Twocubdad

That Patrol Scribe, Patrol Quartermaster, Patrol Librarian, etc. are advancement-qualifying positions of responsibility is a new concept to me. So I've done a little research. Boy Scout Handbook (pg 172) "The Longer you are in Scouting the more your troop will recognize your experience and knowledge by offering you positions of leadership. Being a good leader is a skill that can be learned only by doing it. TROOP LEADERSHIP opportunities will allow you to speak in front of people, guide discussions, make decisions and encourage others toward greater achievements. "The badges of office shown here represent the leadership positions in a Boy Scout TROOP. In addition, your Scoutmaster might offer you leadership positions for special projects of events." Added emphasis is mine. The last line is interesting in that it suggests (to me, at least) that the Scout should lead others in the project, such as Scouting for Food or leading the Scout Sunday service, as has been suggested earlier. Washing my truck doesn't count. Senior Patrol Leader's Handbook (pages 108-110) "Quartermaster -- The quartermaster is the TROOP'S supply boss. He keeps an inventory of TROOP gear.... He works with patrol quartermasters...." "Scribe -- The scribe is the TROOP'S secretary. ... He cooperates with the patrol scribes ...." "Historian -- The historian collects and preserves TROOP photographs, news stories...." "Librarian -- The TROOP librarian...." Not only does this specify the "Quartermaster", for example, is the troop quartermaster, but I distinquishes the position from the equivalent patrol function. Scoutmaster Handbook (pgs 14-21) Without re-typing everything, Chapter 3, "The Boy Led Troop" the SM handbook repeats the same job descriptions from the Senior Patrol Leader Handbook. In Chapter 4, "The Boy-Led Patrol," the handbook lists the patrol-level jobs as "Patrol Scribe" or "Patrol Quartmaster". In otherwords, the conventions seem to be that "Quartermaster" means troop quartermaster. In they mean patrol quartermaster the say "Patrol Quartermaster." I'll also note that under patrol positions Patrol Cheermaster and Patrol Grubmaster are listed which are certainly not advancement-qualifing PORs. I've also thumbbed through the Advancement Policy book and don't see anything pertinent. And I can't put my hands on a Patrol Leader's handbook. I hope all my PLs are using them. I realize BSA publications aren't necessarily crossed referenced to this level of precision. I doubt, however you will find a reference which answers the question directly and definitively. But my conclusion remains that Star, Life and Eagle require Postions of Responsibility at the troop level, not patrol (except Patrol Leader, of course). Others are free to disagree.

Yeah that's a new intrepretation to me too. We don't count APL or patrol scribe or QM. I suppose you could read it that way, but why would patrol scribe or QM be acceptable buy APL left off the list? I understand the "SM approved leadership project," but I don't want to "invent" positions just to accommodate advancement.

Gross volume last year was down two-thirds from what it was in 2006. I've only had two small paying jobs in the past four months. We're living on a steady diet of seed corn. The thing that sucks about being self employed is that when you get laid off you still have to go to work everyday.

Agreed. That's what I meant when I wrote that I don't want it to become a "everyone gets a trophy" kind of thing. Help clarifying my thought process is exactly what I'm looking for. So what do you say the the parents -- who are still operating under delusions of being in Cub Scouts -- that their Dear Sweet One won't have the opportunity to advance at the precise second four months clicks off the calendar. How do you decide who gets to be Librarian (and credit for a POR) and who gets a "leadership opportunity". Answering my own question, it seems reasonable for a newly-minted First Class Scout who just graduated from the New Scout Patrol to take a turn at APL or other patrol-level job before taking on POR-qualifying roles. Again, the SPL can make the call, but he needs guidance. Regarding Webmaster -- I pushed that string for three years. Even paid for a domain name, but no one ever ran with it. You would think one of the guys with the surgically-implanted I-pods would jump at the chance.

