Eagledad

>>Hence my position that waiting for the victims to make the first move regarding a bully may be fine in theory, but often impractical.

I'm sure I would agree, but I'm not sure what you are saying. I think I found a new pet peeve. KSA? ECM?

>>Evmori is right, adults should handle this...one more time and they are history. Otherwise, who is going to speak up for the scouts who are living up the oath and law?

Great replies from everyone. I always sought to learn something from the scout that would benefit my own life. To do that, I to fight my instinct and just listened a lot. I noticed that the scouts eventually would stop telling me what he thought I wanted to hear and instead started telling me what he felt about life. I learned early that many of these young men are smarter than me and they knocked my socks off if I just gave them the timee. They were extremely satisfying conversations. If a scout struggled in our conversations, it was usually because he was very nervous. I always tr

When the behavior gets to this point, we add requirements on the scout to prevent him from continuing that same behavior. One example that works very well for us is ask the offending scout to bring his parents to the next meeting. Then we briefly list the behavior to explain why the parents are now required at all activities. We do not negotiate because frankly, enough is enough. We just thank the parents for coming and leave the room. Its pretty short and nothing more really needs to be said. Usually a scout that wants to stay will work very hard to stay, the rest fade away. Ive never asked a

>>See, the thing is...there's that pesky part at the very bottom of the Eagle application that reads: "EDITIONS OF THIS APPLICATION PREVIOUS TO THE xxxx REVISION SHOULD NOT BE USED."

AvidSM beat me to it. The scout and counselor only have to complete the MB the scout started. Pretty simple really. We tend to think in terms that new requirements will make it more difficult for the scout and counselor, but more often than not, the new requirements are more relaxed. That has in the past left a counselor working with two different requirements of the same badge. Some of those scouts feel its unfair because they completed requirements the other scouts aren't required to perform. I personally don't see any ethics or moral delimas here, but the counselor might find themself

One of the districts in our Council ran a camporee like Eagle 92 is talking about. It went very from what I heard. It was planned and run by a couple of Venturing Crews. Our district discussed the idea of sort of camporee, but the troops would camp the first night in town, preferably at their CO location. Then they would get up break camp and hike to a local park where they all camped and competed together. Part of the competition was how well the patrols backpacked and set up their campsite after they hike. That night they would have a very big campfire with the locals also being invited

If the SM approves it, he is fine. They can work with any age Cub Scout. I've not heard of a work book, that would something new in the last couple years, but it wouldn't hurt for the SM and Scout to set some goals together and discuss how the scout is doing toward those goals. Barry

>>Like someone said above...."I think the BSA has a great opportunity to make a difference in the lives of both boys and girls. And from an organizational viewpoint, this might be the cause that jump starts the BSA again."

Yes, you are doing fine. I would like to say that after a scout masters scout skills (first class), rank should not be a measurement of leadership qualifications. Maturity and experience are a lot better measurements of leaders and I have had some very good leaders who were not motivated by rank. You want to develop a program of multiple opportunities, so stear away from opportunity blocks. Also you will find that 14 and 15 year old men look at leadership a lot differently than 12 and 13 years olds. The changes of body chemistry dramatically dictate the motivation toward dreams and goals

Well it sounds like you are doing pretty well to me. What I like to advice on groups such as yours is try to develop the program now that you see in five years. Its not going to be the same, but you want to change a little as possible as the group gains experience and numbers. So Im thinking you keep everyone in one group because nine scouts isnt really that big of a patrol. However, I would have a SPL so that you can work through him and he can work with the patrol leader. In reality its not going to make much difference, but it is how you want your program to work five years from now w

The rule came about when National found that most of the accidents during BSA trips were in convoys or caravans. After a few close calls during the years, we migrated to non caravan transports. I also agree with Beav and Lisa that some folks need a buddy to feel comfortable finding a camp, so we also had a rule of no more than two cars caravaning together, and even then use common sense spacing. Many folks complained that cars could be spread out for miles and cause problem. We typically had 3 or 4 trips a year at least 600 miles to our destination and the longest it took for every

I'm seeing two different discussions here: one is how to run the meetings well and the other is how to make them fun. A troop can learn how to run a meeting well, but that doesn't mean it's fun. We had a saying while I was Scoutmaster, "If its not fun, change!". Lisabob said some really good stuff, but I don't really agree that boys aren't very adventurous. Boy are adventurous when they are given permission to be so. Youth today have been developed to rely on the adults, so when they are given free rein, they just don't know what to do. Like everything else, they just need to practice be

Its a lot of work. Sorry, I miss spoke. I meant to say, ITS A LOT OF WORK! Thats not to scare you off, but to get you in the right frame of mind. It generally takes at least 3 years for the troop to get some momentum, and 6 years to develop a solid program. You need to commit to the six years to maintain a continuity of developing toward the same goal or vision. I use to be the districts adviser for struggling units and my experience is 90% of troops had no vision when they started. Vision is the first and highest priority for starting a successful unit because it gives everyone an under

>>If so, it begs more questions that the potential co-ed status of scouting.

>>While there might only be 17 Scouts this year, next year that number could well be 30 or 50.

>>Eagledad, Then you may be more in favor of what the Finns do in memory serves. They are coed at Cubs, then split into Guides and Scouts, but essentially workign on the same stuff and advancement, then coed again for the Venturing age.

>>Barry, I think the real reason Campfire and GSA are failing is poor program organization.

Im not sure the logic of combining several programs loosing members to fix the problem of loosing members. Sure you increase the membership of ONE program for a short time, but it is still a program loosing members. The problem of loosing membership is not going to be fixed by Political Correctness or combining other losers because the problem is with the programs themselves. Girls Scouts and Campfires big loses started when they changed their programs to be more inclusive of atheist and gays. The Girl Scouts have all kinds of issues, but it basically is not a values program anymore. Cam

Well of course it works in other countries, after they make all the changes that are required to make it work. As someone who has worked both in Boy Scouts and coed church youth groups, Scouting would have to change to be coed. Especially at the Boy Scout age where the body chemistry is changing. It certainly would no longer be boy run or in that case youth run. Its hard enough for boys to focus when they don't have the distraction. And its not like they aren't getting mixed together at any other time in their life. Barry

>>I always get the feeling that the PL's really aren't running any show when their decisions, actions, plans, etc. can always be trumped by the SPL/PLC and/or SM/ASM.>If they really are not running the show, then why not go directly to the person who makes the decisions, i.e. the SM?

Good question. JLT over that last 20 has turned into kind of change from unit level youth leadership training to a generic term for leadership development. At least around anyway. NYLT, JLTC, TLT, Brownsea, GreenBar, and so on can come under the term Junior Leadership Training (JLT). Troop Leadership Training (TLT) is a fairly new training course from National designed to be run at the troop level. Thanks for the correction. Barry

We did this once with the all the ingredients required for banana splits. It was a huge hit and some good creativity. Barry

>>The SM of this troop is not really doing anything, other than doing the old VHS video training? He says that there is not much out there to help him. How could I handle this and help him train the youth of this troop.