Eagledad

It is sad and I ironic. Our neighbor, while I was a Cub Master, was a district leader for Campfire. By coincidence, the wife of our ASM was what we would call the District Commissioner. Only over a much larger area. She was well connected to the National office. I was lost when I started in cubs and the neighbor gave me all her notes. The program was fantastic. I was what I still feel Cub Scouts should be. But both friends admitted that they felt the future was bleak. Campfire had changed it's membership policy to accept gays and the membership numbers were taking a huge hit. It also started to accept boys, but that wasn't as much of an issue as the gay policy. The program is still around, but just a shell of what it was in the 80s. As I became a troop leader, the internet started becoming a popular source for resources and scouters in the Canadian Boy Scouts dominated the content for troop scouting. At the time, Canadian Scouts had the most boys of any nation in the world. And it was also respected as the best boy scout program in the world. If you were to search for scouting resources now from the Canadian scouts today, well there is a little. But, they were the go-to experts of troop scouting before the organization took it's sudden left turn. I think there will always be a market for some kind of youth outdoor program. Whether it resembles the scouting program that we have discussed here in the past is the question. But as I said, I have come to believe the folks at National are in it for the folks at National. I don't feel there is much tradition, nostalgia or values principles holding them to a plan. Barry

Over the years, I have given much of my life to the BSA at most levels from the Tigers to council. Looking back, I believe that National's actions and decisions for the organization are more self-serving to National than the rest the organization. Can an organization with that kind of leadership sustain itself? Canadian Scouts and Campfire Kids are still around. Barry

I believe the best units are the ones where the CC has the vision of the program and recruits a like-minded Scoutmaster/Cub Master with the gifts to make it happen. We all have our gifts and when we use them correctly as a team, amazing things happen. Barry

Sounds like your integrity precedes you. Doing more than is expected of any scout won't likely change any more minds. Barry

Many awards in the BSA are requested by members that, I guess, you would consider subordinates. The Leadership Award of Merit and adult Religious award are good examples. Many times Woodbadge participants will try to write Ticket Items to earn these awards and have to be reminded that they have no control for earning the honor. Which makes these awards all the more honorable, which is what Jason wanted to do. Funny story; when I explained to a Woodbadge participant that the church had to initiate the request for an adult Religious Award, he assured me his dad was a member of the church and would make sure the church made the request. Or course I didn't allow him to use that for a ticket item. Some folks will do anything for a knot. Barry

It is the goal at the very least. Barry

Well said, we had a couple of campouts with a patrol of one. They usually get a lot of respect and praise by the other patrols. Barry

The four steps of team development are forming, storming, norming and performing. If the team never gets to storming, they will never get to self functioning performing. Scouting is a growth development program. There is growth through all stages of team development, but storming and norming are the most challenging steps in team development. The growth from those steps are also the most fulfilling for scouts and are generally the drive that motivates a scout to continue his scouting experience. If the scouts never get to those stages of team development , then likely the adults have to become part of the program just to keep the scouts somewhat interested. But rarely do scouts in these kinds of program stay past age 14. Barry

The scouts understand better than anybody that not everybody is cut out to be the SPL. The troop is real life scaled down to a boys size. Barry

All our dens had at least two leaders, some had more. But we recruited that way. Recruiting a co-leader is a lot easier than recruiting a den-leader. Sharing the load 50/50 doesn't appear as challenging (scary) as taking on the whole den program by yourself hoping and the assistant will take off some of the pressure. Co-leaders plan together and assume equal ownership. Personalities take over after a couple months exposing the true doers who typically stepped up to carry the load. Because of burnout, we combined a few Webelos dens with a minimum of three adults during the meetings. I only accepted leading a Webelos Den of 16 scouts when I was promised at least 4 other adults at meetings. We all joke about the one hour a week, but we tried hard to reduce workloads to a minimum. I admit I'm pretty good at recruiting. Not all the leaders are great, but we managed to get thru the year. We had a very high crossover rate at all ages. Barry

We had over 100 scouts (140 one time), so we only awarded rank advancement and specialty awards like religious awards at the pack meetings. If the DL wanted to do something special at the den meetings, I (CM) would try and present their belt loops and beads. But that was rare. Barry

