SeattlePioneer

Hello Beaver, Your last response seems entirely reasonable to me. Perhaps it's just the emphasis that people give sometimes. (This message has been edited by seattlepioneer)

Hello Scout Nut, I have to disagree with you that there isn't Scout program aimed at adults. Wood Badge is one example that is explicitly aimed at adults. But frankly, when adults serve as unit leaders and such they are usually a part of the pledge made to obey the Scout Promise, Scout Law, Cub Scout promise and such. To participate in the Journey to Excellence is to take part in a fairly sophisticated planning process. The study referred to was a BSA study that said: > So there is a good record of adults benefiting in a variety of ways from the Scouting program. As I noted earlier, I often find that adults find better ways to parent their children from Scouting. I agree that mostly Scouting targets youth and not adults for benefits. But nevertheless the benefits for adults are real and extensive in my experience.

Hello Beaver, Sorry, in my opinion it is unreasonable of you to claim that unit leaders have an obligation to "give OA a chance." You refuse to recognize that there is NO such obligation. Frankly, when I run into people who can't recognize reality when it is repeatedly explained to them, those people worry me. And too often on OA oriented threads, I see OA leaders and advocates who just can't recognize and deal with the realities surrounding OA. Every time I see that, I am a lot less likely to want to support OA, although I have never had bad experiences in person with OA myself. You guys can be your own worst enemies.

Thank you Scout Nut --- While Scouting is packaged and promoted as a youth program, it can have a variety of positive affects on adult volunteers as well. Some of those identified in the study referenced by Scout Nut include: >

Hello Narraticong I'm told by council officials that district volunteers can get access to NESA lists for zip codes in their area, and for those in the new Scouting Alumni group who aren't limited to Eagle Scouts. I've been toying with getting a list of 50 or 100 of those names and doing the kind of cold calling your suggest to find people who would like to help as Scouting volunteers. A good place to get started as a volunteer would be to attend a monthly district meeting or two. District leaders ought to be well informed about activities in their area, and at least in my district anyone new who shows up at district meetings is going to be welcomed.

I was never in Boy Scouts as a youth, and was a Cub Scout dropout after a few weeks ---- never got the craft stuff Den Mothers tended to go for circa 1958. My outdoor background consisted of in excess of 3,000 miles of backpacking, cross country skiing, snowshoeing and completing the Seattle Mountaineers Basic and Intermediate climbing courses, which also required completing Wilderness First Aid, plus some rock a glacier climbing. With that background, I was an AS for a year and SM for five more years. Scout adult leader training easily taught me the methods of Scouting. The experience I had in outdoor skills would be a lot harder for someone to duplicate. A lot of it is judgment, experience and confidence that training can't duplicate by itself. On the other hand, the Scout leader training and understanding the methods of Scouting is the heart of the program. Both are important. If I had to make a choice, I'd take the Scout Leader training and learn the outdoors stuff along with the boys.

Personally, I consider the idea of Scouting being "Only for the boys" to be entirely bogus. Scouting is an opportunity for adults to learn new leadership skills and be of service to their community and country. Scouting is quite often a way of teaching parents new ways to parent their children and to enjoy and have fun with their children. Most of the adults attending my Tiger Cub Den Meetings are fathers, and a goodly many of them are learning new ways to enjoy the company of their children and of other children. Rather commonly, fathers tend to be excluded from having much of a role in parenting their children, a role too commonly left to mothers. Scouting can be a way of remedying that. In the Cub Pack I've rebuilt, I have not had ANY mothers as den leaders or Cubmaster. Moms are the Committee Chair, Treasurer, Popcorn kernel, Advancement Chair and such, but men are the program leaders --- and the moms seem quite happy with that. If I had moms who wanted to be den leaders, that would be fine --- but they seem happy doing other tasks. Personally, I encourage adults to wear the uniform and take care to hand out unit position patches to parents, "trained" patches and knots when they are earned. These are symbols of participation and achievement, and I want to encourage adults to participate and achieve in Scouting. Frankly, I have yet to meet someone I thought was a blow hard reflected by the knots on their uniform. I don't doubt there are such people, but I haven't met them, and pejorative comments about these Scouting symbols is an attack on the Scouting program, as far as I'm concerned.

