Bob White

X-rays post as I and others have shown is filled with innacuracies and folklore driven more by emotion that knowledge. You do not have to be a professional to have knowledge of BSA preocesses such as charter renewals. It does not take a professional to understand or appreciate what professionals do. It does not take a professional to see that COs needs to be more selective in choosing volunteer leaders. (This message has been edited by a staff member.)

Actually there are three levels Unit volunteers --Deliver the program District/Council/National volunteers---develop and support the program Corporate Professionals---Implement and administer the program decisions and are responsibile for growth of resources. As an ASM CNY's responsibility is to deliver the BSA program to the youth in the unit he serves. That seems to be his desire as he has expressed it to this point.

It doesn't take money to select good leaders. It certainly doesn't require the BSA to spend more money for the COs to learn how. We teach how in the New Leader Essentials training. There is a 4 page brochure that explains step by step how to do it. We have a number of training opportunities where it is revisited and reinforced. All it takes is for a unit that needs to improve their leadership to follow it. No amount of money spent will replace personal responsibility.

1) Make patrols small enough to be boy lead, follow the program so that scouts attend events. Since that is not within your responsibility as an ASM you may not have much say in this. 2) Follow the BSA program. 3 patrol types each with their own age and skill specific program. Since that is not within your responsibility as an ASM you may not have much say in this. 3) Go to a long term camp. I prefer jambo style cooking to dining hal but I also understand that meal time is only a small part of the successes that can come from a long term camp experience. Since that is not within your responsibility as an ASM you may not have much say in this. 4) The BSA program already has a patrol recognition program called the National Honor Patrol Award. There is no need to create a new wheel when you can use the one we tell the boys about in their handbook. 5)Patrols should have their own activities based on their skills and abilities. What they do will be dependent on the individual characteristics of each patrol. Only the Scoutmaster can approve these activities and since that is not within your responsibility as an ASM you may not have much say in this. 6) That is not what the adult association method means. 7) Cute but impractical and unusable. BW

CNY As an ASM the best thing is to remember the serenity prayer. Change the things you cannot accept, accept the things you cannot change, and learn to know the difference. I would continue to coach the SM onto the right track when he strays so much, such as playing basketball all meeting long. Remember that you can help alot by setting a good example in your leadership style. Remember to work through the junior leaders. Be sure and reinforce their use of good leadership by giving them verbal, specific recognition as they make a good leadership decision or make use of a leadership style correctly. If you can help give the scouts good scouting direction then they can help you in keeping the SM on the right track. I think you understand Scouting enough to separate wheat from chaff when it comes to the things that have been written in this thread.

If it is any comfort...millions of adults before you have shared this information and I have never heard of a single family brought to ruin by the information being misused. If however you are still uncomfortable divulging information that is required simply say "no thank you " and walk away from the opportunity. As you correctly pointed out this is a voluntary responsibiliuty you have been asked to do. You do not have to do it.(This message has been edited by Bob White)

What CNY said was that they camp and focus on MBs, that the scouts are not learning leadership, and that the activities are not interesting to the scouts or they would have better attendance. He wants his son to be in a scouting program and not a camping club. I think he is right.

Hi CNY I think EagleInKY gave some good points. I would add a few things. Ideals The characteristics exemplified in the Oath and Law are practiced and tested within the interactions of the scouts in the patrol. The Slogan and motto are practiced as patrol activities are planned and patrols choose and carry out their own good turn activities. Outdoor Activities The outdoor goals for scouting is an outdoor activity a month. Too often this is done only as a troop under adult supervision. Patrols can and should easily obtain a level of ability to where all members have the skills and attitude to be able to do activities on their own as a patrol without adult supervision. This the point when Scouts mature the fastest and gain real knowledge and ability. Advancement There are 4 steps to advancement A scout Learns A Scout is Tested A Scout is Reviewed And A Scout is recognized. Three of the four steps can take place using Patrol activities and Patrol resources. Let Patrols be responsible for teaching skills. Train the PL on how to teast advancement and give him the responsibility to approve approprite requirements. Make Patrol Leaders responsible for motivating others in the Patrol to seek advancement opportunities. Make sure that PL understand their responsibilities set goals and achieve them in the leaedership role so that they can have a quality advancement experience. Personal Growth Good Turns Good Turns good Turns. Patrols need to do learn to 'help other people at all times and any load is lighter when shared with friends. Patrols can do an owful lot of growing by using the strength and resources or the Patrol to learn to serve others. Leadership Development The patrol is the best place to teach the basics of good leadership and to practice those skills on a regular basis. Whether as a Troop Guide, PL, APL, or as a patrol librarian, scribe, QM, grubmaster, cheermaster etc. This is where good adult leaders spend their time. not in making artificial rules and bylaws to "run" the troop with, but by standing back and observing scouts in action within patrol functions and guiding and mentoring scouts as they develop. Uniform Patrol pride and a sense of belonging can be enhanced by the proper use of the BSA uniform. It can also be altered within the BSA regulations to reflect the unique character and identity of the patrol. Adult Association The best way for this to work is to stand back and guide from afar. The more the scouts feel independent the faster they will develop independence. Set good examples as leaders and as people and the patrol will follow. Boys see and absorb far more adult behavior than most adults give them credit for. It is very noticable from some of the posts shared on this board for example that many of the behavior problems that some leaders complain about were in fact modeled for the boys by the leaders themselves. Hope this helps. BW

