POR contracts

[CalicoPenn]

I'm curious about this:

 

"Our (simplified) written expectations for Star-ranked Instructors is that - working with the ASPL - they initiate, plan, and lead skill instruction events as part of the troop meetings and campouts."

 

Does this mean that you have different written expectations for Life-ranked Instructors, and for Eagle-ranked Instructors?

[Mike F]

Three not-so-quick quick things.

 

1. The communication part is HUGE! Some learn better by hearing, some by seeing. We do both. And we continually coach, guide, and mentor. No scout is left hanging out there with a forgotten "contract" waiting to get ambushed at a BOR. The only time the written, agreed-upon job descriptions come into play is when in spite of all efforts, the scout is failing to be successful in his position and he (or usually his parents) want to press for him to get signed off from rank advancement anyway.

 

2. Yes - this is an adult-imposed thing and the boys would no more decide on their own to do this than they would to convene a PLC. It helps the transition of leaders because they all have a written description that fits with structure and operations of the troop and helps the SPL and ASPLs train their staff. After that it's pretty much forgotten by the boys because they're all doing their job, being proactive and creative and trying to push the adults faster. The only time it's really useful after that is when that scout falls short and you're in the delicate phase of giving him some details about why he is not ready to be signed off for rank credit on his POR. And it is absolutely invaluable when parents get pushy and want to appeal to higher authority. If you have ever felt like a scout did not give a job his best effort, but you were pushed into signing him off for rank anyway, you might want to consider this in your tool bag.

 

3. Yes - we tailor the expectations for some of the jobs depending on scout's current rank. This doesn't apply to line leadership positions like SPL, ASPL, or PL because those guys are in the leadership hot seat continuously and all working to their capability. (My experience.) The ones we tailor are the more ambiguous ones like Den Chief and Instructor. They can be used for rank credit all the way to Eagle and I believe we need to push the guys to get more growth as they climb the ladder in order for them to get full benefit of scouting. For example, a First Class Den Chief is expected at a minimum to assist Den Leader with the meetings and be prepared to lead a fun activity at each meeting. A Life Scout Den Chief is expected to plan and run some meetings on his own with assistance from the Den Leader. The objective here is to give the Life Scout the opportunity to benefit from the same challenging leadership opportunities as he would in other positions in the troop. If he's merely following direction from an adult Den Leader, he will not experience that growth.

 

Its unfortunate, but a lot of this has really evolved for me over the last decade or so after dealing with unreasonable parents. It usually works to talk to the Life Scout about really stepping it up as a Den Chief to show his stuff and make things happen. Or to a senior Instructor about taking on a bigger role in the planning and execution. Usually when they fall short, you just work with them until they get there. But when parents start running to Council and youre called on the carpet, you better be able to demonstrate how youre not treating junior unfairly.

 

This adds very little overhead and works for us.

 

Your mileage may vary.

 

[Twocubdad]

I can't really answer your question, Beav, because, as I have said, our troop doesn't call these things contracts and don't require that they be signed and returned.

 

We do, however have detailed job descriptions which were written by groups of Scouts as a part of junior leader training several years ago. On-going, the job descriptions are presented and discussed during JLT and there is usually an opportunity to amend the descriptions if someone thinks it's necessary.

 

 

 

I don't know where Kudu is, but in the past he's been fairly adamant that Positions of Responsibility are creations of adult-led troop and the whole corporate Wood Badge establishment which has ruined Scouting anyway, if I may be so bold as to speak for Kudu.

 

Speaking for my self, since PORs are part of the program, this is just one of a number of ways of setting standards for what the PORs entail. Would a "truely Scout-led" troop come up with this? I don't know. Our out-going SPL would never have thought to ask folks to sign the job descriptions/contracts, however I can very easily see our incoming SPL doing so, if it occurred to him.

 

But then would a "truly Scout-led" troop have come up with membership applications, medical forms and Eagle project proposals on their own?

