allangr1024

Your patrols can choose whatever name they want. The BSA police are not going to swoop down and can the program. The scouts are to have fun, and you are to empower them by letting them make decisions like this on their own. Your job is to make sure the choice is in good taste, and that they can get a flag made and patches acquired. The boys can always get blank patrol patches and draw their symbol on them, as well.

I hope you are letting the boys make choices in the other areas as well. Do they get to choose the camping trips they want. Within the bounds of the program, they choose where they go and what they do. The program prohibits hunting, but shooting on a riffle range with all safety policies in place is their choice. Hiking, swimming, boating, the scouts should get to choose their program elements, so they can "do what scouts do."

Barry,

I have to say that I am very impressed with your post to this thread made on 12/6/2012. So much so that I am saving it to a stash of training materials that I have for new scouters to our troop.

I have not paid that much attention to the process of Storming, Norming, ect. before, as I took a cursory look at it a while ago and thought at first that it was just a gimmick they did at adult training these days. But you have shown me that this is the thing that patrol cohesion is made of. I had a scoutmasters conference with a scout last night for Tenderfoot rank. This scout has been with us since August, and when I asked him what his favorite camping trip was, he told us it was a trip in September in which it rained the whole weekend, and half the boys emerged in the mornings cold and hungry. This was the first camping trip since the troop of one patrol became two patrols, camping separately and cooking apart. My scout really liked this trip, despite the hardships of rain and confusion. This trip had unexpected results, but these results fit with the "stressing" you described, and it came naturally.

I am indebted to you for a wealth of insight. Keep up the good posting.

Last year in February our activity was rock climbing at an indoor climbing gym, but we stayed at a council camp. We usually prepare to winter camp down to 20 degrees, so everyone came along, and we had a good day of indoor climbing. But that night the wind came whipping down the plains, and the temps dropped dramatically. It was so cold that as we were cutting vegetables to put into a stew they would freeze. We could not defrost the chicken for the stew, so one of the adults went into town to buy some more. When he got back, and the boys were cutting the chicken for the stew, it froze. The water in the water cooler froze. We had to put food into the ice chests to keep it from freezing. We put up a large tarp for a wind break, and had to have a flame constantly keeping water warm for warm drinks. It was crazy. I kept a keen eye on the boys to see if anyone was having trouble with frost bite or anything. I was this close to packing up and going home early.

Now, months later, the boys who "survived" the freezing camp out boast about their experience to scouts who did not go. They wear it like a badge of honor, and I think they will remember that camping trip as one of the definitive experiences of their scouting years. The hardships made them bond together and pull together in ways that the normal easier camping trips have never done.

Someone above said it is all about proper gear and camping skills. I second that. Plan the trip and teach the boys how to do it. They will value the times they had to overcome.

We went to Constantine in 2010. The boys had a great time, as they were really wanting a camp that centered on water sports at the time. We had a camp site right on the lake, and put up our own swimming hole, with rope lines and floats, and lifeguard, and everything. No one could go in the water unless an adult were manning the lifeguard station, and we did buddy checks every 10 minutes. They had a blast.

The camp, as a rule, always messed up our paperwork. The records of advancement and merit badges we got from them took some time to get straitened out. If you go, be prepared to quiz the boys each day to really know what they accomplished.

Snakes were a problem. The peninsula the camp is on is a natural haven for snakes, poisonous and not. I would not let boys go walking about by themselves outside the normal trails of the camp.

They had no adult education program, like many camps do. When the adults asked about this, the camp hastily set up a scoutmaster specific class, but the instructor had never seen this before, and mainly read from a book.

I liked the manner of family served meals at the dining hall. It was different. A scout from the troop was appointed to be server every day, and he brought the troop the meals to the troop table, where they were passed out to the hungry scouts.

There was not much in the way of a gift shop. There was a small one, but not much was available for sale.

I would recommend the camp for its program, but it does have some flaws.

I printed out some sections of the Dutch Oven Cookbook and at a troop meeting I laid these pages out on the floor. The scouts had a chance to look at about 15 different dutch oven dinner meals and select one that sounded good to them. They then had to use the recipe they selected to prepare the grocery list. The patrols were issued a dutch oven, and for the evening meal they followed the recipe and cooked their food. Sometimes it came out wonderfully, and sometimes not. The dutch oven pizza was not good, but the beef or chicken stews were.

