MattR

If the PLs and patrols don't have experience with setting up camp, cooking, and cleaning on their own then asking a PL to do that for an entire troop is likely not going to be successful. I'd start with that and skip having a PL run the troop wide activities for now. Then I'd work on getting patrols to organize their own activities outside of the usual cooking/cleaning. It could be that every patrol does roughly the same thing, as decided by the plc, on a campout but within that context each patrol might do something different. Different hike, different pioneering project, who knows. L

It's such a treat to have you back.

Sure, that's the goal but I'm not there yet because it's the PL that needs the prodding. What I was trying to get across is that boy led is not binary. It's not that one day a troop goes from adult led to boy led. I tried that a couple times and it fell flat. Rather, it's evolving. What I see is scouts learn from scouts, not adults. But scouts that haven't seen it done right before won't suddenly start doing it. That leaves a chicken and egg situation. My approach to solve that is to make small changes, and that might include prodding the scouts. Paraphrasing what @@Eagledad said,

@@Adamcp, I can attest to everything everyone here is saying. It's not just the scouts that get stuck in a rut. A few years ago my plc was based on a 6 month rotation, I decided who was in what patrol, scouts essentially played nose-goes to figure out who the next PL was, and you know, they just didn't really act like patrols. That's the troop I got and I figured it was the way was. But I did realize I wanted change. I had and still have no grand plan but I see the goal. I make small changes. The first was to get the best scouts as PL. Rather than me deciding who would be PL I did something si

Look at the accident rate for water skiing, snow boarding, or snow skiing and my guess is neck injuries are much higher for those sports. I found the following info in two minutes on google, so take it with a grain of salt. For water skiing the injury rate is roughly 1 per 100,000 people, half of which are head and neck injuries. 20-30 people die each year snow skiing due to head injuries. One study showed 1.3 injuries per 1000 runs at terrain parks, half of which were head and neck injuries. I'm not ignoring the risks, but let's not throw the baby out with the bath water. And,

One approach I've used is to ask the scouts, with the offending parent standing right there, whether they need help. If they say no, case closed, because confidence from the scouts will shut down a parent faster than you can. If they say yes then repeat by asking the older scouts nearby if they need help showing how to help the younger scouts. They will never say no. After they say they don't need help you can then talk to the parent and say something along the lines of: See, they don't need any help. Of course, this is where subtle British humor comes to play where you simultaneously insult s

I guess I must be going to jail, or been to jail, or at least all my scouts are going there because I do break rules: I let scouts play with squirt guns and water balloons. I let them climb on rocks more than waist high. I let them run in camp. They dance for lost items (old thread, look it up). We play campfire games like cross sticks, going to spring camporee, and big blue moon, which are all really a form of hazing. I test skills before I'll do a rank SMC. I requiring a certain amount of outdoor challenges on the scout's calendar. However, the biggest rule I break is that I ex

I read the thread about the 17 year old life scout that is having troubles with his SM over scout spirit and while I think in this case the SM is handling things the wrong way, I know exactly what the SM was thinking. He's breaking rules to improve his troop and I do that as well. Succinctly put, most scouts are unwilling to push themselves out of their comfort zone. When that push comes from from other scouts the program works great. Unfortunately, sometimes there are not enough other scouts to give that push and an adult needs to create it. That's when I break rules stipulated by the BSA

Congratulations and well done.

I have an eagle scout/asm that at first was really difficult to work with. Now that he understands the adult view of boy led he really likes it and helps every way he can. As for the OP, one way to sneak in some scout led might be to have a patrol earn the National Honor Patrol award. There are a number of activities a patrol has to organize and do on its own.

Or maybe, Stosh, they're just very organized and motivated until they get their eagle. I have a 14 year old eagle scout, one of maybe 4 in the history of the troop, that really was good until he got eagle. It's not that he's bored because there's nothing to do, it's that nobody is holding anything over him to motivate him. Nobody is saying I bet you can't do this. Getting Eagle was the challenge, and there was nothing he did wrong. There was no way I could have stopped him and yet I knew this would happen. This is why I think FCFY is a total crock. I have a group of 15-17 year old troop guides

I recognize that accent. Welcome back.

