Renax127

My experience:

Girls ain't honey and boys ain't flies.

Heh, never heard that before.

Some people act like boys are incapable of acting rationally around females.

Kinda. Girls can't officially be Cub  Scouts, but they can camp and do the activities with their siblings.  Cub Scouts is family camping, and there was a VERY big bruhaha when the planners for one major event didn't take into account of the family camping fact of Cub Scouts, and didn't anticipate the sisters who accompanied their brothers to the event.

They can't sign the form or get rank they also don't have to pay as much a district/council events but they are allowed, even encouraged, to do everything else the Cub Scout does. So really how are girls not already doing cub scouting?

I understand that they officially aren't in cubs.

Well, everything but the Boy Scouts AND the Cub Scouts - the two largest programs in numbers of members. So a large majority of BSA participants are in programs in which youth membership is limited to boy.

That doesn't matter they have already allowed girls in programs that are  Boy Scouting. Venturing is Boy Scouting, if you look for info on it is on the BSA web site, just like Learning for life, you are allowed to advance in Boy Scouting as just a Ventureer, the rule books for Boy Scouting include the special rules for Venturing and so on. They can keep saying it's different but that isn't how they treat it

I am unsure about allow girls in the Boy Scouting (I mean I'm ok with it except when I'm not) but I don't know how they've avoided it this long considering the precedent they have already set. 

I'm just tired of the constant turmoil.

Yeah I get that but I think part of why we are getting this is that the people that actually run the program, the volunteers (well a lot of them anyway), have a vastly different idea of what Boy Scouts should be/represent and are pretty routinely doing their own thing, for good and ill. Then all this stuff gets to National and they have to do "something" about it so girls that have been Boy Scouts in action get told no, gay scouts/scouters that were known in their Troop get kicked out etc

Honestly I think the only real way to stop this piece meal, constant turmoil is to turn all membership decisions over to the CO's.

Well that is pretty much the situation here, the summer safeguards of scout camp drop to the state park level in the off-season. Yes it concerns me.

I understand you are concerned but why? What makes that different from any other campout, especially ones in public camping areas?

Really stranger dangers isn't what you need to be worried about.

I really don't see the big deal. The BSA already allows girls to join everything but Boy Scouts so they've really sort of undercut themselves on the argument.

I am seeing more cabin upgrades at area scout camps. Where once cabins were rustic with just a wood stove if that, now they are becoming insulated with secure doors, electricity, lights, heat, and indoor plumbing! 

 

The thinking is that these upgrades will increase year-round bookings and the public is welcome to make reservations. Scout and non-scout groups could be at the camp at the same time.

 

My concern is safety. I have asked Council if these outside groups have had the same YP and background checks as us and I get either a non-response or a buck pass "It is the responsibility of the renting party..."

 

At the same camp during the summer, non-scout campers all wear ID's as do scouts.

 

At the least, I think camping BSA unit leaders should have a roster of all groups, scout and non-scout, in camp that weekend...

 

Is there more safety consistency elsewhere?

Not sure what your concern is, it's not like Youth Protection Training does anything. As far as a stranger doing something to a scout well it is vastly more likely that they will be injured on the way to he camp, background checks are mostly useless. It is also no different than any Scout only event since parents are allowed at every event and no YP or background check is required.

I should add that in the 3 years of my being involved with scouting we are on our 3rd DE.   Is this pretty common? 

He when my son started as a Tiger we had just changed DE's, he lasted a few months then we went thru 3 or 4 more in the next 18 months, one lasted 6 days (guess Cub-O-Ree was too much for him). All of them were non-scouts, never had any contact with scouts. Next guy was a recent college grad and Eagle Scout, lasted about 2.5 years till the ridiculous demands of the job did him in.

I don't get the abandoning integrity part. If you are playing poker, are you abandoning your integrity if you bluff? There are a lot of games where bluffing, trickery and other forms of dishonesty are part of the rules. In the Prisoners Dilemma, dishonesty is an important part of the game (without it, there isn't much of a game). It's wrong too present such a game and then too criticize a player for following the rules.

Yeah I really don't see how operating within the rules of a game is abandoning integrity. If I cheated sure but just doing everything within the rules to win I really don''t see a problem. I mean we certainly don't say that of football players and they regularly hit others as hard as possible.

Good for you!  Well done.

 

 

You didn't mention how many patrols there were.  If you have 3-4 patrols the PL's might be encouraged to pick an SPL to help them be successful.  I know the BSA literature says the troop elects the SPL, but if you want a functional SPL that actually functions as helping the PL's be successful, the PL's need to be doing the picking.  If you want a patrol-method troop, you need an SPL that spends his time helping the PLs, not trying to run the troop because he won a popularity contest.

