Eagledad

Very common with both packs and troops. I was called more than once by the district to help settle units squabbling over territories. Recruiting for most units is a challenge because the skills required aren't common of most adults. Units like the families to initiate the recruiting process because that requires very little effort. Some adults just have a hard time marketing and selling their program. Barry

You explained it pretty well. Duluth Packs are prefect for canoe trips with portaging. They are terrible for everything else. They could even carry the kitchen sink. What makes the Duluth special for the portaging is they have the durability to load and unload a lot of heavy gear easier in unstable shorelines with slippery slimy rocks and shifting sand. One pack can hold the equivalent of 4 backpacks. Durability is important because they are pulled out of the canoes in one motion and tossed several feet to land. Because they hold so much gear, they get heavy quick and don't have the adjustability of backpacks for comfort. Using big Duluths are desired so that the crew reduces the number of hikes carry get all their gear. Barry

Great questions. This is where I feel the Scoutmasters opinion is important. Of the hundreds of scouts I watched go thru our troop, two scouts stick out that had the skills and maturity Oldscout448 ask of first year scouts. Both where Chapter Chiefs and both were our youngest SPLs at age 14. Barry

What is a Junior Scout and who picks him? I don't see the OP getting much support from Scoutmasters for his concern. The reason is Scoutmasters continually receive a lot of heat from parents for how they run the troop. Of course Scoutmasters can abuse the privilege, but they are the designated person to draw the line for minimum quality of a scout. The SM is the gatekeeper for keeping the program fair and equal for each and all scouts. If the SM is taken out of that role, then who sets the standard? As mashmaster points out, it will be the squeaky wheel parent of the week. Once the parents start setting the quality standard, all standards go away because each parent is only in it for their son. The only way an unsatisfied parent can change the quality of program for their son is to either switch to another troop or change Scoutmasters. I've watched parents do both and no matter what those parents choose to do, they are never satisfied. Of course the SM will listen to the parents concern, and sometimes the concern is valid and an adjustment is made. But, more often, the SM has to ease the parents concern and sell the program once more. I'm not sure which is better, I was Scoutmastering before email was a standard form of communication and on the phone every night listening to concerned parents. It's one thing to type a few words in an emotional haste and hit "Send", it's another to confront the calm tone of the polite human who carries the weight of a program that takes dozens of sons into the woods to build character, and then bring them home safely. Barry

I guess, but in our area OA suddenly shows up at a meeting to do the election. Oh we may get a couple days warning, but it's not like there are months of preparation and counseling before the election. I'm not even sure how parents find out about it. If I'm counseling any scouts about qualification, it's usually the night of the election because it suddenly came up. And as I said, when it comes to first year scouts, I counseled more parent than scouts. When did not getting elected become a bad thing? Not getting elected should be normal because it's a program for elite scouts. Or was. In my opinion, OA is only for mature scouts. Scouts should have enough maturity and knowledge of OA to counsel their parents about the program and process, not the SM. That much maturity and knowledge requires some scouting experience. And maybe that should be the standard SM response to parents, "Go ask you son. If he doesn't have a satisfactory explanation, then he's not qualified yet." Barry

I'm sure litigation was the motivation, but we had a scout break his arm during an activity that we forgot to submit a tour permit. When I reported the incident and that we forgot the tour permit, the response was "No Biggy". I was told later that the professionals knew that any good lawyer could hold the BSA to their word of taking responsibility. I can see that you are skeptical of councils big brother approach to forcing units to follow a check list, I was too. But when I volunteered at the district and council level, I learned that more adults than you would think are very thoughtless of safety in their activities. At some point, it's not as much about litigation as it is the safety of other parents sons. It's great that your troop creates such a checklist for your activities, but I assure you, your troop is not the norm. Barry

You know MattR, there is a SM Minute there somewhere. I think you are right. Anger is a great positive motivator when done correctly. Over the years of parenting, coaching, scout leading and so on, I replaced showing anger as a motivator with showing disappointment. I don't think developing the technique was purposeful, but I was deeply conscious of the limits for disciplining other parents sons. I didn't want to correct their bad choices, I wanted them to correct themselves. I was searching for a style that accomplished the same positive motivation of anger, without showing anger. Changing that style wasn't an intentional or overnight, bad choices on my part and the humility that followed was part of the long process. But, I realized the power of disappointment as a motivator when a few scouts, who made some wrong choices, were standing near me waiting for my reaction. A scout later told me during a SM Conference that the more I talked in those situations, the less gilt they felt. I guess in my style, less is more. I don't discount the respect the scouts were giving me in wanting my approval. Looking back at it, I love this scouting stuff. We all have our style, but I see my style in my adult kids now. Good or bad, role modeling is very powerful. Barry

