SagerScout

OGE - Gosh, I did NOT mean to denigrate anyone and I'm certainly sorry that you saw it that way. Of course we all have challenges with our troops and of course I respect all of those who serve youth in Scouting. I did not mean that as any kind of a cut at all to anyone. Perhaps I was just trying to give myself a pep talk. I apologize completely and abjectly to anyone who was offended. This time I have to say that I still don't exactly see how you got this interpretation from what I wrote; but I'm awful sorry if anyone took offense as absolutely none was intended.

NJ - I absolutely agree that the lost records reflect a careless SM. I am one of the most paperwork impaired people on the planet, havign personally managed to lose several months worth of business bank statements right before tax season. My CPA is having kittens. The goal of the specific instruction is to help people like me. The congenitally organized don't need it anyway. Those who have figured out a personal system don't need it - you, for example. Sounds like you worked out something that works for yourself - ONE box to rummage through. Fine. But the 10 minutes that was spent

Yes, I would wish that most scouts would get 20 nights in a year but since our troop has a high percentage of scouts that are restricted from outdoor activities for health reasons in spring and fall, some of them may not. For quite a while my family was used to my son's annual hospital stay in March/April, and another in September, and then we had the traditional Thanksgiving Turkey served with care by a hospital volunteer.... other kids in my troop are somewhat more severely affected by their asthma. They've been to asthma camp 3 times but there are no tents there.

oops, sorry about the link, let me try again: http://borntoexplore.org/plab/plab.htm Copied and pasted it that time, that should do it.

BTGTTS. One son is ADHD, the other a different focussing problem. AT one point I had 3 in my girl scout troop at once. See http://www.borntoexplore.org/plab/plab.html for a different take on his "problem." Or ask Google for ADHD and Project Lab, you'll find it. You wrote: "I don't want to prevent him from being part of our unit, but I don't really know how to control him." BRAVO! for not wanting to just boot him out. All too many would, to the detriment of both the child and the troop. The second part of your sentence explains to me both what your difficulty is and allows

Thanks for your input, I guess I now need to make some time to go back and try that training again and see if anything improved. Sigh. It wasn't that long ago that I took the "old" training. Oh well. As I said I had lots of fun anyway, it wasn't total torture. Ok, some of it was but just because when I'm in the learning mode I want something in front of me to learn. There was quite a bit of jawing without much content, as I recall. But I was in good company and as I said the food was great. Here's another issue that may be of general interest to the board: I'm finding it difficult to

PS: Bob, I believe you may have misread the concern. My understanding is that they are saying that every part of every requirement, including 20 nights of camping, must be done AFTER the blue card. Therefore, for instance, if a boy goes to summer camp or any troop campouts BEFORE filling out the blue card, those nights won't count. I'm personally backing the poster who says it's ok to count the total nights as long as the preparation requirements are done AFTER the blue card...but honestly it doesn't seem to meet what I was told in training. If the SM can't find a counselor ear

Thanks for your question - I just want to say I had the same question! My son has been a Scout off and on for 3 years, and since he likes camping and we do family camping as well he's easily met that 20 night requirement already - but we've been waiting for a merit badge couselor list promised by our council for TWO YEARS (no exaggeration!) and so technically he hasn't even started the merit badge. I just signed up to counsel it and plan to encourage all the new boys in our troop to start work on it immediately or soon at least to avoid them suffering this problem. But it would have been ni

And another thing: Something else I feel they should have covered better in training: how to organize yourself as a SM so that advancements and merit badges don't get lost in the shuffle. Hasn't happened to me, yet, but the biggest reason that the SPL mentioned above is still a Star scout is that his former Scoutmaster took all copies of his blue cards for two completed Eagle-required badges - and lost them, along with some for his two brothers as well. Yes, the scouts should have kept a copy and I'm sure it will never happen to them again. But that's really not an excuse for the SM

This is a new thread spurred by the discussion elsewhere in which WoodBadgeEagle was trying to figure out something that perhaps should have been covered in training. I have taken Scoutmaster Fundamentals, which as I recall was a full classroom Saturday followed by an evening session and an overnighter. Had a great time. Nothing like camping out, eating a delicious foil-packet meal,and finishing a day with Dutch oven cobbler. One of the Eagle scouts in my patrol successfully taught me how to tie a bowline, not a mean accomplishment for either of us. But... What else did I learn?

I must chime in my admiration for WoodBadgeEagle for correctly (IMHO) identifying a "root cause" for a great number of problems: not simply lack of training, it's easy to beat up on adults who refuse to go to the training. The next question is, once they GET there, do they learn the program or not? Is the training turning out SMs and ASMs that can deliver the promise? I think that the existence of tremendous numbers of posts in many threads on this board that are about very basic Scouting issues like "Whose troop is this anyway?" leads me to suspect that this is not the case in many areas.

