Eagledad

The quartermaster is typically the first staffer to camp for getting it ready (couple weeks) and the last to leave for breaking it down. You are constantly setting up and delivering materials to different classes and activities. Quartermaster uses the delegator skills the most, so line up as many volunteers as you can and train them early. And if you aren't a good organizer, find one and make them your number two. I was never the Quartermaster, but I hang around them because they seem to have the most fun. Barry

Local businessman. Barry

Amusement parks in Orlando. Always a big hit for our troop. Some parks give scouts a discount. Barry

LOL, I used to tell the participants of my SM Specific class that if the scouts wouldn't let you sleep on camp outs, pull out the SM Handbook. I've told this before; I use to poll SMs and ASMs at various courses to learn how much of the SM Handbook they had read. Less than 10% (a lot less) of ASMs read the whole book and less than 30% of Scoutmasters. As a result, I encouraged the participants of my courses to instead read the PL and SPL Handbooks because they could both be read inside an hour and said basically what adults needed to know for a boy run program. The rest was basically administrative and could be used as a reference at a time of need. Still, I hope folks read the new text because there is some value there. Barry

Sorry to here that, the 2005 was the last one I had. Barry

Glad they finally made the change. I'm a big "use the handbook" Scoutmaster because it keeps the adults out of the Patrol Method. I was always annoyed with this part of the book because it required a caveat instruction for proper use. Barry

I don't know how else to explain it NJ. I can't apologize, when change is pushed without consideration for the program, I consider it under hostile attack. I feel honored and flattered for the BSA program to hold such high respect that families want all their children to have the experience. But I've said all along in all these discussions that the boys should come first in any consideration of change. And rarely do the boys come first. The program should not be sacrificed for the good of outside interest. It is as simple as that. Qwazse has been very clear that this is all about the girls. He once said something to the effect, "girls joining the program is inevitable, so MOVE ON". That is the tone of someone willing to throw out the baby with the bath water. And quit franking I find it offensive. You are offended by my political correctness term, ok, I'm open to other synonyms. In all these discussion where adults want to change the program, I always try to bring pragmatic reasoning. The arguments for change typically start with: "it will eventually happen, so lets move on", "The good ol boys block it", "there is no honor in the system, so why not change it?". All of which are simplistic condescending strawmen arguments that only denigrate the program. They don't justify any advantages of change for the boys at all. There isn't even the attempt. But as the discussion continues, the justification grew to the same old tired excuse that boys grow into better men of character with girls in the program. Remember, this is a discussion about letting girls earn an eagle. Now it's gone to a self-righteous level of the program needs Girls to improve, without any substantiation to how. This kind of reasoning is used to bully folks into considering alternatives. The supporters of change were tearing down the present BSA program and then leveraging the need for equality to make a positive change. They are using moral equivalence to justify their change of a respected program. When such arguments have to be used without logical pragmatic considerations, that is political correctness. I remember a scout once told me that he liked my style of Scoutmastering because I always stood for the Scouts first. I believe that is what I am still doing. Until somebody can present logical reasoning for change that doesn't lower program quality, then I will stand for the boys. It's obvious just by this discussion that the program is being attacked and needs it's defenders. Barry

There is no issue. It's just another political correctness attack. Barry

And here we get to marginalizing the expectation so everyone can be a winner. Through out history, the strength of a community is set by the level of expectations of the community. I was reading an article that was saying the USA is failing our children today because communities don't hold high expectations for their youth anymore. In fact, the USA pop culture is reaching a point where it has no expectations for youth. Letting the youth set their own expectations is like telling Olympic athletes that there isn't one stand finish line anymore. Instead they just set their own finish line and call it good. Sound ridiculous? How many of our youth get a trophy at the end of the season for just joining a team. This Eagle discussion is tiring because it is being reduced to a few idealist suggesting a reduction of the High Expectations of one award instead of pushing for higher expectations of another award. Once a high set of standards is reduced (dumbed down), no award will have respect. Does anyone here watch American Nija Warrior? It is a competition where athletes have to overcome a series of obstacles to advance to the next level. Last night a girl advanced to a level that females have never advanced before. It is such a big accomplishment that USA Today has an article about her. Here is a small quote from the article. ""My first year doing Ninja Warrior, I didn’t really know what it was about. After that, when so many people were like, 'I didn’t know women could do that,' I thought, 'Then, we better show you," she says. "The main thing is just testing my limits, seeing how much you can do. Seeing how much you’re capable of." The women who are participating in this competition aren't asking for the standards to be lowered so women have an equal chance for the award, they are using the high standards as goals to be reached. It's time that sympathizing idealist start pushing for mediocre standards of Girls programs get raised to give girls a fair chance of high recognition instead of lowering the standards of the other programs. Changing the requirements of the Eagle award won't raise the honor for girls, it will only take it from the boys. Barry

