MattR

Hi @SeanK. Welcome to the forum. The best thing I got out of WB was the enthusiasm of the staff. Unfortunately, the rest of it wasn't what I was looking for.

Search "fatberg." Feed Me! Seymour!

Sounds good and easy. I like mixing my own spices. If you do a search on chili spice recipe there are plenty of ideas. Here's the first one I found: INGREDIENTS 1 Tbsp chili powder 1 tsp ground cumin 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper 1/4 tsp garlic powder 1/2 tsp onion powder 1 tsp salt 1/4 tsp approximately freshly ground pepper It also said leave out the cayenne if you don't want it spicy.

As usual, it probably depends more on the adults running it. If they read what you wrote and say "huh?" you've got a problem. If they say "we were scouts and we loved it and we're hoping to apply youth led to learning history and science" then I'd say give it a try. Who knows, maybe they'll come up with a fun way of learning way too many centuries of history. My teachers could take fascinating history and turn it into a bore because all they cared about was how much material they covered how efficiently.

I can't imagine it would help. They would make it so convoluted and then we'd argue about what they meant. Maybe I'm naive but it sounds fairly simple. Make it fun. Competition is the ultimate in SMART goals. Make sure some scout skills are involved but not too much. Sounds like these other guys failed at making the competition measurable.

We don't really know the details of how the patrols that Sablanck saw were brought up with the idea of scout led, what their parents were like, what the events were like, or how they were judged. So, lots of room for everyone's opinion. I can certainly see a perfect storm that ended up with a new troop winning the big prize. First of all, the older girls that joined in February are an unusual group. They're hungry for scouting and likely more driven on average than the current scouts. Next year there will likely be few older girls joining. This was a one time thing. Second, there may be hungry parents as well, that don't know about patrol method and are pushing more for winning the competition than anything else. Any new troop could have this problem. So, scouts hungry to show their ability and parents that only see competition and advancement. And it's just as likely that I have it all wrong. In the meantime, I had talked to my troop guides about having a program put together for the new scout patrol. Just have a bunch of plans for meetings and campouts in place that they could grab. Well, life has been busy lately and I didn't ask about how things were going. I figured they would forget about everything. Lo and behold, I showed up late to the meeting and the troop guides had pulled their patrol away from the main event and did their own thing. That was really cool to see. It was a 2 steps forward kind of day.

I agree with small steps. Also, be okay if the small steps work but the final big step doesn't. Is he making friends in the troop? And maybe they live close by? Invite them over and do something fun. Have a sleep over at your house. Hopefully that will lead to a sleep over at the other boy's house. Go with him on weekend campouts. If you have to, go with him to summer camp (but don't tell him that now). You want to be firm with him and that's great, but maybe start with some little things to be firm with so you'll have a history to show him that he is getting better at this independence stuff. Is it possible that part of his pushing back has to do with your viewing him as "needing" this? Maybe he doesn't see the whole of you, including the part that wants to see him grow. Maybe he just sees the "mom is gonna make me do this and I have no idea why because I'm scared." Respect his fears. I'm not saying give in to them, just let him know you understand how hard this is for him. Ask him what the baby steps are. If he sees progress and you helping him with it then he'll listen to you, and that's all any parent wants. If you don't believe me wait until he's a teenager.

The problem won't be this scout (if he is a problem), the problem will be the other scouts not doing anything about an issue because they don't know how to deal with it. Then it festers and gets bad. Rather, there needs to be a way to bring up issues. Review, thorns and roses, whatever you want to call it. I'd say you need to keep a sharp eye on that process as well. Ask the leaders how the new scouts are doing. If you can catch any problems early it will be much easier to deal with. The goal isn't no problems, the goal is everyone learning from their problems.

I wish someone had made this clear when I started as SM. Now, it's what I did anyway, but I always felt like I was doing something wrong. @willray, I agree with this. There aren't many scouts like this but there are a few that figure out that since you won't discipline them so there are no rules. I suppose some of them are around because they have to be. The rest read Machiavelli. Anyway, sometimes negative consequences are the only thing that motivates people. You still need to be fair and up front about it, but there needs to be a line.

