Lisabob

Eamonn writes "At our house Her That Must Be Obeyed and myself have this on going stupid conversation. She asks me what I want for dinner? I answer what have you got? She tells me I know what we have. I say if I knew I wouldn't ask. (Then we have chicken.) " Eamonn, I had no idea we lived in the same house! Ha ha! This does about capture the brainstorming problem though, doesn't it. They don't know what they want. They don't know what the options really are. So they do whatever they did last year. (which gets a little boring) To kick-start the brainstorming session, how about going to different troop websites to see what kinds of things other troops have done? It might get your guys thinking of new activities that could be adapted to their locality. Also I'm in favor of asking ahead of time for each participant to come to the planning meeting with X (number) ideas for things they'd like to do, rather than on-the-spot brainstorming only. That way you are less likely to get so many blank stares. Ask them to bring in brochures, pamphlets, internet downloads, etc. from a couple of places too - or supply a whole bunch of these yourself, I guess, if you really need to crank the gears. Lisa'bob A good old bobwhite too!

Our troop's CC has arranged for the adult leadership (both committee and SM/ASMs) to get together for a program review and "new ideas" meeting. As there is significant division within the troop over how well the program is meeting the boys' needs and the CC and SM are on opposite sides of that divide, this should be interesting. The basic division is over the extent to which the program is appropriate for first year scouts vs. older scouts (13+ and 1st class or higher). The troop currently has about 40 boys, of whom 8 or 9 are first years, 2 or 3 are in their 2nd or 3rd year, and the rest are older. Everyone except the first year scouts has earned 1st Class or higher rank. Recruitment of new scouts crossing over from Webelos is steady (at least 10-15 boys/year - last year, closer to 20) but first year retention is poor. This distribution of experienced/new people is reflected in the adult leadership too. There are relatively few parents of younger boys on either the committee or as ASMs because so many of those boys have left the troop. There are A LOT of ASMs and committee members who have been with the troop for many years and in fact, while new parents are told that they're welcome to sign up as leaders, there are really very few "openings" for them to fill anyway. Having "survived" almost a year in this troop as a parent and committee member, I can see some reasons why the first-year retention problems exist. Among them: 1. lack of effective communication with new parents about how the troop operates and what is expected from both them and their sons; 2. lack of effective communication with new scouts about how the troop differs from cub scout packs, what their new responsibilities are, and how they might begin to go about meeting these; 3. lack of a first year program to teach the new boys basic scout skills; 4. lack of camaraderie or mentoring relationships between younger and older scouts (or younger scouts and ASMs), beyond the patrol leaders selected to lead the NSPs; 5. apparent lack of understanding on the part of some adult leaders regarding the difficulty/challenge of activities for the younger vs. older boys, and consequent frustration with the lack of participation and "scout spirit" on the part of the younger boys; 6. lack of advancement for younger scouts (2 of the 1st years have earned tenderfoot and the rest are "scouts" except for one who hasn't earned the scout rank yet; 2 have earned any merit badges - though this is more a symptom rather than a cause of poor retention) 7. Cross over around here happens in February so the first few campouts tend to be in the worst possible weather of the year - for which most of the new scouts are inadequately prepared in terms of both skill and gear. The CC's son has served as a patrol leader for one of the NSPs over the last year and perhaps this is why the CC is in agreement that we need to revamp the way we deal with younger scouts and their parents. From the other side, there is strenuous disagreement. The SM points out that the boys choose the activities (mostly - there are 3-4 campouts, several service projects, and a couple of fundraisers that are "tradition" for this troop) in their annual planning meeting (happens in April/May, 2/3 months after cross-over - though last year, due to poor communication, not many of the new boys attended), and so the program reflects what the boys want to do. He is certainly correct in the fact that the troop has a solid older boy program, including an active venture patrol, that keeps the more experienced scouts engaged. That's a real strength for the troop. Additionally, those boys who do make it past the first year tend to stick around for a long time. Beyond that, there's some personal defensiveness. The SM has made the argument that adversity builds character, and that the younger scouts will "get with the program" eventually on their own - or not. The onus for seeking out instruction, help, mentoring, etc. is placed on the younger scouts because "this is not a webelos 3 troop." A longtime committee member recently stated that those boys who quit during their first year "just aren't scouting material" (this made my jaw drop, I must admit.) These are, for the most part, really nice people who have a lot to share with the boys. And thankfully I'm not the CC here! However, I do have an interest in helping this conversation to progress along a positive and constructive route, rather than finger pointing. One thing I've been working on to try to bridge the communication gap is a revised version of the troop's "Quick Tips" FAQ for new families. I'll be taking a draft of that to the meeting tomorrow for discussion. Beyond that, however, any thoughts on how to increase the likelihood of a useful discussion? Wish me luck... Lisa'bob A good old bobwhite too!

