Buffalo Skipper

Question. Should the Scoutmaster or Den Leader follow through with the Den Chief Service Award (paperwork), or should the Den Chief puruse this with the SM, DL, and/or CM? I do have one DC who probably is unaware of the award, but he just really likes working with the den because he thinks it is fun. He has completed all the requirements except the 1 year of service.

gwd-scouter, The campout is not where you do the training. In fact there are 6 training sessions and a patrol (PLC) hike before the campout. The campout is where you hone the skills and planning you have done over the past several months. This is not a light few hour training--it is a long term project intended to engrain habits and experience, molding the scouts. That is something a morning training session like TLT simply cannot accomplish. It is in this environment which I hope to reach these 2 scouts (and the others at the training) and really make a difference.(This message has been edited by Buffalo Skipper)

It is my understanding that a youth can be registered only TWO units in a council. I confirmed this a couple years ago when we had a young woman who was registered with a crew and ship in another council here going to college; she wanted to register with the local ship, but said she could not because she was already in two. Our SE agreed, but since each council has it's own charter, the limit did not apply to > 2 units in multiple councils.

If you have looked at the Green Bar training, you will see that part of the training is to have the PLC do a campout on it's own. We will be setting that date on Saturday, and I will ask that. Thanks for a good way for me to keep this light.

Thanks for the perspective. Our outgoing PLC was planning a campout in which we were considering going to Sea World in Orlando. We were going to be camping at Crystal River to swim with the Manatees2 hours awayduring a 4-day weekend in January. Sea World offers a scout group discount, optional conservation programs (behind the scenes) and a night in the shark aquarium for varying prices. The troop has never done this in active or recorded memory, but I do believe it should be something the PLC can consider and I would support it. I have no idea how the new PLC will react to this, due to unexpected changes in the troop leadership (see http://www.scouter.com/forums/viewThread.asp?threadID=251409) Due to the nature of the trip, the committee has suggested that the scouts raise at least half the cost via fundraising (something which has been lacking in the troop in recent years). I think it is a good suggestion, as the manatee cost alone is at or over $80/head; adding a theme park on that can add up quickly. Our new Outdoor activity chair is working on that estimate now to give to the PLC.

Brent and Beavah, it sure is easy to see things in hindisght. I had a talk with the scout who was elected as SPL at the campsite. I told him that I would support him as SPL if he chose to run, but I reminded him about the last election, in which after a 6 month term in which it took him 5.5 months to get it, he was just coming into his own as PL. I told him that I really needed him and that experience with that patrol to help build their skills and better prepare those scouts to be PL. I told him that I felt that with another 6 months as PL under his belt (and NYLT in February) he would do much better as SPL. He assured me he would be running for PL. Likewise, when we were holding elections, I had the temporary SPL and a young but experienced ASM run elections. I was meeting with an older scout about his Eagle project and MBs. The scout did not run for PL at all, and I did not realize it until the ASM came to me with the results. Afterward, I did talk about to the Troop about responsibility, reliability and experience as they voted. Apparantly it fell on deaf ears. I had the opportunity to dictate "standards" for SPL, but dedided to keep them low so that it would be an election and not a one man show. I did say that the PLC will be setting minimum standards after the election. The intention is to have scouts who may want to run work toward getting the necessary rank advancement and/or experience. Was that a bad decision on my part? Maybe, maybe not; we will see. GWD-Scouter, your SPL sounds very much like the PL who was elected. He can never be wrong, and if you make any suggestions, he will simply ignore you. Our SPL is quite different. He simply doesn't have the experience to get it. He was completely puzzled about what a Troop Guide and Instructor actually did. In his defense, the only Instructors we have had are our older scouts who make only a few meetings a year and are rarely direclty involved in meetings. As a result of this, I am considering a visit to another troop, one that is scout-led and well organized. I may even take not only the SPL (who has no clue of how a troop is to be led) but also our Instructor, who can meet with that troop's Instructors and see how they integrate in the meeting schedule. The SM of this troop is a retired SE and Distinguished Eagle Scout recepient. He does a great job with his scouts, and he has given me an open invitation to come with other scouts in tow. We have an active schedule the next 6 weeks with Pack assistance with a School Night for Scouting, 2 fundraisers, 2 campouts and a lock-in (one campout will likely be rescheduled, but that was expected regardless of who was SPL). It will be a real trial by fire for our SPL to see if he can organize his end. I am reviewing the Green Bar material to see if any adjustments need to be made to accommodate his maturity and experience. I may need to focus a little more on organization to help fill in his blanks.

