Eagledad

Everybody has their own personal reason for volunteering, and they are all different. What did you want from the program when you joined. Barry

First off, you don't need to be so defensive, you asked. Accept the opinions a choices. When you say NT, I'm assuming you are talking about the BSA camp. Not only do we not get these questions from outfitters, they actually laugh at our minimal backpacking style equipment lists. Outfitters are more accustomed to clients who bring everything including the kitchen sink. LOL As for your other questions, we brought a lot of the stuff on your list. So is the BSA camp strict with their list. Seems a bit silly. Oh, bicycle riding gloves work very well for paddling cloves. I used the same gloves for both activities. Don't go cheap on dry bags. What I mean is there are a lot of DIY ideas out there that many of our scouts tried and regretted. Get real dry bags. Finally, being a Backpacking style troop, we are minimalist. But you will find that Duluth packs handle A LOT more weight, and are typically packed much heavier than backpacks. The potatoes our outfitter gave us alone was 40 lbs. While we never brought one, we saw a lot of NT travelers bring them. The canoes will be the biggest challenge for scouts. Because most crews are required to make at least two trips at each portage to move their gear, experience travelers in the Northern Tier aren't as concerned with weight like backpackers. So, while some folks advise minimal packing like backpacking, I would suggest that you need to worry about an extra pound or two. You can afford to be a little more comfortable at camp. Worst extreme case is a 3rd trip at each portage. Barry

The answers aren't easy. First, district level positions are chair position, which are generally director level, or even visionary level positions. Most districts don't recruit volunteers with director level skills. In fact, they "likely" don't even have the skills for their specific responsibility like membership chair. So, right at the beginning the district is managed by incompetent volunteers who were recruited only because they were willing to fill a slot. And, district is responsibile for the activity chairman. Our district camporees and Webelorees were getting worse and worse each year. When the committee recognized that most of the directors where volunteering to complete a WoodBadge ticket, we changed the policy of how to recruit district activity directors. But, I can honestly say that the committee still didn't understand their problem, because their solution was to "assign" Scoutmaster to direct these activities. As if all Scoutmasters had the skills to plan and run these events. Where I'm going is that for a district to be the leader in unit quality, quality recruiting is imperative. I would guess that the reason your District Chairman who are burned out by the status quo weren't good recruiters because their committee is reinforcing the status quo. In my opinion, Council should recruit a District Chairman who has the qualifications to RECRUIT. Ideally the District Chairman should also be a visionary and direct the committee toward the goals. But, I would be happy if districts just found someone with recruiting skills to fill their chair positions with competent volunteers. The other area that districts are lacking is a vision or set of goals for the units. I hinted on this moment ago, but think about it, have you heard your committee express goals for standardizing a higher quality programs. Or, are they just doing what they have always been doing. When I was asked by the new district training chairman to help her develop a new district training program, the first thing we did was create a vision to guide our development, then I went out and recruited professional teachers to help develop a plan for reaching the goals. Our program was recognized for a high quality program and the district training chairman earned the Silver Beaver from all those efforts. Finally, quality expectations for units are best set and maintained by the district training committee. The reason I was willing to help the new training chairman was because I knew we could make a big difference with unit quality. Training is the one area where all units typically get continued instruction at the adult level. Training is the one area that can quickly change trends of poor programming. Training has the mechanism to continually inform all the units of acceptable unit performance. I'm not sure if those thoughts help or not. In once since, good recruiting seems logical and even a simple solution for building a quality district committee. But, that isn't so simple if the authoritative folks who control recruiting aren't concerned with qualifications. Probably the hardest step toward a quality district is finding someone with the authority to believe good recruiting is important. And then the next step is the vision. Barry

I found that unit quality at a district level is very dependent on district expectations, or really lack of it. The best district of consistent unit quality have a great training program with activities that mimic expected unit volunteers performance. For example, our district found that units weren't following the recommended BSA advancement procedures because they were using MB University and Summer Camp for the major part of their advancement. Those two programs were even close in following BSA advancement guidelines. So, we changed the way we were doing the MB University and emphasized the BSA advancement guide policies in training. The problem here is that the District expectations change with district chairman changes. So, program quality expectations aren't consistent at the district level either. True, and this can be helped with some training. I managed to prove that by creating a program that trained both Troops and Packs unit leaders in recruiting. However, I believe the elephant in the room is adult burnout. Adult burnout at the cub level causes well over 70 percent of youth from even getting to the Troop program. The Cub program is too complicated for the resources of the average pack. The average parent willingly gives two years of their time. The top heavy cub program demands 5 years from its volunteers. Smaller packs are at a big disadvantage and usually have to reduce their program just to survive. Barry

