fred8033

John-in-KC ... Good catch. Those "exact" words don't exist, but it is still effectively correct. I even found it documented in BSA advancement news November 2011 on page five. http://www.scouting.org/filestore/advancement_news/512-075_Nov_WB.pdf Now, I'm going to need to keep searching because I really thought I read those exact words (or close to it) in a BSA published document like the GTA or ACPP. BUT the statement is still correct. The only "BSA" (read as national) MB card is the blue card. Other forms of MB evidence don't have to be accepted by other troops, other councils or other groups. The only "official" is the blue card.(This message has been edited by fred8033)

OGE hit it on the head. Our emphasis should NOT be on correcting or controlling the scout. We should focus on correcting the people providing the program. The scoutmaster is still in the loop and part of the process. If scouts don't want to follow the BSA process, then a heart to heart about being in the troop is in order. But it's NOT an approval. We've seen it even in this discussion thread about SM's still having approval authority (which he never really had) or others indicating their troop would just keep going as they have been and ignore the clarification. The key is that the Merit Badge program is NOT a unit administered part of the program. It's a district/council administered program. If you disagree with the approval of MBCs, take it up with the district committee chair or the district advancement coordinator. Or the council SE or council advancement director. And if they don't care, I'm not sure why you should. You can still counsel the scout and you can provide other counselor names. But it's not the SM place to approve a scout for doing a badge or to dictate the counselor to be used and it never has been.

Using a parent as a MB counselor generally defeats the purpose of the MB program unless the parent really has special expertise in the topic. I'm not against using a parent as a MB counselor any more or any less than using the same MB counselor for more than one or two merit badges. IMHO, the benefit of the MB program is only partially in each topic. The bigger benefit is learning to reach out and work with people. Followed by learning to complete requirements and chase/close-out obstacles to completing something worthwhile.

I'm still a hold out on whether "scout accounts" are illegal. It really depends on the "how" it's done and IRS interpretations. What is clearly illegal per IRS documentation is holding a unit fundraiser and then portioning the $$$ to those who worked the event. Non-profit dollars must be used to serve the non-profit purpose and not targetted to benefit specific individuals. So effectively, you can use the $$ to reduce the cost for everyone, but not for those who worked the event. Similarly requiring members to participate in a fundraiser as part of membership in the non-profit is also a no-no. It's a pay-to-participate situation. So working the event is really paying fees that the members should be paying. Those fees are income to participants. Using your non-profit status to mainly raise income for those who participate is not kosher. The money (or the majority???) must go to the non-profit. The scout account one is a vague not 100% clear situation. A few other things are not clear are ... - If you don't treat it as a unit fundraiser (i.e. they are not tax deductible donations). - If 100% of the funds go to the scout or some specific percent. In another words, if the money is never owned by the unit, is it an issue. It's very similar to hiring a company to raise funds. They charge a fee and benefit. Leave that to your tax lawyers.(This message has been edited by fred8033)

Fix this BEFORE the Webelos cross over. It's not their issue. Families that were members when this happened own the issue. Remember that exisiting families BENEFITTED from lower costs and reimbursed expenses. Remember that existing families could have helped the treasurer or brought up the issue or changed reimbursement policies or cared enough to know what is going on. #1 Make a list of who owes money. Review it. Decide who you want to collect money from. Call them at least twice. Follow up. Monitor it. Track it. Decide when you will give up. #3 Audit what happened. Can you fix book keeping mistakes? #4 Change policies. Your troop can do what it wants, but our troop doesn't reimburse scout leaders for gas or camping ... except in extreme situations like driving more than 100 miles each direction. Our scout leaders pay their own way and often pay the same camp fee as the scouts. #5 Consider zeroing out ALL scout accounts. Do you have enough $$$ to cover committed expenses? Recharter. Outstanding reimbrusements. Camp registrations. Etc. If NO, then you are beyond discussing scout accounts. It's not fair to new scouts to pay for the past program. Leaders made mistakes and it damaged the existing scouts. Not the new scouts. #6 Consider increasing dues or doing a special one-time due charge? #7 Consider crediting scout accounts as you can. If you have some $$$ to give to scout accounts, calculate a ratio representing each scout's fair share. Even something is better than nothing. Good luck. This will be emotional as some parents are out real money.

