CNYScouter

TryingHard- Try these links for what the patrol method is: http://www.whitestag.org/patrol_method/index.html http://www.inquiry.net/patrol/index.htm http://www.greenbar.ws/4adults/index.cfm Also read the Patrol Leaders Handbook and the Senoir Patrol Leaders Handbook. (and have copies for your PL's and SPL to read) These give good insight on the Patrol Method.

In the thread on Requiring "Virtual" Patrols at District Events the discussion turned to "combining" patrols on activities. I just seem to meet Troop after Troop that is having to combine patrols as they are getting only one or two scouts from each patrol to attend an activity. During this it was said, "...if the troop is only seeing 20% participation at monthly activities, there are probably bigger issues ..." and Juggling boys around to come up with a pseudo-patrol is not a solution. Too often we take actions that do more to mask the problem than to solve it. The real solution (though more of a challenge) is to fix the attendance problem. OK, if we are having this problem, what are the bigger issues that we should be looking for? How to we fix the attendance problem?

OGE- Thanks for the kodiak, oops I mean kodak, moment. What a minute, sorry wrong thread, I think this belongs in the Just For Fun. Ads Gone Wild!! thread.

With all due respect CNYS, if the troop is only seeing 20% participation at monthly activities, there are probably bigger issues than adherence to the Patrol Method. ...and this is better than the troop we left. I know that other issues are coming into play on low participation, besides the patrol method, but I think that the patrol method (or the lack of) plays the major role. Again, I have tried to bring this up as something the Troop should be thinking about but it just gets swept aside with "its not our program, its just kids are busy with other things", end of discussion. Every Troop I looked at, when I decided to switch Troops, had participation numbers like these and all used the "virtual" patrol concept on a regular basis. In fact, the only ones who didn't use it were the small Troops that had only patrol. gwd-scouter Congrats on making things happen and finding out the patrol methos does work if the time is taken to learn the BSA program and making an effort to implement it. I won't expect a Troop to switch "Cold Turkey" to the patrol method and it would need to be phased slowly in. I took the time to seek out and visit Troops in my council that were using the patrol method as intended. The two that I could find never had to use "virtual" patrols as they never had the situation with only 2 kids from a patrol going on an activity. One of these Troops is the biggest in my district 50 scouts and its from one of the smallest commuities in the district. The other Troop, I was told, was the biggest in the council 80 kids. Neither of these Troops did any recruiting as their program did it for them. I grew up in a Troop that used the patrol method and have seen it in action so I know it works.

NSP's first cooked meal: "Let's get Mikey to try it, he'll eat anything". High Adventure: "It's the Real Thing!"

I had my W2 den each bring in 10 Crime Prevention tips. We then put them all onto a handout and then distrubuted them at the Packs B&G. I had only 4 so you may want to have them bring in a few less each You could pass this out at a Pack meeting also.

If a Troop of ~27 Scouts, with about ~18 active, is going to have a SPL and 2 ASPL's one of the three should be at every troop activity. I understand that kids are busy but if they want to take on a POR they should be willing to fulfill the responsablities that go along with it. If youth leaders are not there how can they be fulfilling their POR? And the temporary SPL - selected by an adult leader. Troop is at 8 scouts per patrol (3 patrols for 24 kids) but is only running about a 20% attendance at monthly activities. What good does it to have more scouts in a patrol if your not going to be using the patrols and combining them whenever How does the combining of Patrols support the Patrol Method? How does combining of Patrols increase Patrol Spirit? How does the patrol method fail because of fewer boys? If few scouts are attending shouldn't we be figuring out why that is and trying to fix the problem? Even if studies show that it's not a good practice to combine patrols (or teams) because it harms the original patrol (or team) we should do it anyway because it seems makes common sense to do so? Where does it say that the patrol method is the combining of patrols? to borrow from FScouter: 6 to 8 boys is ideal. 5 is less than ideal, 2 or 3 more difficult but doable. "Virtual patrol" is NOT even a patrol at all. It is just a group of random troop boys. 2 boys attending from a patrol is still a patrol. Random boys thrown together is nothing more than random boys thrown together. If you expect the patrol method to be successful, you don't toss it out at the first sign of trouble.

