Buffalo Skipper

Yes! It is in the Pioneering MB book. We are doing a pioneering theme this month. I would have the book on my desk now and tell you the page number, but I left it in my workshop last night (open to the page on a ropemaking machine).

My grandmother taught me to eat cherry pie hot with sour cream. If the pie is good and fresh--wow! is that good!

What I have not seen touched upon much here is the wording of the "active" requirement. For S-L-E it says you must be active for 4/6 months as a F-S-L scout. What I see happening (in many troops around here) is a scout who earns Life by 14 or 15, remains active for another year or two, but then goes almost 100% inactive, and finally shows up 3 months (or less) before their 18th birthday to finish their project. Arguably they were active for one or even 2 years as a Life Scout. Nothing says they must be active for the few months before they complete their Eagle requirements. There are plenty other ramifications resulting from this attitude, but those are not really the focus of this thread (see---I can stay on topic!).

That one took a minute to sink in. My first impression of LA is always "Lower Alabama," which around here means the Florida panhandle. Then I thought about Lousianna (the bayou high adventure trek). When I went to the link and looked at the mountains, I wish someone would have had a camera to catch the look on my face....

My mother makes the best cherry pie I have ever tasted. But one of my goals in life is to find the best coconut cream pie in the country. Common enough as this is, I have only found a handful which I would actually rank in the top. Anyone know of a good place to find one?

I made custom nametags for my Powderhorn crew. I used a 2.5" x 3/4" piece of figured cherry 3/32" thick. I used a wood burner and burned in a Powder Horn emblem on the left and then spelled out the name. I then used a tung oil and attached clutch pins to the back. They turned out very nice. That same year, at the B&G, I used the same banks, and had the Cub Scout emblem and names laser engraved for all the Pack Leaders. Cherry burns easily, and the tung oil makes the grain really pop. These turned out really great. I rarely wear my "official" black plastic name tag any more.

I like pie. What kind?

Thanks all for the info. As there are allegedly 12,000 units chartered with the Methodist Church, I was a little surprised to at the response. Are there any of you out there who have good strong relationships with your Methodist charters? I would very much like to hear more of your experiences....

Great thread, and excellent links. I could spend the rest of the day looking at all these bases--Oh wait, I have to work (darn!). Maybe I'll steer us toward being a high advanture troop. Oops, wrong thread.

Welcome aboard! You know what a great program scouting is. Around here we like to chat around the virtual campfire. Everyone has an opinion here, and most like to share them. Buckle in and enjoy the ride.

We are a"young troop". I have thought about how to answer that for a day now, and that is the best I could muster. We havetwo 14 year old scouts, who are the oldest who are still active. Our 17 year olds have made no secret of the fact that they will participate in almost nothing between now and summer camp. What activities do we do? Well, we backpack, we canoe, we camp. All but 4 of our active scouts have less than 14 months with the troop. I see this as a real opportunity to shape the troop into something good. And though I may work to expose these young scouts to a plethora of activities, I cannot make the scouts like everything we do. They are ultimately the ones who plan the activities. At this point, we will have to see the direction they go. It will be another year or more before the idea of our being a "young troop" willevolve into something more substantial.

"There should be no "pre-screening" of the Eagle references by anyone." ScoutNut, I was not sure if you were refering to my post, as I used that term very carefully, and intentionally. What I meant was that an Eagle candidate should carefully select whom lists on the Eagle application. Before any name is put down as a reference, he should contact them, tell them he is looking for someone who can provide a recomendation for Eagle scout, and ask if they would be willing to submit such a recomendation. If I was applying for a job, I would not list "random" people I know, but I would seek out (and ask permission in advance) to list someone who could speak well of me in relation to that which I am applying. I certainly did not mean that anyone should "screen" letters received before they go before the EBOR. I hope I did not mistakingly leave that impression with anyone.

