Bob White

Which den will he have next program year?

No, that's not it Zahnada. What I'm saying is that you cannot teach a scout how to be prepared if he thinks that it is ok to forget something because an adult will give him what he is missing. A scout will learn something if it interests him or if he needs it. It is not about holding them accountable. It's about training them and then trusting them. Giving them what they are missing is no different then telling them what to do. It keeps them dependent on you as the adult, when in fact we are supposed to be making them independent. If the adult is always giving them what they need and telling them what to do then the scout never has the opportunity or the need to think on their own. It keeps the adult "in charge".

Ed, it is not believable that you could not understand what I mean. Your arguments are so weak it seems more as if you were purposely mnisrepresenting what I wrote in order to bait an argument. If "be prepared" were a more involved or complicated concept I may have been tempted to spar. But it's not, so I won't.

I didn't miss your point Ed I disagree with it, as does the scouting program. If you can find anything that supports your unusual interpretation then the water bottle is yours.

Both accident and liability coverage would be in force providing the safety policies are followed, otherwise only the accident poicy would be in-force. To avoid problems in the future I recommend you stick to the rules. Until he is legitimately registered he is not a member and cannot complete requirements. If you fudge for him others will expect the same and before you know it another "tradition" is born.

The world IS co-ed. Yes in whole that is true, but not in part. And the BSA and the Girl Scouts are by no means the last hold outs. Co-ed Scouting was discussed for years between the two and a proposed merger was halted by the Girl Scouts. The BSA will not make the junior program co-ed because it would do damage to the Girl Scout program and they will not do it. (This message has been edited by Bob White)

"True but as an adult we need to be prepared for just this type of situation so the Scouts will have a better understanding of what "Be Prepared" means." A FREE Lexan water bottle will go to the first person who can find anything in the official BSA scouting program to support that opinion. Being prepared has never been about counting on a leader to bring equipment for you that you were responsible for.

When do you step in? Well according to the leadership training of the BSA oOnly when safety issues are involved. Otherwise there is a youth chain of operations an adult can work through rather than "tell" or "yell" a scout into obedience. If it's a warm summer rain and the scout chooses to get wet so what? Otherwise if the junior leaders could not get him to see the sense in wearing a poncho I would bring him under the leaders shelter for a scoutmasters conference that lasted....oh... till about right after the time the rain ended. Showing a scout that if he doesn't come prepared that an adult will bail him out is not what "be prepared" is about.

There is no such thing as a minor YP violation. It is either a violation or it isn't. This was.

The BSA has specifically said this is not a YP situation, this is about stated values and how some can hinder the delivery of the scouting program. If this were a Youth Protection problem then the BSA would not bar only avowed homosexuals.

Forget who signed and who gives money, that is not the concern for the bor. Your role is to determine if the scout did the reqirements according to the handbook. You cannot retest. Allow me to explain the difference. Not allowed- show us how to tie a square lashing. Allowed. The lashing requirement requires that you build a useful camp item using the lashings you have learned. What did you build and what lashings did you use. If the scout cannot tell you what he built and what lashings then you can determine that he did not complete the requirement. You may then explain the requirement again and explain that once he has completed this according to the handbook that he can meet with the bor again to consider his advancment. I would also suggest to him that if there are other requirements he knows of which were not completed according to his handbooks instructions that he can redo those on his own prior to meeting with the board again. Put this information in writing and give it to the scout, give a copy to the advancement chair to keep. Then the Committee chair and advancemet chair need to meet with the scoutmaster and explain that only those people who he trusts to do a legitimate job of testing scouts are to be allowed to do so and that it is his responsibility to determine who those people are and to keep a list of their names. Make sure the SM knows that any scout who has not passed a requirement according to the handbook will be returned without advancment to be retested.

