Stosh

Maybe this is why the old adage "You can't fight city hall" still rings true no matter how much someone wants to make a difference. Stosh

Like the Jenga game, pulling some elements from a program may or may not cause the tower to tumble. Some of the elements like emphasis on Indian traditions, although important could be easier replaced than service and brotherhood. A portrait of a Indian does more to promote respect for our native culture, more so than say, maybe the old Milwaukee Braves logo. I am of Norwegian descent and I know of a lot of things about my culture that does not include the Minnesota Vikings NFL team mascot prancing up and down the sidelines with a sword and shield. The medium is often as important as the message. Stosh

If very well and respectfully done, I would fight to keep it. If it wasn't, I'd drop it like a hot potato and find something nice to replace it. I realize the Indian tradition runs strong in OA, but a Rendezvous/Outdoorsman ceremony would work well, or even just a COH type of program would work too. If Indian emphasis was removed, I'm sure the boys could come up with something if given the opportunity to mull it over for a while. Even if it were something along the lines of "Council of Campfires", it would work. "Rendezvous of the Nations"? "Clan of the _____ fill in the blank with a non-WB animal. Maybe Kudu could work up a ceremony for "Board of the MBA's" for the boys. And before Kudu hits me, I hope he understands that suggestion as dripping with sarcasm.... "Knights of the Roundtable" - Nope, too over worked and already taken. "ServiceMasters" - Trade-mark infringement. "Brotherhood of Parlor Scouts" - Maybe not... Hmmm, maybe this is why I would want the boys to pick something, I'm too old to be good at it. Stosh

I am a registered member and on a few occasions, posts I make do not get carried to the forum. Just part of the frustration of dealing with forum boards. Stosh

On paper and in theory OA is boy-led. However, in reality that is not always the case. The last OA election in my former troop had the Advisor make the pitch, show the video and the arrowman handed out ballots and collected them back up. This was NOT a good first impression for the boys considering OA in our Chapter. Yes, I'm sure there are a lot of "boy-led" programs out there that in fact are really adult-led in reality. There are many caring, success oriented, well-meaning SM's out there that just don't see the impact they have as they "mentor" and "guide" the boys with what they tell them they have to do. OA is only a mirror of what is the reality in the troops. If the boys come into the Chapter with no idea what real boy-led is, they are going to have to start from scratch teaching them. The expenditure of that energy could be better placed in Chapter program if the troops were better at preparing the boys to actually lead. At our last Roundtable the District OA arrowman sat in with the discussion, but it was the OA Advisor that was hawking patches and letting the others know all about the OA program. Nothing has changed from that process in the past 3 years. I asked the OA arrowman about paying dues for next year and getting the newsletter. The OA Advisor stepped in and gave me the information. Thus the pattern repeats itself over and over. The well-meaning OA Advisor desparately wants the OA Chapter to survive and thrive, but he has to get out of the way and let the program be what it is supposed to be. It cannot be any more of a failure as boy-led than what it is right now. Stosh