hacimsaalk12 - The point of this thread is that a Troop, no matter how fun or how well run it is, should not be using the "Troop" method. If you look at Kudo's post he ends with a quote: "The Patrol Method is not ONE method in which Scouting can be carried on. It is the ONLY method!" I've seen this attributed to both BP and his contempory Roland Phillips so I am not sure who exactly said this. One thing I can say is that this quote is right in the beginning of the Scoutmaster Hnadbook and its the first thing that is taught at SM training. The Patrol Method is one of the things that distinguishes Scouts from other youth organizations. If your Troop is not really using the Patrol Method you are not really in a Scout Troop. If you visit a troop that uses the "Patrol" Method the way the BSA intended, you can notice the difference. It is really tough to understand what you are missing if you never have experienced the Patrol Method in action. You said: i would have to say that you guys remarks are about 1/4 true Well, to let you know, I have experianced or have seen Troops do just about everything on this list. I grew up with Kudo's version of scouting obtaining Eagle in '72 or '73 at 14 or 15, just before they went to requiring 24 MB's for Eagle. I'm beginning to think that the BSA should take a relook at the program back then and reincorporate much of it. One thing I remember from back then is that even the "bad" troops, the ones with few members or didn't do much, knew how to use the patrol method and teach leadership.

I know I'm comming on strong about this topic. My son and I have been involved with two troops where the decision to combine patrols for an activity was made some where in the past and it then became a every month occurance. The first Troop we were in then started doing this at weekly meeting because not enough scouts were coming to make up a patrol. It then got to the point that they just stop using patrols and met as one big group. For monthy activites they were broken into "food" groups. When we left there were 3 PL's, no one knew the name of the patrols and the PL's didn't know who was in their patrol becuase it changed by who was going on the next activity. The new troop we joined has moved in this direction also. I have even seen them appoint a temporary SPL when on my sn's first trip the SPL, neither of the two ASPL's or any PL's were going. The new SM believes in teaching "Self-reliance". He wants every scout on all trips to have to supply their own tent, food and cooking gear. He is an Eagle Scout and feels that this is missing from the BSA program so he's going to add it. Any time some one brings up buying new Troop equipment, he puts up such a fuss and insists that every kid should be suppling their own equipment. I seem to be the only adult leader who has an issue with doing things this way even though there are 7 Eagles as ASM's or CM's. And yes they have gone through SM training. I just think that the combining of patrols, no matter what the reason, is a slippery slope to start heading down.

A SM selects the appropriate style of coaching for a particular situation and doesn't necessarily use all 4 styles in every situation. Even in a boy-led unit the SM may have to step in and and say that a decision made is not appropriate Scout activity or is not in line with the Scouting program and to find an alternative. So, if the SM has trained his scouts well on the Patrol Method the scenario of the PLC wanting to combine patrols should never happen because they know that is not the way the patrol method works. And if the boys can't not come up with a viable alternative he can make suggestions. If the SM can't say what is inappropriate how is he going to train his scouts how a Troop should be run. If the PLC decides to go paintballing or decides that the uniform is going to be Flannel Shirts and camo pants or that on camping trips the adults will setup all the tents and do all the cooking and cleaning? Do you do these just becuase the PLC decided them? What do you think the SM should do in these cases? There are limits to what the PLC can decide to do. Just as the PLC can not decide to change the uniform or not use the uniform, they can not decide to abandon the Patrol Method and the combing of patrol is abanding the Patrol Method. It says that the Patrol Method works best with 6 to 8 scouts. As it has been said here on these forums many times, 2 scouts can function as a patrol, not as good as 6 to 8, but they can function as a patrol. 6 scouts thrown together for a weekend is not a patrol. It takes time to build a patrol into a working unit. It takes a good deal of time to build patrol spirit. When you combine patrols you're sending a message that patrols are not important. This weekend was the NBA All Star Game. Coaches hate this becuase it takes a person from their team and has them try to work in another team. Have you heard of the All-Star slump. Teams often take a while to get back on track after these. And these are adults who do this for a living. Inexperianced scouts will take much longer to have the patrol fully functioning again.

