asm 411

I was just reviewing the agenda from our last meeting and campout agenda. From what I can tell the Scoutmaster got one minute to talk to the troop as whole at the end of the meeting and was not even mentioned on the campout agenda unless you put him in by default under the drive to camp part.

Why does the PLC schedule time for these long winded adults? I would advise the SPL to put a stop to it.

I don't know what is geekier these two chunks of psuedocode or the fact that I read them through the first time and understood them without any effort.

Adult association ... enough with my boy without being a MBC for him ...

I treat all the Scouts the same. I believe in varied adult association so I will council one merit badge with each Scout.

My son chose cycling. We were already signed up to do the local MS-150. The training rides worked into the merit badge perfectly. Cycling is the only thing that I do that I have as much passion for as I do for Scouting. Many of the training rides were done with friends of mine so he got a good dose of cycling experience from other adults who put in 2000 to 3000 miles a year.

Personally I think sharing a passion with your son through a merit badge is great. Some will abuse the system or there children in the process which is unfortunate.

I would like to note that my son has also earned swimming merit badge and at the rate he is going he will have more than enough elective merit badges for Eagle if need be. I wonder if he will ever get started on the school room six (Citizenships, Personal Management, Communication and Family Life)

I have seen several Scouts in our troop put of the 30 days of fitness for Tenderfoot until last. Not that they were not encouraged but for what every reason that one ended up being last. So they get three Scoutmaster Conferences and three BOR almost simultaneously. So there is really no order to them.

One other requirement might be tough for your son in particular. That would be the one where he has to be the patrol cook. In another thread you mentioned that he may not be camping much because of allergies. Well it would be in his best interest to volunteer to be the patrol cook as soon as possible.

Beavah,

LOL - yep I am from the BSA Grey Council. I stand between the candle and the light. That is great. I am headed off the Stadri to get a custom council strip made up ... still LOL

You meant Hillcourt Training as in Green Bar Bill Hillcourt.

http://inquiry.net/patrol/green_bar/index.htm

That makes sense. Thanks for the information.

Stosh: What is "Harcourt training"?

"Understanding is a three edged sword. Your side, their side, and the truth." - Ambassador Kosh from Babylon 5

In the troop I was in as a boy the practice of removing totin' chip corners was used.

In our current troop removing a corner is more of joke. We will hear a lot more comments about it during meal preparation times than when whittling or carving or cutting rope...

If a Scout steps out of line with a knife he gets a free trip around the campsite with the Scoutmaster. They have a short discussion about knife safety. Why wait for four mistakes before aggressively addressing a safety issue?

Most of our Scouts don't carry their Totin' Chip cards once they reach First Class. No hard fast rule on that just seems to be the way it is. Typically knife and fire safety are two of the first topics covered on a Scouts first campout with us either by the Troop Guide or his patrol leader.

Any Scouter who stands in the background and wears the smile of contentment about what the Scouts are doing.

The Scouter who is about ready to explode because he wants so badly to voice his opinion or idea to the troop but waits until he can have the SPL or PL's ear.

The Scouter who sees something falling apart on all sides but restrains himself from stepping in and continues to let the SPL or PL handle things.

The insignia I respect most on a Scouter is understanding and patience.

FWIW - I like Scouters who wear their beads and knots because typically it is a good indicator of what how much they know or should about the program.

All you watching out for well worn uniforms please don't judge me to harshly because I just got a new shirt and I often times have the legs zipped of my switchbacks so the knees are not very worn.

Our Scouters wear the troop neckerchief which currently is just the red BSA neckerchief with black piping. I have an ongoing task to guide the Scouts to something more specialized. I have not got there yet.

When I first joined the troop I had just one red neckerchief and it needed washed after each monthly campout. Since my Scout neckerchief being clean is not on anybody's priority list I developed a personal tradition. I wear one of the neckerchiefs I got as a Scout to the first meeting after a campout. I have several West Point Camporee neckerchiefs I wear which always raise questions.

Whenever I attend an ECOH I always wear my NESA Neckerchief.

Please don't put me in the patch police catagory that is not my intent but I stumbled across this several years ago and found it interesting -

The Gilwell Scarf does not entitle you to consider yourself a thing apart. Your Troop or District must as much as ever command your first allegiance. (As the outward sign of this your troop scarf not the Gilwell scarf should be worn when working with your troop.) BP Head Quarters Gazette October 1923

I think it came from "Footsteps of the Founder" for those who are interested.