What is more interesting was that conservatives continued to support thr rights of the individual over the governement and the liberals who say they are for the "little people" voted to allow profiteers to take their homes away with the help of the government. "Any government able to give you everything you need, will be able to take everything from you." Thomas Jefferson

CNY I am with you. As ASMs we are there to assist the SM in delivering the BSA program. Our responsibility is to see that the scouting program is delivered to the boys, not to sit silently while the program is ignored and boys are abandoned. If SM's responsibility to follow the program and keep the promise of scouting is not being fulfilled then you have a responsibility as a leader to try and get it back on track. If that is not possible then you have a responsibility to your son to find him the best possible scouting experience and go to it. BW

"It takes a lot of huztpah to buck the trend." No it doesn't. All it takes is a simple, quite decision to do things the right way. It just takes a responsible adult to follow the program. Tens of thousands of scouters make that decision each year. Sadly, some don't.

CNY, You do not give yourself enough credit for what you know, even if you do not realize you know it. The vast majority of the things you have written regarding the program are right on the mark. I believe you have a far better understanding of the scouting program than you might realize. You also have gotten a pretty good grasp on this forum whether you realize it or not. You wonder why your question did not get more responses but then you also observed the fact that "I see all sorts of responses about not following the program and the program being too Loosey-Goosey but when I ask a question on how to follow the program, I get very little in the way of answers." By know you have figured out why that is. There are perhaps 12 posters here (you among them) who actually understand and or use the scouting program successfully. Most are are scouters who have not yet grasped the program, Some come here to learn. Many find comfort in the company of others willing to blame the BSA, parents, kids, peers, coaches or ANYBODY other than themselves. I do not believe they are in any way incapable of good scouting. They are either inexperienced and learning, or they are so set in their habits that they would rather be wrong than change. How do you spread the word? As best you can to those who will listen, with the others "shake the dust from your sandals and leave". As far as the patrol method. As soon as I wrap up some paperwork from my day I will post to that thread. See you there. BW

"No, my solution is not to change the methods -- not sure where you got that." From you saying that the current methods are not working and we need to develop new ones... I am just asking what specifically you suggest.(This message has been edited by Bob White)

"Bob, that problem solving process is right out of the books. Specifically, you'll find it in "The District" and the "Commissioner Fieldbook for Unit Service."> Where?! I have a copy right here and those steps are not listed. It gives a few of the most common life threatning problems that a unit might face and tips on how to find solutions and none follow the steps you offered. In most cases the manual directs the commissioner on how to help the unit solve the problem within their own administration personnel. The closest is when it suggests in a single line that in case of major program deviations the UC should invlve the District committee. Other than that the problem solving steps all refer to solutions found within the unit. So if the BSA program has tried and true methods that work but there is a culture of ignoring those methods then your solution is....change the methods??? To what? How do you propose to alter methods that work to appease a culture which you say won't use them into a method that works that the culture will use???(This message has been edited by Bob White)(This message has been edited by Bob White)

If fraud took place that is for the courts to determine. The SE in Atlanta has nothing to do with the quality of scouting delivered in any scout unit and never was. That was never his job. If any scoiuting program outside of Atlanta wants to use his actions to mask their own poor leadership it is a thin veil to hide behind. Leaders need to stop blaming politics and others for their inability to deliver scouting each week. You do not credit the SE in Atlanta for successful units in the BSA program , so why do you blame the poor units on him?

jkhny writes "Troop leaders - REAL leaders of REAL Troops are saying they don't think there's 500 kids in this program - when BSA was claiming 15,000. packsaddle writes "United Way President Mark O'Connell said his group was told by the Scouts that nearly half of the 46,000 youths served in its 13-county region are black. But Tullis said he'd be surprised if minority numbers topped 500 in Atlanta." and "in a statement by cubmaster Cedric Samuels, "City of Atlanta registration figures show 8400 boys in three overwhelming minority districts when there are apparently less than 500 active." and finally he writes "As far as I know, there still is no reliable determination of the actual number of minority or disadvantaged boys in scouting for that council." And that is probably the only accurate evaluation we have. There are no reliable numbers at this point. In some scouters' world it is easier to blame everyone except those responsible for actually delivering the program each week. Why is it so hard to accept that if Johnny's troop meetings are bad its because of Johnny's leaders not because an SE a thousand miles away did something wrong?

