Troops not meeting the week of Thanksgiving and over Christmas break? This is a thing now?

[Tron]

3 hours ago, DuctTape said:

I do not think we are in opposite corners here. My primary focus is on the patrols and their activities (both meetings and outdoor activities). The PLC is NOT the conduit for transferring those baseline skills. This is done by the individual Patrol Leader (possibly with assistance from an Instructor). The PLC is the conduit for organizing the Patrols. Regarding the specific examples, those are a result of a failure all around. My main point is he Patrol is the fundamental unit, the PLC is a coordinating team to assist the patrols within the troop.

I think you are correct, the patrol is the fundamental, or I would say foundational group in a unit. 

2 hours ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

If you look at older BSA literature, @DuctTape is 100% correct. Troop meetings were designed to plan and prepare for trips, and well as competition amongst patrols. Patrol Meetings were where the learning was supposed to take place, with older Scouts working with younger Scouts. Prior to 1989, advancement was not the focus of Scouting, having fun and experiential learning was.

In 1989, the introduction of aged based programs, and especially OPERATION FIRST CLASS (sic), changed the focus to advancement. With aged based patrols, new Scouts were lumped into one patrol with a single older Scout as a Guide to teach and supervise everyone. Challenge with that was burnout because one Scout had to supervise everyone in the patrol, instead of having multiple Scouts mentoring the new guys. That led to adults taking over and turning it into Webelos 3. And the LDS model of segregating their 11 year olds into a separate patrol and having an assigned ASM to work with them, as in Cub Scouts, was the model for this.  LDS 11 year old patrols had a very adult led and regimented program which led to constant repetition of the program. But because the 11 yo Scouts moved to a traditional patrol at 12, they never saw the repetition. And the adults, not the Scouts, created a program designed to get them to First Class in a year. Scouts had no input.

But OPERATION FIRST CLASS was the main cause for the change of focus from fun and adventure, to advancement. BSA's research showed that Scouts who got First Class in 12-18 months stayed longer in Scouts. As a result National pushed advancement. But the research data had some major flaws IMHO. As an older Scout I commented that the data did not take into account how active a troop is. A "hiking and camping troop" with fun monthly outdoor activities will retain Scouts, and provide more opportunities for advancement.  And I learned later as an adult is that LDS troops heavily influenced the data. First and foremost, every LDS male was registered, whether active or not. And LDS units had a fixed 11 year old program designed to get them to First Class before joining the rest of the troop. Even doing only 4 camp outs and no summer camp at 11, they got First Class stayed registered, even if they didn't show up again.

 But maybe I am an old fogey stuck in the past. My troop has not focused on advancement, but fun and adventure. Our Scouts stuck around until they aged out, or went off to college. And two Eagles did activities with us in college and before aging out. We are now in single digits, and folding at the end of the year. We have not had a feeder pack in over 15 years, relying on word of mouth and Scouts dissatisfied with their original troops to keep our numbers up.  But several troops we would get Scouts from have folded, and the remaining ones took notes from us, and are doing more activities and being more youth led to prevent folks from leaving.  The last time we had Webelos visit, some parents didn't like the amount of camping we did, or our emphasis on fun and adventure; advancement is the Scout's responsibility. There is a quote attributed to Baden-Powell, " Advancement is like a suntan, it just happens in the outdoors."

 

I've seen that literature, and I've seen a lot about what was really going on with the LDS (such as the inflated membership numbers due to the LDS just cutting a bulk check to BSA). I would agree that you need the activities to keep the scouts coming. I would state that advancement is much more important than just project first class. I would make the argument of why do people hate scope creep and why do people hate jobs/careers where they just "run the business" and every day bleeds into the next? The answer is no feeling of accomplishment. 

There's no way to unwind the changes to the program. First the mixed age patrol method is basically dead in my opinion, my personal experience is that it can't work because it becomes a pseudo gerontocracy, especially if the troop institutes by-laws that restrict who can be elected based on rank, NYLT, etc ... so what ends up happening is that older scouts regardless of ability or charisma, or disposition end up the patrol leaders and assistant senior patrol leader, and patrol leader while everyone else is forced to wait their turn. Secondly the legal system forces us to create tenting buddy plans and buddy/truddy teams based on age. It is such a pain in the butt if the oldest and the youngest of a patrol show up for something and no one in between.  So many bad troops without any connection somehow independently have created the same bad troop systems that have made national want to move to age based patrols. The path forward is unfortunately going to be age based patrols. The question becomes how do we make them work? That might be going back to DuctTape's patrol based operations.  

1 hour ago, Armymutt said:

I was in four different troops as a kid.  The first was worthless, so I quit Scouts.  The second was in its 56th year, the SM having been a member for 55 years.  It was small at that point - my patrol had 3 and the other 4.  The meetings were advancement focused, but we never noticed.  We worked on skill awards, had competitons, etc.  My next one was a Mormon troop in England.  I think there were 8 or 9 of us.  All of us arrived as First or Second Class, so there was a little advancement, but mostly is was Scout skills (which is advancement) and some advanced woodcraft.  The SM was an F-111 pilot.  My last troop was bigger - about 15.  Two patrols, mixed ages.  We trained as patrols and the adults tested, if I recall correctly.  I was a Life Scout by then, so it was just MBs for me.  

