AvidSM

My district is really having trouble with this whole issue. We don't have a boy scout training chair. We didn't offer Leader Specific Training or Intro to Outdoor Leader Skills classes in 2009. We don't have a nearby outdoor location in which to hold this training. On top of that, training will be manditory starting in 2010 for all key scout leaders: Cubmasters, Scoutmasters and Crew Advisors. Then in 2011 it will be manditory for all direct-contact leaders. Our Council does not keep good records, so I doubt it knows who is trained and who is not. I think what is going to happen is when a unit tries to recharter in 2010 with untrained leaders, their application will get rejected. I hope it doesn't come to this because there will be no time to get these leaders trained at that point. Creating a training culture is going to take time and leadership. I am even contemplating having the commissioner staff run one of these courses if need be. It's just hard getting enough leaders involved at the distrit level.

Per the BSA's National web site: " ... once a Scout has started working on a merit badge, he may stay with the requirements in effect when he started. He will not be required to meet newly introduced changes unless the BSA's National Council places a specific timeline on the implementation of new requirements."

Whether you call it a caravan or convoy, its not a good idea. Each driver should be focused on the road and not with keeping up with the group. The safety of the scouts come first. There may be benefits to a traveling in a convoy, but these are outweighed by the risks. As a leader, I discouraged traveling in a caravan and instead tried to give out good driving directions. I learned that this information needed to be in three forms: a visual map, written direction with mileages and a reference to visual landmarks. I paid particular attention to the last mile or so, where people needed the most details. Not that everyone followed my directions to the letter: some drivers don't like traffic lights, interstates, certain bridges, toll roads, etc. People have the favorite way of getting somewhere. Sometimes, even after taking our own routes, we would all arrive at our destination within five minutes of each other. Even with making pit stops along the way - go figure.

Having adults teaching skills instruction at meetings is not a bad thing, especially if there are not many scouts who can do it right. "Adult taught" does not conflict with "boy led". And, in time some of your boys will learn how to do skills intruction right and will start volunteering to do it instead of the adults. As for meeting planning, don't expect the younger scouts to know how to do it - they have to be given a lot of adult guidance. Depending on the maturity level of the PLC, a scoutmaster may have to bring most of the ideas to the planning meeting. Keep it boy led - give them lots of ideas and let them pick. It is hard to get them to think about it in advance. They come from school still in the "reactive mode". You have to stress the idea that it's their meeting and they have to run it. Even if they have not brought any materials or ideas to the table, you have to give them time to think and decide what to do. Another problem with meetings is the the scouts don't do what they planned. I'll ask, "I thought we were doing thus-and-such, what happend?" The SPL will respond, "Jonny scout was going to do that, and he's not here or forgot about it or didn't bring the materials, etc..." It's more disappointing than bad planning. I learned to expect that a boy-led troop is only capable of so much in terms of performance. If you use the Forming/Storming/ Norming/Performing model, I think the boy-run PLC model is on average stuck between Storming and Norming. There are times when they do perform, but its the execption and not the rule. I like to focus on the positive and give them a lot of praise when they do perform.

Wow - I thought I was the only person who woke up with a panic feeling from sleeping in a mummy bag. Good advice all around. One point about the properties of air as an insulator - it is a good insulator (bad conductor) of cold if it is trapped small closed cells and not allowed to circulate. A blow-up air mattress has large cells which allow the air to circulate and transfer the heat by natural convection from the ground to your bag. Still, an air mattress is better than sleeping directly on the ground, where your body weight compresses the batting of the bag, which reduces it's insulative properties. Also, one more trick to keeping warm - rub on skin moisturizer before going to sleep. Your skin will repel your sweat better into the wicking layer.

KMSR is a victim of the ten year old merger between the T. Edison and G. Washington Councils. KMSR was Edison's camp, while YCSR was Washington's. The new Central New Jersey Council still has some of the old alliances left over from the merger, so getting full support for either camp was politically impossible. Now that there will be only one camp for the CNJC, perhaps they can put their full weight into getting YCSR into shape. Probably not as a resident camp, but for weekend camping, training and high adventure (the AT is just a short hike up the mountain).

It's been a year and a half since I stepped down and I still miss it. Enjoy it while you can!

Eagle92 - I never said that a UC can remove a unit leader - his authority is indirect. Twice I posted that, "the commissioners role it to help the head of the chartered organization or the unit committee to make the change." BadenP - I have been quoting the handbook verbatum. Your disagreement is with the BSA, not me. I am referring to the Commissioner Fieldbook for Unit Service, Chapter 9 - How to Remove a Volunteer. Please explain to me why this chapter exists, if not to instruct a Unit Commissioner on how to AFFECT the removal of a volunteer.

