Intro to Outdoor Leader Skills

I'm off to the new Intro to Outdoor Leader Skills. It isn't really a new course as far as I know It's just the first time my council has offered it since it became a requirement for Webelos Leaders. This meant that council had to make a new flyer for the Class. It will be akin to spending 28 hours camping in my backyard. WOO HOO! Our training / cub scout campground is surrounded by city. All around you here the sounds of cars and freeways and sleep under the light of the near by fast food joints.


Since I'm a gear nut, I decided to celebrate by spending lunch at Whole Earth Provisions. Why there and not our other trusty sporting goods store Academy. WEP has the Therm-a-rest Neo Air. It is supposed to be the best Camp pad since self inflating pads. They had 3 sizes in stock. Fortunately for my pocketbook I was not yet prepared to part ways with $170.


I did however pickup an Xbowl and Xmug from Sea to Summit (http://www.seatosummit.com). Together they are smaller and flatter than my current mess set. I also picked up a folding spork from MSR. (http://cascadedesigns.com/msr/cookware/cookware-accessories/folding-eating-utensils/product) the spork is longer than my current set of Light My Fire Sporks. The current ones are just a bit short reaching into a Jetboil pot.


Last but not least I grabbed the wrong book, but hope it will pay off in the end. The Best in Tent Camping: Texas (http://www.amazon.com/Best-Tent-Camping-Concrete-Portable/dp/0897326849). Why did I say Grabbed the wrong book  Because I didn't see the subtitle any where. "A Guide for Car Campers Who Hate RVs, Concrete Slabs, and Loud Portable Stereos"  I do fall into the category  of disliking Concrete Slabs, and Loud Portable Stereos. Occasionally I like the comfort of a RV in the form of a pop-up camper. Yet I was hoping for the top 50 tent camping sites in Texas no matter who else may show up. 


I'll let you know how things turn out. I almost forgot because I was so busy.  My son finally had his Crossover ceremony last Sunday. I rechartered with  the pack as Committee Chair  because we had two few  stand up. 

Girl Scout Cookies

My wife is fully engrossed in that American tradition called Girl Scout Cookies. I haven't seen her most of the week. Now that is partly because I haven't been home much, but neither has she.

She is at booth sales and delivering cookies.

If your council uses Trails-end the popcorn money is pretty easy to follow. But no-one could really tell me where all the money from the Girl Scout cookies went, until now.

http://www.walletpop.com/blog/2010/02/06/girl-scout-cookies-by-the-numbers-just-where-do-all-those-dolla/

$0.85 Bakery

$0.50 Troop

$0.08 Patches

$2.07 Local Council

For a total of $3.50

So let's scale this up to the $9.00 tub o' popcorn the Boy Scouts sell.

So for the $9.00 you'd get 39 cookies from the GSUSA or 8.5 oz of Carmel popcorn from the BSA.

GSUSA	BSA
$2.25 or 25% to the Bakery	$2.25 or 25% to Trails-end
$0.18 or 2% to prize patches	$0.45 or 5% to Prizes
$5.31 or 59% to the Local Council	$3.15 or 35% to the Local Council
$1.26 or 14% to the Troop	$3.15 or 35% to the Unit

I'm not so angry at the baker's anymore. I know the BSA has FOS, United Way, and other fundraising going on throughout the year. I wonder what other funds the GSUSA raises during the year. It seems the girl scouts put more of the council's financial burden on the girls. My daughters goals were to sell 150 boxes each for a total of $73 in the troop coffers. But nearly double the total sales of my pack for nearly the same commission per scout.

To me it would seem the Local GSUSA council could give a bit more back to the scouts.

AB100 meets the wild west in San Antone

Life is what you make make it. That pretty much sums up my Adventure Base 100 experience. I'll talk about that portion later or not at all.

AB100 was not a standalone event for the Alamo city. Yet they managed to place the AB100 in an area of the rodeo grounds that received little to no traffic. I think they could have found a better place for us.

The patch above is the only thing that is exclusive to AB100. Our store staff said they had trouble getting the patches. The Adventure base showed up Thursday the 4th, but the patches showed up late in the afternoon on the 6th. So we had the patches for 1 day of the Bases four day stay. If you register for an AB100 passport you get $5.00 of a souvenir book. so for $20 you get a book and the patch.

The museum was cool. I thought some councils could have put more in their time capsule. Heck it would have been nice if my council had submitted a time capsule. Some of the items were a CD-Rom, a belt buckle, a custom coin, and some OA flaps. I rocked the early morning evironmental Pinewood race with a score of 390.

When you get in the go scouting dome go in front of the table and lay down on your back. The show displays up past the top of the dome. In side you feel kinda like your in an igloo and at a forest campsite. It was a nice 5 minute show.

Many scouters took advantage of the green screen. Your white water rafting or rock climbing. I think I saw one dad getting carried up the rock face by his Webelos scout. What I could do there with a little more time and imagination.

The penny press breaks at the drop of a hat. I really wish they had more than one press traveling with the show.

The ropes course was awesome as an attention getter. Can I order one for my council? Ok for the walk through... once harnessed up you walk up the ramp around and over some teeter totter blocks. Around the next corner is swing steps. The next challenge is Swinging across the vines to the cargo net. Once you side step across the cargo net you jump off a box and "zip line" down to where you harnessed up.

Since most places haven't had this yet. I'll let you know that you need about 20 volunteers minimum to help run the AB100. Please make sure your council has somebody that is good at scheduling people to run this. Nothing worse in my opinion than to have 15 Explorers show up and have nothing for them to do.

I would like to give special recognition to SAPD Chief William McManus. Prior to Chief McManus, SAPD had Explorers, but nothing like they do now. San Antonio has 180 police explorers in part due to the Chief's mandate that every substation or precinct have an explorer post. I have no doubt that these explorers will turn out to be fine officers in one of the nations law enforcement agencies. More importantly to me, it is just another way that the SAPD shows a compassionate face to San Antonio.

A time to face the Facts.

Well it all started about 6 months ago I had to take a break from blogging and finish some things up. You know little things like Wood Badge, Finding someone to get my back, getting trained for a new position.

I'm going to run out of chairman stuff to talk about. Although it appears with my various hats I have today that a new blog title was due. I find myself rambling through scouting. Taking different positions and trying different things as I help my son through his scouting career.

So my posts will take on more the idea of sketches of where my son, his unit, my units, and myself are today.

The difference between IN and OF

Today is the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Boy Scouts of America.

Today I have ran across some that are incorrectly saying it is the Anniversary of the Boy Scout Movement IN America.

Troop 1 in Pawhuska Oklahoma has the honor of being the First Boy scout troop in America. They were founded in 1909 roughly 9 months prior to the incorporation of the Boy Scouts of America by W.D. Boyce. Troop1 was founded under an English charter.

Too many the argument about the use of the word IN and OF is like like arguing whether the new millennium started January 1, 2000 or January 1, 2001. It could also be said I was arguing use of the Metric system versus the Imperial System.

So I may be arguing over small verbiage, yet I would believe that the scouts in Pawhuska, Oklahoma were not the only scouts that were practicing Lord Baden-Powell's methods in the United States before 19010.

So let's Celebrate the anniversary of the Boy Scouts of America and remember there were at least 18 Boy Scouts in America before then.