EagleInKY

"we also have a philosophy that has served us well. We ask EVERY parent to take on some type of responsiblity in the Troop." We do something similar. We ask each family to volunteer at least one adult in an official capacity (ASM or Committee member). Some have done both. Most choose to be committee members, but that works out well for BORs and the like. We are a troop of 21, growing to about 25 this spring. We have 5 ASMs. Two are pilots, and their schedules are very eradic. They are there whenever possible. We use them in mostly an adhoc nature. Two others have very busy jobs, but are there most of the time. The other is very dependable. We're in the process of realigning, but it will look something like this: 1-Works with Troop Guide and NSP 1-Serves as summer camp coordinator and is a patrol advisor to one PL. 1-Serves as a patrol advisor. 1-Serves as senior scout advisor (encouraging Life-to-Eagle in particular). If/when we have a venture crew, he'll probably play the advisor role for them. 1-Currently working with the PLC in coordinating a major fundraiser. Two of our ASMs have a big interest in High Adventure and have played a coordinator role for that as well. We try to do at least one "adventure" trip a year. I could see that as another dedicated role to fill at some time.(This message has been edited by EagleInKY)

Good luck Rooster. I hope you'll decided to come back again. As one who tends to stay away from the political fray, I often find myself in silent agreement with your posts. And, on those times when I don't agree with you, I find myself at least admiring your conviction. God Bless you and yours.

There is a lot of stuff going on here, and you are going to have a real challenge ahead of you to turn this troop around. As has been said in this forum several times, you won't be able to do it overnight. I believe it takes 4-6 years to develop a boy-run troop. And that's if you are starting from scratch. Transforming an adult-run troop to a boy-run troop is going to be even more difficult. It can be done, but it will take support from everyone - especially the SM. The boys will get it, eventually. They just have to be shown the way. Some will embrace it, others will be scared. You said the "SM basically told us 'Yes, thats nice, but I dont think our boys can do that'". This is your first challenge. You need to figure out what makes the SM feel this way. My experiences with adult-run troops are caused by adult leaders who either: 1) Want a program to be extremely well organized and efficient. 2) Want the glory for themselves. 3) Are covering for inadequacies of their own son(s). The most common, and least problematic, is the first one. Most are just trying to run a program as effiently as possible. Boys can't do that, they'll tell you. And they are correct. For the most part, a boy-run program will be less efficient than an adult-run one. But, we aren't the Rotary Club. We are about teaching the boys leadership through real-life experiences. They won't get that if we adults do everything for them. The second one is a tough one to deal with. I've seen it, and I don't have a good answer. This is the situation where the SM almost always has to step down or be removed. OR, a new troop has to be formed. The third one is probably pretty rare. I've seen it in my own troop. Now with a SM, but with a Committee Member who has tried to get in the way of our boy-run progress. I think his reasoning is a combination of #2 and #3. He knows that if he's in charge, he can elevate his sons' standing. If the program is boy-run, his boys are not going to be the natural leaders of the troop. Once again, adult egos getting in the way. So, first things first, I think you need to understand the SMs motivation and why he feels the way he does. Only then can you begin to address it.

Yes, the SM handbook essentially says that a troop can set its own standards for SPL. If you search the history of this forum, you'll find several threads where this is debated.

Lippoeowl - Great question. I always thought the cup you described was a nationwide tradition. Apparently it is not. I remember my dad and other scouters with their woodbadge cup and I couldn't wait to have my own. Now I do. I used to be an antelope!

In most situations, we travel to and from camp in full field uniform. The exceptions would be when we are going directly to do something where the uniform isn't appropriate. For example, when we go "cave camping", we don't wear the uniform because we go directly to the cave. At summer camp, we have the guys report in swimming trunks and troop t-shirt. That's so we can expedite the swimmer's test if the guys don't have to go back to camp to change into trunks.