Eagledad ... strong response for a topic that you assert 90% of the scouters wouldn't care less about. Counseling and advising is great and the full purpose, but it is very different than being a road block.

Okay. Sometimes you learn "secrets" years later that should have been obvious and laugh because it's either so rediculous or you should have known it. Last night my son and I had a private going away dinner for him as he leaves for USMC boot camp tomorrow. One of his old patrol mates joined us. The scouts in his patrol bonded and are still good friends. They still get together at times. So I heard a few stories. One that should have been obvious was his patrol name, Wolverine. They were proud of it. During many late night capture the flag games I'd hear the cry "Wolverines !!!". Last night I learned the patrol name was chosen because a few weeks before crossing over into Boy Scouts, two of the scouts had a sleep over and watched Patrick Swayze in Red Dawn. In the movie, the school mascot was the Wolverine. The movie war cry was "Wolverines". Only too funny. (This message has been edited by fred8033)

koolaidman wrote: "I know this "development" may deflate some SM egos in my area." Alot of scoutmasters need their egos deflated.

Our house is littered with the lower leggings of switchbacks. Trying to match sizes and leggings gets to be a real pain. We are now in the mode that we just never remove themm or we never put them back on. Sure we unzip partially for venting if it's really hot out, but we never fully remove. It's just too easy to lose and just too hard find the right set to get them ready to go again.

JoeBob raised a good point. Our council copy of the national training data has been horribly hit and miss. They will have some, but not others. It's like national has a data feed to the council that runs nightly or weekly. And it fails now and then (i.e. read as September & October). So what I saw is training done in July or November is showing up right now. Training done on MyScouting.org in Sep or Oct was not showing. Very frustrating. Hard to take the whole effort seriously when the data quality is so poor.

This is what I've done. For the next committee meeting ... or the next time you see them ... make sure you have WiFi ... bring a laptop. As soon as they show up, pause for a moment and get them signed into myScouting.org. If they have trouble signing in, get their password reset and get them connected to their email to get the password. If still can't get in or they don't show up, call their house, go visit and wait as they complete it. Their seeing you show up at their house will help them realize how important it is. Hopefully, they won't be such a pain two years from now.

Does Patrols in your troop stay together for a long time, or are the members moving around a bit more? ... Long time, six to eight years. Do you feel like this is a good thing for your troop or not? ... Very good. What does your troop do with an inactive or disfunctional patrol? ... We would reflect on the troop program, offerings and scout retention. Patrol organization is a scout matter. Who does it? The SPL and PLC or the Scoutmasters? ... None of those. Scouts organize their own patrols and choose their patrol leaders. ..... Age based patrols. New scout patrol. Scouts are free to change patrols at any time after discussing with SPL / scoutmaster. Scouts that join when older (not a Webelos cross over) can choose the patrol they join. Generally though, our patrols last about six to eight years and then die off. Most scouts never change patrols. Remaining scouts are welcome to stay in their patrol whether it's a one or two person patrol, join another patrol or serve in a leadership role, if applicable. It's funny to watch older patrols in the last two years as scouts age out. They fairly quickly go from six to eight scouts to four to three to two to one. Scouts seem to take pride in it.

duplicate.(This message has been edited by fred8033)

