MattR

He could be the biggest jerk in the district but if the committee likes him then that's what they want. If the scouts like camping only 4 times a year then what happens when this parent demands he leaves? I often hear and see what happens when a new parent tries making a big change in a troop and it doesn't work. It doesn't matter how valid the new parent's ideas are. This SM does sound like a jerk but unless there are other parents that agree this is likely not going to end well. If this guy is so bad then why is it that everyone accepts it? This troop could very well be a mess. Who will help these new parents fix it? I suspect nobody will help them. This troop doesn't care about advancement or camping, so who's going to suddenly start doing more? Not the parents that have been there. The parents that like to camp have already left. The worst case scenario is the new SPL and his parents get into a power struggle with the old guard. Best case is the new SPL ligts a fire in this troop and a bunch of scouts and their parents say we want to follow him. That's not going to happen over night. That's why I asked what the SPL thought about the situation. If he see's it as a challenge then keep on going. If he's frustrated then he should look elsewhere.

What does your son think of the situation? If it's bothering you more than him, then stop letting it bother you. Talk to him. If he's upset then give him moral support. That might be all he needs. Encourage him to seek out feedback from the scouts. If, as you say, they like him, then that will also be plenty of moral support. However, your son being so young, the SM being grumpy. I don't know. Digging a bit to find out what the cause is might help a lot. It might be that the SM is upset because he feels someone is taking his power. I don't know what the dynamics were before your son became SPL. Does the SM just complain about everyone, or was the SM just running everything? Understanding where it was and whether your son has made some huge change might explain what's going on. It could be the SM is a reasonable guy but just hasn't gotten used to how your son is doing things. Final bit: I had a parent send out email to everyone in my troop demanding I step down, I was getting old, time for new blood, etc. That blew up in his face like he didn't realize. As everyone else has said talk to the committee. Change is always hard and demanding it, no matter how good it might be, might not go the way you think.

I don't know if this is sacrilegious or not, but the push for Eagle by 15 seems to be a mistake. 15-16 is the height of what we call the slacker phase and I understand that getting eagle before that will raise the numbers, but the scouts that make it through that phase seem to be much better scouts. They help out more, enjoy the activities more, the younger scouts look up to them more. I don't want to do the girl scout model and I won't prevent a scout from completing eagle early, but I sure won't encourage it. @@qwazse said: are we discouraging scouts who would never make Eagle from enjoying the program? The only place I really see that is at summer camp. It's fairly well known and studied that kids learn best through playing. Scouts can ignore the rest of the advancement/merit badge push elsewhere (at least in my troop) but at summer camp that's hard, and summer camp is really important. Summer camp is primarily set up for advancement. It's not about playing. If you want to play on a canoe you have to sit through the whole merit badge. I'd rather see camps encourage scouts to play and then, if they want the MB, they can complete it. I know it's not quite that simple (scouts playing with rifles before safety instruction?) but the focus should be on safety and having fun first, and merit badges second. I don't see that.

Other than about 3 scouts, there is only one cluster in my troop. Technically you can get Eagle up to 3 months after your 18th birthday (so long as the SM signature is before) so my guess is our average is a bit over 18. Very few scouts can actually wear their Eagle award given that their coh is usually months after they complete the rank. We should just hand out knots. We just had an ECOH for 3 scouts last night. All of them completed their rank after their 18th birthday by about a month, and it was all the same month. After his mom pinned the medal on one scout I joked and said he had to take it off after the COH. He looked at me with big eyes. I told him I was serious. He didn't believe me. His dad also told him. We finally told him about the Eagle knot. It was a fun evening. As for how many get Eagle, a rough estimate is a third of scouts that join the troop earn it. That percentage is also close to how many parents help out or at least understand what it's about and think highly of it. But there are also those parents that push too much and everything blows up. One of the scouts last night told everyone in the audience he went through 3 stages in his boy scout career. The first was fun and excitement, but he was embarrassed to tell anyone he was a scout, the second was indifference/boredom, and the third was giving back and pride of what it meant. That describes most of the Eagle scouts from my troop. I've learned there is a constant search for matching scouts in that middle region with leadership positions that are important to the scout. Anyway, one of the Eagle scouts in my troop that got Eagle when he was 14 doesn't have nearly the maturity or appreciation for what scouts is about compared to any of these 18 year old Eagles from last night. One more tidbit, another scout, that is currently in that middle phase, came up to me last night and said he was going to forgo track this year so he can get more involved with scouts. ECOHs are great advertisement. It was a good night.

