qwazse

Sit and watch? Yeah, that's wrong. They should focus on getting the coffee pot percolating, arguing over the price of tea in Maurutania, and discussing what program items might need their help that weekend and how they should support them. If a dad wants to help, he may ask to join in IMHO, but if the boys ain't crying no problem. If they are, let them know the fly's optional.

Troop has a fly or two. I try to limit the times when they feel compelled to use it. Sometimes an SM may override. But generally we only put it up if the boys think they'll need it. Crew has tarp, rope, bailer twine and bungee cords. (All mine.) That plus any trees in the vicinity and they may have a dining fly if they chose to grab that gear and so occupy their time. When they don't use the tarp I crawl between it's folds instead of bothering with a tent. Some of the boys are starting to model that "tent optional" behavior.

I've insisted that the scout and venturer have a permanent record of which he is the sole proprietor in which he can collect signatures from his PL and other designated leaders who can attest to his/her demonstration of scout skills. That is the primary record. Anything else is secondary backup. If a kindly MC decides to track advancement on Troopmaster thats fine, but there should be something that travels with the boy. Something he can pull up without any assistance. Something that he can crack open in the middle of the wilderness, because that's where the best SM conferences happen anyway. It also would be handy if some instructions on the skills were with the record. Something that he can use when nobody is around to EDGE him into learning the skills -- something like a handy-book. Hmmmm ....

Jambalaya! Love it. (For a name but especially as a meal.)

JM - I would also emphasize what I think was the toughest point for my troop adults to get their heads around: Patrol Method is not used in venturing. That is, "patrols" are more ad-hoc or activity specific (e.g., Ski Bums, Seabase Team, Philmont Crew, Blood Drive Staff) and we encourage some youth to take the lead on each and a youth can participate on more than one team. For my sanity, I've tried to encourage our officers to take on a uniform theme for a few months at a time. They've completely ignored me! Crew committees are also generally less structured. They boil down to a bunch of people who brainstorm (or go through a checklist called a "program capability inventory") and provide a list of what they can offer to the youth "in house." Again, youth are free to work outside of those lists. It just means a few more phone calls. I think for some boys, this is the biggest selling point; and for others, the biggest deciding factor in *not* joining. A lot of guys in our troop prefer the patrol structure.

Chao - welcome to life under the microscope. You'll never know what sets some people off. Could be your tone. Could be the jerk next door your age that is getting oddly friendly with a boy. Could be the way the boys use the names in your absence. Could be a parent feels his boy deserves a cooler name! The general rule seems to be as long as you can take it with a smile and some pride, dishing it out shouldn't be a problem. But, from time to time you'll come across a group for whom you will need adjust your style. If only to give the sense that you value folks' input. All of the above suggestions may work. No way from this side of the 'net to tell if this is one of those times for you.

Training. You need to identify the units who have more than a couple leaders whose training will lapse soon, and start getting them caught up NOW! The leaders in question may need more prodding than their unit leaders can do. So a follow-up call with those units maybe even offering to call on the leaders behalf might help Can you tell that this advisor had an adult who, in spite of weekly calls from me and talking-to's from her kids, didn't know she was holding up our charter for two months?

It's a pity. I was just talking to my neighbor who is trying to put together a wilderness first aid course for the second weekend in September. Probably not worth the drive if you want to complete it online! A good 1st Aid class requires some hands-on time, and that's the intent of the requirement. So, even if the Red Cross link works for you, call around to local hospitals, airports, and fire departments and ask if your crew can practice in a drill of some sort.

Never seen one. But I know our venturing committee has been trying to funnel counts of awards to the VOA, and it wasn't like HQ had it all on hand. Basically, for now we advisors are letting the VP-admin know how our youth are doing. I filed it under "what's broke." Maybe they are treating Bronze-Gold-Silver as parallel to S-L-E? Hopefully the crews are coming up with zero's under T-2-1! If not, my best guess is that when boys are multiples, their rank from their troop is copied to their crew as well.