 

I love the title of the thread!  It is an adventure that a lot of scouts and scouters miss out on.  It's called leadership development!

Hey, I'm still working on being a good useless adult, I think it would be easier for me too if it wasn't an established troop. 

We ended up with 3 patrol (8, 6, 7) with a few boys that weren't there. All 3 with new PL and APL's. My son's patrol was the big surprise elected 5-6 of the younger boys with a couple of older ones. They elected a kid that's never been PL cause the younger boys like him and he's always helping them out and really acts as a big brother. That PL has a learning disability but he works his butt off and is a Scout I depend on to get stuff done already. I have high hopes for that patrol. Oh yeah, they also all picked new Patrol names, which seemed to be a small issue with the old ASM's as well.

It's a pretty old troop with lots of boys 17 (or close to it) heck 3 of them age out in the next 6 months. Hopefully we can get enough boys in for a  full patrol during the requirement drive.

next challenge for the Patrols is patrol activities.

Well letting the boys reorganize the patrols last night went well.

It took some time for them to understand what "choose your patrol" meant. They tried the school yard "pick captains then captains pick members" first because they have always had the Patrol leader chosen for them and the upcoming guys thought they would still be Patrol leaders. They asked a couple times about "what if all the 2nd class guys end up in the same patrol" I mean there was a LOT of concern about that. I simply pointed out that the week before all the 2nd class boys had won the lashing race, so they'd probably be fine. That said I was wrong about how the patrols ended up, I thought it would end up split along ages but it ended up a little more mixed than that. We'll see how that works.

I have also discovered that they ask a ton of "can we do this", "Is it time for" type questions. The older boys are having a tough time when my answer is "I have no idea you make a decision" the younger ones are all over it though. I am also finding myself giving a lot more direction than I want when it comes to activities and how the meetings should be running. They just don't seem to get the patrol focus part and the default game time is volleyball with basketball as a back-up.

I realize it's a long term project to get the boys to understand what I'm doing, the younger boys get it and a couple of the older ones do too but it's like turning a big ship.

Oh the ASM that has been a pain about changing stuff wasn't there. I don't want to make it seem like it stayed away on purpose though cause that wasn't it.

@@Eagledad.  @@Renax127 gave the impression it was not JUST the newbies that got the menus handed to them, it looks like each patrol got a menu to follow.  I'm thinking his son at age 11 has only been on 2-3 campouts and menu planning for everyone is done by the adults.  That is what I was basing my comments on.  I agree, small steps are in order, but this troop doesn't sound like it has taken the first one yet.

 

I wanted to throw in here that my Webelos were planning their menu, facilitated by me, as Web I's. So my son had been helping to make his own camping menu's for over a year when he started Boy Scouts. And yeah every patrol was given a menu, along with who would be in their "patrol" what the tent assignments would be, etc.

When I was a kid we would leave for a weekend camping trip the moment my dad got off work and wouldn't return until 5-6 pm on Sunday night.

 

I guess it's nothing more than making sure the boys get 2 nights of camping and that after the second night, seconds become precious and Sunday morning becomes reminiscent of the Retreat from Moscow.  

 

Pancakes on Sunday morning is the quick and cheater way of getting out of camp early.  Usually Sunday morning favorites include the Mountain Man egg bake or the Dutch oven French toast.  Of course none of those options are as good as the out-run-the-forest-fire approach of a Pop Tart and donut breakfast.

 

Seriously?..... where's the enjoyment in that?

For my kid he like pancakes on Sunday, it was the first thing he ever made and cooked on his own at a campout and will lobby pretty hard for them on Sunday so he can cook them. 

With all the "training" BSA does to get it's leadership ready to work with the boys, it's surprising how much counter effort is done by ignorant adult agendas.  It would seem that one can't make this stuff up.

 

11 year old's first campout?  As far as I'm concerned, it can be PBJ for all three meals.  I would NEVER hand a menu to them.

 

If an 11 year old can see through this BS, why can't these adults?

Oh there was much ranting about the "no pancakes" Sunday. I have been unable to camp with the troop till now due to some heath stuff, I'm all (well mostly) better now so I will be going.

I have the same thing with the pbj, it's about 40 hours they are gone, if teenagers can't successfully feed themselves on $10 each for that long they won't survive on their own.

It will be exciting to watch. Let us know how it goes.

 

Barry

Well not so well so far, but next week we'll see.

