Stosh

From what I've seen on this forum, there seems to be no shortage of Twinkies.

Hey, hey! Welcome back!

I'm with @@Krampus on this one. This is an adult mistake and should not be held against the scout. Seriously, with one month to fix a problem as big as this and even to dump into the laps of the boys is kinda dumb in my book. The boy is moving on to another troop. I would go to the SM and let him know of the situation as to how the adults dropped the ball on this process and screwed up and please take that into consideration when they deal with him in the future troop. We have had discussions about adult messes with advancement especially at the Eagle level where it is majorly critical, but we're talking FC here. This is not a deal breaker. The new SM knows the boy is weak on his skills, let the PL of the patrol he's going to be in know this and have the PL take care of it as is his responsibility as PL to do. Two people in the new troop know about this the SM and the PL. No one else needs to know and enough people have the heads up to fix things over the course of 12 months without making a big deal about it. Maybe the PL will have the boy do his Star rank POR as an Instructor and kill two birds with one stone. I do think there is a lesson for the adults in this whole process, heed it.

Personally, TAHAWK, I don't think we are all that far apart in our thinking.

Wouldn't miss it for the world!

Everyone of the quote you provided in the previous posting fits very well into the model I use. Thanks for making my point. No where do I see where the SPL, the PLC or the SM take the reins of leadership from the PL's. In the Patrol Method the PL's are in charge, everyone else supports their efforts of maintaining the Patrol Method.

@@TAHAWK The only difference I see between what have said and what you are saying is the flow of leadership. In your model the leadership flow is from the SM to the SPL to the PL's. In my troops the flow is the opposite. The PL give directive to the SPL as to where he can support the work of interpatrol activities. The SPL never has sway over the autonomy of the patrol. Two patrols want to go to the same summer camp, the SPL helps with the logistics of getting them there. Two other patrols want to go to a different camp, the SPL works to make that happen for them. Never does the SPL tell the 4 patrols they all have to go to the same camp. If he does, he runs the risk of having half his boys "find other things to do" at camp time and one is immediately dealing with an attendance issue, and the SPL instead of being helpful has thrown into jeopardy the advancement of boys in half the troop. But because they didn't go to camp it's their own fault, but it's based on a decision of the SPL. I see this all the time in troops.

Since when is being a dictator the way to take care of your boys? The first suggestion I would have for the NSP would be dump the TG. NO TG is better than a bad one. When the TG came for his SMC there would be no check off for POR or for Scout Spirit on my watch. In all seriousness, I don't think any of my boys would dare to be dictator around their patrol members. Not with getting voted out in a heart beat being held over their head.

What? No Civil War cannons? sheath knives and Energy drinks? Laser tag? Paint ball tournament? I'm not going!

What makes you think I was joking?

That early in the life stage it's going to either be Larvae or Maggots... Either one works for me.

One of the problems with the boys not making their own choice on scout activities is because at age 11 they have never really had the option to learn that lesson. Home doesn't teach it, schools don't teach it, churches don't teach it, community sports programs don't teach it. All the boys are ever taught was to follow along. To think that these boys are all of a sudden going to miraculously start choosing activities and doing things on their own in this day and age is folly. 1) Boys have never had to make decisions for themselves. 2) Boys have never had to make decisions for others. 3) Boys are trained to win, to succeed and to achieve, they have never been taught to fail. 4) Boys have had their self esteem stroked until the fur has worn off and they are special. They have a trophy or two to prove it. 5) Boys are not in the program to make the decisions they are there only to get the entertainment value of having fun out of it. Teaching boys knots is not the ultimate goal of scouting, It is developing boys into young men of moral character and leadership in the world around them. One can stand by and complain that boys don't have any of these skills we might have assumed they were exposed to over the years and didn't pick up, or we can recognize they have never been taught in the first place and it is our job to do so. Now's just as good a time to start as any other. Need an acronym to start out? Try FAIL - (First Attempt in Learning) Gotta start someplace. Remember the boys can't lose, either they win or they learn, but from the moment they show up at the door of the troop meeting place until they age out, is the only chance you have to help them. Better make the most of the time one has.

Instead of just fire building competition and bring soapy water to a boil, maybe just the first patrol to build a fire and distill a shot of moonshine wins?

Brewing MB? Would that cover wine too? How's about a patrol still competition?

Why is it that the BSA PR department can't use words that people can understand. BSA prohibits the use of squirt guns. BSA shall not allow energy drinks and beer at scout functions. Boy Scouts may use .22 rifles at a range but Cub Scouts may use only BB guns at the range. Bubble Ball usage is prohibited.

Adult election cycles are adult driven. The boys only care if they have a good PL or not. If they have a good one, they aren't going to change unless they have to as demanded by the adults. The rub comes when the adults tell the boys they can't have the one they like run again. And thus the problems surface, and I for one back the boys on this one. Why can't they have a PL they like? And better yet, instead of telling a boy he is to run for PL so he can get his 6 month POR filled for advancement, why not tell the boy to get his act together and prove to his patrol he could do a better job as PL and earn the right to be the new PL! I don't think it's fair to have adults mandate they have to change to a kid needing POR as their PL. I would NEVER accept that as a kid nor do I as a SM who's job it is to protect and take care of my boys.

