blazer63

I have looked through the forums and have not seen a topic that refers to this issue so I decided to create a new one. I am the Scoutmaster of a troop that had 16 boys in it when i took over 3 years ago. Last year we grew to 22 boys and this year jumped up to 35 boys. I have been contacted by various Webelo Den leaders in the area who are suggesting to me that their boys want to join the troop when crossover time comes in Feb(which I realize is a few months away and boys do change their mind). At last count there were 18 boys interested in joining the troop at that time, plus we picked up 4 new boys at our meeting last week. My concern is that the troop is growing way to fast and I will not be able to keep up with it. While I would never turn a boy away from the Scouting program and am pleased with the vote of confidence in our troop, the logistical problems alone are enough to keep my head spinning. My question is has anyone out there experienced this issue(I am sure that someone on this forum has) and if so how did you handle it. I have talked with the various other Scoutmasters and Assistant Scoutmasters in town (there are 3 other Troops) and they are not experiencing this type of growth. Should I be sending them some of these Scouts? I am getting a bit overwhelmed with the idea of having 40-50 boys in the troop. I have a good group of assistants but we have talked about this issue and none of us is looking forward to running this big a troop. Are we in the wrong position? Any assistance/information that anyone can offer to me would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you all for the words of wisdom and encouragement. I did not mention that while i was speaking with the owners i did ask if it were possible to have the boys do a service project as a way to start to compensate them for this issue

The owners refused saying that they could be liable if one of the boys were hurt. I tried to explain to them that BSA has insurance to cover this and also that I thought this would be an excellent way to get the boys to begin taking responsibility for what had occured. Unfortunately, they were so upset and disgusted by what had happened that they just wanted us to leave. I am not sure if with the passage of a little time they will feel differently. I was thinking about speaking with our District Executive, who is very close to the troop and asking if he could talk with the owners and explain that their liability is extremely limited and that this could be an excellent way to teach these boys a lesson. Beyond that, I have 14 or 15 other kids in the troop who were not on this trip. I don't want to these boys to be punished and dragged through this whole ordeal but I certainly hope that they will see the consequences and learn the lesson that the other boys will hopefully learn. Any other ideas that you folks have would of course be greatly appreciated. Thanks again for your input!!

I will try to keep this as brief as possible. The Troop which I am Scoutmaster of went on a camping trip this weekend to an area with several historic sites. We stayed at a private campground. The campground was still closed for the season(it opens next week) and we were the only folks there. The owners went out of their way to not only get the bathrooms open and water running but also clean up their miniature golf course AND kept an employee working to keep the game room open for us.

The troop spent the day touring some of the local sites and we had an outstanding day. Once we were done with the days activities the boys and other leaders(4 adults-14 boys) headed back to camp while 3 boys, myself and another adult ran to the local Walmart for some supplies.

Upon returning to the campground (was gone less than an hour) I pulled up to the front office to find 2 of my assistant scoutmasters and the 2 parents that came with us this weekend waiting for me. They then informed me that while 10 of the boys were playing in the rec room 1 or more of them broke open a vending machine and some items were missing from it. The machine had those plastic bubbles with the rubber bracelets that are so popular these days. Apparently, somehow the machine was opened and several of the bracelets were missing. As I was getting all the facts from my Assistant Scoutmasters, the owners of the Campground showed up very irate (justiiably so). They told us that they had been "burned by Scout groups in the past" and wanted us to leave. We spoke with them for quite some time and they agreed to let me have 15 minutes to try and discern what happened and who had broken the machine.

I went to the campsite and had a frank discussion with the boys regarding the 1st point of the Scout Law and how good people may make bad decisions but when you do make a bad decision you need to step up and make things right. I asked the boys to take a couple of minutes and think things over and the boy(or boys) who had broken the machine had 5 minutes to come to me and let me know what happened. I really expected the boys to have the intestinal fortitude to step up and take responsibility in this matter. Unfortunately, I was totally disappointed as no one came forward. There were a lot of accusations flying and the story was changing by the moment when the Campground owners came back to find out what happened. Since I could not tell them that a boy (or boys) had come forward to take responsibility they told us we had to leave. I had the boys pack their gear and drove the 1-1/2 hours home. Once we got back home the boys called their parents. I had the parents stay until they had all arrived and then we had the boys sit down and I explained to the parents what had taken place. I also gave the boys another opportunity to step up and take responsibility(although at this point I did not expect any boy to come forward in the face of all those upset people). I also told the boys to take the time between now and our troop meeting monday nite to search their souls and if any of them wanted to discuss this issue with me or any other leader of the troop (including our SPL who may be more "approachable" on this issue at this point) that they should contact us.

