Eagledad

Scouts Canada has been going hyper liberal since the 90s. This actually might be a tactic to appeal to conservatives. Barry

You may be right, but we had a lot of scouts with moms who used scouts to give their son more male role modeling.

Why would so many girls families join the dysfunctional Boy Scouts. Nobody knows BSA is dysfunctional. Very few on this forum even believe it. BSA started loosing itself when National started becoming more inclusive by watering down the program way back in the 60s. It continued with Tigers, more Eagles, and New Scout Patrols. These all contributed to a complicated program lost in mediocrity. Pack adults can barely keep their head above water while troop adults push scouts for advancement and leadership in a race for rank. If National doesn’t believe the BSA Mission and Vision, how can anyone else? Barry

I hear a lot of companies considering this approach, but I think they need to give it more time. After talking with folks who have been working out of their home for years, they aren't so keen on the idea because there is no place to go for stress relief of the work day. In fact, the distractions at home have their own added stresses. One person I know travels, or traveled, a week out of every month and that made the working at home acceptable. Now, he is going crazy. I know another who is planning to do the same thing, but the present environment only allows very limited travel if any. Barry

Guilty as charged. I led into my post with the track record of your opinion on scout uniforms. Barry

If you've never met a Mic-O-Say member, then you haven't experienced true unapologetic dedication. Scouters in that area either love it or hate it. No in between of what I understand. Mic-O-Say is a Super-Turbocharged version of OA. Most members I believe come from around the KC counsels, but many members are from much farther away. Barry

Maybe, but is there anything scouting can use for developing character that wouldn't be offensive to somebody. Even reverent is offensive to some here. At some point the Oath and Law will be changed and the pledge of allegiance discouraged. Barry

You are crossing two different subjects, my example of uniform of the 1940s, 1970s and 2020 has nothing to do with a my opinion of using Native American lore in the program. Barry

Religious choices? It's not about religion, it's about culture.Should non Native Americans be offended with Native Americans square dance or clog? Are you not a hypocrite if you aren't offended. When you start down those cliffs of slippery slops, you can't stop. Barry Ummmm, so!

I will be glad to have this discussion in a different topic because I wore my dads scout uniform in the 70s that he wore in the 40s. I have experience of your opinion. Garb, Uniform, Field, call it what you want, it's part of the scouting program. At least their part. I think your key word here is "I". Did you even research Mic o say? I mean the purpose of the program and philosophy behind the "Garb". Along with OA, discipline of making and wearing the custom develops and understanding and respect for the culture and cultural values. We live in a heavily populated state of Native Americans and I have never heard one say they felt disrespected by the Scouts. In fact, they felt honored that their culture was given as an example of the best of character. But we live in a time of activism, so I am not surprise of anyone being offended anymore. Barry

Yes, but you admitted in an earlier thread that you don't understand or care for the scouting uniform either, so you would likely struggle with any reasoning for group uniform in scouts. Honor from any tradition values requires respect. If one isn't willing to start with respect, how can they even conceive principles that are the foundation of the values? As for "their religious culture", are any Christians calling out christian Native Americans? Barry

Much of the time, if not most of the time, the CO really isn't that in touch with the program, the unit, or the COR. In fact, they appoint a COR so they don't have to get personally involved with the program. In their mind, they are basically just providing a facility for the units to meet. So, the CORs are usually either inactive, or over active. And just like everything else, if the COR wants to use the position for selfserving reasons, there isn't much to get in their way. The worst CORs are typically also unit leaders using their leverage to push the program as they see fit. I agree that a better path is to become friends with the COR, but, my experience is that meeting and getting to know the CO solves more problems down the road. While CORs come and go, the CO head is usually around for the long haul. We once struggled with the Chartered Organization to the point of looking for a new CO. When SE found out how serious we were about changing COs, he got personally involved and changed Chartered Organization perspective our a youth scouting program and found a new COR. Life was good again, but one of the issues that the CO was using as an excuses to not to like us was the ceiling tiles in the meeting room were being continually damaged. Which didn't make since to us, we couldn't see how our scouts would do that. The new COR investigated this issue and found that the GIRLS SCOUTS where tearing up the ceiling tiles with their flag poles and the youth Sunday School classes where throwing balls a the tiles between classes. The CO was quite humble after that and we never hand any issue with them going forward. Barry

