wojauwe

Here is response I got on search for stalking signs from old handbooks.Still looking for history answer for original question.

Probably "Gesture Signals," which came from Dan Beard. The collection in his

book "American Boys' Book of signs, Signals, & Symbols," is larger than the

ones that appeared in the old BSA Handbooks. Give me a couple days, and I will

add these. You might also be interested in his collection of trail signs, see:

http://www.inquiry.net/outdoor/skills/beard/signs_direction.htm

(This message has been edited by wojauwe)

We have monthly chapter meetings in conjunction with Roundtable.We do the opening flag ceremony for the adult roundtable then go to our meeting room.July and August we do not useually have an organised meeting.(most of our active youth are on camp staff).

We have an email list with about 60% of our members on it,that we use to pass on chapter and lodge news.

We have seperate ceremonies meetings twice a month starting in

Sept.up to the Spring ordeal season.

Lodge leaders are elected in April and chapters must elect their leadership within the next month.(was added to Lodge rules 2 years ago)They are not installed until end of current program year but work with current leaders to learn their job and to start planning the next years program.

PLC type,chapter leaders meetings are done to plan meeting agendas.Sometimes these are just on line things.The boys set up chat rooms to do this.

Also most major event planning is done in committees and are seperate of Chapter meetings.Commitees report at chapter meetings.It's very difficult to do any actual planning in a 40 person meeting(wow!!I'm amazed you have such large chapter turnout and still have no program).

If you do move to having more frequent meetings you may not have as consistant a quantity of participants.

Whats most important is that you create a structure.Quantity of meetings and participants is irrelevent,if you do not have a planned organization.

Our system fluctuates in implementation from year to year with the coming and going of diferent quality of leaders,but with our structure we are able to maintain a level of program continuity.

As to getting new blood in program.

Our lodge has initiated a program we call the big brother program.Active members in chapter adopt candidates as their little brothers.They call these candidates to insure that they make it to their ordeal and continue to talk to them throughout the year inviting them to chapter meetings and keeping them informed of upcoming OA activities.They continue to mentor them up to Britherhood eligability and encourage them to obtain Brotherhood.

This is a modification of the extended Elangomat program,which had not been working very well.

Oh here's the introduction to that class.

CREATIVE PROGRAMMING AND CHAPTER IMPROVEMENT

INTRODUCTION

The goal of this class is to give you a few ideas on the kinds of programs

you can plan as a chapter. We will give some of the points that you would

want to consider in the planning process.

Each chapter has it's own strengths and challenges. Your program will

have to take these in to consideration when choosing what best suits your

needs.

Chapter program and Chapter Improvement are one and the same. If

you have an active program you have an improving chapter. Word of mouth

is probably the strongest recruiting tool you have. A boy going back to his

unit excited about a chapter event he was part of, has more value than all

the promotional emails, phone calls and newsletters put together.

It's also important that scouts see things being done by the OA ,so they know that the OA is not just an award they won. They need to know that they belong to an organization that has fun and does great things.

We will not be able to go into great detail in the short time of this class

but we hope that you will find some useful information.

9muckraker7.I've pasted the outline to a class that my son and I taught at last years Conclave and will be revisiting this year.Sorry the formatting didn't paste real well,but I hope this can help you get started.Try small things first.

CREATIVE PROGRAMMING AND CHAPTER IMPROVEMENT

OUTLINE

WHY HAVE CHAPTER PROGRAM?

1: Give members a sense of involvement

2: Develop leadership skills

3: Create bond with units

4: Service to District and units

5: Fun

WHAT?

1: For district and units:

A: merit badge clinics

B: staff and help plan District Camporee or WEBELOS Woods.

C: JLT training.

D: Do training sessions at District Roundtables.

E: Coordinate multi unit campout, Hike etc.

( good for units that may not have the resources alone to

make a special trip happen)

2: Fun (note A: is usually a component of all fun activities)

A: pizza party, Ice Cream party (substitute any party food you like)

B: bowling

C: chapter campout

D: regalia building party

E: visit a climbing wall

F: bike trip (or canoe, raft, hike, whatever fits your member's desire and resources)

HOW?

1.Members choose an event.

A: Ideally you try to decide your calendar for coming year at end of year.

B: We would like to encourage you strongly to try putting events on

your calendar that work with the units in your district. One of our

biggest problems is the mindset of Scoutmasters who see the OA as an elitist group who are taking their leaders away from them. It's important

that we do things that help to strengthen the units and that it's known that the OA is there to augment their program not take from it.