Beavah wrote: "Yah, but apparently da inference was right, based on what yeh report above. Yeh have zero experience with troops that don't run NSP, and zero experience with troops that run mixed age, stable patrols" Are you confused or just wanting to confuse. You did not ask about new scout patrols and it was not mentioned once in your post. You asked "Have yeh ever had any real experience with a mixed-age patrol troop?" I did list my experience with mixed-age patrols as an ASM. I did not itemize my outside experience as it didn't seem necessary but I've done the WB bit (bobwhite), been on district leadership for 5+ years now and been involved helping teaching classes and coaching units. ----------------------- Beavah wrote: "In Patrol Method scouting, it is NOT normal and natural for patrols to die" Say's who!!! Prove it!! Your comment replies to a deformed caricature of jblake47's original comments. Neither he or I infer that patrols should regularly reorganize. Patrols are best when they exist for the scout's whole career with mostly the same scouts and it's a set of friends who want to do things together. *** EVERYONE *** Read what jblake47 wrote earlier. Read what BSA says. Now if you're talking the Queen's scouting program or a scouting program from antiquity or the military, fine. Not everyone on this forum is with BSA scouting. Or the 21st century. ---------------------- Beavah wrote: "There's a reason why WB has permanent patrols " What? Dude, your pulling this stuff out of your Canadian back side or did you just inhale too much on a trip thru Denver. Woodbadge does NOT have permanent patrols. W.B. patrols are created and die off with each class. If not a single person continues in the patrol from the previous time the patrol existed ... it's not the same patrol. If it's not the same troop or W.B. class, it's not the same patrol. If ya don't have the same patrol flag ... or patrol yell ... or patrol equipment ... except a name, it's not the same patrol. If ya don't have a single continuous patrol member to teach the new members, it's not the same patrol. Instead, WB teaches the new scout patrol method! W.B. patrols don't have four members from the previous class and four members from the new class. Everyone in the patrol is new to the troop / class. The patrol gets a troop guide immediately to help orient you. And the members elect their own patrol leader immediately from their own neophyte group. The troop guide helps mentor the patrol and the patrol leader. And when the class is done, the patrol dies off. WB teaches same-age patrols!!! I think WB is a great example too. I've got good close friends from my time in the Bobwhite patrol. We still chat, visit and give each other hugs. Guess what though. We only passingly know others from the WB class ... because we were a patrol from the start, tented and stuck together thru the whole thing and functioned as a patrol of equals (similiar experience trying to learn the same things and do the same things). That's a patrol. ---------------- Beavah wrote: "It also isn't made up for by quotin' isolated guidebook sentences" Issolated? Criticizing for quoting the official materials? Like that's a bad thing! It's the scoutmaster handbook. It's the root source that says how BSA has the program designed. Yeah, you can find dated materials that say otherwise, but I can also find medical text that talk about bleeding the patient to let out the bad blood and that talk about the benefits of all male skinny dipping. There's a reason the materials are dated and old. Ya use what's official and current. Anything else is just wanton negligence. You can also use the Patrol Leader Handbook. It says the same stuff as the Scoutmaster handbook. The only difference I see is that the Scoutmaster Handbook uses the newer term Venture patrol and the patrol leaders handbook says older / senior scout patrol. But the description and intention are the same. http://dna.engr.latech.edu/~bishop/BSA-Troop45/Patrol%20Leader%20Handbook.pdf I love how it says the Venture / senior / older scout patrol may not got to a regional summer camp and instead choose to do high adventure or something new fresh and challenging. Huh. It's hard to follow that suggestion in a mixed age patrol. But I guess you can just mash together an impromptu patrol that just exists for the adventure and then dies out. Which patrol then takes pride in their adventure and accomplishments? You did say that my views contradict what some of the current BSA literature and training says. Fine. Prove it. ------------------- I'll agree with this. Patrol is the home of scouting. A gang. A team. A family. BUT ... it's not strongest when it's the tradition. And it's definitely not the strongest when you go elsewhere for friendship and activities. It IS the strongest when it's with those that share friendship, similar experiences and a purpose. Heck, I remember my whole son's patrol going as a unit winter camping. The older scout patrols didn't go as they'd already done that program three times. http://scoutingmagazine.org/2012/04/how-scouts-friendships-strengthen-patrols/