When I stated doing scouting stuff at the district and council level, I developed a great deal of respect for the paid scouters because I observed and experienced a lot of bad acting by volunteers. The tragedy of a any volunteer organization is that volunteers with bad character are given authority positions because the organizations need volunteers to function. There is no real interview or mental testing of these folks, so you get a lot of folks in positions of authority that would never be given such responsibility anywhere else. And, even the non volunteer parents who are indirectly involved will often make a mountain out of molehills. As a unit leader, I've been involved with several situations where volunteers were asked to stay away from the scouts. But, when I saw how often the paid scouters had to deal with these people on a daily basis, I don't know how they put up with it. I really don't. SSScout's list is ideal, but it is not real world. Don't get me wrong, the OPs situation is bad. But, there are a lot of situations that are much more serious. And most situations don't just happen out of the blue. They more often develop in front of witnesses over weeks or months to where eventually the situation crosses the line and has to be dealt with in a serious manner. This happens because most people don't like confrontation and turn a blind eye. They are waiting for that one person, maybe even the parent, to step up and stop it. And then the responsible adults get a call in the middle of night. And once in a while, the call comes from the police. I have that T-Shirt. Yes, in this situation, the committee should have stepped in. But I could tell by the OPs post that the committee didn't have the courage. Most of committees don't. Interestingly to me, I find moms make better CCs for this one reason. Their motherly instinct that we often talk about getting in the of the Patrol Method is also the instinct that will stop bad acting by adults. When I look to build a unit adult staff, I learned to look for balance. A good unit requires understanding the goals of the program while insuring the program is safe. That is harder than you would think. Barry

Ironically, my go to person for getting action in this kind of situation is the District Commissioner (UC's director). Like Fred, my experience is COR's aren't reliable in these things. Sure, keep them in the communication loop, but don't wait for them to act. As for telling a parent their place of authority in a volunteer youth organization, the threat of litigation always levels the field. Barry

LOL, nothing in your responses reflect Scouting experiences. What else could I have glean from that? Barry

Mandate! Sheesh. Is anything mandated in the scout run program? Patrol method? Do you have the experience and maturity to let the scouts run their program within their handbooks? As I said, if hardship were taken out of the discussion, could their be an intellectual discussion in the forum today? Barry

Depends on the motivation of the Scoutmaster. Why is it that when someone has a different opinion, they have to be disrespected? For me the issue isn't two different opinions, the issue is the unwillingness to listen. One doesn't have to agree to a different perspective to be friendly, courteous and kind. In fact, isn't the quality of character measured by the re-action. There are as many approaches to working with scouts as there are personalities. ynot suggest that egos are in play here, but does motivation to express a perspective matter if the discussion is respectful, even informative. Several of us have a lot of experience with successful programs. The wisdom gained for that success came at a cost of struggling through many bad decisions. Mixed age or same age patrols, Venture patrols or not, new scout programs, successful summer camps, older scout programs, eagles. How did we get there? Doesn't that experience have value? Wouldn't a new leader want to at least consider the pitfalls as they venture into the complex world of Patrol Method? When I propose uniforms should be required, nobody asked why. Instead hostility followed. Why? It's not a new discussion, in fact I would say I participated in many dozens of them. Intellectual discussions. I used to teach in Scoutmaster Specific that Uniforms and advancement are the two most challenging methods of scouting for adults and scouts. And for opposite reasons. Nothing seems to have changed except that how one gives an opinion. Now we have to put on armor to get in a discussion. I miss the days when Scouters on this forum would dissect a subject to find the best way for it's application. That used to be a normal everyday discussion. Several at one time in fact. I haven't seen that kind of discussion in a while. While I'm not in favor of adding girls to the program, I did look forward to helping the new female leaders learn the mysterious ways of developing youth into adults. Barry

Ego, LOL. There is no discussion here on idealism of developing character, just personal character denigrating for winning the last word. Must be a sign of the times, the forum used to be filled with intellectual discussions of personal ideals. The irony is that pride is the general motivator for using character denigration as an argument to get the last word. TAHAWK, National created the loophole for hardship situations, not general practice. Refer to the ScoutHandbook, it doesn’t give the scout a choice. Wouldnt it be the prideful adult that would dictate otherwise? Weak leaders use the loophole as a crutch. The wise Scoutmaster encourages Scouts to use the Handbook for guidance in the direction of actions and decisions. The Handbook has no pride or prejudice like adults, just guidance for growing into adults of character. When allowed scouts will use their resources for their program. Barry

The loophole is your principal argument. I’m ok with that. Barry

It’s not about pleasing adults, it’s about developing moral and ethical decision makers. Under your theory, a scout doesn’t have to do a thing and would be fine. But, the patrol would struggle dragging the selfish anchor. Barry

