Eagledad

>>The jackhammer seems to be a straight forward case of safety. You have to intervene as a scouter, as a parent you have to intervene if your own kid is involved.

Hi 1hour

In general adults should only aid a any scout's performance in anything he does when his maturity and experience isn't enough to attempt the task. You said the Troop Guide does seem to have control, so it sounds like he is OK.

Where you and other adults may be needed is in helping the TG learn and develop his job. One idea would be to meet a half hour before of after the meetings to ask the TGs how they are doing. Let them talk and express themselves. Then help them think of ideas to improve. Let's say all three TGs are having trouble controlling the scouts. Give them two different ideas to try. No more than two because that is too much to remember. I find most scouts only focus on one. But now you are teaching different skills and giving tools to solve problems. Sometimes the ideas won't work, so help him come up with more ideas. Your goal is to teach the scout how to control the group, teach skills and develop leadership respect without him loosing control or yelling.

An example of one idea would be is have the TG to explain the important of the scout sign. To help them learn it's importance, he will put up his sign as a game through the evening and watch to see who puts up their sign the fastest. At the end of the meeting he will praise the scout, some scouts in our troop even give a prize. Another idea would be to ask another one or two older scouts help him. When he puts up his sign, the older scout put theirs up and guide the new scouts to follow. There shouldn't be any yelling or abuse of holding the sign for a time so long that it becomes more of a punishment. Make sure the TGs teach that it's meant to get attention and to respect the speaker. I'm sure several here have other ideas. Then stand back and observe to see how the new ideas work. At the next meeting ask the TGs how they did. This gets them thinking on their feet.

I said earlier to keep them busy. Our TGs have enough on their agenda that he has to keep moving. Sometimes it's hard to know what they should be doing. But look at the TG as a trainer. So train the new scouts how to complete the "Scout" advancement badge. Our guys have to request a SM Conference and a BOR. SO our TG teaches how to do this and helps each new scout their first time. He teaches how to use the Scout Handbook. Out Troop Guides teach how to set up the tent, and troop gear. Usually their first campout is at night and we teach them the basics of setting up camp so they can do it in the dark with some confidence.

This is all done in the first six weeks and it is a very busy six weeks. By the time, the guys are starting to settle down, in most cases.

This is also very good practice for you in boy run. Observe without interfering, ask the scout questions that help him think new ideas to work his problems and set goals, support him to raise his confidence. I promise, you will learn as much as he does and it will feel good when you go home that night saying you love this scouting stuff.

Is this too much to fast?

Barry

Hi All

Some good advice is being given. I am surprised though, I have never heard of a scout being asked to leave along with the parents. I agree, I think only the COR can ask you leave, and it make sense that council has to be notified. But to ask the scout to leave? Is there more to this story?

Barry

Hi All

One common misconception that comes to mind is many of the Scoutmasters in our District sign merit badge cards after the scouts completed the requirements. Policy is the SM signs it before the scout calls and meets the counselor.

Barry

Hi

I'm a little confused, but I think you are asking if you should fill the empty slot with an adult or scout. I'm always for giving a scout a wonderful experience, but I also enjoy giving a father the opportunity to watch his son in action.

You need to evaluate if the adult will add or take away from the crews experience. I had three crews go to Philmont three years ago. Two of the three crews had complaints about the adults. In one crew, five scouts quit our troop after the trek. Yes, he was that bad.

The one crew that had no problems only had two adults who were not active leaders in the troop. They were two dads who had never been on a campout with their sons and took advantage of the opportunity to have a once in a lifetime experience with their son. Since the adults had never camped with scouts, the scouts had to take care of them. Everyone in this crew had a great time. My older son who was 16 at the time says now that he learned a lot about patience and serving from that trek.

I once heard that Philmont was looking to make some changes because the number one complaint from the scouts was adults taking over the crews. As far as I know, nothing was changed though, I am not sure what you could do.

So adults can make or break the experience. We also had a slot open a month ago and I talked one of our 18 year old ASMs into going. With my 20 year old son and this 18 year old ASM going as two of the four adults, many scouts have commented they wished they had signed up with our crew. As for me, I get to watch both my sons in action. I love this scouting stuff.

