Eagledad

Great Scouting All >>Barry, Can you honestly say that a troop of 150 is not heavily adult run?

>>Nice post derf56 Barry

>>Shame on you Barry! Why don't you buy something American made, such as a Toyota, Honda, or Subaru?

So John, I take that as a no on the corvette. Barry

Yes I understand, but ideally what you are attempting to do is end your Troop program at age 14. And really it isnt 14, it is 13 because 14 is the age the scouts can join the Crew. You cant imagine my amazement with this suggestion. Even if an older scouts goal is to stay and practice leading, managing, planning, guiding, coaching and teaching scouts, your program really isnt conducive to it because in your mind, your oldest scouts are 13. And you keep referring to the Eagle as if that is scoutings primary purpose to exist. I have so many questions. And I cant put down the words tha

Another Happy Cold Oklahoma Scouting Day All >>Before a troop grew to that size I would help organize a Venture Crew and train an Advisor, and we would graduate older scouts to the Crew to continue working toward Eagle if that was their goal, or follow special activity interests.

>>If you don't know where your Webelos are coming from before the cross over you =have a communications problem not a unit size problem.

>> I have never gotten a call with 25 new scouts at one time. Normally what would happen is a month or more before the crossover webelos Dens would vist the troop.>I would simply explain to the other Webolos and parents that due to space and resources we find it necessary to limit the trop size, and we would be happy to recommend other are troops for them to consider joining.

>> I know to what Beavah is referring... its the underlying attitude in some posters responses that the person is wrong or should be ashamed, or should leave scouting or his/her current leadership position.

>> When I give a SM Confrence, i make notes in the margins and blank spaces of the boys book. This give him a place to reflect on the goals we've set for him and gives him some idea of what his SM looks for in a member of the troop.

>>I feel it becomes the responsibility of a trained and knowledge adult in the unit to explain the pitfalls of such a large membership to the IH, CR and CC of the troop. And to guide them to a more productive number.

Great Scouting All Im less idealistic then I use to be. I dont care for them because they are typically adult run, but I have found that they serve a lot of happy scouts very well. By the way, what if the CO wants a mega troop? Bad CO, bad CO. The main contributor to a Troops size is the SMs style and performance (program). But the SM generally have very little control of holding their troop to a fixed size. The risk of losing scouts during a leadership change is the same in all troops, size doesnt matter. In fact, it is almost a certainty that a unit will loose some scout

Great Scouting all. A Scoutmaster Conferences works best when it comes from the heart. Like everything else, it takes a while to find our style, so we feel around trying different approaches until we get the sweet spot that achieves our goal. While I think your SM will find that scouts dont like additional prep-work and make changes, I think reflection is an excellent part of a SM conference and that is what he is doing here. I would enjoy hearing how it goes for him. By the way my SM asks for the same thing when I was a scout back in the 70s. You know, this approach tel

Is nobody going to ownup to putting a down payment on a Corvette? Barry

Another Great Winter Day All My question hotdesk is if you asked the scouts what the rewards and benefits of leadership in your troop are, what do you think they will say? I think getting a scouts to seek out leadership is a culture change. Im wanting to say it the shift of going from the mindset of a boy to a man. But I think it is even more then that. Scouting is a safe place. We say that a lot, but what does it mean. Well to me that means scouts are free to act and behave in the way THEY think is appropriate and not feel they will get called down if they dont meet up to expec

>>I took a class at the University of Scouting about Venture Patrols. The most interesting idea that came out of the class was for the Venture Patrol to be an ad hoc patrol or 'virtual patrol'.

Happy cold sledding all >>We can pontificate all we want as to the value of training, and castigate those who, for whatever reason, do not place a high enough priority on getting themselves trained.

Ahh thanks, I couldn't figure out what the PT was in the PIAPT. I should have guessed a long time ago that you are one of those, and those, and those. By the way, I have a bumper sticker that says: "My two favorite teams are OSU and any team that plays OU. Barry

Happy wintering all Hi John, I am excited to learn what MBO, MBO, OMM, BKD, PIAPT are. Barry

That's cool. So. you guys have mixed age patrols, who are generally the patrols leaders? I assume by your description that it is the younger guys, younger then you I mean. Barry

Hi J-dawg Why do you want a Venture patrol? What do you think your troop is missing now that a VP would help? I love this scouting stuff. Barry

>>In Webelos, because many councils roll all the training into one ball, we have Webelos leaders who face a very different program then they have practiced for the past three years and they are supposed to remember training that for this new den program that they have not seen in three years. So they end up running Webelos like a Cub Den rather than as a transitional program to Boy Scouting. Kids don't want to be cub Scouts for 5 years, they need a taste of what is ahead in Scouting.

>>To think that the BSA program is developed by suits with no unit experience is really just an emotional and ill-informed rant.

Sure. I think we looked at it from the idea that the Patrol Leaders have to initiate their patrol to do everything at camp. We also went to enough not so good camps that we learned how to kind of do our own troop program with in the Scout Camp program. A few examples are we think like that the Patrol Leaders have to get their patrol up and in formation to do a Troop flag ceremony before we hike down to the Camp Flag Ceremony. We ask that scouts only come to Flag as a patrol. That forces the PL leader to get the scouts organized to bring them to the Troop Flag. Typically our troop arrives

Well I guess we teach them the process. But what is more important is that they learn to do it in all their activities that require setting a goal as the first step. Even during a Scoutmaster conference, I ask the scout to set some kind of gaol for his next rank or MB or what ever is the subject and to right that gaol in his book. The idea is by writing and seeing it everytime he opens the book, he is reminded of that goal. Once complete, I even ask them to write the date completed to reinforce the idea of completion of the process. But that is just one process of leadership development