Platypus96

I thought I should make an update on how things are going now. On this past camping trip, the SM decided to change more than half the trip plan without consulting the SPL. After having a confrontation with the SPL, the SM then admitted to the SPL's father (an ASM) that he is trying to make the SPL's job so difficult that he will quit the postition. Despite this, my friend still wants to finish his term. There is a good chance that we will change troops in June, along with about a quarter of the troop. Oh well.

At my councils summer camp, there is only one person on the water front staff that can get in the lifeguard chair per BSA rules, as everyone else is too short to do so without climbing equipment.

In my school district, there used to be an overnight trip that students took in the fourth grade. Very tame, we slept in beds, heated house, little nature hikes, home in under 30 hours. The year after I went, it turned into a day trip. They don't even get to do the night hike anymore. I've heard that the tenth grade overnight will be cancelled after the year too.

Looking back on my original post, I realize that it does sound a little negative. I posted directly after speaking to my SM about this, and his response did upset me a little, which may b e a reason why. My patrol did have three members, but one has since left it because he did not agree with us on some points. These points included cooking, cleaning, and generally pulling ones weight on a camping trip. He is happy now in a patrol that does not expect much from him. My patrol leader is with me on this one. As of now, he is not really getting much leadership expeiriance, as pretty much every decsision is collaborative between the two of us. This is his first time as a patrol leader, and he would like to get some practise leading younger scouts. The two scouts that I wanted to join our patrol are unhappy in the patrol they are in. Most of the other scouts in that patrol don't really like camping, and don't much like to do work on campouts. They both just turned twelve, one is first class and the other is scout. The first class scout transfered to our troop from another, which he joined when he was ten, and the scout is in his second year. Adancement has been rather stagnant in the patrol he is in. The SPL alos thinks they should be in my patrol. unfortunately, the SM is unlikely to agree with him on anything, but that is a differant discussion. As far as making sacrifices in order to have two new scouts, I am more than willing. i have been a troop guide twice, and have seen that new scout patrols do not work. I hope that having a more even mixture of new and old scouts will make it work better. If it seems like I am trying to salvage ood scouts from this "sinking ship", then that is probably true. But I don't think that these scouts who want to be here should suffer because thy are in a bad patrol. When I talked to the SM about this, he said no, becasue it is against BSA policy. i wanted to know if he was correct, or if he just didn't want me to do it. Sometimes it is hard to tell with him.

My troop just got back from a snow tubing trip yesterday. Most of the troop stayed in a cabin, but my patrol pitched a tent about 150 feet away(working my way up to 300). Here in NY, cold weather get is pretty easy to come across, and it isn't hard to find snow. It was upsetting to wake up to a rain storm on Sunday morning though:).

Currently I am in what my troop refers to as the older boy patrol. It consists of me,a 16 year old life scout and my 14 year old patrol leader. We want to make it a mixed age patrol by taking two new scouts who are actually interested in real boy scouting, so they can learn things the right way. Can we take scouts from a differant patrol? If so, is there a rule I can show my SM to make him believe me?

In my lodge, we have differant borders, but they do not signify status. Each year, the chapter chiefs and chapter advisors give out bluebordered flaps to youth and adults, respectively, tht have shown outstanding service to the chapter. The lidge chief igves out gold ones to youth and the lodge advisor gives out platinum ones to aults. Most do nit kniw they exist until they have earned them. It is a good way to aknowledge service.

Personally, I don't like the banning of cell phones. We do try to discourage the use of them as much as possible, and it should be done only during down time and out of sight of others. Rules against cell phones coming from the committee, I think, are just a bad idea. Kids are allowed to use cell phones everywhere else( even in school hallways now), so why would they not be allowed to in scouts. With anything else, they should be used responsibly and without disturbing the current activity, hub a scout is friendly. He should be able to text his friends:).

By the way, I think peoe are getti g confused. Warwick is no the friend I was talking about in my thread. I don't know him, it's just a coincidence that we both have the same problem.

