LongHaul

On that note I agree that mandates usually do more harm than good. The wording of the law contains the word "reasonable" and we all should be able to agree that not everyone is reasonable. Mandatory reporting without mandatory training is asking for problems. We can't even agree on who is a mandatory reporter let alone what constitutes reasonable suspicion. LongHaul

While I agree with Beavah that over reporting can have a negative impact on the intended result, I have to side with FScouter. I can not allow myself to worry about the case load of Child Services, the courts or the penal system when deciding whether to report a possible crime. I do not see child molesters behind every bush and don't consider every type of physical contact to be abusive. When I am caused to stand up and take notice of some incident and have to ask myself if something is just not right I am already on the road to reasonable suspicion in my book. When I do YP training I ask my participants who they would rather face; angry parents that have been investigated and probably embarrassed because you had their child's best interest in mind or a child that had to suffer continued abuse because you were afraid you were mistaken. Is my discomfort and embarrassment a higher price to pay than the effects of continued abuse when the child knows that I saw what was happening and did nothing? Isn't it reasonable to think that my failure to act, in the eyes of the child, adds to the affects of the abuse? LongHaul

Bob White, in all you training both in taking it and giving it where have you found that a Scout Executive is considered a "proper authority" as it concerns reporting a suspected crime? Telling your SE about your suspicions or observations is no different that telling your local new paper in the eyes of the law. Check with a legal authority NOT in the employ of the BSA with regard to reporting a possible criminal act to someone other that "the proper authority" as it pertains to your personal liability. LongHaul

RE-Charter with a Co in the adjacent Council. Your Council affiliation is determined by where your CO is not where your unit meets. LongHaul

While I think I know where your coming from I have to ask you to define "Scout Program" because I think some who claim to be Scouters are Scouters only in the sense that they paid a fee to National. The program they deliver does not reflect the program described in the training syllabi. So once you have defined "Scout Program" and someone openly declares that they do not follow that definition why is it an insult or derogatory statement to point this out? LongHaul

Pay close and deliberate attention to forming a SOLID troop committee. Having someone focused on recruitment is essential. Rounding up interested people to start up is only the beginning. If you can not supply these original boys with new younger scouts each year for them to train and mentor the patrol method and "boy-led" begins to fall apart very quickly. Leadership requires some one to be led. LongHaul

John-in-KC mentioned state health regs we have those problems also. How do you meet food storage temps and sanitation with patrol cooking? Same for utensil cleaning & sanitation and disposal of wash and rinse water? Dumping that stuff in the kybo kills the bacteria and we end up with problems with our septic fields. The camp we use for this type of activity has a very limited capacity. LongHaul

Let me see if I understand this B-P concept, Kudu. Proper procedure is what ever the current Patrol Leaders in Council say it is. This extends from simple scout craft to first aid to proper swimming or boating technique. Having to re pass earlier tests ensures that you can still satisfy the requirements, unless of course the PLC has changed and the interpretation has changed. Then finally it is a test of endurance, 14 mile hike with another scout to see if you can survive because proper technique has no place here. Maybe I missed something but I thought the question of whether the scout was a MAN or not was decided at birth. My concept of Scouting does not include proving, testing or demonstrating male virility which is what I see in the methods you continually describe. As for interchangeability, yes I think training should not be unique to a given troop. Scouts should be able to interact with other scouts from other troops and not have their Scoutcraft skills be dissimilar. Evidentially under B-Ps method the boys from Brent Allen's troop in Georgia and the boys from Beavah's troop in Minnesota would have little in common when discussing year round preparation for camping and hiking. Unless they had the capability as a unit to travel great distances they would base their knowledge on local conditions because we don't teach we only experience. Different strokes I guess. LongHaul

For those that do patrol cooking are your camp program times altered to allow for meals? Our program uses what is called open programing. This means a boy can come to an area any time it is open and work with a counselor if one is available. 9am to 11:45 am and 2:15 to 5pm for most areas. Classes in Aquatics, shooting sports and a few others are assigned times due to the nature of the skill. These slots at our camp are 9:15 and 10:30 in the morning and 2:15 in the afternoon. Also who cooks for the staff? Do you have staff that do cooking only and not program? That would be why their availability does not change in terms of dinning hall or patrol cooking. LongHaul

