Ohanadad

We don't use it in our pack activities, but my son enjoys reading it and doing the puzzles. As a Webelo, he's looking forward to doing the "cool" Boy Scout activities that he reads about. He has his heart set on one day going to the Sea Base in Florida.

Along with the uniform stuff, I found all my MB books. We're talking the ones featuring B&W pictures of scouts from the '50-60. Not sure what to do with them since the requirements have changes for the MBs. They still have good knowledge in them, but I just don't know if I have the space to keep them. Any ideas?

Amen Brothers, Amen

Need to be careful about activities you allow the Tigers to do. Check out the Age Appropriate Guidelines:

http://www.scouting.org/filestore/pdf/34416_Insert_Web.pdf

Some will say these guidelines are wet blankets for the kids, but they're there to protect kids and the leaders. I have a friend who's a lawyer and he lives for lawsuits that involve people that go against written policy (they know/find out they can't defend against a lawsuit and settle quickly. As he says, it's easy money)(This message has been edited by Ohanadad)

Seattle,

WB still does what you described (patrol method), but it doesn't and wasn't designed to go into the specific problems that MattR was looking for. I agree with you that it does take experience, judgement, and coaching, but the question is how to get the new SMs those things other than letting them learn it the hard way.

Our district had a Cuboree that focused on STEM and did activities that completed some of the requirements for the first module. The kids enjoyed it (except the presenter that discussed the scientific method to 1st-4th graders, "So from my data, I can conclude that my hypothesis was essentially incorrect." Thankfully the next event was on levers that the kids got to try out and do things.

Since we started working on the NOVA award, my son and I watched a PBS Nova TV episode "Making Stuff: Stronger" to work on the next module. Since he's in his military interest phase, this was perfect since the show starts out on an aircraft carrier and talks about the material properties of arresting gear cable. Fast forward to the end of the show and I ask him, "So what are two questions that you thought of about the show?" I'm thinking he's going to ask about carrier ops that have nothing to do with the show, but instead he asks, "Why is everything made out of atoms?" Took me awhile to pick my jaw off the ground.

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Dang, someone beat my son to the President. He had the $75 tin all ready for him to buy.(This message has been edited by Ohanadad)

We had our pack meeting this weekend which each den's parents would run an activity station. While planning, we figured out that we needed to increase the time for the pack meeting so all the boys and siblings go cycle through the stations. We decided to hold off awards, den presentations, etc. and go straight into the activity stations after a quick opening ceremony. Well, Murphy struck. Since the parents organized the stations, most of the stations weren't set up in time for the start of the pack meeting and of course I didn't plan on anything since we had so many activities already lined up for the boys to do. In order to buy the parents some time, I launched into a Halloween version of "Sharks and Minnows" which became "Zombies and Villagers." If you don't know how it's played, all the kids line up on one side of the playing field and try to run to the safe zone on the on the side of the field. One player (me) is in the middle of the field and has to tag the kids as they run across the field. Anyone I tag turns into a Zombie and helps me out as the kids race back the other side. Before long, there is only one fast kid with a bunch of zombies chasing after him/her. Anyway, having this game in the hip pocket was able to occupy the whole pack until the stations were ready (which was good because it was getting really hard for me to tag those kids as time went on). The other good thing about this game, is that you can change the name to fit pretty much any situation (ice monsters vs. reindeer, Pilgrims vs. Turkeys, etc.) and doesn't need any equipment or preparation.

What's your "go to" on the fly activity?

The problem is that WB21 was not designed to go into a certain program specifics, but give a scout leader, regardless of what program they were in, leadership/management skills. Even though WB21 uses the patrol method and focuses a lot on being a troop, it wasn't suppose to teach the participates how to be a SM.

If you focus on teach the things that MattR was looking for, you need to tack on another weekend. As is WB is packed enough and we were calling for a review of WB content since new stuff gets added in, but nothing gets taken out. That means the staff is pressed to teach more content in the same amount of time. While a lot of people say there is some downtime, it's purposely put in there for the participants to work on tickets, interact with others, and allow them time to think about what they're learning. You can't have them dring from the firehose all the time.