These words are very profound. I used to teach that observing the oldest scouts in the troop is the best way to measure overall troop quality. If they aren't meeting the goals, then changes have to be made with the whole troop. I have been struggling with the increase of adults without a youth scouting experience for over 25 years. The effects of bringing in female leaders in 1990 was almost immediate and eye opening of how much experience plays in overall program quality. And I give credit to National for responding with new training courses in 2000. But, looking back, training doesn't match a youth scouting experience. In the game of life, youth want adventure, while the adults want measured performance. Adults with a youth scouting experience typically do a better job of balancing measured performance with adventure. I've told the story many times of walking around with a new ASM after he had a few camp outs under his belt. I asked him what he thought of our troop and he said, "I'm surprised to see that even though the adult's camp is almost out of view from the scouts, the scouts' behavior models the adults." swilliams combined troop outings suggestion might be worth a try. Barry

I've said before that while National has failed OA, Arrowmen can still set themselves apart from the other scouts simply by doing scouting at a higher standard. Always in full uniform, always planning and doing service projects, doing the planning for district and council events, high time campers with the reputation of outdoors skills experts. I mention yesterday in another thread that Arrowmen used to be the go to planners for Camporees. If OA wants to be an elite organization, they only have to act like it. But, as someone who has taken on groups to raise the bar, it's a lot of work on the front end to set the vision and follow-thru. First the vision........... Barry

Yeah, me too. Morse Code held my First Class back a few months. I'm reminded of that every time I have a text discussion with my kids. Barry

The typical Scoutmaster back then had a scouting experience as a youth. In fact, most scouters and scoutmasters until the 90s where scouts as youth. Scouting wasn't all that complicated until 90s when YPT and safe scouting guidelines started getting into the weeds of the program. Wood Badge was an advanced leadership course for experienced Scoutmasters. Troops struggle today because most of the scouters joining do not have a scouting experience as a youth. So, they don't have a youth perspective to balance out their adult tendencies. Barry

Where did he get his information? We taught our scouts to start their discussion by showing the sources used for the details of the discussion. Typically the Scout Handbook, field book and MB Books. The scouts in our troop teach Woods tools to the new scouts "and new ASMs" on their first campout. I remember a new ASM Eagle scout came to me saying that he was taught a different technique for sharpening the knife when he was a scout. So we pulled out the Scout Handbook and read that the technique our scout taught was correct. He was very impressed. Barry

I guess the prohibition of skydiving as a scouting activity might seem obvious. But when I was a BSA Scuba Explorer back in the 70s, scuba diving was ranked as the 2nd most dangerous activity behind skydiving. Like scuba diving, skydiving is much safer now than it was then. Barry

Ironic I guess with today's discussions, around here the OA organize running the events. At least they used to. The adults probably help OA with organizing, but you wouldn't see them running them. I guess adults are OK, I'm just not used to it. Barry

Adults run the events? Barry

Being "Called Out" was a public honor in the old days because the candidates was selected by his peers as the best of the best. Getting through "Ordeal" successfully was a personal honor because the candidate had to prove himself, or fail, under high physical and mental expectations. OA has lost respect as an Honor Program because it has taken "honor" out of being selected as a member. Who would have thought that the day has come when saying "No" might be more noble. Barry

I also taught Woods Tools at IOLS and found one hour challenging just because so many adults were so uncomfortable with handling them. Looking back on the last few generations of adult leader courses, I believe the BSA had it right in the 90's because the basic classes were pretty good a defining the big picture, and WB was advanced teaching skills. Instead of reinventing the courses and their structure, they should have added one day specific skills courses. Each course would spend several hours specifically on Outdoor Tools, First Class First-aid, Cooking, leadership development, Patrol Method, Character development and so on. That would give adults more time on specific skills. Or course there would be the challenge of creating these courses several times a year, but if each district took one month with the purpose of offering it for the whole counsel, then adults could count on the course being offered one every month or two. Barry

