dan

Thank You. What a great story.

OldGreyEagle I have 2 questions for you. Number 1 Why do you keep bringing up your beloved Red Berets, by now you have to know what is going to be said about them! Number 2 Do you own a 68 vette?

My son graduation from High School Friday Night. Saturday was a meeting for NYLT. Today was my sons Eagle Court of Honor. He earned his Eagle almost a year ago August 07. He had to have an outdoor ceremony for his Eagle Court of Honor, we where finally able to fit it in today! No one like my idea of having the ceremony in January of February outdoors! I reasoned we have the gear we can do it! It was a very nice ceremony. I guess the point of this posts is 2 things that happened with my son this year. On Easter the church has an Easter breakfast, the monies collected are for the youth group, we cook 30 pounds of bacon on Saturday and 20 pounds of sausages. On Sunday morning we start cooking the pancakes at 6 am to start serving breakfast at 7. Dave and I have been the cooks for the last 4 years. The church does not want any of the youth cooking. This year Dave could not make it. My son and I where the cooks. The youth director keep coming over and asking if we needed another adult to help with the cooking, I keep saying no we have two adults here. My son is 18. She did not like that answer. On Sunday morning we started the pancakes, the youth director could not believe how good my son could cook those pancakes, I just smiled and thought Yes scouting taught him that. A couple a weeks ago my sons school had the Senior picnic. All of the seniors get together and have a picnic. The boy who was going to bring the steaks for my son and friends ended up not bringing them. I asked him if he went hungry he just smiled and said I ended up doing most of the cooking so I got all of the food I needed! I said why did you do most of the cooking, he said I do not believe one other person there have ever cooked before! And once again I though scouting taught him that AND so much more! Thank you BSA, Thank you scouters. (This message has been edited by dan)

Scout Could you enlighten me on these statements, associations, and acts which could lead to a questioning of his character?

I am surprised to hear that joint names like Brownsea NYLT are not allowed. This was a big point that was brought up by the staff of NYLT Regional Scoutmaster Conference that I attended, this was the first conference for NYLT, so it was a few years ago. This was brought up by the staff not the attendees. They said it was encouraged to keep you local name and to keep the good traditions going from the JLTC course. I have to assume that something was seen that is making them change this. The way it is worded it sounds like maybe the traditions where getting in the way of the course? I have to give some thoughts to the added beads. Right now I am thinking that I would rather see another type of recognition that could be added to the wood badge necklace. But I would like to see point number 1 changed to SM and ASM. I think I see where they are going with this, but why limit it to only the ASM? The symbol for NYLT is a compass like thing. Which can be seen here. http://www.bsa-mdsc.org/nylt.php No this is not the course I staff just a website where I found the symbol.

WORD

test

Gern I would have loved to have seen your face. Been there, done that, well maybe not quite that bad.

Great another bad pun. I had to listen to bad puns all weekend from the other adult leaders and me! Only kidding Gern, I love puns. I just ordered 2 sets of pants online, one for me and one for my son. I do not really need them but I could not pass up the price. Have my son pay for his and mine are free!

Just got back from the council store, they do not have the pants on sale.

I do not think the rules keeps anyone from running a good program. BUT the one rule I really do not like is , scouts cannot climb higher than 6' off of the ground without someone having special training, sorry I do not remember what the training is called. I have watched scouts build some really nice pionering projects and than be told that they cannot climb above a certain point on it.

Gee my Asolo are well over 4 pounds of course they are size 14. I love those boots, it is my first pair of really good hiking boots. They are just about worn out after 5 years. We we hiked through Double H our guide wore hiking shoes, some of the terrain was pretty rough. I think it all comes down to conditioning, if you wear shoes make sure your ankles are ready for the trip.

I have never heard that but I did read it here. http://www.scouter.com/forums/viewThread.asp?threadID=190688#id_190725 Now do we really want to start quoting polices. It seems that most people would rather not hear or see the polices or suggestions from the BSA but would rather just do what works best for them.

Scouts will rise to your expectations or down to your expectations.

Taking this thread off track a little bit. But Camp Ke-De-Ka is still there. It is owned know by the Fraternal Order of Police. Boy Scouts still camp there! It is in better shape know than when the BSA owned it. I hear that it cost next to nothing to camp there for a cub or scout troop. So if you are close you may want to check it out. http://www.il-fop-14.org/index.html

Darn I meant amusing not assuming!

