skeptic

[ATTACH=CONFIG]n401014[/ATTACH] One from B.P. in 1932

[ATTACH=CONFIG]n400966[/ATTACH] An image from a council newletter.

Here is one from the 30's and Poland. Maybe someone can translate for us? [ATTACH=CONFIG]n400950[/ATTACH]

How about the older boy program? [ATTACH=CONFIG]n400930[/ATTACH]

One for the cubbing side. [ATTACH=CONFIG]n400905[/ATTACH]

Other than he will be cremated, not yet. I would think we will likely have a memorial of some sort. Swabby attended a number of NOAC's, so he may have been met by a few out there. He was a fixture at our annual trade-o-ree. Will update when I know.

I just received the word this morning of the loss of a great friend and fellow scouter, Swabby Simmons in Ventura County Council. Swabby had over 60 years of service to scouting, having served in almost every area of the district, and his unit, as well as O.A. where he was a long time Vigil. He began his scouting briefly as a cub scout, then came back in the old explorer program, attending Philmont in 1952. He served in the Navy and Air Force at different periods in the 50's and spent almost 40 years as an orderly in Ventura County Hospital in Ventura, from where he was retired. He was Scoutmaster of troop 508 in Ojai for 46 years, while wearing many other hats, including RT staff, RT commissioner, district camping, OA , and most recently, beside RT, chairing Matilija District's Eagle boards for the past few years. He recently passed the 300th Eagle board for his tenure, something he was very proud of. Scouting WAS Swabby's life, as he never had children of his own. He was extremely proud of his having had over 20 Eagle Scouts in his troop, and knew where each one was, and what they were doing. He was a gruff, sometimes scary looking individual that literally gave his life to Scouting, and he will be sorely missed by our district and council. Rest in Peace friend. Enjoy meeting some of the other giants of Scouting; you certainly were one here.

Over the years I have accumulated a number of various seasonal graphics related to scouting, mostly U.S., but a few from other areas. Though I might post a few here, maybe one or two a day, just to share. Enjoy.

OA is the BSA honor society; at one time it was the BSA honor "camping" society. Its primary purpose was to recognize those scouts and scouters that were the best examples of scout spirit and camping in their units, or sometimes in district or council positions. It was usually focused on local camp development and support, but the unit was, and still is, supposed to be first; that is, it was never intended to take these strong troop members out of the unit leadership. In my opinion, the loss of focus in many lodges today started with that simple name change and its redirection in "how you became a member", the election system. Before, it had limited membership with very specific rules in how many could be elected in any particular year. You very seldom saw scouts younger than 14 elected due to the tighter procedures. I did not become an Ordeal member until I was 15 and a Life Scout in 1959; our troop could only elect one or two people that year. It "was not a given you would complete the Ordeal"; there were Ordeal rules that actually were adhered to, and if you broke them you were sent home. Of course, that too became on occasion an issue that partly led to today's weaker groups. The ceremonial parts were kept much more guarded, sometimes too much so, which led to much of the changes in play today when there were problems that should not have happened if the ones involved had lived the Oath and Law, which is still part of the Order. Like most subsidiary programs within BSA, the OA has a prime or ideal goal and relationship to the program. And like many others, it depends considerably on the local council and district leadership within the lodge whether it is succeeding. So there are strong lodges with long term perpetuated traditions that no one would ask your question of. There are lodges, like ours, that most understand their main purpose, but that have a washboard journey from year to year as to how well they show themselves as living up to the purpose. Sadly, there are quite a few lodges that are pretty much paper lodges that do almost nothing but make patches and have elections. The original lodges, those that were in existence from 1915 at Treasure Island until it became an official part of BSA in the 40's were built on local camp honor groups that eventually became lodges in the 40's. For example, in our council we had a group called the Tribe of Matilija that was an honor group at our local camps, first Camp Grey and then 3-Falls after we lost Grey to the highway 33 construction near Ojai. They have a fairly consistent record in good camp support from the earliest days, though there have been stretches since I have been here the past 35+ years that they were not overly successful; we are moving in that direction right now I am afraid. We have gone through some periods of "flap madness" and too much inbred political, or favoritism; but overall our lodge here has been pretty good I feel. Certainly right now it needs a lot of redirection to get back to the level it was a decade or so ago, IMO. So, hopefully this long answer will help you a bit. There technically has never been absolute secrecy in the Order, but in the earlier days, the traditions and ceremonies were restricted much more and seemed to have more effect when seen by those outside the group, such as at "tap outs" in camp or at COR's. The PC police and "nobody should fail or be embarrassed" proponents have hurt it; of course it has hurt the overall BSA program even more I fear. Yet it is still an honor. If your are lucky, you will be exposed to the best of the tradition and not a weak, tepid paper program.

