Forums > Social Chat > Eagle Scout Spinners?

Posted: 16th Apr 2003
I got mine two weeks before my 18th birthday...

Also was in OA... although I never went anywhere with it. It seemed too... "join up for the sake of saying you've joined." Like Masonic Lodges. Or Mensa.

Any wonderful scouting stories you'd like to share my friend?

What hits the fan is not evenly distributed.

Posted: 16th Apr 2003
I'm working on getting mine, does that count? I'm Troop Guide in San Diego CA's Troop 2.

In the Order of the Arrow I'm only an Arrowman (wasn't exactly impressed with the whole ordeal...), so I'm not going to go any farther in their ranks.

But yeah. I'm hoping to get it this summer or next summer, seeing as I only have two badges left and a project.

Kinudin

Posted: 16th Apr 2003
Yep Hmmm, lets see, when did I get mine...

I'm thinking I was 16 or 17. seems like a while back. At the time I was the troop leader, wasn't their an offical name for that? I wasn't in OA, the oppurtunity never came up for me personally, others of my troop did it. I also thought it was a kind of odd ceremony.

Sadly I was the second to last Eagle Scout in my troop, Troop 98. Unfortunatly it fizzled, there was another larger troop who somehow managed to take all the cubscouts from Pack 98 and recruite them for the troop. We wern't large enough to survive.

_________________________________
Fuzzy Dice.......................................

Posted: 17th Apr 2003
That's it? Three of us plus Kinudin?

I'm surprised. I figured there'd be more.

-Mike

Certified Mad Doctor and HoP High Priest of Nutella



A buckuht n a hooze! -Valura

Posted: 18th Apr 2003
Firebuilding, knot tying, first aid, safety, physical fitness... Fire Dancing should be its own merit badge worth all these!

What hits the fan is not evenly distributed.

Posted: 18th Apr 2003
Oh, and one thing to keep in mind, perhaps there's a lot of British Scouts here as well that don't fit the "Eagle" description... I believe the rank in England is known as "High Scout," but correct me please if I'm wrong!

Kinda neat how the idea for Scouting in America actually originated from a trip to England.

What hits the fan is not evenly distributed.

Posted: 18th Apr 2003
heyall
i really don't know what an "eagle scout" is, i'm just a normal scout...
by the way, i introduced many ppl at camps into spinning, and my girlfriend is teaching many 8-11 year old kids how to spin
wish my scout leaders had done that

Don't you destroy your enemy by making him your friend?? - Rev Bem (Magog), Andromeda

Posted: 18th Apr 2003
I used to do scouts when I was young. It was run by some crazy old dude with long hair, who just used to let us loose in the forest with axes and gave us paraffin to help start our fires. Never went on a camp, wore my uniform no more than once a year and got about 1 badge.

Unfortunatly he died and the guy who took over was a real scout fanatic. The sort of guy who wears shorts when its freezing. Uniform at all times, badges, walks etc. I quit

Posted: 17th Apr 2003
Pssh. I barely ever wear my uniform. The shorts are to short, and the long pants are tight. (I'm not a fan of pants that show my feet for some strange reason, and I don't like showing my knees... again for some strange reason).

Our troop does one campout a month, a snow trip once a year, 30 mile bike ride (hey, I think that's happening this month), and the usual water balloon fight with the new scouts (Senior scouts always win!).

Last summer we went to New Mexico for a 55 mile hiking trip that seriously rocked my world. Two weeks in the new mexico forest with a huge fire ban (because within 30 to 60 miles away, the whole north half of the ranch was on fire).

Oh, and Dio. I agree on the whole fire spinning merit badge. That'd rule and I'd be the first in my troop, or perhaps District, to get it!

Kinudin

Posted: 17th Apr 2003
I lived in Colorado until I was 11 and had a wonderful scout troop... then I moved to podunk Illinois and the troop there was absolute crap. We're talking the type of camping where your major activity involves grabbing a beer for the scoutmasters from the cooler. There wasn't any leadership, we had a new scoutmaster every 6 months, and it generally sucked.

My friends back in CO got their Eagles by 14 (I would have) and had a huge ceremony with a falconer flying in birds through the roof of a huge cathedral and stuff.... my records got lost during the move so I had to re-earn a couple badges and even then it was incredibly hard because there was simply very few opportunities for advancement in my troop. I had to do it all the hard way, with no assistance, and got my Eagle stuff turned in 2 weeks before my 18th birthday. My ceremony was small but good, and I'm very proud of making it in the end. But to put my troop in perspective, we've had Eagles turn in their packet literally THE NIGHT BEFORE their 18th birthday. Saddens me.

Our service project standards are also way low... but that's another gripe. What all did you guys do for your service projects? Mine was way out of the ordinary for my troop, mostly because it involved some ambition and originality... I had volunteers go around my district replacing the fire department address signs for houses far back from the road. They get rusted out, hit by snowplows, new houses put up don't have them yet, etc... was an incredibly satisfying project because I feel like what I did might save lives in the end. And is much cooler than building a fence (No "off-fence" *snicker* to all you fence-builders out there)

What hits the fan is not evenly distributed.

Posted: 18th Apr 2003

quote:

---

We're talking the type of camping where your major activity involves grabbing a beer for the scoutmasters from the cooler

---

wow, i'm signing up. Where did you say this was again?

