Twocubdad

PRAISE BE! I've got an almost-17-year-old, 240 pound, defensive tackle/Life Scout doing back flips down the hall. It's an amazing sight. So is the new workbook. No more 50 page, Six-Sigma Green Belt project proposals. The underlying principle is a good one: all the detailed planning work should be part of the project, not the proposal which could be shot down. My older son had that happen with his first proposed project. I frequently had boys spend more time planning their project that executing it, yet the planning/proposal work didn't count. The new process corrects that. It also puts more of the responsibility for the ultimate success of the project on the Scout -- where it belongs. Once the proposal is approved in concept, the scout is responsible for detailed planning and execution of the project with out further review by the district or council. One of the reasons our council required such a crazy amount of detail on EP plans was they felt if every contingency was covered in advance, sucess was guaranteed. Part of the new approach is that boys should continue to grow and learn from their project, not create some sort of masterpiece. To do so, I think Scouts need the freedom and flexibility and opportunity to fail in order to learn. Like NC Scouter, I can only imagine the consternation this will cause on our council level EP review committee and how they will respond. What's going to happpen to their 50-point check list of stuff they require to be covered in proposals?

Very interesting. I'm still trying to digest the "active participation" stuff, but I generally like what I'm reading. The sections on Positions of Responsibility, Scoutmaster's conferences and service projects are good and very much in line with a common-sense approach to the requirements. I feel like they capture the spirit of the things I have been taught and understood over the years. I sure wish the language regarding PORs was around about six years ago when we went through our blood-bath of an Eagle appeal. "Holding a position and doing nothing, producing no result, is unacceptable" would have saved me, our troop committee and the council (not to mention the Scout involved) hundred of hours of grief, heartache and aggrevation.

Any ol' plastic bowl. Coolwhip containers are great. At the hut we have a whole stack of plastic take-out containers from one of the local Chinese restaurants which are perfectly sized. For jamboree, I bought all three of us plates and bowls from Wal-Mart for less than a buck. On front-country campouts I'll take both, but just the bowl backpacking. I really don't like eating out of a cup. Okay for soup, oatmeal or grits, but not a regular meal. Don't waste the money on a BSA mess kit. The frying pan makes good plate, but the rest is wasted.

I suggest longer campouts and higher fiber menus. Sooner or later..... Our summer camp uses menu to keep the porta-johns as clean as long as possible. The two days before the johns are cleaned, it's oatmeal, beans and corn. Afterwards, its heavy on the white bread, bananas and cheese. I had a Scout like Thomas' at camp this summer. Wednesday afternoon he was complaining of a stomach ache. "Have you dropped a duce yet today?" "No? Did you make yesterday?" "NO?! Have you been at all this week?" "Dude, you can't do that to yourself. You'll sieze up like an old Ford! You're gonna throw a rod!" We went to the health lodge and explained the SIT-uation to the nurse. She let him camp out on the porcelain for a while. Later, that loud noise we heard..... After college I spent several months building a cabin on our old family homeplace. Had plenty of opportunity to practice my alfresco technique. My recommendation: 1. Untie one shoe 2. Drop trou down around your ankles 3. In one motion, pull your foot out of the untied shoe and pants leg, move the pants leg out of the way and put your foot back in the shoe without the pants. 4. Move the pants leg out of the impact zone (if it's wet out, you can fold your pants and neatly stack the leg on top of the other shoe, off of the wet ground. 6. Do your bidniz and reverse the process. With one leg unencumbered by pants, you can take a wide stance to squat, eliminating the need to hold on or leaning against anything. IM-Kathy, this technique may give you some help with the knee problems -- deep knee bends aren't required.

Every campfire I've ever been to with more than a hundred or so folks which dismisses after dark always looks like a Chinese fire drill. It is really difficult to keep a troop together under those conditions. Two words: Buddy System At national jamboree, with 100,000 people in the arena and a four-mile hike to our campsite, our guys did just fine getting themselves and their mates back to camp. "Pretty much the other leaders comments sid it all: You need to control your boys!" Sounds to me that was handled the way it needed to be.

