JMHawkins

Honestly..how many boy scouts do you get that did NOT come from a pack? My guess is that in any given troop it would be between 1% and 5%. Well, if the given troop happened to be the one I'm with, it would be 60%. 19 of our 32 Scouts were NOT Cub Scouts. But then we take recruiting from the community seriously. So, back to Jeffrey H's pros and cons post: Pro) maybe without Webelos crossovers, Troops would be more motivated to actually get out and recruit Boy Scout aged boys instead of relying on the Cub Scout program for all of their new members. Now, I don't think we should do away with Cub Scouts, but on the other hand, I do think Boy Scouts is the most valuable program BSA offers. Cub Scouts is a great program, but Boy Scouts is indespensible in our current society. Boys that age are at a critical point in their development and our society doesn't provide them enough opportunities for growth, responsibilty, and citizenship. But why do the programs have to be at loggerheads anyway? Both are valuable, both do good. The whole talk about prestige is totally misplaced. What I see, reading between the lines, is three things. One, some Troops have a bunch of stick-in-the-muds set in their ways who are dismissive of the new crossover parents because they haven't been around and the Old Guard doesn't know their abilities. Two, some Cub Scout parents are pushy know-it-alls who, because they haven't been around the existing Troop leadership, dismiss those years of experience running a program for older boys and get their polypropylenes in a bunch when they don't get to step immediately into a leadership role with their son's new Troop. And three? Three, there are a bunch of folks who appreciate the time and effort the other volunteers put in, and who check their own egos at the door and make a big effort to get along with and work well with the other adults in the Troop, new or old.

There are two things that are a bit frustrating about the training requirements. One is the constant hokey-pokey dance that National does with what is "required." It seems like the protocol is just to mandate stuff and leave it up to the front line folks to figure out how to meet the mandate instead of, you know, planning and organizing an effective solution. Then when the requirements can't be met and units will fold, the requirments get relaxed or delayed. Or maybe it's just lousy communication. Both explanations are exampls of poor management. Irving might want to hire some management consultants to train them on how to avoid these common mistakes. The second thing that bothers me is the one-size fits all approach to training. IOLS is no where near enough training for someone wthout much outdoors experience. It's a waste of time for a SM with 20 years experience and a solid outdoor background, and it would be better if they spent that time doing something else (accompanying their unit on an outing, taking WRFA classes, teaching folks who would benefit from the instruction, maybe even spending time with their family). Somehwere in the middle are Scouters with solid outdoor experience but no experience in leading youth's in the outdoors - they benefit from IOLS. Can we fix the training to target IOLS at those folks? Give the vets a functional test-out option that doesn't require an entire weekend? Maybe it's something we can do at RT? Seriously, there is no real testing in IOLS. If someone has been a SMASM for several years, can we give them a written test and sign them off? Can we deputize experienced SMASMs to take on "apprentices" and let the apprentices become "trained" through association with these experienced folks? Seems that's more likely to instill the skills and knoweldge to run a safe and effective program.

SeattlePioneer is proably right that Jambo isn't the best place for the boy to start managing his own care. However, he is going to have to start being responsible for his own care at some point. There's over a year until Jamboree. If he's mature enough - something I of course can't tell from the other end of the Internet - that's enough time for him to become proficient. If he's not, well, that's a differnt story. But ultimately it seems to me the more important question isn't who's going to Jambo with him, but rather what the strategy is to get him to the point where he can manage his care himself. Is there a role Jambo, and the attraction it probably has for him, can play in helping him get to that point?

