Eagledad

There was an article a few years ago about an incident that took place somewhere in the United Kingdom. A woman who was part of a group of African-Americans intending to tour the county for two weeks was asked by customs to declare her citizenship after they landed. She proudly responded African-American. The short story is that it took a representative from the American Embassy to convince the women that she was on the next plane back to the United States if she continued insisting she was African-American. Apparently a Senator got an ear full when she got back. Barry

>>Ya don't care for me Barry and thats fine.....

>>Be wary of posters with no numbers.....

>>Has anyone had experience with a really large pack? How many kids? How did it function?>Has anyone been in a unit that had a successful split?>Is there an official policy on max unit size?>Can a CO have more than one pack?>If we get to 100 boys, should we really be thinking 3 packs and then be able to serve even more kids? There is a logic about one in each school.>When I was a cub we only had three grades in the pack, so naturally packs should be bigger now with five grades. Has anyone been around long enough to contrast that?

>>The Mom's seem to be very angry and saying it is bullying and the boys should get kicked out of the Troop.

I should add to forget letters, handle all serious matters with parents in person. Barry

I used it successfully in Webelos for my parents to take on the activity badges. However, through the years nothing works better than asking face to face. Maybe it takes a special person or someone with baby blue eyes to do that, but I am rarely ever turned down. Barry

We handled this by requiring a parent to attend the meetings and campouts with their son. It solves the problem one way or another every time. Barry

>>Who should discipline the boy(s) the SM or the SPL/PLC?

Don't spend a lot of time recruiting at the booth, get the parents phone numbers so you can call them later where you can spend a lot of time selling the program. Use that list to creat your dens and find willing leader. If all goes well, you can even get the leaders trained before school starts. Then when the families come in to the recruiting night in September, you just check them off the list and tell them you already have them set up in a den with a leader. I think the recruitment booth is the best recruting tool packs have if they can get the numbers to most of the scouts' families. Its a bit of work calling for a couple days, but it takes the load off in September and the starts the pack running at the begining of school instead of spending a couple of weeks recruiting, buiding dens, and getting leaders trained. Barry

I confess that as a scout leader, I did it wrong more than I did it right. But overall our programs were very successful and what made us successful was trying to change those things that led us to failure. I ALWAYS considered the comments from parents to determine if there was something else I could do to make the station better and most of the time I changed something about me or the program. But I know there times when our style of scouting conflicts with the parents goals for their son. But let's look at it this way, "Parenting" is the hardest job in the world. Wouldn't you agree? No parent gets it all right. Parents want the best for their kids future, so usually their choices in the activities they allow their sons are noble in nature. Who are we as scout leaders to say otherwise? To try and get scout leaders to think on level ground with parents, I taught at SM Specific to imagine each role model that a boy meets in his life as a puzzle piece of a puzzle his parents created to develop the best possible man for a best possible future. The scout leader is just one or two pieces among many dozens. Scout leaders are just part of a big team the parent have assembled to carve out that man. That is a pretty tough job and maybe parents deserve a little more respect for it. We ought to feel honored that we were selected to be part of that team, that puzzle. The best we can do for our scouts is give them the best possible program that gets them to our vision. And to be up front as possible to the parents about what our vision is. Give them the information to make their choices for their sons. Their choices may not agree with our vision, but who is to say that our vision is more noble than theirs. If their goals don't fit ours, we don't take it personally, we kindly help them find their way even if that is to suggest another program. It's not about right or wrong, it's only about fit. Our troop is one size of shoe. Not all boys fit that size. I love this scouting stuff. Barry

I was the one who had dinner with Oaktree and his son this week. My only regret is I didn't read my Email earlier so we could have more time talking about scouting stuff. I know it sounds kind of silly, but you know scouting goes deep in the soul when two grown men who never met before stand for a few hours accross the street of the Oklahoma University campus mainly talking about scouting. I must say Oaktree, I also very much enjoyed watching a proud dad smile as he talked about his kids. I love this scouting stuff. Barry

>>Parents will do what they want and say they didn't know....

I'm just saying for this thread, if troops want new scouts and want to keep them, they have to do the work because cub leaders don't have the experience required. Barry

>> Most of the things that BD's composite parent sees as a surprise at the Boy Scout level shouldn't be a surprise if the WDL is doing his/her job.

