Eagledad

Well, my PLC insured we had elections and clear expectations of leadership. They also took responsibility in giving leadership opportunities to all age scouts with all maturities. For example, our PLC looks for young less experienced scouts to lead small service projects with PL and SPL Very impressive actually. I'm wondering how your PLC does for leadership? Barry

And when was leadership- a marketing problem, 1933? As I said, a scouting experience was a valued resource in WWII because of the leadership image. I think you are wrong to look at leadership as a skill for scouts. LEADERSHIP IS AN IMAGE of scouting. In fact, it could be argued that leadership is as much of an image as adventure. If the problem isn't enough adventure, which I might agree, then lets fix the marketing of adventure. Barry

How many new adults come in with the instincts of "train them, trust them, and let them go." The whole reason for this discussion is adult instinctively take over. So, I feel the idealism being presented here is missing the point. Adults have to have a goal and a plan just to keep the program out of the gutters. My point is if you take leadership out of the plan, the adults will take leadership out of scouting. Leadership has always been part of scouting. IF you want to keep leadership in scouting, even if leadership is a by-product of just participating in patrol activities, leadership has to be in the plan. The solution isn't taking leadership out of the design, the solution is figuring out how to keep adults from abusing the design. Barry

Well, changing Methods is another difficult discussion. Take out Leadership Development, I am all for taking out Adult Association since that seems to be the real problem here. The problem here is that the public does believe leadership is part of the program. I know of several single parent moms that put their son in Scouting to get that development. If you take leadership out of the core of scouting, who is to hold it accountable. Maybe the problem is that adults need to learn not to take any responsibility for the methods. Methods should be a checklist for PLC to insure they are following the BSA program. Barry

Taking Leadership Development out of Scouting would be like taking the creamy white filling out of the Oreo cookie. Barry

This reminds me of a campout the PLC planned where the patrols would went on a course with a 3 mile hike, 5 mile bike ride and canoeing navigation course. The patrols had 15 stops where the had to do a skills competition. Very complexe and we thought it would take the whole Saturday. All the patrols carried lunch with them, but in the end, all 6 patrols completed the course by noon and eat lunch in the camp site. But, the story in the story is I got a call from a pack leader a week before asking if their 3 dens of 23 Webelos could camp with us to check out the troop. I wasn’t sure how we could add 23 scouts and their families to the weekend, so I gave the pack leader our SPL phone number. He said yes, assigned some some scouts to organize each patrol to share in helping take care of the Webelos and their parents. The webelos and parents participated in the triathlon activities and had a blast. But the real fun came after lunch. Since the triathlon went much faster than expected, the rest of the day was free time. And just about everyone rode bikes all over the camp for several hours. The web parents were very impressed by the scouts planning and taking full responsibility and care for them. They were also surprised how little they saw any troop adults. The funny part of the story is that everyone was sore and tired the next day. Our troop still had several hours of planned activities they typically plan for Sundays. But the Webelos parents were so tired and sore that they just loaded up their sons and left before breakfast. We worried that we scared them away with too much outdoor stuff. But 2 months later, every scout joined our troop. That was a very memorable campout for many reasons. Barry

Our PLC planned at least 2 hours of free time each afternoon on weekend campouts. I once got a call from a new SM with no youth experience ask me how to keep the scouts busy on campouts, He had run out of advancement activities and needed ideas. My first advice was two hours of free time. His reaction was that it was two hours where the scouts would get themselves in trouble and immediately discounted the suggestion. Adult leaders without a youth scouting experience are 3 years behind adults with a youth scouting experience. Even then, they need to see patrol method in action during those 3 years. Many don't, and that is why Patrol Method won't recover to it's original design intent in this day and age. Barry

