T2Eagle

Help the boys split themselves into two more or less able and active patrols.  Give each patrol their own set of clearly marked equipment: tents, chuck box, fly, etc.  On every campout, no matter who shows up a patrol is a patrol is a patrol is a patrol, each patrol plans its own meals and then sets up their own stuff, and eats, sleeps, and cleans together.

That's my advice, now here's my dilemma (sorry Beav) this is pretty close to how my scouts are set up in theory.  But left to their own devices, which I try very hard to do, they do not maintain patrol integrity and will end up operating as one big group, or two groups, that co mingle everything: themselves, their sites, their gear, their food.  In the conflict between boy-led and patrol method I allow the boy led decisions to trump the patrol method.  I have never been able to solve this riddle.

one of the things that may be missing from your analysis Calico is the difference between a scout saying "his" prayers and a scout saying "our" prayers.  If a scout ends a group prayer with "in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen", and you are not a Christian, what was the end of the prayer for you?

When I went to my Hindu friend's wedding I knew I was participating, or more accurately observing, a religious service who's tenets I categorically do not believe in, and I had no problem doing so.  But that was their service not my service.  In a multi-faith troop a variety of prayers is fine, but it is important to recognize that you are leading a prayer that your fellow scouts may not be willing, or in some cases even allowed, to participate in.

So tell me again why these people sould become a Venturing Crew when they are doing everything a Venturing Crew is already doing and they don't need to register, take training but they don't get any cool patches.

They probably shouldn't, especially if they see cool patches as the only value to be had in being part of a 100 year old, world wide movement that strives to greater aims than just cool outdoor activities.

But of course the BSA cannot assume that all of its units would have the in house capabilities that your church's group has.  In fact, even a casual observation of scouting units in any area, at any level, now or in the glorious past, would show that that kind of in house expertise is rare.  Most of the adults in most of the units I've been involved in are pretty middle of the road in terms of both their outdoor experience and virtually every other facet of their lives, except for one, the expertise they have is a commitment to trying to develop another generation of Americans who can be better people and better citizens.  Scouting gives them a really nice framework to do that, even if, sadly, there isn't a cliff worth climbing within a few hundred miles of where we live.

All of the troops I've been involved with have had a religious CO, Churches both Protestant and Catholic, plus a Knights of Columbus, and I've never seen a formal adult position of Chaplain.

I figured the name of the POR was somewhat anachronistic, maybe an artifact from some point, would have had to have been prior to the late 60s, when Chaplains were a common unit feature.

 

I wouldn't get all bent out of shape over it.   There are others out there who probably would though.

 

I'm Catholic in a Catholic sponsored troop.  I stopped going to vespers at out summer camp because it was unabashedly a Christian service and I didn't think that was appropriate given the inevitability that there were non Christians who were asked to or even made to attend the service without it being clearly labeled as Christian.  I don't mind attending services of other faiths, but I need it to be completely voluntary and well described up front.

My view is that it first depends on what your CO is, and what they would think about it.  My CO is a Catholic Church, virtually all of our religious actions are squarely within the RC tradition.  We have non catholics and one or two non Christian scouts, and we let them opt out of anything religious that we do in any way that they want to.

I'm not sure which guideline you're referring to, if you can find it I would look closely at when it applies.  Something that applies to say camp or outside of troop activities may not apply within the troop.

If you're not in a religious CO, or if your CO doesn't have or want to have some input in this, I think the real issue you need to look out for is that, especially if you have non Christian scouts, if the scout uses this phrase then whatever reaction, affirmation, silence, etc. that it evokes has to be given as much protection as the scout's desire to use the phrase.

One thing that may be worth discussing with the scout, and probably his parents, is that he needs to understand that Christianity, and even the forms of Christianity, are not universal, and that using a prayer specific to a religion can be fine, but that by definition will be excluding some of his fellow scouts from the prayer.  Is that a good thing?  

 

Roger on drivin' an older vehicle.  Of course, I reckon that any vehicle used regularly for Boy Scoutin' looks like a beater. 

 

Beavah

Smells like one anyway.

Except da BSA no longer says no caravans, eh?  That got dropped from da G2SS some years back, around the same time they dropped da prohibition on driving at night.  

 

 

A slight correction for you here Beav.  They didn't drop the ban on caravans, but they did modify it a bit and move it to the Guide to Tour Plan Principles Pledge of Performance: 

15. If more than one vehicle is used to transport our group, we will establish rendezvous points at the start of each day and not attempt to have drivers closely follow the group vehicle in front of them

The ending of caravaning is one of my proudest achievements with the troop.  You shouldn't drive based on how some other member of your group is driving.  You shouldn't be worried about whether you are staying with the vehicle in front, you shouldn't worry about whether you are losing the vehicle behind.  You should be worried about driving your car and the things happening with and around your car.

