Buffalo Skipper

I live one of the largest communities of military retirees in the nation, and I have heard these "fake" bugles play at several funerals the past few years. The local naval base is a training center which draws in service members from all the branches. These students are encouraged to participate in the ceremonial teams, and can be heard daily at local funerals. They are taught how to "simulate" playing a bugle, and do so flawlessly. Nearly all in attendance have no clue they are not really playing. That said. We enjoy our bugler playing at campouts. We even have a back-up, as we have another scout who also plays the trumpet. Maybe in a few years, we can trade off who is playing the bugle.

mmhardy, Yes he does avoid eye contact and interrupts others, but I have not noticed him ever violate others' personal space, and he rarely steers the conversation to his topics. When he is done with the conversation, he generally walks off, whether others are done or not. Willful is a signature trait, and he does sometimes appear to be selfish and aloof. He is stiff, though I would not say rule oriented. Though I know him from church (we are always uniformed at scouts), I have never noticed that he follows or ignores trends. His hygene is above average, but not excessively so. These may be typical teenage traits (if that is where you are headed with this), but remember, his pre-school teacher labeled him "inflexible," which indicates that though he is almost 13, he has been this way essentially his entire life.

Stosh, Keen observations. The 4 who are not in patrols are not "active." Three are 17 and approaching a birthday (in one to five months) and have openly declared that they will not be participating in campouts and that their schedule will prevent them from attending most meetings. All are closing on Eagle, but it is quickly appearing that one will not get his project off the ground (less than 60 days left), another had his project a week ago, but is floundering on MBs, while the third has his project in 2 weeks and is nearly done with his last 2 MBs. The fourth is the younger brother of the first and is heavily involved in baseball; he firmly believes that having "Shortstop" on his resume is his future. He attended only one meeting this last year and will likely drop this month (we have been talking to he and his mother). This leaves only the SPL, who, we keep apart from the patrols. We have several scouts who double-up. One PL is also a Den Chief, and the other is the Chaplain's Aide. After some discussion, the PLC has decided (and after all the online debate I fostered on this), that we will look for scouts from the current patrols to "break off" and form a new patrol, and then Webelos will divide into the respective 3 groups. This will give about 7-8 per patrol, depending upon our exact recruiting. It was also loosely agreed to get form the new patrols after our mid-January campout, giving the new patrol a time to gel with the it's new members and campout once before the webelos join. PLC is still considering many of the other options, but overall, they have a basic plan of what they want to do. I am behind them on this. We will still have to see how our crossign Webelos (from 2 or 3 packs) will be divided. The PL from one patrol, as I said, is a (Webelos) DC. It is likely that his den will cross and absorb into his patrol, which is largely made up of a core group of Webelos who crossed from the same pack last year. They know him and already see him as leading peer, so that will be a good transition for them. The rest remain to be determined, but this will work itself out in time.

How about having a scavanger hunt? Announce it in the camporee guide, and encourage units to gather older scout uniform parts and patches in advance. Have it all to be turned in in the morning (tagged) and display it at the afternoon events. Come up with a clever way to judge it, and offer bonus points to patrols which wear vintage uniform parts (extra bonus if they are wearing matching/age appropriate rank insignia). Make it fun and they will come.

Have the sit down chat with him. And yes, make it a preemptive conference; don't wait until he comes to you for the Life SMC. Talk about scout spirit. Ask him who shows the most scout spirit in the his patrol and also in the troop. Ask him about his scout spirit. How does he say he is doing? Discuss the specific areas in which he appears to be lacking in spirit, and how he can improve that. Ask that he come back to you with a written plan with specific goals in which he can show scout sprirt, not only at troop functions, but also in his daily life, at school and at home. Set up a time frame (with his life requirements in mind) of how he can fulfill this. Put the ball squarely in his court so that he knows it is up to him to wantingly complete the requirement, and get it in writing.

