MattR

I'm asking for the relationship to change. We certainly want them to listen more but are we willing to listen more as well? When I first became a SM I had all sorts of people giving me advice. Lots of advice. It became ridiculous so I just ignored those people and worked with the ones that wanted to help. Just a thought.

We have a new CSE. Not only that but he's been a volunteer for a long time and has worked outside of the BSA. This is different in a very hopeful way. Maybe we have an opportunity to be a part of the discussion, to have our ideas heard. I'm not sure what the odds are but I'll take it. We'd have a much better chance of making things better if we were part of the discussion. Unfortunately, our collective view of national is, mildly saying, not so good and consequently we probably aren't looked upon very favorably and thus, are not part of the discussion. So, what would it take to change that? What would it take for us to make scouter.com an inviting place for Mr Mosby to participate here? Or at least someone close to him? While many people here would like to give him advice on how to do his job I don't think that's going to be very productive. When I started as SM there were lots of people trying to give me advice and it just wasn't helping me at all. Creating a good relationship where we both listen to each other might be a lot more productive. While we have a lot of collective experience there are certainly things we don't know about. My guess is we also suffer from older generation selective memory syndrome (kids these days!)

thanks for the video. Looks nice. Much nicer than my old tent. Do the poles go straight down or do they have to go around the nest? My experience is straight down is important.

It's behind a signup and get too much email wall, wish I could see the picture. I had a supposedly 2 person tent that used trekking poles. It only weighed a pound and was just a tarp. It worked fine, until it rained, for a week. The material was really great but the problem was keeping away from the edge of the tent. Lesson learned: the bug net has more to do with keeping me under the tent than the bugs out. So I went and bought a REI quarter dome on a great sale. It's about 2.5 lbs. For me, the extra weight is worth it. My biggest challenge is finding a pack that's long enough for my torso. All the "large" packs I've tried, once they have weight and are on my hips, are just about an inch too short. So if you have ideas, let me know.

That just means we'll have to make a lot of encouraging noise. I'm in.

Yes, I'm searching for my fun. Sometimes the pressure is easy to avoid and sometimes not so much. Skipping meetings is getting surprisingly easy ;). Telling the SM I have no desire to "sign scouts off on requirements" causes friction. The thread about jte is a good example of how "stuff" gets in the way. Everyone gets caught up in the metrics and don't understand where I'm coming from. I need to find my niche. A happy place where I can help scouts learn while playing in the mud. What I'm not sure of is how being a moderator on this forum ties into that.

I don't know, @dkurtenbach, if the point is to help units improve their program, to be a teaching aid, making it competitive will just encourage units to game the system. Councils clearly game the system and for those that are struggling there's no incentive to help the units.

Good question. But maybe a better question would be what would make JTE better? In order to do that there's another question that needs to be answered: How do the methods achieve the aims? JTE does not measure any of the aims, or goals, of scouting. All of the suggestions above relate to digging down to how the methods help troops achieve their goals. Since the BSA does not mention how the methods achieve the aims there's very little knowledge of what makes a good troop. I mean, a good troop is one that achieves the aims with the largest number of scouts. Sure, character is subjective so it's hard to measure, but at the same time the number of campouts a troop goes on each year has little to do with scouts growing in their ability to take on responsibility. Best of luck talking to whomever early next year. Please, invite them to join this forum. While we are a group of curmudgeons and anyone from national that comes here better have fireproof long johns, there is a lot of experience here.

I'm struggling with scouts. Recently a few things have made it clear to me what that struggle is and I'm wondering if others have the same challenges. The paradox is simple. On the one hand when I see a scout that grew, or had fun, or helped another scout, or just did something that showed our goals were being met, it's great. It encourages me to go on. It's pure heart when a scout says "I get it!". On the other hand, the BSA program has become a set of trigger words that just scream bureaucratic pain because none of it seems to be really helping me or anyone else help scouts. A few examples are JTE, wood badge, roundtable, membership, popcorn, ILST, council, explain-describe-and-discuss requirements, complaints about SM's on this forum, fees, MB universities, Trainer's EDGE and summer camp school classes. When I talk to adults in my troop it's usually about helping scouts. When I talk to adults in my district or, heaven forbid, my council, it's like watching an infomercial - I don't care anymore. I can't change the bureaucracy and don't even want to try. I've done my part before and it's just a way to burn out. Rather, I just want to work with the scouts. I don't want to help them advance. I want to help them achieve their goals. If they want to learn a skill so they can advance I'm more than willing to help them learn the skill, but I don't want to sign scouts off. If they just want to learn how to cook pancakes without burning them I'd really like to help them do that. So do any of you have similar issues? If so, how do you deal with this paradox?