"But you ARE accountable to the church and its members. They own the unit." You hit the nail on the head here. One of our stated goals is to build the relationship between the church and the troop (and ultimately out two packs). This can only be done if we are involved, not only in church activities, but are accountable to the church as well. Making the church recognize that we are accountable will go a long way to improving that perception.(This message has been edited by Buffalo Skipper)

To answer your specific question: 1) Convenience of transport (weight and preservation) 2) Healthy (for the activity) and balanced 3) Ease of preperation and cooking 4) Ease of cleaning 5) Waste generated 6) Filling 7) Tasty That does not necessarily provide you with a measurable competition, but if you had the judges rate each of these in a 1-10 scale, with each judge tasting one or two bites of each meal, you may get pretty fair judging.

The Guyot squishy bowl is really cool. One of our leaders has one. Tempting. http://www.guyotdesigns.com/ I have a Snow Peak titanium plate. It is smaller than a regular plate, and I like that (for potion control). Fill it up once, and it is all I need. I take a REI thermo mug, which I use as a bowl an an measuring cup. I also take a generic plastic thermal plastic mug (20oz?) for coffee and such. I have Snow Peak titanium spork, but that only goes camping; otherwise, I prefer to use lexan kfs. I have a 40 year old old BSA mess kit. It was my sisters (she was GS, but bought the BSA model). I inherited it as a scout, complete with her initials in hot pink paint. 40 years, and no amount of cooking over a fire, cleaning, scrubbing, scraping or scratching can remove her initials in pink! I gave it to my son to use, now that he is in the troop. He is contemplating how to remove his aunt's intitials from the frying pan and little pot....

Like Hal, we conduct our EBORs at with one district representative. Likewise, letters are received by the troop and remain unopened until the EBOR, and are destroyed afterward. I do not believe that the candidate ever sees them. A scout should "pre-screen" his candidates, but calling, advising them of the upcoming request, and asking if they would provide for him a favorable reference. Though there may occasionally be a less than favorable reference which slips through, I cannot conceive of a circumstance in which a viable candidate received 4 unfavorable letters. Kind of like the simultaneous failure of a triple redundancy hydraulic system on an airliner. This kind of thing just should not happen.

I knew someone was going to play the "Why do you ask?" card before too long. It is both complicated and yet simple, but not an incredibly big deal. So let me explain. In our churches early history, some 50ish years ago, our troop came to us from another local church. The first scoutmaster during this time was one of the troop's earlier Eagles (1953), who, like the troop, left the other church to form the new one. He is now our charter rep, and an active member of our church, the UMM, and scouting. The current head of the UMM is also an Eagle scout. The UMM of our church have more registered members of EMS (a national sub-group of the UMM who support scouting) than any other member in our district. The scouting support at our church is very strong. Despite this, about 10 years ago, there began to be a disconnect between the church and the Troop, and many of our church youth (and their parents) went to other troop in the area (with other Methodist churches, 5 others to be exact!). One of my main goals is to strengthen the bond beween our church and the congregation. Somewhat unrelated, recently our church business administrator refused to allow church members to donate to scouts through the church, convincing the members to write the check to the church, without the stipulation that it go to the troop (that is the readers's digest of that issue, I won't bore everyone with more here). We have also had differences of opinion with our property manager. Suffice it to say that we (SM, COR and IH) want very much to see these differences resolved. We are each conduting our own research into exactly how other units formally integrate with their churchs, especially in regards to monetary matters (this really ties in to other recently discussed topics, like the one on "tax exempt status"). There really is more here, but I am trying to take an objective approach. Rather than dragging past issues through the mud, we want to establish a compete understanding of the relationship, and clarify that with the church "organization." For starters, we largely just want to see what other units/COs are doing, and making sure that we are doing this right as well. Did that help?

Thanks Stosh. That really gives me what I want to know. Our bugler is excited about learning, and preforming this duty. It will be a matter of learning this (bugler, SPL, patrols and SM). I will take the time to talk to him and to the SPL together tonight (we have a campout in another 2 weeks). Do you also use a bugler at troop meetings?

