Eagledad

>>we are looking at (tweaking the system) this coming year only having one Troop Guide per NSP but having the ASPL in charge of the Troop Guides act as a 'floater'

>>My son went last summer at twelve and was in no way mature enough for it but his SM recommended he go,

>>To make this relevant to this thread, a troop with really good retention might produce a lot of Eagles, without being a mill at all.

>>Eagledad, I don't see a difference in our view of guides...our troop tends to have a good range of ages (currently 8 of 55 active boys are 17-18 years old).

Every Troop program is limited by the fears of adults. If I had the courage you appear to have, consider the idea of talking with the adults. The committee meeting possibly. You need to convience the adults that you want to learn how to handle the troop program. THen ask them what is the worst that can happen? And be prepared to reply every situation they throw at you. Be truthful and humble. "I don't know but we will learn together" might be your best reply. But at least you are presenting your case of taking on more. And, from the very begining help them understand that you consider this is a team effort with the PLC and adults. Not just the PLC, not just the adults because the whole idea of learning from your experiences is to have a person of wisdom waiting to guide your questions and struggles. They need to see that you know things can and will go wrong, but you guys just want to take the risk. Does that sound like it could work? I could be way off. But you need to find a way of getting the adults to allow you to step into the unknown. Then see what happens from there. Don't confront them as adults, instead make a proposal for all of you. Barry

>>Sounds to me like you decide which 13yr old should attend even if the SM has signed him up. Am I reading that right?

>>If the SM thinks he has a 12 yr old that is mature enough and can handle it, why not send him.

>>I have seen an interesting trend that maybe others can verify...our best troop guides seem to be the better SPL later in their scout careers...and a good Summer Camp Staff experience seems to bode well also...any thoughts?

Hi all We migrated from white gas to propane, and on to the Coleman gas canisters. Several years back the Venture Patrols wanted a stove that fit their high adventure theme. They ended up testing two Coleman duel burner Exponent backpacking stoves and loved love them ($90.00 at Campmor). They are sturdy because they are duel burner and have a wider footprint than single burner stoves. Light enough for backpacking and virtually indestructible. The troop ended up liking them so much that we replaced all our propane stoves with them. We have use them exclusively on all Troop outtings for over six years. They have been through rain, snow and new scouts, dropped, thrown, stepped on, kicked and dropped in the lake and they still work as new. We have used them from the Boundary Waters to 12000 feet of Colorado Mountains. They have worked at Zero degrees temps in Kansas, which is as far North as Oklahomans are willing to go in winter. The only disadvantage is the cost of fuel is probably twice that of white gas. But once the scouts get use to them and the heat they put out, each Patrol usually uses less than one bottle each weekend (less than $3.00). And we only use two and half bottles per stove on 10 days of Philmont. Just one more suggestion to add to the discussion. Barry

Hi All >>At these ages 12 - 17, age is not a very good indicator of the maturity level of the boys. Come to think of it, I don't think age is ever a very good maturity indicator.

>>Why not train them younger so they can understand what is expected of a junior leader so they can come into a position know what a leader is supposed to do

>>I would say to the ASPL that his idea has merit, but that because the patrol method is part of Scouting, we must find solutions that do not take away the responsibilities of the patrol.

Hi All In my opinion you are doing it right. Proper fitting personal equipment is the biggest difference. You can have bad shoes, socks and packs and still have a fun week of canoeing and portaging. But a bad pair of boots or socks or a bad fitting or heavy backpack makes for a long painful trip at Philmont. Barry

>>Now if anyone has any idea on how we could speed up the process of conversion, I would love to hear as well.

Hi All Anarchist writes a very good post. I have also been involved in turning units around and I agree pretty much with everything except the 9 to 10 years. My experience is more five years to turn a program around because thats what it takes to replace 95% of your scouts. I do agree that it takes more than five years to entrench your program, whatever that program is. This is why the suggestion of training a lot of adults all at once is a good start toward the change. I am watching a very entrench program of 150 scouts in our district changing because their new class of newly trained adults are applying a lot of pressure on the old leadership. Onehour is right about older scouts. I have never seen scouts 14 or older except dramatic changes in program. I learned its best to leave them working the program they are use too, or you will loose them. You have to use the younger scouts to develop the new program. Good discussion Barry

Good reply Semper. Also, I found some Packs call up Webelos and send him across the bridge without mentioning the troop they are joining. It can be stressful for the SMs if they aren't sure they know the scouts joining their troop. So find and meet your Webelos before the ceremony. I've seen this happen a few times because many times the adult who recruited the scouts isn't the one at crossover. I pretty much let our scouts do most of the work with me just shaking the scouts hand. Barry

>>You might want to look first to the new adults to help you on this as they will be the most open to change.

