Krampus

The basic Genesis compound bow should work just fine for him at 10 and 15 yards. If he's not scoring he needs to work on stance, positioning, aim, release, etc. He will get there, it just takes work. My own Scout has his own Genesis bow and shoots often. It took him a few months to dial in at 15 yards to consistently score. You've got several scoring methods depending on which you want to use. We always counsel our guys that Archery is one of the most difficult to earn because your scoring at 15 yards takes patience and practice.

Great ideas. Showed the SPL the few posted and he liked them. Keep 'em coming!

There's a troop in AZ or NM (can't remember) that attended camp with us. Small unit. They wear the old 1960s style pants, shirts and the old garrison cap. They looked SHARP!!!! What they could not buy in surplus one of the kid's grandmothers made. Classic look.

Our area tends to get large financial contributions, though all four of our council camps were very large land donations...back in the 30s-50s I think. Heck we used to have 5 but one was sold for development years ago. Not one house on the property still and it has been 20 years almost.

Still silly that only council (or a professional facility) can run an archery, sling shot or tomahawk event for Cubs and Webelos. I get BB guns, but sling shots? Please.

Sometimes you will run in to situation where all the youth leaders are just figuring out their roles. That happened to us when we had not built that solid leadership base. It started to work when we built in a real troop leadership training. Not the silly ppts that BSA puts out, but a real, honest to goodness TLT program which we based off the old JLT. We focused on their roles, showed them how to build objectives for their term of office, how to make them measurable and walked them through the process each role encounters, THAT helped a great deal. When a patrol QM knows HOW the processes work and sees them in action, he knows better how to effectively execute his job. Teach a boy to fish.... We do TLT/JLT twice a year and in advance of our elections. It took a year of implementing this until the fruits of the labor shown through. We still have hiccups, but for the most part it runs MUCH smoother than it did. The guides and instructors remind the new leaders, even older scouts who have held the positions in the past help out the younger or new leaders. The leadership objectives also helped. When a boy knows that passing tent inspection the first time 4 out of 6 times is one of his goals as patrol QM, he knows to make sure his patrol has HIM inspect the tents before the troop QM comes around.

Try this... http://seascoutbeta.org/news/resolution/

More correct of me to say it would not work in my large troop. Our guys spent time developing the current process. They are very process driven. The "election cycle" is something they've come to rely on. It is easy for the guys to get their POR done and be able to plan on when they can manage a POR with their other activities. It is predictable and our guys like that. Plus I think forcing someone to see through a commitment is a good thing. If we allow someone to step down because something is difficult, what lesson do we teach them? What lesson do we as followers learn. In keeping a bad leader in place it forces several issues. The poor leader must step up his game. The followers learn to pick up slack and what traits they need in the next leader. In ten years when these guys are in business, if they have a crappy boss who does not do the team's work he sure is not going to step down. The team will have to do HIS work too. It's a life lesson.

We have a national staffer in our midst. He wears his national uniform for national stuff. He wears his unit uniform for unit stuff. His unit uniform looks like all of us. When at council or district events he wears the shirt of the position he is attending for.

@@Eagle94-A1, we had a similar issue when we tried to take the adults out of the picture and go to a more boy led approach. what worked for us was: Get buy in from the CO and TC. We had a meeting around the mission, goals and objectives of the scouting program. We discuss the keys to growth and leadership development being allowing the the boys to run "their" program. We laid out any objections to this approach and discussed the pros and cons of the objections. We found most of them to be adults not wanting to give up control. We developed a plan over a 1-2 year period how we could train scouts and adults alike to manage their various areas within the unit. The TC -- including all parents registered with the troop -- were very supportive of the change. Once the agendas were out in the open the adults had no where to hide. Taking away a learning, growth or leadership opportunity for a youth was akin to denying him something everyone agreed was the point of the program. As you can imagine, we have a few noses out of joint. Some left. Most stayed. Within two years those who opposed the change were either gone, Eagled out, aged out or still with us. Only a few in the first category. By the end of year three we had infused so many new families that it seemed like we had ALWAYS operated as a boy led group. Now, 10+ years later, there are very few who remember this "conflict" at all. I agree with @@Stosh, if you don't have many folks in your corner to support the change, change won't happen. It will take buy in from the TC and the CO, *or* it will need to be such an overwhelming show of support from the member parents as to force change. Without either of those groups I don't see you changing anything.

Here's an example of what my SPL is looking for: Sample Meeting Idea: Cooking Demo Have six stations (one per patrol, rotation after 10 mins to the next station). 1-2 older scouts per station using the patrol's cook top and pans. Cook a sample meal (can be breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert). Should be simple. Bonus for using fewer pans/utensils. Some parts can be pre-cooked (i.e., if using rice/noodles/bacon it can be done in advance). Should be a "group meal", not one that requires cook-to-order. Cooking should be done in under ten minutes, end product can be tasted by the Scouts (small servings such as 2 tablespoons each) Focus is on Ease of preparation, clean up Focus on cooking technique (low heat, pan re-use, etc.) Taste, creativity The Example: Breakfast crepes. Batter prepared, talk through how to make the batter while cooking. Have fillings (jelly, fruit). Cook 2-3 large 12" crepes during the demo, fill and serve by quartering the crepe and giving to the patrol. Rotate to the next station. The objective is to show scout quick, healthy, interesting cooking ideas that will encourage them to use these and other methods in their patrol cooking. Also, encourage better cooking techniques (e.g., not nuking every dish with ultra-high heat. Demonstrate other cooking techniques.