My first year as a Cub Master, I was talking to our Webelos a few minutes before they were crossing over to their new troop. I ask them during our conversation why they chose the troop they were joining. They all looked up at me with smiles and said this troop had the best game of all the meetings they visited. Picking a troop should be team effort. Barry

Change Scoutmasters. We had the same problem and first we considered splitting, but I did a lot of research on troops splitting and typically the troop with a new SM doesn't do well while the other just keeps growing. 80 Percent of split units eventually merge back together. We tried raising the dues, but we found families were willing to pay for our program. Eventually our program stopped at 110 and dropped to about 50 over the next five years after we changed Scoutmasters. The new Scoutmaster was still a boy run Scoutmaster, but he didn't have as good of understanding of older scouts. As the older scouts dropped, so does the younger program. It balanced out at about 50. So to answer your question; other than changing the scoutmaster, we never find a way of slowing growth. And yes big troops are very challenging for a patrol method program. We never found our limit, but I'm sure we were close. Barry

Call the District Advancement Chairman. In some situations scouts have completed EBORs without SMCs. Barry

I have to wonder if part of showing the maturity of an Eagle is initiating the process for finishing MBs. I don't have a problem with MB completion day being as a solution to something like Scouts in Hedgehogs troop looking to finish a single badge. But adults just bringing MB counselors together for any scout needing to complete MBs for Eagle seems a bit "controlling?" of the scouts' responsibility. That's just me. Our troop doesn't work that way. If scouts ask for help after running into walls, we are all for it. But pulling scouts through the process is not our style. Barry

I'm not sure what that means. You imply that I said boys need to be separated from moms and sisters because of their differences. Read my post again:"As for our children turning into fathers, husbands, mothers, and wives; scouting is not the end all of our maturity growth. They still are players in the arena of real life with their own parents modeling the behaviors of mature adults. Scouting can't and doesn't dominate all their growth, thank goodness." Many studies have concluded that both genders tend to do better at this age when they are segregated because they are distracted by the opposite sex. Interestingly, you followed the adversity breeds strength and character with "We manage our developmental differences in our troop by keeping the patrols separater." You post is a bit conflicting, if not confusing.. Confusion aside, I'm intrigued with your program hieudo. I try to bring a pragmatic balance to these discussions because the general reasoning for bringing girls into the program is basicaly for adult convenience. The arguments are generally: "he rest of the world does it", or " Girls are no different than boys", or "It's inevitable, so lets get it over with'. This is a great program where boys can truly grow into men of character when the program is managed correctly. It is one of the few youth programs in the U.S. where the structure is designed for the boys to learn by taking responsibility for their decisions. From my experience, I disagree that outside adversity is always a character builder. The Patrol in the Patrol Method is actually a somewhat fragile structure that can be disrupted by the smallest of interruptions. In fact I would says at least 50% of the discussions on this forum deal with the very problem. Outside distractions from the adults alone disrupt the ideals of boys making independent choices. Adults struggle to give boys independence, you think that gets easier mixing the hormonal sexes? All in all the advantages of patrol method are shut out or shutdown. It's not a theory, I've observed it over and over in non scouting youth programs where the boys and girls are mixed together. I'm intrigued with your program because you did something that nobody else has really suggested, or at least done to level of success. You attacked the problem from the girls side without really changing the patrol method of the boys side. What makes the patrol method the ideal environment for scout growth is the patrol itself. Most other adults would mixed the genders within the patrols and as I keep saying, that does change the dynamics completely. Either we are in this for the boys growth, or we are not as far as I'm concerned. Same goes for programs with our daughters. If I wanted my kids to go to a YMCA after school program, I would send them there. The Mission of the BSA program is more pointed in building ethical and moral men who make decisions. I have been doing this scouting stuff of a long time and it works as marketed when it is managed as marketed. But, by keeping the boys in boys patrols and girls in the girls patrols in your program along with keeping the BSA program on the boys side and the GSUSA on the girls side in your program, the two sides stay autonomous while still using the advantages adults seem to need with mixed gender scouting. In fact, the most popular reason adults want to bring girls into the BSA is because the quality of the GSUSA is not up to par with the BSA. I can see your structure attacking that problem successfully without taking away from the patrol method program. I would be interested in visiting your program and watching it in action. While I'm not sure there is a nation wide need for a program like yours, I can see it working for a lot of smaller communities. In fact, a program like yours might become a standard vehicle for improving the quality of the GSUSA programs. One final thought: folks keep participating in these discussions as if mixing girls into the BSA Troop program is inevitable. They don't understand the strength and will of the GSUSA. The BSA does however. If the BSA ever considers the idea of bringing in girls, they will have the wrath of the GSUSA on them and National won't know what hit them. So, with that in mind, the discussions should steer away from the BSA side and point more toward to giving girls a quality program their brothers are getting. I think your program is a model that could start that discussion. Barry

