Eamonn

I am sad that you see that way. We use this method all the time and it works. I am interested to know how your unit goes about selecting quality leadership? Eamonn

Boy the BSA does a good job of keeping these documents secret. I have never heard of them. Of course if I had I wouldn't be able to tell you or they wouldn't be a secret. Eamonn

Hi, back home the meetings were very informal and we were normally seen with a glass of liquid amber in one hand - Heck if someone else was buying we might have a glass in each hand. If we didn't gather after the troop meeting we met on Sunday after church for a quick meeting before lunch. Eamonn

Hey Bob Just to make sure that you are not confused all the postings are done in duplicate. Eamonn Hey Bob Just to make sure ........

Scoutnet the web site of UK Scouts has a lot of ideas. Eamonn

In another thread someone used the word Dude. Some years back I think there was a rock group called Mott The Hopple or something like that, anyways they had a hit with All the young dudes. I have no idea what a Dude is? Do you know? Eamonn

Apart from me having to be involved with something which I happen to think is a lot of hard work for not a very big return. ( The Pizza Kits make $5.25 per kit.) My big problem is that the troop is made up with Scouts from two districts. While the Mom who thinks this is such a good idea might be able to get a church hall near her and sell a lot of tickets to people in her neighborhood. What about the Lad who lives 40 miles away. The people in his neighborhood are not going to travel that far. Then of course there is the time. As things are the time involved is minimal. What they want to do will take up the most part of a day. I'm also a little unsure of how the profits from a spaghetti dinner get divided. Do those who do all the work get a bigger cut then say the Scout who sells the most tickets, but doesn't have his parents help out cooking and clearing up? The idea of having a dinner in each community is not a bad one but when you break the troop down into community groups I don't think that you have the numbers to sell enough tickets to make it worth while. I do know that I have no intention of becoming the Spaghetti Dinner King. I don't have the right accent. The more I think about this the more I see that the problem is with me. I don't want to get involved in a lot of Fund Raising. My feeling being that you (The Parent) knew the price tag on the event when you signed your son up. We offer the Fund Raising opportunities that we offer and you can take it or leave it. If the parents decide that they want to do more that is OK, as long as whatever they do does not discriminate against any Scout in the troop. Eamonn

I think that I may have upset some of the parents who have Scouts attending the next National Jamboree. As a Council Jamboree committee, we have in the past and are again offering Fund Raisers for the youth participants. Last Jamboree we had two frozen pizza kit sales and three pie sales. These are presented to the participants as take it or leave it. Some of the Scouts raised more then enough then to cover all the Jamboree costs, some didn't sell anything. The choice was theirs. I was very lucky in that Her Who Must Be Obeyed likes this sort of thing. It isn't a whole lot of work. We hand out order forms, the Scouts get the orders and return a copy of the form. She phones in the order, they deliver to my house. Parents pick up the pies /pizzas and we are done.On the morning of our Jamboree troop meeting a Scouts mother calls me and says that she thinks that a spaghetti dinner would be a good idea. I am in a rush to get to work so I ask her to bring it up at the meeting. I mull over the idea and the more I think of it the more I don't like it. Mainly because the Scouts are from different communities some as far away as the West Virgina boarder and even if we managed to hold this dinner in the middle we would still have people traveling 45 miles. I know that there is not a spaghetti dinner that I know of that I would drive 45 miles for. Near the end of our meeting this Lady does her pitch for the spaghetti dinner. I don't say a word. But the young lad who is the 3rd ASM voices his opinion which is along the same lines as mine,(Bright Lad!!) I explain to the parents that the last thing I want to do is fund raising and that I'm happy doing what we have done. There are a few comments that state how unhappy some people are selling food to their relatives. I inform them that they don't have to partake in the fund raising but if they want they can form there own little committee and make suggestions to me. I want to ensure that what they do is for the benefit of all the participants. I kind of got the feeling that this wasn't what they wanted to hear. Eamonn

