Giving Out Knots Arbitrarily

[Tampa Turtle]

And for Eamonn's great answer...here;s a knot!

[OldGreyEagle]

... and Welcome Once Again to the continuing saga of Scouter Forum's series loosely known as "Knot Fun"...

 

[Tampa Turtle]

And now I am taking it away!

[fred8033]

Have a sympathetic heart. They are cub leaders and you want to motivate them to do the best possible job for the scouts.

 

Plus they are probably relatively new to scouting. Probably never seen the legalistic beurocracy of a eagle project. Probably don't know squat about scoutnet, rechartering, journey to excellence or one of donzens and dozens scout specific concepts. They're tiger leaders and wolf leaders and .... If you want to be legalistic, apply it to the Scoutmaster award of merit and similar awards. To complain about tiger den leader knots and den leader knots and such is a bit much.

[ZScout5]

It won't matter as much soon...all the den leader knots are being consolidated into one knot.

 

[SeattlePioneer]

I do the Tiger Cub Den Leader training at our annual council training event, and one of the things covered is the Tiger Cub Den Leader knot. I hand out the requirements and application for that and encourage people to go for it.

 

 

Of course, that's being merged into a generic Cub Scout knot, which I think is a mistake.

[Eamonn]

"that's being merged into a generic Cub Scout knot, which I think is a mistake."

Have to say that I'm in two minds about this.

In my neck of the woods most of the Den Leaders are female.

They come on board when their son is a Tiger and remain in the program as long as they have a son in Cub Scouting.

I had one Mother join us, she had four sons and went on to become the Cubmaster.

Boy Scouting in my area is very much a male thing. We never have had a female SM and I can't remember ever seeing a female ASM.

Some Cub Scout Mums do go on to serve as Committee members of the Troop that their son joins.

I'm not sure but I'll guess that about 10% of our Den Leaders are male and a fair number of these do cross over with their son and while some do go on to become Lifer's most only last 3 or maybe 4 years.

It almost goes without saying how very important these Den Leaders both male and female are. Without them and their willingness to volunteer and step up to the plate Scouting in our area would take a very big hit.

So with this in mind I'm very much for doing as much as can be done to thank these fine people and if a little knot helps give them a well deserved pat on the back? I say go for it.

Then you come across an old codger like myself.

While of course I can choose what knots to wear or not wear, the truth is that I have way too many. I don't have and never earned a knot for Tiger Cubs, but I did earn the Cubmaster knot.If I had earned the Tiger knot other than adding to the already clutter of knots that a lot of people even those with years in, don't always understand what am I communicating to others? Doesn't the CM knot tell that I served my time in Cub Scouting?

 

Rather than reducing the knots that are available, maybe a recommendation of how many knots can be worn would serve us all better?

Eamonn

 

[Scoutfish]

Okay, they are "just" knots, right?

 

So what's the big deal if we bend a rule , no?

 

It is a big deal.

 

Here's the thing: I have leaders who could be wearing 5 or 6 knots right now if only they went to RT's.

 

Now, some of my leaders with 3 boys have been DL's or other positions of importance within the pack for a long time. They are the core group of adults who are always there plkaning ahead of time for campouts, B&G, crossovers, etc...

 

They are part of the core group who set up beforehand, and clean up afterward. They have more sweat equity in one year than most parents have in 5.

 

They spend countless hours and who knows how much of their own gas and money doing stuff for the boys.

 

But the thing about the knots is this: They are for a broad range of actions and have a set standard.

 

I could easily say that my leaders have done ten fold more good than what it takes to earn a handfull of knots..... EXCEPT ..... they haven't been to RT's Pow-Wows or University of Scouting events.

 

And you know, RT's aren't aren't the Holy Grail of scout knowledge, but do offer important ideas, knowledge or even some ( been there, done that , practical experience.

 

Now, you can look at it this way too: As soon as we decide to fudge "just a tiny" detail here or there, then why shouldn't we fudge a tine detail on a scouts advancement or even rank requirements?

 

Why not fudge a detail over an adult who's background check wasn't quite good enough?

 

Why not fudge the amount of produict we give a customer while fundraising? Why not fudge what we give the boys at camp?

 

It's all about integrity. A iot is, we have adults who collect knots and awards just for the sake of being able to thump their chest and boast about how great they are. And it makes us mad and causes us to tend to roll our eyes whenever we do see a shirt with a handfull of knots.

 

So how do we tell the earned for the right reason knot wearers from the "chest thumping, everybody let's get one" knot wearers?

