Mike Long

How about "I have this idea I want to run past you." and just tell him what happened and your thoughts. I like feedback but I don't like the "You are doing this wrong" as that is usually very abrasive. Beyond that, just talk to me. In our area Webelos usually crossover in Feb./March, works for us. Also if your boys are joining in June they might not be ready for summer camp. It helps to have a few weekend campouts under your belt to get comfortable with the Troop and how things are done before doing a week long camp.

Congratulations! I've got an Eagle BOR tonight.

Really, the freezer? Why? A quick note on purifiers PUR no longer sells purifiers. They were required to discontinue sales due to people pumping too quickly and the iodine didn't have enough time to work before the carbon filter removed the iodine. So if you are like me and own a PUR Voyager purifier you now need to use the hiker filter elements.

What does any of this have to do with the American Heritage Girls?

Correct me if I'm wrong but you used to wear your first six badges on your right sleeve when the uniform was long sleeved. When you earned more you transferred them to a sash. Nowadays most of us are wearing short sleeved unforms and there really isn't room on the sleeve for six merit badges. As I understand it all merit badges go on the sash regardless of amount.

Thanks Weekender, options are always helpful. Especially in that my daughter is due in September. Interesting, but after looking at their website (Which in my opinion as a web user interface and content specialist is woefully lacking in content.) it still leaves me asking, What do they actually do? What is their structure? It just looks like a club. I would like to see details regarding program features. Is there a form of advancement? What are the goals of the organization? Yes I read the site but what they posted was very vague to me. "Traditional Judeo-Christian Values" can mean anything anymore as can "Traditional Troop structure". I'm still not ruling out the Girl Scouts. Yes I have problems with youth organizations pushing political stances through kids (and you can apply that to all youth organzations BSA included depending on what side of the fence you are on) but as you all well know each Troop is different and you can always find a unit that agrees with your personal positions regardless of what the national organization thinks.

I'm coming up on my 8th Eagle BOR and every single District Advancement Chair that I have met (4) wore a uniform with his Troop numbers on it and the district committee patch. I thought it was odd they wore both but I wasn't offended or anything. I would think that you ought to have a uniform to represent whatever capacity you fill. Troop for Troop, District for District. Silver loops and all. Seeing as that was your first BOR they ought to give you a little slack.

Here's more food for thought. Lots of folks seem to have big problems with paddle adventures for the boys. The big one being not having a qualified Lifeguard. If you are near a military base particularly Navy or Coast Guard. Call the base and find out if they have a unit of rescue divers. If they do, make an open invitation for them to attend your HA paddle trip. Obviously you will need to meet them and evaluate their personality to be sure they will be compatible with Scouting. Make the offer of a free trip and see if you can work with his/her CO about getting TAD (I think that's whatb they called it) orders. What that means is that the person is issued orders to attend your HA paddle trip. He gets paid to go and doesn't have to burn any leave time. But we did this on four occasions and each time we met great young men who were more than willing to help. Three of whom were Eagles.

They should have been focuing on grades when they first enrolled in school twelve years ago. Kinda too little, too late if you ask me. I tell my scouts that "Eagle Scout" written on an application may or may not get you anywhere. BUT Being an Eagle Scout by thought, word and deed will get you everywhere. I think that simply telling kids that the presence of Eagle Scout on a resume or application will help them out is a huge disservice to them. What we need to stress is that living the Scout Oath and Law and being a living emodiment of our ideals is what will get them ahead in life. The resume candy can't hurt but ultimately it is all about how you carry yourself. Ever think of having a "Gathering of Eagles" type trip or event?

Man, we read the same thing and get completely different information. It's the quality of the trip. My issue is with HA guided trips where the boys don't learn anything. Many guided trips that I and others I know have been on, the scouts were treated as tourists on a amusement park ride and not active participants. I prefer HA trips guided or not where the boys are treated as active participants and are taught the skills necessary to do the activity. Shoot the rapids. Vs Learn how to shoot the rapids.

Amen.

