Stosh

What's advice do you have for a new SM or ASM? If you use the boy-led, patrol-method approach, you will be less likely to burn out. You need to pace yourself. If you do all the work, you won't be much good to anyone 5 years down the road. It's their program, let them run it.

OMG! He drank the Koolaid! He's taken on a job and he thinks it's gonna be fun! Whoda thunk that the adults could have a good time. They're supposed to burn out, not have fun! Where's the bugler? Time for Taps! Seriously! ain't it great to look forward to a job instead of dread doing it?

With all this chatter about how these cycles work and don't work, and terms, and reelections, and possible impeachments, and popularity contests. it makes me thankful I'm not involved with any of it and I have PL's, APL's, TG's, QM's, Scribes, all doing their thing and I get no hassle from anyone about who's running what. It sure is nice not to have long standing traditions to fight in order to facilitate change in a unit. Just keep it in mind. The boys never have to worry about problem solving when all problems can be dealt with by the system of rules in place.

@@blw2 That was my gut feeling from a lot of the things posted here as "boy-led". I'm thinking the more precise term is "boy-run". I also believe a lot of this has to do with BSA's move from teaching leadership to teaching management skills and calling it leadership. If a leader is leading people what's there to delegate? NOTHING! Look at it this way. PL is the "leader" because he takes care of his patrol members. APL is the "leader" because he takes care of his PL and will even step in when needed, he's the PL's right hand man. He's successful when his PL is successful. Patrol Scribe is the "leader" because he takes care of his patrol member's paperwork/financial needs. Patrol QM is the "leader" because he takes care of his patrol member's equipment needs. Patrol Chaplain Aide is the "leader" because he takes care of his patrol member's spiritual needs. Patrol Grubmaster is the "leader"... I think you get the point. At one time or another each of the members of the team actually leads. They know their job, they've been trained in their job, no one needs to delegate anything to them, they can be trusted to do their thing for the patrol. In fact, if everyone has a job (see GGB Harcourt's leadership training program) then at one time or another everyone leads and it's called teamwork. Nothing ever gets delegated! What task is there that needs to be delegated? NOTHING! Oh, but the first thing that comes to mind is that the fire needs to get started and the GrubMaster is busy mixing pancake dough. The first lesson in Leadership is "Take care of your boys." The second lesson in Leadership is "The best leaders are also the best followers!" All followers are successful when their leader is successful. (see APL above) All my boys when the leader is working are asking, "What can I do to help!" The only time any of my boys have ever done a duty roster for their patrol was at summer camp when the PL was forced to provide one by the camp staff and placed on the bulletin board. NO ONE ever looked at it after that first day. Duty rosters are management tactics to delegate chores. The boys at summer camp encountered Shepherd's stoves for the first time and had no idea what they were doing on getting it to work. They came to me and asked me to teach them how to set it up and use it. I went over there and the very first thing the PL asked was, "What can I do to help." The APL chimed in and said he could help too. Where in the NYLT curriculum does it teach that? @@MattR You posted while I was writing this, but I think I caught it anyway. If not let me know.

In the troops I have served as SM, all ceremonies are done by the scouts themselves. In my former troop where I had enough boys, the PL's rotated opening/closing flags by patrols. COH's were rotated by a PL emceeing over all, but the PL's were called up to hand out and recognize their patrol members' accomplishments. PL recognition was given out by the emceeing PL. Any opening or closing benediction was done by the Chaplain's Aide. ECOH's were presided over by the Eagle candidate's PL. All campfire involvement at a camporee, for instance, is handled by the PL's and their patrol. If the campfire organizer comes and says our troop needs to provide a skit/song for the campfire, and we have 3 patrols, each patrol comes up with a skit/song and they are introduced at the campfire by patrol name, not troop number. Cross-overs are traditionally done by the Packs in our area, but we always show up in force to be on the receiving end of the bridge greeting the new boys. The PL's take turns putting on neckers and presenting books to the new boys. The adults greet the new boys after the ceremony. The only time I as SM participated in a ceremony was to come up from the audience to receive a mentor pin from a Eagle scout. If an ASM's son is being honored in a ECOH, the ASM is there as a parent, not an adult leader in the troop. My boys know better than to invite the SM to "offer a few words."

The SM had only recently taken over as SM, was previously some other role for the troop and had been around a while (older son is eagle). So he was in the early stages of trying to turn the troop to "boy led" His answer was, "I'll be "dunked" if I'm going to let a kid determine when and where I'm going camping"... or something to that effect anyway.... and he didn't say "dunked". - edited quote by @@blw2 (for some reason the quote function didn't work right for me.) It must have been in the really, really early stages of trying to turn the troop to "boy led". It is pretty obvious that no "kid" ever is going to ever be able to lead anything while he's SM.