These are the very specific instructions given by the BSA to a Unit Commissioner on how to remove a volunteer: The BSA has a right to choose its leaders. A Commissioner is a representitive of the BSA. There will be times when a volunteer has gone beyond the point where coaching, training or a change of assignment will help. Quick action might need to be taken for the good of Scouting. The person or group with the authority to appoint a volunteer has the authority to remove and replace that volunteer. In the case of unit Scouters, commissioners must remember that it is the Chartered Organization that has made the appointment. The commissioners role is to help the head of the chartered organization or the unit committee to make the change. My suggestion, if I were the National Commissioner, would be to follow these instructions, if needed, in order to hold bad leaders accountable. I have spent enough time as a District Commissioner to know that there are leaders out there that don't think they can be held accountable. They are running their units into the ground. If I had the power to directly remove a volunteer myself, these people would be gone. But, I don't, so I use my political influence when I can and instruct my Unit Commissioners to use their own influence over the CO to affect the removal of a volunteer when all else has failed. I am not am not a doctor and I am not the police. My job is to oversee the quality of the units in my district. Bad leaders lead to poor quality.

According to the Commissioner Fieldbook for Unit Service, Chapter 9 - How to Remove a Volunteer, a leader can be replaced if all else fails. A Unit Commissioner can help the head of the chartered organization or the unit committee make the change. I would look upon a leader who does not want one of my TRUSTED Unit Commissioners to visit them as being a poor team player or having bad chemistry -both valid reasons for replacement. So, yes a Unit Commissioner does have that authority. If a unit leader is just not working out, after all the coaching, suggesting and friendly counciling from a Unit Commissioner, he can be removed - especially if that unit is losing boys like crazy. I don't know if it would ever come to that. But to say that a Unit Commissioner does not have that kind of authority is marginalizing the position - which some of the posts here have done, off topic. The strength of a District Commissioner's staff comes from it's volunteer scouters, not the paid professionals. A Council's real focus is on the numbers: number of units, membership and dollars. They care about the program, but leave the job to the Commissioners to oversee and fix the problems in the units. The Commissioners need to know that that is their job and leave the numbers to the professionals. Hence, Quality over Quantity. Quality Unit Commissioners visit their units. Quality District Commissioners recruit enough Unit Commissioners for all the units in the distict. Quality Units get visits and benefit from their relationship with their Unit Commissioner. Since it is left up to the Commissioners to care about the program, some are not motivated, and therefore not QUALIFIED to do it. This leads to leaders not knowing or caring about who their Unit Commissioner is. This leads to people saying that Commissioners have no power and the position is not needed in scouting. The Commissioner position is as old as scouting. When scouting started it was the Commissioners that oversaw all the units, on their own. The professionals came later and the Commissioners are still on their own.

If I were the National Commissioner, I would tell every Commissioner to choose QUALITY over QUANTITY. Council and Distirct Commissioners - make sure that every Unit Commissioner is qualified for the position and that they are doing their job. Make sure every needed scouter with the experience and qualifications who wants the job, has it. Unit Commissioners - don't worry about how many boys are in a unit, make sure that the unit leaders are trained, motivated and informed. Physically check up on these leaders to make sure that they are doing their jobs. Make these leaders accountable.

The BSA's mission is not to take care of troulbled youth, but somehow it ends up with more of it's fair share of them. Whether the BSA's overall program can accommodate troubled youth, I guess it depends on what the trouble is and whether the boy likes scouting or not. I've seen troubled boys who were forced to attend our meetings. It was very obvious that they didn't want to be there and were giving everyone a hard time. They attend only a handfull of meeting and then you don't see them anymore - thank goodness. The worst one's are troubled and stay longer because they can't or won't leave the troop. I've lost other boys because of them. The problem was, I didn't know that they were the cause of losing the other boys until much later - after the troubled boy eventually leaves. It's something I had learned and knew to watch for. I always went out of my way to find out why a boy had left the troop - getting information from both the parents and other boys. Then there are the troubled boys who like scouting and it does wonders for them -I'm taking about boys with arrest records. Association with adults is the key to their transformation - adult scouters who value their contributions and pay attention to them when they want to talk.

Wood Badge is about leadership and learning how to apply it. It shows you what skills you need to be a good scout leader. With these skills, you will complete your ticket, which is turning an idea you have about scouting into reality. Once you realize that you can do this, hopfully you will implement more ideas to benefit the scouting program. People always wonder what's the idea behind the beads. Once you get them, you realize the YOU are now behind the beads.

The TLT outline is very specific. It tells you what to do, but does not give much details - the SM and the SPL have to add these. The team building games and outdated video from the old Troop Junior Leader Training are gone. You can still add some team building to TLT, but is is not the core of the course anymore. If a SM just reads the responsibility cards, he is not following the TLT outline and is not doing a good job at training the youth leaders of his troop.

Your son's old customers can buy from whoever they want. No one "owns" them and no one owns the list of their names. Tell this to your old Troop. If these old customers are loyal to your son, then they will continue to buy from him. This would be especially true if the list contains family members, friends and neighbors. If they are not then they will buy from the first scout that asks them - pure and simple. I think it is ridiculous for a unit to assume that that a scouts regular customers should stay with the unit if the boy moves to another one.