Beavah - How quick you are to infer ignorance or lack of experience by someone else! That's pretty small. You may have more years of experience, but more years doesn't make it right. It just makes it entrenched and one-dimensional. ===================== Yes, I've been involved in both stlyes of troops. My oldest joined in a troop that had scouts start in a new scout patrol. From there, the scouts could change to other patrols if and when they wanted. Most stayed together their entire scouting career. My son and his patrol buddies did not know each other before boy scouts, but they have been best buddies ever since. And their non-scouting buddies have become friends with their scouting buddies. Heck, my son drives his truck to another patrol members house now to change the oil. A neat thing to see happen especially as the spilage is over there and not at my house. My second son joined a troop that temporarily started new scouts together but they "assigned" older scouts to their patrol because, as they asserted, new scouts don't have enough leadership to lead themselves. Hogwash. Later, the scouts got split apart into mixed age patrols. With all the bouncing around the scouts never built the close bonds that is one of the main attractions of scouting. From what I saw, scouts never formed bonds to their patrol because it was at least their 2nd or 3rd patrol. At that point, it takes more years then left in boy scouts to build the same patrol pride. From what I saw, the patrol was more the-work-unit than anything meaningful to the scout. Maybe other troops can make it work but I saw alot of power trips by older scouts and scout leaders. Leadership "because I said so" or "I'm the senior scout" and the assumption that the junior scouts didn't know enough. That was their concept of leadership and their way of teaching it. I just don't care for it though. ===================== Anytime people are arrogant enough to say "Have yeh ever had any real experience", watch out. You might want to think whether you want their advice guiding your scouts. ===================== BEAVAH ... I accept some troops do mixed age patrols. Said it repeatedly. I seen one troop in-depth and others from the perifery. I haven't seen it work in a way where I'd want my sons part of it. QUESTION ... Where in the BSA documentation do you find the mixed-age patrol concept documented and/or recommended? Where do you find the recommendation for assigning scouts? I'm doing my best to interpret and implement what BSA has written ... and guess what ... I find it works pretty darn well. Page 8 - Method 2 - The Patrol Method Page 20 - 24 - The Boy Led Patrol http://www.people.vcu.edu/~albest/Training/ScoutmasterHandbook2010.pdf http://scoutingmagazine.org/2012/04/how-scouts-friendships-strengthen-patrols/ .... The rest is just blowing hot air.

I'm amazed how people assert things such as "Same age patrols tend to have an environment of slower scout growth..." or "Mixed age patrols should encourage the patrols to recruit new scouts every year to keep ages balanced". Some very authoritative statements are made that are opposite of my experience. Perhaps it all comes down to Your milage may vary and do what works for you. I'm comfortable with similar age patrols and letting scouts choose the patrol they want to be in if they want to change. It works well for us. I like the environment it creates. Scouts get to start practicing leadership immediately and see what works and what doesn't. Troop guides are around to help. PLC is around to help the new PL learn his role too. Training and mentorship is key is always key. ...... Beavah wrote: "In a mixed age patrol troop, boys naturally select that way,eh?" Boy's naturally select? It depends on which side of the decision the boy is sitting on. If you ask the SPL/PLC to "assign" boys to a patrol, they will do mixed age. Just like at work or military or most other areas, leaders want balanced teams. But patrols don't need to be balanced across each other. IMHO, patrols need to be balanced within so that they naturally are interested in the same topics, same activities, want to spend time together and do things together. If you ask the boy select where he goes, 80%+ will choose to go with their same age or with their buddies. And ya know what, I'm perfectly fine with that because those are the people the scout would naturally spend time with. As such, I'd rather have them together responsible for each other than responsible for others and then ditching those people to be with each other. http://scoutingmagazine.org/2012/04/how-scouts-friendships-strengthen-patrols/ .................... I guess it really depends on the environment you want to create. I'm very comfortable with how BSA describes it. Other's don't like it or have had trouble with it. That's their unit though. Scoutmaster Handbook, page 8 of the 2010 edition... "Method 2The Patrol Method "Within the larger community of the troop, the patrol is a Scouts family circle. Often made up of boys who are close in age and experience level, each patrol helps its members develop a sense of pride and identity. The boys themselves elect their patrol leader, divide up the jobs to be done, and share in the satisfaction of accepting and fulfilling group responsibilities."

