SWScouter

Mike's not alone as I've not been able to see it either. Thanks for pursuing this.

How would this work if one is really backpacking. The phone's battery will die very quickly with the GPS chipset active. I doubt it would even last through the first day of the trip.

I'd be happy if the scouts would, "move to" do something instead of, "make a motion to" do something. Yuk.

To me, this is purely an issue with the lodge's ordeal registration process. Granted the ASM had no business signing a registration form, but the lodge should not have allowed the registration since the scout in question was not elected and the election form turned in by the election team would not have included the scout. So the big issue is how did the scout's registration get past the ordeal registrar's scrutiny. That is where the problem lies.

Nice!

I wasn't aware of a BSA policy excluding gay youth. Yes there is one excluding gay adults. My impression of the policy change was just codifying that membership cannot be denied a youth that is gay

Some troops are just tough when it comes to the elections too. A couple weeks ago I went to a troop election with 23 names on the ballot. Of those 23, only 3 were elected. Those scouts have set a high bar to get into the OA. This obviously isn't a new thing otherwise there would have been more members in the OA and less on the ballot.

We did something similar using three round throw away cake pans (one was cut up to use for the stand) to make pizza the third night of a four day backpack in Grand Canyon. It was awesome. The only problem is that you're cooking for awhile and so use a lot of fuel.

I agree with Stosh. The "Go to latest post" button didn't work properly with replies to specific posts.

From the OA Handbook: That's the crux of it, you should become an arrowman to better serve the order and help make it a more meaningful honor for the scouts. I would hope that the lodge will make accomodations for you to use your CPAP. Please don't reject a nomination for that reason, instead let the lodge know of this so it can be properly handled.

I know for the Low Gear Mt. Biking, once you went through the safety presentation and passed the rider assessment, you would not have to go through it again, but could just get geared up (helmet, gloves, bike) and go ride (had to go in groups of 4 and at least one rider had to have a cell phone).

Is anyone able to page through the Order of the Arrow topics? Every time I try, I get the following message: Error Unable to contact server. Please try again. If this error continues please contact the site administrator.

One dinner, I talked to a man that was managing the EMS. At that time, he said the number of incidences was statistically on par with a comparable sized city. He was not concerned with the injury rate at all. He did mention that early on there were some tweeks made to some of the BMX courses, such as flattening some of the whoop-de-doos.

Were you there? I'm asking because it seems you're completely overstating what the situation really was.

There is an outlet by the sink. Mostly phones were plugged in for charging.

This year, to staff the whole jamboree it cost $850. One could also have staffed for a week instead for $425. If I remember right, the cost for the 2010 jamboree was $750.

The app had the schedule and a map. The map would turn on the phone's GPS and wouldn't turn it off. At least with the Android app. I had to shut down and restart my phone to turn it off. Phone GPS chips really suck the batteries.

I was on staff and was at the summit for 15 days. I took a shower every other day and washed my face on the non shower days. A lot of the staff used solar showers to take the edge off. I have long hair and wear it pulled back so I needed to stand under the water for longer to rinse it. The water was brisk but bearable. On the hot days, it was, um, refreshing. I don't expect to see hot water at the summit any time soon. I must say I really enjoyed a warm shower this morning, my first since July 10.

I find it curious too. Visitors were only allowed in a limited area such as the Summit Center and Action Point and the areas around the Arena. Areas where there were long lines were limiting participants to ticket holders as dcsimmons mentions. I was on staff and had a day off and went up to the low gear Mt. Bike area and went through the riding assessment and had a fun time. I asked if there was room and wouldn't have done it if it would have stopped any scouts from participating. Actually the staff were trying to recruit me to help out as they really could have used more staff. Most of the long lines were caused by lack of staff. For example, 80 skeet stations were built but they only had staff to run 30 of them. Same with the zip lines. They were unable to run them to capacity because there just wasn't enough staff to move the equipment around from bottom to top, etc. Weather did come into play too. There were a few times where things had to be shut down due to lightning alerts. Unfortunately that happens and there isn't much we can do about that. We need to manage the risk to the scouts as best as we can. Before you complain too much about the long lines, then please sign up and help staff the 2017 National Jamboree and even the 2019 World Jamboree. From what I saw, the scouts were really enjoying themselves and I consider this jamboree very successful. Yes there were some issues and some glaring problems. I have no doubt that they will be addressed and the 2017 National Jamboree will be even more successful.

"Back in the day..." I find this very sad. I've had to take scouters aside and kindly ask them to stop belittling the current active youth arrowmen by making statements like this. It is, I think really shameful. Please don't ever say this sort of thing around the scouts.

I finally received my assignment last Friday: WORK ASSIGNMENT: You have been assigned to work in Orienteering/Geocaching. Should be fun!

I became a chapter adviser the start of November but have been an Associate Chapter adviser for several years along with a Clan Adviser. In my lodge, clans are groupings of chapters. My take is to be a successful chapter adviser you need to make the chapter successful (duh). To do that, surround yourself with good Associate Chapter Advisers. Good luck!