willray

I love the Tootsie Pop idea. That's exactly the kind of insight I'm looking for. The Fireballs idea is pretty good too, but can you think of any way to spread the "eyes" around so that the scouts were watching and rewarding as well as the adults? Despite a scout being Trustworthy, I'm thinking there might be a bit of self-rewarding going on, if they had fireballs to hand out themselves 🙂

That's a valuable two cents, and, exactly why I think it's worth thinking about, and trying to develop some tested and effective ideas for "doing it right". The other folks who gave your SPL positive feedback and weren't heard, weren't trying to be invisible, but somehow failed to leave an impression. If we can learn what works and when - even just in general form - we can build a resource to help people do better. And I hear you about your father. Mine was the same way. I truly treasure the "You did good, Will" memories.

Ok, I guess I was asking for that... But, if you'd like to be even more helpful, consider, if my survey results are anywhere close to accurate, as a community we're doing a pretty poor job of looking for those things. In both of my troops, we have highly dedicated groups of adult volunteers, we're solidly scout-led, and we're still not doing anywhere close to well enough. One possible reason for that is that many of the scouts and adults don't have a clear vision of actions that go with the words. I'm interested in collecting an "idea book" of specifics, for all of us who aren't

Sorry for the mild thread necromancy, especially by the new guy on the block, but, if you don't know why explaining the utilities to your house should be exciting to scouts, you've fallen for the bland simplification of scouting that the bureaucrats are selling. (Don't worry, most of the scouts in my troop don't seem to get this either. I'm working on it...) Why would someone think that a scout should know about the services that their family consumes from society? Because a scout is prepared. What is his (or now her) family's plan for when the power goes out? Flashlights? Candles?

Definitely, the more immediate the feedback, the more effective it will be. Unfortunately there are a couple competing goals here that don't always line up perfectly. Immediate thanks maximize the reward/satisfaction potential, but public rewards maximize the "hey, I want some of that" potential for getting more scouts participating. Public doesn't always allow immediate and vice versa. I'm definitely interested in input regarding how to optimize, and what has worked, or not, with different mechanisms for different units. We're doing out best to turn the "thanking" into a scout-led ac

Exactly. So how do we catch’em? What do we look for, and how do we engage the scouts (and adults) in looking? Possibly as interesting, what kinds of things are possibly “conditionally Scoutly”, where the action might be exceptionally scoutly from one scout, and either no big deal, or potentially an ambiguous, neutral, or even un-scoutly behavior from another? Lest you think the last is not possible, remember that BSA is trying to be more inclusive, and cultural norms of courtesy are not universal. Yours in Scouting Will Ray

Greetings all, New-guy to the forum (well, I've been lurking for a few years), but not to Scouting here, looking to gather ideas for an experiment my troop is doing. The request first, details after, so you can just jump past this if you're not interested. Many, many more details if anyone wants to discuss in greater depth later... Requested: * I'm looking for ideas/methods that you may use or have tried in your unit, for noticing when Scouts are living by the Scout Oath, Law, Motto, etc. and ideas/methods that you may have use or have tried for providing recognition for t