Twocubdad

Adult Association is a co-equal method of Scouting. Please not it is not the "Adult Leadership." but that's a different thread. Ya done good. I taught swimming for years. Sink or swim is a lousy way to learn anything. Part of our jobs is to provide Scouts with the tools to succeed, that includes both physical tools and knowledge. Asking a group of young scouts with neither the tools or knowledge to build council fire is about the same as asking them to build a jet fighter. What will they learn from the failure? Will they learn to build a fire next time or with they learn they can't build fires? Will they learn you're a jerk and don't practice about half the points of the Scout Law you preach? And, oh by the way, Wood Badgers aren't necessarily jerks. Most the old time Scouters I know have taken WB and most are great guys. There are a bunch of jerks too. My suspicion is they were jerks before taking the class. Correlation is not causation.

I recall someone took at defining this once, writing: "We hold these truths to be self-evident...." But maybe that's just an opinion.

Fred, We're neither that stupid nor naïve. My friend was a Scoutmaster for more than a decade, Silver Beaver, jamboree SM, Wood Badge staff, etc., etc., etc. In fact, at one time he ran the camporee under the long-held format. I'm not 100% sure about him being Camping Chairman, may have been program chairman. Either way, he was given the job with the mandate from the district key 3 and committee to improve attendance at the district camporees. The structure of camporee committee is interesting. Every year at the camporee a new assistant camporee chief is recruited from those present, generally ensuring the leadership is supportive of the current camporee format. That assistant becomes camporee chief the following year. But the real power behind the throne are the two old guys who started it in aught nine. I learned everything I need to know one Friday night checking in. Another friend of mine was running things. When we met I noticed he had a cool ball cap with the current camporee patch on the front, scrambled eggs across the bill and "Camporee Chief" across the back. The two old guys had identical hats. Bottom line, changing the camporee will be full out nuclear war. Change isn't a possibility only annihilation. The district was unwilling to stand up to the Ol' Boys and back the guy they appointed to make changes. So they putter along with a quarter of the troops in the district participating. This is why my Scouting career stops at the door to our Scout house. Who wants to put up with that sort of mess?

A friend of mine really screwed up and got himself appointed district camping chairman. He sent three years trying to crack the Ol' Boy network and effect changes to the district camporee. He had some great ideas -- a SPL council to get input from the Scouts, not making the weekend wall-to-wall skills competitions, but breaking it up with some interesting demonstrations (like military stuff, the swift-water rescue team or outdoor equipment suppliers), non-traditional campfire featuring Scouts' garage bands, etc. More of a jamboree feel than a straight, 12-hour day of endless scoutskill competitions. No dice. The Ol' Boys felt any change to their camporee format was an assault on the monument -- um, I mean program -- they spent 20 years building.

blw2 -- our guys are smarter that that. No way they make the offer, "if you don't like it, run it yourself." There are too many people tired of the BS who are more than willing to step up and make the changes (me being one of them). The couple guys who started the camporee format see this as their legacy to the district. They are very careful to select only Flav-o-aid drinking sycophants to "lead" the camporee.

My experience with out district camporee was very much like yours, Stosh. Lots of silly rules intended to maintain the status quo. No consideration of the Scouts' interest. Personally, I've never had a Scout come to me and tell me what they really want to do this weekend is compete in a lashing competition. Our camporee required patrols be between 5 and 8 members -- do the math. What do you do with a patrol of nine members? Patrol leaders cannot be 14 or older. A PL spends the time and effort to develop his patrol into a high performing team, but his birthday is a few weeks before the district's arbitrary deadline? So much for patrol cohesion, team development and Scouts electing their own PLs. No, we haven't participated in district camporees in years. Neither do 75% of the troops in the district.

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E, the National Camp School syllabus for Cub Scout Day Camp has been changed to reflect the new program already. Among other things, the round robin session on belt loops was dropped.