Interesting slant I hadn't considered @@qwazse. Maybe it's because I don't think in the same terms you do. I'm Gnostic, remember? Boys lead, but adults support the work of the boys, not by doing anything, but by providing what is necessary for them to be successful. Boys need a tour permit. Okay. PL's plan a trip, notify SPL they are going to be needing drivers/rides and a Tour permit. That has nothing to do with any adults running anything, they are simply doing what's necessary as part of a management task to support the decision of the PL. Of course at any time some adult can refuse to support the boys, and take the leadership from them and hold them hostage. Boys need tour permit and rides to X activity. SM doesn't think that X activity is a good one for the boys even though it is well within the limits of BSA policy, i.e. this patrol of older boys are planning on attending a summer camp different from the rest of the other patrols. So he refuses to support the patrol, takes over the leadership and tells the boys they have to go to the same summer camp as the rest of the patrols. PL and patrol decide that if the SM isn't going to support them and their decision and instead attempt a leadership coup, they would not be attending summer camp this year. Checkmate the boys! and the damage done by the power playing SM may take a long time to heal if it ever does.

I mentioned to blw2 that he and the Scribe should handle all financial issues at the meetings only. This should remove the hassle of things getting lost along the way. This could be arranged that "office" hours for Treasurer/Scribe will be at every meeting or it could be 1st and 3rd meetings of the month kind of thing. Like with the signatures, two sets of eyes on every issue is a good idea (Treasure and Scribe) Unlike the checks, one doesn't need two adult's to work the process, one adult and one boy learning the system should do very nicely.

Posted Today, 09:02 AM gumbymaster, on 27 Jan 2016 - 5:24 PM, said: why I think it would make sense for the PL's to do the draft at the PLC, not in front of the scouts (just an old adult rambling here....) And may I add, why is it anyone's business but the boy's who decides what patrol he's in. Every boy in the troop if embarrassed because of what others "decide" has the option to vote with his feet. It happens all the time when busybodies make decisions for other people. Nobody is being "drafted" into scouts, that's a message I NEVER want my boys to hear. Even if it's for "show" I would like to think my PL's are "fighting" over every boy they get for their patrol. It's all part of them taking care of their boys! How valuable would the "last boy chosen" feel if two PL"s were fighting over who gets to have him? instead of You take him, we don't want him. If this kind of leadership isn't being taught in your troop, it should be. One last thought... this kind of leadership isn't being taught in NYLT, TLT, or any other management training of the BSA, one has to teach it separately on their own.

Eagle94-A1, blw2 beat me to the answers I would have given. If the SOP doesn't make sense then take measures to do what it takes to make sense for the boys one has at the present time. I hold no elections, I have no terms of tenure and seem to operate just fine. Even to the point where I was removed from the SM position once for expecting too much leadership from the boys. In other words, they were expected to actually operate the whole troop by themselves! Heaven forbid that ever happen. The boys organized their patrols, they selected their leadership, if a job needed to be done, they rolled up their sleeves and did it because there wasn't any adult going to do it for them. Being a smallish troop of about 25 scouts, they had to all pitch in to make it work and that's what they did. Once the boys know they can create any of their own SOP's, life in the troop seems to run a lot smoother. And since when are elections, terms of office, etc, requirements that can't be added to or changed? That's news to me.

A lot of discussion has gone out on issues that seem to have multiple definitions that have caused misunderstandings in some of the threads here on the forum. After we settled down to defining NSP's it became a bit clearer that the chasm we were peering over wasn't really as big as we thought it was. Rememberschiff put out a quote from Gates' book on how he saw a difference between leadership and management, an issue I have struggled with because I do see a marked difference between the two. A lot of people I have met don't see much difference at all. So I'd like to open up the discussion on exactly how do others see the difference. I see it as: Leaders lead people and Managers manage tasks. Still others see leaders as those who are good at convincing others to follow them and still others follow certain leaders because they are drawn to them by what they do. Managers focus on "getting the job done" and of course they delegate tasks to other people to get it done. The flow of authority for me runs in opposite directions. Where as the authority of a Manager flows from the top down, thus all the conversation about who runs the show and who's the top dog. Leadership the flow of authority originates with the people who empower certain people to lead them for whatever reason. Thus one can draw a strong distinction between even the phrases, boy-led and boy-run, where to me boy-led is leadership and boy-run is management. So is adult-led and boy-run troop possible? How about a boy-led, adult-run troop? We all know an adult-led, adult-run is possible. But is boy-led, boy-run an ideal that can never be attained? I for one think there are a lot of adult-led, boy-run troops out there thinking they are boy-led. But just ask yourself, who do the boys look to for the final decision in any situation? Why is it the boys keep asking adults on every little issue? Who's really running the show? It would be interesting to hear everyone's thoughts on this.

