ronvo

One Hour The right thing to do is to not let the kids go with her. It is a very hard thing to do, I know. Yes it may lead to a confrontation and even having the parent pull the kids from the troop. However you have to do it. I know that this is not easy and actually I am saying this as much as a reminder for myself as for you. If the kids seem to recognize this behavior, then you can be fairly certain you may be involved in this way again. I would recommend contacting a professional source locally (i.e. the police, intervention specialist) and ask them how to handle this so that you are prepared next time. Be Strong and Good Luck, ronvo(This message has been edited by ronvo)

A Camp? A Roundtable? A Swell? A Circle? An indention? A circus? A show? A tent? A mess!

Aha! So national killed the unifom and then tried to reinstate its importance. There ain't no goin' back! Of course the fact is - contrary to the dedicated Scouters on this forum - for most of our membership - and from looking at scouting web sites in other countries - the uniform IS scout shirt and jeans! As in most corporate organizations people have to justify their jobs and believe that "there is always room from improvement." Unfortunately improvement in their minds means change and so they try to "fix something that ain't broke." rv

Thanks for the link. So the UC isn't just a busy boody who wishes to interfere in the unit. And so if we have dedicated UCs and DCs whay do we need DEs? Not trying to be argumentative - just really trying to understand the monster. ronvo

In that respect I was lucky. I joined a boy led - SM advised troop and it stayed that way the entire time I was there. It was by no means perfect and the SM ( all 3 at different times) stepped in when needed, which at times was often - however we learned a lot. We also had patrols that worked always as patrols. We went to a summer camp where we were separated within the campsite by patrols and cooked our own meals as patrols. I think that is why I get so frustrated with these folks. ronvo

I am a Support Services Manager for a Scale & Weighing Systems Manufacturer (Support Services being the repair dept, reprgraphics, technical documentation, & trade shows) rv

In looking over the lists of the methods on Kudu's site, what I notice is that "ideals and service" seem to be replaced by personal growth and leadership development. The former items seeming more concrete (the oath, law, service good turns) than the abstract latter (personal growth and leadership development). Making these last two methods has led us to book learning leadership rather than learning leadership and groeing personally naturaly from the concrete living of the oath and law and doing service. OMO, ronvo

Thank you for the additional responses. Very helpful t258sm wrote: Each month the PLC plans out the following months meetings using troop program features and other materials as a guide. It gives them a good base to start with and they change the meeting plan to suit their own ideas. Meeting and activity plans are not so much about merit badges as they are practical skills relating to the theme. The idea is to introduce the Scouts to a theme and then peak their interest into finding out more about the merit badge. That is great and how I think it should be. I think to often many boys just go along with a merit badge class with little interest in or actual work for the badge. Last night I went to our troop's "leaders" meeting. All adult except for the ASPL who is the SM's son and he had little to say. The adults made the plans and I was amazed at how they do it. If you are having the boys lead your troop no matter how much guidance they need you are doing it right. As I said earlier our program is about boys LEARNING to be leaders and different groups will need diffrent things from the adults. I think we often expect to much of a boy led troop and when it doesn't meet those expectations, we say, see told you it wouldn't work - we better let the adults do it. And that is stealing the program from the boys. ronvo

CalicoPenn wrote The Unit Commissioner is a District level leadership position. They act as mentors, resources, liasons (to District/Council) and mediators to their assigned unit's leaders. Could you be more specific? What instances would they have to mediate? What is diffreence between UC and DC? What then is purpose of a DE? At what point in BSA history did these positions appear? Five years as Den leader, CM and CC I never met a UC and probably glad I never did. ronvo

Remember CA - no more than 40!

t158sm wrote 4. What has your troop meeting program been the last few months? Planned out last August by the PLC at the yearly program planning weekend. September - Fishing October - Cave Exploration November - Climbing December - Orienteering January - Winter Camping February - Space Exploration March - Hiking April - First Aid May - American Heritage June - Swimmimg July - Canoeing August - Wilderness Survival Did you do the merit badges or just activities that could be used for the badges?

