Oak Tree

The "Musician" patch is clearly designed for such an organization, but I've never seen such a band in actual existence. I suppose there must be one somewhere.

I really like Lisabob's list.

Here are some of the things that I've directly witnessed that caused problems.

Expecting automatic deference from the other adults.

Letting everything fall apart because it's "boy-led".

Being so overloaded at work so that you don't have enough time to put into the program.

Not enough communication.

Not able to assemble a cadre of supportive adults.

Trying to do it all yourself.

Spending so much time on all the details that you lose the big picture of getting the Scouts out there having fun.

Being unpredictable. Changing plans without notice. Insisting that everyone follow all the rules exactly, but then make seemingly arbitrary exceptions for yourself. Asking people for recommendations, and ignoring all their advice.

Lack of organization.

Over-lecturing.

We assign an ASM to this position. He makes sure to invite the Webelos dens to an outing with the troop, he coordinates crossover ceremonies, he makes presentations to the den parents on what to expect in Boy Scouts. He coordinates with having them attend troop meetings. He is generally the new Scout ASM, so that once the Scouts cross over, they continue to deal with him. He works with them to make sure they are ready for their first camping trips, etc.

We do find that having lots of communication with the Webelos parents is a good thing. We do have a pack/troop at the same CO, so it's a natural relationship for us.

The Scoutmaster does participate in the pack leaders email list, just so he has an eye on what the pack is planning. It's good to try to coordinate various things (like not having a camping trip the weekend of crossover, or something.)

Our camp holds a pre-meeting, but we've never sent anyone, and I can't imagine why we would. I can't see any real benefit to going.

a Life Scout going for Eagle isn't an Eagle Scout until national approves the application.

Say what? At our district board of review, when it completes, the coordinator tells the Scout, "You are now and always will be an Eagle Scout."

Sure, the unit isn't supposed to provide the badge until the paperwork is done. But really, telling the Scout he's not actually an Eagle yet? Nope. No way would I say that. He's an Eagle. The date is the date of the BoR.

If he gets a badge, he can wear it. Heck, I'd even give him one. We actually did this once when we had a Scout who was moving out of the country. Should we have waited for approval from national and have had no court of honor instead?

I also see that the other ranks "may not be presented until the advancement is reported to the local council through the BSA's Internet Advancement or on the official Advancement Report form". Our troop does immediate recognition and presents the rank on the evening that the Scout earns it by completing his board of review. This is in keeping with another guideline in the advancement guide, "When the board of review has approved his advancement, the Scout deserves recognition as soon as possible."

Where does it say that a Scout is not an Eagle until the paperwork is done? The application form itself, which the Scout sees, says "Presentation of the rank may not be made until the Eagle Scout credentials are received by the BSA local council." That doesn't say that the Scout is not yet an Eagle. It just says that the unit isn't supposed to present him with the rank. I can easily see how a Scout would think that if he had an Eagle badge, he could wear it. Because he really is an Eagle.

"If the members agree a Scout is ready to advance, he is called in and congratulated. The board of review date-not that of a subsequent court of honor-becomes the rank's effective date."

That's it. The board has congratulated him. They've told him he's an Eagle. Why would you squash that?

I know that adults can't influence the vote

Ha. Everything that adults do is something that influences the vote.

If the adults treat the SPL with respect, and expectations, and give him authority, and let the troop see that their choice matters, that influences the vote.

If the SM sits down with each candidate for a ten-minute discussion of the seriousness of the role for which he is running, and going over the expectations for that role, and indicating how frequently he'll be in contact with the SPL, that influences the election.

If the adults make all the decisions and just use the SPL as the figurehead leader who gets to announce what the adults have decided, that influences the election.

We do have the candidates give speeches. I don't know that it matters much one way or another. I think that most of the kids have made up their minds prior to the speeches. But it does provide some of the trappings of an important election. I do think it's reasonable that you can make your existing structure work. You could always sit down with the existing PLC and decide whether the speeches have become a distraction, and decide to not have them next time.