Why then would you expect to be able to staff Wood Badge for the 21st Century BEFORE you took the course as a participant. Gee BW it was good enough for the first three sets of course staff. What changed? Oh yeah we had enough WB21 grads to staff a course too bad they were trained by staff that were not WB21 grads themselves. National can make what ever rules they want just don't try and justify the BS ones with cookie cutter responses dreamed up by people with little or no direct contact experience. LongHaul

But as Robert points out, the camp doesn't have more time for their activities. I'm sorry how does the fact that dinning halls do not add more time to a 24 hour day equate to the time available to the individual scout to avail themselves of a given activity? If I'm spending 8 hours a day on meals instead of 4 I have more time for program. If I'm asked to volunteer 2 hours each day to camp improvement and I complain that it takes away from program is saying that 2 hours a day camp improvement does not alter the time the camp has available for program a sensible reply? LongHaul

I agree Eagledad, but unless some of these scouts are shown that they are taking the steps of Identifying and Interest, setting a goal, making a plan, carrying out the plan, evaluating the plan they seem to be ignorant of the process and therefore not as likely or able to repeat it. Today's students, be they 6 or 60, expect bullet point and quick easy to remember phrases. If they are not specifically told to watch for something they often miss it. LongHaul

I find where the SM is told to discuss this with the boys but can not find where the term is defined or explained. In the Patrol Leaders Handbook and SPL handbook I find examples of this type of leadership but they are not identified as being this type of leadership. Giving me all the characteristics and descriptions of poison ivy but never actually telling me it is poisonous should not lead one to believe that I could identify it as being poisonous. What I am finding is training which relies on the participant to already be trained. Should the Scoutmaster be replaced or the training altered? Id have to say that the training has to take into account those being trained. We no longer have the pool to draw from that we once had. Since the acceptance by society that both parents must work to provide for the same family unit that one person provided for 40 years ago our pool has changed. Volunteerism has changed because free time has diminished and the scope of interests and opportunities of youth has increased. We just dont have the amount of adults willing to dedicate the amount of time required that we once had. Qualified candidates for SM are not as thick on the ground as they once were. Training for those that are willing is not; 1) as effective as it once was because everyone is looking for bullet point and catch phrase rather than concentration, and 2) as sought out due to the lack of free time or the perception that training is not needed. LongHaul

Comparing a Scoutmaster to a Math teacher is ludicrous. On one hand we have a volunteer normally coming from a revolving pool of parents of youth members and on the other hand we have a group of people that have chosen to pursue a profession based on personal motivation. These people have sought training is specific areas of interest and normally have taken into account the age of those they will instruct. Expecting a volunteer to pre qualify him/ her self so as to be ready to fill the position if asked is nonsense. This leaves training after accepting the position. Again Im part of our training team and am familiar with the current syllabi so I ask where can this training to be found? Its not in fast start, its not in NLE, its not in Scoutmaster specific, it is talked about and the trainee is told to do it but never taught to do it. We cover all the requirements and skills and how to teach them but never teaching leadership. WB covers team building and team consciousness but not teaching leadership particularly to pre teens. LongHaul

Fine Kudu then where is the problem with having a written plan to teach these skills so that when this scout goes off to a function and interacts with other scouts they all do thigs the same way. Whats wrong with haveing a standardized method rather than what ever the person at hand "thinks" is the way? What is wrong with having a plan or rotation to address basic skills rather than a hodge podge approach based on individual scouts? LongHaul LongHaul

While I do not disagree that cooking as a patrol strengthens the team and cooking as a patrol is probably the best way to hone leadership and cooperation, I fail to see why this must always be the focus of the outing. When we go to summer camp we do use a dinning hall. We have available to us a camp that employees a method of delivering the food already prepared to the camp site so while not actually cooking and cleaning utensils afterward each patrol can eat together. We also have the availability of lone troop camping which would allow the cooking in site of all meals but would require a 3 mile hike for program. With 10 outings a year I dont see why we need to spend our summer camp time cooking and cleaning. As it is we spend about 4 hours of the day eating or preparing to eat. Factoring in the 1 hour feet of the floor time after lunch this leaves 5 hours of program time per day. So unless a boy wants to schedule his day to be running from one area to another all day he probably can only work on three areas during the week. Im talking about areas where the scout is trying to develop a skill or learn a skill. Shot gun, archery, pioneering where the scout has to seek instruction, practice his skills and develop his knowledge and ability. If he wants to just have some fun along the way hiking, fishing, waterfront the day gets mighty short. Maybe its just that Im from Chicago and had the opportunity of both attending summer camp for 2 weeks every year as a youth and had relatives that owned a farm in Wisconsin where we spend most of the remaining summer. I dont look at summer camp as a week long advancement opportunity as much as a week long opportunity to see and do things these city boys dont otherwise get a chance to do. While I discourage troop cooking or outside cooking on outings I welcome it a summer camp. LongHaul I have often heard some scouters say that they use the dining hall because it is faster and gives the scouts more program time. That usually turns out to be more perception than fact. For those that do employ patrol cooking at summer camp realistically how much time do you see being spent on meals. Again realistically.

