Stosh

I totally understand where you are coming from with this line of thinking. Faith is a very personal issue for most people who have it. But one must realize that being a Chaplain is different than simply being a person of faith. My faith can reside in the issue of God and me. Being a Chaplain expects me to assist someone else with their faith/God relationship, not mine. For that reason just because I have a majorly strong God/me relationship it does not qualify me to be helping others with their God/them relationships especially if their faith journey is drastically different than mine. I am a former ordained minister. I could fit the role of Chaplain for the Council/District/etc. with no problem. I just choose not to because this is an opportunity for the boys, not me. As a matter of fact very few people in my council know I am a minister and for 35+ years they haven't even so much as to ask me to put together a Sunday morning devotion for the boys. For the same reason I don't take a religious track when I'm dealing with church youth groups. I am there as a counselor, not a pastor. This is why I suggested the OP not have this boy as a CA. I don't think he understands what a Chaplain is.

This is what Scouting is supposed to be! Maybe Hedge, you can suggest it to Irving.

Here's where I am coming from with this whole "election/selection" thingy. Boys hold an election and elect a "popular" boy as their PL. The kid is interested only in the prestige and patch as a stepping stone to SPL and the stars! Okay, the boys come to me and say, "We goofed and want a PL that really will be a PL. Why do we have to suffer for a 6 months/1 year until elections roll around?" My answer? Well, I haven't got one. Their argument makes perfectly good sense to me. After all, it's their program, why not. Elect who you want now that you figured out that popularity is not one of the major determining factors when picking a PL. So then after a term 6 months/1 year, the boys REEEEAAAALLLY like their PL. He's fantastic and the boys love him and will do anything for him! He's a natural leader. So they elect/select him again.... and again..... and again.....And the SM says no, you can't be doing that and the boys ask "Why?" and the SM's answer? Hmmmmm, does "because I said so." seem to apply here? The reason we do it this way is not because Mr. Stosh said so, it's because Mr. Stosh doesn't have a good answer as to why they can't have the leadership they want! My solution? I stay out of it...and voila! all the hassles with terms and elections, and popularity contests, and all other "stuff", simply goes away. I'm happy and the boys are happy. So, am I going to go and implement 6 month/1 year terms for troop officers any time soon? Nope.

I'm thinking it might be more of a public relations image issue. Here we have all these parents checking out the troop and it's chaotic and unorganized. Who's fault do they figure it is? Yep, the SM. Kids miss a couple of outings because they don't get themselves organized? Yep, SM's fault. Little Johnny didn't get his TF badge along with the others? SM's fault. As long as the parents and other outsiders do not understand the concept of youth leadership development, they will always be critical of the non-adult run programs and blame the adults. I'm thinking a lot of the adult driven dynamics are a self-preservation issue. After all, I was removed from the SM position because I expected the boys to do too much of the leadership - their words, not mine. This is what adults may have to look forward to if they develop the boy-led, patrol method dynamic too far and actually let the boys run the show.

That's the stuff that nightmares are made of. High school would be a bedlam, kindergarten.... well I wouldn't' want to even try and imagine. Herding cats does come to mind, though.

Our calendar planning has taken on the campout/retreat in the fall. Saturday AM, fire up the campfire after breakfast and start putting together the old fun stuff from last year with the new potentially fun stuff to try next year. Same summer camp next year or some place new? etc. Once the calendar is set, then it's time for some fine tuning on the servant leadership training. What's working, what's not, etc. The adults can speak to answer direct question posed to them, otherwise they drink coffee and get more firewood. They serve to support the PL's (or PLC) in their deliberation. After the calendar is complete to the nth detail, then the move is into training of whatever topic the boys want. That is usually identified prior to the outing. The evening campfire is the fellowship/brotherhood time when everyone participates equally. Old stories, new ideas, trips they went on as a family that might be good to consider. How many new Webelos do we expect, etc. kinds of things.

