Re: Credit for leadership positions
Jonathan Dixon (dixonj@ROCOCO.COLORADO.EDU)
Fri, 6 Jun 1997 15:48:26 -0600
My fellow Owl Joseph Alessi wrote:
> I believe that the boys
> should decide when and if a youth leader needs to be replaced. Learning to
> pay attention to who you elect and appoint is important. Living with and
> handling an SPL who doesn't do the job is a good learning experience for
> the boys.
No problem with that. As far as I've seen, that is consistent with the
BSA guidelines, so long as the policy is set forth and is consistent. I
think if the boys are doing the removal there needs to be some safeguard
put in place to protect the leaders when they must make an unpopular
decision.
> Also, a youth could never do the job and still end up meeting the rank
> advancement requirements. For example, he could be elected PL. Serves 2
> months. Doesn't do the job, so SM removes him. Gets appointed Scribe.
> Serves 2 months. Doesn't do the job, so SM removes him. Gets elected PL
> again. Guess what? He now has 6 months in a leadership position.
But has he been trustworthy? I would say that this pattern of behavior
is indicative of a lack of scout spirit, and would probably decline
advancement on that basis. Especially since in most cases there are
other behaviors which will be coupled with these failures which will
also not meet reasonable standards for scout spirit.
> I would rather have the PLC set down criteria for each position, subject to
> the approval of the SM. At the end of a person's term, the scout should
> evaluate himself against the criteria, and sit down with the PLC to
> determine if he met the criteria. If so, he gets credit.
However, here again the criteria are being applied after the fact, when
the term is completed. At that point there is nothing that can be done
to correct the problem. I like having the PLC determine the criteria,
but I would prefer that they deal with failures to follow the criteria
immediately rather than 6 months down the line. Then the problem can
either be fixed or a new person can be found to do the job and those
responsibilities will be met.
I do have to admit, we had a scout who didn't do even the simple things
he was asked to over the past year. Since we didn't have any set policy
to handle this, and since I didn't want to rock the boat too much my
first year of being SM, I let it slide (which meant that many of those
still haven't gotten done). Technically, if he came up for advancement
now, I would have to sign off on the leadership part. However, we would
certainly talk long and hard about what scout spirit is. Fortunately,
he has a while before he is ready to advance, so there is time for him
to work at other positions. Hopefully he'll sort out a few other things
in that time as well.
Jon
--
Jon Dixon
dixonj@colorado.edu
http://spot.colorado.edu/~dixonj/
Terry Howerton Sakima Group, Inc. SCOUTER Magazine Kansas City | 