Here's a link to a CNN article:

I find several of the statements of the official spokesman to be a bit odd. Some of them are exactly correct, but others...

"Our membership policy is not meant to be a blanket statement on a group of people" - except for the blanket statement that "a known or avowed homosexual is not an appropriate role model of the Scout Oath and Law".

Also, "This (scouting) is not the place to reconcile diverging viewpoints" - but I would swear that there is lots of information about how to deal with diverging viewpoints on all types of topics in Scouting literature.

And "There has always been an open dialogue about this in scouting." Hmm, well, maybe on this board. I wouldn't have exactly called the official stance to be an open dialogue.

It is certainly true that "Any policy of the Boy Scouts can be changed." That does sound like a good, true statement, along with a hint of a possibility.

I see in another place it was reported that "The Scouts reiterated they do not grant membership to open or avowed homosexuals, because the group is concerned it would 'become a distraction to the mission of the BSA.'" Not so sure about this one. The Scouts have stated other, more explicit reasons, including the one listed above ("not appropriate role models"). Also, it seems like the issue is a bit of a distraction right now. Would it be more of a distraction if the policy changed? The BSA might lose members, or lose money, or lose chartering organizations - but really, the problem is that it would be a 'distraction'?

I find the DE thing a hard rumor to believe. It just seems like membership numbers are a big deal, and if you remove the only paid person who has the responsibility of keeping membership up in a given area, you might experience a drop off. Is the SE going to start attending all of the district committee meetings? Really push them to boost membership? Seems like that would make the job even less attractive than it is now.

Yes, you can be the only two leaders. Looks like everyone agrees on that.

Maybe there's another troop attending camp that week that has a ton of adults coming. We had one of those next to us last year. I'll bet that one of them would have been willing to help out, although it might be hard to coordinate that.

It does seem like there ought to be someone who could help out, one way or another. Any of the kids have a grandparent in the area who might help out?

There are definitely bigger fish to fry. This is just one interesting sidelight in a troop full of all kinds of Scouts - from the very active, to the mostly inactive. But it's an interesting sidelight. I appreciate all of the thoughts.

I'd be curious to find out what he would do in this case, but here is my guess as to what he might do.

He could send a DE and/or District Commissioner over to the CO, to meet with the IH and/or COR, and tell them that there had been reports of youth protection violations by the unit. They would like the CO to investigate whether or not these violations have really taken place, and identify steps to correct any incorrect interpretations of the rules, and to insure that the leaders were abiding by them. He might suggest that if the leader will not reform, then the CO should consider replacing him.

Just to flesh out our hypothetical situation here, let's say the Scout is a Star Scout. He doesn't have the camping merit badge yet, but he has over 40 nights of camping with the troop.

You're the former SM? Oh, yuck. I hadn't paid much attention to that in the original post. Even when you are right, there's no way it looks good or works well for you to be telling the new SM how to run things. Is there someone else who agrees with you who could take over owning this issue?

If you do call the SE, can you let us know what he says? I'm curious whether he'll take any action at all, or hand it back to the unit to correct.

5 is ok, although it is a Scouting function.

The rest are false. I would not worry much about #6, but the rest really suggest a disregard for the rules.

I would start by talking to the CC.

Could you just leave all of the equipment as owned by the "Friends of" organization? Nothing unethical there.

I will assume the kid is older, has been in the troop awhile and has given Scouting a fair shot. Correct.

Where do people get all of these hypothetical scouts? If you think this is truly hypothetical, then my use of quotation marks and clever tongue-in-cheek manner has failed.

I appreciate the suggestions that looking at the program might be something to do. In practice, I think this is unlikely to be the solution. Our group is around 50% older Scouts, so there are lots of them who find interesting things in the program. The program does not seem to have become stale in general, and there are lots of activities that are new each year, which the older guys specifically choose just for them.

This Scout hung out in a clique, which, for lack of a better term, I will call "the slackers." As his friends drifted away, I think he just lost any real interest in participating.

