shemgren

I have had the honor of serving on my District's Eagle Board of Review several times over the years and I serve my troop as Eagle Project Advisor. The Eagle Scout Leadership project usually does not benefit Scouting in it's scope. Several such projects have been rejected by the board in my area.

However, the determination if an Eagle Scout Leadership Project is proper or not, is in the hands of the District or Council Eagle Board.

The rule of thumb I use with tour permits is if you are going anywhere out of your normal meeting area (e.g. meeting room, neighborhood, for small town folks, your town), fill out the form. The exception in my Council is attending a council or district event. Then your registration is your tour permit.

A common misconception is if the unit is traveling in private vehicles, then they don't need one. Most troops I know aren't blessed with a bus, so getting a caravan of mini-vans, station wagons and so on is a fact of life. So is getting the tour permit.

If you have doubt about when you need a tour permit, check with your Unit Commissioner or your Council's Scout Service Center.

A tip to sewing patches on uniforms.

Use Elmer's School Glue (the kind that will wash out of clothing) to glue the patches in place. Place the uniform with the patch glued in place under several heavy books, let it set until the glue is almost dry, sew the patch in place, then wash the shirt right away. The glue washes out with no trace, and the patch is where it belongs.

My council does a mailing to boys not in Cub Scouting, inviting them to Day Camp. Once there,the staff tells them about Cub Scouting, they sign them up and foreword the info to the Cubmaster to get the new boys involved with the local unit.

We hold our day camp program by sub districts, so the applications are processed into the nearby pack by the address on the application.

This program has been run for several years, and my pack gain 5-10 new boys each year from the program.

There several reasons for you take training:

1)The SM and a least one ASM need to have had completed the old course "Scoutmaster's Fundmentals" or the new courses: "New Leader Essentials", "Scoutmaster and Assistant Scoutmaster Specific Leader Training" and "Introduction to Outdoor Skills" for your troop to earn Quality Unit.

2)The BSA is not static. It is always changing. In my council, at the end of training, we tell the participants they are trained for 3 years or until they change their Scouting postition, whichever happens first. The BSA changes the program minorly every 3-4 years and major changes happen every 7-10 years. Watch the changes in the literature, to show you when these changes are happening. By following a 3 year retraining cycle, you should keep up with the lastest program coming out of national.

May I encourage you, as a seasoned Scouter, that you volunteer to be on staff of the training course. Teach one or two sessions that you feel comfortable in and the rest of the time actively participate in the training. You can gain great deal this way and at the same pass on some of your wealth of experience. Whenever I reach the three year point, I make sure to help with the training to keep myself current.

Scott Hemgren

ADC

Central Minnesota Council

I wish to extend all my fellow and lady Scouters a blessed holiday season!

May 2002 find your troops growing, Scout Spirit running rampart, and the ideals strong.

Scouting at it's best is for the boys.

Three cheers for the patrol method!!!

The founder of this great organization, Lord Baden-Powell felt that was the only way to run a troop.

He said, "The object of the patrol system is mainly to give real responsibility to as many of the boys as possible with a veiw to developing character."

Having been responsible for my council's JLTC for four years, the boys in the courses learned first hand of how a patrol should be run.

Patrol outings are very good at encouraging patrol spirit. Inter patrol contests and activities have their value, but if a patrol gains the experience of seperate outings for themselves, they work towards the object stated above by B-P.

Encourage your patrols to earn the National Honor Patrol Award, the requirements are found on page 22 of The Scotmaster Handbook.

In the Scoutmaster's Handbook, there are instructions and talley sheet for the Baden-Powell Patrol Award, which is star patch worn around the patrol medalon and a streamer for the patrol flag. It may be earned many times.

Instead of setting up a seperate "honor patrol", encourage the patrols to compete for that honor. The requirements include uniforming, patrol meetings, attendance at meetings, service projects and so on.

By using this, you can create a healthly competition between the patrols, and encourage patrol spirit within your troop.

The patrol method is the method Baden-Powell recommended, having seen troops that don't activily promote patrol competition versus those that do, the ones that do are happier and actually have better growth. Talk the idea over with you Patrol Leader's Council and get them on board, and watch the fun.

BSA policy clearly prohibits any type of physical (corpal) punishment by Scouters to scouts, for that matter, scout to scout. All discipline is to be in the form of privledge removal up to and including removal from the troop for a serious enough offense.

Our goal in Scouting is to help young man in the areas of: 1)Character development, 2) Citizenship Training and 3) Physical fitness.

In the real world, an offense to society will cause you to lose some privledge of citzenship: money, time and ultimately your ability to be part of society (prison).