We also have a small troop, and we have limited the number of PORs. We have 2 patrols, and five scouts not assigned to patrols. Four rarely attend meetings and never outings, so I didn't want to burdon the patrol leaders with their dead weight. The 5th is the SPL and we have no ASPL. We have a Bugler (because he has a bugle and can play--he is a vital leader in the troop), an Instructor (who does a reasonable job), and a QM (who is actively reorganizing, inventorying and maintaining our troop equipment). All these are members of patrols. One of our PLs is the Chaplain's Aide, and does his duties every week and at every outing. I would like an active scribe, but that position is filled by a semi active scout. We have no NSP, so there is not a Troop Guide. We are looking at a 75% increase in our membership by February, and will add one patrol. I do not yet think we will return to having an ASPL, as it remains unnecessary; let me explain my thinking. The SPL's job is to manage/coordinate the patrol leaders; if we only have 3 patrols, that's not too much. The ASPL should oversee the other positions, CA, QM, and Scribe. Adding these to a lighly burdoned SPL is not a real issue. If all are doing their job well, then there is little for the SPL to actually do. Conversely, if our troop were considerably larger, I might add positions where they may not be expected. With more patrols using more of our equipment, I might add a second QM. If we also had multiple instructors, Troop Guides in addition to the other PORs, I would seriously consider multiple ASPLs, dividing the reponsibility like vice presidents in a Venturing Crew, with one being Administration (overseeing Scribe, CA, Historian, Librarian, Webmaster, etc) and the other being Program (over QMs and Instructors). Troop Guides and Bugler, in my opinion, should answer to the SPL. But we do not have a troop that large yet, and likely won't for many years, but I can dream (and plan), can't I?

I need some advice. We have a scout who has developed an attitude problem, and he is a PL. It is difficult to sum up the issue here. He decides what to do, and does it. Right, wrong, or indifferent. If he decides that the previous patrol leader did not call the patrol members, then he sees no reason to do it either. If he takes on a project, he will stubbornly work on it until it is done (or finished); he will not ask for help, nor will he listen to any advice offered. When offered advice or an idea, he will even sometimes respond with a snide remark. And for all that, he can never be wrong. It is obvious the other scouts around him do not like the behavior, but his patrol is willing to tolerate it because no one else wants to be PL. I have tried to sit him down and discuss it, but it is like talking to a brick wall, which I knew it would be. I spoke to his father about it last week, and he was receptive to the discussion, but offered little. His mother approached me yesterday to discuss it, as this behavior is also prevalent at home. We talked about a word to describe him, like stubborn or defiant, but these seemed to miss the mark. She then recalled a word his preschool teacher used (apparently it has been going on that long), "inflexible." Have any of you dealt with scouts whose personality made them inflexible? He is a good kid who likes scouting. I would like to be able to counsel him, but as he can never be wrong, he simply will not listen.

Uniforming is a method of scouting. "Partial Uniforming" is not a method. These are the rules, plain and simple. I see scouters who don't view it as important as saying "The rules shouldn't apply to me/us, if we don't want them to do so." By instilling that value in our youth, one reinforces the social stigma that rules don't always apply. Recently an NFL player $5000 for wearing the wrong color chin strap; he did so intentionally. Is the lesson of doing what you want because you want to do it the lesson you want to reinforce to your scouts? When I see a scout in blue jeans and a uniform shirt, I see a scout who, clearly doesn't care to do what is right. When I see scouts in scout pants when those around him are not, I see a young man who does care. Scouts know what is right and wrong as far as the uniform goes. If I see an Eagle scout in jeans and a uniform shirt I wonder which other methods his leaders decided to only go part way on. Leadership? Maybe fewer Eagle requirements? Or perhaps it was too much trouble to have a boy-led troop rather than an adult led one? Uniforming is a mirror into the troop. At least for the troops in my are it is. A quick glance will tell me right off the bat which are running good BSA programs and which only go part way.

In the past (going back to when I was a scout in the 70s), any requirements change could be deferred IF the scout was working on the rank (or Merit Badge). So a First Class scout on December 31 could earn Star with either (all) the old OR (all) the new requirements; one could not mix and match. I believe there is a blanket statement in the Advancement Committee Guidebook to this effect, which is in line with what you have quoted from Scouting Magazine. I do not have my ACG with me today as my personal scout office/file cabinet (car) is in the shop, so I can't confirm that. Again, this is the way it has been for decades.

I know this thread is about Scout pants with the Activity uniform, but to me the uniform is the uniform, so I will comment on it as a whole. At the troop, we expect our leaders to wear a complete uniform to set an example for the scouts, and we do. For over a year, I had been working with the scouts to wear a complete uniform, which had been laxly enforced in the preceeding years. This was met with significant resistance, especially by our oldest scouts (who are now 17). As these older scouts began attending fewer meetings, more and more scouts began showing up in a uniform shirt with scout pants. I also began encouraging everyone to wear the troop neckerchiefs to/from outings, which had not been the case prior. Now we see more than 90% of our scouts at meetings in a scout pants and 80% or better are usually wearing a neckerchief. We do expect that Class B (activity) uniform is worn with our troop t-shirts and scout pants. Our troop t-shirt is a bright yellow, very close to the bar at the top of this page. At events, we stand out! At the camporee a week ago, we were one of maybe 1 in 3 troops in a complete field uniform (including scout pants) and maybe one in 10 who were all wearing their neckerchief. While competing in events, our yellow shirts and scout pants were unmistakable. We are a small troop, but everyone else knows who we are, and they show us respect for it; we frequently receive complements about our dress, which in turn boosts the scouts up. I believe that any troop who "chooses" not to wear complete uniforms are "growing" lesser scouts. They are being denied the opportunity to be proud of what they represent. Scouts who proudly wear a uniform learn a lot about other things too, like integretity and loyalty.

