MattR

If I vote twice can I complain twice as much?

SR540Beaver, I went to WB and it followed the national syllabus, they even told me they couldn't change anything. They illustrated patrol method in that there were patrols. They talked about leadership for adults, but not the problems associated with teaching leadership to scouts. The focus was not on patrol method. It was on adult leadership. There was little mention of working with scouts. There was a section on mentoring vs coaching but that was it. If the focus was on patrol method then there are lots of important details they didn't mention. They did not talk about separation between adults and scouts or between patrols. They did not talk about trust or what eagledad calls growth. They didn't talk about how teamwork must precede servant leadership. They did not talk about how made up, abstract scenarios for training are useless for boys. ​ I tried to use what I learned. Smart goals, vision, start stop, arrows, and all that but it didn't do me much good. What has been working is asking my scouts and listening to Barry and Stosh butt heads. While amusing it's also true. ​I'm not claiming I know it. I even went back and retook SM specific training to see if there was something I missed. While I'm making good progress I have a way to go and still feel like I'm just bumbling around on my own. I'm dealing with angry parents, trying to teach ASMs while I learn, and spending a lot of time with the scouts. But what I've gotten from National's training has done me very little good in trying to change a troop that was mostly troop method into one that is patrol method.

I think there are two issues. The first is the SM and the second is nobody understands the big picture. ​The good about the SM: Happy guy. I suspect the scouts like him, at least when he's not signing off reqs. A lot of outdoor skills. He expects the scouts to lead so he won't get in the way when they actually do. The bad: You can't make suggestions. Disorganized. No vision. Is it fair to say he has more confidence than skill and that's why he won't listen to anyone? Another guess is he thinks scouts should just man up and figure it out? That would fit with the comments that he has high standards and no inclination to help anyone get there. The one and only big picture item missing is: The adults ask enough questions of the scouts till the scouts identify what they want to do and then ask enough questions that the scouts are successful at getting there. Given the SM, what can the ASM do that won't offend the SM? Can he run a planning meeting? Or a leadership training session? Or just a session to review what went right or wrong after an event? i.e., can the ASM complement the SM and find some way to get this process going? ​It just takes one adult that works with the scouts and gives them credit when they do a good job to keep everyone happy and moving forward. Let the SM keep his high standards and use that as motivation for the scouts. Have the ASM be the guy that works with the scouts so they meet those standards. If some scouts have all the Eagle MBs and still don't have first class skills signed off then you know what they will say when asked how's advancement going? Some scouts might say they're tired of roasting marshmallows on campouts. Either way, the next question is what can you do about it? The SM probably won't get in the way, and that's really good. The skill needed by the ASM is knowing what questions to ask when. Ask them enough questions so they're successful. Ask them what they want. Ask them how much they think they can handle doing on their own -- and the committee handles what they can't do. Offer suggestions on how they might get there. Keep it simple. Forget about the budget for now. Ask them how to break a big problem down into smaller problems. Repeatedly ask them what they are doing to ensure their plans work. The ASM needs the vision. BTW, from my experience I wouldn't spend too much time on scouts with bad attitudes. It's a horse and water thing. When and if they grow up they will be motivated. Until then I'd keep them from dragging down those that are interested in the program. Work the program for those that enjoy it.