Can't a scout take care of another scout while also taking care of a job? Isn't that really the challenge we all have? We have to get paid, buy groceries, fix the toilet ... and at the same time care for our family, colleagues, and community. We have to take care of the tasks, we choose whether to take care of the people. Character seems to be reflected best in those that do both. So the QM can take care of the gear while also showing a new scout how to fold a tent. He could have just yelled at the new scout but instead he took the time to do it right. Done right, the QM will have a big impact on the new scout. He took care of the scout. I see it all the time. I ask every eagle scout who he remembered when he first joined and I hear lots of stories about kind, helpful older scouts.

Sentinel, and I guess everyone else that has patrol pors, how do you encourage the patrols to use these pors? I keep suggesting them and the scouts don't see any benefit, or maybe they see the benefit but don't want to put in the effort. Some of them will create positions for a campout but that's it. They still manage their own gear, buy food, and all that, but they just can't grasp the benefit of divying up the work ahead of time.

It sounds like your underlying question is should this really count as an eagle project. Well, obviously if the scouts didn't show he shouldn't get credit. But you also mention that the "ladies organized everything." The question for any eagle project is how does the scout show leadership. Sounds like this case deserves more questions. If a scout asked me or my district to sign off on a project where all the scout has to do is show up and do some work, or even just provide the labor, it would never get approved. But I don't know all the details for this one. I'm guessing.

Why do scout leaders always make assumptions? Just to clear things up, it is not always the leader's kid. blw2, this is your oldest son? who is about12 or 13? If so, you're in for a ride. It might not be your son so much as it's you. Your son is doing what all boys do at that age, they start to split away from mom and dad. This may sound crude, evil, mean, or just plain wrong, but hear me out. I've seen something happen over and over again and scouter fathers can't believe they're doing this. Maybe this is you, only you can answer this. These dads love scouts and want their son to share that love. Without even recognizing it they start pushing. It may be for their son to get Eagle, or be SPL, or be the best scout in the troop. It can be pushing hard or it can be pushing a little. The problem is the son needs to learn how to live on his own more than he needs any of this. Dad's pushing is not letting him grow up. Son pushes back. He probably doesn't even think about. He just does it. Dad wants an Eagle scout, so son starts screwing around. Dad wants Philmont, so son sabotages his gear. Dad wants a model son, so son starts flipping off people. Dad expects his son to get Eagle so son says screw it. I've seen a lot. If dad doesn't recognize this it turns into a power struggle and has nothing to do with reason, especially not what dad thinks is reasonable. It ends either with the boy leaving scouts or dad giving in. I've seen both. I've also seen the boy decide, after dad has backed off, that he does indeed want whatever dad was pushing. I was fortunate with my son. All I wanted was to have some fun with him. If I ever got more than 15 minutes of his time on a campout I felt blessed. We had a ton of fun. We gave each other a lot of grief, we wrestled, and made a lot of good memories. I explicitly told him do not get eagle for me. I didn't care. One good memory was watching him teach the younger scouts at summer camp, where he worked. He had a talent for it. Turns out he didn't know his skills so well when he started and the first day he worked there some other SM let him know. He took that seriously and went and practiced his skills. The point is, I was never the hard ass. I did ask other adults to watch him and they had my permission to correct any bad behavior. But me, I was there to enjoy my time with my son. I never pushed him. When he asked for help I helped him. Maybe I was just lucky.

Those numbers do not reflect my council. We are one of the largest troops in our council, often we are the largest, and a good year for us is five eagles. We've never had nine. Typical for our district is one or two per troop. Nine eagles a year would be half of our typical troops. So, maybe being so close to national changes things. Or maybe you're near a big city.

A story to illustrate how useful our modern tools of communication are: I called a PL a week ago and left him a message to please call me in the next two days. I just wanted to know what his patrol was doing at the next meeting. Three days later I called him again. He answered. I asked if he was going to call me. He said he did, twice. No record of this on my phone. Think think think. I then asked him if I answered the phone. No. I then asked if he left a message. Pregnant pause. No. Honestly, I'd prefer, when trying to communicate with scouts, that there was no email or sms so the scouts would be forced to learn how to make a phone call. It's kind of like writing. Scouts don't do that anymore and so their handwriting is horrible. Same for communicating an idea. These modern tools are not making it easier. As for troop size and or splitting. When we were at 70 scouts I wanted to split the troop but we had the same problem as Sentinal described. We're above 40 now and I like it a lot more. At the same time, I will never tell a scout no. I had a scout join once and I was ever so close to saying no, but didn't. Without getting into details this scout needed scouts in a huge way and he was a perfect fit in our troop. It would have really been a loss if I had said no and this boy hadn't looked elsewhere.

