Pack18Alex

2 minutes ago, John-in-KC said:

In a word, BSA needs Summit Bechtel to generate revenue to cover the various loans. 

Yup.  My local Council forces all events to their properties, despite the fact that the county parks system is better equipped for some of them.  The super irony, Council charges us more than our parks will.  It's internal transfer costs so it's not real (nor do I care, as a council event runner, if the event makes a profit, which they do), but it makes the council properties look "profitable" when they are not, they are just moving programming money over to cover the boondoggles.

I think that BSA should get out of the landlord business, because running expensive properties that are only open weekends and vacations is ridiculous when taxpayer funded alternatives are able to operate at a law 365-days/year.

But, it's super excited for a Scout Executive to show off his properties, or national to show off their "High Adventure basis."  We introduced cheaper programming options that increased retention by 3% isn't super excited.

It's the same reasons that universities build palatial buildings, it's what donors want their name on and non-profit executives are sales people whose commission is "kudos" that focus on money raised, not profits, because there are none.

BSA needs Summit to make money because BSA owns Summit.  BSA shouldn't own Summit, but that's neither here nor there.  A federally funded cheap facility for Jamborees was just fine.

6 hours ago, Cambridgeskip said:

BSA can indeed influence but it can't dictate. Numbers wise BSA makes up approx 7% of members. Probably more financially but ultimately has only a certain amount of leverage. In addition the management of the jamboree isn't purely BSA. There are three host nations and WOSM involved. It's not a BSA event that the world is invited to, it's a WOSM event at a BSA site. There are a lot of parallels with hosting the Olympics. The host country only has so much wriggle room. IOC rules sit at the top. I imagine that BSA have signed all kinds of legal contracts with WOSM to host this and simply refusing to play by their rules now will land them in massive legal and financial problems. 

I think that that is a great analogy...  also, put the shoe on the other foot.  Would we want other hosts to be able to push their values and religious mores on our scouts at a World Jamboree?

Put another way, how would people here feel about the host nation's religious views if the event were say, joinly hosted by Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, and they prohibited female Scouters and Jewish Scouts from attending?

Small Pack.  We actually organized our sibling dens into a Girl Scout Troop.  We meet same night.  We couldn't get leadership organized on Girl Scout side, ended up opening a few flag ceremonies jointly with Girl Scouts, everyone loved it.  Right now, we are "one room" school house.  Sometimes the girls go to another room and do their thing, sometimes the activity is mixed and we figure out how to apply everyone's requirements.  We hate the GSUSA programming.  My girls are transferring to my Pack the DAY Council will accept an application (one will need tenure for AOL).  Parents all seem on board.  If anyone wants the GS Troop, they can have it.  We're going to run GS Cadettes (Grades 6-8) for a year while BSA rolls out their new Program.

COR is on board, which SHOCKED me, very conservative CO, but he's a Queen's Scout and it was Co-ed over there for years.  I'm excited if only to reduce my paperwork.

On a few pages of this thread, people would probably call my program "co-ed" -- and I guess it is.

Our sibling den evolved into a Girl Scout Troop, which tried to forge it's own identity and collapsed under the crappiness of GSUSA.  At this point, the GS Troop functions without our Pack as a Patrol (or two, depending as size), where they work of GS Advancement during Den Meeting nights and the Pack Activity during Pack Activity nights.

We got a lot of amused looks at a district cub event last year where I had two patrols of girl scouts at it.

My take on the matter:

Cubs could go entirely co-ed.  The new program is very "boy" oriented but not gendered as strongly as the old one.  The old one I'd make tweaks for a Cub-Girls program, and designate Den's co-ed.

Boy Scouts should not be Co-Ed, but I'd create a middle school Girls program that is similar.  Alternatively I'd permit a CO to charter Male and Female troops, but not co-ed ones.

In our neck of the woods, the major Council Events all invite GSUSA units to participate, and some did.  There was huge excitement when a Girl Scout Troop won a "Chief's Choice" gateway competition at Camporee.

I'm just not seeing the issue.  I think it's a regional cultural issue, and Councils should have some flexibility.

But it does bug me that our Girl Scout "Troop" sends money to GSUSA instead of BSA, and they'd all drop GSUSA in a heart beat.

Caveat: my wife is the Girl Scout Leader, our GS Troop was started as an adjunct.

Our units are very religious in nature, with strong gender separation, so I don't see co-ed patrols/dens in our future anyway.

We don't use the LFL backdoor, doesn't seem trustworthy.  Our events are all "family" events and open to the family members of all unit members.  The participating "girl scouts" are almost always siblings of "boy scouts."  In the few cases where they aren't, we signup and train a girl scout dad as an Adult Leader, and they participate as the Adult Leader's family.

It works for us.  When our Boy Scouts visit the Pack campsite and discuss pioneering with Daisy/Brownie girl scouts, it's an utter riot.

1. If the money is a legacy that you are a steward of, continue protecting it. You should keep a reserve that is the amount you need for 4-6 months of the program (i.e. time between fundraisers).