I guess my question now (besides wondering where and how we have failed these boys) is what should the leadership of the troop do now. Do we punish all the boys because 1 or 2 did something wrong? I have a hard time believing that out of the 10 boys that were in this room at the time no one saw anything at all. I am at a total loss as to the next step. Our Troop Committee chairman was at the Church when I arrived back with the boys. He was extremely upset and his feeling is that there should be no further Troop activities until this situation is resolved. I do not want to over react to this situation but I also don't want to underreact either. I desperately want to do what is right but just don't know what that is right now. I do not want any hasty decisions to be made, and I know that this is certainly a prime learning moment, but between the intense disappointment I feel that no one stepped up and took responsibility for their actions, as well as feeling guilty that I was not present at the time this occured and to be honest a good dose of embarassment at being kicked out of the campground I fear my judgement is clouded. I appologize for the length of this post but I would certainly welcome any ideas or comments that anyone may have to offer.

First some short background: In this area there are 4 troops up and running. We all draw from a relatively small pool of potential new Scouts. Over the past 2 or 3 years most of these potential Scouts have joined one particular Troop, I will call them Troop A. I would understand if Troop A was outstanding and far above the other 3 troops. However I do not believe this to be the case as I have been involved at the district level and have seen some of the things that go on in this troop first hand and really do not feel that their program far outpaces any of the other 3 troops.

Now to the issue at hand: Recently my troop held our annual open house for any Webeloes preparing to cross over. In past years parents have told us how well organized and enjoyable these events have been and the boys all seem to really enjoy themselves. I was speaking to one of the parents who I have known for several years and she informed me that when they were at the Troop A open house the Scoutmaster (who is also a District Executive for a neighboring District) told all the parents that they really should not bother coming to our troop as the boys run the troop and pick on any new boys that come in. Now the only part of this that is true is that the boys do run the troop as they should. I have never allowed any sort of hazing or teasing by any boy in my troop, nor would I.

My question is how should we react to this situation? It seems incredibly unfair that we are not bringing any new Scouts into our Troop because we are being bad mouthed by another troops leader (who is a professional scouter at that!!). Should I respond and if so how? I would never go around bad mouthing another troop and in fact usually tell parents that all 4 troops have good programs and that you really need to fit the boy to the program that best suits his personality and likes/dislikes. I would rather have a boy stay in scouting with another Troop than leave scouting all together. I am at a loss as to how to handle this situation and would certainly appreciate any help that can be offered.

Does anyone know if there is a resource where our troop could go to find all the past Eagle Scouts. The Troop was chartered in Jan. 1918 and we have been able to go thru Council records as far back as 1938. The PLC would like to put a plaque together with the names of all the Troop eagle scouts which will hang on the wall of our charter organizations assembly room. The troop has been chartered by the same church from the beginning and is the oldest continuinously chartered troop in the area. We want to start tracing and promoting our history more. WE are also looking for a list of past Scoutmasters and again have found back to 1938. ANy help would be greatly appreciated!!

Just thought I would post an update on how my Troop is handling this issue since I posted a month or so ago. First, we took the advise that many posted here to try and encourage the boys to wear the uniform vs demanding it. I started a weekly lottery where each boy that was in full uniform (to include socks, belt etc) received an entry into a monthly drawing for a prize. The first week we had 4 boys in full uniform (mostly the members of the PLC). The next week we had 8, the following week 13 and then 18. At our last meeting (Our Court of Honor) I had the SPL do the drawing for a Head Lamp. We also decided that the boys entered into the drawing would stay and at the end of the Scout Year we will have a drawing for a new tent. To this point I would say about 50% of the boys are in full uniform to include belt, socks etc. Another 40-45% are in partial uniform, usually at least the Scout shirt but missing socks, belts, pants, neckerchiefs etc.

