blw2

ah, your second link is broken but I have the 1st one in my cart! thanks for the tip!

I just received the "Troop Leader Guidebook" I ordered to read through. I've already read through most of the Troop Committee Guidebook Ugh, Is there any way to order a bound copy of these leader books? To me, for some reason a book in a binder seems more like a cheesy collection of notes, cheaply done for some lame seminar. I think my sub conscience mind just rebels against them. I was reading through the 1st few pages loosely, then decided to get a binder. As soon as I clipped the pages in, and started to pick-up where I had left off, my mind was just not interested in reading anymore. Then it dawned on me..... It's the binder! Incidentally, the binder I used was my old Baloo course binder, that I no longer need need.... and incidentally have never refereed to since the class.... very likely partially because of the silly binder! I've tried the three ring binders for them. I've used the folders with prongs. Of course all terrible. The style of binder we use in this country are really just a very poor design concept. There are other types of binders used in other countries, that in all ways seem to function better.... but still it's a horrible way to present a book. Any of these methods do not read well, are not very durable or pack-able, they look horrible sitting on a bookshelf. A bound book is superior in almost every way. IMHO, the ONLY exception might be a critical reference that is updated by page or section frequently.. such as the approach plates used by pilots. (a book that contains all of the airport instrument arrival and departure procedures, approaches, and other airport information for airports in a given region or area). Sure, they are more expensive, but I would happily pay a reasonable premium for it, if it truly is a useful reference. Perhaps BSA really doesn't consider these thing to be very useful!

OK, I thought of another line of trivial survey type questions.... 1) Do your scouts have patrol level POR's? 2) IF so, which positions? 3) & If so, which positions are elected, assigned from above (PL, SPL, SM), or appointed based on mutual request/understanding within the patrol? I mean, do your scouts, or scouts in any troop that you know of or have known, have formal POR's in their patrols? As in a Patrol Scribe, a Patrol Secretary, QM, etc.... I thought that I had read some stories about that kind of thing in the past. But now that I'm getting a further understanding of my son's new troop, and doing a but of reading, it seems that all of these positions are meant as troop level, not patrol. Our troop at least doesn't seem to do it this way.... But it sure seems like a logical approach to me. Known responsibilities should result in better efficiency for the team. The only downside I can think of is that the individual scouts won't get quite as well rounded..... I plan to do a little more digging into the handbooks, but thought it might be an interesting discussion. (edited to add question 3)

Yes, welcome! It will be great to have you join us around the virtual campfire. Nice to have additional viewpoints and experiences in the mix. Hopefully, you'll find some value as I have here, in discussions with others that have a very similar interest! Oh, and congrats on getting through your studies and phd! What is your field of study? I'm certainly no expert in that, but fairly recently read this book http://andrewskurka.com/product/ultimate-hikers-gear-guide/ I fond it very interesting. I recommend it. I hope to be able to put some of his tips and experience to good use.

Exactly! But one minor point of clarification. BP wrote that he felt that he could handle 16 Scouts. NOT 32. 32 was allowing for an assumption that most folks could handle twice as many as him. That's a suggested troop size of sixteen (16) Now, my assumption is that this was a bit of an exaggeration perhaps, to make a point. Still, that IS the point. Perigrinator stole some of my thunder on this one! adding to what they wrote You even mentioned knowing more than what they wanted neighbors to know.... Still the same thing.... these are Jeopardy Show trivial facts. I'd invite you to go back and read some of BP's writings, such as Aids to Scoutmastership. No doubt you have read some of this stuff in the past, but take another look. What I was referring too, he wrote about really getting to know the boy. The individual. To learn what is inside him and to be able to figure out how to bring out the good in him. I take it to mean stuff that you would really need to spend quality time with a person to know. Serious time as in having significant and frequent conversations. Hanging out together and spending significant time with or at least near each other. Sharing mealsat camp, watching how a scout interacts with other scouts..... stuff like that. Not trivial facts, but understanding. It's different. Oh, I might be acting foolish. I might be naive. I'm certainly not perfect and omniscient. But throwing out stuff like that isn't usually very helpful in conversation. You bring up a really great point about communication! Maybe we should all consider that now, it's perhaps more critical than ever in history, for a group to be crystal clear and all on the same page, regarding what the preferred method of communication is when exactly you might want to go the 2nd most preferred method. and so on... when to leave a message etc... IN your example it could be that this scout in question wasn't clear on that... maybe didn't understand that you think of him important enough to call, leave a message, etc... OR maybe he thought that what you wanted him for must not have been all that important. Maybe he's really not all taht motivated for some reason or another.... Who knows why? One thing is certain... there was a breakdown in communication somewhere.

