qwazse

Caveat: I've only personally met girls who were on their way to becoming first class (in both concept and patch) at a more average pace, and their leaders were the antithesis of the "high-speed low-drag" types that give most of us scouters headaches. My guess is that most of the girls who achieve First Class this month are 16+ year-olds doing so legitimately. Like my boys of the same age who noticed the shortcomings of other scouts (usually boys they met at summer camp, or on ordeal, or some other event), I tell them to invite those scouts to whatever skill challenge they are planning in the next month. It doesn't even have to be a formal competition. It could be building a bridge, setting up a safe swim area, raising flags at a local ball game, conditioning for a hike, etc ... Basically, if they have the patch, invite them to act like it. If they weren't first class (patch notwithstanding) before, they will be it soon enough.

The girl whose PL made her clock 92 days of fitness instantly has more pride in herself than some girl whose PL let that one slide. Odds are she'll be more fit. So if she crosses a scout who has shorted her time, all she has to do is say, "Drop and give 20 push-ups, then watch me double it." Same goes for knots, navigation, swimming, etc ...

You know what's hard for morale? Girls finding out that you unnecessarily gave them a pass. What's good for morale? Girls knowing you won't skimp on requirements -- theirs or yours.

I find that pace is fairly typical for scouts who join at an older age. Also, in my troop, Feb-May is a fairly active time of year. Moreover, if the scout is also a venturer -- especially an officer -- or camp staff she has connections to other crews and troops. Chances are, she lined up activities for her troop at an informal planning meeting in December. If a kid isn't playing basketball they can do a lot in terms of advancement. But, if they are student athletes, they should be keeping exercise records. Our off-season soccer included weight training and it was all that I could do, for consecutive years, to keep from screaming at Son #2, "Why aren't you taking Personal Fitness?!" Ignorance is the biggest challenge. Yesterday I talked to a scout mom who was asking if her boy could get signed off on Lifesaving at summer camp because he was getting his ARC guard certification. I strongly encouraged him to get a blue card from the SM and meet with a counselor in the district ASAP. (One of the ASM's was fiddling with his labtop, so I asked if he could E-mail the family our district's counselor list for that badge.) I basically told him the last thing he wants to do is spend an hour a day at camp listening to someone with the same training as him lecture him on stuff that he just learned. If scouts think that there is no summer camp from which advancement will be spoon-fed, they could make rank quickly.

I assure you these were not perfect scouts. The patrol leader was learning that he had a very short fuse and his patrol had attention deficits. They didn't accomplish all of the goals they wanted to before summer camp. But ... when he was really stuck, he came to me and I either coached him through it or got him the help he needed. Generally, I helped him focus his energy on the scouts who were gun-ho and he let the rest of his patrol keep up. Summer camp and after, they pulled themselves together better and had an enjoyable time. I found that time is the key ingredient. If we have terribly flawed scouts devoting time to one another, enduring a crappy meal because of a terribly planned menu -- but at least not as vile as what they had on the previous outing ... then we have scouts who go on to win camporees, enjoy the back-country, and overcome calamity. If you have an SPL who hasn't learned to mentor and JASMs and Instructors who haven't been-there-done-that to support PLs, then maybe you need to have an adult mentor for every patrol. So, maybe when I was put on to advise a patrol, we were in that situation. But, I found that the bare minimum of coaching from me did a lot of good.

I was assigned to advise a patrol once. I told the PL that I'd be over in the opposite side of the building, he could come talk to me if he had problems. I think he might have once.

