Do you have a troop handbook?

Posted on 9 April 2012 by Frank| Leave a comment

It’s been said that the Boy Scouts of America is responsible for more dead trees than any other organization – based on the sheer number of handbooks, guidebooks, pamphlets, training guides, and other publications.

Don’t believe me? Just visit your nearest Scout shop. There you’ll find for sale copies of the Scout handbook in multiple formats, a handbook for Scoutmasters, a handbook for the troop committee, the Scout fieldbook, handbooks for various youth leadership positions, over one hundred twenty different merit badge pamphlets, books containing troop meeting planning guides and resource books. There are syllabuses for training Scoutmasters, committee members, and youth leaders, as well as guides for planning Roundtable. Guides for safe Scouting, conducting trips and outings, health and safety … the list goes on. And I haven’t even delved into Cub Scouting. Continue reading →

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Boy Scouts

Tagged , ,

Please stay behind the rope!

Posted on 2 April 2012 by Frank| 1 Comment

An AP news item which ran in our local newspaper last week told of an Easter egg hunt in a Colorado town being canceled for behavioral reasons.

No, not the kids misbehaving – the parents.

Aggressive parents were to blame for the sponsors of the annual event deciding to call it quits. Too many parents were jumping over the rope to make sure that their child got her fair share and wasn’t disappointed. Continue reading →

→ 1 Comment

Posted in Boy Scouts

Tagged

Ever try to cook an avocado?

Posted on 25 March 2012 by Frank| 2 Comments

One of the things I like to do in my spare time that isn’t taken up by Scouting is to cook. The Food Network has a lot of shows that I enjoy watching, and one of them is Worst Cooks in America. In this series,  two professional chefs each adopt a team of highly inept home cooks and work with them through the episodes to hone their skills to the point where they can cook a restaurant-quality meal by the end of the series.

The chefs teach cooking skills to their “recruits,” as they are called, by demonstrating how to prepare various dishes, explaining what they are doing along the way. They then turn the recruits loose in the kitchen to either replicate the dish they were shown, or ask them to prepare something similar. While they are cooking, the professionals watch over their trainees, giving them pointers along the way. Eventually, the amateur cooks develop enough skills that the pros can watch from the sidelines without having to interact.

Does this sound familiar? Continue reading →

→ 2 Comments

Posted in Boy Scouts

Tagged , ,

So where does camping fit in?

Posted on 19 March 2012 by Frank| 2 Comments

Like the Scouts of nearly every troop, our boys recite the Scout Oath and Scout Law at the beginning of troop meetings.

How often do they – or you – stop to ponder what those words mean?

They are the essence of our movement, reduced to forty words in the Oath and twelve points of the Law: Duty to God and country. Help others. Be trustworthy, helpful, courteous, reverent… you know these things.

What do Boy Scouts do, mostly, though? They hold meetings and they go camping. That makes up, I’d say, 80 percent of their time and efforts. Continue reading →

→ 2 Comments

Posted in Boy Scouts

Tagged , ,

Order in the troop! Order in the troop!

Posted on 12 March 2012 by Frank| Leave a comment

You’ve heard the sayings.

Order is Heaven’s first law. (Alexander Pope)

Good order is the foundation of all things. (Edmund Burke)

Order is power. (Henri Frederic Amiel)

Henry Miller also had something to say about order:

Confusion is a word we have invented for an order which is not understood.

Clarke Green recently posted an article on his blog ScoutmasterCG titled The Jedi Scoutmaster in which he discusses the issue of boy behavior, our perception of it, and how to handle it in our troops. Continue reading →

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Boy Scouts

Tagged , ,