Eagledad

Sounds like a very fun trek, my favorite trek was with our most experienced backpackers. They liked going fast to challenge themselves. We followed another Troop of very experienced backpackers that sang songs and wore Full Class A Uniforms during the whole trek. They even impressed my very seasoned guys. How did you get by the "No Hammocks" policy? Barry

The reason Stosh is because a lot of priorities can change over two year time for both busy adults and teen boys growing into men. I hate planning that far ahead just for that reason. Like resqman, we also learned to require a non refundable down payment to help the participants through their buyers remorse periods. Some treks have more scouts than slots like Boundary Waters, so we want first dibs to the more committed scouts. I also liked teaching scouts a real life responsibility of accountibility. I agree that scouts should be responsible for planning; my last SPL before I retired as SM planned 100% of a week long backpacking trek in Montana. That was always his dream and the crew had a great time. The adults did absolutly nothing except drive and hike. He was special, but all our adventure treks require a scout to initiate the trek and find a crew (adventure patrol) which includes two adults before presenting their plan to the committee. If the committee thinks it a reasonable plan (they always have), then that scout is responsibile for the trip happening. He doesn't have to do all the work, but he does have to delegate responsibilities. And that youth can be any age. We once had a 12 year old learning handicapped scout plan a weekend of visiting amusement parks to ride roller coasters. His dream was to become a Roller Coaster Engineer. His parents were very proud, but that took some doing because of his handicap. We had another 12 year old plan a biking trek. Besides learnring the basic skills of planning, the thing about scouts doing the planning is that young scouts learn by watching the older scouts that they can do whatever they dream. Our troop averages about four adventure treks a yearof various activities from snow skiing to scuba in Mexico. My goal as a scout leader was to create an enviroment where a boy could live out his wildest dreams. I know of no other youth organization that does that like a Scouting Troop. Barry

Running a successful unit is hard enough without going to a crummy camp. If the council camp has a good program we will consider it, but like Kahuma, we enjoy getting out of the Oklahoma 100 degree plus weather and head up into the mountains of New Mexico or Colorado. What can motivate a council more to improve their camp program than loosing business to better competition. Barry

Backpacking chair. I hate sitting on wet muddy ground and the chair also has enough support to lean back.

What I'm saying is you are basing your rant from a vivid imagination. Sure, if it were your troop, the OPs plan would likely be destructive. But you really don't know. If you want the discussion to go that directions, (and I think it is a good discussion) then lead into it without implying or attacking the OP. Barry

Well there is no reaction like an over reaction. You don't know enough to whether this trek will damage a troop program. This troop could have 150 scouts in it with only 6 scouts interested in the trek. Learn the art of asking questions so you can make an informed opinion. Barry

Well maybe, but how do they know if they have never done it before. That is what forums are for. That is why he asked. Boy Run is an aquired taste, very few adults do it right their first time. Barry

I've seen it snow in June. Worse, I've seen thunderstorms with hail, which really lowers the temperature. I'm not sure about the EN tested, but we would be recommending 20 degree bags for a June trek. 65L to 70L is the average pack size our scouts use, some externals might be a little smaller. But crew gear and food take up a lot of room on the Philmont treks. Equipment has improved a lot over the years, but 10 years ago we tried to arrive at Philmont with a maximum weight of 24lbs before crew gear and food. I think it should be less with todays gear. Barry

Two training trips a month for nine months? And why the 14 age limit? Two weekend trips with a couple of one day hikes is plenty for everyone to learn their gear and their physical limitations. Our troop is a adventure troop for all scouts, we only limit scouts by age when required at BSA camp like Philmont. We don't even use the BSA camps in the Northern Tier so we can take youngers scouts. A scout should be limited by skills and physical/mental maturity, not age or rank. We provide twice the training weekends required incase someone can't make a training trip. We do a progressive payment plan withe a deposit at the beginning to get commitment at the beginning. On average we experience about a 40 % drop out rate for various reasons on long range planned trips, so we also sign up alternates who pay and train with the crew. We have never left an alternet home. I do encourage fitness training at home, especially the adults. We have found that fitness training is hard to enforce. But most boys are pretty fit and can do OK if they did ok on training hikes. Adults on the other hand need to do some fitness training. I would also suggest you plan the first day to be a 5 mile trip, it allows the body to adapt to the gear. I think 5 days is a perfect for a trip like this. If you are thing 50 mile award, add a couple longer days. Be careful not to take the fun out of it.

I want the scouts to have an experience that motivates them to learn. I would not interrupt, but I might ask him later about the situation to hear what he learned. There are many answers depending on the history of the two scouts. I would also ask the SM his opinion. Barry

When someone jumps up and says let their sons pick the troop, I like to tell about the crossover ceremony where I asked the Webelos why they chose to join this particular troop. They said it had the best game of the troops they visited. None of them were in scouts a year later. Sadly the forum isn't what it used to be because this question always brought out some good advise for parents needing reasonable answers. Many posters now seem more expressive of personal prejudice like 300 ft, and no wood badge adults instead of looking at who runs meetings, asking the SM his goals for the scouts and what they think is boy run. While many on this forum kind of know what 300 seperation rule really represents, nobody outside the forum does and they will think of you a clueless geek for asking. Truth is many here on the forum these days are a bit extreme in their opinions, so they don't help much in real life situations. KDD, may I suggest learning from forum contributors who give more grounded advise that is closer to your local programs like MattR and Eagle92. Scouters in the real world don't know what 300 ft means and it's ok to work as a team with your son to help him find a good troop. Let your son hang with a patrol For a meeting while you pepper the SM with questions of program. Then compare notes and see where that goes. I remember one mom who brought her son four times before choosing our troop. It took her that long to see why our program worked for her son. So there is no huge hurry. Barry

What I meant was tune up hikes are the place to learn trail etiquette and each members physical abilities. You should have been torward the front of the crew on the first day because they already knew you were a slower hiker.

