ParkMan

On 1/24/2020 at 6:22 PM, Eagledad said:

I would enjoy heart them. There was a crew of older scouts that dressed in perfect Class  “A” uniforms and some thru their trek. We could here them when they were close. It’s the kind of stuff I believe OA scouts could do for elite status.

Barry

I keep imaging 6 days of team building activities.  I'm sure it's a lot more than that, but this is one of those times the vagueness isn't helping me.

Btw - gotta admit, having a Summit version is a good thing.  The course fee is reasonable for this and it's nice that as a East Coast person I can drive there.

I seem to recall that we've seen a the concept from national of "we don't penalize Scouts for the mistakes of adults."  I wonder how that translates to a case like this?

Thanks a lot for the course info.  I've been intrigued by it for a while now.  It's good to get a bit more context.

Sadly the Summit course conflicts with the families summer vacation.

2 hours ago, swilliams said:

Your first bullet point - yes he handed me the unit copy and his copy.  Our troop usually returns the scout portion along with the MB patch at a COH.

Second - yes the counselor signed both portions.

Third and fourth bullets - the blue cards that were issued by my predecessor are signed on the unit section, and on the applicant's record.  The ones I issued to the scout are signed on the unit portion, but not the applicant part.  No one ever told me how this was supposed to be done, so I've been signing the applicant's record part upon completion of the MB.  In this case, the scout handed the blue cards to me at the end of a troop meeting, so we didn't discuss anything, and it wasn't until the following morning that I had a chance to look at them closely.

This person hasn't been registered to the council associated with his address for the past three years, and even when he was, he wasn't a MB counselor for them.  Unless he was registered somewhere else in November of last year, it sounds like he's not a MB counselor at all.

DId you approve that this person was to be the MBC before work began?  Sorry if you already answered this - but I missed it.

I'm not sure the technical reason about why an unregistered MBC cannot sign off on merit badges.  I agree that having someone not qualified to sign off make absolutely no sense - but I'm not aware if there is really any check on this.  If there were, I have to imagine that many Eagle applications would be returned due to all the council mistakes about getting folks registered.

8 hours ago, mrkstvns said:

Well, Park, I'm with you on the spirit of fairness, but I sure wouldn't support any "rules" that are not in crystal-clear black and white.  If it's in the merit badge requirements, great, then the "no more, no less" guideline applies.  If it's in the BSA's official "Guide to Advancement", great, that's the rule that should be followed.

Beyond that, it's a slippery slope that really shouldn't be defended.  

Scoutmaster (or committee) imposed "rules" or "policies" should be thrown out. In my years of scouting, I have yet to see ANY rule proposed or stated that has actually been a good idea. I'm not sure there exists a wise, fair "unit policy".

There's a couple reasons I feel this way:

* scouts and their families join scouting to get "the scouting program".  The scouting program is defined by the National Council.  Deviations from that of any kind dilute the scouting program and cheat the scout out of getting the same scouting program that thousands of other scouts around the country enjoy.

* scouters should be there to help the scouts succeed. This is described in ILST, NYLT, Wood Badge, etc. as "servant leadership".  The idea is that a high quality leader will "open doors and remove obstacles".   ANY arbitrary rule is, by definition, an "obstacle", since no such impediment exists for most scouts in BSA...only to those unfortunate enough to have landed in the afflicted troop

Unit policies are really contrary to the spirit of scouting. They're unfair, they're an unnecessary obstacle, and they sow confusion because they're inconsistent with national policies followed by better-run units.

You and I agree here.  I'm not suggesting more rules.  The BSA rules are more than enough.

I'm just stating that the SM be clear that he/she is enforcing rules.  We have a tendency in Scouting to let rules side.  We do this for lots of reasons - but the net effect in many units it that the rules are not followed. 

If you've not been enforcing rules, it's a little much so that that paragraph 4 of section 3.2 of the guide to advancement says something.  So, before you're going to start pulling out rule books, you've got to be clear that this is the standard.

11 minutes ago, David CO said:

Correct.  I would also add the fact that the people giving the grant money did not intend for it to go to the council.  You should use it for the purpose the grant was intended.  It would be dishonest to do otherwise.

