Leaderboard

B-P and Hillcourt understood that turning a collection of youth into a working patrol required the members to spend time working, playing, and living with their fellow patrol members -- with minimal distractions, support, or interference from outside their budding team. It's hard for a patrol to develop teamwork when the members are continually mingling with members of other patrols and adults are standing over their shoulders telling them what to do. Physical distance from others, especially when engaged in challenging tasks, is a great way for patrol members to build reliance on each other

That's pretty good (impressive actually), but that puts a lot of responsibility on program planning at the troop level. Which might be fine, but because the Patrol Leaders won't be dragged along by the program at weekly Troop meetings, the program agendas will have to be more detailed and specific so they can follow the expectations. I don't think this is a bad thing, my troop was sort of this way when I was a scout. But, I remember that our PLs were very very mature (they all had drivers licenses), and we had good adult resources. Eight to ten scouts require more room that many homes ca

I absolutely agree. From what I see, patrols are meaningless to most of the "troop" meeting. Until a different structure would happen, I agree with your comment. Focus on what is important to patrols. From my perspective, it's always the camping. Food. Activities. Ideas. Future camp / activity planning. Maybe it's also planning to be the service patrol (flags, setup, etc) or the program patrol (adding games and content). IMHO, it needs to always include felllowship time.

There were definitely some things that I would have preferred to show the world instead of big zips: Taking a cue from the WSJ in Sweden: Each subcamp and the fields around the main stage stacked with spars and rope for pioneering. (Our campsites were given split 8' 2x4's -- a total of eight pieces of cut lumber.) The orienteering map as the base map for scouts instead of the minimally detailed map that we were given. Main stage recognition of scouts who "aced" activities each day. (E.g., fastest time on course, best scout spirit at activity x, etc ..) There was plenty of tim

There are some councils that have taken an adversarial approach to the BSA in their area since the announcement of the BSA admitting girls into the Cub Scouts and Scouts BSA programs. There have been many examples of directives given by some (not all) Girl Scout councils around the country as to what their troops can/can't do with respect to BSA membership and activities. One of those that was making the rounds during cookie booth season earlier this year was that there councils who had put out notice to their troops that they should "report", supposedly to the service unit director, or s

I can see the Leadership Corp coming back because this program requires mature scouts working the top level of program. They will have a closer working relationship with the adults as they grow with the experience. These are the kind of programs that keep the older scout because the program structure has continued maturity challenges that attract young adults looking for experiences to develop themselves. I like it. Barry

Let me suggest the following, which could apply whether you're doing separate patrol meetings or just breaking down the troop's work into patrol-size pieces: TROOP TYPICAL MONTHLY CYCLE: Week 1 – Patrol gatherings Patrol Leaders Council Week 2 – Patrol gatherings Week 3 – Patrol gatherings Monthly Outing Week 4 – Troop meeting - Review of the Monthly Outing just held - Preview of the next Monthly Outing and other upcoming troop activities - Inter-patrol competitions Patrol Leaders Council meeting PATROL TYPICAL MONTHLY CYCLE: Week 1 - OPENING (assigned to a pa

Another idea would be to focus the Scouts first on what they need to accomplish. As an adult team, gently steer what needs to get done into patrol sized pieces. I'd focus less on than trying to figure out how to structure patrols or meetings to support patrols. Instead I'd think about the work the troop needs to get done and structure that work so that patrols can work on it. Then, focus everything you do to enable that. I suspect what you'll find is that the patrols will have more purpose. There will be a need to work together. That need to accomplish things as a group will d

In implementing this suggestion, it would be important that the adults who will be present at patrol gatherings (per current YPT/adult supervision rules) will enable a youth-run patrol. It is interesting that Cub Scout dens and packs are well-structured for supporting the Patrol Method but don't use it (until maybe Webelos/Arrow of Light), while troop structures and habits, as @fred8033 mentions, are not well-suited for supporting the Patrol Method. BSA's Troop Meeting Agenda webpages (https://troopleader.scouting.org/troop-meetings/ and linked pages) illustrate "Troop Method": Skill in

You must be thinking about the wholesale price...retail would be much higher

To be clear, Summit is not actually owned by the BSA, it is technically owned by the various bondholders and lenders. It will be years and years and years before BSA will in fact "own" Summit Bechtel Reserve. There are bond balloon payments well north of $100 million (though these will no doubt be refinanced) that come due in or about 2022. Sure it may be a nice facility, but the challenge is that the Summit is sucking up a lot of money from BSA operations. Question needs to be asked, is it worth it?