2. Invest in the future of the troop, spend some on recruiting. We have done custom signs, custom flyers, etc. Some are pitching our brand, some are pitching our specific scouts (instead of generic pictures).

3. Invest in your Pack. Does your CO have a pack? If not, start one right now. That's the best source of new recruits, and it's a no brainer use of money bequeathed to you.

4. Invest in a Satellite Pack. See if you can get a second Pack chartered to your CO. Find a location that is within a 15 minute drive of your CO. Recruit a Pack there. If you have a Pack there, those boys should be encouraged to float over to the Troop each year, where 15 minutes is less of a big deal (Cub Scouts are tired at night).

5. Shiny Webelos Recruiting? Advertise a free, Webelos Only PWD or other event with a fancy new track.

But if you have two new NSPs coming from two packs/year, your longevity is safe.

Now, funds are part of the issue, an adult to champion each of these things is another story.

This will be super unpopular with the core group here, but if you have money in the bank, but not enough Scouts in the Troop, to me the most obvious use of the money in the bank is to convert it to Scouts. You can't exactly buy Scouts, but you can invest in marketing.

I am super against the idea of "we have this big legacy supply of money, and we're shrinking, so we'll spend our endowment today on a big hedonistic bang." If you don't want to invest it growing the troop, go purchase zero-coupon bonds for the Troop, with various maturities, so the Unit can fold but when it's time to restart it you have a legacy.

Good luck. But you didn't earn the money, the scouts of today didn't earn the money. It's robbing the past to spend it on today's Scouts. It's a tribute to the past to spend it on recruiting tomorrow's Scouts.

Wife is a Girl Scout leader. The training is part of the problem, plus the ad hoc nature of the troops. A normal GS Troop is a two Kindergarteners, their mom, and 6 friends. As they drop out, they replace them or the program folds. They take their fundraisers and spend it on a single activity, never acquire gear or permanence. The Charter-Org system that gives BSA Unit's a sense of longevity is a HUGE part of the long term success.

Not letting dads really volunteer in GSUSA doesn't help. When I go to Round Table, it's probably 60-40 men-women, and around 40-60 men-women with the under 50 volunteers. When my wife goes to Service Unit meetings, there isn't a male attendee.

I don't think that the programs will, or should, merge. I think BSA should offer co-ed scouting and GSUSA should offer co-ed Guiding, since they aren't looking at the same stuff.

FYI, one of my Scouts had really spotty attendence for a year or two. However, since he had previously been early registered (and was in too advanced a level), we just left him at the level for two years, earned rank with his classmates, and seems to be back active.

It's really all about the boys.

They'll get more out of the program if they are at the right age. The fact that we've slid back the grade by a year has made the program already too advanced... They don't get out of doing things ahead of the curve.

I think that someone who has his children in parochial school and running a scouting unit at said school would satisfy the idea of doing his duty to God, even if he doesn't believe in Him.

I think most people are interpreting that to mean behavior IN THE UNIT. Not what we think or hear or assume might be going on somewhere else. Or do you think the policy allows us (or REQUIRES us?) to ask a young man what is going on in his personal life? Are Scouters supposed to be asking Scouts what they are doing on dates? Are they allowed to? I'm curious as to how your interpretation of this policy would work in practice.

Irrelevant. Nothing is required. BSA and Council will NOT get involved in Unit Membership issues unless policy requires it. Unit refuses black members, Unit is in trouble. Unit throws out a boy for saying he's "gay oriented" (I interpret as SSA), Unit is in trouble. Unit throws a boy out for talking about his boyfriend, CO says, "we don't approve of middle school boys dating," BSA will say "find another unit."

It doesn't matter what most people interpret it as, if a Unit wants to remove a boy, they can, as long as it's not for saying "I'm gay oriented."

I think that 95% of people don't want to deal with this anymore. If there is a problem, most boys will either drop out of scouting or drop out of the unit. Few parents are twisted enough to make an embarrassing moment (kicked out of his troop for being gay) a huge case to fight to keep him in the unit, they'll either find a new unit or drop out of scouting.... that's how I predict this plays out.

Major difference: RW Religious unit removes gay kid from Unit, BSA doesn't remove them from Scouting, they transfer to a non-RW Unit, life moves on. Basically, the revoked that "gay = no BSA" policy and threw a bone to gay rights activists that the boy can't be removed from his unit for "orientation" but left enough wiggle room that anti-gay COs can effectively remove a scout for holding hands with another boy.

I'm not sure that attraction, orientation and preference all mean the same thing.

 

And yes, I do see the word "alone", and I know what it says in the introductory language about behavior. I also know that there have been some sexually active Scouts, meaning heterosexual Scouts who are not "celibate" in their private lives (outside the troop), probably from the very beginning. And there are some now. So now what do we do?

BSA will stay out of Unit Membership policies, which is the correct thing to do. Boy Scout Age youth (because this doesn't apply to Cubs) should find a Unit that they are comfortable in. This barely applies to Venturing, because if you're RW enough you're looking for an excuse to toss gay boys, you probably don't have a co-ed Venturing Crew.