Having run several sucessful and well attended camporees and klondikes myself, I agree with a lot of the comments so far. Sucess comes from: good leadership and advanced planning, emphasis of the patrol method, having a good theme, unique activities, fair competition, using different venues and getting other adult leaders and youth invovled in running things. Overall, the most important key to sucess is getting feedback from the scouts who attended the event. I always make it a habit of talking to them towards the end to see what went right and where I can improve. They are usually very honest about telling you what they think. I also talk to the adults and get their suggestions and comments. I use all of this feedback to make improvements to the next camporee or klondike. There will always be some troops who do not attend these events, no matter what. Focus your efforts on the people that do and you will get good attendance.

What the requirement is asking a boy to do is to not just be a scout when he is with his troop, but all the time. It's a requirement for every rank because it is so important for a boy to remember that. It's entirely up to the Scoutmaster how to verify that this requirement has been met. He could ask the boy at his Scoutmaster conference to give examples of how he has been "trustworthy" or "kind" in his everyday life. And, they will ALWAYS produce those examples every time. In my opinion, if a boy can't demonstrate Scout Spirit when he is with his troop, under the watchful eyes of his adult leaders, he certainly is not living by the Scout Oath and Law in his everyday life. What a Scoutmaster observes of the boy's behavior during meetings and campouts must factor into scout spirit. Most boy scouts I have seen have scout spirit. They are in the program, because they are drawn into the ideals. They want to be those things mentioned in the Scout Oath and Law. Using scout spirit to hold up a boy's advancment is wrong and the sign of a poor Scoutmaster.

I don't think you are going to find anything in the BSA's rules and regulations about whether it's OK for a unit committee to limit the scoutmaster position in their troop to a male. I think this is wrong, but if the committee has the backing of the chartering organization, then your council will most likely not do anything about it. The chartering organization has the right to define the qualification of adult leaders in their unit. For example, if the CO was a Catholic Church, then it could say all the adult leaders have to be catholic and a member of their church. If the CO was a men's club and decided that all the adult leaders in their unit had to be male, what could Council do?

SMT244 - excellent post! I mean, you really nailed it. The uniform does not drive kids away. The adults - who don't know how to lead a unit - are driving the kids away.

Our DE is the best we've had in a long time and he does not set or change dates. Coming up with a district calendar is more of an art than a science. We've got one senior scouter with tons of experience at the district level that does it, after consulting with all the other key district people, of course. Having gone through one or two bad DE's, I understand adamsdwa's frustration. All I can say is, wait a year or two and this DE will probably move on. And, hopefully the new one will be better.

The previous posts are correct - submit an adult applicatiion to change positions, if its not close to recharter time. The only thing I would add is make sure you do not use and old application. The newer ones have a new page with the Disclosure/Authorization Form. Your application will not be processed without this form filled out and signed by the applicant.

I would bring a three ring binder with all the camp paperwork in it. I had a spreadsheet made up to keep track of which boys were taking what merit badges. It had all the boys names in the rows and the merit badges offered at camp in the columns. As a boy told me which merit badge he was going for, I would put a circle in the box under that merit badge. When the boy told me he completed the badge, I drew one slash in the circle. When I finally go the blue card, I drew another slash to make an "X". Boys would change their mind early in the week, so I would fill the circle in. I also had information on each boy, showing what requirements or merit badges they needed for advancement to the next rank. That way, I could advise them on what they needed to do during the week to advance. In some cases, it came down to the number of Eagle required merit badges a boy could take that week.

xlpanel - I am sorry you did not have a positive experience with the "Win All You Can" game. From my personal experience with the game and from what I have heard from other Wood Badge staffers, it is not popular with them either. The way this game is supposed to work, the only score that matters is the total score of all the teams playing. The staffers running the game are supposed to show the team scores and then make a point of totaling them up after every round. And, in the middle of the game, the staffers running it are supposed to start saying, "Win all We Can! instead of "We All You Can!" If they don't do this, or the people playing don't notice that they are doing this, then the whole point of the game is missed. Which is what happened during the course that I staffed and at subsequent course run by our Council. It's a National syllabus, so the course Scoutmaster cannot change it. In fact, they sign a written agreement saying that they will follow the syllabus exactly as it is.

WAy to go CA_Scouter! I LOVE forks in the trail. One time, my scouts took the wrong fork and it took them a mile to realize it and turn back. I did the same as you, kept my mouth shut the whole time. It's hard to deal with the scout's mistakes and sometimes you have to hike a few extra miles, but it's worth it. Once they realize that you are not going to step in and take over when things go wrong, they start taking responsibility for and learn from their decisions.

You inform the MBC that you suspect the boy earned the MB under false pretenses. That you will hold onto his completed blue card until the requirement is met. Let the boy and his parents know this and the reason why. You should also have a Scoutmaster's Conference with the boy and focus on being Trustworthy.