My son is 11 and is really not happy with the amount of adult involvement. His first 2-3 camp outs the Scoutmaster gave each patrol a menu to use, holy cow did I get an ear full on the drive home.

Once the older boys see the younger ones having fun, they'll come around or quit.  Heck, they've been quitting for years once they get to that older stage so why do we get upset  now?  At least now they have the opportunity to have some fun.  As adults we are there to create the opportunities.  If the boys don't want to make themselves available to them, there's nothing we as adults can do about it.

 

Oh, my son quit because he got involved in sports.

 

My son quit because he got interested in girls.

 

My son quit because he was bored with the same old, same old.

 

My son quit because he got to do anything and everything he wanted to do and the adults helped him do that...... RIIIIIght!

 

Again, it boils down to, if the boys trust the adults to back them, they won't hold back  If the adults really aren't letting them then the trust isn't there and the morale is not going to improve.   They'll just focus on Eagle and quit.  (Like that's never happened?  Right!)

Well I'm going to do my best but if it turns into some sort of pissing match with the one ASM I'm just gonna let it be and I'm guessing it won't be long till my son, thus I, quit

As you may recognize, that is from Guide to Safe Scouting. It isn't found under camping, but under "Scouting's Barriers to Abuse."

 

We have a Webelos campout coming up. It's a single night event, but we want to give them more experience than they get at our pack campout, which is technically camping but we eat in a lit pavilion, have the food basically catered, sleep in tents in a field, have a fire started and maintained for us my a local troop and don't get any real outdoors experience. A lot of our kids that crossover get camping-culture shock on their first Boy Scout campout even if they guest-camped with a troop as Webelos. I'm sure it's a familiar story.

 

So, I gently pushed our Webelos and AOL leaders to schedule a campout. Then a local troop gives us this brand new large cabin-style tent. It's huge, heavy and I'm guessing they had no use for it as they don't have a pack mule. Based on the Guide to Safe Scouting, adults and Cubs can not sleep in it together even if adult leadership was always two deep, which means I'd have to have at least three adults in there. I'm fine with that, but if I'm reading this correctly, we could have multiple Webelos sleep in the tent.

 

One on hand the BSA promotes more independence at the Webelos level, but states when camping that "In most cases, the Webelos Scout will be under the supervision of his parent or guardian." In the cases where a parent isn't there, what are the sleeping arrangements? The BSA recognizes that there won't always be a parent present, but states adults and youth get separate accommodations when using tents. So, I believe that the big cabin tent can be used as long as only Webelos are in it. Is this correct?

 

When I was a Scout, about once a year, our troop used a huge canvas wall tent that literally held a couple dozen people easily. Unless, I'm missing something that wouldn't fly under today's requirements.

Go get some cheap $20 4 man tents from Walmart (if you can afford it) or ask any Boy Scout troop to borrow some tents. The Webelos are allowed to tent with a buddy, their parents doesn't need to be in the tent with them, just on the trip. So shared tents aren't an issue. I wouldn't use a big tent for camping with Webelos anyway, they should be camping much like Boy Scouts do.

Well I disagree with your first sentence. You will just have to take my word on it. I have worked with a lot of troops changing to boy run and the older scouts were the stumbling block. Taking care of the members of your patrols is a cultural ideal. It is a hard concept for older scouts who are used to being in the background of adults being the servants. Older scouts will teach and to some degree lead, but taking on the boy run code of a servant lifestyle is so different from their experience that it isn't scouting to them. It actually looks like a lot of work to them.

 

It's not just programs going to boy run, scouts 14 are adults; adults are creatures of familiarity and resist change. It's how nature works. We are a result of preteen lifestyle and it is very hard to change.

 

It's kind of funny to see, the older scouts sit back and watch the program as if it were a movie. This is the same thing Venturing Crew leaders complain about as well. Scouts from troops where the scouts were more in the background of adults wait for the Venturing program to come them. That is why girls tend to be the ones who jump in and push the program forward. They haven't been trained to follow.

 

However, I'm willing to be humbled and see it work. 

 

Barry

So my idea is to build the patrols and let them decided for themselves what they want to do. If the older boys want to let the adults do everything, well good luck with getting me to do it but in any event the patrols that want to will be off doing patrol stuff so it won't be that much of an issue. 

 

NYLT is out for at least 2016 as the only ones olde enough to go are Philmont bound.

 

A litte info about the troop.  3 patrols. Olders Scouts, 13-14 years, 3 First Class, 1  Second class,and  3 Scouts

                                                            Patrol of 12-13 yos who have been in at least a year if not longer and are  probably the best run. 1 Tenderfoot, rest Scout.