Oh boy did you misinterpret what I was trying to say!..... I must not have wrote it well....

ok, so far the only units that run it through the CO are the LDS ones.... Well that's a lot more than I had thought I guess, but it seems like for most of us here anyway, it's a troop account and troop managed. Re the side note responses re. concerns and so forth.... Yeah, I totally get all of that. Not popping my bubble about the whole ownership thing. I've known that a long time. Also, I'm like you @@Stosh..... I always stayed as far away from treasurer as I could get during my time with the pack. Decided to do it after asked this time, because that was the hole they needed me to fill... & I figured I'll do everything reasonably possible to be transparent and above board..... I'm not concerned really. If the parish wants to take it, great. It'll free me to help in some other way..... but I still contend it will be a nightmare. With as much as the CO helps and supports us, they are also at the same time a pain to work with. I like your idea stosh, about just putting the parish bookkeeper on the committee.... but I'd imagine it might go something like this.... bet they would never attend meetings and barely be involved.... so expense reports submitted to them at at the office. They are only available during their limited office hours for questions. They might even try to demand that we have our committee meetings during office hours. Oh, and most every expense line item would get nit-picked, only because they don't understand the program, the process, the terminology, etc.... Anyway, Have been doing quite a lot of reading... in another thread here, and several other sources. One document I printed from meritbadge.org was very good I thought, with some cya ideas....reads much like your post @@Hedgehog but goes even more in depth on each bullet. You make a few additional points that are really great too. Thanks for that. But back to my original question, i'm still interested if anyone else pops in on the thread, knowing anyone (other than LDS I guess) that doesn't manage their own unit finances. I'm really just curious form the stand point of knowing what is "common practice"

I think most of us has noticed it's always the leader's kid. Not usually seriously bad, mostly just snarky answers when having a group discussion... or the one disrupting the group just a little when doing some activity. Just attended a youth leader training class today, and of the three kids that made these types of disruptions, all were son's of scouters in attendance.... Sad to say one was my son. Nothing too bad, just being a little silly, but still.... On the way home, I started with a discussion of why that wasn't the best thing to do.... but then I asked him a serious question.... the one I'm asking here. Why is it? Why does he think this is? What was going through his mind? .... of course all I got was , I don't know.... SO... why do you think it is?

I've mentioned in another thread that I have asked to take the vacant Treasurer job on our troop committee. We are chartered by a church How many units do not have their own bank accounts, but instead process financials through the church's book keepers? Long story, but the short version is that the CC wants to switch banks before I take over... We found out that the bank requires a letter from the pastor, authorizing use of the church's tax ID # When requested, the church office staff of course thought that we should be using BSA's number. I had to explain to them that this isn't how it works, that we are owned by the parish, and have been using their info for years, that we are not trying to establish some new budget but instead just a transfer and continuation of the way it is, and so on... I have outlined how the charter is structured, committees, and so on. And I explained that every unit is set up this way. They seem to be under the impression that we shouldn't have our own account, and that everything should work through their office So we're in a holding pattern until I can get the COR involved. & I just hope taht he will be able to sort it out. In the meantime, i just got to wondering if any units that you all know of are set up that way. In our case, it would be a royal nightmare and very well could end the troop! That's how easy they are to work with.... Secondary question: Do any of you know of any documents I could use to help sort this out?

these mega troop & troop size discussions are interesting. As I mentioned before, I can imagine that with modern tools for communication, better transportation, computers, and so on taht BP's ideal of 32 scouts could be a little bit more today.... BUT there certainly has to be a time when the troop just gets too big for a SM to really know his boys... which seems to be necessary to really work on the individual per BP's vision. Sure you can delegate down to multiple ASM's acting like SM's for a fraction of the overall troop.... but then you possibly get different visions going on within, more miscommunications, etc... AND the troop committee gets stressed more supporting more money, equipment, registrations, and so on. On the other hand, i can see the ASM acting as a scoutmaster for some of the patrols working if each acts and stands more or less alone as it's own sub-troop. really focusing on scouting happening at the patrol level.... yeah, maybe I can see it. Still the SM and committee can't be as effective.

oh come on everyone.... The different versions are prob. on purpose... So that we can just refer to the one that best fits our particular situation at the time, and then everyone is happy.

Well I suppose the intersecting circle thing might make some sense.... scouts vs non scouts Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but some of what you are getting at seem to be based on the assumption that the PL is some older boy with a patrol of younger scouts. I don't want to derail this thread, but this just almost rolls us back to the whole NSP/mixed controversy A patrol that happens to be mostly young scouts assumes that his patrol would more or less be mostly kids of a similar age While a mixed patrol would still have other boys his age. Leadership patrol or corps seems to be logical... but a patrol of patrol leaders still seems fishy in my thinking

I'm thinking of getting one of those thermarest cots, or similar Down here in FL, I figure it will help to extend my camping season a bit, with the airflow under it. I historically don't camp locally in the summer. Just too hot and muggy for my liking. I'm wondering if I'll violate my rule more, now that I'm with the troop that camps monthly. As a one time exception...I'm planning to go to summer camp this year as an observing committee member. Hopefully it'll be a bit cooler in TN though.