When made adventure and patrol method the two highest priorities of the program. We started with 15 scouts and 10 years later our troop of around 100 scouts was producing an Eagle every 2.5 months. The average age of the scouts going through their EBOR was 16.5 years old. Like your troop, advancement was not a high priority. But, when the scouts enjoy a fun program in the outdoors, advancement activities are a natural by-product of a healthy patrol method program. Most of the Scouts didn't even realize they were close to Eagle when they started to look at it seriously. When puberty matures the mind to more adult thinking, the scout starts to look at where they fit in making the the world better and search to find their place in their small world. In a program where the servant habits of the Scout Law are primary to making decisions, the mature scout will naturally start serving their patrol mates, the patrol and the troop. It is an amazing thing to watch. They have become adults who want to make their world better. And, when given the tools of patrol method habits, they do amazing things. Where else can a young adult get the opportunity to improve the community? The program works very well when it fits the maturity of all the scouts, but adult leaders more often push the young immature scout to be a leader when following is their best course for growth. Then, at the age when the scout is ready to lead and make great things happen, the scout is burned out by a program of advancement. They are told by the adults that they need to separate from the troop program and find more adventure to satisfy their mature desire. In reality they need the satisfaction of teaching, mentoring and leading younger scouts in their adventures. They should have had their adventure as younger scouts. They should be leading the young scouts in their adventures. Barry

I always struggle with this explanation because it's not about female that set the program back, it's the large influx of adults without any scouting experience. I was there, so I know the passion and enthusiasm moms brought to the troop program. I personally trained many female Scoutmasters. But, like just about all male and female leaders without a scouting experience, they didn't have the experience as a youth to guide them into what drives youth to scouts, ADVENTURE!. Adults by their nature look at stature as the goal of their adults decisions. Adults strive to be better at everything they do. Make life better and improve their lifestyles. It's just our nature. The simple pleasure of being in nature without a show of better position just doesn't fit in the adult mind. So, adults read the books and see how they use the program to show improvement. Unfortunately advancement and rank fit the mature adult psyche perfectly. The adults who didn't go fishing, hiking and play around the campfire don't really get it. They certainly don't know how to plan it. But, a program that gets to first class as fast as possible fits that adults drive perfectly. So, they drive it. The program always had adults without a youth experience join, but their numbers were small enough that their ignorance of the program didn't take away the priority of fun and adventure. The sudden influence of the unexperienced wave was so great that National introduced completely new training courses in 2000 that were intended to help adults without a scouting experience understand better how a patrol method program was supposed to function. Actually, the training didn't do a good job of teaching patrol method. The course put more effort in teaching adults how to fun a unit as a team. But, the motivation behind the new courses was from the surge of leaders without a scouting experience. However, Patrol Method was never the same after. Barry

The majority of alumni big donors didn’t stop their donations around 2000. Barry

I believe the pros at National did loose focus on the boys and the ideals of developing character. They lost the concept of scouting and it’s values, so they justified their existence with Greed for money and members and change the program in two areas that hit the program hard. First, they went after first graders to increase cub recruitment. That blunder brought in boys with a toddler maturity, which didn’t mix well with the advanced maturity of the rest of the age groups. The increased overhead pack management burned out the adults and they left. Second, National brought in female troop leaders. The problem there is that the Troop program at the time relied heavily on new adult leaders with a youth experience to carry on traditional programs. The sudden surge of adult leaders without a youth scouting experience changed the understanding of boy run and patrol method. Scouts wanted adventure, but adults without a youth experience wanted stature as the primary objective. Not sure of how that should have been done because the culture would eventually force moms to be leaders. But the way it was done hurt the boy run program beyond getting back to normal. When National created the 4th Method of Leadership, they exposed their cluelessness of the virtues and nobility of the scouting program they are managing. Ive settled in the belief that the misleaders at National didn’t have a scouting experience as a youth. They simply don’t understand scouting and relied on their greed and political sway to improve a program that was didn’t need fixing. The way they handled the political correction issues the last 20 years lost them the big alumni funding that once made the BSA the envy of all the other youth programs. When they needed the help the last few years, it was gone. While the political correctness activist continually attracted the BSA, National did the real harm. Barry

