Eagledad

>>The lion's share of these awards should go to scouters at the unit level. This would encourage alot of current district and council types to serve in the unit instead.

>>Maybe I need to get that going, although I'm not sure how to do that.

>>Yes - we all carried a pair of boots in the car - never knew when we would be headed into the woods. I fear that kind of outdoors sense is rapidly disappearing.

Yes, but SCOUTNET has fixed most problems now. We used to average three errors on the books for each Eagle applicant before Scoutnet. We averaged an EBOR ever 2.5 months, so that was a lot of errors. But after SCOUTNET, no errors were found on any of the scouts while I was involved with the program. Now I dont know where SCOUTNET has gone in the last few years, but I think the units were putting the dates in the database. So if there was an error, it was from the unit. Does SCOUTNET let the user even put an incorrect date like completing Star in less than four months? Barry

I have done both and it is interesting to think back on. Lisabob hits a lot of really good points. Actually I remember money being a bigger problem in the pack because its harder to raise without a lot of planning and communication. Our Pack committee was always worried about having enough money just for badges each month. I am amazed how much money is required just for awards at pack meetings. I was reminded recently of this when I spoke with a member of this forum who has started a pack. Money is always a topic at pack committee meetings. With the troop, we just went out and washed cars for a couple of Saturdays and had enough money to buy just enough equipment. When we needed more money, we come up with a quick fundraiser. Its to raise money at the troop level because the boys take a lot of the responsibility. Garage sales, hamburger sales at the church, pancake breakfasts and so on all can be planned and done in matter of a couple weeks in a troop. A pack requires at least a couple months to organize. Lisa is right that the vision of the troop is harder compared to the packs, but new troop adults arent as hindered by lack of vision as the Pack leaders when they first start out. At the district level, I had to work with unit adult disputes and I worked three packs disputes to every one troop troop dispute basically because of the vision, or really lack there of. Even if the troop leaders know nothing of the program and have no vision, they still know enough to load up all the boys and in cars and go camping. All the adults can agree to that and it is one simple plan for ALL the boys. But the leaders in a pack are more broken up. Each adult basically is totally responsible for one part (one age group) of the program and doesn't have a clue about the rest of the adults. For the most part, one plan doesn't work for all the boys. They certianly don't know how their part of the program effects the other parts. So it is easy for the committee to get lost in the little stuff like training, den meetings, pack meetings, Blue and Gold, Webelos Graduation and so on. Tigers alone is the single most difficult program to do successfully in the BSA. And the loss of scouts show it. If the pack leaders dont have a vision to link everyone together, and most dont, then they can get lost rather quickly. And then, once the Pack adults start to figure it out, they move up to the troops. Sure packs should hand over their experience to the next leaders, but the far majority dont get that plan that far a head because its hard enough just to find den leaders, much less future CMs and CCs. Its not so much that Troop adults hang around longer than adults do in the packs because the cub program is five years long. But Troop leaders hang around each other a lot more (on a weekly basis) and can quickly reflect on the program performance, then change or tune it to run better the next week. I would guess that most Pack adults dont get to do that but once or twice a year. True, they do get to meet once a month at pack meetings, but they are still herding the boys, so there isnt that true one to one time adults really need to come together. So, that leaves a lot of work on the adults who make the program work. Many here would be surprised just how much work is involved to make sure that somebody has the responsibiliity to picked up the badges for at the scout office for the pack meetings. If they forget, the Pack meeting is a mess and the boys have to wait a month. Do that in a troop, and they only have to wait a week. Yep looking back on it, if I had to do it all over again, I would pick starting the troop. I love this scouting stuff. Barry

You sound like a really good Scoutmaster, so Im taking away from that at all, but I think the question is, should the SM be setting the scouts goals?. If you ask any scout at some point if they want the Eagle, they are going to say yes. Who wouldnt? But wanting and getting are as different as only 3 to 5% of scout earn it. I agree your job is to motivate the scouts to live the ideals, and their dreams. But we adults struggle not to cross the line between defining their dream and motivating their dream. Of the hundreds of scouts I worked with, my scout who had leadership skills beyond any scout I know had no ambition what so ever for Eagle. He was the great motivator of a team I have ever seen and Im sure he will be famous one day because he is that good. I learned things from him, but he left the troop at 16 because he got tired of the adults pushing the Eagle on him. I changed my style of Scoutmastering after that. I wasnt one of the adults pushing him to Eagle, but I learned a lot about motivating boys to a) seek out their dreams (b plan how to reach their dreams (c reach those dreams. I can say from my experiences that if Scoutmasters would spend their time teaching boys the skills of setting goals and the skills of reaching those goals, they would have a lot more scouts earning the Eagle than just motivating them to earn it, and the Scoutmaster would never have to even mention the word Eagle. So my suggestion to your post is take the word Eagle out of your post and replace it with dream. Guide a boy to have passion and then encourage that passion. Teach him the simple skills of setting a goal and the steps to reaching a goal then eventually he will not only reach the one dream, but a lot of other dreams. Likely not your dream, but as you said, your job is to motivate them to live the ideals. We motivate the ideals through their actions of seeking their dreams, whatever those dreams are Find what makes these two boys tick, push them to go farther and see what happens. I think all three of you will be rewarded. I love this scouting stuff. Barry

I paid my way thru college as an aircraft mechanic and their was a saying in the shop The Right Tool For the Right Job. I guess this discussion comes under using the "Right Equipment for the Right Activity". The shorts thing reminds me of my sons friend who was in a different troop. He at the age 12 vowed with his patrol to never wear long scout pants, only scout shorts, to all Boy Scout activities. His Scoutmaster thought the patrol was crazy, but the whole patrol earned their Eagles, was very very active in OA at a national level and stayed active with the troop until they left for college. And they never wore long scout pants. Barry

>>NEVER EVER leave the trailer at the COR's location. Most parking lots are isolated and no one is around at night. Park it at a leaders house.