I have found that the word YOU, especially, when used does carry a "judgmental" or even a confrontational tone to it in many of the discussions even when not intended to be. I do it this way and you do it differently. Sounds judgmental? confrontational? or just stating fact? Hard to tell sometimes. Of course coupling that with the fact that people often assume the negative, that's a problem as well. Possessive pronouns are the worst! My troop vs. Your troop are often fightin' words! Then again when one uses the Papal WE, does it mean the adults?, youth? both? The English language is not very precise as some other languages and so we have multiple meanings for a single word. That generally is a game changer for many discussions. I'm saying one thing and you're hearing another. Not good. Being sensitive to these things, especially when discussing issues in a unit may help keep some of the conflicts and hard feelings in check. I noticed some talk about the US and THEM on issues. We are the keepers of the Golden Whatever, and of course implies, YOUR not! WE are the boy-led, patrol-method people..... does that include the boy-led, patrol-method ASM's struggling in an adult-led troop? It makes for interesting discussions on the forums, but they can take an ineffective trail off into the woods sometimes that leads to nowhere but grief and hard feelings. By the time we have the pronouns cleared up, then we can start playing with the verbs. "I TOLD the SPL" vs. "I suggested or hinted to the SPL" types of things. The SPL is in charge, vs. The SPL is the senior leader that supports and works with the PL's to be successful leaders themselves, etc. My favorite is always the leadership language vs the management language. By the time we sort out all the weeds from the produce it's a wonder we don't all starve to death.

If the boys go out and fund raise for summer camp, they know the costs and if they want to get the best bang for their buck, let them plan out the fund raising, camp research, budget the costs, and work their tails off getting themselves to the camp of their choice. If the boys do not go the camp of their choice it is never my fault. Oh, by the way, they have never NOT gone to the camp of their choice....

Spin off thread "The Language we use"

@@Hedgehog sparked something for me and I didn't want to highjack the thread. The quote didn't copy over on the spin-off but it is from Hedge. On these forums it is very easy to misread what a person writes. We generally have some idea in mind and simply slam it out on the keyboard without thinking in terms of the language nuances that can occur. When I was a moderator on other internet boards they were much more difficult with a higher level of intensity than this one with Scouting. Because of that I went though the same epiphany with words as those being expressed here by Hedge. Because of that I write in a style far different than the average person. I try very hard to avoid the 2nd person YOU in the discussions. "YOU don't understand!" gets translated into "I can see how someone might look at it from that perspective." The use of the 3rd person plural (WE) is also avoided to a certain extent. No, I do not speak for others, so I should be speaking only from my own perspective. In the case of the Scouting forum, the use of WE when referring to the unit membership can be confusing. Is it referring to the youth? adults? both? or a generic Papal WE. That's too many options to pick from and misunderstandings are quickly obvious. Then there's the flat out multiple definitions of the terms we ( ) that are used. For example, NSP is used to describe a certain type of patrol in a BSA unit. Is it a patrol of NEW SCOUTS, or does NEW SCOUT PATROL have different flavors for different people as to what that really means. Regular Patrols is the BSA title, but the term Mixed-Aged Patrols floats around a lot and that isn't even BSA terminology. How many definitions does that phrase carry? Older Boy Patrol? Is that the BSA Venture Patrol? High Adventure ad hoc patrol? Leadership Corps? I'm not always that good at it and Hedge don't be upset with my "corrections", Pick out any number of my postings and one can find linguistic slips all over the place. But I do try and make the effort to be more clear with what I'm trying to say. Excellent observation....

The sad part of the whole issue for us is that the EBOR panel they will be addressing is a total unknown. We know what SHOULD be going on, but without any of our personnel in the room except the optional SM, it's an unknown for the boys. Sounds like other councils have an easier setup for the boys. It's always nice to have a familiar face or two in the crowd.

Being a Venturing Crew adviser is really a great thing. Lots of fun, the maturity level of the youth is very impressive. Just be careful not to mix apples and oranges to much and you should just fine.

One post? I thought the voter ID thingy was illegal.

Must be my background. I'm married to a Catholic, my sister and brother are as well. I also went to a consortium of seminaries, Presbyterian, Catholic and Lutheran. Long standing joke in the family. Those that eat fish and those that don't. Of course it didn't help when I married my 2nd wife, former Catholic, that she spent 25 years in Alaska settling in Homer, the Halibut Capital of the World! Don't let it get out, but I really like fish!

So does every parliamentarian democracy in the world including the UK the birthplace of Scouting.

