allangr1024

Boy, I wish I were in my 20's as I try to do this. I can still hear my cocky 15 year old son yelling back at me on the Philmont (ususally uphill) trails, saying "Dad, you are holding us up." But then again, as a SM in my 20's, I would not have the cocky 15 year old son.

I wonder if anyone has ever studied how the boys react to a younger SM as opposed to a 50 something SM. That would be interesting.

Boy, I wish I were in my 20's as I try to do this. I can still hear my cocky 15 year old son yelling back at me on the Philmont (ususally uphill) trails, saying "Dad, you are holding us up." But then again, as a SM in my 20's, I would not have the cocky 15 year old son.

I wonder if anyone has ever studied how the boys react to a younger SM as opposed to a 50 something SM. That would be interesting.

These look like military challenge coins. You can order them from various companies, usually in a group of 10 to 50 at a time, and the minting companies can engrave anything you like on them. Each branch of the military uses them, and individual military units can make their own commemorative coins for members to use for "bragging rights".

I suspect that these were used by the scouts as Eagle challange coins since they were found in a scout campsite, and that some poor boys looked for them frenzily and never found them when they had to present the eagle challenge to younger scouts.

I could not find an example of the trapper or hunter on your coin. And the date of 1837 was engraved to commorate some event we do not know of.

I have been using a hammock for years. At fist I used a net type hammock, and to keep the net pattern from cutting into my back, I put my sleeping bag pad in the hammock, put the sleeping bag on top of that, and I was great. I could even sleep on my side with the right pillow. The pad keeps the hammock open, and supplies some insolation. I have used it in temperatures down in the thirties, and was fine. With a tarp strung above the hammock, I was high and dry in a thunderstorm when the rest of the troop was soked. It does help my back, and at 51, it is a wonder.

Last year I got a Hennessey hammock myself. The only thing I have a problem with on this hammock is the tarp. I spread my tarp over the thing, t hen I get in, and the sag causes the tarp to not be taught any more. I have to have someone on the outside pull it tight for me. If not, on a rainy night I will get a stream of water flow on my underside. I will probably get a longer silnylon tarp to use with this hammock. If I tie an emergency blanket on the underside, it will create the air pocket I need for warmth on a 20 degree winter night.

I would definately try it for a couple of campouts. Check out this:

http://www.tothewoods.net/HammockCamping.html

Please excuse my ingnorance. I am a new scoutmaster, and have only been to our council camp. I have never heard of a patrol method camp, or of cooking meals in your campsite. Our camp has a central dining hall, and everyone eats there. How does it work any other way?

I do have an issue with some aspects of camp, like the "trail to eagle" class for tenderfoot through first class scouts, where they try to teach the lower rank skills (30 to 40 scouts per staff instructor), or the merit badge classes that do not leave the scouts with any sense of the merit badge content (indian lore, nature studies, environmental science,...)

I will end up testing the scouts to see that they really learned the knots, the nature stuff, the swimming, the first aid. I'm not sure about the merit badge work.

But what else can a camp staff do to promote the patrol method. That is a troop activity. Is it not?

Well, around here, in northeast Oklahoma, we have the opposite problem. Our lakes and rivers are high, and it is not safe to swim, and boating is ify. And of course we have all heard of Iowa.

So, does anyone know if and when National has ever sent an Eagle application back unapproved? I have never heard of this. Surely some council head would roll if they sent in an application that was not tripple verified.

I love my Jansport Rainier external frame backpack. It is hard to find anymore, and EBAY may be the best place to look. I took it to Philmont in 2005, and it did great. I lashed my tent and sleeping bag to the bottom of the frame, and tied excess clothing all the way around. I like the way Jansport has the frame that curves around your head, and my pack has a hip belt with a buckle that allows me to pull the pack tight or loose by pulling on a clamp.

If I were to suggest a model to my young scouts, I would recommend the "Scout" from Jansport. At least for a starter pack. Then they could graduate to something else if they want when they grow in size.