More and more, I'm starting to think University of Scouting (if done right) is the right venue for this "extended training for SMs." As an incentive, the requirements for Unit Leader Award of Merit, should be changed so leaders need to complete certain required courses at UoS that deal specifically with being a better SM, CM, etc. For those out there that say they've been a SM forever and don't need UoS classes, going there and participating could be the key link to start a mentorship with new SMs.

Again, a lot of this hinges on if national/councils can make this happen and I just don't see this rising to anyone's priority lists.

One of our packs narrowly escaped closing down due to lack of adult leaders. Now we're in process of training a new group of leaders that grudgingly volunteered. One thing I noticed that of the new leaders, not one had scouting experience as a youth. This got me thinking on what "today's" scout leaders are like demographically. Does anyone know if BSA publishes these stats? I know the military services keep close eyes on demographics of the force, leadership, etc. and adjust recruiting, training, etc. based on those statistics. Here's what I would be interested in:

NOTE: I make a lot of generalizations and assumptions that may or may not be correct, but it's meant to be thought provoking.

- Average age of registered leaders as a whole and program level (CS, BS, Ven, District, council, national, etc). Is leadership getting older/younger. As we change generations, we may see changes of outdoor experience/skills, technology usage, etc. For example, older leaders may be used to more outdoor activities than younger leaders who may not have had a lot of outdoor experience (i.e. need more outdoor skills/exposure for initial leader training and program helps). Likewise the next generation may be more risk taking (extreme sports/thrill seeking) than the previous (e.g. taking Tiger Cubs white water rafting. May mean greater emphasis on Age Appropriate Guidelines)

- Average years of registered adult service in BSA (by whole and program level). Is the average getting longer/shorter. We do a lot on recruiting, but what about retention. Isn't having scouters with experience better for programs? Could drive more emphasis on recruiting or retention.

- Percentage with scouting experience as a youth. Again if a majority of leaders come in without scouting experience, more initial training may be needed since the leaders don't have their childhood memories to fall back on.

- Percentage male vs. female (by whole and program level). It seems we have a lot of women in CS, but there's a dramatic drop off at cross over. Is that a good thing or not?

We see the SM as the sage, worldly, leader that knew how to handle everything in the outdoors (think "The Scoutmaster" painting), but has that changed?

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I would love to go through the course that this thread is putting together. It would be specialized training for experienced SMs that deal with what advance topics that SMs want and need. Bringing Subject Matter Experts (and not just the friends of the guy who had to put the training course together) to teach. And follow up mentorship by experienced, knowledgeable, and qualified senior SMs. The question is can BSA put a program like that together?

Everything I've seen from BSA has been centered around taking the parent that has no experience in scouting and getting them to a level of confidence to be a scout leader. What MattR is looking for (and I do too) goes well beyond anything I've seen from BSA in recent years.

Yes, RT is a key, but only if the RT Commissioner knows that what the audience wants and he/she can deliver those lessons (maybe invite the SMEs to speak at RT?). Isn't there a thread on how RT is putting out bad info? Need to really get the RT commissioners to work it.

UoS also a plays a part, but again only if the instructor can deliver the lessons. Is BSA going to standardize the lessons. And also, if I had a choice between "Development of Boy Scouts by Age" or "Fun with Dutch Oven Cooking" hmmm which course to take. Some sort of recommended course track that SMs should follow and not just have them pick what sounds fun.

I like the commissioner being more hands on to mentor unit leaders, but only if the commissioner are qualified. How do you judge that?

Like I said, it would be great to have. I just wish there was a way to get it to National Training Staff to chew on.

BD. What is your issue that you feel you have to directly attack me? I try very hard to keep my comments in general (even when responding to other people's replies). I try to focus on my actions/feelings/behaviors and not bash others (if I did, I'm sorry to that person). My comment was on WB requirements not scouting in general. I wish I only spent a few hundred dollars and six days on scouting in total.