I think the problem is Jerry that some leaders want the learning to happen when they want it to happen and not at the pace of the scout. If I had a new scout come to the first campout with a suit case I wouldn't say a word. First , I am more interested in what he packed and how he packed it, then what the outside container is. Secondly, it's his first campout. I do not expect him to get everything right the first second, or even third time out. Thirdly, it's not my job to say anything about it. He has a troop guide who will be working with the patrol, I fully expect that he will train the scouts in better methods as they work to First Class. My job as SM would be to make sure the ASM for New Scouts watches the Troop Guide to make sure HE saw the problem and took steps to teach the scout a better way, one step at a time. A pack is just a bag full of bags. Let's get the right gear packed the right way and then worry about the kind of outer bag being used. If I saw a scout on a rainy day without a poncho I fully expect an older scout to show him how to make a perfectly usable poncho using garbage bags and a little duct tape. Will it be as good as a poncho, maybe close, but I not only want the scout to be dryer I want him to think about packing a poncho next time, and more importanly I want him tio be able to think of solutions when problems arise and not depend on a adult to bail him out with extra gear. Learning good decision making is the goal of scouting, and bossing scouts around is not how it's accomplished. (This message has been edited by Bob White)

What is it wrong to have a scouting program where a leaders sexual preferences are not an issue which could interfere with the delivery of the scouting program? Why for a person with your years of experience in the scouting program have you never come to terms with this topic or investigtated it prior to now? Why is it necessary to have another thread on this topic when it has been discussed so often on this forum already? Why if you want to know why this condition exists do you not just write to the BSA executive committee that makes these decisions and ask them? How will our answers improve your next troop meeting or outing? And isn't that your role and responsibility in scouting not determining national policies?

Campouts should be the time when scouts take the things they have been taught and apply them to real life situations. How well individuals, patrols and troops apply those skills determine who passes advancment requirements, who is using their scout and leadership skills correctly, who can teach and who still needs to learn, who is ready for more advanced training and who needs more practice. If all you make out of the outdoor experience is to see who can do what an adult tells them to do and who disobeys then you have a lot to learn as a scoutmaster. You should get thee to a training course or find a better mentor than you have so far. The PLC should determine where you are going, determine a schedule, find out what kinds of facilities are available and what kinds of fires are allowed, and then let the patrols make their own food and preparation choices based on what they have learned in troop meetings, the BSA Handbook, and through other life experiences. Dictating is not good scout leadership unless there is as immediate threat of danger, no matter what kind of cockeyed excuses some adults use. Unfortunately some adults just enjoy being the "in charge" of other people and they find kids easy to subjigate. The fact is that children are probably the only people who let them get away with it. But commanding is not scouting in any way shape or form. Dug says "But there is a difference between disorginization and being lazy" Not really. Both are personal choices. You can choose to plan and you can choose not to be lazy. You cannot make those choices for them. A boy who is exahausted from a rafting trip however is not lazy, he is physically tired, and there is nothing wrong with recognizing that or with knowing that the solution is rest. Too many bosses not enough scout leaders.

It is a YP issue for the somple reason thatthe SM met one on oone with the sout out of view of another adult or scout. That is indeed a dirrect voiolation of the Youth Protection policies and should not have been done. No one-on-one contact is an vitally importand safety policy that every adult leader needs to know. If you are an adult leader and were unaware of this policy you need to get to training NOW! eaglescout2004, while I realize that you thought you were helping the fact is the two boys have their own minds and mouths as well as parents to represent them. Other peoples financial business are really none of yours, you had no reason to involve yourself in this matter. Neither you or the scoutmaster were correct in your behaviors.

Feigning leadership by saying "because I said so!" very challenging, very skillful.

