MattR

JTE is an interesting concept. It appears to be quantitative in their measurement....

 

If UC's could proactively and consistently aid units in such measurements, AND help with how to FIX any short comings during the program planning phases, THAT would be a huge help to units....

I agree. The underlying issue is JTE wants SMART, quantitative measurements and a big part of scouting is qualitative. I made my own measurements and one of them is "who solves the problems - scouts or adults." If the adult committee meeting is going on for 2 hours but the PLC meeting is 20 minutes then there's a problem. That's the measurement that hit me over the head like a ton of bricks a few years ago.

Something that would help the UCs and SMs would be a better qualitative description of a good program. A questionnaire with a hundred questions might help people measure their own quaility. I would have really appreciated that.

Not true.  You always have a commissioner.  You can call your District Commissioner, and ask for help.  He or she is supposed to either furnish you the assistance you need in person, or provide you a commish to help.

 

Now, if the District Nominating Committee has a problem, and there isn't a District Commissioner, you call the Council Commish.  Ditto.

 

In fact, you can work this all the way up to Tico as the National Commish.  That WILL make things exciting in your Council, when the SE gets a call from the National Commish.  Professionals tend to avoid being in the deer in the headlights

Well, okay, but the DC is an ASM in my troop. So, for all intents and purposes, no UC. But my DE likes talking to me and does know scouts, so I'm good with it. The sad thing is I talk to my DC and just hear horror stories of the types of problems they deal with. Boy led is something they dream of talking about. More like finding a SM, kids smoking weed (oh wait, that was my troop), tons of pissed off parents, parents that won't participate, the occasional drunk scouter, rechartering, Eagle project nightmares, wrecked canoes, the list goes on.

You can dress up a pig but it's still a pig.

If someone knows what they're talking about, has experience, is humble, and someone else is interested in what they have to say, then all will be fine. Clothing doesn't matter. Respect does, and that comes from the UC helping a unit leader get results.

I think the bigger issue is having a common idea of what a unit should look like. JTE was supposed to cover that, but .... Every SM will tell you their troop is boy led but ....

- BSA training is introductory at best.  Maybe Woodbadge has more depth.  Otherwise, comments about who is trained really just reflect who cared enough to take the first step in learning about scouting.  Beyond that, it takes years to understand how to make it work.  And then, you realize just how simple a program scouting really is.  

 

- Unit commissioners are the unicorns of scouting.  Wonderful magical fairy-tail creatures that are proclaimed and counted, but never seen.  IMHO, it's a fundamental part of scouting that is broken.  

 

- An Eagle scout has zero experience to be qualified as a unit commissioner.  The scout side is different than the adult side.  UCs have to learn how to deal with adult agendas such as dealing with the self-interest of leaders who are also parents of the scouts.  

 

- IMHO, the UC is one of several BSA core components that are fundamentally broken and I just don't see how you can fix it.  Period.  It needs a new vision. 

My experience with UC's agrees with a lot of this. My first one was an older guy that did nothing to help me. The next guy was fairly good but mostly helped by giving me an ear. He was so busy fighting some serious fires (drunk SMs, etc) that he didn't see a need to help me. I currently don't have a UC.

It could have been a huge help to make up for all the other training that has good ideas but is so vague as to be of no help.

I beg to differ! lol

Son's moving up to the troop and I am remaining with the pack! 

Good for you, and for your pack. My pack didn't want to do much outdoors. Your point is well taken and is another opportunity for htusa31

Welcome to the forums.

I'm reading tea leaves here, but my suggestion is to not be SM. You have your plate full and you do not want to be burned out 10 years from now when your son is looking for a troop. Granted, cub scouts is not nearly as much fun as boy scouts, but don't you want to spend time with your son? If you're the SM you might be forced into going on a campout when your son is doing some cub scout event.

You can be ASM, you can still help out, have fun, and learn, but you can also say nope, can't make that. At the end of the day, it is the SM's responsibility. I've seen a couple of people get signed up for SM before they joined a troop and it has never worked well. It's an indication that the troop is struggling. That's not a good place for you to learn about being a SM.

