Tampa Turtle

The SPL should get to pick his #2 guy. A smart SPL picks a guy who complements his strengths/weaknesses. We tried elections where the guy coming in #2 in votes was ASPL and they did not get along well. Though I have seen a SPL pick the runner up in a 'National Unity Party' kind of scheme.

Well no doubt Russian Helicopter PARENTS! I can here it now "Well it worked very well when I was in the Vladimir Lenin All-Union Pioneer Organization. All our boy leadership was selected then...or purged as the case may be"

Our SPL plays on the High School football team (and a pretty good one) and has a 1 year term. ASPL fills in as needed and he manages. Scouts know he is committed because he comes out early Saturday morning after a game. Yeah I know about partial POR's but it falls into weird partial terms and is hard to get boys to fill. As for just because it works in other organizations (many boosters and PTA's do the VP becomes the President) doesn't mean it is a good idea for scouts. Too many people want to be innovative instead of working the kinks out of the program. Why not add an electoral college system to the SPL election? That works (sometimes). What do I know? I had to passionately fight off a proposal to let the scouts, scouters, and parents all get a vote to elect the SPL...just hearing it as an adult proposal caused two boys to quit the PLC as a fraud.

Or perhaps a true cry for help.

Perhaps we are all being trolled by some Russian who is trying to divide us Scouters by a controversial jacket post.

Maybe I am stupid but 4 month terms? How will boys meet their 6 month requirement? Will you have guys dropping required POR#2 half way through or be doing a whole lotta "Scoutmaster Specials"? We tried the vote for ASPL and SPL and ASPL trained (and really did the SPL's job for a year) and was supposed to automatically move up to SPL. ASPL had to be the 'bad cop' to the SPL 'good cop'. Then we got a new SM and CC who changed the policy at election time because "every SPL should be elected by the boys he serves" (Many of the young scouts were not around when the ASPL got elected the first time). The new SM then hand picked a new candidate to run against the ASPL. ASPL lost. That ASPL did run again as SPL a year later but he never recovered from a sense of betrayal from adults who make jump the hoops and change the rules. He was mad at the 1st SM who made up the scheme and the 2nd one who switched it. We almost lost that scout who was a really good one. I guess my point is you should not be making promises to that scout if you cannot have enough control to keep that promise. I think this is an adult driven decision that will lose some but in from the boys even if they never say anything...it SMELLS like adults manipulating things. I predict in two years the 4 month terms and the ASPL->SPL policies will have changed back to more BSA norms.

One of my favorites from a SM I served under (to a scout) "Son, if your gonna do stupid you better learn to get tough".

If dad is going to be an ASM make sure he gets the Cost of Living adjustment and cast iron cookware subsidy. Tell him to read carefully for the contract insert "per boy" after "only an hour a week". Also ask about the Troop uniforming policy (BSA is surprisingly not uniform in uniforming) variants include: full uniform with smokey bear hat, full uniform, uniform from waist up, uniform optional, clothing optional.

I would say half-that is right-half of the new boys coming in the last few years in our Troop are coming in because their parents want that Eagle--primarily for the college application. At least what a lot of the parents say.

I hear "Spirit of Adventure' I also think the following things as well: - Some Ad mounted on the gas pump for an oil company credit card I see as I am filling up the Turtle Mobile. Kind of a competing version of 'lure of the open road'. - The name of a fake steamboat at Disney World that takes you to Tom Sawyer island or something. - A tagline on a jacket Ad from REI that looks good and I can never afford. Seems kind of generic corporate inspirational...see it everywhere.

Do you get to add up Troop#1(male)+Troop#1(female) for bragging rights? Seems like a kludge.

Thankfully, in the pre-Social Media days there is plausible deniability. That said there are things scouts used to do that are best not mentioned around scouts at a campfire lest they think you are giving a wink-wink nudge-nudge encouragement. That said, I assumed that this was more of an adult virtual campfire and I did edit out a few bits.

Good work. Thanks for bringing up (obvious) points.