I have just realized that we have a strange custom in our troop. When a boy completes his SMC the SM signs his book and then the Scout asks the AC for a BOR. When he makes the request he hands the AC his handbook. Sometimes the BOR is done moments after the request. Sometimes the BOR is done the next week. The Scout is returned his book after the information been entered/verified in Troopmaster. The verified part is just to be sure POR, community service and merit badges are all in order.

We did have one case where the committee did a BOR for a Scout that was one merit badge short. The Scout was told he was short. When he earned the missing merit badge he had another BOR. No big deal. I don't think he had a second SMC not sure.

Scouts have had SMC without their books. When the SM signs off on the requirement is when the Scout requests the BOR.

We really have not had any big problems with this process as far as I know.

My son is a Life Scout. He has earned First Aid, Swimming, Life Saving, Emergency Prep, Cycling, Camping, Environmental Science, mammals, archery, wilderness survival, rifle and metal working.

Note: I believe the only reason he completed Environmental Science is that the councilor at summer camp was very charismatic and my son really enjoyed doing the merit badge with him.

He has a partial in Personal Fitness. Can you guess which requirement he has not done?

He has not started on Family Life, Personal Management, Communications or any of the Citizenship merit badges.

For that matter the only required merit badge he does not have that he has discussed with me at length is Hiking. He says he would like to earn all the required merit badges.

He has trouble being self motivated to do his homework. I see a pattern here.

He loves the outing in Scouting. He has talked about being an Eagle since he was a Tiger because he knew that I am an Eagle not because he knew at that age what it meant. He now says he wants to be an Eagle when he is 15. He picked 15 because he wanted to earn Eagle Scout at a younger age than I did. It is a good goal and I will be there to help where and when I can.

Unless he changes his view of classroom type work he may be Life for life. That is fine if that is how things turn out because I am happy that we have a million happy memories now and adding to the list every week.

My son is 13 and completed his Life BOR about 3 weeks ago. He got the Council Eagle Packet a couple days later.

It seems a bit daunting to me. As we looked over the contents one page at a time they all seem to make sense but is all this really necessary?

Why is it that all the other rank requirements follow the simple process of signing off the completion in the handbook but the Eagle Scout requirements require so much more? I know this is very high honor being an Eagle myself but really.

The Eagle Project Workbook makes sense except page 2 and the last page. Page 2 is an about the Eagle Rank requirements and the last page is about the whole process. It is even a different color. This last should be a page in the Handbook so that way the Scouts know what it is about and have an easy reference to it. I feel like this a bit of the old bait and switch. Here are the requirements for Eagle. Oh yeah and here are a few more.

Why do Scouts need the letters of reference? Realistically are there Life Scouts that can not get 4 to 6 people (depending on employment and religious organization) to say good things about him. Has anyone ever had a Scout that could not finish the Eagle paperwork because he did not have enough references? Not did not get the references in on time or something got muddle up but really did not have 4-6 people to be references? What is the point of doing this? Or is it to make sure we have our fair share of 25% of Scouting that is not on an outing?

Why are we not trusting of our Eagle Candidates? - "The candidates

should not be involved personally in transmitting any correspondence

between persons listed as references and the council service center or

advancement committee."

It seems to me that it should be required that at least one Eagle Scout, more would be better, on the EBOR would make sense. The BSA has handed out nearly two million Eagle medals you would think we could find a few willing to give back in this capacity.

How many times have I read "A scout can not fail a BOR." Well that is unless it is an EBOR - "..he is asked to return and told the reasons for his failure to qualify." Shouldn't he have a regular board of review, wouldn't his feedback be of value to the troop? Then some sort of official review of requirements or is this event just badly named?

Sorry to be so negative but the requirements in the Handbook seem to make a lot more sense to me but there seems to be a pile of hoops here that provide no real benefit.

With of this muck to consume there is no wonder the question of this thread was raised and why we need Eagle advisers.

Perhaps some of you will shed some light on this for me.

Regardless of the how we feel about the quality or contents of the current incarnations of the handbooks they are the books that the programs is currently based on.

Once a new leader understands where we are suppose to be headed currently then supplementing the program with additional knowledge from what the BSA used to do is great.

If we start in the past then the new leaders will be wonder why the Scouts either aren't doing something or why they are doing other things. "Hey why are you guys not trenching your tents?" or "Why do you care about cyberbullies?"