Interestingly, over the last day or two I've been exchanging emails with a mom whose son is in the process of making that decision. I think the issue is that at the time the decision is made, the boys don't understand that they are making that decision. A year or two later they show up and realize that choices they made in the past dictate whether or not they will be able to complete their Eagle. This particular Scout says he likes Scouting. He's not a big jock, but occasionally sports takes precedence. Otherwise, he enjoys camping, troop meetings and even summer camp. He does not, however, give a bean about advancement or leadership positions. He's perfectly content to sit back and let everyone else run things. I think his advancement records list more partials than completed MBs. One year at camp he took a partial on every MB he took. But if he's having fun and not causing me any heartburn, that is perfectly acceptable to me. My best advice to him is to understand where he stands so that if he chooses to persue Eagle as some point, that option is still available to him. On the other hand, I had another Scout who turned 18 the first part of December. Years ago he made First Class then took a couple years off, showing up every now and again. A couple months prior to his 17th birthday, he shows up and tells me he wanted to be an Eagle Scout. With some dedicated coaching, he earned Star just before his 17th birthday, but ran out of gas when he saw what a long road he had in front of him. 15 MBs, two leadership positions and an Eagle project is a pretty big bite for your senior year of high school. While the kid never made Life, he did continue to attend meetings and an occasional campout. He served as troop QM and did a good job of training the boy who would follow him. Sometime in the fall, he approached me with a copy of the Auto Mechanics MB book and asked about the merit badge. I made a joke about it being a little late to get interested in merit badges, but he said he didn't want to earn the badge, he wanted to sign up to be the counselor. What is is Barry says? I love this Scouting Stuff! At our December Court of Honor (which actually may have been his 18th birthday), I made a big deal of recognizing him for completing HIS Scouting trail and presented him with an ASM badge. While everyone wants to focus on the Eagles, here's a kid who stuck with the program simply because he enjoyed it. What better example is there than that?

How far do you go accommodating everyone who wants a Position of Responsibility? I've got probably 15 guys -- almost half the troop -- who either just got First Class or likely will before summer camp. Of course they're all full of spice and vinegar to make Star. I can handle only so many librarians and historians. I already divide those two positions into separate jobs. This is in addition to the older guys who also need the positions and are certainly better qualified for the more senior jobs. Philosophically, I don't want to turn this into "everyone wins a trophy." Trying to create 12 or 15 PoRs seems silly. But I hate to throw a wet blanket on the younger guys enthusiasm either. Yes, Stosh, the SPL is the one who appoints the the junior leaders and the PLs are elected by their patrols. But the SPL appointments are with the guidance and approval of the Scoutmaster. So what guidance do I give him?

I think you should definitely receive them at a pack meeting. I think it's good for the Scouts to see that the leaders are "advancing" too. You will be setting a good example for both the Scouts and other leaders. And for many people, it will be their first exposure to WB. There's a lot of tradition in the beading ceremony. If your Scoutmaster does it right, it will be an interesting and important part of the pack meeting. Up until about two years ago, beads were presented at the time and place of the recipient's choosing. I chased all over the council presenting beads to my Owlets. Just part of the commitment of being a Good Ol' Staffer. Unfortunately, the past two courses have chosen to present beads only at Roundtables. I think it stinks. For one you loose the above opportunities. Secondly, it makes for a long RT and most of the folks have seen many, many beading ceremonies.

Unfortunately, with the byzantine Eagle project review process we have locally, most adults don't understand it, much less the Scouts. Our Advancement Chairman went to school on the details of the process so he now serves as our "Eagle Lawyer". We try to have mutiple people involved in the process, not one "Eagle Advisor." It's primarily me (SM) and the advancement chairman. We pull others in as needed. For example, we have one dad who's business is doing CAD drawings. He invites the Scouts to his office to work on drawings an occasionally squeezes a Drafting MB out of the process. We're in a bit of a lull right now, but if we ramp up to more than a couple guys actively working on a project, we'll pull more adults into the process. Back in my day (1973) Eagle Advisor was a district position. When you made Life you had to meet with your Eagle Advisor to get your Life badge (you were given only the card at the Court of Honor). Honestly, can't speak to the full process as my advisor had a coronary shortly after I met with him the first time. My SM took over from there.

Ditto on Pale Rider. I'd add Unforgiven and The Outlaw Josey Wales (love Eastwood flicks) Did someone say All the President's Men? Add Citizen Kane, Stand By Me, Tora! Tora! Tora! Public Enemy Number One and Gettysburg. The scene when Lee chews out Stewart for failing to stay in contact with him and then picks him back up after Stewart offers to resign is a classic lesson in leadership. Except for the blood and guts and the fact that it's 11 hours, Band of Brothers is great. Even if you only show the first episode I think it gives some good examples of leadership and people making a difference. Last summer at our post TLT movie night the one movie the adults got to pick was Cool Hand Luke. Probably half the boys went outside to play flashlight tag even before they got to the boiled egg scene. Many kid's don't have the patience anymore for anything but action movies. I'm not big into action movies, so I'm not one to make suggestions, so maybe someone can offer a few suggestions along those lines. I caught the last 30 minutes of Terminator III the other day. My feeling is that it's 80 minutes of blowing stuff up and 3 minutes of the citizenship stuff we're looking for. Thinking about it, Red Dawn, with Patrick Swazey would be a good one.

