Lisabob

How about water rockets or catapults? Added benefit if you assign a "fun" set of leaders to that station and they're willing to get everybody wet. Other fun things we've done: fishing (if facilities permit); "belly bumper tag" (sort of like huge inner tubes the kids get into. They'll fall over but they can hardly hurt themselves, as long as you set some guidelines); knot tying (in the shade - a good cool down activity); teach magic tricks; do some geology or wildlife stuff... I'd take the rank books, pull some fun things out of the requirements and/or arrow point electives, maybe pick out a couple of fun beltloops, and start thinking of daycamp kind of like one big den meeting. have fun! I loved working day camp when my son was in cubs. Lisa'bob

Could you clarify for me what you mean by a "certified" troop? Thanks Lisa'bob

Scouter4321 I agree that letting this "slide by" is unacceptable and, if the boy is actually guilty, sets a terrible example for the rest of the troop. I don't think anybody here is advocating that you do that. As for addressing the other boys who think this young man's alleged actions were "cool," well it seems like this is a good opportunity for a scoutmaster's minute (without naming names or maybe even without specific reference to the situation). Also you might talk about who was hurt by the activities. Obviously I don't know what the nature of the activity was in this specific case but, from spending a lot of time teaching college freshmen I've noticed that many people in this age group seem to view property-related crimes (public or private) as harmless pranks, or "what the victim deserves." When you start asking about who pays for the damage or who the ancillary victims were, they may begin to look at this type of action in a somewhat different light. It's a tough issue. I hope you are able to find a solution that is satisfactory for all involved. Lisa'bob

You mention that he's a few months away from being 18. How many months away from 18 are we talking about here? Can you (or he) request that his Eagle BoR be postponed, pending clarification of these issues? Lisa'bob

Don't forget the cub program. Our district has pushed hard to get cub leaders to RT but for a long while, when cub leaders showed up there was no specific program for them. I'm all for learning about the boy scout program too but if I have a 7 year old in a wolf den, I'm going to expect the RT program to be of immediate use to me or else I'm just not going to attend in the future. Once our RT staff started running separate sessions for the cub program, not surprisingly, cub leader attendance increased. The way they currently do it is to hold a common opening and closing and then split off into separate groups for the middle. On the cub side of things, topics can be tied in with the monthly program helps. Show leaders how to make some of the crafts; play a few "new" games, teach a new skit or song, etc. (all stuff they can take back to their units and actually do with the boys). Other hot topics: *Blue & Gold planning *Pinewood derby/Raingutter regata/Space Derby (last yr. I went to a RT where we made boats out of craft material and had a regata on the spot. It was so much lower stress than the "official" version where parents and boys get way too wound up about rules and results - I took that back to the pack and the boys had a ball with it. So feel free to improvise on the traditional versions of the above too) *webelos/scout transition planning from the cub side *Cub Camping(hands on how to set up tents, etc. - this doesn't have to duplicate BALOO, OWL, or other training, just a chance for newbie campers to give things a try and get them excited about taking the boys out) *Cub Outdoor program info *New cub awards overview - seems like several new things pop up each year and only about half the leaders know anything about them. *beltloop/pin workshop for some of the less commonly earned categories. Maybe they're not earned because people need ideas/help doing them. Example: we did something like this for the language&cultures loop and had a lot of fun with it. Several packs then went on to use the blue print themselves. Have fun! Lisa'bob

