JMHawkins

Unlike Santa who brought you toys and...

But Scoutfish, Santa Clause is real. In a sense. The spirit of kindness and joy, of generosity. The pleasure of doing something to make another person happy, the optimism of festive decorations in the middle of bleak winter, and the respect for traditions and remembrance of days and friends gone by. That silver bell still rings for me, I still hear it. Oh sure, some people get carried away, turn it into a self-paradoy, but we can't discard everything that someone takes a little too far. So maybe there's not actually a fat guy in a red suit who lives at the North Pole with a bunch of elves, but there is a spirit at work that can make each of us into a part of Santa, into an agent of the spirit.

So maybe ask the Scout if he believes in Santa Clause, and if he says no, ask him if he believes in the spirit of Christmas...

Oh, but we were talking about God, weren't we? Sorry for the tangent.

This is the sort of nonsense that allows a young man get to Eagle BOR and profess he has been an atheist all his life.

I am not saying black balling him, but I am not saying rubber stamping him thru either.

I'll ask again, what's the worse outcome:

1) letting a boy who says he doesn't think there's a God but otherwise lives up to the Scout Law stay in Scouts for several years on the chance he changes his mind (nah, young men never do that...) only to have him profess his atheism at his EBOR

or

2) run him out* ASAP at 10 1/2 and tell him there's no place for his kind in Boy Scouts, go find something else to do with his life?

* - giving him grief or constantly badgering him about what he believes will likely run him out and leave him with the impression "we don't want your kind around here."

Yes, I know, the DORP says a belief in a higher power is essential to a young man's development, and "reverent" is part of the Scout Law. But if someone thinks it's a bigger tragedy to pin an Eagle on a teenager who fails one of the 12 points than it is to deny him the opportunity to develop the other 11, they would certainly be welcome to their opinion, but I would not share it. The Scouts we are mentoring are potential, not finished products. Unless he's is actively degrading the program for the other boys, I think we should err far, far on the side of keeping him in.

Oh, and regarding:

I would ask if he doesn't believe in god then what does he believe in.

...

What happens if he say something like my Ipod or my DS?

Since it's not a Scout leader's place to question the validity of a Scout's religious beliefs, what better happen is you better be just as respectful of his beliefs as you are of any other Scouts. You better not scoff or tell him to be serious. You ask the question, you live with the answer. I'm pretty sure that if BSA wanted us to be religious instructors or to adminster tests, they would word the DORP much, much differently. And lose half the membership.

Maybe it's better to leave that particular question unasked. Ask him what he thinks "reverent" means instead if you feel the need to ask him something. Or better yet, in my opinion, don't ask him any questions about that just yet. Use SM Minutes or reflections or other opportunities to demonstrate and discuss reverence instead. A few folks have already pointed out some youngsters will use a statement like "there's no God" to provoke a reaction. It's an immature thing to do, but then, hey, they're not yet mature! No need for us to go all batwit crazy over it. I kinda think being respectful of other people's beliefs ought to extend to being respectful of their development process too.

If any of us Scouters feel the need to try and "correct" a young man's relgious beliefs, then we're in the wrong organzation. We should joing the Youth Program at our church instead.

A mans religion is not what he professes to believe, but rather the actions he performs.

Same for a boys religion, probably even more so. At 10, he may not have the abstract reasoning capability us greybeards have, and he may have a hard time conceptualizing God as something other than a scary guy with a long beard whos supposed to be good and all powerful and runs the world, but still lets all sorts of bad things happen. Not every young man is going to understand he saw God in the sunrise some do, but some havent connected the words with the feelings yet. Give him a break. Watch his actions, and dont force him into making black and white statements he may not be prepared to even understand.

This all hinges on what the SM's idea of duty to God is.

Sorry to disagree, but thats incorrect. It all hinges on the Scouts idea of Duty to God. A Catholic Scoutmaster and a Buddhist Scout are going to have different ideas on what Duty to God is, but that doesnt mean the SM can or should declare the Scout to be failing. BSA has make it pretty clear that its not the adult leaders job to be a religious instructor, and that Duty to God and Reverence have very flexible meanings. Frankly, I dont think a 10 year olds religious beliefs are anything I - a ham-handed amateur in this area - should be fumbling around with anyway. I'd ask him to speak to his family about it, remind him why BSA has the DOR in the first place (not the consequences of rejecting it, the reasons for it being there in the first place), and then let it sit for a while.

