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 that show my amazement (shock) to what you propose. Please you don't need to defend yourself Bob, we can let this go here. Barry

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 scouts because new scoutmasters have so much to learn. Im a boy run kind of guy, so 50 is about the maximum. 40 is better. Many families will only look for and join a large troop because they are typically very well run, well equipped, very organized (adults) and look very sharp. Should we ignore those families? Mega troops tend to have aged based patrols with a large Venture Patrol program and/or a Venture Crew program. Smaller troops tend to be mixed age because it is easier with small numbers of new scouts. Mega troops tend to be very adult run and aged based patrols work best for that style. Purposely limiting the size of a troop? There are ways but the risk is huge. Just off hand I can think of two fairly big troops that nearly destroyed themselves from the rumors created from how they limited scouts from coming in. Its not the facts that hurt, it is the rumors. We researched the idea of splitting and in almost all cases we researched, one unit failed to almost nothing, and the other became a mega troop again. SM thing again. Our Troop is considered one of the most boy run programs in the District. Our goal when we started was 40 scouts. We had 60 in four years. We tried to limit our program by only recruiting from Webelos that visited us. Since that didnt work, we raise our yearly dues to (A LOT). The result from that was we made a lot of money took on 30 more scouts before I retired as SM. If the Troops are doing fairly good at providing a scout program, I suggest we praise the leadership and spend the time working on bigger problems. Barry

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 tells me that your SM is taking this very seriously and wants to get it right. I like your SM more every time you talk about him. You got a pretty good one there. Barry

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 expectation. I found that few scouts will make decisions on their own initiative when they think the adults will react negatively. A safe troop is one where the adults view bad performance as good opportunities to grow. In that kind of troop, the scout knows he has free reign to act the way he thinks is right and the worst that will happen is that they will try again differently to get better performance. That is in all activities, but very important in Leadership. I didnt spend much time talking before elections,, but what I told the scouts was leadership is the opportunity for them to learn. "If you think you know how to do the job well, then you are the wrong person for it. Leave that space open for the next guy to learn and grow from his struggles and mistakes. If you are afraid to screw up, then the job is not for you. Learning from mistakes is the best method of learning, so we not only expect you to make mistakes, we want you to makes mistakes. I promise you will learn a lot if you meet those requirements." A lot adults think that boys are lazy and just dont want to work. And some are that way, but I found that most are just afraid or tired of adults jumping down their throat. And I understand. Every year at summer camp our scouts and adults are reminded how quiet our troop is when it comes to adult and scout relations. You can hear so many adults in other troops yelling at their scouts through the week. The first half of the week is telling scouts what to do. The last half is yelling about all the things they did wrong. Maybe that is why I didnt like any yelling in our troop. If you couldnt handle leading in a normal tone voice, then it was likely you needed to step away at the moment and/or needed to learn a new style of leadership. Yelling to me is a red flag that you need more skills guidence and the scouts learn that pretty quickly. One other thing; our scouts knew who their leaders were. We have a PLC meeting every day of our activities for some reason, and they always get some kind of treat like coke, candy, sometimes pizza, or whatever I can come up with at the time. They work hard and they were rewarded for their effort. Hope this helps in some way. I love this scouting stuff. Barry

>>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 to the Camp Ceremony late the first couple of days. The embarrassment encourages the Patrol leaders to build better team work and to seek out guidience is they need some from the SPL. We don't allow the adults to follow or lead scouts to their classes. We want the scouts to learn how to seek out help there and and develop independence. Scouts are not allowed to leave camp without telling the patrol leader first. That sounds simple, it actually requires team work and understanding who is the responsible leader at the time because the PL is likely in class somewhere. IT is frustrating at first, but the patrol quickly learns how to create a roster so that there is always someone who is responsible in camp when needed. From the adults perspective, all information goes from the SM to the SPL and on down to the PLs. That prevents parents who don't understand from overwhelming the SPL with suggestions and questions. You can imagine there are a lot. And that is why the SM works pretty hard too. We have a PLC every day so that the SPL pass along new camp information and to remind the PLs of our troop programs like a game, troop campfire and usually a troop swim or shoot. The SPL always volunteers our troop to do a Camp Flag ceremony, clean up detail, and a camp service project. That forces the SPL and PL to assign patrols and practice for their duty if nessasary. Our Troop stays busy, but we make sure there is there is more fun then work. The SPL is pretty simple, but very busy. He manages the boys side of the program and is the between person for the scouts and adults. I keep talking about how we wear out the SPL, but I work hard on delegating and the SPL will wear out a couple ASPLs and Quartermasters as well. It kind of sounds like we keep the the adults are seperated from scouts a lot. We do try to always keep the adult camp as far as possible from the scout to give them their independence. But we also encourage the parents to do some activities with the sons to give them time together, and while I don't like the parents to interrupt the scout side of the program, I do ask them to watch from a distance because it is fun. They can participate with the scout where ever their presence doesn't interupt our mission. Sometimes the camps being far a part has its problems, but they are problems I want to see and change. The SPL goes to all the meetings and manages most of the problems. There are somethings that require the adults like meds and things. I find that even though we give the SPL the responsibility, the SM is warn out by the end of the week. Interestingly we find at camp that the average of SPLs to be about 13 while ours are usually around 15 to 16. Sometimes we have trouble at camps that don't really understand the SPL being encharge. We work things out, but we don't usually go back to those camps. Those are a few things that come to mind. It takes a troop time to get to a maturity where you can have older scout SPLs who run camp. But, I also think that giving our older scout so much responsibility is why we had some many older scouts. Barry

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. What about MB cards. Honestly what a scout learns from the MB material wasn't as important to me as the skills of managing the badge. Our scouts had to find the counselor, fill out all the imformation for the card, get the SM to sign the card, then call up the counselor and set up a schedule for meetings. Again to adults that isn't that much, yet most boys had never had to do to initiate that many actions just to start an activity (or process). We found our scouts were proficient between three to five MBs. I also believe it reinforces the boy how to set a goal, and set a plan. These are small things to learn, but big to scouts at first, but they catch on very quickly. All we adults have to do is remind them now and then, but not as much as you would think. To them it is just a process habit. But habits they carry the rest of their lives. Good Reply. Barry