. And for others, just building up to a 1 weekend a month camping routine is its own adventure.

I agree that SM plays a huge part. The unit leader puts more hours in than anybody, and those hours translate into the tone for the troop. But the boys are also putting in time. The SPL who confiscates the smut mag and walks it the 100 yards to the SM (without looking at it) is going to set a different tone than the one who reads it with the boys or tells them to put it at bottom of their pack. The PL who says grace before lunch sets a different tone then the "Good food, good meat, good God, let's eat!" guy. The instructor who comes to the PLC with an idea of what the new scouts need to work on for the next campout sets a different tone than the one who waits 'till everyone's unpacked and tells them to stop by with their books at his hammock! The unit leader might catch some of these, and might actually care about them. On the other hand he/she might not. But it's entirely up to the youth to care to change enough to get out of whatever rut they're in. So if your unit is humming along the way you want, don't just pat yourself on the back. Thank the youth for their hard work in establishing the troop culture.

Wife's line to me at Seabase Bahamas: "You bring me sailing on the most beautiful calmest sea, to the most beautiful island in that Sea, to walk along the best beach in the world .... WITH TEN KIDS????" Actually our captain said the most difficult crews were the ones with a disproportionate number of adults.

assuming it's being held in a church, my guess would be that it has nothing to do with their teaching position .... But why **** don't you ask THEM Don't cuss. It betrays the dismissive and repressive behavior of the common secularist. Held in a church in accordance with all statues as far as I can tell. This person I talked to said that, because of her position as a teacher, she wasn't supposed to be organizing baccalaureate.

Culture, of any kind, is rarely a single person show. For a troop, it's an interaction of the leader and the boys. We get the boys in that meeting or on that campout after parents and school have put in a lot of influence. A troop exists because everyone present agrees to function on certain terms, only a few of which are spelled out in the handbooks! A leader lays out those terms, and the boys take them up. In that process, a troop forms it's own culture ... Hopefully it's something the boys can take pride in and the leader can manage. Sometimes it works the other way. My troop had a culture of hazing that took the SM many years to break. Simply put, the boys took advantage of his sleeping hours and the fact that 300' seemed such a long distance away. I can imagine the many years of committee meetings where he talked about the problem -- one which really wasn't solved until the SPLs began to take his words to heart. So I guess the culture you see in any troop you visit, is the sum total of those "discussions" to date.

Short answer: yes. Those scripts were written by folks who weren't in your troop! Growing up waiting to receive advancements at CoH nights, I used to be bothered by my boys' troop giving them early. But, it does catch recording errors earlier if boys know they should be receiving an advancement at the next meeting. Suggestion: Check with the CO rep if they have any opinion on how folks should dress in their sanctuary when it's not being used for worship. Most are pretty informal these days. Strong suggestion: explain to the PL's how you plan to run things. Ask them if it's okay. In the process, try to give them as many speaking parts as possible. Especially strong suggestion: keep it short. Time how long it takes you to read your parts out loud. Keep that time under 10 minutes. You are standing between an audience and their dinner. They'll forgive the boys. You, not so much.

Odd, then why do my kids' teachers not want to be known for organizing the baccalaureate service?

But do they require background checks for all parents who drive kids to/from away games? That's the equivalent here.

BD - Q in the dolly sods you need to keep an eye out for unexploded ordinance. Why do you think the boys love coming back? Seriously, so far, I've kept the youth on designated trails. The last UXO found was off trail in 2004. Anyway, for the rest of you, here's a nation-wide UXO fact-sheet http://www.engg.ksu.edu/HSRC/Tosc/uxo.pdf.

there just isn't a Crew and we end up not being BSA members and where does this leave us? Pizza+Beer? Camping with friends, paperwork free?

I like to hear about how folks got lost because understanding that prepares you for when you're in a situation and are asking "how'd I get here?"

Sounds like your boys have the right idea regarding HA by wanting to mix it up ... Not there yet, but our crew is eying Rocky Mtn. National Park. If your boys are thinking as far away from TX but still in the continental US, I saw a troop having a great time at Acadia National Park when my family was camping there. (North Atlantic waters might be a "cool" novelty for your boys!) Not sure if they brought their own canoes or rented, but there are plenty of outfitters in Bar Harbor. If some of your boys are willing to do a little "research," have them learn about Federal Wilderness Recreation Areas. There's one near us (Dolly Sods, WV) that our youth just love to go backpacking in. Other areas are suitable for whitewater, climbing, etc ... All of the above are "build your own adventure." Some have great facilities, some have none but one latrine in 24 square miles.

Well, Eng. statistically, if only 2% of scouts are Eagle only a small percentage of youth are scouts through HS, then you may not see an Eagle in 100 resumes. If all a kids ever done was earn Eagle, then the resume would probably be pitched. That piece of bling is a starting point for a lot of boys. And "Eagle" is usually on the bottom of the resume because there have been a long list of accomplishments since then. Like I've said before, I've had interviews where the employer was antagonistic toward some of my accomplishments (not scouting). Not a problem. It gave me an opportunity to talk about my personal growth and gave the employer a sense that I was the man in person who I said I was on paper. (And a willingness to be that way stems back to my Communications MBC.) If some bigot along the way has tossed my app in the duster, I'm glad for the favor because I've wound up working for some good people who command my respect.

Welcome to the club! Hopefully the boy will be able to apply some of his scouting experience on the athletic field,

NJ, the wiki's not lying. Hebrew and Arabic are Semitic languages and have lots of words in common, the word for Messiah being one of them. And, Peri, my apologies for making the Greek Protestants, Catholics, and others feel left out!

These things are like pendula, they go back and forth. Son #1 was scholar athlete along with a couple other scout buddies in the troop. There were a string of football players in our troop like that. Son #2 is the only scholar athlete in the troop, the boys are mostly technical school types.

Ya Pint, I'd rather send my Christian kids to a proper Druid service. Give them an idea of what St. Patrick was encountering every year when the days grew short. By the way, the X is simply a Romanization of Chi, the first initial for Christ in Greek orthodoxy. (If the Arab world were into mash-up abbreviations, it would be Mmas, because they use the Semitic word, Messiah.). It's use is in no way meant to remove Jesus from the purpose of the day, but rather to remind Christians who tried to ban the Victorian celebration that the last authority to try such a tactic was the Roman empire, under whose repression believers had to draw the symbol of a fish to identify themselves to one another.

The problem, as I see it, is that Venturing is this "other program". When venturers aren't part of the picture on National's web page, it shows a lack of vision. One prominent scouter told me "but venturers make up a small percentage of our base.". That's not the point. National should put up a picture of what percentage it *should* make. If they believe that every CO should have a venturing unit, then the stock photo of scouting should have a Venturer and a Sea Scout behind a cub, web, and first class scout. Donors should have a clear vision of whom they are supporting. If National believes that venturing is a side show that should be swept under the rug because it freaks out the anti-coed, uniform police, then carryon as usual.(This message has been edited by Qwazse)

OGE, I was referring to root beer. Don't know what Beav was talking about.