That's just the problem Ed. By asking directly you are putting this person in a real bind. Having made it this far in scouting, one hopes he places some real meaning in the idea that a "scout is trustworthy," despite the fact that he stands suspected of participation in some criminal activity. And he probably has a close relationship with at least some of the adults in the troop since, after all, he has worked with them for years. So if asked, he may very well answer from the heart. Now that may be what the committee wants, but the problem is that in doing so, even if it "feels right," the committee could be putting this young man in further LEGAL difficulty. Most 18 year olds (for that matter, a lot of adults) don't understand the way the judicial system works. If the committee asks directly and he answers directly, he may well be curtailing his legal options. For example: his lawyers may want to advocate for a plea deal of some kind (depending on the actions he is accused of, the nature of evidence against him, what the likely punishment might be, etc.). If he has already openly admitted guilt, this may be much harder for them to do. So he might end up with a harsher punishment as a result. Now, if I had complete faith that our justice system only ever metes out the punishment people deserve, and/or that such punishment is actually effective in rehabilitating people, this wouldn't be such a big concern. However, there are plenty of studies of the juvenile justice system in particular that lead one to the conclusion that it frequently fails to meet these objectives. So if the young man could get a somewhat lighter sentence as part of a plea, that wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing in my view. Now if he's like most other high school aged kids, he probably doesn't have a clue about any of this and thus the committee (adults) must take care not to place him in a legally precarious position without him even being aware of the nature of that position. This is so even/especially if the committee's intentions are good. In fact I'd go so far as to say that adult leaders in this situation have an ethical responsibility not to place this youth in a potentially more harmful situation by asking him directly about matters that have legal implications, about which he may be unaware. Just my 2 cents though. Lisa'bob

Not only does hte webelos literature *not* refer to webelos as "patrols" it specifically indicates that webelos not patrols, but still dens. I wish I could locate my webelos book! But here's a link to the virtual cub leader's handbook and a citation of policy on this matter, for those who may want to track it down a bit further. http://www.geocities.com/cybercubber/web-den-emblem.html To use the patrol idea as a way to bridge the w-s transition period is interesting but I agree, mistaken both in terms of program guidelines (not allowed) and intention. While we probably all agree that webelos dens should be given increasing responsibility and opportunity for development toward independent leadership, the fact remains that webelos are not boy scouts and should therefore not be expected or pushed to act just like boy scouts. In fact my guess is that this presentation was given by someone who is really well-versed in the boy scout program but is less knowledgeable (or long removed from ) the cub scout end of things. At least in my experience, that's where a lot of well-meaning but misguided cub info comes from. Lisa'bob

I don't have my book handy but I am 100% certain of this. The webelos program is based on DENS, not patrols. This is so even when the webelos dens choose an emblem. They're still a den. That said, the mix-up seems pretty common and tends to be just a semantics issue since the emblems are most typically referred to as "patrol emblems." As long as the presenter didn't go on to advocate that a webelos den function just like a boy scout patrol, then I would classify this as a pretty minor issue. Lisa'bob

Scouter4321 asks whether the committee should ask the boy directly about his alleged involvement in some criminal matter. I don't think that the committee should ask point blank. Unless the legal issue of his guilt/innocence is already satisfactorily resolved, you may be putting him in a difficult position. Assuming he is guilty but the case isn't resolved yet, it might be unwise for him to answer your direct question. So now you're potentially asking him to either further risk himself in legal terms, or to evade answering the question, or to lie. And the more serious the accusations, the more important this may become. I don't see this as a winning situation that would achieve any desirable outcome. I do think it would be entirely acceptable to ask serious questions about scout spirit and other parts of the scout oath. Such questions do not need to be phrased in such a way that the boy has to respond to a direct accusation though. Lisa'bob

John, thanks. Sorry if I went off on a bit of a rant there. It just gets to be too much occasionally. Example: I had offered to teach a UoS class and instead they asked me to run the entire event for the next two or three years. Not what I had time, inclination, or probably, skill, to do. Not to mention it was being held at a site that's a 2 hour drive from where I live and in order to attend the bi-weekly planning meetings at the site I'd have had to drag my son along (scheduling issues) every time and we wouldn't have gotten home til at least 11pm on a week night. No can do. After repeatedly saying no and explaining why I couldn't make that sort of commitment but that I'd still be willing to help by teaching a class, I gave up on the whole thing, with a bad taste in my mouth. Persistence is one thing and I'm flattered that they asked me (though I suspect, looking at how recruiting is done, that they would've taken on just about any warm body), but there's a point where it becomes nagging and that's just counter-productive. They never did ask me to teach a class either - something which I could have done well and would've been happy to do. And I know they were scrambling for instructors so I don't understand this. I know I shouldn't be, but I'm still cheesed off about this. Maybe because this is my experience pretty much every time I've offered to do anything with the district. Makes me not want to be active with the district, to be honest, because the guilt tripping and nagging gets so irritating that it tends to turn me off to the whole thing. Argh. guess that was still a rant. Sorry, I'm done with it. Lisa'bob