Ah yes I believe Whitey got revenge on one of the boys, Donnie, when they were playing 'tank' in the woods with some old wooden packing crates they would crawl inside. Donnie was buttoned up inside the 'panzer' so the rest of the scouts put brush and leaves on top ("for atmosphere" my dad would say) and set it on fire. Donnie bailed out of the flaming 'tank' in most realistic fashion. Dad said he was not worried as they all had the "Firemanship" merit badge and an old seltzer fire extinguisher they used to put it out which was fun too. I think the Troop was basically my Dad's patrol of friends and hoodlums and going boy scout camping was walking 30 minutes out of town into the woods with cigarettes, canned goods, and the occasional can of beer. Sometimes they would stop by the Scout leaders house on the way out Friday afternoon and he might swing by with a car on Sunday monday to check on them and drive them back in time for church where my dad was an alter boy (!). Dad ended at Tenderfoot (cars and girls) but I still have his Bugle which my son played and took on campouts. I also have his old handbook, the green 4th edition. I loved reading as a boy because it argued that scouts were encouraged to bath more than once a week and it would not make them sick.

My grandfather was a NYC firefighter who once was carrying a lady down a ladder from a 4th story window. The lady had barricaded the door, put her head in a gas oven, and turned on the gas. Neighbors smelled gas called the FD but they couldn't break down the door. It was the 1940's and apparently grandpa didn't have a breathing device then, got too much a dose of gas, and passed out going down with the lady on his back. Bounced down the ladder all the way and while he was hurt he survived. At which point in the story us hero worshiping youngsters asked if he had managed to save the lady. His reply was (edited for spicy language) 'heck no, I fell on top of her and she brook my fall. Doesn't bother me...crazy woman wanted to kill herself anyway." At which point he would start on to 'worst car crash' stories and mom would whisk us away. He didn't seem all that bothered but then again he drank pretty heavily. Grandpa went on partial disability, retired young and became a fire chief in a one-horse New England town. My father liked those years as a boy (and a scout) because he got to live in the 2nd floor of the fire house over the engines. Since the town was so small it didn't even have a theater on Friday nights they backed the equipment out of the garage and showed movies on the wall for 25 cents. My dad would run upstairs and make popcorn on the stove to sell for a dime. He said a lot of folks didn't have the dime and so he gave it away. Occasionally folks would later bring him stuff in exchange which is how he got a live grenade from a returning G.I. And THAT was Dad's good Scout story which included an explosion, what ever happened to Whiteys ear, the police, and a lot of cigarettes. I never learned who this Whitey was. He was in another scout story where he shinned 20' up a skinny tree to look for a (supposed) bear and was too scared to come down. His patrol's solution was to chop down the tree with Whitey on top. Occasionally many years later when my dad's old pals would swing by Florida to visit after a few drinks I would hear one of them say "remember when we cut down Whitey's tree?"

I work down the hall from some Fire Inspectors who all have many years working out of the station and as paramedics. Yeah some of those stories are both funny and horrible at the same time.

Very wise.

Another reason we do not do neckers...LOL.

I love going to summer camp and swapping 'worst stories in our Troop' with other scouters. We one scout accidentally stab another in the thigh with a K-Bar knife. That sometimes won. And the time some of the older scouts took a leaders keys, snuck out of summer camp, and 'borrowed' his car. When at 3am it was discovered they went missing someone 'fessed up that they said they wanted to get something to drink. Since the camp was in the mountains in a 'dry' county they eventually they were found 45 minutes away at a country bar, in uniform, drinking beer. I sometimes win on that one. For some reason they were never kicked out and managed to make Eagle. Stars on the High School football team or something. Right before my time.

I like how they do not have exactly the same badges like some brothers and there is a good number of non-Eagle required! Good work.

Zip ties? Actually get another adult to tell her or better yet an older girl. They are always much more likely to follow the directions of any one but a parent.

I did not realize she was 6. Still a bit young to complete understand the natural consequences of freezing weather and since they have a different surface area to mass ratio I think they chill easier. So yeah "You Have To".

There have been times in my family scouting career where we deserted Mrs Turtle that a proposed trip like this would have smoothed the waters. So I can see the utility.

Yeah every-time we got a couple boys walking off to the showerhouse at Camp I get a visual memory of that training. I may have even said "no pictures in the bath house!"

The LDS units...did they get to use Donkeys or Hand Carts?