Twocubdad

We have a bugler and a piper. Do we get extra credit? The bugler plays trumpet in the band, and has just recently taken the bugle home to practice. The kid is really bright and had a pretty good tone, so I suspect he won't have much trouble learning the calls. I played the trumpet for years and am the MB counselor. We've had other guys in he past who play in the band and tried to play the bugle. They all really stank it up. It was remarkable to me that kids who had played trumpet in the school band for 2-3 years could hardly make a note. Piping is a whole 'nother thing. There are no set calls. Instead, pipers play different tunes at various times of the day. The tunes they play vary from regiment to regiment and, I suppose, from piper to piper. As someone said, you just jave to know what comes next. "Oh, the piper is playing, it must be time for dinner."

That's fine, GW, but I'm not going to bite. I respectfully decline the opportunity to spend the weekend researching, quoting and retyping various passages of BSA literature. Clearly, there is expectation that a Scout do more with a position of responsibility than to hold the position.

That's fine, GW, but I'm not going to bite. I respectfully decline the opportunity to spend the weekend researching, quoting and retyping various passages of BSA literature. Clearly, there is expectation that a Scout do more with a position of responsibility than to hold the position.

In our troop, the Scouts are responsible for going to the Advancement Committee chairman and requesting a board. The troop scribe keeps a stack of "Board of Review Request" forms pinned to the bulletin board which the Scout completes and gives to the Advancement chairman. Especially with younger boys, the last step of a Scoutmaster's Conference is for the Scout and I to go get a form, fill it out and make sure the Scout knows who he is to give the form to. (Again, with the younger guys who may not know the committee members, I'll usually send a back door email the the AC just to be sure.) Honestly, the form is more for the benefit of AC chairman.

Neil-up's "over the shoulder" conference is instructive. I've held a number of similar SMC's where the ultimate outcome was that the Scout was not recommended for a BoR. The Scout and I did, in fact, conferred, so I signed off on the conference requirement without recommending advancement. In all those cases, however, there was some other requirements in which the Scout was defficient, usually related to the satisfactory completion of a position of responsibility, but sometimes related to behavior/Scout Spirit issues. On the other hand, Eagle92's appeal to National notwithstanding, I alone get to decide when a conference is a conference. I confer with my SPL and youth leaders several times during the course of a troop meeting, but that does not mean I consider those "official" conferences for the purposes of meeting the advancement requirements. Most certainly I would not consider a session with a Scout regarding a discipline problem to be an "official" conference. To meet the objectives of a Scoutmaster conference, there are certain things I want to cover. I will also add that much of the discussion on this thread seems to be predicated on the Scoutmaster and troop advancement committee never talking. The few times I've completed conferences but not recommended the Scout for advancement the very first person I would talk with would be my advancement chairman. In 99.9% of the cases, if a Scout approaches our advancement chairman with the conference signed off, the advancement chm. knows he's good to go for a BoR. If that's not the case, I make sure the AC knows it.

I concur with the others as to the BSA way of handling the situation. I may put more emphasis on working with the patrol leader and senior patrol leader to solve the problem, rather than making it my problem to solve. Something else to consider is how the rest of the boys react to this boy's laziness. (Yes, let's call it what it is.) If you will recall the Ages and Stages video from New Leader Essential training, boys this age are all over what is fair. You can bet next week's check that the other boys in the patrol are keeping an exact account of what this kid is and isn't doing. No one likes to continually take up the slack for some else's laziness. Eventually, the pack will take care of itself, and it frequently isn't as pretty, politically correct, helpful or friendly as we adults would like. I've had this or similar problems pop up several times. I try to give the Scout and his parent's a preview of the likely outcome of this behavior. Developing a reputation of being a slackard or someone who cannot be relied upon isn't a fun place to be. It may not change the boy's behavior short term, but when the next conversations begins "They're picking on me," "They won't let me do anything," or "No one likes me," it gives you a good place to start that conversation. As to the SM running interference for his son, I'll second Gunny's rant. Until I had a chance to hike in his boots, I'd cut the guy some slack. Whether it's the preacher's kid or the teacher's kid, most kids in this situation usually have a tougher row to hoe because of their parent's involvement in whatever program. There have been times I have run interference for my sons. But from time to time I run interference for all my Scouts. Before throwing stones, I would be very careful to make sure I'm looking at the situation objectively myself.

That, Scoutldr, is the issue and would make my blood boil, too. This is my gripe with 100% training requirements. Before you threaten to refuse recharter to an individual (and potentially a unit) a council better be dang sure they have their ducks in a row. In most situations training records are not a huge deal and consequently a high priority. But it's the council that's raising the stakes. Secondly, if the council understands that they have a problem with training records, as the followup letter from the program director suggests, the original letter requesting the info was out of line. Given the problems, a much more contrite approach -- acknowledging the past problems, asking for help and minus the threat -- would have probably been better received. This one sounds like something one would receive from the Division of Motor Vehicles. Being courteous, helpful, friendly, etc., goes both ways.