Please help me with this line: " They want to be better. The SM is a terrific outdoorsman that lives and breathes the BSA program, but he's mostly gotten frustrated with him. Last campout he and I were up until all hours of the night discussing what to do and brainstorming. When I left the campout, I posted here, looking for advice from people here. " Are you saying that the CC and you stayed up all night trying to figure out what to do about the SM? If so, that is the crux of the problem. If the SM is willing to change then there's the answer. If not, there's another answer. I think you've said a couple of times the SM does it his way and doesn't want to change. All of the advice everyone is giving is based along the idea that the scouts need to grow into boy led and the adults job is to oil that machinery. The SM's job is to lead that process. As you've said, sitting back and just saying figure it out on your own isn't doing anything. The CC is responsible for having the right SM. The CC can either work with the SM or replace him. Those seem to be the options you have. All of the other ideas involving working around the SM, or plan B, is all just a bandaid for a compound fracture. Not to mention the power struggle that will follow. What does the rest of the committee think of the SM? Can the DE work with the SM? Or is this a matter of the SM saving face? I have a new ASM that thinks that because he has tons of experience in the outdoors that he'll be a great ASM. Well, no, he isn't because he doesn't know squat about working with boys. There is plenty to work with in your troop. The fact that the boys were embarrassed with their pioneering project is easy pickings. "How would you guys like to learn how to make the best tower?" "You guys need to eat and clean up before 3 stars come up and we're not cooking for you anymore. Would you like to learn some quick easy recipes?"

Good for you, Alex. There's a lot to read here but the missing ingredient seems to be adults that understand how this works. Without that there seems to be no trust between the scouts and the adults. Everyone seems frustrated and nobody knows what to do. The scouts are flailing or not showing up. The adults are setting very high standards but are not showing the scouts how to get there. Your idea of getting them some success is great. How about coming up with a plan for the next 3 months and running it like an annual planning session? Here's one approach. Find a good chunk of a day, probably Sunday, get some good food the scouts like, and, given that you live in Florida, an outdoor place. Start with a silly, fun activity to break the ice and spread a few more out throughout the process. Then spend at least a half hour to ask them why they are in scouts and what they want out of it. They will likely talk about friends, skills, advancement, and hopefully talk about service, the outdoors and adventure. If they forget any of these then ask them. It's not that you care too much it's that they should think about it. Then spend some time asking them about how things are going now. Review the last 3 months. Don't judge their answers but help them dig deeper and also identify assumptions they are making. Maybe they really do want to advance but since their SM is a hard nose, they don't enjoy it. At this point it's time to start coming up with a plan for the next 3 months. The Troop Program Features mentioned by KDD might be a good place to start. And by that I mean suggest to them a framework they can add stuff to. That narrows down the decisions they need to make considerably. When scouts are learning to make decisions limiting their choices can be a good way to help them out. In its simplest form all they have to do is pick 3 months that are already planned out. If they are mature enough they could come up with 3 themes and 3 campouts (assuming they want to do 3 campouts) that reflect some of the things they said they want out of scouts. From there talk them through the process off figuring out what each meeting should cover. At the very least, have them pick the game they play each meeting. One of those volumes has a ton of game ideas in them. Now they should have a calendar. Make sure it reflects what the scouts want out of scouts. You're getting their buy in. You're also developing trust that they know you're letting them make the calls and you're helping them out. The next thing to do is ask them how they are going to make this happen. They'll come up with something. Maybe the younger scouts will take charge of the games and the older scouts will take charge of advancement activities. Who knows. But it would be wise for everyone to have a part of this. The next part is presenting this to the committee. If the scouts do this forewarn the adults to not stomp on the scouts when they present something. If you do it then sell it as something the scouts did and the adults need to support them. Then comes the tough part. The scouts need to be constantly reminded to do their part. They should not be asked questions that can be answered in one word. "Fine" is always a dangerous answer. After every event sit them down and review how it went. I'm finding this is hugely important. The scouts know when things go wrong but they don't know how to talk about it. That requires a facilitator to review the good, bad, and future changes. Eventually a lot of this can be done by the scouts but for now, since they've never seen it done, you'll have to guide them. After the calendar has been executed I'd suggest making a very big deal at a COH about how the scouts did this. Most likely the scouts will know they did a good job and they will come together. You may ask what this has to do with getting scouts to first class or completing merit badges. It doesn't. It has to do with the scouts deciding, within the context of the aims and methods of scouting, what they want to do. This is just a start.

I use the wool blanket to cover the entire floor and I put my foam pad on top of that. The pad only covers half the floor.I'm not sure why but it helps a lot. It blocks the cold from coming up around the foam pad. It may only help within a few inches of the floor but that's pretty much where I am all night.