[ctbailey]

TLT (Troop Leadership Training) has officially replaced JLT (Junior Leadership Training.)

 

TLT is an appropriate time/place for the PLC to set their expectations of these POR's.

 

There is a fine line, however. I have witnessed a PLC attempt to require minimum service metrics along with their POR descriptions. For example, the youth wanted to require the Troop Scribe attend 80% of the troop meetings, and produce at least 6 newsletters during the year. The adult leadership saw no harm in this practice.

 

As a Commissioner I needed to remind the SM that hard metrics are never a good idea, and there is no place for them. What if the Scribe in the afore mentioned example was the finest author in the land, and all the minutes he did take were well written, concise and to the point, but he had to assist in the family business because of a sick parent, thusly only making 60% of the meetings? What if this scout had the forethought to line up a proxy scribe to take the raw notes, and he would type them later?

 

Obviously this is a "perfect world scenario," but I hope it makes my point: even though the youth was good at his job, if he didn't make the "80% rule," he would technically be in breach, and therefore his advancement be in jeapordy.

 

Luckily, the SM did finally see the point, and understands that hard metrics and hard "contracts" are not the way, and he was able to guide the PLC into seeing this as well.

 

I think for the most part the posters to this topic actually get it. This spun thread was originally regarding a "contract" that was designed to halt advancement.

 

 

[evmori]

Let's look at a typical job description. I opened the book and it fell to Instructor. Here's the official job description:

 

Instruct Scouting skills as needed withing the troop or patrols.

Prepare well in advance for each teaching assignment.

Set a good example

Wear the Scout uniform correctly

Live by the Scout Oath and Law

Show and help develop Scout spirit.

 

Seems pretty complete to me. What else would you add Twocubdad?

[rdclements]

The slope is pretty slippery. Folks will come up with reasons to use POR contracts, and sometimes some of those reasons might actually seem OK at first. But look at what's behind the argument - the concept that the program, as presented by BSA, is somehow inadequate, so we're going to fix it. This is the same line of reasoning that leads to adding requirements because "he's just not ready" or setting participation standards, or any of the other junk that gets argued on this board daily.

 

Contracts are not part of the program. Just focus on doing a good job as a volunteer and don't fix what's not broken.

[Beavah]

As a Commissioner I needed to remind the SM that hard metrics are never a good idea, and there is no place for them.

 

Yah, even though I'm not very fond of da contract stuff, I'm also not very fond of this notion. I'm wondering where it comes from, since nowhere in da program materials is there an admonishment against "hard metrics" or clear expectations. In fact, we teach SMART goals, eh? Including goals that have "hard" measurements and quality unit metrics that are similar. Da only odd thing in the program literature is the no-hard-percentage for being considered "active", but that doesn't apply to PORs (and, as something coming out of a small subgroup is not as "strong" a program recommendation as some of da other things... It's more a statement of how da advancement folks will handle appeals).

 

Nobody is suggesting that adults should be brain dead and not take into account exceptional circumstances. At da same time, if mom has cancer and a lad needs to be at home, the honorable thing to do and da proper lesson is to resign his POR to take care of his family.

 

So my dislike of these pseudo-contracts is their overt top-down adult-run nature and character, and da fact that they're just a disagreeable and un-fun way of approaching outdoor leadership. Communicating and mentoring responsibility and high expectations, though, is a good thing to my mind. Including "hard" expectations or guidelines. As a commish, I certainly wouldn't be as comfortable as ctbailey in telling folks such an approach isn't acceptable. Particularly for some units that are trying to establish a culture of responsibility that isn't yet fully in place, those kinds of rules or guidelines are often helpful.

 

Same might be true of da "contracts" stuff. If yeh feel yeh have to use such a tool, it should be temporary, eh? Just a step on da road to developing expectations that the lads internalize and become part of da troop culture that they expect of each other without such a silly and boring adult crutch.