Oy. Your wife seems to have nailed this on the head. Before anyone worries about fixing problems related to boy led, the issue of adult led needs to be solved, and I don't mean the adults should lead the troop. I mean the adults need their own leadership. The asm that yelled at the nsp patrol threatening to wake them up at 4am ... priceless. Adults are angry at each other. Everyone wants to go through the SM, but he's not around? I can certainly believe the adults are frustrated. After 7 pages I'm not sure what all the issues are but the adults sound like a bad patrol wit

So why isn't thou shall not do for a scout what he can do for himself in the training? It's concise.

Thanks for joining us tatung. There is a troop like this in my town. Most scouts don't know what patrol they're in. Someone tried to change it and it just made for a bloody mess. Said person eventually left. In all honesty, you should probably stop being an asm. You'll just get mad. If the cc is a "puppet" then you're already angry. That will rub off on your son. You mentioned that the SPL often introduces the SM as a guest speaker. Do the scouts honestly like that? I can talk for maybe a minute. If it's a really great story I can have 3 or 4. I'm curious as to how patrols work i

Thanks for joining us. To answer your first question, 1 has to join another patrol, 2 I leave to their choice, 3 or more they should cook as a patrol. The question you didn't ask is why are only 5 of 30 scouts active? This is a symptom of bigger problems. It could be growing pains. What worked with 5 scouts won't work with 30. The 5 might feel like things have changed from what they like. 5 scouts is barely a patrol whereas 30 is maybe 4 patrols. 4 patrols with only 10 scouts showing up on a good day is not conducive to patrol spirit. I'm reading tea leaves here but this is what I

New term, adult creep. One thing I don't like about all the training is that they never really describe what should not be done. They say what should be done, and that's important, but the counter example would make it so much clearer. Yes, the scouts should come up with ideas and the adults should support them, but there are plenty of things the adults should not do in this process. By not making this explicit the boundary between the Scout's decisions and adult's get's fuzzy and the adults slowly squeaze in and the scouts slowly squeaze out. That's adult creep. In this case it's more lik

Until the adult crosses the line of telling the scouts they're wrong, maybe you just let him make a fool of himself. Done the right way, talking to older scouts about taboo subjects can be good. Most scouts don't have an opinion but those that do rarely get a chance to talk to an adult about them. They can learn about being civil under thorny conditions. I try to keep my biases out, play a bit of devil's advocate to keep them engaged, and ask a lot of questions. But, you had a thumper. So next time you're around the scouts when it's quiet, why not ask them what they thought?

I've done that before. I was scout age and not so far from your location (Scotland, but it's all relative). Rather than a motor on the plane there was a motor on the ground, on the edge of a cliff. Quite a memory as we flew over the abyss.

I could understand if they were using squirt guns but this doesn't make sense. I looked at the website and between all the awards, all the youth groups showing it, scoutreach, and BSA's desire to control the conversation, I'd think this would be a slam dunk. I also noticed that a PG version was made for someone that requested a toned down version.

The trailer looks like it would be great advertisement for scouts. I wonder why it's not for sale at the scout stuff website.

Well played, @@Stosh, you SOB Something didn't make sense but I sure couldn't connect the dots.

Well I guess another form of scout crack is to get @@packsaddle to come out of hibernation. The problem with all forums is they are public and disagreeing with someone in public gets people defensive. Disagreeing in private is much less confrontational. That's how we treat scouts. Pack, I meant to imply that everyone can be a part of this and that it is an easier decision for the moderators. If someone disagrees with what you tell them in private, so what. If they agree they'll probably make it right. So, packsaddle, take a bite. Heeereee little burrow, come on buddy. You can do it....

I suppose a scout should be treated the same way about his uniform as about his actions. I want scouts to act and look like scouts. I also realize they'll slip and make mistakes. My scouts are all a work in progress so for that reason I don't worry about uniforms being perfect. On the other hand, a scout that refuses to wear a uniform likely does not act much like a scout (unless he can't afford it, but that's a problem I'll solve). For this reason I will not just let them do as they want regarding their uniform just as I won't let them act in an unscout like manner. The challenge is the right

I don't think removing I&P will help, it will just overflow elsewhere. Isn't that the reason why I&P was formed? Trying to remove dissent or arguments will gut this forum. There's a good way to argue and a bad way to argue. The good way is when everyone is trying to come to an agreement, even if it is to disagree. Lurking scouts should see that. I'm all for it. Bad arguments are when it becomes a zero sum game. If there were a way for the moderators to help with that I'd say absolutely. I'm just not sure what that might be. What seems to work really well is when someone realize