Eagledad

There is often a crew at Philmont who do their whole trip in full dress uniforms. Some of them also sing and do cheers along their route. The ones I see are usually older scouts. They make it look easy, which I guess is the point. Very impressive to watch. Barry

Very cool. Ya can't be the campaign hats, but I also like the garrison hats that we wore back in the 60s. I wore my dads garrison hat that he wore in the early 40s. Glad to see the long stockings, the smartwool version are more practical for backwoods. Seems old styles come back, but I hope to never see the short shorts of the 80s. Yeeee! Barry

"Uniform" is one of the Eight Methods and has a purpose toward developing scout growth. Some adults take that more to heart than others, and use it differently than others. The objective to the "Patrol Method" method is enabling the scouts to think independently while working together as a team. That can be a very challenging expectation of the scouts. For me, the "Uniform" method is a positive part of helping scouts grow in making independent decisions for their outward actions toward the members of their patrol. Interestingly, I find the more troops are boy run, the less they look unified in uniform. Actually that un-uniformity shows the complexity of giving scouts the independence to make wrong decisions. It's not that the troop doesn't have expectations for uniform, but in each scout's life, they go through phases of vanity vs. character integrity. Scouts aren't always feeling uniform with their patrol mates. We are patient and they do grow. Barry

This debate was going 45 years ago. Same goes with the First Class cooking requirements. I don't think it's a power debate so much as program quality control. Once everyone gets an understanding of the long term objectives, most folks want to do what is best for the scouts. Barry

Nope, you are right. Everyone is wearing what they need for a week in the wilderness of sun, rain, heat and cold. Well, not so much cold. There are two patrols of scouts there because the crew was only organized for that trip. And of the two patrols, I can't say they always wear their hats uniformly. Barry

Adults set the tone for how they want scouts to behave. You don’t want them to wear hats, most will abide in your influence. Ok, we all do it one way or another, But don’t blame the scouts for the tone you are setting. Barry

Program existence requires recruiting at the early (earliest) ages. The Tiger program was created to complete against Campfiress new program change to recruit first graders. The new BSA (or whatever) membership policy is threatening the existence of GSUSA. Barry

More something like this: https://www.amazon.com/Genuine-Issue-Military-USMC-Boonie/dp/B071HNS8F5 We purchased them at the Army Surplus stores. They must have had at least a dozen colors styles back then. This is my older son's Boundary Waters Crew in 1996. Notice the variety of booneys. The three in front were patrol hats. The old codger in the back and on the left had skin cancer, so he wore his bigger booney. That one was not military grade and wore out after many adventures through the years. Barry

I think the key word here is "uniform". So long as everyone is wearing the selected hat and it is in good taste with the outdoor scouting program, you won't have too much problem. Our patrols picked their hats, but I have seen PLCs (or adults) pick out the hat for the troop as well. I saw one large troop that wore campaign hats and they look very sharp. The resource for campaign hats are surplus stores that have access to drill sergeant hats. But be warned, scouts will tend to only wear comfortable hats that are comfortable in the woods. Campaign, and even baseball caps, don't do as well there. We especially like the military booney hats. Booney hats come in several colors and como styles. They vent for the heat, keep rain off the head, sun off the ears and have a strap for the windy days. They are indestructible and can handle many years of outdoors weather and are easy to stuff in a pack. Mine and my sons are still going strong 25 years later. Scoutmasters end up being the lost and found of the troop. I acquired more pocketknives and Scout Handbooks than a jar of jelly beans. I also has my fair share of baseball style BSA hats. Whatever the scouts' pick, it needs to be boy proof or cheap. Barry Barry

Just so long as they get to call the adults the Old-Goats. Barry

My hats off to anyone watching lawyers talk about law stuff. I'll wait for the Cliff notes. Barry

You encourage it by starting with someone with the vision. Either that person develops the training committee, or recruits someone to develop the training committee to the vision. It has to start with the vision. Barry