Advancement policies (at least until the new book comes out sometime in the next few weeks or 15 years) says the alternate requirements are for permanent disabilities. This does not (or should not) meet that criteria. Instead of trying to wiggle around a solution for the Scout, why not turn it into a learning experience for him? What are we trying to teach here? That when you have a bad break (ha!) that exceptions will be made for you? That Big Brother will step in and make it right? Or that you pick yourself up, work harder than before and overcome? I'd have a conversation with him along the likes of "it really sucks that you broke your leg and it's unfortunate that you can't complete the second class hike for a couple months yet. But you've got to do what the Dr. says and take care of your leg. As far as Scouts goes, advancement is not the end-all, be-all of the program. Holding off on advancing is not really a big deal. I know you are disappointed and discouraged right now, but trust me, by the time you make Eagle, whether or not you made first class in October or January won't make any difference. And there are lots of other things you can be doing. Have you thought about a getting started on a position of responsibility? You would be a great Den Chief. No, the service time won't count for Star until you complete first class, but DC is a year-long commitment anyway. "How about merit badges? Swimming would be great therapy for your leg. How about Medicine? Part of the requirement is to tour a medical facility. I'm guessing that won't be too difficult to arrange, huh? "Or the PLC needs someone to plan the lock-in the for the week between Christmas and New Years. A young guy like yourself stepping up and showing some initiative will be remembered when the PLC is looking to fill leadership positions down the road. "But you tell me. What do YOU want to do until you ankle mends?"

I'm guessing you are leading up to a discussion of why UTM is easier to use than long/lat?

What do we do for lost scout stuff? We politely return it to the owner, if it's identifyable, otherwise it goes into the lost and found tub. If it seems to be a recurring problem, I may mention to the Scout that being Thrifty means taking care of your stuff. We don't do the singing thing. I personally agree that it is hazing (the common usage of the word, not the General Statute definition) although a fairly minor version. We don't make guys do pushups or assign chores as punishment for infractions. I don't care for the tone that sets in the troop. My experience is it creates a slippery slope which leads to more serious hazing. But mostly, it's just not Scoutlike, in my opinion. Friendly, courteous, kind. Still, a summer camp and camporees and such, our guys get called out to sing for lost stuff. Our guys do a pretty cool thing -- the whole patrol accompanies the scout forward and sings with them. Or sometimes is it's a little guy, a number of older Scouts sing with them. Loyal, Cheerful.

At PLC tonight I approved the list of officers, but with a fairly hard warning of my expectations for the positions. One issue, which I didn't detail above, is that the SPL split the job of ASPL-Program into two, ASPL-Program AND ASPL-Outings -- essentially creating a job for his friend. I made it clear that with the extra help I expect all meetings to be planned out weeks in advance and that a rolling four-weeks of troop meeting plans will be completed and posted. Lots of little details which tend to slip. Interestingly, the first challenge of the new year popped up following the troop meeting, just an hour-and-a-half later. Seems the youngest and most immature of the new ASPLs is trying to create his own political machine in his patrol by engineering the PL election. I'll spare you all the political intrigue, but the new ASPL appointments have created a bit of a monster. The SPL now has the task of sorting the whole thing out, which will require him to deal with the his friend, the new ASPL. I'm not quite sure when the troop became quite so political. I suppose it because for the first time we are to a point of having a competitive election for SPL and several of the patrols.

I think it's a good question and I can't answer it. Sorry OGE, outside the context of a thread like this one, I don't think one in 100 people will read that statement on the application and think "no gays." Mostly through the forums here, but also through reading BSALegal.com and even some of the legal briefs and court decisions I think I have pretty good understanding of BSA's position. One of the things I understand to be true is that since winning the Dale case, BSA backed away from some of the hard language of the legal briefs and has taken a somewhat softer line with youth members. It has taken the position it will not ask a person's sexual orientation, but bans "avowed" homosexuals. I personally have come to interpret that to mean an otherwise qualified, divorced dad with a roommate would be acceptable, as long as specifics regarding the relationship with the roommate are kept private. So where does that leave the unit Scouter collecting adult applications? Pretty much in the spot where the unit leader in Potomac Fall found himself. Nice mom wants to be an ASM, has served well as a den leader, seems to be a single mom with another lady living with her family. Now I may have my suspicions as to the living arrangements and the gossip meter may be on tilt, but without asking -- which I'm not supposed to do -- what basis do I have for declining her application? And then what do you do with another volunteer who outs them? Once the relationship is in the open, is it "avowed"? Now if the mom came to the troop and said "I'm a lesbian, is that a problem?" Well, yes, it is now. I suppose it's like The Game. If you think about the game you lose the game. (Ah, dang it, lost again.)