The assumption here is that an individual can make a difference. However, we band together to make it happen. The council supports us? What if the council doesn't? What if they don't return calls. What if one volunteers and they don't have anything available at the present time? Yeah, the list goes on and on. I have 40+ years of working with youth and community organizations, some with Scouts, some with church organizations, some with community organizations, and I have offered my services freely to all. Yet the only organization that doesn't return calls is Scouting. I wonder why that is. I am in the process of organizing groups once again and Scouting is not part of that group even though the idea originated within a Scouting idea and runs parallel to Scouting ideals. But... oh, yeah, they don't return calls. I love to get things organized. Over the past 40+ years I have organized 43 Explorer Posts/Venture Crews. I have no idea how many community groups I have gotten together, but I did organize an ambulance service for a small town once from training volunteers to purchasing an ambulance unit, oh, and yeah, I organized a church congregation, too. Right now I'm getting together a group of couples interested in doing out-doors kinds of things, i.e. kayaking, hiking, x-country skiing, depending on the season. I thought it was a pretty good for a new Venturing Crew, but... the council never returned my calls, so now it's a community project. Like I said, we band together to make it happen. Because I am still registered, I show up for Roundtables, but nothing seems to be available at the present time. Not even anything new on the horizon. Is this how councils support their volunteers? I wonder how many other potential leaders run into this process? I did volunteer work this evening, for a church I don't even belong to. Kids needed a Christmas party/dinner and they needed extra hands. I showed up to help. They returned my call when I volunteered. Oh, yes, I've picked myself up, dusted myself off and moved on to where my skills and talents are needed... but more importantly... wanted and supported. I don't know if I ever make a difference, but as a UC with no units and a council not returning any calls, my time will be quickly filled up by non-Scouting activities. The Community Theater contacted me for help, the Historical Society has contacted me for help, a local kayak group has need of experienced kayakers to help with novices get started in the hobby. Reenacting group reelected me Captain/Vice President, and the American Red Cross found out about my availability and well, life goes on. I am in contact with a historical society 90 miles away that wants me to help them with a major project. It would seem that once others found out about the void created by the council, there's an opportunity to seek out a volunteer with a lot more free time on his hands. There may come a time when Scouting takes up more of my time, but it would seem that the council is not all that interested, well, I assume as such, my phone isn't ringing. I am quite convinced that I'm not the only one dealing with this kind of "support" from the councils. Stosh

Basement is quite right. Unless you're one of the Old Guard, it isn't going to make too much of a difference. 20+ years of scouting and a now a UC with no units. So much for the mantra boy-led, patrol-method... Stosh

What I find interesting is the push for boy-led OA chapters. These new members are supposed to be FC, plenty of camping experience and should be well on their way to being boy-led from the experiences of their Troops. So it begs the question... why aren't they? Somehow it seems to be a bit of cart before the horse here. Instead of the boys learning boy-led at OA and going back to their troops with this new idea, they should be coming into OA the honor program already prepared to lead. Any of the strong Chapters out there see any correlation between the emphasis in their councils that would support this? Stosh

I am no longer a SM, but the last OA election I was involved in as a SM could be described as: 1) The arrowman and OA adult advisor showed up to our meeting late. 2) The arrowman was not in a uniform, it was a high school hoodie and blue jeans. The advisor had a half uniform on. 3) The advisor showed a video telling about OA in the council. 4) The arrowman handed out ballots, collected them and they then left. This was their experience with the leadership of the honor camping society of our council. They were not impressed. The only qualified boy was elected, he got his ordeal in and became our OA rep. He went to 3 roundtables where the OA was supposed to be meeting the reps. No one ever showed so the boy dropped the whole thing. I have been a member of the chapter as an adult for over 15 years and have paid my dues ever year and once back in the 1990's I did actually receive one OA newsletter delivered to my home. I hope there are other chapters out there that do it better than that. Stosh