When are you going, we will be there the last two weeks of June.

Barry

You can also check out this site to see if it has something that will work for you.

http://users.aol.com/coffeeweb/LO/pl.htm

Barry

Well I was hopeing. This is a big issue around here. A local church had a van that crashed and killed several youth on their on a Mexico Mission Trip. It appears the driver feel asleep. While it was no fault of his own, the organizer of that trip is a father of three scouts in our Troop. We have a large group of older scouts and we had to set some kind of policy the adults could feel comfortable with. Our CC felt certain she saw a BSA policy of 21 somewhere but couldn't find it. Kind of hits close to me. My older son is almost 20 and was thinking he'd help drive to Philmont this summer. He will have to wait.

Thanks for the information.

Barry

>>but not with other scouts in the car,unless they are over 21 and are listed on the tour permit.

I've been on a couple forums for about 8 years, I hope you don't mind some ideas from them.

-SPL handing out advancment patches to scouts at end of meetings.

-SPL introducing scouts to the BOR.

-Troop Guide Program

-New Scout ASM

-Older scout program

-Camping without Patrol Boxes.

-Night Camporee

Barry

Heres the deal, Boy run and the three aims only works when scouts are mature enough to learn from their experience, good or bad. I liken this situation to putting a 12 year old in charge of a mature boy run troop 80 scouts. Nothing good would come out of that because the 12 year old doesn't have the maturity or experience to learn from his performance.

Most folks who know me call me a boy run activist, so it's not that I am against boy run and letting the methods work. Truth is the methods work best when there are role models to demonstrate the program. We learn 80 to 90 percent of our behaviors and habits by what we see, not what we hear. The scouting program was design with that in mind. New scouts have not had the time to learn from role models to even understand boy run.

For scouting to work best, a boy needs to be challenge to the point that struggles so can think to learn from his actions. He is forced to think. But if the challenge is so great that he is frustrated or scared and no longer having fun and dreads going to Scouts, then the challenge is too great for his maturity.

I don't have the numbers in front of me, but scouting looses more scouts in the first year of a Troop program than at any other age. A friend of mine did a study and he found that a boy run troop is overwhelming to boys who are only used to adult instruction. They have to learn boy run slowly so the scouts are not overwhelmed. Its a lot of work.

I don't think Bob was wrong in saying let the methods work. But methods are different for each boy and they need to applied differently for their situation and maturity. The idea of scouts listing one friend came from an ASPL in charge of moving 25 scouts into patrols. Is that boy run? I was sure a proud SM. New scouts are hard. I will say if you have them after six months, then odds are you will have them for several years. The adult and Troop Guide must work together getting the new boys comfortable with the program. The must have fun so they keep coming long enough to get over their fears and apprehensions. They can still make decisions that effect them, but they shouldnt be so responsible that if things dont work out right, like a patrol of boys not getting along, that they feel frustrated and quit coming. You wont solve all problems, but its OK to head some them off until the boy gets comfortable. After that, you in pretty good shape. Try and learn from every situation so that you do a better job next time.

Sorry this is long.

Barry

>>Do you let them list someone they prefer not to be with?

Hi Dan

Circumstances are always different, but just last year we had one scout with learning disabilities who was picked on by two boys in his den. His dad requested that his son be placed in a different patrol. They weren't bullies to everyone, but my son was their troop guide and they did seem to focus on this one scout. We found out later that the Den leader encourage the behavior. Just a few weeks ago the dad of the learning disabled scout asked to be an ASM because their experience has been so good in the troop.

What was your Ticket item?

Barry

Some of the materal sources are mine, but not the Web site. It belongs to a Scoutmaster in Minnesota who ask permission to post stuff I wrote on another Scouting Forum. I'm glad you enjoy it.

Barry

Hi Onehour

100% boy led in one year? Admiral goal, but remember in a boy led troop, adults must learn as much as the scouts at a faster rate to keep up and stay out of the way. Your experience here is one example of that. So pace yourself.