National created the loophole for hardship. Scouts needs an excuse because they made a wrong decision. The scout handbook clearly describes how a scout should wear the uniform. Barry

These discussions always teeters on affordability. If the scout can afford a uniform, then what. Is there any excuse for not wearing it when it is expected . Barry

Yes, I like that. I would be interested in learning how Israel scouts trains adults. Barry

Sea scouts works because it requires more than just sailing from the scouts to be successful. The scouts were, and still are, expected to run the program. Most of the those types of programs were successful because the scouts took more interest than just the theme activity. Even today there are many successful Venturing Crews and Troop Adventure Programs because the scouts push the program forward. They are just shadowed by the many adult created adventure programs that hang on to the adults passion. I was part of an Explorer post when I was a youth, It was a very maturing experience. Quite different than the troop program in that the scouts were the operation managers and owners. The adults were more of just an interested resource. It was an attitude difference; scouts in the troop can run the troop, but there is always the hanging feeling that the adults are just waiting to jump in when something goes amiss. Scouts in the Explorer Post are part owners. They are responsible for the bad days as well as the good. I tried very hard to take that in our troop while I was a SM, and succeeded in many ways, but the troop program struggles with a large difference of maturity in the age spectrum. While the older scouts buy-in, they younger scouts still feel like they are part of a youth program. It works, because the older scouts teach by the actions of role modeling. But the challenge is greater on the adults, if they are even willing. Also, as you implied, the culture expected more maturity from youth in those days. Older scouts could just grab a sailboat and give it a try. At age 16, my dad was the SM of his troop. They would meet at the church steps on a Friday afternoon and hike out of the small town of Laurel Mississippi with their gear to find a place to camp. Sometimes an adult might attend, but it was WWII, many times it was just the Scouts. Adults back then gave youth more independence to drive their passions. I had an adult scouter friend who had much the same kind of experience in a small town in Oklahoma during the 60s. He and other scouts took turns being the SM because there weren't any adults available. He told me something I had never heard before about summer camp. The counselors at his camp camped alone in their specific theme area. Scouts would show up at any time to work on their specific badge, and then move on. He was expected to keep his campsite neat and clean and always wore a clean full uniform. He said that kind of responsibility was the best scouting for developing boys into men. There was nothing like that for his son. I remember that he was always in a ironed clean uniform when I saw him. He had a different respect for scouting that most of us don't have. Those scouts sound special to many of us today because they were special. If a boy wasn't interested in scouting, he wasn't scouts. If he was interested, then he gave his all. I remember being grateful for my experience in the Explorers when I was elected the president of our flying club in college. That club held national honors and the expectations on me were huge. It was the first time that held such a responsibility. I was naive and scared, but my experience in Explorers gave me enough confidence to take things one step at a time. I just did what I learned in the Troop and Explorers. And that experience gave me the confidence to be successful in my career. I have a lot of respect for Sea Scouts as well as it's history. Barry

Adventure patrols are difficult in nature to manage while at the same time maintaining a positive performance troop program. Rare is the adult who can achieve that kind of troop program. I only know of one SM (a mentor of mine) who managed to balance the two programs in the troop, and he has since retired. Our troop compromised by encouraging Temporary Adventure Patrols. Any scout, any age, could create a Temporary Adventure Patrol for whatever activity he wanted so long as he was the leader and recruited the members to manage it. The patrols were intended for one adventure outing and then it dispersed. It was an outside troop activity, so the scouts in the patrol had to meet outside of normal troop activities. All our Philmont and Northern Tier trips were Temporary Adventure Patrols. Along with the Scuba trip, Alaska trip, countless backpacking trips. We usually had at least one Snow Ski Adventure trip every couple of years. While the membership Chair for the district, I observed several troop programs that started Venture Patrols and Venturing Crews to give the older scouts a separate program. They generally dissolved in three years do to lack of interest. The problem is the motivation of the adventure patrols was wrong. If the older scouts were not happy with the program as Troop Scouts, what was going to make the program more interesting as Adventure scouts. Troop leaders need to develop the troop program to challenge the maturity of older scouts instead of splitting the troop with a program intended only to entertain them. The successful adventure programs are the ones where the scouts are "learning conservation and leadership skills in an outdoor setting."That kind of program requires challenging both the physical and intellectual abilities of the scouts. That is the kind of program that rewards a young adult for their efforts and makes them want to continually apply themselves. Barry