Through seven years of PWDs we never had much drama. I think the key was a good set of rules. The pack's postal scale was official. Period. It could be off by 10 pounds, but it was official. Probably the worst controversy was about the time the Pine Car brand accessories became available. Fortunately, we had a rule that you must use official BSA components. We disqualified a couple cars who used the Pine Car parts. One thing we did to grease the wheels (so to speak) was to have a pretty good "pit road" staffed by a couple of handy dads who helped guys tweak their cars. We had lots of tools and spare parts. We encouraged folks to come in early so they had a chance to work on the cars. The guys with the Pine Car parts had the opportunity to install official wheels and tires. Over or under weight cars were drilled out to get them under the limit. Last minute changes didn't usually result in a highly competitive car, but is sure beat going home in a funk.

Interesting topic. Your idea, Barry, about mixing the first two years is especially interesting. I assume this is a rolling thing? After two years the third-year guys move up to regular patrols? We use the NSP method pretty much right out of the book. Last year we had 12 new guys and stuck with one patrol, assuming we would have some attrition. We're finishing the year with 14 first year guys and split mid-year "A" and "B" NSP patrols. We're getting 12 Webelos again this year so we're forming two new patrols. Of course that automatically means we'll loose 5 and end up combining patrols half way through..... The one twist we have in the program is that we don't run separate troop meeting programs for the new guys. We're really never had the bench strength to pull that off. March is always basic Scout skills month and the focus of the whole troop is getting the new guys ready for their first campout. We generally get some grumblings from the older guys, but most can clearly use a refresher on most of the skills. This March we're going to try assigning three or four new guys to the regular patrols for instruction time and inter-patrol competition. Of course the older guys will be responsible for helping the new guys learn the skills and then their performance in the ensuing activities will depend, in part, on how well the new guys do. Hopefully, by having some skin in the game, the older guys will feel a little more connected. For the rest of the year, we do regular troop meeting with all the patrols, NSP included. The first-year specific skills are taught during patrol time, on campouts and during occasional patrol activities like hikes, orienteering trips and the like. We may re think this a bit for this year. Over the past six months we've tried to step up the level of our general troop instructions. We also now have more older Scouts and adults who could run a separate NSP instruction time. The key to a good NSP program is good troop guides. They have to be interested in working with the younger Scouts and, clearly, not everyone is. I've got two good guides now, one finishing his second year in the troop and the other his third. They took over mid year this year after last year's guides tanked. They did a good job stepping into the positions and want to take this year's group from the beginning.

Ed has the right idea. I would only add to have a firm grip on the tent flap. You don't want it blowing closed mid stream, so to speak. We had that happen a couple winters back. Of course the sleeping bag closest to he door never belongs to the guy standing in the door. I always understood that Nalgene makes square bottles so you can tell in and out in the dark.

We encourage our Scouts to attend the CO's Sunday service and sit as a troop. In the past we've participated in different ways, but with a new minister this year we're only attending the service. Scouts who want/need to attend their own services are encouraged to do so in uniform, but I don't think any do.

Speaking of re-enactors, the traditional method is char cloth and flax tow which is raw flax fiber before it is processed into linen. I've bought it several times at reenactments and you can find it on line at any of the reenactor supply sites. Google "sutlers" and you'll find a bunch.

Actually when I took Webelos Leader Outdoor Training we were told that the tent doors should face away from the campfire so smoke wouldn't blow into the tent. Yeah, I thought it was dumb then, too.

Raw cotton, picked out of the cotton field after harvest, makes great tender. The raw cotton is loaded with oil and burns like crazy. Processed cotton balls don't have as much oil and sometimes isn't even cotton (synthetics melt rather than burning.) The same can be true with dryer lint. Depends on the clothes you're drying. Natural fibers are better. In the woods, bark shavings from scrapped from red cedar trees are great. Tends to stay dryer even wet weather. Fat pine, of course, makes great kindling, but you can take scrapings of it (or saw dust) and use it for tender. I've also found that that old Altoid's mints tins make great containers for making char cloth. Rinse out the tin and punch a couple holes in the top. I bought a yard of linen from an upholstery shop for a couple bucks and it makes a 10 year supply of char cloth. Cut the cloth into squares about the size of the Altoid tin, put the lid on and throw the tin in the fire. The heat will boil off the organics and leave pure carbon char cloth. Watch the smoke coming out of the holes. When it stops smoking, take the tin out of the fire. Wait for the tin to cool before you open it. If you open it to soon, when the oxygen hits the hot char cloth, it will start to burn. Being a woodworker, we make fire starters out of wood shaving. I was always taught to use a bathroom size Dixie cup. Pack the cup with wood shavings then fill with enough wax to seal the cup, you then have a waterproof fire starter.