As for the second paragraph I quoted, can you explain that? I read your other posts and don't quite get what you meant by that.

The W2 Den is filled with boys that are Sabbath-observant Jews. Therefore, joining a Church based Troop that will do Saturday day events, is a non-starter. The Troop has a few Sabbath-observant Jews, but is primarily not. There is the disconnect.

So we're in an odd situation where the Troop is overly Boy Led for their level of experience. But obviously, converting to an Adult Led W3 Troop would be lame, but strongly possible. When I get a chance to read through all these links and resources (thanks again everyone!), that will be helpful.

I know that putting together the Pack Calendar the first time was REALLY complicated, took my over educated Pack Committee 6 hours to get right. The next year, it took two hours, and next year, I hope it can be done without my involvement in 1 hour, then I know I've built something to last.

I think that a lot of these areas where the troop is floundering are areas where building from nothing is REALLY hard, while maintaining is easier. I also think that learning to maintain and improve on a foundation is a more reasonable skill to impart on 14 year olds than building the foundation is.

I see a lot of topics of "moving the troop to be more boy led" and then the comments of "I wish we did this years ago."

If your struggling troop never had more than 2 boys, canceled half their meetings for lack of two deep leadership, and struggling to do 1 campout a year, you wouldn't be like "well, it's boy led so that's great" you'd suggest it's a flop. It's REALLY hard for adults to step back and transition to the boys, I get that, but at the same time, you need to have some level of infrastructure for them.

I used the wrong word Advance, it's less about 1st Class Scouts (but it's a problem that the troop is working on), and more the Troop getting better on an annual basis.

One of our goals in a Jewish Unit is to get Jews of all denominations and backgrounds working together and taking pride in their accomplishments as Scouts and Jews. If your Unit sucks, the only people that stick around are those that NEED to be in a Jewish unit, so we don't get the different backgrounds. When you have a top performing Unit, you get Scouts of all backgrounds because they WANT to be in the Unit, not HAVE to be in the Unit.

Boy Led and leadership development are absolutely critical. And I don't want to deny that and turn the Unit into an Eagle factory. But I also don't want to only be able to retain a small portion because the program is weak and anyone that wants a solid program transfers out (happened to Troop 2 years ago and Pack 4 years ago).

Thanks for all the reading material and feedback. It'll probably be a few days to digest everything you've sent my way, a LOT to chew on.. Thanks for all the help!

A few comments back to qwazse who gave a very detailed response.

"But a dozen boys don't need a trailer."

When the CO has no storage space, and none of the dads drive a truck, and the people storing gear in their garages are griping, it's a BIT of a concern.

In terms of the Calendar, we have a few extra concerns...

CO is officially of the opinion all Jewish Youth should be in Jewish Private Schools. Therefore, even if there isn't a single boy in a particular Jewish school, if the Unit schedules things that would interfere, that's a potential lightning rod. There are also black out dates for Jewish holidays that simply aren't at the discretion of the boys in the Unit. Basically, if the boys in the troop decided, screw it, most of us aren't Sabbath-observant, we're going to do an event on the last day of Passover because it's convenient for us... that's simply unacceptable to the CO.

"And, what 1st class rank advancement will this achieve? I'm not against a sales coach offering your boys some tips on how he/she plies her trade and having the boys apply those skills at a fundraiser. But, only if the boys have bought in that this is something they need to do."

None. But they are upset they don't have "stuff" and they don't do fundraisers because they've never seen a need. A lot of this is just getting the ball rolling and giving them the tools to have a successful year with the NSP joining. If they have a successful year, it should feed on itself and go great.

"That's actually a selling point. The W2's in a boy-led troop can be assured that they will be pretty much scouting with their buddies. No being split up into a half-dozen existing patrols. They have a majority when electing leaders, etc ..."

But that's not the decision facing the CO boys in the W2 Den. They aren't considering other Troops. Their choice will either be: Join the current Troop, or Drop out of Scouting. The parents have option 3, which is take over the CO's troop, because the CO only nominally knows they have a BS Troop as opposed to a CS Pack.

Qwazse,

Thank you, great and useful comments. Very true on the adults vs. group of boys. It needs to be VERY careful. However, if I were to listen to the other comments here, after appointing the Scoutmaster, depositing dues and turning in re-charter, the committee might as well disband, because everything should be on the boys. I don't think that's realistic, and doesn't jive with BSA policies. Might match some of Baden Powell's "Scouting for Boys" manual, but he was writing for older boys in a society where majority was obtained younger.

So here is a big picture issue.

Charter Org partnered with the Units for the Cub Scouting program, which is heavily filled with boys from the CO and surrounding area. The boys from the CO dropped out of the Troop because of issues with the program and leadership (prior SMs, not the new one). CO wants the programming for it's youth.

We have a W2 Den, larger than the Troop, predominately with CO boys.

So this is the driving issue, at this point, there was talk of spinning up a second troop and ignoring them. Because of BSA policies and CO rules, that's not what actually happens, the existin Troop would be off looking for a meeting space and Charter Organization, a handful of boys would "transfer back" and the continuity would be wrecked. That's what amounts to the Plan B, so looking for better alternatives.