Maybe it's time to move this to I&P

Camilam, perhaps I can chime in as a neutral observer. I'm just another guy on the end of another internet connection. The troop I'm in is pretty well uniformed. All the SMASMs except one wear full uniform (the one is another of those retired military types. He said up front he'd be glad to volunteer as an ASM but he was done wearing uniforms. If we'd take him under those conditions, he'd step up. If not, he was happy to continue being a parent helping out where he could. We took him up on the offer without any hesistation or regrets). A typical meeting has 90% of the Scouts in full uniform. I'm not anti-uniform. You're digging yourself a hole in this thread, and you might want to take a step back and re-read some of your posts. You're not coming across well. Through your words, you are coming across as the adult-run fanatic Beavah and BP are hinting at. If that's not who you are, then your words are doing you a disservice. Offered up as a friendly, hopefully courteous, observation.

perdidochas is right, separating the group was the real problem. Of course, had the scouts taken their phones on the river and lost them, the parents would be demanding that the SM pay them for the phones. Not in our troop. We make it real clear to the parents that the Troop is not responsible for the gear the scouts bring. "Scouts lose stuff" the gear handout says. "The smaller and more expensive, the more likely they seem to lose it." We make the point that it's their responsibility to keep track of their own gear. We'll pick something up if we find it and bring it to Lost-n-Found at the next meeting if nobody claims it, but that's a bonus for the scout who lost it.

I'm with Twocub. I'm surprised you didn't hit somebody. It is not your job to "help out the local program." It's their job to help you. Bingo. This is the clue to when a council has gone sideways: they've forgotton who the customer is. I suspect it's one of the challenges of running any sort of business ("non-profit" or otherwise) that relies heavily on volunteer help while also having paid management. The paid folks maybe get confused and think anyone not being paid by the organization is a customer who ought to be paying for the services of the outfit. Then they start to see the volunteers as a potential revenue stream instead of what they really are - the front line staff who sell and deliver the product so that the folks who really pay (parents and deep-pocket donors) feel like they're getting something for their money. "The product" is the unit scouting experience. District/Council/National folks who think the District/Council/National experience is "The Product" are off in the weeds. But, the more I think about it, the more it's just par for the course in any large organization these days. Management types lose perspective on what their role it - they start to think the organization exists to support their job, rather than the other way around. Top notch leadership development outfits know this a huge problem and make sure they train their leadership folks to avoid it.

Find out the cost of a week long resident camp in the interest area of you son. Subtract the cost of one week at Summer Camp. The difference is the value of having volunteer leaders take the youth to Summer Camp Minor change to the number, OGE. Take the difference, multiply it by the number of boys going to camp, and divide by the number of adult volunteers. Last year for us, it would've been 7x the per-Scout differential.

Well, to answer it in another way, if there were no unit level volunteers and the Council had to pay me to put on a weekly 1.5 hr Leadership Development Course for 30+ corporate trainees, along with a monthly weekend offsite, and one or two week-long off-site residential sessions each year, they would have to pay me between $30k and $50k per year as a part-time consultant. That might eat into their salaries a bit. On the other hand, I'll go camping for free. So, what does National want the focus of the program to be again?

I lean toward, not having a statue if there is DNA evidence, and a match comes in 20 years later.. But, I have only heard the pros for waving the statue for DNA.. I could be swayed to the other side if someone has a good arguement against it. DNA evidence is more appropriate for exonerating an innocent person than it is for proving guilt. A DNA "match" only means there's a possibility the accused person is the real criminal, it doesn't prove it. Your DNA - at least as far as DNA testing technology goes - is not unique. With theoretically perfect performance by the lab technicians doing the test, there's a 1 in 1000 chance of a mistaken match. Actual error rates are inevitably far higher. It's not the magic technology CSI: Bakersfield (or whatever the current incarnation is) makes it out to be. Where DNA evidence is most useful is in ruling out suspects. If there isn't a match, then it wasn't you. If there is a match, it might have been you, but DNA by itself is not proof. There has to be other corroborating evidence. If you waive the statute of limitations on DNA, you'd have to waive it on the corroborating evidence too.