We don't know what happened in this accident, but you're following too close if you can't come to an emergency stop when the vehicle in front of you comes to an emergency stop.

I don't have a problem with driving scouts in the vehicle pulling the trailer, as to being distracted by the scouts, the driver is responsible for driving, everyone else in the car, scout or scouter, is responsible for everything else.

I think there are so many things that affect the numbers that other than a spike from the initial change it will always be hard to determine causation for whatever the trend is, and it will be a few years before we know what the trend actually is.

I think the gist of this story, that the transition is seen as having gone reasonably well is what's really important.  Hopefully people can now focus on whether scouting is or is not a positive experience for their kids, and run the program accordingly.

The Catholic Church recently decided that all units chartered by Knights of Columbus are to be turned over to the parish youth ministries.  This was done to emphasize that the parish should be the focus of all our organized youth activities.

 

 

This isn't quite accurate.  The Knights, internally, made the decision to, among other changes, stop sponsoring troops.  The decision wasn't mandated by the USCCB or the Church writ large.

But that still leaves my point unanswered, there is no theological mandate to belong to a Catholic scouting unit and the decision to do so is well within the purview of the scout and his family, to take offense at that decision because one believes that his unit is uniquely qualified to provide the correct scouting experience for a Catholic is hubristic, and frankly disdainful of the family's role of deciding in communion with the Church how best to raise their son  or daughter within the faith.

On behalf of my friends who minster through the CYO programs I should probably also take some exception to the notion that playing soccer necessarily does not involve a religious teaching component.

We go to the same camp each year.  The boys decide not the adults, we've looked at the other camps in our area and our council's seems the best, none of the others offer any real difference in the program available.  We've also looked at some more distant camps like Blue Ridge but neither the boys nor the families really took to the idea.

The religious argument is never out of the equation.

 

A boys loyalty to his church is a lot more important than any other program issues that might arise.

Is loyalty to a church the same as loyalty to a scout unit?  I was under the impression that your unit was Catholic.  I can't think of any theological argument that would mandate a young man be in a catholic sponsored rather than a non catholic sponsored unit; my understanding is we're not bound even to our home parish let alone a school.  

That any unit is the best let alone the only appropriate scouting experience for any boy, irrespective of their faith, would seem very hubristic.

Zuzy suggested that the Dad's position as UC of the unit may have been at least partly responsible for the problem between the scout and the SM.

 

I would suggest that they do not repeat that mistake with a new unit.

This is really a separate discussion, but UC is kind of an odd position. I'd like to think I'm open to suggestions from anyone,  but I have an ego too, I'd need to be convinced I was just flat doing something blatantly mistakenly before I would accept someone outside telling me what I'm doing is just wrong.

I've had a couple of transfers unhappy with their previous troops.  I usually hear out both parent and scout about what they didn't like about previous troop and what they're looking for now.  Our program is pretty straight forward and I describe for them how and why we do what we do.  My experience has been solidly positive, most of the time the problem has been rigidity on the part of the other troop, fueled by a clash of personalities on both sides.  

In terms of where they are advancement wise I take what Scoutnet says for rank and merit badges and whatever blue cards they have.  If there was a question about credit for a POR for the rank they're currently on I might have a chat with someone from the previous troop and then I make my own call about what the scout needs to still do for his current troop and patrol mates.

As a guess, I would say that troops that provide practice EBORs have an expectation that the EBOR itself is going to be difficult, probably because the EBORs ask "gotcha" questions, or have a particular set of expectations about how a scout should answer and/or what a scout should answer.  If that's the EBOR your scout will face than a practice EBOR isn't a bad idea, and practicing anything usually makes you better at it.

As a professional I have interviewed hundreds of job candidates, most of them for jobs requiring a college or even graduate degree.  I long ago stopped being surprised at folks who are otherwise very capable in their field who are not particularly good at that type of communication.  My role as an interviewer is to find out whether the person will be good at the job not whether they are good at interviewing.  Likewise an EBOR has a responsibility to "determine the quality of [a scout's] experience and decide whether he has fulfilled the requirements for the rank', not to decide if they're good at playing rhetorical games with adults.  

If your EBORs are difficult for scouts whose other advancement achievements you've approved, then you should be working at changing your EBORs, but in the mean time you probably should help your scouts prepare for them because it's not really reasonable to expect a 17 year old doing something for the first time to be as extemporaneously clever as a group of fifty somethings who are probably doing something for dozenth time. 

