OldGreyEagle

Whoa there young lady, I see no reason for you to make such a flippant comment that the Catholic Church stays in the Dark Ages. That is one of the most insulting comments I have read around here and beleive me, I have read a lot of them!

OOps, oh well, ManassasEagle is right

I think what is being referred to is the Paul Bunyan axe award, its often confused

Yes, Dana, I will be there

An Scout should be the age he is when he completes the requirements to acheive the Eagle rank. For some its 13, for others its 17 years, 364 days, 365 if its leap year. No Scout earns Eagle "too" young. If a scout wears an Eagle patch because his Troop fudged him through, it says volumes more about the Troop than the scout himself. And just because someone thinks scout A got Eagle way too early, its not grounds to put up artificial barriers to "be sure" future Eagles really know there stuff. As one poster is fond of saying, if you follow the program, things just seem to work out, or something like that, think of this as a paraphrase. Let them all earn Eagle as soon as they earn Eagle, let them collect palms until their uniforms wear heavy with them. Let them collect memories that will last a lifetime

Mollie, I may be one of a select group of people who own not only the pants, but the shorts as well. The pants are rugged and are grey. I havent taken them treking as I wish to use them for Council meetings, but they seem to be well constructed. The down side is they are around $65.00 ( and some think the boy scout pants are expensive!) then again trek pants of any brand are not cheap!

There once was a man from Nantucket Who kept all his money in a bucket Then one day his daughter Nan Ran off with a Man And as for the bucket, Nantucket Paw followed the pair to Pawtucket Hoping to recapture his bucket He said to the man You are welcome to Nan But as for the bucket, Pawtucket Paw took the bucket to Manhassett Where he planned to use his asset Along came the man Followed by Nan As for the bucket, Manhassett

I agree, to me the one of the highlights was the campfire, especially the recitation of the cremation of sam mcgee

Ed, one thng at a time, do you think the 8 methods of scouting are required or not? Don't concentrate on the flameball du'jour

So Bob, this piece of rope, walks into a bar, the bartender sees him and yells out "Hey, you piece of rope, we don't serve your kind, get out of here" So a tad chargrinned, Bob backs out of the bar, stands off to the side and takes off his whipping string and shakes his head vigorously. Then he walks back in the bar, the bar bartender takes one look at him and says "Hey, aren't you that same piece of rope I just threw out of here? Bob looks around and then says, "Who me? I'm a frayed knot"

What do you call a boy scout who: Is being towed behind a boat: Skip Sleeping in a depression in the front lawn: Phil Sleeping in front of you door: Matt Hanging on your living room wall: Art Sleeping in your mail box one day a month: Bill What do you call a Venture Scout imitating a lamp hanging from the ceiling: Tiffany What do you call a Venture Scout who imitates a part of a book: Page What do you call a Venture Scout who imitates the beach: Sandy What do you call the Council Chairman flying over a fence; Homer

Thank you John, I was beginning to tink I was the only one to quesiton the comments that the methods of scouting are not requirements. If the BSA has three aims and says it uses the 8 methods to reach that goal, how is it they are not requirements? I guess the question is if your troop sees the 8 methods as not required, how do you achieve the 3 aims? What methods do you use?

Well then, I hope you dont mind me mentioning the Rendezvous, I had a great time

Dark Crystal

jeolin, were you there? Could I have met you ?

Maybe somebody can help me. When someone joind Boy Socuts, there is a tremoundous amount of stuff you have to get, if you dont already have it and more to acquire as you go along. Maybe a decent tent (or not if provided by the Troop) a decent sleeping bag for sure, mess kit, compass, book, back pack, rain gear, coats, hats, boots, stove, water filtration or purifier system, and all that. Then trips to Philmont, Sea Base, Northern Tier or any other High Adventure camp are planned. MAssive fundraising projects are undertaken. In all the time I have been in scouting I have not heard many complaints that going to Philmont is "Too" expensive, I have heard it costs a lot (I am on the East Coast), but if A scout wants to go, there are plenty of ways of making it happen. You can subsitute a trip to almost anywhere, and parents, leaders, scouts are gung ho to make it happen. Seems to me a lot of money gets laid out for scouting. In all the time I have posted here I havent seen a complaint that scouting overall was too expensive. yes, we have posters from economically disadvantaged area, but they see scouting as a great tool generally. And these units pick up equipment and have outings. The issue is, and you should be able to figure it out, why the line in the sand is drawn at the cost of pants. If pants are an economic issue, where did all the other stuff come from? Now, if you are in a really depressed area, and struggle to have any program, I am not talking about you, but to others who talk about how varied your program is, how you traverese the country in search of adventure yet deem the uniform pants as "too" expensive, I just dont get it.

