scottteng

If Ron Paul had any chance of winning I would be behind him 100% but I think even Mr. Paul realizes that all he can hope for is to nudge the Republican party back in the smaller less intrusive government direction. I was thrilled to see the junior senator from NY lose. She scares me has all the nutty ideas and the FBI file dirt on all the pols to get them passed. I was ready to go change parties to vote for Barak Hussain Obama in the primary here. The country would survive Obama just fine we made it through Jimmy Carter. Nothing would get done in Washington which is excellent just what we need nothing from Washington unless we can arrange for them to undo lots of what they have already done. The only thing anyone else has going for them is Mike Huckabee supports the fair tax which would suck a lot of power out of Washington other than that he is awful wanting to pass a lot of legislated morality stuff like bans on smoking etc.

We requested from and were assigned by our chartering organization which happens to be a large denominational church a chaplain. They chose not a full time minister but one of the men involved in the men's ministries at the church. This seems to be a logical tie in. This gentleman works with the chaplain's aide to come up with services and graces for the troop as well as assisting with presenting religious knots as an important part of the BSA program. This has worked for us. Parents are uncomfortable in this position mainly because they don't want to impose their belief's on other boys and may not have wide experience with other faiths. Having an older person who has knocked around a few years and has some interdenominational experience may work much better. If your not chartered by a church then seek out an interdenominational group such as the Gideons, Full Gospel Businessman's Assn., or Promise Keepers group that may have a Chaplain candidate. posted same comment on the other thread. Clergy are usually too busy with their other duties to be chaplain's for boy scout troops.

We requested from and were assigned by our chartering organization which happens to be a large denominational church a chaplain. They chose not a full time minister but one of the men involved in the men's ministries at the church. This seems to be a logical tie in. This gentleman works with the chaplain's aide to come up with services and graces for the troop as well as assisting with presenting religious knots as an important part of the BSA program. This has worked for us. Parents are uncomfortable in this position mainly because they don't want to impose their belief's on other boys and may not have wide experience with other faiths. Having an older person who has knocked around a few years and has some interdenominational experience may work much better. If your not chartered by a church then seek out an interdenominational group such as the Gideons, Full Gospel Businessman's Assn., or Promise Keepers group that may have a Chaplain candidate.

The 80/20 rule works among youth members as well as adults, Someone in the leadership is already looking after gear and taking pictures and recording what the crew does. Expanding the positions may get more members constructively involved. Many hands mean lighter work for all.

If you opt out you have that right but is not liking someone personally imply that you lose the ability to review their rank advancement. I have had people working under me that I did not personally like for one reason or another but that did not affect my evaluation of their job performance. Part of the lesson youth need to learn is a willingness to work with people that you do not particularly like. Heck sometimes I don't even like my own kid and most of the time he doesn't like me. I think that you may be depriving the youth of the opportunity of overcoming your dislike with his accomplishments. I kind of like the old saw keep your friends close but keep your enemies closer, seems to me that the friction adds to the learning process.

I never heard of a pack having tents as all of their camping is of the family variety. What I have seen is packs making arrangements for families that did not own a tent to borrow one for the weekend. With a little pre-planning said loans might be arranged with a boy scout troop. Another great reason to have den chiefs on board and active. Most family's that are into scouting have several tents ie family sized one and then a couple of smaller ones. Most everyone can scare up a borrowed tent for the weekend. For an official loaner program put out the word someone will donate an old tent when upgrading or run into one being given away.

Some of these good folks volunteer huge chunks of their time year after year after year to be day camp directors, district advancement chairs, roundtable chairs, organizing camporees,etc long after their children and grandchildren have aged out. We all owe these people for keeping things going so that we can focus on our units and our little part in the rest. Lets not begrudge them a little knot and a little recognition at the banquet. Heck I don't even go to the banquets but a little recognition goes a long way to keeping people motivated. That ten year base almost guarantees that your not doing it just cause your kids are any more.