Pretty interesting article. I was looking at the four leadership traits described in the article (Supporting others, Seeking different perspectives, Operating with a strong results orientation, and Solving problems effectively) in how our troop encourages and evaluates leadership performance in our program. The four traits are almost more advanced in application than the traits we encouraged in our patrol method. Certainly Supporting others is a key part of servant leadership, but Solving Problems Effectively is a step more advanced than just understanding the problem and changing the approach for better results. Solving problems effectively is leading more actively to finding solutions that work more efficiently. It's not a hit and miss sort of thing, it is pushing the team to find the BEST solution. I think that is where a six month election cycle hurts leadership; by the time a leader gets up to speed for leading and for understanding the goal, he has run out of time to consistently push for a best solution. Even worse, I'm not sure 6 months allows a scout enough time to take ownership for wanting the best solution. I think back on one of our SPLs who after a six month break to refresh from his first time as SPL, ran again for the position with specific goals and plans in mind. He was exhibiting an intent to practice solving problems effectively even thought we weren't encouraging that trait. On a different direction, I compared these four traits against all the bosses in my lifetime and found that the two best bosses (and my two favorite) I worked under are very strong in those four traits. I found that to be very interesting and enlightening. If I were ever a Scoutmaster again............ Barry

That is equating the program pinnacle of ethical and moral behavior growth with simple knowledge of practical hand skills. You keep saying you understand, but your words don't fit the definition. I'm going to bore with what I'm about to say because you know the mechanics of the BSA structure. But you don't seem to understand the idealism within the scouting structure. How else to explain you the fallacy of your posts. The skills of the Eight Methods are only actions for working toward developing moral and ethical behaviors. In other words, the patch at best only represents a stage the scout is at in practicing behavioral decisions. The patch only represents a beginning of a scouts phase decisions process, not an end. No two scouts are equal in their knowledge of skills or their maturity of making decisions. But it does define a knowledge base the scout is working from. How often have scouters expressed frustration of 14 year old Eagles. In your explanation, all Eagles are equal regardless of age. So why are some adults frustrated with 14 year old Eagles? Aren't they just over achievers in the practice of the eight methods? Or does the community expect more from the reputation of an Eagle than just setting up a tent and tying knots? Do well expect a scout to mature by knowledge of common hand skills, or is can we expect more from the practice of making decisions? Experience of practice in making choices and decisions based on balances of the Law and Oath are priceless compared to the skills practiced in the Eight Methods to earn a patch. Shouldn't that alone have value? How can a 14 year old Eagle Scout with experience as a Patrol Leader, Troop Quartermaster, ASPL, SPL, Troop Guide and JASM even be compared with a new 14 year old scout with no record of making ethical choices and decisions? Of course you could just allow the new 14 year old Scout to test out and slap that patch on the uniform. But isn't that like an engineer testing out for a surgeon without considering the experiences of the surgeon? Doesn't experience have some value in making ethical and moral choices? That is the pinnacle of the Troop program. If proving that girls are just as smart ,and just as skilled, or just as whatever you need to feel better is your goal for Venture Scouts, then make up some award that compares apples to apples. But don't mess up a tested process so you can feel better. Barry