Just a suggestion. When they get the new flags retire the old ones to a "Wall of Honor" during a Court of Honor. When I was a scout we hung all retired patrol flags on the wall of the scout hut. It looked very cool and helped to foster a sense of history of our troop. Patrols are not disposable, they are not there to simply organize kids into managable groups. They are there to give Scouts a sense of identity and unity within the troop. I try to keep patrols together as much as possible by encouraging the members of each patrol to look out for one another. This includes calling the guys they haven't seen lately and asking them what's up and when are you coming back we need you. I like the concept of once a XYZ patrol memeber always a XYZ patrol member and try to support that. I would only reorganize if it became impossible for a patrol to function and even then it's up to the Scouts to decide the new makeup.

Ahh cool, thanks le Voyageur. I couldn't find the earlier posting.

I doubt very seriously that Girl Scouting would disappear, however we would put two very strong strong organizations with the same goals at odds that shouldn't be. Historicaly speaking both organization share the same roots, that indicates (to me anyway) that we are brother and sister. Why start a family feud?

Geez, maybe I just need to take a nap. I'm all over the map this morning. Regarding my "magic pill" comment please add. But it's the most best most potent pill we've got and we all should strive to present it accurately and entheusiasticly. (I know I butchered that one.)

Nope not what I meant at all but I think I didn't communicate clearly what I intended to say. I certainly didn't mean to imply that packs were completely to blame for anything but that it is a factor in this equation. Who said we don't need to look at our Troop's presentation of the Scouting program? Anyone that knows me knows I don't believe in blame games, I believe in getting the job done. My point was in that particular case that we went through we could not find anything amiss other than the fact that the packs these guys came from were babysitting services and the boys were not willing to function as Boy Scouts once they crossed over. Never seen a Cub scout babysitting service? Come on down and let me show you a few. A lot of us lost a lot of sleep over that and I dare say we take our responsability very seriously. We re-examine our troop after every time we get together. I even discuss the issue with people I know outside of scouting just so I have an outside perspective. The reasons a particular boy leaves is particular to the child. Some reasons are shared between boys but there isn't one universal reason. That seems to be the difficulty in communication here. Delivering the Scouting program correctly is not a magic pill. A perfect program does not guarantee that units will only lose 10% or more of our scouts to reasons other than aging out or families relocating. The only things we can do to remedy the problem is to perform better across the board. That means the BSA doing what they can to get the message out to get guys in the door and Pack and Troop leaders presenting the program as best as they can to keep the guys happily inside the door.

One more thing.... So we are going to penalize the units that do have a great program by not funneling kids to them because some units don't have a good program? Foolish. Y'all keep throwing coal and I'll keep stoking the furnace.

Marketing is a completely different aspect of the program. Good marketing does nothing to build good troops but good marketing can show everyone involved what a good troop can be like and get guys in the door with the intention of making their troop like the cool one in the ad. As far as retention has anyone even considered the fact that the onus is not completely on the Scout Troop? I think sst3rd would agree. Most cub packs do a horrible job of preparing Cubs to be Scouts. I have interviewed new Scouts who quit and most I see simply want everything to be handed to them as it was in cubs. They were completely shocked when they joined our troop and realized that when we said Scouts will take care of X in the initial visit we meant it. I guess the how to pack, cook and do KP instruction wasn't clear enough for them to realize that yes they will be preforming those tasks. No we are not a boot camp, not we are not hard cases, yes we do a ton of training, reminding and helping along. Some kids just can't get over that hump despite all our pulling and coaxing. As some of you may remember from earlier threads we worked closely with our brother pack to help prepare the Webelos for crossover. They knew guys in the troop (Den Chiefs) and they had an introduction to very basic scouting while Webelos. That year we picked up boys from three packs and lost everyone that wasn't a part of our feeder pack. (we lost 6 of 18, 30% if my math is right) We agonized over it quite a bit, talked to parents and scouts. The basic element of all the quitters was that they didn't want to do anything for themselves. Not a single kid said scouting wasn't fun or cool to us, thier parents or the other boys who constantly asked them to come back. Frankly many of the parents labeled their own boys as lazy. (There's that limiting a child through a self-fullfilling prophesy again. What a crime.) We thought maybe we had a bully hiding in our midst and thouroughly worked that angle. We looked very hard at our program and yes we had areas that needed improvement like all programs do no matter how good, but nowhere did we see anything that would chase off a kid. That year the Cubmaster crossed over with his youngest son and a new guy took over. Guess what, this guy managed to tear down the ENTIRE framework we built through his apathetic "leadership". None of the training we were able to provide to the pack happened last year. We just had a group of boys crossover that were under this guy and the difference was astounding to the negative regarding the level of prepardedness these guys had to be scouts. They are all great kids and are excited to be there but it took a lot more work to prepare them to camp and be Boy Scouts. I have determined from watching Cubs crossover from differnt packs that the retention rate in Scouts is directly related to the quality of the two units as I am sure we all agree. BUT Cub programs that don't adequately address the transition to Boy Scouts SEVERLY hampers a Troops ability to retain those boys. I found it very helpful to have a Cubmaster that we could work with and help us to promote the Scouting methods while we helped and promoted the Cub methods. The result of that effort was a one out of twelve drop out rate. That I can live with, but I won't be satisfied. We will be trying again now that the other guy is gone. So you're telling me we have a poor program because 30% dropped out? We didn't do enough self analyzing? Number alone never tell the whole story.