So jblake may be 100% right about why he thinks that the SM is doing great and we should all butt out, but his opinion is irrelevant. The crucible is coming in a few months, and either things are better, or everyone in the troop is going to be out on their butts. Which is why I am here, looking for constructive solutions to make things better while minimizing the damage to the boy-run part of the program that goes great. The well meaning posters telling me everything is fine are basically inadvertently trolling, because things are NOT fine in this Unit/CO combination, even if this would all be fine in their CO.

We're the only Jewish Unit in our area, so "go to another troop" isn't an option.

In terms of adults... few skills between them all. Most of the adults at the meeting are there because they live 30 min+ away, so no reason to drop and run, they have to stick around.

When the Cub Scout Pack got a trailer, the Boy Scouts got jealous, and talked about how lucky they were. Every penny that went into the trailer was from Popcorn sales, not a dime came from parents... pack even paid my gas and tolls getting it here. But the Boy Scouts don't think it's possible to accomplish these things.

So after the back and forth here, one thing pitched to the PLC, having a guest come in and run a budgeting and planning exercise... so the boys identify, with their SM for guidance, what they'd like to acquire for the troop. Then learn how to price them out (tablet + Amazon.com gets a broad idea), how to rank, and how to set the sales goals and how to divvy it up. The goal is to have them all commit to a certain volume of sales. Idea being, volunteer teaches them the skills, they do the process.

But, it's NOT a skill that the SM has.

Same thing for annual planning. We start with the BSA Calendar, we know which Council/District events Troop wants (obviously reverify with them), black out dates that adult leaders need blacket out, add the CO events we're supposed to volunteer at, add the joint Pack/Troop activities, and then back to the PLC for filling out the rest of the calendar, guided by an adult. But what ends up happening now, is nobody is aggregating the BSA Council/District and CO events, so they come up and the PLC is dumbfounded. Sure it ought to be a learning experience, but when the CO expects our help and nobody shows up, that's a problem. When the Troop/Pack are supposed to do something together, the Adult led Pack needs an answer, not the PLC will discuss in 4 months.

But, the inadvertent trolling from well meaning posters here telling me why everything is okay are derailing the thread. There have been some great concrete suggestions, and warnings about losing the boy-run aspects, but lots of back and forth about the SM which is totally irrelevant. The SM is awesome, but like all people, they have limitations. Drop me in a forest for survival purposes, I'd drop dead, the SM would build a shelf and be fine. Drop me a mount of BSA paperwork to get everyone's awards on time, mine are turned out, digitally signed, and ready to go in 48 hours, the SM would be months before he remembered where he misplaced things. We all have different skills, and we want to relocate things where the SM isn't skilled to the committee, but my question here was how to do so without interfering in the programming.

For example, dates of religious holidays, Council Camporees, and the joint Pack/Troop stuff are all kind of fixed. If the PLC have 8 people from 6 patrols, it'd be a great learning experience to do what we do on the adult side. When the PLC consists of 3 people, with really one patrol, there is a firm limit to what they can do because of the manpower situation. 3 Hours, 3 people, yields 9 Boy-Hours. If the tasks involved are more than 9 Boy-Hours, then the adults should do enough that it is possible for them to get it done in those 9 boy-hours, otherwise, they are being set up for failure.

Where is any BSA Literature is a committee vote mentioned?

Correct, when the Unit Committee is operating as a BSA Committee, votes are not taken. Roberts rules of order NOT followed, no motions/seconds/etc. One of my complainers started arguing that a decision that was made shouldn't me mine alone, it should be a committee decision, I explained that that's not how this works.

However, when the Committee is instead operating as a committee of the CO, those rules may not apply.

When the Committee Authorized us to open a bank account, a motion was made, a second was obtained, and the vote was taken. Why? Because Bank Account authorizations, in Florida, need to be made by vote by the governing association.

What did they decide to do to straight boys that were not totally celibate?

Read the rule change: 1. Sexual activity for scouts is totally inappropriate. 2. Same-sex-attraction is not grounds for dismissal.

Essentially, a Scout can still be removed from a unit for behavior, not for coming out as gay oriented. No, a CO could prohibit all sexually active scouts, prohibit same sex sexually active scouts, or simply ignore the issue and assume that BSA wants to be done with this.

I'm pretty sure we're all done with this issue, but BSA's rule change was written VERY carefully to not offend any religious groups that participate.

Where on the spectrum does the troop lay on passing the T-1 requirements. Complete mastery demonstrated multiple times "tie a bowline blindfolded while chewing gum and balancing on one foot on a 30* slope in the rain" or "once and done" and mastery comes from teaching the skill to other scouts and patrol competitions?

No clue. I watched someone testing some skills, and it was "couldn't do it to save his life." But, the basic knot tying stuff my younger daughters can do just from hanging around it at the cub scout stuff, so I'm pretty certain it's a training approach and a lack of practice. But I'm not entirely sure.

They were definitely trying to hitch their wagon to the BSA, until the BSA decided that openly gay kids don't need to be thrown out until their 18th birthday, which apparently offended their religious beliefs.