Sounds like fun, and it's a great opportunity to meet new friends!

With being a new troop, there's a long learning curve to overcome in my situation. At the present time, the adults have been dong a lot of the "reminding". We have switched over to adult/boy-led combo right now with the adults doing the heavy lifting and the boys learning as they go. With only two boys it'll be a struggle for a few more months. We have the potential currently of a large cross-over group in June with a lot of interaction with these boy prior to the cross-over. In order to insure the maximum potential and yes, efficiency, the adults are making the phone calls, etc. with the prospective new scouts, etc. The goal at the end of the tunnel is to have the PL's responsible for all the reminders. They are the ones tasked with the taking care of the boys. It is also important that the "reminders" are kept to the minimum. If the boys learn to simply ignore the comments up front, it's no big deal, there will be 20 reminders later on. Boys of this age don't think much in terms of "tomorrow" and are pretty much concerned with what's happening NOW. Maybe today, but that can be a stretch for some boys, tomorrow afternoon, unless it happens to be Friday, isn't really on the radar. One needs to remember not to turn these repetitive reminders into a crutch for the boys. Everyone should know the general troop calendar. That should be posted somewhere that every one has access to it. It might be a web page, or a calendar on the wall of the scout storage closet. The PL's are reminded by the adults occasionally as to what's happening in the next few weeks. It is then up to the PL's to translate that into understandable terms for his patrol. If something gets missed because the PL dropped the ball, they'll learn that they need to pay attention better or get a PL who can do the job. Seriously, the adults should be drinking coffee! And the conversation around the coffee clatch should not be, "OMG, we failed the boys, Johnny didn't tell his patrol about the camp out and they aren't ready and we're going to have to step in and get everything ready in just 2 days!" Instead it should be, "Do you take cream and sugar with your coffee?" A couple of things are going to happen. 1) the boys miss the activity entirely and they learn a valuable lesson in paying attention, 2) the boys are going to do a massive scramble and get things pulled together at the last minute proving to themselves this isn't the fun way of doing things, or 3) the adults are going to step up and do it for them so they don't fail and the only lesson they learn from it all is that if they screw around long enough, the adults will cover their butts at the last minute. Whichever one is picked will tell you a whole lot about whether or not one has a boy-led or an adult-led troop and how seriously they take trusting leadership opportunities to their boys. Your mileage may vary.

Throw away the training syllabus and do what's best for your boys! That's the heretic in me speaking! If boys needed to stay in some NSP until they reached FC, I as a young scout would never have gotten out of the NSP. I was 2nd Class when I quit and I had been in scouting for 4 years. I didn't have much faith in the rank advancement thingy, I was in it for fun. When it wasn't fun anymore my buddies and I left.

I'm hearing concerns about patrol methods and POR conflicts. There are election cycles and such that play another dynamic in the process. Let's just a total free-for-all for the moment. 28 boys in the program SPL, ASPL, QM and Scribe make up the Leadership Council. That leaves 24 boys for the three 8 boy patrols. 4 new Webelos boys show up at the front door. Well Johnny in Patrol 1 says he needs a POR for Star, but he has been a PL in the past, but that was before he got FC. So he says to his buddy, come with me and I'll offer my services to the new scouts to be their TG and you can offer up being their APL. So the new boys say, "I guess so, because they don't know any better." The first thing the new boys want to do is select a PL. They ask why can't the TG or APL guy do it. And the two say, it's important that one of the new guys learns how to be a PL and the TG and APL are going to help him learn. They're a little light on new boys, but they do have 6 boys working together now getting things up and running. The only "disruption" in the troop is one patrol is now down 2 boys who went off to work on POR. Okay now another 4 Webelos boys come knocking. They're too big to assimilate into the new patrol, so 2 more boys leave a second older patrol and set up the patrol. 1) All the Webelos boys get to stay together in their own little groups 2) 2 older boys get their POR's as TG's 3) 2 new patrols to the troop expanding the number of troop officers, more boys in the PLC 4) Only the membership of two older patrols was affected and not enough to drop below 6 members. 5) No one was forced to move by an adult, all moves were motivated by boys choosing to seek POR positions in the new patrols.