We've done that before. Many scouts said it was the best camp out of their scouting career. - Really think. What do you want to accomplish? What you want to keep like a summer camp? What you want to keep like a normal troop / patrol camp out? - Choose specific specific badges to work on. We choose fishing, motor boating, water sports and canoeing. - Choose a good location. We choose an issolated state park group camp site that had a nice short walk to a small store that the scouts would visit to buy treats now and then. - Variety - Have plenty of activities. We did day trips to local historic and natural attractions. - Keep the cost down. We found we were able to do seven days for about $130 including cost of entry into local attractions. - Plan the menu well. Scouts initially planed it and then led and did the cooking, etc. But we did handle the acquisition and packing of the foods ... because there was alot of food. 30 people for seven days is alot of food. We cooked as a troop to keep cost and packing down. At a scout council-run summer camp, everyone eats together as a unit. So we did the same for this camp out. SPL created duty rosters and responsibility was shared. Meals were a fun opportunity to everyone to get together and re-sychronize events. Low stress. Lots of activities. Lots of fun.

We've done that before. Many scouts said it was the best camp out of their scouting career. - Really think. What do you want to accomplish? What you want to keep like a summer camp? What you want to keep like a normal troop / patrol camp out? - Choose specific specific badges to work on. We choose fishing, motor boating, water sports and canoeing. - Choose a good location. We choose an issolated state park group camp site that had a nice short walk to a small store that the scouts would visit to buy treats now and then. - Variety - Have plenty of activities. We did day trips to local historic and natural attractions. - Keep the cost down. We found we were able to do seven days for about $130 including cost of entry into local attractions. - Plan the menu well. Scouts initially planed it and then led and did the cooking, etc. But we did handle the acquisition and packing of the foods ... because there was alot of food. 30 people for seven days is alot of food. We cooked as a troop to keep cost and packing down. At a scout council-run summer camp, everyone eats together as a unit. So we did the same for this camp out. SPL created duty rosters and responsibility was shared. Meals were a fun opportunity to everyone to get together and re-sychronize events. Low stress. Lots of activities. Lots of fun.

