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Chippewa29

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Everything posted by Chippewa29

  1. I've noticed that my SPL is somewhat inconsistent with his preparation for troop meetings. Sometimes, he has everything well planned ahead of time (we have monthly PLC meetings) and other meetings, he has done nothing to prep for it or he calls some people to help with things an hour before the meeting. Obviously, those meetings don't go off well at all. This is his third term (non-consecutive) as SPL, so he definitely knows how to get things done. How, without hounding him constantly, do you get your SPL to make sure he is well prepared for each troop meeting? Are there any tools I c
  2. First of all, in my troop we do troop elections every six months. If a Scout is going to turn 18 during the term, he is not eligible for one of the electable positions. If a Scout needs the "leadership" time for a couple of months before he gets his Eagle, I would appoint him as an instructor so he could show leadership but didn't really have week-to-week duties. This Scout is probably scrambling to finish his Eagle and filling out college applications and trying to enjoy his senior year of high school. More importantly, I would be thrilled if we had an Eagle Scout who wanted to run fo
  3. As someone born in 1972 (the year Title IX was enacted), I've always felt it was weird for women not to have the same opportunities as men. Of course, while growing up, I learned what were traditionally male and female roles in our society. Something I always noticed was that any time I encountered a woman that was in a traditionally male role, she tended to be more competent than a majority of the men I met in a similar position. As part of this, when I started seeing women in SM and ASM positions in the early 90's, they tended to be some of the most competent and dedicated Scouter
  4. Over the past several years, my troop has only gotten 3-6 Scouts crossing over each year. We've always had our new Scouts in the same patrol with each other. I'm a believer in bigger patrols (8-10 vs. 5-7), so having a group of four new Scouts in their own patrol doesn't seem to lend itself to being very efficient. If you have enough new Scouts (at least 7 or 8 you know will stick around) and a good Troop Guide and an ASM that will with that patrol, then having a purely NSP makes sense.
  5. Congrats on becoming captain of your own ship. My first suggestion to you is to develop a plan with the Scouts and other adults about where you want to troop to go in the next few years. My second suggestion is to read the book "The 17 Irrefuteable Laws of Leadership" by John Maxwell. I've read 60-70 leadership books over the years, and I feel that if you are going to read just one, this is it. It will give you some incredible lessons on things to do and not to do as a leader.
  6. Sounds like your pack is in great shape right now. Great vision on your part to realize the turnover coming in the next year and a half. I saw two packs back in the late 90's in a similar situation. The first one had about 50-60 kids and was well staffed by adults. However, the CM, both ACM, committee chair, committee treasurer, committee secretary, activities chair, and the Webelos II DL and ADL all had sons in Webelos II. The year after this group of adults left, the pack had about 20 kids and folded the year after. The other pack in our area had a similar number of kids and the
  7. I know your dilemma to a certain extent. I am currently SM of my troop, which we are currently rebuilding. In the past couple of years, I have been approached to be a unit commissioner, an associate OA advisor, and an adult advisor for the NYLT staff. I have turned them all down. Although those are all things I would enjoy, my limited time has to be devoted to building up my troop. Short term, it would probably be a lot of fun, helpful to those groups, and a little bit ego-gratifying, to take on an additional position. However, in the best long-term interest of my troop, I need to focus
  8. We often talk about the great experiences we have at summer camp or on high adventure trips. I'd like to hear from my fellow Scouters about their best experiences on the bread and butter of the Scouting program, the weekend campouts. Probably the best weekend campout I've been on was last April. We hosted two other troops and conducted a version of the Siege of Mafeking campout we'd seen on the internet. A few nights ago, I was at a district event, and the leaders of both of the other troops that were with us came up to me and commented on how much their Scouts still talk about that ca
  9. My troop had our quarterly COH last Monday. It went ok, but I noticed that our SPL/ASPL (who act as the MC for the COH) could have done things much better. I'm not talking about being able to handle the Oscars as well as Billy Crystal, but I noticed several things they should have probably done to make things run smoother. I realized afterward that I had never really taught any of the Scouts how to be an effective MC. I further realized that I don't really know how to train them for that. Does anyone have any ideas or preferrably links I could go to in order to find a list of things a
  10. In our district, they have often had two different categories set up for different patrols: ones with Scouts age 11-13 and ones with Scout 14-17. If a troop follows BSA guidelines when setting up patrols, this works out really well. I have no problem with what OGE said. If I had a group of Scouts that were real go-getters and wanted to be a regular patrol, I would seriously see about having that happen. As long as they are a regular patrol, more power to them. The only time I think it would be ok to have Scouts from different patrols is if there weren't enough from each patrol to
  11. When Scouting was started almost 100 years ago, there were very few, if any, sports programs for kids. Also, people were migrating from farms (where there was lots of exercise) to the cities (little or no exercise). Scouting gave young boys the chance to get out in the country and get some exercise (hiking, swimming, etc.) and fresh air. Physical fitness was one of the aims of Scouting and it was one of the few programs to offer that for boys. As sports programs grew, the physical fitness component of Scouting wasn't as necessary as before. Troops used to challenge each other in baseb
  12. Fuzzy- Your idea is a very good one. In fact, about a dozen years ago, there were not any really strong troops in our part of the district (a lot of troops in the 8-20 Scouts range). A former district chair convinced his church (with about 3000 families as members) to sponsor a troop and got the Men's club there to provide a couple of thousand dollars for equipment. He then went out and recruited adults to join the troop (I was one that he contacted). Within a couple of months, he had seven trained ASM and a pretty well stocked troop committee. This was before they had any Scouts.
