qwazse

Sometimes the discussion in other threads comes off critical of certain projects because institutions in our communities often are prepared with nuts in bolts in store ... all they need is someone to organize a labor force. That seems to make it easier for the boy (although sometimes I suspect it complicates things). When you advise your Life scout, what do you suggest regarding his project's scope/challenge should be? Discuss.

H2O, just keep in mind 1. Someone before you took risks while you were a youth member in their unit. 2. Other organizations have skeletons, and their small numbers allow them to keep things closeted quite well. 3. Your depth of leadership shielded you from false accusations. 4. The situation is no more delicate because the CC's boy was a perpetrator. 5. It takes a while for emotions to subside when things like this happen. 6. Success is still possible. I would not split hairs over defining hazing or not. Conspiring to deliver blunt force trauma to fellow scouts needs no other label. Untimely electronics use leading to a missed watch is more an operations issue. Youth leaders, with some guidance on your part, should be responsible for ship discipline. It's fair to let your most trusted youth leaders that you feel like quitting. As far as letters to parents, no more than four sentences. "Johnny was found doing __. It was unbecoming of a scout. He is suspended from ship activities until __. If, after that he wishes to resume ship life, he may request a conference with me and the boatswain." There is simply nothing more that you need to say.

Really? You tell your denner to organize your SFF? Make the calls to council, read any guidelines, mobilize a volunteer to pick up collection boxes and bags, schedule the event, make flyers, announce it at pack meetings, call volunteers, tally collection, arrange for food bank pick-up? All with minimal adult guidance? I'd love to meet that cub! (I have met some brownies who almost could lead in that way!) Just like any project, you are looking for how much the boy's hand is on the tiller and his capability of learning from it. That said, if all of the Eagle projects in your troop are beginning to look a little boiler-plate, I would challenge the Life scouts to really think about what they'd be proud to see their name on. Usually that's enough to generate diversity of ideas.

It's nice to hear that it's not just our kids who drive hard till they drop! (But then again, mad dogs an Englishmen are out in the noonday sun. ) Prevention by prodding is not enough. Part of prevention is helping youth self-assess. This requires preparation via first-aid training regarding signs and symptoms. Then coaching during the event. E.g. "That headache you're feeling right now, I wonder if it's related to anything we might have talked about in first aid class?" I had an entire crew who was functioning flawlessly for 6 hours of hiking come to a cross-roads and had the dickens of a time over a simple decision (turn left or turn right). After a few minutes of this, I asked them if they could grab a drink and then rethink. Water bottles were empty! I then gave them the directive to navigate to the nearest stream ... Pointing! The whole way I heard complaints (as we were walking downhill into a ravine) "we'll never find water here" "this is so far out of our way" "what a waste of time" . Then we hit the stream and started filtering, and smiles came back on faces. One youth asked my daughter "How did he know this was exactly what we needed?" I think since then she's learned to self-asses quite well.

Well we may have lost you, but as I tell my boys ... "It doesn't matter how many times you get lost, as long as you get found just as often."

Back to topic ... I recertified my BSA guard at camp. It was a good use of my time, and kept me out of the boys' hair most of the day. (The course was at the other camp on reservation, so I clocked most of my service hours guarding boys from other troops.) Unfortunately, the certification card never got back to me. I contacted the reservation director who said he'd look into it. This kind of snag may take months to resolve. Offering WFA and other challenging adult/older scout courses at summer camp sounds like a good idea, but we have a ways to go to make the follow-up work smoothly.

I didn't realize they weren't eligible before. But then again, <.1% of venturers seem interested in venturing medals, so I guess there was even less of a demand for the NOA from Venturers. It would be awesome this results in some more youth being recognized for their well-rounded outdoorsmanship..

Look, everyone, another fella wearing two hats! Welcome to the forums!

Finally, regarding O/A, the SM determines which youth candidates are eligible for election. The guidelines do not mention tent mates during the required nights, while they are very clear on other things that may or may not count towards those nights. So, it's clear to me that one's philosophy of "manly camping" should not come into play here. A boy who can't manage his ordeal (on first attempt) is not a detriment to the order. A boy who can, while yet an intimidating thug and ruffian, is a detriment. You seem convinced that this boy was elected to the order by virtue of his cheerful service, and you should stand by that. The CC's opinion is counter the ideals of the order. You (or ideally one of your ASMs) should feel free to say so in public.