Adult friendly also means giving Den Leaders priority over their program. It they need help, recruit for them. If the need a meeting place, find one for them. Make committee meetings short and to the point. Provide news letter to help spread pack information. I could go on and on, but you see my point. Make the leaders happy, and they will make the scouts happy. Make the parents happy, and they will bring their sons. It works. Barry

Fred, you make a good point about making a course fun. We also used that course and you will have to trust me that the "whys" and "hows" are in it. Learning in general is easier and faster when first understanding why, and then the how. That is very much the case for scouts learning their Scout Skills. Why a Sheet Bend over a Square Knot? Oh, that makes sense. A good way for checking a Scout's knowledge of a skill during BOR without retesting is asking him the why of that skill. The whys are in the Scout handbook. The reason the ISLT course wasn't hosted as much as some of us would like is that it was a one and done course. The course was fun the first time, it was a wasted Saturday for those who repeated it a second time. At best it was a once a year course for new leaders. Barry

I agree 100%. I used to counsel struggling units and develop courses for the district and council. I always started my counseling and teaching with goals and visions. The number one mistake for course developers is spending more time in the weeds then the basics of understanding the objective. All the Ticket Items had to be approved by me at Woodbadge and I asked all the participants to write the goal before creating a plan. It's harder than one might think. I believe this Webmaster course is a good idea, but I personally don't see it much of a technical course. A clear understanding of "why" and "what" (I like that order better) makes a solid foundation for consistent "hows". And frankly, when it comes to webmaster type stuff, we went to the kids for instruction. Barry

Of course, I believe that the best SMs are 95% subjective leaders. Barry

My son, dad, and myself were laughing last week as we remember back to the day when we realized that adult experts weren't as expert as we thought they were when we were kids. Even experts have emotions. That’s why when technology was capable, sports went to replays and start/finish electronics. Barry

In my work, both are required for a balance procuct. I use both professionally every day and I've never seen consistent impartial evaluations of human performance. Machines are consistent, Humans are emotional. Subjectivity changes moment by moment. Objectivity is timeless. Barry

Subjective is an opinion. Objective is impartial. Barry

Most of the time Troop age scouts feel intimidated by adults asking why they are dropping out, so I always talked with parents as well. Parents know what's going on and tend to give a more completed explanation. I also would ask my sons or scouts who knew them well. Our troop program was a growing program, so in most cases (not all) the parents pulled their sons from our program because they had different expectations than ours. Most of the time it was because they wanted a more ambitious Eagle program. Which is ironic because our troop average an Eagle every 2.5 months. At the pack level, I only questioned the Webelos because, believe it or not, that is the most critical age for measuring the future of troop programs. But, I found that parents usually are the reason for cubs dropping out, so I talked with the parents. I would guess that 95% of our cubs who dropped were pulled out by their parents for parents' personal reasons. I learned over the years that the most successful packs attend to the needs of the parents first, then their sons. So, build an adult friendly pack, and you will have a cub friendly program. The opposite is true for Troops. I will say that a troop age scouts dropping out was rarely a surprise. If the adult leaders are talking to their scouts and parents, they will see it coming. Barry

And this leads to a great example of "The law of unintended consequences". Up to this time (1989?), Webelos didn't join troops in one big group, they joined over several months depending a lot of the new scouts birthday. Nature of the design forced the Patrols to work with each scout independently toward their 1st Class skills. This had been the basic model for at least 50 years. Because scouts joined over several months, the patrols were use to teaching the same skills repeatedly over the year. That naturally forces a balance of the Patrol Method and first class skills over the year with the bulk of the development responsibility on the Patrols, or more to the point the patrol leaders. Once the Webelos started crossing over in groups, the natural result was developing the skills of the group at the same time instead of individual scouts. That led to creating and yearly agenda of 1st class requirements based on priority of advancement, not the each new scouts needs. And since each patrol (or NSP) all had scouts from the same crossover group, the responsibility of the Patrol agenda fell on the troop PLC because that was the most efficient approach to new scout skills growth.That means instead of patrol members teaching first-aid over and over all through the year, the skill turned into a troop theme for one month out of the year and taught more at the troop level. Because of the group crossover, Patrol method was being replaced by the natural efficiency of the troop method. The Patrol Leader's responsibility of monitoring and advising his scouts was being replaced by leadership at a higher level. And since advancement was taking a higher priority over patrol method, leadership requirements were being pushed down to younger ages so that the requirement didn't get in the way of earning rank. Since the group approach for scout advancement was being taken over at the troop level (including adults), less maturity of the PL was requiring less expected responsibility by the adults. Adults today are probably shocked that all my patrols leaders as a youth had their drivers license. PLs then required a lot more maturity because their responsibilties of the patrol members where a lot greater. I came in to the troop program in 1992 and watched this evolving slowly play out. It's easy to see looking back, but the changes were slow enough at the time that many adults never had time to react. Our troop did start reacting around 1995, but the group crossover is a very powerful force to overcome. Barry

