Eagledad

Hi LA Without really seeing the other side, its hard to give one solution. Here are a few things that need understanding. Its very easy to be popular at the district level when you volunteer and work hard on district projects and not be seen as a terrible leader at the unit level. We have purposely pushed adults to be more active at the District level just to get them out of our hair. Second, you have a responsibility to help your Cubs grow the best they can under the guidelines and training given to you. There is little the committee can change unless you are just out-right hurting th

Call Philmont. Don't know the number off hand, but a lot of Councils use to do them there. If you don't mind travel, the Last Frontier Council in Oklahoma has a one week course in July. Nothing like Oklahoma in July. I am sure Texas has one somewhere as well. Just start working your way east. As for differences in week ends or one week courses. It's a matter of taste and schedual. If you're looking to just get trained, I don't think you will find it matters too much. Barry

Hi All One suggestion I give to leaders of new troops is; if the adults expect the scouts to grow in their program, then the adults must grow even more so they don't limit the scouts opportunities. I have found that to be the major cause of weak older scout programs. I have had JASMs that were better leaders then some of the adults. When it comes to running a boy run troop, the only factor that gives the 55 year old the right to be the scoutmaster of the 17 year old scout is wisdom carved out by the hard experiences of life. Other than that, the 17 year old could be a scoutmaster.

Hi Glenn I admire you troop working to improve the program with good adults. Could you give us your list of positives and negitives in this situation? First list advantages of getting this adult, then another list of without the him. Maybe the list will shine a different light on the needs of your program. Good luck. I siad it yesterday in a different thread, scouting is great until the adults get involved. Barry

Hi Glenn Seems like something is missing. I think the right action is obvious. One adult is forcing all the others to hesitate doing the right action. What is this power he holds over the committee? Do you need the Webelos or you don't get any new scouts? Were they already committed? Are you the only troop in town or are there others? It appears your committee knows what to do, why are they hesitating? Barry

Hmmm, this reminds me of the Wood Badge Patrol Leader who looked up Fox on the internet to get some ideas for her patrol. She was a little surprised by what popped up and said she couldn't use them in public. So I decided to look up Bob White and saw what I expected; Einstine, Beethoven, Benjamin Franklin, and Badon Powell. Not sure what the Fox problem was. Maybe they need more vegetables in their diet. Barry Bombing Bob White

Thank you for the kind words. I think this forum is a balance of ideas. The reason I suggested the CC in this case is because 123 already talked to the SM and didn't get an acceptible answer. The committee's view will likely give 123 a better understanding of the program, either by "we support the SM fully" or "maybe he didn't understand your question, let me ask him". It could even be, "you're not the first to appraoch us with this situation". The committee is suppose to let the SM run his program within the limits and guidelines issued by the BSA. They are also suppose to be sepe

That's the same good advice I might give at first Mark, but if the family eventually views the adult as a frustrating wall for continuing scouting, then I would start by calling the committee chair. But one thing I've learned about program problems, volunteers are more willing to listen when you asks questions. "There is an appearance that my son isn't allowed to advance, can you help me understand how the program works?". "I've talked to the SM, but I don't understand his approach for my son. Can you explain it differently so I can understand better?" "My son is frustrated, h

Look for a western hat shop or a professional hat shop in your area and they can steam them to be more comfortable. Barry

All right, Mores scouts, JLT and a Fun program. Great goals and great vision. Does you SM know all this? Lets take one thing at a time. To get more scouts, you have to have a program that boys would like to join. If there is one word that boys want all the time, what is that word? That word is where you want your program to go. Do white water rafting, backpacking and a goof off campout get you that part of your program? Hmm. Next, you have to get boys to visit your Troop. How? Give these guys something they want. Webelos want activity badges, lots of them. If your troop spent two meetings in t

Hi Nate Sounds like you have a lot on your plate. Let me suggest this, where do you see this troop a year from now. What is it you want the PLC doing. Just sit down and dream, no boundaries, no limitations, no restrictions from adults. You are the chief, the boss and the SM. Don't worry about what you think you can or can't do, just write a list of what you want your troop to be a year from now. Have fun with this list. It has to a fun troop doing cool things. It needs to be the coolest troop in the world. Don't show me the list yet, but let me know when you finish it. Barry

All new troops go trough this. What the SM needs to do is cut the topics and goals in bit size chunks. For example, don't ask for a years worth of activities, start with six months. And don't just ask for a calender of program. Plan in small parts, one at a time. Every patrol and the adults get six ideas. Start with building a list for monthly program themes. The SPL ask for one idea from each group and write them on a board for all to see. he continues around each group until everyone has given their six. Then ask for campout themes. Once your finished with those, ask for for camp sites or lo

Hmm, tough one. Respect has to be earned, so that is a long range plan. But, when working with scouts, you change bad behavoir with self motivation. First, I would make sure that everytime this happens in the troop, the SPL and/or the PLC deal with it as best they can. Fighting is outside of the scout law, so ask them to deal with the scouts and make sure they know you can advise on ways to do that. The next thing is that your main job as the SM is behavoir. You don't have to hide this, let the scouts know. Everytime they pull somethng like this, ask them to visit you where you can sit down an