This is an excellent point I had not even considered.  You most likely cannot give the grant money to council anyways due the this fact.

Since you're new to the role, I think you have to ask yourself - "is what the Scout did in line with how things are typically done?"  DId the prior SM require signatures ahead of time?  Did the prior SM question the qualifications of the counselor?  Did the prior SM review the dates and progress on the MB?  Did the prior SM permit family members as MB counselors?  If the prior SM was the laid back type and if you have not changed the process, then you have to recognize that the Scout and family probably thought this was all fine.  If the prior SM was a by the rules type, then this Scout and family may be taking advantage of your newness here.  I would encourage you to be consistent in the rules you apply on retroactive work.  It should be the rules in place when the Scout was doing the work.

Given the size of the what was just turned in, it is most probably outside the bounds of what has been done before.  So, you have the right to question.  If a Scout walked in with 100 merit badges signed off we'd all question it.  While 9 is not 100, it still a lot.  It is certainly open to some questioning.  It's part of the personal development and adult association methods of Scouting.

Now, @David CO makes a very good point.  This may come back again when others look at it.  So, even if you are comfortable with everything till now - you still need to do some due diligence with the Scout.

To me, the bigger question is - "Is this how you want to run things as SM?"  While you may have to let something like this go, you have every ability to establish how you will do things going forward.  Requiring that all Blue Cards to be signed prior to work starting is a good practice.  Let your Scouts know that they need to use approved MBC and that their names need to be recorded on the Blue Cards prior to you approving.  You can certainly let the Scouts know there is a new Sheriff in town.  I'm a big fan of being firm, clear, fair, and compassionate.  

• Let the Scouts know you'll enforce the rules
• Make the rules clear
• If the Scouts follow the rules, then don't look for reasons to "fail" them.
• Understand this is life and it's a youth program.  Stuff will happen and so exceptions are OK.  But, they need to be that - exceptions.

Agree with others.  If you qualified for the grant, you keep it.

BTW - this is different than in the Girl Scouts.  In the Girl Scouts, units are owned by the GSUSA - so if they say turn over the money, then you have to.  In the BSA, you are simply paying the BSA a fee and agreeing to follow some basic rules in order to utilize program and name.  In the BSA you are a separate entity and so money you obtain like this belongs to your unit and your chartering organization.  If you ask enough council/national people - someone will tell you that soliciting funds and applying for a grant are the same thing.  But, they are really not.

Interestingly enough, I contacted the support line at national with a YPT policy question.  It was a pretty technical question where the G2SS and YPT training was not descriptive enough.

The response I got from national was that it's up to each SE to decide how they interpret YPT policy.  So, for something cut and dry it's pretty clear what a council is to do.  But, when you get into the grey areas like this one, different councils can apparently do different things.  So, I don't know that I'd get too hung up on the peculiarities in this case.

1 hour ago, David CO said:

BSA cannot always compel a non-member to leave a place that is not owned or controlled by BSA.  It is indeed a free society, and the unit can leave,  if they have a mind to do so, but they cannot always compel someone else to leave, or to follow their rules.  

Sure - that's true.  We cannot mandate anything really.  In almost all cases we can simply to tell people what we expect and to tell them when they are not welcome and ask them to leave.  I suppose that one could get into situations and discuss calling the police to forcibly remove people from the premises - but I hope that never happens. 

But, really, I think these are all technicalities.  In most cases, folks want to do the right thing.

My understanding matches @T2Eagle & @Sentinel947.

When you're at an event organized as a Scouting event, BSA YPT rules apply.  Of course a CO can impose even more restrictive rules, but they cannot waive any BSA YPT rules.  If a participant decides that they don't want to follow the BSA YPT rules, then they can leave the event.  It's a free society and no-one can compel anyone to attend the Scouting event. But, while there, we do require that those present follow the rules.

I'm not quite sure what we're discussing here.

At a Scouting event non-leaders need to follow the YPT rules.  However, it's not their job to implement them or to report on them.  The YPT rules are designed to be administered and overseen by registered adults.  That's why the rules all require at least one registered adult at pretty much all times.