I agree, but the killer is Tigers. Most of the Tigers are still Toddlers and should be split from the Pack program. The difference of listening skills and reading skills is night and day. That one year of a classroom experience creates a night and day difference for behavior between the two ages. In fact, we did reduce our Tiger program to just two meetings a month and our membership retention rate went from 30 percent to 95 percent. Ironically, the Tiger program demands so much adult management that is drains the adults resource pool to the point that adult burnout is the main cause of membership dropouts from Bears to Webelos II. Giving the Webelos a more mature program isn't that hard, but that effort does require more adult effort. However, the more mature Webelos program also raised our Webelos retention to almost 100 percent. Barry

I'm not sure what you are saying here, but the discussion of this rabbit trail is about the ideological images of scouting, not the activities of the program. Most scouts also haven't heard the BSA Mission, Vision, Aims, and Methods. But, those ideals and program strategies hold the program on the ideological course of developing scouts to make confident decisions based from the Oath and Law. I do agree you that many scouts have been disappointed by a program that isn't presented in the FUN of outdoors as they were expecting. But, that is different discussion. Barry

Hi All. I rarely, rarely ever disagree with Fred, but I believe he is not looking at the leadership image correctly. And I really don't think we are disagreeing, but I need to express my opinion on the Scouting leadership image. I will start off by saying that if one were to poll the average person outside of the BSA of the 3 most important traits a scout gains from the scouting experience, the majority of the that polling would say leadership is one of the three. Leadership IS an image of the scouting program. Leadership is the image of a Scout. The image is so powerful that the designers of the Normandy invasion for D-day were specifically looking for soldiers with a Boy Scouting experience to invade the beaches because those soldiers knew first aid and they had natural tendencies of leadership. The designers knew the casualties were going to be high, so they wanted soldiers that would naturally step up and continue when all those around them had fallen. I have personally witnessed those very actions among our scouts. They relied of the image of Scouting for their planning. The struggle here is the teaching of leadership. First of all, I think most of us agree that when the Patrol Method method experience is applied correctly, leadership development will take place naturally. In fact, just about all the decision making character skills scouts develop during their scouting experiences are learned mostly by observing the actions of others in the patrol method activities. Most scouts will learn the habits of good leadership if they simply just hang around their patrol for a few years. I can go into that deeper if you like, but my experience as an adult in a boy run program confirms that premise. I have watch even the most shy and introverted scouts make leadership decisions when they found themselves in situations that required them to step up. How did they know what to do, they just did what they had observed and experienced during their scouting experience. The problem isn't developing leadership without a direct leadership POR experience, the problem is adults trusting that the Patrol Method method does develop leadership decision making habits simply by participating in a Patrol.. There was a large Council about 25 years ago that was considering removing all youth leadership training from the council because many of the adults felt leadership courses didn't really contribute to their scouting program. The big issue wasn't about taking leadership out, but the adult takeover of patrol method by adults who felt they were taking over the role of leadership. I believe the council stepped back as a result of the problems they were seeing with adult run troops. If adults aren't trying to reach agreed goals, then they develop bad habits that dilute the rest of the program, especially patrol method. Leadership must be considered a priority program strength to insure integrity in the Patrol Method method and the development of character because many leaders would otherwise let their instincts of telling youth how they should run their patrols take over the troop. While we talk (at least I do) a lot about character development from the Scouting program, the natural image of scout development is leadership. See, most people think of scouts being prepared as stepping up when the situation requires. Being prepared is the mental ability to step up in stressful situations. Leadership is having the confidence to make a decision when the moment requires a decision for the good of those around. Leadership is making moral and ethical decisions in a moments notice. Scouts don't need leadership courses for those leadership decisions skills, they need to be exposed to many leadership decisions of a long period of time. If the troubling issue is adults ability of teaching leadership, OK, I'm with you. But, if the issue is that the leadership image is just equal among all the strengths a scout will gain during their scouting experiences, then I don't agree. Leadership, as an image of scouting strengths, is a higher strength along with character and should be marketed as such because it is each scouts leadership habits (even the scouts without direct leadership experience) that are learned in the program that set them apart from the habits learned in other youth organizations. Adults need to learn how to lean on patrol method for leadership development, not on leadership courses to achieve the method. Leadership courses have their place for reinforcing proper management and leadership habits, but not as the primary approach leadership development. I know this was a long way of saying that Leadership is very important for the image of scouting. It's not as simple as just saying leadership will come to those who play the game, it must be emphasized that leadership is one of the most important traits of a scout and the scout must play the game to develop the skills. Sorry for the long post. Barry