Try these links for what the patrol methos is: http://www.whitestag.org/patrol_method/index.html http://www.inquiry.net/patrol/index.htm http://www.greenbar.ws/4adults/index.cfm

ljnrsu- The SM uses the directing, coaching, supporting, and delegating styles of leading. OK, so in my senerio the SM should have first told the scouts that he liked the way they come up with a decision and how they wanted to work for a common goal. However, as Eagle76 pointed out the PLC can't vote not to use the patrol method and this is one instance where the SM can veto the combining of patrols as this is not the patrol method. (directing). If the scouts can not come up with alternatives the SM can make suggestions on how to resolve the issue(coaching). He hasn't made the decision for the scouts and still leaves it up to them to come up with a decision. A patrol is just not any group of kids thrown together. A patol is the same group of kids that work together to form a patrol. It takes time to build a good patrol and to develop a leader. If you are contantly allowing scouts to combine patrols they will never come together and function to their full potential as a patrol. A group of scouts assembled for a weekend can not truly function as a patrol in that short of a time frame. I don't think I can answer what is the patrol method very quickly. Go read what BP and William Hilcourt says about the patrol method. Check out Kudo's web site (www.inquiry.net) also it has a good deal on the patrol method also. How the patrol is created is just as important on how it functions and is organized. A patrol made of friends with similar interests will come together much faster and work better than a patrol made of total strangers. A patrol in the BSA is organized in one way. A PL leads, with an APL who fills in for him when he is not available. A patrol without a leader is not a patrol, its just a bunch of kids hanging out.

EagleDad- I have to apologize in that you didn't use the word "experiment" it came fromm the quote for NIscouter. The impression I got from your post was that you tried 6 different programs looking for something that worked and not just making small changes to the NSP idea. It'just that I am seeing that when Troops are being told that it's OK to make changes to their program and there doing just that. They're throwing away the patrol method and the boy-led concept. MB's are setup by adults so the scouts can take them in large groups. I have now visited over half the Troops in my district and not a single one follows the Troop meeting planning guide that is given out and gone through at SM training. I have been involved with a Troop that changed the program so much it no longer looked like a Scout Troop. It was just a camping club that did Merit Badges. Our council is seeing massive drops in scouts and I keep running into "Eagle Mill" after "Eagle Mill". They all complain that they can't keep older boys in the program yet none use the Venture patrol and a good deal of them try to the Troop method (one size fits all). Yet, the few Troops that are growing are the ones that are making the effort to follow the BSA guidelines but these are few and far between. My son's troop switch last year to mixed age patrols. This year they have lost all but one scout who crossed over and have lost a good deal of the older scouts who now find the program boring. They are seaching for an answer to fix this and have want to try anything but picking up the Scoutmasters Handbook and following the guidelines. It's even worse at the Cub Scout level. We have an area in our council where there is 1 pack feeding 7 Troops. I just talked with the CC of the Pack near me. They always have had a very large pack (80 to 90) and they had a 30% drop in kids and had one of the worse recruitng year she could remember. I'm hearing the same thing about the Cub Scout program. I know that the Pack program is much more flexible but most of the Packs around here don't come anywhere near what the BSA guidelines for what a Pack should be. I am not sure what I am going to find for a Scouting program, if there is one left, in 3 years when my youngest becomes old enough to join.

Sorry, I was trying to be sarcatic but it didn't come off that way. No I was not suggesting that you should have stuck with a failed program. You post that its OK to try different things, but after trying 6 different ways of doing things you ended up with the program that is outlined in the BSA program and say it worked the best. Why spend all your time and energy trying to figure out a program to use and instead spend that same time and energy to run the program already outlined? I do agree that most troops do not know how to use a NSP corectly. They then claim they don't work. I think the same goes for the Venture Patrol. As far as its OK to experimant, where in the SM training syllabus does it say this? We were given strick instructions by the course director to stick to the syllabus and would like to know where I can find this.

gwd-scouter Congrats! It sounds like you have started to turn things around. What are biggest concerns and goals for the Troop in the new year? What are the Troops plans to accomplish these goals?

Eagledad- What are you doing differently than how the BSA guidelines say it should be done? From your description it sounds like you are following exactly what the BSA guidelines suggest. And it only took six tries to discover that what the BSA suggests you follow works and works well? How many kids did you lose in your experiments? I dont remember any training where we were told to go ahead and experiment with different things until we found something that works. When I signed the application to be a leader in the BSA I agreed to use the BSA program. Not once have I ever been told that its OK to "experiment" with the program.