Correction. The BSA decided that gay attracted kids that were totally celibate needn't be thrown out until their 18th birthday.

MattR,

You talk to the active scouts, they want to be better. Plenty of snarky sarcasm from the less active ones at campouts, but hey, they're teenagers.

No, we had that Pack/Troop campout I mentioned elsewhere in the thread, the SM and myself were chatting. He runs the program his way, we're all on board with him and the program he's running, at a tactical level. The training needs work, so we want to get him the resources to make that better,, and the program needs some strategic focus with a longer term horizon than high schoolers have.

I have also seen a HUGE improvement since he moved up from ASM to SM. However, as I've alluded to elsewhere, the prior leadership, in the pack and troop, was not so ideal. The old cub parents didn't think they had to do anything at campouts. The old members of the troop didn't think advancement was a big deal.

In the Pack, this was easily fixed by getting new families in and the natural churn of cub scouting. In the troop, without new blood coming in, we're struggling to fix. But we are hitting a natural crucible with the largest Den in the Pack now in Webelos 2.

Plan B sucks, we don't want Plan B. But Plan B happens if we don't fix this, so there you go.

What does everyone think of the SM? It's generally consistent. Great guy, super dedicated, great scouting expertise, a boon to the troop. However, he's not the most punctual of people or organized of people (in his scouting or real life), and has a problem seeing the forest from the trees.

So the budding consensus seems to be, let's identify the weaknesses in the program OR the SM, and fix them. Nobody wants to replace the SM, but we do want the program being better. So we want to take back parts of the program that are not the SM's strong suit, and re-assign those elsewhere, so he can focus on the areas he's good at.

We don't have anyone in the wings that we think would make a better SM, so we're looking for ways we can help make things stronger. I got some good feedback here, and some "well, have the SM magically become better at personality train X" which is really just wishful thinking and not a plan.

As far as the lack of advancing, there are a bunch of Scouts who ignored advancement when the SM did, then they decide they want to be an Eagle Scout and they are a Scout or Tenderfoot, but with all the Eagle required Merit Badges, and they are struggling to master the skills. The consensus between the PLC, TC, and SM is that we need to do better on advancement. We had no 1st Class Scouts until recently, then advancement push this year, two hit First Class and then going straight to Eagle (POR + time = BOR, they have the merit badges) as they could schedule SMC and BOR. But the other Scouts aren't have as much luck.

I am starting to get the feeling that the answer to your question is: the Troop Committee can appoint a new Scoutmaster.

Thanks for the advice. We're going to do out best to find slightly less drastic methods of fixing the weaknesses of the program than replacing the Scoutmaster.

That seems like a baby and bathwater situation.

When I was a "green" Scoutmaster I tried something similar to the approach you are suggesting, Alex. When I noticed the Troop I was coming into didn't have a grasp of the patrol and all skill instruction was led by one or two ASMs, I asked the SPL if I could show him how to plan a monthly theme and integrate that theme into four weeks of Troop meetings. He said it was okay and off I went.

 

For the month of November, I told the Troop we would be concentrating on the cooking theme. Over the course of the month, I put out a Dutch oven and the ingredients for a peach cobbler. I gave the directions to the SPL and left the scene. Forty minutes later I asked if I could have some cobbler and the Scouts served me up a bowl. The following week an ASM showed the Scouts how to make a hands-on meal in the church's kitchen. They loved it. Next, another ASM showed the Scouts how to make buddy burners and they loved it. Finally, in the week I told them they had the idea and, rather than do cooking again, I gave them a list of all the themes in the Troop Program Features Vols I-III and had each Scout highlight the ones that spoke to them the most. Once they were finished I collected the sheets and gave them to the SPL, who promptly left them on the table and went home...He also absconded with my Troop Program Features binder and never brought it back.

Awesome, sounds like it worked great. They got that side of the program, boys got excited, and started to work? Other than a missing binder sounds like a terrific success, even if they implemented it differently.

The idea of a monthly theme didn't really resonate with the Scouts as had hoped it would. So what? However, they did see how a skill instruction could work. Score! Did it help them in the long run? Absolutely. Did it work out as smoothly as I had shown them from then on out? No. Sometimes a Troop meeting looks like total chaos and sometimes it looks like a well-oiled machine...but it's really up to the Scouts to make it all happen in a way that makes them happy.

Other than a 2 minute CM led discussion in the Pack Meetings about our monthly theme, I'm not sure what they are. I know the SM and PLC use them, they seem like a useful tool for simplifying the planning. But you demonstrated skill instruction and taught them, then backed off and let them do it.

Given that most of the boys are lucky to get home from school by 5 PM, I think have committee members make phone calls is a reasonable assist for them, as long as they direct the process.

As a Troop Committee, I would suggest empowering your Scoutmaster to guide the SPL and PLs to their end goal, as Eagledad hinted at with his "vision". Ideally, the Scoutmaster would sit down with the SPL and plan a time to implement the Introduction to Leadership Skills for Troops (ILST). Personally, though, I find that course too indoors-and-classroom-centric,so I am in the process of coming up with a hybrid of ILST and Green Bar Bill's Patrol Leader training that I quoted earlier.

