Armymutt

Trying to light a spark, not take over. The problem is, the CC and the SM are married and the former SPL, now ASPL, is their son. There's a lot of undue command influence, as we would call it in the Army. I asked the SPL why we were having this drug talk again and was told "my mom said we had to have one". This summer, the SM said he was done at the end of the year. I volunteered for the job and he said he was staying on for another year. I watched this troop for a couple of years before we joined. They were very active - camping at least monthly. Things changed when the original SM left. Now we aren't even going camping in December as a troop - just a game day.

I don't know. I told him to immediately hit up the SM for an SMC on Tuesday and then we'll try to knock out both BORs.

Well, I know this one won't drop - he's mine. I retired from the Army this month, so now dad has plenty of time to support him in Scouting. His best friend (who became his First Class requirement 10) also has a retired guardian, so they are hitting as many Scouting events, with or without the troop, as we can.

We got notification that there will be Boards of Review this Tuesday. It's starting to feel like there's an intent to hold him back. Normally the BOR night is the second Tuesday. The plan was for him to have his SM conference this Tues so he's ready to go next Tues. All of a sudden, the BOR gets moved up a week, so he can only do Second Class, even though all he needs for First Class is the SM conference.

It's a massive loss of momentum. In two weeks, I can completely switch my focus to something else because the signal I'm receiving is that Scouting isn't important enough to meet every week. It's like skipping a workout for two weeks. Very hard to get going again. I don't see how national is getting any extra money from regular troop meetings.

I would be supportive of this. Maybe not 4x a month, but definitely a Scouting event every other weekend. I got scolded by the COR because of adult burnout. If a fully retired "Opa" and I want to volunteer to take kids camping, I don't think it should be a problem. I'm pretty good at saying "No". When it's honey bee season, there will be a lot less side quests from me. She also thinks that the Scouts will want participation credit for those campouts as leadership positions rather than the official troop campouts. So much legalese is killing Scouts. Personally, I'd say that if a youth in a POR doesn't want to be in a POR, don't put them in one. Let them stay in whatever rank they are in until they decide that this is their thing.

I was in four different troops as a kid. The first was worthless, so I quit Scouts. The second was in its 56th year, the SM having been a member for 55 years. It was small at that point - my patrol had 3 and the other 4. The meetings were advancement focused, but we never noticed. We worked on skill awards, had competitons, etc. My next one was a Mormon troop in England. I think there were 8 or 9 of us. All of us arrived as First or Second Class, so there was a little advancement, but mostly is was Scout skills (which is advancement) and some advanced woodcraft. The SM was an F-111 pilot. My last troop was bigger - about 15. Two patrols, mixed ages. We trained as patrols and the adults tested, if I recall correctly. I was a Life Scout by then, so it was just MBs for me. We also don't have patrol meetings. We've tried doing it, but I feel like we have too many Scouts who are there out of force. They play around, which frustrates the Scouts who want to be there, and nothing gets done.

We are chartered to a civilian organization. This will be interesting for our Cub Scout pack though. I will say that there is a grain of truth in the lack of standards being upheld. As far as our troop, we have very few Scouts who are above First Class, so doing advancement at meetings is vital. However, our PLC is failing them by not actually doing advancement.

Here's where I see trouble with this model - from the files posted: We should ensure no Scouts are excluded from events due to lack of appropriate adult volunteer leadership. If, despite best efforts, an event or outing lacks appropriate adult volunteer leadership, it should be canceled rather than excluding any youth. This has the potential to be severely damaging. No females volunteer to go on an outing, it gets cancelled. The boys blame girls for being in the program and causing them to miss out.

Our troop isn't meeting tonight due to Thanksgiving. Seems odd, since it's Tuesday and Thanksgiving is two days away. We also didn't meet on Veterans Day, for some reason. I also found out that we aren't meeting for two weeks in December. This seems rather Cub Scoutish. Is this normal now? My troops growing up met unless it was Christmas or Independence Day. If kids went out of town, fine, they missed the meeting. No big deal. Everyone else had the opportunity to get together and have fun.

Getting the kids, well parents, to attend the PLC is the tough one. I'm trying to shape things more and more. It's gotta be a force more like erosion than a hurricane. Very difficult for a guy who thrives on rapidly changing environments.

We never had a BOR, other than for Eagle, in any of the three troops I was a member. One was in IL, the others in England. I don't even recall a SM conference. We just completed the ranks and received the badge and card. These seem like artificial barriers that are unnecessary.

I'm doing my best to exert influence to get us to being patrol based. Tuesday night was supposed to be planning menus for the campout and a troop-level first aid class. Neither went as they should. They got the menus planned, but it took longer than needed. I was unable to identify any sort of first aid training that was taking place. The troop had the opportunity to elect a 16 y/o SPL but instead decided to simply swap around the last SPL and ASPL. So, another 6 months of no progress is almost assured. It's going to take the PLs standing up at the PLC and demanding that the meetings focus on patrol-level activities. A troop-level game, sure, but the rest of the meeting should belong to the patrols. The problem is, our PLCs are held at a local Zaxby's where discussion is impossible. Half the PLs aren't paying attention.

The problem is getting these kids to actually have an imagination and want to do things. After our last meeting, I was ready to throw in the towel. I've been trying to coordinate extra activities for Scouts who want to Scout. This includes things like a hike in the local state park, the orienteering day at the local council camp, participating in the council's winter merit badge camp, etc. I was told that those distract from the planned program activities of one campout/activity a month. Youth leaders feel that they can use those extra activities to count as their leadership time instead of attending the official activities. Also mentioned was the pulling of adults from the official activities to man the extras. Now, the only adults I've had for the extras are myself and another ASM who is retired and taking care of his grandson. That's why he's in Scouting and I recruited him. I also was told that I shouldn't be serving as the collection point of money to pay for events that require registration as a troop. Frankly, I think I'm capable of handling finances better than the treasurer who can't give me a statement of the accounting after being asked a month ago and who is bewildered by popcorn sales. The final straw was when the SPL announced that there would be no meeting on the 11th due to Veterans Day and a large portion of the troop cheered. Kind of a sign that my efforts are being wasted here. Somewhere along the way, Scouting went from an activity that kids wanted to join to something parents forced them into in order to check a block on the way to college.

Who can initiate a MB for a Scout? The G2A says "unit leader". Is the the SM, CC, ASM? What if the SM doesn't want the Scout to start the MB? I was planning on holding an orienteering session for First Class rank on Monday because we have several Scouts who are out of school while their parents have work. Our campout plans for this weekend have been changed due to the original campsite having problems. Now the focus will be on First Class orienteering, cook, first aid, etc. I figure then we'll just make Monday a little more in-depth and do Orienteering MB. I'm an ASM and Orienteering MB counselor. Another ASM is joining me out at the site. Does the SM need to say that the Scouts who come can do the MB, or can one of us give the green light?