>>Bando's report of pleasant 30-person committee meetings is more an exception than a rule eh? But such strong folks don't last. Da EagleDads of da world move on. As Bando mentioned, it wasn't always the case.

>>Incidentally, just where is the 'heart' of the Bible belt? I've always wondered where it was.

>>One Jewish parent rolled her eyes and said, "we've come to expect this kind of thing in the Bible Belt"...not exactly the positive reactions one would like.

>>"I spoke to my friend today, and the SM has sent out a correction email. He said he was wrong, and mother and fathers are equally welcome on the trips. (So, I think he DID mean "No women allowed" but now understands that doesn't work.)"

>>We put most of the parents on the Committee. Issue resolved?

>>If one is to help their boys grow and develop in leadership, I'd say it would serve them better to provide them with quality support and not stupid rules.

Likely just the Scoutmaster's way of saying that "parents" will not be hovering around their sons. Actually, I probably would have said something like it had I thought of it because it makes the point rather quickly. I don't think you should take this as a gender specific thing. Sometime in the future you might quietly suggest he use "parent" in place of "mom". Barry

>>thankfully in the few years I've been involved with the troop we have not had any major issues that required committee discussions on discipline and the like that is often talked about on here - when it can't be dealt with solely by the SPL it's all been handled by the SM and ASM

>>Another take - is it worth it for a kid who is unlikely to be able to apply a lot of what he learns directly to his troop? (Maybe he is less active in the troop leadership than he once was, maybe the troop is so adult-led that he wouldn't have a chance, maybe he'll be aging out in the next year). I see it is supposed to be applicable to troop leadership, and no doubt it would be fun, but it isn't clear to me whether this is a prudent use of resources for a lot of fellows. I'd really like to hear more about why it is worth it, from those who have some direct experience.

This is kind strange reading. Our committee looks forward to the SPL report because it is one of the few times committee members get to work with him and ask questions. They truly enjoy watching the SPL in action. The SPL is usually first on the agenda so that he can get in and get out in so as not to take much of his personal time. However he is welcome to stay the whole meeting if he wants and some have with the comment following later that the adults run the meeting the same as he is trained to run a PLC meeting. There are few down sides mentioned here, but there are no down sides from our experiences. I have never heard an SPL say they didn't enjoy the opportunity. Its their choice because we know they are busy, but they usually came. Barry

Then you arent seeing the bigger picture. Your theory doesnt hold because we dont have the same loses of boys at the Wolf and Bear years. Most adults at the Webelos age are not new to the program (Tiger, Wolf, Bear), they are experienced and understand how to work with boys, so arm twisting shouldnt have to be required. Also even if the leader is new, they should been recruited and trained well in advance if they are motivated for the job. Any Webelos leader who needs their arm twisted is an adult who doesnt want to be there, and those are the dens we are talking about. That is where most of the 50% of Webelos loses are coming from. Special training like your training can band-aid the problem somewhat, but its not the answer to the bigger problem of unmotivated leaders. I think the BSA Webelos training is sufficient if the adult is motivated to do the job. The problem is the unmotivated Webelos leaders. And, the problem isnt their training, but that they are not motivated. Why arent they motivated? Fix that and you will fix a lot of other problems as well. As for preparing boys for Troops, just what else can the BSA do at a national level that they arent already doing? The Webelos leader is second most trained leader behind the Scoutmaster. See, this is where you are confusing the issues. Once a boy gets into a troop, losing that boy is the Troops responsibility, not the pack. IF we are losing more than 50% if the Webelos before crossing over into the troop, then that is a cub program problem. And that has very little to do with whether the boy is prepared for the troop program or not. If we could get just half of that 50% of the boys we are losing and they had absolutly no skills at all when they join a troop, the numbers would still jump up because we got them there. Of course we still have the first year drop problem, but that problem has very little to do with skills the boy bring anyway. We know that because the troops are loosing the skilled ones just as fast the lesser skilled problem. As for Tigers, well that is a different problem that National just doesnt want to understand. And, while the Webelos program have nothing to do with the Tiger dropouts, the Tiger program is directly related to the Webelos dropouts. Barry

>>The problem with your scenario is that it is not what happens in the real world.

>>the real problem is the Webelos program itself. A two year program doing the same thing each year and expecting to keep older boys interested is not very realistic.>For a two year Webelos program to work and for the boys to successfully transition and do well in a troop the pack, and WDL need to follow a program that really prepares the boys, unfortunately many do not and the horrible statistics are the proof.

>>Hispanics dropped because of the LDS affliations

>>Wood Badge would just be one more step, and a majority of committees in my district state in their bylaws that WB is mandatory for all DC leaders (just as NYLT is mandatory for ASPL and SPL).

>>however don't try to tell them it will make them better committee members, it just is not true.

>>What if you need to replace an SM or ASM? Wouldnt it be great if your candidates from the committee were already on their way to being fully trained to do the job?