For the sake of argument let's say that I am the Scoutmaster of a troop and some of the older boys/ Scouts are unhappy with my performance. Lets add that for some reason I'm too dumb to know this. I would hope that the other adults in the troop would come to me and inform me about what was happening. Before they took off and tried to start some sort of rebellion. I would hope that if there was a problem that all the adults would rally around the Scoutmaster and try and fix what wasn't working or solve whatever the problem might be. The sad thing about these forums is that we only see one side of the problem. Who is to say that the troop might be better off without these five older Scouts? Who is to say that they not acting is a Scout-like manner? Still no matter what we do have a right way of doing things and a wrong way. The right way in this instance would have been to go to the Scoutmaster and try and work things out. If that didn't work it should have gone to the troop committee and the COR. If the COR had seen that things could not be worked out he or she could working with the knowledge and go ahead from the head of the CO asked the Scoutmaster to step down or leave. The Scoutmaster position is the responsibility of the CO. Not the Scouts or the ASM's. If she was doing such a terrible job why did she remain on the charter as Scoutmaster and why was it approved by the CO? I serve as a District Chairman, every year a District Nominating Committee is formed and they could very easily nominate someone else to be the District Chair. As the position means that I sit on the Executive board I also have to be approved by that board. There may be some unit leaders and COR who think that I'm doing a lousy job. However they can't just band together and vote me out. They could make it known that I'm doing a lousy job and either make their concerns known to the nominating committee so that I would not be invited to serve next year or they could ask a member of the Executive board to make a motion at a meeting to have me removed. I serve at their pleasure, what I may want really is of no consequence. There is a correct way of going about things which works. It is when people start making up their own rules and not following procedure that things go wrong, people get hurt and the good name of Scouting becomes tarnished. Eamonn

Having been in business for many years I go along with the old adage "If you pay peanuts you will get monkeys." In Scouting if we fail to select the right person for the job, why are we so surprised when they mess up? We have a really good tools at our disposal if only we would use them. It seems that when things don't go as they should that idea of selection never happened, that the chartering organization is some kind of Utopian idea that no one ever heard of and the dog ate my home work. These new leaders that have been selected have to be approved by the chartering organization when they are first selected and have to be approved annually at rechartering time. All appointments in Scouting at the volunteer level are yearly. Before we even start the selection process we need to have as a goal that we want the best possible person to fill the position. We are not looking for any old Tom, Dick or Harry. We are selecting a quality leader or committee person. So how do we go about selecting quality leadership? First we need to gather a selection committee. The head of the organization or the COR appoints a selection committee. In the case of an existing unit this might be the Unit Committee, but other people might be asked to serve on this Selection Committee - Parents and members of the chartering organization. Next we need to list the qualifications that the candidate needs to possess for the position that we are filling. Everyone on the selection committee needs to know what traits we are looking for. Then we need to list all the Candidates. This is done by the Selection Committee brain storming a list of all possible candidates.All candidates names are listed and no committee member can disqualify a candidate at this time. Once the list of candidates is complete the committee should numerically prioritize the list. Then as leadership is the responsibility of the Chartering Organization, the head of the Chartered Organization needs to approve the Committees selection. Once you have the approval of the Chartered Organization. The selection committee selects three people to be the visitation team. This team should consist of: someone who knows about Scouting, Someone from the Chartered Organization and someone who knows the prospect. Then the visitation committee makes an appointment to visit/ interview the candidate at home. A truthful presentation should be made of what the position entails and what the expectations are, the presentation should end with the person who knows the candidate asking him or her to serve. If they say yes three things need to happen: An adult application needs to be filled out. Fast start training needs to happen (Within 48 hours.) And an announcement needs to be made to the organization and others of the candidates acceptance of the position . If the candidate says no. He should be offered another position . The selection committee then goes back to the head of the Chartering Organization for his approval of the second name on the list. You can find all these steps on Selecting Cub Scout Leaders, No.13-500 and Selecting Quality Leaders, No. 18 -981. We owe it to the youth in our programs to select the best possible leadership. Eamonn

