AvidSM

BSA's lack of oversight breeds rouge units that do things their own way. Some with wise and experienced leaders who can make changes for the better. And, others who think they know what they are doing, but actually have no clue. If you choose to use scouting's program materials in the way that makes sense to you, how would you know which one you are - the fool or the wise man? If you choose to play it safe and not deviate, you may be doing things stupid, but at least it BSA certified stupid.

It's easy to make things fun ... just don't take yourself or scouting too seriously!

As a scoutmaster, my worst new parents are the ones who want to make things easier for their sons. For example, I have one new dad that keeps pushing the troop to buy E-Z Up style instant shelters for the patrols. I keep telling him that I don't like them - the are too easy to put up and they don't hold up in a strong wind. The dining flys we use now are a challenge for the new boys to put up, but that's a good thing - the boys learn teamwork and the two tenderfoot knots. Some new parents don't realize that if you make things too easy for the boys, they aren't challenged and don't learn anything! They also measure success by how quickly the boys can set up camp or how good the food is they cook and not by what they are learning in the process. The best new parents are the one's who say, "what can I do to help?" and "I'm hear to learn how things are done". The new parents with that attitude and also a strong scouting background (was a boy scout as a youth, has had some training), I recruit to be Assistant Scoutmasters right away. I see no reason for someone like that to step back or take a break. So, whether or not you continue your service to scouting as a troop adult leader will depend a lot on your attitude, background, training, and how well you fit in with the current leadership. There is also the issue of giving your son some space to grow. But, if you keep in mind your not there to make things easier for him, then you being an adult leader at the same time should not be a problem.

Welcome!

My Council is trying something new this year in that it is collecting OA dues during rechartering. I recieved a printout of all the current OA members in my troop with the recharter packet. I plan on adding the $15 OA dues onto the yearly troop dues as applicable. Our lodge does have the rule of "no dues, no flap", but I don't enforce it. Instead, I encourage the scouts to pay their dues - which will be easier this year.

I think "it" is the program - the methods, meetings, activities. It is the game that the boys play that we as adult leaders set the rules and struture for. "There" is just what it means - being there for the scouts - to give them guidance when needed and to train them to be leaders - to be a role model and set the example. Scouting's mission gives purpose to everything we do as adult leaders. It is what sets scouting aside from all the other youth groups and activities. If we lose sight of the mission, then we are no better youth-development-wise than baseball, soccor, jazz band or the school play. Keeping the mission in mind helps us focus all our goals and decisions in the right direction. It helps us weather the storm and keep our bearing when others can't, won't or have no clue. I want these boys to change the way they see themselves and the world. I want them to see the affect of their decisions, good or bad, in order to learn how to make the right ones. I want them to take responsibility for themselves first and then as a leader, for others. And most importantly, to treat others the way they wish to be treated. One at a time, like throwing beached starfish back into the sea, we help these youth to be better people.

Welcome! I've got nearly 10 years of scouting under my belt. My son make Eagle at 16 and is now a junior in college. I'm a Scoutmaster and enjoying every minute of it! Merry Christmas to you also

New course as a particpant - 10. I met and became friends with a lot of good people with tons of scouting experience. New course on staff - 7. A lot of hard but satisfying work and late nights.

There are lots of intersections where lights or traffic cops are not needed. Telling the city council something they already know hardly qualifies as helpful. A project must accomplish something or there is no benefit to the organization. Learning something while doing the project is not part of eagle requirment #5. I see no reason to have a scout take a risk on a project that may yield no tangible results. It may be that everyone in the communnity knows that this intersection is dangerous and they are waiting for someone to do something about it. I don't know the details. I'm only pointing out the project risk.

I agree with the other posters in that the Req 6 statement has no set length - that the eagle candidate need only write as much as he needs to get his point across. The statement helps the EBOR to know the candidate a little better. They can use this to ask more meaningful questions during the BOR. If the EBOR knows where the scout is headed in life, it might even give some good advice to the scout.

The risk in this proposal is the assumption that a traffic light is needed near a school. The city council may decide to do nothing with the scout's traffic study and petitions. What then has the scout accomplished? Where is the benefit to the community? Even so, I would still keep an open mind and get more info from the scout. I would also talk to the DAC and see what he thinks. There is potential to demonstate leadership with this project.

My SPL picked up MRSA from his gym and now he has to take these nasty horse pills. They leave a mettalic taste in his mouth and make him very thirsty.

