mc99218

There is lament from time to time in these internet rambling the lack of understanding "patrol Method" in its fullest granduer (and it's attendant Court of Honor- no not the one hijacked by adult well intended but misguided- the other Court of Honour owned by the lads themselves which covenes anytime a few scouts gather to palaver things great and small)

There are legates who from the long green or red line can provide such knowledge but they keep being driven off by forces and policies following agendas (follow the money and the new aristocracy but thats another story)

Local scouting is starving for its meshenawahs of the founding principles of scouting (even those that predated BP) and modern MBA, six sigma and the pedagogicals are swamping any chance of return

(Say it aint so, smokey)

Scoutmasters, Commissioners---take back your turf

then take some lads camping

let them form their own gang (patrol)

Let them bubble their own leaders

Toss them your old handbook (any edition)

go catch your dinner and prepare your bed (set the example)

when they come back to you for any old thing give them enough to scamper of wanting more

do this often enough soon you will be bringing back scouts who some day as adults will see old problems with new eyes

all scouting is local

all else is vanity

MCCET

PMTNPO

OWL

"Oh, the magic of the campfire! No unkind feeling long withstands its

glow. For men to meet at the same campfire is to come closer, to have

better understanding of each other, and to lay the foundations of

lasting friendship. "He and I camped together once!" is enough to

explain all cordiality between the men most wide apart, and Woodcraft

days are days of memories happy, bright and lifelong."

from 2 little savages...America's own boy scout hand book by e.seton

all scouting is local

MCCET

PMTNPO

OWL

Your suire it's the Council Executive and not a subordinate at the district level???

Assuming this is a SE or SDE or DE flexing pecks

and

If your a registered player..(any position) except an ASM in which you take this to your SM first

put your particulars in writing and send via registered mail marked (personal and confidential)signature required to the Council President and the Council Commissioner.

State hour case

Document with corroboration your grievances

Offer up a desired outcome

Sign it

Get the support of other who have been mistreated as well.

Give em a couple days and while waiting Make friends with a savvy commissioner.(choose one wisely)

If contacted by any of these worthies agree to cooperate with efforts to rectify the matter.

If nobody contacts you....

you have your answer.

If your a "concewrned parent" with a boy in a troop register your concerns with your Committee Chair or the CR or the IH and turn make friends with a savvy commissioner (choose one wisely)

If your stonewalled

Call the media or maybe just work within your Chartered Partner committee and the District Committe to keep the matter on the front burners until somebody gets the message

A Scout is Friendly even when counting coup

all scouting is local

all else is vanity

MCCET

PMTNPO

OWL

Remove the overbearing "adult shadow" well meaning but misguided pseudo leadership.

Hold scoutmasters and commissioners to their commissions.

Actively promote patrol activity with boy led adult supervised outings.

Insulate Boy Scouting from the "cub scout" notions of shock and awe.

Insist on regular Scoutmaster-Parent-Scout conferences to evaluate and renegotiate if needed the agreements of membership (play the game or stay home)

Relegate BOR to "evaluations of the program provided by the Scoutmaster" rather than star chambers for dividing and conquering the scouts.

Scoutmasters insist on negotiating membership with parent-child and not weeb leader and "his den"

It's no wonder "why thwey leave"

It's quite plain.

Too many adults "workin tickets"

Back to Gilwell Happy Land .......................

Scoutmasters and especially commissioners "Take Back Your Turf"

all scouting is local

MCCET

PMTNPO

OWL

musings

reading the language of sec 30902 one might suspect that the congress was out to corral parlour scouting tendencies already sprouting in Europe and other adult deviations like classroom dicta , etc

just a thought

all scouting is local

MCCET

PMTNPO

OWL

Sec. 30902. Purposes

The purposes of the corporation are to promote, through organization, and cooperation with other agencies, the ability of boys to do things for themselves and others, to train them in scoutcraft, and to teach them patriotism, courage, self-reliance, and kindred virtues, using the methods that were in common use by boy scouts on June 15, 1916.

musing

easy is as easy does

simple

give them more of the floor, give them some ownership

after all RT is a service a Unit Service provided by the District Commissioner and his RT staff.

Scoutmasters won't come if RT is a bully pulpit for the district committee and a lackey of the DE....and full of committee types (no offense)

try 30 minute breakouts into 5 to 8 scouter groups to discuss a topic d'jure (you provide) and at the end of 30 minutes ask all if they want 15 more minutes (all hands rise)

leave the announcements and handouts at the door to be picked up on the way home...

From time to time bring in a guest speaker who is a peer if the scoutmasters in their own field (no pedagogs or motivational type...honest to goodness peers)

this format has been tested and doubled (mid 30s to high 60s) over a 18 month period.

