pargolf44067

And I forgot, two of my adult leaders received Safe Swim and Safety Afloat and another completed his BSA certified lifeguard training. We are ready for our canoeing trips next year.

Just got back on Saturday from my first summer camp as Scoutmaster. It was a great summer camp. No homesickness all week. Had all of our first year scouts adavance to tenderfoot, at least, and had one other scout, my son, finish two MBs to get to Star.

Food was good and plentiful and the staff was wonderful. We go to Manatoc Scout camp in Peninsula, Ohio, which is out of council. We had a couple of incidents of nerves fraying and one scout which would have been sent home Friday, but we couldn't reach his mother. Finally, we had four boys and two adults complete the mile swim. All the boys were first year scouts! Two of the boys and one of the adults had completed the five-mile hike earlier in the day as well.

All in all, it was a good summer camp and went much better than I thought it would.

Excellent feedback on the issues. Since I became SM in October, we have had no campouts where we had more than one menu. It has been a troop menu. This is definitely something, as I move into my second year, that I will push hard with to the PLC.

Another question arises is in regards to equipment. Our troop has quite a bit of equipment. However, if there is certain equipment (say stoves) that is less than the number of patrols, how does this work out? Is it just a simple matter of scheduling?

Congrats to OJ and the both of you as well!!!

Dan,

I agree with you on the patrol method. My question is how do you get to this point if you have a troop that isn't there yet. The other question is a logistical question -- if you only have one or two boys at a campout, how practical is it to have them do their own meal(s), etc? That is one issue that I have about the patrol method and campouts.

Bill

Eamonn,

Those are some interesting insights regarding summer camp and mixed age patrols. The troop that I am in is kind of in flux regarding patrols. In the past, the troop "has always had" age level patrols (eg, all first years in one patrol, all second years in another patrol, etc.). Based on necessity this spring I changed one of the patrols to a mixed age (we only had three second year scouts (the rest dropped out before I became SM), three fourth year scouts and four scouts beyond that that weren't SPL or ASPL). We still have the third year scouts in one patrol (there are still nine of them) and the scouts that crossed over in February in another patrol.

Since, we made those patrols, the SPL has said that he thinks we should totally mix the patrols up so they are all mixed age patrols, which I think is a good idea as well. I was thinking about making a venture patrol, but I really don't know if that will work. The "High Adventure" I was talking about was more like older scout backpacking trips or longer canoe trips that the younger boys couldn't do, not necessarily BSA High Adventure. Although we have two crews going to our Tinnerman Canoe Base this summer in Canada and a crew going to Philmont next summer and we are looking at Sea Base in '08, I think a more regular dose of "high adventure" without the younger scouts might help. However, I don't want the older boys to totally ignore the younger scouts.

The point about the older scouts caring more about the younger ones in their patrol is also a good one that leads me more towards the mixed age patrols as well.

As far as summer camp goes, we are one of those troops that camps the same week, the same camp and the same campsite every year--and we are having a hard time getting some older scouts to go now. My son and two other boys in his patrol, all of whom just finished 7th grade, and only one of which is Star are the oldest boys going to summer camp.

The issue we may have with summer camp is that our camp is only 15 minutes away and very convenient for family night and also for getting volunteers to come. If the boys wanted to change the summer camp and/or date, some of the adults might have issues with that, although I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing.

Sorry for the rambling post, I just wanted to give you an idea of where our troop is on some of these issues and what I am trying to do to help the boys learn how to lead.

Bill

Thanks for the thoughts on this issue. I guess the term "losing" is not appropriate. I do agree that if we keep the boys in some form of Scouting it is better than totally losing them. Our Crew is very closely associated with the Troop. In fact, we have several leaders in the Troop who are also leaders in the Crew. I do think that is part of the issue.

One thing that the boys have told me when I was asking what they liked and didn't like about the Troop is that they wanted more "high adventure" stuff, not just camping at the campsite for a weekend. When we have our annual planning meeting next month, I will bring up a couple ideas for getting the older boys more interested, including having 2-3 campouts a year for older boys to do backpacking, rafting, or some other "high adventure" and putting one of my ASMs in charge of working with the boys to help them organize such campouts.

The last link in the above post is similar to what we have done in the past. We had the parents of the Scout put all of their patches, neckerchiefs, Webelos pins, belt loops, special camp patches, etc. in the frame. These were then displayed at the Blue and Gold (where they crossed over) and presented by the parents to the scout before crossing over. It was a great reminder of what the boys earned, and by having the parent do it, it really made it personal! When the parents presented the boards, it was a very emotional time as we realized that our boys were growing up!

