Eagledad

>>I find the NSP boys progress in requirement learning faster than the mixed patrols because they are all focused on the same interests.

It is the next best thing to just putting them in regular patrols as soon as they join like SMT224 does. The only reason I used NSPs was when we had a lot more new scouts then the regular patrols could handle. I found that more than two new scouts per patrol messed up the patrol dynamics unless there was a lot of older scouts in the patrol. We tried a lot variations with NSPs and merging them into other patrols after summer camp worked best. If you wait longer, their growth slows down a lot because they don't have good role models in the patrol for them to learn from. Barry

>>In a slightly-related note, I was a little PO'd that my (then) Tenderfoot son didn't take the opportunity to clear 2C and 1C swimming requirements when he was at camp last summer. In fact, he didn't even try the swimtest, and was labeled a non-swimmer.

>>Back to the tiger in full run -- 30 emails, lost track of # text messages -- in need of snorkle for a breath -- STOSH if the light comes on HOLD ON. It is wonderful and scary to see boys I have know since cubs evolve. Just doing the have you? type list they said yep, yep, yep, here are minutes and other info. My mouth is still open. Now they are talking about a back trip to Cloud Peak as a big trip. Cloud Peak! So glad they picked one of the hardest treks - maybe they can just bury me there. I have moved to the hall of irrevelency ahhh to the hall of just enjoy.

>>He removed the government from the abortion decision. That's what his constituents want. Government out of the reproductive decision making process.,, That is like saying that Obaman didn't flood the fields by opening the dams, the water did. Barry

Interesting, since I have not heard Rush's exact words and you have, what exactly did he say, and how do you think he should have said them? Barry

So how did the meeting go? Barry

Well based from that information, I would just find a place in the agenda and start down your list all the way to the part where the SM replaced you and ask them to justify why you should stay. Doesnt sound like your adults are a team anymore. What does your Charter say about all this? Will the rep be at the meeting? Is your DE any good and can you get them at the meeting? You need some outside witnesses that arent emotionally intimidated for balance. I hate these things. Scouting is great until the adults get involved. Barry

I asked the Venture question because I dont understand why you brought it up. I assume that when the scouts went to Venture, they left the troop? What I meant with the committee agenda was trying to learn the purpose of the meeting. It sounds like it is just a monthly meeting, not a special meeting to deal with the problems. Im still trying to see the problem that you see. You dont like the way the Scoutmaster is leading the program, but what are the concerns? Are a lot of scouts leaving the troop and is recruiting a problem? Are they very many other adults who see these problems or is it mainly you? OK, looking at the few facts that you give me, I will only assume that your perspective is correct. We dont have two sides here, so this is risky. But here is what I do when I help units with these same problems. First, you need to call the CC and get put on the agenda for this specific topic. Call it what you want, concerns of the program, concerns of adults, whatever you want, but you dont want to just pop up between officer reports and next months fund raiser with a loaded cannon that may bring the meeting to a screeching halt. Being put on the agenda item shows that you have been thinking about this. Next, you need to list your items of concern and run them through your mind so that you can explain yourself clearly. Trust me that if you dont, the stuttering and confusion of looking for your words makes you come off looking angry. It shouldnt take you more than five minutes to fully list your concerns. If you want to mention names, thats OK, but generally that has folks on the defense, which complicates meetings. It works better if you can speak of the problems of the group. We are failing because of this and WE are not reaching our goals because. Make sure you begin your talk with the One Mission that the adults are supposed to be driving toward. Most units dont even have a mission, but since you do, the next step is identify what the adults are NOT doing toward the mission. Your talk should have two small list: The first is the areas of the program you see struggling. The second is a list of reasons causing the problems. Be brief and clear. You dont want to overwhelm the committee, just present the situation quickly and simple. Let questions give you openings to explain your concerns in more detail. Dont put people on the defense if you can because you dont want to waste everyones time debating, arguing and defending yourself. The objective of your talk is to alert everyone to the problems and the repercussions if they dont change. Finally, you need to have a plan of action in your back pocket. Something simple and something understandable. Finally, you need to understand most folks do not want to be combative, AND, and this is very important, Most people resist change. Most folks would rather take the easier route even if it isnt the better program if the change looks hard. So you need to be persuasive and be willing to be the strong leader to lead the changes. If you go in the meeting looking for a new leader, likely nothing will happen. If you dont think yourself strong enough to be the leader of change, then find a strong leader who agrees with you and be the strong voice for that leader. But dont go in looking for change without any ideas for change and without any passion. You need a new Alpha leader. Be calm, but firm. Dont ever raise your voice and dont get in a debate. Not in this meeting anyway. Worst case scenario is suggest leading another meeting to sort this out, but dont let the meeting end with nothing changing. Like I said, this is all base from our perspective. Good Luck Barry