Well said, I enjoy big picture perspectives, especially in the possibilities of scout growth. I would enjoy working with you in the program. Still, the risk (I believe certainty) of introducing girls into the program at this age does not opening the possibilities of growth, but instead narrows the possibilities of growth. I imagine the growth for our sons in big picture of the troop program as an open umbrella. Adding girls to the program is essentially closing that umbrella. As for our children turning into fathers, husbands, mothers, and wives; scouting is not the end all of our maturity growth. They still are players in the arena of real life with their own parents modeling the behaviors of mature adults. Scouting can't and doesn't dominate all their growth, thank goodness. What it does is take the real world and reduce it to a boy size so that he can grow using specific confines of behavior at a maximum rate for his maturity. The growth risk based from the demographic changes of adding more female leaders (moms) has been explained pretty well. So let’s move on and consider the risk of a scout growth in the maturity of boys and girls in the troop age group. The actions of youth in their ages and stages are very powerful in prepubescent boys and girls who are going through hormonal changes and imbalances. It's not theory, anyone who has worked with youth of this age can reflect on the test of their patience. Working with one gender is challenging; the distraction of mixing the genders is much greater to say the least. Just as importantly, youth of this age learn most of their behavior (90% give or take) by who they observe in their everyday activities. Compound that with the importance of this maturity oberving role models of the same gender because they "will" display what they observe as young adults. It is as import for girls as it is for boys. That is the main reason I personally don't approve of opposite genders as the dominant unit leader. Boys need to observe dominant males, and girls need to observe dominant females. And yes, this discussion is just as much for the health and growth of our daughters as it is for our sons. If our daughters' don't have as much opportunity for growth, then pressure should be applied to the girls program so as not to reduce the quality of our sons' program. Finally, the maturity of our youth change with puberty. Their brains are rewired so that the impact of observing others doesn’t have near the impact as it did before puberty. This is why mixing the genders in the BSA program around age 14 doesn't have the negative effect on their growth as it does before puberty. I enjoyed your explanation of the possibilities of growth for both my sons and my daughters, but you are missing the important phases of these young peoples' maturity and instinctive drives. Nature (God) has built instincts into our youth for maximum growth for their behavior in both as children and as adults. If managed properly, the Boy Scout program, as it is now, maximizes that growth within the design of the scouts’ instincts. Mixing the genders will only distract them from their instinctive design and reduce the possibilities of their growth. I have observed and experienced it in the different youth programs of which I participated. The Troop program right now is one of the best programs for behavior growth in our culture. Changing it without consideration of the effects of that growth will only hurt our sons. Barry

I question the sanity of any BSA adult leader who believes a person grows into a moral and ethical decision maker without practice. Barry

My troops more memorable camporees are night camporees. They were under the themes of Star Wars and Star Trek, but the theme really isn't important. The change of scouting activities from day to night was the real fun. We started with a program kick off of the Saturday night campfire. After the Completion of the campfire, patrols were given their agenda and sent along their way to the activities. The activities took about three to four hours to complete. At one camporee, the adults of al lthe troops worked together to cook breakfast for all the scouts. The same was done at the other camporee except it was the dinner before before the campfire on Saturday. Other than the shift from day to night, there really wasn't a difference in camporees. But the scouts talked about it for years. As for a favorite competition, starting fires using a bow and string. Barry

