Stosh

Sounds a bit like you've been hanging around Stosh too much.....

One has to also consider that the breakdown of NSP, Regular and Venture patrols generally has very little to do with rigid rulings. Little Joey and his 3 buddies all come in from Pack 1 and there are 4 boys from Pack 2 down the street which go to the same school and are in the same class. They didn't get their AOL because their WDL was not into pushing the boys. No big deal They all arrive together at the Webelos invite outing from the local Troop. So the older boys hosting them make the reference to them going to be the "New Guys" coming in to the Troop next month. Okay, they hang out together and don't notice anything amiss because they are all new. So they show up for their first official Troop meeting and they all sit together and this guy known as the Jimmy the SPL introduces the group to an older scout John who's going to be their "Troop Guide" to help them get settled into scouting. Joey gets picked as the PL for the new boys and his buddy Teddy is the APL. John is very helpful getting them organized and showing them how to run meetings and such. Every now and then Pete shows up to show the boys how to build fires and tie knots and Frank shows the boys how to make meals and use the map and compass. The guys have a great time hanging out together. Well after 6 months of this stuff, John says he needs to go back to his patrol and Pete takes over the Troop Guide thing. No problem he's done a nice job teaching things and seems really nice. After a year most of the boys are Second Class , one's First Class and one's still a TenderFoot. It's not a big deal. The TF boy will catch up eventually. At the winter Webelos campout the older boys now refer to the new Webelos boys as the "New Guys". Pete says he's going to need to jump over to the New Guys and be their TG, but Jimmy the SPL will be able to help out here and there if PL Joey needs any help. PL Joey and APL Teddy think they can do okay so it shouldn't be any big deal. They know they can always ask Jimmy, Pete, John and Frank if they have any questions or need help. It would seem that the older boys had stopped calling them the New Guys now and were just talking about them as the Silver Fox Guys. I guess they weren't going to be the New Guys anymore. Fast forward now 3-5 years and Joey is no longer with the group, he's the SPL and Pete their old TG is now the PL. That's okay because John and Frank's patrol's membership had aged out quite a bit and they needed a home so the Silver Fox took them in. Teddy is out of the patrol for a while too. He's the TG for the New Guys coming in this spring. Pete thinks it might be a good idea for everyone to think about some big canoe trip this next summer. Maybe invite SPL Joey back for the trip and maybe Teddy could get some time off from being TG long enough to go along too. Sounds like it might be a lot of fun. So.... where do all the rules and regulations and adult made-up rules apply to when the boys transition from NSP to Regular to Venture patrol over the years? When it comes to labels, the New Guys coming in for the first year are the NSP and have a TG to help them get going and a few of the older older Instructor boys to teach them S->FC skills. Then after a few years of general scouting they start getting antsy and want to do some really big stuff they just start planning out some of the big trips to take and are now viewed as the Venture patrol of older boys. Who said anything about age limits, rank requirements, experience, or such. Just let the boys develop and grow over the years and when one talks about the Silver Fox patrol, they are really talking about just some of the older boys that have hung out over the years and are now doing a lot more HA stuff. The Ravens is the name the new boys picked. They have a TG and need some special attention, but after a while they will just cease being the New Guys in the NSP and will just be the Ravens. It would seem that people tend to get overly wound up about these labels when in fact they are just nothing more than reference ID to indicate the level the patrol seems to be operating at at any particular time. The Ravens are the new guys (NSP) Silver Fox are the older boys (Venture) and next year the Wild Wolves are starting to talk about going to Philmont so maybe now there are two Venture patrols. Big group of Webelos on the horizon next year, looks like there's going to be enough boys for 3 New Guy patrols (NSP's) And life goes on with little or no big hassle. NSP's need a little more help than the boys in the Regular patrols and the Venture boys are off doing some really neat things on their own. They come back and help out a lot when the Regular boys are getting overwhelmed with helping out with the New Guys.......