I know these are extremes but unless the Scouters have a firm understanding of the Scout's reference material then they will be out of sync with them. Don't we have enough of that already just by our age differences?

This is a great discussion of what management and leadership is. I really appreciate everyone's view on that topic but I was hoping to get responses to my question -

"How do you keep things as interesting as possible in your troops?"

The current Boy Scout Handbook

The current Scoutmasters Handbook

Previous issues of each. I personally like the 5th Edition of the Scoutmasters handbook. It has a very detailed description of the Patrol Method. I have recently found out that the 3rd Edition(it is in two volumes) may be better but I have not acquired a copy yet. Typically these can be purchased for under $10 each.

If I use 1/2 diameter rope or 1/8 twine does it matter.

There are eight tools we use in Scouting to grow boys as described above by others -

1. Ideals (Scout Oath and Scout Law)

2. Patrol Method (Boy led, boy run by the PLC driven by SPL with adult guidance)

3.Advancement (Putting forth challenges; the Scouts confidence is built by overcoming them)

4.The Outdoors (the chance to associate with nature and learn self reliance and cooperation)

5. Uniforms (level playing field, unit identification and individuality)

6. Association with Adults (As many positive role models to learn from as possible)

7. Personal Growth (service to others and self)

8. Leadership (Individual opportunities to be an important member of scouting)

You will notice that the outdoors and advancement are on equal ground here. Now all these methods are woven together so trying to remove one portion is very difficult.

Most troops have 4 meetings a month, 1 campout a month (usually friday evening through Sunday, spend at least one week in the summer at summer camp, and one week doing some sort of high adventure trip. This means at the very most a troop will have 52 one hour indoor meetings; typically less due to holidays, spring break and the like. Doing a little math (12 x 40 hours [monthly campouts]) + (2*144 hours [summer camp and high adventure week] is about 800 hours of possible Scouting a year. (This does not include community service and some other things that are not as easy to capture here). Only 52 of those are indoors that is only less than 7% of the time an that is if the troop stays indoors for all those meetings. As soon as it is warm and light enough our meetings typically move outdoors. Most of everything our troop does is either in the outdoors or preparing to be in the outdoors.

I do not mean to be offensive but have you taken your son to any allergist? Is there anything that can done for him?

A note about Eagle mills. I know of two troops that have the term Eagle Mill associated with them regularly. One thing these two troops have in common is they camp twice a month and during the campouts they work rigorously on merit badges and advancement.

You mentioned the Lone Scout program. It is my understanding that this is only for Scouts who can not find a troop within reasonable driving distance. So I don't think this will be a viable option for you.

I really don't want to discourage anyone from being in Scouting because the program offers so much but in reality it is an outdoor based program.

Your profile says that you live in the Northeast. This may work in your favor because depending where you are your son are from you may be able to camp from November through March without any difficult. Typically environmental allergies are not a problem during those months.

I hope this was helpful to you.

hmmm...

I read your post and two things have come to mind.

First if I were you I would tell the Scoutmaster that you are interested in being Scoutmaster and see when he was thinking of retiring. It is worth a shot.

Second you mentioned that there is no committee to speak of. This may be one way to solve your problem of getting the troop back on track. Become the committee chair yourself. You don't have to be an ASM to camp or attend meetings. You can do that as committee chair. Build up a strong committee and use them to get the troop back on track. If that does not work and you go the Charter Org at least the next SM, be it you or someone else, would have a much easier time getting things back on track.

So are you saying that getting buy in or ownership is what you do to keep the program interesting to the Scouts. It certainly makes a lot of sense to me.

Thinking about it, isn't that what the Patrol Method is all about. Having a small group taking ownership of there lives. Being responsible for not only their stuff but their time as well?

(This message has been edited by ASM 411)

So in the thread that this was spun from there are currently 61 postings. Mostly it is about Scouters being wrapped around the axle about being active and scout spirit.

What if we approach if from the standpoint of solving the problem by making those things easy to accomplish in the program. Not reducing the requirements, not falling back on some lame definition (registered = active) but presenting a program to the Scouts that makes it easy to complete. Similar to making the community service requirement easy by making sure there are so many hours available that the Scouts typically have way more than "required" because serving the community is what we do every month several times. Instead of trying to enforce participation and Scout spirit make them a nature part of what happens.

Here as some of my thoughts perhaps please add to them.