Everyone gave great ideas for working with these guys. So I will give some ideas on dividing up the scouts. I would like to read what Sir Earnest Shackleton did but we learned the easiest path to building patrols with the least pain in large groups is to ask every scout to name on a sheet of paper one friend they would like in their patrol. Explain the logistical problem of breaking up old dens so they understand why. Then you can sit down with the list and divide the scouts up, so long as they have at least one friend, usually the FAMILIES are happy. Also, later you can use moving the one friend as leverage to change their behavior if there are still problems.

Another reason I have found this to work is some scouts (and Parents) don't want to be with certain other boys around them (bullys) and this is a way they can do that without any trouble.

Have a great day.

Barry

Good Day all

I got a call one late night from a friend. He said our Cub Pack that our wives were Den Leaders in was splitting and if I would Cub Master of one pack, he would take the other and we would work together to make sure we had even split of leaders since neither one of us had any experience. I said no but my wife told him yes. A week later another adult called and said he was the new CM of the other pack and he followed with the list of how the pack split. Out of the ten dens, I got one experienced leader.

Of course the story goes that I was dragged kicking and screaming into a wonderful program that I have reaped many wonderful rewards. But I was hurt by the trick from my friend. Wounds do heal and water does pass under the bridge. The wife of that so-called-friend is our Troop Committee Chair and we both love this scouting stuff. God does have a strange way of getting his way.

Barry

Hi All

I want to be careful and start out that I am not defending aged balanced patrols over aged based patrols. I'm speaking from our experiences. How ever you choose to run your troop, it should be based from what you want your sons get out of the program.

Every mature unit has frustrations of older scouts being led by 12-year-old Patrol Leaders because it requires patience and compassion when the thrill of adventure is just over the hill. But gaining happiness from thrills is usually short lived where self-fulfillment from service to other is long term. It would be rare that a 12 year old would be a Patrol leader in a mature age balanced patrol. In fact, it wasn't until our troop started Venture Patrols that our other patrols started electing 12 and 13-year-old patrol leaders. The older scouts were gone and the maturity of leadership fell, a lot. It is also true that in an mature age balance patrol type program your older or oldest scouts are typically the troop senior leaders and are use to younger patrol leaders because that is how leadership development works in the program. By the way, there were older scout patrols before Venture patrols were introduced, it's just they usually were the senior leadership scouts. Not high adventure.

There have been aged based patrols around since Scouting Started. They just were not the norm and not encouraged by the BSA until recently. So you have to ask, how did age balanced patrols make it up to this point? The answer is the adults. If you have a troop where in general the older scouts are having trouble with younger scouts, odds are it's because without knowing it, the adults are allowing that attitude, and may even be encouraging it. We've had a couple adults like that in our troop. One left to start a Venturing Crew and now admits he wanted to get away from the younger scouts so he could do more high adventure.

National encourages aged based patrols now, so there is nothing wrong with that type of Troop. But if you are doing it because the adults think older scouts can't or don't work well with younger scouts, then the adults are the problem. Don't underestimate or box in our young people. One reason I am so strong toward aged balanced patrols is because these young men can and do learn to enjoy working with each other. But that attitude does have to start with the adults. As I said earlier, we adults seem to have low expectations of older scouts anymore.

Have a great Scouting day.

Barry

>>The goal of a troop is not to have evenly balanced (except for pure numbers) patrols. I remember when I was seventeen, my idea of a good time was not hanging around with 11 and 12 year old boys.

This is a great question. I've had thoughts of trying something like a Green Bar Patrol. All the SPLs would have a meeting where the Green Bar Patrol leader would be handout the same district information and annoucements that SMs normally receive, and then do a little JLTC leadership development. Then they would meet with the SMs to learn ideas for program. Hope we get more great ideas. Great subject J.

Barry

I must admit I have too much time on my hands to reply to this thread. But not to long ago someone asked what does a person do to get re-energized for that one hour a week. For me the uniform in scouting is a tool of pride and discipline for the boys. But it's only a tool. While many struggle with how to wear the uniform because they don't want to be in "violation" of the code, I see the code as a guideline to look uniform. No more or no less than the guideline the scouts have in their handbook. "Violation" seems such a harsh word for the adult who gives fives hours for that one hour a week and does so because passion drives him or her to do it. While I was SM, I asked adults set the example by wearing a full uniform properly. How strict do I have to be for that request? I explain to our adults, role modeling is 90% of building men from boys. Wearing uniform is easy compared to behaving properly 100% of the time. But how concerned can one be if the adult wears his nametag on the wrong side of the shirt or a patch wrong? One poster says he has never seen an adult ask to change his uniform when worn incorrectly, but I have seen one chewed out in front of many for just that nametag.

