bwest64098

My troop has By-Laws. They were written by a committee that had been in place for several years. This was done more to ensure that "the way we've always done it" stayed that way. I would say that our most important "Law" is that to be a voting member of the Committee you have to attend a minimum of 3 of the last 6 Committee meetings. This way the committee can't get ambushed by a disgruntled group of parents. By the way parents of registered Scouts are invited to come to Committee meetings and are eligible voters (obviously if they satisfy the 3 of 6 rule). I would be happy to email a copy of our By-Laws to anyone interested.

Heart of America Council, Kansas City area, has 2 long term camping facilities. 1 facility had a FEMA approved storm shelter at every camp-site last year. The other camp had their shelters finished this last off season. As far as I know none of the money came from National for these projects.

I love the "Near Miss Incident Information Report" http://www.scouting.org/filestore/pdf/680-017_fillable.pdf If it was a "miss" then nothing happened. So... is this to be a form of "What ifs?" I was on a roller coaster where I came within about 1 foot of the wall as I went by at 30 - 40 mph. Is that a "Near Miss"? This shit cracks me up!

"What label should we put on people who insist on putting a label on everybody else?" Ans - Label-ers DUH!

I'm not Jewish. I don't know the requirements for the Religious award within the Jewish faith. But I keep seeing posts about the Syn not allow this or that. Can you not hold the program somewhere outside the Syn?

I've been looking at these too. The reviews that I have read online always seem to comment on the lack of light output. Personally I have been looking at the new Coleman lanterns that come with the case. I would call it all "bell shaped". Most of the time that we seem to have globe problems is while the lanterns are banging around in the over-sized rectangular Coleman cases. These cases ave foam that is in direct contact with the globe, which seems to prevent any movement. .

the dome ends of 500 - 1000 gallon propane tanks work very well. I would contact all of your local scrap yards and let them know what you are looking for and they should let you know if something comes in, at that point I would imagine that they would sell it to for scrap value. Cheap and somebody else does the shopping!

I had the opportunity to take a group of boys to Sea Base several years ago. This isn't necessarily the direction that this thread has taken but, (in my opinion) is still on topic. The leader that took care of the logistics for us did a supreme job. We are from the Kansas City, Missouri area, we flew into Ft Lauderdale and rented a 15 passenger van. We then drove to Key West and stayed the night in the local Hostel. It was educational and interesting to say the least. It was just a very basic bunk room with all the boys in one room and us 3 adults in an adjoining room. If I remember correctly it was a cost of less that $10 / head. We spent the afternoon and evening exploring what Key West had to offer. The next morning we drove back north to Sea Base South and proceeded to our Out Island Adventure, a program that I would recommend by the way. When we left Sea Base South we proceeded north to the Everglades to some kind of Gator Farm and Air Boat tour, which the boys really enjoyed. Then we stayed the night in another Hostel. This Hostel was really neat because it was run by a couple of old hippie throw backs that really enjoyed talking to the boys about the importance of community. They would fix a huge dinner every night and charge $2 to anyone in the neighborhood that needed a good cheap meal. They had several families that ate with them a couple of time per week. I thought at the time that this was a real good lesson on sharing and looking after ones neighbors. The next morning we returned the van and flew home. The point of all of this that I really enjoyed was that we really were able to create 2 trips into 1 for around $100. Also I like the idea of a monthly payment plan. Our High Adventure has also been collecting lead acid batteries for recycling (easy money if you have a place to collect and store them). Also we just did a smoked pork butt and smoked pork rib fund raiser. This is the first time that we have attempted this so did it on very short notice. All orders were pre-sold so we only bought what had previously been paid for. A group of leaders, since this was our first time didn't have any of the boys help, stayed and smoked butts and ribs for about 50 hours. Since it was only leaders it was also a good time for program discussion. After is was all said and done the High Adventure crew raised just under $2000.00. And, these were delivered on an "off" weekend. There were many customers that suggested that in the future we deliver closer to "Prime" weekends, ie Memorial Day, Labor Day, Super Bowl Sunday, Graduation, etc. I hope you have enjoyed my ramblings.

We are a Troop of 3 patrols. We are VERY fortunate to have a considerable amount of storage space about 50 yds away from our meeting site. Even with this space we do still store a fair amount of equipment inside our trailer. I do see 1 or 2 news stories a year about Troop trailers getting stolen, usually from church parking lots. I personally don't see a problem with keeping gear in the trailer as long as the trailer can be kept in a secure location. Obviously that doesn't necessarily give you an adequate space to air out / dry your tents after a campout. As far as improperly clean dishes, I say let them figure that out at the next campout when it comes time to use them! By you and / or your son properly cleaning the cooking gear after the fact just reinforces the boys not cleaning them correctly when they should. The PQM should be checking to make sure that the gear is properly cleaned and stowed prior to turning the gear over to the TQM for long-term storage.

My Troop has the opportunity for a VERY reasonably priced used "short" bus. While we are considering the purchase I was wanting to get some information from Troops that have a bus. What are your costs? Would you recommend? ect.