I originally posted this on another thread, but spun it off to this new one:

I understand the idea behind the Venturing program, to keep older youth in the program longer and to open it up to girls, and I think it is a good program. The issue that I am having with it is that we seem to be losing some of our older kids to the Crew that is associated with our Troop. I am a relatively new SM in the Troop and we had some of the same problems as mentioned before (same camps, same activities). We are getting the program back to being boy led and that is helping to come up with different camps now. I guess the issue that I have is that it is frustrating to have some of our 15-16 year old boys, get Life or Eagle and then "cross over" into the Crew. Any ideas on how to keep the boys in the Troop to continue to provide leadership to the younger boys?

I understand the idea behind the Venturing program, to keep older youth in the program longer and to open it up to girls, and I think it is a good program. The issue that I am having with it is that we seem to be losing some of our older kids to the Crew that is associated with our Troop. I am a relatively new SM in the Troop and we had some of the same problems as mentioned before (same camps, same activities). We are getting the program back to being boy led and that is helping to come up with different camps now. I guess the issue that I have is that it is frustrating to have some of our 15-16 year old boys, get Life or Eagle and then "cross over" into the Crew. Any ideas on how to keep the boys in the Troop to continue to provide leadership to the younger boys?

Our troop has a policy regarding attendance at meetings (not necessarily outings). If a scout misses more than 4 meetings in a row (without letting someone know the reason, thus, exempting people in sports/band), he becomes a "delinquent" scout. If the scout then returns, he must have a conference with the SM to discuss his continued committment to scouting. We have a boy in the troop who didn't show up all summer, suddenly at the end of the summer he showed up to a meeting, saying his dad promised him a car if he made Eagle Scout. He then didn't come to any meetings until this week's meeting (he plays football) which he showed up for not in uniform and left after a half an hour.

He only want to be Eagle for the car, and he certainly hasn't showed any "Scout Spirit" by his actions to date. If I am a younger scout and this boy makes Eagle, I would think that I could get away with doing little to nothing around the troop and still make Eagle. IMO, an Eagle like that truly devalues the Eagle Scout rank. I think this is a good reason to have some "attendance" policy.

I am a SM as well as a MB counselor for Golf and Personal Management. There are no other MB counselors for Golf in my troop but there are three other counselors for Personal Management. My son asked if he could do Personal Management with me as an eagle required MB for Star and I told him that he should ask one of the other counselors. I will do Golf with him as it is not Eagle required, however, I don't feel comfortable, especially since there are other counselors available, doing an Eagle required MB. I discussed this with the most recent SM (a temporary who has years of Scouting experience) and he agreed with my assessment.

Have you ever done the Buffalo Shipyards? You can sleep one night on the ship and then camp up near Niagara Falls. We have done that and it has been fun!

Being a new SM, I can certainly understand, if the SM is new, some hesitancy if they weren't properly trained. That being said, if the SM is trained, then the SM is as much at fault as the CC and needs to stand up for the boys. Is there anyone else in the troop that agrees with you or is she just bullying her way around with the other leaders.

If the boys feel the need to work on a particular topic (e.g, first aid) troop committee only has to be notified of the plans being made and can SUGGEST changes. Ultimately it is up to the boys to decide if they want to accept these changes. If the SM can't stand up to the CC then maybe it is time to get a new SM as well as a new CC.

Thanks for all the thoughts on the matter. It has been very helpful. The committee and ASMs are a good group leaders putting on a great program for the boys. They have just been "burned" in the past with elections and are trying to ensure the troop remains boy led but also stays strong!

I am going through SM training this week in the evenings and I know what the BSA program states. As I have seen in other posts in the various forum I am trying to change things somewhat gradually. I do, however, think there should be some vetting process at the committee level to ensure that candidates that are interested are qualified and to ensure that the same people don't keep getting elected to those positions on an ongoing basis.

As far as the idea of having the Scouts nominate themselves, I think that would be a good idea and I probably will do that next time.

Thanks,

Bill

I am currently involved in my second troop, as we moved and my son transferred to a new troop. I am also the new SM in this troop. In this troop they have appointed SPL and ASPL for the last couple of years due to "poor choices" by the boys in the past.

In the other troop that I was involved with, the boys elected the same SPL and ASPL as the previous year, even though they missed a third of the scouting year due to other committments and hadn't really been the best leaders, just more popular.

In my new role, I don't want to step on any toes (YET) and will go along within the next month of having the SM and committee select the SPL and ASPL. However, when we hold elections in six months, I will start the transition to the boys electing the SPL and ASPL. My thoughts were to have the SM and committee select three to four boys, that we feel are qualified and have the boys elect from those candidates.

Any thoughts?