Some people are very good at getting others to follow them, but don't necessarily make the best choices about where they're leading everyone off to. They're natural born leaders, but they're also disasters. But looking just at the "getting others to follow them" aspect, I think natural born leaders have a handful of traits. One, they have a plan, a goal, something they want to achieve. It may not always be a wise, useful or socially redeeming goal, but they have one and have a desire to reach it. Two, they tend to see other people in terms of what that person can do to help the leader achieve his goal, and try to steer that person towards doing those things. In the best of cases, this is wonderful, because it gives the follower a powerful sense of accomplishment and belonging, allowing them to make meaningful contributions to the team. In less charitable cases, they're just being used and later discarded. Three, natural leaders have the self-confidence - both in their judgement and in their goals - not to worry very much about seeing people as tools to get the job done. In their minds, they are doing their followers a service by giving them a role to play in their plan. Four, natural leaders have enough empathy to understand how their followers feel during each stage of the plan, and can tailor their message accordingly. Natural leaders are leaders because they naturally think in terms of how the members of the team can contribute to achieving the goal.

There is no possible way to prevent it..... No, there isn't a way to 100% guarantee it'll never happen. But there are ways to reduce the chances, and that's what we should focus on. In fact, the idea that any failure to prevent abuse is inexcusable and should result in draconian consequences for the organization is highly counter-productive for that very reason. Although the threat of consequences helps to ensure people do what they need to do, there is a point of not just diminshing, but negative returns. If good faith efforts are not enough to protect honest people from a failure that cannot be 100% prevented, life becomes just a crap-shoot and good faith efforts happen less often because they're not rewarded. The perfect becomes the enemy of the good. I think this is a mistake our legal system is highly prone to, and it's sad that catering to that largely broken system is coming to dominate so many aspects of our lives. Ultimately the risks of cloistering our kids outweigh the risks they may be abused. There is no path we can take through life that is free of danger. All we can do is be prepared to recognize it, face it, and counter it as best we can.

Victims of abuse can take a long time to come forward, the reasons can be shame, desire not to let their parents know i.e. wait for Mom and Dad to pass before going to court, desire to forget, or fear ("say anything and I will kill your family") and then there is the possibility of DNA evidence which may have been unknown at the time of the crime. Whether the trial occurs a year, ten, or forty years later, the accused still has to be proven guilty beyond a doubt. This applies to murder cases, add "child abuse' as well. Evidence exists on both sides of an issue, and it degrades over time. Trying to determine the facts of an event decades after it happened is going to challege the integrity of the justice system. It's challeged enough as it is. Yes, there are reasons someone might not have come forward. We're far better off trying to deal with those reasons going forward than trying to find some way to accomodate them looking backwards. BSAs reputation, not to mention the safety of youths in the program, depends more on what is done to combat abuse today and tomorrow rather than what is done to redress abuse done yesterday. Frankly, this talk of statue of limitations seems to imply that BSA has been egaged in some sort of cover-up a la the Catholic church. I don't think that is the case - as others have said, BSA's files are an indication of doing the right thing, trying to track predators and keep them from just moving down the road a pace. It's an acknoweldgement that predators will be drawn to the program and the program needs to defend the children in it against them. We should highlight that - maybe other programs will pick it up. Let's be clear, as a parent I have no desire to hear the message "don't worry, if your child is molested by one of our volunteers, we'll pay your medical bills and court costs." Nobody wants a money back gurantee on a parachute. They want the parachute to work.

BSA should lobby for no statue of limitations for child abuse. Start with the states where we have high adventure camps! Y'know, it sounds all nice to say that, but statue of limitations don't exist so that criminals can "get away with it" if they just wait it out long enough. They exist because after a long enough time, it's difficult or even impossible to obtain reliable evidence. If someone is accused of a crime, especially a serious and morally repugnant one like child abuse, it is our responsibility as a society to make a careful examination of the evidence. If it's something that happened 20 years ago and all there is to go on is fragmentary memories and a handful of documents that perhaps nobody can place in context any longer, the accused probalby can't have a fair trial. And if anyone's not terribly concerned about fair trials for people accused of child abuse because we want to protect the kids, please consider the harm done to the children of an innocent scouter wrongly accused, let alone convicted, of child abuse. No, I think Beavah has it right - the best thing we can do is give kids as many trustworthy friends - adults and peers - in their lives as possible so they have someone they feel they can turn to if something isn't right. Teaching kids to should "HELP!" is great if they're attacked by the proverbial pervert hiding in the bushes, but that's not where most of the danger comes from. It comes from adults who work themsselves into positions where they are the only person the kid feels he can talk to, and then there's no one for him to go to when that adult turns out to be a predator.