PM metrics? Sounds like a management issue, not a leadership issue. So, if it's management one needs, here's the metric... At least 50 patrol meetings a year. Sounds like what a troop would do, but each patrol meets separately focusing in on their own particular interests and needs. The Venture patrol plans Venture activities and doesn't worry about what the NSP is doing. They are doing their own thing such as S->FC training. Each patrol must camp 12 times a year. Sounds like what a troop would do, but each patrol can decide if it wants to coordinate with the other patrols. i.e. going to a camporee, or whether they wish to do something on their own. Each patrol must do a service project 12 times a year. Sounds like what a troop would do, but each patrol decides what's important. Each patrol must have 2 activities planned and coordinated by the APL This is important to develop future leadership/management and to have a ready supply of experienced PL's for other patrols if the need should arise. Each patrol must have 6 activities each year involving two or more other patrols. Inter-patrol activities are necessary to stretch one's diplomatic skills outside the limits of one's patrol. Troop level POR holders must function under an ASPL as a patrol separate from the other patrols. Troop POR's need to be separate from patrol activities to avoid any conflict of interests or favoritism. SPL is the "PL" to the PL's of the patrols and this "patrol" is the PLC. It is to meet once a month and cannot make any decisions concerning the patrols. SPL is the enabler, communicator between the PL's and the SM. He is there to help, not make decisions and impose them on the patrols. His tact and diplomacy is developed at this level along with that of his ASPL's who are PL's of the various Leadership Corps groupings. The PLC is for support only. For example, 3 patrols cannot force the 4th patrol to comply with what the other three want done. 3 patrols want to go to summer camp and the 4th wants to go to HA. SPL needs to put on his problem solving hat, work with this Leadership Corps and Adults and make it happen the way the Patrols want it to happen. Not only are these measurable metrics, they are measured in terms of the patrol NOT THE TROOP. The awards for JTE should be by patrol, not by troop! Change the focus and it will change the culture! Maybe the JTE patch should be a donut shaped patch that goes around the patrol patch!

The only language I use is..."Bummer!" Mr. Stosh, we have a problem.... Bummer! Mr. Stosh, we forgot to bring..... Bummer! Mr. Stosh, Joey won't do what he's told..... Bummer! The #1 dynamic of leadership is problem solving for the group. If the boys can't do that.... Bummer! Better learn quickly! Boys that learn to rely on the adults to pull them through the tough spots will never learn. Suck it up, figure it out! When I was deployed to NC for Hurricane Matthew, I was put into a situation I had absolutely no experience and 1 hour worth of web-based orientation/training. You're a Shelter Manager go to.... and set up the shelter. Bummer! I ended up with 150 people, no electricity and I had never made an MRE in my life. It was 8 days of problem solving, one after another, in adverse conditions. Bummer! My Scouting background, my expired EMT training, group dynamic training, Greenleaf's Servant Leadership basis, and the totally irrational thought that "I can do this" got me through. I was the classic example of a 10 year old PL of the NSP. Bummer! It can be done, quit whining, roll up your sleeves and figure it out.

@@DuctTape, yes, the dynamics change, the verbiage changes, but the reality stays the same. Previously there were "just patrols". Yep, and the high school kids didn't hang out with the 6th graders or even the junior high kids. They did their thing and the younger boys did their thing and everyone kept to themselves. In my troop in the early 60's it was pretty much patrols grouped by age. I don't remember having any older boys, nor do I remember any new boys being assimilated into our patrol by adults. We hung out together and that was that. Well they can call it anything they want and publish any handbook they so wish, but the fact remains when adults do a scramble mix-up in order to assimilate the new guys it is not boys making up their own gang. It is unfair to all concerned once that happens. 4 boys, 16+ years old, talking about a canoe trip in the BWCA, They're excited about it until the SM comes around and decides that 4 scouts aren't enough to make up a "full" patrol and puts in 4 new 10 year olds that need to be mentored by older boys. Well, there goes the canoe trip and the "fumes" start to look pretty good. So in order to avoid the hassle the 4 - 16 year old boys decide to merge with the 15 year olds because they think the canoe thing sounds pretty good, but they can't because they, too, have 4 new 10 year olds they have to "mentor" (i.e. babysit), too. The common denominator in this whole hassle is the adults messing around with the patrol method. The "new" methods don't work because the NSP doesn't have any leadership (and the adults haven't allowed any of the Leadership Corps the opportunity to develop as such. The NSP's have leadership, the adults just don't know it nor allow it to happen. The reason the Venture Patrols don't develop is because the older boys stick around only long enough to get Eagle and then disappear, unless they abandon the whole thing prior to that as not being worth the effort. I totally stay out of the patrol make-up and development, nor do I do anything to influence the leadership selection process. Over the years I have simply watched what generally happens and it basically falls into the NSP/Reg/VP groupings unless the troop is very small then maybe they have a NSP/Reg set-up until the membership increases and a VP develops for the older boys. I have never had the problem of having to split up and remerge patrols in order to generate some ad hoc "patrol" system to accommodate a high adventure opportunity. When I went to Philmont in 2000, the trek team was made up of older boys from 3 different troops. I'll never do that again. Not worth the 9 days of hassle in a remote location. From day one, they never really did anything "as a group (patrol)". The older boys resented the younger ones because they weren't "carrying their weight", both figuratively and literally. When left alone, the boys do far better and I enjoy my coffee a lot more. MYOB is the first lesson my ASM's learn when it comes to the patrol method. And the interesting thing about the whole process is the more the adults stay out of the way, the faster the boys have an opportunity to develop their own leadership. In my former troop where the numbers grew to the point where multiple patrols were needed they naturally fell into the NSP/Reg/VP model. Over the past 3 years I have been SM of a struggling new troop of one patrol, basically a NSP. Yet 2 of those 3 years, members of my troop (PL and/or APL) have won the top sales prize for council popcorn sales. We have no ISA's so all the money goes back into the patrol/troop for everyone to enjoy. No scout has had to pay more than $50 to go to summer camp and yet, there are no older boys to mentor, no adults running any of the show and the boys seem to be really happy with the setup they have created.

http://www.scouting.org/scoutsource/BoyScouts/PatrolLeader.aspx And yet it is still resisted....