I would give the boys a choice of, say, 5 evening meals, and encourage them to make a team effort of cooking their meals. You can even hold a contest, judged by the SPL, and award the winning patrol something, like ice cream or brownies, for desert.

Next campout do the same for the breakfast meal. Don't put the breakfast burrito menu out for them.

If you have that much resistance from the 15 year olds doing the leadership job, then there is only one thing to do. Replace them. You mentioned that you have a core of 11 through 13 year olds, and a 14 year old, who are enthusiastic and doing fine. OK, You call for new elections, allowing the 13 year olds to run for the PL jobs, and let the troop select a new SPL. Tell them that you need active troop members for the leadership positions, and so need new elections.

We can not really have an active test for advancement according to the BSA, although the latest guide to advancement opens the door to this if it is reasonable. But I think it is acceptable to have an active test for troop leaders like a PL and SPL. Without them the troop and patrols do not function. If a boy just stops showing up, he needs to be replaced. But you need to tell the whole troop this up front. spell out exactly what will trigger a new leader election.

I think you really want to have the younger boys being the face of the troop at recruitment time anyway, since they are the ones you want the cub scouts to be seeing.

I have tried to recruit scouts from my troop, and know of some of the pitfalls. Here are some things to do.

1. Get the exact times the prospective den chief is needed, and where. This comes from den leaders and cub masters.

2. Ask for volunteers, especially if they need a POR, but any scout will do, especially if they were a Webelo.

3 KEY, KEY, KEY...Talk to the parent who will have to shuttle your scout to a den or pack meeting. Tell them why your scout needs to go to yet another meeting each week or month, get the parent on board. I have failed in the past to get my scouts to den meetings for lack of transportation.

We just came out of this situation of having a troop of 9. I had the troop of one patrol select a PL, and he appointed the other patrol (and therefore troop) officers. We gave him the title of single patrol leader (SPL) and he had to be duly elected by the patrol. If your SPL and ASPL were elected by the troop, you would do well to ask the troop if this election should still stand for a troop of one patrol. If you appointed these two, then let the single patrol decide. I would still have the single patrol come up with a patrol name, flag, yell, etc.

Someone suggested forming two patrols out of a low number of scouts (under 10). This did not work for us, as outside activities like sports and band took its toll, and patrol identity disappeared. Do the two patrols when you get at least five in each.

For me, the biggest catalyst for change came in the 1970's as a result of sexual predators being found in the ranks of scoutmasters. I cannot say that we always had that problem, but in the early 1970's it seemed that every month we heard news of a scoutmaster molesting a kid. In fact, I remember a story about the danger of the BSA being sued out of existence if something was not done. The solution was the two deep leadership policy the BSA came up with. As a boy I remember often going camping with only the Scoutmaster as the adult leadership in camp. The BSA also went looking for the molesters to boot them out.

As a result, troops had to get more adults involved in the program. If you needed two adults to go camping, you needed five or six to ensure you had enough to choose from, since scheduling more than one is more difficult. Our little troop of 10 to 15 had a scoutmaster and an assistant, and one year we got a guy just home from the Vietnam war who wanted to go camping. Now, I am always looking for enough adults to register so I can get a second or third adult to go.

When you have that many adults registered, they will be bored and drop out pretty quickly unless they have something to do. So troops decided to sign some up as merit badge councilors, scout advancement trainers, patrol advisers, and the like. I think this caused the rise of adult run troops, as adults scouters took over parts of the program. As a boy, I never heard of doing merit badges as a class in a troop meeting. Now, I have to push hard to keep it from happening.

Get more adults in the troop, especially if their day job is sales or marketing, and you have troops becoming very sophisticated in recruiting, identifying unreached teenagers, contacting cub packs and Webelos dens, and putting on good cross over shows. This has resulted in large and very large troops. We have two or three troops that are over 100 in youth membership. Mega Troops. Combine the size with the larger number of merit badges to earn, and the ease in earning them, and you come up with the Eagle Mill type of troop. One of our mega-troops uses troop T-shirts that say "Eagle Factory" on them. They have 150 to 180 boys, 40 adults, and have 4 to 5 Eagle courts of honor per quarter. Crazy. For a while the council told smaller troops to emulate these big troops, so many had merit badges in troop meetings, and had adults responsible for guiding scouts through their advancement.

I think the youth protection policies have had unforeseen consequences in the scouting program.