Ya know I just have to say I find it very funny about the hip lingo being passed around on this thread. I actually use these in everyday conversation. My scouts typically pick up my terminology. I do agree that no-one wants to burn kids on Scouting through promoting a bad program the rub is that we don't have a bad program. We have the best program in the world (IMHO), we just need to be better at delivering it across the board. But to strangle marketing because some of us fall down is foolish. Without a steady stream of interested boys Scouting will die by attrition as boys age out. Marketing is the shovel that put the coal in the furnace that created the momentum that pushed the train forward. Remove the shovel and no coal gets in the furnace, no coal, no momentum, the train stops and once a train stops its really hard to get to moving again. We need a bigger and better shovel to get the Boys into the Troops.

They burn too hot for the thin aluminum and meltdown. Plus the vapors are much more volatile.(This message has been edited by Mike Long)

As far as I am aware yes adults can wear the dangle. (At least everyone here does) It goes on the right side pocket button.

How we get around the parents doing food shopping for boys thing is that on a meeting night the patrols get their menus approved then the patrols collect the cash from those going and representatives of each patrol are sent to the store on that night with adequate adult supervision to shop. Before they check out the adults check for contraband and ask the all important question "Are you sure you got everything on your list? Did you double check?"

They should only wear their OA sashes to troop meetings if they are to be recognised as OA members. For example conducting an OA unit election or making a presentation like a camping promotion or a pitch for a Camporee that the OA is hosting. Otherwise that's what the lodge flap or OA ribbon dangle is for, recognising OA members.

Addendum: Be sure to show the parents the guide to safe scouting and tell them we have rules to cover how we do what we do. If it is unsafe the GTSS covers it and tell us it is not allowed.

I used to run into this all the time. I now tell all new parents to the troop that we are here to teach your son that he can do anything with proper planning and training. If you think your son can't do something be prepared to be proven wrong because we will do just that. I tell the parents the planning and training that goes into a trip and the quality of adult AND senior scout leadership. I then let them speak to my most vocal supporters, the parents that used to say "My son can't do that" and their sons that did. Usually that will convince most. Lots of times on a trip we will hike a five mile or so nature trail. The most common thing I hear is "Oh, he couldn't walk a mile!" So I simply ask the parent "Why not? He did five miles last campout?" It is very hard to argue with us at that point. But the biggest thing is the scout himself AFTER he misses a campout because of Mom and Dads hang ups and he gets to hear of all the fun the other guys had. Especially beacuse all scouts get the same training at the meetings. It's not cool to be left out of an activity when you have the same level of training as the guys who got to go. I'll bet that's real fun to listen to around the dinner table. I view the "He can't" statements as damaging to the child. Those words indicate a lack of faith in the childs ability to learn and overcome. The most dangerous is that the child might actually start to believe they can't. That line of reasoning is really the parents saying "I the parent can't/won't do that activity" and because I can't/won't I won't let him try. I personaly don't care if the parent can, can't or won't. I'm here to show kids they CAN. Last I heard parents were supposed to support their kids and that includes helping them to do things you aren't sure they can do. Instead of "He/She can't do that" we should be saying "That looks like fun but it might be tough. What can we do to get ready for it?"