TAHAWK

I missed the at camp part.

If this be folly, make the most of it. “The Patrol is the unit of Scouting always, whether for work or for play, for discipline or for duty.” Baden-Powell “Make the Patrol the unit ALWAYS, in and out, through thick and thin, for better and worse in victory and defeat, in games and on hikes, and in camp.” Hillcourt, William, Handbook for Scoutmasters, B.S.A.(1936) “ Scouting happens in the context of a patrol.” B.S.A., Scoutmaster Position Specific Training (current syllabus) “The Troop is the sum of its Patrols.” Hillcourt, William, Handbook for Patrol Leaders, B.S.A. (1950)

TT, Have you ever tried evaluation, by whatever title or method, at the campsite just before the trip "home"?

David, I apologize if I remember incorrectly, but are you not the guy who said his troop in Chicagoland chartered to a Catholic church prohibits service projects until the Scout has completed Confirmation, making Confirmation a precondition for all advancement with a service requirement? And when a National employee replied to my inquiry (no unit number given) with the truism that no one other that National can add or subtract to advancement requirement and when, further, I quoted the charter form language committing the CO to following BSA program, was not your response that the CO owns the unit and, thus, could add to the requirements as you had described. I honestly do not think it was another poster. What words did I "put in your mouth"? You are certainly free to extract them, with the assistance of anyone else here who feels inclined. Perhaps you limited the "owner's" prerogative in some way I missed. As a Merit Badge Counselor, among other things, and Council appeal committee member, we are so relentlessly pounded with "Add nothing; subtract nothing" that it seems relatively inviolate. And I have been informed that we had semi-coed Exploring within traditional Scouting briefly starting in 1969 ("Explorer Participants") and full coed in 1971, until about half the members were female by 1990. In 1998, worksite-based career education program Exploring was moved outside BSA to learning for Life and the rest of what had been Exploring moved to Venturing. So forty-eight years of female members - "semi."

Sure, says who? Well, whoever wrote the words that I quoted. Just them. Any question that a CO can and may charter a troop without deciding who is in each patrol? If a group wants to be a patrol, you could let them be a patrol. They don't join to meet your organizational goals, or BSA's. They want to have fun with friends. Many troops start with one patrol. Patrols grow, shrink, merge, split, die - but it is supposed to be their choice in Boy Scouting, according to BSA and the guy who invented what we call the Patrol Method. Any adult Scouter should be able to influence the result without the Scouts feeling they were treated disparately. Yes, I know you believe the CO can decide the program is largely anything it wants and ignore virtually anything it does not like because it "owns" the troop, and you dismiss as functionally meaningless the written contract in which the CO promises that it will follow BSA program. No need to quote them again, right? That reasoning led CO's to allow the first gay Scouts and Scouters. Then entire councils decided likewise and announced they were not following national on "morally straight." Making up your own version of Scouting is cool when it's what you want, but the other guy (or gal) may have different ideas. We had a local troop, with the COR's approval, simply reporting MBs as earned "because the boys deserved them." We have had numerous troops that just WILL NOT allow the Scouts to elect leaders ("They always pick the wrong ones."). They get away with it. We had a Distinguished Scoutmaster make up his own TT-F advancement requirements for eleven years because he didn't agree with changes BSA made. IAnd he had Scouts continue to do the RORs ater National went to TC BORs. There were "open secrets." (Our DE attended a couple of the Scout BORs.) The COR absolutely approved, having total confidence in the SMHe retired after twenty-five years as SM. Then there was, "No Scout should be allowed to receive Eagle until he is sixteen. This child was only fifteen." That troop got reversed on appeal more than once (Lost every appeal on that issue.), but the troop went on for years under the same Key Three, fiddling with advancement. BSA, we are told by Council, keeps saying all commissioned Scouters must be trained or they can't register in the position for which they are untrained, but it never gets enforced. Metrics. But SHAZAMM! We had three female Boy Scouts active in a couple of troops in 1990. Seemed OK to all the registered adults in those troops. No one squealed. Then a secretary at the Service Center wondered if Scout "Jean" on an Advancement Report was the CC's daughter, Jean. Was. Woops! Consistent with the CO's program, it was argued. Great Boy scouts, these girls, it was said. Through clean out at that troop, every single registered adult went, all made easier because the CO head, it was officially decided, had been left out of the loop, so the CO was allowed to recharter. But the clean out was coming will he, nil he. An alternate CO was identified and agreed to sign up. BSA will swallow a lot to count that registered troop on its rolls., even when, for example, National knows of a troop that has added to the advancement requirements. Funny peculiar what is tolerated and what trips the blade. You know then you hear the "THUNK!"