I don't think you will find large numbers who don't think bullying isn't a big deal. Clearly we've seen examples of bullying and the resulting damage done to kids. But the above quote does more to damage the cause of preventing bullying than just about anything I can imagine. Everything is now bullying -- it doesn't have to be bullying, just have to potential of being bullying. Under this definition, classifying a kid who has to rescued during the swim test as a non-swimmer is bullying. Making the kids who fight and claw to be first in line for ice cream move to the back of the line is bullying. OMG! "Do you know how damaging that is to that poor child's self esteem? 'Earning' first place in the ice cream line was so very important to him and you took that away!" No, it was an excellent lesson in manners, and how to treat other people. (That really happened.) I can give you another dozen similar examples. Bullying is a subtle, complicated issue. Defining it to a ridiculous extreme like this causes more people to simply throw up their hands and ignore real bullying. I can give you examples of that too. Good Scout leaders know the difference between bullying and the sort of peer pressure which moves kids in a positive direction. Among a bunch of 12-year-olds it's not always as uplifting and friendly as you and I may have designed, but it is part of the process of maturing and understanding acceptable behavior.

Stosh -- this isn't THE cheesecake recipe you've been holding out on us all this all these years is it? OMG!

I don't disagree with you on this one, JB. I find it a little silly that RSO is good for only two years but an RSO's ultimate supervisor, the Camp Director, is good for five years. Like you say, there's not much new in running a Cub Scout archery range, but the CD is responsible for a very fluid set of camp standards. Years ago I was a Water Safety Instructor for the Red Cross. Whenever I would teach a course, I would have the course information validated on the back of my certification card. Teaching a minimum number of courses would extend my certification. Up to a point, that seems like a more reasonable approach. (That point, however is that at eventually there IS enough new information that recertification is necessary.) And you guys are missing the point. If running a unit activity do you not see the difference in planning and running an activity with only one leader versus starting the activity with appropriate two-deep leadership, but being knocked down to one leader due to unforeseen circumstances? Same with day camps. Planning a day camp which violates basic standards is different from dealing with an unexpected problem. We frequently have people come to camp school saying stuff like "my DE said because we're a small camp we don't have to have a program director." No, and your DE knows better. And now so do you. The question is what are you going to do about it? Day camp isn't just a big den meeting. There's more to it than scale.

I suppose everyone else is also getting banner ads for credit cards on this thread?

Here we go again. Another opinion from the cubicle farm in Irving. Publish the actual policy and let the units take it from there. If national can't write a lucid policy (and yes, I'm snickering as I write that) then hire someone who can. I was going to make Mozart's point. If I want to clean out the troop's account, a credit card will be the most difficult route for me. A couple years ago we had to have a paper check for something on very short notice. The treasurer was away for a week so, as a signatory on the checking account, I went to the bank and asked for a counter check. I was surprised that instead of having a stack of blank checks on the counter, I had to ask -- and pay! -- for a check to be printed with our name and account number. Actually, I got a sheet of three checks, one of which I used for the approved purpose, the other two floated around on my desk until I finally threw them in the shredder. No one knew of the existence of these checks. I could have written them to "cash" and cleaned out the troop account anytime I saw fit. The way I run my own business is if I can't tell my subcontractors "my house keys and credit cards are under the door mat, put them back when you're finished with them" I don't need to be doing business with that guy. Same with troop leaders. Have I ever been burned? No. Could I be burned? Sure. But while BSA sure likes to teach "Trustworthy" I never cease to be amazed a how little faith they put in it.

