Order of the Arrow
Discussions for OA Members and those interested in Scouting's Honor Society. Also includes a private sub-forum for OA Members only.
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LATEST POSTS
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This solution is an example of why leaders without is not a national issue. Most of the time, the unit will find a solution. Also, intimidation from older is a more common problem. I knew of several troops with the intimidating older scouts. Leaders learn quickly that they better fix it or loose recruits. Barry -
My husband and I lead the Cub Scout pack that both of my boys were in prior to last year, when our oldest took the leap into Scouts BSA. The unit he chose is small and the SM and ASM are both older guys with no kids in the program. The older scouts were not overly welcoming and one of the boys that crossed with mine dropped after a couple of months because he felt bullied. We had a transparent conversation with one of the families from our pack that also picked that troop to cross into. We both revealed that we felt incredibly uncomfortable sending our boys into the woods with these men and older scouts. Because we all four led at the pack level, we already had YPT and what we decided is that one of the four of us will go on every campout until we felt comfortable letting them go solo. We didn't express exactly why we were doing this, but the SM and ASM have been completely fine with it and always check in to see if we're coming. I don't think it should be a policy that people without children in scouts can't go camping, but I do think it should be made obvious to parents that if they want to take YPT and camp with the troop that they are welcome. I don't think it's overprotective to be wary of a group that has had years and years of this type of history. -
Our unit welcomes ALL parents to come to outings AS LEADERS, not parents. If a new parent wants to come, great. You must take YPT, we make clear the scouts camp in one area and we as leaders camp in another. This is not a parent kid campout that the troop happens to be at. If said kid comes over to the adult area for X or Y, one of the leaders will likely speak with them and guide them to their PL or SPL. We take very seriously the Scout areas and the leader areas. Yes we stroll through, usually in groups of 2 or 3 to converse and observe, but they need to work as a group and they are handling and working all activities. The adults main responsibilities are to drive Scouts there, make sure no gross safety violations occur, occasional headcount confirmation with SPL, remind youth leadership what time it may be at points during the day, bandage as needed, BOR as warranted, conflict resolution if needed, judge the cooking contest, show the Scouts how to pack the car / trailer, and drive them home. -
By BetterWithCheddar · Posted
Child safety is a shared concern. My implication is that Millennial mothers drive household decision-making. (Including having final say on their child's participation in Cub Scouts). I always get a chuckle when I hear a story about a well-meaning girl who writes to a detergent company to complain about sexist advertising. She's assuming that women are often featured in detergent commercials because the company believes wives do more laundry than their husbands. While this may be true in some households, the company is featuring women in their ads because women are more likely to BUY THE DETERGENT (or at least choose the brand). Laundry in my household is split 50/50 (my wife would say 60/40), but she's the one who looks forward to the weekly Target run. In any case, I appreciate the dialogue. Rather than risk debating at nauseum, I'll concede my opinion on the matter is in the minority (but please understand it's not unique to me). All else equal, suburban moms would probably prefer that suburban dads are the ones to take their children camping. -
I would really love to know what the incremental cost to council/national is to add another adult. There's the background check - do they repeat that annually? I doubt it. Insurance - Insurance to cover physical harm to the adults makes sense to be per-adult, but if it's to protect against abuse lawsuits, more adults doesn't mean more opportunity for abuse to happen. Training - more adults does mean more training, but it seems like most of the cost of that would be development and that doubling the number of people who access it would be a relatively small increase in cost. Yes, there may be royalty/licensing fees that have to be paid per user, but at the numbers we're talking about, I would hope they've negotiated a low per-user rate. Actually scratch that - the only training required to register is YPT and all parents are already encouraged to create an account and complete that course, so any expenses there are already being covered. In-person training generally has a cost associated with it, at least in my council. Again, we had to pay someone to develop the curriculum, but delivering it to more people is just using our resources well. What other costs need to be covered to justify the registration fee? When my scout was a cub, I envisioned MBCs as being experts in the field who generously agreed to mentor scouts. Covering the fee to get them set up to help us with no benefit to them or their family seemed like the least we could do. But it seems like most MBC are just parents who say "sure - I can read up on that and figure it out." Even if they do really serve as MBC for kids in other troops, it's not clear to me why that merits a free registration but managing the district popcorn or leading the cub breakout session at the monthly district roundtable doesn't. I think we need to get back to a $20ish adult fee and get all the adults registered. Give council a budget for waiving the $20 fee for MBCs they specifically want to recruit. If that relationship goes well, the MBC will likely be agreeable to a FoS gift that will more than cover that.
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