The problem with ideas like this along with Defund The Police is that proposals without details come off as emotional venting. What are the staffing positions? What are their responsibilities? How much do they make? Where is the real fat? Barry

Not at all personal. I don't harp on the visionary stuff because I think it will turn on a light, I say it often to make sure it remains as an idealistic principle. I also don't spend enough words separating the main goal or vision of the unit separately from the main goal of the BSA, the Vision. I believe success is based from a team agreeing on the same goals. Our troop initially set the goals that the scouts will be the leaders, it will be boy led and FUN. You're right Matt, making moral decisions makers doesn't really explain how the program makes good leaders. So, we made a checklist that is a little easier to check ourselves, the scouts make the leadership decisions, the scouts run the troop even if it is in the ground, and that they have fun. Of course those turned out to be challenging because in the end, adults struggle the most to do their roles in a boy run troop. But, that is the sun tan that was mentioned. I remember when this forum had over a 1000 active members on the forum with dozens of different discussions all across the forum spectrum. And, 95% of those discussions were about how to provide a better program for the scouts. Today 95% of the discussions aren't about the functions of scouting, they are about adults wanting to change scouting for their personal adult reasons. There are a lot of adults here who don't like the scouting program for one reason of another. In fact, I see basically two groups on this forum in the discussions last few months, adults who believe the program changes youth into adults of character (no change), and those who believe the program is basically sitting service (wreck it). I'm not sure how we make a step forward, but I think you are right in a sense that scouting needs to scale back a little. But, I don't think the program needs to scale back so much as maybe the activities need to lean up a bit. Less high adventure in Philmont and more adventure locally. A program where the patrols can get together more often as a patrol on it's own and not as part of the troop program. It would be a challenge at first, but is a day hike around town all that difficult? I don't know, you are right. But, how? I am convinced the Scouting will survive because some of us have seen it do it's magic and have the passion to make adults can change the world. The rewards are great. We just might figure out a way of taking a small group of youth and turn them into lean scouting machines. Barry

Yes, it is a lot to unpack. The thing to understand is that there is an opportunity here for your scouts to practice making adults decisions. I understand there will be challenges, but it's the heart of intent for the adults that is the challenge. The adults can come up with a lot of reasons to not let scouts make independent decisions, but where there is a will, there is a way. The adults need to have the will. The other suggestion to take to heart is have fun. Adults struggle with fun at summer camp because they are used to being methodical and responsible. Adults look at fun as a reward to hard work during our adult lives. But, the scouting program uses fun to draw the scouts into the work of making hard decisions. The saying goes, "scouting is a game with a purpose." I think you will understand more when you get in the middle of it all. One last thing; come mid week, everyone (EVERYONE) will be cranking as a result of physically long days with limited sleep, so be ready for it. Coach the adults to not get cranking at each other and especially the scouts. In fact, set an example of not being cranky. By Friday, everyone will be back into their normal selves. Barry