Wow, tough question. I cannot come up with just three, but I'll try. I'll limit it to my own Scouting experiences. As I get to go throught it all again with my own son, I have so many more. I can't compare the two very easily. 1) Philmont, Philmont, Philmont... I was fortunate to go three times as a scout or young adult. There are so many stories and experiences. I grew up more on the trails there than in any other 30 days of my life. 2) Summer Camp staff. 3 years. It was a blast and I still enjoy running into my old staff buddies from time to time. 3) My Eagle Project. I learned more about leadership doing this than in any POR. What a great experience. I took my son (Life Scout) over to see it last fall. I'm trying to give him some motivation.

Aardvark - That sounds like our camp. I do the same, except replace "Oklahoma" with "The City of New Orleans" ("Good morning America how are you? Don't you know me I'm your native son...").

Welcome to the party Bob. We look forward to getting to know you.

starwolfmom - That's a great solution for that situation. I think it depends mostly upon whether the boys want to be together and the makeup of the patrols they're going into (are they willing to do what it takes to bring him up to speed). It now looks like we're going to get 4 or maybe 5 Webelos over the next month or so. We're putting them together along with two scouts that joined in the fall. We had planned on them staying in that through next February, when we would realign the patrols again. I'm not sure if we'll do that or not. They may be too small a group to keep for that length of time. Then again, if we can recruit a couple more....

Our troop meeting will be over and I should get home just in time for tip-off. Of course, i'm routing for Billy D and the Gators.

Hey Josh, Good luck with the elction. -John, SM T153, Dan Boone District

Anne, Don't forget that the tent sizes are based on average size people with NO GEAR. In reality, you need to reduce the number of the tent rating by 1 or 2. So, a 4-man tent would hold 2 comfortably or 3 snuggly (with gear). We purchased 3 and 4 man tents. When we are car-camping we typically put 2 scouts in a tent. As the guys get older (and bigger), we find they pretty much need to put 2 big guys in a 4 man tent. If we have an odd number of boys in a patrol, they normally will do one tent with 3 (in a 4 man tent). When we backpack, the guys will try to pack as many in a tent as possible. It varies a lot by the size of the boys. The decision rests with them. The same goes for winter camping, they've learned that more bodies in a smaller tent equates to a warmer night. I don't like big tents because it is harder to get a group of 6 or 8 to settle down for the night. It's also harder to dry out a big tent. (We send the tents home with one of the boys that slept in it to be dried and cleaned.)

Adding to #6. Ground clothes need to be fully under the tent. Many times I've seen ground clothes sticking out 12 inches or more around all sides of a tent. They are just acting like a gutter funnelling water under the tent.

I'll just stick to my rendition of "Goodnight Sweetheart".

"What our CO has asked us to do in the past is to actually do a fundraiser and give them the money. Like, stand in front of grocery stores and solicit money on their behalf. Another example, the packs in our town tried to organize a joint benefit effort for tsunami victims a little over a year ago, with the idea that we'd donate all proceeds to the Red Cross." Standing in front of the grocery asking for donations for your CO - Hmmm... Personally, I hate those types of things. I would say that it would be okay only if they were doing it as individuals representing the CO, not Scouts. I can understand the council not wanting scouts standing out in front of store waving a tin cup. That would give a bad impression. And, since most people probably wouldn't pay attention to who it was for, they'd just think the Boy Scouts were out begging. Joint pack tsunami event - Personally, I can't see any problem with this. Organizing something like a chili supper or a community event to raise money for a disaster relief sounds like a good service to me. As long as you can "draw the line" from donation to recipient and not have one of those celebrity fund-raiser fiascos where no one knows where the money goes.... I don't see the issue with it. So, I guess I give you one vote for, and one vote against. How's that?