I'm going with Stosh on this one. I don't care how warm my bag is, and I have plenty of hair on my head, if my neck and head are exposed, I'm cold. As for yellow nalgenes I learned a long time ago that if it takes 20 minutes to get dressed, while you have to pee, it's better to just have an extra water bottle. BTW, I know it was a cold night when piss freezes On our cold campouts we tell scouts to bring extra long underwear and to put a dry pair on before they go to bed and to wear those the next day. Even if they didn't sweat during the day there is still moisture in their clothing. On the really cold campouts we push calories as well as water. It's kind of a hobbit thing. Breakfast, morning snack, elevensies, lunch, .... Since we started feeding them at 9pm we've had very few scouts waking up cold. The late night snack is what diabetics should eat, little sugar, complex carbs, fat and protein. We also tell them to stay away from the fire as it will slow down their metabolism. One other thing I haven't seen mentioned is we put a wool blanket on the bottom of the tent to cover the entire floor. There's a lot of cold coming up from underneath. I've made quinzees and they are much warmer than a tent. The only problem is how much work it is. Our snow is so dry that the usual igloo approaches don't work. But maybe this is all a bit much for the lady that's cold at 64 degrees?

I just did an Eagle SMC and the scout told me a story: He was hiking with his college friends a month ago (yes, he's in college and not yet 18) one of them has anemia and passed out. All the other friends started panicking and the scout said, hold on, let's lay him down, get his feet over his head, treat him for shock, and keep him warm. The other boy woke up about 15 seconds later, sipped water, and did fine. All the other friends asked where the scout had learned these things and he told them. They were amazed. The point being that people that actually know boy scouts tend to have a good perception and people that don't know any have a random perception.

I don't know that I've ever been camping at 64 degrees. I would sleep on top in my boxers at that temp. But it's all relative. Don't add layers inside the sleeping bag as your body will not warm up the bag and you'll end up with cold toes. Put the layers on the outside. Our winter campouts are in the 0 to -20 range and I use a second bag as a blanket. One problem with many bags if you sleep on your side is you get tight spots around your hips and shoulders, thus compressing the insulation to the point of not doing much good. A second loose layer solves that problem. Insulation underneath is also critical. Below ~10 I also like a balaclava to keep my neck warm.

We do a mix. Typically they have something organized in the morning and in the afternoon it's whatever fits within the buddy system. They like that format. It seems that an organized event just gets them going. We had a series of campouts where it was just show up and see what happens and they mostly did play card games. And the participation started dropping. I don't know if this was the right way to handle it but I reminded the PLC that they always mention having fun and adventure as things they like about scouts, so where is it? It wasn't too hard to get them to commit to having some form of adventure, skill, excitement, challenge, or memory inducing activity at every event. Sledding, skill competitions, canoeing, a service project, dutch oven cook offs, .... The last couple of years they go on an early spring campout and build a massive wood pile on a frozen lake and light it up at night. It's the boy scout version of burning man.

Make two versions, one for cub scouts and one for boy scouts. Have each tailored for teaching adults how to make the best program possible. That would mean finding people to write the syllabus that have actually turned a pack or troop around. Let it be about the boys, not generic corporate stuff.

Of course they don't understand. If they did they would have pushed me into doing this a long time ago. But to get to the real point, no, I haven't done a good job explaining it. It's been a slow process figuring this out. I finally have the adults not making decisions, which is good, but now we're seeing how poorly the problem solving skills are of the scouts. They don't talk, they stew. I spend a lot of time talking to the scouts to get them to identify their own problems. Now we have to scale that up without having the adults gum up the works. I talked today with my CC and we think the next phase is being the guy in the tie and having a scouting 201 class. For motivation I'm going to bring up their work experience. How many people have had problems with their boss before? This is why it's good to let the scouts solve these issues so they learn a useful skill. Another idea is that problems should be solved at the lowest point possible. Manufacturing, the military, and many other organizations push this. And the lowest point is ... letting the scouts solve their own problems.