@@Krampus, I currently have 5 patrols and one of the problems we used to have was "rotating through stations." 10 minutes per station is an artifact of the number of patrols, not the activity. If the activity should last for a half hour (what can you cook in the 5 minutes you'll actually have if there's a 10 min period?) then consider 3 meetings of doing 2 stations at a time rather than all 6 in one meeting. My scouts have revolted at 10 minute activities. That said, climbing at a rock wall, archery, going to a pool, ice skating, and roller skating. These are all full meeting activities. Go online and find low cope course/team building activities. Do a geo cache. Make a geo cache for the town/schools. Make a pizza in a dutch oven. Make patrol woggles. You need a 4' long boot lace. Instructions are online. Paint the patrol box. Make a new patrol flag. physical activity challenge: do all the tenderfoot fitness challenges and add up the total number of pushups, situps, etc the entire patrol does. pioneering challenge: 6 poles, bunch of ropes, make a tripod and lash your patrol flag to it. score based on time and quality of knots. done with school favorites: foam battle (pool noodles, pvc, and duct tape to make the weapons, and a bucket turned upside down to stand on, beat your neighbor until one of you falls off) and sponge water fights. Squirt guns also work, just to annoy those at national. Go fishing. learn to tie all the fishing knots. Get someone to bring a fly rod and let the scouts practice with that. Again, this won't work with 6 patrols but it will work at a patrol level. If you happen to live near white water, ask around to see if someone can bring a couple of white water kyaks to a pool for the scouts to try out. Bring someone in to talk about spelunking. Would only work if it was tied together with a spelunking trip. Go through the MB books. Every MB has at least one activity that is not discuss, describe, or explain, and is actually fun or at least unique. One of the biggest challenges to look out for is how to keep everyone engaged. The cooking ones are nice but does everyone in the patrol cook? If it's only a few that are needed to do the activity, then the other scouts start getting squirmy. Even something like doing the geocache really only needs a couple of scouts. So maybe give each patrol two courses to do and have them split their patrol.

All the packs I go to use their bridge just for the "graduates"

@@Eagledad, I'm curious about your activity crews as a way for scouts to say they want to do something that might not fit in with their patrol. Scouts in the same patrol might have similar temperament, so they have fun together doing typical scout stuff, but not always the same interests when it comes to pushing the edge. They all like to camp but if some scout says he wants to do 20 miles in a day, his patrol is likely not going to go along with it. But there might be some other scouts in other patrols that would. Are these crews just for a single main event (and maybe training to go with it)? I've told older scouts for a long time that if they want to do something unique on their own they should just ask and I'll help them out. But I haven't gotten much interest. Now that the patrols are doing their own meetings I'm hoping they'll gain the confidence to take the next step. I'm just wondering what it took to get this going.

This could get ugly. We should stick with scouts.

The jeep commercial was probably the only one I paid attention to, and I did see the scout. I thought that was cool. NJ, it must suck not having a team in the superbowl. Oh wait, you never can have a team in the superbowl (the New Jersey Gladiators?) All gloating aside, I was going crazy just assuming the fairytale would end before the game did. Remember, two years ago the Broncos' first play at the superbowl was a safety. Given all that misery and one win every 17 years, please pardon my happiness.

@@CherokeeScouter, this is not a screwup at the largest level. Are there any medical bills? Mistakes were made and now is an opportunity to show the scout how to solve them. Talk to him. If the scout is really ready to be a life scout then the news that adults make mistakes will not wreck his life, although it might delay his Life . If he is going to cry about it then maybe he shouldn't be a life scout. Decide what it means to be a Life scout and don't sign off until he's ready. To me, a life scout should be helping the troop quite a bit. If he's already doing that, and he really does know the skills, then repeating signing off on the skills won't take much time and another 10 months of POR is nothing more than what I'd expect any life scout. So yes, what you propose sounds good.

Me thinks the devil's in the details. First, just explaining anything to anyone will not be enough. I have laid it out for the committee several times, they all say yep, and then something happens and they don't even realize they're stepping in. It's getting better. Slowly. I'm also learning how better to explain it. Also, just handing over the reigns to the scouts will create lots of problems, which is what you want, but there also needs to be a way for them to learn from them. This is where the adults can help a lot. They've never solved problems on their own. Of the 4 items on your list there's one word, support, that covers this. Boy led doesn't mean less work for the adults, it's just different. Training? Review? This is where Krampus' comment that there's nothing wrong with observing a patrol. What you hear from the PL afterward is likely not the whole story. Granted, sometimes I just have to walk away after I've seen enough that I really want to step in. I'd add 5) figure out what the support looks like and make sure everyone in the troop understands it, adults and scouts.

Who makes what decisions? How long is a committee meeting compared to a PLC meeting? Also, it's not a binary thing where it is or isn't boy led. We just got a foot of snow and I got email from our co saying they'd tell us this morning whether the building would be closed. I forwarded it to the spl and made it very clear the adults would do nothing to get this info out. The spl is doing great. Some parents, however, aren't real happy. In a nutshell, they don't trust the scouts. I'm sending out a lot more email telling the parents to back off than what it would have taken to just solve this on my own. Are we scout led? We're trying.