The summer camp we attended this year had an outbreak of Novo virus the month before we attended. My hands have never been cleaner the week we attended! Hand sanitizer was squirted in your hands at every door we entered - dining hall, trading post, etc. There was no outbreak when we were there or for the rest of the summer. I expect the same sanitation regime when we attend next summer. I, too, have a probem with people who run to the doctor every time they get a bad cold or virus, asking for some anibiotics. When you wipe out all but the resistant germs in your system, your inviting them to take over! A "Scout is Clean" as possible (without having a OCD).

I agree with all the other posters that say we are selling adventure to the boys. I also agree that you have to sell the parent's on the program also, using the leadership, fitness and citizenship angle.

My guess, from what I can glean from these posts, is that Palma had a bad time at her OA ordeal and was insulted by the Chapter Advisor when she tried to complain. She then plays the disability card with Council to get back at this person, not realizing she was burning her bridges behind her. There's probably more to this tragic story. Perhaps both Palma and the Advisor both had bad attitudes that day. Perhaps Council was getting complaints about Palma's leadership and was looking for an excuse to get rid of her. Her incident at the ordeal may have just been a trigger point. The people running the ordeal should have been better prepared to meet her needs. Then again, you can't seek satisfactioni by sueing your own Council and then expect it to keep you as a volunteer.

Why give the Wood Badge to participants who complete the Wood Badge for the 21st Century course? Only one word comes to mind - inclusiveness. I know it's a dirty word to some. But it opens the opportunity for all to work a ticket and earn their beads. Why exclude Cub Scout leaders who had their own WB course in the past and were able to earn their beads? If, you include them, then why not others? The new course is a break from old gaurd and I know it's hard for them to accept it. Scouting has changed and the new Wood Badge course is an indicator of that. You might not agree with the changes, but you can't say I didn't work my ticket and earned my beads.

For the boys that avoid a campout that has a five mile hike planned, there is nothing else I can do for them to advance. They will never get past Tenderfoot unless they meet requirement 1b. And Eamonn, saying that the five mile hike is in preparation for Philmont makes no sense to 10 or 11 year olds who are not eligible for high adventure yet. The fact that a boy did go on a five mile hike does not mean we taught him fitness - we only EXPOSED him to it. He may have liked it and may decide to go on more hikes. He may decide to never go on a hike again and spend the rest of his boyhood sitting on a couch playing video games. So, part of advancement to First Class represents a set of activities a scout has been exposed to. Another part is the skills, like knot tying, that they have to show that they know how to do - at least once. The rest are the "fake requirements" as Kudo said. It's not that hard for a scout to get to First Class, when you think about it. It's not a life-changing experience for a boy. It's meant to get his feet wet and prepare him for the higher ranks, where the real fitness, character and citizenship learning happens. Some really take their rank to heart and will put forth more effort. Others don't and will never get past Tenderfoot because they hate to hike. Still, it's not a good reason to away with advancment.

OGE - you are saying that only the boy scout leaders outdoor-specific course should be called Wood Badge? That the beads, woggle and necker be only given to participants that complete that course? What about the participants of the renamed WBfor2K? What do they earn? Rainbow colored beads?

Perhaps WB21C came about because the powers that be recogized that other adult leaders were being left out, and instead of spawning WB specific courses for them, decided to re-tool WB into one generic leadership/relationships course. Say they decided to spawn more WB specific courses instead of going to the one generic one. Would an adult with the volunteer career path of cubs to boys scouts to venturing have to take the course three times if they wanted to keep their beads? Would it be fair to place the burden of cost, time and effort on such a volunteer and the council that has to staff these courses? And, why is it so important that WB be an outdoors skills course? B-P made it very clear in his Aids to Scoutmastership that, "...the Scoutmaster has to be neither schoolmaster nor commanding officer, nor pastor, nor instructor. All that is needed is the capacity to enjoy the out of-doors, to enter into the boys ambitions, and to find other men who will give them instruction in the desired directions, whether it be signaling or drawing, nature study or pioneering." Capacity to ENJOY the out of-doors, not be the master of it. B-P thought this way, but still made WB the way it is - an outdoor skills/leadership course. I may be that he didn't know how to do it any other way. With all due respects, he did not have an educational degree. It could be that after 90 years the BSA recognized an opportunity to change WB to better match B-P intentions and to have it make more sense to the voluneers who take it and the Councils who must staff it.