  13. Fuzzy- You may be right. I think we will hit the fifty Scouts. My troop is on the upswing and with a refocused effort on recruiting, we should be able to start getting more Scouts coming in. However, in order to split the troop, there has to be a group of people willing to move over to that new troop and one or two of our feeder packs (assuming we have several by that time). Its definitely not going to be an easy process if and when it happens. I think if we do it successfully, however, it will be a good model for other units to follow.
  14. I can definitely see pushing to get a new unit going if an area in underserved. I have a friend who started a troop at his church in an inner city neighborhood a few years ago. The closest troop was about two miles away and the area was very underserved (there were two elementary schools and middle school less than a mile from the church). His district wanted a troop for that neighborhood, as most of the kids in the area would have had to either walk or take a bus the two miles or so to the other troop. It made sense to start a new troop since there was a definite need in the area. They g
  15. I had heard something about performance based upon the number of units in the district. However, aren't we supposed to be serving the youth? Wouldn't it make more sense to guage performance by the number of youth rather than the number of units? A better strategy for getting more units would be to encourage units to split when they reach a certain number of Scouts. That way, they could make sure the new units had the resources necessary to succeed rather than relying on maybe finding someone quality to build up a unit.
  16. Something occured to me after reading all the stuff about membership sliding. In our area several years back (late 90's, early 2000's), there was a big emphasis in our council about adding new units. Membership in our district was a concern at the time, and many units were struggling (my troop being one of them). I heard of a new troop starting up less than ten minutes from us. I contacted the SM and asked him if instead of starting a brand new unit, maybe see about merging with us instead. We talked about it a bit, but when the other troop's SM approached council about it, they encourage
  17. At Roundtable last month and this month, we had discussions about losing Scouts, etc. However, instead of a bunch of old guys (and a few gals) griping about it, we were presented with a solution. Our District has a couple of young DE's (both in their mid-20's) that are very serious about their jobs and want the district to prosper. At Roundtable last month, they presented a novel idea (at least for our area) of Troops having an open house and recruiting the local sixth graders from the schools. They laid out a full scale plan of how to do it. I was very impressed. This month, the
  18. If you have a vision of where you would like the troop to go, I have two suggestions. First of all write it down. This will help you make sure you have a clear idea of where you want the troop to be in a few years. I've had a vision in my head for years, but now that I'm writing it down, it is becoming much more clear and forcing me to really evaluate my vision. Second thing you need to do is communicate your vision. If you and the troop committee have a disagreement on the direction of the troop, maybe it is because they have a different vision for the troop than you do. Better yet,
  19. Oh, to have those problems. I dream of the day... In my district, we have a couple of what I would call "supertroops" where one has over 80 Scouts and the other has close to 110. They each get 30 to 40 Webelos crossing over and lose 25 to 40 Scouts a year. One of the adults in the larger troop commented to me earlier this year his concern with losing what he calls "a troop full of boys each year". I remember a story in Scouting magazine years ago that talked about an Air Force Recruiter that was a Cubmaster. He took over a pack of less than twenty kids and within a few months, ha
  20. When you add touches like that to Scouting events, it really raises the level of quality. Many of the Scouts in my troop are really into Classic Rock (Beatles, Led Zepplin, etc.) and have use some of their songs for campfires or even changed lyrics to more of a Scout theme. The methods of Scouting are frameworks around which we build our programs. There is nothing wrong with adding modern touches to the program, as long as it doesn't take away from the aims and methods. For many "older" programs, mixing the modern and traditional is a delicate balance. Many kids want things modern
  21. Very good thread. Some excellent points being made. I do have a couple of comments I would like to add. First, Eagledad hit it right on the head when he said that by the end of five years, boys were tired of Cub Scouts, especially if the emphasis is still on arts and crafts and museum trips (as my Cub experience was). There were no Tiger Cubs when I was that age. I actually didn't join the Cub Scouts until I was almost nine years old. I had good den leaders and we had fun doing what I would call "litle kid stuff". My favorite memory as a Cub was going hiking in the woods near where
  22. I liked the article. Especially how you try to get the Scout thinking about his future and making some committments to himself by setting a goal for the next rank. The only thing I would like to add is possibly asking the Scouting how he sees himself within the troop, both now and in the future. I've only got twenty more years to catch up with you.
  23. Transitioning from one SM to another is always a challenge for a troop. If the transition involves two SM with different ways of doing things, then the challenge in increased. I have a couple of suggestions on how to make this transition easier. This from my own experience in taking over a troop from a SM that had an iron grip on things and while he did some things very well, there are some things he did that definitely didn't go along with the Methods of the BSA. 1. Decide and write down on paper what changes you would like to make as well as your vision of what you'd like to see
  24. Eammon- I agree that trying to put together an ideal troop is a tall order. However, I think that is something we (as in my troop) need to strive for. The BSA's Aims and Methods provide a wonderful framework from which to draw our values. However, within that framework, there are many different ways to build up a unit. For example, we have a troop in our distict with about 100-110 Scouts. Everywhere they go, they move like an army and develop a temporary city. Another troop in our district has about fifteen Scouts (they have said they don't ever want to go over 20) and follows LNT p
  25. Currently, I am working on a written plan (along with others in the troop) for the vision of what we would like the troop look like ideally. Are there other troops who have written similar types of plans? I'm not talking anything broad like a mission statement or as nitpicky as a set of rules and regulations, but a written picture of what you would like the troop to become. If any one has ideas about what areas should be covered, please post them here. If anyone has a copy of one their troop has developed, please send me a private message and I'll be happy to provide my email so you can ma
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