Is the real patrol method dead?

[Eagledad]

14 hours ago, Armymutt said:

Interesting turn of events tonight.  Our lone Eagle Scout, who is actually actively showing up and participating, came up to me and the acting SM and presented his thoughts on the troop.  He said that he would dissolve the patrols as they are right now and reform them, integrating Scouts of all ages.  He sees that what we have isn't working because there is no one in the patrol to teach the younger Scouts anything.  As he was talking, I started laughing internally.  I pulled up a text thread where I shared an image from the 1941 Handbook for Scoutmasters that described how to do exactly what he proposed.  I think by our next elections in October, the troop will have a different look and feel.  My plan is to use the older Scouts who are not in PL roles as Troop Guides, responsible for helping the PLs ensure their Scouts are advancing and gaining the Scout skills they need to be able to act independently, within the G2SS.  Hopefully, that will motivate them to start leveraging the technology they have available to hold patrol planning meetings outside of troop meetings and reduce the amount of planning taking place at troop meetings.

Well, this is very cool. Our experience with similar situations is that leadership will struggle for a bit until they get their feet under them, which is OK because we humans learn better in our struggles. But, you might team up with your Eagle and monitor the patrols to see if an ad-hoc training session might help in an area where the patrols are struggling. I found that a 15 minute training moment at the PLC meeting can often be an AH HA moment for PLs. 

After reading your post, I smiled at the memories, and I remember why I love this scouting stuff.

Barry

[fred8033]

15 hours ago, Armymutt said:

...  I think by our next elections in October, the troop will have a different look and feel.  My plan is to use the older Scouts who are not in PL roles as Troop Guides, responsible for helping the PLs ensure their Scouts are advancing and gaining the Scout skills they need to be able to act independently, within the G2SS.  ...

Be careful.  We had a SPL pushed by his dad to emphasize mixed patrols and the need to reorganize all the patrols because that's how the dad experienced it when he was a scout.  The reorganization caused issues with our more senior scouts that were there to be with their friends ... and especially those that owned the identity of their patrol.  A few dropped.  More just hung with their original patrol mates as those were their friends and who shared their scouting time.   That damaged the new patrols.   It took a few years to absorb the patrol change as those older scouts had to age out. 

If I had to do it over, I'd roll the change in slowly over a few years as new scouts join.  Ask for volunteer older scouts who are interested in helping for the new mixed age patrols.  Ask the existing patrols to see who is interested in accepting younger new scouts.  ... Let the scouts organize themselves.  ... If some scouts want to keep their existing patrols, let them keep their patrols.  ... I feel strongly about this as patrols belong to the scouts in those patrols and NOT the troop, NOT the SPL and NOT the adults.  

Also recognize that the next leader a few years from now may have a different opinion and want to change it again ... such as myself.  IMHO, focus on the adventure and getting the scouts outside.  The learning and adventure will come from that.  

I don't know your troop's situation, but be sensitive to the scouts in the troop as it can 

Edited Wednesday at 03:59 PM by fred8033

[Tron]

On 8/19/2025 at 12:00 PM, Eagledad said:

This occurs in units where the youth leaders are not contributing to unit performance. Most of the time the adults are assisting the leadership to the point that they are preventing bad decisions from interfering the activities. 

Ambitious Scouts will rise up into leadership positions in units where the scouts are held accountable for program performance.

Absolutely true. 

[Eagle94-A1]

On 8/18/2025 at 10:00 AM, fred8033 said:

#2 ... Question ... Can patrols still do non-camping activities without adult supervision?  Go to the movies?  Bowl?  Socialize?  Go to a state fair?  I've been out for a few years now, but we always encouraged patrols to have a "patrol" activities and it was never overseen / reviewed by troop leadership.  

Since September/October 2018, ALL (major emphasis) Scouting activities, including patrol day activities, requires 2 registered adults over 21. They tried to make it go into effect in March, but a lot of units with summer camp and HA plans with only 1 adult over 21 and 1 adult over 18 pushed back on it. One of the few times National listened to their volunteers. But I bet all those units wanting refunds was why.

[SSScout]

Patrols?  Neighborhood "gangs", in the good connotation.  Family hierarchy: Big Brothers/Sisters exampling/teaching/modeling to younger bro's, sis's.   

