Eagledad

Its fine; scouting is a program for individual growth, so there is nothing wrong with self-motivated fast tracking. My experience is these guys usually slow down a little as they get more involved with the other cool stuff the program offers like leadership, troop business, OA, and so on. Watch to make sure they dont burn themselves out to where they hate the thought of advancement. On the other side, also insure they are learning the values that come from advancement as well like patience, follow-through, good planning techniques, communication, documents management and other life skills not coming to mind at this moment. Barry

Either this is a fairly new rule or we just didn't know it because a couple of our crews in the past have had single person tents. I do agree that single tents do add weight and is a good reason to reconsider if you can. The bear and log suggestion is interesting, I always thought dirty scouts smelled like grub worms, now I have support. And, I guess that answers the question of what a bear does with logs in the woods. Beary

>>Further, around here at least, WB is still marketed primarily to troop and crew leaders, with minimal effort to reach out to cub leaders. No wonder they're not signing up in droves.

Complete the course now and your Council has one more resource for staff on their next course. Barry

>>Summer camp partials can be annoying. We tell the Scouts they must try to finish their summer camp partials by the next summer camp or they must try to complete them their. We've had pretty good success this way.

Thanks for the clarification. JLT has been used, in our council anyway, as a generic term for teaching junior leadership. I was the Council Chairman of Junior leadership Training (JLT) responsible for all junior leadership training in the council. Considering half our districts have their own courses that ranged from Brown Sea, Pine Tree, DJLT, and so on, along with units calling their courses anything from JLD to UJLT, it can get mighty interesting trying to force one name on all that training. We use JLT because it would otherwise be impossible to have a reasonable discussion in different units and districts. We even included Den Chief training under the classification of JLT. JLT for us is not just two course is by National; it is part of a leadership method. Of what I understand, calling it TLT allows National some room to create National issued district level course in the future if they decide to do so. DYLT? Now Im sure you can tell Im not a one size fits all kind of guy. Most Council JLT Chairman arent because of the verity of needs of 650 different troops in a dozen different districts. I look forward to Nationals Unit level JLT training, call it what you want. But I would never limit a unit to just that course. Barry

>>Anyone know of any other AV items that could be useful?

>>In a sense I suppose that we would be using the SPL & PL handbooks as our sylabus. Does anyone know why the BSA has removed most information about how a troop runs in the handbook?

>>Sure Barry... I've heard that one before. Now we know the truth. Kudo is your alternate personality... :-) It's nice knowing both of you!

That did the trick, thanks Michelle. I wasn't clicking "Edit your Profile" the second time. OK, looks like we are back in business. Have a great scouting week everyone. Barry

Thanks Beav, I did try that and as you saw, I couldn't find anyplace to change the email address anywhere. Barry

Hi All I can't seem to find the information anywhere else, so I will ask here. I have a new email address, but how do I change that with Scouter.com without creating a new username and password? Thanks in advance for any an all help.

Whoops, In my hurry in the last post, I forgot to delete Kudo and sigh off with Barry. I Love this scouting stuff. Barry

>>I don't understand the meaning of that sentence, but I would point out that the big advantage of "Intensive Training in the Green Bar Patrol" is that the Scoutmaster himself trains his Patrol Leaders. >Where exactly does the BSA teach Patrol Leaders how to actually run a Patrol? And more importantly, where exactly does the BSA actually teach Scoutmasters how to teach a Patrol Leader how to actually run a Patrol?>I suspect that when most of us talk about "The Patrol Method," we are really talking about running Troop meetings, and that we mentally discount anything that would not be as equally useful to all Junior Leaders (an ASPL, for instance) as being too "Position specific," and not abstract enough.>The BSA thus sacrifices the Patrol Method to the efficiency of the "Leadership Development" Method in Junior Leader Training, in the same way that most summer camps sacrifice the Patrol Method (in the form of Patrol cooking) to the efficiency of the "Advancement Method" (making sure that the Patrol Method does not get in the way earning lots of Merit Badges at summer camp).