C: definitely do some fun stuff to help develop chapter fellowship

Please incorporate as much fun into your chapter meetings as possible.

Recruit your events committees and have the planning happen outside

of chapter meetings .If you don't do this your whole chapter meeting

will be business and you will drive away all but the few hard core

members. (this was a hard-learned lesson).

2: Define scope.

A: Size of target participant group . (is this a chapter ice cream party that can be held at a chapter meeting or is this a District event with 1000

potential participants ?)

B: Focus of group ( OA ceremony's team or all the WEBELOS

and Boy Scouts in the District) is this a small group with a tight

focus or is this a large group with broad range of interests?

C: Identify goal of event . From having fun with chapter to teaching a

Merit badge.

3: What do you need, to make your program event work?

(This is where defining your scope comes into play)

A: Facilities: What are the physical needs?

Location : meet at the pizza place or bowling alley.

or reserve a State park to camp 1000 people .

B: Program: order pizza and eat and party or set up activities suitable to Keep 1000 scouts and scouters busy for a day.

C: Promotion: got to get people there . As simple as a few phone calls

and email week before pizza party to Compass Point article, letters

to scoutmasters and WEBELOS leaders 6 months before event

with registration forms and presentation at roundtable to promote

District wide camporee.

D: Staff : You need a chair for the event and an advisor.

What's the scope? Do you need a couple of people to make phone calls

and someone to commit to bringing food and someone to plan games?

If this has the large scope of say a District Camporee, you will want to create sub chairs.

a: Facilities : Site: Food: patches: Sanitation.

b: Program: Youth Games Activities: Adult Games Activities: (want

keep those pesky adults out of the way)

c: Shows: Campfire ,openings and closings ,

d: Promotion/registration:

CLOSING COMMENTS / TIEING IT TOGETHER

There are some planning details that we should talk about. It's important that you identify all the details you can early in the planning . Be prepared for all of the possible situations you can plan for.

You don't want to be trying to cover for poor planning when the real surprises hit.

At the early stages when you are working with your event chairs and your

planning committee, identify the tasks that need to be done. Try to break

program into jobs that will be easily handled by the staff you recruit for them.

If when recruiting staff you can go to person and give them a clear description of the job you would like him to do, the chance of success

improves greatly.

There are some people who will sign up as staff no matter what, but

some have fear of the unknown and don't want to agree to sign up, for

something that may not fit. Those people may be very willing if you came to them and said " could you call the people on this list and tell them we

are having an ice cream party at this months chapter meeting ?".

The more events you do the better you will get to know your members

strengths and likes. Once that you achieve this level of familiarity you can

target the right people for the right task.

ALWAYS STRIVE TO HAVE FUN, EVEN THE MOST CHALLENGING TASK CAN BE ENJOYED IF DONE WELL.ALWAYS RECOGNISE THE WORK DONE BY YOUR STAFF.A "JOB WELL DONE" GOES A LONG WAY.

Continuing search.So far the stalking hand signal sites I've found come up with special forces and sniper info.not sure I wnat to put that out here.

I did email the creator of the scout signals page asking the original question this thread started with.If he's responsive,I'll ask about the scouting stalking signals.I have a few people I know that I'll see at Conclave next week who are real scout history buffs,I'll try to remmember to ask if they know anything about the subjects.

Just looked at the coke commercial 'Be-prepared' brought up.

The site I found that I presented earlier has these signs.

http://www.inquiry.net/outdoor/skills/drill.htm . Just looked at the page again and I'm pretty sure that these are the Scout

silent signals that were being sought.

first:Twocubdad,It is not against the rules for a troop to run it's own election.The form does have to be signed by the

chapter advisor,this way he can confirm the eligability of those elected.It is preferred that the elections be run by people from outside of unit,but sometimes it doesn't work out.

1: Our Lodge is fairly large around 2000 members with 20 chapters

which gives us a good pool of resources to draw from.

We have 6 ordeals one at each of our boyscout summer camps

and at 2 Cub camps.we bring 100 to 200 members and candidates

to each of these and get a great deal of work done.

2:Each year the Lodge adopts a camp and plans and impliments a major project financed and manned by Lodge members.The past couple of years we've torn out old rotting benches,graded,dug post holes,welded brackets etc. to build new firebowls at several of our camps.In the past we've built activity shelters at cub day camps.We spend 5 to 10 weekends during the winter to do these projects.