We went through the same process last year. After much research, we settled on both the flys and the cook set from BSA, although the flys were low on our priority list and we haven't actually bought them. You can find less expensive cook sets, but most are designed for a family of four. The BSA sets are designed for an 8 man patrol. We found that by the time we fiddled around putting together everything we wanted in a cook set, the BSA set was a better deal. Plus it all matches and nests nicely within itself.

Several years ago, when the pack first wanted to do this, we did a good bit of Internet research on the subject. Every site had some different way of retiring a flag and they all claimed to be the only correct method. After reading the actual flag code, we came up with a respectful program that worked for our Scouts.

For years we've had some guy listed at IH who no one knows. Our COR seems to think he may have been head of the Men of the Church at one time. Every year we scratch through his name on the recharter and list the name of the Sr. minister. Over the past five years the church has gone through some leadership changes so I don't think we've had the same signature on the paper work twice. I've yet to find anyone who seems to be concerned and certainly no on has questioned it. I don't sweat it anymore.

You apparently missed the History Channel special.

I made some very good friends from your area last year at Jambo -- several guys from Wimbledon/Merton area outside London. I worked with two of them on IST and hung out evenings at the IST pub with a number of other leaders from their Scout Group. There was another fellow on our team from Manchester, although I couldn't understand a word he said. I had better luck communicating with a Swiss guy on our team who only spoke French. The Swiss guy and I, at least, understood that we spoke different languages.

I don't anticipate that our troop will take a position at all. One Scout bought a new shirt last week and my younger son looks like a sausage in his, so I'll probably be getting him one my next trip to the Scout shop. Part of the crossover ceremony for the new Scouts in Feb is to change out their blue Cub tabs for red ones. We'll probably wait until then and change the tabs for the whole troop. As we have about 100 red, one-piece unit numerals/service bars in stock, I anticipate that we will be using those for some time to come. I'll have to give the supply folks credit that the new shirts are close enough to the old ones that a unit can have both and still appear fairly uniform.

I don't have a copy to check for you, but I may try the Pioneering MB book.

Clearly, Eagle92. But if you are a customer-driven organization, you're going to meet the customers where they are. Twenty years ago who ever heard of a bank open on Saturdays or a dentist scheduling appoints at 7pm? Our training committee says they offer one-off and oddly-scheduled training, but it's a BIG DEAL to get them to do it. They are pretty good about offering Troop Committee training for an individual troop, if the whole committee is willing to do it. Our council tried offering SM/ASM training over three week nights which I helped teach. It was difficult. The logistics of getting to training from all over the council on a week night during rush-hour traffic was difficult (the training site was an hour from my house.) They used a different set of instructors each session so consistency was an issue. I didn't feel like the syllabus was conducive to being broken into sessions like that. I think it would be helpful if national offered an alternate, the way Wood Badge can be run as a five-day week or two three-day weekend. I also think they could increase Cub training if the courses were reorganized in to a six-hour Cub Leader Basic (like they used to have) the then two-hour modules for program specific training. The first six hours of all the position-specific courses are pretty much the same already. Of course, national hasn't asked my opinion.

This is a gross generalization, but my experience is that most leaders who are active and involved in the program are trained. In ten years between the pack and troop I only remember one den leader who took Tiger training and nothing more. He served through Webelos and did a decent job. By the time his son got to the troop, he registered as an ASM, but never did anything and never trained. We finally dropped him from the charter, although his son is still active. I had another really good den leader who wanted to take training but worked weekends. Training here is offered only on Saturdays. That one I count against the training committee. To me 100% training is another version of zero tolerance. There are better ways of cracking the nut.

The other result of this will be a massive kill-off of marginal leaders -- the dad who sits an occasional board of review, the pack's Blue and Gold chair, a parent who just wants to be supportive and registers as a committee member. If these folks start counting a unit's percent trained numbers, they'll just disappear off the charter. This folks will probably keep doing their same job, the only difference will show up in membership numbers and registration dollars. Aren't we in the middle of a national initiative to recruit 100,000 new volunteers? There's a reason the Quality Unit criteria specifies training for "dirct contact" leaders.

I can't imagine trying to enforce a policy like this. It's been run up the flag pole here a time or two, but no one salutes. The big problem is training records. They are notoriously inaccurate. A few years ago our training committee established a policy that requiring 100% training. I, and others, asked the obvious question, what percent of our leaders are trained now? Uhhhhh. How will you know when you're at 100% Same response. So a month later, the commissioners come out with a request for every unit to do a training inventory and reconcile it against the council records. All but the newest leaders in our pack were trained to position. According to the council, only one of 22 leaders were trained. So I trot down to the council office, sit down with the registrar and try to figure out the descrepancy. I start with my own training. I had dates, places and cards for the training I had taken, so this should be a short putt, right? Forty-five minutes later I still hadn't confirmed one of my courses. When I reported this back to our district commissioner, he said, yeah, don't worry about it. You can't make stuff like this up! .

Maybe someone with their fingers on advancement policy can answer this, maybe Bob White or someone else mentioned they had a friend who was on the National Court of Honor can ask, but, Who can file appeals to national on advancement issues? Does it have to be the Scout or can a unit or leader file an appeal? Secondly, can a policy like this be appealed pre-emptively? (There's another legal term for this, maybe NJ will help me out.) Or as in the regular legal system, do you have to have been turned down for something in order to have standing to appeal?