Competitions are good for some things but a competition for doing the right thing? Competitions encourage scouts to figure out how to cut corners and be more efficient. People try to figure out how to use the rules to their advantage. That's where the phrase game the system comes from. Putting someone else's need before your own has nothing to do with this. I'd suggest not having any rules. Not a certain award. Not a fixed list of good things to do. Rather, get all of the adults involved. When they see a scout do something impressive, reward it. It could be a thank you. It could be addressing them Mr/Miss <last name>. It could be buying them an ice cream at the trading post. It could be giving them some candy. It could be nothing more than pulling them off to the side and saying they've grown a lot lately and you see it and appreciate it. As @Eagledad said, it's about growth and not a specific activity. And every scout will grow differently. One scout being Courteous might be a cause for a huge celebration where for other scouts it might just be not much more than a nod. Think about it, it's hard to measure how good a person is so how can anyone define what the recognition should be? Besides, if someone knows they'll get a Jolly Rancher if they teach a scout how to start a fire, what happens when you run out of candy? They stop helping? If so, they've learned nothing. A bit of randomness is closer to real life. Not only should all of the adults be involved, I'd suggest getting the scouts involved as well. Ask the PLC, or the older scouts, if there are other scouts that should be recognized. And encourage those scouts to do the recognition. Make it part of the culture of the troop.

That brings up a bunch of questions. What's the history of the forum?

I have a different view on this topic. It's not malice so much as simple incompetence. We were trashing the GSUSA model of units for a lack of permanence and lost knowledge but it looks to me like there's a loss of knowledge in the BSA due to corporate structure. Where I'm getting this is what I've seen locally and it's possible I'm missing something, but let me explain. I'm so frustrated with my council that I turned in my resignation last night as camping chair. While I'd really enjoy to keep working on the camping committee making fun programs for scouts, I just can't deal with the council anymore. Anyway, I think my frustration comes from the same thing that's keeping patrol method from being described anywhere. Look at the advancement model in the BSA. Everyone comes in as a DE and gets paid peanuts. So automatically it cuts out a lot of people that might be good and enjoy it. I've known a few good DE's that quit because they can double their salary. At the same time, DE's are not paid based on unit quality. They are paid on numbers. Besides, many have no experience in scouting so this idea of Patrol Method is foreign at best and unimportant. At the same time the structure within the BSA is very top down. The word from above is get numbers so that's what they focus on. The idea of helping or supporting units is secondary to numbers. Next, all hiring is internal. We have a CE that should be fired for incompetence and it can't be done. I suppose the board of trustees could fire him but it's just a good old boy network. Pay your $5k and you're on the board. Whether you know anything about scouting or not. Anyway, even if the CE were forced out the next one has to be hired from within a limited group. There's no option to hire from the outside. I can imagine that a retired VP from a local company could fix the mess in 30 minutes a day. The real money comes from making it to national so one has no interest in supporting those below, it's all about who's above. As for this thread, patrol method is not an issue for the DE's. Most DE's don't have any scouting experience, they aren't measured on quality of units, and once they move up a level it's even less important for them. By the time they get to the point where they're writing the manual this idea is long gone. Back in the 70's when Hillcourt was pulled out of retirement to fix things the problem I described above was already in place. It just took another generation to set it in stone. What Hillcourt really needed to do was change the culture at national. I have no idea how that can be done.

I used to take white leather boot laces, color one end red and the other blue, and very carefully tie a woggle so the top layer was red, the middle white, and the bottom blue. I gave those to eagle scouts at their ecoh.

When I was a scout we didn't have collars. So when I came back with my son and we suddenly had collars I thought the same thing. But, being a frog boiled in cold water .... While there are rules that say anything goes as long as the whole unit agrees, I agree with you. If there's one thing on the uniform that says scout it's the necker.

A 1" piece of pvc pipe, a bear-like thing made from a bucket of craft stuff you have in the basement, and a hot glue gun ....

Hmm, now that you mention it, that explains a couple of crews in my town. And when the scouts of those parents left, the crews withered. This is the same problem GSUSA has, no sustainability. That means every unit starts over, loss of knowledge. How many 25 year crews are there?

Welcome to the forum, @seanonymous

Here are my guesses. 1) Going on an adventure is not the attraction it used to be. Maybe it's too scary. 2) Teamwork and leadership skills are sorely lacking, so they're afraid to do things on their own. 3) Too many scouts want dessert for every meal. i.e., can't wait for the payoff. 4) Pushing oneself is not the attraction it used to be, at least for teenagers. Or maybe they just feel too much external pressure to succeed. 5) Too much screen time? 6) Lack of adult volunteers and/or critical mass. I listened to a group of young scouts talk while I drove to a campout this weekend. On the way up they could only talk about video games. I couldn't take it anymore and finally asked them what else they did. They mentioned other organized activities (sports, band, martial arts). I finally asked them what they did for fun that wasn't organized. One scout had no answer. One mentioned wood carving and a couple of other things like that. One felt a bit embarrassed and came up with some things he had talked to his dad about. This is so different from when I was their age. We made model rockets, planes, boats, etc, explored the nearby woods, played games at night, went fishing, played pickup sports, made radios, and the like. My guess is these scouts have also done some of these things but it's a bit odd that when I asked them what they did for fun they really didn't have an answer. And nobody said that video games are fun. Is it that video games are just a way to create dopamine and sate their brains? Three scouts is not definitive but I see a lot of other youth that sound similar. Many are over scheduled and don't have time to just explore their own interests. The idea of elite sports in middle school is so far from the reality of my childhood. If a kid has to decide what sport he wants to play by the time they're 13 then there's not much time for exploring or just making decisions. Granted, most parents don't buy into this but it does say something about our culture. I wouldn't write off scouts, but scouts needs to adapt. I'm not sure what that means. If I did then my district would be doing great right now.

