Jameson76

1 hour ago, John-in-KC said:

i don’t know what this actually is, besides buzzword bingo.  

Best part of a conference call

On 9/13/2018 at 8:44 PM, StmbtEagle said:

Our Troop is looking to update the throwing tomahawks and bow's we use for Scouts.  Any recommendations out there?

Thanks in advance

Curious what you are throwing the tomahawks into?  We have some, and have not found anything (other than large end cut logs) to throw into.  Sort of tough to tote about.  We have not found a good portable target.

We have a knife throwing target, a good piece of basic 1/2" plywood on a frame works well.  Easy to setup and move, load into the trailer.  Rope of an area off and have at it.  The light weight throw knifes are inexpensive and only need a tune-up on a grinder occasionally.

16 minutes ago, FireStone said:

I don't have a crystal ball, but my expectation of the future of the BSA is we're fully coed within a decade. 

I'll take the under on that bet / expectation.  Rather than 10 years, there will be "survey" and "groundswell of support" sometime in 2020 / 21 and we will be coed.  

The challenge will be ramping up any actual functioning girl troops or enough "linked" (wink wink) troops.  BSA will need to decide how to effectively provide a good program and opportunity for the the girls coming out of cubs.  Honestly it takes a minute to stand up a troop and get the institutional knowledge to have a well functioning troop.  

There may be some Girl troops and they will be new, then they will look over at the established boy troops in the same area with 11 outings annually, maybe 2 summer camps, high adventure, 30+ years of tradition, 10 Eagles a year etc etc.  Why can't they have that now, it's not fair, yada yada.  Not saying the requirement (though it might be) will be for troops to be coed, but it will be an option.  Boy Troops, Girl Troops, Coed Troops will be the three flavors.

Might be a hard sell to mandate coed for many years, though likely that is the way Boys Scouts...sorry Scouts BSA will be moving.

Wow..I read the web page on Scouting.org.  Looks a good deal like some cobbled together Lean presentation.  Wonder what BSA has paid for this expertise.  Not sure why it starts with Roundtables (FB) and ends up talking about employees (Scouting.org)

First the FB announcement was 5 paragraphs and literally said nothing

The link to Scouting.org 

So..we have the mission statement

The Polaris Method

Making the BSA more Effective, Efficient, and Empowered

20 minutes ago, SSF said:

Do acknowledge the parent's concern but let them know that it s the scout who should be reaching out; e.g. "Hi Mr. Smith, I appreciate your concerns. Please do ask Billy to send me an e-mail or to see me at the next meeting so that he and I can sit down to discuss."  Then tell Billy that he, and not his Dad, should be driving this discussion and that he should contact the MB counselor himself for clarification on requirements.

Yep - Had a parent e-mail about some items, several e-mails.  We copied them but directed the inquiry back to the Scout.  Parent was main one asking again, sent a note just to parent reminding them that the advancement is owned by the Scout, they need to drive it.  We want them to copy the parents, but we want to enable the scout to handle his needs.  They backed off and the Scout is doing it now.

Sometimes you have to let the process work.  We are in the southeast and going on an outing.  Saturday looks good for weather, a little windy, but good.  Conditions will deteriorate (maybe) early Sunday morning.  Adults were communicating back and forth about options

We had a group text with our SPL and ASPL for the weekend to consider options.  Honestly they came up with different options than we had bandied about.  Our thought was a day trip to do the activities (kayaking), then head back to the ranch.  They determined to go and then make the decision about staying when we clear the river.  They are considering the data provided, looking at weather channel, etc

Their decision, so that's what we are doing.  

When I started working with my current troop (now on 10+ years ago) the go to attitude was can't go down and interfere with the Scouts, they have to figure it out.  I had (on my first campout) a good discussion with active troop leaders, explained sure you can.  We are to observe and mentor.  They explained the long time SM (who did not attend outings regularly) direct that.  I knew him and felt it was a misinterpretation.  Guess what, it was.  They took "don't do things for a scout he can do for himself" as Hands Off.

Take for example setting up a tarp. If they have never really set one up, how do Scouts know how to do it properly, tricks, etc.  You can mentor and advise the PL on what maybe the next steps should be without impinging on their leadership.  Again, observe and mentor.  Same with tent placements, cooking, etc.  

Patrols can clearly function with leaders around, the leader needs to clearly understand their role.  It is the Scouts patrol and not the leaderts.  They are not in fact a "leader", they are are in fact an advisor or mentor.

