Eagledad

What a great subject. I like the Northern Tier idea but what makes that difficult, not impossible, is the max limit of eight man crews. However, one of our Philmont crews, which can be much larger, invited another local troop and they had a blast. Between that and taking two dads who had never camped with thier sons before, this crew had a wonderful experience. Our Troop has planned and organized a few Troop-o-ees. Same as a camporee except it is one troop inviting a few other troops to compete for a fun filled weekend. We did a night time Trooporee theme, also a lot of fun. I foun

Hi All You will have a great time, I really enjoy the Northern Tier. I'm not sure I can point out advantages or disadvantages, but instead differences. With an outfitter, you won't get a guide, unless you pay a lot. If you have never been before, you may want one just to get a feel for how to portage and navigate. If someone in your Troop has this experience already, I don't think you need to worry about a guide. Mosquitoes are a good question, but you will always have them to some degree. So I think the better focus are the mayflies. Ideally the fishing is a lot better before t

>>Without a doubt, SPL is the hardest role. Is ASPL as hard as SPL.

Great Monday All >>I also like to let the Scout holding the particular position to tailor the position responsibility to his strong suits.

Great Friday All Boy, there are some really good replies. I agree EagleInKy, this is a symptom of other problems problems. I found two life skills the scouts seem to have a really hard time mastering, communication and delegating. I once had a mom so frustrated by the boys method of communicating that she wanted to take it completely over. I asked her at what point in her sons life she felt it was OK for him to learn communcition. She siad when she was good and ready. She left the troop committee three months later. Do to the internet and cell phones, I find our youth today have terr

Very cool! I love this scouting stuff.

Good Point. My best friend was the SM in our troop before me. One campout my son forgot the stove in his patrol. I thought we adults felt the weekend was a real success for them because they ended up cooking over the fire all weekend and had a blast. The other patrols actually envied them. Sunday night our families met at the church Youth Christmas Play. When my friend's wife sat down next to us, she greeted us by saying "So your son pulled a really jackass move this weekend". That really hurt our family and I always remembered that. I tried and hope that I didn't say anything like that

Good Point. My best friends was the SM in our troop before me. One campout my son forgot the stove in his patrol. I thought we adults felt the weekend was a real success for them because they ended up cooking over the fire all weekend and had a blast. The other patrols actually envied them. Sunday night our families met at the church Youth Christmas Play. When my friends wife

Great Subject KS Our family really enjoys dinnertime because we get to sit and talk about everything. It's not unusual for us to sit at the table for over an hour. That being said, with four of our family registered to the troop, scouting was not allowed at the table. Barry

Hello All We were doing this when I was SM with the new parents. We observed that most of the problems and complaints that came from the new scouts was mostly due to the parents misunderstandings with the program. So we asked the parents, or at least a parent of each new scout to participate in the three training sessions followed with at least two months of observering the program with the New Scout ASM. The ASM would take the parents to different parts of the program like the PLC meeting, patrol corners, planning meetings, SM conferences, BORs and what ever was going on during the meet

>>It will be interesting to see if Bush really does all that much on those issues or if (as I predict) he will focus on issues near and dear to the old-line Republicans, like taxes.

>>Those 10 boys can work themselves to death in an effort to better the program, but the other 20 are going to stand as an impediment to progress at every turn.

>>You cant be the best show in town without commitment. Youll never become the best show in town without demanding commitment. And thats just something we dont do.

>>The difference in our posts is that Barry thinks he has changed from the scouting program and I am saying that what he did was change closer to the scouting program and that is why it is working better.

Good Oklahoma Morning All >>What disturbs me is that, in the situation you refer to, what the unit was doing originially wasn't anything like the BSA program and they thought it was. So they changed it to work better.

I've seen Councils that gave out special Council shoulder patches for Troops that did extra requirements added to the Quality Unit award. Barry

Very good points and ones that I have thought on as well. It was the Girls Scouts that showed me a lot of this. Like I said, they are very successful at this age. First the burnout part which is the most important part to me. The Tiger program struggles because the boys don't fit in the maturity of the rest of the pack. The Tiger program needs to be at a much simpler activities. I've seen some very successful Tiger programs where they only met once or twice a month. The plannning was done by families where each family took on one month. In fact no family planned more than two meeting in the ti

Hi All Hypothetical Pipe Dreams, Cool. I have two. First, I would take Tigers out of the Cub program and create a new two-year program for kindergarten and first grade aged scouts. The crossover rate of Webelos to Troops is less than 50% of and the Tigers program has the lowest crossover rate of any Cub age. Many Cub leaders say that the Tiger program is the most demanding part of the pack program because the maturity of Tiger age boys is so different from the rest of the Pack ages. Tiger age scout are at the age where they cant read, write and havent developed the discipline

Hi All >>How do you make the notes important? How do you muster some ambition in the scribe to take his job seriously and make a difference in the troop?

Hi All >>We do weekly PLCs, too. They're standups, right after the meeting's over with and the service Patrol's cleaning up. SPL reviews the meeting and goes over the TMP for next week.

Hi FScout >>Either they need more meeting time, or adult intervention, and adults taking over doesn't teach leadership. Your approach sounds like something we might try.

Hi All I think ideas for program improvements is a good topic that can have positive effects in other units. Sorry that Im starting it under a new subject title, but as we say in Oklahoma, That other water was looking pretty sour, so Im fishing a new pond. I hope to keep this thread in a positive tone. One program change we made that really boosted our boy run program was going from monthly PLC meetings to weekly. After three years of monthly meetings, the youth leaders just werent growing as much as we thought were capable. The SPLs never seem to gain complete control of the meeting

Thanks Bob, but here is why I stand by what I said for this troop. First, Leaving the room doesn't mean you don't monitor them. It's as I like to say, standing in the shadows. The main thing here is to get out of the scouts field of view so the act from their nature or training, not from intimidation of what they think the adult wants. Second, If you are tempted by candy, stay out of the candy store. Right now I feel the adults are in training themselves. Leaving the room forces them to let the scouts perform without the temptation of interupting. It's easy to watch a program perform wel

Hi All Assuming for the moment that the adults are trying to teach the SPL how to do his job, I would say that this sounds to me like the scouts are lacking in expectations and/or accountibility. Most newer adults go through this because they are learning as well. The adults are giving advice, however they may not be givng the scout the gaols or expectations. Maybe because they don't know, or they havn't yet learned how to give scouts a vision. For example, I want my SPL to follow an agenda for the meeting so he can learn how to complete everything on task and in a budgeted amount o

Hi Eamonn Without a threat of what you would want, have you asked his opinion of these leaders? I believe that the hardest part of parenting is how to get your kids to do what you want without telling to do what you want. Instead, of holding your fears and concerns, ask him his opinions of the situation and the adults involved, you might be amazed. If you aren't satisfied, express your concerns. Then just sit back and see how he responds. The hard part is doing this without sounding judgemental or intimidating. Talk with him as an adult who needs on more opinion and lets see where