He might not even want to go later if his buddies don't want to go.

Wait

My folks took each of the grandchildren to Disney World when they turned 6. My folks were well off. I could buy my house with the money it would take to do that for my grandkids. They're going to have to settle for a Yellowstone trip when they're 6. My senior pass gets us in for free!

I think this naturally leads to properly defining the TG in this whole mix in that he might just be the king-pin in this whole NSP issue. To me the TG is as important to the NSP PL as the SPL is to the other more experienced PL's. I for one see the SPL as the person responsible for supporting the work of the individual PL's in their patrols. It is as if the SPL is the PL of a virtual patrol of PL's. That is his focus, making sure his PL's are successful. Okay, with that being said, we have a new group of boys coming in and are going to need the attention of someone like the SPL far more than the already established PL's. So the SPL sends in his "stand-in" to work with the new guys and not consume all his time there. The SPL and TG work with the new patrols. It's not just a TG dump and run on the part of the SPL. His responsibility is the success of ALL THE PATROLS. He does this by putting a TG in there to help until they get their feet on the ground. A good TG should only take 6 months to get the new patrol up and running. If it takes longer than that, the TG is meddling like an adult in the operation of the patrol. Former DC's or WDS's may not be a good match for the role of TG. A DC is told by the true leader of the den what needs to be done. A TG needs more than an SPL to constantly tell him what he needs to be doing. Also denners don't function nor have the expectations like a PL. A lot of different dynamics going on here. I'm thinking the SPL of the troop where it is used is the most experienced PL qualified person in the troop. He is the go-to person for PL's to rely on. On the other hand the TG must be as PL qualified as the SPL but also have the teaching skills to teach the PL role and function to the new PL of the new patrol. Instead the new patrols are destined to fail because most of the time the TG is no where near qualified to actually be a help to the PL of the new patrol. By the way in my former troop where there were older and newer patrols, the TG's that volunteered to do so were always Life or Eagle and had been PL's before. Maybe that's why I had good luck with my new patrols.

Good observation Sentinel. Maybe this is why sometimes I felt like some on the forum when they "countered" my comments did so with exactly what I thought I just said. So I do like the one comment someone made, my apologies, with all the patrol threads, it's hard to keep track, that said a NSP is a 6 month temporary patrol with a TG that helps the new guys get oriented and then assimilated into other patrols. The TG is optional because it's run by an adult ASM anyway. There's not much reason to really train the new PL because once he's into another patrol, it'll probably be a while before he gets to be PL again. He can learn for real then. My NSP's are just that new, Scout patrols. In order not to disrupt the functionality of any existing patrols by dumping a bunch of new guys in that need to get up to speed in 12-18 months of skills training, a brand new patrol is created. It's a new permanent patrol. As boys come and go as with any other patrol, it might need to take on new members on occasion and/or merge with another patrol to maintain the 6-8 member parameters. The OSP's (Older Scout Patrols ) can then plan their more challenging activities instead of spending time training the new guys who they have to leave behind when they go on HA anyway. Just doesn't seem to be an efficient use of patrol time and effort. Seniors in high school have no interest in working with 6th graders and 6th graders have no interest in what high school seniors are interested in (which in some cases might be a really good thing.) I guess my preferences on patrol selection when I talk about them are a reflection of what my boys in my area are doing at the present time. As I have said before, I have no part in patrol member selection, patrol leadership selection or even patrol activity planning. If perchance I get a ton of new Webelos boys this spring, it is my intention of taking all the boys, dumping them in a room and having them group up 6-8 boys and come out with at least 1 leader for each group. Are they going to put much thought in it? Nope, I'm gonna want to be with my buddy. That's it. Who wants to be the leader? Okay, Joe said yes, we can get outta this room now. 6 months from now? a year from now? Will these patrols be the same? Maybe, I don't care, it's up to the boys, they'll tell me if there are any changes.

Gee, if one is going to define it that way, I don't use NSP's either!

I had a situation where I had one boy who wanted to go to this church group activity 300 miles away. I took him (This was in the days before 2-deep, but his parents and I were neighbors and good friends). Anyway he came back so pumped up with what happened, the next year I had to get my CDL for school but and the school let me use the 66 passenger bus to take the kids. Fortunately I did pick up a second adult to go. Big problems are always the most fun. 65 kids in downtown Minneapolis in the middle of winter was quite the challenge but it was a blast anyway!