So… Just how can these two items be combined for DO cooking? Besides a storage compartment for your briquettes, chimney, and other accessories.
I made a wonderful discovery today that is going to make using my DO here at the house a lot more convenient. If you don’t have a DO table, or a stand, this will work well in either of their places.
I discovered that the lid of a 33 gallon aluminum garbage can fits well in place of the cooking grate on a 22.5″ Weber kettle grill. Now, even though I started off using the lid in place of the grate, since it wasn’t a 100% perfect fit, I opted to instead leave the cooking grate in place and place 6 small 2″x4″ blocks around the perimeter of the cooking grate and then place the garbage lid on top of it.
With that, I can then just flip over the garbage can and use it to keep my coals going for replacements as cooking goes on.
Of course… I could have just used my new backyard fire pit. :-)
Who would have thought, 2 simple little fuzzy dice would have such an impact?
Several months back on the Cub Scout Talk list on YahooGroups the topic came up about the scout law and how to teach Webelos scouts that element of the Arrow of Light. I jumped in to the conversation and shared a technique that I used that involved a pair of fuzzy dice.
Well, apparently a writer for Scouting magazine was also following the thread and he asked me if I would agree to an interview by email explaining my fuzzy dice method. That idea ultimately got published and I in turn shared that fact with my scouter friends on Google+.
A while later, another fellow scouter from Ohio sees the idea and wishes to take it a step further and have the boys create their own wooden dice to help knock out their handyman activity badge — using a hand saw, screw driver, and power drill.
His scouts apparently ate it up! They loved the idea and one of his scouts took it again another step further and recommended the he and his fellow scouts should roll the die each day and depending on which element of the scout law the die rested upon, that they should consciously do that element all day long.
Wow… so cool. A simple idea of taking a pair of fuzzy dice to assist boys in learning the Scout Law for their Arrow of Light has turned in to a fun little tool that boys are certainly “getting.”
It is little things like this that make scouting so much fun for me. I relish the thought that a little idea can be built upon and become a fun teaching aid for boys. THIS is the sort of stuff that keeps me going — and I’m sure there are others out there who feel the same.
I’ve been meaning to post about this training for a while now, but just now finally getting around to it.
A couple of weeks ago our outgoing Cubmaster and I put on our first BALOO training. I have been wanting to do more training and finally discovered that if I want to do training, then just do it — all I need are students! Well, with an upcoming Pack Family Campout coming, I was able to locate a few potential students.
We put on the training at one of our den leader’s homes. He had a great location for us to actually do all of the training outdoors, and with the weather cooperating, we took great advantage of this!
We followed the curriculum and kicked off the day with a outdoor flag ceremony and then proceeded to the car port where we settled in to do the first couple of sessions projecting our slide deck up on to a polka-dotted bed sheet pinned to the wall — it made the perfect screen.
We tried to incorporate as much “doing” as we possibly could to the point of after going over the scout gear (tents, sleeping bags, mess kits, etc.) I had the guys (who were already split up in to dens) participate in a tent erecting race. It was fun and it ultimately turned in to a nice chat about different types of gear.
The variation I made was instead of them doing foil packet dinners for their lunch, we did some dutch oven cooking. Again, split in to dens, I had one focus on the preparation of a lasagna and the other den on a chicken noodle soup. I have to say, both dishes turned out wonderfully and the guys loved it.
After lunch we dove in to the campfire program and actually had a camp fire. Our CM handled this session and incorporated songs and such and gave the guys numerous ideas of putting on a camp fire program.
In all, it was a great day of training. I was able to get some great feedback from the students and have already begun to make course corrections for the next time I teach this subject — I can’t wait to do it again.
Below is a short slideshow of the students participating in different sessions of the training and below that is a copy of the slide deck I prepared for the training.
Another note… The one major feedback item I received was that they would have preferred to have the slide deck printed out so they could take notes on the pages to tie a visual image to the presentation and their notes. They also found the Appendix method used in this course to be very confusing. The next time I do this I’m going to re-work those appendixes and try to make it all a little more fluid.