Also, and I want to say this politely, but your comment that "I came to the realization that parents suck" is a bit harsh. Yes, there are some parents that are immature and don't see beyond their own kid, but the majority are wonderful. Hopefully you mean "some parents suck."

Best of luck.

Scouts go through stages and they hit them at different points as they mature at different rates. So, different scouts need different things depending on their maturity. The first stage is all about fun and friends. Without fun, forget it. Friendship and fun are tightly connected and eventually those friendships are worth as much as the fun. Scouts must make friends in the troop by the time they're 13 or they will drop. I've seen plenty of immature young scouts that stay at this stage until they're 13 whereas other scouts are beyond this by the time they cross over.

Sooner or later fun and friends is not enough (although there are the exceptions) and some sort of challenge is required. Advancement can play a big role in this. Many young scouts are all about advancement but some see it as school. Conquering advancement challenges gives the scouts something new to do. High adventure and more challenging campouts can also satisfy this need.

If the program only reaches one of these stages for new scouts the others will leave. To me FCFY is for a fairly narrow group or else the requirements are not met.

Still later, scouts need adult recognition and the best way to get that is to do something as well as the adults and is truly important to the troop. The scouts know what's hard to do and what isn't, and they know a cushy POR will not give them the recognition they want. This is where I think boy led is truly important. It's the scouts that solve this need that will stick around till they're 18.

I'd say scouts drop because they aren't getting what they need. Scouts won't have fun if they are completely lost at what's going on, if nobody is paying them any attention when they struggle, if scouts is "like school" when all they want is recess, if scouts is "only games" when they want more challenge, or if they are stuck between their parents having an argument. Parents that participate can be a huge help to younger scouts. So can an older scout that cares. The right scouts as troop guides, with the right adult backing them up, does a lot for retention.

We do not worry about FCFY, it's more like SCFY. More importantly, I worry about program, communication, and how these relate to meeting the scouts' needs.

I never signed off on anything for my son. I did go on a lot of campouts with him. We have lots of stories to share. He even tells me things he was certain he would have gotten in trouble for. Lots of memories. I showed him a lot of skills. I still do. We still have fun working on these things. There's a difference between signing something off and teaching the skills.

These parents quit because they couldn't sign off on something? I think there's more going on and this is just something that they used as an excuse.

I'm never too interested in encouraging advancement at anything but one on one with a scout that is not advancing. At COHs my interest is in encouraging participation and helping out. For the first we show pictures and tell stories. For the second we make a big deal of publicly thanking scouts and adults for their help.

The OT is about change. What I find is there is a huge amount of momentum that needs to change, both scout and adult. Scouts don't seem to learn from what adults say nearly as much as they learn from watching the older scouts. So, with older scouts that don't lead there's a bad cycle to break.

I think I've finally broken that cycle in my troop. I let the patrols break up any way they wanted and it came out to be scouts 14 and older or 13 and younger. I knew that would happen and I used it as a great way to get the older scouts away from the younger. The younger scouts are now figuring it out on their own. After 18 months they don't want to follow the older scout model. i.e., the patrols are now 15 and younger or 16 and older. The younger patrols are slowly taking ownership.

In the meantime the older scouts went through their own change. At first is was rough as no amount of me talking could get them to do much of anything. I think what really lit a fire was when some of them said they'd like to spread out among the younger patrols and "show them how it's done." I very politely said they probably didn't need any help and besides, they had more going on anyway. Some of them took that to heart, really stepped up, and illustrate everything scouts can be. These scouts are the ones that have always been willing to help out. There are also those that have never helped much and still don't want to. They are struggling. They don't want to plan anything so they don't have much to do and a couple have left the troop. There are adults very unhappy with that. Then there are those older scouts on the fence. They'd like to help but they don't have a lot of confidence. The ones that are participating are watching and slowly getting pulled into trying to help out. It seems to be working.

The point is the maturity level  feeds on itself. It starts with a few scouts that just want to do it and the rest of the scouts see it and then are willing to try it. Just as important the adults are figuring out their roles as well.

