sailingpj

Well to see that National knows nothing about the program and nautical stuff in general you just have to look at the new manual.

I was reading the advancement guide earlier this year, I don't have time to look it up right now, but they specified that the rules for BORs were the same for all programs.

So I was reading through the previous thread along with a few others this past year and got to thinking about how we do BORs in Sea Scouts. You know how the BOR is not supposed to be a retest of the reqs? Well, at least in my area, Sea Scout BORs are very much a retest. You may not be tested on everything, but depending on who is on your board certain things will be checked. Some adults will bring a piece of line and ask you to tie a knot or two. Others will focus on other things. When I had my Able BOR there were charts, and I had to show that I was familiar with them. I was asked a lot of very specific questions that had very specific answers. Everything was fair game. Even the stuff from previous ranks. The members of the board were all very knowledgeable Officers. Most had been Sea Scouts in their youth, all had been active in the program for between 10 and 50 years. I walked in, introduced myself, they opened a manual and started with the first requirement. They took turns asking me questions about each until they were satisfied. It was rather fun. I think it took like an hour, but I don't remember right now. That is pretty much the standard format for BORs in my area. That is the tradition, and I doubt it will change anytime soon. Well with National Vice-Commodores suggesting various iPad apps to assist with asking questions at Quartermaster BORs I know it is not going to change. I know other areas don't do it the way we do it. I know that in most of the country it is a lot easier to earn Quartermaster than in my area. That pisses me off once in a while, but then I get to remembering the Quartermasters that I have met from those other areas. Of the Quartermaster that I have met, the ones from my area are usually much more knowledgeable boaters. There are a few exceptions in both directions, but those are few and far between. I attribute that to two things. One, we have a huge number of adults volunteers that come from the program, and have a maritime background. We have a lot of tugboat captains, Navy and Coast Guard personnel, and a lot of people that went to various maritime academies. Two, we make rank advancement a lot harder than it needs to be. Those two factors seem to produce Sea Scouts that have a better handle on the material.

You could number each tent then have whoever is using the tent sign it out. Start a policy that if a tent gets ruined due to mildew the family has to replace it. Just having to sign out the tent should be enough to get scouts to take care of it. You could even assign a tent to a scout or pair of scouts and they just always use that tent. Then if they let it mildew they have to figure out where to sleep for that campout.

My crew does push ups once in a while. Usually we do that during regatta season. The boatswain may say during practice that every compass card missed is a push up for the crew, or some other such thing. When that happens everyone participates. I also tell them that when they go on those rules to let me know cause I'll do it with them. There have also been a couple times where a bunch of the crew is just not liking sitting down working on quizzes and such, so I take everyone out for a run around the base. I hang near the back cheering on the people who are not runners.

http://media-cache-ec4.pinterest.com/upload/217439488229688801_ROKaW5Rt_f.jpg What do you all think? Good idea?

I took a small group of friends out sailing for a couple hours. I dropped the hook right in front of a fireworks show, and we were able to see another one across the bay. It was quite a fun trip.

I am an Introvert. After a weekend of scouting I need my me time to relax and recharge. That being said, I don't consider myself shy anymore. When I started scouting 3 1/2 years ago I was majorly shy. After trial by fire as a Boatswain 2 months after I joined I started to get over the shyness. Now I have a position in Sea Scouting where I often have to get up in front of large groups to teach, or speak. While I still don't really like doing that sort of thing, I can do it now. Actually I apparently talk too much now.

Seattle, would you be happier if the kids had two dads instead of two moms? We definitely have this problem in my ship. We have almost no adults that have stepped up to work with the crew directly. Most of the parents that have stepped up are mothers that want to keep their kids safe. Obsessively safe. We had a couple dads like that too, but we only had 3 dads volunteer to help out in the past few years, and only one or to are still there. We have just as hard a time finding female adult leaders as we do males. Nobody wants to help out. They just want to drop off their kids for the weekend with a check.

QM stats would be uselessish because for hella long you could only get it until 18. Now you have till 21.

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/269222_10151863472420298_535353324_n.jpg This picture popped up from BSA on facebook today. Apparently there are not that many young eagles nowadays.

"Similarly, in a summer camp program it's unreasonable to expect a certified open-water diver adult buddy for every boy." Being a certified open-water diver I don't consider that to be an actual safety precaution. The open water courses (at least the one I took, and I get the feeling many others) don't really teach you a lot about rescuing other divers. There is the buddy checks, and some different techniques for air sharing, and a bit of practice towing a tired diver, but I don't remember much else. Open-water certs prepare a diver to go diving with themselves safely, and is insanely easy to get. Having taken the course I will not dive without having a buddy with a lot more experience than me. I trust myself to take care of myself, but unless I know someone I would not take having an open-water cert as a certification that they can save me when something goes wrong.

Well 219/8 is ~28. So to me that sounds like most of the troops going to that session sent a representative.

Ok, we seem to have reached the understanding that neither side of this debate is going to convince the other side, so lets get back to the point of this thread. "What does everyone consider to be an acceptable prank? I am looking for specific examples of pranks you have seen at scouts." Here is one the scouts pulled on another JO and I yesterday. We were teaching a group of them how to throw throw a ring buoy down on the dock. The gate on this dock requires a key both directions. The scouts got called up to the base to help clean up a couple things, so they went on up say they were going to be back in a few minutes. They took the only key with them thereby locking the other JO and I onto the dock. They also took my iced tea and left it just outside the gate, just out of reach.