3:We also donate money to the council camps.

4:Most of our Summer Camp Staff are active OA members and they

work with camp rangers to set up brotherhood conversion projects each week of Summer camp.

My chapter is the largest in lodge we have around 300 on the books(10% who participate)We try to give service to the District.

1:In the fall we reserve the Cub day camp in our area to conduct a merit badge workshop for all units in our district.

This year we are doing the Pioneering Merit badge with a side workshop to help troops prepare for pioneering competition that occurs at our Spring Camporee.

2.We supply ceremonies teams for WEBELOS crossovers and arrow of light ceremonies.We pride our selves on not turning any one

down,sometimes we have to scramble to make it happen and will

have to do one short handed.Have a good group of boys and support adults and can pull it off so the cubs are in awe and have no idea that it wasn't quite what we useually do.We did over 40 crossovers last year.We develope our schedule around the packs Blue and Golds.

3:Those of us who are not doing ceremonies are busy contacting and setting up unit elections for the 60 units that we serve.January and February are very busy for us.

4:The chapter plans and staffs our district's Spring Camporee Program.We work with the troops to organise games,Campfire etc.

We start planning right after we finish when we are going over the comments from participants.WE do not exclude non-members

from staff.We use our Fall programs as a training ground for the youth who will be running Camporee.It's a big deal we had around 900 participants last Spring.

It's sad to see some of the refferences I see in these forums

about bad experiances with OA.When I came into the position of

chapter Advisor I saw eliteism and aloofness and sought to change it.I make myself availiable to the leaders and scouts in

district.I have leaders coming to me talking of the problems they are haveing and the successes as well.I do my best to be helpfull.

The OA is not something above the rest of scouting.We are here to serve and it grieves me to hear that there are many who have forgotten this.

Fscouter,That wireing statement is actually a layman's way of stating a clinical symptom of ADD whether they be 12 or 40.

You are right that there is a learning process with all of us but it's much more difficult with these people to grasp the lessons.

(we seem to have strayed a bit from eagleSM's topic)

I found a site with information on scout hand signals.didn't look too deeply into it but it looked like a promising jump off

for a fruitfull search. http://www.inquiry.net/outdoor/skills/drill.htm

The page is about formation drills with hand signals.It looked like it had some links to find similar stuff.

Beaver,

hang in there.the only thing that I've found that works with ADD is to have a very busy program.If you have an hour meeting

plan for 3hrs. in case something doesn't work.

It's easier with Cubs where the adult leaders control the program.

Lectures rarely work.Their wireing doesn't always give them a grasp of social consequences.

beaver,I was just gloating about my current luck.I've experianced the chaos.I was the WEBELOS leader for a den that had 6 of 9 boys who were ADD.Learned quick that down time was my worst enemy. Found the training tapes pretty humorous when

they showed a group of WEBELOS doing some low key chatting ,which the tape reffered to as rowdiness.The leader put up the sign and the magic occured.Got a good laugh out of it at the time.As OGE said though it can be a challenge, but there's a good chance they will learn.

You might want to check this book out,costs 4.95

"Indian Sign Language by William Tomkins"

This book has a forward by Baden-Powell.He spoke of sign lanquage being a way towards world peace.It's a great little book has a translation of the scout oath into terms that translate into corresponding indian signs.It also has a good dictionary.Note this still doesn't answer the question of origin,sorry couldn't find anything.

SR540Beaver,I'm sorry to hear that you don't have the benefit

of this tool.I'm blessed to be working with older very dedicated scouts who are deeply ingrained with the proper use of the sign.

(This message has been edited by wojauwe)

This has nothing to do with the history,but I think it's worth sharing.

My oldest staffs at a WEBELOS resident camp on the oregon coast. After the Cubs leave on Friday night the Staff invades a pizza place in the nearest town.This is a group of about 20

very enthusiastic pumped up teenagers. I think someone tipped off the waitress.She puts up the scout sign when she wants their attention and instantly about 20 signs go up and there is absolute silence.

I have 2 sashes one that I use when working and one for official things.My son gave me a hard time about wearing my dirty sash when we were running unit OA elections.

Blade, my son and I's Vigil was reverse of yours.My son was my Vigil guide.

Congratulations OJ and Eamonn.

(oops unruley mouse sent unfinished)

Superfluous adults are encouraged to participate in roundtable pullouts.We have a good email list and any needs that we have for adult help are communicated regularly and we make sure that they are kept informed of lodge and chapter news.They can have the parking lot meetings in the parking lot.

