Eagledad

>> "Earning" a nickname means you're a full-fledged member of the group.........Sometimes moms and women don't get it.

Team, Group, or Patrol identity has to be forged among the member through the struggle of working together. Its not as simple as saying, here is your patrol, now act like a patrol, type thing. Group identity comes at the cost of members putting out individual selfless effort to accomplish a team goal. Do a search on Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing. Patrol identity can take hours or years, it depends on the intensity of effort to reach the goal. I have watched Patrol identities forum in one night of Lazor Tag because the intensity required for the group to come together to win a match. I have seen it happen in just a few days on just about every High Adventure Crew of which I was a member. If your patrols dont have goals that require some group intensity to reach the goal, then group identity will take a long time. I disagree with most here that you should break up the Patrols and reform them to create bigger and more functional patrols. Most experienced SMs will tell you that even if only one member of a patrol attends a campout, keep him a separate patrol. You will find more pride and identity in that one scout than most of the other patrols. The one scout can ignite the other members at the next meeting. Developing Patrol identity is direct function of the team work intensity, dont breakup work in progress. Be patient and encourage the work. Create goals for the patrols. Make the members work together for one task. Create patrol competitions. Make everything a competition. First to assembly, first to finish a meal and KP, best skit, best song, best inspection. Whatever it is, just get your members to work together for a common group purpose. You need the common goals so the members can see their specific talent or skill to help the team (Forming). Getting ready for the next campout, who is developing the menu and assigning scouts to shop for food, who is creating the skits and cheers and assigning scouts to those positions. Who is making sure of transportation? Make each member see their specific task for the group goal, and do those task or fail. You need the team to humble themselves into contributing to the team for the good of the team and not themselves (Storming). The team needs to experience how working together results in success. Who didnt make the menu or create the skits. Who didnt get the food. Why did they not do it and do they see how one member pulls the whole team down. This is where the adults get the member to see themselves now and what they can be in the future. Failure is good, it is an indicator, it shows a wrong direction. Use the power of failure to point the patrol in the right direction. The team will stress during storming, but the calm of the mentor or adult will show them that they are doing OK and to keep going. You need the team to see their personal efforts contributing to the team success (Norming). The best score on patrol inspection. First patrol to assembly. Any success in a patrol competition. Recognize their successes, be the patrols best cheer leader. Give them the gift of goals to strive for. Patrol Identity (Performing). The members work together like a well oiled machine. They almost seem to read each others minds on with their task. They take pride in eating good food, being on time to most activities and the younger scouts look up to them. They go out of their way to help the troop succeed as well. They latch to their identity and take pride in being the member of that patrol. Go visit a crew that just came off the trail and see their identity in their faces. Watch the members of that crew in future troop activities. They aren't group anymore, but they have an identity that doesn't go away. I dont know how your troop is working, but Im guessing that the patrols are not stressing enough as a team or failing as individuals enough to change. Dont break them up or combine them on campouts. Make a patrol of one succeed. Its been said many times, learning how to be a good adult leader of a boy run troop takes twice as much work as the scouts. But the rewards are great. I wish you luck, but I also envy the pride you are going to feel. I love this scouting stuff. Barry

>>What's wrong with last minute requests? Half our projects occur during campouts.

>>All this guy did was express his opinion on gay marriage. That's all. He's allowed.

Yes, I would be upset by the driver making a last minute change. I agree the SM probably would have rather had one of his older scouts than some girls who arent members of the troop. It sounds like your family did everything right as far as compromising and still making camp. Our patrols did this all the time and we encouraged it because given the choice of some scouting or no scouting, we took what we could get. The lesson learned here is you have a better understanding of the adults involved and will know how to work with them next time. Learning who you can count on and the skills of your adults is the Scout Masters more difficult jobs. Developing that skill has made me better at work. Barry

The troop is the second largest in the district. All attributed to their recruiting weekend. I don't know if their program gets boys who would not have otherwise crossed over. I don't know if some of the scouts we get participated with their weekend. I have not been involved lately, but that troop of over 110 scout averaged about 35 new scouts a year, but didn't grow because they also typically loose over half of their new scouts. I approached them when I was District membership Chair because I felt they we loosing scouts that would have stayed if they joined a different troop. They listened to my concerns and reacted to them to some degree. But I don't know how they are doing now. In my opinion, a three month focus on one recruiting weekend is not a good program. Barry

>>While a quality program is a necessary precondition for a successful troop, I don't think recruiting is something that should be neglected.