 

Start with the Scouts as leaders and off they'll go.

Sounds like a great idea. I'm not sure what I can do with that though, the nature of the beast.

Scoutmaster is fully empowered, to date he's run the program with total flexibility with the CC filling out paperwork.

We'll figure it out, some really great useful nuggets here. Not sure how much I can do with them because a lot are SM-specific things to do, and he does whatever he wants with the program and doesn't really listen to anyone... it's a good thing for keeping Soccer-moms at bay, but it also means it's hard to even make suggestions.

We'll see what happens. I think some demo classes might help them dramatically, as long as it's immediately backed off of.

BTW: there is a Plan B. Plan B is to teach the Webelos 2s as many Tenderfoot skill requirements as possible, with the goal of them crossing over and being ready to jump in as Tenderfoot and do FCFY. That will leave the existing Scouts in the dust, so I'd like a better solution, but other than improving the skill instruction part of the meeting, I'm not getting a lot.

The advice you are reading isn't just theory. It is how successful troops are run. I'll be honest. Nobody learns leadership through someone else's example. Not boys and not adults.

Your assertion on not learning through example simply isn't backed by practice or theory. Leadership courses all heavily emphasize mentorship, along with confidence building exercises and practice putting it into place. Read an interview with ANY CEO, General, or other person who climbed the ranks, they'll all point to 1-2 mentor/leaders that taught them, then they took those lessons and perfected them. You have to put it into practice, but if nobody shows you proper leadership, you copy whatever you see in movies, you need someone to model behavior to copy, that's how mammals learn.

We were talking about the saying that if you teach someone to fish you feed them for a lifetime. A scout asked, "once you teach them, how do you actually get them to fish for themselves?" The adults stopped for a minute and thought. Our reply was, "you stop fishing for them. " The answer to your question is that there is nothing the committee should do except encourage the SMs and ASMs the learn how to implement a boy-led troop.

Correct, you teach them to fish, now they can fish, but they won't do it if you keep feeding them. However, if you don't teach them to fish, and you just don't fish and say figure it out, well that sucks.

My philosophy is that a leader's role is to guide by asking questions. For planning purposes have a separate PLC meeting. Here would be my questions:

 

[...snip...]

Sounds good, but I can't do anything about the PLC meetings, I'm not a part of them. But yes, the socratic leadership method is terrific. I love it. But I was also taught it.

Ask yourself why the boys don't have T-1st but do have merit badges? Because merit badges are interesting and the basic skills are taught like school. Did I mention that for the lashings theme the boys taught a bunch of knots and the required lashings. The younger scouts didn't think they were doing "advancement" - they thought they were building a catapult.

Actually, not the case here. The prior Scoutmaster didn't care much for the advancement/badge program, so he mostly ignored it and just took the boys camping. The boys didn't do much to setup and blamed it on Jewish Sabbath restrictions, so the SM/ASM did a few things, meals were brought pre-prepared, and they mostly hung out playing cards all day, roasted marshmallows at night, and went home. They had a lot of fun (but retention was bad because after 2-3 times doing that, it's boring).

However, they did do "Merit Badge College" (a three day "campout" at a school where classes are taught for 2 straight days, meals are provided in the cafeteria -- though the Troop brought its own kosher meals instead) and got 5-6 merit badges. Then they went to summer camp for 2-3 sessions and came back with blue cards. The standards in the MBC/Camp merit badge programs are always criticized, but nonetheless, boys come back with a stack of earned merit badges, and they went out at Court of Honor.

The then-ASM, no SM, was frustrated, because he'd get volunteers (OA, UCs, whatever) to come help, they'd come to a Court of Honor, see the boys getting stacks of merit badges, and figure everything was great. Meanwhile, the boys never rank advanced, don't know how to fold an American flag, etc.

They went to a big Camporee, really wanting to compete in the gateway competition. Very few of the Scouts could do much with the lashings. They had a gateway up, but they were embarrassed at how polished other troops looked and how bad they did. The Scouts want to get better (at least they tell me that, they see the Cubs winning awards, buying gear, etc), the SM tells me he wants the troop to get better.

So I'm looking for ways I can help.

With your a Troop, you need someone to train the trainers. I don't have a problem with a scout (who has already passed that requirement) asking me "Mr. Hedgehog, is this the right way to tie a sheet bend?" If it's not, we get a book and review it. The older scouts master the skills by teaching them.

Agreed 100%. The SM has reached out to groups for help. Troop has a bad reputation (from years ago), hard to get help. No volunteer to go to Roundtable, so no bonding with other leaders.

​Just remember, it is easier to start out boy-lead and continue than to start out adult-led and change.

Yup. But right now, we're about to be a formerly boy-led troop. A few more drop outs (which is likely to happen next year because of ages, etc), and we won't have the 5 to re-charter. The cross-overs from the Pack won't stay with this program. If the program isn't turned around somewhat, the new Pack families coming in will simply replace the entire leadership team via the CO and have a fully adult-led Webelos 3 troop, complete with doing campouts all joint with the Pack, etc (as opposed to my 1/year proposal plus Webelos camping with Troop a bit).