Thanks for the responses - they are really helping me see reality. Keep'em coming. Regarding question number 1 - Do you think our expectations are too high of the boys and we need to find the balance of boy led and adult supervised? I mean I seldom see meetings of adults that stay on agenda and start and end on time. One hour you seem to have reached a good place. Snowman thanks for the honesty. I also think that the same troop at different times with different boys will do better or worse at this. One hour - that is a BIG troop. Can a troop that large really be boy led or maybe it is actually easier with more talent? One Hour said: At the same meeting, the rest of the older scouts who were not teaching the TFC skills worked on a mb of their choice (they would invite the counselor to the meeting). I like that idea - thanks! Since this is a training program I think progress is the key. I am sure that even thought they may not get it exactly right now - it will help them do things better in as adults in the working world. Has anyone seen a really great by led troop? Does it really depend on the skills of the SM - I think so. Ronvo(This message has been edited by ronvo)

The troop our 10 Webelos crossed over to is adult led. I hope to help the development to boy led. I know this will take quite some time. What I would like to survey you fleeow scouters on is the following: 1. Is your troop boy led? 2. Do you make good use of the patrol method? 3. How many boys are in your troop? 4. What has your troop meeting program been the last few months? Thanks in advance for you responses YIS ronvo

Dan I agree that the boys having fun and learning is NUMBER ONE. However , and I am not sure how the district we are in does it, when I was a scout - every patrol there could come home with a blue ribbon. The competition was against a standard and not the other patrols. This is how Scout Competition should be. And Blue ribbons are always more fun than yellow. I also believe that every Patrol is entitled to that Blue Ribbon through a progam with ZING and the opportunituies to learn Scoutcraft skills. John - By traditionalist I am not saying that we disregard all the progess that has been made since we were boys. We do need to know how to prevent sun burn and not to just go hacking down trees and be leaders in stewardship of our natural resources. The purpose I see in say pioneering is learning more than just tying sticks together. There is that ability to tie correct lashings yes, but also planning, teamwork, engineering, problem solving, etc that makes this "old fashioned" skill wothwhile today. That is what I think of as scouting. Is anyone out there doing this? YIS ronvo (This message has been edited by ronvo)

I know I am not the only one who thinks that too much emphasis is put on advancement these daysand not enough on Scout craft. And I am not sure how to word my thoughts so see if this makes any sense. First off - Scouting never was a Norman Rockwell picture just as American Life never was. Rockwell is an idealized picture. However I do think that his paintings were based in reality and that our realitiy has changed for the worse. I would like to see more of the "old school" scouting. Pioneering, woodcraft, etc. A meeting where time is spent carving neckerchief slides not working on a Citizenship merit badge report. Our troop's one patrol did poorly I am told at the Klondike. We now have a group of 10 new boys who just crossed over and I know that if we work on traditional scouting skills thses new boys can do well at next year's klondike and have real scout spirit - which I also think is lacking overall today. Just look at Boy's Life. I have a lot of the old reprint books that have articles from BL that showed how to make camp equipment, boats, Indian lore crafts, pioneering prjects and more. BL sledom has anything like these articles anymore. Is this realisitic or I am just dreaming of a Norman Rockwell ideal that is not realisitic. Please let me know before I spend too much energy making myself crazy. Sorry for my incoherence. thanks for listening ronvo

Gern You Heretic! All right thinking people KNOW GOD intended T-Shirts to be WHITE! Fruit of the Loom are the most orthodox HANES BEEFY T are best reformed Jockey are a bit mainline BVD fundamentalist

I was thinking about this the other night. Who do the professionals expecially on the National level answer to. Obviously not the membership. In the most recent Scouter paper for our council was the announcement that the DE for the district next to us has regigned due to "unhealthy levels of strees." Also did not B-P say this would happen? Did he not say it should be an all volunteer run organization? Maybe Kudu, you can shed more light on that. Sad, very sad. (This message has been edited by ronvo)