TheYoungEagle wrote: "As long as you have BSA certification you should be more than qualified to be a range master or instructor. " Technically this may be true. I went through the BSA shooting sports training/certification in order to be qualified to run the archery ranges at cub day camp for our district. From that experience I can say that I did not learn the skills necessary to, say, be an effective MB counselor for the boy scout archery mb. Neither was the training designed for this purpose, so I'm not knocking the training experience here. What I got from that training was sufficient to run a cubs day camp range, even if I'd never picked up a bow before (not the case, thankfully). However, I would expect that a range master at a BOY SCOUT summer camp program would be competent enough to teach the boys the more advanced skills they need to work on the archery mb, if they want to do it. Lisa'bob A good old bobwhite too!

OldEagle, sorry to hear this. My son went to Schoelkopf as a provo last year and had kind of a lousy experience too. The provo troop consisted of about 30 boys that week and ONE "scoutmaster" who was about 22 years old at most. The poor guy had no help at all, probably violating all kinds of 2-deep rules in the process. My son was signed up for the 1st year program but didn't attend at all - just "hung out" in his camp site the whole week during the afternoons and...no one noticed...including the SM. From a parental view I wasn't too thrilled with that. If he'd been missing in the woods, would anyone have noticed that? My son had an "ok" time but doesn't want to go back this year because he wasn't impressed either. I'm disappointed because we spend a lot of the summer in WNY every year. Also we had a family tradition of three generations attending and working at Schoellkopf, but it isn't one my son wants to continue after last year. Anyway - What about Scouthaven? Does GNFC still run camps there (I seem to recall they used to, but the troops had to do their own cooking, unlike Schoellkopf)? There are also several bsa camps in the finger lakes region, many of which aren't more than a few hours drive from WNY. Good luck and let us know what you decide Lisa'bob A good old bobwhite too!

Crew21_Adv, I love your idea regarding "late fees!" Will mention this to our district training folks. If you want to get people trained I think you have to start out by showing them, in concrete terms, how training will make them more effective volunteers and then the training had better do exactly that once you get them to attend. Just as having a couple of people who are fresh from a great training session with all kinds of enthusiasm and new ideas can re-invigorate a unit and promote training, the opposite is also true and probably on a larger scale. So I think this is where the two threads (100% trained and effectiveness of training) merge. By the way - I've noticed that getting unit leaders to training is sort of a circular process. Units with good programs and high volunteer morale tend to promote training for new volunteers, which most likely (I hope!) feeds back into their strong programming and morale. Units with a lot of problems often have volunteers who are so dispirited and worn down that getting them to even try training is difficult, though it would probably help them enormously. Of course their lack of training often adds to their problems... So do we end up preaching to the choir at training then? One side note, I haven't heard anybody mention UCs in this thread. Does your UC promote training for your unit? I don't have the foggiest notion of who our unit's UC is so clearly s/he isn't doing this for us, but isn't this part of their position? Lisa'bob A good old bobwhite too!

Wouldn't this just take the "us vs. them" mentality one step further? What would the "losing" slate do? Would they concede gracefully and then work productively with the "winning" side? Would they sit out entirely for the year, or longer (hey, you didn't vote for me, why should I volunteer to help at all)? Would the storm off to another pack? Would they stick around but grumble about hanging chads until the next election?? Would this become a political grudge match? Yes I understand where you're coming from on this. But I think this could cause more problems than it would solve and would probably alienate a lot of otherwise good volunteers from your pack. Lisa'bob A good old bobwhite too!

