Re: NO. NO. No.
(no name) ((no email))
Wed, 9 Dec 1998 21:04:36 -0600
Tom Petrik wrote:
>THERE IS NO LONGER ANY SUCH THING. Let's get the program in gear
>and bring it up to date, the Leadership Corps was a poor idea and
>died its death a long time ago, don't continue it's legacy.
I disagree with you that the Leadership Corps was a poor idea. It
was a SUPER idea; it was the IMPLEMENTATION BY UNIT LEADERS that
made it bad and continue to make it bad.
The Leadership Corps was originally designed to be a TEMPORARY
organization, Tom. It wasn't designed to be anything permanent.
The Leadership Corps was supposed to be an older-boy "grouping"
whereby advanced leadership skills would be taught, developed and
those members given opportunities IN AND OUTSIDE THE TROOP to use
it.
No more than one-quarter of the Troop's membership was supposed to
be in the Leadership Corps. This means in a Troop of 40, no more
than 10 boys would be in the Leadership Corps at any one time.
Everyone however associated "Leadership Corps" with "Green Bar
Patrol" (the old "Green Bar Bill Patrol" concept was taking all of
the boys wearing green bars (the emblem for our Patrol Leaders,
Assistant Patrol Leaders, Assistant Senior Patrol Leader and Senior
Patrol Leader) and taking them out for additional outdoor
experiences and as "demostrators" for the Troop) and we ended up
with "super patrols" called "Leadership Corps", "Leadership
Patrol", and other silly names. The membership stayed intact over
the years, and younger boys that would be qualified for membership
in the Leadership Corps sometimes got choked out by the older boys
that wanted it to be "their domain and only their domain".
See, at the same time the BSA created the Leadership Corps, they
also abandoned the Senior Scout idea (don't know why; nobody has
been able to tell me why). Senior Scouts were Scouts 14 years of
age and older. They got to wear a special strip immediately above
the "Boy Scouts of America" strip and were entitled to participate
in special experiences like Explorers would in a Post or Ship.
The failure: Okay, we can put some of the blame on the BSA itself
for failing to come up with developmental programs for Leadership
Corps members. They relied on its local Councils (and many did!!)
to come up with their own innovative programs for LC members. But
most Councils just did the JLT thing and invited LC members to
attend that.
But MOST of the blame (70/30) can be DIRECTLY attributed, Tom, to
those Scoutmasters that DID NOT READ THE MATERIALS FROM NATIONAL
that explained what the Leadership Corps IS and what it IS NOT.
They didn't read it, and the BSA made it extremely clear that the
Leadership Corps wasn't a place to "dump the Troop's leadership".
It was a place to allow those future leaders of your Troop "ferment
and grow".
So, it wasn't a bad program. Just misguided by those Scouters. In
the SAME ways, the BSA didn't pay attention to their LC problems
with the current Venture Patrol problem. Troops are writing to
National (and here!) asking for ideas on what Venture Patrol
members can do other than just "camping at some wild place"
(wherever that is nowadays).
If we don't do a better job of *explaining the program*, I fear the
Venture Patrol program going the way of the Leadership Corps: cool
patch, good idea but terrible implementation!
Settummanque!
(c) 1998 Mike Walton ("no such thing as strong coffee,...") blkeagle@mninter.net
http://mninter.net/~blkeagle Burnsville, MN 55306-7130 (612) 435-3085
privately at kyblkeagle@aol.com or waltonm@server.kaiserslautern.army.mil
---- FORWARD in service to youth ----
