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@@ianwilkins, what you've described is basically the BSA policy. We can go on about back-country depth charts. etc ..., but the general policy is the same. @@MattR, just because you don't value your 5 minutes, doesn't mean that you shouldn't disrespect someone who does! You could say the same thing each of the other 3 forms that Pennsylvanian's must complete. Well then that's 20 minutes. Plus, mandatory training. State mandated paperwork for anyone serving with youth in any capacity has quadrupled in PA, and we've had a corresponding plummet of adult leaders from our rosters. Don't need comments on a blog to know that's a new reality. The "time" excuse should usually be translated into "sorry, scouting is not a priority." Folks get offended being called out that way, but I far prefer friends who will admit that, instead of scouting, they'd rather work that double shift to have a more expensive house or bigger vacation or cover the increased costs of fuel, etc ... or simply would rather occupy their time with another hobby.

Well, I hope what he learned at Powderhorn can be used to up his troop's game. (Although a more active troop won't prevent those last-minute Eagles you mentioned.) But, the adults need to be willing to let him give it a go. Here's hoping.

Maybe here's where the smoke and mirrors come in. The WB class is already chock full of leaders. Months before someone looked at each participant and somehow decided "I trust you to lead our youth." (Except for my co-advisor who handed me the adult application and said, "You only need to do this on paper so our girls can do Seabase." But that's another story.) There's really not much higher leadership in scouting. At least that's what the pro's -- the ones who actually make a career of this thing -- are always telling us. So, anybody thinking they are going to add much to such people's leadership skills has another thing coming. They will lead, and men, women, boys and girls will follow. At best, folks like that (myself included) can only benefit from managing their leadership better. Maybe they can get sold a "We all can win" vision that they poo pooed before. Maybe they can learn to wait patiently as youth go through team-building stages. Maybe they have a few more folks who they can trust to call when they're stuck with a scouter's chestnut and folks in their unit aren't helping. Perhaps when more wood was harmed in the process of WB completion, folks didn't notice what's going on. But now the whole notion of manipulating-what-you're-already-doing because we-think-there's-something-you-may-be-lacking ... well, that's what the course -- especially the game -- boils down to. Once those kind of cards are on the table, a large minority of folks aren't gonna want to pick them up. This is especially true of already strong leaders who've had it up to the eyeballs with management training.

If the boy is smart enough to provide dinner at the midpoint (assuming a reputation for cooking up some serious meals), I bet the project time gets cut by more than half .

Mea culpa, I'll go staple this over Exodus 20 right now ... Plus, I'll have copies taped to every married couple's tent who is kind enough to chaperon my crew. And here I thought suggesting they camp 100' yards away -- with a warning that I've been known to applaud command performances -- would have been sufficient.

FWIW, in the units that I'm in, adults pay for their own application out of their own dues.

JG, have a great time staffing. Use what you've learned here to help students navigate around pitfalls. Respect the "two weekends away" cost to their units. Help build tickets that actually offset that.

Glad you're here. Have fun!

Yeah, right. Same person who has "Train Them Trust 'em ..." plastered all over ... Some folks get it into their heads that youth need infinite training ... and therefore are unwilling to go beyond that step. So, they need someone else with magic beads to teach them to read.

Well, the tickets are things that I was meaning to do anyway, WB was an excuse to get around to it. The name tag lasted for a couple years. The WB necker is the only one of mine that's big enough to wear and durable enough to serve in a pinch as an actual cloth. No clue where those beads are. I think WB did help polish the rough edges of a few of my leaders. One leader was going off on me about the youth-planned menus, and her WB-trained spouse was able to make clear I was doing it by the book. But, our batch of current leaders (both in the troop and crew) seem to be doing just fine, so I agree with you. The topics are just esoteric enough to not improve on the average by-the-book scouter's intuition.

