POR contracts

[CHLees3rd]

Twoscouts,

 

To me it sounds like the Scoutmaster and the assistants are not developing youth leaders so much as just trying to control their destinies. It's all about them having control and power over the Scouts. What does the committee and/or the COR think about the way the Scoutmaster and the assistants handle the POR's? Have they done anything to try and stop the practice?

 

Chazz

[clemlaw]

I wrote the following response prior to realizing that this was an old thread. So feel free to ignore any instances of beating a dead horse.

 

 

For those who think "contracts" are a good idea, then this implies the possibility that a Scout will say the following:

 

"Mr. Scoutmaster, I have drafted this contract that outlines my expectations from the adult leadership. I will assume my duties as soon as you and the committee chair sign. Here's a pen."

 

In troops with "contracts", is that what happens 50% of the time? If not, then I submit that these aren't really "contracts". Instead, they are lists of rules imposed by the adult leadership.

 

Now, there's not necessarily anything wrong with rules being imposed by the adult leadership. But if that's what it is, then we should at least be honest and use the right terminology, rather than pretending that they are "contracts".

 

Kudu: "Introduced in the year of Green Bar Bill's retirement: A required POR is the tool by which "leadership" experts destroyed the Patrol Method"

 

Thanks for confirming what I was wondering about. I made Eagle in 1978, and as far as I know, there was never any "POR" requirement. There was a requirement to be active in the troop for ___ months since the prior rank, but no requirement to hold any particular position.

 

It seemed to work just fine. Every Scout the rank of Star or above was generally engaged in "leadership", even though most of them didn't hold any particular office. They exerted this "leadership" simply by being good scouts, and being around younger scouts. They just did normal Scout things. Younger Scouts got to see them. Sometimes they specifically tried to teach or demonstrate something. But mostly, they exerted their leadership simply by doing things.

 

At our Cub Scout committee meeting, the Scoutmaster of "our" troop (it's a pretty good troop, so I haven't yet broken the news that they're not necessarily "ours") mentioned that he has Scouts who "need" a POR, so he made known that they have Den Chiefs available.

 

If a Scout wants to be a Den Chief, that's great. But it seems awfully counterproductive to me to have Scouts be Den Chief simply so that they have something to do for rank advancement.

 

Here's my definition of leadership: My first year at summer camp, I was 11 years old. One of our scouts was either 17 or 18, and it was probably his last summer camp with our troop. He was either Eagle, or became Eagle shortly after that.

 

I had dutifully followed the packing list of what I was supposed to bring with me, and I had a duffle bag weighing about a hundred pounds. Our campsite was about a hundred miles away from the parking lot, and we had to carry all of our junk there. It wasn't a pleasant task for an eleven year old kid.

 

I was struggling trying to drag my bag along. If I had gone another ten feet, I probably would have broken down in tears and just given up on this whole Boy Scout thing right then and there.

 

This Scout came up behind me, and said only, "here, let me give you a hand with that." Even though he was already carrying a full load, he just threw it over his shoulder and kept on going.

 

IMHO, that is "leadership". Chances are, he had no idea what a great thing he had just done. As far as I know, he didn't hold any "POR" other than "older scout", and this wasn't in his job description. He hadn't signed a contract, and if he had, it wouldn't have said anything about being a porter for the new Tenderfoots.

 

But he was even more than a leader--he was a hero, as far as I was concerned.

 

CHLees3rd: "Scoutmaster-assigned leadership projects can only be used in place of a POR for the Star and Life ranks, not Eagle."

 

IMHO, that makes no sense at all. If I were in charge, if anything, it would be the other way around: For Eagle, it could be a significant project that benefits the troop, even if it doesn't fit one of the "official" POR's. On the other hand, for Star, it would be acceptable to serve in a POR with minimal responsibility, such as Den Chief, Troop Librarian, etc. Among other things, I was Troop Librarian as a Scout. My job consisted of finding a place to put the box full of merit badge books, and occasionally checking one out to another Scout. In fact, I outdid all of my predecessors by actually putting them in alphabetical order. If I had been told that I was partially fulfilling a rank requirement by watching over this box of books, I would have gotten the impression that the program was pretty lame. As it was, it was just a fairly minor task that needed to be done, and I was quite happy to get a cool patch to put on my uniform in exchange for doing it.

 

 

I hope that at some point I was the hero of some other Scout. I don't remember when it was. But the guy who became my hero by picking up my duffle bag probably doesn't remember doing that, either.

 

But I doubt if I became a hero in the course of fulfilling my duties as Troop Librarian, even though that "counts" as a POR, and carrying another Scout's duffle bag doesn't.