Eagledad

This is the main driving problem. A successful Venture, Venturing, Sea Scout, Explorers, or whatever you want to call program must have passionate adults and sponsors. My Scuba Post was sponsored by a very passionate Scuba Outfitter that pushed the program until he died. Sea Scouts has it's own following, but I remember one member here years back saying his program struggled from lack of adults. The most successful older scout units have good sponsors or passionate adults. If it were me leading a charge to increase membership, I would start with a recruiting program to find the right adults. Scouts go where the fun is at, so find the adults and then market the fun. Barry

Determining mental and physical Maturity can be tough. My older son weighed 105 lbs at age 16. Yet, he had more backpacking experience than most of our troop. In fact, he once carried his backpack and the backpack of a member of their exhausted crewmate a couple miles on a Philmont trek. On the other hand, I had some tough athletes who fell apart mentally. And that usually happens at the beginning of the trek, so we're stuck with them the whole trek. They are a challenge because everyone, including themselves, assumes they can do the trek based from their physical ability. I was lucky on one such trip that the scout's dad was one of our adults. We let him deal with his son. The constant physical effort of paddling for miles or carrying a 40lb pack up a mountain is as much mental as it is physical. Some folks just aren't conditioned for it. Barry

The problem is that ,many adults are stuck on the imaginary age 14 restriction. Our only restriction was physical fitness maturity to make sure the scouts could physically do the adventure task safely. Except for Philmont. Could not get past that restriction. But, we usually did at least two or our own high adventure pack packing treks anyways. So, everyone that wanted to go backpacking could go. That doesn't include our backpacking weekend campout. Barry

Yes, it was a rumor by someone who knew someone. The New Scout Patrol was part of the plan, so it wasn't far fetched to me. Until the creation of the New Scout Patrol and Troop guides. Webelos joined when they reached a certain age. They didn't crossover as a whole den. Patrols stayed mixed because they only got 2 or 3 new scouts a year. The New Scout Patrol started the aged base format. Barry

The rumor, never found anyone to admit it's truth, was that National was going to change the program to aged base and the Venture Patrols was the shoehorn for it. But, I think it wasn't a popular as National expected. Nationals self interest for aged based patrols is holding on to membership. When the scouts get bored with Troop scouting, they can jump into Venture Patrols or Venturing for high adventure. The problem with that theory is if the adult leaders can't run and interesting program for 10 to 13 year olds, what make's them think they can for 14 and older scouts. Venturing crews in our district last between 3 to five years. And most of them struggle while they are active. My question to troop leaders that want a Venturing program to keep their older scouts is "why not do adventure for all ages and then maybe you older scouts won't get bored". Barry

Quite right. The leaders are only running the program National is pushing. Thanks for the correction. Barry

The leadership Corp is where the senior scouts who have done it all go to be a source for the younger leadership. But, that shouldn't take away from the patrols. In fact, if a Patrol Needed a new patrol leader for some reason, they would likely come from the leadership Corp. One of the flaws of todays leaders is they push leadership on scouts too fast and too early. True leadership requires a lot of skills to coordinate a team toward success. Developing those skills takes time and duty roster is one of the best tools for teaching coordinated team work. I found that patrols without duty rosters struggled to get all the responsibilities performed because someone the PL had to constantly ask a scout to do it, after the job should have been done. A duty roster reminds all the scouts or their responsibilities before the assume the responsibilities. A duty roster teaches discipline and work ethic. A duty roster also encourages calm leadership. I use to teach our youth leadership that if you have to yell to get something done, then you are do your job wrong. The skills that a simple duty roster teach will last the scout forever. I know because I use those skills everyday. Barry

When I taught adult leadership, I explained that the actions of others around me are motivated by my actions., or misunderstood opinions. I also must say that of the hundreds of times I have brought my opinion to this discussion, it is the first time I seen someone offended that the girls had the better skills than the boys. Most adults just smile. This is a strange discussion at some many levels. Barry

Wow, that's quite a leap from what was really stated. Girls are wired differently than boys and and difference makes growth more challenging for boys when they are mixed with girls in a patrol method environment. The question isn't whether boys and girls can mix in scouting activities, of course they can. The question is whether benefit of girls and boys scouting together is worth the less growth for the boys. Barry

Seems mostly differences based on environment. Boys and girls are wired different from each other and are again wired different after puberty. Environment may force habits against the natural instinct, but the instinct is still there. Example is that our cultural expect behavioral habits of not indulging to our sex drive at inappropriate times. That is called character. Strange discussion here. Seems either everyone wants to make the genders equal, or they believe the genders are already equal. That is not how to solve issues created by gender behavior differences. And, the genders should be proud to be different from the other gender. It's OK. And, why is this so much the girls. I've read several recent articles about boys struggling mentally because the culture is trying to redefine them to be less masculine. while at the same time push girls to be more equal by acting more masculine. Even on this forum someone reported adults cheating on skills scores at Camporees so the girls would wine. Others here bragged about a focus on accelerating the advancement part of their program so girls could get rank faster. Why? That is not the Scouting program. I will throw one more behavior I have observed over the years and is a real problem for the BSA. That vast majority of Wolf and Bear leaders are female. But, most do not want to be Webelos leaders for one simple reason, outdoors activates. What ever the reason, it is a gender situation with the result of a huge drop in youth membership. This recent discussion started because are offended when I said genders learn better in scouting when they are mixed. So what? Girls can join now. Boy growth is less important than being culturally progressive. The choice has been made. Barry