The Scouting discipline system within a troop should be modeled somewhat after this system. While it should not have money as part of it, the discipline should fit the offense. The troop's policy on discipline should be laid out in writing, approved by the troop commitee, distrbuted to all the boys and parents, and should be fairly applied all the boys within the troop, not abritary. Misbehavior in common in all troops, but with our goals, we should be training the boys for real life and that there are consequences for our actions.

Webster defines discipline as "to train or develop by instruction or exercise especially in self control."

Specifically, having a boy do an extra duty because of misbehavior is one option, but may not be the best due the boy's history. Some types of discipline will work with most boys, not at all for some boys. The policy needs to have some flexiability built in, not necessarily the cookie cutter aproach. Above all, it must be fair. While the Scoutmaster and Assistants will be enforcing the policy, they need to keep the enforcement fair and they are answerable to the troop committee on the method that they enforce the policy.

Under no circumstances is the punishment to be physical in nature. Push-ups are a military way of accomplishing discipline, but not within our society at large, therefore not consistant with our goals in Scouting. The military has 6-12 weeks to shape young men and women to soldiers; in Scouting we have 1-11 years to train young men in the discipline of being good citizens, with fine moral character and understanding the need of physical fitness.

jmcquillian

I can relate. I have been in Scouting for over 30 years, a SM for 5 of those years and I found a new lease in Scouting in the Commissioner staff.

I have the role of training, Cub Scout Leaders, Boy Scout Leaders and Junior Leaders. I also serve currently as an Assistant District Commissioner.

I found that I still can touch boys by helping with my orginial troop as Unit Commissioner and Eagle Scout Project Advisor. Even though I don't actively run the troop, I still have input, especially since we just got a new Scoutmaster after 10 years.

There is life after Scoumaster, even after the circumstances you relate.

The best advise I can give you, is don't give up. Scouting needs leaders with your experience and love for the program. It still can be fun.

As a district/council level Scouter, I am asked to attend more than a few Eagle Scout ceremonies. One tradition that was passed on to me by an older Scouter was to have the new Eagle Scout sign the program of his Court of Honor. I keep these in a scrap book, and have them all but one boy I personally helped gain his eagle, as well all the Eagles since I started doing this, which has been a while.

I noted in the new editon (2002) Scout catalog, that a belt fob pre-slited and pre-punched for thongs is available in packs of 8. It has space for the BSA logo and your troop number.

One interesting note: When I made the transition from youth member to adult leader, I asked a Scouter of my aquaintance, what I could do to be a successful Scouter. He replied, "You need to like to do three things: 1) work in the out of doors, 2) work with boys, 3 drink coffee."

I replied, "I understand the first two, but does drinking coffee have to do with it?"

He smiled and said, "When you go a Scout funcution, coffee is often the only beverage available. By the way, bring your own cup." After he stated this, he hand me my first Scouting cup, that started my collection.

Dedicated Dad

I agree with you on your suggestion for the punch.

coolscout101

I fail to understand why you are constantly running down dedicated scouters like OGE, Dedicated Dad, and others. I have seen your postings on several threads, and you seem not to grasp to purpose of this forum: to allow scouters to share ideas and help solve problems for our fellow scouters.

We all serve Scouting to provide 1) Citizenship training, 2) Chartacter development and 3) Physical fitness.

I have served in the BSA for over 30 years and proud of it. This thread is reguarding the traditions of Scouting, that since 1910 has a rich history all across this great country of ours. I simply was sharing one the traditions of my troop.

I don't appreciate being called a HOBO!! I feel your posts are most

un-scoutlike.

If you feel this site is so stupid, perhaps you should look eslewhere for information.

I would implore to moderator of this site to block your deragortory comments.

Brad

I got the beads at crafts stores. The bird bead is tough to find and I got four in a bead assortment I got.

Dedicated Dad

I was then and still am with Central Minnesota Council. While serving in the Air Force, I part of a on base troop in the Pine Burr Council, and they had a simular program.

On my totem I have a bead for the fifty miler award.

The Scoutmaster created his own color scheme for the beads.

I didn't think so at the time. I felt it was a nice cap to my collection of Scouting adventures. When I revived the tradition, the Scouts thought the "eagle" bead was the neatest bead of all.

I had the honor presenting this bead to to a young man who went on to earn all three of his Eagle Palms, then entered the Air Force Academy.

IMHO the traditions should be maintained, not lost.

Fundraising is a pack funcution, not a den funcution. The Unit Money Earning Application makes this clear, as well as the Cub Scout Leader Book. Dens are a sub-unit of the Pack, and cannot do any seperate fundraising.

All den expenses should be figured into to Pack' budget, covered by dues and fundraising. Dens don't hold any money for themselves, all their funds are part of the Pack's fiances.

If your Pack committee is allowing such actions, I would talk the Committee Chair and suggest training.If that don't work, contact your Unit Commissioner and/or District Executive for assistance. Such problems often need a disinterested third party to work out.

If such problems continue, you may need to bring in your charter partner.