Good stuff, guys, thanks. I've probably worked through most of the stuff you've suggested; met with the new SPL and discussed it several times. He is just unwilling to step away from his list of friends. I'm now at the fish-or-cut-bait point of stepping in and disallowing some of the appointments or not. I'm mostly leaning toward not, so my issue now becomes how to enforce the responsibility for the decision and how to mitigate any negative effects on the rest of the troop. Beav ask if this kid is one of the top three for the position. Yeah, I'd say so. He is very personable and outgoing and most all the guys in the troop like him. Frankly, I would have probably voted for him myself. Part of the problem is he is such a socially-oriented kid, he's looking at this as if he were planning a party, not building a team. He wants all the fun guys -- the ones just like himself -- not necessarily those with the skills and abilities he needs to build a good team. We all have our plusses and minuses and his minus is definitely his lack of maturity. He's one of these guys who thinks he's so clever he can fake his way through any situation. The net result on the ground is that anything he has ever been responsible for has been a mystery to me up until about 10 minutes before the start time. To overcome that, at JLT/planning conference, I required them to have ALL campouts planned through next August and all troop meetings planned through the end of the year. I held up movie night over an hour and a half until they had the blanks filled. I agree with what you're saying about grooming younger boys and my advice was to maybe bring along one or two guys. Where I'm uncomfortable is with the wholesale house cleaning of older guys which seems to be going on. Momo2 -- you nailed it. I can easily see him sitting in front of a Senate Select Committee on Investigations.

Is there a circumstance under which you would veto the position of responsibility appointments of the senior patrol leader? My new SPL is basically appointing his friends to all the postions, generally guys a year or so younger than he. My feeling is he is appointing these guys as they will be fall in line behind him. These guys don't have much experience and haven't been involved at the PLC level previously. There are other guys who are much more capable and experienced. My feeling is the SPL is making appointment based on who will go along with him rather than selecting the best man for the job. The whole thing has a rather bad political smell, as several of these positions were promised to supporters prior to the PLC vote. I don't care for the appearance of political payback. Looking at the big picture, the is pretty young on average. We've been in rebuilding mode for a number of years, and are just now building a group of older Scouts. I'm concerned that have we're not taking advantage of our best leaders and that by putting these older guys out to pasture, they'll loose interest. Where would you draw the line between letting the SPL make the decisions and what you feel is in the better interest of the troop?

I hope Eagle92 and ScoutFish are riding out the storm okay. They're catching the eye about now. You guys write in and let know when you have the chance. The storm is down to a cat1 -- we get summer squalls that bad. The folks on the coast here know how to deal with that. But since this this has the potential to mess up Al Roker's hair I'm sure we will have to endure breathless network coverage for the next three days.

Just scanned the broad outline and I like it. We found the old program quite lacking and had developed our own day-long syllabus which is very similar to this. Several of the activities are new -- at least new to me -- and we're always interesting in new material.

It was Washington, Jefferson, Henry, Madison, et. al., spinning in their graves.

You should try Duluth Trading Company. Their stuff isn't cheap, but it is really high quality and designed for the construction industry. Their shirts, for example, have extra long tails so they stay tucked-in -- they're advertised as "No Butt Crack" shirts. I've bought shorts, shirts and a bunch of other stuff from them. Hint -- stay away from darker colors. They wick so well the salt stains really show up on the dark shirts.

You should try Duluth Trading Company. Their stuff isn't cheap, but it is really high quality and designed for the construction industry. Their shirts, for example, have extra long tails so they stay tucked-in -- they're advertised as "No Butt Crack" shirts. I've bought shorts, shirts and a bunch of other stuff from them. Hint -- stay away from darker colors. They wick so well the salt stains really show up on the dark shirts.

Dealing with class clowns seeking to be in the spotlight all the time isn't too difficult for most adults. We generally have the self confidence and sense of humor to deal with the clowns and keep moving. Youth leaders, who may be new to the role, not accustomed to lead and/or speaking in front of a group, and -- most significantly -- don't have the confidence to try and bring discipline to a group of their own peers is another matter. For one, we train our scouts how to deal with disruptions, like walking over and standing next to the trouble maker while continuing their talk. Or engaging the guy in the discussion, to pull him back in. We have had a couple over the years who go out of their way to undermine the youth leaders. My observation is while they want to be the center of attention, they lack the ability and courage to put themselves outfront at leaders. And sometimes they're just lazy and don't want to put forth the effort. Letting guys like this get the laughs at the expense of the fellow who is working hard to try and lead a program, it really undermines their efforts. We spend a lot of time trying to redirect these guys and get them into productive roles. If you can find a place where they can shine and contribute, that's great. But if that doesn't work, you ultimately are left dealing with their poor behavior. The first step is to take away the payoff, that is their time in the spotlight. Ask them to please step outside the meeting and wait for you. Unfortunately, I tend to be forgetful and sometimes its 15 or 20 minutes before I remember them. But once you've tried all the crowd control tricks, you send them home. We don't punish kids. We dont' make boys do KP or similar jobs as a punishment. We clean and do other chores because that's part of our responsibilities. And what does that say to the fellow who cleaned up breakfast becasue it was his job? Or to the guy who was supposed to clean up but the knuckle head took his job? My rule is if you want to be a Scout, you have to act like a Scout. Consequently, if your behavior is un-scoutlike, you go home. It's not a big production, just call mom and go home. Next week we start over. Usually it's the ride home where the behavior is changed.