The goal is to work himself out of a job! My particular goal has been to increase the confidence of younger scouts from the troop who we merged with. I hate to say it, but after the merger, my older scouts weren't the best SPL/ASPL The scouts before them (who, pre-merger, comprised a much smaller and more tight-knit group) made it look easy. Not as much needed to be communicated, so the next-in-line didn't see role models of good communicators. Meanwhile, the new CC (bless his heart) was super-organized and didn't have a great vision of how to let scouts take up the tasks that he was so good at doing. Add to that a lot of changing of SM's back-and-forth, and it was really hard for SPL/ASPL's to find their place. I then started feeding the boys leaders' handbooks and becoming their cheerleader ... not so much to them, but to the committee. To do this successfully, I needed to have an ear on the PLC so I could tell the adults how much I've been hearing good thing from this batch of leaders. We now have a cadre of boys who are now pretty forthright with the outgoing and incoming SMs about what they'd like (and not like) to accomplish. It seems to me that the new SM is capable of having good working relationships with the current SPL and any of the boys likely to be elected as SPL. I am very hesitant to have other ASM's sit on PLC's for training purposes. There's a fine line between cheering for scouts and speaking for scouts. I cross it regularly enough that I don't want add other adults to the mix. On the other hand, if the ASM is very likely to be the next SM, maybe a well-oiled PLC would like him/her to see the ropes before the SM relinquishes his position.

There is a reason why the venturing uniform didn't come with standard-issue pants. Can't blame her for hating the switchbacks. I wish I had a definite go-to, but I'm afraid you'll have to browse lots of stores before you'll find something that comes close. I got grey cargo shorts for myself, and they worked well. Could never find a second pair. IMHO, a really good plan B is to find poly-cotton slacks that fit, cut them off, and and use the legs to sew pockets and tool loops to suit. Good luck!

I found this level of independence to go up and down with each class of scouts. It is a function of being able to retain scouts as JASMs (or, TG and Instructors) and being willing to use them as mentors to SPL/PL's so they stay on task as a PLC. It's also a function of seasoned adult leadership who encourage some behaviors, and not others, on the part of adults.

I sit in on a lot of PLC's for our SMs. But, now that the boys are hitting their stride, there's not much to say to them anymore. I'm expecting our new SM will take his seat back now that he's starting to hit his stride. Like Barry, we hold ours weekly after the close of each meeting. YPT is a non-issue. Plenty of leaders are at the other end of the hall sorting out paperwork, counseling scouts, etc ... I'm gonna miss the PLC, but it will be nice to be back on that end of the hall. Bottom line: no more than one adult at a functioning PLC, please.

Liability for negligence is always a possibility ... even in the face of waivers. Some scouters, because they work across multiple youth organizations and have seen so many ways things go bad with individuals consequently facing litigation, purchase personal liability insurance. On a grander scale, we may be at a tipping point where certain capable Americans will hesitate to do good out of fear that they couldn't afford the risk of litigation.

Also, hold off on WB until you've heard from leaders who are just a few years further into their tenure than your are, and get their opinions on how the course was delivered. Although the syllabus is very specific, there can be some variability in execution. I held off until an advisor from another crew invited me and said he was going to be on staff for the course. He didn't directly interact with me during the course, but it was nice to know there was somebody there who I knew was respected by his youth.

We have no such rule against cell phones. Does it cause problems? Yes. Does it solve others? Yes. I'm not going to abandon an SM if he's not going to make it a hill to die on. (Although this year I'm ditching him at camp because of Wold Jambo, and wedding cakes of Mrs. Q's baking that we have to shuttle across the state. Did I say there are things more troublesome than cell phones at summer camp?)

I'm a little confused as to the "other activities". We let our scouts go out around the church and cemetery grounds. They may get the (somewhat flat) basketball from the shed and shoot hoops. We don't require adults to be there. One of us may go around to check on them periodically. They often manage to make themselves useful. For example, last meeting they collected a bunch of junk that was dumped in the woods. We've also had times when everyone was expected to stay in patrol corners even if the patrol was working on something that the scout wasn't interested it. Patrol corners are rarely more than 20 minutes, so that process didn't seem to trouble everyone. Note: we don't micro-manage patrols. Come up with a menu, or not. It's their stomachs on the line. I don't think it's a bad idea to have the scouts in patrols for a set portion of the meeting. But, if you do, I think you need to figure out what you expect from the non-participants at that time. Maybe you need to have them join you halfway through the patrol time and go over something else relevant to troop life (e.g., the next event they will be attending, general equipment needs, projects to do for the CO, ...). If your complaint came from a first-year, I'd brush it off. But, maybe the old SPL is seeing something that's bothering him. Maybe some scouts are disrupting the boys who are trying to pull their weekend together. I'd try to listen to him and ask him his suggested plan B. It could also be that he's not comfortable with change.