That's good information. I still think the requirement for Star is whole out of line, inappropriate, and unnecessary. The cost and availability of such courses (even 5 years from now) will be limited at best; after all, who will really be taking these courses except Boy Scouts and a few sporatic others? On the other hand, if a course like this was offered directly by BSA, that would be the horse of a different color. On the same lines, that raises a multitude of other questions and issues. It will be intersting to see how this pans out over the next few years.

beardad, Once your son earns the AoL, he is eligible to join boy scouts. EARN is the operative word, not present. It is appropriate to present the AoL once earned; this can be done at a pack meeting. Otherwise, the boy scout and cub scout programs are exclusive of each other. One is either a cub scout OR one is a boy scout. Once one joins a troop, it is pointless to "return" the pack to cross. We had two Webelos 2 dens last year. One choose to cross in November. The other included the newly recruited 5th graders, and waited to cross until all den members were eligible. The earlier crossing den did their ceremony at the November pack meeting; the other did it at the February B&G. Same ceremony, different setting. Everyone was happy. Just my 2.

"I've never been to a Scout camp that didn't have at least one camp dog hanging around. Usually some mutt that wandered up and lives on dropped Cheetos and burned bacon. They can't leave because they're too fat for the hike out." Twocubdad, I am not talking about puppy-eyed district committee members--every council (and camp) has plenty of those. I am talking about a troop which on occasion takes along a leader's pet dog. It seems to me that the right dog could be a real bonus to the troop, teaching lessons of BPs original 11 points of the scout law. It is nothing I am really seriously considering (none of my current pets would make a good fit in a troop environment), just a curiousity.

I was reading an old (pre-1920) boy scout fiction book I found burried in our scout hut, and it referenced a dog who accompanied the troop wherever they camped. I know there are many places today you cannot camp with dogs--that is not the discussion I want to have now. But have any of you seen modern troops who have a mascot with them at appropriate campouts and outings?

We also have a female SM for our upcoming Wood Badge course. She is also the council commissioner and a real ball of fire. She also is no token appointment, though she is the first ever in our council.

I have seen in our council (and occasionally when meeting other troops at out-of-council camps) a handfull of lady Scoutmasters. I have great respect for them all and I cannot recall one whom I did not perceive as doing a fine job. I have also seen troops which state (very clearly) that women have no place in their troop as ASMs. One of these in particular is chartered with a church who does not allow women in top roles in the church either. Though this is allowed (the charter runs the unit), I believe it is out of touch and reminiscent of the dark ages. Years ago in our troop, we had a mother who had been very involved as a CS leader, on the pack and district level. Boy Scouts for her was a Webelos III experience. She attended every campout. It was politely said that when her son was SPL, Susan (not her real name) was the best SPL our troop ever had, because she prepared every meeting plan for him. When the boy was 18 and an ASM/Eagle, we invited him to come with us to summer camp. He got a glazed-euphoirc look in his eyes and mumbled: "Wow! I could go to summer camp without my mom. That might be fun." As a consequence, we are careful to "screen" our leaders and see that if they are likely to be "problem" parents, we give them a job which keeps them busy and out of the scouts hair. We look at dads and moms the same in this way and do not discriminate based upon gender; we carefully evaluate each perspective member the same.(This message has been edited by Buffalo Skipper)

We are working hard to inspire our young scouts to attend high adventure bases, and it would be cool to have a contingent at the first year at The Summit. For us, distance/travel break-down to high adventure bases from Pensacola are as follows: The Summit 750 miles, 10.5 hours driving time Florida Seabase 750 miles, 12 hours dt Philmont 1300 miles, 20 hours dt Northern Tier 1500 miles, 24 hours dt Yes, we live in Florida and it take less time to drive to WEST VIRGINIA than to the other end of the state. Irony can be so...ironic. I am looking forward to more information about this base. It should be interesting. Seems to me that for a facility of this type (HA base, Training Center and permanent NJ site), 10,000 acres is on the small side. Philmont is 10x that size.