chaoman45 ... Just ready the scoutmaster handbook on The Boy-Led Patrol and you will do fine. http://www.zion412.org/Library/BoyScoutLeaderHandbooks/ScoutmastersHandbook1of3.pdf -------------- chaoman45 ... You've hit one of the big eternal debates: How to structure patrols? People will look at the exact same situation and see diametrically opposed interpretations. Some want older "experienced" scouts to lead these groups. Others are okay with same-age scouts leading each other. In the end, most people just defend what theyve always done as the right answer. IMHO, read the BSA Scoutmaster Handbook on "The Boy-Led Patrol". Its hard to go wrong if you implement the program thats documented and dont over think it. Scouting has a lot of nuances, but its really not that hard. With that said, I just dont understand how to make mixed age patrols work well. You have to assign scouts and essentially break up friendships and clicks. Further, you break up people who are the same level. It just makes no sense to me because if a patrol is anything, a patrol is a set of kids that do things together. Id assert its more than just cooking and tenting. Its hiking, learning, swimming, canoeing, high adventures, etc. My experience with mixed age patrols is that the patrol disintegrates during down time as scouts go hang with their friends who are usually the same age. IMHO, that is the number one sign of a strong patrol. Its a set of kids who stick together and do things. I also just dont like assuming you need older scouts to lead younger scouts. Scouts learn by doing. That includes leadership. Having an older scout in charge is not so much about leadership as it is about submission. Smaller, younger, newer people in any group will often submit to the opinion and direction of the bigger, older, tenured person. Its not so much about leadership as much as about power. I'd rather turn that position on it's head and say that you need the confusion and the lack of "that's how it's always been done" to teach lessons about leadership. I had a friend who defended assigning older scouts into the new scout patrols as patrol leader because it was unreasonable to expect new scouts to know how to lead. IMHO, that is exactly the time to let them lead as they will be the most fresh and excited about scouting. Who else is motived to do a great job following thru on commitments than a brand new scout? That excitement easily brings them over any leadership deficiency. The rest can be quickly taught. One thing that Ive seen happen in mixed age patrols is the same thing Ive seen happen with the SPL position. The younger scouts elected their own guy. Older scouts and parents were miffed. Scoutmaster was frustrated because it wasnt supposed to work that way. My reaction was that thats exactly how its supposed to work. Of course, that group always tried to stack the deck so that the elections were strongly guided to who they thought should be SPL or PL. Just so happens now and then the scouts thought differently. Then, what do you do? Over-ride the election? Anyway, its an eternal debate. Just ready the scoutmaster handbook on The Boy-Led Patrol and you will do fine.(This message has been edited by fred8033)

IMHO, so what if a patrol dies as scouts age out. New scout patrols work well as they have enough members. I've seen three scout patrols of 16 year olds that seem to work fine. They just happen to also then be the scouts that often take up troop leadersihp positions. IMHO, the real key is let the scouts work it out and preferrably, let the scouts choose what patrol they want to be in. If each scout chooses such that it becomes age based, so what. At least the scouts get to experience the decision process and the results of their decisions.

Merlyn_LeRoy .... Merry Christmas.

My experience this year was ... my home town YMCA ... which was connected strongly to the city churches when I was young. Now, the title is just "The Y" and the sign says "Happy Holidays". They are trying to market Christian and Christ out of the equation. Under history on their web site it says: "The Y was founded in London in 1844 by George Williams and a small group of his friends to help young people find a positive foundation for their lives. The YMCA came to America in Boston in 1851, and quickly spread throughout the United States." Positive foundation? It was a Bible study group. The only mitigating positive is that it linked to this page that does mention the Christian basis. Sadly, the rest of the history is white washed of the strong church involement. http://ymca.net/history/founding.html I think they are staying true to their mission, but the mission was to promote Christian values. One Christian value is not being embarrassed to be a Christian. Anyway, that was my sad holiday moment.

Sentinel947 wrote: "... mentally challenged ..." I think we've all said it. I just want to be careful. It's not the mentally challenged ... or the physically challenged. They do fine in scouting. In fact, they are often the best scouts in the troop. It's the scouts with EBD, emotional behavior disorders. - Scouts that become majorly fixated and then can't listen to direction. - Scouts that are quick to lose it and don't handle stress. - Scouts once they do lose it, swear, hit, throw tantrums and potentially hurt others. - Scouts where these behaviors are "clinicially" significant. (beyond just having a bad day) Remember - Scouting is not a treatment program. - Scouts need to work with other scouts, independent of adults. - We are all volunteers. - Adult leaders are not trained to handle severe psychological conditions. - Youth leaders are not trained to handle severe psychological conditions.

You are better then me then. It's the scout's own work product, so I'd let the scout use it at any time. I can't think of a "memorize" MB requirement, though there is probably one out there. Host are discuss, show, list, name, etc. So if the scout wants to use his own work product for that or something else that helps, fine.

You are better then me then. It's the scout's own work product, so I'd let the scout use it at any time. I can't think of a "memorize" MB requirement, though there is probably one out there. Host are discuss, show, list, name, etc. So if the scout wants to use his own work product for that or something else that helps, fine.