Me too, similar story. Only problem I have - and this seems to be pervasive in scouting - is that one is seldom allowed to "just" volunteer to do one thing at a time, like teach a class at UoS or help with district training or serve as a UC for just a couple of units. As soon as "they" figure out that they have a "live one" the push to serve as the chair for a zillion different things begins. Personally I don't have time (or inclination in some cases) to be in charge and attend all the meetings that go with that, which are inevitably at the far end of our geographically large district too. But I'm happy to just lend a hand. I think we do a dis-service to a lot of volunteers by pushing in this way and we scare other potential volunteers off. Lisa'bob

That's great! Congrats! Lisa'bob A good old bobwhite too!

We've had good luck with a spring plant/flower sale, teaming up with a local nursery. One "hot" item for mother's day gifts was a "flower of the month" card. People paid $20/$25 or so for the card and it entitled them to stop in at the nursery and get a specific item each month. People couldn't believe they could do that for such a low price and they sold really well. (The nursery made plenty of money on it too though - they told me most people who come in with their cards end up buying additional items while they're in the shop anyway.) Best part: NO DELIVERY NEEDED! Lisa'bob

I don't know how common it is, in terms of councils pushing QU on units that didn't earn it, and getting creative with the facts to justify their actions. I do know that something like this *MAY* have happened with the pack I was affiliated with. The first two years my son was in the pack, they received the QU designation. In the first year I had no idea what that meant (not a leader yet) but in the second year, after becoming a leader and reviewing the various records I knew for a fact that this was inaccurate and had been for a good long time. So after explaining this to the pack committee, I contacted our UC, told him so, and returned the award. Initially he was quite insistent that we'd earned it but when I went through point by point to describe the ways we had not, he agreed that there was an "error" and upon further checking, he said the council had made a paperwork mistake and we hadn't earned it after all. This may have been an honest mistake but I always had the sense that the council was just awarding QU status left and right to any unit that didn't pay attention, because it boosted both the district and council numbers. By the way in following years the pack worked hard to meet and exceed the QU requirements and they now regularly earn the award. But in general, as a result of the above experience I'm pretty unimpressed when units tout their QU status as a recruiting point or anything like that. Lisa'bob

That's an interesting point Sue, though not quite the phenomenon I was trying to get at. Let me try to re-phrase my question. Do you think that there is a higher percentage of boys with various types of disabilities in scout groups than in the general population? And if so, why is that the case? I wouldn't have thought so myself but then a friend of mine did a presentation for my son's former cub pack on scouting for disabled youth. Following that, quite a few parents (probably 1/4 to 1/3 of the pack) disclosed that their boys had diagnosed learning or behavioral disabilities. I had known about some, but I was surprised by how many boys this included. Or, does scouting pretty well mirror the general population (roughly similar percentages of boys with disabilities in scouts as in the pop. as a whole), and we just happen to notice it more in scouts because of the nature of the activities and the opportunities scouting provides to really get to know the boys and their families and circumstances. Scouting challenges everyone to branch out from their comfort zone in one way or another and it may just be that this process highlights people's "quirks." Lisa'bob

Sounds to me like you did the right thing. Give the boys and their parents the options and explain the plusses and minuses of each. We've had similar situations and I think the response has to be tailored to each case. In this case, if they're joining to be with their friend then it doesn't make sense to keep them apart for the next 3-4 months until cross over. As long as the webelos program is fun they'll have a good time even if they aren't doing much in the way of advancement (but hey, they could earn their webelos badges given that your crossover is late March/early April). Lisa'bob