For me the uniform is just a tool for building character. That combined with my personal philosophy of: the main thing is to keep the main thing, the main thing. I am not saying that adults shouldn't set the example and follow the code. Heavens no, I know that setting the example is the most important for building character in boys. But for some strange reason, I feel hurt that mk9750 shouldn't show his passion for the scouting game. Given the choice of adult who I want my scouts modeling from, an excited mk9750 who expresses the love of scouting even in his jacket, or the grouchy old guy who embarrassed the SM in front of the whole District, I choose mk9750.

A few years ago I was walking our Council Scout show and noticed a one legged SM also wearing a wooden peg leg. The peg leg was obviously carved out by hand and it had what looked like a million signatures on it. I asked the SM about it and he said it was his Scouting leg he wore while scoutmastering. He along with the scouts in his troop carved it out of a tree limb, and he lets any scout willing sign it. How cool it that? I over heard him tell another adult he doesnt wear that leg at Wood Badge.

Its hard for me to explain the fuel of my passion when some nobody says, its just boy scouts for goodness sake. But in a discussion like this, I want to yell, Hey, this is Boy Scouts for goodness sake. Not to simplify our program, but to bring back the focus of why we do the scouting thing. How do we keep the flame of passion lit when the five hours we cram in the one-hour a week feels like 20? I think you have put scouting on. We all do it in different ways, but there is something we do that makes us feel good about ourselves when we are scouting. I am not one who shows my passion on the uniform. I have a lot more knots waiting to be sewed on than already on my shirt. I have a smoky bear hat Ive never worn and I dont have the Red Jackshirt yet. But Im going to Philmont this year and I have to sew that bull on something. Still, I like to set a quiet example and red is not quiet. I do like other adults wearing them. I like them wearing patches. I love the staves adults take with them everywhere. I believe every troop needs a peg leg, or something like it if you know what I mean. There needs to be at least one adult who wears that boyish excitement of scouting. We need the adult that every boy counts on to reflect that romance that most of us feel when we go scouting. Should we adults wear the full uniform properly? You bet, as a preacher of the Three Aims, role modeling is the most important for me. Should we hide our emotions and passion when they appear in violation? Well thats hard to say. We each have our own drive to be a scouter. We sacrifice, we endure, and we give our all. We have the love of scouting that most cant understand, except the Scout. The scouts can see it. They still have an eye for adventure and boyhood glamour. They know the adult who works scouting, and the one who wear it. Do we sometimes punish the passion needlessly? I dont know why this subject seemed to disappoint me so much. But maybe it was the choice of not showing off a million signatures to the adult patrols in a Wood Badge course. And I wonder if maybe we adults can sometimes be too adult even in uniform. I guess I want to say the main thing is to keep the main thing, the main thing.

I love this Scouting Stuff.

Barry

Given a choice of being with friends or going to a better program, nine out of ten boys will choose friends. I've had a few scouts like this and they do fine and actually do better than at school because the scouting program encourages a scouts to grow at his pace, not the expectations of others. When allowed, we humans excel toward what makes us feel good about ourselves. If the adults are willing, he will do fine.

I like to tell our adult leaders that we are doing OK when a boy goes home saying "I like myself when I'm with the Troop". I love scouting stuff.

Barry

>>I believe what was waged here was that people disliked the ways our troop does things

Cool! Your troop doesn't sound so different from ours.

You said that you do JLT type training. How often do you do it?

Do you give your Patrol leaders any kind of specail training for their job? If you do, who does the training?

I'm guessing you meet once a week. Our basic meeting agenda goes something like this;

Opening

Patrol Corners

Program

Game

Closeing and SM Minute

How does your meeting agenda look?

Where are your crews going next?

