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The David Thuis Blog – Page 283 – Here you can read/hear the ramblings of a pretty boring guy

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Source: www.trails-end.com
    My son is still about $100 shy of his goal, every penny will help. If you don’t need any popcorn, you might consider a military donation and we’ll send some popcorn to some hard working military member’s on your behalf. Please click on “Home Page” to go to my son’s site.    

Five tips for great troop leader elections

“Troop elections are a microcosm of American democracy,” said Scouter J.C. Shepard on Scouting magazine’s Facebook page.

He’s right, and like the election for a state governor or U.S. Senator, proper planning is needed to make troop elections run smoothly and ensure that all candidates have a fair shot.

Many troops will begin their elections in the next month or two for new leaders that will take over in January, so that makes now the ideal time to start thinking about the process.

We asked our Facebook friends to provide some suggestions as to what works and what doesn’t when filling troop leadership positions. Here are five of our favorite responses:

  1. The first rule of troop elections is: Have troop elections! Appointing the senior patrol leader (and/or the patrol leader) is not how it works! (from Jack B.)
  2. Our last senior patrol leader was elected because he promised all the boys who voted for him a new knife. The Scoutmaster was gone that meeting, so the vote stood. He turned out to be so bad that another older Scout had to make all the announcements and run the troop because he wouldn’t. Surprise, surprise. I wish the boys took it more seriously. (from Anna G.)
  3. Our Troop holds its elections every six months. The boys all stand up and make their speeches, then they vote by secret ballots handed over to the Scoutmaster. We don’t restrict the age or rank of any candidate; it’s another learning experience for them if they elect a boy who isn’t mature enough for the position but we haven’t run into any issues yet. It seems to work for them.(from Carol S.)
  4. We have a “contract” that must be signed by each Scout and a parent/guardian when they are elected to a position. If they don’t live up to the requirements, I can remove them from the position (something I’ve yet to have to do). (from Tim H.)
  5. As with everything else in Scouting, keep things simple and trust your Scouts! In my experience, Scouts choose great leaders from amongst their troop without a whole lot of fuss. We have a tradition of having our SPL candidates give a speech to the entire Troop just before they vote. The Scouts vote, the Scoutmaster counts the votes and announces the winner. Simple.Patrol leader elections are even easier; these are taken care of by the SPL and his assistants. We haven’t had any rancor or infighting about this because Scouts understand the basic fairness of the process. (from Clarke G.)

This Last Weekend

imageWow What a weekend!  We traveled some 680 miles and saw a lot of great sites.  Here’s just a little recap if you’re interested.

Friday, 24 September 2010

My son has no school today so he had a sleepover last night.  Not much work there.

3:45 pm – Head out the door enroot to Longmont, CO for my Brother In Laws Birthday Celebration at the Eagle’s Grill. O.K. Food and Cold beer.  Joe Cool was playing, we’ve seen them before and they never disappoint. We stayed a bit longer than expected, but it’s hard to leave when you are having a great time.

Full Gallery here

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Saturday, 25 September 2010

Up way to early, 5:00am, and it’s off the Guernsey, WY. for a visit with Troop 199, Colorado Springs to work on the Longs Peak Council’s Old West Trails Award on the Oregon Trail Ruts.  We took a short hike, which left me wanting a bit more, but it was still pretty interesting.

Full Gallery Here

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Second stop of the day was just a few miles up the road to the Register Cliff.  I was really looking forward to this stop.  I can’t tell you how many times I was just up the road training with the Air Force at Camp Guernsey or patrolling around the “old” F.E. Warren Missile Complex and never made it to this site.I was a bit disappointed that so many recent visitors had decided to scroll their name into the rock next to and on top of the old signatures, but it was still interesting none the less.

Full Gallery Here

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Last planned stop was another 12 miles or so to the Ft Laramie Historic Site.  This was my favorite stop of the day.  Not only because it Public Lands Day and the admission was free to the park, but as someone who live at F.E. Warren AFB (Formally Fort D.A. Russell)  for seven years you could really picture how parts of the base had changed very little since the beginning.

Full Gallery Here

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After we finished at Ft Laramie, my son wanted to see some missile silos, so I decided to take the “scenic” ride home and rather than go North-West on US Route 26 to I-25, we headed South-East.  A short stop in Lingle, WY for cold drinks and a half a tank of gas, we then headed into Torrington, WY., where we began heading South on U.S. Route 85 towards Cheyenne, and into the missile fields of F.E. Warren. 

NOTE: I wasn’t aware that between 2002 and 2005 the AF had decommissioned all the Peacekeeper missiles and all the sites we were looking at were “mothballed”, otherwise I would have stopped and took a few pictures.  But at the time I thought they were still active and I didn’t really want to answer any question from AF Security forces so all the viewing was done from the road.

The first site we saw “well” was Sierra-2, right outside of Torrington, and my son couldn’t have been happier.  We drove for awhile and we didn’t see many more sites (not a lot on that stretch of 85), my son started asking about getting some Chugwater Chili.  My original plan of stopping in Chugwater , WY had been scrapped for this new route home, but I can’t say no to my son, so even though it added 20 minutes to our drive we diverted West onto Wyoming Highway 313 (which is in pretty bad shape).  We went past sites Sierra-7, (this was my first indication that maybe the missiles had been decommissioned as the weeds were pretty overgrown, turns out this was the first site “closed “ in 2002) Romeo-2, (site sign missing) and even past the Master Alert Facility R-1 (no vehicles, no U.S. flag flying (another indication this area might be “closed”)). 

After a short stop in Chugwater, WY for some delicious Chugwater Chili from Horton’s Corner we headed South on I-25 to F.E. Warren where we got some more cold drinks, topped off the tank with gas.  We then headed home, where we were met by my mother–in-law and father-in-law, who decided to make a last minute trip to visit us and join us in out planned Sunday activities.

Sunday, 26 September 2010

Since we moved to Colorado Springs in 2003 we’ve made an annual trip to Pueblo, CO for the annual Chile & Frijoles Festival, and even though this weekend was packed full of activities we weren’t going to let that stop our “new” family tradition.  So it was up early on Sunday, and off to the festival we went.  Joined this year with my Mother-in-Law and Father-in-Law in tow and later with our friends the Waller’s with a couple of their friends from Pueblo made this year one of the best we’ve attended.

Full Gallery Here

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