This is from memory, so help me out. Requirement for election into the OA are: 15 nights camping in 2years, including 5 nights long term First Class Scout Scoutmaster approval and be elected by your unit. If SM approval is required for a young man to be placed on the ballot, why is this an issue? Ignorance of the rules? Laziness? In order for the Scouts in our unit to receive the Scoutmaster's approval to go on the ballot, they must meet with me and explain, roughly, what they think the OA is about and why they want to be in the Order. No litmus test, just demonstrate a minimal amount of interest and initiative.

Snoring Bear -- I agree with you. Asking a candidate to bring a prized Scouting memento to his EBoR to serve as a springboard for conversation is a great idea. I like it so much I'm going to suggest it to my unit advancement chairman as an idea for any BoR. A Scout could bring almost anything: a patch collection, Philmont arrowhead, Jambo necker, his Tiger Cub totem or even his collection of blue cards. Of course, if you want to chat about his merit badges, the list is on the application. But that's not what Apache Bob's district is doing. They are requiring a full set of blue card before they will even schedule the Board. Different deal entirely.

--RANT NOTIFICATION-- All the MB info the board needs is on the Eagle app and has been verified by the council registrar. So what are we looking for? If the mom and dad did, in fact, sign 18 of the MBs, what is the Eagle board to do? Are you going to hold up the boy's Eagle while you determine if they are registered counselors? 'Cause if they are it's a done deal. This is baloney (and "baloney" is not the phrase I really want to use). It's another example of advancement committee's throwing up artificial road blocks simply because they can. What's the benefit of this requirement? It proves what? One time, in the past seven years, the kid's mom grabs and washes his uniform with a blue card still in the pocket and can't be an Eagle? Oh, no, no, you say, he would eventually get his Eagle after jumping through additional hoops. Then what's the point? And what kid is going to offer up himself as a test case? No one is going to intentionally foul up his Eagle app just to prove a point on appeal. That said, a Scout keeping up with his own advancement record is a good practice and should be encouraged. In our troop we do just that. The Scouts will need that info to complete their Eagle app. If they know they will eventually need the info, they should they should have some system for tracking the data themselves. Keeping the cards in baseball card sleeves is an easy and obvious way to do that. That's a good, positive habit to learn. But failure to do so shouldn't cost him his Eagle.(This message has been edited by Twocubdad)

I'm with Bob on this one. Boy led does not equal adult abandoned. Adult association and Youth Leadership are co-equal methods of Scouting, no? It is the job of the adults to coach, mentor, guide, steer, direct, nudge, push, pull or finagle the Scouts into making the right choices. If you can't figure out how to guide the boys into making good decisions and leave them feeling like it was their decision, you're in the wrong business. Personally, I think movies once a month is a bad idea. It's not part of the program and monthly is devoting far, far too much time. Once or twice a year? Okay. From a practical standpoint, I'll tell you showing movies is a pain. We do movie night once a year, but it comes at the end of a day-long troop junior leader training and is clearly a perk for the Scouts who complete the course. It's not the program, it's what we do when the program is concluded. Selecting movies is a constant tug of war. The boys aren't going to sit through Follow Me Boys or your canoeing movie. You need to be prepared to preview every movie. Good luck trying to find a PG or better film the guys will want to watch. And you definitely don't want to count on PG-13 as being Scout appropriate. I will hold out the possibility that the SM in the original post is setting up a controlled failure situation. After a couple nights of appropriate Scout-like movies, the boys may decide movie night isn't working out as they had planned. Stosh -- your boy led vs. boy run break down is interesting and has some merit when you're looking in the micro view. But from the overall view, I don't think it holds up. The Scout program is already proscribe to us by the BSA. The boys need to understand that while they have great lattitude in determining what they want to do, they still have to operate within the limits and context of the Scouting program. I have Scouts who would turn our troop into a sports league. I've tried to tell them that sports can have a place in the program within a Scouting context (patrol competitions, Sports or Athletics MB, etc.) These guys' idea is to show up every week and play soccer for 90 minutes. We're a Scout troop. We do Scouting.(This message has been edited by Twocubdad)

The original post says he doesn't like camping -- not that he hates, despises or refuses to go. That says to me there is some wiggle room here.

I don't think you "do" anything. Eventually, it's a self-leveling problem. The program is designed that any boy can participate and get from it what he wants. This fellow will find his own level sooner or later. That may mean that he learns to like or at least tolerate camping enough to satisfy the minimal requirements. It may also mean he chooses to leave the program. Now and again you hear of a Scout like this who still suceeds in Scouting. Eagle only requires 20 nights camping. But it's not likely. Ultimately, if the boy doesn't go camping he's going to feel left out, miss out on the commraderie and friendship camping builds, have difficulty advancing, have a difficult time serving in positions of responsibility and showing active participation. My guess is that sooner or later he drops out. And that's okay too. While Scouting is made for every boy, not every boy is made for Scouting.