Barry

Hi Again

I'm not sure we are to the "lack thereof" place. I'm just trying to learn how your troop can work.

A couple questions from your last post:

1.You said you get calls out to the patrol leaders for input, how many patrol leaders do you have?

2.Does the SM help you run the meetings or do you write your own agenda and run it yourself?

3.Who thinks up the activities, just the SM? Do you have an annual planning meeting and who attends that if you do have one?

4.What kind of activities do you all do? Campout every month? Any High Advernture type stuff and where? Where do you go to summer camp?

You describe a very interesting troop and it must have something going for it if so many scouts enjoy the program. Thanks for you input.

Barry

Hi Chucklehead.

I have to say, you bring to light a different sort of Troop. I know you said there are other troops like yours, but Ive not seen one. If you wouldnt mind, could you tell me a little more about your program?

The original design of a troop is actually a group of patrols, not the other way around. The intent was putting a small manageable group of boys together to practice real life lessons of leadership, follow-ship, teamwork, democracy, diplomacy and compassion. One definition of leadership is motivating the group to accomplish a common task. It sounds to me like what you have is a gigantic patrol, not a troop without patrols. I see nothing wrong with your program anymore than a small troop of eight scouts running the same program. What I dont see is how you can do it without the adults running the program sort of like a Cub Scout pack. I am sure you arent running an over-aged Cub Pack, but this is where you can help me understand better.

The ideal patrol is about eight scouts give or take a few depending on the abilities and experience of the scouts. There are several studies that show even adults cant manage or lead more than 12 to 15 people without loosing efficiency and maintaining a positive attitude in the group. That is why a leadership structure in most companies is design so that managers directly work with a small group of workers and other managers. Anymore than that and you loose the ability to understand and hear the folks you lead. You become less of leader who motivates through positive teamwork and use more of a dictator type leadership to accomplish your task. While there are appropriate times for dictator type leadership, it is not appropriate when it means intimidating or forcing someone against their will for your satisfaction. Here is what I cant see in your troop. HOW do you guys get your troop organized to start a meeting. In our Troop the SPL tells his patrol leaders to get their patrols together and give their attention to the SPL. Our SPL doesnt have to yell, he only needs to ask his leaders to do their job and get their patrols attention. In fact in most cases, we see yelling as a sign of failing leadership. We have an active troop of about 60 scouts, so its about the same as yours. In our troop, you will not see the adults help the SPL because they dont belong in any of the scouts patrols. The adults dont put up their sign until the SPL puts his up. I am trying to imagine how you get your 60 scouts attention without patrol leaders to help you. In your words, paint me a picture of you getting the attention of 60 scouts and starting the meeting. Who are your helpers? Where are the adults and do they help you start and run the meeting? How do you keep control? Im very interested.

That will help me understand your program a lot. One other thing, you said the goal of scouting is to teach new skills and divide the cream of the crop from the garbage. What does that mean? It is true that four percent of the population are natural leaders while the rest are instinctively followers. But scouting is one of the few programs in our society where a boy can be from that 96 percent of followers and still become a great leader. Is that what you mean or do you have a different idea of scouting and leadership.

Hey thanks for teaching me about your troop. It very interesting to say the least and maybe we can all learn something from your program.

Barry

It sounds great. We started about the same way several years ago and eventually developed two JLTs, a Patrol Leaders Development and a short Leader Specific training. We do a Patrol leaders Development course once a year for any scout who wants to be a leader in the PLC. This is very much like yours and is planned and ran by the older scouts. The only requirement for this course is firstclass rank and the scouts only take it once.

Our other course is a three hour course we do after each election. Every one in the PLC is required to attend. The first hour is a review of the leadership positions and the responsibilities that go with them. The second hour is with their counselor where they discuss the socuts responsibilities and set at least three goals that usually work toward the SPL's goals. The third hour is a PLC meeting and time where the SM and SPL speak on leadership. Lately our SM has asked the adults to attend this part of the training to explain Aims and Methods and who is responsibile for them.

The advantage of the the three hour course is scouts don't mind repeating the course because it's short, they learn new skills required for their job and they usually have a lockin after.

I really enjoyed your post KS. Sounds like a great troop.

Barry