If you don't do anything now and just hope that he changes his mind it could be more painful down the road. Maybe he gets all the way to applying for Eagle and gets turned down. Then you will have a lot of explaining to do as to why you did nothing sooner.

But ultimately, whats worse? Allowing an atheist to participate in several years of scouting and have multiple chances for that sunrise moment, even if he never finds his faith? Or drumming him out instantly and saying we dont want your kind around here kid.? I apologize for putting it so bluntly, but I really do see it that way. If hes not being disruptive, if hes not going around openly scoffing at other boy's religion, let his family tend to his religious upbringing. But in any event, tread lightly!

The current Varsity program guide has a section on tomahawk throwing under the Frontiersman activity. Looks like it would be really cool and fun.

But to get to FrankScout's comment, I think he's perfectly justified in asking how he can verify his District is doing this responsibly. Obviously we can't just turn a bunch of boys loose chucking axes back and forth. If nothing else, we'd have to take away all their Totin' Chips. Besides, I'd like to know what requirements somebody has to pass to become a certified Tomahawk range instructor so I can go pass them!

Hopefully Frank gets a satisfactory answer and one of the patrols in his unit wins the Tomahawk throw...

Tents? Or do you ask scouts to bring their own?

You have "cooking set" but it might be a good idea to expand that into separate items (e.g. 12 qt pot, 12 inch pan, etc.). Same thing with utensils. That way whoever is assembling the gear can know if they have the right items.

I suspect Gunny has me beat, but my worst was Garbage Man one summer. This was back in the day before hydraulic lifts. I rode on, more like clung to, the back of the truck while Maniac Mike the driver sped along the road trying to shake me loose (branches that overhung the road were a particular favorite of his)*. He'd stop at a house and I'd jump off, grab the cans, dump them into the back of the truck, then try to get the cans back and the lids on in time to jump back on the truck before the maniac sped off again.

But that was the fun part of the job. The dirty part was back at the yard. Someone (as in the new guy - me) had to steam clean the insides of the trucks and the bins we'd rent out. Most of them were just moderately bad, but there was this one campground that rented a big dumpster from us. It was near a popular sport-fishing port, and the fishermen would come back to their campground, clean their fish, and throw the guts into the dumpster where they would bake for a few days in the August sun. Then one of the guys would take a truck down, grab the bin, dump it, and bring it back to the yard for me to climb in and steam clean.

* - yes, for real.(This message has been edited by JMHawkins)

Seattle,

Absolutely, I think Scouting can be more attractive, we just need to emphasize low-cost, fun-filled activities. With lots of volunteer effort.

I've always thought summer activities are a great opportunity for Cub Scouts especially to provide thriftier alternatives to summer camps. Unfortunately it's difficult on the volunteers to put that together and staff it, but if they can, I think it would pull in kids who's families are cutting out or cutting back on various other summer camps. A lot of packs shut down for the summer, but I think they could recruit pretty heavily if they marketed some summer activities.

Now, that said, most districts have their hands full pulling off a three-day Day Camp for cubs, so I can imagine the average Pack would be really challenged. But... A summer Derby Camp? Build, paint and tune PWD and Space Derby cars/rockets the first two days, race them on day three amid lots of games of tag, capture-the-flag etc.

Basementdweller is right - the biggest impact is going to be on the overall financial status of the families and communities. $4 gas is causing food prices to rise, and $6 gas will make it even worse. Other prices are rising too - high gas prices drives inflation. The overall economy will suffer significantly from the higher prices. Families will have less disposable income for Scouting, and the community will have less available for donations and fundraising. Being thrifty will be more important than ever, and not just in your driving plans. Expect budgets to be tighter all the way around and plan for it.

This concludes this test of the Doom and Gloom system. We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming...

So, a big "never mind." The boys figured it out, elections went well. Now the real fun begins as the boys start to run the show themselves.

I think the answer to my original question "how can we help them take this seriously" is: take them camping. Get them outdoors doing scout stuff, and the boys really come through. Hmmmm, maybe that Baden-Powell guy was on to something...

I think that requiring that the SM be considerably older than the oldest Scouts in the troop is less likely to cause confusion as to the perception of whether he is truly an adult, or just an "older kid." I think that perception is important both to the Scouts, the adult in question, and the parents in the unit.