 

3b. Become familiar with your patrol name, emblem, flag, and yell. Explain how these items create patrol spirit. (They formed a new patrol just before my son crossed over and they haven't picked these things yet... the patrol is even listed in Scoutbook as TBD)

 

 

Typing this up, I am realizing this isn't necessarily a problem with the program as it is the Troop's organization. I am wondering though how do you all, as leaders, balance making sure program requirements get met when the boys clearly have no interest in getting some things done? At what point do you step in and give them a deadline? Take the Patrol name, flag, and yell for example. The boys just don't care that they don't have one

 

As parents, how long do you wait before speaking up? As a Cub parent, I would just step up and offer to lead a portion of a den meeting and organize whatever activity he was needing (this was usually only necessary to finish electives that my son was working on alone). I get that's not how Scouts works, but how does it work then? I just keep telling my son, "You got to speak up for yourself and talk to your patrol leader." But he says he is... what more can I do to encourage him and help him feel less frustrated?

There are several issues to unpack here.  I'll start with the last.  Feel free to have a chat with your SM or an ASM to understand all the mechanics about how Advancement works in your troop.  Don't focus on this issue, focus on the over all process: who signs off requirements, who sets the standards, who makes the calls when things aren't clear.  Emphasize that you want to understand not because you want your son to advance, but because you want to help your son understand how to advance when and if he wants to.

On the specific issues you raised, if the Patrol doesn't have a name, yell, flag, etc., then a possible answer is "we don't have these things yet" followed by a discussion of why that might be OK, why it might not be OK, and what if anything can and should the scout and the patrol do about it. That discussion should fulfill the requirement.  Some troops use these tools very effectively in carrying out the patrol method, but they're not the only way it can be done.  In my troop we have patrol names but rarely have yells, flags, etc., but the patrols still function pretty well, some troops use these tools perfunctorily because the book says you have to have them.

On the knots, practice at home, practice, practice, practice, and then have your son grab who ever it is that signs off on requirements and ask him to stay after the meeting for five minutes so he can demonstrate it.

Cyber chip is new and I need to understand it better before I comment, but I know there was a long thread on these boards not long ago that seemed pretty helpful.

Finally if things aren't working out still, as a SM I always want to know that.  Especially for a new scout I am fine if the parent helps the scout approach me to talk about these things, you can walk up to me with your scout and ask me to speak with him, I'll be glad to have that conversation with him.

There was clearly some droning on there....

Sorry RichardB, I couldn't resist.

May I ask what year you attended?  

2011

They didn't have a chance to understand the supposed  "teaching of the Patrol Method by demonstration" because what they saw was that the staff (adults) had all the power and the patrol members -- even if understood to be surrogates for Scouts -- had no power to plan anything and little opportunity to run anything beyond the "patrol meeting" between weekends.   

My WB course was the least Patrol Method, Boy-Led scouting I ever experienced.  I pointed out during one of the PLCs that the Sm was supposed to intervene only in matters of BSA policy and safety, and I was told well maybe that's how you do it in your troop but that's not how we do it here.

That was the moment I realized I really shouldn't have been there.

I suspect that the desire to fill the class is going to be the driving force, and really what difference would it make.  You could have a class full of Committee Members whose sum training is YPT and online Committee Challenge, if WB would work for them why would it not work for a SM or ASM with roughly the equivalent training or lack thereof.

If the same person flakes out regularly you deal with that person, basically by understanding they'll flake out, otherwise you're at the mercy of a world where every business, every service, every activity, has to run 24/7.  If your boss tells you you have to work late Friday night, or your spouse has to work late, or the friend who was going to watch your other kids has to work late, then the chain reaction is started.

Getting through the Scout requirements doesn't seem hard, but it does seem tedious, so I think it's slowing new scouts down just a little bit.  

Along the same lines, I was wondering what effect folks have been seeing from Cooking merit badge being Eagle required.  In our troop I am starting to see some changes in how cooking is being handled by the patrols on campouts.  It seems that the cooking on pretty much every outing is being done for advancement and not just because some guys are better at or enjoy cooking more.  I agreed with the decision to make Cooking MB required, but I didn't see this consequence coming.

There are some holes in the story and probably lots of poor communication.  It sounds like the camp was getting advice from one set of experts and the staffers were getting conflicting advice from another:

 "Bourgeois said Jolly contacted him about the injured bird - specifically, asking Bourgeois to identify the animal. Bourgeois also said Jolly had contacted the game warden to ask what should be done about the injured eagle."

If the Camp was being told in no uncertain terms not to touch the bird it's hard to fault them for wanting to follow that directive; it seems like a more difficult call than the headline would lead you to believe.

From the Camp's perspective, if they were told by a game warden to do nothing, than the staffers' actions look a lot like the idiots who "rescued" a baby bison earlier this year.

I think Hooters generally sends the wrong message about objectifying women.  Having said that, I recognize that they are a popular restaurant chain throughout middle America, and if a local business wants to sponsor a day camp and provide some volunteers more power to them.  As Stosh pointed out, to the Cubs this is just another group of adults helping out at camp.

Much ado about nothing, but outrage is fashionable these days.