I saw a cleanser recently that said it would take the mildew smell out of anything, including rain repellent gear such as tents. I don't remember the name of it, only that I wish that I had it three years ago. When we (re-)started our troop, the SM of the old T153 gave us a bunch of gear he had kept out in his barn. It included six or eight Eureka Timberlines. Physically they were in good shape. Odor-wise, there was not many words in the English language to describe them. The stench was beyond anything I could imagine. I aired out a couple of them, washed them with soap and a hose, aired them out some more, sprayed them with Lysol, aired them out some more.... two months later, the smell was no better. Unfortunately, after a few more months of trying, I ended up ditching the tents.

We encourage the guys to put together a pretty full schedule, but leave enough free time to chill out, work on MBs, and practice at the rifle, archery or shotgun range. For first year guys, we pretty much make sure they are booked with stuff - mostly handicraft MBs and some time in the lake (our 1st year program isn't that good, IMHO). I believe a busy mind is the #1 counter to homesickness. As the guys get older, we give them more autonomy. We remind them that it's there opportunity to advance, not the adults.

www.mytopo.com You can order maps. But, you can also preview and print the image. If you are just looking for something to print off and use (not a full-fledged map), this would work well.

My understanding is that you can help your CO (or other non-profit groups) do fundraising. You just can't do it in a scout uniform or under the guise of a scout event. For example, we've helped with clean up at a Rotary Club's pancake breakfast. I don't see anything wrong with that at all. It helps build goodwill in the community.

Lisabob - First, I have to tell you that trainingin our district sounds no better than yours. Almost two years ago I asked to set up training for a bunch of new ASMs and adults entering our troop. You know what happened? The district Boy Scout trainer dropped off a tub full of materials at my house and said "go for it". I conducted the training, which was no big deal. Two years later, I still have that tub of materials. Oh, I've used it, for training our troop's leaders. But there hasn't been a district training since. As for the TCC, I believe it is much better offered to the committee as a whole. We conducted it here about a 15 months ago. We're getting ready to do it again in May. I'd like to make it an annual event, probably sometime in May (about a month or two after we get new parents). Yes, it's a little repetitive for more experienced committee members. But it's valuable for the entire group to meet together and understand how it all fits together. I took the material and then encorporated some of our own troop stuff into it. This included things like how our district handles MBCs and the like, and how we handle fundraisers and the procedes. I'm sorry your training didn't go well. Good luck.

ronvo - I'll disagree with you on this one. When you are starting a troop with boys that young, you have to slowly bring them into the patrol system and boy-led model. Think about it. They've never made a decision before in their life. Heck, most of them probably don't choose their own clothes yet. When our troop started (3 years ago) our boys were a little older than his. They didn't have a clue what they wanted the troop to do. We tried having boy-led PLC meetings, annual planning sessions, etc. But they were ineffective. We ended up operating as two patrols, but did not use an SPL for the first 16 months. This actually worked pretty well. What was happening was that I was "modeling" what the SPL should do. (And I constantly reminded them of that). Over time, we started rotating PLs as "acting SPL". After 16 months, we elected our first SPL. He wasn't very effective, but it was a learning experience. We took one step at a time. Now I would say we are about 60% there. I believe in two years we'll be where the program should be. If you look at that, it works out to 20% progress per year. I think that is pretty reasonable, and synchs up pretty well with Barry's (Eagledad) post on another thread about it taking about six years to get to a boy-led culture. While I'm sorry that Old ASM New SM's troop didn't work out. I do believe it provides some insight and a warning to those trying to start new troops with very young boys.

As usual, Barry pretty much said it all. His words are so true because they come from years of experience. He's been down that road already. Remember, there are several of us at various stages along that road. For those of us a little in front of you, we'll try to warn you of the potholes as you remind us of where we've been. Keep up the great work, John

Ditto - Troopmaster. The only thing I don't like about it is that it isn't easy to share data. I've solved that by having a password protected area of troop website where I post key information (advancement reports, rosters, etc.).

Most of the CDs that I have use I keep in a CD book. I've got several, one for backup CDs, one for software used for my business, another contains nothing but graphics I've purchased over the years. Memory sticks are great. And they are getting more and more capacity. But they are also easy to lose, and you can't burn a copy for someone.