When I talk to my SPL about meetings, I put the troop meeting planning form in his hands and tell him that for any meeting for the next month, he must come up with 3 meeting elements. One is the scout skill to review or teach. Then there is the Patrol Corner, where the patrols have to do stuff like meal planning for the next camping trip, take care of patrol gear, discuss what went on in the PLC, and make patrol decisions. The last part is a game, which is up to the boys. I encourage them to use the troop resourses guides to find good games for inter patrol competition. The SPL and Patrol Leaders meet to decide what to do in any given meeting.

As far as merit badges taught in meetings, I am not a fan. I would rather the boys do this outside of troop meetings. Every once in a while, when a merit badge fits in with a campout theme, and the boys really want to do it, I will let them, if they can find and invite a merit badge councelor. If you just teach and review all the basic scout skills, say for a 15 to 20 minute stretch, you will have nearly a year of skills to schedule for meetings. Young scouts can get requirements marked off (If they really learn them, you need to check) and older scouts review skills they may have forgotten.

If you are just taking your first steps as a boy led troop, I would start with this: Scrap your camping schedule, hold a troop meeting, and have them select both the camping activity and the location of the next six camp outs. I did this, and turned the selection of camping themes over to the boys. I made a poster of 24 outdoor or scoutcraft activities, mostly taken from the Troop Program Features books, and listed them on a poster. I also made a poster of camping locations, made of council camps, state parks, other places we had camped at, and so on. The boys get to choose. If they have any ideas on where to go and what to do, they can bring them up. When we are finished, we know where we are going and when, and what we will do (fishing, swimming, boating, hiking). If you let the boys choose, they will feel ownership of the program. You write down the plan the boys come up with, pass copies out to everyone, ask the troop committee to do the logistics like schedule transportation, get permits and reserve campsites, and figure out the money side of it.

That is really the first step to the boy led troop. Later you form the patrol leaders into a decision making body called a patrol leaders council and have them plan and run the activities on the campouts they want. When they get the hang of doing campouts, tell them to plan and run the meetings. I believe the camp outs are the most important part of the troop, so I see troop meetings as a means to plan and carry out the camp outs.

Good luck. Remember what the Scoutmaster Handbook says, that empowering boys to be leaders is the core of scouting.

Jamist649,

Welcome aboard. I have been SM for about five years now, and have learned some of what you are asking. For me, the biggest difference between the Cub scout and the Boy scout program, and one that many Cub Scout leaders miss in the transition, is what we call the Patrol Method. Since the age of Cubs is 10 and below, adults have to be the leaders, the planners, and the facilitators. BUT, this is not the case with the boys aged 11 to 17. As these boys get older, they are ready to take on the responsibility of leading the group. Some boys may need extra time, but others can, and should, be placed as leaders and given a degree of authority to lead the group. Cub Leaders never have to hand over the reigns of control to the boys, but the Boy Scout adult leaders are expected to.

The boys are divided into groups of 6 to 8 boys, called patrols, where they elect one from among themselves to be the Patrol Leader. This kid is to lead. What do the adults do? The adults are to train and coach this boy, giving him the mental tools to be the leader.

The outdoor program is the perfect vehicle for teaching the patrol leader (PL) how to lead a group. Consider the all important activity of eating during a campout. The PL meets with his patrol, where he leads them in planning the menu. They have to plan 4 to 5 meals, and I usually encourage them to plan meals that have items from the four food groups included. (I usually provide a camp cook book the boys can look through to find ideas and recopies.) The patrol then uses the menu to make a list of groceries that have to be purchased. (This step takes the longest, as scouts have not had to do it before). The PL collects money, usually 10 to 12 dollars per scout, and designates a patrol member to purchase the food on the grocery list. The patrol member purchases the food, perhaps with the aid of his mother, and brings the stuff to the camping trip. The patrol leader guides the patrol in preparing the meals, and the patrol happily eats. This may not sound fancy, but believe me, when a PL can lead a patrol in this activity, so that it comes off without a hitch, this is HUGE. The boy grows in confidence, and experience teaches him so much.

Unfortunately, many adults, especially former Cub leaders, will step in, if they see a flaw in the way the boys are doing this, and do it themselves. They may claim that they are just instructing the boys, but they are taking control where they should not.

An ASM watching over a patrol activity may ask the PL if he can examine the menu and grocery list after they are produced. If he sees a flaw, he should point out to the PL the problem (preferably when he has a moment alone with the PL) and suggest an action for the PL to take. This is coaching. The hardest thing is to give control back to the PL and let him follow his own judgement. If the PL is going to fail, then the ASM will LET HIM FAIL. The PL will learn more by failing than anything else. The ASM must realize that in scouting we have an environment where it is safe to make mistakes and reap the rewards. The boys grow in knowledge and maturity through it. The only time to step in is when imminent danger to life or limb is encountered.