It also lessens the "Atta Boy" responses when someone puts out a good post that one agrees with.

One also must be aware that individual older scouts enjoy the younger boys and in a NSP/Reg/Venture patrol structure are not limited to just their age/ranking group. One of my better Eagle scouts after attaining the rank, put in two years as NSP TG instead of wasting his time as JASM (His words, not mine.) But for those boys that do not want that much interaction or constant interaction with younger boys, the Venture patrol is a strong draw for them. I find that along with the Venture patrol, the Leadership Corp (POR patrol) tend to have more age/rank variety and do just was well as a Venture patrol but the lack of continuity tends to be a bit more disruptive (boys coming and going at 6 month intervals) I don't have quite as much problem with that because the POR's are not on a term basis and the boys hold the POR's for as long as they perform the job. My Leadership Corps is very much like what one would call a Venture patrol, but getting into it is easier, just take on the POR and you're in. Venture patrols tend to be membership by friendship, age and/or popularity. The Leadership Corp tends to be quite patrol motivated with an external vision of what they are all about, i.e. inter-patrol relationships, whereas Venture patrols are more self-serving. It leaves the door open for older boys that want to serve and those that want to "do their own thing".

Is the double bunny looping adding to the requirement?

With all the different "definitions", iterations of the Patrol Method, and lack of support from National is it any wonder those who try to use boy led, patrol method in their troops find themselves basically groping in the dark and everyone around them telling them they are doing it all wrong? Scouting's Journey to Excellence "Scouting's Journey to Excellence" is the BSA's council performance recognition program designed to encourage and reward success and measure the performance of our units, districts, and councils. It is meant to encourage excellence in providing a quality program at all levels of the BSA. - http://www.scouting.org/scoutsource/Awards/JourneyToExcellence.aspx Notice the total lack of the word patrol anywhere in the literature? I had to promote the JTE program as a unit commissioner, but I never ran it in my unit. We didn't even get a participation ribbon... didn't qualify if we didn't participate. When scouts can register for District and Council events as a patrol, we'll stop doing what we're doing and start to listen. Until then we'll need to settle for our "off the reservation" patrol method were the boys make the decisions and run the show in their patrols and use the troop as the only means of communication between patrols. It may not be perfect, but it is closer to boy led, patrol method than any other unit in the Council and from listening to the debate on the forum, I'm still okay with what my boys are doing.

Posted Today, 03:58 PM The Latin Scot, on 22 Dec 2016 - 11:10 AM, said: I think that this is an outstanding goal. I think a shortfall in WEBELOS is the lack of DL knowledge of patrol method. The idea doesn't really get taught all that well it seems, and so really a WEBELOS and even an AOL really isn't all that much ahead of a boy walking into a troop meeting off the street. ...... But that's because we talk about them at every meeting, and I want them prepared so that as soon as they graduate to the Troop, they can pass of their Scout rank at their first meeting. ..... A flip side to the idea though is that the scouts might get a bit bored earlier on. If the troop guide and instructor does what it is that they do, regardless the ability of the new scouts... Or if the scouts and /or adults in the troop hold onto any preconceived notions about age and ability. As an example, our SM has started an idea of a "high adventure patrol"...Open only to older scouts.... I forget the age exactly. But the idea is sound..... let the older scouts do some fun stuff to help hold their interest. I like it a lot. but what it's really doing is throttling the younger boys. One example of a suggested activity was to canoe over to Cumberland Island, where it is possible to camp.... and it wouldn't be tailgate camping. I asked why not let any scout come along that wants to go..... I know my son would enjoy it much more than having some older scout read to him out of the book about how to do some particular thing or another....such as build a camp fire. But the answer i got back was that the younger guys wouldn't be able to handle it..... or some such thing...... so my point is this.... get them too ready and they may just get throttled back anyway to the point of being bored. Might should prepare them while you're at it with tools on how to overcome adult influenced ideas.... So, one has this great idea to retain older boys, give them high adventure and they hang together and have a good time. Then one wonders about the younger boys getting left out? This is why I spun this off into the Patrol Method area of the forum. The older boys (Venturing Patrol) go and have fun and aren't bored. This is great! Younger boys (NSP) are jealous! and feel left out. Well, Cupcake, get your patrol organized, trained and plan a major trip of your own! Who says you have to miss out when the only thing holding you back is yourself? NSP PL: Mr. Stosh? How come the older boys get to go primitive camping and we can't go along? Mr. Stosh: Who said you can't? NSP PL: They did, the boys in the Venture Patrol. Mr. Stosh: That's not your patrol, why would you think you should go along? NSP PL: Because they are doing all the fun things. Mr. Stosh: You're the PL, make plans to do it as a patrol too? NSP PL: We don't know how. Mr. Stosh: Why not? All the knowledge to pull it off is in learning the S->FC requirements. The only thing holding you back is yourselves. By the way, when I was WDL my boys planned out a farewell to Cub Scout outing by canoeing out to a remote island, set up camp, dug latrines, cooked for the weekend, fished, canoed, swam, had a great time and came home all in one piece. The key to the whole thing is the WDL never said, "NO, YOU CAN"T DO THAT." And as an added note, the Saturday night meal was baked potatoes, corn on the cob roasted on the fire and a nice steak. Cobbler for desert. All done by the boys. I did help them time the steaks so they wouldn't get ruined per their request. The reason the NSP boys take a beating in the troops is because the adults totally underestimate their abilities and their drive to succeed. If the NSP want to do a primitive campout, let them! They'll learn it isn't as easy as the older boys make it out to be, but with training, the second time out is always better.

