trogers17

" I doubt that the CIA issues ID cards to its operatives... " I was thinking the same thing reading this article. Nothing says "Abduct, torture and kill me..." like a CIA person wearing a uniform and carrying ID in a hostile/foreign country. I'm sure they probably have badges for facilities but I doubt they're easy to copy or like what's in this article. Kind of funny.

I'd start by contacting your local lodge. If you were an ordeal or brotherhood member, the process should be pretty painless. They'll likely work with you to verify your membership as a youth and you may get asked a few questions. Most lodges have some sort of transfer of membership paperwork or reactivation paperwork...you pay your dues, get your new flap and you're good to go. You may be able to make the process easier by calling your original lodge to see if you can get soem membership data/information from them. Now, if you were a Vigil member, my experience is that most lodges will want to see a copy of your Vigil Certificate or some other proof/documentation. As an upside, National keeps a record of all Vigil Honor members. This makes it easy, although a rather lengthy, process to verify inactive Vigil members without paperwork. Welcome back! The order always needs Advisers to mentor and coach the youth in the lodge.

I'll add my $.02 to what the others have stated here. I attended as a youth in 1993. I had my heart set on going after seeing the "older guys" in my troop come back with stories and pictures in 1989. My parents, like many of the others in this thread, agreed to subsidize a small amount of the $800 it cost back then. I was told, if I wanted to go, I'd have to earn the rest. Several of the guys in my troop and I spent the winter/spring of 1992/1993 working on the weekends at a local orchard pruning apple trees at $5-10 a tree. I know I appreciate the value of that hard work more twenty years later than I did then. Between my time trimming trees and my summer job working as a mover, I was certainly more conscientious in my studies the next school year. Working to afford the jamboree served as a catalyst for me to get into a good college and get a degree so I wouldn't be consigned to working in backbreaking labor jobs for little pay. The trip itself was life changing for some of the people. I had been to DC on several occasions before. Most of the people in the contingent had never been to our Nation's Capital, let alone to anything of the magnitude of the Jamboree. I remember taking pictures of the subcamp areas as the tents went up. It was impressive watching rolling hills of grass turn into massive tent cities. I remember talking to scouts from Israel, Asia, Europe, South America. We even ran into scouts we knew from a neighboring council that we hadn't seen in a year. The Jamboree itself is what you make of it. Many of the youth in my contingent made a game plan to hit something different every day. We did rappelling, boating, 5K runs, the nature center, etc. If you want unique merit badges that you can't get locally, the Jamboree was the place to go. It also fostered bonds with many of the local guys from our own council. There are still people from that trip that I keep in touch with nearly 20 years later. I've been back to the Jamboree in 01, 05 and 10 as a visitor (being that I ended up moving to Virginia after college) and it's not the same when you're looking from the outside. It's something to experience as a participant and is well worth the money I earned and spent to attend.

I hear ya. I run one of the largest paintball websites in the US and more than 99% of the accounts created daily are from spambots primarily originating from APNIC or Russia. I've gone to a manual confirmation which requires my moderator team to parse through more than 300 accounts a day. If we're lucky 5 of those are legit.

There are also links in everyone's profile and on the top of the page that read: kmono > book ksoco > book

You may want to inquire and see if the Smithsonian's facility in Culpeper VA has copies (digital or VHS) of the older films. My understanding is that they have the largest archive in the US of films.

I've also noticed that a bot or some other malicious piece of software has gotten into the site and added: kmono.com >book and ksoco.com >book Throughout the site. They're undoubtedly spam links.