Yes, I agree. One thing l learned about adult leaders is that they need check-offs to measure their performance. That is why the "Advancement Method" is so abused; the Scouts' advancement checklist in "his" book is an easy way for the adults to measure how they are doing. I was a little surprised that National took away tour permits. Maybe the bureaucracy was more than the councils could handle, but it was a good preparation checklist for traveling with a troop full of scouts. The PLC filled out the Tour Permit in our troop. Barry

I could 20 years ago, I don't save that stuff. But it educated me to pinpoint the causes of the problems. Obviously you are free to follow your feelings. Barry

Wow! condemn all the SM's from the example of one. The SM in most cases has the most knowledge of where the scouts stand in the program. If you want to get it back to merit based, then I suggest setting the NATIONAL age to 13 so the AVERAGE scout has a good understanding and maturity of what he wants. Otherwise, the SM is the most knowledgable expert for this situation. Barry

What I mean is more scouts crossing over to feed the troops. All my data (20 years ago) showed less than 50% of Webelos joining troops.I was accounting 75% of those dropouts to boring Webelos programs. The thing is that boys of this age relate their future interest of a program to their present experience. If they are experiencing a fun den meeting each week, it doesn't matter what kind of program the troop is presenting, the Webelos are thinking fun fun fun. Well, the same is true for weak boring programs as well. In general, den meetings are a reflection of the leaders energy and excitement. To give you and idea of how serious I think burnout is, National changed their Tiger program in 2000 to require MORE meetings and MORE adult time for the families of that age group. We predicted the troop numbers would reflect the program change in 2005 because that would be the first year of crossovers affected by the change. Sure enough, membership dipped in 2005. It wasn't hard to see, we learned what was hurting the cub program in the 90's. National threw fuel on the fire in 2000. Did they learn? Lions. Barry

Thinking back, I can't recall a single first year scout who was disappointed he didn't get the call. It was the parents I always had to have a meeting with. Shesh. Now the 2nd year scouts and older were different. They wanted it. But then they were also a small minority of their age group. Time definitely sorts out those who want to be an Arrowmen compared to those who happen to be standing in the right place at the right time. Barry

I don't know what National was thinking, but the reality we saw was parents want their kids in scouting simply by it's reputation. Remember, it's the parents that put their kids in scouting, not the kids wanting the program. As I said, the parents are more relaxed the beginning of their kids 2nd grade year, so adding another program that doesn't involve much of the parents time is easy. Where most folks think out-of-context is they look at it from the boys perspective. "It's the boys program". In reality, Cubs is all about adults because they do all the work. If you don't keep the adults happy, the leave. Burnout is a huge issue and the number one reason why troops are much bigger. Barry

Yes, the problem is absolutely the fault of National. I spend a great deal of time on this very problem, so I can speak directly to it. Because of how our education is structured, the maturity difference between a 1st and 2nd grader is huge. 1st graders don't have the patience, maturity, focus and communication skills for the Pack program that 2nd graders developed in the first grade. Oh, you don't think communication has any affect. Try handle out songs and skits for Tigers to "read" with the rest the pack. As a result of the huge maturity difference, the pack has work three separate programs, Tigers, Wolves/Bears, and Webelos. We will stick with the Tigers for the moment. When National added tigers, they basically doubled the adult requirements of the whole pack. Tigers and Webelos stretches the whole program so thin that adults are burned out by the end of the Bear year. I mention earlier that Tigers have a 50% drop out rate. That is a very conservative figure, it's higher. The reason for the high rate is the age. First grade is the big year for the parents because that is when sports gets more active, Sunday schools, music, dance, and even Karate. They need a year to sort out how much their toddler (that is what they are) can handle, as well as, parents time. I found Tigers was one of the first to go parents because they couldn't see a long term benefit. Adult burnout by the Bears year is why the Webelos causes at least a 50% drop at crossover. Leaders have lost the energy for fun dynamic programs. Webelos looses between 15 to 20 percent just going from Webs 1 to Webs 2. BUT, that number would be a lot bigger if the scouts had a choice. I found many parents are ready to let their sons out of the 1st year Webelos because the boys hate it so much, but they want to teach the lesson of finishing what they started. That is why the big dropout happens at the end of 2nd year Webelos when the program makes a complete change to the troops. That is the convenient break for the parents to finish scouting, and stop all the whining. And you would be wrong. We had a couple of packs skip the Tigers and start recruiting the wolf year. The first 3 years they maintained the numbers they had when they recruited Tigers. And really, why doesn't that make sense? Those youth aren't going anywhere, they don't disappear off the face of the earth. They just move up to 2nd grade. The one other benefit is the parents are more mature. They don't have the stress of all the new activities that come at first grade. But more importantly, the packs grew in the forth year. I didn't investigate the packs closely, but my guess is they had less adult burnout, thus quality of the whole program improved. One last thing, when we starting understanding the factors that were influencing our Tiger dropouts, we changed our program so that the Tiger Dens only had to have two meetings a month. They could meet anywhere they wanted and one of the two could be the pack meeting. We added a very experienced den leader who manage the parents with the intention of taking as little of their time a possible. Our dropout rate with from 80% to less than 3%. Knowing what I know now, if I had to do it again, I would skip the Tiger year all together. Barry