I think there's something to this. Perception is a funny thing. Any of us old fogeys ever have this experience? At your 20 year High School reunion you hear about Mr. Hammer, your old gym teacher, and how he coached the basketball team to the county finals. Your first reaction is "Good grief, he's still coaching? He must be 100 years old by now!" Of course he was only in his early 30's then and is still a decade away from retirement now, but 30 seemed ancient to you in High School. I think a 19 year old can be an effective "adult" to associate with ("associate", not "sit around with" I hope) for 12 year olds, but if you have 17 year olds in the troop, they probably need someone a little older to really fill that role. A younger SM would be more of a peer leader than a mentor.

If a Venturing Crew isn't palatable, there's always the option of a new Troop if the old one is (or starts) losing boys. It's some work, but sounds like you have enough energy to get it done. I wouldn't do it simply to spite the old troop or to continue your Scouting experience, I'd only do it if boys really are dropping out of scouting because of the dysfunction. And of course, there are other existing units in your district that might welcome some energy.

Regarding the notion of young vs old and seeing black and white, I will say there is one very imporant area that a 40 year old is usually far more open minded than a 20 year old, and that's in understanding how many difficult people there are in the world. MIB and ST seem much more perceptive than the average 20 year old, but the average 20 year old would run into this COR and wonder why they got so unlucky as to have to deal with her. The average 40 year old on the ohter hand is pleasantly surprised when a day goes by without running into someone like that.

And there's also the notion of someone with 20 years experience vs someone with 1 year of experience, 20 times. It all matters how much you pay attention and whether you learn from your mistakes (so you can make new ones next time!).

My summary of this whole affair I think would be titled The Two Forms of The Golden Rule. There is of course the traditional - nice - version, "do unto others..." and the corrupted version "He who has the gold makes the rules." This shows both. The CO, represented by the COR, has the gold - literally owns the troop - and so makes the rules. And can unmake, remake, them almost at will, and can be arbitrary and thoughtless in doing so. Which is where the "do unto others..." part comes in, because if you don't treat other people well when you make the rules, they will vote with their feet and leave. I'm very baffled that the CC and COR were taken by surprise by this - it was as predictable as rain in Seattle. Well, more evidence that age only brings the opportuntiy for wisdom, not the guarantee.

Good luck whatever you do. There are other opportunities, and frankly, the COR could learn something from this. If she does and trys to rebuild bridges, try to be open to it. Not blindly open to it, no, you've learned some things too. But another thing that 40 year olds can learn is that people screw up, and sometimes they honestly want to fix it. And sometimes they just want someone else to bail them out.

Let individual families and citizens choose their services. Yah, you won't like what some families choose, and they won't like what you choose. Get over it.

Years and years ago, when Bill Clinton was President, a coworkers was livid one day at lunch. Not at Clinton (though this was during the whole Monica affair). No, my friend was a somewhat liberal Democrat, and was unhappy that a school district somewhere in The South was apparently going to vote on whether or not to teach Creationism in school. My coworker was adamant that the Federal Government needed to mandate curriculum at a national level to prevent Creationism from being taught in public schools.

Why do you want someone from Texas telling your school district it cant teach your daughter about evolution? I asked

Huh? he answered. Thats not what Im talking about.

Sure you are, I told him. This was of course before George W. Bush was elected, and my liberal friend, half-way into Clintons second term, seemed unable to comprehend that a Republican might win a future election, even more so that a conservative, religious Republican might. I was kind enough not to ask him after Bush took office if he still wanted national curriculum standards.

Too many folks think like him though. They want omnipotent government when their ideology is in charge and choice or freedom when the other guy is calling the shots. Well, no wonder we have so many problems with our government today a whole lot of people seem to agree its a one way street, but theyre arguing about which direction the arrows point. Makes for an impressive traffic jam, but not much else. The secret to a lasting democracy, one that doesnt turn into two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch, is to respect the wishes of others even when you dont like or understand their decisions. Sure, there are limits, but I think we passed those a few million pages of legislation ago. The more centralized we try to make our decisions, the less functional our society becomes.

Whats the old saying? Freedom is something you can only get by giving it away to others?

In my old Troop when I was a scout, the SPL and ASPL were de facto PL/APL for the "old kid" patrol (we'd call it a Venture Patrol these days). It was basically the High School kids who were still in. The patrol ate and camped together on Troop outings, and planned its own HA trips too. We didn't have any official JASMs, but they would've been members of that patrol.

Let me rephrase.

Tell me stories about your first troop elections! Tell me about how the boys came to realize they really, really were going to be running things. Tell me about the boys who were discouraged at first but you helped coach them on to success.

