Eagledad

Well Im not sure Im viewed as one for change, but I will say that our troop during my time as a leader was considered very forward thinking at the time. Enough so that a lot of folks were scared of us. I hope you are right about the new team, but I still wonder what that means if they are. I can say that typically the changes we made in our units usually simplified the program and made it easier for both the adults and the scouts to continue toward the goal. A lot of that was in our Cub Scout Pack and much of what we did was simplify our Tiger and Webelos program. As a result, 90% of both groups of boys continued in scouting the next year after they crossed over. That was a change from 30% before and very few other units could brag about that. But the main point is the changes were intended to require less effort from the adults, not more. So they were easy changes to hand over. I understand most of those changes are still in the pack. I also learned a little bit of how National approaches their changes. I once met one of the writers of the present Scoutmaster Specific course. I told him that I liked teaching the course, but found it to be a bit confused because the book didnt exactly match power point. He said that made sense because there were three writers who did their own separate part, then sent their part to be assemble in whole by the National. Even when I was talking to him, he still had not seen the syllabus of the whole course, so he was excited to hear my opinion, especially of his part. That was a little strange to me, but he said National was trying to meet a time table. I have heard rumors that National has been working toward a very long range plan. 2010 makes sense because I have been hearing about it for a long time. I will be curious to learn just what that plans are. I dont like to call myself a traditionalist because I think myself as very open minded. But I am looked at as a traditionalist because after trying different styles and methods through the years, many of the traditional styles of scouting gave us the best performance. I found that Traditional programs are typically simpler. I believe in simplicity and I have found that National tends to do just the opposite out of necessity. For example, National wanted to change the tradition of boys joining Troops from individually joining to moving all the Webelos over at once. The idea was more boys would crossover if they had a friend and I agree. But, that led to Troop Guides and aged based patrols. That has led to more adult run style of program, which has led into issues of leadership development. In my opinion that has changed average age of a Patrol Leader is at least 2 to 3 years younger than 25 years ago, which means less older scouts staying in the program. The younger Patrol leaders also led the adults to rely more on a JLT style of leadership development. All that leads into a more complicated program for adults to manage. After doing this for a long time, Im convinced that NSPs change made the Troop program much more difficult for adults to manage. And, the numbers haven't improved enough to say it was a success. At least not five years ago. And that was a little change. You can imagine the effects of bringing women leaders into the program. Im actually scared to see the new program. Im glad my sons are adults now because it will be very easy for me to bail out if it gets harder. Maybe it really is time for a new generation of pop culture adults because thats about all who will be left to run the units. I can still barely text message. Barry

>>Don't think for a New York minute that Rush really has a deep caring for conservative causes.

>>Eagledad, If I sounded angry or what not, I want to apologize as that was not my intent

>>I have not yet heard Obama do the same to his opponents. Instead, he talks about why he disagrees with their ideas - not why they're bad Americans. In fact, heck, I believe he hosted a dinner in McCain's honor earlier this week.

>>Hoping he fails isn't a good start to working together for a solution.

Pretty Good Beavh. Three of my SPLs while I was SM were very active in band at the time they were SPLs. It almost killed them, but they were very good SPLs. All our good SPLs were active in other activities. Another bragging story is the local high school where most of our scouts belonged has a yearly student body election where they vote for the top eight leaders of the school. One year six of those voted were also scouts in our troop. The other two voted were girls. Im convinced that if we allowed girls in the troop, all eight would have been scouts in our troop. Ah I love this scouting stuff. Barry

>>It was George W. Bush who led us whole hog down the path of Socialism, with socializing the banking industry, the mortgage industry, the auto industry, and on and on. Where was Rush?

>>Based upon my experiences of going through Brownsea 22 and staffing JLT, these top level scout trainging courses ARE suppose to mimic WB.

This is pretty cool and I'm always in favor of searching for new ideas. However, National did this about 11 years ago with JLT, which resulted in some really good ideas. I didn't see any of the suggestions used. NYLT ended up being almost a copy of Wood Badge. I'm not saying that isn't the right course, but it isn't very innovative. Barry

>>YIs being subversive what you teach your scouts about citizenship?

>>Clearly, Rush never wore a scout uniform.

>>Barry, it's not about comparing mission statements and doing a "mine is bigger" check>The most incredible display of Esprit d'Corps I've ever seen was at a rehearsal of the OSU marching band. Any unit, scouting, military, varsity team, band or otherwise, would probably see a display like that and have chills running down their spine.

>>I've had the personal thought for some time that our council needs to tap the lodge as a resource for helping run the youth leadership training.

>>but I would still point out that Scouting doesn't have a monopoly on those and doesn't have a "moral high ground" in owning those values.

>>So what I'd like to ask you is to support your statement. Why do you think that Scouting is far and away better? You haven't really given a reason why you believe the way you do. I feel, as others have pointed out, that Scouting doesn't have a monopoly on certain values. In fact, the very first lecture I received on integrity came from my junior high school band director, delivered to our entire band. Integrity, leadership development, teamwork, citizenship, character development (I could probably run through the entire set of aims and methods)...those kinds of things pop up all over the place. As a youth, I really appreciated the "outward boundness" of my troop's high adventure experiences because I learned that despite being a non-athletic kid, I had no physical limits that weren't imposed by my own brain. I would think a good coach would be able to foster that same thing with young athletes. Thanks... Guy

>>It will be interesting to watch how FoxNews transitions from the equivalent of Pravda (a propaganda tool of the administration) to the equivalent of AlJazeera (the opposition voice).

>>As a Scouter, I personally would not want to make a Scout's choices more difficult by placing constraints.

>>Could the same be applied to the avowed gay? Can't go camping, but maybe serve in some other function where their pedophilic ways wouldn't threaten the youth?

>>However, there is a ring of truth to it. The right wing scream machine is going to use every little misstep and misspeak to try to build a case for impeachment. Its all they got, so can you really blame them?

>>One of the most popular threads on Sean Hannity's forum has over 7000 posts concerning the birth certificate conspiracy theory.

>>And really, does scouting really give most boys that much "better direction for the rest of their lives"? Some of this is wishful thinking on our parts; a perception not necessarily shared by many scouts or their parents.

>>I truly wonder what the thoughts may be on this, or if the usual combatants are too shallow to address it.

>>The issue is that Kudu is proposin' that a central piece of the program he envisions is a SM who has the skill, talent, and listening ability to recognize the innate talents in each boy and to steer 'em into positions through direct mentoring.

Well you guys can count on me to be as fair with Obama and give him as much respect as the Democrats and liberals have given Bush. Im there for ya. As for Colmes and Hannity, IMHO, they are both loud mouth extremist that only appealed to the emotions of their viewers. They werent voices of logic even when they balanced each other. Ive been watching these programs for quite a long time and Frankly, I feel the day of attempting balanced political discussions ended the day that David Brinkley retired. I would like to say cable news political commentary and discussion are all junk, but National Networks are no better. So, we are left to seek out balance in other media venues. Good luck to that. Barry

>>I think the idea of taking "strangers" of boys and tossing them into a patrol would be good for a Junior Leader Training Camp, but not for a campout.