There are a couple of fellows named Strauss and Howe who have a theory of a four-generation cycle to American (and British before that) history. They claim that the nature of our government and society means that every four generations there is a window of opportunity to make significant societal changes. The window is open for a while, then after people have absorbed as much changes as they are willing to accept, it closes for another four generations and whatever problems remain unsolved will have to wait for the next cycle. Their theory makes some sense and is backed up by annecdotal data. It's pretty much Harri Seldon stuff, but it's very erie to read them describe feelings and sentiments so accurately. If you buy their theory, we've just entered one of those windows and are due for an interesting next decade or so.

No, they just don't have the ambition or passion for the vision. Believe or not, probably less than 10% of volunteers don't haves desires of being a leader. Of course not. They have the desire to help out, make a difference, maybe vicariously re-live a little of the adventure they had a boys. That's not a bad thing, assuming they can temper it with some adult perspective and not let their own maudlin' trample the fun for the Scouts. Very few adults really have the desire to lead a group of 12 year olds. Those who do we should maybe be concerned about... Actually, seems to me the worst problems are the adults who get into Scouting in order to be "in charge." They don't mind the red tape and bureaucracy because it empowers them. That's part of what I meant by National not helping. As things are, volunteers who just want to help boys learn to be independant citizens of good character are frustrated by a blizzard of forms and "can't do thats" while the guys who want to be the big shot use all those rules to build their castle against any intruders. Again, I think the folks who run my District have the right attitude and work against that trend. But it sure seems to be a trend. Locally, you can make a difference and run a good program. KC9DI says: Unit-level folks have a much bigger impact on an individual Scout's experience in the program. Can National be blamed for units running watered-down programs? I agree that National has been moving away from outdoor adventure in some ways in recent years. But that doesn't limit your troop's ability to take on a challenging outdoor program, develop a strong patrol system, etc I both agree and disagree. Unit level folks do have a much bigger impact, but the sort of folks attracted to and retained in unit-level volunteer positions is affected by National. National i to blame for units running watered down programs when National publishes watered-down requirements and provides watered-down guidance. National is to blame for watered-down adventure when YMCA camps will put a kingerdartener on a climbing wall while BSA insists Scouts have to be High School aged to do that. National does limit a troops ability to take on a challenging outdoor program when the hoops to put one on get worse each year. That doesn't mean local unit volunteers can't still put on a good program, it just means it's arder for them to do so, and when something is harder, that means it'll happen less often. Another big factor is the lack of adult leaders with previous Scouting experience. They're sort of blank slates. They can be phenominal leaders if they get the right direction. But National is pushing an advancement-focused indoor program. If those non-scouter background folks get the right direction, it'll come from the dwindling cadre of "old-timers" (in body or spirit, perhaps both), and not from the official training program supplied from Irving. now, on the one hand, that shouldn't be. The information that comes out talks about a monthly outing, but somehow it's just not working that way.