Hi, I'm that semiaquatic creature with a similar problem. Oh, by the way moosetracker, there is a Y in platypus. I'm sorry, that was irking me. SPL, I think the most important thing is that you don't lose your temper with the SM. In my dealings with adults, both as summer camp staff and in the OA, when they are upset they expect you to start yelling also. If you stay calm and softly ask him to address you calmly, there is a good chance he will get embarassed and apolagise. Try to remember, this is Boy Scouts. It's not something to get upset over (when I say that, I mean that it is meant for kids to have fun, and shouldn't be too complicated). One of my favorite quotes from this website is that scouting is a game with a purpose, which means it is a game. Would you get so upset if the advisor for one of your school clubs did something similar(the u iform inspection thing, not the screaming thing)? Once you are having a calm disscussion with him, explain what your vision is. I assume part of your vision from NYLT had something to do with being SPL? If not, make a new one. Try and get him on board with your ideas. It is much easier to lead a troop with the SM than against him. Make sure the other scouts are on board. Try and invoke a sense of pride in them when they do something without adults. At the next plc, show up with a completed plan for your next campi g trip planned completely by the boys and show it to the SM. Make sure there are no problems he can fix. It'll show him you are capable of doing hinge yourself. On the next trip, spend most of your time with the SM talking about how to make things better, and delgate to your assistants. Make him see that all of the boys are able to lead, not just you. If you have any specific questions, feel free to ask. Let me know if any of this helps. If it seems confused, I aologise, I am tired and about to go to sleep after a very long day.

In that case, I suggest you leave.

In that case, I suggest you leave.

You do seem to have a lot of problems. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like they will be easy to solve. As far as leaving or starting a new troop, I don't know if that is the best thing for your son. He probablyhas friends in his troop now that he wouldnt want to leave. If he changes now, it might be difficult to try again with kids he doesn't know. As far as the adult problem, my troop has the same thing. Here's how I am trying to fix it. 1) Patrol Method The patrols need to be able to DO things. I am trying to make my patrol as good and boy-run as possible to show the other patrols what they can do. I suggest you try to get your son (who I believe you said was a patrol leader) to do the best job he can to make a fully functioning patrol. Even if you can't fix the troop, at least his patrol will get a taste of real scouting (my patrol is currenty planning an adultless overnight bike trip to a nearby park). Hopefully other patrols will get jealous and start to eminate them. 2)Adult Help I am sure that you are not the only parents upset with the way things are. Try to get the adults that are sympathetic to your thoughts to back you up on the commitee. If the problem aults get enough pressure on them, they will either back down or leave. 3) SPL You must have an SPL who knows what he is doing. I understand that you are upset that the adults choose your new SPL, last year I was voted in but the SM threw out the votes and chose a differant scout because he wanted him to be able to pu SPL on his eagle application. The boys didnt listen to him at all, because they didn't elect him. If the scouts don't havetrust I the SPL, thenthe boyled thing will not work. You should talk to he SPL and make sure he knows how to run a troop. Good Luck Platypus and a silly young Platypus, too

I can only speak for why I am in the program now, but I think the question is still relevant. I joined cub scouts because my brother did it. I used to attend the pack meetings, and I really enjoyed them. When it came time to bridge into Boy Scouts, I did it because my friend was doing it. If he hadn't, I probably would have stopped, as the entire scouting thing had gotten pretty boring. I was glad that I didn't when I realized that this was much differant then cub scouting, and I started to get kore involved. After a few years of this, it started to get boring. I was advancing normally, going camping every month, but not really enjoying it. It was always the same. Then, two things hpappened; getting voted into the OA and CITing at summer camp. I think my point here is that scouting is a great program because it does change when you need it to. Any program that is able to hold a person's interest for these 7 years, some of the most tumultuous of a person's life, is doing something right. As for why my parents wanted me to do it, I think any extracuricular would have made them happy, this is just the one that I chose to do.

When I staffed NYLT, we all had kilts as our official uniform. We were a venture crew, so we were allowed to decide our own class a, and the kilt was our choice. I am relativley certain that everyone was wereing somethinf=g under them, but I'm not completely sure...

It doesn't realy matter how big the troop is. The msot important aspect is, which has better use of the patrol method and is more boy-run. In a few years, the thing that will keep your son involved is his own ability to lead the troop. Trust me, because I am at the point in scouting now where it is exciting to be able to decide what activites we will get to do, and to be able to teach younger scouts all the stuff that I had fun learning over the past few years. If the boys are making the plans, then your son will be interested for years to come. If not, then he will quickly become bored of just another adult managed activity.