Scouting is not run as a democracy. The Scoutmaster is not elected he or she is selected. As are the other adults at the unit level. While your Unit Commissioner may want to offer help and advise this is a unit problem. No one from the District or Council is going to come in on a white horse. It seems clear to me from what you have posted that the Assistant Scoutmasters have done very little in the way of assisting the Scoutmaster. With assistance like you describe I sure as heck wouldn't want it. I would hope that before any Assistant Scoutmaster went around talking to the parents or the Scouts that they would have the common decency to talk with the Scoutmaster. What they have done shows a total disregard for the Scout Law. In fact if I were the Scoutmaster I would be talking to the committee and the Chartering Organization to have them removed. Eamonn

Going back to the title of this thread "Do Venturers really care about Venturing's History." No they don't. To my of thinking looking back over old books and old programs can be a lot of fun. If you are interested in that sort of thing. I was a Venture Scout for seven years back in England. I had a great time, we hiked, camped, did a tremendous amount of community service. It was in the Venture Unit that I earned my Queen Scout Award and my Duke Of Edinburgh's Award. Sure a lot of the activities are very similar to what a High Adventure Crew might do today and a lot of the skills and leadership techniques are the same on both sides of the pond. OK, maybe when the campfire is dying down and I am asked I do look back and retell some of the high points and the low points of my Venturing career, I think mainly because I like retelling them. Still it is much the same as looking at the old program books; An interesting look back. But come the light of the new day we are dealing with the new day and the program is what it is today. The youth are the youth that we have in the program today. Venturing is what it is today. Exploring is what it is. The expectations of the youth in these programs are in the program that they are in. Eamonn

Sometime the hardest thing that we as adult leaders have to say to a youth is "No". Mike I think that you really do have the best interests of all the boys at heart. Including this little Lad. While it might be wrong of me, I feel that taking other peoples sons and daughters away from their home and into the great outdoors is one heck of a responsibility. If there was a youth that had any sort of a problem that I thought that I was unable to handle I would have no option but to use the No word. It seems as if the stuff from Philmont is backing you up and I feel sure if you looked through the Guide To Safe Scouting there is more stuff that would back you up. Explaining this the youth and his parents is not going to be an easy task and I can only wish you the best. I hope that they all will see that no matter what you have the health and welfare of their son as well as all the other Scouts at heart. Eamonn

Hi and Welcome to the forum. It seems that things have changed a bit from when you first posted. Or maybe I just read it wrong? When I first read this it seemed that the PLC was trying to get rid of the Scoutmaster. Now it seems that there is a group of adults meddling in the back ground and behind all of this. The fact that they have tried to involve the PLC in their shenanigans is more shame on them. Like it or not your Scoutmaster has been selected by the Charter Organization and they and only they can ask her to step down. Of course if there has been a serious violation of BSA rules and policy the Scout Exec. could ask her to step down. Much the same can be said for the troop committee, this group has also been selected and approved by the charter organization and just because a few adults in the troop may be unhappy or dissatisfied is no real reason to start replacing them. To my mind the adults in the troop need to take a long hard look at the Scout Oath and Law. Paying special attention to Loyal and Trusted. Using your example of a business: First I have never been involved with a business where the workers fire the boss. Second if I found that the people who were meant to be serving the Company in a mid management capacity, were stirring things up and causing disharmony, I would take whatever steps needed to thank them for their past services. I would of course follow the correct procedure. Eamonn

Hey All Groovy Cats out there. The man seys that dare going to one big Scout-fest in 2005. We gonna wear them cool threads,sing some funky songs and get down. Dare going to be a whole Lotta love man. You get to see the young Dudes flash dem pearly whites. Who knows maybe cool cat Bush gonna show his face. No time for pilchards to climb no Eiffel tower, Dem young dudes too busy rappelling man. So all yous cool cats dig out your beads and funky socks no need for flowers in your hair and make it real -man. Darn these Flash backs!! Eamonn

