Eagledad

You are correct. ParkMan observed his DE directing (Micromanaging) committee Chair level volunteers to do specific tasks that they should be delegating to members in their committee. Even as a SM, I spent 50% of my time working with my staff to insure they understood our vision and were trained for their position. The CC did the same. A District Commissioner should know the heartbeat of the district by the monthly (bimonthly) reports from the DCs. If the DE knows of unit problems before the District Commissioner, that is a red flag that something isn’t working as trained. Or supposed to be trained. There is a training curriculum for District Chair positions. Maybe that is a problem area. Barry

You are assuming your DE was doing his job as designed. Maybe we should look at the DE job description before realigning what your are observing from your DE. Barry

I have a record of going beyond rearranging things at the council, district and unit levels. I find these stargazing prophecies out of touch with reality. RARELY, do volunteers have the skills of fund raising or even recruiting. In fact, most lack the skills to perform the task they given. In most cases, tradition keeps the machine working, just not efficiently. Efficiency seems to depend on the luck of skilled volunteers found. DEs are worth their weight in gold if the have vision of quality skills and ability to recruit. Fund raising always gets in their way, and ironically I find fund raising is easier when programs are functioning successfully.. Since quality volunteers rarely step up to take a district level task, the DE is left to finding those volunteers. There is the rub, if council doesn’t find and train a qualified DE, then low quality leadership follows all the way down to the patrol level. Yep, low quality SMs led to low quality patrol method. I agree with recruiting quality Unit commissioners is a step in the right direction, but I have rarely work with a Key 3, much less a District Commissioner skilled with both the task to recruit quality UCs, and train them . I have only met one such person. He ran a very successful commissioner program in Minneapolis 25 years ago. It’s one thing for someone from out of nowhere to recruit quality UCs, but they still have to be trained and directed. The best districts had strong SKILLED leadership. Most often business professionals with the needed skills. I even watched one district fire and recruit their DE. The District Chairman was a successful business man who was a great recruiter with no ego. He knew his limits and stayed out of other Responsibilities. If the volunteers couldn’t function sufficiently to support the program, he recruited help for them. The help generally had the skills and eventually took over the committee tasks. But such a person is rare because a DE with vision to recruit him is rare. At a National level, New ideas of the future have to realistically consider the average volunteers pool that will run these programs. My suggestion is better trained council leaders who understand the vision of the scout program. But I think that requires National level leadership who understand the vision of the scout program. Barry

I heard of a report 30 years ago of a bus in Philadelphia that was rear ended by a car. The driver of the bus said the bus barely moved when it was hit, so none of the 5 passengers were hurt. Yet, 36 injury reports were filed against the city within the day. Barry

Boonys are our troop hat. Indestructible, my sons and I still have ours 25 years later. They protect from the sun and Rain almost equally. Barry

It’s a good hat. To soft to get shaped by steam. The flexibility makes it durable on treks where it will get crushed in a tent. It keeps the elements off the head. Mine is old and still has original shape.

You're close. The elephant is also blind. Barry

No, it was during my early adulthood before I came back as an adult leader. And it might be that it was something local. But a scout had to be 14 to be eligible. Because they were selected by their peers, Arrowmen held higher respect than Eagles. Eagles was a personal thing. Barry

Two differences from my youth Scouting experience that really stuck out when I joined as an adult leader in 1990 was the attitudes toward Patrol Leaders and OA. OA had lowered it's age requirements allowing very immature candidate to attend ordeal. The rules and methods and expectations of Ordeal were lowered so the more immature pre-pubescents scouts could progress through the weekend successfully. As a result, OA has lost the respect of being an organization of Top Quality Scouts. The other difference was the expectation of Patrol Leader ages and experience. The average age of patrol leaders in the 70s was 15 with many driving. Most PLs had at least 2 years experience and really were considered the leaders of the PLC. Now the 14 year old SPL runs the troop of mostly 12 year old PLs. An observer of successful troop with an equal ratio of older and younger scouts will see a program that challenges all the scouts at all ages and maturity. Troop programs that loose the interest of older scout tend toward skills and advancement driven activities instead of an outdoor camping program. Just because a troop camps every month outdoors doesn't mean it is an outdoor active program. And that is a big difference. The average new Venturing Program starts because the scouts want more adventure and less skills/advancement activities. Youth tend to hang out where they can grow from challenges because they like the feeling of accomplishing difficult task. HICO_Eagle is right, our culture doesn't challenge youth anymore and they grow into immature adults as a result. Barry

I wonder if that meant the adult leaders could work on Eagle, not that the adults where scouts. My dad, who was a scout and SM in the 40's, said he doesn't recall any adults (over 17) working on Eagle. Barry

This is very educational and disturbing. But it kind of makes sense, adults who think they have a better idea and want to prove their theory by messing with an already successful design. We see it on this forum a lot. Scoutmasters who brag about a grand theory and work their program outside the box, only to disappear quietly. Even recently bragging adults showed how they fast tracked their new girls troop through the ranks and skills to show up the boy troops at competitions and to get the Eagle in minimal time. I'm guessing the top leaders at National have no accountability to hold them on any path. As a result. a monotonous traditional program, egos, and just plain bad managing skills steered the association down the lost road. Of course we all saw it. We talked about National's idiotic policies and changes, but I don't think we saw how bad it is. At least I didn't. They left just enough of the working machine alone so that their new ideas didn't bring the program to a complete halt. My eyes started to open with the addition of the Leadership Method. That is when I realized they were really lost, and it scared me that they were killing the game with a purpose. How did these people get hired. Barry