Since this involves a "Moral Lapse", I think I would have spent time on the Scout oath and law, and looked for a sincere sorrow on his part, and a fresh aformation and commitment to the Oath. Usually, if this is not sincere, I would not expect the scout to continue with advancement, since it would not appear to be worth it to him, at least in his own eyes.

We can do stuff about the moral lapses, but must also temper justice with mercy in the case of a boy in his formative years, so that we allow him room for redemtion. If he were obstinant, I would have advised he not continue until the apology were made and other requirements were met. Unfortunately, our Scouter training and guidelines are not always clear on these subjects. We would hope this kid turns it around and that this was just a blip on his path. But it is really hard to tell. I'm sure a juvenille court judge could tell us that.

I was in scouting as a kid in the early 70's, and loved it, even though I did not get Eagle.

When my son was 12 he did not want to do more than watch TV and play video games. I told him he needed to be involved with something, and if he could not find something, I would. We visited scout troops, and we landed in one that a co-worker was the SM of. We lived across town from this troop, and it was not convenient to just drop my son off, as my dad and mom had done when I was a kid. So I stayed and watched the meetings. I saw the boys doing the scouting stuff with the scouters at the front of the room while some parents stayed at the back of the room and visited. I found I really wanted to be doing the stuff at the front of the room more than at the back of the room, so I asked the SM if I could help. The next thing you know, I had a uniform, and was going on the campouts with my son.

I am now the SM of this troop. My sons (3) have been in the program and are all out now, my middle son got eagle just before he turned 18. I have a vision for creating the patrol method in the troop, which in my opinion just gave lip service to it for years, and am finding it really hard to implement. Sometimes I am dragging the SPL and the PLC to the decision making and leadership process.

I would like to see the troop become more of a back country troop than a car camping troop, since that would require more of the boys, and thus cultivate greater physical ability and outdoor skill. That is also a hard thing to implement, at least with the adults in the troop.

So I am in because, first and foremost, I LIKE IT. I think I like it more than my boys did. I hope our scouts will look back on our troop as one of the formative influences on their lives. I can always dream.

I have listened to the OA guys come to our troop for a few years now. I don't think they did a good job communicating what the OA is or what the election is all about. To me, the election should be a time when you take a look at the individual scout and say, "Does this guys attitude and involvement warrant him being honored with entrance into the OA, YES or NO.

The question, as it has been asked, has been, Which of the guys from this bunch get the vote. That is not the same thing. I almost wish we could take up each of the qualified candidates and vote on each on a seperate night. I think that would take away a lot of the competitive element from it.

GKlose,

Keep in mind that the one of the WB staff will be assigned to help you work out your ticket. He (or she) will advise you and help you come up with the ticket items, and word them so that they are achievable. This staffer will monitor your progress and sign off on your ticket as you complete it.

One of my ticket items was to "teach a class in camping, prepare all teaching materials and handouts, and demonstrate camping techniques" for new cub scout leaders at out annual cub scout leader training. My advisor told me to change it to "Offer to teach a class in camping, prepare all teaching materials and handouts, and prepare to demonstrate camping techniques". That way my ticket would not sink if the event were canceled, or if they got someone else to do this, or I missed the event due to work, sickness, ect.

Ticket items, to me, having been through it, are similar to eagle projects. You go through an approval process, you do lots of planning and preliminary work, you do the thing you said you would do, and you get an evaluation. The big difference is that it is not necessarily a project where you provide leadership to others (although it can be).

We have started to do this on trips of more than 50 miles. This means that we tell the boys that in addition to bringing money for their food (usually goes to the patrol grubmaster who buys patrol food), we tell them to bring 5 bucks extra. This has not paid the whole cost, but it helps the drivers.

Our committee is struggling with this issue. We don't want to put a large burden on the boys, but the cost of travel has exploded. I think they are going to have to do some kind of special fundraising for this.