Actually history already proves him right. Most of the changes the BSA made to the adult side of the program after 1990 were reactions to program quality after the induction of women in the troops. Ignoring for a moment the obvious differences in gender, the induction of women massively reduced the number of adults with a youth boy scouting experience. That led to a cascade of changes from the BSA to attack the sudden reduction of troop program quality. Anyone who has worked guiding troop leaders can explain the difference in quality of unit programs (especially new units) is dramatically affected by the youth experience of it's adults. My observation is that an adult without a youth scouting experience is set back at least three years compared to adults with the youth experience. The average troop level adults last about two years. Different, but the same, women by in large don't have the same experience of camping or outdoor experiences as compared to men. But more importantly is women don't really have the heart for it either. Again, outdoors experience and the desire for it can dramatically effect a Troop program. I experienced this myself when I was advising female scoutmasters. While I know there are some female scoutmasters who believe and use the outdoors part of the program as the primary arena for scout growth, my experience was just the opposite. In fact, I remember one scoutmaster questioning why more arts and crafts meetings wasn't appropriate for her troop. If you wonder how far the BSA had to go to react to the induction of women, I was told all the new adult training syllabuses introduced around 2000 were the result of rethinking how to get unexperienced adults up to speed the quickest. This isn't even getting into the logistical challenges of adding girls. Adding girls to the program will only increase the adult situation more. Using the argument that other countries do it isn't a sound argument because it by passes rational reasoning for making a massive change to a successful program. The argument doesn't speak of how program quality would change in the BSA. Who knows what kind of effect gender based scout programs would have in those countries. And it also ignores the elephant the room; GSUSA. The only rational reason I could accept for bringing girls into the troops program is that it will enhance the mission of developing ethical and more decision makers by using an outdoor program. If mixing boys and girls into scouting at this age is such a great thing, as I said in the other post, it is time to put our energies into changing the Girl Scout program that seems to be a major catalyst for this discussion. If adding women lowers the quality of a scouting program, logic suggest adding men would increase the quality of a Scouting program. Barry

First Class in not just a recognition of skills, it also represents a scout's trials, actions and efforts that work toward a mission of developing moral and ethical decision makers. Having the skills without the effort is not Boy Scouting. Barry

What kind of statement is that! If you could find 10,000 adults who want to earn Eagle while they are troop leaders (like the old days), the requirements could also be changed instantly. Eagle requirements come from a Troop program and continued in the Venture. NOW WE WANT TO CHANGE THE WHOLE TROOP ADVANCEMENT PROGRAM JUST FOR THE CONVENIENCE OF GIVING GIRLS AN EAGLE? Folks on this forum whine a lot about the Eagle loosing it's prestige with watered down Eagle requirements. I can't think of a better way of pretty much killing the honor of the Eagle than changing the requirements for what will only have the appearance of political correctness. Let me ask, does anyone know what the equivalent honor is in the Canadian Scouts or the Campfire Kids program? Does anyone care? Only the BSA carries that prestige and that is only because of the reputation of it's tradition. This is Boy Scouts of America. There is a program called Girl Scouts of the United States of America. Why does the Boys have to sacrifice the quality of their program to accommodate the so called progressives. It's time we see the energy spent on changing the Boys program redirected at the Girls program. It's not the boys program that is failing their gender, it is the girls program. Changing the boys program will only make it more adult run and less effective in building citizens of character and leaders of integrity. It's time we put our sons a head of our adult self serving desires. I agree with Hedgehog, 14 is a good age to bring in girls because the boys have the maturity grow without being distracted. And leave the Eagle for the boys. Create a different award for Venture. Barry

We've done some things like that as well and TT is right. We once had a competition where the winning patrol got to shave the SMs head. The scouts lost interest and it never happened. Nothing brings a patrol together more than the stress of working as a team. The more intense, the better. I was told once that a group needs to be together at least 30 to 35 hours to start bonding as a team. A weekend camp out just barely gets that in. I know it was a small thing, but that is one of the reasons we didn't break camp until after lunch. And many of us have heard the four phases of team building; Forming, storming, norming and performing. Well it's rare to find a close team that didn't go through those phases. The most intense and fastest I've watched scout teams bond (norming and performing), are the high adventure crew trips. Nothing like climbing 4000 feet at high altitude in one day to weaken the our patience. The scouts on crew trips have a few days to break down and build back up. Except for summer camp, patrols don't have the kind of time. So troops have to get creative. Bonding patrols is always a topic among troops. I don't personally have a lot of hope for the pie in the face, but I am impressed with your son initiating the idea and looking for something. I'm confident he will make it happen. Just understanding the need is 90% of the problem.

I agree. One of the lessons in humility that helped shaped our program was a scout who was frustrated from being harassed for leaving the troop meeting 45 minutes early for his job. Truth is his dad was the ASM giving him the hard time. When I sat down with him to discuss his frustration, he said "None of the adults say anything to other adults who shows up late from their work, why am I any different?". That statement was profound and we made an adjustment to our program. The SPL found a job for that scout to coach Cheer Masters and Grub Masters 30 minutes before the meeting. The adults have to be willing to learn more and faster than the scouts from the program experiences. Barry