Eagledad

>>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

Interesting how the discussion is driving. Some of us predicted the decline and our conclusion had nothing to do with training or demographics. It was based on "leader burnout" we were seeing in the Cub Program. Through the 90's we saw a big problem as the Tiger program was changing. The more involved the Tiger program was getting, the more we saw the problem of leader burnout by the end of the Bear year. Then National made a big change to the Tiger program in 2000 that really force the packs to bring in more Tiger leaders and increase the number of Tiger meetings. The Pack needs almost

>>What you seem to miss is that SOMEBODY selected and approved the Scoutmaster, and if they picked someone who did not have the tools..

>>I have often heard some scouters say that they use the dining hall because it is faster and gives the scouts more program time. That usually turns out to be more perception than fact.

Hi Tagguy Robert is right that there isn't a BSA issued district JLT. Many do provide them, some are good and some are just opportunities for adults to be busy. You are at that place where you want to see change in your youth leadership. Robert is also right that the responsibilities of the leadership development is the Scoutmaster's. I'm not trying to Mr. Know-it-all or condescending, it has always been the scoutmaster's job. The problem is their was a trend a few years back to push some of the responsibility from the Scoutmaster to District and councils. Nothing wrong with that ex

Great Scouting All >> Lowering the scouting age from 18 to 15/14? That really puts the challenge on any youth to pull off an Eagle in only 3-4 years time. Talk about a fast-track program!

HI All War! Don't confuse boy games with adult diplomacy. Fscout is right in that these kinds of games are in a boys instinct or nature. Fscout (Female Scout?) is wrong that the instinct is training to kill other humans. It is simply natures way for developing skills to survive, which means providing food and protection. Nature doesn't not understand war. Nothing beats a game that encourages a boy to think strategically , to understand the goal and to a plan for achieving the goal. And they wear themselves out in the process. Do you realize how hard it is to practice all those same

You are a Star Trek weinie. Barry

To new for Council yet, but here is a quote from someone on a different forum who called National. ""I asked National RM for a definitive reading on this. Got the following: ... (we have modified the online) Guide to Safe Scouting and removed the word "lasers" from the"" Honestly I'm not to surprised. From what I heard, this is way up there on National's complaint list. Barry

Hi All What you will get from WB that you have not experienced yet from your list is how to set visions and goals and how to build a team that works toward those visions and goals. In my opinion, 50% of inter-unit adult problems will disappear with that training. I love this scouting stuff. Barry

>>I could never totally understand the fascination with games of simulated killing of other people. It must be some sort of inborn instinct. Kinda like kittens that stalk and pounce on imaginary prey. They grow up and use those skills to find food and survive. Human nature is to kill other humans, and we let our young "play kill" to prepare them for life as an adult?