No Ed, the boys were not at this meeting. Now generally, there will be some members of the PLC at the troop committee meetings, and a committee member or two (and the SM) will be at the PLC too. However, in this case, the CC specifically wanted an adults-only meeting. Part of this, I suspect, was that there's a lot of friction between some of the adults and it wasn't clear how this meeting would go. Happily, it was both positive and productive in the end, maybe even helped build a little team spirit among the adults, but it wasn't guaranteed to go that way given some of the issues (and personalities) under discussion. Also a lot of the discussion revolved around issues of adult communication, adult leader recruitment and training, etc.., to which the boys would not have much influence (or perhaps, interest either). And while I don't necessarily disagree that there was a missed opportunity to get the boys themselves more involved in planning and implementing the first year program in particular, at the moment it seems that this isn't the focus of the other leaders. Perhaps it ought to be, perhaps not, but the fact is that it isn't. I do think, though, that the conversations we had at this meeting about what "boy led" means and how it is supposed to work may lead to something more a little ways down the road. It is certainly something that I'll be turning around in my head as we move forward. KS and Fscouter - yup, most of this is covered in the training material. It is implementation that's the sticking point. Eamonn's line in another thread about sending idiots to training and getting back trained idiots comes to mind. (not that I'd suggest we've got idiots for leaders in the troop but there are some, ah, strong personalities who may have drifted a bit and need to be brought back to the "one true path.") Actually the fact that most of these concerns are covered in training is making it a little easier to bring about changes in current practice. There's no good excuse *not* to do things the way they're supposed to be done. Lisa'bob

This is purely anecdotal but I'm curious to know whether others have seen this too. The other thread on special needs and scouting prompted me to ask you all about this. It seems like there is a really high percentage of boys with learning disabilities involved in scouting around here. And, as mentioned in the other thread, this is particularly the case with conditions that are not immediately apparent. I noticed this to some extent in cubs, but even more so with boy scouts. So what do you think: Is it really that scouts draws in a high percentage of boys with disabilities? (maybe scouting is one of few places where boys who struggle in school or with other extracurriculars feel welcome?) Or is it perhaps that there are a whole lot more boys in the general population with learning disabilities than I thought, and it just happens I notice it with scouts because it is one of the few places where I really get to hang around with kids and their parents and get to know them well? What's your take on this? Lisa'bob

Are the other parents, whose sons are either older or younger than the "core group" that the SM is focused on, active as ASMs or committee members? If so, could a specific ASM be designated to work with each age/rank group? (for example, by encouraging patrol activities rather than relying on only troop activities) That way if the SM is fixated on the group that his boys fit into, at least the others won't be ignored. If not: time for them to get involved. Is there someone in your troop designated to work with scouts on Life to Eagle transition? If not, there probably ought to be anyway and perhaps this is an area where one or more of those other parents could step in. They should talk with the district advancement staff too - because they have a say in approving Eagle projects also and should be aware of the situation in your troop (they will probably be able to offer advice too.) Do you know who your unit's commissioner is? The UC should be in a position to help the troop leadership "see the light" on issues including following established BSA policy. They're not "council cops" but they can provide information and make suggestions. If you don't know this person, you can find out by contacting your district staff. I think somewhere near or at the bottom line, and as someone pointed out to me recently in a different thread and context: the SM works for the committee and the charter organization, not the other way around. Sounds like he may need a gentle (or not so gentle) reminder of this. It is too bad your personal friendship with the SM is mixed into this though. Lisa'bob A good old bobwhite too!

Ours picks a few things from the monthly themes but otherwise goes with their own ideas, which they developed at their annual planning meeting. Each month has a theme (whether original or canned) and these are supposed to be related to the month's campout activities in some way, but implementation has varied. Actually it seems like we're moving more in this direction right now. One complaint about troop meetings that came from the SPL is that the skill segment of the weekly troop meeting is often poorly planned (or not planned at all and just thrown together last minute) and executed, leading to boredom, lousy teaching, and chaotic meetings. So the PLC recently decided to require whichever boys are doing the skill segments to turn in a written plan to the PLC ahead of time, and it must be clearly related to the monthly theme the boys had already chosen. Hopefully this will improve both the quality of the skill segment and the organizational efforts that are necessary for a well-run meeting. We'll see. Lisa'bob A good old bobwhite too!