Our troop has scout accounts, and boys do leave the troop, either by aging out or by not rechartering with the troop. In those cases if we can contact the scout, we ask him to donate his scout account to another scout, or to donate it to the troop. If we cannot contact him, we hold it and put it into the troop budget after a period of time, probobly next recharter time. But cash is not given to a boy leaving.

30k in a troop account is huge. I could take all my boys to jamboree or to philmont and still not charge dues or do fundraisers for a few years. I would find some worthy activities and pay for the boys to do them with this money. This is beyond being thrifty, it is hording.

Wow, excitement about wearing the garrison cap. When I was a scout in the 70's, we would not touch them with a 10 foot pole, except that we had to have them to be in complete uniform in our troop. Most wanted a cool ball cap, or a cowboy hat. The SPL got to wear a campaign hat as a symbol of his authority. We just folded the garrison caps over out belts and that was that. Times have changed.

I probobly did this to my son (now 21) in his first year of scouting. Now, He is an adult and I am SM of the troop. I think I liked it more than he did.

We have one mom who is very enthusiastic about scouting, but her son is NOT. He is 14 and has been in scouting since tigers. I continually tell her to step back and let the boys do their stuff. He actually asked me if he could quit. He needs only an Eagle Project to get Eagle. I told him he is so close, he will regret it if he quits, and that by the end of summer he could get Eagle. Since his mom makes him come, he is not the best at scout spirit in the troop. His passion is skateboarding.

He brought me an Eagle project idea a few weeks ago to build some skateboard ramps for his church youth group, doubed by the youth paster as "Skate Church". His youth pastor was going to do this, and decided to let my scout do it for him. They have building plans, funding from the church, and an area on the church property for this. I told him to write it up. It is about as much work as another Eagle project we had, building benches for a churches outdoor arena.

During the meeting I had with him, I told him that if I saw an iota of his mothers effort in his project, he would have to find another. I told him that she could drive him to places and meetings, but that was it. The next week, she has tons of paper printed out about her sons project and is asking me questions. I had to tell her to let the boy do it, and just drive him around.

I appreciate the work this mom does for the troop, but sometimes I wish she could just drop him off and let him develop in the troop. But you have what you have, and I do want the boy to continue with us.

Hi all,

I took over as SM last year, a troop that has only marginally been boy run. The troop had patrols, PLs and an SPL, but they had little to do but plan campout menus. The troop had a dynamic SM who left 5 years ago for a job in another city, and the troop coasted along for a while. But now we are down from 50 boys to 12, and I am determined to turn the troop from being adult led to boy led, and from being troop-centric to patrol-centric. I combined old unworkable patrols from 5 to 2, and am giving the boys more responsibilities for planning things.

We have had several boys leave in the past year. Some aged out (got Eagle just in the nick of time). Some moved, and some we just lost. So now I can count 12 active boys. Three are new, attracted by a troop open house we did earlier. Our two patrols are very lopsided, with 3 now in one and 7 in another. We have one SPL and one ASPL. I would like to continue recruiting and get 4 or 5 more boys. Next year we will do the Webelos transition stuff and the Den Chief contacts.

I need to form the patrols again. What is the best and most fair way to do this. I have thought of these methods:

- Appoint patrol leaders and assign the boys to the patrols. (Not very boy led, I know). Even the ages out so each patrol has equal numbers of 14 year olds, 12 year olds, ect.

- Let the SPL divide the boys into patrols.

- Lottery. Give the boys a folded piece of paper with a 1 or 2 written on it, and form patrols from these groupings.

- Let the boys pick 1 or 2, then step in and even it out if needed.

After I have the groupings, I will have them make the patrol decisions; pick patrol leader, pick patrol name, invent patrol yell, make patrol flag, assign patrol duties. I want them to camp as patrols, eat as patrols often, and have patrol leaders and the PLC involved in troop decision making more.

