Eagledad

Thinking about this, my ideal dream for a Webelos leader is recruit an ASM and Den Chief from a nearby troop. The ASM has the troop experience to make the Webelos program relate to the Troop, and I found (quite by accident) that the Den Chief experience is one of the best leadership development activities for boy scouts. I have not tried this from a district perspective, but I am curious how well it could work. Barry

>>Perhaps one thing to do is anticipate that most den leaders retire when you get to Webelos.

My wife was an assistant scout leader for our 10 year old daughters Girl Scout Troop. On the last day of a three day camp the leader approached and showed her a notebook filled with several pages of some of the most creative sexually explicit stories she had ever read. Two of her 10 year old girls confessed they had written the stories during camp at night. The leader chose to just show the notebook to parents and let them take it from there. She also asked my wife to report this to what is the Girl Scout equivalent of the SE. My wife expected a simple thank you from the SE and let it go at that. The SE instead asked her to report the two 10 year old girls to the Oklahoma Department of Human Services and the Police Department. My wife called the SE an over reactionary fool and left. She took my daughter out of the program that year for many reasons, but I remember her rather loudly asking why the Girls Scouts couldnt act reasonable like the BSA. Oh well. Barry

>>Scouters who don't like pure NSP's are generally unable to accept the very strong possibility that for a while these boys are going to struggle.

Hi Dean I understand your frustration and concern because we all have the t-shirt. All these phrases keep running through my mind as I read your post. Teach for success, prepare for failure. You dont know what you dont know. Dont do for a scout what he can do for himself, but does he know what he can do for himself?. Truth of the matter is the adults have to learn more about boy run twice as fast because the adult role of knowing how to stand back is harder. Another phrase I like to throw out to adults is "let the scouts struggle almost up to the point where they dont enjoy scouting anymore, than pull back a little to where it is fun". Push yourself to find their limits. Then you know for the next time. To be honest, I think you are getting close to that limit because its one thing for one scout to forget the food, but all of them? Then there will be the battle of who is going to cook and who is going to clean. It goes on and on. They need the struggle, but they need some kind of light at the end of the tunnel as well. You will have to judge. Have courage, don't be afraid because they will also surprise you. Your post points out why its a lot easier with older scouts in the patrol. But you dont have that, so you (the adults) are going to have to train the scouts to succeed. In that, you need to learn how to give them just enough to move two steps forward so that they only go back one step in their struggle. Give them an example of a menu and roster, step back and watch them use them. Give them some examples of menus ideas from the internet, step back and see if they get creative the next time. Little steps, not big ones. Also, when you give them and example, dont stand around and watch to see how it goes, come back later and ask what happen. Laugh at their calamity, ask a couple of questions to get them back on track. You don't have to wait around for the answers, it may take a little while. They only needed the blessing that going backwards was OK, and going forward hurts less. You are trying to push them just out of their comfort zone because that is where they learn, but not so far that they shut down and refuse to learn. I ask new adult leaders "can you expect a 12 year old SPL to lead like a 16 year old?". Be realistic and challenge them to grow around their maturity and experience, not yours. Be careful about giving them examples of progress, you want them to move forward with their vision, not yours. I once watched a couple older scouts suggest awarding beads like Wood Badge to show a level of JLT in the troop. Then I watched an adult kill that idea by dumping his own idea of the sytle and color of beads. He stole their vision and their fun was gone. I never head about it again. Also, go to the scout office and look at the Patrol Leaders Handbook, I think that has an example of a aptrol camp roster and menu. It has guidelines to running a meeting and maybe even how to follow a meeting agenda. Its a lot easier to sit down with the patrol and learn together than stand there above them to read, teach, tell, lecture or whatever they call it from the adult. Imagine a boy feeling equal with the adult. Kind of makes them feel adult, don't it? The disadvantage of same age patrol is that most of the growth will have to come from adults instead of the older scout role models. That is much much harder. But dont get frustrated by the slow pace. Instead figure out how to keep the growth going with as little adult intervention as possible. Get help from the older scouts and SPL and use the handbooks. Never be discouraged of their struggles in front of them, instead act as if you expected it and cheer them on for what they are learning from the experience. And make sure you learn something from their experience as well so that you are a better boy run adult leader the next time because there will be a next time. Remember your goal is for them to grow so that they could function normally if the adults never showed up. They need to practice and get use to that independence. They need to practice trusting that you trust them. It will be hard because they will screw up a lot. But how you handle their screw ups is how they will figure out if the troop is a safe place to ask for help. Is it safe to screw up tolearn in your troop? How much is too much is the balance you have to learn in encouraging them to grow. Boy run is harder for the adults, but its very rewarding. Eventually you will start to get the hang of it and you will love and respect the power of this scouting stuff. Barry

>>. So what is council or district doing appointing a SM????? They cannot do it, Up to the Chartered Organization....>Meanwhile, he's going to have to hold his nose and deal with the paper Scouts. Frankly, I would get them to Eagle as quickly as possible, shake their hand, give them their hats and hold the door open.

