Twocubdad

Teach Your Children, CSN Of for a bit more country flair, Simple Man by Lynyrd Skynyrd Mama told me, when I was young Come sit beside me, my only son And listen closely, to what I say. And if you do this It will help you some sunny day. Ohh take your time... Don't live too fast, Troubles will come, and they will pass. Go find a woman and you'll find love, And don't forget son, There is someone up above. (Chorus) And be a simple kind of man. And maybe some day you'll love and understand. Baby be a simple kind of man. Won't you do this for me son, If you can? Forget your lust for the rich man's gold All that you need is in your soul, And you can do this if you try. All that I want for you my son, Is to be satisfied. (Chorus) Boy, don't you worry... you'll find yourself. Follow you heart and nothing else. And you can do this if you try. All I want for you my son, Is to be satisfied.

Agreed, BD. The folks posting there are a bunch of saps. The current thread is about what little gifts Eagles can give the other Scouts in the troop who helped him get his Eagle. Oh please. Reminds me of a conversation between my wife and a friend of hers. The friend was talking about a third friend who had opened a gift shop in town. She said it "was the perfect place to go if you were having lunch with friends and needed to stop and buy a little gift." "Really?" I asked. "She's running a liquor store?" Apparent this is one of those Mars/Venus things. I started to post this over there, but figured it would never get past the PC censors. I'm much more comfortable with the curmudgeons here.

More accurate would be to put the sign on your door, but then giving it to 80% of the kids anyway and withholding candly only from those kids who look like they are going to cry.

I had to listen to a retired DOD guy carp about all the government folks missing work after having four-day work weeks due to sequestration. Makes me wonder how many of them missed paychecks over the past five years. I know many, many folks who would have been grateful to have work four days straight.

I thought we had some stupid debates here. The tucked/not tucked debate takes the cake.

That must be a recent addition to the syllabus. It certainly wasn't mentioned in my course. If it's all about me, I'm spending the weekend at the Grove Park Inn. That's ridiculous.

Yep. And some folk considered it an act of war.

Now they're closing ocean, too. http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/10/03/3668028_p2/shutdown-day-3-food-distributor.html

Blue Ridge Parkway is closed, too. It's a ROAD folks, a road. I suppose Americans are to stupid to drive through the mountains without federal assistance. However I did see a uniformed US Forest Service employee blowing leaves off the parking lot at the ranger station today. An essential service, no doubt. They must have discovered a cell of Al Qaeda squirrels.

Moose -- I have no idea what you're trying to say. If one member of the Bull Moose party is elected to Congress it is his/her obligation to vigorously represent the voters elected him or her. The argument that those oppose to the ACA should just "get over it" is specious. The shut down isn't costing the government $300M a day, the story was (if you can believe it) it is costing the economy $300M a day. That's the equivalent of the change in the truck arm rest compared to a $16T economy. Heck, it's small change compared to the $10 BILLION we senp a day or the $2.5 billion we borrow daily. One would hope furloughing 800,000 "non-essential" employees would save a dollar or two. Funny, in my industry we have another word for non-essential employees -- UNEMPLOYED.

"I also don't want a precedence for the minority to rule government by hostage taking.. " What minority is that, Moose? IIRC, the Republicans have a majority in the House, placing them in an even tie with the Democratic Senate for control of Congress. Consequently our current stalemate. I find all this talk of terrorists and Gitmo amusing. If a football team is down by 10 points with 20 seconds left in the game and go for an on-sides kick are they terrorists? Should they take a knee and head for the showers early or do they play out the game to the end using the rules they've been given? And is this not exactly how Obama Care was passed in the first place? The Democrats using their majorities to control the process? More gamesmanship. We should be accustomed to it by now. I recommend reading Federalist #10. Sorry for your situation PapaD. But I wouldn't worry about it too much. No doubt when this is settled in a few weeks all your back pay and benefits will be restored. We can't take a chance that all those furloughed voters will take out their frustrations at the polls. The shutdown means nothing folks. You folks have apparently bought into the political theater hook, line and sinker. What's been shut down? Stuff which can be pushed off and resumed when a compromise is reached? Social Security checks will be delayed just long enough for MSNBC to interview old folk in line at the local food banks about their dire straits (which they could probably do today). I note the IRS said returns and payments due Oct. 15 are still due, although refunds may be delayed -- there's a shock! Didn't see that coming. High-profile services like national parks and monuments will be shut down in order to inconvenience school children and provide good media They shut down the WWII memorial? What the hell does that mean? What is there to shut down? It's a static, open plaza with one or two park rangers standing there watching over things. I guarantee the two rangers have been replaced with two park service police officers watching over nothing. But it made the news. And God bless those veterans who moved the barricades and went through the memorial anyway.