Any ideas?

I unfortunately had two boys last year who did not go camping. I met the mom in the parking lot after a meeting and asked why they did not go with the troop on the campouts. She said, "Well, we will only let him go if we are with him, and I cannot go on weekends, and my husband can only go one weekend per month." I told her that parents attendance on campouts is not required, and that we had enough adult supervision to cover her sons. She was very adamant that she would not let her boys go without a parent being present. sigh.

These boys are no longer in the troop. They dropped out.

At our Woodbadge, the staff encouraged the patrols to adorn themselves with small uniform modifications that were specific to their patrols. Thus, the Antelopes wore leather hide pieces sown onto their belts. The eagle patrol came up with some kind of feathery sash, and the racoons had some kind of sunglasses that looked like a mask. We Bears (the only real patrol that counts) did not do much of this, except to wear a necklace of bear claws.

The message for scouters here was that patrols can add to their uniforms small tokens to show the patrol identiy, but they cannot take away from the normal uniform, and everyone in the patrol must have the same thing. I understood also that the troop can do such a thing for troop identity and spirit. One troop in our town wears a large 1880's type Cavalry hat with different colored hat bands to show special troop recognition. One wears the red beret's.

Perhaps we can adorn ourselves with a patch, as long as it is not permanently attached. An armband with a patch, or perhaps velcro would do the trick. I see the value in giving the scouts and the scouters some symbol of troop identity for scout spirit purposes, as long as the underlying uniform is preserved.

I attended the last old syllabus course in our council in 2001. At that time we had a device at our "Gilwell Park" called a weather rock. This was a boulder hung from a lashed tripod. You could read the weather from it. (if it is wet, it is raining. If it is warm, it is sunny, if it is sloshy, it is snowing or sleeting. If it is moving, it is windy.)

I did not know this, but it was a tradition in our council that the WB'ers always tried to steal the weather rock. My patrol [da bears, YAH] was made of new scouters so we did not know of this expectation. The staff was supposed to guard the rock, the scouters were to make away with it.

One patrol was made of engineers from a mega troop, and came with very sophistocated baggage carts that had hidden hydralic lifts underneth. They would get up in the midst of meetings to "use the bathroom", and make attempts on the rock. The first attempt saw the rock carried to the parking area, but the rock was abandoned in a ditch nearby when the staff started looking for it. A second attempt was made in the dead of night, but was thwarted by a staffer who got up to use the latreen.

The third attempt was made during a night session, in the middle of a downpour of rain. Two of the engineers slipped out, got the cart, moved the rock to a pickup truck in the parking area, and then headed to town, where they left the rock on the WB Scoutmasters front lawn (where I believe it lies today still). They then went to the council office and took one of the bolders, a bit smaller than the weather rock, and hauled it back to camp, where they mounted it on the weather rock tripod and then got to bed, although at 5:00 in the morning. We all wondered why these guys where so wiped out, when everyone else seemed rested and ready.

I believe that the new course staff nixed the weather rock tradition, sadly, because it added a measure of fun to the course, and will be fondly remembered by me for a long time.

We have a small troop, that used to be a big troop. We have former adult leaders who came and went with their sons. Some of these dads will come help us on a temporary basis. One guy who said he was done will come back for one campout, or one recruiting event, or one fundraising event.

I bet you could find an parent or former parent who is in IT and could do the web site, and come to a committee meeting a month. Of course, as has been suggested, a bright teenager could do this just as well. (never let an adult do what a boy can do). Lots could be done temporarily or on a limited basis.

This is a Committee Chairman problem, though. I think you need to have a heart to heart talk with him, and tell him you cannot do these things any more. He needs to do adult recruiting.

Thanks for the responses, everyone. I took over SM job after an absentee SM stepped down. Since then I have taken steps to bring the PLC back into a decision making role. That is difficult when the current leaders have never had to actually lead.

