highcountry

I could easily go without TV (SAttelite) but my wife wants to keep it so I continue to waste my $57 a month for direct tv. The digital cable radio is nice but there is so littel I watch especially since the big networks began to buy the independant cable channels adn dumb down the viewing, kill the variety and put reeality garbage everywhere. I am a motorsports buff and even Speed TV has been filled with garbage programing so I don''t watch it any more. I truely am too busy to sit and watch TV, I would rather listen to football or hockey on the radio while I am doing other things. Truth b

Before I took over it was once a year. What happened was some patrols depleted down to not being worth being called patrols, poor youth leaders stayed in spots and did the troop no good for a whole year and other issues. We do a major election in MArch just after we get in all teh new Webelos cross overs. At teh end of Sept-Early October we re-acess things at a Greenbar as to what leaders are effective, which were not, who is showing promise, who wants to stay on in positions they are doing well at and or improving, should we have 3 patrols or 4 etc and align things for the balance of ou

Here is an idea of the patrols and 27 semi active to active scouts. Patrol #1.....Patrol leader (My oldest son) 14....trying to lead and be responsible, doing an OK job and improving with age and experience. makes almost evcery activity, community service and fund raiser. makes calls to his patrol and trys to run them as a team to the best of his current ability. Took One day all day youth leadership training at Council last march. He is in this position strictly on account of the other scouts recognizing his take charge attitude and willingness to build a team and organize, not my press

Just answering questions as I get time.....Makeup of unit and recent history..... 5 years ago troop was down to 7 scouts...4 active. 2 scoutmasters ago the SM was in the position 7 years, did a great job I understand. Last SM before me did it 3 years, the parents and adults burned him out, I took over a year ago (early Oct 06)....no one else would step up to do the job. I did so and decided to try and do a good job, not just fill the position. Previous built the troop up from 7 scouts when he took over to between 20 and 30 with about 2/3rd being active. I took over a year ago with

I really appreciate this thread, I bet it will proovide some really beneficial information to many, not just me. I will try to start answering some of this and maybe providing more info in bits as I can. Last council youth leader training in march....2 patrol leaders attended. 3rd patrol leaxder is 16 and already has had quite a bit of council training ove the years. 4th patrol leader has had no training. All 4 APL''s have had no training. Of the 4 APL''s 1 is 15 and very responsible, 2 of the remailing APL''s are starting to show some maturity Age 13). Last APL is 16 and comes from a v

reading John in KC''s comments sort of fit what happens with our troop on campouts. We get about a dozen to 15 on most campouts. (We have 38 in the troop, with 27 active and 4 patrols of about 7 scouts each) Last weekend we went to Camporree and origianlly had 12 scouts signed up, 6 dropped but 3 new names were added for a final show of 9 scouts. The numbers of scouts by patrol changed entirely from where we started to what ended up showing up. Had we planned to cook as patrols origianlly we would have been way off the mark when we ended up going to the event. (Not enough food for the l

Beavah, your analogy is spot on, right on target. Times change, things change, one needs to adapt (Within reason) and one can still deliver a good and quality program with adjsutment to the recipe. To blindly stick to an age old recipe unwilling to bend may likely yield less results than making smart and appropriate adjsutments. Does this mean I think it''s OK to cut short merit badge requirements, or check off advancements if the scout can barely demostrate any ability on that requirement....absolutely not. Am I going to allow someone who is say scribe to advance if he only has the pat

Thanks for the advice/ideas but unless we have scouts working towards road to first class cooking requirements we are probably going to stick with the patrol/troop cooking method. As I noted in the early seventies my troop simply cooked as a troop, at least we have each patrol planning and cooking one part of the meal and contributing to the entire meal. I am having enough of a hard time getting any input at all from the boys on any menu ideas let alone nutrition and working up a grocery list, but everything does take time and this is eveolving. Yes these are typical kids, spoon fed with par

As I mentioned here or elsewhere, the previous scoutmaster arranged maybe one troop campout a year. All other campouts were either summer camp or district events. Camping 10 or 11 times a year is a big change so we are adapting. I think we will always use the troop/patrol cooking plan like I described but I do realize teh boys need to be more engaged and pounding my fist is a waster of my energy. We have a 2 night "Hallowween campout coming end of October and between then and now is our next Greenbar where I am going to make a big deal about reliability, communication, responsibility and d

It''s not a convenience thing. It''s the realization of the reality that putting the priority of insisting on standing up to a standard that pretty much no one wants in my troop anyway over an otherwise great program and all the benefits the scouts are receiving. It''s not simply getting along and be nice, it''s that you sometimes make decisions and comprimise to maintain an overall positive and functional relationship with other adult leaders and committee. Plain and simple,as I discussed in another thread last Spring, we had a CC who was destroying the troop, I had the 100% adament su

In the early seventies my troop (Large, about 75 scouts with 50 very active) cooked and ate as a troop. Scouts who needed road to first class cooking requirements were in charge of things needed to obtain those requirements. When I took overe as Sm of our troop a year ago it was troop cook and eat as a troop. I see nothing wrong with it. Again, as our troop instructor sees a couple younger scouts in need of road to first class cooking requirements we see to it they fulfil the cooking, planning, nutrition, cleanup requirements and they do them before tehy are signed off. They may end up c

In the past our troop kept putting on suburban type activities on teh calendar, stuff like indoor climbing walls, fencing, bowling etc. Sometimes tehy wanted caving or white water day trips with guided tours, but other than Klondike, camporree or summer camp, no camping and only occasional hiking. Many of these city type activities got cancelled due to too few scouts signing up or not enough adult drivers or teh cost per attenddee was too high. The shame of it is, we are in the rocky mountaisn and have all kinds of hiking and camping opportunities where we live. With an influx of new scout

By chance, the Council just called to inquire how summer camp went. In our converstation I asked tehm about their local tour permit policy and cited examples. The area council told me not to bother with them for one or 2 nite campouts when no water activities or high adventure is involved when we are close to home (within 25 miles appx). We just did a 10 mile hike within 15 miles of our home town and in district, single day event and I was told to not bother woith a permit. Our troop has shifted it''s activity policies due to a number of reasons, one being the streamlining of preperation.

