You are so right. Those kids didn't belong out in the superstions with the weather forcast we had. Also what about a gear shake down. There were kids there without jackets or changes of clothes.

Yep.

I was looking on the Survival and Outdoor Safety site and noticed THIS. I had never thought about making a handle for a Metal Match out of fatwood(or pitchwood, as he calls it)!!!
Nice Idea!!
Does anyone know if there is any difference between fatwood and pitchwood???

>>Being a new assistant Scoutmaster I kept my mouth shut, at least for the first outing, <<

I know the cross over can be harder on the new volunteer parent than it is on the boys. AFter all, their role in the new troop is spelled out and they get lots of guidence on what they should be doing. Not so for most troops when it comes to the parents. They are often left on the fringe to figure it out themselves.

I would encourage you to step up and let the scoutmaster know you have some particular skill, such as survival, and that you'd like to integrate that knowledge and skill into the program. Most Scoutmasters would welcome such offers with open arms. (or at least they should.)

I would encourage you to step up and let the scoutmaster know you have some particular skill, such as survival, and that you'd like to integrate that knowledge and skill into the program. Most Scoutmasters would welcome such offers with open arms. (or at least they should.)

One thing we do when we have new adults "cross over" with their boys is we have them do a skills inventory kind of questionaire. It's a way to see if parents have any particular skills/interests that might help add depth to the troop. There might be merit badge counselor opportunities, future scoutmasters out there, who knows. The parents are usually happy that we even ask, and many of them do want to help, they just don't know how. We encourage them to get as much BSA training as they can handle, our council is now running all training for free, to encourage it.

Sounds like the adults on the Scout trip that needed rescue, that was mentioned in an earlier post, might have benefitted from some of the readily available BSA courses like Outdoor Leadership Skills and Trek Safely, to mention a couple.

Being a former scout and scout leader myself I can say that most younger/new scouts would run into the woods naked if they could. It's hard to get them to even carry water, never mind anything else. Most of them are used to handing something off to their parents to carry and going off to have fun. It's tough to get them to remember to take their supplies with them. We started by giving them a whistle and a little knock-off photon light on a chain and we would do random checks to make sure they have it at meetings and on trips. In the first meetings we would go over what to do if lost in the woods and the proper way to use the whistle. Later on you can move to things like water bottles, small first aid/survival kits, ect. Each meeting you cover something new, like going over why proper hydration is important and work on first aid skills for dehydration. After that all the kids need to have their whistle/photon and water bottle on trips. Eventually they get it down, but you need to keep at it with them. Lots of practice.

Now, when I started teaching my younger brother how to do wilderness survival I bought him one of those small hydration back packs, the ones made for bicycling. I made up a small survival/first aid kit in a ziplock bag and stuck that in there. I would then take him out on a short hike in the woods by our house with a stop to work on skills. Worked great since it was light enough for him to carry easily, kept at least the bare minimum of gear within reach, and since his water was connected to his pack he would never forget his kit if he remembered to take his water (which I would remind him about, and I we got into the habit of both filling our camelbaks at the same time before we left)