MattR

They used to cover this because I remember learning how to do an ice rescue. Ladders, poles, measuring depth of ice, making human chains. It was good. Our ice, at klondike, is thick enough to drive trucks on it. But, seeing as how I'm organizing Klondike this year, thanks for the idea!

Is it just me or do the responses seem a bit harsh? I mean, the biggest complaint is that the committee should not be involved in PORs, but the OP never said the committee would be doing this. The mentor is an SM/ASM. prof never said he was going to do it. @prof, to answer your question of whether scorecards or something less formal should be used, scorecards will only measure part of what a scout's responsibility is. You could measure number of events and number of scouts and stuff like that but things like scout spirit tend not to be measurable. NYLT might talk about SMART goals, which

And I respectfully point out that you're missing my point. I said only go if you're prepared. If you have the proper gear to deal with a closed highway then what's the problem? Honestly, I'm not sure what that is so I'd cancel. Brian's statement that it was going to be in the 20's would not even concern us because we deal with it more than half the year. Someone in Texas might think twice about it. Some people fly planes into hurricanes. The point is, know your limits. Icy roads are part of the trip.

Stosh, I think there is opportunity for a young scout to lead in a group of older scouts, assuming the older scouts understand that they are also responsible for developing younger scout leadership. Let the younger scouts be in charge of something simple but have them lead the patrol. Unfortunately, when I tried that the older scouts just took over because that's what they saw. I don't think the adults are doing anything worse than the older scouts. The same training that we're talking about here also needs to be presented to the scouts. I agree that friendships are hugely important. By th

There's a saying, no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing. So it really depends on what gear your scouts are used to. But the cabin changes all that. As CalicoPenn says, bring board games. This is really an opportunity. If they get cold they can fail gracefully and go in the cabin.

This is more than just the parents at fault at the scout events. The same people that are helicopters have not let their children make any decisions their entire life. Teaching them how is really hard. A road map for that would really help. To be honest, waiting until they're 13 seems to be too late. It is so ingrained that the oldest person around, whether adult or SPL or PL, makes all the decisions that just saying let the scouts do it isn't enough to get them to do it. So the new scouts still don't make significant decisions until they're 13 and suddenly PL, at which point they're completel

In a way it's all out there but you have to know what you're looking for. So, no, it doesn't exist and is needed. A wiki would be good. I think a lot of parents confuse methods with aims. The aim is not advancement. Learning how to make decisions requires a) the scouts make decisions and b) the parents, wait for it, not making decisions. Hence, burnt sandwiches are okay. However, that's not to say there's nothing for adults to do. Scouts need help learning how to make decisions, how to solve problems, how to fix things they've messed up, how to listen. None of that happens by telling them

interesting comment about dumbing down the competition. I can see that setting up a tent blind folded when you're 17 is not going to be very cool. Maybe a couple of levels so each patrol can be challenged based on its makeup. That might encourage the younger scouts to look forward to harder stuff later on. As for the next part, I'll be happy if I can get some scouts to give input as to what they'd like to do. If I can get them to have their troops organize a small part then that's a bonus. If the idea really catches on and some scouts want to form a venture crew that runs these things then

Col. Flagg's description of scout's not wanting to rock the boat is what I saw. A lot of scouts will not talk or they'll be very vague when adults ask them. A lot of adults struggle with calmly bringing up painful interactions so there shouldn't be too much surprise that scouts have more problems. Getting down to the ugly nitty griity, with everyone staying calm, seems to be very cathartic. The fact that MM is the SM and the father of the scout receiving this grief could easily make it that much worse on his son. I think it's really hard for scouts to admit things aren't going right. Think

EagleDad and Col. Flagg, you both bring up important ideas. Competition is good if it doesn't turn into a blood doping win at all cost event. the phrase honest competition is good. I can see how events that can be practiced and perfected can be a problem. I've seen knot tying competitions where you have to learn a few tricks and you suddenly blow the competition away. Rather, if the general skills needed are given out and the actual challenge is not known until you show up, I'd think that would help. There will be an orienteering course (I like the night time version. That will show up in the

What types of challenges did they have? My scouts always wanted balance. They liked competitions against other patrols but not against a clock. What you're calling head to head. They also liked personal challenges. They also wanted free time.

