Overtrained

Jerry, Ditto to the other comments. You may find an old video at the scout office about a program planning conferance that could help a little. Depending on your goals, there is training for Troop Guides, and Den Chiefs. It sounds like your primary goal is "Leadership development. As such, you could borrow a little from Venturing and their youth officer training materials. Exploring used to have some great youth training materials too. Your local OA lodge might have some stuff too. Good Luck. Bob H

The OA is not misguided, but it sounds like your chapter or lodge leadership may be. I agree with NWScouter though about who should be on the list. May I offer a story? As a Vigil member, I was disappointed in my new troops lack of OA members and participation. I realized that if I could get some adult members more involved and educate the youth and parents better about OA, that this might turn around. It has! Not only do we have more members, but they are involved. There is a new "Culture" about OA in our troop. And I'm pleased to say that the boys only elect those who should be honored; before they elected those who were popular. We can now attend OA functions as a troop, instead of figuring out how a couple of scouts could go. They also hold leadership positions that are keeping them involved in scouting - otherwise the other 3 w's might have got them. I don't know your circumstances, but I hope I conveyed the message about an "OA Culture" in the unit ( I rewrote 5 times to try). It made a big differance in my troop to the boys, and kept the numbers people at bay (they exist everywhere). WWW Bob H

For additional resources, go to the Leave No Trace web site, www.lnt.org They have some nice learning materials that are age appropriate, to include pocket cards.

Whiplash is right. Even more embarrassing is that I have it on an album somewhere. I'll try to find it this weekend and listen to it. Bob

Great Ideas Eamonn! Made me think of some others - we bought two 30 cup coffee pots at goodwill for $5. One has water and one coffee. We then have packets of decaf, cocoa, cider, and some ice water. The person in back with time remaining is great too. Here's a couple of new ones- Have the person doing registration right everyone's name done on the attendance sheet. Then the registrar only has to read one person's hand writing and it gets filled out correctly. We also found out that for Cub Leader Specific, it was cheaper to have the council buy the leader books at their discounted price than to print all the suggested handouts. Every Cub Scouter gets the handbook then. Here is an additional question for all: Many of us use cue cards in our presentation. Do any of you have them on the computer where they can be printed out? My hand writing is bad, so I type a lot of mine out, but don't have them all. Perhaps we could share? Bob H aka Overtrained

MW Some how I missed this when it was posted. Congratulations! Your being asked to be a Wood Badge Staffer paints a picture of a thousand words that say more good things about you than could ever be derived from these postings. Kudos, Bob H

This is refreshing. Our Wood Badge Coordinator has a 4x6 (roughly) PVC stand that he has fabric designed to fit over and uses it for a fabric board, and fits a pad of paper on too or a portable marker board. He is very skilled in using it and makes his presentations always interesting.

BW, great idea. In a TDC class a presenter used cut up peices of white wall board (like you'd put in a shower-can't think of what its called)as a dry marker board. I could see that incorporated into your board design. I have a bucket from the hardware store with the leather belt that goes around it (designed for tools) but have all sorts of tools in it ie post it pads, markers, pens, staples, tape, velcro. All those things that you wish you had at training every now and then.

Silver Shark, I read this as FOG did, but your clarification made sense. I believe the history of this goes back to Exploring when they did have Area, Regional & National conferances. As such, the Advisors let appoved youth in their car drive on certain legs of the trip to help the fatigue factor. Today that would usually be applied to OA events. Until now, I never re-examined it. Thanks

We just had one district training chair go and we have 5 more of us going at the end of this month. Planning this with several others can keep the costs down. Just food for thought.

Ron, If you talking about the Military style service cap (you could hang over your belt), then no they are not a supply item anymore. Bob H

Ox, Every Crew should have an Associate Advisor who is trained and able to take over for the Advisor. Is it feasible to join the crew as an Associate? This way you can be involved, help the current leader if she stays or be there if she leaves. Just a thought. Bob H

As always BW, insightful. I agree that RT should be under training. As for the rest of your suggestions, I have reservations, but am leaning your way. You state the UC's "come from the unit they are commissionng... or Some come from unit former leaders. Hey, there is a reason why they are FORMER. Either they weren't good at it or they burned out" All to often this is the case and sad it is. But what is being done to change this? It seems the commissioner is happy with bodies in positions - quantity vs quality. We are trying in my district to spread the philosphy of 3 years per job. It is taking time, but the jest of it is that do your job for three years and after two, start planning for your next. Some of this has been discussed on a thread about tenure. We have recruited some UCs who are former leaders. They are FORMER because evryone knew they'd become a UC before they burned out and they were recruited before that. There are many more committee members out there who'd make excellant UCs too that need to be recruited. Bob, your plan does have merit and is worth further investigation. My concern is that in the mean time we aren't even attempting to recruit commissioners the right way, but trying to get bodies. Bob H