I'm the same, Krampus. I never buy from coworkers who bring in their kids' sheets... but I will if the kid comes in and asked me. That has only happened once in my life The street corner thing reminds me of a funny but rather embarassing story. Just a few weeks ago, I came home to all my kids and a whole bunch of their friends from the neighborhood all over at my house playing. Some of them had a few of our old unused stuff, such as a baby stroller out by the road trying to sell them or give them away. I guess my wife had spurred that on. More of them were in the kitchen....my wife had let them make some experimental recipes.... no recipes, just dump in some flour, crack an egg in, oh, lets try a half a box of baking soda.... they were just dumping random things in (wasting food and making a mess). They were having fun. So I figured why not join in. I helped them to bake some of their mystery dough in a muffin pan. They were actually edible. Not at all tasty.... kindof a flat heavy brick of bread. Anyway, one of the kids (not mine I think) had the idea to set up a stand and "sell" them along with some "Hot Chocolate"... but they didn't heat it up. Wife was supervising, or so I thought, so I didn't think much of it. I was distracted with something else and busy. So a little bit later, they came in with actual money from somebody. Oh I was embarrassed. I really laid into them (in a nice constructive way) that it would have been different if it was a legitimate effort at some real recipe taht was edible.. and real hot chocolate. Ugh! I never was able to find out which one of my neighbors to have my kids apologize to and refund their money.

AOL was not a rank for us. My scouts were the last class of AOL Awards. The common thought from my predecessors and successors was that combining them means one event to plan, instead of 3. WRONG I look at it completely the opposite. It means one smaller event to plan... the banquet. The other events are in my thinking just routine den and pack meeting stuff (awards or now ranks), and perhaps a troop ceremony in the crossing over... or if it must remain under the cubs, it 's just a Pack meeting where a troop is invited to come in and set up a bridge. It's not too much more than that really....

But then they wouldn't be there supporting and leading their own patrols. We're trying to foster Patrol Spirit, pride in being of a member of it.... pulling for your team as a sports metaphor So then, which team would they be pulling for?

no... you still might be the only one Stosh. I'm just flashing back from a long ago fond memory I haven't slept in one since the late 1970's I was shopping tents for my son recently, wanting to get him a cheaper starter tent for his first few troop outings. I'm not going to let him and his buddies loose in my new REI halfdome. It doesn't seem nearly sturdy enough for that.... until those new scouts learn to settle down a bit. Anyway, i was shopping around online for him and seriously thought about buying one of the modern twists on the pup tent. I ended up realizing that it was my own nostalgia and not a practical idea, so I didn't even presenting the idea to him. the ones I saw were more expensive than I wanted to spend anyway.

I don't think my methods are all that "theoretical". Yeah, didn't mean it that way.... bad choice of words on my part Stosh. Sorry

I don't care for how we do ours. I don't think in my time we ever had a scout or den earn rank by the time of B&G. Rarely are there even any other awards presented at B&G we do both AOL & Crossover ceremonies at the B&G Pack invites the troop or troop(s) The troops work out who's bridge they are going to use, and they set it up. So we have the B&G... which really isn't much more than a meal, outshadowed by the AOL presentation Usually the AOL ceremony is done inside immediately after the meal, and entertainment presentation if there is one. Then everyone goes outside for the crossover. Parents aren't really involved except to freely roam around the bridge and take photos if desired as their scout crosses. There's a little script involving the Cubmaster, Den Leader, and Scoutmaster Cub necker is removed the scout crosses The welcoming troop (SM & SPL, sometimes with additional scouts, especially former members of the pack) welcomes the boy, usually with troop necker and shoulder loops Then everyone is invited back in for cake. Usually it's a free play time while the younger boys try to cross the bridge I let my son do it his tiger year, then decided it would be more special if he waited for the real crossing so didn't let him do it again. Personally, i like Stosh's practices better more or less I wanted to do AOL patch when earned, and ceremony at the very next pack meeting B&G as its own event crossover as a den, or even better a troop event separate from everything else I failed miserably in making any of that happen.