And see, I was wrong again, we have apparently had coed Sea Scouting since 1972. So not twenty years of female youth members but forty -five years. Apparently, some units at least can be all female. (Local option?) The 2016 national Flagship was all-female Ship 100 from California.

A good many Scoutmasters would agree with you, David. From 1930 on, the official B.S.A. position on the Patrol Method and what it means has emphasized that A Scout is to primarily experience Boy Scouting in the context of his patrol. I draw this conclusion from the following words of B.S.A. today and of Bill Hillcourt at the dawn of the Patrol Method. "Your Boy Scout troop is made up of patrols, with each patrol's members sharing responsibility for the patrol's success. You will learn together, and turn your ideas into action. Together, your patrol will achieve much more than each of you would on your own." Boy Scouts of America, Boy Scout Handbook 13th Ed (2015)[emphasis added] Patrols are “. . . small groups of Scouts who camp together, cook together, play together, and learn together.” B.S.A., Scouting.org (2017) “[The patrol members] interact in a small group outside the larger troop context, working together as a team and sharing the responsibility of making their patrol a success.” B.S.A., Scouting.org (2017)[emphasis added] “Scouting happens in the context of a patrol.” B.S.A., Scoutmaster Position Specific Training (current syllabus) “[The patrol is] the place where boys learn skills together, take on leadership responsibilities, perhaps for the first time . . . . ” B.S.A. Scouting.org., (2014)(currently posted) “Patrols are where Scouts learn citizenship at the most basic level. . . . ” B.S.A., Scouting.org. (2017) “Patrols will sometimes join with other patrols to learn skills and complete advancement requirements.” B.S.A., Scouting.org (2017)[emphasis added] “At other times they will compete against those same patrols in Scout skills and athletic competitions.” B.S.A., Scouting.org, (2017)[emphasis added] “A patrol takes pride in its identity, and the members strive to make their patrol the best it can be.” B.S.A., Scouting.org (2017) "Scouting offers what boys want: outdoor adventures, being with their friends….” B.S.A., Scouting.org, 2017 “[T]hey self-select [into patrols] and they are friends….” B.S.A., Scouting blog, 2015 “Again, although the Scoutmaster may often advise with the Patrol leader and his Patrol concerning new recruits, the admission of a new boy to the Patrol should be with the approval of the Patrol members.” Hillcourt, William, Scouting, September, 1930 at p. 244 [emphasis added] “In a Troop in which the boys are shuffled together at frequent intervals and dealt out into new Patrols according to the whim of the Scoutmaster, there obviously can be little opportunity for the development of Patrol morale and Patrol traditions.” Hillcourt, William, The Patrol Method, B.S.A. (1930) at p. 10. And who was "Bill"? Reasonably important: Bronze Wolf - the highest award of the World Organization of the Scouting Movement. Silver Buffalo - BSA’s highest award. His citation calls him “The Voice of Scouting.” Acclaimed “Scoutmaster to the World” by the Journal of Scouting History and the World Organization of the Scouting Movement. Recognized in 1985 by BSA, through Scouting magazine, as “the foremost influence on development of the Boy Scouting program.” Author of The Patrol Method (1930). If we see that the patrol is the team that plays the "game of scouting" and the troop as the "league" in which some of the game is played, then we also see that the troop exists for the administrative convenience of the patrols that make up the troop, and not visa-versa..

CP, no wrench, money or otherwise. The "Charter" referenced in the ByLaws is quoted by BSA in the Chatter and Bylaws, and it's the now-codified Congressional Act generally called the "Charter.," which begins "CHARTER Sixty-Fourth Congress of the United States of America At the First Session Begun and Held at the City of Washington On Monday, the Sixth Day of December One Thousand Nine Hundred and Fifteen AN ACT To Incorporate the Boy Scouts of America and for Other Purposes" Here: https://www.scouting.org/filestore/pdf/bsa_charter_and_bylaws.pdf You would think BSA's leadership would have thought of this issue given that they cited the Charter only last year as an insurmountable legal barrier to admitting girls to Scout and Cub units, but we must consider the source. After all, "they" say atheists are not allowed but have allowed Buddhist troops for over ninety years. Or maybe they thought no one would either notice or recall events of a year ago. But some, unlike me, are focused on this as "the" issue, and the odds of escaping a reckoning seem slim and none.