Ah good. We can agree to disagree. Have a great scouting week. Barry

It’s not about functioning together, it’s about maximum growth opportunity . Scouting is not about enduring each other to eventually get along. As you said, boys and girls are mixed to all the time. The scouting program puts the youth in situations where they makes decisions that expose their character. Boys aren’t intimidated by the girls natural instinct of management and details, they welcome it. But many adults confuse the boys stepping back as a result being intimidated. It is instead the logical action of giving space for letting the girls do what they do best, and the boys find boring. Boys by nature want action and adventure. That other stuff like meeting, planning, and planning menus is not in their wheelhouse. Taking the girls out of the equation forces the boys to step to the mundane responsibilities of getting to to the actions and adventure. This reminds of when I asked a den of Webelos why they chose the troop they where about to cross over to, they said that troop had the best game at the end of the meeting. Action and adventure. As for the experts, they can’t all be wrong. Many are good at their job. Is the idea of genders learning better when the aren’t mixed really so hard to believe. Even you admit they are wired differently. I also have years of experience working with boys and girls and I came up with my own conclusions of developmental growth of boys and girls in different environments. Scouting is an area where boys grow better without girls. At least until puberty. Barry

While I agree with your situation, a program that uses the enhanced power of a single gender environment to provide youth with quality character growth is not racist or bigoted. In fact, I believe a youth program that uses servant leadership principles and guidance leads the youth to develop habits away from that self serving perspective. Barry

That sounds pretty good to me. Fun. Usually camps do the swim test first. How good of a swimmer is he. I had several scouts scared of the idea of a test and it turned out they were good swimmers. I have also had scouts that learned a lot in instructional swim. Barry

Go ahead and start another subject. I enjoy these discussions and can talk hours about it in person. The whole idea of Patrol Method is to put scouts in situations where they have to make difficult decisions from the interactions with patrol mates. I learned that the preparing meals is the most intense patrol activity that exposes the scouts true character. And usually forces them to learn better habits of interacting with other people. We didn't always go to a camp where the patrol prepared the meals, but we made sure the patrols were independent so they would have to rely on each other to get through their day. I was told many many times by parents that you took our boy to summer camp and brought us back a man. What did you do? Wasn't me. It was him. Barry

There will be some exercises (Tickets) during and after the course designed to help you understand how to perform you responsibilities better with the intention of making your scouting experience easier and more enjoyable. Those exercises have the most impact if you know what is expected of you. I would sit down with your adult ream and have a discussion of their expectations for you. Then you can build your tickets around those expectations. Also, a lot of times the course and the exercises bring to view that to some folks that they may not be the right person for those units expectations. They choose to change positions and build yoeir exercises around the new position. I know of one Cubmaster who was also the Webelos leader and Tiger leader. The course showed her that she would have a lot more impact on the pack and also enjoy scouting more if she gave up Webelos Leader and Leader postions and instead focus on recruiting good adults for those positions. Another leader realized that his skill set would provide more impact at the District level instead of the unit level. Scouting should be as much fun for adults as the scouts. As for the rest of the course, "enjoy". Barry

My hope is National's motivation to appear progressive will be diluted by the common sense of the volunteers. Barry

Troop Guides are better than nothing, but nothing beats watching and experiencing the dynamics of mixed age group. Troop Guides still do a lot of teaching the skills, where the young scouts in a mixed age patrol learn simply by watching and participating with the experienced patrol mates. The other problem I have observed with same age patrols is they become cliquish and don't mix well at the older ages. The scouts in troops with same age patrols tend to merge into troop leadership with their patrol mates instead of scouts from all the patrols. Almost can't prevent it since the patrol ages up into the responsibilities. Saying all that, I know a troop may not have a choice and have to do the best they can. But, I'm not sure how to do a same age patrol without using older scouts because of abuse risk. It would be like running a new troop without older scouts every year. Barry

Yes, we worked with mixed age patrols and same age patrols and same age patrols don't work near as well for developing character growth. Age based patrols are basically setting the scouts up to fail because they don't have a good example for how to succeed. I did not know that mixed age patrols or older scouts are not recommended to prevent abuse. Is that local or national? Honestly, that kind of kills the patrol method objective. I will have to think about this one. Barry

Very profound. I’m wonder if the many want to be virtuous, but their genetics is incapable. The foundation of the Christian religion professes that all man fail. i used to say that virtue in a troop is defined by the least virtuous adult. But the truth is that for the scouts, virtue is defined by the scoutmaster. The only hope for those scouts is if the Scoutmaster is as humble as he is virtuous. Interesting thoughts. Thanks Barry

I'm all for all the other youth scout organizations providing their data so a baseline can be determined for the ranking of the stars. I also believe yearly total numbers are important so parent can compare the groups to measure risks. Barry

That's because we have presented our opinion several times and left ourselves to word games to try and get and advantage. I think each of us has made ourselves clear. And balanced. Barry

Do you work with any abused kids as a scout leader? Barry

Yes, experience as a scouter is very much learning from the test. And what is the lesson? Barry

I have experience as a scout leader working with abused scouts. How much experience as a Scout leader do you have working with abused scouts? I simply don't agree with the director and as someone who works in a data evaluation area, data doesn't tell a whole story. I have worked with many scouters across the country and I believe I have a good feel for the program. Scouts are very safe. Can improvements be made? Maybe, but I can't see anything making big changes. Scouting is a program that makes big positive differences to families with scouts. We need that. Anti scouting makes no sense. Barry