Good for your son. He's doing the right thing. At this point I'd wait to see what comes of the UC's visit with the troop. There may come a time during the ensuing conversations where it would be appropriate for you son to state his case. Scoutmaster: "Everyone this troop absolutely earned every MB the received! Who here doesn't think they honestly earned a MB?" (Cue Brett Jr.) But if not, I think you will be surprised about what you and your son can learn together. Most MBs are written on a middle school level. Get the MB book and read through it. There used to be plans for electric motors there. I remember at my very first troop meeting in 1969 everyone was building electric motors out of iron nails and copper wire. I was bummed because that was the last night they were working on them and it was too late for me to build one. Sounds like a fun rainy Saturday afternoon for you and your son in the garage. The two of you working together, doing a little head scratching here and there all in an effort to solve an ethical issue of someone else's doing isn't a bad thing. No, it's not the usual way of him earning a MB, but that ship has already sailed.

If reading the pamphlet included the information you need to complete the process, you would have a point, Base. But how much of the real, actual approval is left up to the local districts and councils to implement. Hell, the process here has changed two or three times SINCE the new workbook came out. We have long had a couple ASMs and myself who work with the Scouts on their Eagle projects. Before the new workbook came our, ours was a council that had a two page checklist of required touch points proposal were required to contain -- one of which was a copy of the completed checklist cross referenced with the page numbers where each item could be found. One of my ASMs is a black belt Six-Sigma instructor and he thought the process was insane. Now that the proposal process has been streamlined, we don't have to focus so much on paperwork and BS. One of my ASMs is a draftsman and helps the boys with the plans for their projects (typically earning Drafting MB along the way). For a number of reasons (mostly tradition) our guys tend to do projects which include some sort of construction, so there is a fair bit of ejamacation the scouts need. -- when in your Scout career are you taught to build a picnic table or lay brick for a fire ring?

I don't buy that SMs don't have any control over the MB process. Bunk. If I knew a camp (or any other) MB counselor were cutting corners that wide, a) I'd be climbing the camp program director's clock and , b) we would not award the badge. I know that's not BSA policy, but sue me. If things are as bad as your OP makes it sound, it's because the leaders in your son's unit are complicit in allowing it to happen at this scale. I would do two things. First, I'd talk to your son. This is an opportunity for a life lesson the value of actually earning things. Here's your chance to guide him to do the right thing. Ideally, he may decide to return the badges to the Scoutmaster and explain to him how/why he didn't earn them. I would mark if up as a win if your son doesn't want to make a big deal, decides to keep the badges but complete the work to the best of his ability. In either event, you need to close the loop with the troop leadership and have conversation with them about standards (advancement and otherwise) and the lessons they are teaching the scouts. The mission of the BSA is to teach young people to make ethical decisions by applying the Scout Oath and Law. Doesn't sound as if your troop is doing a very good job of that. If the leaders aren't horrified to learn of the state of their advancement program AND don't make immediate changes to fix things, then change troops.

I tried the Leadership patrol thing for several years. It never really worked until we got to a point where the leaders were all buddies and would have been in a patrol together regardless. That group is aging out this year with about half already 18. The current group of leaders are scattered over a couple patrols with their buddies and I don't really see the leadership patrol idea working. My experience is that friendship trumps job titles every time.

Been there done that. These guys aren't stupid and talk to each other. It is not uncommon for an entire patrol to sit out a campout if a few key players don't attend.

I'm not as black and white on the subject as the others. The volunteers put a lot into making the unit run and if the pack spends a little here and there to show it's appreciation for their time and effort, there's nothing wrong with that, in my book. I think part of a CM, SM or CC's job is building morale among the adults and doing something nice occasionally is a good way to do that. We started having quarterly meetings with the ASM a couple years ago. The first meeting I made dinner for everyone and charged it to the troop. Dinner for 12 guys was about $60, if I recall. Subsequent to that, we may meet out at a restaurant (Dutch treat) or maybe have pizza with everyone chipping in $5 or so. Sometime the kitty makes a profit; sometimes the troop picks up the few bucks difference. That said, regularly paying for monthly dinners will add up to big bucks -- pretty quickly more than I would be comfortable spending for this purpose. Comfort level is going to depend on your unit's budget. Both our troop and pack have big budgets, and I can't see us doing this.