Truth is, those guys don't stick around long unless they do shape up. I've seen several FCFY boys find the door all by themselves when they realize they have to set aside an hour or two of their precious video gaming to "help other people at all times". That jump to Star, even if you let boys count hours for multiple purposes, is just too much. And, no, we don't count it too loudly or preach it all that often. We're not a troop that plans a service project every camp-out. Our active boys are just putting service projects on the schedule as often as camping weekends. As far as I can tell, all you can do is wait for them to grow up a little bit. One former SM told me he was sitting around the house one summer (after leaving scouts for about a year) and said to his folks, "Hey, I miss camp." Then, when he got back he realized he missed the service as well. Which gets down to my bottom line [sorry it took six posts!!!]: if a boy comes up asking if he can count hours for two purposes and there's nothing in the handbook or MB book against it, you don't have to say, "yes" outright. You could ask "What to you think?" or "What would make you the proudest?"(This message has been edited by qwazse)

We have a scout that is held up because he needs service hours for star......He will not do anything other than meetings and camp outs..... No selflessness in the boy.....he is 12 years old. Another FCFY success story! Does he do a good turn daily? Of not let him know there's an old fart in Steeler country who would happily kick him to the curb if he doesn't shape up.

Great!!! I love those well thought-out all aboard projects. But what if a PL decides he wants his boys to shovel out fire hydrants after last night's blizzard? (It's all I could think while sweating into the screen. Pretend we're discussing this five months from now.). He gets the all-clear from the SM the word goes out and everyone digs their way to the VFD house for lunch. (There's a coffee shop by our fire hall. I can find a couple of scouts thee on any given day.) Again, they missed your deadline. Most of the bous will not get the message. Paperwork? If mom was pulling graveyard at the hospital and dad worked for the power company, junior probably just left with a note on the fridge "I'm making my way to the coffee shop by noon!" Next meeting, it's probably on each boy's honor to gauge how many hours he worked. The fire chief is pleased. It makes the papers. Now do you really want the tag line to read "Troop xxx's heroic efforts: not service, says committee"? My point: yes, you should plan ahead. But be flexible and prepared that boys will do great things with just there buddy on a moment's notice. I don't see anything in the book that prevents that from counting as service.

I'm sorry, but if any boy hasn't done a day of good in six months time, he should be kicked to the curb. We had to set some standards for projects and start screening after being overwhelmed with last minute requests. Now we don't even consider a service project without 30 days notice. Also we never schedule in conflict with a camping trip or other activity. What's wrong with last minute requests? Half our projects occur during campouts. Imagine this situation: patrol x while on their hike, find a vandalized cemetery. They find the farmer who owns the land, and he explains that he has been catching up on tornado damage and would love to see the toppled stones righted. PL calls SM and asks to adjust hike plan so they can spend the afternoon fixing things. SM approves, and boys get to spend sunset looking over their work. They set up camp nearby to watch over he dead. In the evening the vandals come by, and PL explains how uncool it was what they did. The boys then walk the thugs through the graveyard, showing them the many infants were buried beside their young moms (cholera probably), and the chief thug asks if he can come to their next meeting. Everyone parts amicably. A couple of patrol X come back to the next meeting ready to log rank advancement, and your committee member says, "Sorry, you should have waited until next month to do that good deed, those hours don't count, troop rule."

BD, my experience has been that youth in whatever organization have put the service hours in to make any rank they desire 10 times over. They just haven't kept track of it. The only thing that those requirements do is take up time during the announcements, because some adult just has to pipe in "this weekend's project counts for service hours ..." to boys who've knocked off their hours months ago and will show up with tools in hand and grins on their faces nonetheless.

Scout should spend exactly eight hours (no more or less) testing paddles at the community boat ramp. Like the song says: "Dip. Dip. And Swing." While we're at it. If a boy does a good turn daily and it takes a minute each time, can he count it as 6 hours of service by the end of the year? Yes, I think mandatory service hours are an abomination.

Some of our units are pretty seat-of-your pants. Then they have a problem like this. Try to fix it, but eventually succumb to the prevailing culture.

Okay, use your "nice labels" and when the kid is in Juvie and has nothing better to read the dictionary and look up "oppositional" and "defiant" he'll say "[insert expletive here], so I was a bad kid and they were too chicken to say so!" What you call it doesn't matter. How you handle it does. First step in a cure is recognizing you have a problem. If a kid knows your accepting him (that includes with negative reinforcement where necessary) as he is: bad and all, no whitewashing, he will grow to respect you. The challenge is you have to be very clear to him when he is doing harm to other boys, and as they get older this becomes more ambiguous. (The boys may find their own way of dealing with him, and the results may be less than pleasant.) Get the parents to deal with it if at all possible. If not, you need a dedicated adult to manage that boy.

No hiking required for tenderfoot, although a hike is a great way to gain a few of those skills. (E.g., poisonous plant identification.) Lots of our parks actually have fitness trails with stops where they do particular exercises.