Acco, you brought up a good point about how they are meeting their 2nd class requirement (pick your patrol's camp site). I honestly can't see how they could. However...that's a bit of a problem for this troop these days too, as they allow anybody 1st class and above to sign off on requirements for the newer scouts. What sometimes seems to happen is that the requirements get signed without having really been met. I suppose that's a trade off of allowing the boys to sign each other's books. Strangely, this has not resulted in rapid advancement for the first year scouts anyway. Of the 12 first years who joined last Feb., only 2 have tenderfoot (my son will be the 3rd if his BoR goes ok); none have 2nd class, one still doesn't have his scout rank. It isn't that they aren't participating either. This is another out-growth of the prevailing troop view that the boys should "figure it out" on their own. They really didn't have a 1st year program last year and it took the new boys quite some time to "figure out" how to get people to teach them the skills they needed and get things signed off. Among the rest of the troop (about 40 boys total) there are only 3 or 4 boys who are in their 2nd and 3rd years with the troop and none of those boys are lower than 1st class. So I don't know how they got their 2nd class requirements signed off, or whether they actually did the requirements as written. Lisa'bob A good old bobwhite too!

Have to agree with acco - it is a bad sign when the presenters feel they're somehow "above" the audience. Lisa'bob A good old bobwhite too!

Thanks for all your responses. Acco - "I used to be a bobwhite..."- hence, Lisa'bob (our whole patrol attached 'bob to our names, not just me) Semper, no, they don't do take-down in the reverse order. As far as I can tell it's every boy for themselves at that point. Although at the last campout one of the older boys apparently got impatient waiting for the younger guys to finish up and started "helping" by taking their tents down with them still inside. Grr. Probably a good thing I wasn't there. Then I might have become "Lisa'bear" instead. Kudu - I fear you're right that just because it is pointed out that this isn't a great example of the patrol method doesn't mean it will be changed - the SM here isn't known for being introspective. And, as a former cub leader (don't know if "charismatic" applies but...) the last thing I'm trying to do here is deconstruct the patrol method - I just was surprised by the situation my son described and it is interesting that there doesn't seem to be a good reason for setting up camp that way. Of course, this is just my son's side of the story but I have discretely asked a couple other adults if what he described is accurate and they said it was. Ed, Beavah and others - I don't think this is done in an active attempt to haze the younger guys. Like so many things right now with this particular troop, I just don't think some of the adult leaders have given much thought to how best to engage the younger boys in the troop program. And not surprisingly, the youth leadership tends to follow the examples set by the SM and his supporters. It clarified a little for me why my son feels some of the older boys aren't always very friendly, courteous, kind, etc. though. My son says he plans to bring this up at the BoR in early January so we'll see what happens. Lisa'bob A good old bobwhite too!