I had a friend who attempted to CC like this. It was rough. One way that I handled it is to mandate that no committee meeting be heald in the absence of the crew president. That basically ended committee meetings for us. The youth took a little more responsibility and learned to contact the appropriate MC for the task they needed to accomplish. You could also insist the same thing with a troop, but you would have to have an SPL willing to be available for it, and mature enough to respectfully disagree. A comment youth can allay adults' concerns about these sorts of things.

This isn't hard. As SM, you must insist on one more line, "Any part of this policy may be revised at any time at the discretion of the Parrol Leaders' Council."

Good luck. Although the last thing I would give a Webelos is a guide to Eagle. I might consider giving crossover a "Guide to Becoming a First Class Scout (the Concept not the Patch)", or maybe I'd just introduce him to his patrol leader.

First, your CC needs to know what you (SM and ASMs) really need in terms of assistance from parents. Then for those tasks where you still really need adult support, he/she needs to find a parent of your younger scouts who might be able to "help" the parent(s) who can no longer be as active. By "help," we're talking train to be their replacement, but really only want to say that when those folks are confident that they can make a seamless-as-possible exchange of responsibilities.

Heritage Reservation, which runs it's Boy Scout camps Sunday-Saturday as SSScout describes, allows a unit's "advance team" to arrive Saturday afternoon to set-up canvas and take inventory. (Units bring their own food.) This is a great opportunity for the older scouts to have an additional night of fellowship, informal SMCs, and time to assist preparing for check-in next day. It also allows younger scouts to manage roll-call and vehicle loading for the rest of the campers departing Sunday AM.

Better yet, see if you can find out which boys were cubs, and ask them and their parents if they have any pictures or souvenirs from their cub experience that they would like to share. Two scouts in uniform with some stories to tell about derbies, songs, camp, etc ... would go a long way to winning over parents and kids. You won't have to say a word about the troop ... just introduce your boys. The parents and cubs will do the rest for you.

Thing about the inspection sheet (http://www.scouting.org/filestore/pdf/34283.pdf). It is not an all-or-nothing. Non-standard issue pants only dock 10 points off the total inspection score. In most parts (especially impoverished zones), 90% will get you an A. Grade inflation. Now, just require some of the patches to be worn on the back pants/shorts pockets instead of the sleeve, then you could start docking insignia points ...

Talk to the boys or adult leaders in your church's troop. Ask them which pack(s) their cross-overs come from. Visit those. As to the finding the perfect leader for your boy, there's this thing called a mirror. I suggest you and your spouse stand in front of it and see which one is ready for some fun times!

Regardless of the OP's intent. This is does come up from time to time. Inappropriate touching can lead to a backlash of bullying. So, this isn't just a problem with one boy, but also his fellow scouts. The old SM handbooks addressed this more directly, if someone has one to quote, it would help. Basically, you need to be able to conference with the boy and find out why he's behaving that way. Then you need to conference with the other scouts (SPL PL's especially) and talk to them about calling boys out on inappropriate behaviors before responding in violence. They don't need to be mean when they do it, but they need to address these behaviors promptly. A simple "Not cool, man." may suffice. This an important lesson for older boys to learn, because it applies to harassment prevention outside of the troop -- especially toward the women in their life. By modelling proper behavior at camp, for example, these guys may be able to help a sister or girlfriend stand up for herself in school or other social contexts.

I would steer clear of the SMC's until your are an adult in your troop. It sounds like in your troop, this is an opportunity for the adults to get to know the boys (kind of like a pre-BoR), and you've probably already know the guys pretty well. JASM gives you an opportunity to help your troop in unique ways: you can organize your older scouts into a Venture Patrol, you could research a trip opportunity that would provide multiple tiers for different patrols, visit a venturing crew, an O/A conclave (if you're an arrowman), or talk to new scout parents about what it was like for you when you joined the troop.