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My definition of a leader is someone who develops a vision or identifies the direction for the group based on values

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Over the past few years my vision has been for our troop to be doing things that are so interesting to the Scouts that participation is something they want to do. Therefore fulfilling that requirement is not an issue. They are not being dragged to the meetings but are dragging their parents out of the house to be on time because they don't want to miss anything.

I believe Scout spirit is something they learn while participating so my participation vision feeds into making that one come naturally as well.

--------------------------------

My definition of a manager is someone who develops a mission or plan based on a leaders vision and implements it

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So to manage my own vision keeping the meetings and events extremely interesting is to have the Scouts pick and run the activities. This seems to be a no brainer for those who hang out in this forum all the time.

So how do we as Scouters make sure there is big enough pool of really cool things to do so the Scouts are so interested that they come as often as possible.

1) Have the PLs ask the Scouts what they want to do. Not just for the yearly planning sessions but perhaps as much as every week. Adapt current plans if there is great enough interest.

2) Have the SPL start a conversation with the older Scouts about the most interesting things they have done in Scouting. Have him take notes and use them for planning. This can be done in preparation for monthly planning. For instance have him start a converstation with "Hey we are doing pioneering next month what are the coolest pioneering things you have done or seen?"

3) As Scouters talk to other Scouters at round table, at work and training session to ask what the best attended events are that their troop does. Then discuss this list with the SPL for him to sell the ones he likes to the PLs at the PLC. (Save the list for future use and add to it)

4) Lastly inject our own interests into the troop. For example I like cycling and backpacking so by talking with the Scouts about my interests it may spark interest in them. I believe this should be in casual conversation not to the troop. I think nothing kills a Scout meeting faster than an adult talking to the troop. My personal belief is there is one minute allowed for adults to talk the troop and that minute is reserved for the Scoutmaster to pass on some wisdom.

-----------------------

How do you keep things as interesting as possible in your troops?

So if we look at the one hour a week thing as interactions with Scouts and we are using the Patrol Method then here is how it seems to break down:

Pre-PLC meeting with SPL 10 minutes to review his agenda.

PLC meeting 1 minute for Scoutmasters minute

11 minutes

Pre-weekly meeting with the SPL about

10 minutes to review his agenda.

~20 minutes for two Scoutmaster Conferences

1 for Scoutmasters minute

4x31= 124 minutes

Pre-campout

20 minutes at most to review the agenda with SPL

At the each Campout

12 minutes in ~2 minutes chunks for guiding the SPL ~6 times

32 minutes total

So that would be (11+124+32) = 167 minutes

167 minutes/60 minutes per hour = ~2.1 hours

So even in February which has only 4 weeks most of the time the Scoutmaster should have 1.9 hours for other one on one Scout interactions like looking up Merit Badge Councilors and what not.

I don't why everyone says being a Scoutmaster takes so much time. Seems to me there is plenty of free time at meetings and campouts to do other stuff.

perhaps the BSA likes the second definition -

2. Functioning or capable of functioning.

The Scouts are always "capable" of functioning. Just like my son is always "capable" of cleaning his room.

On a more serious note I think the real trouble here is that Scouts are active in life. For instance last fall we had two Scouts in football. One showed up each week 20 minutes before the end of the meeting still in his football uniform. The other one not at all.

Do we give the one who showed up "out of uniform" credit? He was not in uniform and he was late every week. How about the other football Scout who showed up at the camp out on Saturday afternoon after the game? Does he get attendance credit, he was only there for half the camp out. These guys did the best they could to fit Scouting into their busy lives.

We want Scouts to be good citizens right? So do we punish them by not giving them credit when they are involved in the community (sports/band/clubs)? Tough call.

We have another Scout who his a straight A student but has to work hard for it. He misses almost every meeting. He shows up and helps every Eagle candidate with their project. He showed up at our Webelos camp out to help for a few hours. Heck he even showed up to help get ready for summer camp and he was not able to attend. He just submitted his Eagle application. His attendance was great before he hit sophomore year. Did we even think of dinging him for participation. Nope we did not even a think about it. He is a good Scout - good citizen, great character and physically fit. What more can we ask?

There are other situations of course where the Scouts are truly inactive. These are just a few where making rules about uniforms and attendance don't make sense to me.

So I think active has to be considered on a case by case basis. No hard rules. There are too many circumstances.

The Cleveland Council has a High Adventure Canoe base in Canada.

http://www.gccbsa.org/Pages/Tinnerman.html