JMHawkins

Picking up on Sherm's post, to quote what the current Handbook says about A Scout is obedient: If he thinks these rules and laws are unfair, he seeks to have them changed in an orderly way. The first step in "an orderly way" is having an open debate about what's wrong with the rules in question. The first step in a disorderly, lawless society is telling people they can't disagree with the rules.

Newb, Sounds like you're working hard to keep a reasonable perspective. It's tough sometimes getting vounteer adults to cooperate together, I know! I'm a CC too - but that's the job of the CC. Leadership is challenging and often isn't any fun, but it's our duty. From your descritpion, you are maybe the only adult involved who is willing to make the effort and not just kick over the card table, so I would encourage you to stick it out as CC and keep trying. Think of it this way - you're setting a good example for you son (and everyone else's), even if they don't see the dirty details (which hopefully they don't at this stage). You do need more adults involved. Sounds like the SM has taken some steps toward reconciliation, you should encourage the other parents to do the same. The Civil War started 150 years ago yesterday. A half million people died, but Yankees and Rebs worked together afterwards - your parents can do the same maybe, with a gentle reminder people have reconciled after worse conflicts? For perspective, I'm part of a brand new troop too. We have a SM, 6 registered ASMs, and a 7 person committee. We had 16 scouts at our first meeting, and less than half were Webelos crossovers (recruiting - both youth and adult - has been a priority). Thing is, of our registered adults, several, including the SM and myself, have our eldest sons still in Cub Scouts a year or more away from being old enough for the trooop. You should look at the parents of boys still in your old Pack - get them involved. They may have less history with the SM, and can add some much needed help in any event. If your current SM is going to succeed, he needs team members helping him. If you're going to replace him, you need bodies to fill in. Again, good luck!

First off, I second Twocubs academic exercise. Second, a question: How have the boys in the troop responded to the SM? Nothing you've said so far indicates he's a dangerous SM, just a disorganized one who has some deficiencies. In light of that, I'd suggest patience. Tell the parents who are concerned to please be patient as the troop works through it's growing pains. Remind them that qualified people willing to serve as SMs are not growing on trees. Suggest that it's probably a mistake to fire your SM when you don't even have a registered ASM yet. Point out that you as CC are the defacto ASM, so if the troop gets rid of the current SM and you take that job, well, who will be your ASM? Remind the parents about the need for two-deep leadership. (BTW, you and your wife both quality as "parents" here - remind yourselves too). Then give the guy a chance and see how he works with the boys. They are, after all, what it's all about. Repeat that mantra a few times to yourself before you evaluate him. "It's about the scouts. It's about the scouts. Its' NOT about the adults." If the guy actually turns out to be a good SM and gets the boys energized and enjoying the program, you as CC (and as a parent of a boy in the troop) want to keep him. Especially given how thin the leadership ranks are in the troop, you should give the guy a chance and do everything you can to check your own preconceptions about how he will be at the door. If the boys don't respond to him, then by all means grease the skids and replace him. But if he gets them funtioning as a Boy Scout Patrol (you're probably too small to have multiple patrols at this point), then he's doing the right thing, whether he seems disorganized or not. Frankly, it sounds like he doesn't have a whole lot of support from the other parents, since nobody is registerd as an ASM yet. Even though this guy has asked. You're critical of him having conflicts with football season, but honestly, it's unfair to expect him to sacrifice his family events for you guys when none of you have stepped up to provide him an understudy. If I was CC and you were one of the parents saying you didn't like the SM, I'd hand you an adult app with ASM already filled out for the position and say "fill the rest of this out, get trained as an ASM, serve for a few months, and then lets talk." Here's one other thing to keep in mind. Your description about the Webelos den raises red flags. The parents of the boys (you and your wife included) should not try to make the troop into a Webelos III den. Your sons are older, they need a Boy Scout Troop, not an overaged Cub Scout Pack. I can't judge from the other end of the Internet if that's a problem or not in your case, but it certainly happens and your situation has some of the warning signs. Regardless of how great a job you may have done as Cub Scout Leaders, the leaders they have as Boy Scouts will need to do different things. Perhaps you are the best people to do those different things, perhaps this SM everyone is so down on is. As CC, your real responsibility - shared with the COR and IH - is to make that decision and sell the parents on it. And maybe while you're at it, badger a couple of them into signing up as ASMs. You'll need some, whether you keep the current SM or not. One other thing, and please don't take this personally, I'd advise against setting it up with you as SM and your wife as CC. That's just asking for trouble down the road, especially if things start off with a power struggle forcing out the only other non-CO registered leader. You need to recruit other boys. Think about how it will look to the parents of those boys if a husband and wife team up to kick out the "professional Boy Scout" as you called him in order to have the troop all to themselves. Yeah, maybe that's not how it really is, but that's how it will look and that will make it hard to grow your troop. Besides, your family will need some support from the other families. You can't, shouldn't try to, do it all yourselves. Best of luck whatever you end up doing!