A lot depends on the maturity of your scouts, but summer camp is the best patrol method experience a troop can get if you take advantage of it. Our troop request two camp sites near each other; one for scouts and one for adults. We ask adults to not walk around camp with scouts so that they have the experience of finding their way around without adults and practice the discipline of getting to their destinations on time. AND, experience the consequences of failing in both cases. The scouts are required and expected to always have a buddy and tell their Patrol Leader or SPL where they are at. A discussion with theSPL and likely the SM if they break those 2 rules. Summer camp is a safe place, and one of the few places where youth of this age can experience independence and the self confidence from making decisions without worrying about adults watching over them. Parents tell us all the time that their sons (and now daughters) come back a different person. More mature. This is also an opportunity for the adults to learn how to step back and let the scouts make their own decisions. Adults typically focus on scouts doing as much advancement as they can, but don’t fall into that mistake. You will not get another opportunity where your scouts can be independent and makes bad decisions they can learn from. Advance is a good tool for them to practice the expectations of getting to their class on time and working the requirements. If they don’t, it’s their problem, not the adults. The adults are more concerned that they understand their bad decisions. And they may not in that moment. They will later as their buddies advance faster. And be prepared for parents with high expectations for their kids. They are less concerned about developing character from independent decisions than getting as much Eagle advancement as they can. But, their kids have plenty of time for that stuff. Choosing to make make right choices is the priority now. And finally, make them have fun. Encourage them to pick fun activities. Take some balls, chess boards and other stuff they can grab and play with their buddy when they have 15 minutes to kill before the next activity. Also, we always ask the camp staff to set up a troop activity exclusively for our troop. Can be anything, swimming, shooting sport, COPE course, we’ve done many. Anything to get your troop to have fun together. We also try to do an after camp activity on the way home like rafting, Six Flags, local Waterpark. What ever is close to your area that is a break from the exhaustion of camp. Trust me, the stories are much better from scouts exhausted from an amusement park day. Well, that’s off the top of my head. Have fun, have fun and have fun. Many troop leaders complain their older scouts were bored with the same ol, same ol of summer camp. But our Older scouts typically have attended at least 5 summer camps because they are fun. Barry

Makes sense, we typical look for a GS in our neighborhood and purchase A LOT of cookies from her. They were nowhere to be seen this year. Out-of-sight, out-of-mind. I need to remind my wife about the 12 month shelf life because we are still nibbling on last years batch. Or are they year before? Barry

Like most of the youth programs, OA is the vision of the adults in the moment. I have seen OA programs cross the spectrum of what the handbook says they are. Sadly, many adults see their part in the program as the key to the image and they take out the honor of the OA. As scoutmaster, I supported the elections, but stayed away from the program because I didn't care for the adult side of the program. That being said, the scouts in my troop were in leadership roles for about 10 years. Since our troop wasn't involved with OA other than holding elections, I attribute the success of our scouts with our boy run program because most of those scouts were the main youth troop leaders as well. Because of our scouts doing so well in the OA leadership, I was asked to be the adult sponsor. I declined because I knew I would have to spend a lot of my time turning it into the program I knew back in the 70's, and I didn't have that kind of time. I want Scouts to see themselves as heros by serving others. But, that requires a process of activities that build scouts to like themselves when they are servants for others. Adults don't seem to know how to do that much anymore. Barry

Yes, of course. Barry

My problem with OA today is that the program drivers (adult sponsors) don't plan a program where the activities practice growth toward the honor of serving others and camping. As a scout in the 70's, young scouts learned quickly that Arrowmen where experts in the outdoors and they could ask any question for help. And, since serving was their other character traits, they were usually easy to approach and lacked the arrogance many of the older scouts had. Frankly, the election process back then filtered out immature scouts and scouts who only wanted the Arrowmen status. Those are the main motivations I saw in scouts today. I blame adults who don't understand the honorable traits of an Arrowmen, nor do they know how to develop program to practice those traits. Arrowmen were the special forces of scouting in the early years. Now they have a cool pocket patch. Barry