Acco40 makes a very good point in that a troop can only offer opportunities for advancement - it's up to the scouts to take advantage of it. Case in point - my troop scheduled a five mile hike at our September camping trip. I made it very clear to all the scouts who needed Second Class requirement 1b that this camping trip was their opportunity to earn that requirement. Turns out only 40% of the boys who needed 1b attended that campout. The boys that did attend had a lot of fun on that five mile hike and will advance to SC soon. The rest of them will have to wait to advance. To me, advancement was the incentive to participate in the campout. I tell the scouts, you can't advance unless you go camping. It's up to them whether or not they participate and advance. I can only offer the opportunity to reach first class in one year. Whether they make it or not is up to the scout. I will be happy if half of them make it to first class in a year.

Don't do away with advancement - just balance it out with the rest of the things you are trying to teach as scout. We need advancement in scouting to recognize and celebrate what a boy has achieved. What we don't need is a troop that focuses on advancement for the sake of everything else. Blame poorly trained or zealous adults for the eagle mills, not the concept of advancement. A good program offers fun activities for the boys to do, which by their nature lead towards fulfilling requirements towards advancement.

Yes, it's the PLC that makes the decisions (mine have also made some that I don't agree with). But, it's the Scoutmaster's job as an advisor to provide options and give weight to each. NASCAR is fun, but how will going there help meet the goals of the Troop? How is the Troop supposed to meet it's one camping trip per month goal? Or, provide the opportunity for boys to complete advancement requirements? I would advise the PLC that they can make any decision they want, but if they pick fun activities every month instead of camping then they are not delivering a quality program. I'd tell them, "We're going to the NASCAR event, that's fine, but what's the camping trip for this month?" Tell them what they are going to be missing out on by not attending the Council camporee. And that they need to schedule a camping trip to replace it, one in which THEY have to come up with the program. The boys make the decisions, but it's within the framework of the Troop's scouting program. You, as the Scoutmaster set down that framework for them. The BSA's rules and regs are part of that, G2SS on so on, and the goals of the troop also make up this framework. If something does not fit within this program, you simply say, "That's not an option."

Now that there will be requirements, which a scout only has to meet one time, and "A Time to Tell" will help statisfy those requirements, then National is in a sence mandating that a scout see it at least one time? For troops that have never shown it, they are now forced to show it at least once to the scouts that need it, or come up with some other way of teaching those new requirements. For the troops that show it every year to all the scouts, are we now tempted to show it only to those who need to satisfy the requirements? We've been showing the older version of the video every year to all scouts and after they have seen it once, they don't pay much attention to it or crack jokes during the viewing. There are other requirments, like SC #8, that have nothing to do with the troop or scouting. They only serve to educate the boys about the dangers they may face in the real world.

I believe most of these new requirements are covered by the new DVD version of the BSA's video "A Time to Tell". The DVD is broken into five sections: Abuse by a Relative, Abuse by a Youth Leader, Abuse by a Youth, Internet Safety and Bullying by Peers. If you show this video to the scouts and use the "A Time to Tell Troop Meeting Guide" they should be able to explain and describe the information per the new requirments. Be advised that this video and related discussions take a while and it's a bit much to show all five sections in one sitting. My boys also mentioned that they all recieve bullying awareness instruction while at school and the Bullying by Peers section of the video is just a repeat of that.

I have a good team buiding game that worked great at our last PLC annual planning meeting. It's a simple game that will challege the boys to think about working as a team, using strategy, planning and communication. Take a deck of cards and collect all the non-face cards (A-10) of one suit and the same from another suit. Shuffle each suit of 10 cards and then place them face down in random order in two separate rows on opposite sides of a table. Divide the scouts into two teams. The object of the game is to flip over each card in order A to 10. If a card is flipped out of order, it is flipped back - face down. So, until the ace is flipped, all other cards get flipped back - then the two can stay unflipped and so on. Only one team member at a time can flip a card. Position the other team members far enough away and face them away from the table so they cannot see what card was flipped. Team members can talk to each other between flips of the cards. During the game, its good to have someone announcing the status of each team, like, "the hearts are at 5 and the diamonds are still at 2!" This gets them motivated and adds a sense of competition. My boys would not stop playing this game. One team kept on winning and the other wanted to beat them. I gave them time between each round to strategize. After it was over, we talked about how each team did and what they did that made them win or lose. This lead to discussions about how teams work toghther.