I was brought up in the era of Leadership Corps, which upon reflection pulled together the SPL and JASMs into a "lets show 'em how it's really done" patrol. We'd practice a skill (like mess-kit pizza) after helping some Eagle project on a mountainside in the middle of winter, then demonstrate it to the other patrols on some other, more tame, weekend. Aside from a honking big patch to dominate your left sleeve, how did that differ from what was the Venture Patrol pilot? How did the Venture Patrol pilot differ from what is taught about Venture Patrols today?

Thanks for the details on your position(s). I had a vague idea you'd "been all over town". But was too lazy to creep on your old messages to try and figure it out. And thanks for your service! You mean like what is described as the CURRENT program for patrols on http://www.scouting.org/scoutsource/...rolLeader.aspx ? Sure don't look dead to me. I still encourage older scouts who sound envious of venturing crews, but short on time for organizing one, to consider talking to their SM about forming a venture patrol. From where I sit, our districts continue to be short on commissioners, so spinning off whole new units on account of a few guys who want a little more adventure comes off as a resource-heavy recipe for boom-and-bust. I do not want to repeat the inflated figures of 2001-2005. (Bit of background: I try to volunteer on our council's venturing committee as time allows -- generally a good experience except for one time we wanted to contact all of our advisors and our DE handed me a list of what were obviously paper crews. Not a good day for him or me.) My point: the distinction between Venture and Venturing (although I really hate the choice of terms) is important because any healthy troop should have that "outward bound" leadership corps (Guide to Safe Scouting notwithstanding). Lacking a better name for THAT group, we're kinda stuck with the tongue twisters! From where I sit, a lot of our short term growth is from youth who don't want to shell out their hard-earned $$ for a uniform (remember, they are older now, Mom and Dad are trying to put dimes together for college or trade school). Our long term retention involves my getting youth to be in the VOA, and when they take on council/area responsibilities (like teaching a class that explain the difference between "venture patrols" and "venturing crews" ), they start hankerin' to look like they represent something bigger. Therefore, I'm guessing it's the other way 'round. Bigger program opportunities (i.e., more youth exposed to wider classes of venturers and challenged to represent scouting more widely) will promote uniforming. Uniforming will not promote a bigger program. Now, inasmuch as the new awards -- even if kids start by sewing them on their backpacks or whatever --- lead to youth being exposed to bigger program opportunities, I do believe more national shirts will be sold. I'll let you know if that's the case. Right now, my crew has outright rejected the awards without so much as looking at the brochure. I'm hoping to find a way to ease it back into the discussion because I have a couple of kids who I really believe would benefit from working on them.

So, it sounds like, for meetings, you need a service patrol (who configures seating for meetings, lines up the gear/props that you all will need, cleans up) program patrol (who picks the game/challenge for the evening, chooses referees, contacts consultants like the VFD if for example the boys want to try fire and rescue drills). administration patrol (who runs the opening and closing, records roll call, reads off the agenda, etc ..). Only got two patrols? No problem, the larger one fills two roles. Your instructor assigns the roster. SM reflects frequently with PL's on how things are going. No critical evaluations. More open ended "What do you think of this month's meetings?", "What went well?", "Not so well?", "What should we do differently?" You, as ASM, need to corral parents and give them your all's vision for the patrols. I suggest simply saying: a patrol leader's job is to qualify to take his boys hiking and camping. A patrol's goal is to hike and camp independently. They aren't there yet. That will start enough heated conversations. But, it will also set the tone for you to talk about "controlled failure", "youth responsibilities", etc ...Don't make this a long meeting. Just 5 or 10 minutes of what you expect from the boys in a year or so, then leave the room to help the SM with whatever and give the CC the floor.

May I ask what seems to be a completely irrelevant question? What are your meetings like? Specifically what kind of activities do you all do?

Trust the SM's gut. Have the Webs join the boys for Scouting for Food in November. Ask the boys about setting up a campfire and talking to the webelos about their last two trips. Cook something insanely yummy over a dutch oven. THEN have the boys ask the Webelos if they want to pay a visit during one of your winter activities.