ALRIGHT! To which forum do we we spin the thread on smokers? Not that crazy about smoked turkey and chicken, KDD. The little bit of smoke isn't worth the time it takes. But I still have a couple pounds of 'cue in the freezer from the last round of butts I smoked. Excellent. And let me tell you about the Nova Scotia-style salmon I made back in the spring. Oy! What smokers do you guys use? Semi, sorta staying on topic, I use 3-4 digital thermometers in both the meat and cabinet. Of course that to keep the temp from getting too high, not to ensure minimums.

Not a peep. World in '07 was one of the highlights of my Scouting career. I'd love to go again.

Amazing. So much in one post about what is wrong with BSA. Why does BSA have to do anything for a fired SE other that direct him to the nearest unemployment office? (Rhetorical question. I understand why.)

Please print Scouter99's post (#3) and make multiple copies. Post 10 or 12 around your meeting room, and give one -- make that two or three -- to every man, woman or child who comes within 100 yards of you troop. Your OP, cnew2, gives one of the best arguments for not having troop MB classes -- people are lined up three deep to give boys merit badges with little or no effort. Summer camps are the biggest offenders. Camps are set up for boys to earn the maximum number of MBs possible. Parents -- parents, not Scouts -- select camps based on "getting their money's worth". Hey, if I'm paying $250 for my kid to earn bling (forgetting the fact that it costs more than that for me to feed him at home) who wants some stuffed shirt pointing out the fact that he can't complete a 90-day fitness requirement in 5 days. Money talks, right? So why add insult to injury by setting up a similar program for troop meetings? I understand that you are conscientious about neither adding or subtracting. Problem is, as soon as you put together more that three or four kids, you've created a classroom setting which diminishes your ability to conduct real discussions with EACH scout. The requirement says "Discuss with your counselor..." not "Cower in the back row while the kid who knows his stuff discusses with your counselor...." All that said, we do conduct merit badge instruction during the instruction time of our troop meetings. In fact, we just started several weeks on fire safety. But the key difference is no one EARNS the merit badge during the sessions. If you pay attention to the discussion, you will learn much of what you need to know to complete the badge. But you still must make an appointment with the counselor, DO THE WORK YOURSELF, and complete the requirements with the counselor. Of course the fun part is that during week 4 the fire department shows up, and blows up a turkey fryer, lets the kids try handling a 2" hose and all the stuff you really wanted to do when you went to the fire station as a Tiger. We did this same program three years ago and had two kids earn the badge (out of about 40). No problem. They guys who were willing to put forth the extra effort earned the badge, The rest learned something and had fun. That's what we're here for. So if your troop wants you to teach Communications (or whatever), fine. But start by announcing the new rules -- no one is going to walk away from the class with the merit badge. No blue cards will be issued at the end of the class. Anyone who wants the actual merit badge will be required to complete the requirements precisely as written and make and appointment with you to review their work with you. Yeah, it will take more effort on your part, but that's why we get the big bucks.

No doubt. If mommy and daddy are committed to putting forth the effort to find compliant, agreeable, or incompetent units willing to put up with this it is certainly possible. Blow through Webelos and earn Arrow of Light at 10.5. Join a Boy Scouts and convince a newbie SM that AoL is as good as Tenderfoot, a month each for Second and First Class (just like in Webelos) then you're home free for Eagle in exactly 16 months. Of course mommy and daddy will have to sign up to counsel multiple merit badges and constantly be on the lookout for new sucker troops when the current one wises up, but that is no problem for the truly committed. And all of this is exactly as the national advancement team wants it. Read the Guide to Advancement -- high speed, low drag is the way to go. How can we profit off our beloved Eagle Scout brand if a bunch of curmudgeonly Scoutmasters won't sell it to ready customers such as these? Allow band and the chess club count as participation in your troop. Mandate that Scouts may work on any merit badge any time with any counselor and prohibit SMs from doing anything about it. Set the minimum amount of time required to complete an Eagle project at zero. Define "provide leadership" as working with as few as one other person, and that person may be either mommy or daddy. Actually, my only surprise is this kid hasn't been on the cover of Boys' Life. Forget the gay rights activists, lawyers, insurance companies and Trail Life. BSA is doing this to itself.

