Bradwillkall

We are looking for a nice trip to go on for a week or so in 2009 for a week or so. We are not looking for a summer camp, but more of a high adventure camp. We are located in Cincinnati, Ohio, but we can travel almost any distance. We are also looking for some new places to go in the ohio, kentucky, indiana area. We habe gone to Camp Michaels, Camp Friedlander, Hueston Woods, and Miami White Water. Our troop seems to be stuck in a bad routine of going to the same place every two years and we need some new places.

Unfortunately, we already made the cabin rentals. Our cabin is located in Ashton, Idaho, 45 minutes south of the west Yellowstone enterance. Before we stay at the cabin, we sre going to a high adventure camp in Salt Lake City for four days. A chartered bus is taking us from place to place, which I am told, would cut down on the traffic because there is a special bus enterance in Yellowstone. Just another question for you guys. Is it right for a scoutmaster to tell a person, who has gone through NYLT and was the ASPL the year before, that he is not allowed to run for SPL because he is too lazy? I know that this person would not of won the election, but it is the whole moral of the situation. This boy said that he would rather run and loose than be told that he wasn't good enough to run at all. He was even brought to tears when our SM told him that he couldn't run. It just seems degrading to the boy .

We are going in July of next year.

If it was not for this trip, there would be a few scouts who would not be interested in scouting any longer. There are even a few eagle scouts from our troop who are coming back to help plan and fundraise for the trip. Out of the whole troop of 22 people, 20 are planning on attending the trip, and we have seven adults who are interested in going on the trip. And even with this, my SM is still trying to discourage us from making the trip happen. He has seperated the trip from the troop saying that no troop money will be used on it at all. I was the one in the beginning who was all gung-ho about the trip, and was pushing for it really hard. Many believe that is why he banned all of the scouts, so that the persistance and high enthusaism would be cut out from the planning. I just don't understand why a scoutmaster should be so negative towards the planning of a great trip, and why the scouts shouldn't be allowed to have an input on the planning of it, isn't it supposed to be a "Boy Run Troop" anyway? Another question, is it right for a scoutmaster to come into every PLC meeting and give the SPL a list of things he wants added to the list. Then he forces that list to take place on the calendar before anything that the scouts want to do? Every month we have a theme (i.e. cooking, first aid, warm weather camping, etc.) and every PL comes in to the PLC meeting with a list of ideas for things that we could do at the scout meetings. But they never happen because the SM's list is always forced upon us, with no say on our part. Is this right?

About a year ago, my troop began planning a trip to Yellowstone National Park for 2008. We set up a seperate committee incuding boys and adults. My scoutmaster though, is not in favor of the trip what-so-ever because he thinks that the cabin we are staying in is too nice for Boy Scouts. A few months ago he came to a Yellowstone committee meeting for the first time so far. The only thing that he said though is that he is banning all of the boys from the yellowstone meetings because it is not a trip that we should be planning. All of the other adults though want us to be there so that we can give our opinion on what we want to do on the trip. The adults do not want to tell him this because it will start an argument, and he may then try to cancel the whole trip. Also, every few days he will bring up the trip to us and he keeps telling us that if we do not raise enough money or have enough boys go, that we will not be going on the trip. Is it right for him to ban us all from the meetings?