My son had his first SM conference for rank advancement (tenderfoot) the other day and the SM suggested to him that he should consider questions like "what do you like so far, and what would you like to cahnge, about the troop?" as he gets ready for his first BoR. So my son was chatting about this in the car on the way home and here's what he said he would change. When they have campouts, the boys pitch their tents in a line. The SPL and other boys in PoRs go first, followed by the highest ranking scouts without PoRs, all the way down the line to "scout" ranks. (this apparently does not apply to the adult leaders, who set up their tents a little distance away.) He says the boys are only allowed to set up their tent when the person in front of them in line is done with his tent. Consequently, the least experienced (who so far are also the youngest) boys always end up setting up their tents last, usually in the dark, often quite late at night. My son feels this is unfair because, he says, the boys who get done first then also heckle the boys at the end of the line to hurry up (but, he says, they don't actually offer to help) so that everybody can get to cracker barrel and then go to bed or whatever. So he proposes that they change this so that each patrol picks its own spot and sets up its tents together, helping each other where necessary. Now - this surprised me. Is the way my son describes his troop's camping set-up typical? I asked him whether anybody had explained why they did it this way and he said no, but I'm guessing there must be a logical reason for doing it this way. If so, what is it? Also wouldn't it be hard to meet that 2nd class requirement (pick out your patrol's site - 2b) if this is how the troop always sets up? Whadda ya think? Also any thoughts on how my son might tactfully bring this up when asked at his BoR about what he would change, would be appreciated. There's a significant debate going on now among adult leaders in the troop over how to work with the younger/less experienced scouts. One side (incl. the SM) feels that adversity builds character and that the younger guys will either "figure it out" or they won't, on their own. The other side feels that the troop needs a more pro-active approach to helping the newer scouts build skills and confidence. So for better or worse, my son has identified one practice that may be right in the middle of this debate, and at 11 years old, he's not always the most delicate in the way he phrases his opinions. Do you typically ask scouts questions about what they would like to see changed as part of your BoRs, and if so, what sorts of responses do you typically get? Thanks for the input. Lisa'bob A good old bobwhite too!

I don't think that most people who oppose teaching ID in science classes are attacking Christian beliefs per se. I don't believe most of these people would want to see Jewish, Muslim, or Buddhist views on how the world came to be taught as science either. Nor would they advocate teaching various Native American creation beliefs in a biology class. From the perspective of those who oppose ID as science, the problem stems from a definition of what science is and how it operates, that ID does not appear to meet. That doesn't make ID (or any other belief) unworthy of discussion, the question is more one of where that discussion ought to take place. Faith-based explanations rely on just that, faith. Faith cannot and indeed should not be required to justify itself scientifically in order to have meaning. I really think supporters of ID are barking up the wrong tree by trying to convince people that this is a scientific endeavor. They'd get a lot more traction, and more serious and thoughtful discussion by saying hey, let's look at this as part of a belief system. Religious beliefs and science may well overlap in some places. As an example, we could easily do studies to examine the physical impact of prayer on people's sense of well being (actually I'm sure these studies exist but I don't want to go dig them out right now). If the results show that people who pray regularly are less stressed, in better health, happier, etc., then we might accept as scientific evidence that prayer is good for you. On the other hand though, we wouldn't extrapolate from there that the reason prayer seems to have positive health impacts is because whatever higher being you pray to is actively intervening to answer your prayers. This is purely a matter of faith and belief, and it is inherently untestable in any scientific manner. Personally (and yes, as a Christian), I am not opposed to asking students to explore various theological and cultural explanations for our existence at all. I think this could be a deeply meaningful and enriching discussion. For those who want to explore ID and other ideas about how we got here, why not offer an elective course in cultural anthropology or sociology or literature where students have a chance to explore, compare, contrast, and discuss various understandings of creation. Done well, this would be fascinating regardless of one's religious views. The phrase "teach the controversy" (as inflammatory as this has become in the context of evolution and science) would fit just fine in a class like this. By the way one of the best classes I took in High School (public school, not that long ago really) was a lit course where we read various parts of the Bible, Torah, Koran, and other religious texts. The point of the course was to explore narratives, historical contexts, and ways of communicating beliefs; not to support or denigrate any particular belief. So there can be a place for serious discussion of these kinds of questions, if we can just get past the politics of it. Lisa'bob A good old bobwhite too!