I'll add to what the others have said here. The order should be a 50-50 mix of service and fellowship. I was fortunate enough to be inducted in the order 20 years ago into a lodge that operates like a well oiled machine. We didn't have a chapter system and the lodge was run by a well distributed mix of youth spread throughout the council. It was a wonderful chance to develop friends throughout the council. The advisers were also involved and did a great job keeping things on track. The lodge had three Conclaves a year, one in the spring, one in the fall and one in the winter. Our Ordeals were held in the summer and a Lodge Banquet in March. In September the youth leadership would set the themes for each of the conclaves for the year (Everything from the serious to the ridiculous...including things like 70's weekend, Hippy Weekend, Boot Camp Weekend, Fruit Weekend, Generic Weekend, Midieval Weekend, Lost in Space Weekend, Mountain Man Weekend, etc). When it came to themes, the only limit was the imagination of the Lodge Executive Committee. These weekends were half service - half fun. The Activities committee would generally prepare something to do on Friday night keeping brothers engaged as they arrived. Saturday AM was always about Service. The lodge would perform a variety of activities for the council's camp. It could involve cutting wood, taking up platforms in campsites, building new platforms, digging post holes, repairing things, etc. If the weather wasn't particularly cooperative (like in the winter) we'd do work to prep for the next summer's ordeals and work on the interior of buildings. The afternoon's were always about fun, brotherhood, cheerfulness. There would be games, activities and things to do that were in line with the theme of the weekend. In many instances the meals were centered around the theme as well. It wasn't uncommon for many of the adults to continue to perform service throughout the afternoon as well. The Lodge Business meetings were held at dinner on Saturday. Saturday evenings were about ceremonies and occasionally at the late evening crackerbarrel you'd have other social activities. The nice thing about this is the consistency of the program. This structure has been in place, with little variation, for nearly 40 years. Regardless of the youth involved it helps to ensure the framework for a successful program and ensures collaboration and engagement of youth so they can get more people from their home units involved in other ad hoc service activities and lodge events (Section Conclaves, Cub Scout Camping, Lodge Committees, etc.) If your son's chapter is deficient, I'd encourage him to get involved as best he can and as an adult, see if there's anything you can do to influence the structure of the chapter to develop a stronger framework for the youth to leverage. If something isn't appealing, have your son deep dive into the problem. Have him think about and brainstorm ways to improve it. Have him engage the chapter leadership and adviser and actively get involved. If the Boy Scout program taught me leadership skills, my Lodge was the platform by which I had the opportunity to fully utilize and exhibit them, as a committee chair and as a brother. Based on your description Lisa, it may be that the best leadership and service your son may be able to provide is the laying of a foundation of a strong Chapter that other youth may be able to take advantage of.

Exactly. I couldn't agree more. It's about teaching the kids that there are thing in life that you have a right to do (like boo the President) and the right thing to do (which would be to show respect for the office of the president, despite your feelings, and behave in a Scout like manner) and that those two things are often in conflict with each other. It's easy to talk about engaging in civil discourse but putting it into practice can often be a tricky proposition. The earlier that you can learn to do that, the better off you'll be...especially as a leader.

I personally think the "Patch of the day" idea was terrible. Of the contingents that I visited and the local kids that I knew, none of them were able to get the "Patch of the day" and none of them thought it was a good idea. Now as for the rest, I'll caveat this by saying I'm a minor trader. I collect one council and mostly OA from Western PA. That being said, I thought the trading was seriously out of hand. The scary thing was how cutthroat the kids were. The local guys were telling me some of the outrageous requests they were getting for what I would consider to be mediocre patches or patch sets. I also agree that some of the Scout Executives need to take a hard look at what they're sending their contingents to the Jamboree with. Some of the sets were absolutely gorgeous, inventive and totally reflected the lcoal character, history or charm of a particular area. Some were horrible overkill (Great Salt Lake for example). Others were overkill for the contrived scarcity of the issues (Star Wars and Marvel sets for example). I went to several campsites of Western PA contingents to trade but also to shoot the breeze and the recurring theme was how disappointing it was that no one wanted to trade 1:1 (youth or adult) that it was a game of one upping the other guy. I have to say the best time I had visiting the Jamboree was trading and catching up with old friends or trading and making new ones. One site in particular, I didn't know the leaders but ended up talking to them for the better part of an hour about all sorts of random things. The kids in that troop were lucky to have them as leaders, but sadly that's the part of patch trading that ends up lost on the youth...trading to build personal relationships. I can't tell you how many youth offered to trade sets or JSP's with me because they knew I was trading with adults 1:1 on a decent, legit set with no strings attached. One of the best parts of the visit for me was outright giving away a few patches. There were some visiting leaders from Washington that saw me trade a patch from DC and they didn't have anything to trade, so I just gave them the patches. Did the same for a kid (and his father) who were getting jerked around by one of traders along the visitor entrance. The look on the kid's face totally made it worthwhile. The kid's dad and I talked for about 20 minutes afterwards and he was just shocked that someone would do that. I explained to him that when I was a youth, I had several leaders and adults who did the same for me and that it was no big deal and that I'm glad that I had the opportunity to pay back the generosity of my predecessors and help make that kid's day. I personally feel like the "spoof" patches and fakes need to be abolished. If the patches (like the Hooters, some of the Star Wars, and the Avatar sets) aren't legitimate issues, you should be escorted from the premises. I feel like each contingent should be restricted to a set of patches (no special contingent or contrived rarity sets) and that they should be commonly available to the youth to eliminate any supply side issues. I believe that National should regulate the sets and post each design on the internet and make them available for viewing on site at the Jamboree with production runs. This gives knowledge to the youth and hopefully enables positive trading. Sadly, I don't think anything will happen and the next Jamboree will be worse than this one. With all the patch theft at this Jamboree I shudder to think about what will happen in 2013. Just my $.02

