JoeBob

More Details: Pavilion on the side of a mountain surrounded by tall live trees. Other than a shower house full of water-filled pipes, there is no enclosed shelter short of the dining hall 3/4 of a mile away through obstacles listed above. Sometimes you just have to understand the physics of electricity and do the best you can. Do NOT count on camp staff, following the generic instructions from national, to evaluate your situation and babysit your boys.

"they are all of the opinion that all Scoutmasters are idiots" Did we go the same camp? We had the same Written Camp policy, which is CYA boilerplate. No phone service at all so we were to shelter in place and 'wait for a runner from admin'. All cars were beyond a mile distant. The dining hall was down a slippery clay slope, over a foot bridge, through a soggy wet parade field. All of which were more dangerous to navigate in a rain storm than sheltering under a dry wooden pavilion. (No hurricane ties on the roof, but it was solid dry timber.) This idiot scoutmaster and my ASM evaluated our options and made our own emergency plan as soon as we realized that the camp staff really didn't have a viable plan. Camp staff wouldn't be the ones telling parents that their kids were hurt.

I'd go with the wooden pavilion. Lightening is just an electrical charge seeking the earth. Metal poles and sap filled trees provide a convenient channel for current to move through. In a wind storm, I'd go with the concrete block BR facility to provide shelter from falling trees; but lightening is attracted to those water filled pipes...

Khaliela: I can't find your point. In either post. Too many tangents. Is it worth you trying again? Thanks.

JBlake: you remind me of Oscar in Robert Heinlein's 'Glory Road'. That's a good thing. "I let him live..."

Am I alone in that I don't care about the future of the BSA? We'll be okay for the next five years, and my son will be done. He is my primary concern. Sure, I d like for him to be able to proudly point to to a venerable organization of which he is an alum; but that horse is gone. BSA has devolved into a prissy politically correct financial enterprise. How do the BSA pensions compare to the GSUSA pensions? What the country really needs is a BSA type organization with a little more testosterone.

"Scoutmaster Lounge: never went there, that's for wimps." Disagree. SM lounge is for those who can't be away from work for a whole week, but can manage it if they have a few hours on the net taking care of business and eMail. Should I have not gone to camp at all? "Formation: this is part of the BSA I just don't get. Line 20 kids up in a row. Put on a skit in front of them so they can't see it. Expect them to behave when they can't see or hear anything." I'm with you on this one. Long silly routines that can't be seen. Intentionally time wasting "Random......... and senseless.......... quips!" We timed over five minutes of dead air in one 25 minute formation. Mostly microphone transfers to the the next speaker. Like they don't know who's next and wait for them to walk from the far end of the formation to speak their two lines? Respect our time.

Facilities: Excellent. Mess Hall, Showers, Campsite, Amphitheater, instructional Shelters, all in good shape or new. SM lounge: AC, WIFI, tables, rocking chairs, quiet. Mediocre coffee. Waterfront: good equipment and staff, but the lake is a muddy pond! Food: C the first two days, but it got better. SM Shoe Leather Dinner - not a good sales pitch for the camp. Can't justify money for a decent piece of beef? Cook chicken! Staff: Lower level instructors: good enthusiasm, though not necessarily expert in their field. Followed the MB books very well. Camp Director and Program Director - Good attitude and knowledgeable. Mid-level Staffers: 90% were arrogant prima donnas with little or no justification for their snotty attitudes. Very poor examples of what is supposed to be the cream of the scouting program. Program: Instruction - A Entertainment value of Campfire programs - C Formations - F The adults made a game of compiling the time wasted. As SM, it was hard for me to justify to my boys why they needed to attend formations 3 times a day when so little happened that really justified the walk and the time. (We did have the second meal time; so we'd go to formation for announcements, etc, and then be dismissed in a time wasting manner to go back to camp for 45 minutes.) How was your camp?

A curiosity for the someone with more physics education than I: When you have 1000 scouts stacked up in an amphitheater, are we attractive to lightening? We are the highest mass of salt-water in the area. Higher than the lake in front of us. Denser than the trees around us, maybe? ********* Will BSA ban holding hands in an amphitheater is there's a cloud in the sky?

It's still a roller coaster. One week I'm up about how well the boys are taking the lead. The next week I'm down about a serious lack of follow-through. Then I get up over taking 75% of the troop to camp, and then I see really poor leadership from the camp staff. You get used to it. But I have to admit that I'm already thinking ahead to plan an exit on an 'up' note.