I don't know if I would describe WB as a leadership development program in that I would call it a management development program. When I took WB (pre-2000) it was touted as a management program and that businesses around the country would send their personnel to it for the enrichment of their business programs. I find nothing wrong with a program being well run under the principles of good management. Nothing gets done without it being managed well. However, with that being said, how much leadership is designed into the program? Who gets out in front and leads and who stays behind and manages what is necessary to follow such a leader? We expect our boys to be good managers of the necessary tasks they are called upon to fulfill. Whether it be a scribe filling out papers he is responsible for, keeping track of troop equipment he is responsible for, or whatever task they are responsible for it makes very little difference if the job gets done. He gets credit for fulfilling his responsibility. But where are the leaders? How does one teach a boy to challenge his buddies up to the next step and do something beyond the minimum expectations of just getting the job done? Who do the boys really follow and how is that defined as a task? I really don't think it can be done. I have seen some fantastic leadership coming from the boys, but it tends to be more of a natural leadership development rather than something they were taught out of a book. I know that there are techniques that can be taught to guide boys into leadership, but I don't see any of that built into the curriculum of any of the BSA literature under the category of leadership development. I even had one boy explicitly state that he learned more about leadership under my mentoring than he did in NYLT and WB combined. He went from the troop's biggest bully to one to emulate in a mere three years. Another boy had all his Eagle requirements fulfilled and made application for his Eagle. Contrary to National's requirements, the Council insisted it would not be accepted without a letter of recommendation from the SM. I wasn't convinced he was showing any leadership. When he confronted me about it, along with his parents, I told him he had 6 months to show leadership and prove he was qualified in that area. All of this was off the books, but I held my ground. His dad (an Eagle Scout with three palms himself) agreed with me. I stripped the boy of all POR patches and responsibilities and said, "Now go and lead." It took him a whole week to get over being stunned and then pitched in became the #1 mentor to the SPL, worked with the TG with the new boys, checked over the work and gave guidance to the QM, and basically involved himself into being the #1 cheerleader for the troop. He ended up doing more than the ASM's in the troop to inspire and motivate the other boys in a variety of different areas. He became a real leader. There was nothing in the book for this boy to go on, but he figured it out when all the other trappings and expectations/distractions were removed. At the ECOH's the first boy told me he had every expectation of presenting his mentor pin to his father who had been with him every step of the way through Scouting from Tiger until I took over when he was 15 years old. The second boy always talked about being able to pin the mentor on his Eagle w/palms dad, but I was called up to receive both pins. Management is easy to teach, it's a skill, a technique, a series of steps that one simply has to follow to get the job done, but leadership is an attitude, and there very little one can do to create a check box to check off for it. If management is the goal, one can always stop once the task gets done, but leadership requires that little extra that sets one apart from the rest of the managers. I would dearly love a true leadership program developed for the BSA, but with the current attitudes towards goal achievement and task management, I don't see that happening any time soon. Does that mean I'm bashing WB-2000? No, I'm just hoping someday it becomes more than just a good management program. Stosh

Until BSA figures out that teaching leadership with management skills isn't going to work, no matter how much money one throws at it, it ain't gonna work! Every dictionary I look up, leadership is not synonymous with management and vice versa. Teaching management skills does not produce leaders, it produces managers. Leaders lead people, managers complete tasks. EDGE teaches people the skill of managing a teaching skill. It has nothing to do with leadership. What leadership skill does a PL have if he manages to get his patrol set up for camping if all he does is push and cajole? Pushing is not leadership. Until BSA defines a clear distinction between the two, and focuses on both, the best we can expect is good managers, but no real leaders. Post-1972 publications shows the programmatic switch from leadership development to management development with out a name change, thus the discussion. Stosh

Everyone has a preconceived idea of what Scouting is, it's been around for 100 years. The only question they might have is how that expectation is or is not being met in the local troops. In the context of the historic PM, that will have a large impact. Now if the only thing they are seeking is Eagle for their boy, they are placing external expectations on the program that are not the goal of the group. Those external expectations have nothing to do with the program. Of course they'll pull their boy in that case. The success of any program is not dependent on external expectations. The success/failure of the program is a result of it meeting its own expectations. Stosh

Awwwwe Come on Basement... Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Next month I'm marrying a gal who used to work for the US Forestry Service in Alaska. Big into kayaking and camping, too. Looks great in hiking boots, blue jeans and a flannel shirt! And she's cute. On the other hand, I don't really knows what she sees in me except I get to tag along. Stosh

I wear both of mine on the pocket flap of my red jac-shirt. When I get all dressed up for a formal occasion, I transfer them over to the pocket flap of my uniform. I'm probably going to hell for that, but I don't care. Stosh

When it comes to adult leaders, it really doesn't matter if they were scouts as a youth. A parlor scout who hates to camp, even if he was able to get his Eagle, would not make a good leader as an adult in an outdoor program. On the other hand, if an outdoor oriented person were interested in being a leader, he/she can pick up the training and make a great scout leader. My dad was never a scout as a youth, but I spent my entire childhood growing up in the woods. I was camping from 4 years old on and hunting by the time I was 12. I have no idea how young I was when I picked up my first fishing pole. My dad was a District Commissioner for a while, but not very long. That really wasn't his thing, but I'm thinking that had we not been going camping every weekend already, he might have made a fairly good SM. On the other hand, my brother-in-law thinks that a "campsite by the water" is a pool-side room at the Holiday Inn. I'm thinking he's not going to ever make it no matter how many boys he had in his family. Stosh