So, while awareness in the non-leader community is important, it's not required because placing non-leaders and scouts together unsupervised should not happen.

34 minutes ago, Jackdaws said:

I left being the training chair about the end of 2018 mainly due to frustration on trying to get it thru peoples heads that it was not ME implementing these rules, its coming from lots of other people before it gets to little peons like me.  If they want to complain, start in Irving TX and work their way down but let me know how it goes. 

At the time of the new YPT roll out and for several months after they (council) said that no in person trainings for YPT could be held w/o the SE and other key people's approval.   Everyone kept saying it was like a 3-4 hour training when the online version would take 1.5 hours so just do it at home.   Council did hold a couple in person trainings but I don't believe the turn out was very good. 

Gotcha.

Yeah - it's too bad the BSA infrastructure makes this kind of thing so hard.  I can see that the BSA online version has been carefully constructed such that it conveys lots of information.  I further recognize that the key concern is that a volunteer trainer will omit important information which could then result in serious mistakes.  I know our volunteer trainers can be successful here - it just requires a little elbow grease and some faith in the system from national.

5 minutes ago, Jackdaws said:

Prior to the new YPT rule coming into effect in 2018, our pack would hold several group Youth Protection trainings for all parents/guardians.  We would do a parent orientation right after round up and then a couple more before we went camping for the first time.    We filled out training rosters and I submitted them to council for them to hold.   Then they came out with the new training and no one could get an in person copy to do  a group training.  It had to be cleared by the Scout Executive and several others at council.   Jeepers.   We had to drop committee members because for whatever reason, couldn't seem to find that 90 or so min. to take it at home(really lame excuses).   It was a huge pain in the rear end.   I was the district training chair at the time and I was ready to pull out my quickly graying hair.  I caught so much crap from the 60-80 year old leaders who tried to say they didn't have a computer.  I said you can go to the library and use one there for free.  Even offered them a ride if that was really the case.   They got it done but sheesh it killed me and soured me on being the training person. 

By not allowing in person group trainings, I feel like the safety levels have gone down.   Those who would have been informed previously now  are unaware of all of the new protections in place.   

We have asked that parents of boys in our troop sit with their son and do the YPT.  We had some issues with bullying last year so we asked it so the boys are aware of their actions and behaviors.  We are thinking of asking it again as the boys are now starting to notice girls and will be interacting with them at certain events and at summer camp.    We want to make sure they know the boundaries.   

I think where the main issue maybe is the 72 hour rule and requiring the adults to be trained.   If you go on 2 camp outs that makes for over 72 hours.   In Cub Scouts that is going to make for a lot of irritated parents if packs stick to their guns on that rule.  

 

 

The BSA allows for in-person YPT courses.  Our council does them.  There is a printed syllabus, trainers are certified, and they are required to teach the curriculum "as is".  The presentation has to be up to the level of the online training.  Since you're the district training chair I'd encourage a conversation with the council training chair and YPT champion.  

I pulled out the Handbook on my shelf (12th edition).  It had this definition of Obedient:

Quote

A Scout is obedient. A Scout follows the rules of his family, school, and troop. He
obeys the laws of his community and country. If he thinks these rules and laws are
unfair, he seeks to have them changed in an orderly way.

Later, there was a quote on a Scout being Chivalrous.  It had this passage which was a quote from the 1914 handbook:

Quote

He should be obedient to his parents, and show respect to those who are his superiors.

There are other quotes around obey that I could find - mostly having to do with either obeying the Scout Oath & Law or obeying laws.

My take away is that even our printed materials don't make the case that a Scout should obey all adults.  He should respect those who are "superior" - but that's as far as it goes.  If an adult comes along and tells the Scout to do something different on first aid, the Scout needs to show that he/she respectfully considered it, but made a different decision.  This is the lesson I think we teach - we need to respect adults - but not necessarily obey them.

Strikes me that this is part of the natural process of development for kids/young adults.  When you're very young, you tend to have few places where you serve as a leader or an owner of a task. 