BSA National Shooting Sports Manual: http://www.scouting.org/filestore/Outdoor%20Program/pdf/30931_WB.pdf Page 78: Shoot the Monster Participants shoot at a monster face attached or painted on a one-gallon plastic bottle, suspended with shock card within a tire. The object is to hit the plastic bottle. This event can be scored individually or by den or pack. Spin the Insect A picture of an insect is glued to a piece of plywood 12 inches square. The plywood is fastened so it will pivot freely around a centered bar set from post to post when struck with an arrow.

Bullying between adjacent grades was an issue watching them come up in Cub Scouts. They'd build forts and attack each other, sneak attacks, etc. I thought that was a fine use of testosterone until one of the smaller boys threw a cup of pee on one of the biggest meanest older boys. The retribution was justified, and therefore hard to stop. After a couple of months of serious talking, we got it settled down. But I did observe that the boys don't respect the kids one grade up; they're too close. The boys one grade up have no desire to mentor the boys one grade down. (Especially since they getting no respect) They just want to pound them into submission. Single age patrols will be the boys' choice; they get to hang with all their usual friends. But then you get no knowledge bank, no mentoring, and a bunch of newbies freezing and eating raw food while the older guys caramelize green beans and scallops around their fire. And a fractured troop. Maybe layered would be a better word. Patrol competitions? Not with age based patrols; the big kids always win and the younger patrols lose interest. Full disclosure: I've only been using this method since March, when I got drafted as SM. I feared I'd lose older boys when I busted up their club. Nope. They like the responsibility, and a chance to show off what they know. Really full disclosure: the pee thrower was my son. (But Dad, pee-pee is sterile. Should I have thrown dirty lake water on him?)

I wrassled with this issue recently. Wound up soliciting input from other adults, former SPLs and the current SPL. (52 in the troop - 36 active) Then i did it like this: Went with 3 patrols, so that we could adhere to patrols on outings. (Wanted to do 4, but then we'd wind up with ad-hoc patrols to keep one or two boys from being solo) Each grade got split in half. Then we put the halves into patrols so that there was a grade separating the age groups of the patrols. (Trying avoid only one year separation to reduce bullying, increase respect/mentoring) Alpha has 5th, 7th, and a few 9th graders (Fifth graders were a small class this year.) Bravo has 6th, 8th, and a few older boys. Charlie has 6th, 8th, and a few older boys, The older boys are learning to be responsible for the young ones. You don't have to bark at them more than once about setting a good example. They like it.

The fiberglass bows aren't that bad, Avoid the compounds for better fundamentals learning. Get good fiberglass arrows. Crooked arrows do NOT fly straight. Teach a consistent anchor point, and a clean release; and your cubs will start getting straight flights that hit hard enough to stick. Then they can adjust their aiming point to hit the target. One year we had a target conflict with another camp, so I used haybales and paper plates. They were harder to set up, but easier to run. Archery was the favorite station at our daycamps. Seeing your arrow sticking out of the bullseye was immediate feedback to holler about. BBs are more subtle (little holes in a paper target you see at the end of your round) and controlled. I almost miss it. It was fun! But having to get re-trained every two years was my exit sign.

Hey Nike, the sensitive types have mis-represented what the G2SS actually says. Make them show you where it is EVER in writing that you can't shoot at representations of animals. I took my styrofoam bear target to daycamp as archery director. The best score on the regular targets got to shoot at the bear. The boys were HYPED! And it was a lot cheaper than the icey-pops that I used as reward the year before.

Hey Nike, the sensitive types have mis-represented what the G2SS actually says. Make them show you where it is EVER in writing that you can't shoot at representations of animals. I took my styrofoam bear target to daycamp as archery director. The best score on the regular targets got to shoot at the bear. The boys were HYPED! And it was a lot cheaper than the icey-pops that I used as reward the year before.

Nope. The G2SS says that you can't shoot at replicas of humans (Photos of the past president) or live animals (your neighbor's cat tied to a stake.) It does NOT say that you can't shoot at replicas of live animals. Or tasty animals.

Is there a procedure for impeaching an AG?