That's cool Sentinel. Good luck. I wish you were in my troop. I'm in the middle of this transition and there seems to be a lot of issues that a user's manual would help with. Let's share notes. There are some parents that are angry with me and some confused scouts. There are also some scouts that are really jumping into this. I'm not sure about whether any parents are happy with me but I think I'm getting there.

While a newbie category might help, shouldn't we play nice in all the categories? Stosh has a good point, just look at the number of posts. It might help if people point these things out when they see someone with a lot of experience beating on a newbie. In the case of this thread I'm not sure if anything would have helped, but we should still play nice. You have to remember that people are thrown into this with little help from anyone. My early experience with this forum was not good, so I left it for a few years. But eventually I came back and found some good ideas. Now I know how to weigh personalities and remove the chaff to find the good stuff. There's no doubt this forum is much better than most, but there's still some things that likely don't come across right.

I'm not sure what this argument is about, but it's all relative. I got an irate email today that included the line "this boy led troop idea is fine, but ..." and it went on to describe how brilliant their child is and how one of the parents need to be on every campout to ensure their son has an exciting, safe, time. And they want to find out who is organizing the events to make sure it's done right. And, they never volunteer. Teaching the adults seems to be a lot harder than teaching the scouts.

Our last camporee was with a different district, just to mix things up, and they had an obligatory chapel service after flags Saturday night. It would have been a perfect time for a havdalah ceremony (marks the end of shabbat) but instead we got a full on fire-and-brimstone-you're-all-going-to-hell sermon. It was bad for the Christian kids. For me, I had to keep telling myself don't answer that question, just don't do it. I finally dug into the Scout Law and courteously walked out. But back to the original post. The requirement changes will not change the behavior of what I saw. They just don't see it and no micro management from national will change it. But, to try and make this useful, I'd like to hear how others will handle this. I like the part of starting with asking a scout what his duty to God is, but then what? If the kid has an answer then it's easy sailing. What if he doesn't have an answer? Do I just leave it at ask your parents?

I could see it. Once upon a time we were looking for a CO and one church likes the scouts so much they wanted us, but they really didn't have room. Some troop are more independent from the CO than others and in that case the CO is only providing space. So why not.

A 40 degree bag is not warm enough for Philmont. It can get down to freezing. It depends on the time of year as well. June in the Rockies is still frost point season. I got a fantastic deal on a down Marmot 28 degree bag and it's great for summer backpacking where I live. It's a quarter the size of synthetic bags and I'm into light weight. People used to be proud to carry 60 pounds and I now push for 30 for 4 days. I can hike further and feel better with a lighter pack and that means everything has to be smaller. Granted, the scouts can't afford down but they manage considering they make everything else smaller. Yes, down bags are no good wet, so I don't let mine get wet. I watch where I put my tent and don't pull out my bag until it's time to get into it. I've never had a wet sleeping bag and in the summer, even if I did, I could figure out how to stay warm.

You're wasting a perfect problem/learning-opportunity. What I would do, given their age, is buy a bunch of ramen packets and take them with me. At the parking lot I'd ask them if they are good to go. If they say yes, then they are good to go. On Sat morning when they figure out they don't have food then I'd remind them that they said they were good to go. I'd ask the other patrols to only give them leftovers that they wouldn't have eaten anyway. If they'd like to trade food for washing dishes that could be good. At lunch, same thing. I'd let them starve. By dinner time they will be really hungry and that's when it would be a good time to talk about teamwork and the scout motto. It's everyone's problem if someone in the team fails, so everyone should be looking out for everyone. Why is it that the adults are saving their bacon (pun intended) and not them? Given that they are feeling the full impact of their decisions by this time they will listen, and this will be the last time it happens. Then I'd give them the ramen noodles. One caveat is I wouldn't do this on a campout where the temp gets low enough that you'll have a lot of hypothermia if they don't eat. In that case I'd ask at the parking lot about food. If they don't have it I'd tell the patrol to stay home. For younger scouts I'd give them the noodles earlier. For first year scouts I'd make sure they had food and just delay them.