The general rule is a troop grows to the size the SM can manage. The bigger a troop gets the more challenging to manage a boy run style program. 50 is about the number where the SM has to make decisions to maintain boy run or tilt more to adult managed. It's rare to find boy run troops larger than 50, but they are around and usually are very good programs. As others have said, quality is a function of the adults, so it's hard to give general guidelines. However, t larger troops have more access to resources like adults with a range of skills. On the other side, smaller troops are easier for boys to plan and manage and can do a lot of activities on a shorter schedule. How long has the small troop been small? Good programs usually grow. One thing I always like to compare is the older scouts. The quality of the older scout program reflects the whole program. The more the younger scouts are involved with the older scouts the more mature the program as a whole. Barry

>>Eagledad, I think the answer is what Rush Limbaugh has said on many occasions, it's all about money.

>>I think we're missing an important subtlety.

>>Second, and this is purely anecdotal on my part and you all can now go about proving me wrong, but I think a lot of folks who are activists in gay rights causes are also folks who would be unlikely to eat fast food anyway.

Yes, I compared the Dixie Chicks controversy with the Chik Fil A because both controversies come under the heading of free speech. If we look at each drama under conservative/liberal headings, how can conservatives support Chik Fil As right of free speech while not supporting the Dixie Chick right to free speech? One theory is that their reaction wasnt really about free speech, it was instead an emotional reaction to a challenge of their strong feelings on the subject. But I was reminded that the anger toward the Dixie Chicks was not their anti government opinions, but that they stated their opinions in other countries. Folks just felt that was a cowardly way to protest. That muddies the data and the theories. I dont know, but it does suggest the possibility that we as a culture base our principles from emotion and can change instantly in the moment. Still, on that theory, there must be a core somewhere down deep that holds us to some kind of principled compass. Barry

>>Yes an adult problem. And I must admit adult problems are hitting kinda home at the moment.