It's the tent I notice more in this shot....I can almost smell that old canvas! I spent a little time looking a couple years back, and had little luck. I did find a site that had some, but as I recall it was mostly the more modern council shoulder patches. Sorry, I don't recall the site though. I had a canvas briefcase type bag taht I used to take misc stuff to each meeting. I wanted to sew some of my old scout patches on. thought it might be a conversation starter. I had a few old patches taht my mom had saved for me (I had no idea she had them till my son started cubs) Anyway, she didn't keep any of my troop patches, so I searched... I ended up ordering from that site, some older but more modern council patches for each place where I was a scout, and sewed them on. I carried taht bag to almost every cub meeting for 4 years or a bit more.... and I sometimes wore my old bicentennial necker complete with Liberty Bell Woggle from 1976 Not once, never, did anyone ask me about any of it, or even comment. I still find that hard to believe. Thank you very much! That is great to know. Now I won't be quite so concerned about changing them out. Might even get lazy and leave them on till I get a new shirt.... and it will save me from feeling like I need to encourage my son to change his, too! ahh, Stosh... there's a problem. Where's the tandem axle troop trailer for that 2010 vintage campsite?

paucity ? Everyday this forum is like a word wealth class! Your post, and really the whole idea of having an ASM assigned to a patrol reminds me of a podcast over at scoutmastercg a while back. I don't remember which podcast, or even what the topic or question was exactly....but generally, Clark was talking about the role of an ASM, how many ASM's a troop really should have in his opinion, etc... If I'm remembering correctly, & I think I do because I'm still a bit taken aback by the idea... his points were that there really didn't need to be more than 1 or 2 ASMs in a troop, regardless of size. More or less a general idea is that one of them would be considered sort of like a 1st ASM, who is in training to take the SM job at some set date in the future. And the bigger point was that ASMs should never really be talking with a scout at all, unless specifically directed by the SM... as in the SM putting the words into the ASM's mouth to pass on... That ALL adult interaction in a troop should go through the SM only.... .....with the point being to eliminate mixed messages, misunderstandings, directives or ideas not in keeping with the SM's vision, and so on and related to this, I think it was in another podcast where he discussed the idea that troops today generally have far too many adult members. that we shouldn't be having excess adults camping beyond the SM and ASM, and if a parent or committee member does attend that it be strictly regulated as a distant observer, with no direct contact with any scout. that the SM's & ASM's biggest charge is to be in charge of the adults, to keep them at a distance. Basically to remember that this is the scouts' troop. It is their game to play. It is their journey. It's not our journey, we shouldn't be having the parent patrol playing the game of scouting in the troop. I might have those points a little off, If I do, my apologies Clark.... but that was more or less the gist of what I took from several podcast discussions. My take, limiting the adults really does make some sense to me.... & i get the idea that the SM's vision should be clearly understood by any adult interacting with scouts.... but to completely and absolutely muzzle other active troop adults seems a bit extreme to me. Not sure I agree with it. Very intriguing idea!

Krampus i sense that our troop is similar in their liking their fixed 6 month cycle.... but I can't say for sure yet if its really the boys that like it or the adults. the adults are doing a lot of talking and driving everything (BUT I'm encouraged, I think taht their vision is sound and they are working towards it) In fact I got to observe my first election last night. Interesting. I can see the advantages of cycling it through so that others have a turn and doing it that way gets all the shifting and shuffling over at once.... and they keep the youth leader training streamlined... one session after each election for all the new leaders but it seems like the troop never gets the benefit of having leadership in place that's not just trying to figure it out. and all the changes happening at once seems like a big upset. I see the theoretical advantages behind Stosh's methods too I just don't know what to think at this point

red? I thought we were the last unit using red! Some time long ago, going back when it was fully adult led....somebody in our unit decided to keep red loops and red numbers instead of switching to the green. Apparently i has come up more recently like within the last 2 years and the boys decided to keep red At our last committee mtg I heard from the new SM taht we are switching to green.... yeah! I don't like the red.... and half our troop is wearing green, transfers in, new scouts, etc... we were having an ex leader make them and so they were a pain. I'm still in blue, since the scoutshop is 45minutes in the wrong direction for me. I have green ones on order form before I learned this...only because red weren't availble now I need to order green numbers and trained patch!

I posted in another thread, my thought that maybe some of these NSP failures have something to do with the name. really more to do with the underlying concept. When you give a name to something, the subconscious mind has a way of making it fit reality. (or is it reality fitting the name?) Instead, I like the idea of calling it "A patrol (one that just happens to have mostly inexperienced scouts and leaders)" right away, it gives it more of a sense of permanence and it seems a little more like a group that just needs a little help or a nudge once in awhile, as opposed to a group taht needs to be babied.

another suggestion: go back and read BP's Aids to Scoutmastership http://scoutmastercg.com/aids-scoutmastership/ at least the first half or so..... some good stuff in there about finding and bringing out the good in the boy. also about what draws the boy in and helps them to have some fun with this scouting stuff.