I agree with everything you say because I've experienced it. If we provide adventure, they will come. But National has the problem of keeping a product interesting and that has become more challenging. Nobody saw it then, but bringing women into the program changed the general image of boy scouting for the majority of adult volunteers joining the program. I think close to 70 percent of volunteers today didn't have a scouting experience as a youth. That is a big problem because it is fair to say that likely the majority of adult volunteers never camped more that 2 days in their life before they joined the BSA. The new Wood Badge program introduced in 2000 is direct result of National trying to deal with that kind of adult leader. To get to the program many here keep harping that would bring back more scouts, National ironically would have to consider loosing at least 50% of membership. That is certainly a huge guess on my part, but I think reasonable considering the number of inexperienced scouters that enter the program. I am considered a Boy Run extremist in my council and was always preaching boy run to units. But it wasn't until I was the District Membership Chairman that I humbly learned that even boys in adult run programs had fun and grew a lot in the Fitness, Citizenship and Character as a result of their troop experience. So the question is do we want to provide a top shelf program to less than 50% of boys served today, or is what we provide today enough? I don't have the answer, I was a boy run extremist. I ran a 300 feet apart style program and we where very active outdoors. But I do respect the situation. Barry

This is what tune-up hikes are for. Barry

We averaged 10 per patrol and 7 per patrol at scouting activities. It wasn't a problem in our troop, it was part of the program. The expectation on our scouts to their patrol is loyalty, not attendence. The expectations on the PLC attendence are high for obvious reasons, but we found the scouts planning their leadership ambition around their schedule. Football players and band members didn't take on a high leadersip positions until Spring. One of my best SPLs planned his schedule around his swimming schedule. Barry

Through the years I learned that scouts are surprisingly resilient and can handle most physical stress really well, so I got to where I didn't worry much about them, even with crappy equipment. Adults on the other hand don't bounce back well from physical stress and need to be in shape before the trek if they want to enjoy it. My son was also a small scout and did a lot of backpacking at around 95 lbs. He carried about the same weight as the other scouts and never once complained. I am not recommending that, I didn't know because I wasn't on most of his treks. But the one 10 day trek we did together, the sole of his boot came completely off the leather the second day on the trail, so he used duct tape for about 70 miles of the trip and never complained. As I said, I just quit worrying about boys physically. Barry

We backpack in most of our gear every campout and do a serious backpack weekend two or three times a year, so we find the scouts don't really need tune-up hikes other than for getting use to a new crew. The adults on the other hand tend to need the hike to get waken up to the physical and mental stress of a longer distance hike has on their older bodies. It reminds them to what a week on the trail will feel like. They tend to get a lot more serious about their equipment after tune-up hikes. I used the hikes to guide the adults as to how boy run works so that they don't try to take over the crew. I don't know why adults feel they must have majority control of the crews. It's never a problem on the patrol hikes, but high adventure crews really struggle with it. Strangely, Boundary Waters is the worst problem with new adults because they just don't see how canoeing all day can be all the strenuous. What's a rod anyway? I have lots of adult stories. Barry

I think you stated it well Brew, our troop while I was SM typically had about 65% partiicipation during most activities because of sports and band. But we had a reputation for accepting other outside activities and were a popular troop as a result. I remember a 100% attendence during January and summer when there were no sports. It was normal for band and football players to show up to campouts on saturday mornings. After their season was over, they were full time scouts again. It worked well for us. Barry

We have few LDS units in our district and you just described exactly their situation. Also frustrating is that the District can't help the adult membership problem much because the church controls that function. I did get to train their SMs and enjoyed that, but they always seem to feel the stress of managing a program that few adults seem to want. Barry

Actually I have seen Boards deny Eagles for not demonstrating scout spirit. But National rarely supports that reasoning. You can make a personal statement though. Barry

We had a pack in our district that decided to quit recruiting Tigers as an attempt to fix their burned out leader problem and they had the same number of scouts 5 years later without a Tiger program. Nationally there is some concern that the new membership requirements will hurt recruitment. If that turns out to be the case, there is little you can do about. Likely you will get a good crop of Wolves next year. Barry

I lived through a lot of presidental terms and I'm pretty up to speed to what's really going on in Washington now. My biggest concern for our countrie's future is that the next generation will believe that Obama's behavior is presidental. I've worked for the government for many years and I've never read such a immature letter like the one Obama sent me yesterday. No way would a responsible media ever let any president ever get away with it. I am really concerned for the country my kids are being stuck with. Barry

The youth can seek another unit until National takes him off the row. I've never seen it get that far because either another unit is willing to take the kid or his reputation is bad enough that he can't find another unit. I have seen this scenario lay out more often with adult leaders than scouts. Barry

Yes, I like that. Nothing worse that seeing a problem and doing nothing. Some kinid of change will give a new perspetive. And it might be fun for the boys as well. Barry

Brewman, I'm am not in the least critical of your program and I don't think I've said anything of the sort. We've all been where your are at, so to be critical would be hypocritcal. I spent a lot of years working and guiding other adults with programs and I guess I'm just in my asking rhetorical questions mode to help direct thoughts in a certain direction. I learned it working with a 1000 scouts. Maybe it's a habit I need to change. I have no doubt you are doing the best you can and we are very thankful. As to the question, I have found that more often than not, adults tend get lost in the chaos when they don't know where they are going. All I was trying to do was maybe help you find a little light in the darkness. Barry