The chapter is run by the boys with advice from advisors and support from adult members.This is our general meeting we also have ceremonies meetings which is a whole other group of 20 or so,a few of those crossover into general meeting.We have a ceremonies vice chief and associate advisor.They give reports on well being of that part of program.

General meeting focuses on programs such as District level merit badge clinics,WEBELOS Woods and camporee.Actually we have around 100 who are active at some point by helping us with these different programs.

SR540Beaver,The OA is a service organization,our chapter helps in the planning and running of most district events.

Our Lodge takes on major projects at one of our councils camps every year,we use lodge money and lots of man hours to

upgrade our camps.We've built campfire bowls,with heavy duty benchs and we've built activity shelters at camps recently.

Besides that our ordeals are used to prepare our 4 boyscout camps and 2 of our cubscout camps for summer camp.

If you have no clue what the OA is ,you have,either not been paying attention or your Lodge needs a little improvement.

(This message has been edited by wojauwe)

10% is a good estimate of the norm.I'm the chapter advisor for a chapter that carries between 300 and 400 members on it's roster.My average meeting is around 20 youth and maybe 1/2 dozen adults(these are mostly the ones who function as support people).Unless a question is put up for general comment,adult speaking is discouraged.If they need to chat they can leave room.I'm out of the room most of the time.The chief and I've allready spoken about what is being covered in meeting and he knows where to find me if he needs me.

I've useually got at least one of the adults cornered in the hallway recruiting him to help with things that adults are good for like driving.we have our chapter meeting in same building at same time as Roundtable so superfolous

You seem to be getting some sound advice.Our council has a pretty good Venture website with links to a variety of Venture information.Note this is for if you go the way of choosing to form a crew. http://www.joinventuring.com/

Hotdesk,

I think it's time for you guys to figure out what you want to do as a patrol.I don't think it's us guys place to tell you what to do.It's actually even difficult to suggest anything specific since we don't know your area(at least I don't)Also don't know the people involved.Now's time for your first challenge as a patrol,have a brainstorming meeting get some ideas,pick one and start figuring out how to make it happen.

BW

The things that are offered are high adventure events and team building leadership courses that are usefull in both programs.I'm not talking about administrative stuff.

This Summer we had a high adventure race in the Oregon high desert.Biking,backpacking,canoe race and white water rafting.

Interspersed in this was the Kodiak leadership course which

involves team building games.Teams were taken off the clock and got time taken off for sucess in the games.(served a secondary function of allowing staff to apraise the well being of the teams).This was a very challenging event the biking part was 25 miles in the eastern Cascades 2000 ft. elevation gain in one 2 mile section and a good portion of rest of ride was mountain mogul trails.

The event was open to any registered scouts who were between 14 and 21.The teams had to supply their own adult support group

to fit their YP requirements.It was put on by Council level

Venture cabinet.

Was great opportunity for scouts seeking high adventure that was not offered in their troop.Catered well to small group of

older boys.Teams were 4 people.

Bob,

I know the difference.Not sure I understand why it's called a Venture patrol and not just be called the senior patrol.

I gave the regular Venture suggestion because it sounded as if the troop was not supportive of the direction the patrol would like to go.A crew would be an option.

I don't know about Hotdesk's council but in ours a "Venture" patrol can participate in Council Venture programs,trainings etc. without being registered in Venture.These offer the boys an option focused more towards the older boys.

It would be a much easier option if they could just get help within the troop to offer program for older boys.The logistics of forming a crew would require more human resources.

I missed part of what you had said.Eamonn pointed it out.Before offering a Venture patrol you need to define what it is going to be.If it's to be for High adventure,let the boys know.If they don't want to do high adventure then it would be silly to join that patrol.Forming a specialty patrol just for older boys only works if they all want the same thing.

E's right if you want Venture you may need to seek out a pre set Crew.

Hotdesk,

Here is our Councils Venture Web page it has links to lots of information on the Venture program.Things from fast start to

The more advanced Kodiak training.

http://www.joinventuring.com/

Be carefull you don't try to take too much on your own shoulders.Pick the position in troop that you feel you can make the most difference in.You are allready in what can be a very demanding position as Chapter chief.

My personal feeling is that if a group doesn't have enough support to stand alone as a Venture crew they should just stay in their patrols.Why bother calling them a Venture Patrol if it's only in name.