 

Beavah

 

Beavah

 

[Stosh]

My first impression with a "contract" is that it is adding to the requirements by spelling out in precise terms what needs to be done. Often times this entails the minimum requirements and may in fact stifle some of the more creative boys.

 

I train all my POR positions and spell out expectations to ALL THE BOYS! They then have the opportunity to work on any of them. We are a small troop with only one patrol currently, down from two from a year ago. Every boy has a chance to step up and take any POR they wish. I have one boy learning bugle, another two vying for PL, a boy doing Chaplain's Aide, and another putting together lessons to fulfill the Instructor's POR. My JASM is the only one that wears a JASM patch and doesn't need any POR because he is Eagle already.

 

The Chaplain's Aid wears the POR patch because he's been doing the job for over a year now.

 

I had one boy line up all the logistics for summer camp this summer and stood in for the troop SPL as needed for the camp program.

 

I have another boy that is stepping up and will run the popcorn drive this fall. He will be attending the Roundtable this month to get the relevant information that normally the adult would get.

 

I have another boy who wants to be Historian but doesn't do anything.

 

Every time we have a boy ask for his requirements to be signed off for POR in the SM conference I sit and listen to him list off all the stuff he's done to earn it. If he thinks there's enough there to get him through the scrutiny of the BOR, the I sign it off. Without "retesting", I do know the BOR always asks what was the fun part and the challenging part of their leadership opportunities (aka POR) over the past 6 months. If the boy has nothing to say, he's got a problem.

 

My committee knows that due to the size of the troop that no boy can fulfill any POR full-time and have much to offer. Instead my boys, being cross-trained in multiple POR's generally take a conglomerate of activities of leadership and present that to the committee.

 

For example:

 

1) I organized a one-day park cleanup as a service project.

2) I taught the younger boys 4 lessons on first aid.

3) I took over at a campout at the last minute because the boy that organized it and was going to be the PL for the weekend got sick and couldn't come.

4) I organized our participation in the Scouting for Food drive.

 

Now, none of these alone can fulfill 6 months of POR without a lot of sitting around in between. But combining them all, shows a boy that is active, does a lot of work, and deserves credit for showing leadership. As far as which patch to give him? I dunno, give him Instructor for doing the 4 lessons on first aid. Maybe Troop Guide because of all the various work he does. Maybe just leave the patch off and let him do his leadership thing.

 

A boy that signs up for Instructor and does 4 lessons in 6 months might be a bit weak on fulfilling the leadership thingy, but it sure beats putting a patch on his shirt and then have him occasionally teach a class or two and get credit for some "contract" he signed.

 

Your mileage may vary,

 

Stosh

[CalicoPenn]

I was afraid that was going to be the answer.

 

I guess you folks felt that the job descriptions as laid out by the Boy Scouts of America just wasn't good enough? Instead, you all felt that you know better than the Boy Scouts of America and have decided to create your own job descriptions. You've spent a lot of time perfecting something that doesn't need perfecting. Those job descriptions provided by the BSA have been around for a long time - almost every Troop in the land seems to be able to accomplish the goals of the program by following them.

 

But nope, you've decided that the adults are going to make changes because you know better, you're going to change the POR descriptions based on rank, and then you're going to impose them on the lads, because you know what's best for them.

 

But that's not the worst of it. You've also decided to impose your Troop's will on other units in a separate part of the program. You're now requiring Den Chiefs using the POR as Life Scouts to "plan and run some meetings on his own with assistance from the Den Leader." But that's not what the POR for Den Chief requires, and the Cub Scout program doesn't work that way. What happens if the Den Leader says "No", which they are perfectly in their right to do as the Den Leader and the ultimate authority of how they plan and run their Den Meetings? What makes your Troop think they can dictate to program leaders in not only a different unit, but a different program, how to run their program?