Hi All Weve had a couple broken arms, cuts, and things like that. Many of those injuries came from wrestling around. Boys love to wrestle. The cut was just plain stupid. But blisters are one injury Ive seen cause a lot of concern because we are usually in the middle of Gods country when they occur. I can usually stop them if the scout lets us know early enough, but if they let them get too far along, the scout has a miserable trip. Barry

>>On the other hand, if the CURRENT uniform is a hindrance because of the way it looks or fits, of the way it is useless in the field, and how much it costs, then it seems to me that something can and should be done about it.

Hi All Im not surprised with the PLs actions. He felt trapped and reacted in the only way he knew to ease his struggle. That is what we humans do. The SM just needs to counsel him and give him more tools for dealing with these kinds of situations, a good life lesson. The lesson for the adults is take that as a new experience to add to our bag wisdom. Now, Im with Eammon that you have to pull the parents in here. You didn't really say it, but I also have a feeling that they are part of the problem. We had a situation like this in our Troop and here is the thing, the troop is going to have to step out of their normal routine with this scout and the parents need to know that up front. DONT HIDE ANYTHING. I say that because this blew up in our SMs face. Be up front, about the whole situation so the parents understand that the Troop adults are not trained physiologist who can handle any and all boy behaviors that show up in the troop, you need help. Now they may or may not care, but there should be no surprises down the road. I would even suggest that you keep your UC and DE updated on the situation. In our case, the parents went strait to the Council Executive to complain about our troop, but were surprised that that he already knew about situation because we keep our DE updated. And who knows, they just might have some valuable advise. I think assigning an ASM to the scout and/or patrol is a great idea. I saw this work faster than any other idea we tried. If you can, get the parents to hang around at the meeting and campout as well. But that didnt work for us. Im glad the Eammon mentioned the PLC, but Im surprised that the SPL was never mentioned. They are closer to this situation than the adults. If the troop structure is working as designed, each scout has a scout up the ladder to go for for advice or help. How did the SPL get left out? Any guidance given to the PL in this situation should also be given to the SPL and possibly the PLC because they were likely approached first, or at least saw this coming before the SM. I realize that this kind of thing is even a challenge for the adults, but in a boy run troop structure, they need to at least be trained and counseled in dealing with these kinds of situations because it could happen again, as I said, they see it first. I have a feeling the SPL might have at least help the PL understand that shunning a scout is not the best approach. Lets go talk with the SM and get his help. Boy, I wish the best of luck to you on this one, it was a tough go for us. By the way, the scout is still with us. He is still a bit of a challenge, but not out of our control now. He and his parents do understand the limits. Barry

Hi All We present the Badge at the first Troop meeting after National approves it. It's slightly differernt in that all Eagle Scouts are invited in the middle of the circle to present the badge to the Scout. The scout really enjoys that because he now stands with that elite group. Being a Life scout, that was the one time I as the SM stood outside the circle. I very much enjoyed showing that honor. I love scoutering. Our scouts choose when they want to wear the badge, but we've had scouts wait as long as nine months to do a COH (My son was one) and that is a long time to wait for the badge. The Eagle Award has different meanings to different families. We've had a couple of COHs that were no less complicated or costly than a wedding. Barry

Hi Vicki I wasnt trying to imply anything, thats a pretty good ticket item and one I would like to suggest to others. I think my experience was blinding me to ideas of how to make it a ticket, and I was wondering how you did it. I expect that what ever your results are, you could write a how to book of units working with disabilities. Your focus is on dwarfs, but I imagine most of what you learn can apply to most disabilities. If I were your TG, I would suggest your report be distributed to your district, and possibly the council. Good luck and thanks for all the families whose life you make more enjoyable. Barry

As a WB Patrol Guide, Im curious to how you wrote the ticket. Working with families of disabled scouts was a very long process, how do you know when you complete this part of your ticket? Barry

Hi Vickil Some good advice from the others, I can only add that in many situations the parents have to take the lead, but this is probably as much a learning process for the parents as it is you. They simply don't know. I learned to work with the parents as a team and it works best when everyone is open and flexible. Which brings me to the other part of this; the District and Council helped me when the requirements restricted the scout progress in the program. I found everyone wants the program to be a positive growth experience for all the scouts, so just call them when situations require it. You just never know where these guys will go. Im a certified Professional Pilot and one of my instructors was dwarf. Last I heard, he now flys for a small airline. Have a great week. Barry

>>I have an energetic young PL that kept suggesting amusement parks at our annual planning session. I could tell the SPL and the other PLC members weren't that interested in doing it.