Frankly most RTs bore the scoutmasters (of the right sort) to tears and attract mostly committee types who collect information to peddle at their next parlour scouting event

Say it aint so, smokey

all scouting is local

MCCET

PMTNPO

OWL

\There is only "play the game" agreed to at the intitial scoutmaster-parent-boy meeting or go home

and dont come back until your ready to play the game.

If "then game" is not understood then a savvy scoutmaster will have to reschool parent and boy....

we are not in the discipline business

We are in the new eyes for old problems business

all scouting is local

too many boy and so little time

take them to the forests fields and streams while you still can

toss them your old handbook and go catch your dinner

when they enounter the spirits Earth Wind Fire and Water and come a runnin back for palaver give them just enough so they run off and follow the cookie crumbs

Do this often enough with your sons and the sons of others ands soon you will be bringing back scouts who can see old problems with new eyes sans "ancien regime" prejudices

Oh yes you will...

bring back some new listeners (scouts)

MCCET

PMTNPO]

OWL

Weebs at Camporees are always problematic.

But it the adult baggage that compounds the felony of mixin and matchin east and west which kipling says just wont work.

As a long time district commissioner I always admonished program poohbahs to leave weeb attendance and other boy scout wannabees of age to the scoutmasters.

Sure ,bully pulpit the SMs at RTs to "invite" the weebs as individual boy prospects (call up the parent) not as a weeb den with attending theatrical strings and adult detailia....

Use "new boy" patrol if you must ,better still sprinkle the new blood into the existing patrols and tell those patrol leaders to to "watch the basket"

In the end its supposed to be about individuals ...paiting their faces white and sending them to the jungle to swim with the big bears ...so to speak

Weeb dens and cub scouting orthodontia do not belong in patrol environments...and boy scout ways and means need to be free of cub scouting social gymnastics...

East is East and west is west and seldom the twain meet.

Bring the wannabees to outings as "invited prospects" and let the scoutmaster deal with the minutia...(not cub leadership or parent needed )

all scouting is local

all esle is vanity

campfire chatter

MCCET

PMTNPO

OWL

The act is it's own reward....or words to that affect.

The sooner adults are removed from the uniform including the professional staff but excluding the scoutmasters and commissioners the sooner scouting will retake its place as the premier boy character developing meme and old problems can be seen by new eyes of the future citizens of the nations.

In the mean time it languishes in mediocrity and social quandry....

all scouting is local

all else is vanity

MCCET

PMTNPO

OWL

Decentralisation

OUR principle of decentralisation is the accepted method for the administration of the Boy Scout Movement.

Scoutmasters are given a free hand in the management and training of their Troops under the general supervision of the representative of Headquarters, viz. the Commissioner, whose business it is to see that the lines of policy on which our charter was granted are not departed from.

These Commissioners also act as the representatives to Headquarters of local needs.

For committees we substitute individuals as responsible heads of the different departments of administration. Then the Local Association gives the necessary backing and help that may be needed by the Scoutmasters in their work.

Thus these officers are not bothered with committee or office work, as is so often the drawback in other societies, but are free to devote the whole of their spare time and energy to the main work, namely, the training of the boy.

Frequent conferences of officers give full ventilation to the various questions requiring it, and supply all with a better understanding of what is going on and of what is needed in the Movement.

If and when they find this method does not work satisfactorily, it is open to officers -- indeed it is their duty to the Movement -- to represent the fact to their Commissioner.

The system has been arrived at after very full consideration and after much experience -- sometimes bitterly bought. The point is that officers come into the Movement with their eyes open and that this is the form of administration which they accept in doing so, and to which they further bind themselves where they take the promise to carry out, inter alia, the Law of Loyalty.

Every horseman knows that the only successful method for managing a spirited horse is to be on good terms with him, through the rider having a firm seat and giving him his head with a light hand on the guiding rein.

I am certain that it is through our use of this same principle in the form of local government under a light-handed supervision on a well-defined policy that our brotherhood has already shown such splendid corporate energy coupled with that united spirit which is the driving force behind it.

BP Outlooks November, 1917.

all scouting is local

Take some boys camping

MCCET

PMTNPO

OWL

musings

adults are bringing serious evolvemental problems to a boy's game....

it must be stopped

for starters

Take all adult leaders out of the uniform except the Scoutmasters

Keep all other adult poohbahs at administrative and invitational status only.

Restore the Court of Honor to the PLC and patrol scouts.

Dump SM conferences for boys

Institute a mandatory annual SMC for parents and scout.

Institute a bi-regional rotating camporee cycle so the hoi poloi of scouts can commiserate without bankrupting their family budgets.