Good thoughts imascouter. I've learned for anything to be a tradition in a unit, it has to done three years, or three times. Your points are valid and I beleive what we need is something simple at the district level that can be repeated for three years. So, whatever your idea, make it happen three times and you will to a measurble degree accomplished your task. With that in mind, one idea is motivate all the troops to take on an activity badge for a couple of weeks in the Spring or Fall so that the Packs get use to visiting troops for a few badges. Designed correctly, one Den probably co

Very Cool! Barry

I believe anyone who is seen is a role model. Even we adults still have role models. What we need to understand is that everyone has good and bad habits or behaviors. The parents of the scouts have to measure the good against the bad and choose the role models they want for their sons. I can't imagine a parent turning away from a rather large SM, half those in our District would be disqualified, but you never know. Many believe the behavior of smoking is more harmful than homosexuality, many believe just opposite. I try and point it out to adult leaders like this. Our council has access

leave the scouts in reguler patrols were the older scouts are role models. Encourage any scouts who wants to do a high adventure trek, what ever it is, to start a Venture patrol for that trek. Scouts interested in doing that trek become a member of that patrol until the trek is over. Then they go back to their other patrol. You will find a couple of scouts hopping from trek to trek, but most do not. You maintain the patrol structure and encourage a more adventurious program at the same time. And what I like about it is there dosn't have to be any age reqirements other than what the trek requir

I wasn't going to respond because after awhile these replies are like ping-pong, is too, is not, is too, is not. But twin_wasp served one over that reminded me of an incident while I was a cub master. I needed an Assistant Cub Master, so I approached a dad who I was told was an Eagle Scout. He said he wouldn't become a scout leader because he was an atheist. He then followed by explaining how scouting gave him a window of adults believing in God. It allowed him to see both sides of religion and later as an adult he made the choice. He said had it not been for the scouts, there would not have b

My experience is the Scout needs at least a year of Troop experience before he is mature enough to work well with a Den. Seems like they need that much time to grow into more of being a boy scout mentor instead of one of the guys. It's tough in this day and age though, a lot of adults want their scouts taking on leadership responsibilities after six months. They don't understand that it's OK to just let them enjoy having fun. The program is designed to be there when they are ready. I rarely had trouble with 12 and 13 year old Den Chiefs. Also training is important. We train our own and te

Hi rockymtnscouter, Bw is right, you guys need to make a change in your positions to encourage a healthy program. But assuming for the moment that your problem is as you presented, you need to find a third party to present the problem. We have a good Unit Commissioner who handles these situations very well when the CC can't solve the problem. The DE is another source but that also depends of their ability to listen and suggest solutions. Another possibilty is the Charter rep. or a respected member from another unit. We had a situation solved by the Wood Badge Counselor of the problem adult. He

I think there is no less respect for our military. The space program is just a single focal point of all the good we view of Americanism. It represents us. What makes us unique in the eyes of the world is that we appear limitless in our power and they see our Military as our strength. But we Americans feel our strength comes from the courage to look into the unknown and explore it. We use our Military to protect that strength, not to push it. One reason so many foreigners move to the U.S. is because there are no limits to who we can be, and where we can go. How many times have your heard that

We have been suggesting more training at the RT for several years, but the professionals have resisted it because RT is designed to hand over the next months themes and program features. This year our Training committee started something new, we now teach Scout Leader Basic Fundamentals at all the RTs. This was design to try and fix the confusion of the new Scout leader Training program. We wanted unit leaders to know they can start the first step of adult training by sending their leaders to RT. We also set in stone all the other Scouter Specific training every forth month on the first weeken

Yes, it is a seperate issue, that's why I didn't want to wonder around too much. There are many factors to scouts continuing in their scouting experience. I tend to focus on the problem that appears over and over. At least around here, I think the weak den leaders is at least 50% of the problem Your right about National, and I asked our professionals how they track Webelos so I could find out why my findings seem so different. They didn't have a good reason but they did explain that National doesn't always look at numbers so much as they poll families and leaders. That makes since, that i

>>My suggestion to packs is to have a webelos transition person who knows and My suggestion to packs is to have a webelos transition person who knows and understands good boy scouting. have them visit the troops and evaluate the programs. Then hold those troop leaders to the quality of program your Webeols deserve in a troop.

Make it JLT! I was one of those SMs who asked scouts to be Den Chiefs because I know how well it helped the Den leaders. But, what I learned was the Patrol leaders who had Den Chief experience where much farther ahead in leadership skills. They were comfortable controlling the group. They knew how to handle disapline better and they had confidence in their leadership. As a JLT Director, I can tell you that no matter what skills the scout has, if he has confidence, he is already three quarters way to good leadership. We started making Den chief the first offical JLT experience for our sco