Hi All After reading Kudus vision of a Council level JLT, I must ask; do we need a SM anymore? I think it is important that we understand who we are training and what they should already know when they come to the course and what do we want council to really teach. We ran into this very problem a few years ago in our council and we came up with two decisions for our JLTC course at the time; 1. JLTC was a course for senior scouts, so we assume that scouts already knew their basic scout skills and Patrol Method. 2. This was a course to teach advanced leadership skills to the troop senior leadership. We again assume they already experienced basic leadership practices like leading a patrol and attended PLC meetings. Our goal was teaching how to run better meetings, writing and using agendas, and learning additional leadership skills. All of this was based from the SPL and PL Handbooks. Even more interesting as we worked to improve JLTC performance and reputation, we polled SMs in the Council and found that most didnt even listen to their scouts after they came back from the course. So the skills and information the scouts took away from the course wasnt getting down into the Troops. Its not that the SMs were evil of even negligent, they just didnt know what Council was teaching, so they didn't know how to support the scouts with their new skills. Im not sure the NYLT has approached that problem even now. After reading this thread, I feel the real problem isnt providing a course to teach Scouts skills, Patrol Method or Leadership to the scouts, but we instead need a course that teaches Scoutmasters that they are supposed to teach Scout Skills, Patrol Method and Leadership to the scouts. Some how SM SPecific isn't working. Our Council tried to attack this problem by requiring at least one adult for every Troop represented at JLTC attend a half day course that highlighted the Scoutmasters responsibilities of teaching Patrol Method, scout skills and leadership that is presented in the Patrol Leaders hand book, SPL handbook and Scout Handbook along with the advanced skills taught at the course. We then had these leaders sit down with their scouts for an hour and review what the scouts had learned that week and the goals they wrote for the troop using their new skills. This was an attempt to get the adults engaged to what the course was teaching and also a stepping off point for the adult leader and scout to work together in using the new skills. Comments were very positive about this approach and some Scoutmasters felt made a big difference in their program. I do like the looks of NYLT so far and I hope it helps a lot of boys become better leaders. I know National worked hard this time to build a high performing course. Thanks for all you have done to help Dan. Good discussion. Have a great week. I love this Scouting stuff. Barry

>>Troops generally have these adult squabbles when there's no shared "vision".Find a different program whose "vision" matches yours, and whose style is a good fit for your son. Or go to a current troop "suspending disbelief" and agreeing to be supportive even when you disagree. If you can't do either, then start one... but know that starting a troop is the equivalent of starting a small business.

>>The Winter Solstice is the "shortest" day of the year and ushers in the season of Winter.

>>A joyous solstice greeting to all Scouts and Scouters

All of your ideas are really good ones and I know your program will grow from them. I have a bit of experience in this area and I will throw a few observations that we learned over the years. The big weekend and little weekend is a really good approach. We had the attitude that everything can and should be fun. I wasnt one of these, sometimes leadership isnt fun kind of people. In that, we found that repeated JLT isnt fun for scouts. I am presently doing my annual Contracting Officers Representative training at work, and after four years, I hate it because it is the same thing over again. Anyway, what you have to focus on is the intention of all your trainings. Dont do JLT just because it is part of Boy Scouting. It has to be purposeful. We eventually developed one big weekend a year and a little weekend after every election. All scouts whom of at least First Class rank had to take the course if they wanted to be a Patrol Leader or above. It was a series of leadership skills and team building classes. We started by doing a full outdoor weekend course but eventually developed into an 18 hour in door overnight course. We found that scouts learn more and faster indoors because the atmosphere was different from the campouts and they felt more adult. Cant explain why, but it works. I did the same thing at our JLTC and we saw the same results there as well. Our Big Weekend was usually planned six weeks a head by a JASM and three other older scouts. The SM has some training sessions, but the older scouts do most of the weekend training. The little weekend JLT was about three hours long and led by both the SPL and SM. The first hour was a quick review of all the leadership positions (scouts and adults) and Aims and Methods. The second hour was a review of the SPLs goals for the next six months. Each scout and his adviser spent the last hour setting goals for their position and getting some training for the position itself. Some positions like Patrol Leaders and Quartermasters may have had additional training during the next week. After the three hours was over, the PLC had a lock-in, which we found was a great bonding experience. Its also important to understand that JLT sessions like we are talking about dont teach scouts that much leadership. Most JLT comes from the scouts watching the other scout youth leaders in action. You will usually find the troops with the best leaders are the ones where the young scouts are always around the older scouts. The more they are separated, the worse the skills because the young scouts dont get to observe the older scouts. The very simple reason is boys learn by watching, not listening, which is what they do at JLTs. I also observed that scouts learn most of their leadership skills by age 13. Yes, they will learn more as they grow, but most leadership habits they will use in the troop until 18 were learned by age 13. That is one reason why new Scoutmasters who take over troops and want to make dramatic changes struggle with scout 14 and older. Anyway, you should consider JLT starts the day the new scout arrives. After the first six months, a scout should have some responsibility in the patrol. Not much, but enough that he has to communicate with other patrol members and enough that he has some expectations. Like Cheer Master, he should give a report at each patrol corners on the next skit they will perform on the next campout. He is expected to find, lead, and participate in that skit. That simple task teaches communication, planning, completion of task and confidence of being an important member of the group. JLT courses like the big weekend and little weekend should be viewed as filling in the spaces of leadership development where the program is failing. In other words, if the troop doesnt do well with communication, then that should be a JLT subject during the weekend course or even added to a PLC meeting. At the same time, the Scoutmaster should be working with the SPL to improve that problem in the program. As far as Im concerned, the Scoutmaster should be working toward a Troop that does not need weekend JLTs because his program is working perfectly. Dont worry folks, no program is perfect and there are always leadership skills that need to be worked on, but if you take this approach, then you arent providing a JLT course for the sake of just something the do. Weekend JLT courses need to be filling need. I really like the idea of involving other troops too. We do this and it really works well. Not just for the participants but we ask the other troops to provide staff to train with us for six weeks. Those guys really enjoy that whole experience. Well that is long, sorry. But I commend you guys, your thinking out of the box and giving great ideas. Watch out, others will notice your success and want to learn more. I love this scouting stuff. Barry