EoF, this is a discussion because it's a big country. And add the Brits who kindly chime in, sometimes on behalf of other Europeans, it's a big hemisphere. With older units, the adults should have their tents pitched at some distance from the youth. I suppose, with classic scouting (to steal a term from another thread) the SM left his wife behind. I wouldn't know, my SM was a retired bachelor who lived with his sister -- and she never set foot on a campout. I did have a Jamboree SM who was on the younger side, and he made it quite clear that he was excited to get back to his wife and baby at the end of the week. It was a trait that I admired. Blame my Arab-American heritage, but allowing a husband and wife their own tent is as old as Genesis. To me, that trumps any "we're here for the kids" high horses. ( That's how we get all of those kids. ) It doesn't hurt to know that some of the ways we click aren't automatic to other people. Winding up with an exchange student or family in your unit is more likely than people realize. So, knowing that folks from outside our respective communities would expect things to work differently helps us to be prepared.

Correction @Col. Flagg, it consumes two weekends ... As to @Back Pack's query of what leadership skills game theory teaches (or attempts to teach), I suggest wading through the miasma of previous replies in this thread @just a scout mom, I suggest you write your vision or ticket -- for yourself, don't worry about the course. Then drop your PL and course director a line telling them you don't think you'll be coming back. If either of them take the time to offer polite conversation, take them up on it. Then, after hearing them out, make your decision.

I'm sure that with a couple more events, they'll, become quite good. The adults will, too. Then you'll have to up the game. A while back, I introduced a modification of your standard course: http://scouter.com/index.php/topic/28587-goodbye-camporees-wfws-hello-saws/?p=445543 That thread has some other good ideas. Enjoy.

Pictures? Bring a kid! Sounds like you have one or more of those! These folks have been power-pointed to death. Pass around polaroids, crafts past campers have made, scrapbooks. If the kid functions well enough, have a simple interview about what he/she likes or dislikes and is looking forward to. If he/she doesn't speak much, have a parent talk about what it means to have a place like this for their child. That cuts the time you need for any old hillbilly shtick to just a couple minutes. Chances are the only other A/V you may want are a pie-chart of income, one of expenses, and some graphic of numbers served by category (age, level of disability, etc..).

Ten PM troops with 4 crack patrols is not automatically gonna get you 50 crack patrols the following year. If each of those boys only applies the fourth point of the Scout Law to their circle of 8, it might not even get you enough recruits to maintain the existing 40 patrols across the district.

But, you can still learn it from a coloring book ... Cold war humor + crayons.

@@MattR - I was going to post that I didn't intend my report to end on the negative. The overall positive was that our rountable commish was pushing everyone to put their cards on the table. So, we all got to hear how far each was taking or wanted to take the definition of youth leadership. The fact that a young woman on her first visit felt comfortable enough to be part of our conversation shows that we've got scouters who will listen. The challenge, I suppose, is dealing with all of the folks who don't come to round-tables or committee meetings. They are the ones who need hear SM/ASMs set boundaries for the adults. It seems that "dumping and running" was the first instinct for folks my parent's age. Parents my age and younger were preached "watch like a hawk."

I think @@MattR hit on a key point: youth recruiters. Your council might even have generic "recruiter" patches. But ideally, there will be a two-way system. Scouts who recruit friends get patches/premiums, but also you read out their names and unit numbers at each round table, and post them on a board that you maintain. How this happens in a district depends on what folks in that district generally respond to (e.g., E-mails, visits at unit meetings, name in lights, etc ...). But, at the end of the day, this all assumes you all have trained your boys on how to be friendly to complete strangers. There is no Personnel Management merit badge. So you have to teach boys to think about being good "big brothers". I have to do the same for my venturers. When, they fail to show strong friendship, our crew shrinks -- even if we're up to some fantastic adventures. When they work at fellowship, even fiddling with ropes from the knot box feels like the greatest thing in the world.