Shortridge is right, Friends of Scouting ought to be targetted at community members who are not already involved in Scouting. Families who are already paying registration fees, camp fees, etc. are the wrong target. In addition to the dues we require from them, we're already asking those families to volunteer their time - we want even more of their money too? Nah, too easy for that message to go south on us. And when you're talking to the families with kids in Scouting, talking about the "real cost" can easily come off like a typical government services extortion ploy, where the Parks and Rec department, or Police and Fire service - the things taxpayers are actually willing to pay for - are first on the chopping block if budget requests aren't met. The implied message of "it really costs $200 per kid to run our summer camp and you're only paying $120" is that summer camp will go away if you don't pony up another $80, or maybe $160 to cover for your cheapskate neighbors. Whether or not it's intentional, whether or not it's the result of poor training or whatever, FoS tends to come across as a very un-scoutlike activity. It really needs to be rethought.

I think it makes sense for the BSA to standardize on a single training delivery model, mainly to contribute to creating a consistent experience from unit to unit and training program to training program. Actually, I disagree with this. Among actual studies done on teaching (and learning) styles, it's pretty clear that not everybody learns best the same way, and so it seems foolish to mandate a single teaching methodology, since it will not be effective for everybody. If we are going to start looking at methodology, we ought to make the requirement something like "teach someone how to do X using two different teaching methods. Tell which one was more effective." Or we could just leave it at "teach someone how to do X" and let the boys discover for themselves that not everybody learns the same way. jksolomon, as someone who's taught Situational Leadership (formally and informally) myself, I do not see it and EDGE as the same thing at all. They each have four bullet points on a Power Point slide, but the points don't really map to the same thing. EDGE is a formula, you crank through the steps. Situational Leadership is a way of evaluation the team you're leading (note another major difference, EDGE is about teaching, SL is about leading and managing. Teaching is often a component of leadership, but leadership is far more than teaching*) and of tailoring your leadership to their abilities. I'm all for introducing Scouts to the concept of teaching methodologies, but I think it's a bad idea to limit it to just one and make it out to be someo sort of silver bullet. * EDIT : doh! I see Beavah already pointed this out(This message has been edited by JMHawkins)

...nearly thirty years ago, I seem to remember fewer troops using Dutch Ovens compared to these days. Perhaps others can suggest if their memories suggest a wider use of Dutch Oven now. SeattlePioneer, when I was a scout thirty (some-odd) years ago, my troop didn't own a Dutch Oven. Too heavy to carry backpacking, which is almost all we did. One car camp a year, and that was at a lagoon which we explored with canoes after setting up camp, and we still cooked over our white gas stoves. Yeah, we used stoves instead of wood fires. We'd have a campfire, sure, but patrols cooked over our own stoves. When I went to IOLS and everybody was cooking stuff in dutch ovens and carting around 50 lb bags of Kingsford Briquettes, I wondered just where I was. But I guess that just highlights we all have different memories and different ideas of the right way to do it. Personally, I prefer the backpacking stove and white gas, but I think knowing how to lay and start a fire (and demonstrating the ability) should still be part of the First Class requirement, even if the scouts have to do it in an artificial environment. "Me Make Fire!" is a boast every young man should be able to make. Kinda is a sad situation when one figures that spilled fuel is more dangerous for everyone concerned than spilled firewood. Stosh, I was just looking over the camp rules for our Summer Camp, and all liguid fuel needs to be stored in a central location with the camp staff - our troop and patrols apparently can't keep their own stove fuel with them. Wonder if we can get an extension cord to the campsite from the camp office to run the microwave?