From what I've heard during my visits and on several online forums and FB, patch thefts occurred on a large scale. It's sad that there are some kids out there so greedy that they ruin the experience for others. On the other end, shame on the contingents for not requiring the kids to lock up their gear. I remember when I attended as a youth in 1993 that we were required to have footlockers and bring combination locks for them. I like one posters suggestion about having a secondary lock attach to a cot to make it even harder to just carry a locked footlocker away. It's disheartening to see that some of our youth don't share the values of Scouting and the first point of the scout law. Hopefully those affected by the theft still got a lot out of the rest of the Jamboree experience.

I too thought that the gates opened at 9, and I woke up early and drove the 2 hours from my house to get there to find that they opened the gates early to park everyone. At 8:15AM, it was about a 90 minute wait in a line of cars to get to the visitor parking area. I'll toss up some pictures I took on my phone. The parking area was already ridiculously full at 9:45 and I was told by one of the money takers that they opened the gates at 6AM and it had been a steady stream since then. I can't imagine what it was like for people who came later. The Jamboree was just PACKED with people, especially compared to Tuesday. The lines at concessions were slow but steady and the people working them were pleasant despite the heat! The crowds were just crazy. An amazing time though!

I stopped in as a Visitor on Tuesday and was quite impressed with how smooth everything went. The check in at the base (car inspections by MP's, etc.) was quick and orderly and the TP's seemed well stocked (Both TP 2 and the one in the Visitor's parking lot). My iPhone had great 3G connectivity throughout the base, even in the stretch by the upper parts of Travis Lake. The WiFi was pretty good around the AT&T hotspots. Lots of youth and adults taking advantage of the Wireless charging and AT&T areas. I was quite impressed with the focus on hydration. Lots of water available, most of it cold even! I liked that Dunkin Donuts had a Semi Trailer there selling coffee and donuts out of the side. Lots of advertising from commercial entities and businesses that I hope brings revenue into BSA's coffers. I heard from some staff that the 05 Jamboree financials were in the Red hence the $10 per person fee. They went over big time on the hospital trips and infrastructure stuff (like port-o-potties). The $10 fee goes to support those types of costs as well as the clean up after the fact. I was highly impressed with all the folks that I got to talk to down there. Met an 81 year old leader from Connecticut in line at the TP who just impressed the hell out of me with stories and experiences. Might have been the highlight of the day for me to meet someone who has been at it so long with so much vigor, energy and enthusiasm. Every Staff person I met was wonderful. The info services folks earned my respect for being so personable answering the same questions over and over and over again. :-) I enjoying catching up with some old friends from home that I haven't seen much in the last 12 years since I moved away. The scouts in attendance are certainly in for a treat, they've gone all out to ensure an packed, diverse schedule of activities they can take advantage of. It's amazing how different the Jamboree is now from when I attended as a youth in 1993 and yet, it's so much the same. Thankfully the tick issues that people are mentioning seem to be confined mostly to the staff areas. Most of the youth are complaining about more mundane things like not getting the patches they want, the heat/humidity, the lack of good looking girls, etc.