I have heard (not in our area) of Girl Scout counselors chartering all girl Sea Scout ships; these are frequently called "Mariners" or "Mariner ships." If this is true, they would be registered Sea Scouts (BSA) so including them also as Girl Scouts would be double counting. Or so it would seem.

I attended some years ago an Eagle CoH which was done with several scouts at a campout/campfire. They did not want a big deal, but patrols made deserts and parents were invited. It was really well done and very tasteful, elegant and an excellent way to receive one's Eagle.

Great information, and glad to hear it. Any pictures from the flyover or of the model? I'd love to see more....

Hoping I didn't bust out laughing, I would reply that as a SM, I am fond of quoting our founder, Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell, who said "Advancement's like a suntansomething that happens naturally while you're having fun in the out-of-doors." I would continue by saying that advancement is something we do not rush. It must be done at a pace which is best suited to each scout. One of the main goals in our troop is to foster growth and responsiblity in the outdoors through fun, games and skills. Certainly we want and expect scouts to advance, but that will happen as we are doing what the troop does. Scouting (and Eagle) is a journey, not a destination.

Being a SM with 3 months left as W2DL and having made multiple crossover presentations at roundtables (to Troop leaders, Pack leaders and SPLs), I can tell you this is how it is suposed to be done (by both the SM and the DL--well done!) I took my son to 3 troops, even though I am SM of one troop, and I have encouraged my Webelos to attend more than just my troop. We have hosted Webelos from dens which were "committed" to other troops, but we welcomed them in the same warm and inviting manner. In the porcess, I have seen many surprising things. I have had Webelos cross solo to my troop when the rest of their den went somewhere else. And I have seen others who wanted to cross to our troop go elsewhere because their mother had a friend in the other troop (from the mouth of the Eagle-father). The most we can do is provide the best opportunities for the scouts and hope the parents don't get in the way. Keep doing what you are doing; hopefully others will listen and pass it on.

Nothing to brighten the day like reviving a long dead thread. I have been strongly encouraging our patrols to earn the National Honor Patrol, and they appear to be doing so; but 6 weeks ago, the patrols decided to change names (and I told them that the "new" patrol could only begin the required 3 months once the new name was adopted), so they have 6 more weeks to go before they are eligible. My questions are on the second and third requirements: 2) "Hold two patrol meetings each month." Does this include meetings at a troop meeting, if this time is designated or should this be a stand alone meeting? Our patrols are holding one stand alone meeting a month (which I think is pretty good, in the greater scheme of things), but they also meet 4x a month at troop meetings, and often conduct enough business at troop campouts that I may consider that a "patrol meeting." Your thoughts? and 3) "Take part in at least one hike, outdoor activity, or other Scouting event." Does this mean a "patrol level" activity (ie, not a troop hike or campout)? And would the patrol competing at a district camporee qualify for the aforementioned "Scouting event"? Is there a ribbon for this to go on the patrol flag? Seems like the logical place to publicy recognized this. If not it would be neat to have a gold star to sew on the patrol flag. To take that a step further, the uniform recognition is representative of how/when the individual participated in earning this. So if a patrol earns this in 6 weeks (from now, totaling 3 months), and 6 weeks later, they have the Webelos cross overand join, and 6 weeks after that (2nd 3 months) they earn it again, then the "original" members would have two rockers and the newly crossed members would have one. Right? If this were something patrols would work towards and earn, it would be a significant source of pride, wouldn't you think?

For our BS Roundtable, November is our planning month. We all sat down (we had nearly 50 in attendance) and discussed what we wanted over the next year. The BS Commish (that's not BS for Buffalo Skipper, by the way) wrote down all the ideas, and will now try to prioritize them and when applicable, place them in the best month. We typically use December as a social (pot-luck) and is as well attended as any other month. Some of the BS leaders agreed to do some dutch oven meals. We typically also have a similar gathering in July, but decided this year to suspend that meeting as many would be readying for the NJ. Our BSRTC has had the job for at least the past 5 years and does a terrific job. We meet together with the CS leaders for the first 15 minutes (occasionally longer) to review upcoming events, pass out awards (unit and personal). Once a year, the SE makes a 20 minute presentation on the "state of the council." Then we divide into CS, BS, Venturing and/or SPL roundtable groups. As I have said before, our RTs are well attended (collectively 100+ a month), and our respective staffs so a fabulous job. I think our RTs are so productive because we set our program on what WE (the unit leaders) want to have presented.

