qwazse

@Tron good questions, but the honest answer: if it works, it will take decades.

You were probably quite good at it, but it wasn’t your job. That’s the job of a UC or DE. And National has not adopted a vision of the pinnacle scouting experience: hiking and camping independently with your mates.

You led with “immature 14 y.o.” so let’s chew on that. By definition, immaturity defines the movement. He’s 14 and you’re wishing he was 16. I find that knit-picking requirements is not a great way to do that. Instead, make him responsible for opening and closing meetings, introducing adults who have announcements (or having him read them instead of handing adults the floor), inspecting patrols, reviewing the QM’s needs, keeping a clean camp, etc … Regarding nuances of advancement, ask the PLC what is fair and best for the troop.

A month has passed and, sadly, we now know how wrong things can go. Mrs. Q took the tragedy of the Guadalupe river quite hard. Most of us have dropped our young kids off in youth camp cabins, promising we’d see them at the end of a week or weekend. So, we all can relate. The leaders who can see a potential catastrophe and act decisively even when the probability is low are too few. The co-leaders willing to hear them out and join in action are even fewer. Be those leaders.

Back to her point … SA does poorly at recruiting board members from minority communities. However, many leaders in minority communities could lose support from those communities if they side with progressive causes (which SA is now seen to have become) or if they side with causes that attract mainly white makes (which SA factually does). It’s a tougher sell than most academics appreciate.

Let’s not overthink @Armymutt’s strategy. His troop has a lot of immature scouts. (I wouldn’t use “junior” although they all would probably be in junior high school.) It’s not entirely clear how to adjust for that. They will grow into their positions of responsibility with a lot of hiking and camping, and adults fading into the background a little more after every campout. I would discourage leaders from establishing hard and fast prohibition of electronic devices. Rather, develop systems of etiquette for the youth to apply using their devices.

The qualified adult may supervise a team of competent youth. Your location is non-trivial. It is easy to let one’s guard down in a home pool. Simplest suggestion; make sure everyone has left the water at designated times. Don’t take for granted the swimmer on the ladder will be out if your back turns away.

Hopefully the WiFi is so bad that you won’t read this until the week ends. Have a hand time!

Our district holds Klondike there (using several of the pavilions). It includes rope rescue (however, on a steep hillside). I have been in the park on an orienteering course during a flash flood. It can get sketchy fast.

There’s nothing stopping a scout from carrying his/her pack throughout the trip.

The liability question will be does BSA have some operating procedure on a national level that increases the risk of such incidents? Renting to outside groups is one procedure. But, are ranges being allowed to be built and operated in a way that now increases incidents? Once shooting sports is addressed, we’ll have to take a hard look at acquatics. National has offloaded guard training on to ARC. It’s good, but is it reducing risk.

About three weeks before camps open. Perfect timing.

To boil the job description down, it’s on the patch: assist the scoutmaster I routinely ask my SMs and MCs if I’m helping or hindering (not necessarily using those words). Then I adjust accordingly.

Regarding your original question about choices of activities: they evolve as the troop evolves. The bad news: a huge influx of crossovers will require you to focus your on basic skills and relatively short hikes to campsites. Nothing can make a 1st year hate backpacking like 4 hard miles in backcountry. On the other hand, with proper conditioning, they will be begging for a 4 day midweek outing in the middle of Dolly Sods. Regarding load balancing of chores: it takes attending multiple events to understand those dynamics. You may have seen a weekend where the younger scouts did the dishes, but on the previous camp out they may have been the cooks. You might not have seen the hours after the first trip that the older scouts had put in cleaning carbon from pots, or the hours before the trip you were on that they spent organizing gear with the QM. Attend several consecutive outings, and you might be qualified to put a bug in the SM’s ear about patterns of behavior that should be reformed.

World Jambo your jam? This is one mailing list that you might want to be on. I am really excited that Bill is head of the USA contingent.