This has been a big fundraiser for one troop here for 30 years. Barry

Kind of sad. My best friend growing up had two older brothers, so he had a stack of Boys Life magazines that dated back into the 50's. We used to lay on his bedroom floor for hours reading Boys Life and Mad magazines. We almost bought the Hovercraft plans in the back of the magazine. We had a 3.5 horse Briggs and Stratton waiting to be used for the hovercraft or minibike. We ended up getting into scuba and joined a Scuba Explorer Post instead. Scuba had the girls in bikini's that the hovercraft would never had attracted. Barry

Good and Bad has to be defined. Cliques have a negative connotation, but aren't necessarily bad. I remember a story in Readers Digest about the filming the original Planet of the Apes. There were several different types of apes in the movie and Charlton Heston noticed at lunch one day that the different ape groups each hung together during breaks even though there was no reason to. Cliques are natural. Their behavior is what defines them as good or bad. I think the discussion for patrols can be more defined by casual friends and teams. I found that new patrols of casual friends didn't like holding each other accountable because they didn't like risking the friendship. But teams working toward a common goal will take the risk of holding each other accountable to support the effort of reaching the goal. Casual friends will act as a team when the common goal requires it but a patrol of causal friends without goals to drive them to work together isn't really a patrol in the patrol method since. They are just a group of friends with a common patrol patch on their sleeve. The patrol method itself doesn't build a team or patrol, the goals that drives the group to work together is the motivation to come together. Patrol Method is the Scouting process for developing good habits through the action of making decisions while working toward their goals. No goals, no decisions, no patrol method. Even something as simple as preparing a meal is a goal that forces the causal friends to team up. As the goals get more complicated like planning and doing a backpacking trek, the team makes more decisions, which typically forces the team to grow closer together from the growing respect of each other's efforts. Barry

I see this trend on this forum. The discussions are less about working with the youth and more on policy and guidelines. The new female leaders here seem the most involved with getting to core scouting. Good for them. Remember when the popular theme for staying on the path was, "it's all for the boys. Um, and girls". There is so much noise at the adult level now that the youth part of the youth scouting is taking a back seat. I'm here for any discussions with the youth part. I love the youth scouting part. Our family made this very decision with the YMCA sports after a 2 hour YPT type training (lecture). I know the training is for protection, but it had such a social engineering feel to it. Barry

I'm more of the short and sweat kind of person with food or cake somewhere in there for socializing. Maybe a skit, or a couple of funny stories about summer camp? This is a good place for parents to talk to leaders. Six scouts is pretty intimate, so it can't go long without a slide show or something. Scripts are good so long as the speaker understands the subject. Reading words without context come off cold. Have some fun. The COH can get more business as the scouts mature and the troop grows larger. We usually like to pick one adult to make a special praise for their effort or something they did that was memorable, like fall in the lake. Make it short and fun so the one adult part isn't boring. And, PLEASE, No WB Beadings. Barry

It was these kinds of things why District decreed that the chairman for district activities were no longer given to Wood Badgers with a Ticket Item to complete. I am still amazed by how many activities are given to adults with NO experience at the planning level of "that" activity or any planning experience for any major activities. Our district likes to assign Merit Badge University Planning to troops. Apparently I was the first SM to say no. At which point another SM said, "you can no?". Even our scouts assign activity planning assistants to learn for leading future activities. Barry

That's how you teach "No". Barry

LOL. Our 3 year old grand daughter told us the other day that "We don't say no". Different problem for her young parents, they have been saying no so much that the meaning lost it's effect on our very bright grand daughter (we saw it coming). So, they are now using sentences instead of the word "no" to stop the little princess. And starting with please. I know they will figure it out because they want to figure it out. But, "no" is still used at Grammy and Papa's house. We just do it better. 😎 Barry

Surgical supply store? Is that next to Walmart? Barry

Everything you said is true. Still, I've said before that if this litigation happened 20 years ago, I believe the donors would have saved the BSA. The membership social inclusive situations (not sure what to call them) has drove away much of that support. If National did anything wrong, they didn't give their followers any by-in of a future. Barry

One