We only use lanterns on one campout a year, klondike. On most campouts, about the time it gets dark the scouts are in bed or at a campfire so the patrols never need them. The adults use one for playing farkle, but headlights work well.

Part of the reason we got away from them is they are fragile. The led ones sound nice, but at this point I don't want more gear in the trailer so I will quietly forget your good idea.

These guys have the skills. I just continue to see smart, trained teenagers all standing around complaining about being cold, when the 11 year-old Scout goes to his tent and puts on his jacket. I really thinks this attitude is a byproduct of parents over-catering to their kids the past 20 years.

Good point, I guess what I was really thinking of, but didn't say, is that they don't have the experience to know they need to ask themselves more questions to get the details figured out. And yes, lazy is a big part of it. But the fear of failure and the fear of upsetting their peers is huge in their heads. It's better to sit quiet, knowing trouble is coming, than to rock the boat.

It would seem to me that a successful patrol is being measured more on accomplishing the "plan" rather than having fun learning something.  I guess I just see my PL's more in a leadership type of role rather than a management type role.  My expectations for them focus on them developing the skills and insights into the welfare of their boys rather than using those boys as pawns to accomplish a task as driven from "above."  I guess I don't want to hassle with the push back from the boys when they aren't allowed to do what they want rather than what the "plan" states.  I tend to get the same results, however, but will less hassle.

What you call management I call bureaucracy. If the plan needs to be approved by the SM and copied to the website then that's bureaucracy. However, if the plan is just a way for the PL to get his head around what's coming, or be prepared, then I find it useful. I use it all the time to ask scouts about what they want to do. Plan for a campout, ECOH, meetings, Eagle project. What's your plan? It's a way for them to explain what they want to do and for me to ask them questions, and that's a way to teach them what the scout motto is about.

And yet, life is what happens while you're busy making plans. I regularly ask the scouts how something went and when things go astray of the plan I then ask if it was good or bad. In almost every case, if they had a well thought out plan then any change was a good thing. They could adapt. If there was no plan then any change is typically not good, but sometimes saves their bacon.

Hope his request is clear. He wants troop meetings to be fun and to make it worth the boys' time to attend. Poor planning recently has lead to some confusion at meetings. He knows that poor planning can lead to boring meetings and a drop in attendance, hence his note. Any thoughts, comments, suggestions will be sent back to him for consideration. Thanks!

I see this type of problem all the time. It's the problem. It's not a constant struggle so much as a constant learning process for the scouts. It has less to do with filling out paperwork and more about being prepared. Scouts seem to be notorious for not wanting to think a problem through. At the same time, leadership requires understanding what's coming. A great example is making a menu. They want hot dogs for lunch so that's what they write down. How many? Buns? Mustard? A side? Also, their writing skills are horrible. Writing is about organizing and thinking things through, so, no surprise they struggle with it.

Since you have a great SPL (he cares about this problem!) this is what I'd suggest to him. There are a few issues. First, scouts are inherently lazy when they don't see a reason. Second, they likely don't have the skills to work through the problem they have. Third, feedback is important for a leader to get motivated. Success will solve the first issue, so don't worry about it. As for skills, I'd start two weeks out before their meeting and talk to the PL (talk, not text or email, face to face). All you need to do is ask the right kinds of questions. You just want them to think the problem through. Questions with a single word answer are bad, make them talk. What is the plan? Where does this change from normal? Encourage change. It's good and fun. But it needs to be thought through. Once there's a basic plan you can start asking more questions. While you're getting answers start filling in the paperwork for him. Eventually you can get him to do that but for now, give him a hand. He will appreciate your help. It's likely that 2 weeks before he won't have all the answers. Give him some homework. Repeat this a week before. Hopefully you'll have a plan. One thing about plans, though. It's okay if they aren't followed exactly. Things change and that can be good or bad. The important point of a plan is to get the leader prepared. If he knows what he wants and it's likely to work then people will follow him. That is the goal, not the plan.