Make training affordable, accessible, fun, and clearly worth while to those who attend. Advertize incessantly, keeping in mind that those who may need training the most - NEW LEADERS -may not yet be hooked into the usual sources of district info. You'll need to reach out to find them. Promote that pack trainer position (at the cub pack level) and whatever similar position might exist (is there anything similar?) at the troop/crew/team level. These are the people who should be pushing their own unit members to get their behinds to training, and who can help new leaders find out about training on a timely basis. Things to avoid (just my opinion): Either stop berating people who don't go to Roundtable, or change your RT, if your RT is basically just an old-boy coffee hour with the pledge of allegiance and the scout law & oath as bookends. Any new leaders who do venture out to RT will probably never come back if that's what it is about - they've got too much else to do with their precious time - and they'll let everyone else in their unit know what a waste of time it was, too. It steams me to spend a whole day at a training session that is riddled with mis-information, or clearly thrown together at the last minute with little thought. Make sure your trainers know the material and have a plan for how to present it. Don't treat training opportunities as a district money-maker. My district routinely charges $25-$35 for basic training - that's way too much in my opinion. Small units or those with lots of new volunteers don't have the budget to pay for this. Don't accept the "once trained, forever trained" attitude from certain longtime scouters who took training a hundred years ago. At those old-boy coffee hours (cough* I mean RTs) remind the old guard that they might learn something new...er, refresh their memories...if they would go back to training every once in a while. And then make sure that's true by providing new information. Don't stop promoting the next training session, ever. Lisa'bob A good old bobwhite too!

Mark, that's a good point. This is where "non-traditional" awards can come into play too. We usually used these as a way to thank and recognize adult volunteers but they can be adapted and used for the boys too. Things like the "top banana" award for a kid who can be counted on to try and do anything, no matter how goofy it might be, or the "big heart" (large heart-shaped wood or paper ornament, painted/decorated - you can get these at Michael's and other craft places) award for the kid who is always helping other people. These can be as silly, or serious, as you want them to be. In the context of a B&G and for kids not advancing, I'd make sure they were something fairly meaningful. The DL has known these boys for some time and should be able to come up with some thoughtful recognitions along these lines. I think I'd also make sure that the boys who were not advancing were not the only boys to get an award of this type - so as not to single them out and make it seem like these are consolation prizes or something. As for the awards themselves - they can be made for little money from simple craft supplies. Lisa'bob A good old bobwhite too!

Gosh nld, that's amazing. You can "tell one when you see one" from a post on a message board? I must have misunderstood what you meant here. EagleScout316, you certainly seem worried about taking this job, and if it is going to keep you awake at night (when you're not working I mean) then you should look for another job. No job is worth excessive mental, or moral, anguish. On the other hand if you're comfortable with it, then go ahead. As for scouting - if your scout troop back home were to give you a hard time then I suppose you could ask them to help you find an equally well-paying college job that fits right in with their moral views. My guess is that this would not include working in a "straight" bar either though. More likely, most of the adult leaders will understand that you need to make some money to pay for school. And if in fact, this is a joke (yup, I had that thought too) then hey, eaglescout316, you have way too much time on your hands. Go study for your finals or something instead. Lisa'bob A good old bobwhite too!

This is an interesting thread. Eamonn I feel your pain man. I grew up in a scouting family and one of my earliest memories is going to Camp Ti-Wa-Yee (sp?) with my dad (Eagle,SM, and camp director), grandfather (longtime SM who also carved the totem poles at the entry of the camp) and godfather (professional scouter) to say "goodbye" to a BSA camp that was being sold. I must have been 3 or 4. My parents met there (mom was camp director at a nearby GSUSA camp). I spent a good many summers at various scout camps with them and on my own too. So in general I'm opposed to selling camps and I certainly wouldn't advocate such action for any but the most dire purposes. This should be an absolute last resort. That said: I don't think a salary of $32,000 for a DE is unreasonable (in fact I think it is pretty low and may go a ways toward explaining why districts have a hard time attracting great people, if that's the going wage), and if a district finds that hard to pay, then perhaps they need a long, hard look at their finances. I don't know what my current DE makes, though I hope it is more than $32K. it would be difficult for us to operate without him. Although I get annoyed with his constant worrying about numbers sometimes and we don't always see eye to eye, I do know that he will personally ensure that various district programs run - successfully - even if that means he needs to do nearly everything by himself. And unfortunately there have been times where he has had to do just that, and he's done so pretty successfully. He's worth every penny he earns on those days. I do know our council has 3 camps and only one gets a lot of use. Both of the others are remote from most of the council's population and one is quite rustic and in need of a lot of work. There is talk from time to time about selling the one and honestly I doubt many people in the council would even notice, sad though that is. If council folks are concerned that these other facilities aren't getting used enough to justify keeping them, then someone, somewhere, ought to start a PR campaign. Most people in our council probably don't even know they exist. The "rumor mill" around here is that within 5 years at most our (fairly successful and rapidly growing) council will merge with another council that has not done so well of late. They also have 3 camps. No doubt some of the combined 6 properties will be sold off. What a shame. I wonder whether we'll see a corresponding reduction in the number of professional staff serving the new, merged council? Lisa'bob A good old bobwhite too!