If there were a startup national outdoor adventure association that pitched its offerings to middle schools and high schools instead of to churches, my guess would be that they'd decimate the BSA. I've been surprised that nobody "real" has moved into the space; so far all we've had are some fringe groups who cared more about their agenda than doin' good outdoor adventure youth work. That never works. Worse, they try to do somethin' with the uniform and badges stuff that the kids don't care for. Well, the badges and uniform stuff is the easy part. I can come up with a spiffy (though maybe not boy-loved) uniform and some ranks and bling and requirements without much trouble. I suspect I could even make the ranks and advancement requirements fun for the boys. The big challenge is getting enough capable adults to buy into the program to provide the volunteers needed. Part of that includes solving the logistics and liability problems associated with an outdoor program. Plus, I think groups that are likely to target schools will go in with a classroom-, or sports-oriented approach without the youth-led aspects of it. A 'teacher' or 'coach' will run the program, instructing kids on this and that, rather than letting them do it themselves, which won't be much fun for the kids. Sure, it doesn't have to be like that, but that's the tendency absent any countervailing force. Just look at BSA - it takes a fair amount of guidance and cajoling to keep the helicopter parents from following their natural instincts and making it an adult-led outfit. Frankly BSA is a total anomoly in the US that way - what other organized program allows kids to run the show? It would take the organizers of a new replacement national outfit a lot of work to instill the right approach with the adult unit leaders, not to mention build some credibility with mere parents who are asked to entrust their children to the program. BSA has a huge amount of social capital that's been built up over 100 years. I think it's squandering a lot of it, and I'm really worried about that because I don't think it is or will be easy to create a nation-wide replacement organization. Sadly though, I get the feeling our society will have lots of experience rebuilding massive amounts of social capital that the this generation has been so effective at frittering away.

Less than 20 months is a statistic taught in college for long range business planning. It is not specific to any organization but an average of many volunteer organizations from political action organizations to religious organizations. If you compare the work by all the volunteers in the units, you will find the average scouting volunteer actually puts in far less than 20 months. Those of us who put in more are a minority. But of course "those who put in more" are the backbone of the operation. It's their motivations that make or break the program. I suspect the big difference between what I experience in my District (which I'd classify as excellent based on what I read here) and Basement's is the motivation of the long-time District volunteers. Our district is run by basically a bunch of "retired" SMs who get it about boy-led, outdoor adventure. They also get it about providing support to the unit volunteers. From what I've seen of them, their motivations are two-fold: one, see as many boys having fun in outdoor scouting adventures as possible, and two see the adult volunteers have fun as well. The DC told me he thinks Woodbadge is about "the Scouters making sure they have fun too" because without that they eventually run out of steam and fade out of the program. Maybe that's the secret: making sure the Scouters who have fun and remain active as volunteers are the ones who like to go hiking and camping instead of the ones who like paperwork, political infighting, and petty bureaucratic tyranny. In that regard, National isn't really helping.

Our troop is 10 1/2 months old. The Scouts that have been on every trip have 24 nights sleeping outdoors. All of those except 2 nights were in tents. The other 2 nights were in 3-sided, unheated Adirondacks. That was in November and the temps got down to 25 degrees with a slight freezing drizzle the first night. We've camped every month of the year except March (the trooop only started in April - we'll get our first March campout in next month). The second outing the troop went on resulted in 7 inches of rain in a single day - set a record for our town (we're just outside Seattle). The last 4 trips have all had overnight temps below freezing. I just waved bon voyage to the guys as they headed off to Klondike, where the weather forcast calls for several inches of snow and sustained winds of 36 mpg with gusts to 98. Most of them are sleeping in cabins, but several plan to sleep in tents as part of their Camping MB. Myself, I'm looking forward to summer.

I got a Scouting education. I started to push more of the boy lead, patrol method, and boys voting for their leadership. Not an adult choosing the SPL, and then the SPL choosing the PLs. That's the way it was. Now we have full boy lead, patrol method, boys only voting for their leadership. And it is working. I first wouldn't have known all about this if I hadn't gone to WB. It's encouraging that Scoutbox has made these changes and it should mean a better program for the youths in his area. But I found myself really surprised, and disheartened, by his comment that he wouldn't have known about any of this boy-led, Patrol Method, stuff if he hadn't gone to WB. Those should be Scouting 101 topics, things covered in the most basic adult training offered. It should be reinforced at every level of training as well, but if Scoutbox had to wait for the graduate level Scouting course to get that info, then he was shortchanged by his earlier training. Obviously there are plenty of adult-led troops around, so I doubt it was just Scoutbox who missed that memo when he first got started. What's missing from the introductory training?