It is always good to hear perspective, whether I agree or not. Thanks. To make it clear, since our last election back in March, we had an SPL who was doing a reasonable enough job. He was 14 years old, and the best "natural leader" of the troop. He lacked initiative, and always did just enough, consistently doing the minimum to get by. He advised me in the middle of the summer he would not be finishing his term as he would be was getting active in football. I appreciated his honesty, and kept him in the position while I groomed the only other reasonable leader in the troop, who is just a few months older. We have no ASPL as we only have 2 small active patrols, so I appointed the other scout to fulfill the remaining 6 weeks of the term before elections. I would have also worked with the other scout (who was elected last night) but he is uninterested in anything aquatic, and our summer activities were canoeing, swimming, and surfing; hence he has not been to an activity and only a few meetings since summer camp in June. Sure these scouts are allowed to make wrong decisions. I see it all the time. And I accept that completely. Do I expect them to fail? Yes. Am I going to set them up for failure just so they will learn from it? No. As SM, I must be enough of a fortune teller to decide if the consequence is worth the action. Who will learn what, if after 6 months this troop of 12 active and 4 older (inactive) scouts becomes 5 active and 1 older scout with no new scouts joining in the spring. I am really looking for advice on how to work with these scouts to succeed, in spite of my predictions to the contrary. If anyone here is wrong, I hope it is me. In spite of my complaining, I do not want to take this troop in an adult led direction. I spent the last 9 months working with the COR to recruit a competent committee, raise the standard of training, challenging the scouts to advance and believe in themselves, and generally foster an environment in which the troop is healthy, patrol-centric, youth-lead, and happy. It is just frustrating that the day after I see real progress, things happen which threaten to undo all that a few of the scouts have worked toward.

Thank you for your replies. We have Green Bar training set to begin this Saturday, which was scheduled before elections, regardless of the outcome. The scout who was elected SPL won by telling the scouts (we allow a 2 minute pre-election speech) that if elected he would make everyone laugh and cook them all ribs (his only 2 real skills); he stammered and stuttered through with "ums" and "ers" until his "time" was called. The other scout is 2 years older (but smallest boy in the troop regardless of age), and actually has scout skills and a vision to lead. He spent his time talking about organized and fun troop meetings, being supportive toward advancement, helping the PLs run learn what they needed, working with fundraising to get better equipment and such. With 0:45 of his 2 minutes remaining, he said what he needed to say and he stepped down. My concern is that the second scout has been groomed (by me) to prepare him to be SPL, and to lead the troop. He has been fed up for some time with disorganized meetings and a lack of (scout) leadership and initiative. He "left" the troop a year ago for 5 months ago for this reason, and only came back because I assured him we would work to change that. I am concerned that I may lose the best leader we have to another troop. I believe the scouts who were elected to these positions have great potential, but they need more prep before they take over. We have spent the past 9 months working ever more effectively toward a boy-led troop, and now we will have to backtrack significantly. Perhaps what it boils down to is I see this as a lose-lose situation for the troop. If they do fail, it will leave a bad taste in their mouth about leadership and scouting and will ultimately cost us scouts who may well quit, or at least maintain a false vision of what scouting can be. On the other hand, if I do all the hand holding, it will only reinforce their belief that they are not capable of leading and that the adults do it all. Yes, there is the third option, that they will learn, take over and be responsible and everything will be happy, the birds will gather and with our scouts at the campfire and our scouts will share their campsite with the rabbits and deer which will gather to admire their greatness. Democracy in action. I would have been very interested in crossing over to the Dark Side under Kudu's advice and select the best leaders for the key positions fo the troop. But with the current guidelines of the SM and Scout Handbooks, I feel that we would somehow no longer be BSA scouts and instead some vision of Buffalo Skipper scouts. I am just not willing to cross that line (yet). I guess what is most frustrating is that under our older scout's leadership (the one who was not elected), we just had our best campout in over a year. He organized and ran a good campfire (something we had been lacking), and he had taken the scouts away from camp without adults to run an orienteering course on Sunday morning after breakfast. As insignificant at that may sound, it is the first time in years that a youth leader has been trusted have unsupervised activity, and I saw that as the most positive small step the troop has taken since I became Scoutmaster, almost a year ago; I cannot see trusting our new SPL to do this, even in 6 months--he just doesn't have the skills or experience, and that is something that takes more than one term to learn.