Committee(s) of the whole to accomplish SOMETHING....  a trip to see a museum/hike a trail/go see a movie/earn a Merit Badge together/attend a CAMPOREE/serve for your CO, just the Patrol....  

Patrol Dad, Mom, 

Waaay back when, our phone tree, (remember them?  )  often garnered a bunch of "friends" meeting to see that movie,  visit that museum...  just because we were friends, not ONLY Scouts. But the Scout imprimatur was there.  Our folks knew where we went, what we did, saw. 

Somewhere along the way,  when Scouting became less cool, and the parents decided they (THEY ) couldn't trust us, didn't trust the rest of society (let a 12 year old walk to the store by themselves??),  and because the BSA fell down HARD on protecting the Scouts from the unacknowledged predators out there, in here,,, We needed two deep Registered Scout Trained Adults on any Scout activity.  Protecting not only the younguns' but the adultuns' too,,,,

Can a bunch of friends go for  a hike, go to a ball game (if they have the bucks!😉), without calling it a "SCOUT ACTIVITY" ?  If they tell their parents, and the parents say "have fun, be home by 8 !" , well ... ? 

What is a "PATROL" today?  

[Armymutt]

20 hours ago, fred8033 said:

Be careful.  We had a SPL pushed by his dad to emphasize mixed patrols and the need to reorganize all the patrols because that's how the dad experienced it when he was a scout.  The reorganization caused issues with our more senior scouts that were there to be with their friends ... and especially those that owned the identity of their patrol.  A few dropped.  More just hung with their original patrol mates as those were their friends and who shared their scouting time.   That damaged the new patrols.   It took a few years to absorb the patrol change as those older scouts had to age out. 

If I had to do it over, I'd roll the change in slowly over a few years as new scouts join.  Ask for volunteer older scouts who are interested in helping for the new mixed age patrols.  Ask the existing patrols to see who is interested in accepting younger new scouts.  ... Let the scouts organize themselves.  ... If some scouts want to keep their existing patrols, let them keep their patrols.  ... I feel strongly about this as patrols belong to the scouts in those patrols and NOT the troop, NOT the SPL and NOT the adults.  

Also recognize that the next leader a few years from now may have a different opinion and want to change it again ... such as myself.  IMHO, focus on the adventure and getting the scouts outside.  The learning and adventure will come from that.  

I don't know your troop's situation, but be sensitive to the scouts in the troop as it can 

One of the points he brought up is that none of the patrols have an identity.  These kids are amazingly observant beyond where we were in the early 90s.  I don't think you'd have found a single one of us making that observation.  We have four patrols.  Patrol 1 has one Star who randomly appears, 1 2nd Class, 1 TF, 3 Scout, and 1 no Rank who has been there for about a year.  Patrol 2 has 1 1st Class, 2 TF, and 4 Scouts.  Patrol 3 has a 17 y/o Life who actually wants to help lead,  1 1st Class, 1 2nd Class, 1 TF,  and 3 Scouts.  Patrol 4 has 9 Scouts with Ranks from Life to Eagle, 3 of which actually participate.  The active ones ditch the rest at their table and walk around to help the younger Scouts.  The other four who generally show up, treat the meeting little differently than hanging out at some other place.  Honestly, if those guys quit, there'd be no net loss in leadership or productivity.  None of those four want to go camping or participate in outings, Eagle projects that aren't their own, etc.  

All that is to say that it's clear this troop has been pretty close to Webelos 3+ for a while.  To jump start things, I recommended that our campout this weekend focus on advancement, or at least be planned with an eye to advancement for the 1st Class and below.  One of the requirements for Tenderfoot is to assemble a personal first aid kit.  I identified that as something that needed to be done as part of prep and sensitized the SPL to that point.  The acting SM asked me if we should bring a bunch of first aid supplies out to the campout for the Scouts to use to assemble kits.  To me, that's not the Scouts assembling a first aid kit.  That's the Scouts selecting materials from those provided by the adults.  I want to encourage them to actually open the handbook, read through it, think about what cases they might encounter, make a list, and then procure the items.  

[HashTagScouts]

11 hours ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

Since September/October 2018, ALL (major emphasis) Scouting activities, including patrol day activities, requires 2 registered adults over 21. They tried to make it go into effect in March, but a lot of units with summer camp and HA plans with only 1 adult over 21 and 1 adult over 18 pushed back on it. One of the few times National listened to their volunteers. But I bet all those units wanting refunds was why.