You need to find adult support people who are willing to commit to High adventure program.(our troop has an ASM who works on putting together at least 3 high adventure events a year and all the training trips neccesary for these.The program is open to anyone eligable to participate in high adventure).If you want to become a crew you need support of like minded leaders.

You can have duel membership in Crew and troop.Crew decisions

are not dependent on troop commitee aproval the Crew should have it's own committee.You can't do this alone you will need to find people to help.You can go outside of the troop to recruit.If your Council has a Venturing leadership structure

you could contact them and let them know of your problem.Maybe there are other people in your area who have same situation and would like to link up with you.

Be carefull don't take too much on without support.

(Have you resolved your unit's SPL problem?)

2CD,I shouldn't of bothered addressing scoutldr's response since it didn't address your issue.

I think you are on the right track.The only suggestion I'd make is be sure to give each leader of the sub dens a helper.

you could avoid using any official title.It's amazing but asking some one to be a den leader or assistant will some times scare them away but I've gotten good results when I asked

a person to take on a specific defined task.Strangely enough that task was exactly what the position would of called for.

After they've done the job for a while I'd point out to them

that they might as well be wearing the patch since they are doing the job.

scoutldr has the same philosphy that we are coming to in my district.We've coordinated with all of our bordering Districts

so that none of our trainng overlaps and we advertise all dates to all of those districts.We also support training efforts within units.

I was appalled last week at District commitee meeting when I saw the numbers of trained leaders we had in District.What was worse was these numbers were in line with qualiy district requirements. We need to do what ever we can to improve this.

Glad to hear there is a position that replaces Den Ldr.Coach .

I wasn't familiar with position,been a while since I was a cub ldr.

Sounds good in print to split.But it also occurs to me that 2 cub has a problem with leadership.Which pack gets the leaders? Who's going to choose who goes where?More parents need to step up to help.You say you have a really great team

of leaders for this large den,but it's a good chance they are going to burn out.I had 9 and 10 member dens and it was a challenge (I did have a good dose of ADD boys).

Someone needs to have a heart to heart with the parents and let them know that if they want their boys to have a quality

program they need to help.

might be a thought to do your nonsplit split,but each of the 2

needs an assistant from the ranks of parents.This would allow for a mentor to develope new leaders.I think that this needs to lead to an actual Den split.

Splits are always a crap shoot if you do them without some preperation.Even then,who knows?

Ive seen unit and district splits that have created 2 weak

organizations needing help.You need to have a trained and prepared leadership core for each unit.The numbers will look great for the DE until both units fail.

Note: I've seen it work out to all's benefit as well.

I know you are in a bit of a fix with the reluctance of any one to step up to fill leadership gaps.Approach likely candidates individually and impress on them the need for help to keep a viable program.The likely hood of getting volunteers

through a group request is not good.

Good luck.

Our council allows us to use the National online Youth protection training.We reccomend that this not be used for first time participants but for renewals.Still it's prefferable that they go through at least the online rather than none at all. http://www.scouting.org/nav/enter.jsp?s=xx&c=yp Above is the National site.The program is administrated through councils each one may have a bit different procedure so the national site lists the areas that are set up to administer program.

For youth contact position this is the foundation of their training (a must).

It is always reccomended that leaders be trained at the District level.If it is not possible because of leaders schedule it would be prefferable that some kind of training be

set up.pack,you said that you have been on the training team and have train the trainer credentials,If you could maybe coax

another district training team member to work with you,it might be more palatable to District.To make it worth while you could contact District commissioner,have him check to see if any of his unit commisioners have units with same problem.It might be easier to work out timing logistics with a small group.It would also be easier to get some district resources involved.

(It might be easier to bully the leader's boss into giving him a schedule break)

but for now make sure he's gone through fast start and YP.

You could show him the Videos,but I found them to be a bit of a joke.

When I was in Cubs I was Den Leader Coach(I think this is no longer a position)for 3 yrs.I recuited Den Leaders and insured that they were trained.More often than not they would be in position for a while before they got opportunity for training.

Our pack financed me to put together a starter box for each Den leader it included appropriate Den leader manual,copy of

youth book for that level,copies of the den management paper work(advancement forms,roll call etc.)program materials for the first few den meetings up to first roundtable.Den and american flag and stand etc.

Make sure they go to Roundtable if they can't make it I haven't missed a roundtable in 10 yrs.I'd always bring back

program information to pack.

Hope some of this is helpfull