Beavah

Yah, sure. We're here to serve da kids... all of da kids.

There's always a balance between "generosity" toward one and the negative example one gives boys who work hard on the straight and narrow when you let somebody skate by with "minimal" expectations. Personally, I vote most often with keeping the expectations and examples high for all of the boys.

And yah, the service dat I owe I owe primarily to the boys who are takin' the time and effort to show up. Nothin' I can do to teach character to boys who don't participate, other than not give them awards that recognize trustworthy and committed service.

I'm with Vivendi. Scouting is a program to help kids learn and grow, not some game of bizarre word-splitting adult legalism. What individual and group expectations make sense to help kids grow in character, fitness, and citizenship? Active=Registered would make even the most litigious trial attorney laugh.

Half the troops in our district define active as a % participation requirement. It's important that this be consistent, and applied to Star and Life, not left as a "surprise" for Eagle candidates. Troops that set high expectations tend to be self-enforcing. Kids want to be recognized by their peers and the adult leaders they care about. They want a "Troop XXX Eagle," and peer pressure will frown on any shortcuts.

We've had a few appeals within the district. The pattern has been that appeals tend to give the boy the benefit of the doubt... but only the benefit of the doubt. Units with good documentation and clear communication with the boy/family tend to have reasonable participation expectations upheld.

If your CAC is giving you grief, you should also be aware that you can ask your council registrar to switch any boy's status to "inactive" or "associate" membership. That should solve da problem with officious dodos.

I do think it's a bit weird to keep a boy on the roster who hasn't attended anything for 6 months or more. Drop him. When he wants to rejoin, require a SM conference and an application, and then think carefully about whether that will be a good thing. You don't have to accept the application if you feel the boy is just manipulating the system to "get" Eagle, rather than living the Oath and Law to "be" Eagle.

>>The adult leaders do retest the boy's on some of the more difficult requirements just to keep them honest.

The new troop we joined has moved in this direction also. I have even seen them appoint a temporary SPL when on my sn's first trip the SPL, neither of the two ASPL's or any PL's were going.

I may be confuseled, but what's da problem with this now? If neither the SPL or ASPL can make a trip, shouldn't another boy be appointed "temporary SPL" for the trip (by the regular SPL)? Or should the adults just take over? It's nice when the SPL can make everything, but schedules conflict, or kids get sick, eh?

I see nothin' wrong with the two PL's agreeing to have their patrols collaborate for the weekend. That's a kid-level decision that I think a wise SM stays out of. What's more, it's what any of us adults would do confronted with the same circumstances. Seems silly to veto a decision we would make ourselves.

Now, if you're concerned that it's happening too often, then I think the wise SM increases the size of the patrols. If you average 50% attendance, then a patrol size of 10-12 is probably better than a patrol size of 4-6.

Several Texas councils. Fraud. Atlanta. Fraud. Alabama. Fraud and expelling the whistleblowers. Crater Lake. Fraud. Monmouth. Gross Financial Mismanagement. Chicago. Gross violation of law and process. Dozens of councils. Financial mismangement leading to sale of donated program lands.

A scout is Trustworthy and Mentally Awake. We don't really think this is the end of the list, do we? These are just the ones who have gotten caught so far.

The Scouting movement in the U.S. is healthy, and the work of the boys and adult volunteers is something to celebrate. Scouting does great things for kids, and families, and da nation, eh?

The scouting corporations in the U.S. I think we all must honestly admit are not healthy.

The solution: appoint a dedicated volunteer who understands finance and law to the COR position in every unit, and have them show up at every annual meeting, and have them insist that the Executive Board, Executive Committee, and officers consist of at least 50% COR's from their ranks. Your COR can still be dual-registered as Committee Chair or a committee member, so you don't "lose him."

If your unit right now doesn't know (a) who your COR is, or (b) that your COR is someone who is pushing actively for service and accountability then fix it. That's part of "On our honor, we will do our best to do our duty."

As far as dysentery goes, da most likely culprit is not washin' hands before eating or food prep. Followed by improperly stored/cooked food, and soap residue. Not chemically sanitizing dishes is not even on the radar.

What Trevorum says is right of course, eh? LNT, like the scout oath and law, is practiced as an ethic, not a set of rules. So sure, if you have access to a sink that drains to a treatment plant or a large septic field, then whatever. When you don't, there are still times, as when treating wounds, when some soap is necessary for the health of humans, or when a touch of halogen is necessary for treating water.