Home made trail mix comes to mind banana chips dried fruit nuts pretzels m&m mini marshmallows chex pretzels yogurt covered raisins mix in large container and serve in sandwich size zip lock bags. Sources below or check local health stores. Have seen a troop helping at an earth day celebration pass this out to general public was well received. http://www.bulkfoods.com/dried_fruits.asp?referer=godrifru http://www.metrocandy.com/Bulk-Nuts-Dried-Fruits

" A troop in their activity shirts and shorts doing something useful is much better than military style marionettes on parade." Sounds like you have some issues. I guess so when I was the age of most of the scouts in our troop I was sent off to a military boarding school where if you received to many demerits you marched in a punishment detail back and forth on the parade ground on Saturday morning you also lost privileges you had earned by getting good grades in school. So marching and uniforms are associated in my mind with punishment details. I understand uniforming as a concept but would by preference make it as nonmilitary and as user friendly as possible.

I think that not doing a SM conference for ones own son is quite common. I as ASM did the scoutmaster's son's Star conference just recently. He on the other hand did both of my son's Life conferences the first being a two month deferral while he got up to speed in his new POR. I have done SM conferences with both the other ASM's sons recently as well one for second class the other for tenderfoot. We are a team and all of us have other commitments in scouting and out. The scoutmaster is also a Cubmaster for his younger son's pack so is not at troop meeting on pack meeting night.

For the past couple of years we have been doing a simulated search and rescue weekend campout. The area is a large park and the teams are chosen and given map and compass and their first bearing and paces and then radio in for the next heading. We use a plane crash as the scenario and their is a victim for each team. The victims are made up with various injuries the first year we used sticks and colored syrup for blood the next year we visited the haloween store the day after and got more realistic looking props. The teams each had a backboard courtesy of county fire rescue. Once they had stabilized their victim they had to transport him back to camp. We had a rather steep grade at one point where in theory they were supposed to pull the backboard up with ropes however they all chose to walk around. The winners were treated to an adult cooked meal. All participants got a T-shirt commemorating the event they are cheap if you are not picky on color and go with one color print. The boys who were there brag about it to this day but look at all the skills they were learning on the sly while having the time of their life. We have talked about putting together a camporee around this same scheme and have all the district troops show their stuff. One of the other ASM's is a high ranking reserve officer that says that one of emergency response biggest challenges is getting all the different groups to actually work together and we are noodling putting together a big drill with Reserves, Fire rescue, nat guard and boy scouts together. Should be fun!

Overlook them why don't they approve more of them. The only pocket flap patches I have seen are the OA ones and that is limited to members and only one pocket. Put the council patch there rather than on the sleeve! In cub scouts they had an outdoor activity flap probably should have one for boy scouts. I have sat through the slide show from a local troops visit to the jamboree last year and most of the scouting organizations around the world have shirts with patches and even other stuff all over them. The boys and oh the horror girls trade patches and even entire uniform shirts. The Scottish lads were even wearing their kilts. A troop in their activity shirts and shorts doing something useful is much better than military style marionettes on parade. Military people have special training to be able to read fruit salad but to the rest of us it is just a jumble. Let each troop design its own uniforms like venturers and the more patches on it the better.

I liked the plethora of pocket flaps on the troop photo(pg 22) most of them have one on each pocket.

The number he is asking for is not the blue card but the white card that is issued with the merit badge more troops do not use these than do not use the blue cards. There is a link on national web site to a pdf : http://www.scouting.org/forms/33414.pdf It is not working at the moment but should come back. I am puzzled as to why one would make blue cards national sells them for $6.99 per 100 already cut and perforated for tearing into the three segments at my local staples card stock is $10 for 250 sheets and self serve two sided copies are 11 cents each thus you get a sheet of three blue cards for 15 cents or 5 cents per which you must then hand cut and then somehow tear accurately to separate the pieces. IMHO you are doing a lot of hand work which may very well go bad ie blue card ripped in half to save 2 cents. The other way to duplicate the above card and training cards is to buy one sheet and make color two sided copies of same and cut on paper cutter into the eight cards each sheet makes.