The third issue is feedback and review. A quick review will bring up the things that didn't go right. Something I've just started is once a quarter we do a big thorns and roses session for each patrol. It takes some skill to do this so most PLs don't have the skill to do this on their own. It's all about asking leading questions. Don't ask how's it going, ask what's going right and what's going wrong. Make a big deal about what's going right and any progress. For things going wrong, don't lay blame, ask the patrol what they can do to make it better. This has to be a very positive thing. There aren't failures so much as opportunity. You have to believe in them. If you believe in them then they will believe in themselves. That is motivation. That's the oil that gets the whole thing moving. The bottom line is using the Oath and Law to help them realize the promise of scouting. Good luck. I'm sure Mr [krampus] will help you out if you ask him.

This discussion is why I'm getting tired of scouts. All the arguments on this forum come from the same group of questions. What is character? Leadership? What is good? How do you motivate a teenager? These are questions that are thousands of years old. So why is it that people think they have the answer? It's all painfully subjective. This is the wellspring of drama.

There's no point in calling anyone a control freak. There are different solutions for different troops. For me, the best results I've see is from setting participation expectations and giving the scouts plenty of freedom and support to make it fun. Stick and carrot. If it doesn't work for you I won't be upset if you do something else. Its like the whole religion thing, share your ideas but don't judge others. I don't get paid enough for that.

My rule to be considered for a POR, or be considered for a rank advancement past second class, is that the scout has to have been on 5 scout related campouts in the past 12 months.  We put on 10 campouts a year at least, plus OA, training, extra backpacking trips, there are all sorts of possibilities. It's a bit more complicated for getting credit for a POR and Stosh's "take care of your people" is part of that.

That said, there is the "acts of God" clause. Acts of God can lower this number on a case by case situation. Homework is not an act of God. Not being able to camp above 9000 feet for medical reasons is. Playing three sports a year is not. Having parents that use a kid as part of a power struggle is. Money is a different subject. Essentially, if a scout can make a decision that would enable him to go then he has no excuse. I will also cut some slack for the SPL that got burned out and just needs a break from scouts, or some scout that did a fantastic job with the new scouts and needs to write college apps.

Ten years ago we didn't have to worry about any of this but since then there are lots of extra curricular activities that are requiring kids to participate 100% or else. So, I say 50% or else. The good news is that at the last campout one of the older scouts thanked me for making him go on campouts. Of course, there's also the 16 year old that has to go on two more campouts before I'll sign off on Eagle. He took it to council. We'll see. Just be aware, this can create lots of drama. And it comes from a few parents (most are really good about it).

Some people will say the campouts are boring and that's the problem I should fix, not forcing scouts to camp. My response is if the scouts think the campouts are boring then they have a problem they need to solve. My job is teaching them how to solve their problems using the Oath and Law, not creating their calendar. Once they know they have to participate they get a lot more interested in making sure the calendar is what they want to do.

Here's some empathy for you.

I'm fortunate in that when I said no mixing of patrols the adults had to back off because I am the SM. Turns out the scouts like smaller patrols. Two is a bit small but three works fine and four is great, at least that's what my scouts tell me. The adults used to say "well, if only half the scouts show up then we should double the size of the patrols so there's always a full patrol on campouts." Nowhere in that comment does anyone show that they understand the dynamics in a patrol that is on its own. i.e., they aren't interested in developing youth leadership.

As for what to do, I can't pretend I know what you're going through. I'm guessing you're really frustrated after having worked up the energy and excitement to take over and turn the troop around only to have it explode. You could walk and nobody would blame you. Yet you obviously care about scouts. I mean, wouldn't the new SM like your help teaching leadership skills? While some scouts do enjoy being catered too, there are some older scouts that want some purpose. If a few scouts say they'd like to lead and, via training, you can give them a taste, then maybe they can talk to the SM. Just a thought. A bit subversive, but really about keeping what's important in focus.