So the status quo troop that survived has 13 months of life left. Either it will be Webelos 3 next year and fully adult-led, or it will be shut down for lacking 5 Scouts to re-charter.

So I bought some time, we're holding back AOL and crossover until March. That still only leaves 5 months to fix things. The Committee Chair offered up Winter Camp to the boys (this is Florida after all), no takers.

They want to be better. The SM is a terrific outdoorsman that lives and breathes the BSA program, but he's mostly gotten frustrated with him. Last campout he and I were up until all hours of the night discussing what to do and brainstorming. When I left the campout, I posted here, looking for advice from people here.

Sometimes it's important to get away from the theory and lead by example.

In the First Aid Scenario, the ideal is: the boys organize it, decide what needs to be done (experience Scout/Scouter, EMT, whatever), call them up, get the resources handled, teach the boys, write the thank you note, practice their skills, pass their skill tests.

The status quo: boys meander through the requirements by a transfer scout that had it signed off without mastering. Boys bomb their games. Nobody passes first aid. Scouts are discouraged.

So how to we get from status quo to ideal?

The suggestions I'm hearing here sound a lot more like "well, tell them to read the SPL manual and do it, celebrate whatever they get done." If you help them, they'll drop out of Scouting.

Well, 1 recruit in the past 3 years and like 8 drop outs tells me that they are more than capable of dropping out of scouting without adult help.

My thought would be:

Month 1: Committee solicits volunteer to teach, SM/SPL plan out games to practice, some boys pass their skill tests. Wahoo, success under belt.

Month 2: Same as month 1, but now SPL understands who to get things done, PLC discusses what to do, makes a decision for month 4.

Month 3, Same as month 1/2 because of lag time, but now PLC is deciding what resource they want in months 5/6.

Month 4, PLC picked resource, Committee makes calls.

Month 5, PLC picked resource, Committee comes back with short list, SPL gets someone to make the calls.

Month 6, PLC picked resource, PLC does some preliminary research. Committee helps if calls needed during business/school day, but PLC has it under control.

In 6 months we've led by example, led by example while teaching how, and transitioned over to the troop getting it done.

Right now, things are a disaster. Committee having some control over the program we're delivering lets us delegate tasks AND TRAIN the boys how to do it. It's really hard to train someone in a job you've never done.

And, again, my post was about what we can do, AS A COMMITTEE, to help the program so my demoralized Scouts feel they can do things. Success begets success. Occasional failures mean you learn and improve. Constant failure just begets failure.

MattR and Stosh,

Some great feedback there. Given I'm a Cub Dad and Key3 for the Pack, and just a Committee Member for the Troop, I'm not sure how many of your ideals I can implement, but I'm going to take these to the ASM and see what he can use from there.

So the PLC has been able to handle the weekly meetings and the campouts, sort of. It's more the "big picture" side that's a mess.

As an example, it took my 18 months to get this joint Pack/Troop Campout to happen. The SM didn't like the old CM from a few years back and felt the Cubs weren't well trained and out of control (very true, discipline was one of our first things to work on). The correct solution would be to come on one of our campouts and teach our cubs, but he just avoided the issue and kept blaming the PLC until I came to a PLC and pitched it.

It's a myopic style that ignores Troop Health issue for short term comfort. This has been the impetuous for the Committee to get some control over the process. The Webelos to Scout Transition (with two joint events) is a Committee/JTE requirement, not up to the PLC. What the Troop teaches the Webelos AT the joint event can be a PLC call, but the existence of the event is a Committee fiat, IMO.

I don't mind if the PLC picks Hockey or a Campout on the weekend that lines up with the schedules, but they don't get to pick if they do the things that they have to do like Webelos joint activities. And they do have to be planning far enough out that people that need to take off from work can do so.

But I think you guys have really helped me drill down to it. The big picture isn't there. The Scouts and what they want to accomplish in Scouting needs to be there. The SM's high standards are great, but the Scouts need to be guided into hitting those standards, and they need to CHOOSE to hit them. The Committee needs to gain some control over the process so we can actually do planning/budgeting, but without taking over the program from the boys. The Committee also needs to find OTHER adults in the Troop/Pack/CO/Community to come in and work with the boys to learn.

We've had guests come in and do a healthy food component with the Cubs and it was a HUGE hit. Age appropriate activities for the Boy Scouts should happen as well.

As a thought, the Boys picked a monthly theme of First Aid. I'm not sure if any of the lower ranked Scouts mastered enough to advance. But we could have supported this as the committee by getting EMT or Paramedic to come in and train them, then Troop could have spent the rest of the month practicing those skills with Scout games, led by the First Class Scouts that have mastered the basics.

One Rank Advancement problem, when you don't have new Scouts coming in, it's hard for the intermediate Scouts to have Scouts to train, no pipeline is a big problem.

Thanks.