Add another vote for recruiting. I think having a second patrol might help foster more of a leadership role in the older boys because then you can have competitions between the patrols, and the older boys will probably figure out that if they teach the younger boys real skills, they'll have a better chance of winning. As it is, they don't see any value in having the "kid brothers" hanging around. You have to find a way to make those younger boys valuable to the older ones. And not just as the kitchen cleanup crew, but as members of a real team. Good luck.

acco said " Part of the course is to "be prepared" and for others not to describe in detail what the course will be like." Hmmmm, I'd say that part of being prepared is getting the folks putting on the event to clarify details where needed . Asking "do I need a backpacking tent for this weekend" is a reasonable question. Instructions to "come prepared as if going on a backpacking trip" would be good, though maybe would discourage Cub leaders who might only have the sort of equipment needed for family camping. As an aside, I'm not really keen on the idea of a leadership course that encourages poor transparency. "Don't tell anyone else what we did" isn't exactly a model of responsible leadership.

What's a turn table? ... a record? Oh, they're awesome! You can use them to make cool, spiral artwork on old CDs that are too scratched up to play anymore. It's a great Cub Scout B&G centerpiece project.

Wouldn't it be a great local morale and PR boost to have the Chief Scout Executive stay at the council camp when he's in town? It'd be too easy to crack a joke about meeting the requirements of the Medical forms, but then again, he probably wouldn't be staying 72 hours... Really, don't like to joke about people's weight, but if he's going to set a policy, he ought to set an example too. I know, I know, he's an executive of a major corporation and needs constant Internet and cellular access and proximity to big airports and transportation that's not a beat-up camp pickup truck to run things properly. On a more serious note, a CEO needs an understanding of what the organzation is doing at the delivery level a lot more than he needs an airport and a net connection. Frankly, I think your idea is fantastic, at least once in a while he ought to do it.

Interesting to read Crew21's take. A lot of that I probably could have guessed, it's pretty common in organizations. The Meyers-Briggs/Situational Leadership/Formin'-Stormin'-Norman'/Puddle-I'm-Standing-In stuff are all useful tools and techniques, but I think they are to Organizational Leadership about like IOLS is to doing a summit attempt on Mt. Rainier - strictly Introductory material. You're going to need to learn a whole lot more before you try the Mountain, else you won't get anywhere near the summit and you'll be lucky to come back alive. If I were designing an Organization Leadership course, among my top priorities would be teaching folks how to avoid the sort of well-intentioned but counterproductive metrics-and-mission distortion Crew21 wrote about with WB21C. Somebody has a new initiative, it's a big part of their job so they're enthusiastic about it. The org invested quite a bit in it, so they give the team a lot of leeway and encouragement in pushing it. The team has metrics for success and they want to hit their numbersl. Next thing you know they're leveraging every bit of organizational authority they have to drive people to their baby, regardless of whether its helpful or harmful to the parent org's overall mission. Not a big surprise to me to see it happen in BSA, since I've seen it happen in both larger and smaller organizations. It is a little humorous that it happend with the flagship Leadership Training course. But like the CD said at my IOLS, the kids really laugh when the Scoutmaster can't get the fire started.

In my years of management experience, I've come to believe a few things. One is that, although management is a specific activity with specific skills, you can't teach it as a general science disconnected from the activity it is supposed to manage. A good manager has to understand the work being done by the people he's managing. Putting that in the context of "old" vs "new" WB, the lack of outdoor scouting skills in the new WB is a serious weakness. Second, management is a support function. It is not as important as the underlying acivity being managed. Good management might be critical to the operation, and a good manager might well be the difference between the underlying activity being done well or done poorly, but in the end no management effort is more successful, more significant, or more important, than the effort it's managing. Because we tend to pay managers more and consider them a higher social status, that message is easily lost. Again, in the context of WB21C, the idea that the new skills are more important and more worthy of respect than the old skills, fails that test. It appears from the outside that it elevates management sciene over scout skills. If scout skills are what's being managed, that's a mistake. And third, no one or two week Leadership or Management course is actually very effective in making someone a better leader or manager. It can introduce valuable skills and ways of thinking about things, but like most everything else we do, proficiency takes practice. Real management development requires long-term follow-up and mentoring. Real management development is a continuous process, not a one-shot "now I'm trained" sort of deal. None of that means WB21C isn't useful, but I do get the impression it's vastly oversold. Almost all leadership development courses are. They're a lot like weight loss fads that way. The underlying idea of eating better or exercising more is true, but it's not something you can do once or twice and get any real benefit. Taking a workout class one weekend that teaches you a new routine that you can incorporate into your daily schedule = great! A management class that teaches you concepts to include in your daily schedule = great! Neither is worth much without the follow-up. We should respect the follow-up more than the class, is all I'm saying.

