program review meeting tomorrow evening

[Lisabob 13]

No Ed, the boys were not at this meeting. Now generally, there will be some members of the PLC at the troop committee meetings, and a committee member or two (and the SM) will be at the PLC too. However, in this case, the CC specifically wanted an adults-only meeting. Part of this, I suspect, was that there's a lot of friction between some of the adults and it wasn't clear how this meeting would go. Happily, it was both positive and productive in the end, maybe even helped build a little team spirit among the adults, but it wasn't guaranteed to go that way given some of the issues (and personalities) under discussion.

 

Also a lot of the discussion revolved around issues of adult communication, adult leader recruitment and training, etc.., to which the boys would not have much influence (or perhaps, interest either).

 

And while I don't necessarily disagree that there was a missed opportunity to get the boys themselves more involved in planning and implementing the first year program in particular, at the moment it seems that this isn't the focus of the other leaders. Perhaps it ought to be, perhaps not, but the fact is that it isn't.

 

I do think, though, that the conversations we had at this meeting about what "boy led" means and how it is supposed to work may lead to something more a little ways down the road. It is certainly something that I'll be turning around in my head as we move forward.

 

KS and Fscouter - yup, most of this is covered in the training material. It is implementation that's the sticking point. Eamonn's line in another thread about sending idiots to training and getting back trained idiots comes to mind. (not that I'd suggest we've got idiots for leaders in the troop but there are some, ah, strong personalities who may have drifted a bit and need to be brought back to the "one true path.") Actually the fact that most of these concerns are covered in training is making it a little easier to bring about changes in current practice. There's no good excuse *not* to do things the way they're supposed to be done.

 

Lisa'bob

 

[evmori 11]

Well, if the Troop program was discussed & planned, the Scouts should have been part of the planning process. After all, it is their Troop.

 

Ed Mori

Troop 1

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