 

The majority of Troops follow a path to True North - for most, the path may not be the exact same path, and may have some detours here and there, with some minor tweaking as circumstances require it, but in the end, they'll all get there.

 

Not your unit - though you may be basing your program on the Boy Scout Program enough to be somewhat recognizable, and sort of heading off North, when you decided your cadre of adults know more than the thousands of Scouters that have successfully used the BSA program, as written, and that you can change things in your program that makes changes in other programs, you've unfortunately chosen a path taking you right off the cliff.

 

 

[Beavah]

Yah, hmmm....

 

Calico, do yeh really feel that da sample POR job descriptions in theTLT materials are meant to be inviolable? They're so perfect that they will work for everybody from a small army base troop in Germany to an LDS troop in Idaho to a suburban mega-troop in Texas to an urban Scoutreach unit in Cleveland?

 

That doesn't make any sense to me. It's not consistent with da TLT materials where they are presented as samples. And it's not consistent with da real world. Organizational leaders in most organizations have locally developed job descriptions, and usually are involved in the development of their own job description and "contract.". What you're describing wouldn't even be good management theory .

 

Once again, I just think there's a happy middle, eh? One where we recongnize da program is enhanced by the local inventiveness and customization by youth and adult leaders, but one which also challenges da local assumptions and practices by looking to other outside sources of information from online forums to roundtables to other agencies like LNT.org or ARC or da BSA guidebooks.

 

Beavah

[Stosh]

To a certain degree I really agree with Calico Penn. There has to be some structure to the process so it doesn't go off on a tangent and get so watered down it is no longer relevant. But then I kinda agree with Beavah in that no every square peg is going to fit the round holes.

 

I tend to focus on the concept of what the requirement is trying to accomplish, provide a scout the opportunity to take lead on some task of responsibility. To a degree, without Calico's emphasis, without being spelled out a bit, it could get out of hand.

 

Well, if a boy wishes to invest his time and talents in organizing a couple of service projects, maybe takes the lead on Scouting for Food, and says he wants to organize this year's Popcorn Drive. What do you tell him? These are not good positions to demonstrate one's leadership???? Most Eagle projects fall into this kind of leadership demonstrations, but there is no POR for such learning opportunities~! Now what do you do? Give the boy a patch and have him do something else?

 

I had two different boys line up our summer camp experience the past couple of summers. No adults were involved. The first boy, picked the camp, organized the schedule, registered the troop, got all the boys signed up for MB's, ordered the camp equipment we would need from the camp, and lined up drivers. Most of this is usually done by an adult in most troops, so again there is no POR for this and the boy wasted about 9 months of POR work for nothing? I don't think so!

 

My "bugler" is a boy that wants to try and learn the bugle. Okay, practice and when you think you're ready, let's have a concert. So far he hasn't done the practicing and shows no more interest because it was more difficult than it sounded at first. Should I wait 6 months and give him credit anyway?

 

While I'm not a fan of bending the rules so far one can no longer recognize which one it is, but when one has boys serious pursuing leadership and is excited about it, there isn't always a POR position for him. I like the Star requirement where the SM can give the boy a project to show leadership. That's a no-brainer and my boys love it and often do far more work for that than they would for some of the other POR's.

 

If I could create a new POR it would be "ProjectMaster". Demonstrate leadership in a series of projects designed to organize, inspire and accomplish service projects for your troop and or community. Too many Eagle candidates have been PL's, SPL's, TG's, etc. but they can not organize a simple service project for their Eagle requirement because they have never done it before! Yet in my troop my newest scout (Tenderfoot) found a park that needed to be cleaned up, picked a date for a park clean up project, made up the sign-up sheets, got the equipment together and we all headed to the park for a fun day cleaning it up. It might not have been to the scope of an Eagle project, but he got one big lesson that will someday give him a heads-up on his Eagle project.

 

If that same boy was to do this for his Life rank, it would not have counted one bit, could have tweaked it a bit for Star (special project), but Leadership is leadership, and sitting around with a patch on your shirt doesn't do it for the boys of my troop.