All that is planned, staffed and ready to go. That was part of annual planning. The assignments were made to each PL and they are currently working them. The idea here was to give the program patrol -- the PL and patrol responsible for developing the monthly meetings that align to the monthly theme -- more ideas for meetings other than what is in the BSA resources, or what the boys themselves have found.

From my SPL: "Can you ask the leaders on the forum for meeting ideas that their troops use that are fun, hopefully involving scout skills or other fun things, that they would like to share with our troop? I am looking for the things below. I want to share with the service patrols to give them ideas other troops are doing." So, please post any meeting ideas you troop has done. My SPL is interested in the following details below. Ideally the response would be written as if it were going in to the Troop Program Features. Bullet points are fine...teenagers have short attention spans. Skills being taught. Materials needed. If costs involved, a sample cost (how was it funded too) Amount of time to set up, practice or train. Number of people teaching or involved in instruction. How is the activity implemented (e.g., large groups, small groups, etc.) Anything else they wish to share on how or why this was good/fun.

We've gone off topic? Never. Doesn't happen.

No, I get that you cannot manage a property to full LNT. I just found it ironic that an organization that promotes the outdoors and conservation of resources would advocate the selling of land for resource mining or additional development. I guess it is inevitable that a sale would take place and resources would be mined -- and that a company selling such land should get full proceeds from such a sale. I just found it anachronistic to a degree.

Odd that an outdoor organization so big on LNT advocates selling off green space for other development. @@qwazse, was this "evaluation team" a group of BSA execs or an outside business consultant with experience in accounting and property management?

@@gumbymaster...it should be caveat emptor and not caveat venditor. Assuming the form was filled out with the real birth date and BSA made the mistake, no credit and fees paid back by national. Assuming the form was filled out with false birth date, no credit and the Scout starts from scratch. Assuming the form was filled out and honest mistakes were made on both sides, no credit for stuff earned before eligible and full credit for MBs earned after he was eligible. Ranks have to be re-earned. That's how I would do it.

The site has the information you are looking for. The third edition covered 1927-1940 and covered 32 printings. The 13th edition was just printed obviously.

We have this mostly... Some of this... and this... Then some of this.... Of course we have this... Then back to this...

Yup. The model we use. Target is 7-8. No more.

For us the key was making sure there was a carrot and stick approach, so to speak. You HAD to demonstrate your leadership as a guide, instructor or JASM for our "leadership corps". That was the only way in. You were expected to STILL hang with the troop, guide new leaders and give demonstrable leadership during events. I'd sum it up this way, all of our events were designed with a sloping level of difficulty. This took some time to work in to the boy led model, but it eventually worked. That means that for any one activity there is a basic, intermediate and advanced level of difficulty. Each Scout can learn and enjoy based on his position along the red sloped line. Also, this allowed older Scouts to demonstrate leadership, earn their way into the leadership corps and go off and do their own adventure WITHOUT decapitating our unit of older scout leadership. Does it always work? Nope. Life, school and other events end up decapitating you sometimes. But that is where the younger scouts can step up. Same model works then too.

It is slow in any troop moving from adult to boy led. Our own troop took a while to do it. The boys gradually accepted that they truly did have total control. They still go off the rails every now and again -- or you get a leader or leadership team that just does not jive no matter what you do or how well you train them. And you may never be done with your work. No sooner does one set of boys "get it" then you have another group coming in to teach all over.

Not sure you can make that model work in the large troop. Plus, working through total failure would rob him of the learning experience...or rob those under him of their learning experience. I will say this, the last four SPL and PL rounds have yielded some great young leaders. They still refer to "the dark times" and use it as a learning tool. Who said drama was reserved for teenage girls?

He fooled everyone. He was a paper leader, paper scout. In it for the bling. His PLs took care of him and ran the troop, he just fell down on HIS job.

I think you missed the bullet points where the SPL was NYLT trained (troop expense), went to district training (troop expense), went through JLT in the troop for three years (troop expense), held PL position three times and did well, met with the SM to define HIS objectives for his term (measurable, quantitative with milestones and check points), had monthly meetings with the SM, reminders from the SM, PERSONAL meetings to help him out of his paralysis, meeting with his team (several) to support him and get him back on track, numerous supportive phone calls, discussions and emails all designed to help him find his way. Heck, the last two months the PLC practically planned and executed his job plan for him, all he needed to do was read and follow it. At some point the personal accountability falls with the SPL. The kid was a honor student. He had notebooks for everything. He APPEARED über organized. Turns out it was mom and dad doing most of the work. Without them as training wheels he was a house of cards ready to fall (apologies for the mixed metaphors). Sorry, but sometimes it is NOT the adults' fault. Sometimes the buck stops with the kid. We cannot have boy led without boy accountability.