• At 6, you're mostly playing, having fun, doing a few chores. 
• By 10, you start to take on tasks - some of them with responsibility. 
• By 15 the tasks are more complex, and you're starting to own projects where you have to interact with adults.
• By 18, you're taking on adult roles.

As you progress, you're going to hit this natural conflict of "youth do as adults direct" vs. "people who own and are responsible for tasks have to interact professionally with adults"

I think most 13/14 year olds would have a hard time with this.  But, I do see that generally as Scouts grow older the become more confident in owning the task and interacting with adults.  Some of the best Scout youth leaders I've seen have no problems respectfully telling an adult no.  

Thanks a lot for the comments @fred8033.  I very much see what you're saying.

I'm sorry if my own comments came off as "too bad, so sad - you should have joined a big troop."  It was not my intent to make this a big vs. small discussion.

At the core of what I've seen in our larger troop experience is a sense of "let's make sure the Scouts we serve are provided opportunities to enjoy and learn from Scouting."  It's been my experience that our ASMs, Troop Committee Members, and Merit Badge Counselors work to make sure they do their job - provide the infrastructure so that Scouts can run their own program.  So, as you run down the list of needed infrastructure, what you see in our larger troop is effort is expended to make sure the support is there.

MBC is a good example of that.  It's not that we're trying to keep our MBC to ourselves - not at all.  In fact, we proposed to the district that we establish a network of MB coordinators in larger troops to help build up the list of MBC. (That offer was declined.)  It's that we looked at what our Scouts were requesting and said - hey, we've got 100 parents, let's see if we can put something together to support what our scouts are asking for. 

In our trips and activities, we routinely have friends from other troops join us.  We routinely lend out gear and supplies.  We routinely hold joint trips with other units.

We don't try to cut corners on advancement.  Not at all.  No-one is making our MBC soft sell requirements.  Scouts earn their merit badges with us.  We just don't believe in having a ton of hoops to go line up a MBC.  We have someone who will make sure you don't have to go find a guy four towns over who will counsel you on First Aid.

There's nothing we do that a smaller troop cannot do - nothing.  Further, we'd bend over backwards to help smaller troops.  But, the small troops rarely ask.  In fact, most of the support we lend outside the troop is to other big troops. 

Units really do need to have a plan to replace 20% of their membership every year.  Cub Scouts cross over, Scouts BSA & Venture Scouts age out.  Further, if you're less than 30 Scouts, you need a plan to get to 30.

From reading the article, it sounds like the new SM is getting focused on that.

From looking online, is appears that the troop's CO has a pack as well.  If so, and those Scouts don't cross over to that troop, is there a reason?  A program problem perhaps?

In addition to @mrkstvns great list, I'd enocurage the SM to have an honest sitdown with the families, the remaining leaders, and the COR.  This troops #1 focus needs to be program, but #2 needs to be growth.  They need a defined plan to grow again.

20 hours ago, fred8033 said:

This MB discussion is very disheartening. 

Please elaborate - why?

*EDIT*

Sorry, I advanced pages and see now.  Would it be correct to say that you don't agree with bigger troops and how they do things?

35 minutes ago, Navybone said:

Any response and continuation of this line of thinking would probably be more applicable in a different thread.  

I agree with @Navybone

On this topic, I would only try to bring it back to the initial line of discussion in the thread to say that I believe it's important for Councils to remember that our roles here are to deliver the Scouting program to Scouts.  For most of us, we got involved with a specific unit to help there.  Sure, most of us are willing to help another unit from time to time when asked.  But, there are practical limits to that.  I believe councils need to tread very lightly in how they conscript unit level volunteers into council level programs.

26 minutes ago, walk in the woods said:

To be clear, I agree that consolidating the MBC process at the council level is bone-headed.  Given the district I served is 100 miles end-to-end I don't know that a district coordinator makes any more sense.  I never had any problems recruiting local people to work with the boys in any number of topics.  They just weren't going to become members of the BSA to do it and they weren't interested in being called by scouts other than those in the local unit.  That's the rub, requiring membership and forcing people to be available beyond their desire to do so.  

Gotcha.  Actually, I think we are mostly in agreement here then.  I do understand the YPT concerns.  But, other than that, I think we can trust that merit badge counselling can be done without a ton of process.  District/Council lists, registration, mandatory training is more than we really need. 