I have a specific question for anyone out there with units chartered with United Methodist Churches. I understand that all units are chartered by the United Methodist Men, but where do your finances fall? Are they a part of the UMM? Are they audited annually as part of the church? How much support do you recieve from the UMM? I expect this discussion will vary greatly, and I would really like to hear other's experiences.

Stosh, Thanks for all that detail. It will certainly give me quite a bit of information to pass on to our new SPL an Bugler. Tell me more about he little prefatory ditty for the patrols. You say it is 4-5 notes. If we are using one troop bugler, should each patrol (if they have any musical talent) make up their own ditty, or is this something for the Bugler to do? (We only have 3 patrols now, so it is not a big deal)

SR540Beaver, by "outside your comfort zone" is exactly what it implies. There is little opportunity for learning if your Ticket Counselor (or TG for that matter) is a close friend or someone you know already. By making this someone you do not know, you must practice communication skills. Woodbadge should mimic a troop (in the same way that Kudu's Green Bar patrol training mirrors an actual patrol). It is my understanding that a merit badge counselor with a troop is someone outside of the scout's regular experience, teaching him to reach "outside your comfort zone" and seek to meet and communicate with someone he would not otherwise know. I do not like parents who are MBCs for their own sons or son's circle of frineds. It see that as defeating part of the purpose of the MB. To me, once it was explained (or should I say hinted at), I saw the Ticket Counselor as filling the same "counselor" role. Whether right or wrong, accurate or not, that is my perspective. I am quickly learning, that despite a standard, written in stone curriculum, WB is very differerent from course to course, and from council to council.

In my course, it was done slightly differently than you say. My understanding was that no one's Ticket Counselor was their TG. In fact, apparantly an effort was made to make everyone's TC someone they did not know (but lived relatively near). The idea (like MBCs) was to reach outside one's comfort zone to seek approval of one's completion. My TC was someone I did not know at all. Ironically we had a very close connection (he left my pack just before I had joined), and he was working with a troop with which I had many (but no formal) ties. He and I have since become friends, as a result of the experience. This method of networking is one more aspect of WB which I appreciated.(This message has been edited by Buffalo Skipper)

I agree with Lisabob. This should be no more intimidating than a Tenderfoot SMC. This should be a very relaxing and simple process, just one scouter talking to another about things they both really like doing.

gwd-scouter wrote: "...My mind does tend to meander."This is not unlike what happens to many of our scouts, these days. Some people call that ADHD. Around here we call it ADOS (Attention Deficit....Oh! Shiney! [as the scout wanders off, following an ant or some other object which now has his complete attention]). Sorry about that--what were we talking about? I seem to be on my owntangent. Maybe I shouldspin off?

It is sad to see this type of behavior by troop leadeship (and I use the term "leadership" loosley!). Our troop has had the opposite problem, scouts struggling to complete their Eagle requirements before their 18th birthday. The previous SMs son earned his eagle 7 weeks before his turning 18, making him the troop's youngest Eagle in nearly 10 years! It is odd, as many of these scouts earn Life between the age of 13 and 15. About half remain somewhat participatory in activities, and the other half really are rarely seen after the age of 16. I earned my Eagle just before turning 15, and I remained with my troop until I aged out. Admitedly, I did attend fewer meetings and outings, but I remained an active scout, working on camp staff, National Jamboree (PL), and I was active as a Sea Explorer and was involved with the Explorer Presidents Association with the council and area. Had I not completed my Eagle so early, I would have had neither the experience nor the opportunity to become involved with the other activities. In our troop, we promote personal growth and advancement at ones own pace. In our young troop, 2/3 of the scouts are S-T-2, and we are encouraging the mastering of scout skills (T-2-1 requirements), but it is still the scout's responsiblity, with their PLs support, to see that their requirements are signed off. Our emphasis is on the skill (advancement is the natural result of this), not the badge. But I would never hold anyone up on advancement.