skeptic

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 Said they have yet to deal with older training dates from courses with outdated codes; but supposedly local people can fix it by putting in approximate dates if the actual dates are not known.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.

Could not connect last night; and had issues earlier this morning. Works now, so I guess that is all that really matters.

Ah, I guess I just did not really get the connection because of the different threads; and yes, my sarcasm indicator does not always work as well as it could or should. But, I guess if my words, with slight modification, are good enough for Kudu to share here, I should consider it a compliment and not a swipe at me. Whatever, as the young people like to say when they really have nothing better to add. Later.

Kudu; Not sure what your use of my words from an earlier Woodbadge post has to do with this unless you simply intend to mock what I said. Hopefully that is not the case. Have no idea who this person is, but it has nothing to do with Woodbadge. Please clarify. Thank you.

Like so many things today, people seem to think they have to have special explanatory seminars to be sure they understand plain English. I have had Eagle candidates come to me with their application and ask me how to fill it out. I ask if they read it, and they said no. What is scary is that most that reach that point are at the top of their peer groups in most areas. Similarly, we have the "feed me the answers" syndrome with merit badges. We have to have work sheets to guide us, or we cannot do the requirements. And, as we have noted here before, most scouts have never read the pamphlets for the MB's, even if the unit has them available for them. Of course, most of these things can be worked out by themselves if they simply try it. People want to be looked upon as capable and so on, yet they so often act as if they cannot do anything without someone guiding them or something. It can be very frustrating.

Just wonder what the thoughts are on these outcomes, as well as others that I have yet to see? These two are pretty important I would think.

Not sure where you are NAE, but in our council it is normally less than a month unless there is some issue; and that is just normal channels. The last one in my own troop was in the council office 3 weeks after the board. The longest I have seen, other than a couple with problems was about six weeks.

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You are right; I do not understand because I do not see anybody being harmed most of the time, other than feelings hurt due to thin skin and emotional weakness. Don't pay any attention to something that is against your belief. Simply ignore them or put your own interpretation in the mix; but forcing others NOT to have free speech by threats and litigation is simply abusing their rights at the expense of yours. JMO of course, as I am not hurt either way. We will never reach a point of even near agreement, and I am fine with that. You have a right to your opinion, even if I see it as biased, skewed, and unreasonable. Enjoy.

So, let me get this clear. Both religious individuals or groups and non-religious individuals or groups have the same rights. When the religious groups or persons "publicly" express their views, they are trespassing on the rights of the non-religous. So, the non-religious rights take precedence over the religious rights? I still have a hard time understanding how these individuals are "harmed" by simply seeing or hearing something with a religious significance or symbolism. Seems that they do not have much self assurance if these things have such emotional impact on them. It also appears that there really is NOT equality here, since the religious element MUST give up their rights to the non-religious in so many cases. The scale of justice or whatever is out of balance from my perspective. Now, if the non-religious wanted to be included in these monuments or memorials and they were NOT given the option, then they would have a real issue of bias. But, in most cases, they do not seem to actually want to be included, they simply do not want the religious to express their rightful voice in any manner that they may have to see or hear.

Woodbadge, old or new, has its strong and weak points. I did it in the early 80's the first time, and I had not only a long youth experience in both scouts and explorers, but also had taken a really well established and deep leader training in 1976. Still got a lot of good material and ideas in the earlier course, but was a notch higher in experience than most. But the commaraderie was real, and most came out with stronger leadership capabilities, assuming they did their tickets. As said, the tickets were really the best part for me in increased ability. When I was approached to be one of the guides for the first new course, I took the plunge. Basically we had to run the course while learning it. Maybe because we were the first, we had to put more into really understanding the new directions and ideas. And being a guide truly strengthened me personally. Today's course has evolved into a real "management" school of sorts; and if the participants follow up and stay with it, they will grow considerably. But, it does depend on the ones running it as to how well the results will be from course to course. We have never seemed to have an Old Boys Club of which I am aware, though maybe we do and because I am old and have been around a long time I do not realize we have it and may be seen as part of it. My own experience with leaders is generally positive, beads or not. We have a few that seem to just not get it, that in the end it is for the kids, not the leaders. Much of our reactions to these things are reflected by our general view of our world. It seems pretty obvious to me that we have a few here that no matter what is said or proven within almost 100% accuracy, it will still be a bad thing, or is misdirected to ruin the program. And they worry me if they bring that really negative vibe to the youth. We make our impressions of things within our own personalities and backgrounds. Most of Scouting can and is positive. We simply have to constantly smooth things out and use occasional experiences as teaching and learning experiences. Beads and knots have nothing to do with it; they are simply an element of the overall program. If I am in complete uniform and someone asks about knots, I tell them the truth; same goes for beads should I be wearing them. All skills, whether in the new age or from the old, can be learned and built upon. In some respects, even though we have the sky is falling screamers, the current program has far more intensive outdoor activities. And much of it does not cost a fortune; and like anything, if it is important you find a way. We have better equipment, more professional people open to very specific adventure type activities. But, we also have a society that is afraid of shadows, paranoid that someone or something is out to get them or control them, and tends to take little or no personal responsibility for what occurs in their lives or that of their family. Kids are regimented to death or completely left to their own resources. The best units somehow find a way to use Scouting to get past most of this. And training the parents and related adults is even more important now, because the newest are the output of this current society.

Of course you have to get them attend RT! Other than recharter, SFF, and Popcorn, we have hardly anyone attend. Of course, we try to still give them something at RT, but some things really do require more than a half dozen sleepy people or deer eyed newbies. One good thing recently is the advent of a post RT group of district LDS leaders. They are making contributions both to attendance at regular RT and actual participation, and also in improving the level of Scouting in their units. Do not know if this is a local phenomena, or something out of the upper LDS leadership.

You guys sound like the two Eagle Scout jambo leaders I had in 1960 arguing as to who was the better scout(er) based on how many and what merit badges they had. Both had in excess of sixty or seventy. Meanwhile, the other leader, who never went beyond Tenderfoot, was the one we all liked the best and went to for most things. Frankly, most of the discussions (??) lately have become pretty tedious. While I am at it; Kudu, can you please find something else to complain about and quit the incessant 1916 gripe? I do have to give you credit for finding some really novel ways to sort of connect anything and everything to the idea that somehow National is out to destroy BSA and that anything they do is designed to do that. I am on Medicare with VA backup, so I am not worried too much. Also live in California, and our system is working fairly well. Wow; a state run program. Seems to me that as someone pointed out, the issues are partly due to the Fed's being unprepared to have to run more than half the country. They naively thought most states would run their own as was initially intended, with Fed's as backup. Oh, did we mention that most of the states not doing their own also have the highest percentages of people without proper coverage? I woke up grouchy this morning. Having back issues and I am just "old". So I'll go back to worrying about my own unit and council issues for a while.

Sorry, I am very aware of history and some of the nightmares from its past; and frankly, I just do not see anywhere near the parallels that would cause such paranoia in this country. While I would like to throw most of the government rep's out, and recognize occasional issues we should worry about, I just do not understand how some can be so scared of things that really are not scarey. But, I also see the benefits outweighing the negative with traffic cams at some bad intersections, and I would welcome cameras in school classrooms, having been in them for years. Of course I enjoy the program "Person of Interest" too. Not going to look over my should if no real reason to; just worry about my own actions and how they relate to those around me. JMO of course.