Ahh! I remember those good ol days. One of the first changes we made when I became Cub Master was simplify the Blue & Gold back to a fun night that only lasted around an hour. We moved the Arrow of light ceremony to the January Pack meeting and the Crossover to the March Pack meeting. I believe in handing out awards as soon as the scouts earn them, so most of the Webelos already had their AOL by January. The 20 minute ceremony was really more of acknowledging their honor and paying tribute to their Cub experience. The pomp and circumstance was really intended to get the younger scouts excited for Webelos. The Crossover was just 10 minutes of OA crossing the Webelos over into their troops. Barry

And tell the helicopter parent to back off. Barry

If I could teach the adults to take to heart one concept of the Troop program, that would be that "Boys prepare for their future adult life best from the adversity within the adventure". We have a lot of adults ask on the forum about policies for canceling a camp out do to weather. The general rule for weather is that if the scouts, or adults, didn't endure the weather very well, they didn't prepare for it. Adversity teaches us how to prepare to do better the next time. Whether that next time is leading the Patrol Corners meeting without loosing control or setting up camp in the rain, that adversity of the situation motivates scouts learn so that the experience is less stressful next time. I would tell the adults to spend less time on meetings, advancement, and ceremonies. Spend the bulk of the time making the next camp out more adventurous. More cooked meals, more activities in the woods, and more patrol interactions. All with less adult observation or intervention. The troop is the real life world scaled down to a boys size. Let the boys experience real life. The troop is also a safe place. Safety is letting scouts fail without gilt. If we allow scouts to make decisions from the experience of adversity, they shouldn't feel guilty when the decision didn't help ease the struggle of the adversity. They should instead feel comfortable and motivated to seek wisdom from their role models. Yea, it's kind of funny that most new troop leaders think scouts have all these dreams and ideas of great adventure. But, I'm not sure why we think that. What experiences in their lives would give them that? When we adults did finally realize that the boys needed help in being creative, we started letting the adults propose some ideas as well. Not over the scouts, but a choice among the choices. In fact, we would push for more scout ideas just so it didn't seem so obvious. One of our adults was an avid back packer who had back packed all over the world. 5 year later we averaged at least two week long back packing treks a year. Another adult wanted to go to Alaska. He sold the PLC on it and took a large group of scouts. Of course the scouts have their ideas too. One scouts was a champion Skeet Shooter, so we planned a Skeet Shooting weekend. Another was a local recognize bicycle racer, so we ended up doing a lot of biking camp outs. Troops need to learn how to use the Adult Association as a team concept instead as a us and them concept. I understand the risk because it does allow the adults to get some involvement with the scouts, but if the adults keep working the concept of adversity as the teacher, the adults will understand how to step back and let adversity do the magic growing the scouts' maturity. However, I admit the adult side of the program is not easy. I have said here often that for the patrol method program to mature, the adults have to learn more and faster than the scouts so they stay out of the way. And, I think we males get set in comfort zones and we let creativity slip now and then. We have to remind ourselves that scouts need adversity to grow. Adversity requires constant change. Change is OK. Barry

This attitude really bothers me and I worked hard in our district to change it. I'm guessing, but I think National created the perception by adding Venture Patrols to the program in 1990. They suggested troops put all their older scouts I Venture patrols at age 14. Between the First Class in the First Year concept and the Venture Patrols, what are adults new to scouting supposed to think? As you pointed out, there isn't really that much adventure that younger scouts can't do if it is planned wisely. Barry

Most troops seem to have limits, but ours didn't. Since we usually set the adult camp site out of site and sound of the scouts camp sites, we rarely had problems with adult interference. We might have a situation once in a while, but not enough to force a change of policy. Barry