I do agree that training is most often a good thing.  But, making it mandatory is a bit much in my book.  Create a decent 3 page flyer that explains the process for those that need the highlights and put the full training out there for those that want it.  Make training optional.  If you've not taken YPT and are not registered, then you need another registered adult present +mom/dad.  If you are registered & have YPT, then you can fill that roll.  Scoutmaster,ASM, or advancement chair is responsible for making sure the process is followed.  This seems like a pretty reasonable plan to me.

20 minutes ago, qwazse said:

No slight. Just saying it's a big country.

I''m observing in my community is a strong preference for GS/USA as the program for their girls to achieve what Boy Scouts achieve. That's a credit to their leaders. No point in starting a troop here among mostly contented girls. So, I'm just buying their cookies. In communities where it is seen as as a (i.e., one of many) program for their girls, Scouts BSA is launching a troop or two -- roughly the size of a patrol. In communities where Scouts BSA is the opportunity for girls to achieve what Boy Scouts achieve, you will have the 5-patrol Scouts BSA girls' troops.

Ahh- gotcha!

My area must be in the middle.  We've got a successful troop for girls, but maybe because it's a lager area.

Myself - I've got two daughters who are girl scouts and don't see that changing.  I'll be selling cookies with her Saturday.

3 hours ago, walk in the woods said:

True but that unnecessarily restricts the pool of MBCs in small units and small population centers.  My local auto body guy and welder and blacksmith and volunteer firemen and teachers are perfectly happy to work with the scouts in their town on merit badges but have zero interest in being members of BSA and working with scouts from other towns.  As a result the boys either have to travel great distances to meet a counselor, avail themselves of MB fairs, or go to local venues offering mass merit badge classes.  The system disincentives local experts from getting involved which restricts the adult association method

I would most certainly not look at it as an either/or situation.  A troop can certainly build up a MBC list from within their parents and also have outside counselors.  

In a different topic @Cburkhardt mentioned the value he sees in a larger troop.  I'd echo the same thing here.  In our troop of 75 Scouts, we've got enough adults that we've invested in things like having an adult to co-ordinate our MBC list.  In our case we don't go out and solicit other local volunteers - but we could.  If were were a smaller town troop and we had a bunch of Scouts who'd been asking about the automotive maintenance MB, I'm sure our MB coordinator would be thinking about where he could find such a person.  Now, there's nothing that says a smaller troop cannot do the same thing - but I do recognize that there are less likely to be adults around who you could enlist to take that on.

It would make perfect sense for a district volunteer to do this kind of thing.  But frankly - I think the problem is too big there.  A volunteer or two trying to line up enough MBC for 500-1000 Scouts would be doing this all the time.  So there, I think the district MB coordinator really should be building a network with troop MB coordinators and working with them to get the list populated.  This another reason why I think retrenching this to the council level doesn't make much sense.  If it were too hard for a district MB coordinator to build a program for 500-1000 scouts, how will the council MB coordinator do it for 3,000 to 10,000 scouts?

Just now, qwazse said:

Because our GS/USA troops are outstanding, and I don't want to jeopardize my cookie supply chain. 

I'm a simple person - but gotta admit that I'm not following you here..

My daughters as GS/USA members - so if you perceive a slight in my comments, it's not intentional.  What I have come to realize is that the GS/USA programs and structure are largely different from the BSA program.  The GS/USA system is probably more flexible than the BSA model - but many of the GS/USA troops out there are focused differently than BSA troops.

I've also witnessed first hand successful community troops for girls.  It has convinced me that the best way to build up troops for girls is to start focused, community based troops.  As they become successful and reach saturation point, then we can start more.  But, I'd rather see 1 troop of 25-30 girls than 5 troops of 5 girls.

I'm with @Cburkhardt on this.

The best way to expand Scouting - whether it's for boys or girls - is to provide them solid units with great programs.  Two paid members can be a stepping stone to 30 members, but it should just be that.  If your community doesn't have a troop for girls yet, why not reach out to the other local packs & troops and do something at a community level?