I agree 100% with Eagle76! I also agree with there are many leaders who after taking training still dont understand this concept or decide that their way is better and do it some other way. To expand on what Eagle76 said, the SM does have veto power over what the PLC decides. The Trainer who does this section in our SM training uses clothes shopping with his teen-aged daughter as an analogy: I never tell her what to buy. However, I do have the power to say NO to whatever she picks out and then tell her to go pick out something else. I only give my advice when asked. Its the same with the SM and the PLC. The only decisions made by an SM or any adult leader should be with concerns of health, safety and youth protection, such as the PLC wanting to do paintball. The SM should directly say NO. When something comes up that goes against the BSA program the SM has to steer the boys in the right direction. The SM should never force the Scouts into anything. In the situation where the PLC decides to combine patrols the conversation should have gone something like this. SPL: The Troop is going to the Klondike Derby. How many scouts do we have going? PL1: 4 PL2: 4 PL3: 2 PL4: 2 PL3: I have an idea. Why dont we combine patrols 3 and 4? This way we will have a better chance at winning. SM: Hey guys wait a minute. We do things by patrols. So, the combining of patrols is out. Can you come up with some other alternative? PL3 & PL4: no, we cant think of anything. SM: The sign of a good leader is getting people to do things. Perhaps, you should call up your patrol members and see if you can get more of them to go. Or maybe instead of competing you could participant by running one of the stations. But, if you want to compete you will have to use whoever in your patrol is going. Even if the PL calls his members and gets no one else to come, he has had the chance to practice his leadership skills. And the decision to compete is left up to the members of the patrol. What are we teaching by combing patrols? (This message has been edited by CNYScouter)

scoutingagain- I have to stand corrected. You are right. There are some situation that do warrent creating a patrol. When you have Council Contingency Troops created for National or World Jamborees, or high adventure trips to Philmont, Seabase or the Northern Tier Canoe Base. I do agree that in a Troop setting you may have a special Trip that does require forming a new patrol. However, these special circumstances are something that is done on a rare occasion of maybe one or twice a year at the most for a Troop and are not done on a regular basis. You are right that a patrol of 2 cannot compete against a patrol of 8. But, doesnt that teach the scouts something about patrols and teamwork. To have an effective patrol everyone in the patrol must be there and partisipate perhaps next time to encourage more of the patrol to show. Only having 2 scouts in a patrol at an event and talking about how they did and how to next time they could do better would make a great reflection topic for the next PLC or a good SM minute.

funscout wites: If every troop would have had 4 or more patrols, our Klondike Derby would have been way too crowded with sleds, and it would have taken too long to get all the different teams through all the stations. The number of "teams" we had was just about right, with not too much waiting to get to a station. What would happen next year if twice the number "virtual" patrols show up are you going to tell them they can't compete because it will take too much time? If our troop had done that, we would have had 2 patrols of 6 boys each, and 2 patrols of 2 boys each. As it's been said on these forums many times two kids can compete as a patrol. They can't do it as well as 6 or 8 but they can function as a patrol. It's better to keep the patrol togehter than to combine them into another patrol. I, too, don't see why it is so important to keep strictly to true patrols. It's important to keep strictly to true patrols as it builds patrol spirt and creats better leaders. When you combine patrols you send the message that patrols aren't important and don't mean anything. By keeping kids in their true patrol, even if it only two of them, it demonstrates the patrol is number one. To understand why combining of patrol is a bad idea, even for one event, you have to study team building concepts. The have been a great deal of studies in the business (and sport) world on the team concept. This concept works if its a sports team, a team to fix a business problem, or a scout patrol. In a nutshell- Every team progresses through four phases: Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing. Over time a team moves through these stages in this order and after some time reaches the performing stage. Every time anything is done to disrupt the team, adding or losing a leader, changing leadership or having team members compete on another team, the team starts over and has to go through each stage again. And this does happen even for a one-time event vmpost, even though creating teams from different troops sounds good to "encourage camaraderie between the TROOPS its not a good idea as it disrupts every the patrols in every troop that participates The problem with the "virtual" patrol is that the new team has not been together long enough to reach the performing stage and the teams you pulled members from have to restart over and go through each stage again. If you are mixing patrols for every outing your are not allowing the patrols to ever reach the performing stage. Also, not one of our boys complained that they weren't in their true patrols. I can tell that the boys enjoy interacting with boys from other patrols. In my mind, this strengthens the whole TROOP, since it encourages the boys to work with older or younger boys, instead of just their same old patrol buddies. If kids don't mind to switch patrols then you are not really using the patrol method. The BSA program is built around the patrol as the primary unit, not the Troop. You should be doing everything to reinforce the patrol not the Troop. This is what the thread "The Troop method" is about, doing things as a Troop instead of doing things as patrols ans why is not a good idea.