Is it a scout thing or a cultural thing? I had several families of Chinese origin and it was interesting. They all adapted, they all did great, but the biggest challenge at first was standing back. The good news was they would listen carefully. They also had fantastic food at any sort of celebration. 😁

I think Venturing is the canary in the coal mine because it really relies on youth leadership and there is much less incentive for adults to fix things. What I saw of venturing was really poor leadership and teamwork skills resulting in a loss of interest. The few crews I've seen were run like GSUSA troops in that it was a few adults that held it together until they aged out and the crew collapsed. I'm sure some were/are great, but not what I saw. I'm not at all surprised by those numbers. I think it's entirely because the youth have less opportunity to learn people skills outside of scouting. They have less opportunity to solve their own problems and are under more stress to perform. They just have further to go when they get to scouts/venturing and we, honestly, don't know how to teach it or make it appealing to the youth. Fix venturing and the fix for scouts will be obvious.

We used to serve margs after the meeting was over. So the meeting usually started with "We only have an hour, let's get going." Those were the best meetings. Succinct.

Those aren't brackets, they're parentheses. Those are brackets. My favorite is pigs in a blanket. We both have them but yours taste better and are made with proper pig, as opposed to various animal parts and grain.

Anyone notice his full time job is a youth minister? He may be the COR. So I guess his scouting job is safe. Not sure about the other one.

It sure is a good thing we're a forum where we welcome scouter's from all around the world. That way, when we don't understand how something works in a foreign culture we can ask them rather then do a Google search for useless info that confirms our ideas. @mrkstvns, maybe posting topics that just look like you're trying to get a rise out of people isn't very productive.

Sounds like a great fundraiser for the scout shop! <place sarcasm emoji here>

Is that your kitchen or your camping storage? Quite the collection.

I have a lodge skillet and s glass top and have had no issues with scratches. There's a difference between the old and new cast iron pans in that the casting process of old was fairly crude and required sanding. The newer pans aren't sanded but are still a bit rough. The result is the old pans are much smoother. So, I borrowed an angle grinder and sanded my lodge skillet. I really like it. If you do this, be careful as an angle grinder can easily add divots. They eventually fill in from the seasoning 🤫 We got our patrols steel skillets. You treat them the same as cast iron but they weigh less and aren't brittle.

Sounds like a chicken and egg scenario. We want good people more than documentation or metrics, but in order to create those good people we need a definition of a good unit. But in order to define a good unit we really need a concise description of the goals and how the big pile of methods support those goals. My guess is most everyone here has their own view of these things, mainly because it's very vague in any documentation. I'm honestly tired of trying to convince people that our main jobs, as scouters, is to work our way out of a job and have the scouts own it. Everyone says sure, that's obvious, until they see that the new scouts aren't advancing to some schedule. I could really use something, anything, that I can point to for these adults to go read. The trainers don't have it (they have trainer's edge!) The commissioners don't have it. The idea of levels of patrol method above is a great idea. But it will never become widely used . Someone could get it to work at their district and it would be great until that person left. The waves of new people would just slowly wash it away like a sandcastle on a beach. All we have is JTE, because that's what the BSA has backed. Any new scouter will be taught JTE, so it will continue. I'm not so sure it's documentation or good people. What we really need is leadership. Good, bottom up, support your people, leadership. Just like all these scouts are supposedly learning. We will never see it as long as the focus is on money and old crimes. This is just like a church or temple that has to pay for their expensive building and start worrying more about money than spirituality. We need a CSE that is more interested in the spirituality of scouting than anything else. The only way to get that is to get drastic and remove the massive debt load the BSA has. Another option is to find one council that has a strong CE and no money issues and see if they would take this on for, say, 5 years. Proof of concept. Could a district do this? I kind of doubt it. Mine is certainly too week. And my council, however, has got to be one of the worst in the nation with respect to money problems and leadership, so I'm out.