JMH -- difference between an Eagle project and your "Fetch the Rock" game is with the Eagle project, the boss/Scoutmaster is available to help you look for the rock if the Scout wants him to. No, I wasn't clear enough. The "boss" is whoever has final approval. The SM doesn't have final approval - that's the EBOR. They're the boss. If they can tell the Scout "wrong rock" after he's finished his project, that's a problem. In particular, it's modeling bad management practices. If we're going to sacrifice outdoor adventure for corporate management, we can at least teach good management.

We need something around the 5 dollar range. I see many people willing to buy with their hand going to their pocket/purse. Then they ask,"how much," "$10-20 dollars" the hand slowly drops. Yep. We had quite a few people at store site sales this year hear the prices, and then ask if they could just donate $5 instead of buying something. The price is just too high.

I wonder how much simple transportation becomes an issue? When I was cub-scout age, I could walk or ride my bike over a fair chunk of the town I lived in. By the time I was a Boy Scout, I could ride the bus to the next town over by myself if I needed to. Bottom line, my parents didn't need to drive me all over creation for me to make it to a meeting. It's not like that now. Parents having one more event they have to get their kids to becomes a problem. All in all though, there are multiple problems dragging down membership. Lack of adventure is the least excusable in my book.

That means, however, that approval of the basic plan is not sufficient to ensure that the project will pass muster at an EBOR Hmm, this is perilously close to what, at my old company, we used to call "playing fetch a rock." The Boss told you to fetch a rock, then when you brought one back, he'd say "No, not that one. Fetch a different rock." If you asked what sort of rock he wanted, he'd say "You're a professional, you should be able to figure that out." He might give some hints here and there, but would never officially tell you want he wanted. Of course, he wasn't telling you to fetch a rock, he was telling you to come up with a proposal. It was a symptom of dysfunctional management where the boss delegated responsibility without delegating authority (NOTE: that's a bad thing). Basically, he'd keep saying "no" and send you back to redo your plan until you came up - officially on your own - with what he wanted. But since it was "your" plan and not his, if it didn't work, he could still blame you for it. Seems like a bad idea to "pre-approve" a project that might not meet muster when it's done. [edited to correct a typo](This message has been edited by JMHawkins)

Just to relate a story that made me proud of the scouts. The adults established a rank requirement for SPL, and the scouts themselves decided to do the same for PL (just Tenderfoot). We try to schedule BoRs as needed, but committee members have schedules they need to keep too, so a BoR can't always happen at the drop of a hat. Elections were coming up. The SM announced that next week the Committee would be available for BoRs, but that was probably the last opportunity before elections to get a BoR so any scouts who planned on running should get their requirements wrapped up before next week's meeting. Next week came and the Troop was getting ready for the opening flag ceremony. Suddenly one of the guys who wanted to run for PL realized he hadn't gotten his flag ceremony requirement - the last one he needed - done yet and wouldn't be able to finish his rank that night and so wouldn't be able to run for office. He blurted it out, was dissapointed, then cowboyed up and got ready to get on with the opening. One of the other scouts spoke up. "Wait a minute. Is all you need the flag ceremony? Can we lash some poles together and make a flag pole so he can do his ceremony?" he asked the SM. The SM said sure, go see what you guys can figure out, come get me when you're ready. The rest of the troop started the meeting while those two guys improvised a flag ceremony. When they were ready, they conducted it, he got signed off, did his SM conference and got his BoR in time to run for office. So, somewhere in the intersection of expectations and flexibility, one Scout learned about the dangers of procrastination and another Scout stepped up to bail out a friend. The rest of the troop witnessed it. Not sure how deeply it sank into any of them, but I sure was impressed.