Lets fill in some blanks: What is your part in this? How many scouts in the Troop? How many of the scouts want the Venture and why? Why do you think the venture is an issue? What are the agenda items of the committe meeting? Who is the alpha leader, by that I mean who is the one person that will get their way with the the adults? Finally, I understand the goals you listed, but is there any one vision or mission that all the adults could quote? Barry

>>Jblake47, I acknowledge your point about the pioneers, but I look at it from the view of recycling.

When I was a young scout, we were taught not to eat the yellow snow, not to face into the wind when taking care of certain bodily functions, and dig our latrines 50 ft away. Back then we never camped anywhere that had built latrines or bathrooms and so each patrol dug its own latrine. We once asked out Patrol Leader why 50feet. He said because 50 feet is too close in the summer and too far in the winter. It seemed a good compromised distance. We had really good Patrol Leaders back then. I dont remember talking about which direction to face the door. Im not sure it mattered, our tents didnt have floors, so the breeze came from all directions. Those were great character developing experiences. Barry

>>Also, the main reason the enjoy us around (be still my heart) is because we don't hover, we listen to their (all scouts)ideas and leave them alone and do our own thing.

I'm really not sure my sons would have worn their soccer or baseball uniforms to school either. My son hated the khaki pants he wore while on the school golf team. He put those on in the car from the school to the golf tournaments. So I'm not sure why we are making it a big deal with just scouts. As for the backbone thingy, they come to us to develop it. Barry

HI Scoutdad Im kind of anal about this, but all I see here is a great opportunity. Actually your sons situation is quite common for youth his age. UP until now, your son and most American boys his age have been sheltered from such experiences because we parents generally handle dealing with adults for our kids. I think this is your opportunity to introduce your son to the real world of differing opinions and communicating with people he is uncomfortable with. You only have to look at the Issues and Politics section of this forum to see that even adults who say they are in scouting may not act to our personal standard of scout like behavior. Disappointment hurts and confrontation is scary. Let him know you understand and agree because you were there once and still deal with it to some degree. But from now on he is going to run into a lot of similar situations as he gets more independence and you are excited to help him build the confidence for it. Honestly as a SM, I was excited because it was an opportunity help a boy grow just that much closer being a confident man. Sit down and come up with little ways of gradually getting him more comfortable. Something we do in our troop is we require our scouts to call and set up appointments with all the MB counselors. It is a BSA policy, but building confidence with adults is the reason I encourage it. And you know, it only takes about three calls and its no big deal. You might pick something as simple as you standing on the other side of the room while goes up to ask the adults a simple easy question or setting up there next in a more neutral atmosphere. You will know better than us the best way to handle it. But, the main point here is use this situation as a red flag that your sons needs to mature in this area. As I said, just about all boys go through it. So much so that our adults are prepared to help. As for the adults, I would bring it up to the SM in a: Oh by the way kind of approach. Then I would throw out a couple very small suggestions that might give him ideas to approach the adults. I would not make a do or die thing about it because to be known as a problem helicopter parent. The objective is to realize this is common and the adults need to prepare for it. As for the fire starters, it sounds to me like the adults acted silly. Good luck and let us know what happens. I love this scouting stuff. Barry