I don't think so. I can't see why any financially struggling scout or scout unit should feel a sense of pride in BSA's ownership of the Summit, or of any other ultra expensive facility that the average person could never afford to use. I'm glad that you enjoyed the trip, but you should not expect "all in the BSA" to share in your enthusiasm for the Summit.

I actually think that is a real suggestion. It mimics Cub Scouts, but if you minimize adults and the patrols keep meeting, then I could see it working and working well. I really think patrols are subverted by troop structures and habits.

The Summit is designed for a National Jamboree of a maximum 36,000 participants, not counting staff, in the 5 participant base camps. There is a document on the Summit's website that breaks it down: 40 participants to a unit, 12 units to a neighborhood, 3 neighborhoods per subcamp, 5 subcamps per base camp, 5 participant base camps, equals 36,000. The BSA has yet to announce an official attendance for the 2017 NSJ (at least I haven't seen any official announcement), but our camp commissioner at that NSJ told us she was told in her commissioner meetings that there were around 26,000 partic

I think I found the U.K. scouts. http://www.espn.com/video/clip/_/id/27322466

A lot of the foreign contingents that I met were flying out of DC, after touring it for a day or two. Also let's be clear: There was no lack of food. There was lack of food choices thanks to SMs who encouraged/required their scouts to max out on points even if they weren't ever going to eat them. There were "keepsakes" for sale Friday. They might not have been the ones scouts wanted. But they were at every trading post that I passed. I myself grabbed a hammock that was marked down to a reasonable price. Moreover, there was that participant patch and necker. I can't imag

I'm not sure anything can be done for that. Think about it. The only place 50,000 people meet is in the center of a big city with the infrastructure to handle it. That many people at a stadium in a big city with several million inhabitants is no big deal. Place those people in the middle of nowhere and there's a big challenge to move all of them. There are 15 flights a day out of Yeager airport in Charleston (an hour away). Just for fun, let's say there are 200 seats on each flight. That's 3000 people a day. And some of them are the locals that usually use the airport. That airport is set

Would they have honored a request to not distribute birth control devices to our scouts. I doubt it.

I spent last week at Sea Base doing the outisland excursion. This is a week long trip and 5 of those days are on Munson Island (30 miles from Key West). Here are my notes and observations in case someone is looking for more info. - Be prepared they will test you on swimming ability - They didnt seem to be concerned with BMI based on some of the rather large men that were on the island. - The war canoe holds 9 people with the mate riding on the back of the canoe steering. - The canoe paddle is 6 miles and is much easier with 16 year olds vs 13year olds. It tooks us about 2 h

2012: nine Michigan councils consolidated into the Michigan Crossroad Council. The move was sold as a cost saver that will improve scouting by streamlining operations. The land sales quickly followed the consolidation and some local Scouts say it appeared to be a land grab. In the last five years alone, the Michigan Crossroads Council of Boy Scouts, which oversees scouting in Lower Michigan, has netted more than $5 million by selling five camps covering more than 2,000 acres. That figure could more than double if planned sales go through. Camp Tapico near Kalkaska, Camp Holaka in La

Thank you for saying this. I know a lot of unit leaders were saying the same thing. The Scoutmaster of our council's contingent told me exactly the same thing. For this WSJ, the point values for the food items was essentially the same as it was at the 2017 NSJ, but the amount of points a unit had to buy food with was more than 50% higher this year than it was two years ago (3,333 points vs. 2,017 points). Troops were maxing out their points each day even if they didn't eat all that food. This was evident on the last day when the returns tent had tons of food returned. So much for a lack of foo