Advancement - what is "active"?

[Bolo 10]

I agree with EagleinKY and FScouter. It's open to interpretation. In our troop, "active" is defined as a scout who regularly attends weekly troop meetings, campouts, outings, service projs, etc. Keyword being 'regularly.' The Scoutmaster knows; so should the scout.

 

We recently had a boy who held two positions in our troop. Not a good idea, but.....

the boy's family had some family 'issues' and the boy stopped coming to scouts. Seven months later, after elections, the boy returned expecting to find himself still holding the positions and status, etc in the troop. Surprise, surprise! Now, we're dealing with the 'shunning' issue, but that's another thread! Thanks to those who posted there..really good ideas.

 

[Torveaux 10]

It seems to me that setting hard and fast rules is a recipe for disaster and also stinks of a lack of responsibility by the leadership.

 

If you manage people, you need to have vague guidelines rather than a strict set of rules. Otherwise you end up punishing great employees (scouts) for non-offensive offenses, while rewarding slugs (no offense intended) for simply meeting a 'quota' of participation.

 

Effort, enthusiasm, and the like are intangibles and cannot be measured by a 50%-50% rule or some such nonesense.

 

I think the best measure would be done by peers. The boys are supposed to be learning to lead, let them meet a peer review board that can decide if there is question about whether a boy is active or not.