ThomasG-from-Brazil

Stosh, come visit our upcoming July Camp. It will be 8 days long, in the middle of nowhere. Cold stream for bathing. Latrines dug by scouts. Each patrol builds their own patrol kitchen and cooks own meal, on fire. Both the girl troop and boy troop will be camping jointly on this occasion.

Not sure I follow. They just wanted to do Scouting.

I have not read all the replies in this thread. But do you have a strong PLC (or what I would call a Court of Honour). In my group we have historically maintained a strong aura, or "wow" factor around the Court of Honour. If a scout is invited to a CoH, then he has done something pretty serious. Bad behavior has to be dealt with by the boys. If this person cannot even respect a CoH decision for him to pipe down, then the last courses of action are to call in the parents and maybe request his removal.

Correct. Boys aged 9 and less were joining patrols. Instead of stamping it out, BP created cubs. Same with girls. There were girls joining in with boys, so he created Guides. Before senior scouting, patrols were from 11 to 18. Many troops started having senior troops for ages 15-18 well before it was officially recognized. In Brazil, in the early 80s, many scout groups started accepting girls, before co-education was approved.

. Wow. Sounds worse than here, when you put it that way. The issue here is more an inability of the adult leaders to fully grasp that the Patrol Method is more than just a prolonged being a team for playing games at a meeting.

But for my question - does a PL who is not reelected feel demoted, and lose motivation?

Stosh, fortunately in Brazil (at least in my group) we have much less "tethering", less concern on getting sued. Our activities are pretty wild, we camp in places with zero infrastructure, and are able to make use of the Patrol Method in other ways. At camp, patrols are very independent in building their campsite, all games are per patrol.

Thanks, guys.

Use games. Try out the "Democratic Game" where each patrol creates a game to be played immediately after, then makes a skit about their proposed game and its objectives; after all skits have been done, and all the troop votes on their preferred game. Then they go off and play it. Follow this with the patrols creating, instead of a game, a full troop meeting program, and again voting on the preferred proposal. Expand at will. Sometimes instead of doing the creating at the troop meeting, Patrols can hold patrol meetings at a members house, create, for example, a video about their proposal, and then the troop watches all videos at troop meeting and votes. This gives a kick start to boy involvement.

As in the film Pirates of the Carribean, many rules should be more like guidelines. If some "rules" weren't broken we wouldn't evolve. We wouldn't have the cub section, we wouldn't have Girl Scouts, we wouldn't have the senior section. It's easy to throw around the word obedience, but obedience without consciousness or thought is worse than obedience. Learning how to act correctly in the absence of rules is very valuable too.

Hi, everyone, I am a scout leader in Brazil. Thought I might gain a lot here and at the same time be able to offer a view of how things are done in other places. Would be happy to share experiences.

Hi, everyone. Thought I would join this most interesting debate. I am a scout leader in Brazil, not part of the BSA, but part of WOSM nonetheless, but the issues faced in the application of the Patrol System are often the same. Rest assured you guys seem to be much better at being boy-led. Here I sometimes feel that the Patrol System is just for show, at the end of the day scout masters are doing all the work, just providing an opportunity for boys to have fun. (By the way, here we are co-educational, so most troops are mixed, in my group we have separate girl troop and a boy troop). I have recently been battling with the idea of PL elections every 6 months, as opposed to none at all; our troop has been old fashioned in this matter, and PLs are appointed by the PLC and SM, which sometimes means pulling a scout out of another patrol. I would like to adopt PL elections, my concern was always that a PL who is not reelected could somehow feel demoted and lose motivation. Does that happen? In other aspects, our troop is pretty good at using the PLC in comparison to other Brazilian troops, who guide the SM in what the program is to be; but weekly meetings are Troop meetings prepared by the Scout Masters. Patrol meetings occur maybe once a month and generally are some form of outing. Patrols camp on their own (with an adult present for security) about twice yearly, and the troop holds two 3-night camps and one long July camp every year.