One thing to note for the "when I was a scout" crowd. The family car was much larger. In his Ford LTD, my dad could drive five of us, and in the trunk he'd fit our packs, canvas tents, a dining fly, and mess kits. SM had a station wagon.

Some first-years brought their own tent. Which they set up okay except for in a bit of a dip and with some tarp sticking out of one edge. Rained the first night, and SM got a call from a scout's mom saying her son called home because he was wet and chilled but too embarrassed to wake his PL or and adult up to ask for help.

@CarlosD, welcome to the forums! On one level, it's your troop, your rules. On the other hand, if your PLC had a plan for some good thing for these non-participating scouts to do, maybe it's worth giving them a listen.

Never sewed mine on.

I would have the SPL do it twice a month. But, he hasn't even tried once. FYI: I can't find the pre-printed inspection sheets anywhere.

'Round here from an SAR perspective from May-September shirt color won't help much. Fifty feet into a thicket and the victim is invisible. From October-April it's so cold the activity shirt would be under a jacket. For hunting season I pull out orange pinafores (dog hates that one). Truth is any color that's a solid pattern will catch the eye. Their ain't much in nature (here) that takes up two square feet of just one hue.

Update on how things are happening IRL ... our progress reports to our funding agency now go through a system that prompts us for the details they need. Fine, I think it's nice that we address questions that may come up from folks who can't read our original grant. Plus, sometimes things change in the implementation and it's good to convey when an how that has happened. However, there is a new system for inputting these things that prompts our administrative assistant for one thing at a time. This means that even if we give her a full write-up like we always do, she has to submit additional information in small (say, a few checkboxes, or a few sentences, or some numbers), and there is no way of knowing what will be asked for the next chunk until she submits the current one. It would have been very nice if someone would have taken the time to say "you will be prompted on the following ...." and listed what would have to be prepared. Needless to say, we get random interruptions throughout the day as people stumble upon the latest question they can't answer but could have if we knew it was going to be asked of them. The challenge with all of this workbook stuff, is giving both the macro (e.g. outline) and micro (e.g. specific text or signature, that may be needed) views of the planning process at the same time.

Well, requiring plain-old-ascii would rid us of digital renderings! But, I'm not sure how any workbook or rules will prevent a troop advisor for going off the rails like this. This is where the commissioner corps and getting leaders to roundtable really matters. Certainly, for our grant work, the 12-page limit spares lots of blueprints, etc ... There are reviewers who would demand them (for our labs, etc ...). We simply say "they will comply to X standard" or, "we will employ Dr. A, who has supervised similar projects ...." I'm still seeing scouts being sent back over project minutae. But maybe it's not as bad as it was a couple decades ago. All I know is that it's worse than what it was 4 decades ago.

I gotta agree with @mrkstvns. My state taxes have a form-based option. And although it takes a little effort to learn because stuff has to be completed in a particular order, it is very reliable and the print-friendly version is easy to check. It even allows for write-in comments. The Eagle app would be even simpler, and could be deliverable via Scoutbook. The Eagle workbook could be similar ... web-based with an app that would allow the scout to work offline. But, always ask who would it be simpler for? It is very simple for a Scout to take a standard outline for a plan, copy and insert all the details, get signatures at the end, and make it looks decent. That means variability in font choice, margins, and spacing. But who does that bother? The folks who have to look at hundreds of Eagle applications? It's not like any of us have never gotten bids from contractors. For the scout how does filling out a form or downloading an app make it simpler than glorious copy-and-paste? Is the real problem that the workbook makes us look like we think bright scouts are too stupid to write for themselves? Example: for a ticket item, I made an auto-fill form for Venturers to use to write a personalized script https://sites.google.com/site/venturingcrew321/recruiting a scout could use as a basis for a school presentation. The crew(s) who I developed/demonstrated it with thought it was really neat. But, to my knowledge, nobody ever used it.

Depends on the number of trees ... and stacked hammocks that are sharing the same tarp.

Big pharma and little vials!