Don't know much about the GS groups.  There are some that meet at / are attached to the CO.  We see them at Scout Sunday.  It's hard to figure out who is a Girl Scout, then they put on the sash (maybe vest) and bam...Girl Scout.  

4 hours ago, Cambridgeskip said:

So... after I was made redundant back in November I started writing a book. Now this book is a children's book set in a scout troop. I won't give too much away but the short version of the story is teenager gets (outrageously unfairly) into trouble at school for standing up to the school bully. Parents pull her out of scout summer camp as punishment. Her friends decide it is grossly unfair and help her stowaway anyway. Along the way they pull some outrageous stunts. Some of which are a touch dangerous, some of which are border line illegal...

Anyway having finished it I am now looking for an agent and a publisher.

Before that I thought it might be a good idea to bounce this off UK HQ and make sure I wasn't going to upset anybody or cause any problem with copyright.

They have come back and said.... given the story line please don't use any specifc scout terms. Given what the kids get up to I have some sympathy so this post is NOT a winge about our HQ. More a case of getting some ideas. I needs some replacement terms for the terms I've used. I plan on getting my scouts to help me as well. Basically any ideas for replacement terms for the terms below. I've put a similar post on the UK equivalent of this esteemed forum but thought that getting some ideas of folks with a bit more distance might be quite useful....
Thanks in advance, looking forward to some ideas 

So being British and all, maybe have them be sort of magical and then they are broken up into houses and have them hang out in a castle.

That may have been done before...you should check

On 9/8/2018 at 10:44 PM, desertrat77 said:

I think the patrol method is a vanishing concept.  I can't remember the last time I've seen a troop even attempt to use it.  The patrols are just on paper.  The adults organize everything.

We do our best.  

The PLC (or Greenbar) meets monthly to plan the meetings, they cycle through activities by patrol at the meetings.  For campouts the patrols cook and work together.  They setup patrol areas (tarp / table / cooking) and all the Scouts meals are together.  The leaders camp hopefully out of sight, but sometimes that is not possible.  At worst well away. 

On campouts they do tent with friends or hammock in groups, not necessarily patrols.  At summer camp they function in patrols for waiter duty, campsite duties, etc.

The Scouts plan the outings and determine at the annual meeting what and where we will be going for outings.  Yes the leaders make the actual reservations.  At the outings they run the weekends, leaders sort of function as timekeepers.  They handle openings, campfires, any issues, Scout's own service, police lines for cleanup, gear setup, take down, and loading.

Not 100% perfect, but the patrol method is our underlying effort.  If you come at dinner you will see 6 distinct patrol areas and 6 stoves cooking differing meals with Scouts working within their groups to do different tasks.  No leaders involved, we just amble by and watch

Patrol Advisor should be doing just that, advising.  We put the crossovers in a new patrol for the spring, but come fall they roll up into the existing patrols.  The older scouts are more than happy to pass on the meal planning and cooking

1 minute ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

Reminding of the time that Scouts sat on BORs. I remember chairing a bunch until  we found out national disallowed it. Agree best way to make a young, nervous Scout comfortable.

Shockingly National BSA may not in fact know what is best 

1 hour ago, Eagledad said:

Can anything of importance be gained from an extreme nervous scout?

Possibly, and most likely if the leaders at the BOR let it develop.  The scout may be nervous for many reasons.  Sitting in an unfamiliar area and talking with adults they are not really familiar with may be well out of their comfort zone.  Good probability they will have similar instances occurring in their life as they grow older.

Having the Scout confront that, deal with it, be successful in their BOR will be some personal growth.  It does become a balance.  I have been on some with really nervous scouts.  With one as we asked some basic questions, he got flustered, stumbled through, sort of started to panic.  We stopped the BOR, told him to take a breath, go grab some water (we were at an outing) and come back in 5 minutes so we could start again.  He did and was much better, gained some confidence.

2 hours ago, Eagledad said:

What if the BOR (or EBOR) decide to start the review with the Pledge of Allegiance and the scout refuses?

 

That would lead to a somewhat interesting EBOR.  I guess the discussion would be "why?".  Not sure as a member of the EBOR that would preclude passing them on the EBOR.  I guess if the Scout chose to refuse to say the pledge, one or more of the EBOR members could at that point decline to continue to participate in the board if they so chose.  One form of protest is as good as another.  At that point the district could determine if there were enough members to continue, give the unit an opportunity to source more members, or reschedule.