Dropping the idea of a Committee Policy of: 1st Class for Merit Badges, S/T/2 having to do Scout Skills.

There is a small summer camp an hour away. The plan is to send the NSP there with a few carefully selected Scouts as PL/APL. That Summer Camp will be a T/2/1 Camp for the NSP to get them up to speed. This way, they'll transition from Webelos->Boy Scouts in two parts, 1: we teach you and test you now, to we teach you and test you next week, 2: you start to make decisions about your scouting advancement (a new transition 4 weeks later).

Basically this Spring, Webelos work on finishing up AOL and learning the TF requirements. So they cross into Troop and hopefully hit TF before Summer Camp. Then the nearby Summer Camp they go and learn skills for 2nd Class. We think that that's less scary for Cub Moms whose boys are crossing over that they'll be an hour away instead of 5.

We found a Summer Camp 5 hours away that has a week where it offers Resident Camp for Cubs and Webelos. They agreed to give us a joint campsite for our religious restrictions. In that scenario, we're further away from home, but the new Scout Parents should be less freaked because the Pack leadership they know is all there.

The leadership team wants to keep the summer camp they usually go to on the calendar. I suggested dropping it this year to focus on the other two, but that was a bridge too far. Looking at the week AFTER the Pack/Troop Summer Camp, any Boy Scouts that want to do another week will trek to that camp an hour away. Troop spends the Sabbath (Saturday) with someone hosting them in the area, nice hot showers, real home meals, before doing the second camp week. They've done two weeks before, it's worked well.

This way, also, the New Scouts that had a blast in week 1 that can convince their parents to let them stay can no doubt pay for more camp and go.

The legacy scouts that don't advance can do what they want. Hopefully the new Scouts hit the ground running and this time next year we have a functional troop with two patrols.

In terms of waiting until next summer for existing scouts... we're not, but if in 3 years they couldn't figure out how to advance, I'm not going to hold my breath on the next 8 or 9 months, but I'll hope for them to.

Council also sticks fake Scouts on my roster that we drop each re-charter. They aren't exactly "boy scouts" when it comes to roster...

I'll be honest, I've never checked Birthdates at re-charter. It'll get fixed when the cross over to a troop and re-apply. In terms of earning rank... if they are in the roster, they'll be editable in Internet Advancement, and that'll be that.

It's dumb to falsify records, but when you lack Scouts, you get desperate to refill your rank. Also, the Kindergarteners that show up excited for scouting that we turn away never seem to come back the next year, they sign up for another activity.

Really wish they'd figure out the Lion program.

Adult-led, boy-run, is not teaching the boys anything other than how to follow. We are not here to teach the boys to follow, but to lead and it's not an easy task and most adults will opt out for the easy option of just doing it for them. Parents do this, schools do this, churches do this, sports teams do this, it's is how we have been taught to run youth organizations. No one seldom takes the time to teach the youth how to lead themselves, an adult life expectation that will some how miraculously be accomplished on their 18th birthday. As we can tell by the number of today's thirty-something youth still living in their parent's basement hooked on video games, that this isn't working out very well.

Stosh,

I agree with your observations, but I don't agree with the first sentence.

When a Webelos 2 crosses over to a Troop, we don't expect them to lead, we expect them to follow an older Scout assigned as their PL while they learn the basics. We expect them to master the basics of Scout Craft over 12-36 months and reach First Class, then with that training under their belt, learn to lead by teaching those basics to new Scouts that come up. As they master teaching new Scouts, we expect them to move up towards PL, then maybe ASPL/SPL or other senior roles.

So, once a troop is underway, the older Scouts teach the middle scouts leadership, while the middle scouts teach the new scouts scout craft (and therefore mastering leadership).

So here is the breakdown... Pack leadership collapsed 3 years ago, all the Webelos disappeared. There hasn't been a Webelos crossover in 3 years. The Troop has 10 boys on the roster, 8 are really active, and on any given campout, they have 4 show up (this past weekend was 2). They got one new Scout transferred in last year, but otherwise haven't gotten new scouts in a few years.

So the initial failure was on the Pack Leadership. We almost shut the troop down 14 months ago for lack of adult leaders. The Pack's Adult Leaders weren't getting the program, and the Troop couldn't deal with them so neglected the Pack. The Pack didn't kick the program up so Webelos got bored and dropped out. All bad scene.

The question is how to get from where we are to well oiled machine bringing in new Scouts annually. For extra fun, the current Web2 Den is a double-sized Den compared to the next 4. With a Successful Crossover, we'll have two fully functional patrols with a pipeline of Cub Scouts coming up. With a botched Crossover, we may not be able to ever actually recover the Troop because outside myself, our core Pack Leadership are in the Webelos 2 Den.

So I 100% agree that the Boys taking ownership for as much as possible is critical. But right now, they are staring at a blank sheet of paper and getting overwhelmed. I want to give them a paint by number this month so they gain confidence, then a picture to copy in a few months, so they are able to on their own be painting in a year.

There may be a better way to mentor/train the adult leaders, but the SM seems to just be frustrated, and the ASM seems to just want to lower standards.