I like those distinctions SSScout, however I am curious about what you think of your second category when the pranks are being played between people that have known each other for 6 months - 20+ years. So instead of the mindset being "lets see how dumb the new kid is", the mindset is "I wonder if I can get my friend to fall for this." I personally see a vast difference between the two trains of thought. While I would never engage in the first one, my friends and I are always thinking about the second.

"I wasn't physically harmed. But my understanding of 'Trustworthy' was permanently modified. You might argue that this was going to happen anyway, that life is hard and we all have to learn how to deal with betrayals and I would agree. But is Scouting where you want this lesson to occur? Or in as trite a manner as this? " This is the only question of yours that I have not directly addressed. A) I don't see anything posted in this thread as even close to a betrayal. Betrayal is when some lying bastard cheats on your mom while she is out of town, not sending someone off to find something that actually exists. B) I am talking about High School students here. They tease each other, make fun of each other, and just in general have fun together. This sort of thing is part of their fun. I would also appreciate it if you would not resort to personal attacks on my character. All I have done is ask questions so that I can understand your position better, and explained both my position and the circumstances that have led me to believe that my position is correct for me and my ship.

Pack, I understand that a prank like sending someone for prop wash can cause harm in the wrong circumstances. However I am simply explaining that those circumstances are not present in my ship. I am not talking about send an 11 year old on their first camping trip off on a wild goose chase. I am talking about sending a 14, 15, 16, 17 year old off with a problem that needs a creative solution. One of the best solutions I got ended with me being thrown in the marina. The crew member came up and told me that they found the prop wash but could get to it. She then asked for my help. We walked down to the boat, I was ambushed, told to get the prop wash myself, then thrown into the water. I inhaled half the marina from laughing. They helped me out and we all laughed there for a few minutes. Later at lunch we had the entire crew rolling on the floor as we told the epic tale.(This message has been edited by sailingpj)

Ok pack, that is a fault in how I crafted my question. My intention was for you to give an explanation of how any and all of the pranks in this thread are untrustworthy. Your original question seems to indicate that you find fault with most all the pranks listed here. I simply want to read what your side of the story is. I'm not looking to get into a massive war over a difference of opinion about 1 prank.

"Trustworthy. Which ones of all these do not teach that it is fun and OK to lie? " Ok, so I read this as you taking issue with the majority of the pranks mentioned in this thread. However it appears that you only have a problem with the go and find this nonexistent item pranks. Is that a fair statement? Let me explain the culture of the ships in my area. When someone gets sent to go find something they may get sent to a couple people, but along the way someone is going to A) explain whats happening, and B) probably assist the new crew member (or even senior crew member) in crafting a prank to play on whoever sent them looking. This usually starts some sort of prank war. These prank wars are just another form of friendly competition. There is one that has been going on between a Skipper and Mate on this one ship since they were scouts. They both have kids in the program now, so that is pretty long.

So far none of the pranks I am seeing here require any lying of any sort. There is a lot of plastic spiders, snakes, and that sort of thing. I don't see how any of those pranks entail lying. If you are talking about sending people off for prop wash, then again I fail to see how that entails lying. There are multiple things that they can bring back that fit the description of prop wash. Really any cleaning product can be used in that capacity, though brasso would be appropriate. If people are really thinking they can even grab a bucket and run down to the marina. There is plenty of prop wash down there. Packsaddle, I would like to see your explanation as to how any of the pranks listed in this thread violate that point of the scout law.

I got one of our most senior crew members to go look for prop wash once, along with plenty of other crew members. Hmmm, I haven't brought that one out in a while. Perhaps this weekend, I am going to be fixing one of our outboard motors.

Nope, I have never been on a snipe hunt.

They could have gotten out by going down and through the boat. It would have been a PITA though. That crew is hella lazy though, so they saw what had happened and just rolled over and went back to sleep. This other crew is known for their pranks. One year they captured another ships flag, put it in a bowl of water and froze it all nice and folded up, and returned it before anyone had noticed it was missing. Apparently it took a really long time for the flag to defrost. Summer cruise is a great time for pranks and flag stealing. Especially because there is a set of rules everyone follows. Sort of a Code. It basically consists of three things, 1) No Officers are to be involved in the planning or execution of any tactical strikes, and ship defense. Scouts only. 2) No damage to any boats. 3) You cannot approach the enemy's boat from land. That last one requires much creativity.

Sea Scouts often have what we call night watch. That is where someone stays up all night to make sure the boat doesn't float away. It is usually done in 1 hour shifts. Sometimes when several ships get together a crew may get lazy and not do night watch, or the night watch may fall asleep. When that happens it is open season for pranks against that ship. Ship flags will end up on other boats, frozen, flipped upside down, things like that. I saw a prank a few months ago that was pretty awesome. A crew took this industrial strength plastic wrap and wrapped the crews quarters of another ship. It took a couple hours for any of that ships officers to take pity on their crew and cut down the plastic wrap so the crew could get out.

Well that other thread seems to be turning into the final scenes of a hallmark movie, but there was a question that I noticed was brought up a few times. What does everyone consider to be an acceptable prank? I am looking for specific examples of pranks you have seen at scouts. Discussion of the merits of the pranks brought up is encouraged, along with discussion of the possible unintended consequences, but keep it civil.