Alabama Scouter

The OP was asking about loyalty to his Councils summer camps. Imagine if you will, no troops in a council attending the local camps. How long would those camps survive? When they close, what are you left with? I'm a believer in supporting my local council, but also giving my scouts a different view by attending out of council camps every 2 or 3 years. Some troops in my area send the NSP to the local camp, and the older scouts to High Adventure camps or other out of council camps. We don't have the number of leaders to do that yet, but may consider that down the road. Loyalty is earned. Our camps have been good, and have listened to us and made improvements. They've done well, and we'll be back. (and we'll travel, too!)

As SM, I encourage all patrol leaders (PL's) to attend, and their APL's if they can't come. I discourage adults other than myself and my senior ASM. The New Scout Patrol has help sometimes from their Troop Guide. I try [really] hard to limit adult input as boys will defer to any adult. The PLC is tasked with deciding on which of the 10 activities/locations for the year will be camped at for this quarter, based on the last years troop planning conference. Sometimes boy lead is slow and painful to watch, and it is sometimes distressing to see adults jump in when boys are doing fine, but slower or with a different method than that adult would do. I suggest an agenda to the SPL prior to the PLC, to keep him on track and to remember what needs to get done. Training adults about boy lead is harder at times than the boys. If the scouts can talk through an issue or plan, they'll come out with a workable plan. It's not Roberts Rules, but so what.

BP, Your situation may work for your unit, but in my view is not the ideal. The BSA system is a great one, and one that has worked for over a century. I don't think picking and choosing which section of the manuals we choose to enforce is a model I want to follow. Each scout unit has a personality, as does each committee. So what works for your unit may not work for another, just based on personalities alone. While you say "it's NOT a matter of power", in fact quite often it is. I've seen it. Just saying it's not doesn't make it that way. At the end of the day, find what works for your unit and CO, and work the program to the benefit of the boys. Best to you.

Beav makes a good point. Getting the medical form and release signed in time for a weekend trip might be tought. What we recommend is the prospect come, and bring a parent. The parent is responsible for the child, and we get to tell both about our program, our history, and plan for the year. We want to set the hook for both, because we need both to make the troop run as it should. Scouting done best is scouting done as a family.

From what I've seen, having dual registered COR and CC is not healthy. While most COR's don't do much, when they are needed, it's often when to mediate between the CC, the SM, and others. When dual registered, this puts too much power in the hands of one individual, to the detriment of the unit. imho

Seems we have a consensus. I've said and repeated that most (all) problems are caused by a lack of training; SM's training the new scout parents of what the program is about, and that they're expected to be here to help; Break in the parents early and it's a cake walk after that!; Committee members who are above getting trained (we've solved that problem-if an adult wants to be on the committee, we tell them to get their training and then come see the CC), Wood Badge trained leaders that seem to have missed the "boy lead" component of the program (grrrrr).

We welcome visitors to any meeting. We don't plan "special" events to woo prospective scouts. I followed up with a parent that visited to see if they had found a troop home. They had chosen to join another troop. His comment to me was "Your meeting was too chaotic. There were no adults in charge". He didn't know about a boy lead troop or any of the business of how it runs, and it's a big bill to explain that to a visitor or parent in one meeting. I try to keep the operation of the troop in the boys hands, and I do the SM minute. That's about it. Occasionally, the advancement CM will make a presentation of awards. So, yes, sometimes it looks chaotic, and I love it. It's boy leadership in action.

My troop has had this "problem" for a while, too. It's not a problem, because it will take care of itself. We were doing "ad hoc" patrols at some adults suggestion some number of months ago. When the PLC was planning our last camping trip, one patrol of 9 had only 3 going. While some in the troop assumed they'd be combining with another patrol, they surprised everyone by going it alone. It worked out fine. Before I took over as SM, the troop would play fruit basket turnover every 6 months. There was NO patrol esprit de corps. None. I let them choose their last patrol, and they've stayed that way ever since. We run three patrols, and a NSP. I've decided that I'm going to keep them together, and they will join the oldest scout patrol, which in 6 months will be the smallest. And next year, the NSP will go the the next oldest patrol, and on and on. We may have a patrol of 14 for a while, but it's not something we can't deal with. It's better than halving a patrol of scouts that have been together since Tiger Cubs.