BSA is actually trying to do away with multiple forms, hence the 1 form. Back in college, my roommate brought home an answering machine one day. The box had big letters proclaiming "One-button operation!" The manual made a big deal out of how the machine was simple to use because it only had one button. Indeed, it only had one button. You pushed it once to play new messages, that part I remember. If you wanted to replay messages, I think you pushed it twice, or maybe that was how you deleted messages, and replaying was push-and-hold till it beeped. Pushing and holding till it beeped, then pushing it some number of times afterwards was definitely how you recorded a new outgoing message. I accidentally deleted a lot of messages with that machine. I think it cost me more than one date back then. It did four things. It needed four buttons: Play, Replay, Delete, Record. Four buttons with clear labels would have been way less confusing. Iriving didn't recently hire any ex-answering machine designers did they?

Seattle, My memory is fuzzy (hmmm, maybe I had hypothermia worse than I thought...) but there were several of us "drying out" around that campfire, but me and my buddy may have been the only ones who were more than just wet and cold. Most of the troop at least tried to build igloos, and most of those had trouble in the rain. Thinking back on it, I bet several of the PLC were awake because their own igloos weren't holding up either. I don't know who suggested rounding everybody up and checking on condition - whether it was the SPL or the SM - and at the time I just assmed it was the SPL since that's the sort of troop we were. The SM may have "helped". The boy leaders were definiely in charge of the recovery efforts though, at least as far as Tenderfoot me could tell. They'd pitched a few extra tents the previous afternoon "just in case" and those came in handy. So did the extra hot chocolate packets. I think both kids ended up as Life scouts. We were a hiking troop, not many Eagles. Advancement was perhaps an under-emphasized method. But yes, I didn't realize it at the time, but in the years since, it did occur to me that was a great example of boy-led success.

... just don't know if Dr. would sign a form in 2 places.. Seems like it ought to just be two different forms then, a "frontcountry" form and a "backcountry" form. Or call them Standard and High Adventure if you'd rather. The frontcountry form asks the doc to confirm the Scout(er) is healthy enough for overnight camping a short walk from a vehicle, and the backcountry form asks the doc to confirm the Scout(er) is medically fit for strenuous activity perhaps some distance from help. It could even have a list of specific activites (SCUBA, Mountaineering, Rock Climbin, etc.) with a place for the doc to note restrictions (e.g. no SCUBA due to an underlying condition). Then the Scout(er) decides which form to get filled out based on what activities they plan to do.

I guess I'm a member of the Hypothermia Patrol too. When I was a Tenderfoot during our annual Snowcamp, a warm front came in during the night and the rain assaulted my igloo. Well, actually, it was more of a badly made snow cave. It "caved" in on me and my buddy at any rate. The SPL and our PL came around at 2am and fished us out of the slush we were trying to sleep in and got us warmed up with blankets, a fire and hot chololate. Neither of us were in seriously bad condition, but we probably would have been by morning. Good thing those kids were out at 2am checking on the new scouts.(This message has been edited by JMHawkins)

I'm not really offended so much as dissapointed, and I'm probably coming across harsher than I mean to. I really do try to give people the benefit of the doubt, and I don't mean to "scold" Tokala (which I realize it probably sounds like I'm doing). I'm sure he (or she) isn't a petty tyrant, but I thought it was important to let him know the joke raised doubts. Why? It underscores a question about the Tour Permits/Plans (which also applies to a bunch of other "paperwork" like the Health Forms and mandatory training). What's the purpose of these things? If the Tour Plan exists to help Council ensure the unit volunteers are following important saftety rules (and to help the unit volunteers themselves do this), that's great. We can quibble about the details here and there, but the objective is good and "scoutlike" and worthy of our respect and cooperation. But if the purpose is to give Council brickbats to keep unit volunteers in line with petty Council dictates, then they're bad and prove Council unworthy of our trust, loyalty and obedience. Folks like Tokala are in a possition to fight against the bureaucratic tendencies. The joke makes me think he's not fighting against them. Even if he isn't indulging in them, that's still dissapointing. So, no offense intended Tokala, I'm sure you have a great sense of humor.

We have two DLs who act as ACMs as well. Of course nobody is dual-registered, and DL is their primary job. You can certainly do both jobs, it just means a little more time. How much depends on what ACM duties you were going to do. If you can invest the extra time - and you find it energizing instead of draining - go for it! But that "energizing" part is pretty important. DL is sort of a long-term commitment and you want to beware of burnout.