I suppose it depends on intent. If all these parents do is drop their kids off and pick them up, then they certainly aren't participating. We had a scout that was too young to join but was the only AOL scout in his pack, so he unofficially joined us a couple of months early. His dad was with him at every event and he kept wearing his webelos uniform. He did every event, including campouts. So, two very different situations. I'd say you need to talk to the parents and be courteous, but blunt. Something else to consider: Are their children enjoying the program? Do they really want to be there? If so, my guess is the parents are embarrassed about something but like the program. If not, could just be cheap baby sitting.

I thought we were trying to play down the whole shooting thing.

Welcome to the forum, @octo. Assuming you have time to be both SPL and join the OA, then go for it. I would assume many scouts go to OA events solo. Are you active in your chapter activities? You can meet other scouts there that might be interested in going to lodge events.

I'm not convinced the 11 year olds should be pulled from the scout program. But 3 years would give that age range more time in a program of it's own. I believe most of the UK Scouts age ranges are 3 years. They also have more flexibility as to when scouts move up to the next level. Maybe that would be better. I tell you what, since the ink isn't dry on this change let the 11 year olds decide what they want to do. They can stay with the Webelos or move up to scouts. Let them bridge over when they're mature enough.

As long as we're dreaming about changing national, here's another option for cub scout burnout: Take webelos out of the cub program. The first year of scouts could be mixed in with it as well. The idea is to have an intermediate stage between cubs and scouts. The only purpose would be to develop teamwork and start doing a consistent outdoor program. Adult led patrols would be fine. The mantra would be "as soon as you get to scouts you'll do this on your own, so learn." Before anyone says that's what webelos is supposed to be, I agree, but for the simple reason that a webelos den looks a lot like a cub den under the same committee with the same cub master, there's no push to differentiate the two. UK Scouts has 4 age ranges where we have 2. I don't think 4 is right for us, but 3 might be worth considering.

My approach has evolved as well. I don't know that I've ever shouted at scouts other than when they were in a safety situation, so my comment was more about getting angry with the scouts. There were certainly those scouts that got under my skin and it was usually because they were extremely self centered. A few of them grew up and all was forgiven. I had a few apologize. I've never gotten angry at scouts that at least tried (well, there were a couple of safety situations, like almost burning down a historical building). I slowly came to realize that the anger comes from the conflict between my expectations and reality. My expectations have tempered. The anger can still show up but now it's a big red flag that tells me to stand back and think about it. For the most part, the only time I get angry now has to do with communicating with scouts outside of meetings (well, not being able to communicate outside of meetings). The good news is I have plenty of time to get over it. At meetings or campouts pretty much anything can happen and I've likely seen something similar before. Sometimes I show disappointment. Usually it's roses and thorns. The roses are "wow, that's great, how did it go for you?" and the thorns are just matter of fact - "this is what I saw, what did you see?" and then the important part "why?" Last night the why resulted in the scout telling me his secret email address that he checks at least daily, as opposed to the one that the troop has that is never looked at. I suspect this has something to do with mom reading all his email. I'll just call for now on. Back to the expectations vs reality. The major source of my grief was wrapped up in advancement. For all the reasons we've beaten to death I used to fight against them all. Now, advancement is as important to me as the uniform. I like it. When it's done right it's great, but it's hard to do right so I'll just do my best and ignore the rest. To me, watching a scout take ownership or responsibility is a much more worthwhile endeavor. Many scouts will do this. Nearly every scout that sticks around till they're 18 will get there. As for the OP, umm, I just told a story? Actually, stories are a very time proven method for teaching subjective matter. The Bible, the arts, history, case studies in law. Unlike science and math, where there are definitive, provable rules, much of life's lessons are subjective and examples are a better way to get across an idea than making a generic statement of supposed fact.

Yelling is fine, as long as you do it where nobody else can hear you. Think about it. In your eyes someone screwed up and now you're angry. The anger is real, denying that is just hiding it. Best to let it go. Getting mad is a good way to dissipate that anger before you can talk calmly. That you can do around anyone.