In the grand scheme of the universe, this isn't something which keeps me up nights. Singing for lost items was a common practice in our troop when I took over as SM. My official position was to discourage it. A Scout is Courteous. The courteous thing to do is to help someone find a lost item and to politely return it to him when located. Still, this happens from time to time, usually from someone from outside the troop, like a camp staffer. Once in the past year the SPL held up some lost item at the close of the meeting. As the Scout walked forward to claim it, someone yelled "GREY SQUIRREL! GREY SQUIRREL!" (the preferred song in our troop because the choreography includes "shaking one's bushy tail"). Since we really don't do this anymore, the Scout was more confused than embarrassed. But four of the older Scouts jumped in, surrounded the Scout and did Grey Squirrel for him. After the meeting, as I walked toward the Scout who yelled for the kid to sing Grey Squirrel, the SPL was already explaining why we no longer do it. I kept walking. Teaching moments come in a lot of different forms. Several lessons were taught that night, including keeping up with your stuff and why our troop doesn't cotton to such things. The more important lesson was the older Scouts have your back. Yeah, there may been a few seconds of discomfort for the young fellow, but at the end of the day, it was a positive. Had I jumped in yelling "HAZING! HAZING!" we would have missed those learning opportunities, and some of the boys may have thought less of the young fellow because he was being coddled by the adults. Controlled failure is an important learning tool. Our job is to ensure it is controlled. Regarding the tradition of snatching hats off heads in the dining hall -- I'm proud to claim credit for ending it here. For several years during camp orientation I would tell both the program director and the dining hall steward that our troop always wears our troop hat as part of our uniform. With everyone wearing a hat, we have a higher chance of forgetting to remove them. I would explain I found it to be inconsistent that we were trying to teach Scouts courtesy (by removing their hats) by being much more discourteous (aggressively taking and keeping someone's property). I asked the steward that if he saw any of our Scouts with their hat on in the building to please ask them to remove it. If they gave him any guff at all, I also ask him to please let our SPL or myself know so that we could handle the problem for him. It took four years, but they got tired of hearing from me. When the program director moved up to camp director, they changed how they handled it. I couldn't be more pleased when the dining hall steward basically recited my speech in explaining the now M.O.

Emergencies happen and there are contingencies to cover stuff. But two months out from camp, there are means to obtain a trained PD if the council is committed to providing the level of staffing required and promised. How many of these options have been explored? -- Offering to fly someone to camp school if a distant course is the only one that works. -- Assign one of the council professionals with camp school training to serve, even if only in a consulting/supervisory basis. I bet several DEs have higher level training, which could cover CSDC if the SE has the cajones to make them do it. -- Send a 21-y.o. Boy Scout camp staffer to camp school and reassign them to CSDC for a week. -- Asking "retired" day camp staffers to take the job, even on a rotating basis. (I've filled in when the CD was sick and the PD was pulled away with a family emergency.) Certifications are good for five years. -- Recruit a PD/CD from another district. -- Pay someone to do it. I bet $500 for three days of training and a week of work would turn the heads of several newbie school teacher. Yeah, some of these scenarios will result in a warm, camp school-certified body just hanging out at camp. But that's okay. Their job is to know policy and standards in case problems arise during camp and, frankly, to check the box that says we have someone here with the training and certification we're supposed to have. You have other volunteers who have been developing the program for months already. And the truth is, if the appraisal team (or I think we're back to calling them the "inspection team" -- hard to keep up) shows up and you say, "we're really sorry, but our program director died this morning" they're not going to shut down the camp. Of course it will make their jobs a lot easier if you can then say, "but our DE is here and will be on site if we need him and our old camp director, who is still certified, will be here Thursday and Friday." There are lots of creative solutions between "meh" and cancelling camp if the council is committed to following the standards.

Good to hear from you, old friend. Glad to know you're doing well.

I've had a number of Scouts express an interest in Hornaday over the years. Myself, I've spent a lot of time researching it and trying to figure out how to get the Scouts started and what we need to do to support them. I had the council's Hornaday coordinator do a presentation for the troop. Somehow it turned into a sales pitch for jamboree. I asked three times if he would talk about Hornaday but his only reply was, "we'll get to that in a minute." He never did. The council offered a Hornaday training session at our Scout University, so I signed up. The woman read us the same BSA web site I had started with a year earlier. Spoke to a really great guy at the conservation area at National Jamboree. He really knew his stuff and seemed to have a great program. When I move to Pennsylvania I'll look him up. My take on the whole process is Hornaday Awards are so rare because no one knows how to go about earning them.