But not usually for doin' dishes, at least not if you Plan Ahead and Prepare. Certainly not as a standard practice. And heavy chemical sanitizers or halogen dosing? Never.

I'd tend to apply this even front-country campin'. Would we really tell our kids that it's OK to dump their dirty, soapy dishwater and bleach on their neighbor's front lawn? Then why should it be OK in the public campsites we share with our neighbors?

Properly Dispose of Wastewater

"For dish washing... use hot water, elbow grease, and little or no soap. Hot water, a little elbow grease, and sand, snow, or other natural "scrubbies" can tackle most backcountry cleaning chores. Soap is unnecessary for most dishwashing jobs and can be difficult to thoroughly rinse off. If soap is used at all, it should be used sparingly. Soap, even when it's biodegradable, can affect the water quality of lakes and streams."

- Excerpted quotes from the Leave No Trace Master Educator Handbook and skills and ethics pamphlets.

Yah, KScoutmom, welcome to da forums, eh?

I think you'll find scouting is a safe and happy home away from home for your active "high adventure" kid. In my experience, there isn't another youth program like it, which combines fitness and adventure and learning and leadership and mentoring and values.

Don't fret about the safety stuff. What you're seeing is mostly reporting bias. If the news reported every kid in the nation who got hurt riding a bicycle in his neighborhood, we'd all be prohibiting bicycles until boys were 26. Bad things do occasionally happen. When you put 1,000,000 boys in the field on a regular basis a few are going to get sick or hurt... just the way they would in school, or sports, or their backyard.

I like my fellow Beavah's reply. I'd second that notion. But I think you need to consider a few things before you commit.

Do you have an ASM who is really good with these younger "wild thangs?" An ASM/NSP requires a particular sort of personality. Do you have two older boys committed to being Troop Guides, who are also good with younger boys (remember, on any given weekend, one of 'em's goin to be sick, or on a date, or...)?

What does your troop "feel like?" Is there an ethic of older boys lookin' out for and takin' care of the younger guys, or not?

What's up with the webelos? Do they all know each other? Are there any "personality issues?" Are they pretty tough/independent, or shy/scared/timid?

What you do short term should take these things into account.

Gotta make a few gentle corrections, LongHaul.

The accident insurance and liability insurance covering the pack and your CO could be void if the pack knowingly violates the GTSS age appropriate guidelines.

Nah. Yeh shouldn't be sayin' stuff like this. First off, the age appropriate guidelines aren't in G2SS; they're in a relatively obscure bin item publication. They're well enough done, but they're guidelines; there's no relationship to insurance exclusions. You hurt the BSA when you make volunteers all nutty about insurance not coverin' for this, that or the other thing. It isn't trustworthy or true, and it scares good people away.

A Horizontal Wall is one on which the climber is never more than 2 feet off the ground and traverses the wall side to side.

Two feet? Nah. There's no such definition. Not above shoulder height is a good guide.

Bouldering is basic or intermediate climbing carried out on relatively small rocks that can be traversed without great risk of bodily harm in case of fall.

Basic or intermediate? Try tellin' that to someone trying to boulder a V10! Bouldering is unroped solo climbing at heights where safety can be reasonably maintained by spotters and "crash pads."

BSA requires that a scout must be belayed if that scout is to be four feet off the ground such as crossing a rope bridge or climbing a tower or climbing wall.

Where's that from? Not in my copy of Topping Out or CD notebook. Again, "not above shoulder height" is the BSA guideline.

Belaying is NOT age appropriate for Cub Scout Aged boys. Exceptions are commercial establishments where the facility assumes the risk for equipment and instruction

No exception for this rule. No reputable gym is going to let boys under age 12 (or more likely age 14) belay as a primary belayer. BSA allows any Boy Scout to belay, but a good instructor is going to back up the belay of any younger boy scout.

Those who think that proper cleaning of eating and cooking utensils is hogwash are fine doing whatever they wish with their own utensils, but should not risk others' health with their misguidance.

OK, let's be clear. Nobody is suggesting that we should not teach scouts the proper cleaning of cooking and eating utensils to protect against health risks. But good gracious, most families I know don't go through the regimen kenk suggests in their own homes.

What those of us who practice LNT camping are suggesting is that it is perfectly possible to properly clean utensils without behaving like we are an urban commercial/industrial kitchen, and thereby avoid dumping a bunch of soap and chlorine into our wild lands. In fact, we're not just suggesting that, we're insisting on it as a form of good citizenship. Dat soap and halogen of yours is messin' up my favorite fishin' holes.