Hey FourGuardians, don't despair. My son and his buddies are all comic book junkies! Also the university where I work has a scholar-in-residence program and this year "our" scholar is a comic book artist. I think one appealing characteristic of a lot of video games is that they can be played in a variety of ways, depending on what the player thinks is fun. Yes, there are certain parameters, but within those, there's a lot of choice. My favorite games also allow the player to revisit scenarios and yet they don't feel like "repeats" because the game changes/is changed based on how you play. So every time is different. Could boy scouts be more like this? Sure...but you'd need a great deal of flexibility, trust, confidence, and creativity on the part of both the boys and adults. You'd need to avoid the "we're doing it THIS way because we have always done it THIS way" sort of attitude that seems especially common among certain adult leaders. Lisa'bob A good old bobwhite too!

Another thing we have done in the past: make the boys a "badge box" for various boy scout patches that can't be worn on their uniform (well, not more than one at a time anyway). Unlike in Cubs, I've never seen a boyscout wearing a red patch vest. We've gone to a craft store and picked up a generic type of wood jewelry box (plain, no decorations) for a couple dollars each, used a wood burner to add the fleur de lis and other items (names of the boys in the den, den symbol, pack number etc.) and then stained them. They turn out nicely and the boys seem to think they're pretty cool. Just make sure to refer to them as "badge boxes" or something "manly" rather than "jewelry boxes!" Lisa'bob A good old bobwhite too!

We had this happen last year and just separated the cross-over from the AoL ceremonies. However, our pack has not had a W II program after February so *if* any of the boys who hadn't completed their AoL and weren't 11 years old had wanted to stay in the pack then they would've had to join the W I den . Telling the W II den leaders that they "have to" stay on with these boys would not have worked well at all in our case. One of our WII den leaders moved on to boy scouts with his son. The other den leader's son quit scouts to do sports, and his dad would almost certainly have refused to stay on without his son's involvement. As long as everyone knows what to expect ahead of time, this can all be handled with minimal difficulty and no hurt feelings. Lisa'bob A good old bobwhite too!

How about their boy scout handbook, if the troop doesn't already provide that to their new scouts? We did something similar to what Mark described and provided the handbook too. The troop provided "their" neckerchief. Lisa'bob A good old bobwhite too!

Did this scout know about this "rule of thumb" prior to starting work on this project? If not, it seems a little unfair to expect him to have lived up to it, even though I understand what your concerns are. On the other hand, it seems reasonable to just ask him how/why it turned out that he and his dad did most of the work. Admittedly I have limited experience with Eagle projects, but I can imagine a variety of ways that this boy might have demonstrated leadership even though only 26 of the 126 hours of work came from outside sources. Others with more experience might disagree though.

It sounds like a thoughtful gesture but...in general, scouts are not allowed to solicit monetary donations for non-scout groups. I don't know exactly how or if that rule applies to eagle projects (I've never had it come up in that context) but I can tell you that where I live, units who have tried to do things like this (including for hurricane victims) have been told a resounding *no* by the district and council professionals. It's too bad, as monetary donations are often more useful to charities than goods and services. Lisa'bob A good old bobwhite too!