I didn't realize I was "picking a fight." I simply believe that the more we hear "troop," "troop," "troop" and no "patrol," "patrol", "patrol," the less chance we have to get back to Boy Scouting. If people like you, veterans who know the program, talk about troop structure and youth joining troops, the less experienced (like most of our leadership at National) may conclude that Boy Scouting is all about troops. After all, BSA currently says: "Patrols are one component of what we call youth-run, or youth-led, troop." Boy Scouts of America, Orientation for New Scout Parents, (current on line training materials) https://www.scouting.org/training/adult/supplemental/orientationfornewboyscoutparents.aspx You know that is inconsistent with many other things BSA says and has said. You have context. Others who come here, perhaps for the first time, may lack your experience. I think the basic concept that Boy scouts join a patrol and patrols make up a troop is not merely "noise" and cannot be restated and explained too often given how you know most troops are being run today and given the inconsistent statements from National since the disastrous Improved Scouting Program. And here National is about to invent an entirely new program for female Scouts. "The Improved Scouting Program for Girls"? No chance of foul-up there. Will the girls' Scouting program have the small group, team dynamic - the school for democracy - that National is allowing to wither in the boy's program, or will patrols exist for the administrative convenience of the troop, with no life of their own?

Absolutely. Nor Cubbing.

I thought of: First statement that "It only takes an hour a week." First loss of one boot or one shoe on campout. But the first is an adult "thing" and the second, although a standard at every council camp we attended, was not as universal as the marshmallow torch. Good one. Consider this a "Like:" - although that seems to have gone away with the new software.

Better not let the Scouts read the Handbook. It's starting to have some Boy Scout (i.e., Patrol Method) basics in it.

I think JTM is deplorable. I provides no - zero - points for actually using the Patrol Method - which BSA says is the most important Scouting method. More importantly, Bill Hillcourt said it was the most important method. I counts a "lock-in" watching videos or playing electronic games as a "weekend campout" according to the official Q&A and an email I have from National. And there is no practice or procedure to confirm compliance with the rules or consistent scoring of behavior.

What, like we all agree? My view of proper Boy Scouting would be that the PLC plans, the leaders lead, and the adults are resources, safety officers, and coaches - period. Under that view, the desire of some adults for an easier activity is something for the leaders (which excludes adults for planning purposes) to consider and decide, recalling that the program is for the Scouts, not the adults.

I read what you quote. While the language that you quote does mention females in Venturing, where in the "classes of membership" does it mention female Cubs, Webelos, or Boy Scouts? That would be nowhere. Instead, the language that you quote includes: "Cub Scouting, Boy Scouting, and Varsity Scouting are for boys." If the language said "boys or girls" it would be void as contrary to the Charter, as, arguably, is the language about female Venturers. The last is not a result that I would favor, but it's not up to me. It will probably end up in the courts, which is unfortunate. Another inept move by National.

Flip charts were part of Wood Badge at least as early as 1969. I was there. I too deplore the drift away from learning by doing in the outdoors. Anything like school is bad medicine.

When you see Patrol leaders running their patrols in separate patrol activities, with minimal coaching from the SPL or adults, you have a quality troop. Otherwise, you do not have Boy Scouting at all. You have this other things that BSA is increasingly tolerating, even as they use the right words.

First campfire burned marshmallow?

A troop is composed of patrols. Boy scouts of America, Boy Scout Handbook, 13th ed., at p. 25 (2015) A Boy Scout is to primarily experience Scouting in a patrol context. A troop-based program would be quite different from what is supposed to be the case with Boy Scouts. There is no "troop method" in Boy Scouting.

The very presence of adults tends to interfere with youth leadership. Their presence should be minimized to the number required for safety and even then they should be physically located as far away as that safety function allows. Boy Scouting is a "small" team of boys functioning as independently as practicable.