It's possible that there might be something he'd like to do, but at the moment I judge it more likely that there's not going to be anything that would really interest him all that much, mostly because I don't think it's the activities that are the issue, it's the lack of his good friends.

he should hold out for an F-150. I laughed about this suggestion. It's a good one, but I think the parents have too many other levers.

Do you think he told you so he would be ejected from the troop or you would tell his parents? No, I don't think so. I think he told me because I asked him about how he was liking Scouts, and I listened to him when he told me his answer. I think he's probably already had the conversation with his parents, and I doubt it's crossed his mind that I would intervene to change the outcome.

If he likes, I'll meet with him and his parents and help him explain to them why he doesn't want to be in Scouting. I've contemplated this option. Dad is an ASM who has been very helpful over the years. A lot of the pressure comes from mom, but I think that dad also supports pushing JimBob to get Eagle. I don't really want to tick off the whole family. I might ask the Scout whether he'd like to do something like that. He seemed sort of resigned to the situation. I may have to contemplate this for awhile, and make some hints to the parents over a longer period of time to soften them up.

Does the troop have attendance requirements to satisfy the "active in the troop" requirement? If not, you may want to consider having them. We don't. I agree that more hard and fast requirements here might help convince the Scout it's just not worth it to go through with it. From a troop side, though, this would be a significant undertaking. In order to be fair, we'd have to start doing a serious job of taking and recording attendance, which is something we don't do now. It's possible, and it's possible we could be more rigorous about our positions of responsibility, too, but that's a troop-level change and not something we can implement for just this one Scout.

Thanks for all the responses. I'll let this hypothetical situation age a bit and continue to re-evaluate.

Can I reiterate my complaint about the ability of National to pick and hit a date? Relatively official sites list the date as May, June, or July. Will it really be June 8? We are actually kayaking in June and it would be nice to know.

We have a similar situation, although not quite as bad.

In our case, though, the Scout appears to be better at avoiding having the adults hear the comments. It certainly makes it easier if you have first hand adult observation. I really like the idea of recording things. Smartphones can do this. I may give that a try.

Our situation is also a bit better because we have more older Scouts who recognize the behavior and have somewhat banded against him. I heard them talking amongst themselves about who was going to keep an eye on JimBob.

The other advice I would echo is that you need to be on the same page with the SM. I would think a recorded conversation might help with that.

Ok, so there's this hypothetical Scout in my troop.

At his last Scoutmaster conference, he said something like this (paraphrasing)I don't want to be in Scouts any more. My friends have mostly dropped out. The only reason I'm coming is because my parents say I have to. I can't wait to earn my Eagle so that they won't make me come any more. I don't really want to go on any more camping trips. I'm going to do all of the minimal requirements for Eagle - I don't want to do any other work beyond any actual Eagle requirements.The Scout is generally polite. He's not causing any issues in the troop. He does not openly flout any rules or disobey any leaders. The board of review said he did very well at answering their questions. He's not sullen.

In this hypothetical situation, I'm actually impressed that he was as open and honest with me as he was.

Would you advance this Scout to Life? To Eagle? We don't have other explicit requirements right now, but we might add some. This Scout would presumably then try to meet them.

If you wouldn't advance him, what would you tell him the reason is? What would he have to do in order to advance?

As I understand this, the question is essentially, "Should a boy have to make Scouting a high enough priority in his life in order to get Eagle?" And in this case, the adults have some particular mental picture of what level that priority should be.

Now, National has recently allowed units to do this, by setting attendance requirements. But this unit didn't have those.

I would have signed the application with no problem. The Scout knew the requirements, he met the requirements. Some other Scouts may exceed the requirements. That doesn't mean that all Scouts need to exceed the requirements. I don't like it when adults change the actual requirements. The fair thing to the Scout is that he's able to determine whether his efforts will meet the requirements. I guess I don't see the issue here.

Is there a hidden item in the Scout Law? "A Scout is enthusiastic about Scouting."

I'm with NJCubScouter. The Cubmaster/Scoutmaster is the person that sets so much of the tone, and it's the position where it's hardest to recover from a bad choice.

