Scouting Magazine’s Front Line Stuff asks how to balance sports and Scouting : So many of our Scouts are involved in sports that there are always conflicts between troop meetings and outings and team practices and games. How do other troops handle this issue? T.L. Kansas City, Mo. Instead of responding to these situations with […]
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How to be Cool (or perhaps not)
Homer:So, I realized that being with my family is more important than being cool. Dad, what you just said was powerfully uncool. Homer: You know what the song says: “It’s hip to be square”. Lisa: That song is so lame. Homer: So lame that it’s… cool? Bart+Lisa: No. Marge: Am I cool, kids? Bart+Lisa: […]
Thanksgiving Campfire
When we found the spear point and the potsherd under a sheltering wall of rock the dig began. A archeologist’s expert hand peeled back layers of time connecting us to those we never met but knew as we know ourselves. Down below the soil of a millennium we found the fire-blackened circle of stones, the […]
Scouts and Cell Phones
Scouting Magazine poses the following question on “How to Control Misuse of Cell Phones”; A few of our parents want their sons to be able to use their personal cell phones during meetings and camp-outs. What can we do to keep the technology from being disruptive, yet allow the parents the security they’re asking for? […]
Creating Functional Boy Scout Patrols
Scouting Magazine’s Front Line Stuff asks the question: Our troop’s patrols are organized by age and don’t function well. We basically have two patrols: the “chaos” patrol of 11- and 12-year old boys and the “I’m too cool” patrol of older Scouts. How can we create functional patrols where the older Scouts teach the younger […]
The Uncertain Senior Patrol Leader
Scouter 573 asks: What can I do to help an uncertain senior patrol leader who thinks he got chosen for something other than his leadership abilities? Most of my senior patrol leader’s (twenty five or so and counting) have had at least a minor crisis of self confidence. A few have had some major misgivings. I […]
Early Departures from Campouts
Here’s the question for the May-June 2008 issue of Scouting Magazine Early Departures From Weekend Camp-Outs Our troop has a growing problem of parents picking up their sons from a camp-out on Sunday morning, right after breakfast but before the real work of breaking camp begins. The parents have many excuses for their son’s early departure, […]
1913 Scoutmaster’s Handbook
The 1913 proof edition of the Handbook for Scout Masters is available at Google Books. This draft was distributed for comment to perfect the final edition. Here’s a (rather large) PDF version of the 1913 Proof of Scoutmaster Handbook To be an effective Scouter we ought to continually assess our understanding of first principles, and there’s much food for thought in […]
Square Knot Resume
As Mark Twain said “It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not to deserve them.” Like most volunteer Scouters I am not a Scoutmaster to earn awards and I didn’t want to look like I was – so for years I never wore my square knots. When […]