I always ask Scouts how the live the Scout Oath and Law in their everyday lives as part of the SM conference. I frequently get fairly superficial answers so I probe with a little more thought-provoking follow up. Thrifty, Loyal, Trustworthy and Reverent require more introspection than Kind, Cheerful and Friendly, so those are the points I most frequently ask about. In this regard, I agree with what Stosh has written. I don't have any problem discussing Duty to God with a Scout or any other point. But let us be honest with ourselves -- we all know this is obviously political. Maybe someone thinks this will strengthen BSA's legal case for the coming fight with the atheists. Or maybe this is just a little red meat for the conservative right. Here in the Bible belt we have more than enough Scout leaders who believe Scouting is their opportunity to proselytize. I've watched adults interrupt Scouts' Own Services which they didn't feel were Christian enough. I've personally had to deal with a Jamboree ASM discouraging Jewish Scouts from attending Jewish services because he thought "the boys needed Jesus." These folks don't need further encouragement or opportunities to insert themselves in others' faith.

It's beyond me how a council allows a camp to proceed without properly trained staff. What other positions do they allow unqualified folks to fill? Range safety officer? Health officer? Program Director is more than den leader for a really big den. It's about knowing the national standard for CSDC and operating a safe camp. One of the primary standards is having the camp director and program director NCS certified. Daped -- You may have been miss-informed about the training. CSDC certification is not a council-level training. It is offered only through National Camping School.

Anyone have a copy of the "Unit FOS Presentation Request Form" handy? Just sayin'....

No. Ain't gonna happen. Council boundaries are set by national. The physical location of the CO determines the council you're in. We once had a troop and pack chartered to a church which moved to a new facility a few miles away but in another council. In that case, their charter was moved to the new council. Otherwise, forget it. Then again, you may want to let the new leaders go at it for a while. It will give them something to do to work off the extra steam. A good learning experience too. Like allowing the Scouts to hike a mile or two down the wrong trail.

Why do we have any obligation whatsoever to comply with or even acknowledge a blog from new.scouter.com? Is there now a provision in the membership application requiring us to monitor and obey unofficial blogs from BSA? Do tour plans now call for me to scour the Internet for opinions of unknown BSA employees?

Calico -- I like your idea. My only change would be to specify which categories must have two MB -- obviously toward the outdoor/scout skills side. Pack -- I was hoping you would circle back around to the advising rant. Tenure is a wonderful thing, isn't it?! With OneCubSon graduating next month and TwoCubSon graduating next year, I've learned about FERPA. Every August, the boys and I swap tuition checks for signed FERPA release forms. I've only had to pull one out once, and that related not to anything specific with my son, but to general curriculum changes I felt amounted to breech of contract. As the guy paying the freight, I made an appointment with the dean of the college. He tried to hide behind FERPA until I put the form on his desk and said if he needed to verify it I would wait.

No PopTarts, no ramen noodles. And yes, by Scoutmaster fiat. Hot dogs are okay but Scouts are encouraged to make a meal of it, not just a naked dog on a cold bun. Years ago I and a couple ASM decided we needed to do something about the low state of cooking in the troop. We made sure the adults set a good example (that wasn't difficult), we encouraged the PLC to include cooking demonstrations in instruction time, had them set up patrol cooking challenges on campouts. One of the best things we did was created an "Iron Chef" campout where the patrols all set up their kitchens in a big circle and were given a set of ingredients they were required to use with additional spices -- just like the TV show. It worked great. We went from naked hotdogs to brat with grilled onions and peppers; from burned eggs to omelets. Everything was fine until one Sunday morning, most the patrols were busy cooking nice breakfasts when two of the "cool guys" came walking through the campsites munching cold PopTarts. "Why are you wasting all this time cooking? We're done with breakfasts and don't have dishes to wash." You could watch the enthusiasm deflate from the Scouts. So a new rule. No PopTarts and the SPL reviews menus before campouts. The ramen noodle thing was from the prior administrations, although they can be used as an ingredient in a dish, especially on backpacking trips.

Heating bakes away a lot of the organic gunk and causes the polymers to link into longer chains creating a more durable surface. But I'll give the bees wax a try. I keep bees, so I have plenty.