Perhaps I shouldn't rub it in, but my council began gratutously paying for unit accident insurance policies for all units beginning in 2011. That was done on their own initiative. I'm guessing we get a generous level of services from our council because it is doing pretty well in fund raising and managing it's finances. I'd further guess that other councils that are grasping for every buck they can and restricting the services they provide are doing that because their finances don't give them much choice.

Personally, I would compare giving a fire making kit to a minor with giving a bee bee gun or firearm to a minor.

> I agree with you Basement. These are things that are fine for parents to give boys, or to use when supervised. But I wouldn't give them as a gift. At a minimum, I'd say you should get the express permission of the parents. This is the kind of thing that would probably create a legal liability if misused, and might also undermine parental authority and household rules. If you want to make fire making tools available for use on a Scout outing ----fine.

Suppose a district ---- or even a council, decided they were going to go back to limiting the number of OA members nominated from troops as in the good old days. Could they do that? Would some flaming arrow be likely to strike them dead?

Hello Get Outdoors, Heh, heh! I think you do have a kindred spirit in Basement Dweller! As I've said before, I don't blame people who have negative experiences with their district or council for being bitter about it. I might well be discouraged in the same way.

I would suppose the money is going to support your council. Is the council under financial stress? May I ask which council your unit is in Basement?

> Frankly, I find this a grasping and selfish attitude.

Three years ago I stepped in as a district leader to rebuild a Cub Pack that was down to a single boy. Three years later we are still struggling, but we have always had an effective a reasonably well attended pack committee meetings, usually monthly. Never a flop. I'm guessing there are two main reasons for that: 1) meetings last no more than an hour. 2) They are reasonably well planned and clearly directly linked to carrying out the pack plans in the immediate future. What experiences do you have with pack committee meetings?

Just as KC9 suggests, I find Scouting personally rewarding. And I look for ways to make it fun and rewarding for parents and other adults too, not just youth. As an example of that effort, I encouraged a wine tasting activity after a Pack Committee meeting once upon a time.

If you have an excellent unit, it may seem that you have little use for the district and council. Personally, I'm a Cubmaster, Cub Scout Roundtable Commissioner and District Membership Chair. There are several Cub Packs in my district which have a strong membership and effective leadership and could do fine without the district and council, at least for a while. Still, most participate in the council popcorn sale as a fundraiser. Most participate in the council resident Cub Scout Camp or district Cub Scout Day Camp --- which are council led programs. Many participate in our Cub Scout Bowling Tournament, Cub Scout Marble tournament or district Pinewood Derby. My Cub Scout Roundtable did a program on "Pack and Den Pizzazz" this past month with the aim of showing den leaders and Cubmasters ways to spice up their meetings, and I'm planning a program on "Using the Journey To Excellence as a Pack Management Tool" next month. Each month I aim to offer some good ideas on how to improve a unit's Cub Scout program in ways people probably haven't thought of before. The District Execeutive and I help organize the recruiting program for most packs in the spring and fall. Even strong packs get flyers printed up, stickers, posters, yard signs and other services from the council. Last spring at the Roundtable we did a model recruiting night showing packs how to use a stomp bottle rocket program to attract new Cub Scouts. Personally I've conducted three Tiger Cub Den Leader trauining sessions in the past year with the aim of helping packs get new Tiger Cub Dens functioning effectively, and I've conducted our district Tiger Twilight camp to help show new parents and Tiger Cubs what a quality Tiger Cub program should look like and feel like. Our District Executive served as a Boy Scout Camp Director the past three summers. Our new District Executive was the Scout Camp Program Director last summer before he got his new job. As a Cubmaster for a weak Cub Pack, I use as many of the District and Council programs as I can to make my unit work effectively. Right now I have the District Executive on my back every day because we are late getting our recharter completed. That's not really necessary in my case, but he's doing his job the way he should. Perhaps your district is weak and your council is underfunded and struggling --- there's a lot of that going around. If so, I don't doubt that it's easy to get discouraged. But if you are blessed with a strong unit that doesn't need to lean on the district and council, perhaps you should be looking at how you can support your struggling district and council. I'm lucky to have a quality district and council, and that makes it easy for me to appreciate the services available and that we receive. But I lend my time and energy towards supporting the district and council for the benefit of units both weak and strong.