Thank you Miki Barry

>>Basically, you want your husband's attention to be on the boys, not their stats.

>> Long-term leaders are desirable for the sake of experience and continuity. If they want to continue, more power to them. If they need to step away, that's understandable. A good point was made in the previous post. Often, a DL and an ADL can switch roles for the next year.

This is a little different than a troop attending two camps with two different programs. In my opinion, the PLC is not being very respectful of its resources. Real life is tough and they need to learn how to make tough decisions. They arent making a tough decision here, it is more like trying to decide between two different chocolate cake desserts. I would tell the PLC that there arent enough adults to pull off their request. They need suck it up and pick a camp. I'm here if they need some advice. As for the dynamics part of the question, we dont do two camps because summer camp is where our scouts practice intense Patrol Method skills. Some of our scouts plan two years a head to try and be elected the SPL this time of year with summer camp because that SPL runs the troop during the week from filling out the tour permit to checking all the vehicles making sure we arent leaving a scout. It is such and intense week for the SPL that the troop pays his camp fees. Honestly I have never understood troops that send their first year scouts to a different camp. Summer camp is where the new scouts get very close to the older scouts and learn how our boy run program really works because they get seven days of total patrol method. Summer Camp is where all the scouts learn how to work as a team and the youth leaders sharpen their leadership skills. Summer camp is a bonding for everyone. It usually such a positive expereince that many of the older scouts are attending their forth or fifth summer camp even while they are heading out again on a High Adventure trek in a couple more weeks. For us, summer camp is too important for the troop dynamics to split it up. If nothing else, save your adult resources for the high adventure trips. Barry (This message has been edited by eagledad)(This message has been edited by eagledad)

>>The troop's QM is responsible for all troop equipment and also supervises the patrol QMs. That's the job he accepted and he's responsible. And QM is a pretty popular job in my troop.

>>Now, givin' a young fellow like yourself advice from afar is a risky and probably foolish business, but take this as a kindness from a fellow who has been there.

The cost of a tent is important, don't get me wrong, but remember in the big picture everything is about developing character. So I suggest looking at the cost of the equipment as the price for developing a scouts character while in his responsibility of taking care of equipment. Are the scouts being held accountable? I know in our troop growth, scouts who committed several Saturdays washing cars at the beginning of our program took much better care of the equipment than the ones who walked into a better equipped troop later. Can that be fixed? I personally like the idea of scouts bringing their own equipment, but then you will have to deal with the quality of Walmart tents after a big storm. And, I think back on some of the heated discussions on this forum about unit policies of requiring tent mates because the health risk of scouts sleeping by themselves. I usually stay out of those discussions. Barry

>>If the camp has rules against drugs, weapons and such, I'd publicize those and expect them to be obeyed. But I wouldn't search Scouts or their possessions without something akin to probable cause.

I'm glad to see adults concerned with how they role model in front of the scouts, that certainly is a good discussion topic. But I'm curious, in my many years of scouting both as youth and adult, I have never seen a scout ask to sing for a lost item. Do these scouts look or seem upset by the experience? We attended one summer camp where singing happy birthday wasn't allowed because it was hazing. Are we talking about the same thing? Barry

Hi, my name is Barry and I am an engineer and I am on the 12 step program that is supposed to wean me away from inventing, designing, redesigning and then redesigning again during my sleep. Yes, I have designed and redesigned a few Chuck boxes as part of my addiction. My advice is get the lightest box with enough handles that at least four scouts can carry the beast. I lived in fear of a scout breaking his leg after watching them carry one of my greatest designs down the trail to camp. Oh well, at least it looked good. Barry