Eating is only one patrol activity. There is also camp setup, fire building, camp games, troop campfire program, worship services, and even advancement activities, that the PL can lead a patrol in doing. I encourage you to read page 12 of the Scoutmasters Handbook, the beginning of the chapter on "The Boy Led Troop". There it says that "Empowering boys to be leaders is the core of Scouting."

Ya know, one of the really brilliant features of scouting, not often tied to the ideals (oath and law) is the patrol method. I find that the two can be used together to train young scouts in building their moral philosophy. How does this work? When we put 6 boys together to live in close proximity and to do the chores of life, like cooking, fetching water, setting up camp, etc., not only are we having them act as a team, but we are setting them up for potential conflict with each other. I see this at summer camp, where we usually have at least one shouting and pushing match. I saw one this summer. At that time, after the adults pull the combatants apart, we sit them down and listen to their tales of being persecuted by the other scout. We then can go over the values of scouting, and help the scouts come back together with some degree of civility. My best advice is "that stuff about being courteous and kind; we mean that." or helpful, or friendly, or what ever. A patrol can be the perfect place to let all the boys selfish and un-scout-like qualities come to the surface where they can be dealt with. But the adults have to expect this, and be watching, and be ready to capitalize on the moment.

Last year, since we only had 8 scouts (1 patrol) in the troop, we met for a special troop business meeting. I (the SM), had the only patrol leader officiate. I brought 3 years of our past calendars, along with two posters. One poster had the activities for outings from the Troop Program Features books. This list of over 20 activities were to give the boys ideas they could choose. I also brought a poster with over 20 locations fro outings, that included our council camps, state parks, and the federal nature preserve in our state. On a marker board, we put the months of the coming year, and I told the scouts to match up a month, an activity (backpacking, canoeing, pioneering, etc.) and a location. The boys also made their own suggestions about activities and places, and they voted on each month. When done, the board had our camping schedule for the next year.

This year, I will provide similar posters and visual aids, but since we have two patrols now, we will have the new PLC do the selecting.

The reason to present the schedule to the troop committee is to see if anything on the list is logistically too much for the troop. A trip to Colorado for backpacking for a weekend is not really do-able but a similar trip within the state is. Or if we know that the cost is over $100.00 per scout, we may tell the PLC it is not practical without special fundraisers to raise X dollars per scout. Otherwise, what the boys want is what we will try to provide.

Welcome to the forums.

One of the biggest differences between the Cub Scout program and the Boy Scout program is the idea of the boy as the leader. The scouts are to run the troop, not the adults. The adults, including the Scoutmaster and assistants, are to be a support, but not the decision makers. The boys are to be given real responsibility to make decisions for the troop. This comes from the idea of citizenship. Citizens of a nation have a degree of decision making power when it comes to how they are governed. The scouts will learn this aspect of citizenship when they are given the responsibility.

Of course, being youths, they may lack the focus or problem solving ability to do what adults do. Meetings run by scouts seem a bit chaotic, and plans for campouts will look sketchy. That is where the Scoutmaster and assistants step in, more as coaches than leaders, to see that the boys learn and know how to lead something. Adults should not run meetings or camp outs, but should see that the boys to the job. In this, the best training tool an adult has is the leading question. Like asking the patrol leader, "Are you planning your breakfast menu? What are you going to use to grease your pan?" The only time a Scoutmaster steps in is when there is a question of the safety of the scouts.

Bill Hillcourt, who wrote one of the editions of the Scoutmaster Handbook, suggested that Scoutmasters use the easy chair test to see if their program was working. He said to put an easy chair at the back of the room, sit down in it at the beginning of the meeting, and if the scoutmaster could watch the scouts do all the work in the meeting, and he did not have to get up until needed to give the Scoutmaster Minute, then the Scoutmaster was a success.

Welcome to the job.

I might suggest the site www.scoutmaster.org . That has lots of such resources.

As for the adults, I recommend three sites, which feature blogs and pod casts:

www.scoutmastercg.com

http://thescoutmasterminute.net

http://netcommissioner.com/askandy

Of course, do everything in the Scout handbook and the Scoutmaster Handbook.