I did some research over the past week and found that a full Scout uniform can be found on Ebay for around $20.00 including shipping. I made that announcement to all the parents at the COH and received a very favorable response.

The Troop is also in the process of setting up a uniform exchange so that all the boys will have access to some parts of uniforms that our older boys may have outgrown.

Overall, I am thrilled with the response of the boys and parents to this issue. I think if the Troop Leadership had tried to ramrod this issue thru it would have received very poor results to include an erosion of troop unity and spirit. However, by implementing many of the strategies put forth in this forum we were able to accomplish just the opposite-a stronger sense of team and unity and increased spirit among the boys.

Thanks to all that have made comments and suggestions in this thread. The question should not be should the Uniform be required but rather how can we get our Boys to wear their full uniform with pride.

Patches don't make the Scout.

Being the son of a now reired professional scouter who spent every summer from the age of 1 at various summer camps I have been incredibly fortunate to have fond memories of many summer camps. A few of these would include:

Camp Pomperaug, Union, CT

Camp Toquam, Goshen, CT

Camp Workcoeman, New Hartford, CT

Camp Mattatuck, Plymouth, CT

Camp Carpenter, Manchester, NH

Camp Wakpominee, Glens Falls, NY

Lake of Isles, Prston, CT

Camp Tamaracouta, Quebec, CAnada

Philmont Scout Ranch

Camp Tadma, Bozrah, CT

Camp Delmont, Pennsylvania

I have special memories of all of these places and was incredibly fortunate to be able to spend significant time at each one. Unfortunatly, many of these Camps are no longer owned by the Scouts but thats a whole new thread that I don't think I want to start!!

Eamonn:

Touche' and thank you

My Troop is working on hosting a Boy Scout Round up event next month. As we start to set up the program for the day, we are looking for ideas to make this activity a fun and exciting day for the perspective new members who attend. Does anyone have any ideas for specific activities we could have available for boys coming to investigate Scouting. Anyone have stories of past Round Up Success stories? I have had 1 father tell me that the best we can expect is to gain "maybe" 1 or 2 boys at the most. While that would be fine I would really like to give this event as much of a chance at success as possible.

I appreciate the responses. I will definetly institute some of the motivations mentioned and work with the boys of my PLC to help set the tone for the rest of the troop. Getting off the topic a bit here it has been my experience in Scouting, and in other organizations, that a lot of people will tell me what I CANNOT do but it is seldom told to me what I CAN do. Is there a rule set forth by BSA that a troop CANNOT require uniforms or is it just not stated that a troop CAN require the boys to wear uniforms? I know of at least 2 troops in my district that do require their boys to be in full uniform and when the boys show up missing something a note is made in the boys folder, parents are called to bring the proper uniform to the boy(in the event he is missing a shirt or pants) and it is brought up at the boys next Scoutmasters conference and/or BOR. While I do not agree with this method and much prefer the ideas put forth earlier in this forum I know that it occurs. How does BSA National look upon this type of treatment?

I recently became Scoutmaster of a troop(was the ASM for 2 years b4) and have had numerous talks with my PLC regarding uniform wear. The boys want all the boys to be required to wear full uniforms to the meetings. I have made this point clear at the parent meeting we had at the beginning of the year and faced numerous complaints by parents that it was not "practical" to require all the boys to be in full uniform at Troop meetings. I recruited a parent to assist our quartermaster in setting up a uniform exchange program, however that is more of a longterm solution. My question is, how can we enforce this requirement with the boys if I can not get the parents to all agree to the requiremnt. Our PLC made an outstanding point that having all the boys in full uniform at each meeting would help to instill a sense of pride among the Troop members.

A couple of thoughts that I have come up with would be to have a Patrol inspection prior to each weeks meeting and the Partol with the most complete uniforms would win a prize or gain some other sort of advantage. The PLC had decided that any boy not showing up in full uniform should be sent home, however I felt that was not appropriate. Does anyone out there have any prior experiences or insights in to how we can positively enforce this idea?