...you lack the background knowledge to appreciate my comments. An excellent reason that you shouldn't make that sort of a joke, Tokala. Someone who doesn't know you (like probably 95%+ of the volunteers in your council) might take you seriously when you say that you're tempted to behave in a selfish, vindictive manner, acting as a petty tyrant and abusing your authority. I'm all in favor of a good sense of humor. Joking about abusing your authoirity in an organization dedicated to teaching citizenship to impressionable youngers perhaps doesn't qualify as "good", eh?

Stosh, good luck. Yes, your milage certainly does vary. I'm curious what the other parents will think about this. I'm really sad to hear this happened. If it's any consolation, it gives me extra motivation to make communciation with new parents a huge priority to try and head this sort of thing off early.

Tokala, you shouldn't even joke about something like that. Frankly, if I was your SE, we'd have a little conference if I found you you suggested such a thing. And if my unit was in your council, I'd probably let the SE know that FOS was on hold until the VP of Program straighted up. Screwing around with things like that will cost you volunteers, dollars, respect, etc. Even joking about it, especially the way you ended the joke, will cause people to lose respect for your council. The paper work is a pain for the volunteers who make this whole thing work. The folks at National and Council better to their best to make sure it's necessary and improves the program. Using it to ensure safety and training = okay. Using it to force units to kowtow to the Council = unscoutlike coucil bleeding units.

Moosetracker - I'm sorry, I miscommunicated! Tour Plan is fine with me, I agree it's an improvmeent over Tour Permit. Its "Journey to Excellence" that grates on me. I think "Quality Unit" is a fine title. "Journey to Excellence" sounds like it cost $100k in consultant fees and is meant to avoid offending units, shall we say, taking a few too many rest breaks on their journey. Plus, since we're talking about communication, changing the name and the criteria is more likely to confuse people. If you said "Okay folks, there are some changes to the Quality Unit criteria for next year..." people immediately understsand what's going on. But when you start talking about a new thing, with different criteria, it doubles the chance for confusion. But I do like the idea of setting objective criteria for the award, whatever it's called.

We got a quick briefing on them at RT last week. I'm in the same council as SeattlePioneer (I assume, Chief Seattle), and our DE mentioned both the new Tour Plans and Journey to Excellence (frankly I applaud the changes but cringe at that name - makes me think I'm back in the corporate world with some overpriced mar-comm consultant trying to gussie up a pig, but I digress). Moosetracker's post is a good reminder though that one method of communcation just won't cut it. Multiple channels, mutliple times, if you want the word to get out.

First of all, sounds like the RT commish is a bit stressed. If he does feel that this sort of info is inappropriate for a RT, I would expect a polite "Unfortunately we already have a full program for RT and can't add new material, but thank you" sort of reply. That you appraently got something less polite makes me think the commish has some other problems causing him to be testy. (I'm assuming you didn't state your request as "hey, I've got something interesting to spice up your boring RTs..."). Personally I think that sort of info would be great for RT. Frankly, it's more useful than half of what we get at ours. Since the guy running RT disagrees, maybe - if the facility is available - you could suggest having a "training session" on the new forms immediately following RT. Send a nice letter to the RT Commish appologizing and say you weren't trying to hijack his meeting, but would really like to get this info out to the units since it might cause some problems and they'll need a little time to prepare, so, if you tack on a short 5-10 minutes session after RT for anyone interested in attending...

Anyone notice something conflicting on the form? The first part says the CR can only double register as CC or MC.....The second part says that the ScoutParent Unit coordinator may also register as CR.... Hmm, an inconsistency! I'd say the spirit of the thing is that the ScoutParent Coordinator is really a specialized Committee Member, and the CR can dual register as an MC. Since the COR is the official rep and member of the CO, for those units that recruit heavily from the CO's membership, it might make a lot of sense for the COR to be heavily involved with new parents. And in any event, it's a volunteer organization and things will get done by whoever has the time, energy and passion to get them done. But as far as dual-registration goes, the key thing is to not have all the main leadership possitions wrapped up with one person. A one-man show where the same person was COR, CC and SM would have all sorts of weaknesses. Besides the obvious dangers of the Troop collapsing if the one-man got sick or burned out, I think a separation between the SM and Committee models good authority structures for the boys. The SM isn't a dictator (benign or otherwise), he's just somebody entrusted with a great deal of responsibility and authority, and is also formally accountable to others (the Committee). Most prior experience boys will have had with authority won't have had that visible accountability. From their point of view Parents, Pastors, Teachers and Coaches are all basically installed by God, or at least by forces unknown to the kids. Letting them see an adult with significant authority be accountable in an every-day matter-of-fact manner for how he uses it is a great lesson. Part of the Association with Adults bit, I think.