The keystone in the PM is whether or not the boys are actually acquiring skills or merely learning them. There is a subtle difference. A boy might know what to do for a cut finger, but can he actually do it? It all depends on the quality of training. Demonstrate what you would do for a cut finger? If they talk through it, it's not the same thing as dragging out your first aid kit, washing the wound, stop the bleeding and apply the bandage. I wouldn't want to be out in the woods with boys who have not received sufficient training in all aspects of what is expected and is proficient in it. That means repeated practice, not just a one time demonstration and a check in the back of the book. So if a parent wants to know if his boy is safe, it depends on the boy, not the program. Kudu refers to what was once called a Real Scout, rather than the alternative a Parlor Scout. Can he function outside of the classroom? If he can't he isn't safe. However if he takes what he learns, becomes proficient in it, then yes, he is safer than the average person out there. Is that a 100% guarantee? No, but he has a better chance than nothing at all. This past summer while hiking in Yellowstone, a hiker about 30-45 minutes ahead of us was killed by a grizzly. I have no guarantee of safety if it had been my fiance and I, at least we would have had a better than average chance of survival. She spent 20 years in the Alaskan Wilderness working for the US Forestry Service and I have had many years of camping in bear country. Would Little Johnny be safe on that trip with the other hiker? No guarantees, but had he been well trained to handle it, he might have been able to survive and keep someone else alive. So in the long run, when it comes to outings, No, no one is safe, no one should go into the woods, and everyone should stay home and become a parlor scout and hope that an earthquake and/or tornado doesn't hit. However a properly trained, prepared Real Scout, although not 100% safe, will do his best to help others in the midst of a dangerous situation. The ideals of Scouting all point to creating what Kudu calls Real Scouts, that can actually be proficient in helping people, will go the extra mile for someone, who holds honesty in high regards, and in a tough situation be able to think his way through better than the average person. The PM exemplifies this process well for boys of this age as a preparatory time for them to learn what they're going to need in the future. The person they may be doing first aid on could be their spouse or child, rather than practicing with their patrol buddies. Everyone complains about kids being affected by peer pressure, well, the PM is build on those dynamics. If parents don't want their kids to be as such, or they think it's too dangerous for them, they need to find a different program for their child. Maybe sports where all they have to do is follow the directions of their coach. Or music where they follow the directions of their director, or the teacher where they follow the assignments of their teacher, or just take out the garbage like their mom told them to do. At 60+ years of age, if I go on a hike, camping, or kayaking, I surely hope that a few Real Scouts are along so that if something happens to me I have a better than average chance of survival. I'm going to be really ticked off if the only think the boy thinks about his how much trouble there's going to be because if I have a heart attack, they no longer have 2-deep leadership. Stosh

Going off into the woods unsupervised is the final test of all they learned, not the first step of seeing what they can do. It's kinda like taking an aptitude test to see what kind of musical instrument you MAY be capable of learning. Then the training and practice starts. However, with that being said, what's the point of purchasing an instrument, practicing your butt off for many years, getting very proficient and then never having a concert? ">>Independence and self-confidence in a teenager is a major threat to parents in today's world. If my boy grows up to be independent and self-confident, he may leave home and make a life of his own. Seriously, there are a lot of parents that can't handle that idea.