How about a disaster recovery theme? As a scout I did first aid rallies but they were in a gym

Well, I have about a month to get the ideas out so we can start pushing it and troops can have time to prepare. I just signed up for this today. I'd like to get it to the point where there's plenty of time and plenty of scouts and adults that are interested in it but I have to get this going. I'm here asking for ideas so when I start asking scouts what they'd like to do I can give them some ideas they can work from. And yes, I'll be open to suggestions. One challenge is the next campout is klondike and that means lots of snow for us. Some ideas I have so far, A few of which we've done befo

I'm splitting off from the other thread about camporees counting as campouts because this really is a different topic. It turns out I'm likely going to be the new district camping chair which means I get to come up with 3 good campouts a year - Klondike, spring, and fall camporees, so your help is appreciated. It seems there are a couple of issues. Interesting and new events. Making events a challenge that don't turn into some troop overloading patrols. Limited resources so, for example, doing shot gun at a camporee would be hard. Getting some scouts involved in helping with this. O

I was tired of the MB fair things and I asked the scouts if they'd rather camp at a cabin and go skiing instead. Of course they wanted to do that. Then I told them they'd have to figure out how to do the MBs on their own, but I'd help them. Now they have some motivation.

Where does humility fit into the Oath and Law?

You'd have to ask a lot of people to get a good view of that question, which by the way is a good question. Here's my answer. The patrol method, for lack of a better term, is broken. The whole point of scouts is to get scouts to make their own decisions. The youth have very little opportunity to make decisions in their life. It's worse now than it used to be. Scouting is more important than it used to be and most people have no idea what it's about. As you've implied before, many adults don't understand how it's supposed to work. Unfortunately, most scouts know less. One important aspect i

The biggest problem I see with incoming webelos is a lack of understanding teamwork. They each have a different job to do and they need to do it for the patrol to function on its own. The result is everyone trying to do the same thing at the same time. That results in scouts arguing over who gets to do this, whatever this is, and nobody doing that, or the other. If if you've ever seen 6 year olds playing soccer everyone wants to kick the ball and nobody wants to spread out. Activities that have several different parts would be great. Go on a hike, for example. Someone helps figure out wher

Back Pack, let's say the BSA was reading this forum while some magic fairy dust dropped on their heads and they said "Hey, we gotta get this young man to be the first CSB (Chief Scout Boy) so we can get back to our roots" and you implement your plan as described previously regarding allowing girls. So you have a vote and 40% of the boys don't want girls, 10% do, and 50% are too lazy to vote or don't care. If majority rules then there will be no girls allowed, end of discussion. My guess is you'd be happy with that. Just for the fun of it, let's say the vote went the other way, 26% want girls a

Now that I'm no longer SM I decided to work on developing teamwork within the new scout patrol. Long story short is that even though I couldn't go on the last two campouts a parent of one of the new scouts told me that the new scout patrol was the most well run patrol they saw by far. There was nobody leading the patrol but the patrol leader. I may have found what I want to do.

Old man take a look at my life I'm a lot like you I need someone to love me the whole day through...

I would have said nearly the same thing as you did when I was your age. My guess is that's the same sentiment as most people today. Once upon a time I had family members and religious leaders judge me by that type of comment and they did a mighty good job of pushing me further from their point of view. It took me a long time to get back to something I was comfortable with. So I'm not here to judge you. More like play a game. What does God mean to you? If all you can come up with is the all powerful guy with a beard, in a robe then let's try something different. First of all, God is not a n

Sounds like you had a good talk, MM. Glad to hear he's looking forward to sea base. Something tells me your just talking to him helped a lot. One other really important thing. Does he have friends in scouts? This makes a huge difference as scouts get older. It's the odd kid that ages out without friends near by. The comment about venturing and OA, if he doesn't have friends, is something to think about. I wouldn't suggest that route unless he really has no friends, as making friends at this age is getting harder and harder. My son didn't understand the loud kids either. I'm just guessi

I've been following the UK scouting forum and it's just my impression, but they have a training program that's considerably more in depth than the BSA's. While they don't have any ridiculous rules about pioneering (to quote, it would ruin all the fun) and it doesn't seem to be a problem, everything else has training that requires considerably more than the usual take a class and get signed off. You have to not only do the activity but show people and keep logs of it. The BSA does a good job with a few things like water safety, shooting, and climbing, but everything else is just online or nothi

Maybe this is an opportunity for a young man to learn how to balance things out. Roses, thorns, and buds. What does he like, dislike, and look forward to in scouts, and swim team, and whatever. And really listen to him. This can be hard because you might not hear what you want to hear. Start off with an easy one: Just a hunch, but would sea base be his first high adventure trip? If so then he really doesn't know what he might be missing. If there's a good group of older scouts going then this could really help. Now a rough one: Dad's the SM, how is that going for him? Does he feel