If you look at the charter it has on it some place how many months the chartering organization has been chartered. Just last year we had a group of adults that fell out with their Chartered organization, a local Methodist church. They thought that things would be better if they moved to the American Legion. One of the adults was an officer in the Legion. This bunch of adults are a renegade crowd who seem to be anti everything anti-district, anti Council.There was a lot of ill feeling and in the end the church just wanted to see them gone. I met with the Church council and informed them what thier rights were and let them know that they could re-start a Scouting unit at any time. However they wanted the dust to settle and gave the new unit everything including the unit number. The pack and the troop that left the church and went to the Leigion is looked at as being new. It is a new charter. Sad to say we have not as yet been able to find church members that are willing to take leadership positions in the church in order to re-start the units in the church. If and when we do because of such a long lapse they will also be looked upon as a new unit or new units. While things might change the units that are now with the American Legion are floundering and before too long will close. Due to the leaders that are there we as a key3 can see no way of preventing this and have decided to take no action. Mainly because it would be like trying to teach a pig to sing, it would do no good and only upset this bunch. I have in fact been heard to say that it would be a Quality Drop. Eamonn

Hi and welcome. Scouting caters to youth from every sort of community. Just because the youth come from the city makes no never mind. In fact I happen to think that running an inner city troop is at times easier.The Scouts don't need to have parents chauffeur them as much as Scouts in a rural setting do. Campouts just like everything else that we do in Scouting require planning. If you arrive at a camp site with no clear idea of what you are going to do. The Scouts will find something that will pass the time. Of course it might not be time well spent. Too work well the plan ought to be made at the PLC meeting. I have found that having some sort of a theme works well, normally making use of the skills that have been gone over at the weekly troop meeting. The plan needs to made well in advance of the campout so that the Patrol can meet and go over it with an eye to the duty roster and menu planning. It is very important that the plan is written down and shared with all the Scouts. If there is a history in the troop of youth not following the laid out program, I would through the PLC, make it very clear that "This is what we are doing. - If you don't want to join us please stay home." The plan would include times for lights out and quite. Still these things might take a little while.If they want to stay up till all hours I would remind them that they have a full day the next day, and then ensure that the next day was a very full day and keep them busy with no letting up for naps. Soon they will get the message. When you send the permission slip home with each Scout I would remind the parents that this is a Scout event and if their son doesn't want to go as a Scout he ought not attend, also if he doesn't follow the program that you will be in contact for them to come and take him home. After which the Troop Committee will decide what is to be done. Your profile says that you are the Scoutmaster. You along with the PLC plan and carry out these events as Scouting activities. Anyone who isn't happy doing a Scouting activity is in the wrong place. You do have the responsibility to ensure that the event is well planned. You do this best by training and working with your SPL and the Patrol Leaders. You might want to think about canceling the next camp out and taking the PLC away for a day of training. Eamonn

Have just visited the BSA National Jamboree page at the BSA site. There are a lot of photos of Scouts. Some in groups and some by themselves. None of the youth are named but many are wearing troop t-shirts and Scout shirts with the troop number showing. Eamonn

At lunch last week my DE informed me that she is leaving by the end of the year. So far she hasn't informed her bosses. She has only to give them a months notice. I can't say that I was shocked or surprised. I have known for some time that she wasn't happy with the way she has been treated by the Field Director and the poor management style of the Scout Exec. Apart from what we do in Scouting we are the best of friends. At times this friendship has got in the way but for the most part has been an asset to the District. We have worked very closely for the past seven years, so close in fact that at times we even anticipate each others moves. We both want her to out with a bang, so Quality District this year is a must. As of now everything is looking good and it seems that it will happen. Still with each thing we do I can't help thinking that this will be the last time we do this. My term as District Chairman comes to an end late in 2005 and I don't want any extension. Three years is long enough for me. I thought that I had my work cut out for me in bringing the next District Chair. up to speed. I sure as heck don't need to train a new DE. In fact I already feel sorry for whoever they hire. He or she will be trained by the Field Director. Even putting aside the fact that I think that the Field Director is a First Class Twit. He just isn't supporting the new DE's. We hired a new DE near the end of last year. The poor guy has a District with no District Chair. No District Commissioner and I doubt if there is a District Committee in place. While we have almost met our FOS goal this poor chap has a total of $48.00 in his community campaign. I would think that if I was the Field Director I would be going out into the community and showing this chap how it was done and helping him.Sad to say none of this is happening and I wonder how long it will be before this poor chap feels that he is just getting no place and quits? Our DE was here before the Field Director and we both discovered together that he is a twit. I think that it would be out of order to have a new DE come on board and have me allow my deep and unfailing prejudice get in his or her way.This guy is a First Class Twit,but he is the immediate Superior to the new DE. I have thought about stepping down, but feel that I would be putting the new guy in much the same place as the other new guy and while I know that I can be replaced in a heart beat, replacing two members of the key3 at one time might have an impact on the district. Eamonn