7 hours ago, jsychk said:

the leader interrogated each involved scout in the tent alone

7 hours ago, jsychk said:

my son complained that he got so much privilege from his mom at the camp.

7 hours ago, jsychk said:

Then, the adults got involved. In the process of the interrogation, my son said the leader repeatedly asked the same question until he agreed to it even he knew nothing about it.

There is a lot going on here.  The interrogation alone in the tent, if just a Scout and the leader could be another whole issue.

Obviously there were some bad decisions made by the Scouts.  That in and of itself is not shocking.  Key is your son needs to take responsibility for his actions.  Whether he learns and grows from this is purely on him, sounds like he does understand their actions were not correct.  Key is to make sure he is truly sorry and willing to make amends, not just sorry for being caught

Separate issue 1, and this in no way excuses what happened, is the concern over "special privileges" for one scout.  In general this can lead to bad feelings and the Scout being ostracized by his peers.  Unless there the Scout has special needs.  Not sure how to best approach that challenge in light of what seems to have occurred

Separate issue 2, and in no way does this mitigate what happened, is possibly the handling by the unit.  That may take some deeper discussion.  If as you indicated the Scout who was the victim in the issue had his parent, or parents at camp, they may have had influence in the tenor of the investigation.  This may be a calm meeting to be had and bring the concern to troop committee.  The unit seems to have needed to address the issue.  The question may be was it handled correctly and with concern for all parties.

Your final question is but is this the procedure to punish boys in this situation? For half a year?  Could be yes to both questions.  Certainly it appears that Scouts were doing something and it possibly escalated beyond the original intention.  That needs to be addresses so there should be some consequences.  The six months does not seem at the surface to be out of proportion to the events

Last advice as noted may be to have a calm and wide ranging conversation with the SM, committee, leaders at camp, etc.

Just now, gblotter said:

We don't do ANY Camporees.

Well...technically we don't either, I was being kind.  Honestly that was our lowest attended events.  We dropped the Spring camporee about 8 years ago, during planning the Scouts asked if they had to go, we said it's up to you guys.

The district has a winter event we would do, but honestly has not changed, or been revised, since it started.  Has a really cool 20 page guide.  The update seems to be changing the date on the cover.  During planning last year they asked if we had to attend that, we again said nope, so we went backpacking.

Bottom line Scouts were not interested

Changing from Camporee to other events - Attendance in that month is up 400%

Changing from winter event to backpacking - We doubled the attendance

Now...before you comment..."Well maybe if you guys helped plan them, they would be better".  That is a valid point.  We have discussed that option.  Challenge is you have the double edged sword of the OA Cabal and the WB Cult that run these things in our district.  I am here to tell you, just the safety overview for the weekend was 30 minutes.  It's not like we don't do maybe 30 nights of camping each year, we've got this.  So we decided life is too short to fight that battle and went our own way.

26 minutes ago, Eagledad said:

The WB beading is symbolic of the problem with today's adults. I have never understood adults wanting to do this. 

That is the truth.  We had one leader who had the beading ceremony, took an excruciating 45 minutes.  Go get trained, enjoy, but WB is not in fact why we (leaders) are around.  But so many adults are involved doing purely adult things and consider that Scouting.  Which it is in some cases.  Some non unit facing work is needed, like District EBOR, recharter, training, large fundraising, etc.  There is however a good deal of adult involvement that merely begets more adult involvement.  The rocket thing is a great example of adults who simply do not get it.  They are not really there for development of Scouts, they are there to run things RIGHT dang it.

We had a camporee where troops handled/manned events.  In this case expectation was leaders staffed the events, scouts went and did stuff.  Our unit did a station with three events, we gave minimal direction, Scouts figured out what to do, they did stuff, we watched from afar and tallied.  Our guys went to some where their feedback to us was, we did , in this case lashing,  for 20 minutes, then some old guys yelled at how wrong we were for 20 minutes and made us watch him do it right.

We don't do a lot of camporees

1 hour ago, scoutldr said:

Historically, ALL of these aquatics patches (BSA Lifeguard, Aquatics Instructor, Mile Swim, Snorkeling, etc) go on the swim suit.  