Outside.

Are you talking about a building a tripod? You use a tripod lashing (instructions on page 146 of the Handbook) which basically lashes three staves together in parallel. You then spread the legs out into a tripod. Not difficult at all.

Excellent point, Barry, about the number of problems with Cub Packs. BSA isn't just for boys 11-17. One of the reasons for the changes made to WB was to include Cub leaders who didn't previously have access to WB-level training. (Old CSWB was really a train-the-trainer program for district and council level folks, not unit Cub Scouters.) The side of WB21C focusing on running a volunteer organization is especially needed by pack leaders who are generally working with parents and leaders who don't have the training and experience they do at the troop level. Still, under my King For A Day program, I'd provide Boy Scout leaders more advanced training, not just in outdoor skills, but all areas of the program. BSA's trend toward supplemental training modules for specific activity areas (Safe Swim, Climb-on, Trek-on, etc.) is good. I'd like to see more and not just related to activities. At least locally, Roundtable doesn't fulfill the need for supplemental training that it is supposed to.

I've never been on a job interview where I was required to bring four sealed reference letters with me as a condition of sitting for the interview. The process spelled out in the policy is more in line with what normally occurrs in a job situation. You're right, John, this is real-world. It's too bad that real world Scouting doesn't include following the rules.

Our old pack has had a Feller's Bakeoff for years. The rules were the same. Families with single moms were given the option of working with any adult male who had an interest in the Scout (uncle, grandpa, mom's squeeze, whoever). Sometimes a Scout's den leader would work with them. Failing that, if the Scout wanted to bake a cake with his mom, that was cool. It doesn't have to be a big deal.

One of my ASMs was trying to make the point with a boy that "character is what you do when no one is looking" and the boy replied, "Nah, what you do when nobody's lookin' is called stealin'!"

No, but I sure wish we had them. There doesn't seem to be that much of a problem on the "suits" side of the table. The CEO level business people who serve as council presidents, FOS chairmen and the like are busy enough that they don't seem to make Scouting a second career. On the program side the tradition is that retired Scoutmasters get promoted to council program committees and stay there for ever. Like Eamonn's commissioner, we have guys as chairman of various program committees who have been there for a decade or more. That's way too long. The problem is these committees turn into little empires. They tend to attract like-minded folks around them and the committees become very myopic. I've been fairly vocal here (and at the council) about the problems with our advancement committee and it's failure to follow national policy. Clearly, their problems stem from the fact that the same bunch of ROMEOs (Retired Old Men Eating Out) have been running the committee for years and years and years. Other than term limits (which sometime tend to throw the baby out with the bath water), I'd like to see a requirement that council committee membeship reflect the composition of the youth registration. In other words, if the council if 50% Cubs, 40% Boy Scouts and 10% Venture, the membership of the committees need to be in that same ratio. How different would your council look if the properties committee or camping committee had majority Cub Scout membership?

How about stuff the kids can buy and turn into their own activities, like simple leatherwork kits, water balloons, PVC pips and fittings to make their own marshmallow guns, squirt guns. With all this stuff, if a den leader or group of Scouts wanted to buy the stuff and put it together, they can then go out and do something with it. Part of the fun of a trading post is making it a place to hang out. You do that with drinks and snacks, but also by having the facilities where the boys can relax and work on the crafts they buy there.

Get a copy of the current Advancement Guidelines and Procedures and look at item #6 of the Steps to Eagle (sorry, it don't have the page number). It clearly lays out the procedures for letters of recommendation. In a nutshell, the Scout is responsible to provide the names and addresses and to contact the people to make sure they know they will be asked to provide a reference. The Scout may be asked to give the references a form letter and return envelope. That's it for the Scout's involvement. If the letters aren't forthcoming, it is the responsible of the district/council to follow up. In no case is the Scout to be penalized if the letters don't come through. OF COURSE, our council doesn't follow this (or much else related to Eagle procedures). They require the Scout to collect at least four letters in sealed envelopes and include them with his application. If the letters aren't attached to the app, it won't be accepted by the service center.