Eamonn, If your DE has nothing to do at camp, I agree it is a waste of time. I do see the importance of them getting that experiance though. If a DE stays in the profession after there first 3-5 years, they usually make a decision of what they'd like to do - field work or program - and start that career path. Experiance at camp helps them and the Scout Executive to make that decision and mentor them. I was the first Camp Director with a paid staff at the camp DS talked about. It is an experiance that did affect my career. I only hope your DE can make grape juice from the sorry grapes they may be feeling. Bob H

BW, My council training committee is working on their "vision" (Wood Badge term). In the brainstorming, many things came up, but one thought intriqued me and I thought this was the most appropriate place to bring it up. "Our job is to train leaders, not run training" This is out of our training guide. We've discussed training in terms of courses here, but how do we reach that untrained leader who can't or doesn't attend training courses? Bob

EagelWB, Everything you stated was right on, with one exception. If the troop has over 50 scouts, then the troop may nominate 2 adults. This rule is 2 or 3 years old. Bob

Ron, One of my troops got a hold of the Brochure "Boy Scouting...Time Well Spent" 02-341. They have handed this out at various functions with some success. Particularly when parents don't stop to ask, but when they did it was used as a discussion guide. It describes the New Haris Study. Its hard to describe, but its pretty good. Get a copy from your Scout office and paraphrase from it. My troop even had it printed in our Church Newletter. I think there is one for Crew and Packs too. Good Luck Bob

KG, I served on staff for several years, including camp director. Most snack type things (pop, candy bar, etc) were available at camp. My staff had one night off and would usually go into town for pizza and/or a movie. One parent starting sending small gifts to all the staff for a "Christmas in July". Most were just little trivial cracker box type things, but appreciated. This continues today with staff exchanging small gifts. Ask the camp director if they have any such traditions. Maybe some movie ticketsif they go to town, copies of his favorite magazines, a phone card to call a freind. Some homemade cookies or brownies were always a hit. The moms would send them up with a troop that was going to camp to deliver them. Have fun with it. Whatever you send, he'll appreciate it. OT

Ed, I grow up and worked at summer camps that did the patrol method. I believe it is the best. That said, my troop attends a dining hall camp. There are other camps on the Reservation and one patrol this summer is doing the patrol method of cooking. As to how do we run a patrol at a dining hall camp? There are boundless opportunities. Each patrol has responsibilities each day, ie Latrine, flag raising/lowering, fire wood, cracker barrel, skits, songs, kitchen duty, etc. Each PL also keeps track of where each member of their patrol is each day. Patrol style cooking can enhance that (and I believe teach a life long skill better than weekend campouts), but it is a small part of running a patrol. OT

Congratulations David! Your on the right track. The troop may have a set of Troop Program Resources. If not, maybe they can get them. It is a set of 3 books that have 12 program plans/themes in them. The monthly themes that Eagle74 talks about are in these books. As you move into your PLC meetings, there are 4 weekly meeting planners and a weekend planner for each theme. Helps a lot in the planning. Talk over tentative ideas with your SM to get their insight. Follow the way Eagle74 suggests to run the day, but make some time for fun and team building exercises to pull your PLC together as a team. Good Luck OT

Good discussion. I've been in 7 districts and they all varied on length of time depending on the position. Most were 3-5 years. Recently I had our council resource chairman tell me why he thought it a dis-service to go any longer. He stated that one can become a fixture taking on more and more to do as they get better at the job until they become a heavy anchor - hard to move, hard to replace, and dragging things down. He said this tongue and cheek, but it made me think of a couple of SM's who needed ten people to do the work they had been doing before someone could be recruited to be the new SM. Eamonn, I think 3-5 is about right. If they're a lifer, there are other jobs they will do. If it is a UC, switch the units they have or move them to ADC. This keeps that Scouter fresh to. OT

I have never seen bylaws (whatever you want to call them) in a pack. I have the secretary keep a list of key things a committee has decided on over time. I have seen bylaws create more problems in troops - my headache is coming back. Some units do a nice family handbook for the new parent. It talks about Scouting in general from Tiger through Venturing. It addresses some key BSA policies like youth protection and outlines in general unit Standing Operating Procedures- we meet x nights, committee meetings are x day, campouts are always 5 pm friday to 11 am Sunday unless noted, etc. It is nice for the new parent, and a tool to use to recruit them also. Check out your councils POW WOW, Show & Do, University of Scouting or whatever you call it. Odds are, one of sessions talks about it. Good Luck

Mermaid, I echo all the above with just the following to add- You stated in your first line, "I have bumped the cubmaster down to committee member for failure to perform duties". I think this is one of the hardest jobs of a committee, to replace a leader. It is also the most challenging time for a committee to back up its actions. Not knowing both sides of the story, I'll only say that you need to make sure your new Cubmaster, Assistants, and Den Leaders have the support of a fully trained committee. It is the only way for them to effectively do their job and it is the Scouting way. Overtrained

Ours is the "Toothless Walrus". Beyond the name and a patch that someone made up there isn't anything more to it.

Okay Dsteele, Here is a myth: "you must fill out a tour permit to have the insurance coverage." let alone the other myth that Bob White said, "You must me in uniform."