One of my adult leader mentors back when I was new to scouting was a type A personality and was most happy when she had her hands into everything. To save burnout, our pack had a policy that Den leaders did nothing else but den lead. And it was a good policy because a lot of parents had an enjoyable experience of organizing and running activities like Blue and Gold and Pinewood. But, my mentor did not follow that policy because she had the most fun being in the middle of everything. She was involved in Girls Scouts and Boy Scouts for 25 years. She never burned out. Burnout is a personal thing. In fact I really dont think most folks see it coming or knew they were burned out until they stopped doing what they were doing. Thats when they look back and realized they had absolutely no desire to get that involved anymore. So its personal and hard to gauge how to plan your volunteering to prevent burnout until you are right in the middle of it. Is there some general advice that would apply to most of us? I dont know. I can say delegating other folks to do some of your duties relieves burnout, but I know that some folks have the most fun when they are really busy. Delegating may actually add to burnout because its taking the fun out of the work. I was taught back at Oklahoma State that the average volunteer gives an aveage of 18 months max. Those who go longer are running on passion or drugs. LOL! A well designed program should only count on its volunteers for two years, but allow for passionate few. Looking back, I think I enjoyed scouting the least when I was doing something I didnt enjoy. Im not talking about getting real dirty cleaning camp for Wood Badge next week, Im talking about being on the Wood Badge staff when you had no desire in the first place. I may have volunteered my time because the UC, DE or SE or somebody somehow quilted me into doing it. Maybe I was busy at the time or just didnt like doing Friends of Scouting or whatever, but you it something that dread doing and cant wait for it to be over and go home. So my one little piece of advice to slow down your burnout is learn to say NO. Dont volunteer for things your gut telling you not to do. Barry

Ive talked before about the summer camp experience can be as stressful, if not mores stressful, for the parents as it is for the scouts because its the first real separation in the scouts life. Because of that, we have a parents meeting about a month before to prepare them what is going to happen at camp. We give instructions for the parents of how to talk with their son so as to push him toward the camp experience and not back to them. Dont say things like we are going to really miss you. Rover is going to miss you and your buddies are going to really miss you. Instead say how we wish we were going to have fun you are going to have or think of the stories you can tell your buddies. We also ask that all letters be keep the same positive tone like: we are expecting a lot of good stories when you get back, so do as much as you can. We dont recommend phone calls because they are usually disruptive to the scouts experience and rarely make the camp experience better. If we feel they need to call, then we will encourage it or call the parents ourselves first. Our troop usually keeps a couple of moms at home briefed on whats going on so that any parent can call them to keep up. If the parent has something more urgent, then by all means call the camp. I would even suggest that today when the scout has a cell phone to make sure the call is serious enough. We usually get one or two every year. But in general, we like to keep phone communication at a minimum. And I can see the problem of a scout having what might first appear to have a bad day on a rainy campout. But it will likely best his favorite day some weeks later when looking back. So yes, I think instant communication could set things off in the wrong direction and make more drama for the adults at camp. Trust me, drama can be very stressful. So me personally, I wouldnt want all the moms at home to learn of the illness spreading through camp unless their child was sick. I would tell the two moms we call everyday to tell anyone concerned that everything fine at the moment and they will be the first to learn if anything changes. Camp goes through a phase of the first two day being physically stressful because the Scouts AND Adults are up early doing a lot of physical activities thru the day and usually whipped by lights out. Food takes an adjustment and by the time Wednesday comes, folks are getting cranky. High adventure Crews go through the same process. I always have an adult on meeting Wednesday to prepare them so that they know that we know that its getting kind of hard. But we must put up a good cheery front for the scouts no matter how we feel so we can get the scouts to Thursday when they are starting to get a hang of things and camp is becoming a lot of fun. When parents' worries and concerns start adding to the mix at camp, it can be very stressful. Now cell phones werent popular enough to be a problem when I was a SM, so I dont know the answer. Facebook, wow. But I do know that I would have a really good parents meeting a month before the camp so as to prepare them for their struggle of jr. not being at home for a week, and the possible fatigue of those at camp. Summer camp is a wonderful time for all and everything should be done to make it the best experience of the scouts summer. I love this scouting stuff. Barry

>>Boards are scheduled at everyone's convenience and the board members generally have watched the Eagle candidates grow up through the program for years. Yes, to a degree, the boards can become somewhat of a victory lap. But in some cases the board members have conducted previous boards with the Scouts. As such, they often follow through with issues and conversations over a matter of years. I think that gives them an insight with the Scout a board of strangers wouldn't have.

>>Sure both took immediate hits when it happened from those who couldn't accept change>BSA has the ability to soften this blow by simply making it the decision of local units..

I agree, but units perform the EBORs in some councils. I have seen EBORs done by the Council, but I don't know how it was set up. BArry

>>So you're just using completely unscientific anecdotal observation on your part to draw conclusions about success methods of a corporation that has almost a billion dollars in assets?

>>Eagledad, that's an EXCELLENT idea. Of course it will require troops to stop thinking of packs as the mikey mouse of scouting

>>You just did the same thing you accused me of before. You stared at the graph and pulled complete fiction out of your mind and decided that was the cause without any data at all.

>>Notice where Dale v. BSA falls on that graph posted by BSA24?