Well Im not sure Im viewed as one for change, but I will say that our troop during my time as a leader was considered very forward thinking at the time. Enough so that a lot of folks were scared of us. I hope you are right about the new team, but I still wonder what that means if they are. I can say that typically the changes we made in our units usually simplified the program and made it easier for both the adults and the scouts to continue toward the goal. A lot of that was in our Cub Scout Pack and much of what we did was simplify our Tiger and Webelos program. As a result, 90% of both groups of boys continued in scouting the next year after they crossed over. That was a change from 30% before and very few other units could brag about that. But the main point is the changes were intended to require less effort from the adults, not more. So they were easy changes to hand over. I understand most of those changes are still in the pack. I also learned a little bit of how National approaches their changes. I once met one of the writers of the present Scoutmaster Specific course. I told him that I liked teaching the course, but found it to be a bit confused because the book didnt exactly match power point. He said that made sense because there were three writers who did their own separate part, then sent their part to be assemble in whole by the National. Even when I was talking to him, he still had not seen the syllabus of the whole course, so he was excited to hear my opinion, especially of his part. That was a little strange to me, but he said National was trying to meet a time table. I have heard rumors that National has been working toward a very long range plan. 2010 makes sense because I have been hearing about it for a long time. I will be curious to learn just what that plans are. I dont like to call myself a traditionalist because I think myself as very open minded. But I am looked at as a traditionalist because after trying different styles and methods through the years, many of the traditional styles of scouting gave us the best performance. I found that Traditional programs are typically simpler. I believe in simplicity and I have found that National tends to do just the opposite out of necessity. For example, National wanted to change the tradition of boys joining Troops from individually joining to moving all the Webelos over at once. The idea was more boys would crossover if they had a friend and I agree. But, that led to Troop Guides and aged based patrols. That has led to more adult run style of program, which has led into issues of leadership development. In my opinion that has changed average age of a Patrol Leader is at least 2 to 3 years younger than 25 years ago, which means less older scouts staying in the program. The younger Patrol leaders also led the adults to rely more on a JLT style of leadership development. All that leads into a more complicated program for adults to manage. After doing this for a long time, Im convinced that NSPs change made the Troop program much more difficult for adults to manage. And, the numbers haven't improved enough to say it was a success. At least not five years ago. And that was a little change. You can imagine the effects of bringing women leaders into the program. Im actually scared to see the new program. Im glad my sons are adults now because it will be very easy for me to bail out if it gets harder. Maybe it really is time for a new generation of pop culture adults because thats about all who will be left to run the units. I can still barely text message. Barry

>>Don't think for a New York minute that Rush really has a deep caring for conservative causes.

>>Eagledad, If I sounded angry or what not, I want to apologize as that was not my intent

>>I have not yet heard Obama do the same to his opponents. Instead, he talks about why he disagrees with their ideas - not why they're bad Americans. In fact, heck, I believe he hosted a dinner in McCain's honor earlier this week.

>>Hoping he fails isn't a good start to working together for a solution.

Pretty Good Beavh. Three of my SPLs while I was SM were very active in band at the time they were SPLs. It almost killed them, but they were very good SPLs. All our good SPLs were active in other activities. Another bragging story is the local high school where most of our scouts belonged has a yearly student body election where they vote for the top eight leaders of the school. One year six of those voted were also scouts in our troop. The other two voted were girls. Im convinced that if we allowed girls in the troop, all eight would have been scouts in our troop. Ah I love this scouting stuff. Barry

>>It was George W. Bush who led us whole hog down the path of Socialism, with socializing the banking industry, the mortgage industry, the auto industry, and on and on. Where was Rush?

>>Based upon my experiences of going through Brownsea 22 and staffing JLT, these top level scout trainging courses ARE suppose to mimic WB.

This is pretty cool and I'm always in favor of searching for new ideas. However, National did this about 11 years ago with JLT, which resulted in some really good ideas. I didn't see any of the suggestions used. NYLT ended up being almost a copy of Wood Badge. I'm not saying that isn't the right course, but it isn't very innovative. Barry

>>YIs being subversive what you teach your scouts about citizenship?