We did have a venture crew, started by a former ASM. He had to move for his job shortly after I took over here. I know one of my 17 1/2 year old eagles were with him, and came back to us to finish his requirements.

My big concern is this: Can I require such a boy to attend our meetings (at least half of them), and go on at least one campout per quarter, to fulfill the scout spirit req. We are signing their eagle application, and declaring they are part of our troop, when they are not really participating in the life of the troop. Our past adult leaders were not concerned, but I want the younger scouts to know that the benefits of scouting come through our troop.

On the other hand, they were active in the past, did the requirements for POR and service hours, and are now back to finish Eagle before they turn 18.

In our troop we have an unusual number of boys who have followed this pattern: They get Life rank at 13 or 14, stay there for several years, quit participating at age 15 or 16, and then return to finish up their work and project for Eagle and squeak in just before their 18th birthday. My son did that, too. Last year I became SM, and am seeing these guys do this a lot. 5 of our last 6 Eagles followed this pattern. This disturbs me. I think that age 15 is the perfect age for a scout to Eagle.

Essentially the scouting program is a 13 year old program. When a boy turns 16, the program offers him little (except perhaps a leadership position), and they do not like to "hang around" the "little kids". I can understand that, having seen it happen with my 3 sons, and with other scouts in our troop. And of course at 16, all the other activities that 16 year olds are into have an effect.

My question is this: Is it right to require of these 17 year old to regularly attend meetings and go on campouts when they return to finish up their Eagle requirements? Do I, for instance, tell them they have to come to half the meetings and attand 2 campouts to be "active" in the troop. These guys did thier POR work 2, 3, or 4 years ago. They just need that personal fitness work done, and do their project, and then age out. I suspect that at age 17, they smell Eagle scholorships as they look to their college years.

So, you scoutmasters and other scouters out there, what do you do, and what policies do you lay down? Do I just let them finish and be glad that they got eagle? Do I require more?

What do you think?

Lets face it. Eagle rank is not just about getting the requirements done. It is about a commitment to living life according to the scout oath and law. I would want to know that the scout is ready to commit to that value system.

Only the SM can make that determination, and that is what the SM conference is all about. He must sign off on the Scout Spirit requirement and the conference. He must play gatekeeper here. He must evaluate the scouts service and must converse with the scout about the oath and law. He may have to have a serious talk unofficially with the scout and let him know what he expects about the active participation requirement.

As for the rumors, you can do nothing unless evidence exists, and the scout is defiant, and even then I am not sure it applies. That one is sticky. I am not sure I would want to act as judge over actions out of the scouting environment. I have to stay within the bounds of what is presented to me.

Robvio,

I took over our troop last year as SM, and have some challenges like having enough adults along. We have had to cancel a campout due to lack of adults able to go. You do have to recruit people to be registered scouters. One suggestion, call a nearby college and see if they have an office that sends volunteers to the community to do public service. Ask for former scouts to be registered leaders. Especially Eagle scouts, and pitch the idea of giving back to scouting. If you get a few, then they don't all have to go on every trip, just as they can.

As for training, you should get training, but the most important thing is that you love doing scouting. If you love doing it, the boys will see that and follow you. It may be a good thing that the better trained but more undependable scouter did not become SM. Do you love it, and are the boys wellfare your primary focus? You may make a thousand little mistakes, but the boys will come away with this thought, "He likes us, he is a great leader."

I would not depend on another troop. You may ask for assistance and ask for one of their leaders to come to your meetings for a month, but work your troop. And I bet you have or can get the manuals and planning guides and such. If truth be told, formal training is ok, but you will get more out of reading the books and putting them into practice yourself. You can see what works for your troop and your scouts. No one can tell you that kind of stuff.

I have also found that the district directors can be a resource. They do not always want to get out of the office, but if you bug them enough, they will respond. As it is said, the squeeky wheel gets the oil.

Good luck, and be confident, Mr. Scoutmaster.