 

There's no POR for GrubMaster, there's no POR for ActivityMaster, there's no POR for ServiceProjectMaster, so they don't count, they're all square holes. But WebMaster, Historian, Librarians all can get credit. How does one show leadership by being a WebMaster? They can do that by sitting home in their bedroom and knock out a web site in an evening. I have 3 boys that within the past month updated our website by posting activities, calendars, and AAR reports on past activities including pictures. So, how many WebMasters do I have? My QM posted a list of equipment each boy should bring for the last backpack outing. Is that a QM job or a WebMaster job? My JASM put the annual calendar on the Website, but he's an Eagle, so none of it counted....

 

I'll be the first to scream if they ever took out the POR requirement, but it truly saddens me when I see some of my boys doing 110% on leadership in the troop and not getting any credit/recognition for it other than a "Thanks-a-bunch" and a pat on the back. Is it any wonder they drop out eventually?

 

Stosh

[OldGreyEagle]

I am not in favor of having a POR Contract,although I can see the value in having the Scout and Scoutmaster "sign" the POR job description. Its not a contract anymore than having a sheet of paper or booklet that details the Troops Schedule, dues rates, Scout Account information etc that some call Troop By-Laws but semantically they are not.

 

Its not a contract, its just making sure the youth knows his duties. I would quickly add that if in 5 months and 3 weeks the scoutmaster sits the lad (what happened to Eammon anyway?)to tell him he has not done an acceptable job and he will have to start over because after all the boy signed the POR job description, and this is the first communicatin the boy has that his performance is lacking, thats wrong as well

[CalicoPenn]

Stosh,

 

The requirements pretty much cover those special projects you mentioned - there is an option that a lad complete an assigned leadership project instead of serving a POR.

 

Seems to me, that should cover your concerns quite nicely.

 

Beavah, I don't look to TLT documents for POR descriptions. I prefer to look in the source documents: The SPL Handbook, the PL Handbook, the Scoutmaster's Handbook and the Boy Scout Handbook - official publications of the Boy Scouts of America. Too often, I've seen TLT documents that paraphrase the source documents, and that just serves to confuse people even more.

 

And surely you can recognize the difference between tweaking a job description and flat-out re-writing them.

[Beavah]

Yah, but Calico, da TLT syllabus IS an official publication of the BSA. Complete with job descriptions (some of which don't match those other sources you mention ).

 

Jblake's approach is more along da lines I like to encourage. The positions you choose to use in your troop should reflect what amounts to real leadership in your troop. Yeh might drop some of da BSA ones, add some others, modify some others.

 

I don't think all those troops who had webmaster positions long before the BSA adopted the position were really doing an awful thing, eh? In fact, as often as not, the BSA program materials follow the lead of those doing good work in the field.

 

But I don't think we're ever goin' to see contracts, eh? . Some things are just not strong ideas, even if they're temporarily helpful to a troop here or there.

 

Beavah

[John-in-KC]

Everything, everything I've seen in this discussion about contracts is one way ...from the boy!

 

Well, I'm not an attorney, but I have taken enough administrative law to be dangerous. Contracts are always two way streets. There are conditions that apply to the person bidding the contract, and there are conditions that apply to those who are awarding the contract. There are fewer and fewer contracts where the only obligation of the person awarding the contract is to pay $$$. In home purchases, the seller has to buy a warranty to cover the property for N years. In other home purchases, the seller has to make whole any issues found in a home inspection by a Professional Engineer. In one contract I know of, the US Government provides all the support resources as Government Furnished Equipment.

 

So ... if you, Mr SM, think the contract is a one ticket of labor and loyalty, I submit you need to have a friendly cup of coffee with someone, and rethink the entire idea.

 

As for me, I much prefer several SM conferences, talking with the boy, coaching him, cheering him on.