vmpost- 1) Just because everyone is doing doesn't make it right. Shouldn't we be doing what's right? 2) As my post implies by requiring that you must have 6 to 8 you are forcing Troops to combine patrols to compete. The combing of patrols is never a good thing. IS there no way to come up with events that can de done by patrols of 2 or patrols of 8? 3) What difference does the troops size make? Yes, a smaller troop may have only one patrol, but this forces the Troops that have NSP to compete against reguale patrols or rearrange their patrols to compete. 4)Again its just not a good idea to rearrage patrols for any reason. There are many ways to promote Troops working together without dirupting the patrol method. This is done at the National Jamboree without requiring scouts to create new patrols or Teams. You ask what can you do in this situation.? Is there no way to come up with 2 levels for each station? one for NSP's and one for regular patrols. Can't you make the decision, like Greying Beaver, to do events that promote the BSA program? You ask what is the perfect plan to attact all the scouts. I'll agree it will never happen. A Troop with a weak program will not attract all its scouts no matter what you do. But you can offere a program that supports the patrol method. Even if you only get one or two patrol competing at the NSP level it reinforces the BSA program and sends the meesage that supprots the BSA program.

Have you concidered taking SM training/Outdoor Leader skils? I have taken both of these and even though the SM training is for the Scout level you will get more than enough information that you can use for your WEBELOS. I had the same problem when I was a WEBELOS leader in that the Outdoor training was canceled the first year and not offered the 2nd year. Some of the things covered in BALOO are repeated in the OWL training. I ended up taking after my son had crossed over to the Troop as I was still helping with the Pack and no one else was willing to go. (This message has been edited by CNYScouter)

The PL and APL in the NSP should should be elected from the new scouts in the patrol. Each new scout should take aturn in being the PL and APL(for at least 1 month). This gives each new scout a feel for what it is like to be the PL. It's not fair for the older scouts to be doing all the work, but this one issue you have to teach the scouts deal and workout with when using mixed-age patrols. This the type of "tweeking" of the program that I think is detrimental to the program and when it fails you have those leaders who say they tried the NSP and it didn't work for them. I have to agree with OGE and say its time to take a look at your program and how its being delivered.

vmpost wrote Meanwhile, congrats on doing so well at the Klondike Derby. We are hosting one next week, and one of the instructions to the judges is that the teams lose points if the SM (or any adult) helps. Scouts & leaders are told this ahead of time, too. This is one of my pet peeves. (We are also requiring teams to be at least 50% First Class & below.) " How does "requiring teams to be at least 50% First Class & below" support the patrol method? The BSA program has 3 patrols - New Scout Patrol(under first class), Regular Patrols and Venture Patrols, by requiring teams to be at least 50% First Class & below you are forcing Troop to use "Virtual Patrols" Shouldn't these types of events have 3 seperate levels, one for each type of patrol, to help reinforces the patrol method instead of forcing Troops to break-up patrols to fit the event requirments?

Kudo- To expand on #1 ... if your told "your not living in the real world" when you suggest that the Eight Methods are of equal importance and should be aplied equally. The funny thing is I was told this by an ASM in my son's troop. She is a middle scool teacher with a Masters degree in Education. I'm glad she's not teaching my kids!

I know that older scouts often don't want to go camping. However, I feel that if they are in a POR they need to attend most, if not all, Troop activites, during the time they hold their POR. How can the SPL, ASPL's or PL's be fulfilling their duties if they are not there? I think this goes along with the thread about "being active". We are here to teach are kids to make ethical decisions. I think one of these is having a Scout decide between holding a POR for rank and doing another activity. I have heard of some troops telling kids that want to join their troop that they can't do anything else. I don't support this, however I do feel that if a Scout wants to hold a POR like SPL, he needs to commit to doing the job and be at Troop activities. I think having him make this kind of choice is important and one of the main purposes of the BSA. Allowing him to "blow off" Scouts for other activities and giving them credit for something they didn't really finsih teaches him nothing. I think this is done a good deal of time as Troop Leaders are so worried about a kid quiting scouts they will do anything to keep them in the troop. My's troop has a outing every month, its just there is no requirement for youth leadership to be in attendance. An example of this is this months outing. There are 6 (out of 27)scouts signed up. The SPL, ASPL's or any patrol leaders are going on this trip. An adult has planned the trip, made the menu and bought the food. The Troop has switched to only having 4 PLC meeting a year. The reasons behind this as the other leaders have determined the scouts are too busy with other activities to have them meet more than this. What are the adults doing wrong? How about little or no expectations from the youth leadership. Scouts are given a POR, not told what is exected of them in this POR and 6 months later after doing little or nothing in the form of leadership, the POR for rank being signed off. I could go on butI think this gets my point across.