I dunno about you, but we've had kids and adults out in da woods for lots of years, without ever touchin' halogen sanitizers or more than a couple' o' drops o' soap a year. Perfectly safe.

Which is why that's the practice, for example, at Philmont, and Northern Tier, and on every National Forest and Wilderness area brochure.

Except dat BSA troops are expected to follow Leave No Trace, because it's part of the program and because it's part of being a good citizen these days.

My understandin' is dat the folks who developed Leave No Trace and those that practice it have spent a heck of a lot of time in the woods without makin' anybody sick. Seems like followin' the advice of experts is a good thing to teach, too.

Unless of course we want to hang on to our reputation for bein' outdated, bad citizens in the woods, who give land managers fits.

Yah, sorry fellow Beavah. My accent must have thrown ya off.

I meant that "Since BSA training doesn't cover how a leader or committee should respond to serious behavioral issues in youth, or what constitutes liability risk, or how to handle confrontation while upholding standards" you need to find people who understand those things to serve on your committee.

Lose da clorox. Poor Leave-No-Trace technique. For that matter, lose the soap for the same reason.

If you're really sharp, lose the 3 pans.

Yah, I'm not as skeptical as ScoutNut about this.

It's perfectly possible for the crew or troop to have all the necessary trained people and gear. In fact, in many cases they might be more experienced than the average off-the-street climbing wall employee. And the "established site or facility" is only a guideline; plenty of troops go out climbing on real rock in the wilderness. Besides, it seems like they have indeed established a facility.

Cub Scouts shouldn't do self-belayed rappels, sure, but I think a rappel belayed by others is perfectly fine (and indeed no different than being lowered off a climb). And the no vertical thing is also a guideline; not sure why it's there, it's perfectly possible to be just as safe with a cub on a vertical wall; indeed, it's safer because they're so light they pose little weight differential to the belayer. Just be alert to kids' emotions and fears.

Bouldering is climbing unroped within a "short" distance from the ground (using crash pads to land on and a spotter).

If you're at all concerned about this, have an outsider with climbing experience come in to check it out. But overall, it seems like fun, eh? And a nice connection with the troop/crew to keep the kids in scouting for da long haul.

Yah, John. I agree with you, and with Calico. Calico's right, the liability exposure here is real, and dat's sometimes a good club to use to wake some folks up.

The only tweak I'd make is that this is really the realm of the chartered org., not the SE. As a COR, you can't pass the buck to the council, it's your job to pull the trigger. Or in hearajo's case, to set things up so the IH or the next COR can do so without a perception of bias.

Oh, yah, and bold is policy, mostly. There's no such thing as "mandatory policy." Just a slight difference between policy and guidelines, eh?

Gotta agree with FScouter, here, Ed. Very few parents have any prior experience with an institutional response to bullying behavior. Many adults are also not comfortable with the kind of confrontation that requires. If they've been good parents up 'til now, they've probably never imagined a kid actin' like this. Trainin' to help folks deal with and manage kid behaviors of all kinds should be a central part of BSA leader training, but it's almost completely absent.

Hearajo, I'm with Oak. Stepping aside on this one was an honorable thing to do because of the apparent conflict. But now, you and the Institution Head have a job to do. You need to go find some new committee members. Since BSA training doesn't cover this, you need to find some people who have experience with this stuff already - teachers, experienced scouters from the district, nurses, former scouts, parents of former scouts, parish youth ministers, etc.

Da BSA and SE and such have no real dog in this fight. Gettin' your youth program on track is the job of the CO. And your new committee is going to have to leave some bodies on the ground before you get this thing back under control.

Hey, CNY.

I really think you have to look at da people side of the equation, eh? For example, most of us who've been doin' this scoutin' stuff for a long time recognize that the best summer camps aren't the ones that necessarily have the best program (in terms of things to do), they have the best people (long-term, consistent, friendly staff).

Ya really need to start lookin' at all the units around you in terms of the people.

I think you're right about Cubs; the programs tend to be very spotty because the adult turnover rate is so high. No weekend training can replace years of experience. Troops tend to hold on to people a bit longer, and such people anchor the program a bit better. But if they don't, the "temporary" parents runnin' them naturally turn them into short term adult-run Eagle Mills for their kids.