BadenP, with a hundred scouts in your crew, how do they organize? Is there something similar to a patrol that has some permanence or is it by event?

fred, official records as far as the council is concerned is what gets loaded into their computer and troopmaster will generate an advancement report that will do just that. It also tracks things like adult training, service hours, things for JTE, and who is going on what events. When a scout has an Eagle COH I like to print out a report of everything the scout has done to help me remember good stories stories. Once scouts don't need any more campouts they won't keep track of them. As for scouts and parents not reading email or listening to announcements, yep. Then they complain to you that you didn't tell them something. No IT solution in the world will solve that problem.

And this is why I'm leaning towards having patrols for younger scouts and older scouts. It's not just time outside their patrol but time outside of scouts. Most scouts have a limit as to how many campout they can go on a year. I have some older scouts that won't touch another camporee but they really enjoy the high adventure. I don't want single age patrols, but breaking 11-17 into two groups that roughly reflect junior high and high school makes some sense to me. I'd still want interaction between the younger and older scouts (instructors, troop guides, training) Edit: I don't want to specify age ranges, I just want to let the scouts figure out their own patrols and I suspect they'll go by junior high/high school.

Barry, we do something similar, six months with two troop guides and then split them up. We don't do the shopping part and that sounds much better. But getting to your growth theme, I have a couple of 13 year olds that are ready to be PL and some 16 year olds that shouldn't be PL or just need a break. But I don't want to let a high school drama case in with a 13 year old PL. It would probably be easier on the young PL if he is one of the older scouts or the older scout is an exceptional scout that understands the dynamics. This likely means there are some youngish patrols and some patrols that are either completely mixed or the higher age range. Did you have something like this? I'd like to let the scouts figure out their own patrols and give them the opportunity to fix their mistakes. If there's a younger patrol that likes camporees and some scout grows to the point where the rock climbing/shotgun patrol looks like more of a challenge then he can try and move up. Or maybe there's a patrol that likes doing OA stuff. I suppose this is like the venture patrol idea but my troop had one once and it was a disaster. Talk about a group of lazy kids. But what if the scouts get an opportunity for more growth at a younger age so when they're older they can create a calendar of more challenging events. There'd be a NSP, then the "camporee" patrols and finally the patrols where the dads can barely keep up. Isn't that the type of growth you're talking about?

Stosh, I understand what you mean by let the new scouts do this, but some of the 13 year olds could barely hold up the shotgun. We weren't allowed to mix shell size so we couldn't go for a smaller gun. Considering that the scout that said he now understands the PL's job was one of the troop guides, I must admit I failed with the last new scout patrol. The troop guides probably just acted as den leaders so nobody progressed and the troop guides suffered. There's a project. When it comes to mixed vs fixed aged patrols there seem to be lots of tradeoffs. When a mixed aged patrol works it is great to see, but when it doesn't work it's ugly or scouts drop. The problem is almost always some scout doesn't have enough friends the right age. And that doesn't always mean the same age. How about this: Have a NSP for a year, just like the BSA says, and focus on teamwork and enough skills so at the end they could be on their own. Then let them go where they want. If they decide they made a mistake, let them move. Some patrols will mix, some won't, and some will stay within an age range.