Basement, I am not sure I saw the new CC, sthumer, say that this guy "demanded" the ASM job, just that he told everyone he had filled out the paperwork. This is an assumption.

This new CC ought to approach this new scouter and ask him his intentions. I would like to know if the new guy has been in the troop long, where he got the idea of becoming an ASM, did he indeed do this on his own, or did someone suggest to him that he take this course of action. Did he see other new men fill out ASM applications, and assume that that is what new dad's do? Did the SM talk to him, or does the SM have an opinion on the matter? Did a district scouter suggest to him that he do this?

This could be a haughty demand, or it could just be the result of inexperience and lack of understanding of how a troop works. There is too little information, given by a new CC who is looking for information himself. I would review the situation.

I have not had good results at all from packs or from den chiefs. I would go visit Webelos dens to speak, inviting the Webelos camping. Never very much response. I would send den chiefs who would be used either at pack meetings or at tiger cub dens. Not much contact with Webelos, and the den chiefs would be there for a month or two before quitting and saying that their mom could not take them to after school den meetings any more.

The schools here will not really let us come in and recruit the fifth and sixth graders. Some schools will let the district director put up a booth at the door to the lunch room, where he will have kids fill out an information card. He then hands me the cards and lets me call the kids who responded. I got one scout in our troop doing this.

Our troop dwindled down to 4 scouts last year. What saved us was a dad who wanted his 13 year old in scouting. The son had no scouting background, and they were from a church different than the one that sponsors us. They heard about our troop from a scout in our troop who goes to church with them. Both the dad and the son joined up, liked the camping, and told others from their church about us. We are now a troop of eleven. We have prospective new members from this same source who will probably come join in the fall.

So it is: word of mouth, word of mouth, word of mouth.

I have been using a hammock on scout trips for seven years now. I tried to use a military jungle style hammock once, but could not get the tie outs for the hammock top right. For several years I used a simple mesh hammock with a regular truck tarp. I put my ground pad in the hammock to keep my bottom side warm and to spread the hammock out. Very comfortable. Now I use a Hennessy hammock, and so have the built in bug screen, and I can use it as a kind of a chair. I first got the idea by reading the link below written by a scoutmaster in the northeast. I read HammockForums.net all the time for ideas, and that is good. Scoutfish, I think you took on a chore by trying to use the jungle hammock. There are now much better camping hammocks out there.

http://mormonsite.wordpress.com/camping-in-a-hammock/

I have been going to Camp Hale for years. I wonder if this is the first summer camp that Porterman has been to. Or are you from Oklahoma or nearby at all.

Daddy Longlegs in the tents? Yah, it is Oklahoma.

Black Widow spiders in tents? Once in a while. But have you ever seen what 12 year old boys do to spiders they catch? Yuck.

Food? Not gourmet, but there is variety, and plenty, and it is geared to the palette of the average 12 year old boy, who from my vantage point, eats a ton of it. I have been to out of council camps where you were afraid to eat the "Mystery Meat."

Staff members cussing? On occasion. HSR gets its staff from the councils Eagle and Life scouts, and from colleges throughout Oklahoma. The college students may not have been scouts, and not know of the standards we hold dear. I have never had trouble bringing up the subject with the camp director and getting satisfaction. As far as I understand it, the staff goes through a pretty good orientation where the expected behavior is addressed.

What else? Snakes. They come. It is their habitat, after all. and the camps sends staffers out to investigate reports of poisonous snakes. They usually end up 10 miles away or in a jar in the nature hut.

Hills you have to walk up (both ways?) Its Oklahoma, in the foothills of the Ozarks. Get used to it.

Hot? it is summer in the mid west. Last year was the worst. They have electric outlets at each campsite. Bring a fan.

I have been to several summer camps outside of the state. Camp Hale is a quality camp with superior facilities, the best in the area. A good aquatics program, lots of swimming and boating. Horse back riding, COPE, snow skiiing (well, you do that on a bed of rubber pellets, but it feels pretty authentic), a really tough day trek we affectionately call the Bohanon "death march", and lots more.

This is scouting, after all.

How do you know they use iodine tablets. The Katadyn tablets we used at Philmont were more like chlorine, and after you let the chemicals do their thing, you could not really taste them. These scouts could be carrying these tablets.

I do agree that you should let the scouts select their water system, based on some coaching from the adults, and see what works on a shakedown overnight hike.