Kind of strange, yelling? I believe that yelling shows weakness in the skills of communication, excepting for communicating at distances. Yelling is a red flag telling me that the scout is lacking a communication skill to otherwise express himself calmly. Storytelling in my opinion is an art. Some can do it, many can't. It takes practice and experiences for reference. Young scouts don't have a lot of experiences to reference. What I think people today lack the most in communication is "patience". Sometimes silence is the best form of communication. My adult kids tell me now that they knew they were in trouble when I was quiet. One technique I teach young leaders is that when the other person refuses to listen, separate yourself. That is a very good technique for adult leaders. In many cases, that means asking the other person to leave the room or area until they can calmly discuss the matter. Some PLs even went as far as to ask the scout to visit the SM. I often found a scout quietly following me around without telling me what was going. LOL. Or ask for help from another person nearby. Sometimes the respect for authority from peers comes from a number of peers asking for the same response. Often during assembly, I would see the PL of one patrol walkover to quietly help another PL dealing with a difficult scout. The speaker on the floor was not disturbed because it was handle quietly using non confrontational communication. Yelling? I discouraged it at all levels. EXCEPT FORUMS Barry

I didn't say that and sadly that is the argument folks want to use to force their way. While the activities are the same, growth from the activities is different depending on age and maturity. To even suggest separating genders to get the most growth out the same activities is viewed as sexist. So, the result of the program mediocrity. Barry

I was sitting with my 5 month old grandson and his beautiful mother last week just chit chatting about her new life experiences. In the discussion, she told me, "you are right dad, boy are different from girls, even at 5 months." Girls do have more freedom than ever to make their own choices, but our culture has overstepped it's bounds and force equality against nature. Nature always wins in the long run. Barry

Yes, exactly. I’ve been called sexist for saying the same thing. Barry

This can be predicted to some degree. 20 years ago, 50% Tiger joined Wolves. 80% Bears joined Webelos I, 85% of Webelos I joined Webelos II and 50% of Webelos II crossed over into troops. Those are very rough numbers, but I think they can give you some idea. Barry

It's hard enough to get scouts in full uniform, I don't pay much attention how they wear the neckerchief. However, Eagles are typically tighter than the norm, so the scout on the right surprises me. I'm betting he was in a hurry. It's been awhile, are those scout pants? Barry

Very well said. Barry

Yep! Barry

So, why did the five boys think they would be on the list? Personally, I would like to hear the SM's side. I rarely had a 12 year old who I felt was mature enough for OA. And the statistics support my observations with 9 out of 10 Arrowmen not showing interest in OA after they are selected. Arrowmen are supposed to be the best scouts in the troop, they need some time to prove it. Barry

Is the CC mom at the meetings? We have a parent sit beside the scout during the meeting. It usually only takes one meeting for the scout to figure it out. I'm not a psychologist, but I played one as a parent from time to time. This kind of behavior is usually "looking for attention" behavior because they aren't getting enough attention from their parents at home. Negative attention from mom and dad is better than no attention. Barry

Well, I guess it’s scary story time. Shortrigde, Tell us about your experiences of COs converting unsuspecting children. 🤔 Barry