>>The floor of a Army Reserve Center sleeps just fine after 12 hours on the road and it has a/c and hot showers.

You can do what we did a few years ago. We started doing short hikes into all our campsites (anywhere from a quarter mile to a mile). The PLC required the scouts carry everything in except food and tents. Our heavy car camping gear started getting replaced with lighter gear and the scouts got use to the idea of packing and using the backpacks. The gear we use on all our high adventure treks like Philmont and Northern Tier is the same gear the Patrols use each month on Troop campouts. Hiking from that point isnt such a scary thing then. I do agree that scouts can backpack as soon as they join the troop. We adjusted the distances on backpacking campouts to the maturity of the scouts. New scouts usually can go three to five miles depending on the terrain. But even a mile is a lot of fun and builds a lot of confidence. We keep a few old packs around to loan to scouts who cant afford one yet. But I encouraged new scouts to look at getting a backpack as soon as they can. Not so much for backpacking, but for teaching him how to become self-reliant on living from only what he can pack. Packs also take up a lot less space in cars. Barry

>>The parts of the training that got their attention and prompted the most discussion was the "Start - Stop - Continue" assessment of how the Troop was doing and asking them "What do you need?". We got a lot of good ideas on how to improve the program from these sessions and a list of new equipment and items to bring up to the committee.

>>Will this work? We will see. As for now, the boys are really looking forward to this, and they are taking responsibility to plan it.

This is good information, thanks for the report. Barry

Hi all Our troop guides also stay with the Patrols for all the presentations for the same reasons as you stated Eamonn. I also am asking that our troop guides try to explain the point of each presentation on one sentence. Im trying to get them to study the context of the subject while they practice the presentation so they understand its purpose within the context of other presentations. I wasn't really thinking about the media so much as visual aids. One example our course director gave is the Communication presentation with two small plastic toy scouts or figurines, don't know where he got them. But he set the toy scouts facing each other, then he stacks a toy block or Lego blocks between the toy scouts as he talks about those things that hinder or black good communication. Then as the he listed good habits of communication, he remove the blocks eventually leaving no blocks between the toy scouts, which represent no blocks to good communication. That is an example of the types of props I'm talking about. Now, I'm more of a storyteller in my presentations. I don't like to read the text strait from the book, but some are very good at it. I like to give verbal examples that help explain the intent of the subject. Props and reading text are just not my style. But it works for some folks, so a a couple of our Troop Guides were asking for other ideas. I am open to all presentation ideas if it will help a TG feel more confident. What Im trying to do is get the TGs to find a style the fits with their personality. My hope is that it will help the present the material with more confidence. Keep it coming and thanks. Have a great week. Barry