scouter659

Take a look at teachmeteamwork.com

I wonder if anyone can share any ideas or opinions on this one. Almost 2 years ago, a very dynamic assistant scoutmaster took over for the retiring scoutmaster of our troop. He has been with the unit for many years and was a natural choice among all of the leadership and committee that he should do the job. Hes a great people person and the boys loved the idea as well. His greatest strength is his ability to train junior leaders and that has resulted in better than average youth leadership in the troop. He is a really NICE guy but that is somewhat of a problem. During the past few years the g

In just over a month from now I'll be going to my 6th consecutive Summer Camp but this is my first since taking over as Scoutmaster earlier this year. I spend almost every waking moment thinking about how perfect I'd like it to be, although I know that things aren't always perfect. But I am preparing and think I have put together a good plan for our Junior Leaders to truly run it. I am arranging for 5 of our Staff members to have various jobs for the week in camp and am assigning one of them the task of making sure, with the help of others, that a small campfire is burning by 9pm in case I dec

Ive just started to get up to speed on your story and it all seems crazy to me. I have been involved, through my son, with our Troop for about 15 years and just last December became Scoutmaster. Heres my quick spin. I guess I look at every boy as an individual. They come in all shapes and sizes, not to mention personality quirks. Hmmm, sounds like most adults I know. Arent we there to teach, spread the principles of Scouting and train them to be leaders? We have a boy who has been with us for 3 years who has down syndrome. HE has been a miracle and just by his presence has taught all of us mor

Thank you all very much. To be honest, your responses were what I was hoping to hear. Funny how a parent can throw you off your game sometimes and actually make you doubt what you're doing is correct. Or maybe it's that important to have a good conscience and have the need to reaffirm your decisions. I love helping to conduct the training program and feel that if even one boy is so inspired to become a better leader and human being then we've done our job. The web site I was referring to by the way is www.scouter659.htmlplanet.com My hectic schedule precludes me from doing a lot of updates b

Yep...that's the one.

Hello all: Just would like to get a few opinions here. This weekend were going to be presenting our 6th consecutive Troop Junior Leader Training Graduation Weekend. This is an event that we created that is the culmination of a yearlong JLT course that we have developed over the years. Without getting into specifics that would require many pages of written volumes, were very proud of our course and have developed a website that, as we understand it, many Troops use as a model to design their own JLT courses as well. I wanted to give you a little background before getting to the meat of my i

Like many of you have said we allow matches but we don't like lighters. And it's also true that most of the boys don't bring them anyway. We do, however, issue matches to Patrols when we train them on and they cook with lightweight stoves. We actually also teach match lighting techniques because, believe it or not, a lot of boys aren't accustomed to that. We see many of them strike the match and watch as it goes out before reaching an igniter. So in our Junior Leader Training course when we teach things like dual fuel stoves, we also teach them the proper way to strike a match and cup their ha

We have an interesting Troop Junior Leader Training website you may like: www.scouter659.htmlplanet.com

HOLD EVERYTHING! I found it. I am preparing for the end of our year-long Troop JLT course and I really like to use this poem...can't believe I misplaced it. I'd like to share it with you all & I'll explain how I use it. The JLT candidates are lined up and each get a piece of nylon rope about 8 inches long and we ask, "What can you do with a piece of rope like that"? We get a few answers but then we ask each boy to tie a square knot to the next one, and the end of the rope to the next boy and so on. When it is one long length we ask them again and get a host of great answers. We then read t

I'm wondering if anyone is familiar with a little poem about rope and the analogy drawn in the verses is all about the ties that bind friendship in Scouting. I used this poem for the last few years at the end of our Troop JLT course and I seemed to have misplaced it. If someone out there knows what I'm talking about or has a copy or can provide a link where I might find it I would appreciate it. I believe I found it once somewhere in the vast collections of Scoutmaster Minutes on the web but I have checked the major ones and can't seem to locate it. I check out the forums every few weeks and h

I joined our Troop as Committee Chairman (why I took on that job immediately is a long story...perhaps someday 'round the campfire) when my son was 11. He will soon be 23 and is still an active ASM. About 9 years ago if someone would have told me I would go to (what was then Scoutmaster Fundamental Training) I would have said you're crazy. I went, loved it and it inspired me to create a year-long Troop Junior Leader Training Course. About 5 years ago if someone would have told me that I'll be going to Wood Badge, I would have said IMPOSSIBLE...no time for THAT. I went, it was incredible (O

Hello all. Actually I was the person that posted in the previous thread regarding the Leaders Meetings. I dont think youre out of touch at all. I do think that the leadership structure of most Scout Troops vary from Unit to Unit. In our case, we have in excess of 20 very active ASMs, 12 of which are Wood Badge Trained (four of whom who have served on Staff) the rest except for one great new guy are all basic trained. We are a close knit group passionate about the Unit and helping to turn young boys into better human beings. We also subscribe heavily to the boy-run concept and Patrol Method of

Yes it is sticky, isnt it? We had a similar situation in our Troop where a dad who was also a leader had to go for a variety of very good reasons. Now he and his wife are divorced but somewhat amicable. Their son is in our Troop and doing well, a great kid. Mom watches him (and us, the leaders) like a hawk but she is, inside, a good person who also understood the problems with the dad. True we could not remove him from Scouting, and that wasnt our intent but he WAS detrimental to the Unit. Its sad and, fortunately, very rare when something like this happens. I wish you luck.

Thank you for all of the great replies! The structure of our Troop is that Committee meetings are actually separate things, as are our leader meetings, PLC's etc. I think because of the uniqueness of our leadership group this action would be most appropriate at this time. I feel kind of bad for the one Scouter (Fat Old Guy) who replied giving the impression that their Scoutmaster is IT and what HE says goes. Personally, I am a big fan of the 'Shared Leadership' concept and, as I have just taken over the position, I am NOT looking to make sweeping changes...just ones that I believe will improve