Troop Elections

Since it's troop elections night, here's the showing of viable candidates.

Today were the annual troop elections where the boys elect the Senior Patrol Leader, that would be the top lad for the uninitiated. The Senior Patrol Leader then selects his own Assistant. After that the boys split up into their smaller groups for their patrol elections. We have 3 patrols, the Spartans, Wolves and Dragons. Ian was elected the patrol leader for the Dragon Patrol. I was pretty proud of him, but not able to say much for fear of causing Teen Angst.

It's fascinating, for me, to watch the boys as they vie for the coveted top position. Of the 21 boys we had there tonight, 6 were nominated for the top spot. Then we had a town hall meeting style of debate where each candidate was asked the same set of questions. The boys were really quite amusing. They laid out their platforms based on fun, service projects, fun, better campouts and, did I mention fun? You could always see how a block was voting based on how much attention they would give someone. We have simple rules, vote for one of the 6, you need a solid majority, meaning 11 votes, to lock in the position. 21 votes cast and we narrowed it down to two candidates. Now it's really simple, 21 votes possible, you need 11 to win. Here's where Florida came in, one guy gets 10, the other 9, 2 were thrown away because of official election protocol violations, well, actually they voted for Obama and Obama was not active within the troop enough to qualify. Re vote and one of the boys was selected as the clear winner. His first act was to select his Assistant, it has been found that having them select their own second helps with leadership unity. Best of all, he chose the other contestant from the run off election.

Finally, on to home news. Our landscaping is nearly complete and with completion comes the issue of maintenance. I'm pretty sure I agreed to the sickness and health part of the vows, as for weeding, well, I just don't recall. With a backyard getting pretty, some degenerates are moving in, such as the woodchuck shown below. (Please note, these are not actual photos of our woodchuck, rather they are images that I snagged off the Internet that represent our woodchuck.) Holly first told me about this guy, let's call him Phil, about 4 weeks ago. I suspected that there was some level of make believe and so I was less than supportive. Turns out that she was right and that Phil was digging around in the backyard. I was less than amused and swayed by the cute factor and so, Sunday I sat out with my weapon of choice, a Red Rider Model from Daisy. I nearly got the varmint, but he scampered before I could properly draw a bead on him. I know I only have a little time till he goes down for the winter, but I am hopeful! (actually, I also realize that I will only scare him or make him mad with my little BB gun. But I gotta try.) I'll keep you posted.

Have a great day!

Pat