The best pillow for hammock use I have had is one of those horseshoe shaped pillows that can go around your neck, or that can just hold your head in place. With the slant of the hammock, this is a good solution for me.

When I don't have that, I use my little extra cloths bag. I can do the same with that by pushing the cloths to the sides and creating a little pocket for my head.

A regular bed pillow would be too much, unless it is somewhat thin, and my head just compresses everything almost down to the hammock bottom.

I have not read anything official that says that you cannot mix and match uniform pieces from different era's. I read a lot of recommendations that you do this to keep the scouts from being confused and thinking that non uniform pieces are ok. If you find some statement by the BSA, share it.

Our troop is in that condition. We elected an SPL (Single Patrol Leader), and have him meet with one APL and quarter master from the patrol to plan things. Not exactly a plc, but it is a decision making body, and the current leaders in those positions I expect to be on a true PLC when our troop grows big enoug hto have one.

We actually made the boys duct tape a SM or ASM to the wall.

how about: Make a complete scout uniform out of duct tape.

or: Make a shelter out of duct tape and sleep in it for one night.

I saw those dreaded words in your description of the meetings, "merit badge classes". I have to say that this indicates to me a couple of things.

FIRST, you do not understand the merit badge program. Merit badges are designed to be done outside the troop setting. The scoutmaster gives an interested scout the name of a registered councilor, and the scout contacts this councilor, meets with him under appropriate supervision, does the requirements to the councilors satisfaction, and returns the councilors signature on a blue merit badge record card to the troop for record keeping. This lets the scout in on personal growth, adult association, and it is linked to advancement for older scouts.

Scouters hold merit badge classes because they see that scouts do not naturally use their precious time to earn merit badges in this way. No, the scouts spend their precious time playing video games and hanging out. Adults decide that since earning Eagle scout is so important for a scout, the adults will bring the merit badge program into the troop and set all the scouts on a road to earning the badges, similar to the way they taught the scout skills for the lower ranks. This is a fallacy. The end all of scouting is not earning Eagle. It is building into the boys the Aims of Scouting; growth in moral character, personal fitness, and participating citizenship. I don't think that a merit badge class structure helps with any of these things, except perhaps when you do personal fitness MB and you run your boys around a track during each meeting.

My conclusion: Do NOT hold merit badge classes. Adults, learn the program, and then explain it to the scouts. Encourage them to earn the badges. Use this video to explain it to them:

(the Rat Studies merit badge is fictional. My scouts wanted to take this MB, and were disappointed. Same thing for the Duct Tape merit badge. )

SECOND. If the adults have that much to do with troop meeting, then you are not a boy or scout led troop, you are an adult led troop that has a boy leader, like a patrol leader or a senior patrol leader, standing in front while the adults do the leading. This is a faulty understanding of what "Boy Led" means, and what the patrol method means. Just because you have patrols, and patrol leaders, does not mean you are following the patrol method. The Patrol Method means that you divide the troop into patrols, and you give the scout selected patrol leaders REAL authority over the troop. I do not think that a scout would select merit badge classes as part of the composition of the troop meeting. This is an adult thing. Adults can provide some structure. The troop meeting plan form has these elements: Opening, patrol meeting, skill, interpatrol activity (game), closing. An adult, specifically the scoutmaster, should coach the SPL and PL's to have these meeting sections planned and ready to go each week. He should then be still and watch what happens. After the meeting he should meet with the SPL and coach him, saying, "how did this work? What can you do to improve that."

Boys who feel that they have control of the troop, and participate in its running, will stay and have fun in that environment. They will learn how to get along with one another (participate in citizenship) and guide the troop (learn leadership). Baden Powell, the first scoutmaster, said that "to get first-class results from this system you have to give the boy leaders real free-handed responsibility - if you only give partial responsibility you will only get partial results".

THIRD, you must ask yourself, what is the role of the adult in the troop. It is not to plan or to lead, but to coach and to provide a safe environment. It is not even necessarily to teach. A boy led troop can teach their own new scouts. You keep them safe. Watch out for inadequate gear, (don't let a boy freeze his butt off), unsafe practice, and hazing. Follow the scouting "sweet 16" of safety. You also coach the SPL and the PL's to DO THEIR JOBS. And you congratulate the scouts when they earn rank advancements, and you give an inspiring message for your scoutmasters minute each week.

Your goal is summed up by something Bill Hilcort said one time. Your goal is to sit in an easy chair at the back of the meeting room and not get up until your scoutmaster minute at the very end of the meeting.