Although I wouldn''t go as far to have the troop do Sopranos or metalica or Weird Al songs, our scouts have not been motivated to be involved in many sing alongs as the majority of the songs they hear at large camps and the like are extremely lame, out of date and well below their age group. In the past our troop had no motivation towards songs, yells or skits. Since I built the troop up, we have some that are inclined toward these things, competition with out of state troops and setting some traditions have made these things of interest to others. They are taking a self directed interest i

Before I took over as SM our troop had no contact with the cub packs, no Den Chiefs and no patrol guides. When I took over I had one of our ASM''s so inclined to be a Den Chief coordinator, we now help support 2 area packs. The Most Active Den chiefs become PG''s when the Webelos 2 they mentored cross over. They ahve built a relationship with the new scouts and in most cases their parents are in best position to mentor them and teach them the ropes. They are not necessarily in the NSP. All are at least first class and all are seeded in patrols, not seperate from them. In the past we got ve

Our troop instructor keeps tabs on what boys need cooking requirements in road to first class. When we have a couple needing these requirements we shift our meal plan on campouts to support the advancement need. We also have occasional Day Camps in nearby state parks or national forest areas, the middle of the event is of course lunch and this is specifically intended to support the road to first class cooking requirements. On camp outs where we have say 18 scouts, 3-6 from each of 4 patrols teh other format works best. Each patrol takes pride in planning and preparing their part of the meal

I hear the "pick your battles" comment. In the seventies when I was a scout, there was a different prevailing attitude in society that was less leinient, some things were pretty much expected. As kids when we had an issue or wanted to get some wiggle room be it homework deadlines, or attending church or wearing a uniform or be back home by a certain time or whatever, we found adults universally took a pretty hard stand. We knew what teh rules were and that you had to stay in the guideliens or else. If we wanted to losen things a bit we also knew we would have to live with the consequences, it

A good part of the problem is that dealing with people is now more difficult than it was years ago. The overburden of rules and process and paperwork and liability adds to the frustration. The last scoutmaster resigned and I took over a year ago, he was extremelya ctive and enthusiastic and the adults is what burned him out. Selfish demanding people, dis-agreeable people, kooks with crazy ideas and bad people skills that demanded to have their way, on and on, we have all seen it. His wife was Committee Chair and she did a great job, but when they left they mostly disappeared. The jerks ruin

For a years (before I became SM) the boys made pretty lame meal plans. They were mostly balanced buyt lots of convenience stuff, canned soup, hot dogs, bad spagetti and canned stew, mac and cheese etc. The adult leaders bagan to prepare their own meals and it did not take long for the scouts to look and see how good we had it and to become a bit more ambitious about their own meal plans. We do cooking contests when tehy are part of Camporee or Klondike but ussually only one entry for the troop. Whomever ahs a great recipe to fit the theme goes with it, there are normally a zillion activi

Latest interesting follow up..... I am of strong belief at this point that mental illness as mentioned above may well be an issue. CC was advised by COR a month ago they were done. This week out of the clear blue CC puts an email out to Committee for a Committee meeting this week with one days notice to boot. nearly all the agenda items were non issues. To add to this, she states she will continue to be CC untill her term expires at the end of summer, ignoring the fact she was toast at teh begining of this month. Odd for someone removed from CC to think they can set up meetin

After a little un-easy delay this mess was finally taken care of properly, I was extremely worried, but some of the advice you folks provided was definitely a help. I wasn't aware the district guys had no real power to make and enforce a decsison so that helped me understand how they didn't pull the plug on CC in such a balck and white case. t rurns out they were 110% behind the position of myself and the rest of the troop but needed to allow the COR the opportunity to become completely comfortable with the obvious decision that had to be made. What ended up happening, COR called a num

This sounds familiar. The CC I referred to in the REAL PROBLEM thread has proposed a massive set of troop bi-laws. That person is super into every nit picky rule and regualtion out there and even though BSA provides more than enough rules to choke a good sized elephant, they think we need even more. CC has brough this up to committee numerous times and each time committee vote they feel no need for this, yet CC began to schedule committee meetings with the sole focus to develop a troop bi-law book, and get this...a 76 page st of bi-laws form an area tropp is being used as the framework to g

We cancel if there are less than 6 boys signed up for an activity, it is a waste of time for our adult leaders to hold events with such little support. Some times considerable time and effort goes into planning events, arranging a group rate, potential rides etc when only a few sign up. We try to sell events a month or more in advance to the troop where we see very litle interest and they know they best get thier buddies to sign up or the event is off. This helps minimize the wasted effort by ASMs and activities coordinators before something is cancelled for lack of interest. I have been S

I think I have an extremely serious problem and have been taking the heat to try and save our troop....we have a great troop but our CC is a mean and boarderline phsychotic person. This person ended up as CC 9 months ago as their was no one to run against. They were warned point blank that they needed to watch their behavior as the boys and other adults knew she has been a huge problem in previous community organizations, still they commenced with the bad behavior, which got worse month after month, bullying, intimatating, telling the boys what to do, doing things that the committee unanomou