Well...they tend to weigh down my speedo...but I'll give it a try

2 minutes ago, Cambridgeskip said:

Christmas trip to the local pantomime (I understand this is a peculiarly British thing so nudge me if the concept needs explaining)

 

Is that like the Pantomime horse from Monty Python?  Literally everything I know about the British I learned from Monty Python episodes.  

1 hour ago, Eagledad said:

I've been seeing a few posters squeezing in "no adding requirements" to their posts on subjects that have nothing to do with advancement. Is there something going on in this generation of troops that has led to these concerns?

I remember the phrase was kind of trendy about 20 years ago with the large influx of new scouters, but then faded off as units gained experience and went on about their business. We saw a post now and then of abuse, but not so much of just throwing it out there on nonrelated subjects as I'm are seeing now. What have I missed in the last 5 years that has changed?

Just an aside; As the scouters learned 20 years, not requesting something of a scout during the advancement related part of his scouting experience is next to impossible. Some troops add attendance requirements, some ask about skills experience. Some even say that wearing the uniform or repeating the Oath or Law at the BOR (I've even heard EBOR) is adding requirements. What I'm saying is that all of us are likely guilty of asking (adding) something of the scout that isn't strait out of the book. It's just a matter of how far we go with our hypocrisy, but if someone wants to leverage a protest,  you may find yourself awkwardly defending your request. 

Barry

Interesting you add Oath and Law at BOR and EBOR as an added requirement.  We always have the Scouts start the BOR (and EBOR) with the Oath and Law, not as a pass/fail but as a way to set the tone.  Same for uniform, not required but encouraged.  Same for the handbook, though while not specifically required at the BOR it is needed.

Never a test, but they should be prepared to discuss their accomplishment and what they have gained from the advancment

Many topics on 72 hour rule, recent additions of Scouting magazine, etc etc.  Real question is what are units doing this fall that is first and foremost FUN and selected and planned by the Scouts in the unit?  Most important thing is keeping the OUTING in Scouting

For our unit this fall:

• Outing at the lake with boats, tubing, canoes, swimming
• Kayaking trek, working with local outfitter
• Biking on a rails to trails converted train path (25 - 50 miles depending on your stamina)
• Canyoneering through a State Park gorge, maybe take in a drive-in movie on the Saturday night
• Webelos visitation outing with skills classes and pioneering fun

Seems if the "activity" was supposed to be interpreted as the whole year (whatever that may be, calendar, school, program, Martian) they should have actually

1. Said that clearly in the G2SS (what's another page when you already have 100+)
2. Defined a year

They appear to be making up stuff as they go along

2 hours ago, EagleMomnDad2Be said:

Our son is currently a Life ranked Scout. He is preparing for his Eagle, but we as parents are still so confused about his process on becoming an Eagle Scout, please help?

-Son advanced to Life rank in July Question: Does he have 6 months from July to plan and execute his Eagle Project? Follow-up Question: Is he eligible to receive his Eagle Scout Award in January if all Life rank requirements are met?

Thank you for reading and thanks in advance for any help!

 

The six months is the minimum time he needs to be a Life Scout.  The requirements are that while a Life Scout, plan, develop, and give leadership to others in a service project helpful to any religious institution, any school, or your community.  Also the scout needs a position of responsibility, all the required and number of merit badges to complete the rank.

Does your unit have a Life to Eagle coordinator that can assist or give guidance?

Also all work MUST be completed prior to his 18th birthday

12 minutes ago, SouthernTierScouter said:

"Well, that's not allowed, because you're supposed to have a commissioner visit every month for Journey to Excellence."

I've looked at the JTE stuff, doesn't mention Commissioner any place.

So - in 10 years with my current troop and and 375 plus meetings I have seem a commissioner twice.  Oddly both times they rolled in for a Court of Honor.  We are a good sized unit so maybe they ignore us.  Always felt the commissioners look really good in theory, not so much in practice.

9 minutes ago, ParkMan said:

At a national level, I'd argue that we've missed the boat on preparing adults to lead programs.  We focus on so much on SM training around Scout skills that we've neglected those skills you need to deploy a program.

Sadly it comes down more often to who will step up and actually do the job needed.  Many times it's not so much the choice of Mr/Mrs Right and more the case of Mr/Mrs Right Now.   The DE is charged with adding more units and scouts, they need a leader and X number of adults and Y number of youth.  If you sign up and pay your fees, you are the leader.  The professional is not looking for the best leader, they just need A leader.  In some cases the CO will be engaged, but often not so much.