Obviously you have a strong opinion. But it's just an opinion. After watching the last national elections, my opinion is judgement will be whatever the national media says it is. Barry

You just described the values of the Scout Oath and Law quite well. Maybe we should just stick to scouting. Barry

Diversity and inclusion are leadership qualities? What about the rest of us? You just supported Joebob's point. Barry

In the context of this lawsuit, the BSA isn't rotten, nor does it have a dark side. The organization has given society a program that only intends to build better citizens. It is that simple. People can be rotten and induce a dark side of themselves on unsuspecting innocent families, but that has nothing to do with the BSA or it's programs. If one can't see this reality, they likely need to get as far away as possible so as not to pollute the minds of the innocent. There is no doubt in my mind that if the good of scouting from it's beginning could be measured against the bad that occurred over the same time period, the minuscule bad would be impossible to measure against the vast enormity of the good. Barry

I don't know about corporate donors, I know a lot of them left years ago before BSA changed the gay membership policy when the BSA was being painted as a conservative organization. Would they come back? Most private donors are alumni with strong memories. Would they want to continue giving to an after school program under a different name? I personally believe more harm would come from a name change because I don't think Boy Scouts of American is very damaged. I could be wrong, but I've not heard much negative chit chat of the BSA. If this forum is evidence of the population, most folks who speak negatively have a personal vendetta against the organization. And that is a small group with a personal experience in the program. Barry

My wife and I are looking for some normalcy from Covid and were excited to watch some of our favorite shows. Only to find ourselves changing the channel because the shows are focusing on Covid. I think a pleasant distraction from the stress of today's situation would be very welcome. Barry

Lawyers will certainly gain in the end, but they are just a tool for the means to an end. I mentioned before of a discussion where a gay activist said their mission was to culturally demean any intuition who infers homosexuality as immoral. When he was asked about the institution's overall good for the culture, he didn't care one way or the other. I believe most folks who going after the BSA are like the gay activist, they don't care if the Boy Scout program survives to do good things, they just want their pound' of flesh, so to speak,. If the BSA survives, fine. Not a priority, but ok. Could it be that the only surviving national scouting program will be the sexist GSUSA? Barry

The Girl Scout program lost its vision much the same way by replacing character building activities with lectures, instructions, and advancement social exercises. The BSA always had the superior program because boys learned through their actions. GSUSA assumes theirs scouts will be better leaders simply by telling them they are better leaders. I knew National lost their way when they added the Leadership Development Aim last year. This mb is just anther example. Barry

Our troop was a out door boy run centered program. Advancement was never encourage over any other method. In fact, the PLC was responsible for applying all the methods and advancement was never high on their list. In 5 years time, our troop was 2nd only to an Eagle Mill with the number of Eagles in the district. The struggle here is convincing adults that a healthy advancement program is the biproduct of a healthy outdoor patrol method program. Maybe if the adults hear this over and over, they might give it a chance. Barry

I learned the lesson in the pack. We had 3 really good CCs who were job transferred in one year. The loses didn't affect us much because each CC brought in a really good assistant who shared the work. I personally believe that CC is the most important adult in the unit because they are responsible for recruiting each position, including the CM and SM. The CC should have a good understanding of the unit mission and goals and remind the adults now and then of those goals. The CC should insure each scouter is trained for their specific tasks. I believe that good Scoutmastering skills requires several years of practice toward the goals for the scouts. But, that is only if the SM has goals. Most SMs don't have goals specific to individual scouts (other than Eagle), they have agendas. They have the agenda of a weekly meeting, monthly campout and yearly summer camp and they make sure the everything is in order to make those agendas happen. Then there are the SMs with the goals of a youth program that runs itself without any attendance from the adults. That style of Scoutmastering is less about unit agendas and more about a culture of independence, personal growth, and using the oath and law. The scouts take care of the meetings, campouts and summer camps in that troop. And the SM guides the adults of the culture and develops them knowing one of them will be the next SM of the mission. Barry

As I've said before, I believe the critique comes from the wrong expectation of what is being trained. I believe staffs are much of the problem with expectation as the participants. Until National markets the expectation better, the course will continue to disappoint a lot of folks. Barry

No, it was exclusionary because they only wanted experienced scouters who were going to continue working with scouts. Why waist time teach advanced skills to someone going to leave scouting. Nothing sinister or self-serving. I have a feeling this royalty idea was pushed by jealous non WB scouters. Some folks don't want to work for the stature that makes them like themselves better. Oh of course there are always bad actors and some WoodBadgers probably pushed his stature too hard. But, I never met one like that from the old course in our area. Barry

I'm not sure this really comes under the political heading. I know politics exposes the issue, but the very people that threatened the GSUSA for their congratulatory tweet are likely the same people who support women's equality. This comes more under "All people are equal! But some people are more equal than others". All kinds of irony. Barry

Oh, we'll probably keep supporting the Girl Scouts. They have been a political pawn since the 70s and we still support them. Even though they are the most sexist youth scouting organization, probably in the world, it's hard to turn down those cute little innocent faces. Strangely, Girl Scouts older than 7 have never come to our door to sell cookies. Do you think the older Scouts know I was a BSA Scoutmaster? There are no signs in the yard that would hint of my past volunteerisms, I try not to stir things up in the neighborhood. But I do keep a nice lawn. I wonder! Barry