The idea often proffered here that the early forms of scouting are the only true outdoor and scouting models is nonsense. In the earliest days they used what was available, including new ideas and equipment. Most camping was done with carts, wagons, or beasts of burden; they did not carry stuff like we do today for the most part, though a few did on occasion. They took trains often if they could "hop" them if scouts in the city; they sometimes reconnoitered the surrounding areas for food sources or barns in which to sleep; while they might have used flint and steel or bows, matches were the norm and the fire requirement was 2 matches, not other fire modes; many only had pieces of uniforms, usually starting with the neckerchief and hat. Much of what is done today would be found to be absolutely amazing by them and they likely would want to participate in the modern program available for high adventure. Scouting is an ever changing model that adjusts if it can and more often than not finds the best way for its particular group. Some would embarrass the old time scouts, and some would look like the have become, the "parlor scouts" of the early days. "The more things change, the more they remain the same." Scouting USA is NOT Baden Powell's program completely, nor that of other founders and important contributors; it is a collage of them all, some better than others. Do your best; simple as that. Have fun along side your scouts; just do not forget why adults are there.

You know Basement, while you may have had a bad experience and have a reason to be annoyed, but it is NOT BS just because someone broke the rules. We do have some scout shops that have poor staff and not trained well; but overall, that is not the case. If your council store has this happen regularly, then someone needs to step in and fix the issue. With the amount of negative comments that come from you regarding things there, National really maybe should be doing some investigating as to why, as it does not seem to be that common in other areas.

Again, the statement may not be accurate. Certainly in our store, you cannot buy badges without either an actual rank or card (not blue card) or an advancement report, unless you can prove it some other way. Of course, we always have the parents that think they can just do that, but in most councils, I suspect it is fairly well controlled, just not infallible.

While I know you can have more than one type of unit with one sponsor, would they allow more than one specific type of unit, such as a pack or troop, with the same sponsor, but different numbers and leadership? Just wonder, as I have never actually seen it. Our troop was a break out from another in 1921; and researching the history, they apparently met for over 6 months as a separate group, but without an actual sponsor. Caused a bit of confusion in regard to the council history, as the council chartered while the break off was sort of in limbo, and our unit was listed as a charter unit initially, until the original charter application was found that showed otherwise. Good luck with the efforts here.

From a response on FB Volunteer Training Committee when asked about training at PTC: Wes - what happens at PTC are conferences not courses. In most cases the content of a conference with a similar title changes year to year - and week to week - based on the needs and experience of the participants. There is a "generic" PTC conference attendee code that Scouters may enter into a record to show they have been there, but since the content is inconsistent having attended a particular conference is not comparable to another having attended a conference with the same title. As for the Summit, there will be training there someday, but at this time the plans are that it will not be the same format as PTC - with the possible exception of NAYLE. For the most part PTC is a family-centric learning facility. The leadership of the Summit does not want it to be a competitor to PTC.

Found a FB site for the National Training Team, and they responded to my query. Said they have yet to deal with older training dates from courses with outdated codes; but supposedly local people can fix it by putting in approximate dates if the actual dates are not known. Of course, I have submitted lists of all training dates for most of my unit at least three or four times. Oh well; supposedly they will deal with this soon. Wait and see.

Reviewing the Scouting Tools under MyScouting I find that I have two training reports. One shows me fully trained, including four entries with apparently grandfathered dates (1911) which relate to Scouter and Scoutmaster basic training and outdoor. But on the troop leadership I am shown as not trained, even though I have been for decades. Any idea who to contact to clarify and correct. A couple of my long time assistants have similar issues. Probably not that important, but is just annoying.

Back in Kahuna. I visited a long while back and he was part of a prominent display. So they have the material; just a matter of putting it out there.

Do not forget that most male professional dancers are superb athletes. It is not an occupation that lacks in need for strength and coordination. Have read of pro football and basketball players that actually took some basic lessons in order to better their moves on the court. Of course, I personally would not look good in one of those outfits, even when I was young.

They have just gotten a new director at the museum. Will look forward to perhaps seeing some changes toward wider recognition of certain people and maybe some new directions for displaying.

We likely are, as usual, missing some important elements of the story. If he has had the support of SM's, then who is holding him back from the Eagle completion? Does it have to do with leadership issues; if he is now SPL, he certainly appears on the verge? Is it that he simply has not gotten around to the project? As usual, the media jumps off half cocked on this without giving us the complete picture. At the end, they mention him being a freshman; that would make him ahead of peers in school as well, which supports some of "Brewmeister's" comments. Would be nice to get the broader picture; but hopefully he will finish up and continue as a mentor for others, as well as leadership for the palms.

Yep, the Wayback on BL's site actually just loads the Google Books scans into a frame, including blank Google ad box. Has anyone figured out a way to print from it? I've been using it for a couple years but I haven't found a good way to print so that I can, ya know, use it anywhere except my desk. Also, does anyone know if the British scouting mag "The Scout" has an online archive? I haven't been able to find one, and virtually no old copies on eBay. The super-generic name has made Googling it a real PIA. I ended up doing a "screen shot" of something from the archive that related to my interest, but it was not easy, and I had to cut and paste manually. But am not a computer expert, so may have overlooked the obvious. Have not seen any British archive, but it may be hiding someplace.

"ON MY HONOR".

Stosh, what a novel idea; lets call it self determination and personal pride.

Oh come on resqman; we need to over analyze and make more of things than really needs to be done because National is out to destroy the program. Don't you understand? If you follow the rest of the three or four forums that continue to have regular postings, all of them seem to have axes to grind and are full of "chicken little" pronouncements. Get with the program.

Lot of us unfamous ones though.