Churches do these sort of things out of the good will of their commitment to their mission and would not expect anything in return. However, with that being said, I would calculate what it would have cost had one not been able to stay at the church, add a bit for the convenience of the location and give it to the church but ear-mark it as a designated giving to go towards their youth group that may some day be in the same situation that you are. Their kids go on similar trips throughout the country on mission trips, etc. and having a door opened to them is not always available in those situations. Give a gift that passes on the kindness you received. I would suggest the boys all dress in their scouting finest and attend the church and make the donation in person. Stosh(This message has been edited by jblake47)

This discussion brings back a lot of discussions I have had over the past 15 years. 1) "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." This assumes that the current process is correct. This dovetails very nicely into, "Well, that's the way we have always done it." And that isn't a correct assumption either. "Traditions" come and go. Too often what one is experiencing the past few years has somewhat worked, but it's not the way it has always been done. What if it could be better? Is that ever an option to consider? For a lot of people who want the status quo to continue, the answer is always an emphatic YES, but they don't have any valid reasons to support it. 2)"Kids don't know what they want", "Kids can't make decisions", "Kids..." etc. etc. What is being said here is that the adults don't really think these scouts are really smart enough to figure it out on their own. The assumption is that they are basically not trainable until they get older, more mature, etc. To set very low expectations for these boys insures their "success" and of course a nice pat on the self-esteem. 3)Failure on the part of the boys is directly translated as failure on the part of the adult leaders. This is the chaos thingy at meetings. No adult is going to be a failure if they can help it and will take over the reins to insure it. Each Eagle notch on their gun handle is the leader's source of reassurance of their success. Look at it as a nice pat on the self-esteem of the adult leadership. 4) What would happen if the boys got so good they didn't need the SM/ASM's anymore? See the reference to how this applies to parents in an earlier post. I always look forward to the day when my scouts say to me, "Mr. S. you can come along, but you have to be the grubmaster this time around, that's the only opening we have for this activity." 5) Most adults who are not ego-centric are usually very helping, well-meaning in their volunteering efforts and will always be the first to jump in and help a struggling scout. That's difficult to let the boys learn the hard lessons of life. It runs against every grain of my being, but I know it is best that I hold back and give each boy his opportunity to make it on his own. I can only make opportunities, I can't do it for him if I ever expect him to truly lead. Only in the PM do I see any hope for those opportunities to be made available to the boys. Remember up and until they get into scouts they have been told what to do, how to do it, when to do it, and how often to do it. A natural leader may have figured it out, but they are not all that common in today's world. Instead they are masters of following, but have NO IDEA what it means to lead. The model they have seen is the bossy adults! What a lesson we have laid out for them to follow. The PM offers them the correct way to lead and be successful! It may be the only chance many of these boys will ever get to see what real leadership is all about and the best environment is the small group patrol of their friends. There they can safely experiment and try out things to discover what their leadership style in life is going to be. "Bummer, fell on your face? What did you learn? What are you going to do differently next time?" That's mentoring, guiding, but NOT directing them in leadership. These boys aren't stupid, give them the opportunity AND TIME to prove it! Stosh(This message has been edited by jblake47)(This message has been edited by jblake47)

1) I think one of the dynamics I have seen working is the need for adult leaders to produce "successful" programs and that isn't going to be obvious in a PM troop. SM's are under scrutiny by CC and committee and parents and other leaders to make sure there is a degree of success with tangible results, i.e. # of Eagles produced each year, etc. If one were to leave this process up to the boys and they decide to define success in terms different than the adults, the PM will go down the toilet rather quickly. 2) Secondly the program drives the boys, not the other way around. People in the "know", i.e. know what their children want and the last thing anyone wants to do is rock the boat by actually asking them what they want. If those two things don't match, conflict arises. 3) Leadership is no longer defined by boys anymore. It's always easier for adults to teach organizational skills and call it leadership, issue a patch, and send the boys off happy, than to allow natural leadership to develop within the PM as Powell and Hillcourt envisioned. 4) Independence and self-confidence in a teenager is a major threat to parents in today's world. If my boy grows up to be independent and self-confident, he may leave home and make a life of his own. Seriously, there are a lot of parents that can't handle that idea. That's why the PM training to go out on their own for overnights has been systematically removed from the program. 5) Trust is also an issue. These are just little kids, what do they know? Since day one, parents, teachers, pastors, etc. have all been telling the kids what they can and can't do. It takes a lot more trust on the side of these people to trust that their lessons actually have worked. PM actually trains them to do exactly that, but no one is ever going to trust giving these boys a final test of their lessons. Just a few thoughts.... Stosh