In a pack, a den leader is a big deal. But it's hard for any one den leader to overcome problems at the pack level. Someone has to be organized, and that's normally the Cubmaster.

In a troop, there are lots of ASMs, and they can do a fantastic job at filling in various aspects of the leadership positions. If a Scoutmaster is mostly absent, some key ASMs can fill in the role. But if a Scoutmaster takes a direction that makes parents angry, or disillusions the kids, or just lets the organization fall apart, it's hard for anyone else to fix that.

In our troop, I think that one of the most important ASM roles to fill would be for the ASM who works with the new Scouts. A good first experience in Scouts can make all the difference at keeping the Scouts involved.

After that, I'd say the committee chair, the treasurer, and the equipment coordinator are all important to us.

In our pack, the accepted method was to have some existing person look around for candidates. It might be the existing Cubmaster who is looking around, desperately trying to find an escape route. Or it might be the committee chair, worried that he's going to be stuck without a Cubmaster.

This recruiter looks out over the group, tries to identify the best (and least reluctant) candidate, and approaches them. Typically they say no. Then the recruiter looks around for the next candidate. If they say no, too, then the recruiter starts to up the pressure, talk about what a great Cubmaster the new guy would be, how the pack really needs him, how much his son will look up to him, etc. The candidate finally, in a weak moment, says yes. The recruiter then whips out the adult application form and has the recruit sign it before he can change his mind. The recruiter might even have already filled out all the rest of the information.

This form then goes to the CC and COR for their rubber-stamp approval.

Or something like that.

In the 2010 annual report, the BSA is listed as having over $770 million dollars in assets. The national corporation has plenty of money. I understand that individual councils might not have a lot, but the people who need to fix the IT are the national people.

A lot of these changes should save money in the long run. How much time is spent by people at the local council office dealing with issues like registration or advancement or whatever, that is unnecessary and could be fixed by a good system?

And sure, they could even use some volunteers to do it. I'm sure there are all kinds of talented people out there who would be willing to lend some expertise.

Somehow there are all kinds of companies out there that manage to offer up free disk space and free processing. But I'm not even talking about that. I don't need for national to run everyone's web sites - I'd just like a standard template that could easily be run by any web site provider.

Many organizations allow you to join on-line.

The problem isn't that hard, there are known solutions, and national has plenty of money to implement it.

I'm happy to rely on third-party vendors to provide apps that do constellation identification, or plant identification, or show you how to tie knots. If the BSA wants to link to those, or pull them in, that's terrific.

However, what I'd really like is the same thing that everyone else here has mentioned - functional internal IT.

I too am in the software industry and am regularly disappointed by the lack of sophistication shown by the software used by the BSA.

My sense is that the national corporation isn't too concerned about the issue. The lack of organization in the software seems to mirror the lack of organization in so many other aspects of the BSA. (e.g. the historical merit badges didn't come out at the beginning of 2010, the Welding merit badge didn't debut when they said it would, etc.)

Partly I suspect this is because the BSA doesn't think it would be worthwhile to spend the money required to be better in some of these areas.

Things I don't really understand about the software:

- why isn't there an easy way to do Scout tracking? Why do we even needs programs like TroopMaster? Shouldn't we just be able to enter all this data into the BSA cloud?

- why can't there be a consistently easy way to sign up for things? Our PTA can use signupgenius just fine, but a national organization can't provide a consistent mechanism?

- why not have an easy template for new packs and troops to use to set up their digital presence?

- why is it so hard to find stuff on the national web site? Where are the web sites of the councils that border mine?

- why can't membership applications be done electronically?

- why doesn't the myscouting portal automatically associate your new id with your training profile when you register?

- why isn't it easy to find people at national to provide feedback to?

- why isn't there a national database of training courses being offered?

- why isn't there a well-organized policy document? Especially one that answers a lot of standard questions?

I feel like one guy with a vision could make a huge difference here. Well, that, and some money to make it happen. But seriously, a lot of these things are not that hard.