 

We start by policing ourselves and stricking to the minimum standards of knot requirements.

 

That's just my $0.02 worth!

 

 

Wearing my EARNED knot and proud of it.

[Scoutfish]

SwampYankee,

 

I wan't ranting towards you. You asked a legitimate question.

 

But , I am assuming you are pretty new to scouting?

 

Welcome aboard!

 

You will in time see, that, well, there are certain areas in scouting that - well....to be blunt - are sorta a joke.

 

So the only thing we can do is try to bring respect back to scouting by policing ourselves and holding ourselves to a higher standard.

 

The knots are a great example. If you fudge one item of requirent, and I fudge a different one, then the next Cm, fudges a different one, etc....pretty soon, we have a a knot that we have shown that most of the actual requirements mean nothing. It means the requirements become trivial statements.

 

20 years from know, Knots will just be a shirt decoration that you can sew on without any more requiremnet than putting a name bar or sewing the world scouting emblem.

[SwampYankee]

Scoutfish, I don't mind the rant. I agree with your point. I have a very hard time giving out an award that was not earned per the set standards. I spent many years when I was a boy in both cub scouts and boy scouts and as a merit badge councilor/assistant nature director on camp staff. I never would have signed off on or expected to receive ann advancement I did not earn. What I am new to is the whole square knot issue. But after a lot of feedback, it turns out it is not my responsibility. The council gives out the knot, not the pack, so I have no intention of usurping that authority. If people want the knot and come to me with the paperwork, I will sign it (assuming they meet the requirements). But I'm not going to give them out arbitrarily, which has been my pack's past practice.

[Scoutfish]

The only time3 I have done something with an award that was not quite up to spec was when I wanted to present one to my CC for an outstanding job.

 

He went far and beyond the requirements of the award. But, the paperwork called for the CC to sign off.

 

I talked to my DE and SE and they said that - naturally - the CC shouldn't sign off in this particular situation. You know, for the surprise of it and all.

 

So we skirted the CC signature part of paperwork and used my ( CM )signature instead.

 

But we didn't compromise any of the actual requirements of the service to get the award

[Eagle92]

'Fish,

 

I think you did A OK. And you remind me of a story.

 

In order to receive Vigil in the OA, the lodge adviser (LA) has to sign off on it. I know of a LA who was only Brotherhood, and as such he wasn't entitled to know who was selected for Vigil. Vigil Committee Chair and his adviser had the LA sign a blank form the two years he was LA, and he found out the Vigil candidates at the Call Out ceremony.

 

I bet national had an interesting look the second time as the LA was selected for Vigil that year, and his name was listed a Vigil candidate.

[ScouterAdam]

I actually saw a Den Leader Knot on a Bear Cubscout last Summer at Camp. I asked him how he got it. He replied that he was the top Popcorn seller in his Pack & Den. So the CM (his mom) got it for him! I congratulated him for a job well done. Then went away shaking my head.

 

I will never tell a boy that he cannot wear that award. He took it as a reward for doing a good job. It's the Adult (his mom the CM) who was completely wrong in giving it to him.

 

I watched the Mom over the week we were at Camp and realized she was after knots/awards for herself. Very glad that I am not in that Pack.

[ZScout5]

There will be only one cub leader knot, but it will be like the youth religious knot...devices will be worn on the knot for earning the award at different levels. Be sure to check that you have the most recent progress records from scouting.org. The requirements have been updated.

If you have leaders that meet the knot requirements, encourage them to fill out the form. However, knots are a council level acknowledgement. Units should be regularly acknowledging and thanking their leaders. Give them certificates of appreciation, service stars, bring them up and thank them at blue/gold and courts of honor.

At the end of the day, though, we are all supposed to be in it for the scouts. They do not care if you have any knots on your uniform, they care about the experience we are providing for them.

[JoeBob]

Ah good.

 

The discussion in this thread helped me to resolve a dilema that I was facing: Did I want to sew the handful (4) of knots that I earned as a Cub Scouter onto my uniform now that I've crossed over to Boy Scouts? I'm still registered as CM until next January (Re-Charter Lag), so I could pick a couple more RT checkmarks, and turn in JTE paperwork which would totally legitimize (In District's eyes)knots for CM, DL, and Cub Scouter.

 

But wouldn't all that blue and gold on my chest diminish the single red white and blue knot that I like to wear? I don't want to become a chest thumper, so I'm gonna pass on the Cub Scout knots for me. But I would liked to have had more control over my ability as CM to award those knots to my leaders.