Posted: 18th Apr 2003
I came from a model troop. We had dedicated dads, an amazing scoutmaster, average age for Eagle was 13-14, and the troop peaked at 80 boys. When we went on camp-outs, we always had to get the largest campsites available and we'd basically set up a small city. We cooked better food on our campouts than we normally got at home, we'd have a big troop bonfire and one of the dads would read a scary story or something. Great troop.

On top of that, coming from a relatively affluent area, the dads were good role models of successful men who also believed in the basic ideals of Scouting, like integrity, honesty, doing things right, and doing the right things. They were good, honest men who set an example for a future generation of good, honest men. We had doctors, engineers (a LOT of engineers), lawyers, teachers, etc. We'd have troop meetings where a dad would talk about his work.

Our Scoutmaster was one of the men who served as a positive influence on my life. Between him and my high school swim coach, I had no lack of positive male role-models. From my SM, I learned dependability, responsibility, and trustworthiness. When Dr. Wicke (our SM) said he would do something, it got done. He was strict, but fair. He almost never yelled, but he dispensed constructive criticism when appropriate. But he also heaped praise when appropriate.

Nationally, less than 2% of boys who start Scouting ever make Eagle. In our troop, it was more like 25%. I was an immature little sh!t of a boy when I entered the troop, but when I finally left at age 19 (after being an Assistant Scoutmaster for a year), I was a confident young man. I saw the same transformation happen in a number of other boys. Amazing what Scouting can do for a boy when there's a good troop.

Sadly, with the recent policy from National about gays in Scouting, a lot of people have withdrawn their boys from the program. This is unfortunate because the program has so much good to offer. I just don't think that sexuality has a place in Scouting, regardless of what your orientation is. With all this politicking back and forth, neither the homophobes nor the inclusionists are winning, but the boys sure are losing.

-Mike

Certified Mad Doctor and HoP High Priest of Nutella



A buckuht n a hooze! -Valura

Posted: 18th Apr 2003
Sadly, our troop banned buying soda's for the camping trips because the year I came in, a bunch of people decided to complain about others stealing their soda.

Solution: Bring own soda
Kinudin

Posted: 18th Apr 2003
My troop rocked. Our leader was the grizzly construction guy, he rocked. Sat around drinking and swearing. We were slightly disfunctional, one of members was this violant kid who went on the join a gang and have a kid by the age of 17. Oddly enough he got out and turned out fine, but he's still kind of a jerk and pretty ghetto. We also had these two giants, these guys were like 6'3" and 200 pounds. Good guys but they could turn into bullies in a second. We were pretty much the bad asses of the scouting world, which isn't saying anything of course . ahh good times good times

_________________________________
Fuzzy Dice.......................................

Posted: 19th Apr 2003
I was the first to attain Eagle Scout in our troop since 1978. ( I got it in '90). I earned 5 additional palms, a half dozen medals I can't even remember, held every office except Scoutmaster, was in OA, Explorers, and even worked at a Boy Scout Camp. I taught all the outdoorsey stuff like cooking, knots, knife & tool safety, wilderness survival, and yes, fire building.

Now, working at the girl scout camp, that was entertaining...

Dance like it hurts; Love like you need money; Work like someone is watching.

Never criticize someone until you've walked a mile in their shoes. That way, when you DO criticize them, you are a mile away, and you have their shoes.

Posted: 19th Apr 2003
I am canadian so no eagle scouts here. Im not to familar with how eagle scouts is setup.

Here you enter at age 5 into beavers which is like for kids up to age 7 I think, then you join cubs which is for up to age 10, then scouts which goes up to age 17 or 18. I started with beavers when I was 5. In the first year there was only 2 people in my 'pack' and 2 leaders. The beaver motto is "shareing shareing SHAREING (last shareing followed by slapping the floor with an open hand as hard as you can, followed by shakeing the stinging needles out of your hand, something we loved doing)

I 'swam' up to cubs and had fun there untill it was time for scouts. I spent a year in scouts but the leaders really sucked. We couldn't make regular mettings because they were always busy, we didn't do any badgework or go to camps for the same reasons. I got tired of it and switched to a new troop. The new troop had pretty good leaders and 4 boys including myself and 2 girls (scouts are coed here) I stayed in that troop untill I was to old. We had a lot of fun. We weren't entirely serious about badgework but we did whatever badges seemed interesting. Half the badges we did we didn't actually receive badges because the leader never ordered them and we didn't pressure him to do so because we didn't really care since they were just superficial and we weren't very competitive.

Our camps were always undisciplined and we were always playing with fire or doing something potentially dangerous. There were a couple of anual camps that brought in all the troops in the region. All the guys from a couple of the other troops would come over and hang with us (mostly because of the girl in our troop) it was always awesome fun. I began to form a big crush on one of the girls in the troop but I was always to much of a dork to do anything about it. We were all good friends in our little troop and when I left everyone else quit to. We were going to make a venture troop (it's more independent then scouts but for ages 17-19) but we could never find a supervisor and it fell apart.

I haven't really had any contact with the other people in my troop but I really miss them. Especially the girl, I keep meaning to call her and see what she's doing.

One of my faviroute camps was jamboree on the air. All the scouts in our region would go to this camp in the fall (fall is by far the best time to camp, no bugs, not to cold) and we would talk on HAM, CB radios and most recently the internet to other scouts all over the world. I talked to scouts on every continent. We also talked to the crew of the space shuttle a couple of times. It was really fun. Did any of you guys participate in jamboree on the air?

Posted: 19th Apr 2003
I was never in the Scouts or anything but i was in the Sea Cadet Corps ("ready aye ready").

Alice

Never pick up a duck in a dungeon...