Not this Eagle, either. All I know about Perry is from reading his book about Scouting. The first half was interesting. But I was really turned off by the way he used Scouting to promote his brand of religion and politics. Why are you urging him to run when it's been on the news for three day that he's announcing today in Charleston?

I agree with BP as well but with the one obvious caveat that the decision is up to the family. If they feel the best way to help their son is to publicly clear his name, I would support them. We've imagined that the boy is conflicted in his sexuality and on the edge of suicide over all this -- and it is absolutely proper to err on that side of caution. But the fellow may be not be conflicted at all but just got tired of putting up with the bull from the jackasses at camp. Defending one's self can be great for one's self esteem.

Swimming last night several of our older guys took notice of the drop-dead gorgeous female lifeguard. I suppose I have some Scoutmaster Conferences to schedule. I don't have a problem with the troop leaders trying to get at the bottom of what happened at summer camp. In fact, they have an obligation to do so. But they got it exactly wrong. They should have been looking out for their Scout, investigating the harassment, informing the camp director and SE as to what took place and asking them to take action at their level. I absoluetly believe 5YS's version of the harassment at summer camp and the context in which this scout "admitted" to being bisexual. One only needs to work with adolescent boys for about 15 minutes to learn that labeling someone "gay" is the all-purpose put down boys use to establish pecking order and to keep the nerds and weaker boys in line. Most kids learn to blow it off or to come back with their own retort, but I have witnessed instances where some boys decide the best defense is to just give in, as 5YS's scout did. What this scout needed was his Scoutmaster's support, concern, understanding and friendship. Not some half-assed investigation. Not holding up his SPL nomination and not conducting the conference during the troop meeting where everyone apparently knew what was being discussed. Four adults would have been plenty for the meeting, but only if two were the parents of the Scout. I see no purpose in the three extra ASMs. The SM and one more was sufficient. (If anyone else had knowledge of the situation, they should have been brought in individually.) Apparently, the three extra folks predictably just added to the gossip mill. I dealt with a similarly sensitive situation last summer. My first conversation didn't involve the Scout at all, but was rather a conference with our COR and the parents to let them know what I knew and to ask them how they wanted to proceed. THE PARENTS chose to bring their son in and continue the conversation.

It's Papa Bear time. I'd have a hard time not going medieval on these guys. But BP makes a good point. At the very least, the Scout and his parents need to be making the phone calls. Frankly, the only person in this situation behaving like a mature adult is your son. Follow his example. Give the mom a call just be supportive. Let her know you are concerned for her son and want to help. Most parents don't know a COR from an ASM to a SE. Let her know how you believe things should be handled with the troop and offer your help to navigate the BSA bureaucracy and protocol. But I think it's important to consider that dealing with the troop leader -- jerks that they are -- is probably a lesser priority than helping his son with any issues he may have.

Glad this is a hypothetical. A health officer probably has to treat one prescription (whether you think it valid or not) just as any other. As a Scoutmaster, I think I have to look at the bigger picture and -- I believe -- have a little more descretion and responsibility to dealing with the situation. 'Fish makes a good point. You have to ask if it is safe to have someone under the influence of anything on an outing. But you're naive not to consider the baggage that goes with medical marijuana. I don't know much about it, but what I do know makes it hard to imagine a parent obtaining a prescription for a child. I would be asking a whole lot of questions of a whole lot of people -- COR, council and/or national BSA folks, my own attorney. One thought which crosses my mind is that at our camp the adult troop leaders are responsible for dispensing prescriptions to the Scouts. Who is willing to sign on for that? What happens when the feds show up?

Here's how to get their attention: Print a copy of the National Camp Standards ( http://www.ncsbsa.org/resources/standards/2011%20National%20Standards%20Resident.pdf ) and reference the standards you feel have not been met. For example, mandatory standard M10, "Menus and food inventories are adequate to meet the needs of campers, leaders, and staff. Adequate food supplies or scheduled deliveries provide fresh milk, meat, fruit, bread, vegetables, etc., as called for on the menus. " Or standard 67, "Specific periods of time are scheduled for religious services during each campers stay in camp. A camp chapel or area designated for religious services or meditation is available." Make sure you copy the Scout Executive and the council camping chairman on everything.

Some parents "really need to talk to them (their kids) every day. They want to talk to them every day." At least they're honest.