You just have to keep reminding the adults until it sticks. Most eventually get it. This isn't a fact that you can tell them once and they get it. It's an idea with lots of ramifications. Once they start understanding how all these ramifications fit together then they're quite helpful. It took a couple of years since I was starting from scratch but now I have adults that get it. If you can find them a job to do that's great but this is really all about training the adults.

On Saturday night I was sitting at a campfire and I was honestly bored. Then I noticed the scouts were having a lot of fun yucking it up over something the older scouts were doing. That's when I realized I had had very little to do all day because the scouts were running everything. Not perfect by any means but they were running it. Sunday morning I gathered up the scouts running things and told them how great it was to see their progress.

It's been a long haul with not much to show before now. It's been 12 to 18 months. They certainly have a ways to go but I'm seeing progress. The older scouts are looking out for the troop. The Pls are looking out for their patrols. The PLs still struggle with planning but they finally seem to realize that they are responsible for their patrol. They at least want to lead. That's huge.

I'm also learning. My guess is if I knew what I was doing their learning curve wouldn't be so slow. Or maybe it's that when I started this the scouts that would listen were 12 years old and now they're 14 and patrol leaders. The old days of picking patrol leaders based on who needed a POR are beyond everyone's memory, even most of the adults.

Then there's also the scout-like way to deliver tough love. I had a scout thank me today for being such a hard ass.

pong?

I'm curious as to why folks think that Councils should organize Summer Camp as Patrol Method - seems to me we're asking Councils and Districts to do an awful lot of things that the Troops can do on their own.  There is nothing to say that a Troop must cook their meals as a Troop - sure, the meals may be the same but they can still be cooked by Patrols (and wouldn't that be an interesting experiment - we spend a lot of time on weekend trips with Patrols all making their own menus - wouldn't it be interesting to see how each Patrol does when given the same recipe and ingredients?).  Other than room, there is nothing to prevent Troops from setting up camp as Patrols (and we used to do it that way at Camporees in smaller spaces than we would get for Summer Camp).  There is nothing to prevent Troops from forming up as Patrols at Flag Ceremony.  There is nothing to prevent Troops from running their activities in Patrol Method.  My Summer Camp had an evening Water Carnival competition between Troops - nothing would have prevented a Troop from having Patrols choose the events they would do.  Can only do one skit for all-camp campfire?  What's to prevent a Troop from holding their own internal competition to see which Patrol gets the honor of representing the Troop? 

 

Summer Camp just offers a framework for each Troop to figure out the best way for them to participate in it.  Other than Merit Badges, which is an individual pursuit, there is nothing holding a Troop back from using the Patrol Method at Summer Camp except lack of desire or lack of imagination. 

We do line up at flags by patrol. That's trivial. Only one skit per patrol? I guess that's okay. But space and resources are an issue. Doing things by troop takes less space and gear than doing it by patrol. So I spend the first day or two asking for more resources and defending my scouts from staff. It's a lot of my time because the staff doesn't understand patrol method.

But it's more than just being in camp. It's also about fun. I asked if a patrol can go down to the dock to go canoeing together, or to the rifle range to go shooting together, or could they at least give me some maps of local trails so scouts could go hiking together. Or maybe there's a geo cache they can do. Nope. It's not that camps are troop vs patrol method, it's that they're all about MBs. I once suggested to my local camp committee that MBs only go until 2:30 and have a time slot for patrols to do things together until dinner. For the really popular things they'd have to sign up but it would be a chance for scouts to have fun as a patrol, or do a service project, or whatever they wanted. They looked at me like I had a 3rd eye.

So, yes, we make it work as best we can, but if the patrol method is such a big deal, shouldn't camps be supporting this? The usual answer is that I can run my own summer camp for my troop. I suppose I can, but again, shouldn't my council be supporting my troop using the methods of scouting?