So, how do you overcome the results of a poor election? One patrol selected for PL a scout who (I feel) is just not ready. He is narrowminded, has tunnel vision, is headstrong and has no patience; he yells and will likely be completely ineffective. What is worse, is that the troop (largely led by that same patrol) elected an SPL who is inexperienced, uncommitted and has no real sense of responsibility. He is unfamiliar enough with the troop model that when I asked him who he wanted to appoint as instructors or troop guides (the scouts who should have been elected are the most capeable and who now have no POR) his reply was "I'll have to think about that. What do instructors and troop guides do?" Obviously my first responsiblity is to support these scouts, and I will. And of course, I will need to train them, which will begin this Saturday. But these scouts are this way because of their homelife, and a few hours of training over the next six months will do little to change their attitudes which is reinforced by constant exposure for nearly 100 hours a week. I am discouraged by the outcome, and I am concerned about the direction these scouts will take this already small and youthful troop over the next few months. One of my biggest concernes is that their (lack of) leadership will actually drive away some perspective Webelos recruits, at a time when good leadership is needed to build the troop. I can see this as a significant setback to the troop, undoing all (and more) of the progress which as been made by our previous scout leaders and adults over the past 9 months.

I am generally concerned when someone says they are both agnostic and athiest. The two terms are mutually exclusive. To be an athiest, one must believe that there is no God, whereas an agnostic acknowledges only that it is impossible to prove the existence of God. It is important to understand the meaning of the words on chooses to write, just as a reference should carefully choose the words used when submitting a letter of recomendation.

Two years ago, I was advising a scouter in a different council (she is a volunteer and also works in the office). She had a Boy Scout in her troop who was subject to joint custody. He was 11 and the father wanted him in boy scouts. The mother in another state and council wanted him to finish cub scouts (he was still in the 5th grade), so he was a Webelos finishing his AOL. What a mess for that boy. Unlike Boy Scouts and Venturing/Sea Scouting, Cub Scout registration is exclusive; one cannot be a registered as both a Cub Scout and Boy Scout at the same time. The example above was only railroaded because his registration was in 2 different councils. I would verify with the council registrar where these scouts' registration lies. Only when you have this information can you begin to sort out this complicated situation.

AlabamaDan, I have a clipart folder on MyDocuments which is near 100M. I created it and build on it regularly by saving photos from other websites, and scout clipart galleries. Right click on the image and choose the "Save picture as..." option. My gallery includes all the ranks, and position patches (current and many old), various versions of all the cub scout, boy scout and venturing/sea scout emblems, and tons more like MBs, patrol art, and pinewood derby, just to name a few. When needed, I do modify some of this to suit my needs. I don't have a high end photo editor, so I make do much of my editing with Microsoft Paint, Microsoft Office Picture Manager, and Microsoft Photo Editor. I use these images in MS Word documents, and Powerpoint. A little creativity and I have come up with some super images and documents.

In another thread, MikeF said: "It is indeed challenging to get the guys thinking in terms of responsibility and accountability when they have never seen these things in action by boys." We have this issue with our scouts. As a result, when we have a new SPL, he and I usually go visit another troop together. The troop I usually choose is a very established and strongly boy-led, patrol centric unit. The SM is a retired SE (nearly 50 years of BSA professional service) and is a Distinguished Eagle Scout. Though he is approaching his mid-80s, his presence with the scouts is amazing, but the SPL and PLC really run the show. We announce beforehand that we are coming (with the SM and a MC who are both friends of mine), and we come in full uniform (we would be challenged by the scouts if we did not , as happened a year ago when our SPL showed up in blue athletic shorts--funny story, another time). It is usually an eye-opening experience for the scout accompanying me. Is it spying? Well I guess that depends upon your perspective. My goal is to facilitiate a better unit. Do they know my SPL and I are taking ideas back from their meetings? Yes. Are we going to use it to crush them at the next camporee? Hopefully--I mean, no. Are we going to try to out-recruit them? Sure. Will we? Probably not this year, but maybe next year....

In the Green Bar training I talked about above, training is done by creating a mock patrol meeting. You, the SM, play the role of PL. Your SPL is the APL. The patrol is made up of the PLs and other youth leaders (quartermaster, etc.) You walk the scouts through the process, step by step, so they learn everyone's repsonsibilities and how to do the same thing you did. You plan outings (a hike and a campout) which you follow through with. It is a great model, and completely supports the "new" training EDGE expectation of BSA. In a nutshell, you Explain, Demonstrate, Guide and Enable the scouts. I like to use the TLT also, though not exclusively as it is presented. I have found it is most effective for the incoming Webelos scouts (to teach them their responsibilites as a "member of a patrol", especially when the olders experienced scouts do the teaching. The older scouts still need more of a "meat and potatos" hands-on course (like Green Bar).

We have gone to the Camporee/OLS format in our district, and we are in our 4th year of it. I like it and I don't. (I am on the training committee but I am not a trainer for this course). There are many troops in our distict which do NOT participate in camporees, and this has done little, if anything, to draw these troops to the camporees, nor is it appealing to attend for those SM/ASMs whose troops do not attend. Likewise, for those leaders who are at camporee, some do not feel it is "responsible" to be away from the troop. On the other hand, attendance has been fairly good, especially at the camporee prior to the start of the next Wood Badge course.