Beaver One problem could be that there are people in your district trained on how to seek and recruit new COs. Did you use these people to prepare the CO for their role? If you knew the importance of the COs role in supporting a scout unit and you saw that it was not going to exist there why did you choose to start the troop there? Dan, I am not sure where you got that problem solving process from but it does not resemble anything I have seen before. What specific process would you like to see instituted? Wouldn't be better if someone just chose your neighbors based on their attitudes and abilities? You cannot control your neighbors behavior but their own family can have a huge influence. The BSA and local commissioners cannot control other volunteers but their scouting family at the CO can. The local council/district is there to support the units not to police them. The quality and performance of the unit is the responsibility of the IH,CR and CC. Being an effective scout leader is really a matter of personal responsibility isn't it?

How does a CO take the responsibility of selecting quality leaders and delivering a quality program more seriously? First by having a better understanding of what it means to be a chartering organization, and I think that the local professionals and the local commissioners staff have that responsibility. Then the CO needs to select leaders the same way they choose ministers, teachers, deacons, board members, employees etc. They need to decide what skills and attributes are needed to do each job and then select individuals for their ability to meet those characteristics. We have become a program lead by people who answered the call of "We need sombody who will...." rather than a movement lead by people who were selected for their unique character and abilitity to do the job. If training is not easily available in your community then that is a local problem your District Chairman needs to address, that is not a national problem. If training is not affordable in your community then that is a local problem your District Chairman needs to address the BSA does not set the price of training outside of national training schools. If your training teams do not deliver the info in the syllabii then that is a local problem Your District Chairman will need to address. The BSA tells us to follow the program and gives us everything we need to do it. Why are some people trying to make their local issues national's burden? If there is litter in your neighborhood do you wish that the federal government did more to educate people on why they should not litter? Do you wish that Congress passed stiffer fines on littering? Do you wish for more police to watch for litter bugs? Or do you go out and pick up the litter. We need to quit wishing for other people to solve our problems.

I think it is time we stop blaming others for our own problems. If youy are the CR, the commitee chair, the cubmaster, or scoutmaster and the unit is not succeeding then the problem is most likely of your own doing, either through what you have done or because of what you have not done. The BSA has ample training, and resources to help a unit through any problem. But if it is not sought out, not accepted, or not implemented it cannot work. Perhaps accredidation is one way in some communities. I do not see how it is feasible to do on a national basis with any more consistency than we currently get from the national program at the unit level, but at least it could hold a unit to a higher standard than the Quality Unit Award does. I still tend to agree with Eamonn. The best way to improve the program is for CO's to take their resposibility to select quality leaders more seriously.

Juris, Could you share a specific example of a Wood Badge concep you feel is out of date?

Atlanta can't get 500 boys in the program? Doesn't that say more about their volunteer leadership problem then a council professional problem? An entire troop in Atlanta took their uniform shirts off in protest? How many people could that have been? Each council is a separate community based corporation. I am sorry that Atlanta has not maintained a program that serves the interest and adventure of their local youth as well as others have done. For the youths' sake, I wish that the local adults had put on a better propgram. But that is Atlanta's problem, isn't it? The only solution will be for Atlanta to learn to do it better.

I am curious Jursis as to what specific method or methods of scouting fail to work, and what you have done 180 degerees differently that works better. If there is one troop following the program with 90 boys or three troops following the program with 30 each, what is the difference? Where in Scouting is the quality of a unit measured in Eagle Scouts? Is Attaining the Eagle Rank the purpose of Scouting? I think eamonns post speaks to entirely different points then were addressed in your post. If the BSA ever stopped being a business I would expect the Scouting movement in this country to all but collapse. The vast majority of volunteers have no knowledge of what the corporation of scouting does or how it functions. That's Ok though because most professionals have no idea how to operate a scout unit. That's Ok to though because unit operation is not their job. Scouting will continue to have a membership flow that reflects the quality of the unit's weekly meeting programs. No child even considers whether a Scout executive makes a bad decision, all they care about is the quality of their last meeting and their expectations for the next one. No professional in the BSa has the ability to effect the quality of either.

There is a perfectly fine list of what to bring on a campout in the Boy Scout Handbook. The ability to make good decisions comes from good leadership and good training. You can make the choice to forget the bad lists and just help them to follow the handbook, and they will do just fine.

Banned...weapons, firearms, tobacco, fireworks, alcohol, illegal drugs. Discouraged...poor judgment. (This message has been edited by a staff member.)

Outdoors, in uniform, the hat stays on while you use the scout salute for the program you are representing.