Purge, Reorganize and empower the Commissioners as the spokepersons and enforcers of the "scouting program"...

or we will continue to wonder why they leave....

all scouting is local

respectfully but seriously submitted

MCCET

PMTNPO

OWL

When they stop playing the game just send them home to their parents...

we are not in the disciplinary or diagnostic business.

Some of us may have the bonifides (for such) but most do not nor is the window of time sufficient...and other dragons

If the issue is serious enough in the opinion of a savvy scoutmaster then a parent-child-scoutmaster redo is warranted to renegotiate "the deal" and bring back a scout who will "play the game"

It is important not to create an impression of tossing the boy on the heap of losers and continue to be his advocate but with conditions of trying to live the Oath and Law.

Scoutmasters must not delegate this job to ASMs or other well intended but misguided volunteers...Its why they get the pretty patch with "SCOUTMASTER" on it...

all scoputng is local

MCCET

PMTNPO

OWL

musings

In light of many of the proactive posts especially the diagnosis of a boy in crisis and the warnings of accepting the consequences of a diagnosis long or short of the matter -

consider the action of "sending him home" (the fact that his dad is there does only postpone and complicated the matter) the action of sending the lad home for "not playing the game" either the first time and each time should tip off the parents that something is not quite right and that something might be palavering with their child causing him to be sidetracked from a game he agreed to play (during the initial Parent-Boy-Scoutmaster conference) and they as parents need to "do something"....

and who else has that right and obligation ...it is a better start in the right direction no matter the yet to be determined "cause".

Sorry but The scout Oath and Law loose face (shouldn't but sadly does) in matters of real world problems and to continue to attempt to salve such behavior by "volunteers of the right sort or those sorted right" just isn't in scout volunteers job descriptions, duties or obligations.

Now having said that and having some experience with a couple lads of such leanings over the years....in our case they just grew out of it or maybe it was the safe haven of random campouts that altered the brain patterns.

We may never know...

all we do know is we "did our best".

all scouting is local

MCCET

PMTNPO

OWL

When they stop "playing the game" of scouting they go home.....

no more sleepless nights....

all scouting is local

MCCET

PMTNPO

OWL

Welding gloves do just fine for most things "hot to handle"

all scouting is local

MCCET

PMTNPO

OWL

Probably wouldn't make much difference except top product sales..

So few actually make Eagle rank once a plum for high achievers who would probably do just as well without the badge....

but research what BP hoped scouting would mean to us , adult leaders of the right sort...it was not about filling the attaboy basket but merely helping those less favored in lifes settings to geta long on par with their more wel-born brothers (see Standardization of Badges..BPs Outlooks 1921.

I may be presumptuous but I have read enough BP to surmise he would be mighty displeased with the misuse of the advancement method of scouting currently employed ...

(Say it isnt so,Smokey)

all scouting is local

campfire chatter

MCCET

PMTNPO

OWL

A Patrols name is a very carefully considered matter between thge scouts of the patrol and their Court of Honor (no, not that court hijacked by adult leaders for adult aggrandizement) ...

It is a solemn trust and revocable only by the members of that patrol...

Savvy scoutmasters have honored this tradition for decades....

Long live the Flying Spitting Space Camels wherever you are...

let thnose with eyes see and those with ears hear...

all scouting is local

MCCET

PMTNPO

OWL

Make friends with a savvy commissioner (choose one wisely)...ask your district finance chairman for the latest finance report handed out at quarterly executive meetings (some of these are open to all members but your CR is a voting member and entitled to all this stuff..

You can research your councils IRS form 990 on variouse websites

http://www.npccny.org/Form_990/990.htm (How to read form 990"

http://foundationcenter.org/findfunders/990finder/ (search for your council by its corporate name)

There a many ways to get financial data (and be useful at the same time) including joining your unit, district or council finance committees and if you experience roadblocks or suspect your being "handled" go have a chat with your CR(COR) and bring along that savvy commissioner...

campfire chatter

MCCET

PMTNPO

OWL

Bravo

Yes the world has a heck of lot more use for First Class Scouts than Eagle Scouts (no offense)

Helping can be if the helper has an agenda the acts to mold a scout into some outward notion of conduct rather than nurture the scouts innate tellents and allow the stawarts Earth Wind Fire and Water to develop the lad from within

Baden Powell , in his Outlooks had somthing to say about this in his Standardization of Badges (print this out, circulate sparingly)

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Standardization_of_Badges

"Our standard for badge earning -- as I have frequently said -- is not to attain a certain level of quality of work ( as in school ), but the AMOUNT OF EFFORT EXERCISED BY THE INDIVIDUAL CANDIDATE. This brings the most hopeless case on a footing of equal possibility with his more brilliant or better-off brother.