The straight line (from BSA) is that TLT is the way to go. This is chapter 7, I believe, of the Scoutmaster Handbook (word for word, chart for chart). I use it but mostly as a way to introduce new scouts to the troop. Go to this website: http://inquiry.net/patrol/green_bar/index.htm I have found this plan to be much more effective to prepare patrol leaders (and SPL) for their duties. Very much worth my time. I do not subscribe to everything presented on this website, but this training progrm is a leftover from Bill Hilcourt's days and is very good. Also be sure to check out the "games" pages there. Good luck on this exciting endeavor!(This message has been edited by Buffalo Skipper)

I support what kbandit says. That is pretty much the way many packs in my area operate. Some will crossover at Blue & Gold; others will wait and do a campout-crossover, inviting all receiving troops to attend. Very few packs/dens around here wait past March. As kbandit wrote, this gives allows 4 months or so from the crossover until summer camp, giving the scouts and parents time and experience to adjust to the troop atmostphere. The downside of going this early is that with new 5th graders joining Webelols at school night, the Webelos badge and the Arrow of Light must each be earned in the minimun 3 month time frame in order to meet this schedule. Scouts who are 10.5 and not yet out of the 5th grade who have not completed the AOL requirements will have to wait to cross. If the Webelos DL was a parent of an experienced Cub Scout (as is most often the case), they are usually uninterested in hanging out as a Webelos leader for the remaining scout if their son has crossed over. Just a little perspective.

I have found a course in a neighboring council, and we may be able to send a couple of scouts. They have broken it up into 2 3-day weekends a month apart in the winter. Any comments about this format?

In 2 weeks, our troop is having a parent's meeting in lieu of a committee meeting. The purpose is to engage the parents and involve them more in our troop. I am looking for some ideas to present to the parents. As a former Cub Scout leader, I had lots of little tools to use on School Night (roundup, or whatever you call it where you are). These things like the adding machine tape timeline, which are great for recruiting Den Leaders, but not very effective at inspiring Boy Scout parents to become involved. I came up with the start of one for the parents: Scouts come to on average, 3 of 4 meetings a month. Most patrols will meet once a month for one hour. Our weekly meetings last one hour and thirty minutes, so at most, if he attends every meeting each month, he spends roughly 7 hours a month with meetings. By comparison, we spend close to 45 hours each month camping. Thats a little over 85% of the monthly time spent out camping over meetings. How much more do you think your son learns while camping with the troop? How much less does he get out of scouting if he only attends half the campouts? Its not perfect yet, but it is a start. What "tools" do you use to fire up parents to become involved supporting the troop program?

Please share a little more information. My gut reaction is that the EBOR chair has an ax to grind (not necessarily with this scout specifically) and that this is not the place to make this argument. But I could certainly be off base. Can you add any more information?

Rather than hijack or detract from the former discussion, let me add another dimension. What kind of "goals" do leaders set, and how is this done? Does the PLC discuss and select goals? Does the SPL or PLs do this individually? Does each patrol select goals? If the troop is a productive, successful (boy-led) patrol method unit, what goals are needed? This is not to suggest that they are not needed; I do believe they are. I see the next year as critical to the troop and more especially, providing opportunities for scouts to mature and grow, and prehaps make a real difference in their lives. I would like to work with our (boy) leaders to see that they are able to work in this direction.

We had a scout (mom) who sewed the MBs on one son's sash (not the other son) on the wrong side. At the time, the troop had not conducted a uniform inspection for years, andit was not noticed until he went up for his Eagle BoR. No real criticism was given, but it did get an amusing laugh out of those present.

Hey Stosh! I've missed your perspective on things lately. And to all of you, these are good responses, and all of you make some very valid points. I think what I will recomend to the PLC will be this (or something similar). This election (mid-September), PLs must be Second Class. This will make about 1/2 the scouts eligile, and inclusive of those how have the best skills. Next election, we will raise the bar to First Class (as an incentive for those Second Class scouts--and Tenderfoots--who only lack 2 or 3 requirements for their next rank). For SPL, I will recomend that it be First Class and at least 6 months as PL. I really believe that being a PL prepares one for SPL and that not being a PL limits one's ability to understand and relate to the SPLs repsonsiblities. We are still small enough that we have little need to fill the ASPL position. Next March? That remains to be seen. We won't have our PLC until the week before elections, so I am still open to ideas and viewpoints. (This message has been edited by Buffalo Skipper)

Quick details before you shove off...where are you? What river? and how far are you going? Have fun and be safe.

I have been wondering the same thing as Shortridge. Parachute cord--of course! Now getting small quantities in colors, that is the next challenge....