You spent thousands of dollars...great. Hundreds of nights camping...good for you. Give your entire paycheck to needy scouts...yes you're definitely in line for BSA sainthood. Making snide comments to me and any person who has a positive thing to say about WB, BSA leader awards, and anything that goes against your view of what scouting is suppose to be about...you're acting like bully which we warn our boys about (I had more colorful words, but this a scouting forum). I hate to say this, but as much as you hate WB and it's "elitism", you're behaving like those, "good ole boys" who been around forever and hates anything different from what scouting was like when they were a boy. "In my day...."

Yeah, I may not have the years of scouting that you have but I like to think that I'm still a scout leader and can contribute in my small way to scouting. Yes, I'm involved in Cub Scouting. I'm not going to be belittled by it. How many of your scouts have their AoL? How many of them skipped CS and joined Boy Scouts from the start? The trend is most cross over from CS and very few join Boy Scouts directly. Without CS packs, troops start to fold. I'm lucky, the troop that we feed into has a great SM which is encouraging and understands that along with the scouts, the adults also cross over to the troop and become future CCs, ASMs, SMs. Do you talk down to the CS leaders at your feeder packs like they don't know anything?

You got your thoughts and opinions, I got mine. Let's state it and not get into a furball going after each other. No one likes flame wars on a forum. "A Scout is kind"(This message has been edited by Ohanadad)(This message has been edited by Ohanadad)

I think the bottom line of this thread is that the WB staff who is doing the beading ceremony needs to talk to the person being beaded (what is his/her expectations), judge the audience, and tailor the presentation to the audience. This is the feedback that needs to go to Course Directors and put into the staff materials.

I think that people tend to over do the beading ceremonies because they want to convey how much the person who is getting beaded had to do. Think about it, you pay hundreds of dollars, sacrifice six days away from your family, do the tickets which can sometimes take over a year. It's a lot and not everyone does it. For a staff members, if this is one of the first from the patrol/course that is getting beaded, you to are exremely proud of the person getting beaded. Unfortunately, they forget their audience and can go on and on. It's would be like if you did a Eagle CoH at a Pack meeting. While the cubs would understand it's a special occation, they would be bored out of their minds within 10 minutes.

Good input 2cub. Here's the funny thing, most of the WB folks were there running the activity stations. The most I got was really short conversations in between sessions. Still, it was good to see friends again vs. being lost in the mob.

The same benefit goes for RT. At the Cuboree I ran into many of the pack leaders that attend RT. Of course we had even shorter coversation as we were chasing after the cubs.

In other posts I go on about WB did for me, but the one thing that I missed was that WB expanded my scouting contacts. Prior to WB, I was active in my pack, went to RT, Cuborees, etc., but I mainly stayed in my group from my pack. At WB, I met a great group of friends in my patrol. When I went through as a staff member, that group expanded tremendously. At the last Cuboree, it was like a reunion of Wood Badgers. Was it that Wood Badgers are attracted to Cuborees? No, the difference is that I got to know different scouter from outside of my pack during the WB course. As such, both me and my son (who got to know/play with other kids) enjoy district/council functions more than ever. Not a huge benefit but one that means something to me.

BD said, "and OH.....My Ticket was things I was going to do anyway......If yours was stuff you wouldn't have done then I think you missed the mark."

Yes, BD, you're right, I would have missed the mark...if I didn't go to WB.

Before WB, I was fat, dumb, and happy being a DL that followed the BSA new delivery plans. Being a new leader, isn't that what you're supposed to do? The pack was fat, dumb, and happy doing things the way we always did...even at the expense of our parents since we brute forced our way through things instead of planning properly. According to the Quality Unit measures, we did great, why change?

while at WB, I saw how if we did planning better and stop doing the same things over and over, we wouldn't burn out the good parents and maybe get other parents more involved. And you know what? I was right. Things got better and the processes/products from my tickets are still being used.

Sorry that you had such a dysfunctional patrol/course/WB experience/etc. but I had the opposite experience, so don't hold it against me if I don't join the WB bashing and instead promote it where I can.