Also are not supposed to be tenting youth together that are more than two years apart in age. For mixed age patrols, that just requires a little extra vigilance on how the patrol decides on tentmates, which then means adults having to be hovering over their shoulders for something that years ago we just left them to it. 

Edited 18 hours ago by HashTagScouts

[Armymutt]

5 minutes ago, HashTagScouts said:

Also are not supposed to be tenting youth together that are more than two years apart in age. For mixed age patrols, that just requires a little extra vigilance on how the patrol decides on tentmates, which then means adults having to be hovering over their shoulders for something that years ago we just left them to it. 

Our troop does something a little different.  No one tents together.  Everyone has their own.  Seems a little odd to me, but it seems to work and avoids a whole host of problems.  I'm not sure what the plan is if we go backpacking as it will definitely increase the weight.

[DuctTape]

1 hour ago, Armymutt said:

One of the points he brought up is that none of the patrols have an identity.  These kids are amazingly observant beyond where we were in the early 90s.  I don't think you'd have found a single one of us making that observation.  We have four patrols.  Patrol 1 has one Star who randomly appears, 1 2nd Class, 1 TF, 3 Scout, and 1 no Rank who has been there for about a year.  Patrol 2 has 1 1st Class, 2 TF, and 4 Scouts.  Patrol 3 has a 17 y/o Life who actually wants to help lead,  1 1st Class, 1 2nd Class, 1 TF,  and 3 Scouts.  Patrol 4 has 9 Scouts with Ranks from Life to Eagle, 3 of which actually participate.  The active ones ditch the rest at their table and walk around to help the younger Scouts.  The other four who generally show up, treat the meeting little differently than hanging out at some other place.  Honestly, if those guys quit, there'd be no net loss in leadership or productivity.  None of those four want to go camping or participate in outings, Eagle projects that aren't their own, etc.  

All that is to say that it's clear this troop has been pretty close to Webelos 3+ for a while.  To jump start things, I recommended that our campout this weekend focus on advancement, or at least be planned with an eye to advancement for the 1st Class and below.  One of the requirements for Tenderfoot is to assemble a personal first aid kit.  I identified that as something that needed to be done as part of prep and sensitized the SPL to that point.  The acting SM asked me if we should bring a bunch of first aid supplies out to the campout for the Scouts to use to assemble kits.  To me, that's not the Scouts assembling a first aid kit.  That's the Scouts selecting materials from those provided by the adults.  I want to encourage them to actually open the handbook, read through it, think about what cases they might encounter, make a list, and then procure the items.  

How were these "patrols" created in the first place? 

[HashTagScouts]

1 minute ago, Armymutt said:

Our troop does something a little different.  No one tents together.  Everyone has their own.  Seems a little odd to me, but it seems to work and avoids a whole host of problems.  I'm not sure what the plan is if we go backpacking as it will definitely increase the weight.

The last unit I was with had purchased new tents the year before that YP change, and they were intended to be used for three youth - bad choice IMO (3 per tent?), I came in at the tail end of that decision and couldn't understand that logic- also thought they went with too high-brow of a tent model, and within a year two of them were missing poles/had broken poles/had tears in the rain fly. Prior unit did individual, Scout (parent) purchased, tenting and that worked out well. Troop had a few troop owned tents that mainly were used for the first campouts after crossover so the youth transitioning in had a little time to learn the ropes. For the kids who preferred hammocks, they used hammocks. Their tent, they were in charge of bringing it home, airing it out, and keeping it in good repair. Some kids would bring their family 6 man tent to a campout, but the other Scouts would make it known that this was not up to expectation pretty quickly (usually by making that Scout wait it out before helping them to set it up- watching an 11 year old try to set up a 6 man tent by themselves is a sight to behold). Some Scouts would start off with a $30 Walmart one-man tent, some went right for the REI models. My son had a Walmart one, but he saw me taking care of my tent, so with him hitting it with waterproof spray at the start of each year and checking seams that tent held up well for him over the years. That tent only weighed a little over 4 pounds, so wasn't bad for backpacking or regular weekend outings.

