SMDonHall

Thanks for the discussion. I'm responding to some of the comments below:

QUOTE:

If the SPL does not get up at the agreed upon time the Scoutmaster goes over to his tent and gives him exactly one wake up call.

QUESTION: Then what do you do after the one wake-up call is ignored?

QUOTE: "Maybe it takes several months before a sleepyhead SPL is replaced by new blood." and "Time to have a SM Conference and remind them what the "R" in "POR" means. Being a successful leader means that you do what you need to do when you need to do it."

QUESTION: In the meantime, or if he does not respond to SM Conference, what action is taken? Or should we call immediately for the SPL to step down? As you can imagine, without the SPL awake, there is a trickle-down effect, where others don't want to get up either. Also, with no one "in charge" things don't get done and adults are stepping in.

QUOTE: "After sufficient calls, tent shaking and threats, the next tactic is usually dropping the tent on Sleeping Beauty. A cup of cold water will be coming next."

Comments: well this is kind of how it was handled on our last campout, however it really didn't work (it still took adult intervention), and seemed to only make the oversleepers more angry and caused a lot of conflict between boys. Also, part of me wonders how this sort of thing fits in to "courteous" and "kind" (and YES, I know the oversleepers are not being "courteous" either, but I'm not sure I want to 2 wrongs making a right )

DH

How does a boy-led troop handle the problem of boys oversleeping, especially if some of those oversleeping are in leadership positions. (and by oversleeping I don't mean "Oh my gosh my alarm didn't go off!" kind of accidental oversleeping, but more "I don't want to wake up, so I'm not gonna")

Don

John, I did state that I don't think we should NEVER do those things, it's just they are coming up with things like this to the exclusion of the things that would give them more "scout skills". They pooh pooh ideas like hiking on the appalacian trail, having a "cooking campout" for ideas that they already do on school/band trips.

As a result, the majority of the more "scouty" outings have been the result of adult "persuasion"

DH

Glad I found this old thread, cause it is similar to what we are going through as we transition into a "boy-led" troop.

I understand the opinions here, but I'd like to know nuts and bolts of how you keep the program scouting related.

Our PLC often brings up ideas that are less "scouty" than we would like for outings. (trip to the beach, trip to a science museum, trip to an amusement park). I'm not thinking that we should NEVER do anything like this, but it is hard to get them thinking in terms of more scoutlike activities in their planning. Since we pretty much only do one activity a month, I'd rather them leave these kinds of activities for other venues (school trips, family vacations etc).

So what do I do? Tell them no outright? Set parameters ahead of time as to what constitutes a scout activity? Let them do whatever they want?

What I'm looking for here is how you do it. Not your philosophy, but how your typical PLC planning meetings go and what happens to their ideas after the meeting? (approval from another source, etc.)

We had a guy break his arm at one of our meetings. At the next meeting, we awarded him a "Fast Break" candy bar. He is a joker and a good sport, not easily embarrassed, maybe not every boy would like this. But we also talked about how the boys used their first aid skills (they helped splint it and put his arm in a sling until his parents arrived to take him to the hospital) and also mentioned the scouts bravery.(This message has been edited by SMDonHall)

The wording on page one is confusing. It says parts A and C are to be completed annually, which is how it always was with the Class I medical form.

The Class II medical form used to be good for three years for Scouts. Is this no longer the case with the new Part B?

If so, I'm assuming that a scout can still use his class II medical form (Doctor's physical) this year even if it is older than one year, and not older than 3 years?

DH(This message has been edited by SMDonHall)

Nice job!

I'd like to "piggyback" onto this thread:

Our troop has only in the past year and a half or so really started using the patrol method.

We get only 2-3 Webelos crossing over each year, and so we do not use the "New Scout Patrol" idea.

The past two years, we've put the incoming boys into one patrol together, with the newer boys, for the most part, being two grades away from the majority of the patrols they entered. So now,our patrols currently look like this:

Patrol A: Very active, 10th and 8th graders (7 members)

Patrol B: Very active, 9th, 7th and 6th graders (8 members)

Patrol C: Small (5 members)only three really active although the other two do show up on occasion, 9th & 11th graders

Patrol D: so-called "Leadership patrol" which really functions only as a vehicle for older scouts to either hang out, or not come at all. Currently it has only 2 scouts in it and only one shows up with any regularity. The SPL and ASPL are also considered to be in this patrol, so that makes 4 in that patrol.

We are considering getting rid of the "leadership patrol", putting the two members of that patrol into Patrol C, which would then be a patrol of 9th, 11th and 12 graders. The SPL and the ASPL would not be in a patrol. When the current Seniors leave, this patrol would again have only 5 members.

We will be getting a few new scouts in the spring. If we were to beef up patrol sizes and make them all similar, we would put them into this patrol C, but there would be a pretty big age gap between the incoming 5th graders and the next youngest which are 9th graders. Currently Patrol A and B work together very well, and they do not want to split up.

Has anyone ever had a big gap in ages like this in a patrol. Will it be a problem or do we need to force the other two patrols to rearrange in the spring? We could solve the problem this year by putting the new scouts into the other two patrols, but we'd have an even bigger age gap next year.

Don

(This message has been edited by SMDonHall)

I am new to the scoutmaster position in our troop. After our last meeting ended, one of our scouts told me about what I would consider a serious incident of bullying that happened on a recent outing (namecalling, punching in the gut, pushing him down). I thanked him for being brave enough to let me know, and I told him I would speak to the offending lad. (offender had already gone home from the meeting) I asked the boy if this same boy had ever done anything before and he told me that at summer camp (which I was not SM, nor was I there), this boy did a lot of name calling and teasing.

Though I am new as SM, I am familiar with the offender, and have my suspicions that he has done things like this before, but I do not know for certain. So, if I treat this as his first offense (under my watch), what is the proper way to handle it? Is it appropriate to notify the offender's parents at this point, or do I just document it this time and speak to the boy and tell him this will not be tolerated. Should I involve a committee member?

Just a bit of background. The troop has no formal discipline policy in place. There is no documentation of any times when the old SM may have had to talk with any of the scouts over discipline issues. Over the past few months since my tenure, I have been trying to turn the troop into a boy-led troop, but as of this point, I dont think my SPL or PLC is ready to dole out discipline the scouts.

don