All the scouts are now settled in for the night. Eager to see what tomorrow brings as we’ve been itching to get out camping for a couple of months now. This weekend provided the perfect opportunity to break in our new Alps sleeping bags.
I’ve been wanting to do this for a while now, so with the downtime today, it provided the perfect opportunity.
During our Pinewood Derby in JanuaryI had created a manual version of Pinewood Derby Trivia cards that I used to quiz the scouts in between heats.
I wanted to create something that was more durable and usable at future Pinewood Derby events.
These cards were created in MS-Word using the mail merge function having selected Avery 27871 Business Cards as the template. One should be able to pick up those business cards and print directly to them. I didn’t do so, I printed directly to paper and then manually cut them out. Because of this, I chose also to marry them up with our Pack Business cards so that they were not see thru and provided a little more stability.
I’m looking forward to the end of April as I will be putting on BALOO training for 6-8 scouters from our Pack.
I’ve been asked by the District Training Chair if I would be willing to open it up to other Packs, and I REALLY want to, however, I’m fearful to bite off more than I can chew. I’ve opted to use my Pack as guinea pigs and go from there. I did extend an offer to the District Training Chair to assist the District or any other Pack with putting on another BALOO training event. But this one is just the beginning.
Just a few weeks away and I’ve agreed to teach any of the three Merit Badges that I’m a counselor for. So… time to get prepped.
This past weekend while attending the Chief Seattle Council’s Program and Training Conference (PTC), I sat in on the Merit Badge Counselor session. The Scouter doing that session was a Scoutmaster from a troop over on the peninsula. I found it interesting… he stated that he is lucky enough to have like 10 ASMs and he insists that each ASM also sign up to be MB Counselors for all 16 of the Eagle-required MBs. I thought that was a pretty nifty idea.
It was a really enjoyable day and one that I look forward to doing again next year. I really questioned the idea of doing two sessions and in all honesty, I believe my second session did suffer. If I do it again next year, AND choose to do the same sessions, I will bolster both sessions considerably.
For anyone interested… feel free to download and take anything that you can use for your own training sessions.
This one should be easy… Get the yard signs available from your district. I’ve found the best way to get a neat appearance for unit info is to use a stencil and spray paint. Although, I have heard of others printing out their info on paper and then using packing tape to apply it to the yard sign. And of course, there’s always the black magic marker technique. I opted for the stencil and spray paint method so as to make it as durable as possible. It’s a much slower process, but I was more pleased with my results.
So now, we need to ensure that our pin info is up to date. We do this by going to myscouting.org, logging in and then selecting BeAScout under the Unit Tools section. Here you can set your unit’s web site info, a brief description of your unit, and primary and secondary contacts.
If you don’t set this info, potential families looking for a unit are sent to the council to get the info they are seeking. While this isn’t all bad, if you can get the info they are seeking to them quicker, with fewer “middle-men,” the chances are greater that they may actually make contact.
A key point is that with minimal information on the yard sign, we are requiring the potential scout and his family to remember only the URL at the bottom of the yard sign (beascout.org) and the Pack number that we placed on it. If they remember just those two pieces of info we should be good.
If you want to have a look at the specifics of what I’m referring to, you can have a look at our unit by going to beascout.org, selecting the Cub Scouts tab, and then put in 98011 for the zip code. Our unit should be the first one presented in the list since we are closest to the city seat.
So… with a sign obtained from your council or district, some stencils and spray paint, and the updating of some unit information via the unit tools on myscouting.org, you’ve now covered yet another base on potential recruitment opportunities.
Very nice… Earlier this week I posted an entry on using Business Cards as a recruitment tool. Well, in that line of thought, BSA announced earlier today the availability of these Peer-to-peer recruitment cards that you can print yourself. They are simply a PDF that you can fill out with meeting details, and then either print out on a color printer on heavy weighted paper or perhaps utilize the Avery Business Cards #5881 providing catchy little cards that boys can hand out to their friends.