RT break-out discussed "boy-led" last night. I think it was a fairly frank discussion with nobody feeling like there was a party-line they needed to tow. A venturing crew joined us, and I was pleased that one of the young women felt comfortable enough to chimed in on how they operate with their advisor. The good news: A wide spectrum of approaches. Some scouters have fully boy-run CoH's; others, the boys make presentations to pitch their preferred "big-trip" for everyone else to vote on; others are diligent at herding adults away from the scouts and allowing "controlled failure." My mantra of the pinnacle scouting experience being hiking and camping independently with your mates got lots of nods of agreement. Other scouters had some very good visions like the ones mentioned above. The bad news: Only in a minority of troops does the SPL govern who has the floor at all times. Very few scouters grew up with a CO who granted a room for each patrol and a troop where adults were rarely seen and less often heard. The ideal of 300' separation between each patrol and the adults was alien to all. One seasoned scouter capitulated to the "good reasoning of the times" that independent patrol overnights were a thing of the past.

The following may amount to a lot of work for a small yield, but if your district has any Crews, they may benefit: Venturing has this Activity Interest Survey that is supposed to be circulated among high-school youth. You might want to contact your crew advisors. Find out the nearby high schools. Ask if they'd like help surveying them. Set up and run the survey (maybe a crew officer can assist). Give the crews the forms with a challenge to follow-up. Your in a new district and it takes a lot of work to get to know everyone, so frequent the round tables. Find out what your most active scouters are doing. Figure out who needs help, which doors haven't been knocked on for a while, etc .... I'm afraid to say very little of this is boiler-plate.

UW funds local councils. So, they want to hear from local folks about the organization. It would be gravy if you know someone who benefited from a campership that may have been directly or indirectly funded by UW. But, more likely, they just want to hear how much boys enjoy the program that the council provides. So, they want to hear some of your personal adventures. If you've also known female Venturers, Sea Scouts, and Explorers, and how they are now serving the community you could mention them as well.

.... fond memories traveling poor and ordering horse steaks in .2 Kg slices ... then tenderizing to country fry ... @@CherokeeScouter, pick a best answer so Flagg can justify his indignation.

holely multi-punched Hollerith cards!

Here's the deal, IF HE WANTED ON HIS OWN TO TRY THIS MB, he's ready to give it a go. You were absolutely right not to push on advancements. That's his patrol leader's job. And, it really depends on what the scout is doing. So, if they are going to a waterfront and one member hasn't passed a swim test, then the PL busts hump to line up a swim test so his guy who missed camp can qualify to use a kayak. That has nothing to do with advancement, it has to do with safe swim defense. A tall order for a PL, but one that helps a scout feel taken care of. Now, this is another opportunity for a scout to be part of the group. Lean on that MBC and ask him to allow your son in the class like the GTA says he should. But, more importantly, so this caring adult could help you and his SM make this boy feel like he really is a scout (the concept, not the patch), appealing to the 4th point of the scout law. BTW, you are not the first soldier who I've met who would rather not camp and hike. I've known WW-II vets who when they came home vowed to never spend a night under stars again. (Vertical warfare in the Alps will do that to a fella.) I'll admit that some of those camp outs my first year were really rough. (Dad/brothers never came with me, either.) But, coming back the second year having learned how to enjoy myself -- ultimately sealed the deal. So, pardon me if I read into this, but your son might be just the kind of guy this troop needs ... if they can keep him engaged until he gains his footing.

The trick, here, is to discourage MBC's from discriminating against boys based on age or rank. If a boy decides his trail to Eagle is going to start with earning 100+ MBs -- after which he will attend to the tedium of T2FC, so be it. Work with the boy, and every 10 MBs or so acquired, mention, "Hmmm, wouldn't you like a new oval patch on your left pocket?" I think that's the real issue in @Phrogger's troop. They have an advancement "meat grinder" that works perfectly for 7 of 8 boys. For the 8th kid it's "Sorry, Square, that hole we drilled doesn't have any corners." In my troop, I've seen this happen a few times (one in eight), but I've also seen boys stick up for the out-of-place scout. They wouldn't attend the class until they were sure the odd man out was welcome. That's the problem as troops become boy-led, they pretty directly question your crazy schemes. Edited: I'm changing my advice: Talk to the MBC. Explain to him the situation and ask if he could play this one by the book. If you explain that your boy is losing interest in scouting fast, and you think this time with his fellow scouts might be a game-changer -- even if he comes away with a partial -- might help turn that attitude around.