As a follow up to my original post : We had our program review meeting and it seems like it went well. The CC set it up as a brainstorming session, more or less. He started out by going around the room and asking each person to contribute one thing they like about how the troop has been going, and one specific thing they want to see changed, preferably without duplication. No discussion/debate until later. Once we had our list of changes up on the wall, we individually ranked (check marks) the top few things we want the troop to work on improving in the coming months, and we agreed we would focus on the five items that got the most votes. Surprisingly (to me at least), there was pretty widespread agreement on the major issues, most of which revolved around communication, teaching/mentoring, and the first year program. We then took one issue at a time and worked on developing specific plans for how to improve that area. Although we didn't make it through everything, it was a really good start. Hopefully implementation will go as smoothly! Aside from the fact that people seemed to share the same basic concerns more broadly than I had expected, I was happy to see that the mood was positive (I had worried it would be a lot more bruising) and it wasn't just a complaint session. Tangible ideas that can really be put into practice came out of this. The specific change I proposed our troop makes is to get away from appointing a long-term PL for the new scout patrols, and assign a troop guide as a mentor instead. As currently configured, the NSPs were given a PL when they formed a year ago, and that PL will still be serving at least until September of this year, 20 months later. He also ends up doing most everything for the patrol, instead of helping the new guys learn the ropes themselves. From what other leaders said last night, this is less a function of the personalities of the PLs for our current NSPs and more a function of "how it has always been" in the troop. There seems to be widespread agreement that this is one place where tradition shouldn't be maintained though. This isn't the only change I hope to see in the 1st yr program, but as we were trying to avoid duplication of ideas, this was the one I proposed. I want to thank all those folks here who have taken time to discuss how your first year program works in various threads over the last few months. Your feedback has been really helpful to me in terms of coming up with specific, manageable ways that our troop might change their first year program. Also we had a great philisophical discussion revolving around the aims/methods, the meaning of "boy led" (scoutldr, I raised the point you made about the role of the PLC in all of this, to see what people's views were. Turns out there's a divergence regarding how these abstract ideas translate into action - particularly the "boy led" part, but overall most of the adults were of the view that what we were talking about is not in the domain of the PLC. Having heard several viewpoints expressed I don't know *where* I am on that right now - gives me something to think about for the future though.) So I'm hopeful. Knock on wood, we'll be able to carry it through. Lisa'bob A good old bobwhite too!

I agree that great trainers should not be unceremoniously dumped out of the rotation. However, in some places, getting involved with the training team is about as easy as joining an exclusive country club. And that's a problem too. I have been employed as a trainer and evaluator in my professional field, in situations where turnover is mandated (after either 3 or 5 years). What typically happens is that people who are really good stay in their positions for the allotted time, and then they take on a somewhat different role in the organization (but still in the same general area of operation) for a year or two. They certainly don't leave altogether. Thereafter, some choose to return to their original role for another iteration; some continue on in their new positions. The benefits are that we get a steady stream of new people involved at all levels, and that experienced members develop a wider competence and understanding of how and why the organization functions the way it does. For those who return to the original role, they're nearly always even more effective, for having had these additional experiences. And while we have occasionally "mourned" the "loss" of an experienced member who has timed out of their current position, what almost always happens is that a) the new people who come in are terrific too and b) that "lost" person really isn't lost and is usually hanging around in the background if needed. I don't see why training teams couldn't/shouldn't do this too. Lisa'bob A good old bobwhite too!

I'm so sorry for your loss. My thoughts and prayers are with you and his friends, family, and community.

ASM416 - Thanks for the update on Scouthaven. I'll be curious to know what your troop decides to do and how it works out. Lisa'bob A good old bobwhite too!

Scoutldr, honestly I don't know what the PLC thinks. What I do know is that we have another group of about 15 webelos crossing over in about a month's time. In each of the last three years this troop has lost well over 50% of its first year scouts. If the last year's experience is typical,a large portion of the difficulties stem from poor communication, planning and leadership among the adults. The PLC may certainly have a role here, but basic guidelines and philosophy for a successful first year program need to originate with and be actively supported by the adult leadership too. Right now that's an area of intense debate among the adults and it would be a bit unfair to expect the PLC to resolve that debate.