The bad feelings between dens are only the begining with this type of problem.

My boyhood troop had a simluar tradition. When earned my Eagle Scout, the Scoutmaster presented me with my last bead which was bird shaped in red,white and blue.

In addition, there were attendance beads that could traded up. White bead for one meeting, silver beads for 8, gold for 20 and a multicolored bead for a full year.

It was the responsiblity for a boy joining the troop to create his totem. They were made of leather blanks which was stamped with the BSA logo and our troop number. He would be shown how to stamp it, poke the holes, thread the thongs and so on. There is blank available for the Scout catalog and thru Tandy leather.

When I became Scoutmaster 10 years latter, I revived the tradition, but it has since been dropped. My troop recently got a new Scoutmaster,and as their Unit Commissioner, I will be suggesting the tradition be restored.

Our local roundtable has simular system for adult leaders, with beads for basic training, district and council events, training events etc. But this form is a necklace.

As a Scouter who been in training for 15 years, and over 2/3 has been for Cub Scouts, I have seen many changes to the program. The New Leader Essentials and Cub Scout Leader Specific Training are bring to the fore some techniques I have been using in the trainings I have conducted over the years.

I especially applaud the Power Point Presentations. While I know that not everyone will have access to the equipment to present them effectively, those of us who are computer savy appreciate the change. There is a inexpensive device that allows you put the computer display onto a TV, which you will be using for the video tape.

My experience with training is there can never be enough time to cover the topics in the detail the participants would like them covered. This is somewhat covered by the "parking lot issues" part of the training. I have focused on covering the material in the training guide and then treat the extra questions as parking lot issues. I also ensure that the participants know how to get their questions answered thru the Council Service Center, Commissioners and myself.

The time frame of 3 hours is the same as the old training. It up to you as the trainer and your district/council training committee to decide on how to modify the set program of training. Perhaps a Saturday session, extended to 6 hours to allow more discussion. When I first began Cub Scout training, we ran our session in that time frame.

Scott Hemgren

Central Minnesota Council

As my troop's eagle advisor, I watch the progress of all the scouts in the troop. If I see a young man of 12 or so burning thru the ranks, I have a discussion with him about his goal and help him focus on his future after Eagle. While I have had the priviledge of knowing and work with some young Eagles, I strong disagree with paper eagles. I have encountered a few young eagles while serving on my district's Eagle Board and found that they either were very sharp or obliviously paper eagles.

Each troop must maintain the standards of the BSA and as such must ensure that today's Eagle Scout is the same as when I earned mine or the they first Eagle Scout. Character and maturity are the strongest factors I am looking for in an Eagle, and paper eagles cheapen and defame those who earn the rank the right way.

Young Eagles can very sharp or very stuck up or very uncaring about the whole thing due to the fact the were pushed the whole way.

I agree with Vigil522, the solution involves training the junior leaders.

The "Scoutmaster's Junior Leader Training Kit", available from national supply; has a one page job desription and a script for laying out the expections for every junior leader position in the troop.

Plan on conducting this training soon as possible to give these leaders a opportunity to understand their obiligation to the troop.

Also, the problem should be addressed lon before the BOR part of the advancement process. However, the BOR has the responsibility of being the final quality control of the advancement program in the troop.

Scott Hemgren

ADC

The Boy Scout program requires the sign off all requirement by the Troop leadership. Troop leadership starts at the junior leaders and contiues thru the adults. Patrol Leaders, Troop Guides and Junior Assistant Scoutmasters should be encourged to work with the new scouts in attaining Tenderfoot, Second Class and First Class, including signing off on requirements completed for these ranks. Only parts that need to be signed off by adults are the Scoutmaster's Conference and the Board of Review.

Star and Life with their requirements of merit badges, should be monitored by an adult. However, a Scout who has attained this rank can help with this work.

The Eagle Scout works well with a dedicated "Eagle Project Advisor", who should very familar with the process and can encourage the boy in goal setting for merit badges and the project completion. I have the privledge of serving a troop in this postition.

The Boy Scout program is suppose to be a boy-ran program, with all parts being in hands of the boys and receiving guidance and counsel from the Scoutmaster and other adults that are involved with the troop.

I have taught new Scoutmasters and Assistants to include junior leaders in all areas of program plannig, including advancement.

The best way for a Scout to prove he has a skill down pat, is for him to teach to someone else. By having the Scouts signing off on advancement, a knowledge transfer happens, and the older boys feel they still have usefullness to the troop.

Scott

I have the oportunity to talk to a lot of Scouters in my travels. I am veteran Scouter (30+ years), and when asked about older uniform items my answer is clear: as long as the older item is servicable ( not torn, stained, etc.) it can contunied to be worn with pride. While this question is usually connected with the green uniform shirt, the principle remains the same for all older style uniform items.