> Personally, I find that pretty natural. In the aftermath of a tragedy, people may be motivated to participate in a service project as a way of honoring people that they know or knew. People are less motivated to do so when they don't know the people involved, or time has simply passed by. Friends and family are motivated to attend the funeral of a loved one, but few would show up for an annual memorial service except for a few.

Frankly, I think those who want to promote OA should read Hicountry's lengthy post carefully. Personally, I don't find it objectionable for OA leaders to pitch Scoutmasters each year on an election--- that's being pro active. But the SM is entitled to say no, thanks. If you don't have a program that appeals to Scoutmasters and youth, you should be re examining your program with care. If you can't find ways to improve it for whatever reason, you are going to be dead in the water. There are several threads that are open invitations for OA advocates to promote some new ideas ---- but I've seen none. That's fine, but don't expect much improvement in your turnout and membership if the product lacks appeal.

Interesting thread. > They have been offered a reasonable deal, but they want more than that. They are being unreasonable. I would suppose that they will NEVER be happy unless they get what they want. Who needs that? Cut them loose and let them search for yet another pack.

So highcountry, What kind of program do you think would be of interest to your Scouts?

Hello Eagle 707, Good points you raised. Most Scouting programs have a lot of different directions they can go if participants desire. I'm interested in exploring alternatives to the Indian lore that forms the basis for a lot of OA chapters. Are there better directions to go that would create more interest in OA and serve the purposes of OA better? Frankly, I don't know. Does anyone know how OA chapters in Hawaii or Guam treat such issues? My impression is that at least in Hawaii, interest in the hula extends well beyond native Polynesian groups. I wonder if OA chapters there use Polynesian dancing and cultural symbols in their program? Are there OA chapters chartered in other overseas locations such as Europe where Scout Troops are chartered? Perhaps they use ancient Celtic traditions there?

I believe I subscribe to Callooh! Callay!'s opinions, although I wouldn't go out of my way to denigrate Indian cultures. Once I took in the Sioux Indian Powwow at Rosebud, SD, and that was quite a vital and dynamic cultural force. But it is not my culture, and I don't see a compelling reason to try to replicate it, especially when that's probably going to produce a pretty fake result in most cases. Instead, I'd look for something real and genuine. That suggests something with a Scouting or patriotic theme, something Scouting does with genuineness and meaning. Were I to join OA again and start attending monthly OA meetings, I wouldn't join in Indian dancing ceremonies. I wouldn't undermine that as a program were it successful, but I wouldn't join in maintaining it. Perhaps OA needs some alternate themes that leaders (youth or adult) can choose from. It sounds like feathers and dancing aren't required OA activities and program --- perhaps alternatives should be readily available should leaders desire to use them.

What I'm suggesting is that the feathers and dancing can be SEPARATED from the ongoing service and program work. Perhaps enhancing the service and program work. And I think I made it clear that I claim no expertise in OA.

Let's do a thought experiment. Let's suppose you were rebuilding an OA chapter and a decision was made to dispense with the feathers and dancing in favor of other kinds of ceremonies and activities deemed to have a wider appeal and to be easier to stage. Is there anything that would prevent that as a choice? Is it something you might think worthwhile with which to experiment? [i'm a lapsed OA member myself, never active beyond the Ordeal]