We also don't have patrol meetings.  We've tried doing it, but I feel like we have too many Scouts who are there out of force.  They play around, which frustrates the Scouts who want to be there, and nothing gets done.  

I also see some of the forced to attend scouts. In my primary unit I see them and they fall into two groups. Group 1 is the group that is a big distraction, they don't want to be in scouts at all but their parents are forcing them. They don't do outings, service never hits their radar, etc ... parents don't care just as long as they are attending meetings for some reason. The other group 2 is the group that parents tell us that they have to force their kids to show up, but once they are there they are happy, and we mostly see that in their behavior. We see these scouts A LOT on outings, these are the "camping club" scouts that hate meetings but will show up to basically anything outdoors. This is the group that I think would benefit the most from patrol based scouting; 8 scouts that want to camp 4 times a month year round with 2 or adults that can't say no would be ideal. 

1 hour ago, InquisitiveScouter said:

We just had this discussion at a leaders meeting... Our Committee Chair is going to communicate with parents about this and try to tell them something to this effect...  "If your son does not want to go to Scouts, please do not force him.  This is detrimental to all of us, and your Scout will only wind up resenting you.  Let them choose, please."

You might lose a lot of scouts on this. The better answer might be "Hey parents talk with your scout, we need feedback, what do they say would make them want to come to more meetings?"

[yknot]

5 hours ago, Tron said:

But that's not what this program is. This is a 12 month program designed for a certain amount of activities and meetings each month (based on program). I hear this argument in my district and all of the units that say this are single digit membership and dying. The units that meet every week and do an outing every month have above average retention and are producing AOLS and Eagles. 

I've seen it go both ways. I've seen units adopt a 12 month a year, every week schedule an they grow and retention goes above average. I've seen units go the other direction and reduce meetings and they shrink (or outright die, seen that happen and it happens quick). 

 

It really doesn't have bearing on anything if units meet a few more weeks or few less weeks in the course of a year and isn't an indicator of unit health. This is a mindset that has been pushed by National moreso for marketing, membership, and financial reasons than for any real reason. 

[Armymutt]

5 hours ago, Tron said:

This is the group that I think would benefit the most from patrol based scouting; 8 scouts that want to camp 4 times a month year round with 2 or adults that can't say no would be ideal. 

I would be supportive of this.  Maybe not 4x a month, but definitely a Scouting event every other weekend.  I got scolded by the COR because of adult burnout.  If a fully retired "Opa" and I want to volunteer to take kids camping, I don't think it should be a problem.  I'm pretty good at saying "No".  When it's honey bee season, there will be a lot less side quests from me.  She also thinks that the Scouts will want participation credit for those campouts as leadership positions rather than the official troop campouts.  So much legalese is killing Scouts.  Personally, I'd say that if a youth in a POR doesn't want to be in a POR, don't put them in one.  Let them stay in whatever rank they are in until they decide that this is their thing.  

[Armymutt]

1 hour ago, yknot said:

It really doesn't have bearing on anything if units meet a few more weeks or few less weeks in the course of a year and isn't an indicator of unit health. This is a mindset that has been pushed by National moreso for marketing, membership, and financial reasons than for any real reason. 

It's a massive loss of momentum.  In two weeks, I can completely switch my focus to something else because the signal I'm receiving is that Scouting isn't important enough to meet every week.  It's like skipping a workout for two weeks.  Very hard to get going again.  I don't see how national is getting any extra money from regular troop meetings.  

[HashTagScouts]

30 minutes ago, Armymutt said:

It's a massive loss of momentum.  In two weeks, I can completely switch my focus to something else because the signal I'm receiving is that Scouting isn't important enough to meet every week.  It's like skipping a workout for two weeks.  Very hard to get going again.  I don't see how national is getting any extra money from regular troop meetings.  

In my neck of the woods, we've been doing this since I was a youth. General rule is if school is closed, we do not meet (which includes days the schools close because of snow). Over the summer we meet once for summer camp prep, then summer camp, then the rest of the summer is PLC planning meeting, and a few day events (fishing derby, troop outing to an amusement park, swim night at one of our family's house or at the YMCA, movie night, a day hike, etc. - whatever the PLC agrees on, more social gathering/engagement than skill/advancement focused.  Still had the PLC/Senior Scouts in charge of planning details and lead supervision at these events. While I could understand momentum loss could result, it has always been for us more of a short time of fun getting ready for the work to return for another year= understood that way by both youth and adults.

Additionally, when your own kid(s) hit the age that they are working at camp all summer, and OA starts up before school does, there's enough Scouting to never really have so much of the break that others were having.