My son's troop has a membership chair and an advancement chair. Each keeps the records that are appropriate for their positions. As the membership chair is also responsible for recharter, she has the applications. Lisa'bob A good old bobwhite too!

mbscoutmom, that's a really unfortunate situation. Sorry to hear you are feeling so frustrated. Before you quit. Do you have a pack committee? If so, is there anybody at all on that committee that you can work with? If you have any kind of a decent committee, go to them and put it on the table. Tell them that you cannot continue as both CM and CC and give them a deadline. "We need to find a CM by ___ date." Set it after the holidays so that it is more likely to happen. Make it a group project. Ask each person for 3-4 names of people they personally will contact. Don't leave it general ("we need to ask people") because then it is too easy not to follow through. If you have any real ties to your charter organization, consider asking members of that group to step in, whether they have boys in your pack or not. This wouldn't have worked for our pack but it does for some. Look at other outside groups that have an interest in your pack too - church leaders, community leaders, the local PTO, etc. Don't draw leaders only from your immediate circle in other words. If the circle is too small or disfunctional, that just doesn't always work. But above all - don't do it yourself. Make it the committee's task as a whole. Whether you have a committee or not -also go to the parents with this opportunity for involvement. Be upfront - it is too much for one parent to do all this work (CM and CC) so we need additional help from YOU the parents. But also dwell on the positive rather than your frustration (no matter how justified you are in feeling this way - it won't make it easier to recruit people by venting). And as for your commissioner... I know there are some wonderful unit commissioners out there who are a huge help to the units they are assigned to. Sadly I've met very few of them. Most are either longtime scouters who may be great people but don't know the first thing about today's cub program, or they're invisible, or they're just over-committed and wearing too many bsa hats to do the job well. But honestly, the UC plays (or should play) a very small role in how your pack functions. Don't let one outsider put you into a position where you are abandoning your pack. It seems like this is the time of year, from now to about March when all the really big stuff is about to happen (pinewood, B&G, cross over, not to mention the non-scouting stress of the holidays) when really good people get fed up and quit. That's so unfortunate. What can we do to avoid this? : | LIsa'bob A good old bobwhite too!

Foto, I agree that there are some things national could do to improve the webelos program. Among other things I'd like to see a clearer distinction between 1st and 2nd year, making the 2nd yr. function more explicitly like a boy-led patrol instead of glorified cub scouting. Some WDLs do this on their own but many don't. However, I don't agree that the webelos program is too ambitious. I think it was designed to allow flexibility, especially for those who use the 18 month format (which is probably most of us). Some boys will be highly active and motivated to earn most or all of the 20 pins over an 18 month period. Some won't. Both are fine. It gives the boys choices about what activities they want to pursue and it provides a structure for those over-achiever types. It makes it unlikely that a boy will "finish" the webelos program within just a few months and then be "bored" for the next 10-12 months while waiting to join a troop. I think a good comparison would be the merit badges that boy scouts can earn. There's a zillion of them (well 100+ - I've never counted them. Someone else who has???) and nobody I've ever met expects the boys to earn them all. The whole point is to offer a wide variety of choices, while making a few (Eagle required) core subjects mandatory. What I think the problem is with the webelos pins, is that some parents and leaders fail to understand that earning all 20 is neither necessary nor even remotely a goal of the program. This one parent who wants to hold up B&G until her son "gets them all" (sort of like the pokemon theme song - ugh!) has missed the purpose of the program. By the way - update on that situation - the pack is *not* rescheduling their b&g to accomodate this person's unreasonable demand. I don't think they ever intended to but I admit I'm really glad they didn't cave in to her pressure. As a former pack leader, it has been almost as hard to sit back and watch the pack without being involved as it has for me to make the transition from cub parent to boy scout parent! Lisa'bob A good old bobwhite too!

Mark, it is true that the CC assumes this position if the CM suddenly steps down and there's no replacement. However, most CCs would not welcome this added position. Being CC is enough work. So in a situation like this where the CM elects to step down mid year (rather than needing to because of an unforeseen emergency) I think it is only good manners and common sense for the CM to give the committee sufficient notice so that they can find a replacement before he leaves. It would certainly make the transition smoother for the pack. Not to mention that dlw has a boy in the pack; if his son wants to stay with this pack then it is incumbent on dlw to handle this in the most tactful way possible. Dumping it on the CC's lap is not going to win him any friends. Lisa'bob A good old bobwhite too!