hotdesk

I do think that the Scoutmaster should be fit enough to deliver an active outdoor program. He should be able (physically) to participate in most of the troop programs. This includes hiking, climbing, canoeing, caving, backpacking, etc. The Scoutmaster should be enjoying this activities with the troop's membership in order to get to know more about the scouts. HOWEVER, Assistant Scoutmasters should be able to have a knowledge of some of the activities and a willingness to participate in those activities. If they are fit enough to a simple car campout and can provide useful information and

1) I see some possible safety concerns as far as the dinner goes. The first would be that scouts are forced to be around adults that are drinking. They are subject to those that may not be able to handle their alchol. I as a parent would be VERY CONCERNED about this. 2) It sounds like your CO may be a VFW or American Legion??? You also said that you do not have a COR? The first thing that I would do is have a Parent's meeting. Feel free to invite the Scoutmaster and Committee Chairman. Make it very clear that the parents are incharge of the meeting and that it is to address conce

Stosh, in our troop the Patrol Leader just needs to call his patrol. He doesn't need them to remember or inform their parents of anything. As a scout is trustoworthy all we ask is that the Patrol Leader call the Senior Patrol after he called his entire patrol. The "phone tree" is started by the Scoutmaster who calls the Senior Patrol Leader who calls the Patrol Leaders who calls their patrol and at the end the PLs call the SPL. The Patrol Leader's Council is the group that developed and passed this. If the boys want to hold themselves to that then let it be. Also if a troop has

During my last term as Senior Patrol Leader (2005 before I aged out) my dad was the Scoutmaster. Between the two of us the committee and parents expected that we produce a monthly newsletter, upkeep a website, have Patrol Leader's call their Patrols, make weekly announcements at meetings, and send emails to all scouts, scouters, and parents. It was at that point that I recruited 1 parent to do the newsletter, 1 parent to upkeep the website, have the Scoutmaster appoint an Assistant to send emails, and started to expect that the Patrol Leaders do the most important part of their job (commu

It's not ALL kids. There are kids that lack common courtesy. They don't understand that they are responsible for their thoughts and actions. They would much rather verball harrass another scout, leave a mess for others to clean, or talk loudly when a leader is leading a meeting. HOWEVER, in my experience, for each one of those scouts, there are at least 5 more that not only clean up after themselves and are respectful to not only themselves but others AND encourage those that lack courtesy to do better. That is why I have stayed in scouting. Watching scouts grow over time in t

The Scoutmaster Handbook explains to a Scoutmaster that patrols can do Patrol Activities without adult support. HOWEVER, it does let him know if that he is not comfortable with the planning and detail process that he may either suggest to the patrol that they do better or that they find 2 adults.

Beavah I'm in charge of Family Life at the district MB College starting on Saturday. With all the requirements that tell a scout to Show, Discuss, and Explain to the Conselor how would you apply your second method to that badge?

1) I would require that all scouts serve as a Patrol Leader or Senior Patrol Leader. Scouting is to teach scouts about leadership and adult interaction. A Scout can currently earn the rank of Eagle by only holding the position of Historian. What does Historian teach us about leadership? Serving as PL or SPL would allow a scout to have more adult interaction then he gets with any other aspect. Also I understand that not all scouts are going to be good leaders. However, being a leader would help a scout become a better team player and follower by showing him what's involved with lead

So after discussing the importance of having a Senior Patrol Leader again as a troop and letting them know of the two options if we don't have an elected Senior Patrol Leader (1) we will cancel troop campouts because there will be no boy leader to plan the program or (2) the Patrol Leaders---3---will serve two month terms as Senior Patrol Leader and pulling a few of our scouts to the side we finally got one, our current ASPL, to run for the position of SPL. With our older scouts we created a High Adventure Patrol for them. The PLC has placed 2 guidelines on this patrol (1) they take

Merit Badges shouldn't be the focus of a Summer Camp. The focus of Summer Camp should be to get your scouts outdoors for the entire week. To teach them the basics of Boy Scouts (things like leadership, working as a team, and surviving without Mom and Dad around). Today we have turned Summer Camps into Merit Badge factories, instead of the great scouting classroom that it should be. Another thing is that maybe your scouts picked this camp because it has a really neat waterfront or swimming pool. Maybe it has a big open field that scouts can go play football, wiffleball, or some other field

From what I'm reading the main suggestion is to let the position not be filled and have a few meetings and outings cancelled. After this happens, if the scouts really want a troop, they will welcome the opportunity to serve. I'm not sure I really like this idea though. There needs to be a better way to encourage scouts to serve in leadership positions than this. Sure BW mentioned a constant culture of leadership. I think and I hope that this is the way that our troop is treating this topic. Maybe an outsider actually seeing the troop in action may have to tell me differently.

The scouts are the ones that lead in our troop. They have an annual troop planning conference, plan the program for outings and meetings, carry out Court of Honors, and do the instructions during meetings. They have a monthly PLC meeting where the SPL develops the agenda and they plan all the events for the upcoming month. All scouts that serve as PLC leaders (ASPL, PLs, TG, Scribe, and JASM) give reports to the PLC to update them on their position and any problems they are having. The PLC then discusses ways to corret these problems. The adults make themselves available for guidance an

Troop 159's elections are coming up in Febraury. Last night the Scoutmaster and myself (Assistant Scoutmaster) discussed this with the scouts. We gave them the names of those that were eligible (based on guidelines established by the PLC). We then asked them who, out of those eligible, would be interested and then asked who would be interested period. The answer that we got was that no one was interested. We have several members that were elected, based on their deservence, into the Order of the Arrow and that are also Star or Life Scouts. We have scouts that have served as ASPL, PLs, T