No surprise, really, because their longest term hands-on training (BSA summer camp) is a perfect example of adult-run, troop method, merit badge mill Scouting.

Actually, CNY, if you read Eagledad's post carefully, he isn't doing NSP by-the-book. It's only running for six months, not one year; he says nothing about thrusting new scouts into a PL/leaderhip position but instead says that the troop guide is the real PL. And he mentions that accepting new scouts into existing patrols worked best for his troop as long as there weren't too many. NSP's were a good second choice.

So a careful read of Eagledad is that they started with the "by the book" BSA program, doing the best they could with it, and then discovered that they had to fix parts of it to make it work better. They tailored what they did to match their people, youth and adults. They did not tailor their people to match the canned, "ideal" program.

The thing is, what Eagledad did is exactly what the BSA wants and expects to happen. He got to the purpose and principles of the BSA program, even though he had to manipulate the details.

I've been part of other forums where the quality flag is posted more prominently, and in such a way that you can use it to select what you want to read. In some cases, there are little "twinkies" that highlight a poster's name who has a history of high-quality postings.

I confess I sort of like that kind of system. It helps separate wheat from chaff. It'd be nice to add here.

Yah, Gern...

Just another possibility. Why don't you buddy up with them for a bit? Give them a hand with ideas for outings, an occasional joint trip, a joint PLC/NYLT, etc.? If you had a constructive working relationship, you might help them grow into a strong program.

Yah, hearjo, that helps.

In such circumstances, your first priority is protecting the program for all da boys, and re-establishin' some control. The offending boy has to go.

When programs are otherwise very healthy and stable, their community has the ability to "absorb" a behavioral incident like this with suspension, probation, and forgiveness, if that's called for.

But if the program is not that stable and has gotten out of control in the way you describe, this incident has to become a sign to parents and boys of your renewed resolve to protect kids.

Yah, but FScouter, you're making a bunch of assumptions there, eh?

You're assuming that those of us with mixed age patrols have the adults splittin' up and assigning kids randomly. I don't know about the others, but we work the way my fellow Beaver described: the PLC "adopts" kids into different patrols based on their friends, and personalities, the older boys they think are cool, their own requests, etc.

Strikes me that shovin' all of the new scouts into one patrol and makin' them stay as a group until they quit is far more of an arbitrary adult-run assignment. It'd be like your banquet committee sayin' that all the 1st year scouters have to sit together, and the 2nd years, and on up until the numbers get so few you have to combine tables.

As Eagledad says, mixed-age patrols require a certain culture of care/service/responsibility to younger guys, and stronger use of boy leadership and patrol method. It's not something to move to in gilski's case, as an adult-imposed response to problems. It's something to move to when you're running fairly well and you want to do a better job.

(This message has been edited by Beavah)

Congratulations, Lisa'bob, on finding a boy-led troop for your son. I think that in true boy-led troops, the boys realize that leadership and other positions of responsibility are real work. They require time, commitment, and a lot of sweat. It's not just a fancy title and a patch. Go thank your SM for this.

Congratulations, Lisa'bob, on finding a service-oriented troop for your son. In troops that really live the Scout Oath and Law, those older boys step up to the plate even when it's hard and they don't want to. Leadership & Loyalty for them includes commitment and sacrifice. Send your boy's PL and APL cards to thank them for this.

Congratulations, Lisa'bob, on having a smart kid. Not feelin' ready to lead after just one year, and having not had any experience yet leading younger boys - that seems to me to be pretty intelligent and justly humble. That's a boy who when he becomes a leader in the normal course of things will be smart about it, and recognize his own limits along with his capabilities. Give your son a hug and tell him how proud you are of him.

Yah, we all should keep strivin' to be perfect. But sometimes it's best to just be happy and supportive of "pretty durn good."

Yah, Gilski.

Our troop, unlike 2Eagle's, has "vertical" or age-mixed patrols, and does admit new boys into existing patrols. We like it a lot, but it comes with a whole troop culture, ethic, and commitment.

I would never recommend you do that in the situation you are suggesting. Putting new boys with boys who don't work well together at best will only get you a bunch of new boys who now act like the ones who don't work well together. At worst, you'll lose 'em or even get them hurt.

Go with Plan B.

Yah, da time you catch them is never really the first time, eh?

The point when the adults see the bullying or find the alcohol is when they've been doing it so often they've become careless.

Ya gotta treat it that way. The consequence has to get their attention, as well as the attention of all da other kids in the troop or crew.