 

NSP

 

Oh, fun, lots of questions, 

 

How are the Patrols currently set up?  Aged based? or Mixed Age?

 

Take all the boys, put them in a room and give them 15-20 minutes to decide who's in what patrol, and when they come out, you'll have your answer.

 

 

This is what I am doing next week over the objections of a "This is my troop cause I started it and It won't work" Assistant Scoutmasters. I am taking over as  Scoutmaster and after trying to talk reasonably with him and a couple others have decided to stop asking or trying to convince anybody.

Right now the boys don't even have a patrol structure despite having pathes, they never camp as a patrol it 's always ad-hoc patrols that the current adults decide on. My son and the other young scouts are already tired of it so I'm gonna encourage them to from a patrol together and then they can do whatever they want and the old guard adults and scouts can keep on keeping on.

Sorry - I don't buy the whole "The Hebrew words are nuanced" argument to accept the word murder as a proper translation of either an Old Hebrew word or an Old Aramaic word and I don't buy it because back when they were written, they weren't nuanced - they knew exactly what they were saying and what those words meant, and used those words deliberately.  Those "nuances" are modern intepretations of what some scholars think the word might have meant - it's mental gymnastics (not really the word I want to use but this is a Scouting forum and the "M" word isn't appropriate) to say the word for kill didn't really mean kill - it meant kill in this kind of fashion and not some other kind of fashion.  If they meant murder, they would have created a word in their language that meant murder.

What does "First Floor" mean? Because right now in English there are contradictory meanings and even context would give no clue what they mean. Language is a tricky thing because it is very culture and time specific.

Rick is correct about the difference between the "official" DRP and what most actual Scouters see, which is what is in the adult leader application. None of the language about the "ruling and leading power in the universe and the grateful acknowledgment of His favors and blessings" (which is what the blogger in question spends most of his time talking about) is on the application.

Until this came I had never even seen the full DRP I assumed the one I signed was it

*edit I can't spell

I'm saying what I said. It was pretty clear. I will repeat.

 

If BSA did not mean the God of Jews, Christians and Muslims, then they should not have used the capitalized word God. If they meant just any old god or notion of a higher being not God, then they should use the lower case word god....or even gods.

Or you know they might have clarified their position on it by using additional text.Like they have done in explaining that they do not define what god is.

ROFL. So if you were in charge, 10 sexual predators would have been allowed to violate their restraining order and hang out in a school zone. Bravo. Way to stop crime. Thank God you are not in law enforcement...or in my community.

 

 

Lose a loved-one to preventable violence and then come talking. All they did was use a protection protocol to ensure the safety of their kids.

 

I have no problem with law enforcement or any one else taking extra care in their jobs for my protection. The flight attendant that double-checks a passenger because they look "fishy", the cop who "senses" that something is not right, the school teacher that suspects a child might be in danger, I have no issues with that.

 

There were no personal liberties or basic rights of @@Stosh violated. They were being careful. Where's the harm? Being safe should not be a problem. Taking precautions never hurts.

 

Leave your food laying around camp or do you put it in a bear bag as a precaution?

Only a tiny minority of kidnapped children are taken by strangers. Between 1990 and 1995 the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children handled only 515 stranger abductions, 3.1 percent of its caseload. A 2000 report by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Programs reported that more than 3/4 of kidnappings were committed by family members or acquaintances of the child. The study also found that children abducted by strangers were harmed less frequently than those taken by acquaintances.

http://news.discovery.com/human/psychology/stranger-child-abductions-actually-very-rare-130514.htm

I'm sorry I see nothing to back up your claim that a single registered sex offender (which list is so large as to be pretty much useless) was there or what "several" even means.

For "preventable crime" crap, your kid is WAY more likely to die in your car than anything else you mentioned, still driving him to scouts though aren't ya.

Being precautions hurts when you stop and question any person alone near a school for no specific reason other than "well ya never know". I mean why not stop every car with a kid an adult in it, never know it could help.

Sorry, but in this day and age I have no problem with what the school did or if they did that to me. They were preventing a potential Sandy Hook. I have no issue with that.

Then you are part of the problem.

Right. Yet those cars that were caught had registered sex offenders driving them. They gave various excuses. Thankfully the police department did buy them and they were convicted of violating their restraining orders.

 

I hope your not suggesting that a 30 year old male cruising a school zone and asking a young girl if she needs a ride is somehow okay.

 

Where there's smoke...

Where there is smoke there is nothing. The "if it saves one kid" crap is what is causing all the panic and is doing exactly nothing to help anyone.