Tampa Turtle

He is HUGELY popular in the UK, at least when I was there, and (aside from some snarkiness on the entertainment value of his survival TV shows) think he sets a good example. He seems to make Scouting fun and an adventure.

We did sock puppets and made a cardbox puppet stage. Divided boys into groups of 3 to create a play, The plays (which took about 30 minutes for them to get organized on) were mostly hilarious, occasionally repetitive. (how many sock fart jokes can you do, Apparently a lot and the boys enjoyed it,)

We used to throw beads and now it is candy! Flyers? Bahh.

I have seen some good fake "log cabin" fires with red and yellow cellophane, a light, and a fan pointing up to make the flames wiggle about. Maybe some Dry Ice?

After travelling with some dutch scouts this summer I think co-ed is the way to go.

One of my co-workers lads is a professional ballet dancer. As one of the few hetero-sexual males he gets chased around a LOT. Occupational hazard is the older woman hitting on him. Tall enough and good enough he is heavily recruited by schools and dance companies. Did say he has learned that sweaty girls stink as much as boys. I would agree he is an athlete.

We do some parades...yes go big, flashy, and tacky.

Yes Pakkie. The Tampa Bay Buccaneer jersey really gave me away (I got a couple "Tampa Bay!" call outs in London) as well the fact I had a Van Dyke beard--facial hair was out of fashion when I was there as well. We really stood out in Finland (kids found us fascinating but one night we were backpacking to our hostel in Helsinki and some drunk young Finns roared by in a car and shouted "Damn Swedes!"

We did the logic of the color of the badge/hat/scarf (Tiger=Orange, etc. Gold/Silver for Arrows and in order of sequence. Put a copy of the color code glued to the back of the Arrow Plaque (which was a board with two cub hooks)

"I could have been an Astronaut but was too unfit, had bad eye sight, and was lazy". Alas it is now too late. Too rub salt in the wounds my two 1st cousins were both Eagles in the Day (1970's) and both got into the Astronaut program. Now I see some folks who want it enough start targeting at an early age. Agree badly written article/story.

I saw the video. The lad is a Life Scout and it looks like he has an SPL (maybe an ASPL) patch on so he must be participating to some degree. We got a boy like that--he was mostly home schooled. He ended up as ASPL. Needless to say a lot of Merit Badge Academies were involved. but ours is a good scout. We have another who has 100+ at 13 but will skip a campout to pursue his own MB goal...I got a problem with that...

My son made me play Minecraft. It was pretty fun computer version of Legos where you can make some cool stuff. If I was still Cubbing I'd play a little to help talk to the boys.

I always tell folks to shop all good Troops in the area. When they visit ours I give them names and contacts of the others and tell them on what we expect. All Troops have different cultures and go up and down in quality. We have two Packs as feeders and having been attracting one or two others a month. We just had a mess of Webelos visit that usually feeds into a nearby Troop because they couldn't be bothered to fit them into our schedule. The Webelos that visited ended up experiencing our Survival campout and we might just attract the ones that ate it up. A couple leaders very put off by the boy-led meeting before and the lack of camping amenities...so I wish them Godspeed. My attitude is that you want to keep them in Scouting, period. And sometimes for me that has meant letting go of some of my boys that were not the right fit. But I was happy if they were happy somewhere else. But Mousie, you are in a tough spot. I think you are right that some Troops (like the one that didn't bother to host 'their' pack this weekend at our campout) get lazy--they just assume they will get a majority every year. That is not a good sign. You have to work at having a good program and once there it is a constant battle. Much more delicate than cubs.

Was a successful campout. 10 Candidate scouts all completed their Wilderness Survival MB. Younger Scouts (mostly Tenderfoot 6 graders) struggled the most but did do it, Rain was tolerable and we lucked out it rained hard 10 miles away, Very primitive campsite--really just a few roads and a couple signs. Boys had to navigate to sites for testing (fire, water purification, first aid, etc) as taught by scouts who had MB. Fire was a challenge for the younger guys. Upon completing of their training they were issued a #10 can with some hazel nuts, berries, tangerines and coordinates to the riverside survival campsite. Once their a few enterprising boys tried fishing unsuccessfully but found and cooked some oysters. Later an older scout arrived with some raw buffalo and elk that they roasted on palmetto fronds over a fire. Meat on stick was big hit. They got a whole egg for breakfast which was a challenge for them to cook...They were starving by Sunday... I found out myself that a debris shelter was hard work! And a night slept of palmetto fronds is mighty uncomfortable. I regretted not buying that headnet last weekend and adding to my survival kit--the mosquitoes were terrible. I will never diss my camping hammock again. Regrettably some of the younger scouts missed some key concepts: like leaving camp without your kit (they did without), keeping your map (they lost them), and leaving the survival camp at night and quickly getting lost, panicking, and leaving their light and kit behind. Big fail there. We adults had cell phones and communicated between the sites so we kept an eye out--it always seemed to be one of the leaders' boys. Older scouts did great as instructors, that is the way to do it! They would not let guys go until they passed the test or demonstrated the requirements. While there we had another Troop ,with "The Eagle Troop" emblazoned on their trailer, doing the same MB. Their Survival campsite and basecamp were about 100 yards away. Their candidate scouts left their tents up so they could dash to them in case of rain. (eye roll) I only mention it as they were from a local rural area and acted very superior to our city scouts but I did not see their boys getting that challenged--a lot of adult lecturing going on and quick signs offs...culture I guess...

I do and I can but cannot get the Private Message feature to work for me. Can you try sending me one?

Shenyang Plant #5. My standard answer for all chinese made goods.

Oh yeah and it looks like it's gonna be 60 degrees and raining for about 12 hours...

My own older son is the youth leader for the campout. Is he prepared...no. (ARRRGH #2) I told him you are gonna be embarrassed..he says "Its Wilderness Survival...it's mental...I don't need to bring stuff with me!". He better not be asking to borrow anything from me. On the other hand he is tough enough.

I guess he must have missed all the announcements, kit review, demonstrations. Maybe he is an aspiring Marine and the only kit he needs is a knife.

Had last Troop meeting before Wilderness Survival campout last night.: me: "Do you have your survival kit ready?" scout: "whats a survival kit?" ARRRGHHHHHH

When I was in Europe my New Balance sneakers showed me as American.

We use Troopmaster for advancement tracking. Does anyone been using Troopkit for helping the boys get organized?

If I had to do it over again the first thing I would do would be look for sites where we could harvest shelter material. Maybe the Water Management District or private land. It is a problem to teach the boys simulating one thing and they do not do it. We do tell them to ignore LNT if it was a real survival issue; you can do a mea culpa and do a whole lot of tree planting later.

I do not think our Council charged for the adult training, For the boys we do a Life to Eagle campout (really just an overnighter and open to Stars as well) at least once a year. I think we charge $5 for the gas and Dutch Oven meal. $40...Geesh.

I got heaps of gear on my side of the bedroom. Mrs Turtle is not pleased.