Hmmm... if regular menu items are not forced on vegans out of respect, what kind of respect is it when vegans force on others? I got my picky eating habits corrected at a young age by my mother. Her favorite comment at dinner was: "If you don't like what's served, there's peanut butter and jelly. Otherwise, you can check next door to see what they're having." I grew to really dislike PBJ's. Stosh

A lot of what is being discuss is the balance between the different governmental elements. The US Constitution left a lot of governmental control up to the states and local governments trying to keep the power in the hands of the people. The Federal government stayed quite small until that process was challenged during the American Civil War. How does State's Rights get defined. Since that time the Federal government has taken more and more away from the local and state governments and turned itself into a massive, wasteful bureaucracy. Local school boards used to determine what happened in their local schools. Now the bureaucracy reaches all the way to a bureaucratic entity controlled by the Federal government, something which was never envisioned by our Founding Fathers. Thousands of entitlement programs which were once controlled by local entities is now under the "guidance" of national programs, many of which are totally unaware of even who is being assisted. The more the Federal government takes, the less ends up in the hands of the people. Whereas the original 13 states were in fact a confederation of multiple states with a common interest of military protection seated in the Federal government for the common protection of all, yet with each governor having his own army for the state's concerns. The vast majority of soldiers of the Civil War were members of state armies, not Federal soldiers. The US government had a standing army of 14,000 soldiers. States issued their own money as well. Since 1865, there have been many changes in our form of governance, and not much of it has really been beneficial to the people. The Tea Party is only interested in getting back to the basics and getting the power of governance back in the hands of the people, not the bureaucracy of the Federal government. The idea of self-governance is a long lost ideal in today's society, but was the #1 concern of our Founding Fathers. The issue came to a head in the Civil War when the people of New York wanted to tell the people of Alabama what they could or could not do. Now we have carried that to the point where the Federal government feels it is within their power to tell each and every individual in American what they can and can't do (or even say). The Bill Rights does spell it out and yet the Federal government still picks away at even those rights. You can read about it in any newspaper published in America today. " "Drafted by Thomas Jefferson between June 11 and June 28, 1776, the Declaration of Independence is at once the nation's most cherished symbol of liberty and Jefferson's most enduring monument. Here, in exalted and unforgettable phrases, Jefferson expressed the convictions in the minds and hearts of the American people. The political philosophy of the Declaration was not new; its ideals of individual liberty had already been expressed by John Locke and the Continental philosophers. What Jefferson did was to summarize this philosophy in "self-evident truths" and set forth a list of grievances against the King in order to justify before the world the breaking of ties between the colonies and the mother country." "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness." Progressive? Or Protective? De ja vue Stosh

What?!! No bacon on a campout?!! It would shut some units down! Stosh

Do the course without ANY lectures. I had this demonstrated many moons ago when I was a kid. The instructor walked out into our group with a 1' stump, put it in the middle of group and sat on it. He said he was going to teach all there was to know about fire building and the tools to make it happen. He then got up and without saying a word demonstrated the tools, how to use them, how to sharpen them, he went and found wood in the woods and demonstrated fire building. I especially remember that with each piece of wood he had, he also held up the leaf so we knew if he was referring to pine or oak, or whatever. Once he was all done, he went back to his original stump, sat down and asked, "Any questions?" Surprisingly there were very few. After all these years, I still sharpen my axes as he taught. I carry them as he taught, even though today's carry is different. Obviously this gentleman has perfected his silent "lecture" over the years, but it is something I still remember 50 years later. Every time I teach, I only speak to fill in where I have not come fully prepared for the demonstration, i.e. oak leaf and piece of oak, pine needles and piece of pine. I'll hold up the wood and say it's oak or pine. Maybe I would be more effective with the leaf and needles. Stosh

Good leadership? Look behind you and see who's following? No one? Might be a good time to evaluate what you think leadership is. If one stands back and quietly watches a group of scouts, one can readily tell the real leaders in the group. It usually has nothing to do with the rank on their pocket or the POR on their sleeve. Stosh