We just came back from our district camporee, and I have a very fun story to pass on to the gang. The camporee had a Renaissance theme, and there were events like Don Quixote Dragon Fire, Stump the Wizard, catapult, chariot races and the like. It was a lot of fun. The event was organized and run by the troops SPLs and has been 1 year in the planning (it was originally planned to be the Spring Camporee, but severe weather caused it to be cancelled). However, I want to tell to you about the catapult competition, in which scouts competed for both distance and accuracy. Most troops brought in pre-assembled catapults on trailers. Some were behemoths standing up to 10 tall, with construction grade lumber, others were monstrous machines made with cut timbers 4+ thick. One troop had their catapult fine tuned by the adults and hardly a scout touched it all afternoon, except perhaps to pull the firing cord. Some were operated with bungee cords, others were trebuchets with up to 150 pounds of concrete bags/counter weights; one even worked out a rope twising mechanism so powerful that it bent the rebar base of the capault arm. It was an amazing sight to see these all lined up and launching. But at the end of this row was our troops catapult, and it was as flatas a pancake. Like an oversized H it was in the shape of a hexagon with all the end points connected with rope to keep the base stable. It had no upper structure, existing in only 2 dimensions, flat on the ground. One scout had built a model with dowels and had sold the troop on the idea, but a minimal amount of preparation had gone into building it. This one scouts dad was coaching the troop on how it was supposed to be built, but he insisted that the scouts do the work, demonstating a lashing, then untying it so that a scout could crate the final product. The scouts would work on it for a while, then one patrol or the other would run off to compete in afternoon events, eventually coming back to work on it some more before heading to another completion. It never appeared as if much progress was being made, but about the time the other troops were disassembling their siege machines, loading them back on their trailers, ours slowly began to grow. Two posts with small Ys went up about 4, one lashed to each junction of the H base. No A-frame of wood to keep this steady--instead these posts were kept upright with rope supports in front, back and on the side. Eventually, a cross beam was added and a flimsy little catapult arm lashed to it. Fifteen minutes before the events closed, when all the other troops were long gone, we were left alone with the judges on the field, and ready to give it a shot. While the other machines were powered with large counterweights, ours had only the power of a few scouts to pull the arm down, and it looked as if one good pull would send the whole thing crashing to the ground. We had 2 practice tries. The softball was loaded, and the scouts pulled down. The ball went backwards 20. They loaded it again, readjusting the net; this time the ball only travelled 10 in the wrong direction. Quickly, as time was running out, they found a stick in the woods and lashed it across the end to keep the ball on the arm and in the basket. The first competitive launch actually worked sent the ball forward, but only about 15. This was an accuracy attempt, as we knew we could never get close to the 150 yards of the adult-manufactured trebuchets; the accuracy target was 75 distant. On the last attempt, everyone gave it their all, the softball flew out into the field and landed a less than 12 from the target bucket. All the troops had long gone, knowing exactly who had preformed what; imagine their surprise at the campfire when it was announced that our troop with the little catapult that could (no one else had even seen it upright!) had taken the blue ribbon. Long before I even believed it would be capable of even launching a projectile, I was proud of our boys for the great effort and persistence they had put into the project. They had not quit. I cannot tell you how big that lump in my throat swelled when they were done and had stolen first place. We have a small troop; those who built the catapult were every one 11 and 12 years old. They lost every other event as several other troops patrols were stacked by combing patrols with 16 and 17 year old high school athletes. One particular troop had 20 scouts present, combined into one patrol, and they took first or second in at least 10 events. I saw the same 3 or 4 scouts competing at every station. Not very scout like, but in spite of that our guys had fun! I think they understood why they lost everything else, and rather than get discouraged, they became more determined to practice and improve their skills. The next day, after every other troop had left the scout camp, our scouts were practicing skills (without adult supervision). One group was working on an orienteering course while others were working with an new scout on his Totin' Chip and Firem'n Chit and ensuring he had completed his joining (Scout) requirements. They were in no rush and I told them I was very proud that they were the last troop to leave. This may have been the best team and moral building exercise our troop could have experienced. We are moving forward, slowly, but steadily improving. I hope you don't mind my bragging on our scouts for a few minutes. As outlandishly as I have embellished this, it is no tall tale. It really happened just like that, and it is a story I will remember for the rest of my life. I hope the scouts remember it so fondly as well.