I feel so rude, asking for advice on another post before introducing myself! My name is John, and I am a 15 year old life scout from New York. I am currently a Chapter Chief and Oa rep. I am a member of my councils summer camp staff working in the kitchen, and a mamber of a venture crew that specializes in native American culture and dance. I am also heavily involved with the lodge and chapter ceremonial teams. I have beenn reading these forums for a while whenever I needed advice for a problem my troop was having, but I had problems each time I tried registering. Luckily, it works now. If anyone ever wants a youth's point of view on this forum, I would be happy to oblige. I'd like to thank you all for the help you have already unknowingly given me.

Ah, you beat me to my favorite! That Princess, Princess skit sounds exactly like one I knew as the Suitor skit. If the two scouts know what they're doing, it can be hilarious. I will actually be doing that at my troop's demonstration for some Weblos on our campout next weekend. And yes, one can never go wrong with a good If I Were Not A Boy Scout

This is very similar to a favorite dining hall skit we do at my summer camp on roast beef and potato day. We have two staff members stand up front in the dining hall with a bowl of potatos(usually cooled), and everyone sings Onteora, I love Onteora! Onteora, its the place for me! Then one staff member says "Would You Like Some, on (insert body part)?" "Yes I'd Love some on my (insert body part)." Then they get potatoes. It goes back and forth a couple of times. Its a favorite skit, and I was very excited the first time I got to do it. Some of the long-time staff members get upset that they never get to do it anymore, becasue the first time staff members always want to .

I don' t like the patrol method part on the troop sheet. The gold level only requires troop level things, like a PLC and sending one boy to NYLT. It should require separate patrol meetings, or maybe half a troops patrols earning the quality patrol award.

Well, I just got home from our PLC and I am very excited. Our new UC showed up and was very unhappy with the way the adults ran the meeting, mostly because it was the adults running it. After the meeting, he asked the adults to leave the room and had us go over how it went, and making some changes to what the adults thought we should do fob the next trip. He said he will go to the next commitee meeting and ask the adults to give us heir trust and let us lead the troop the way that we are supposed to. Hopefully they listen.

My old SM collected those old handbooks. He taught us morse code, semaphore, tracking, map-making, etc. Of course, once I heard about the historic merit badge program, I told him and earned three of them within the first few months. I am finishing carpentry on Wednsday. I wish they would keep these badges permanately, they were much more fun to work on then the Citizenships and other school-like badges!

Again, thank you all for teh great advice. I really hop ethat I can make some kind of a change. There are two ASMs who seem to agree with me and my friend, so hopefully they will be able to offer us support with the other adults. In our troop, asm and the sm are given votes in the commitee, so maybe they will be able to be our "voice of reason" at the commitee meetings. Next weekend my troop will be having a campout, and it will be teh first I go on this year (one of the others ws during our OA work weekend, and I was staffing our council jamboree for the other). My patrol is having a Mexican themed menu, and we are entering churros for the desert competition. Our November trip is traditionally an inter-patrol competition, but my patrol will not be competing, as we are helping to run the challenges. No, the SPL is not in my patrol. My PL is a thirteen yeaar old who I am trying to train to be an SPl one day . We were hoping to "train" the SM to allow us teh be boy-led, but one scout actually used that phrase in front of him, and he took offense to it. He says that he doesn't get trained by the scouts, its his job to train us. Though he is actually correct, he doesn't seem to know how to go about training us. As I have said before, he had to ask our previous SM to run TLT. Eagledad, we're not from Oklahoma, we're from New York. P.S. i am sorry for any poor grammar or spelling in my other posts. I did a few replies from my iPod, and the automatic spell check doesn;t always know what its doing .

Is anyone else here gi=oing to be at Indian Summer? Does anyone have information about it? I am registereed to go, but information seems to be very scarce. Will there be ceremonial competitions, or are there just evaluations? I am part of my lodge's "First Team" ceremonialists, and will be very dissapointed if there is no competition!

I don't really understand the arguement here. Think about it rhis way; if you had a scout who had earned his first class badge and was elected patrol leader, would you be happy if he came to troop meetings wereing his old scout badge and a librarian POR patch? How can you ask him to properly display his patches if you do not have all of yours on your uniform? I can understand cutting it off when you run out of space on your shirt, or having a less clutterd shirt to wear camping or less formal meetings, but come COH time, all awards should be seen. However, I also agree that one should only wear program-specific knots, just as a scout should not wear cub scout arrow points on his boy scout shirt (unless he is a weblos who bought a tan shirt). My current scoutmaster only has three knots, AoL, and two cub scoutknots. Personally, I think he should leave it at AoL.