One huge patrol? no problem, about half the boys won't have to be responsible for anything. They're going to like that. Larger challenge for the leadership to handle that many boys. Professional teachers will always tell you, the more students in the classroom the more difficult it is to teach, maintain discipline and the kids' educational development is shortchanged. 2 patrols? Twice the leadership opportunity, closer camaraderie, everyone has a responsibility, small groups develop deeper bonds. Everyone has a job and works together for each other. When the large group becomes unruly, the opportunity for adult intervention increases proportionally to the ruckus. I do know as has been borne out by small group dynamics, the group will grow to a certain size and then stop. It cannot be handled by the leadership to be any bigger than this arbitrary number. Older boys might be able to handle 8-10 boys, but the younger patrols or mixed patrols won't be able to do that as well. The patrol method seems to have a pretty good track record coming out of the gates back at the beginning of Scouting, Over the past 100 years , there have been no significant improvements that push the envelop beyond the original specifications. Everyone is free to try it on their own. For me, I just find as an adult there is far less drama and problems with the smaller groups. With my 10 boys, I'm right on the cusp of going to two patrols. I have all new boys, so it's going to be difficult to divide the support two ways, but it will be a major topic of discussion for the boys next week at summer camp. We may just give the two patrol set up a try this fall. I'll have to wait to see what the boys want.

Of course people can do it any way they want, but over the years I have had very little if no problems with the boys that have served my units as SPL's. As far as the selection/election process, I have seen SM's assign SPL's, I have seen troops elect them and then suffer for 6 months before they get a chance to correct their poor selection, the whole time the adults yelled at the boy for no doing his job, and I have done it by having the PL's pick someone they trust to help them be successful with there patrols. I offer that as a suggestion to the boys and the most often choose to do it that way. They have tried the BSA troop elections and found them to not be very helpful. Either way success or failure, I'm not in the picture, I'm not holding the bag and the boys know they always can do a "do-over" at any time to fix the problems in the troop. My troops have been quite small - took over a troop of 5 boys and built it up to 28 boys, and this second one is a new troop now with 10 boys. They really haven't felt the need to have an SPL until they got up around 3-4 patrols. That was their call. I didn't need to worry about an SPL if they didn't want one.

Does that loosely translate into Catholic Protestant or am I reading too much into it?

300' between campsites is the general rule...... If they want to co-mingle after that, try barbed wire.

This is why I always say my PL's are the highest ranking officers in the troop. From the SPL on down to the SM and ASM's, they are there to support when asked. Otherwise, when things go amok, the adult will always get blamed first and no adult wants to be in that position. This is a program of success/fail on the part of the boys, not the adults. Coffee time.

Youth leadership is facilitated with the small group setting of the patrol method. Expecting a boy to handle more than 6-8 buddies at one time effectively is asking way to much for this age level. Just as you said, the opportunity to lead is lessened without the patrol method and the actual small group dynamic facilitates the opportunity. I have never wanted to be part of a unit that has 50+ scouts in it. I would not be able to keep track of everyone. Same for a PL, he focuses in on 6-8 boys and doesn't worry about the other 42-44 scouts. The SPL focuses in on his 6-8 PL's and lets the PL's worry about the rest. That much fragmentation wouldn't allow me to get to know my boys, but if the unit grows that large, The patrol method will still work, but I'll just have to adjust.

Oh goodie, this is easy. Take all your boys put them into a room by themselves, no adults. Tell them they need patrols of 6-8 boys and a leader. Can't come out until that's done. Record the groups and leaders. If one has more than 3-4 leader/groups put the leaders back into the room and tell them they have to pick a PL support person to be SPL. They can pick from anyone in the troop. When they come back in record who that is. Take the SPL and PL's and give them training. "TAKE CARE OF YOUR BOYS, DON"T LET THEM REGRET THEIR SELECTION." Now it's time to go get coffee.

Statistically speaking after all the work our society has done to make playgrounds safer for our children, it has accomplished great things in terms of safety. However, getting to the playgrounds is just as dangerous as it has always been. The park is the "box" and everyone forgot to think outside the "box". So what's the solution? focus outside the box! Do the due diligence of safety in areas of risk. Pulling a trailer is risky, so do we have personnel with the experience to do it? A Driver's License is not experience. Is the person going to comply with the law? BSA policies? are they Trustworthy like the Scouts are supposed to be? Yes, there will be risks, but through proper training and "being prepared", one can minimize the risks along the way.

Yeah, @@TAHAWK are those publications directly from God or did you just pick them off of some random stone tablet someplace?

At what point should we speak up? Safety is #1 in my troop and it doesn't apply to just the boys.