Could be that I'm not that smart? I am perfectly happy using the programs that we have in place today and putting my energy into making them work. Eamonn

If the course ever becomes available as MS Wood Badge XP, and the Cankerous Overweight Gent takes it. He will then know what he is talking about when he complains. At present it sounds like this is the worst course that he never attended. We have a new restaurant in town I have never been there because they serve the worst food that I have never ate? Does this sound stupid? I Hope so. Eamonn

KASBSA Just wondering what the patrol yell of the Mega-death Skull patrol might be? If they were to join up with the Do The Dew patrol would they become the Die The Dew? (That weired English sense of humor at work) Eamonn

A little fellow joins a Cub Scout Pack. Why? Maybe he thinks it will be fun. Maybe some of his pals are in the pack or are joining the pack. Could be that he has no say in it and his parents just think it is a good idea. Does the little fellow or his parents really care about the history of Cub Scouting? I think that the parents are happy knowing that Scouting has been around for a while and in most peoples eyes has a good reputation. They don't care about the stuff that went on in past years. Little fellow is old enough to move from the Pack to the Troop. He visits the local Troops. He isn't looking for a history lesson he is looking at which troop seems to have the best program. His parents may want to know the details about what the troop does. Why do you think Venturing ought to be different? Sure the Crew needs to look ahead and plan where it is going. However most youth members don't care how the program came into being. When I go out to start new units or new crews and talk to organizations that might want to become Chartering Organizations, I sell the program that we have and use today. There is no reason for me to try and sell them something that was and isn't there anymore. Eamonn

Ed The course does use a troop setting and participants do everything in patrols. In fact to my mind the entire course is a little to much along the workings of a troop. The patrols do eat together and on the second part of the course do cook meals in a patrol setting. While there is mention and a couple of activities that have to do with Cub Scouting and Venturing, in the most part these are almost symbolic. This isn't a big deal as the reasoning for doing this is explained at the opening luncheon and again in the course overview on day one. The course is about Leadership, not about how to run a specific unit. The skills that participants come away with can be applied almost anywhere. However as the methods of each program are different you would need to do the specific training for that program. A Tiger Cub Den Leader could and can attend Wood Badge. Come away with all the Leadership skills but this isn't going to prepare him or her to be a Scoutmaster. Wood Badge is not the end of training. Couple of questions to those staffing. 1/ Is the Course Director following the schedule for the Staff Development? 2/ Sometime back I posted that I had been asked to be a staff member this year on a course that was having a problem finding staff members. This even though my wood badge days are over. Unless I am asked to be a mentor. I have now said thanks but no thanks. Mainly because I think three courses in three years is too hard on my family. Still if we go with the idea of District Trainers and using the people who are the best at presenting the material why don't we use this idea for Wood Badge? Eamonn

While not a Ventuering Crew, back home in London we had an Air Scout Group/ Troop in our District. There was at that time a uniform for Air Scouts and I have to admit it was a cool looking troop. I have no idea who they came into being, but would think that someone thought it was a good idea at the time. Sad to say that someone was no longer around and we ended up with a troop that looked really cool and the only time that they spend in the air was when they sat on the top deck of a double decker bus. Here in our local area I have been in contact with the local CAP. At one point they were looking into the Venturing program. I attended a couple of meetings and they were a well turned out smart looking bunch. When I asked about them getting off the ground they said that they did have contact with the air National Guard and did get to go on a plane once or twice a year.Most of their training had to do with search and rescue, looking for planes that might crash. When I asked how many times they had gone looking for a crashed plane they said never. While you seem to have put a lot of thought into what you would like to see happen, you seem to have forgotten about the expenses. While the Navy or Air Force might be willing to donate planes the storage and maintenance of these would cost big bucks. Where would the money come from? Eamonn