I would just ignore it, as well. Like a good whine, it will get better when aged. It may take some folks a while, but in the end they always give up.

You'll just have to go back to the old fashioned Christmas Card routine..... sorry.

With the onset of the hand calculator, the world no longer needs to learn the principles of mathematics. With the onset of the computer keyboard, the world no longer needs to learn the principles of handwriting. Once the electricity goes out, the world will revert back to the stone age and electronic paraphernalia will be the only thing in museums.

The green up arrows add to your reputation count and the red down arrows subtract to your reputation tally. If you receive one red and one green for a comment it will show in the reputation list as a grey "0". Both red and green are maintained in the reputation history. There are also limits as to how many red and green arrows a person can give out on a single day, but no limit on how many one can receive.

I like it when I get the up arrows, it lets me know that I haven't said anything truly stupid for a change. And of course the down arrows reminds me that I just did.

Well, that's a real bummer!

When I was there, the docent, the shop clerk, the receptionist were the only people there for the time I was there. It reminded me of my local children's museum rather than a serious attempt as a legitimate museum. I did like the Rockwell exhibit, the only thing there worth seeing.

Awwww c'mon, A. Lincoln won with a 39% popular vote and very few people today would say he didn't do okay for our country. Once we get over the idea of what's best FOR ME (JFK said it best) and start looking at what's best for the country (being polarized is not what's best), then maybe things can be less contentious. Otherwise maybe 2% of the people need die again to make it happen like it did before. In today's numbers that's 6 million deaths. Of course, those injured or suffered because of it was far greater. I don't think people understand the power of their ideologies when it comes to destroying other people. If they do, this isn't going to end well for anyone.

I don't have my boys do the Outdoor Code as part of any ceremony. It's taught onsite.

I don't think the scouts will view the BOR as petty, but I'm sure that once the respect for the Board is gone, so is the boy. A Board can undo years worth of work in just one night of being stupid, uniformed, or just plain mean.

In 1929 the economy of the world collapsed because everyone was using OPM. Debt was rampant and it could not sustain itself. People don't learn from OPM's (other peoples' mistakes). What people don't understand is that what they pay in interest every month is a ridiculous amount of their wealth. Ever consider that over the course of a 30 year mortgage, one pay's for the house 2 if not 3 or 4 times over depending on the interest rate? Oh, you just paid off your mortgage? That's a $1000+/month raise and one doesn't even need to talk to the boss. This is the American Way and we all do it, so blaming the government for doing it is nothing more than self incrimination. People who know better can retire with a net worth of 7 digits and never make over $35,000/year with a post-high school education of 8 years. A scout is Thrifty and that's a Scout Law that gets abused all the way up to the top regardless of whether there's any Eagles in the mix or not. Go into the bank/credit union and ask for a 5 year mortgage with a credit score of 0 (ZERO). You have no debt, you have no score. They will look at you as if you just grew a third eye. They are always relieved when it gets paid off in less than 3 years. Your grandchildren and their children will totally understand the Trillions of dollars worth of debt they are facing and think nothing of it. They'll probably add to it without batting an eye.

Give or take a few votes, one could always conclude for the most part our society is pretty much evenly polarized. It always has been, but how both sides adjust makes the difference. In the 1860's they had a difficult time accepting a president that only garnered 39% of the popular vote. For those who have forgotten their history lessons from school, it's going to be a difficult lesson to re-learn.