When the new Scoutmaster Fundamentals came out in 2000, all the district training chairs (and anyone willing) were asked to participate in the short 9 hour course presented by Council for evaluation. I chose to pass.😎The evaluations were that it was way too long and too boring. Ok, I knew the presenter. He once bragged about putting a colony of ants to sleep reading “The Night Before Christmas”. So I was skeptical on the boring part. But 9 hours of anything was not going to inspire busy adults to participate. Our district approached the course by dividing the syllabus up into 3 parts over a Friday night and Saturday morning. We used 3 presenters who were experienced Scoutmasters and professional college level teachers. Well, 2 teachers and a colorful engineer. Then we brought lots of food and drinks and took lots of breaks. We broke up the horrible PowerPoint slides with a few pictures of our own experiences. We basically turned the course into as much of a campfire telling stories as we could. The reputation of the course carried far enough that scouters from other districts and councils participated. Barry

I understand your point. A sense of belonging is personal and has to be developed. Oh, there is that initial romance of joining something with a reputation that is bigger than life, but that romance can die quickly if the experience doesn’t live up to the hype. The BSA looses more Scouts in the first 6 months of the troop experience than any other age. Sense of belonging has to be earned by both parties. All I’m saying is Scouts can see the difference between using titles for political correctness or for personal growth. It’s not the words, it’s the body language. And on the forum (not you); it’s the tone, not the words. Barry

As a Conditional Scouter, I don’t know why this silliness is so hard for new scouters. Scouts of the troop age can see through adults’ words and wording. What they want from adults is respect. Respect your Scouts as adults, they will respect your experience of life and wisdom. Barry

We practiced our hand carving (😁sorry, wood carving) skills on our Space Derby and Pinewood Derby kits. Later-on a Indian neckerchief slide. Barry

Well! In my defense, I was afraid he was going to bring a gun into the fixed blade knife fight, discussion. So we nipped it in the butt, so to speak. Barry

Oh good! Now we can talk about him. Can you believe................................

The tone is not welcome. Barry

LS, you only needed to post the last sentence. It made the point without disparaging the Eagles you feel didn’t have the motivation to earn the honor on their own. Every Scout IS different, which is why the adult staff should strive to build a program that doesn’t obstruct any Scout’s personal ambition. Barry

I don't know the answer to your question, but troop calendars started changing after National introduced the New Scout Patrols (NSP) around 1990. Before NSPs, most packs moved the Webelos over by age, which resulted in troop receiving one or two crossovers every month over the whole year. Not the whole den once a year. A couple of New Scouts every month fostered the patrols to teach scout skills all year long. The NSPs intuitively swayed districts to encourage packs to cross their Webelos over in the winter, which forced troops to plan seasonal calendars. Before the NSPs, most troops planned their calendars around more adventure activities like hiking, fishing, backpacking and so on with scouts skills development done more at the patrol level and worked into the adventure activities. After NSPs were introduced, PLCs started planning toward seasonal programs of first class skills like, first-aid, pioneering, or cooking to fit in with getting new scouts up to speed for camping, as well as advancing. These NSP calendar schedules aren't bad in of themselves, but the unintentional consequences were PLC's taking over the patrols responsibilities of teaching skills to their new patrol mates and troop activities that have less adventure and more advancement. Simply, NSPs quietly and slowly drove troops away from patrol method and adventure. Knowing this, a troop can try and resist seasonal programming, but we found it almost impossible. Even though we are a mixed age patrol program, districts still push the winter crossovers, so troops are stuck with receiving most of their new scouts over in a 3 month range. That forces the troops into programs of getting new scouts up to speed for summer camp. That doesn't leave a lot of room for general adventure activities that aren't skills developing activities, at least in the Spring. We do OK because we understand the situation, but troop leaders that don't see it will fall into a seasonal calendar that is basically a first class advancement program. Which is a big killer of the older scouts part of the program. And to add insult to injury, many if not most, troops plan their fall calendar around recruiting, so they have very little calendar for just plain old adventure. The NSP inadvertently push troop scouting to be less patrol method and more adult run. Troops today are a lot less mature and strive more for advancement. And it's difficult to not fall into those traps because they are the paths of least resistance. Barry

I just watched national news and they called it “a war”. The GSUSA didn’t come out looking like the bad guy. Barry

As a SM (in the day), I preferred a crossover scout with little or no troop preparation because it is easier to teach a scout how not to be scared of the dark than keep a scout bored of the dark interested. I did like scouts who had camped overnight at least one in a tent without their parents. That is a difficult hurdle for many boys. But other than that, I liked plain slates. Barry

Ooooo, I like Dragoon Scouts. Barry

Is that sarcasm too? Barry