Part of that is having mush for brains, and I don't mean that in a bad way. Everything is changing and they have no idea how they fit in. At the same time, they also think they're the only ones going through this. My guess is the slovenly attitude is just their way of saving face. I was once one of them.

But let's assume there's some sort of commissioner that has the authority to make changes and the heart to help. Maybe like this neighborhood commissioner. That's a very different position than current commissioners and, with the right person, could help immensely. It gets back to leading as an example for the scouts to see. Instead, we have SMs with big egos because nobody is there to call them on mistakes. It's also a huge responsibility for the commissioner. I'd be up for it.

Ahhh, now that I'm over the turkey coma... I think what you're all saying is do what you can and don't even look at things that, well, we have no control over. And you're right, but deleting all the describe and discuss requirements is just ... something stuck in my bonnet. But, back to reality. What can a half dozen people do? Something to remember is that it's highly unlikely we could fix the BSA, and yet if we could help a few troops here and there it would be worth it. I think the idea of 20 to 30 minute discussions is a great format. Round table, any scout event where the adults should be out of sight, it's easy. I always thought a wiki would be a good idea. Wow, this is really coming up with a message, the message, that national hasn't figured out. You have 5 seconds with a parent that's trying to find an activity for their kid, what are you going to say? It's like that video above, but you only have a few words. It could be backed up with a youtube video, or maybe the equivalent TedYoutube video but that initial hook is required first. I can read this too many ways. What problem is this going to help with? Scouts that go along with anything, get bored and drop out? Scouts and parents that think scouts is webelos 3? Adult led troops? As an aside, the phrase Right to Expect sounds a bit confrontational. I mean, there are expectations of the scout as well. How about a 20 minute quiz to measure how much the scouts are responsible for vs how much the adults are responsible for? Sort of a Patrol Method metric. This could be very wide and deep and bring up things like getting more volunteers to step up, finding more ideas, balancing the program for everyone, getting more scouts. Maybe it starts with the patrol method metric?

Interesting discussion. I'm just curious, though, where else have people built statues to generals that have lost? I'm not talking about rewriting history, just who wants to recognize the guy that lost? I'm not sure I've ever seen this anywhere other in the US. I've seen plenty of memorials to those that have died, and those are worthy for everyone to learn from, but not to losing generals. I'm not saying there should be statues to winning generals, either. If anything, statues of winning generals is a bit close to glorifying the wrong thing, in my opinion. But statues of the losing generals seems way over the line. Maybe I'm wrong. I'm open to different interpretations.

I sort of doubt that "middle schoolers" are interested in "Jump Up, Kids Gym, etc." They're interested in getting away from mom. That's why they're hanging out at "Mickey Dees."

I certainly understand where you're coming from. No harping at all. And yet, a few points (while I wait on the potatoes). First, I just threw this out. I'm open to other ideas. My main point is that the BSA does not follow the model it professes. Consequently their training is hard to believe or get behind. It bothers me when companies don't use the products they sell. The BSA is selling servant leadership. They talk about it, yet they don't really mention how to teach it. They certainly don't model it, not at the national level, not at council (at least not mine), and while our district tries they have little guidance on how to do that. Next, @yknot is one person that could really benefit from this. He (I assume) is also new, inexperienced, and eager to help out. That's the volunteer the program should be set up for. You've also mentioned that there are fewer volunteers with outdoor skills and I agree, but the BSA has to adapt. The old model, since at least the 50's, of assuming volunteers come pre trained has to change. As for SM's with big egos, I agree with you. And yet, the worst of those people, that I know, have the worst programs. Finally, as for having yet one more meeting and wasting time, I agree with you. Anything done would have to be value added. Of course, current round tables are anything but value added, so shaking that up might help. Again, I'm not sure how, I just see a problem.