It may help to use the term the best experts in psychology use for ODD: a bad kid. To succeed, you need an adult dedicated to enforcing discipline in that one kid. One cuss or threat, removed from the activity until willing to behave. One hit, go home. Forcible removal may be necessary, so it's best if the parents get trained in restraining the kid and are responsible to do this. You have to be this strict at the cub level. It's our only hope that the boy will be in any shape for scouting as he matures.

The boy's in HS? That changes everything! The crew owes him a campout! He deserves a chance to sit with the venturers and adults away from the Webelos IIIs and figure out this dynamic and how he can fit in it. BD, prior commitments family or otherwise take precedence, IMHO. Now this could be a situation where the mom said yes to too many people, and didn't figure out until the last minute. Unless these girls were seasoned leaders (competent big sister types - it happens), I bet the SM would have preferred to have his oldest scout there, especially if the boy is new and needs opportunities to fit in. Regardless, everyone needs to work towards maximizing the number of youth on the field. We all can win, but everyone needs to know that that's the game were playing!

Oh my! Don't worry about that! (Except for maybe sending in your opinion on the matter -- letting folks at national know what you like or don't like about the current program and proposed changes.) Things will be the way they are now for a couple of years, which plenty of time for you and your mates to pull together an awesome crew carrying some serious bling! I don't see big changes in requirements anyway. You have your DE's attention. Good for you. get your adults trained. Get started on that first Bronze and seek that fun and adventure in the world.

It sounds like your SM wants to get to the bottom of this on your son's behalf. That's a good thing. My SM welcomes our crew on nearly every activity, I've insistend that if the SPL hasn't extended the invite personally to the crew president - youth to youth, in a timely fashion - the crew is not invited. My youth would be VERY upset to learn that another youth was left out because of their imposition on the program. Clear communication is imperative to make that happen. I think you can be honest with the mom and let her know you can't take her at her word. It sounds like she was the one who told you there was no room. Frankly, I've been known to forgo my own gear if that last seatbelt was needed for a warm body. But that's just sleep-under-tarp me. Other adults aren't so accomodating. If you have other issues about girls tagging along, (or boys from other inits for that matter), a last-minute culture etc..., you should admit them while respecting the fact that there may be cultural differences that you and your family can adjust to. Don't expect much from the troop except another campout soon. Other solution (for future reference, and I know this is a huge leap of faith for some folks): swap vehicles. If yours is larger, everybody goes. Fill the tank, and you can still claim the deduction. (Or reimbursement if your troop does that sort of thing.)

I've posted several replies about orienteering hikes or navigation hikes. Try those keywords. I don't think in terms of NSP's. A five mile day hike on medium terrain is well within the reach of the average 11 yo. So most of what folks have suggested with regard to first class requirements should apply. I would never call anything a tenderfoot hike. I've seen older kids have tremendous fun on the simplest jaunts. I've also seen eight year old girls climb a mile up to the continental divide, leaving older sisters back at 9000'.

I get what BB's pushing for. Sure, the Oath and Law is useful to anyone, but we expect adults to not merely be oversized scouts. We want them to implement the program from a different perspective. There are some virtues that scouters need that aren't in the law (e.g., patience, vision), this list helps an adult work on those things. For example, everyone wants to be helpful, but if everyone lights the fire the minute they see boys struggling, nobody grows. If you can't stand them being a mile off course on an orienteering hike, nobody will learn how to get unlost. You need someone with patience to coach boys through the process, and a vision of those boys a year or two older coming up to a soaked fire pit at the end of a very rainy hike and knowing exactly what to do. Well we don't want a "scouters law" with more vocab words in it! We just want adults to grasp what it takes to help these boys along. It's a unique privilege to have an "Adult room" for this sort of thing. I'm stuck having to herd adults into the church parlor once or twice a year. I figure I miss one or two things each time, and am afraid that some of the shyer folks don't know how to start the conversation (especially if their kid has recently been making parenting a little rough).

PDaddy: your addition is probably my #1 that I need to keep saying to myself. Bb: i don't think you can add attachments. Your best bet would be to make something like a google doc and share the link. Besides, text is more important IMHO. Centering and font choice has a lot to do with the room you're hanging it in. You should just ask one of your adults, maybe one with a sense of style, to give you their opinion. With that, I'll leave you with a #7: there are as many ways to write truths as there are people who read them, but there are only a few good ways to apply them.