1. The CO DOES NOT select the Unit Leader, that process is usually left to the Unit Committee. The Unit Committee puts together their list of candidates. It then interviews their top candidate. IF the top candidate is willing to do the job and the interview committee feels comfortable with that candidate it is usually put in front of the entire committee. AFTER dicussion it's voted upon and, if passed, is forwarded to the CO for their approval. Usually the CO only directly selects the Committee Chairman and Chartered Organization Represenative. It approves the rest of the leaders and v

Just because a Scoutmaster CANNOT train a scout leader does not mean that he can't teach or work with the boys. There's a difference on teaching someone how to motivate others to do their job than being motivated to do yours. A Scoutmaster should be respected by the scouts and willing to have fun with the scouts. He should put into practice BSA's methods and ideals and expect that his Assistants and that the Committee know what these methods and ideals are and that the troop is boy lead. A Scoutmaster SHOULD be able to make camping enjoyable for the scouts in the troop. He sho

I have noticed that the new TLT is less scripted and detailed than the old Jr. Leadership Training offered by National. I have noticed that it leaves the Scoutmaster a lot of room to add things to futher points. HOWEVER, national should be offering a more laid out, scripted, and detailed training program. Their training programs should include videos, games, and training cells. I know that the Scoutmaster is responsible for training, but whose to say that the Scoutmaster is good at training? The Scoutmaster may or may not have that is his "tool box". This program is suppose

I'm reading through these posts and I'm seeing a lot about how National doesn't do this or that. I'm also seeing posts about how the rank advancement has missing holes. IF a scout is well rounded he is doing more than scouts. Scouts are learning about being physical fit in sports (either with schools or outside of school). Scouts are being mentally awake by trying their best at schools. Scouts are doing their duty to God by going to church. Scouts are doing community service at school. They are learning communication skills in clubs like Debate and Speech and in their Speech Classes.

The first thing that I see is that units operate according to what their adult leadership wants. If the Committee Chairman and Scoutmaster see the need for an adult lead troop then that's the way it's going to be. If the Committee Chairman and Scoutmaster are willing to work at establishing a boy lead troop than that's the way it will be. Most chartered organizations don't really spend enough time around the unit they charter to see the end result. They simply invite the troop to a couple of their functions (ie; Scout Sunday for Churches). They may also ask that the unit do some commun

As I mentioned earlier you have to make sure that the things you ask parents to do are within their whelm of understanding and comfort level. Something I would also note concerning the scout asking if his dad could come is that, diffently if this is a younger scout, maybe there are issues that the scout is not fully aware of. We have 1 scout in our troop who currently refuses to go camping without his dad. He assumes that any campout that he wants to go on his dad will be able to attend and informs the adult leadership of that. However, sometimes dad is actually busy and doesn't hav

The troop that I am in is chartered to a church and we still have to fund every dollar. The Crew that I am in is chartered to a VFW, which makes a donation of a few hundred dollars every year. However, remember that there are many expenses for a meeting place. Their is the cost of the custodian that cleans up after your unit, the cost of the electricity that you use, any supplise that you use while using the bathroom, the cost of the water you use, the cost of gas/heat, etc. So next time remember that you could be forced to rent a meeting place to help cover these costs as well.

Since you said "my troop" I'm assuming your a Scoutmaster or Assistant Scoutmaster... So the first thing I would do would be to make an announcement, at the next Court of Honor, that all parents are expected to attend at least 1 outing a year. This way parents know the expectation, can make plans with work accordingly, and pick the campout that best suits their interest. If your actual problem is adult participation, on a whole, I would pick a responsiblity that doesn't require a lot of time at meetings or outings (Activities Coordinator, Fundraiser Chair, repairing troop equipment,

For a few years now our Patrol Leader's Council and Senior Patrol Leader have had the responsiblity of planning the Court of Honor and carrying it out. However, when I first joined the troop (10 years ago), the troop committee planned the Court of Honor. These Court of Honors turned out to be a more open Committee Meeting (with members making reports to parents) than a ceremony recongizing scouts. But when our troop finally became boy led (6 years ago) we established a Patrol Leader's Council and a new Advancement Chairman was appointed by the Troop Committee (the pervious one became

Almost of the positions on the committee or as a Scoutmaster/Assistant are often underappreciated by the parents. Unless they have served in a leadership position, for scouting, they don't quite grasp the number of hours, amount of frustration, and amount of energy spent in our positions. However, it is not because of the parents that we do what we do. Most of the time it's because of the scouts. If you don't enjoy working with them then it's time to leave. If you have fun with the scouts, but not the parents then that's totally expected by most. In our troop we have qualifications t

Our troop has a healthy supply of MB Books. Before Merit Badge Days (offered by our District) and Summer Camp we expect scouts to list the Merit Badges that they are going to work on. The scouts start working on these badges before the MBD or Summer Camp. Our Librarian goes through the lists and pulls the correct number of books from our Library. He puts them in a box that goes to the events. At the events he gives them to the scouts that are going to be using them and, during Summer Camp, collects them back at the end of the day. If we don't have enough of the books he looks a

Our troop does have a Chaplians Aide. In our troop he works with the Scoutmaster or Assistant Scoutmaster in planning a church service, which we do on Saturday night of each campout. He also helps plan Scout Sunday within the troop. Somebody perviously mentioned that """""There are POR's that I think are great to have if you have the numbers to support them: Troop Guide, OA Troop Rep, Librarian, Den Chiefs, JASM and Instructor."""" In our troop the Troop Guide is one of the most esstential positions. We have a New Scout Patrol. We have a New Scout Assistant Scoutmaster. How