Thanks, NJ, for focussing on my real point rather than my foolish sniping. I'll repeat it for those who were distracted in my earlier post. In my experience, Girl Scouts USA is an organization that is truly committed to teaching living skills in a diverse community, and to that end tries very hard to protect the parental right to instruct their children as the family wishes. In my area, there are individual troops that are exclusively one faith or another, and in these troops the practices of that faith are followed. In other troops, such as my own, I welcome all girls and thus have an obl

You folks are right. My snippy, catty comment was out of line and off-topic to boot. It was a reaction to my feeling defensive in this forum, where I fear gay friends would not be welcomed. Please forgive me.

An interesting thought, and I agree very appropriate with a mixed-faith adult group - but where children are involved, with the inherent UNbalance of power, it still seems that the fact that I am Christian and they are not could set up a conflict in the child. I like to think that they look up to me, and I don't want to be perceived as advocating, however subtly, that the faith in which their parents are raising them is wrong. Even if I happen to think it is!

And returning (sort of) to the origin of the GSUSA stance, which may appear to seem wishy-washy to some of you: They FIRMLY believe that PARENTS are the right individuals to establish religious faith and beliefs for their own families. Therefore, Girl Scout troops go to great lengths to be respectful of the different beliefs within the troop. Now, if a troop happens to be sponsored by an individual church, as many troops in my neighborhood are, and all members of the troop are Catholic (or fill in the blank ______ ) there is NOTHING to prevent that troop leader from using hymns, p

I don't know about Boy Scouts, other than knowing that the age-out limit can be raised (suspended?) for developmentally disabled. I do know the Girl Scout way. The policy in Girl Scouts is to enroll developmentally disabled at their "Age Level" which means that adults enroll as adults. We have one in our service unit who acts as a "scouter" (not really a GS term), in a teamwork situation with non-disabled volunteers. The downside is that recognitions are few and far between for adult girl scouts, so if you're looking at the benefit of earning recognitions, well, it just ain't there f

Oh, and about the scout requirements... I am sort of in the middle on those - I think it IS appropriate for the troop guide, ASM, or SPL to point out "hey guys, if you haven't made tenderfoot yet this campout would be a chance to get some of these requirements met...anyone want to show me anything?" As Bob White said, catch them doing something right....

Sctmom - I know that your son's elementary school is probably doing their level best to train you to be responsible for his work. Don't you just enjoy getting those phone calls about the missing assignments, with the implied message "What are you going to do about it?" I suggest that you resist the pressure and inform all involved, including your son, that you already did elementary school once and you are not going to do it again. Tell your son that he is responsible for developing some kind of system for keeping up with his work. I'm sure they've introduced agenda books and all that

I absolutely believe that lack of parental support is behind many boys leaving scouts. If Scout Parent sighs and rolls his or her eyes, and grudgingly gets up from the video soporific of the night to drive the kid to scouts, barely slows the car down to let him out (tuck and roll, kid!), never asks about his advancements, whines about the cost of the uniform and camp and having to sell popcorn - it's gonna take a pretty sturdy 12-year old to buck that kind of message. The same parent might willingly pay for a video game system that costs as much as an entire YEAR of scouting activities... bec

OK, all you scouters that are so dragged-down by high-school age boys that act like wearing the uniform is like putting on prison garb .... we just gave our king-sized scout his new shirt at the last meeting. He put it on, slowly, hesitantly, a little afraid - and began to button it. As it became clear that he WOULD be able to button it and there was plenty of room (if anything, it's a little big), his face lit up with a blinding smile as he said "Wow! It fits! I can march in the parade now, and look like a REAL SCOUT! Thanks a million!" Being able to wear what the other boys wear mean

Our Quartermaster (12) was assigned the buying food duty for an upcoming event. His mother said "OK, I can do that." I told her that it wasn't HER job, it was HIS job. She had trouble grasping that her 12-year old could in fact shop for groceries. I'm hoping she lets him at least put them in the cart. Julia

One possibility would be to hand them a collage of different things they CAN do as an idea starter, or a scrapbook of articles from Scouter. When I was trying to get young Girl Scouts to do planning, I'd offer five or six choices and allow priority voting (each girl gets 6 votes, she can put up to 3 on any one item.) As they got older, they got used to the concept and did their own brainstorming for choices. Also, structured brainstorming is much more effective and productive than free-wheeling brainstorming where everyone shouts out their ideas. In structured brainstorming, you

The current SPL, while doing a dandy job IMHO, is getting a little worn out by the responsibility and is ready to hand it off to someone else at least for a while. The only choices are his two brothers or my son. I can reasonably anticipate difficulties with any of these. However, I do agree with BW that it's better to stick to the plan and have elections. We have a strong likelihood of ending up with inexperienced scouts in the PL spots. That's the reason I started this thread in the first place, so I could help them as much as possible... We haven't identified a candidate gro

I like the idea of emphasizing den chiefs more, but in my area it's hard to find a den to welcome a chief. My son got his training a couple months ago and would really like to be a den chief, he used to be a teacher's aide in a special ed class and liked working with younger kids. But I can't find a den that wants him (and no one has even met him so I know it's not personal). I know it is late in the year but still, a willing volunteer with no place to go is kinda sad. Julia

Oh, I like that idea! We'll start work on that poster collection right away - if I can get them to go at all!