GO,

WB is more than beads, songs, and tickets. It's about learning leadership and management skills and knowledge and applying them in a controlled aspect. I don't know your background so I can tell you what you'll get from WB. I have over 20 years experience in the military and have been through numerous DoD leadership/management courses. Still, what I learned and did at WB made me a better leader and my packs better organizations. As such I am able to provide a better program to the scouts. It wasn't so much that what they taught was new to me (although for some it was the first experience with these concepts), but I would not have done the ticket project if it wasn't for WB. I would have just continued to do things the pack always did it. What the WB tickets made me do was to change and improve the what we did to change our pack into a better organization. For those who say they and their units got nothing from WB, I got to think they wasted a great opportunity.

For all those that gripe about RT being boring, useless, inaccurate, etc. you need to remember that it is organized and led by volunteers like yourselves. I like to say that it's not "my" RT, but "our" RT and the power is the sharing of information and tips from the group to the group. It's too easy to sit on the side and gripe about RT. If you really don't like it, why don't you help to improve the situation by volunteering to help or lead RT (que cricket sounds)...

Everyone's human and can/will make mistakes. As a RT Commissioner, I try my best to make sure what I say is accurate and give references. Is everything I say 100% correct? No, but what saves me is that someone will stop and ask a question or give input. Instead of trading glances to one another, what about helping the guy/gal out and give input. If you don't openly want to say something, pull him/her aside after the RT and give your input in a constructive way. "Feedback is a gift" so give it often. Remember we're all a team.

Here's the issue. Our dens do not use the Immediate Recognition Badge because of the difficulty with the beads. You hand out the beads and either the cubs or the parents lose the beads or complain about how hard it is to untie the plastic string (and to keep the know secure afterwards.)

When I was a DL, I had one of the parents collect the badge from the cubs during the meeting and add on the beads so we present them back to the cub at the end of the den meeting. The current DLs didn't like that idea saying it was too complicated.

What do you do to make it easier to use the immediate recognition badge?

BadenP said, "Woaplanne, I just have to ask, did you do this because you thought it would make you a better scout leader and would help your troop program and the kids or was your motivation purely self centered to get a new dodad for your uniform so that you could show it off to others?"

Interesting question since the Alumni Knot has nothing to do with becoming a better scout leader or helping your troop or kids. It's about recruiting former scouts to become active in BSA. Not sure what the expected answer to be since it can't be the first option (the better scout leader) since that's not the purpose of the knot and I can't imagine someone saying, "Yes, I did for self centered reasons." It's a no-win situation.

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Thanks all for the info. I wish we had one, but no Tandy store (or any store that offers leatherworking classes). I have a call into council...let's see if they respond at all. I have a call into the camp ranger at the scout camp to see if we can borrow the equipment. I'm really hoping he doesn't say we have to go there to use the equipment since it's pretty far to take the scouts. I don't mind driving out there and back myself though. My last resort option is to buy the equipment, but if it comes to that, I'l use Sasha's advise. I forgot about those 40% coupons.

Basement,

As for your statement, "So OH.....You know adults that can't complete projects???????"

Why yes, I see it all the time. The parent that volunteered to put on the best PWD of all times and then couldn't even get started so the pack committee had to take it over (a really good reason to have activity chairs give in-progress reports to the pack committee). My coworker that would start projects and only finish about half of them. The two parents that couldn't resolve an issue (and didn't want to talke to each other) and about tore the den apart until the CM came in and got them to talk to one another. I could go on and on. In my pack, I have the range from military officers to single moms (who are sometimes more orgnaized ). Each has their own level of experience and knowledge to do and complete projects. To say that every adult leader can complete projects such as a PWD or WB ticket would be false. That's why we have training. While some people don't get a lot from it, there are probably way more that are now quality leaders because of the training they received.

Don't be surpised, but the Age-Appropriate Guidelines has outdoor cooking on it and limits it to Webelos and above. No, I don't have the guideline memorized, but the AAG was just covered in RT so it's fresh in my mind. I think the concern is about knives, stoves, cleanliness, etc. with the younger scouts.