@@ianwilkins, when baking cakes with a DO there needs to be a lot more top heat than bottom heat. That way you don't need the spacer gizmo. A rafting friend of mine taught me to rim the top with briquettes (place them side by side all around the rim) and put a couple more in the middle. Then only put about 6 on the bottom. Very little computation required! This helps heat the walls. Whenever I did the +-3 up/down I always got a thin layer of burnt cake on the bottom, enough to insulate the rest of the cake I suppose. I'll do the 3 up/down if there's enough liquid in the pot but it needs to be done with a large grain of salt. If it's cool or windy then the oven will be getting cooled and more coals are needed. Also, if the ground is damp put down a layer of aluminum foil to keep from putting out the coals. I learned that the hard way as well.

@@Stosh, the rim on the lid of the DO to hold in the coals was Napoleon's idea, or at least that's what I heard.

 

Bread on the bottom of the tinfoil packet to help keep the meat from burning.....ever have one of those moments where you see or read of something that should have been obvious for years?  Perhaps you heard my hand slapping my forehaed just now!

Try onions with some butter or oil. As long as there's enough liquid I don't burn stuff.

We're going camping this coming weekend. Maybe I'll try the kibbeh. Sounds like a great lunch plan.

Our camporees' cracker barrels are advertised for SM and SPL. For about the past year I've asked the SPL and PLs to go. I've never had a problem with it. I just stand back and graze for food and the scouts volunteer for things. Our camporees have been mostly patrol events for a long time, so that's good. As for cracker barrel most troops bring just the SPL and a few bring PLs.

What I notice, walking by camp sites, is that my troop is just about the only one where the patrols are distinct sites and the cooking is at the patrol sites. A lot of troops either have all the patrols cook in the same spot or there's just one setup for cooking. i.e., the adults are probably running it.

Summer camp is a nightmare for patrol method in my neck of the woods. When I ask what activities there are for patrols to have fun I get a blank stare from camp directors, council execs, pretty much everyone. I've gotten complements from staff that see oure patrol sites.

I think I've found what I want to do when I step down as SM. I've been leery of doing anything with the district or council because there's so much momentum that needs to be changed. I go on and on about training but I can't change what there already is. However, there is nothing called "Patrol Method Training", so I can offer that and write it any way I want. My DE wants me to do it.

Please don't suggest you can teach rafting in an hour, or anything on moving water. The idea of canoeing our local white water is crazy. People that end up on the wrong part of the river die every year, and they're in rafts.

Getting scouts to want to do adventure is a chicken and egg thing and adults are part of the mix. A couple of years ago the campout ideas the scouts were coming up with were bad. Nobody wanted a competition or a challenge. I'd suggest it. I'd talk to the PLC and remind them of how much fun they had doing something like a tug of war competition at a camporee, but when the rubber hit the road they didn't want to compete. So I finally said every campout must have a challenge of some sort, their choice, but I'm setting boundaries. Turns out they really enjoy it and now they wouldn't think of not doing it. There's also no doubt they need help turning their ideas into something that works. Lately, anything with a disaster theme works. You were in a plane. It got shot down by Russian separatists. Here's a map. You are at A, your gear is at B, and an injured scout from your patrol is at C. Good luck. I put that one out and the scouts are going crazy with it.

Motivating scouts is a subject all its own that is never covered anywhere in the training and I find it the crux of many problems. Once a scout can self motivate, when he can see where he wants to go, the adults should watch and enjoy it. But getting him to that point is most of what I should be doing. You obviously don't want to do it for the scout because he'll never learn. At the same time just asking him what he wants to do really depends on the maturity of the scout.

I agree with Stosh on this one. A scout learns what trustworthy really means when an adult can really trust him to do something that both of them knows is important. And that requires some risk. In fact a lot of scouting requires some risk. Kids fall down and stand up. This is a big part of learning trust and confidence. Confidence comes from knowing you can stand back up and try again. Some parents can accept that risk and some can't.  Let's not worry about those that don't like it.

The aims of scouting are character, citizenship, and fitness, and that's how boy scouts is sold. Maybe that needs to be updated to talk to parents in a language they understand. I think they'd rather hear that scouts will teach their son to be responsible and do the right thing without being asked. And one of the methods is letting their son fail in a controlled situation. Maybe if that was all updated then everyone would get focused on what scouting is really about.