I think you are all missing a critical element here by mis-defining "discipline." Discipline is not punishment. Discipline is training which makes punishment unnecessary. We don't punish Scouts. That is the parent's responsibility. We do try to instill in the Scouts a sense of discipline such that their behavior is not a problem. In this sense discipline takes on the same meaning as disciple -- as in an adherent of a particular philosophy. While I like the simplicity of Stosh's three rules, I also have a bias toward the Scout Oath and Law. My rule is if you want to be a Scout and get to do the things Scouts do, then you behave like a Scout, that is, follow the Scout Oath and Law. If not, you don't get to be a Scout. That may mean you are removed from the program for whatever short time is required to bring your behavior back in line with the ideals, or it may be longer. In very rare cases it may be permanent. Our troop discipline policy about a page and a half. It mostly talks about how we expect Scouts to behave -- follow the Oath and Law, set a good example for others, provide service to the troop and others, wear the uniform and attend regularly. There is a list of specifically prohibited behaviors stolen for our summer camp -- most of which comes under the heading of DUH! We then have an escalating progression for dealing with unacceptable behaviors: first the junior leaders, second with a SM conference, third removal from the activity and last suspension or expulsion. At each level the policy is to do what is necessary to ensure the safety of the Scouts and what is in the best interest of the troop and the individual scout. NO sentencing guidelines, like 5yr's CC seems to want -- that's a terrible idea, just creates work for the local Scout lawyers. We do what we think is best. The other thing we do is share information. I think one of the worst things you can do is keep behavior problems confidential. I absolutely want all the ASMs to know what is going on so the next time something comes up they know were things stand. Same rule applies to youth. I encourage youth leaders to handle problems, but they absolutely must let the adults in charge know what happened and how it was handled. (This applies to first aid, too, and for the same reasons. Yes, there are numerous war stories and scars behind that policy.

Two thoughts: The greatest obstacle to TL's success seems to be it's attempt to eat the elephant in one bite. Clearly they are in a "strike while the iron is hot" moment, but attempting to recreate a program as broad as BSA in six months seems far fetched, even without the camps and HA bases. My sons attended a charter school which started all 13 grades over two years. It was a disaster. It took them five years -- the entire time my sons were at the school -- to BEGIN to get their act together. And that was with a paid staff and standardized curriculum. I wouldn't recommend the approach. Perhaps they are counting on the former BSA units coasting along for several years on auto pilot with very little operational difference or assistance/meddling from the national organization. Perhaps that's part of the appeal. Secondly, I'm very curious to watch BSA's response. My guess is they will ignore the existence of TL, which would be the typical response of a hide-bound, navel-gazing bureaucracy BSA has become. Think IBM and the PC clones or Detroit and the Japanese auto makers. I wondered in the thread about the dues increase how long BSA can continue to tick off and ignore various parts of it's base without those parts adding up. We may be about to find out. Does BSA continue to listen to the self-selected sycophants or will it finally realize we malcontent peasants with pitch forks are paying members too? Maybe it takes TL some time to get it's act and message together, but tapping into the discontent over BSA's every-growing bureaucracy would be a brilliant strategic move. Frankly, I think it's going to get bad for BSA. I doubt any of their worst-case predictions from the spring included the prospect of a viable alternative program. What do you want to bet that at year-end we get a rosy annual report noting that the losses have been smaller than expected -- ignoring the fact that most losses will hit in 1Q of next year. It's a small sample, but in our little corner of the district, we're losing two units to TL. One was as good as gone as soon as the vote was taken. The other was looking to jump COs, but is now going to move to TL instead. We're losing two more just to "natural causes." That four out of 10 troops in the area and it's been YEARS since we had a new troop form. It ain't looking good.

You guys do realize this thread is 11 years old, right? Old Grey Eagle has passed away, Bob White got p-o'd about something and left years and years ago and Yaworski was outted as conducting sham debates with himself posting under multiple user names. Yes, this is a picturesque bunch!