Hard to tell the intent of the comments, but one must always consider the source of the problem. When I left Troop #1 as an ASM I was pretty much done with scouting. My son was out of the program and it wasn't any fun anymore. But Troop #2 called me up and asked me if I was interested in being the SM. I "interviewed" with the Committee, I had coffee with the outgoing SM and I had an open Q & A with the boys. I told them I am very boy-led and patrol-method and it would be a big change from what they had and it would be a lot of work. So if they wished to have a continuation of the program they are used to, just keep looking for someone else. If the Committee called and wanted me to be the SM, I would have refused it. If the SM called, I would have politely declined, but if the boys called, I felt it would be enough to come out of "retirement". The boys called. They also stepped up, and the troop grew from 5 boys to 28 in about 3 years time. We did the whole TLT training, and adopted the structure of PL being the highest ranking officer in the troop. was on Lesson #3 of Green Bar Bill's leadership training program when the CC of came and announced they were changing SM's because "I expected too much leadership out of the boys." Parents were happy, the boys weren't. Last I heard there were about 7-8 boys in the troop. It was no skin off my nose either way. I felt bad for the boys, but it wasn't an issue I was concerned enough to worry about. It wasn't but a few weeks later the DE from another district approached me about starting the Troop #3 I"m with now. And it was a couple of weeks ago that the DE from the third district approached me about starting Venturing Crew #2 because of my success with Venturing Crew #1 that I turned over to others a couple of years back. Youth run program are very successful if one leaves the youth to run them. The same dynamics apply in the non-scouting youth groups I work with in the community and churches in the area. I do find it easier to run the community and church youth programs because there are far less restrictive bans applied to them as it is in the BSA programs.

I don't know if it was my area of the country, my generation or just my parents, but I never had to ask permission to join anything or to quit anything. I had free rein to try out whatever I wanted. If it cost money I sometimes got a bit of help. Music for example, my parents bought the saxophone for me. I had to buy all the reeds, books, etc. myself, I started in junior high and played all the way through college and minored in music. Did a few years of part-time professional as well. Went hunting with my Dad, got my first .22 for my 12th birthday, was in Rifle Club in high school and got my freezer filled with venison, rabbit and squirrel last fall. Started camping back in the early 1950's, was in Scouts, still do Scouts and although my parents never hovered, I do a little hovering over my grandkids when we go camping today. Some of these I chose, some my parents chose, but when I was forced to go camping, I guess I really didn't mind. When hiking with my 2 year old granddaughter and daughter last weekend. My granddaughter picked up a stick and was using it to hit at bushes. My daughter started to say something and all I said, "It's my stick, my hiking trail, my bushes and my granddaughter." My daughter didn't say a word but after I picked up a stick too, she did as well. Sticks on a hike are fun.

I have said it many times before, and I'll say it again. I have often wondered why I don't seem to have the myriad of problems others seem to be having with their troops, their structures, their discipline issues, their adult interference problems, etc. etc. etc. Yeah, I don't do things the way everyone else does them, but then for some reason I don't have their problems either. The only time I got into "trouble" was in my former troop where the parents had me removed from SM, "because the boys were expected to do too much leadership." Their words verbatim, not mine. And on the other hand that reason is why the Council came to me and asked me to set up a new troop using the boy-led emphasis. And why another district in the council came to me and asked me to set up a regional Venturing Crew for their people, too. Some people "get it" and some don't.

I had an agreement with my CC in my previous troop. He was the former SM so he knew the routine. He had to step down for personal reasons, but agreed to stay on with the troop as CC. Our agreement was he deals with the adults, I, as SM, deal with the boys. Eventually he had to even back out of the CC position. He did great for three years. Within a month after he left, the parents swept in and had me removed and took the troop back to adult led. The Eagle scout ASM with 4 boys in the troop took over as SM. Even he didn't last very long. I saw the troop at the local pool a couple of years after that when they were doing theri swim test and T-FC swimming requirements. The female SM was walking up and down the side of the pool with a clip-board and pen marking off the achievements of the boys and qualifying them for their swim test. The former SM was playing with his daughter in the shallow end of the pool. Didn't look like he was there other than as a parent. Never underestimate the damage a handful of determined parents can do in a troop.

@@RichardB Richard, I wasn't trying to read anything into your comments. The point I was making was there is nothing inherently wrong with real kickball, but these people found a way to make it way too much fun than just plain old kickball. It has a tremendous amount of fun factor in it, but you are correct like anything else in life it is inherently dangerous. I know of friend and another acquaintance that are quadriplegics having had their necks broken in sanctioned high school wrestling matches. Does that mean we need to ban high school wrestling? I know of a ton of people who's lives have been altered to varying degrees because of "an old football injury". Does that mean we ban football? When I was in Little League we wore batter helmets, in sandlot ball we did not. Kids still got hurt doing both. Do we know and do our boys participate in alpine skiing? Even recreational skiing is dangerous. How far does one need to go to protect people? The point of the post was to show that maybe the more fun the people are having the greater the possibility that BSA may ban it.

@@RichardB this is exactly the thinking that will eventually bring this kind of fun to a halt by the BSA. With this kind of logic one is going to see swimming pools banned at BSA camps because a few kids were stupid enough to dive into the shallow end of the pool despite the warning signs and the fact that they were warned several times previously about it. The point I was making was these kids were having waaaayyyy too much fun playing "kickball" without rules and without proper adult supervision and.... and..... and...... lawyers involved, and....

Give a boy a fish..... Teach a boy to fish..... It works as long as one doesn't mess with it! Sometimes I wonder who needs more teaching, the boys or the parents......