Kudu, I get the 'Ender' reference. Don't know about Bean. I'm walking the knife edge of of presenting/selling ideas to the PLC/troop; and telling them what to do. Too much 'appointing', and the boys don't learn and grow their self-confidence. Too little direction/motivation, and we slide back into the cars. FWIW: We do camp as patrols when the site allows. My PLC is mature boys, but since they are the older kids, their attendance is spotty; band, football, lacrosse, drama, et al. Check on me after another year.

A couple of y'all missed Baden Powell's point about 'hooligans' . His idea was to put the hooligan in charge. Let him burn all that energy leading; and growing an appreciation for the work it takes.

Kudu, from your link: "One of our methods in the Scout movement for taming a hooligan is to appoint him head of a Patrol. He has all the necessary initiative, the spirit and the magnetism for leadership, and when responsibility is thus put upon him it gives him the outlet he needs for his exuberance of activity, but gives it in a right direction." --Baden-Powell, from the article "Are Our Boys Degenerating?" circa 1918. That is one idea, and the hooligans do get elected. We're recovering from 'Boy-led, astray'. Giving the boys total leadership of the troop devolved us into a car-camping club that elected to wear no uniforms. "Hey, it's the boys' decision...". Now I'm trying to nudge us back to scoutskills and getting away from the pavement.

I'm stalking your thread, Packsaddle. As the SM for six months, there's a little peer pressure for me to take Woodbadge. More like, "Hey, the committee will pay if you wanna go!" But I've found nothing that indicates that Woodbadge will help me with my two greatest needs right now: 1- A simple system of leadership that PLs and SPLs can actually use. My boys have had virtually no mentoring, and leading by example only goes so far. a- How does a smaller younger boy handle an un-cooperative scout lower in his chain of command? Principles that snap into a boy's mind, scenarios to apply them, skits to role play and practice them. b- Blanchard's 'Stormin', Formin', and Normin' might work fine for leaders in formal roles for longer than six months. But to expect 12 year olds to internalize and apply lofty leadership precepts when they're only in an office for six months? Not helpful. There has never been any leadership training in this troop; the committee and I talk a big game; but I'm at the point of creating my own system along the KISS principle. Anybody with a syllabus of troop taught leadership training that the boys can ingest into their culture (and hopefully teach themselves in the future), share! I'm borrowing a few games from JLT: http://www.scouting.org/filestore/training/pdf/ILST%20FINALS%202011%20-%20Item%20Number%20511-016.pdf 2- TIME management for an SM. I'm good at delegating to the committee. I couldn't function without a decent SPL doing his best. Parent issues get sent to the CC, but sometimes an SM has to interface with parents about their sons. The shear volume of follow-through required is overwhelming. (This week's follow throughs: getting the trailer ready for camp, paint, service the axles, and legal; going over the courses signed up for at camp; MB pre-requisites for camping MB, leadership training to be done at camp; getting an honor guard for an ECOH being held the week after school is out and most scouts are gone for vacation, following up a a bullying conversation held earlier in the month; PLC voted to add neckers back to the uniform, scout committee formed to design and order in time for camp, no action yet; etc. I seldom actually know what happens at troop meetings. SMCs, signing Blue Cards, and other basic management tasks will suck an hour and half out of your life without you even being aware that it's time to go home. Is Woodbadge gonna help with any of that? I'm very strong in all the woodcraft based scout skills, but I do welcome better ways to teach them. Kids are used to instant gratification now days... If I do invest the time to go to Woodbadge, pity the course director that wastes my time with stuffed animals and ethereal theories of leading. I could become the WoodBadge Destroyer! But I am keeping an open mind.... Or I wouldn't be stalking this thread.

Me too. We're holding patrol competitions every other meeting. "Using four staves and six pieces of rope, suspend a cafeteria chair as high in the air as possible. You have ten minutes. Highest chair wins the Oreos." How would you do it? Tying two staves together for length (round lashing), tying them to two chair legs for structure, and tying it all to a handrail to hold it upright won in our troop. "Using four staves and six pieces of rope, suspend a cafeteria chair at least six inches in the air free-standing. Fastest time wins the Oreos. Go!" I'm open to suggestions on how to get the younger less 'knotty' boys involved.

Khaliela, The council big-wigs are probably afraid that, as a Druid, you are too in tune with nature and the out-of-doors to properly advocate the national BSA direction of... soccer! How can they push for diversity in their tickets, and EXCLUDE you? Golly gee willy crackers...

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