I agree that you should not feel bad about canceling if you felt it was unsafe. I do have a question though. Seeing that Webelos are not supposed to CAMP in winter, I take it that your outing was in fact a day outing. How is it that these boys do not have proper clothing for being outside during winter months in their own geographic area? Do these kids spend the whole day in the house when it's cold? No sleds, tobaggons, ice skates, snow forts, snow ball fights, red noses or numb toes? LongHaul

The scouts recieve training in the Servant leadership attitude of scouting Can someone point me to the page in the new TLT where this concept is explained or defined? Wasn't brought up or discussed at any of the WB courses in my area cuz I've been asking participants from two different councils ever since this new TLT packet came out. Who teaches the SM these things? It's not in the Scoutmaster specific syllabus either. LongHaul

BW are you suggesting that if a CO does not have a Scoutmaster with a proven tack record of instructing youth in the leadership styles and methods associated with the BSA then they should fold the troop? What happens to CO's with limited leader pools? LongHaul

Id really like to know when cooking meals became the only criteria for identifying the patrol method. Over and over someone posts the notion that if you eat in a dining hall then you are not following the patrol method. This would mean that we can only employ the patrol method on campouts because when we have troop meetings everyone ate some place different before hand. Unless you spend a good part of your day preparing, cooking and cleaning you are not really Scouting? Now I read that learning should come from within and not from instruction which is from without. These, according to a great quoter out of context, come straight from the guy who wrote a book for boys which says that you should not write books? Dont standardize, dont set quality levels, dont set standards all the while telling boys how to live their lives and embrace the world around them. All learning should come from within, just read his book hell teach you how to do it. LongHaul

This is the link to the original document http://www.hightowertrailbsa.com/program.html I see no restrictions for reprinting. I'm hoping that Mr. Thompson was a dedicated scouter that intended for this tool to be shared and used. I've been sharing every chance I get. Even without 100% attendance and retention the classs can be covered repeatedly by different instructors the SPL or SM delegates. With the plan so well laid out it makes review all that much easier. LongHaul

I am again tempted to explain the usefulness and wisdom in Jeff Thompson's plan. (See Brent Allen's early post) Every time I do I get rebuttal as to how unnecessary it is. A written plan is a plan that can be shared and followed. It can be adjusted and refined. It can be used to identify strong and weak points on our training approach. It can benefit the trainers and trainees. I can't find anything harmful or over taxing about it. Repetition works best if the task is repeated the same way each time. Quality in training is enhanced if the training is regulated. Doing things off the top of our heads is easy but it is the best way? LongHaul

I'm with Beavah on this. Membership in the troop does not equal readiness or qualification. If this were a two day canoe trip and these boys were swimmers but never been in a canoe before would they still be allowed to go? If it were a 20 mile hike and these boys had never been hiking would they be allowed to go? Asking the parents for permission does not equal proper prior training. Even if both parents come along it will not prepare the scout for the outing. Just because the theme of the event is Winter Survival our objective should never be actual survival but always one of testing our preparedness and training. The Saturday option is the only one I would present to these new boys. LongHaul

John-in-KC that works unless you are trying to transfer registration of someone already in the data base. You can't change a Webelos DOB any more than you could change a Life Scouts DOB to get him more time to complete Eagle. There are ways to get around all this we could just put in paperwork that says this scout earned his AOL but not award it and things would be fine but the message being sent would be wrong. As others have said if this boy does not stay with his group we are going to lose him but once we start altering paper work to "save" the boy where do we stop? LongHaul

Beavah, So Scout net will not reject an application for a 10 year old to join a troop? When I spoke to the pros in the council nest to mine they said it would and the only way to enroll this boy at 10 is with the AOL. As for the insurance thing I was under the impression that "guest" was a short term item say one or two outings but not 6 months. LongHaul