Sounds like the unit is starting with a good CC. That is a step forward many units don't have. I've been in your shoes; a new unit with new adults. There are two important contributors to a new unit starting in the right direction; vision and humility. I was assigned to working with struggling units and the one contributor that just about all these units had in common is lack of vision. The adults didn't know where they were going, so they didn't know what part to take in the team. Instead, they all tried to just fill in where the program appeared to need help, It was chaos. There is usually one dominant leader among the group. Most folks assume that person is the SM and try that position to lead the program. But many times it is the CC. Some times the dominant leader is an ASM or committee member. Once in a while it is the COR. Regardless of who it is, that person usually drives the program program, either toward success or failure. When I coached the struggling units, I pulled the adults together and showed them the BSA Mission and Vision. In short, building moral and ethical decision makers. In most cases, the Mission and Vision was new to them. They thought camping was the goal and character development just kind of came a long somewhere. Then I asked them to discuss what the BSA mission and vision means to them and how this group adults feel about that as the goal. Form there, I showed them how the program is direction toward building moral and ethical decision makers through the process of Aims and Methods. The adults are responsible for the Aims part of the program and the Scouts are responsible for the Methods. The thing is, adults don't have to make it up as they go along, the BSA has given them the goals and direction. They only need to take a task and follow the BSA guidelines for the expectations of their tasks. The humility contributor is evaluating the progress of the program based on the Mission and Vision and making changes that steer the program back on course when it appears to veer off track. I've often said that I made far more wrong decisions than I did right, but we corrected the wrong decisions. Making changes required the humility to admit that parts of the program aren't working. Humility is require so the team feels like an important contributor to the team and buys in to the vision. Humility is required so that the team has patience to listen to the contributors. Eventually the dominant leader is going to standout and take the unit by the reins. That is important because the dominant leader directs the team. But, if the adult team is strong, the leader will be one who encourages and maintains a balance team where each adult has clear expectations. The leader should have a clear understanding of the goal and vision because there will conflict as the program grows and the stresses of growth create different approaches to solutions. Old SM vs New SM. I think every SM will agree that the hardest part of driving a successful unit is managing the adults and their expectations. Once the unit agrees on the vision and the program process going toward the vision, the dominant leader must continually evaluate the program with the team and remind the team where they are going. Most adults just want clear expectations so they know what to do. Some adults want to give their advice to the vision, and that is where the dominant leader listens and then explains why they are doing what they are doing. Let me just say that understanding how the program works took us years. So, as I said, sometimes the advice from others was good. Many times it was not. Sounds to me that your adult team is on the right track. Managing a new program is strenuous and teaches us a lot about ourselves. It's not for everyone and hopefully those adults bow quietly out without causing pain. On the other hand, running a successful troop program will be one of the most rewarding experiences of you life. Well worth it. Good luck getting through this little bump and move on toward fun adventures. I used to sign off with "I love this scouting stuff". I faded away from that when I retired from scouting, but it is still true. I hope it will be for you as well. Barry Barry

Yep. Even if there was some value from the old SMs comments, it lost any integrity by the way it was delivered. Changing scoutmasters is tricky because the new scoutmaster has to find their footing without the heavy shadow of previous SM hanging in the air. Yet, the old SM can be a great resource. But, it’s tricky. At the request of my replacement, I took six months off from the program. And when I did give advice, it was in person or through the CC. Actually, the CC was the person who sought out most of my advice with some of the challenges the new SM found himself in. I think one year is enough time for a new SM to get their program under their feet. The old SM needs to make the next move if he still wants to participate in the new scoutmasters program. Barry

Done correctly, commissioner is both fun and rewarding. But, that kind of program requires good leadership. District Commissioner was my dream job after I retired from Scoutmaster, but council and district burned me out the next few years and I retired completely from scouting. They came to my door and offered me the job 3 years later, but I developed to many new habits with the family to jump back into the program. My loss. Barry