"We want to get them ALL along through cheery self development from within and not through the imposition of formal instruction from without."Outlooks 1921

The advancement numbers speak for themselves...

so few eagles , so many others...

I have known scouts who were very content to be T-2-1 and just mix the scouting thing in with their other interests and many of them as adults today are leading normal active lives in their pursuits, a credit to there scouting experience and the scoutmasters of their times...and their parents still speak well of them....

Scoutmastership is more art form and local community values than any of the volumes of trainings (useful but not to be replaced with volunteer life experiences of the right sort as BP would say....

Read some of the earlier works of Baden Powell especially the little red book "Aids for Scouts, NCO and Men " later rewriiten as "Aids to Scoutmastership" and review some to the earlier Scoutmaster Handbook editions for notions of mentor-ship and fair play....

A self educated Scoutmaster is a better scoutmaster

all scouting is local

campfire chatter

MCCET

PMTNPO

OWL

The Chartered partner is responsible via the CR (and the CC if empowered by the CR) for adult membership standards for good order and discipline .

Your council may intervene in matters of policy and leadership standards aka Standards of Membership.

In matters of personal conduct (smoking etc) a savvy commissioner may advise to have a competent spokesman from the unit committee counsel (friendly chat) with the parent or errant volunteer and test the waters for a satisfactory remedy.

It the target is a unit leader ( CM, DL, WL) then the cubmaster would be directed to attend this duty.

After a reasonable time if the matter is not resolved the committee can start a process for the CC and /or the CR to remove the volunteer from venue of unit meetings and outings,

Generally a dismissal from the CR ends the matter but if an appeal is launched toward the Council there is a procedure on Maintaining Membership Standards generally used to remove more serious deviators and offenders but can be used to officially dis-enroll volunteers from serving in any registered positions who just wont change....

make friends with a savvy commissioner (choose wisely) in your council/district and tread carefully -there be dragons....

Read some of BP's outlooks on Patience (I'm Out Of Patience with you) and "teapot tempests,and "the other fellows point of view)

available at usssp.org

all scouting is local

campfire chatter

MCCET

PMTNPO OWL

YES...Patrols can camp or hikr withoout the adult baggage.

and in most council TPs are not needed...its just another patrol activity..

BUT scoutmasters need to be comfortable with the patrols leadership, experience and competence...

Its all about trust

consult a savvy commissioner as DE are probably mis-informed or noy familiar with traditional scouting actvities

Adults have hijacked so many of scoutings activities that patrols now have forgoten their ability to plan and execute theiur own activities...

Patrol leaders ...take back your turf

all scouting is local

MCCET

PMTNPO

OWL

You lucky scoutmaster

With a "new" bunch of tenderfoot wannabees...

Take them on a day hike with a brown bag lunch.

Let them figure out the details of (whats a BB lunch, how to pack it and what else to bring -like rain gear etc)

Plot out a 10 mile RT hike just out of harms way but plenty of places to cavort in feilds and streams...

Obseve them csrefully and you will see the alphas and the epsilon minuses emerge...

Make no judgements just observe

Think about this and the developmemgt of a patrol and who the leaders should be....

Do this multiple times , try to linmit your "indoor stuff"

Do not go to summer camp this year

Instead do a 20 miler

(summer camps for the mos part will ruin your hard work buildng patrols...

and no camporees until they earn it as a funtional patrol or 2

Do your home work

Research Traditional scouting

Make friends with traditional scoutmasters and commisisoners in your council/district

some links

www.inquiry.net

http://www.thedump.scoutscan.com/scouts.html

http://www.thedump.scoutscan.com/outlook.html

email if you need more direction

MCCET

PMTNPO

OWL

Tell your SPL you expect him to be 30 days ahead of the PLs and you expect the PLs to be 30 days ahead of the scouts...

Never discuss these matters indoors or over the phone.

Always counsel these nuggets of wisdom on hikes or in nthe camp setting...

Play the game as seen thru the eys of a boy...this is not the time for MBA tricks and fancies of your professional or calling...

You reinforce such notions during you SM palavers also done in the fiels or hiking trails...never indoors or over the phone..

Its scouting and its a game

all scouting is local

MCCET

PMTNPO

'OWL

Removal of the Red Coat (AKA the Jac Shirt although I was alway partial to the Bmedji Huntimg Jacket in Red,myself ,more pockets) is prelude to putting the commissioners to sleep...Say it isnt so, Smokey...

When the "Red Coats" are neutralized modern notions of scouting can be just around the corner.

MCCET

OWL

Removal of the Red Coat is prelude to putting the commissioner to sleep...Say it isnt so, Smokey...

MCCET

OWL