koolaidman and scoutgipper, this is what I did. If it helps you out then I'll call it a good deed for the day and hopefully you can share what went right and wrong if you use something similar. About a month ago I told the scouts we were going to have a high adventure weekend with as many fun events as we can do at our council camp but they were going to plan it. And, BTW, we'd also be doing some leadership training. In hindsight we needed some adults that knew the answers and people to call for shotgun and climbing. We didn't so for those we had adults help (a lot.) Anyway, we had mountain biking and canoeing as backups to shotgun and rock climbing. We dropped the mountain biking and kept the canoeing as a backup in case it rained and the rocks were wet to climb on. We had a meeting two weeks ago with the interested scouts (the requirement was they be first class). I gave them the schedule and told them to organize themselves into two patrols with no patrol leaders. This is where I started the mantra of take care of your people, enthusiasm, and teamwork. In hindsight I'd replace teamwork with "How can I help." They made duty rosters that included covering skills for different challenges ("you need to know how to tie a bowline while blind folded"). I asked them to have each patrol's QM tell me what gear they needed. They also needed a flag and patrol name. ​ Not having patrol leaders was huge. The previous mantra was, I'm not PL, so I don't have to be responsible. ​The schedule was get to camp at 5:30 but be dropped off about a half mile from camp with a map and a simple compass course to find a bag full of sugary stuff. Hindsight: make the bag a very bright color. Each patrol got a different map. Once they got to camp they set up camp and we had a five minute teaching moment about the difference between being the boss and being a leader. Saturday morning they were required to cook something for breakfast, be cleaned up and at flags by 8am with their lunches ready (lunch at the lake). At 8:05 we had a blind folded knot relay and the winner got to choose whether they did shotgun or climbing first. The first event was from 9 to 11:30. Lunch was at noon and we had a canoe competition at 12:30 (get your patrol across the lake in one canoe but only 3 people can be in a canoe at a time.) At 1 pm they did the other major event. From 3;30 to 5:30 they had free but at 5:30 we started the fire building competition (boil a cup of soapy water in a tin can). They had to cook over a fire. Campfire at 7pm and each patrol needed a skit. After skits was the only reflection of the day. ​What actually happened: One patrol did not give me a gear list. I brought their gear but charged them $5/scout to get it (money went to the troop). We talked about looking out for each other and how things go wrong. We also talked about how the adults should not be the default fix it people. I was very explicit that I wanted them to learn from their mistakes and that I wasn't trying to punish them. They all took it well. We got to camp late and didn't start orienteering until 6:30, dusk is 7:45. My biggest fear was with one patrol. Their path was supposed to take them East of a very rocky outcropping. If they went to the West then they'd end up in steep terrain over a river. Not good in the dark. I did go looking for them, never found them, but they were fine and happy as could be once they found the candy. In the morning, although both patrols were done way early, they still missed flags at 8:00. One scout showed up at 8:02. I asked him what he was supposed to concentrate on and he said take care of his patrol. So I asked where his patrol was supposed to be at 8:00 and he said flags. So I looked at him and raised an eye brow. He jumped up shouting and ran back to his camp. Both patrols were at flags at 8:05. I gave them some grief about it. The knots went much faster than I thought so that should have been something harder. The climbing and shotgun was much better than what they'd get at summer camp so they loved it. Canoeing was a hoot. They'd have 3 people all paddling on the same side and they weren't turning. So they just sat in the water trying to figure it out. By the time they got to the fire building they were on top of the schedule. In fact I had to ask for a delay on the campfire since I was late with a dutch oven. I just heard them laughing and having a great time. Music to my ears. ​To answer your question, Stosh, mentoring occurred at the parking lot and morning flags. So not very often. The scouts did say the schedule I gave every one of them helped a lot. I never thought about that but if the PL is the only one with a schedule then the rest are going to be clueless. I also felt like an idiot of a SM at times. The scouts have no idea what teamwork means. Even those on sports teams are just doing as the coach tells them. So when we put them in a team environment they fail. Duh. Now the big question is how to get the rest of the troop up to speed. One last observation is that the two patrols had scouts from 13 to 17 years old and they did great together. I asked them about having single age patrols and they said no. But they are leery of new/immature scouts. i.e., they're happy with anyone that understands teamwork but new scouts aren't mature enough. If I can figure out how to have a new scout patrol long enough for the scouts to mature it might solve a bunch of problems.