You don't need spray. At philmont just do as they say about bears. It's mostly an issue of keeping the smells of food away from you. They are anal about it so just do as they say and you'll be fine. Bears don't care about people, they do like our food. Well, grizzlies have short tempers but you won't see any in philmont.

New definition that circumvents the top down bottom up discussion: Leadership is management based on good character. A leader can simultaneously look out for the needs of his people and tell them what to do. I tell the scout leaders in my troop that every decision they make has to be checked against the Oath and Law. If he puts the good of his patrol before himself then there's nothing wrong with him telling a scout what to do. This is what good presidents, generals, parents, mid level managers at big companies, and any other good leader does. I agree there's a difference between handling tasks and handling people but real leaders have to do both.

So,sticking with leaders work on people while managers work on tasks, let's look back at history. Lincoln had a vision of abolishing slavery. He then had to manage the task of making that happen. Yet, he was looking out for his people. Not all of his people agreed with him. What people want is not always what they need. Before you say it, I agree that sometimes people are wrong deciding what others need, but anyone that has been involved in educating a child or student knows that what a student says he wants is not always in his best interest. Similar situations for our founding fathers and FDR and lots more. These people were not considered great managers. They had to deal with the problems at hand. If you'd like to call that management that's fine even though I disagree. They also dealt with people. They had to get the people to work on the problem at hand. They had to understand the people, their strengths and weaknesses, listen and learn from them, trust them to do their part, help them when they needed support, motivate them when they were down, and yes, even fire them when they were in over their heads. In short, take care of them so the problem at hand could be solved. Most people would call that leadership. Groups of people usually have problems to solve and they have to work together to accomplish that. If leadership can never include solving group problems, or tasks, then there isn't much room for leadership.

We do COHs and flag retirements.We do flag ceremonies for anyone that asks. The scouts take a lot of pride in them. A couple of scouts are going to get free hockey tickets for doing one in a month. I was frustrated because my scouts weren't doing them, and then one day they started and now they really enjoy them.

Talking about what a leader is or does still seems a bit murky. I've seen scouts with lots of charisma (other scouts just want to be with them) but their only vision is to get scouts to follow them in a social setting. I've kept in touch with a few and they still haven't grown up. I tried hard to get them to use their talents for doing something besides screwing around but it didn't work. What I have also seen are people with a passion for something. Some scouts want to organize fun campouts or campfires. That leads to confidence, and people tend to follow. I have a scout in my troop that has some minor speech impediment. He's shy about it but he tries hard enough that everyone respects him and follows him. It has nothing to do with charisma but everything to do with desire and humility. I still disagree with the idea that a leader should only do as told from below. One example is the SM that's trying to change his troop to be more boy led. Some parents and scouts won't like change no matter what. Does that mean the SM should never change anything? Waiting for everyone to come to complete agreement is called design by committee. Maybe that's why the BSA can't get behind boy lead, there are too many bubbles in Texas that can't agree on it. I agree that going it alone is risky and getting enough people to agree is important, but it's rarely the case that everyone agrees on everything. With a vision and a passion for getting something done, real leaders make things happen and disagreements are part of it.

Boy scouts is all about scouts learning to make decisions so never solve a problem a scout can and never make a decision a scout can. Also, set clear boundaries as to who makes what decisions and make sure everyone knows them and everyone defends those boundaries (scouts adults and parents). Separation. Trust goes both ways between scouts and adults. It takes time and is fragile.

Stosh, I like a lot of what you've written but your idea that leadership is bottom up and management is top down doesn't match what I see. I agree that bad management is top down. But leadership goes both ways. Sometimes a leader needs to tell a scout something he doesn't want to hear, such as "no, you can't go play, it's time to wash the dishes." There's give and take. The leader's responsibility is the group as a whole. Not only that but sometimes a vision has to grow from one person, usually the leader, to the whole group. Take the whole subject of boy led from the SM's view as leader and a bunch of new parents. The new parents want a schedule of events so their sons can get FCFY but the SM wants scouts to make their own decisions. The SM says no, this is the way we're going to do it. It's not bottom up. It's more like tough love. Who is the keeper of the flame? Who cares about the scouts in the patrol? That's the leader. We ask the PL to care but there's no way we can force him to do it. It's the exact same thing with character. We can tell them what it is, we can show them how we do it, we can tell them to do it, but we can't make them do it. I've tried to make opportunities for scouts to try leadership at a lower level than PL, just so they can try it out, but it hasn't worked well.