GernBlansten I find it assuming that your prehikes may have been done where we went for the High Adventure. I agree that indoor training is boring, but you do what you have to do.

UHH Scout I do not think you meant what you wrote. 25 to 30 miles a day is next to impossible. 10 miles a day is a Good day.

With High adventure time coming up I thought we could give each other ideas for preparing for them. I am an over 50 year old scouter, I have been on 3 High Adventures Hikes and I thought I would tell you how I tried to get ready for each one. The first one I went on was to Double H Ranch a 50 miler. To get ready for this one I did 2 hikes of 8 miles on Saturday and Sunday with a 50 pounds pack for 4 weeks, on weeknights I rode the stationary bike for 5 miles each night. This got me into ok shape. The second trip was to Philmont a 78 miler, I was out of town for a month straight for work, I lost 15 pounds in that month by walking around the plant we where implementing the computer system in. Philmont was not to bad, but Baldy would have been easier if I would have had time to work out more, we where working 13 hours a day, did not leave much time for training. The third trip was last year we hiked 50 miles through the Rockies, now this trip I did the same backpacking on the weekends as the first trip, but the stationary bike was gone and I was using a little home stair stepper 3 nights during the week for around 20 minutes. I had a week of vacation 2 weeks before I left, my son and I hiked 10 miles everyday for eight days, I started with 50 pounds in my pack and worked up to 70 pounds by the 3rd day, my son started with 70 pounds in his pack I did not know this, I could not understand why I was out hiking him until the 2nd day when he said he started with 70 pounds. We live in the flatlands of Illinois so most of the hiking was on flat level ground. On Tuesday we started hiking up a pretty good size hill for Illinois, before and after the 10 mile hike. On Wednesday my son and I where dragging pretty bad the 10 mile hike was tough, we took Thursday off from hiking. On Friday the hike was pretty easy, Let our bodies recover a day made a huge differences. We walked up the hill did the 10 mile hike than waked up the hill 4 more times, did the same on Saturday and Sunday. The next week I rode my bike 10 miles every night for 5 nights, than we headed to Colorado. I drink lots of water starting a week before I leave for the higher elevation this really helps me with the elevation change.

OneHour Your message hits close to home for me. I have seen some scouts become Eagles that I question why. After reflecting on this, I decided I am not going to dwell on them but on the ones that I think deserve it. My son has aged out of the troop, I miss the campouts, what I have found to reignite my scouting spirit is staffing NYLT, maybe you could give that a try.

Ok this thread has gone from coffee to tea to cheese to scotch to graham crackers! How about some ideas of some good coffee to purchase. Anyone got a favorite? The best coffee I have had in in Europe. The Netherlands and Finland. But I will drink just about any coffee, even starbucks in a pinch. Black no sugar thank you.

Gee the august group was more to my disliking than the 3 tier program. Where have you been Beavah? I was wondering if you left the forum.

I am going to disagree strongly, taking that many adults is going to take something away from the scouts. I was scheduled to go to Philmont with the troop 2 years ago, it was 3 adults and 7 scouts, two more leaders said they wanted to go, it was okayed by the committee. I told them I would not go, I told them it could not be boy lead with that many adults. It is the scouts program not the adults. The other 2 adults did not go and I did.

I am an gray haired SM for NYLT. :0 Patrols are formed and are giving a troop guide, so when they start out they are treated as new scout patrols, high enthusiasm and low skills. By the end of the week they are treated as Experienced patrols, high enthusiasm and high skills, if they are a good patrol, if not the troop guide continue to guide them using more guiding than enabling. Venture Patrols are not even discussed during the course that I remember.

I have one of the Coleman coffee makers, it works very good, I thought the glass pot would be broken pretty quickly, it has held up for 5 years. The worse thing is that I need to clean it out often the nasty water I have put through it at different camping areas really plugs it up quick. Got lots of grief when I bring it on campouts but when I was able to have coffee ready in less than 10 minutes the ones that mocked it was the first in line to get a cup of coffee when it was done. The old timers said we should be using the old peculator that takes over 30 minutes for to make a pot, I got grief when I used coffee filters in the old peculator. On high adventures we have used the coffee in bags that was not to bad. This year we used the coffee in the sealed filters and threw them in the boiling water that worked well also, better coffee than the coffee in tea bags. I am going to have check into one of the presses. Now how many of you coffee "snobs" drink Starbucks coffee?