The "stages of team development" is a way to look at how, to use the 1970's training language, the leader determines what he needs to "supply" - what is "missing" - so the group can succeed to its maximum potential. Example: If the group lacks essential information, the leader tries to see that the group gets that information. Tuckman's "Stages of Team Development" is not well understood by BSA, or some of its members. I have often heard it said that groups "always" begin with the "Storming" stage. This is said although Tuckman did not say that in his articles and was still teaching psychology at O.S.U. as recently as 2009 and answered his own telephone. I found him to be quite willing to discuss the conclusions he had drawn in his 1965 article, and the fifth stage he added a few years later ("adjourning"). He was somewhat amused by BSA's description of "Stages,' which he had ultimately observed to be five in number and which he felt took place in no particular order and might involve regression to earlier "stages." It is also one of the whipping boys of those who dislike the direction Wood Badge has taken since 1970, although the use, or misuse, of Tuckman's approach began in Wood Badge in about 2001 - decades after the supposed "death" of Wood Badge when it ceased to be only about Scoutcraft through First Class. Tuckman's article "Stages of Team Development" and subsequent scholarship, even the Wood Badge version, is not about "quality control," although "performance" to maximum group potential, a subjective standard, does have implications for the quality of group outputs. QC when I was subjected to it as the TPC "flavor of the month, presented as as process to achieve objective standards. Neither is Tuckman's study about school. It was based on observing twelve-step groups in action and is used for team sports, militaries, and first responder teams. What BSA has done to Wood Badge in terms of making it largely a classroom experience should be laid at someone else's door., It too began in 1971, long pre-Stages, although it maxed out (I hope) in 2001. Most of the militaries of the world use leadership training, and have done so for generations - arguably centuries. Caesar was taught to know the names of the legionaries under his command and their strengths and weaknesses. Try Googling be know do. It's not just an NYLT "thing." By the way, the label "management" is meant to be a negative, like "White Stag training" or "leadership training." This can be confusing at first.

Wisconsinmomma asked who does "quality control? The new software does not take me from the notice of her post to that post, wherever it is. I believe that "quality control" in the unit is supposed to be by the COR, through the Troop Committee. That assumes a level of knowledge and commitment that I have rarely seen in those persons. BSA has shown a near total indifference to whether CORs and TCs achieve anything approaching such a level of knowledge. The current orthodoxy is that training, the red-headed stepchild, is a burden to be reduced rather than a pathway to better program, except for the wonderful-sounding nirvana of "mentoring" (by ??) . The biggest issue I have seen in the whole notion of "quality control" is the belief that it requires the application of adult standards to achieve the "well-oiled machine." Nothing is more destructive of Boy Scouting, which requires boys to perform to a boy's standard, inclusive of errors by any standard. BSA seems unwilling to stop adult's from taking the ball, toeing the "rubber" of leadership, and doing the pitching so the "troop can win."

Hawkwin: "You didn't read far enough. 'ARTICLE VII. YOUTH MEMBERSHIP Section 1. Those eligible to participate in programs designed for youth and young adults shall collectively be known as “youth program participants.†Youth membership in the Boy Scouts of America is open to all who meet the membership requirements. Cub Scouting, Boy Scouting, and Varsity Scouting are for boys. Venturing is for young men and young women. Those youth program participants who are at least 18 years of age and eligible to participate in programs designed for youth shall be referred to as “adult program participants.†Section 2. Both membership in Scouting and advancement and achievement of leadership in Scouting units are open to all boys and, where authorized, young women, without regard to race or ethnic background, and advancement and achievement of leadership in Scouting is based entirely upon individual merit.'" Hawkwin, even assuming your interpretation of the words that you cite, which I absolutely reject, you seem to wish to set aside these words of the Bylaws that precede, both in position and in effect, the words that you quote: "General Clause 1. These Bylaws shall be consistent with the Charter. The Rules and Regulations shall be consistent with the Charter and the Bylaws. In the event of any conflicts or inconsistencies, the Charter shall govern primarily and the Bylaws secondarily." [emphasis added] And the Charter, an Act of Congress, that governs over every word you quoted, says: "That the purpose of this corporation shall be to promote, through organization, and cooperation with other agencies, the ability of boys to do things for themselves and others, to train them in Scoutcraft, and to teach them patriotism, courage, self-reliance, and kindred virtues, using the methods which are now in common use by Boy Scouts."[emphasis added] BSA (2016) ""The Boy Scouts of America told CBS2 via email that allowing girls to join the organization would go against the group's original charter, created in 1916. 'The Boy Scouts of America was chartered by Congress in 1916 to serve boys and young men across the nation through the Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts programs,' the organization said in a statement. The organization says to change the standard Boy Scout program would 'go outside the bounds' of their charter." [emphasis added]

Hard to say. Units that formed and then died were unlikely to leave history.

"The guidance states that it is not 'best practice' to inform parents that a trans person will be attending a residential event." Mum might get upset. Best not tell her.