I find these boycotts like the ones against Chik fil A, Disney, and Dixie Chicks fascinating. Not on a political basis, but on a humanity basis. I admit I enjoy observing human behavior and these boycotts are very interesting. Im not a fan of Chik Fil A, I only eat there as a last resort like after an Oklahoma State Night Football game where Chik Fil a is about the only restaurant in Stillwater open to get a quick meal before the hour drive back home. Say what you want, Chik Fil A knows how to put out a lot of food in a short time. However my kids are crazy about them. Two of my adult kids camped overnight at Chik Fil A one year for an opening day promotion of a one years free sandwiches for the first 100 or so customers. I was surprised by the big response to Chik Fil A because most of their customers are younger folks. I thought it was the younger generation that was accepting of gays, so I assumed the boycott would be a success because of that. But what I heard was that its not so much that the younger adults support gays, they just arent against them. Its more of a to each their own attitude. What bothered these young folks was being told what they should and shouldnt eat based on political correctness. Especially about a subject that isnt important to their lives. OK, that is so simplistic, Im still trying to understand it. However one thing seems for sure, if the activist cant get the younger geeneration to jump on board, then I don't see how it can go anywhere. We will have to wait and see. So now Im thinking about the Dixie Chicks boycott. Again I was not a fan because I dont really like Country or Western music, even though Ive own horses and live in states where its acceptable for girls to wear Cowboy Boots and shorts at the same time. I found the Disxie Chick boycott an interesting observation of human behavior because the bands base completely abandon them. Yet, folks who didnt really care for their music made a couple of their records number one. Wow, not that is some activism on both sides. Talk about emotion, but that is another discussion. The Dixie Chick boycott is also interesting because once everything settled down, the band disappeared. The boycott worked because they lost the base. That really surprised me because the bands popularity came from both the Pop music crowed and the County /Western crowd. I would have thought the Pop folks would have kept them alive. Adding to that, I learned that in a lot of cases, bands dont survive on record sales because record companies take such a big cut. Concerts are bands big money and marketing producers. Dixie Chicks record sales success wasnt enough to counter the cancelled concerts. Maybe the question there is how long can activism support last where their is no real desire for the product? I dont know why, but that shocked me. The Dixie Chicks went from the top to the bottom in a matter of months because of a boycott. Then there is the Disney boycott. Has it affected Disney? Doesnt appear so, but anyone who visits Disney parks notices a large number of attendees are foreigners. It would be interesting to poll all the attendees to learn how many even know of the boycott. At the same time, wouldnt it also be interesting to learn how many of them who know of and agree with the prinicple behind the boycott still attended the park? We will have to wait a while to see how the Chik Fil A boycott really pans out. But after learning about the attitude of some young folks I read about, I kind of wonder if it is going the way of the Disney boycott. Just not enough interested folks willing to give up their delicious sandwich. I just assumed that the boycott would hurt the restaurant because of its popularity of the younger demographic. But are we miss understanding the younger generation. Is the general attitude for homosexuality to be accepting only up to the point that its not inconvenient? Also, I wonder if that where the base of the gay movement wanted to go all along? If that is the case, and Im not saying it is, but if hypothetically the younger generation only accepts homosexuality as long as it doesnt get in their way, how could that affect the BSA? I guess that is the question some assume they already know. But maybe the Chicken boycott is a better indicator than emotional assumptions. I will have to watch and listen to my kids to learn more. There is a lot of stuff here, does anyone else see this as interesting? Barry

>>Don't know if it's a good one or not as my feeling is that the CS leaders will get into the habit of running something at the troop meeting, then when the Cubs do cross over, keep it up when they need to let go.

The Troop we visited was not a feeder troop even though it was my Troop. In the end most of those Webelos joined different troops, so I don't think feeder pack or even different troop is an issue. Including the troop where we held our meetings, we visited six different troops. It almost seems like folks are looking for reasons to not do this. If you would rather not, I fully understand and support that decision. But it is pretty simple idea that does work. Just ask a few Troops if they have the room and are willing to give a few meetings a try. I everyone involved will find it easy. Barry

>>You could do this with 1st year webelos too. In fact, I think it would help the most if you start it with 1st year webelos.

>>that is exactly what we do....

>>I don't think any organization, or point of view, has a monopoly on anger as expressed in this forum. There's quite a lot of it to go around.

>>You start your own organization Scouting USA or such. Fine. Problem is, you are LOCKED OUT of all program materials, ALL uniform standards, ALL ranks in use by BSA to include the Eagle. BSA owns copyright on ALL of those things

>>As they should have, Barry. If our goal is to teach young men to be good citizens; that "obedience" includes working to change things you don't like, then this Scout and Bando should be applauded for having well-learned a basic lesson of Scouting.

>>I stood up in front of over a hundred people at my Eagle COH, some six months or so after the SCOTUS Dale decision, and clearly voiced my opposition to the LGBTQ membership policy.

>>So why does the Girls scout program stink????

We've had a few families transfer out and a few join after they realize that their goals and expectations didn't match the program. I'm with Fred and Lisa in that finding a troop without the drama and that still fits your needs is likely the best way to go. I do understand the struggle and hurt of leaving friends, but with strong support from the family, your son will have a great experience in another troop. And as others have said, it is likely the friends will want some of those experiences as well. I wish you well, I hate adult drama. Barry

>>He knows that I strongly disapprove of body piercing. Despite that he went behind my back and had his nipples pierced. I was hurt that he did this behind my back and hid the fact.