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Handbook for Outdoor Skills


Beavah

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I admit I didn't have the current 3rd. ed. BSFB as a scout, they were too expensive, but I had my hand me down 2nd ed. from my cousin.

 

Only reason why I got the 4th ed. BSFB is b/c I was at a library sale and they were selling it for $4 and it was like new, if not in fact. Heck it didn't even have library marking in it, not wear on the spine, etc.

 

In regards to how scouts are going to learn outdoor skills, I think it is important that the older scouts teach the younger scouts those skills, and the experienced adults not only insure that the older scouts are doing it, but also work with new leaders on the skills, even after goign through IOLS.

 

 

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So eagle.....the pool of "truly" and "honestly" experience adults are getting smaller and smaller, the number of boys who were scouts that return or remain as Adults scouters is getting smaller and smaller....

 

 

The members of this board are an example, I am going to bet the average age is 50+......

 

 

If we do not have truly experienced adult leadership to pass the skills on to the youth leaders then where do we expect the training to come from??????

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For the legal beagles here...what are the copyright ramifications of copying and redistributing BSA literature, although "out of print"? I have often thought if the key pubs could be scanned and put on a CD/DVD, and redistributed on a "not for profit" basis, what a wonderful resource that could be. I suspect I know the answer...I recently was given a hard time by Costco because I had scanned and uploaded for printing some old family photos...apparently my mother didn't get a signed copyright release from the department store photographer who took my portrait back in 1954.

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I am going to bet the average age is 50+.

 

Thanks for scoring me above "average" :)

 

Scout manual content follows National program direction. I predict the word "camping" will soon be replaced by "Outdoor Experience" or "High Tech Trek Adventure" with less camping and traditional scoutcraft.

 

My $0.02

 

Copyright not a problem - Fair use Section 107

"1. The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes"

http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html(This message has been edited by RememberSchiff)

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My opinion of (what I think was) the latest edition of the FB was that it contained only a very high-level overview of Scoutcraft, and contained very little detailed information beyond what was already in the handbook, or that you would have picked up naturally after camping a couple times.

 

I did some googling, and it looks like National actually has the fieldbook online in PDF form at http://fieldbook.scouting.org .

 

At random, I took a peek at Chapter 11, "Gearing Up" - http://fieldbook.scouting.org/filestore/fieldbook/pdf/33104-11.pdf -- here's what I found:

 

- Heavy on full- and half-page photographs, which take up a lot of page real estate while containing limited or no useful information

- Around 50-75% of the content is duplicated from the BSHB, with little or no additional information to offer

- Most of the remaining content is "common sense," that anyone whose been camping or hiking more than a few times, with a quality troop, should already know.

 

Just my opinion - if other's find it useful, that's great, I won't argue with you.

 

But I have a related question: What is the general opinion of the current quality of merit badge books. I know that some are better than others, as they're all written by different people. But, my theory is, I'd be OK with the HB and FB offering a "101-level" overview of various topics, provided that they were covered in detail in some other resource, like the MB books.

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Oh, sore point indeed.

 

Both I and Scoutson bemoan the lack of outdoorsy stuff in the present BSHB and FB compared to the older versions . I xerox pages out of the 1952 ed. of the FB (thank you, GBB) for my IOLS presentations.

The council recently declared they would not reimburse for copying, but would do it for me for free, all I have to do is email it to the DE, and he will see to it. So , I learned how to scan, file, order, and divide the sent pages (too big a file for one email). Guess how that went?I still had to copy a bunch, reorder/collate them, staple them and three hole punch them.

Even if the boys in the pictures look like they came from "Follow Me Boys" rather than "Glee", the pictures of axe use and fire building are classically simple and illustrative. The pages I supply are, in the words of my IOLS director, "value added".

And then we have the OTHER IOLS director who wanted me to teach the Totin' Chip to our adult Scouters and then award the Totin' Chip to them. When I noted that adults cannot "earn" youth awards, she said that was not a concern, that the adults should have the "experience" so they can help the youth better....

 

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So, maybe to get more excitement, and better more up to date pictures we should have Glee do "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers", I think the Lonesome Polecat scene would put a new twist on axe handling skills. All we need is a basso profundo to open with:

 

I'm a lonesome Polecat, lonesome, sad, and blue...

 

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For the legal beagles here...what are the copyright ramifications of copying and redistributing BSA literature, although "out of print"?

 

YOU DO NOT WANT COPYRIGHT LAWYERS CHASING AFTER YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(Caps for shouting 'caus it happened to the wife! ;) )

 

Long story short, wife wrote a college paper that got entered into a competion, and won. She got a free ticket to a conference banquet and a nice plaque. Her paper was also published in the state library journal. Now she was responsible for securing all the copyright permissions, and she followed the rules to the letter. All three permission forms were sent to the World Trade Center prior to Sept. 11, 2001. As you can imagine, she never did get permission in time for publication, but the library association went ahead and published her paper anyway. Prof said the state library would deal with it. Fast forward 3 years and 2 moves. The 3 publishers ask if she still wants permission. 2 of the publishers, when they found out that her paper was published, it was a student paper, no money was involved, and ithe journal went to every library in the state of MS, and it promoted the books, said no problem, just make sure it doesn't happen again.

 

One publisher would not let it go. I had the legal beagles making calls for several months, threatening to sue her. Eventually it got through their skulls that A) no money was given to her, B) the article was part of a non-profit library association and the journal went to every single library in the state, and C) it was essentially free advertising for the book as she was promoting it as a good example of children's lit. Then they relented.

 

As to what is published. Correct me if I'm wrong, but once something is published in a PDF format available to the public for free online by the organization, it's open season as long as no money is involved.

 

Check out NCSBSA.org for some BSA literature

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