Thanks Mike. Since I have not been involved in a trrop since my youth, whne did the NSP thing start? Now not to question the wisdom of those at Natioanl but it seems that the NSP just isn't the right way to go for a number of reasons. Again I have not been involved in a troop so have never seen th NSP in action. However here is a list of cons I came up with. 1) Who is suppose to be the Patrol Leader. Shouldn't that be a job for an experienced scout? 2) Is not part of our program to help boys mature by having them help/teach younger scouts. 3) As I understand it after about a year the NSP is broken up and the boys are placed in "regular" patrols. So you break up a team that may have developed an identity and ability to work together with spirit and maybe even the beiginnings of traditions and place them into a foreign group? 4) Might not some WEBELOS den leader who come to Scouts with their son not be register as leaders and stiil feel ownership of this group? Might not this lead to a) an Webelos Patrol run by an adult or b) conflict between troop and new volunteer? Just a few things i see a potential problems. Waiting to be corrected! ronvo

Klodi I also see form the pictures a scout using semaphore flags - another skill US Scouts have lost. Is this skill common practice in Europe? YIS ron

OK then WOODCHUCKS what about our situation very similar Number of older Eagale Scouts 5-7 Active Scouts ages 12-14 in One Patrol We have at least 10 new Webelos crossing over. New Scout Patrol or Make up Mixed Patrols with new and 12-14 y.o. Scouts? IF NSP - one with 10 boys or 2 with 5 each? In spite of my opening I do respect your toothy opinions! (wish I could make a buck tooth smiley!) ronvo

This weekend was our Crossvoer ceremony at our B&G. I am happy to report we had 100% Crossover! 9 Boys to our Troop at our CO and one to another (his own church's). Two weeks ago only five were going on. But a bit of enthusiastic talk and a visit to the Klondike derby and they all are ready to go. I just hope the troop gets them going fast so they don't lose interest. It was bittersweet - I have been the den leader for these boys since Tigers and most of them have been there the entire time. I tell you those boys looked as if they grew from the time they arrived at the B&G - crossed over the bridge stopping half way to recite the oath and being received into the troop with their new red neckerchiefs. They looked so much older now. By the way this was the first group of Webelos from our Pack to crossover in five years. We started with a nearly dead Pack and yesterday had 120 + people at our B&G - with, did I mention - 100% crossover! Sorry - I am just excited to see all the boys move on and feel proud that I must have done something right to enable them to come to that decision. OK I'll quit being sappy. Now onto the trail of the Eagle. YIS ronvo

kahuna- re SE at camp, I feel your pain - you are think of something that was known as Scouting - today it is too much of a business - and SE are business men with "real work" to do - not "old scouts" I worked two summers at a council camp as a youth in the 70's and never once saw the SE visit. Eammon said I also have some concerns that if this band of Volunteers start running the camp it will become "Their Camp" -It's not. As if the paid staff from director on down doesn't think that!? Also - In my old 1950's SM handbook a scout gave me (BWwherearrreee yooouuu?)- I seem to recall noticing how it talked about how to run a long term troop camp. Though I haven't read it ( I'm still a Cub Scout leader) I doubt the past few editions of the SM tell more than take your troop to council summer camp. YIS, ronvo

Season's Greeting's to All, Now that we have settled the religious debate ;^) I want to turn our attention to the upcoming year and what we resolve to make it better for Scouting. I for one will work to make sure my Webelos have and excellent AOL ceremony and encourage them to crossover to a troop. I will strive to live by the Scout Law on a daily basis. I will NOT enter into religious discussions on this forum, it serves no one. I will work to become "... physically fit" Blue Skies! ron

Merry Christmas Fellow Christian Scouters and Season's Greetings to All! I started this thread because I was miffed that the guy who "declared war on Christmas" used an old BSA background for his "declaration". This thread has evolved into another he said/he said religious debate which has little hope of ending. I admit to having ignited this fire and adding some fuel to it. I would now ask that we close this thread and move forward, respecting each others differences in religion and helping each other in our common love for Scouting. Look for a new thread in Open Discussion on New Year's Resolutions! Peace to all this Holiday Season. Your brother in Scouting, ron (This message has been edited by ronvo)

Corrections to my post! It should be: "straight" bar/restaurant what really is the difference Are you comforatble in this environment? Sorry bout that! rv