Who said anything about a disaster? Of course it's not going to go smoothly, and the boys are going to learn a lot from their mistakes. I'm not looking for how to make it perfect, I'm looking for ideas on helping boys through their first experience with this level of responsibility. (probably need to help the parents through it even more, but that's another story).

Allangr - yep, let the boys do it, that's absolutely the plan.

Shortridge, eventually yes, longer terms, but this is the first election for the troop, kind of a trial run like temporary patrols. Make the boys first set of big decisions have a little quicker turnaround time if they end up not liking the choices they made.

We have a brand new troop, and our first elections are coming up after our first campout. We'll elect a SPL and then 3 PLs, for initial 3 month terms. Most of the boys are 10-11 year olds (about a third are Webelos cross-overs) with a smattering of older boys, but the only boy with any previous scouting experience doessn't seem very interested in taking a leadership role.

So far, some of the boys really get it and are leaping at the chance to have more responsibility, but several are just acting like a bunch of, well, 11 year old boys. In particular, we have multiple class clowns. When we discussed the elections, the class clowns were out in force. Maybe only half the trooop really understands we're not going to treat them like Webelos IIIs.

So, there's a chance the first elections will go badly. That's one of the reasons for keeping the first term 3 months, but among all the experience on the board here, is there any advice for helping the boys realize they ought to take this seriously, and then if they don't, for a) keeping the boys who do take it seriously from getting discouraged, and b) making the best of the three months (which will include real planning) until the troop has another chance to figure it out?

It's just like emb021 said ... these "nicer" shirts have always been around for the pros and "national" level volunteers.

Well that's a relief. Our parents kind of blanch at the cost of uniforms as it is. Adding to their dry cleaning bill wouldn't do much to help.

Still, a dry clean only scout shirt... it just feels wrong.

Camping 300 feet away from other Patrols is the monthly ADVENTURE that creates the demand for the practical skills...

Good Point. Can we save at least one E to stand for "excitment" or "enthusiasm?"

I went through the ARC WRFA 16-hour course, and thought it was great. Packed with information and practical, I think it was a worthwhile course and would recommend it. I don't know how anything could be shorter and still be effective though. There was very little fluff in the 16 hours, and we had a 4 or 5 to one student to teacher ratio. The only way to shorten it would be to cut out the scenarios or just leave off some material. As it is, I think it's just the start of being competent. More practical examples, more practice, maybe some reflections aftwerward to help retain the key skills, but of course all that would make it longer and more expensive.

I thought the cost was very reasonable, but these days even reasonable isn't always easy to come up with. Considering the amount and nature of the material, I don't see how it could ever be "cheap" without a big subsidy from somewhere. This is probably one of those things that's important and expensive (both time and money) and everyone just needs to figure out where it goes on their own personal priority list.

As far as input from other WFA types, this course had lots of MOFA and SAR influence, and at least one EMT-W (or whatever they call them in WA state) instructor on the staff, as well as a professional moulage artist (and let me tell you, pulling up the shirt of an "avalance victim" in one of our scenarios and seeing a rib sticking out of his chest spurting blood definitely added to the experience). Of course that could fit into Beavah's point about "course quality is hit or miss depending on the instructor" as this was a pretty outstanding set of instructors who have been doing this type of course for several years already.

He did say that while it is not "required" he recommended that the shirt be dry cleaned for it to look the best.

A scout shirt that should be dry cleaned... French cuffs for those diamond cufflinks too?

The solution to the problem of Eagle Scouts not knowing basic Scouting skills isn't to just to require any training method, but the solution might be to require a training method that can be shown to actually work.

Actually KC, I think this highlights an important problem. The solution to poor results (assuming Eagles not knowing how to tie a square knot is a poor result) isnt' to make random changes to process, but rather to tighten up the feedback loop and let feedback drive process improvements. If we don't want Eagles who don't know their stuff, we need to be more demanding in the sign-off process, not the teaching process. Process engineering requires a feedback loop, otherwise you're just guessing.

And ultimately, that's one of the big debates here about EDGE - is it just guessing about what works, or is there documented feedback on it?

I understand some families can give more than other (heck, since I'm self-employed, my family can give more some years than others). But my critique is that a FoS presentation aimed at securing donations from the families who can afford more is misdirected and counterproductive. Especially when units have "goals" to meet. Please stick with me a bit so I can explain.