The Rendezvous was great, even if it was a little wet. EagleWB, I would love to hear what you hear about it. The organizaiton shown by the staff was fantastic. They had 186 youth from as far away as Canada and est vignia with Long Island Crews and Delaware and a whole lotta other places. I found myself having a fantastic time and would go back in a heartbeat. The have a fall one planned, I think they call it the insomiacs revenge, starts at 10pm and has scheduled activities until 1am sunday. I love it!

You know, the more I read, the more the idea of the BSA acrredited troop makes sense to me, then again it was my idea

In the COuncil in which I reside, a letter from the parents qualifies as a relgious reference

SOmething else to consider is could you find a replacment for them? I know its late, but in the troop or in the surrounding troops you might find a scout and adult leader in fine enough shape and have them pay your scout and dad the deposit. It might take the sting out of being told you cant come. I mean like an older scout who might wrestle or play another sport or something like that. Your family may be hanging on because of the deposit but if it could be returned to them, they may bow out If you see a train comming while sitting on the tracks, and you hear the whistle blowing, and you feel the rails vibrate, just when do you decide to move? Sooner is always better than later

Anyone going to the Goose Pond Venturing Rendezvous this weekend? April 22-24?

Ok. let me try this, A scout absentmindly picks up a hot mess kit, burns his fingers second degree worth and lets out a mighty f-bomb. His finegrs are bandaged and is admonished for his language, although maybe considering the circumstances there are more giggles than real anger. The next day a fellow member of the burned fingers patrol decides on staging a mini-coup and decides not to clean up although the duty roster has been clearly visible all week end. When the patrol leader asks his to clean up, the coup conspirator launches more F bombs about the patrol leader and casts dispersions about the scouts heritage. The SPL gets the same treamtent as does the Scoutmaster. Since its sunday, the troop packs up and goes home and the scoutmaster talks to the conspirators family about language and only tells the burn victims family about the burn. The next meeting the conspirator wants to know why his parents were told about the language and the burned victim's were not and that not fair. Well, if you had a written rule, no F bombs on a campout the conspirator would be correct. If the Troop instead handles things on a case by case basis, then the above is ok.

I think the approach that the non rule writers are advocating is a common sense case by case basis that allows the adult leader to make "field decisions" that would not be allowed in the existence of writtem rules. For example, lets take the example of the F bomb. When I joined the troop I serve, I noticed there was quite the language issue, with multiple F bombs being dropped. When I asked the other adult leaders about it, they said they didnt notice it, well heck I sure did. At the next outing, before the troop broke assembly I announced that the troops vocabulary would be limited to words they werent afraid to say in front of their mothers, because if I heard an offending word to me, I would have them repeat it to their mother when we returned. That seemed to work pretty well until the one scout said, "heck, my mom says that all the time". I then changed the statement to the troops vocabulary could be anyhting that was in my vocabulary and that I knew I was a veritable plethora of words and a virtual lexicon so expressing themselves shouldnt be an issue. It did of course mean I had to stiffle myself when emotional on a camp out, like hitting my fingers while driving a stake. That seemed to work, when I heard an offending remark, I would say, what did you say? And the scout would quickly change the word to something else. One scout had a hard time breaking the habit, and I was always on him about it. Asking him did he really intend to say that. I dont think kids realize how often they use offensive language and when I pointed it out, they were surprised. With this scout it was a real habit, I knew he didnt really "mean" it, it just came out. But I worked with the scout, along with other adult leaders and finally the scout's behavior changed. Never did have to have the scout picked up, and all the scouts knew that offensive language would not be tolerated, the consequence was a conference with me and that seemed to be something to be avoided, much as I hate to say. Well, the langauge issue turned around and I commented that to my son, and he said, well Dad, its still bad, but the scouts know not to talk that way around adults. I was devastated at the time, for about 30 seconds then I said, well, at least they know whats proper and what isnt so we taught them something and they monitored their language when in the prescence of adults. I guess sometimes you have to take what you can get. BTW, I did the above in the first 2 years of my service to the Troop. Now, if such a problem arose, I would know to take it to the PLC and have them handle it. This boy lead thing is hard to pick up, both at the boy and adult level, but when done right its a beautiful thing.(This message has been edited by OldGreyEagle)

Ok, Backpacker, Bob, you both had 2 posts to each other, next post will be on topic or the entire posting will be erased. If you have words to exchange, d it in private messages

Are you talking about the Eagle Application or for the Eagle Scout Leadership Service Project Workbook? at this link you can get a RTF format that lets you fill in the Eagle Leadership Service Project Woekbook via most word processing formats http://www.scouting.org/boyscouts/eagleproject/dload.html