My wife and I attended the wedding and reception for a man who earned his Eagle when I was the scoutmaster of his troop some 20years ago. It was great to see him again. He is a terrific fellow who has two masters degress and heads a dept. at the State University here. We run in different circles so I have not seen him in years. It was so nice to see how well he and his younger brother who was also in the troop are doing, younger brother (31 years old) is a research scientist for Fermi Labs. anyway it was just great to see them and the kinds of life they have made for themselves. They have nice friends, good jobs, happy, creative people. Anyway as we wer sitting at the reseption the cousins of the brides mother were sitting near us. We introduced ourselves and they got the biggest smiles on their faces and once said "oh my gosh your the scoutmaster!!! I was in shock. The cousin of the brides mother knew who I was??? They went on about how much they have heard about me from not only the groom but the grooms parents for years. They even knew the story of the great Raccon Hunt. (I'll save that for another day) Later the bride came over, gave me a big hug and thanked me for the man she got to marry. While I was very flattered I said she owed the hug to his parents and not me. She said "That's not the way they tell it." The rest on the afternoon went much like that with differnet folks coming over to introduce themselves and tell us how much the groom has talked about me over the years. Even the brides parents and the father of the flower girl who is a school teacher/Eagle scout/ Sea Base staffer who wnated to meet me after all the years of stories he had heard. I still don't know if I had that much to do with it but I have to admit its nice to be remebered that way. BW

hmmmmm every actually look inside a Boy Scout Handbook. Check out the sample patrol menu on page 260, and the serving chart on page 261. Look under meats and poultry, and then under rice and pasta. Want to guess what you will see? How's this for a menu? Tossed garden salad, ham, green beans, mashed potatos, dinner rolls, pudding Hot, nutricious, it takes some effort. But wait.... The ingredients in the salad come ready to eat there is no cooking. Ham is no different in cooking that a hotdog. In fact a cured ham cold tastes much better to many people than an uncooked hotdog yet both can be eaten in their uncooked state. Green beans and mashed potatoes just take boiling them in a liquid and stirring just like ..OH NO... ramen noodles. No differnce in cooking ability needed. Dinner rolls are just heated up or they could be eaten raw as well. And the pudding is stir and cool instead of stir and heat. Yet I'll bet most of you would have approved that menu. Now I have never had a patrol fix hotdogs but I wouldn't be having a fit if they did. Read some serious hiking books folks, pre-prepared food is considered a good strategy not a curse. The key to avoiding things like hot dogs for cooking reqirements is the key word 'nutricious'. You would have to stretch reality quite a ways to prove to me that hotdogs are nutricious. The key to avoid hotdogs, ramen, and other things of that type is: 1) teach better meals. 2) Understand that a lot of clean up is going to make any meal something to avoid for a scout, not something they are drawn to. 3) Everything in moderation. So what if they make ramen on a cold winters day now and then. 4) Remember your job is to teach them how to make decisions NOT to make decisions for them. Our job is not to make them good cooks it is to make them self-reliant, good people. Let's leave the commander stripes at home and remember we are there to help them not boss them.

I had a girlfriend in college who ignored me, I mean completely ignored me and here she was my girlfriend. We saw each other every day. We talked every day. She knew how much I liked her and still she ignored me. Now don't get me wrong, I never actually DID anything for her, and I never actually asked her out, or went anywhere with her, and yet she still ignored me. As a scoutmaster the CO of the troop I served ignored us. They knew we existed, they even talked to us, but still they ignored us. Having learned my lesson from college I took a different approach. Every Sunday just before sevice began, the troop was in the church yard (unannounced)in full uniform picking up litter, sweeping the walk, holding the door for people. We showed up at church dinners and activities hanging up coats, carrying food inside for people, holding doors open, and saying hello. We starting to do random acts of kindness for our CO. Before long we had people taking notice, talking to the boys, asking about our activities. Finally the associate pastor called me to see what was going on. I reminded him that we took an oath to help other people at all times, and since charity begins at home we decided that the members of the church deserved our help, then I added... we hope someday the church might feel the same way about us. The next week we had an opportuntiy to speak the Session, the board of the chuch. I took the SPL in with me and had him explain all the the things we had done in the last 6 months and the things we have planned for the next 6. I then got up and told them how proud we were as a troop to represent to the community the spirit and the character of this church, and I thanked them for their continued support of building faith and character in our youth by the use of the scouting program. I then presented a check for $50 from the troop for a campership to help send a youth to church camp next summer. This was our first date together. That was 25 years ago this year and they scouting program is still strong there and the church still treats the troop as their unit. The scouts still help at church activities, the church gives the troop several hundred dollars a year for eqipment purchases, And has been recognized by the council as one of the most outstanding COS in the council. The pastor is now an active member on the council executive committee. You have to do something nice to get noticed. You need to clean yourself up and go on a few dates if you expect a relationship. You have to nurture the relationship if you want it to be long lasting.