In an earlier post, I already mentioned my concern about multiple asks from the families, of which FoS is yet one more. It comes across as constant begging or nickle-and-diming families, neither of which is a great selling point for the program. A far better approach I believe would be to include a "scoutership" option in the registration fees or camp fees, with a note indicating that the base fee doesn't cover all the costs but is kept low to encourage participation and the Council relies on donations to make up the difference and would you like to make a donation right now?

Then, in terms of reaching new "big" donors via the families, the FoS presentation should NOT include any asks for money, but rather should lay out for the families the Council's financials, including the costs and the sources of money. The "sources" part is an indirect pitch, since it will of course include a section on donations from families and individuals and should include a "if you'd like to join these generous families, here's how you can do it." Also, for units that have had generous families in the past, you can highlight that as a bit of subtle pressure to come through again this year. But the key is, it's not an ask. It's an explaination of the finances that leaves the families with the knowledge of how important donations are.

Another thing the FoS presentation could do, in Councils like Chief Seattle, is highlight employer-matching programs. SeattlePioneer mentioned Boeing. Microsoft also has a quite generous program that includes matching hours (I think it's $17/hr for time volunteered by MSFT employees. If we hit our Fos goal this year, it'll probably be through matching dollars). Unit leaders can follow up on that sort of thing to encourage some extra volunteers as well ("if you work at Microsoft, you can volunteer at Day Camp and not only benefit the kids with your time, but the unit and district with Microsoft's dollars..."). Two birds with one stone.

But that's a very different presentation, and even mindset, from what I've seen so far. Eagle92 talked about ASKING about finances to clear up misconceptions. I think BSA needs to be more proactive than that and be aggressively transparent about finances. TELL families about the finances before they ask. Frankly I think some who take the "salesmanship" approach to raising FoS dollars contribute to the problem by using the visible high points of the program inappropriately in their pitches, to where we end up with families feeling like we're triple charging them for things (example: "Day Camp is coming up, fees are $125 to cover the amazing set of activies our Staff have lined up." Next month: "We need volunteers to help staff Day Camp so we can deliver the amazing activities." Next month: "Friends of Scouting donations are necessary to pay for the wonderful camps and other activities we put on for scouts throughout the year."). For people taking this approach to raising money, the financial obscurity appears to be a benefit, since it lets them tailor their pitch to the audience. But ultimately I believe this reduces net contributions by sowing distrust and skepticism.

Another change would be to do away with unit goals. Either we expect the families to pay the frieght or we don't. Whatever goals we have for a unit ought to be rolled into the fees we expect the unit to pay. Additional fundraising should be additional fundraising, and not tied to the families of a specific unit. It reduces the nickle-and-dime feeling and enhances trust and transparency.

Turn "Friends of Scouting" into "Finances of Scouting" and I think we'd have better participation and better results.

FOS is a necessary evil b/c if we actually charged what it costs for scouting, few could afford it.

So why are we making the FOS presentations to the families then? If they can't afford it, where do we expect the money to come from?

Try the American Heart Association (google "American Heart Association CPR *your city here*"). If that doesn't turn up anything, maybe contact your local fire department or EMS and see if they know of any public CPR classes. A local business alliance group might also, since many businesses like to have get CPR training for their employees.

I don't think the messaging is the problem. It's the structure.

BSA faces a set of problems common to non-profit, volunteer-heavy, service organizations, it's not exactly unique to us, but perhaps the "franchised unit" structure adds a level of complexity. But unique or not, we shouldn't ignore the concerns.

The unit leaders ask families to volunteer their time. We also ask them to pay several mandatory fees (unit dues, camp fees, adult registration, training fees, etc.). We ask them to buy official uniforms from BSA at prices that don't certainly qualify as "thrifty". We also ask them to do fundraising (popcorn, unit-specific fundraisiers). And we ask them to donate to FoS. It's the multiple asks that are the problem. We're constantly hitting the families up for something. When you couple that with the lack of transparency about where the money goes, it breeds distrust. When you have FoS presentations with confusing information and double-counting of expenses like several examples cited in this thread, it breeds more distrust.

We need to understand that people are - especially these days - a little cyncial about charitable donations. There have been enough bad examples that it's justified, if unfortunate, for people to feel that way. I think we need to make a special effort to demonstrate BSA takes the first point of the Scout Law seriously. We should be clear about what each and every fee, donation or fundraiser really pays for, not just mush it all into one bucket without opening the books. Most families are willing to pay their own way, and to help keep other deserving families in the program. They just don't want to be taken advantage of.

The way we go about it makes people feel taken advantage of. We should fix that. It's the best way I can think of to improve FoS participation, both by unit volunteers and by families.