[Eagledad]

2 hours ago, Armymutt said:

The acting SM asked me if we should bring a bunch of first aid supplies out to the campout for the Scouts to use to assemble kits.  To me, that's not the Scouts assembling a first aid kit.  That's the Scouts selecting materials from those provided by the adults.  I want to encourage them to actually open the handbook, read through it, think about what cases they might encounter, make a list, and then procure the items.  

This is the normal response from new leaders because their parenting nature is reacting to the situation. Most new leaders have to be retrained in a scout-run program. We approached this in several ways, including having the scout read and use the Scout Handbook. When I taught Scoutmaster Basic back in the day, the two most asked questions were discipline and uniform. My answer to the uniform question was the Scout Handbook. If the scout knows the uniform policy, they also know when they're not following it. They are making a bad choice. Don't hound them about proper uniform; ask them if they made the right choice. But really, it should be the PL who asks. Honestly, I wanted to see how the scouts dressed. Often, it shows a state of mind. Often, it shows a scout struggling at home. 

Another way we got new adults used to the scout run program was by restricting the adults from putting up the scout sign to get the group's attention. Adults rarely need to get the group's attention in a Scout Run program because they are in the background. However, if an adult is being used as a resource to explain a skill and needs to get the group's attention (because they are boring), then the adult asks the nearest youth leader to get the group's attention. Likely, the scout will put up the sign, and the adult will follow in support of the youth leader's direction.

There are other ways to train adults to let scouts make their own decisions, but honestly, it is a matter of mindset or a culture that respects scouts as equals to adults. Adults wouldn't treat other adults as some treat scouts as youth. The faster adults start treating scouts as equals, the faster the culture of trust changes. And the results are amazing. Scouts have to get used to it also; they have been led by adults all their life, so they just can't turn a switch to change. Trust comes from continued actions by both the adults and scouts. Practice. 

Barry

[Tron]

12 hours ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

Since September/October 2018, ALL (major emphasis) Scouting activities, including patrol day activities, requires 2 registered adults over 21. They tried to make it go into effect in March, but a lot of units with summer camp and HA plans with only 1 adult over 21 and 1 adult over 18 pushed back on it. One of the few times National listened to their volunteers. But I bet all those units wanting refunds was why.

This is sort of 3 now for high adventure now that high adventure requires 3 wilderness first aid and CPR qualified participants. 

[Tron]

1 hour ago, HashTagScouts said:

Also are not supposed to be tenting youth together that are more than two years apart in age. For mixed age patrols, that just requires a little extra vigilance on how the patrol decides on tentmates, which then means adults having to be hovering over their shoulders for something that years ago we just left them to it. 

This rule is with good reason, a lot of abuse victims were victimized by near peers. 

[Eagle94-A1]

7 minutes ago, Tron said:

This is sort of 3 now for high adventure now that high adventure requires 3 wilderness first aid and CPR qualified participants. 

To quote the grandfather in The Princess Bride, "Wait, just wait."

I was informed that the number of adults will soon be 4. Apparently the number of adults not qualifying at check in, or needing evac on the trek is over 1/3. One of my Scouters plans on staffing next year, and that is what he was told.

[Armymutt]

2 hours ago, DuctTape said:

How were these "patrols" created in the first place? 

I'm still trying to figure that one out.  I think it started out in the pre-89 sense.  One of the adults back then is my age and an Eagle of the old school variety.  The troop formed because the founder's son wanted to quit due to meetings accomplishing the same thing an email could.  They started off strong.  Then COVID hit and a massive age gap developed.  The leader with a Scouting background moved on to Sea Scouts.  The older Scouts felt like they were babysitting - I think they weren't being given an incentive to actually develop their patrols into independent elements.  To keep them happy, someone decided to put the older kids into a patrol and lopped off the experience from the other patrols.  So now, it's teen hang out time for some and complete lack of forward momentum for the bulk of the troop unless an adult starts nudging.  My son crossed over in December, but I've been associating with the boys in this troop in the OA and as Cub Scout Day Camp volunteers for several years.  I've kept my distance until we were actually part of the unit.  I'm due to finally move home permanently in two weeks - retiring from the Army - so I'll be able to be more involved.  Since December, I've been limited to weekend activities, summer camp, and the occasional weekly meeting.  We're slowly developing a cadre of ASMs who are physically present.  Right now, only three of us wear a uniform all of the time.  Getting the adults in line is another struggle for another time.