True but the BSA still owns the program. The CO agrees to follow it. Why should the CO care who is APL, QM, Troop Guide, OA Representative, Bugler, Instructer, JASM, Scribe, historian, librarian, Chaplains Aide, Den Chief, Treasurer (and by the way all treasuruers handle money or they would not be a treasurer) These are just some of the troop and patrol offices that the SPL and PL are supposed to select. learning how to choose these people and how to make your team function is part of the learning and teaching process of the program. The goal is not to have a prfectly operating troop it is to give scouts responsibility and teach leadership skills. Elected officers should have the ability and opportunity to select their own cabinet. (This message has been edited by Bob White)

Eamonn check with your council executive and you will find (unless your council is different or unless it was explained to us incorrectly) that while your field director only gets one check his time is paid for by funds placed in your general fund from LFL as a payment for those administration services. The BSA cannot use monies raised from FOS to support LFL since it is a separate corporation. Even the cost of the resources of the office used for LFL are reimbursed by LFL monies. While it is dipped from the same well it is fed by different springs.

Their job was to be able to feed themselves when they were hungry and to know to rest when they are tired. They were doing their job until the scoutmaster took over. The results achieved had nothing to do with the purpose of scouting. The methods employed had nothing to do with the methods of scouting. Ed, I could not care a fig if you never agreed with me, but it would be nice for the sake "your" troop if your methods and philosophy agreed with the scouting program a little more often.

More often then not the scouts choose the person they like best or the peson they hope will do the best job. They vote no differently then we vote as adults for our elected officials. None of us know for sure what kind of job a person will do we can only hope that the person who gets elected is the one who will do the kind of job we want done. So we vote for the person we like the best or hope will do the best job. In scouting the boy is not expected to be "qualified" before he gets the office. The purpose of the office is as a teaching tool for us as leaders to help a scout develop his leadership skills. How well we counsel and mentor the scout once he gets an office will be the largest factor in how well the scout does in it. In very few cases does a scout ever fail to do a good job unless the scout leader failed to do a good job leading him.

They are funded through grants, private donations, corporate donations and institutional support. My point was that posters decided they did not like it, before they took time to learn anything about it. (This message has been edited by Bob White)(This message has been edited by Bob White)

First let's remember what "methods" are. They are not what the scouts do. They are what we as leaders do to achieve the aims and mission of scouting. We use the patrol method. In this case the patrol method could have come into play when the SM oberved and evaluated what wass going on, realized there is no danger to the scouts and so allowed the patrol to make their own decisions. But that didn't happen! What happened here was that it was time to eat but only one person in the patrol was hungry and the rest were tired, more tired than they were hungry. So the one person took food for one person, prepared it himself, as was going to eat. No harm, no foul, good judgement. That was interrupted by an adult who destroyed personal property, over-ruled the decision of the patrol leader without any reason other than the position of the hands on a clock, and made the the patrol do what HE wanted rather than what the patrol decided .It was time to eat and HE was hungry so HE wanted everyone to be hungry. The fact is it is not the Scoutmaster's patrol. Unless there is danger to life or limb, it is not his job to step in. It is not his troop. It is the SPL's troop. If the SPL thought the patrol's decision might interfere with the troops schedule then the SPL should have taked with the PL to see how and when the patrol would eat once they woke up. The PL and SPL would agree on actions that would not interfer with the troop activities and the PL would enjoy his hot dog. Thus the SM would have used the "patrol method". Remember this was not "If they don't want to eat let them be hungry" this was "their not hungry, so you have no reason to force them to eat." There was absolutely no scouting or leadership skills employed by the scout leader in this real-life situation.(This message has been edited by Bob White)