I would contact the local OA chapter about places to camp. Ours has a large manual that they do up for the troops with all the camping spots in the state. This is especially valuable as it includes non public boy scout only camping areas. Most councils have several camps and in a populous state you are in driving distance of quite a few. The other resource would be your county and state parks department. Our troop is doing a state park series this year with a state park patch and a rocker for each specific park.

Fortunately Eagle BOR are not the responsibility of the troop they are held district level or above. I had a young scout tell me just the other night that he did not feel ready for a Tenderfoot board. This young man has been with our troop for 7-8 months and really has a level of maturity that some of our older scouts lack. He suffers from a lack of confidence some of which stem from his father's expectations. I let him know in no uncertain terms that what we were discussing had nothing to do with his dad and only to do with him and his path in scouting and that he should go complete his BOR. The nit pickers will remind you that the requirement states that the scout participate in a scoutmaster conference but that there is no pass/fail component that the scoutmaster approves the scouts advancement. I would suggest that ones reservations could be expressed in the letter of recommendation the scoutmaster will supply to the board. Every person is unique and endowed by their creator with certain traits some of which must be explored by adolescent boys much to the chagrin of the surrounding adults. We must remember it is their experience and their perception of how they are living by the scout oath and scout law that are important. We may consider their judgment flawed, someone else may see the wisdom of their path.

The troop that appeals to you as an adult is probably not the "right" troop. The scout is the one that has to live with the other boys. Meeting visits are all well and good but as you approach crossover a little closer going on a weekend camping trip with the top two or three choices is a good idea. Sometimes one sees different things when away from the meeting place. Avoid at all costs the troops where the scoutmaster or other adult is in charge at all times.

http://www.scouter.com/hosting/ You are already at the right place!

http://store.scottsbt.com/Jon--Handwarmer-Information-W6C1.aspx The company rearranged their website but it was easy to find Google is your friend:.

Go find the district commissioner and explain to him/her that the pack can't use you and you'd like something to do. He will find a position or three for you.

Yes the "stunt" is a great idea as is adult patrol cooking by example. Several times I have dragged my brinkman smoker on a trip and started early in the AM smoking chicken leg quarters for the adult evening meal and watched while the boys have cooked and eaten their meals and we adults just happen to have some leftover smoked chicken to share after they are all done eating their hamburgers. Somehow we do not have any leftover cooked in coals sweet potatoes but they do get the idea. This is a great meal on the budget as well as leg quarters are very reasonable a ten pound bag can be had for less than a couple of pounds of ground beef leaving plenty to share. For this poor guy for a event this weekend time is short and foil dinners will work and be a lesson to one and all if they cook them efficiently. Foil dinners is what we do here for trainings it is harder to gripe about the food if you fixed your own.

What is is! Sounds like we call a family campout. Try and minimize the disaster. Foil packs will be good maybe even great . They are what the training staff here does for most trainings. A large drain pan (rectangular) is used to hold charcoal I believe it was in its former life the emergency drain pan of a large commercial A/C unit. A large mound of charcoal is put in the middle lighted and when it is well lit distributed around the pan. We have had as many as 20 dinners on it so you may need a couple of these unless the park you are going to already has one of those monster grills. I was at a park the other day where they had a charcoal grill big enough to cook a whole side of beef. The chimney things are good but only hold a small amount of charcoal. If worse comes to worse you can lay out the coals on foil to cook the meals. Make sure you have plenty of coal handling gear if you are going to move em around.

That was a wonderful story from Iraq. Too bad it will not get wide media exposure.

I disagree on Composite materials how cool is making your own skate board, surf board, skim board, kayak, canoe, fishing rod, or any of the other projects with real world uses as well there are more and more people who work with these materials for a living. The products made of composites increase every year.

Ditto that and the boys like it because a lot of the older people give em the buck and tell them to eat the candy bar for them we try not to make their shift so long that they get sick. Check out Walmart or Sams stores they will match your profits and let you sell at the door.