So you don't know of One either. Barry

I'm courious, does anyone know any other country now or in history where marriage was anything other than a man and wife? Barry

I would love to do a study on the behavior of folks who dont answer the questions they were asked. Why was there automatic assumption of adults going wild? Sheesh. Anyway, I agree with the comments that scouts leaving early, not showing up to campouts and leadership issues are probably indicators of a program rut. Im going way out on a limb here and I could be way off, but I kind of get the feeling that while your adults are pretty well versed on how to run the program, but they dont really have a feel for where to go. They dont have a big vision that drives goals needed to reach the vision. The youth leadership problem you describe is a very common problem among troops that struggle with long range goals because they dont have expectations of improved maturity or really know what kind of maturity to expect. Its obvious that a 15 year old SPL should be a completely different leader than a 12 year old SPL. But yet many troops dont expect performances of behavior to be different for either one. A troop with a Vision of developing good leaders would have expectations for each age using each Position Of Responsibility (POR) as a stepping stone to a more complicated POR that requires more experience and maturity. A 12 year old shouldn't even want to consider a Troop QM, ASPL or SPL position because their responsibilities appear very demanding and grown up. Does your program have that? What I am saying is that the difference between a good program and a great program is a vision that requires the adults and scouts to keep overcoming challenges. What makes a program fun is the activities that teaches the skills needed to overcome the challenges. Many adult leaders like to say older scouts get bored working with younger scouts so they have to be separated into a program of just High Adventure. We found that not to be the case at all, what stimulates all scouts is overcoming challenges all the time. Small or big, its the skilled gained that satisfies us all, not the intensity of the activities or even the reward at the end. I think your guys are bored because they dont have any goals forcing them to mature. They arent having to improve their mind or bodies to overcome struggles. Sure your guys want a leadership position to get the next rank, getting the next rank is the only real challenge the program provides. Your asking how to hold a Scout accountable to his leadership responsibilities. But a good program will show the scout his failures without anyone having to tell him he failed. A scout who was supposed to buy and bring food to the campout and doesnt bring the food doesn't need any adult to tell him he failed. Hey, how is he going to fix it. The adults need to get 100 feet away and see how they overcome that challenge. If you could go visit a mature troop with lots of older scouts, you will likely find that most of their Eagles earned the Eagle at ages 15 or older. That is because they were busy doing other things like planning activities, teaching JLT and running the program. A mature troop challenges a scout at every age. A lot of troops struggle with older scouts because once they get first class, they dont have a lot to do for them except the same ol camping stuff. A mature troop sees the PL who just learned how to control a group, but needs more practice a managing and teaching, so he might be encouraged to be the Troop Quartermaster where he has to teach the Patrol Quartermasters how to manage their patrol gear, and how to be organized to load and unload the trailer. You want to make a scout feel like a grown up, give him a set of keys to the equipment storage with the rules that he, and only he, unlocks that door. What about program planning, we just dont automatically know how to move a whole troop from A to B one weekend a month and we dont just leave and camp when we get tired. Scouts have to develop those planning skills, and certainly not all at once. Steps to overcome the little challenges and learning life skills all along the way. Maybe the goal of the ASPL should be taking all the planning skills learned in the patrol and apply them for the troop. Think about the skills a scout will learn in that process and the maturity he will have gained, FOR LIFE. One of our visions in our troop was the Troop to function exactly the same even if the adults didnt show up. So we drove the program to take a 10 year old runny nose crossover Webelos and turn him into a full blown SM by age 18. Through the years of successes and failures (many failures), we develop a pretty good program where there were no worrys that the troop was in safe hands with the PLC even if the adults didnt show up. Im running long, but maybe your adults need to sit down and discuss where you see the program going, but would really like to see the program to go. One thing is for sure, you dont want your program next year to be the same as the one you have today. All programs need to mature all the time so as not to get stale and so the scouts actually mature into grownups. What would you like to see different a year from now? How would you like the scouts to be different in their maturity? Programs need visions that are next to impossible to obtain so that it doesnt really ever get reached and require change. Visions need to force your leaders to create shorter term goals that require the program to improve all the time to stay mature. Have your adults had that kind of discussion yet? Barry

>>what BSA considers an ideal situation, where there is a strong and continuing relationship between troop and pack, the troop would be aware of the Webelos den leader's lack of enthusiasm and actively go in to pick up the slack.

Wow, did you guys see the age of this thread. I was looking at what I wrote and noticed how much less gray was in my hair. I sure looked thin. Barry

>>"He will fry in hell!!!"..

>>No... they get the awards at the next meeting they attend after the CoH.

>>I was thinking about having some physical object to indicate authority. Maybe a gavel, maybe something else.

>>Unlike most, the MB's and awards are handed out at the CoH's, not ASAP, so the CoH's are "significant"

>>We established what we called Webelos Workshops.