Am I reading too much into this?

[gungho4scouts]

First I get an email from the TDL on the 29th of the Den meeting for the Dec. 3rd. Instead of 6:15 pm it's move to 6:00 and it's not at the CO but at someone's house. (Ok, a little short notice, I can deal with it.) Then solicitation for ideas on a Go-See-It. So I sent a reply addressed to everyone in the Den with the following:

 

"This might be fun for everyone as a Go-See-It: http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/en/kids/cubscouts/index.shtml And it's only 15 minutes from the CO."

 

This is what I get in response from the assistant TDL:

 

"...Thanks for the e-mail about Starbase, but at this time we dont feel this would be appropriate Go See It. From what we read off the internet they cater to older kids and schools. Not groups like us. However, please continue to keep your eyes open for more Go See Its. Just for future reference, if you do come across something, please, send the information to [TDL] or myself first. This will help confusion among the parents."

 

My response:

 

"First if you actually took the time to go to the URL you will find a section dedicated to just the Tiger Cubs. Second, I replied to all since this is Shared Leadership, meaning everyone has input to the program. To state that I send any suggestion strictly to you or [TDL] for approval first can only be taken as an insult. Third and finally, take [my son] and I off the Den roster effective immediately."

 

The message is already been sent, and I realize that it may have been in haste. And it might just be the mood I'm in, but am I reading too much into this?

[fotoscout]

Yes you are!

 

First and foremost everyone has a life. Being conscientious about your Scouting responsibilities is amiable, but remember you and everyone else have more pressing responsibilities every day.

 

Scouting is full of rules and guidelines, by following them blindly without forethought and local input, you are apt to get yourself in a whole hill of trouble. Youve already done that.

 

Your fellow Tiger Parents, now your former fellow Tiger Parents, seem to be following part of the program by sharing leadership. You seem to have made yourself such an obstacle that they are avoiding you. Remember, you gave up the Leadership position because of your own inability to build a consensus.

 

Its unfortunate that three days notice isnt adequate for you, but thats what it is. Accept it or get outyou got out. Next month it might be a weeks notice, or one days notice. So be it, we are all different.

 

So what, they changed the meeting location. The location doesnt matter, what matters is that the meeting will go on! There will be a meeting. As for the Space place, maybe someone knows better. Maybe the program really isnt appropriate for Tiger aged kids, as a group. Or, maybe they save this trip for when the boys are a little older? But you didnt have a dialog you had an exchange of words.

 

My suggestion would be for you to be a Tiger Parent this year. While doing that, pay particular attention to the group dynamic of the adults. Watch the techniques that work and the ones that dont.

 

Slow down and enjoy the ride. Type As without a ton of self control dont do well in Scouting, or any other group activity.

 

Good Luck.

 

[gungho4scouts]

Have you notice it is the most talked about issue on every forum out there? Get off your high horse, and cloud nine mentality. Of that's right, in your world, recruitment is at an all time high. The Tiger Cub Program is the most success non issue program in the history of the Scouts. AND the turn over rate is at 99.9999%. I've seen your posting to others, and it's far from being supportive. I feel insulted that you were the first to have posted a reply.

[SemperParatus]

Two wrongs don't make anything right.

 

The ATDL was a little off in his/her remarks with what appeared to be in the spirit of attempting to assume some leadership (albeit, possibly misdirected) of the den.

 

By comparison, I think your remarks were very off showing uncalled for rudeness, and certainly counter to that which we are trying to teach our children through scouting.

 

As far as your insult at fotoscout's posting, what are you looking for from your post...people to agree with you? Don't ask for an opinion unless you are willing to hear them.

 

If I sent the e-mail that you sent to the ATDL, I would be too embarassed to share it with the fine folks on this forum, let alone ask them if it was appropriate.

 

 

[fotoscout]

Gungho, Im sorry you feel that way.

 

Ive followed your posts. Its certainly impressive that youve proactively gone to training and come up to speed on all the available BSA literature. However, a little temperance with respect to your implementation of what youve learned would have gone a long way.

 

Youve been upset with almost every aspect of your packs program. Instead of working with your den, you stepped out of the process. Every unit has history, radical changes to that history most often result in colossal failure. If youve follow much of what written in this forum, you will have noticed that most of us are very concerned about preventing gross course corrections, and prefer a number of slight course corrections over time.

 

Im sure that you have some very good by the book ideas and concepts. But you cant implement them in a single swoop, and expect the unit to thrive. It just doesnt work that way. People arent wired to respond positively to that type of change. By the way, just because it's in the book it doesn't mean that it will work for your unit. The books and literature represent an ideal program. Sure we all try to get there, but everyone has to first deal with their own situation and membership community. Some units will never have uniforms because they just can't afford them, some packs will never go camping, and some units will never have a single boy bridge to Boy Scouts.

 

Temperance, patience, and multiple small course corrections will get you where you want to be. If those are not qualities that you possess, then start your own unit. You can build it from scratch, using the model that you envision for a Cub Scout Pack.

 

As for the Tiger Program, it is certainly better than Ivory Soap. In my pack 70% of the Wolves, Bears, and Webelos were Tigers in our Pack. Sure there is a large turnover of Tigers, there are many competing activities for boys of that age, and particularly as they move from 1st to 2nd grade there are even more competing activities. Time and history have shown us that the Tiger Program can succeed with many different types of people leading it. It can thrive with exceptional leadership. But in all cases the key quality that the adult leader must have is an ability to Play Nice with the other adults.

 

[gungho4scouts]

Nothing is learned without getting the views from both sides of the aisle. So no, I certainly don't want everyone to only agree with my viewpoints.

 

My issues with Foto are simply frustrations of the same cookie cutter answers. Take it easy, let it flow, too much too soon. But the twist of the knife regarding the perception of why I stop being the TDL and now a CMA set me off. I choose to step down to keep the peace within the Den. I don't meddle with "telling" the new TDL on how to run the Den. I pose the questions to this site instead. Because 1. keeps me from saying anything, 2. keep me in check, and 3. if I do say anything, it's with a better understanding of both sides.

 

As far as Foto's second post that I liked. Foto if you posted like that more often, it would help bridge the gap of confusion. It maybe old news to you, but for many of us or at least to me, its NEW news.

 

I personally like:

 

"Every unit has history, radical changes to that history most often result in colossal failure. If youve follow much of what written in this forum, you will have noticed that most of us are very concerned about preventing gross course corrections, and prefer a number of slight course corrections over time."

 

I wouldn't be here if it wasn't my desire to better myself and make the Scouting experience better for my Son. One of things I hated about being the oldest is that my Brother would benefit from my mistakes. I see the benefit of posting what's in my head first as having the same effect.

 

As far as my reply to the assistant TDL, this was the third time it has happen. First was regarding a skit idea for the Pack meeting; given the thanks but no thanks, too young bit. And at the Pack meeting, the den didn't do any skit. The second was at the Pack meeting and another Parent was asking me a question. I was interrupted several times as I tried to answer the question. And the last which I've posted here. Hence, the response when slapped across the face for the third time.

 

But wanting to be a better Scout is why I'm asking the question, "Am I reading too much into this..."

[ScoutNut]

Yes, you definately are reading way to much into this.

 

Last minute meeting changes are a way of life. Leaders & parents work, kids have other obligations, emergancies happen. I have no idea why they made a "short notice" meeting change, but I would assume the den leaders had a good reason. You can either make the new meeting, or not. This should not be a large issue.

 

Your Go-See-It response was far over the top. The Space Place site does indeed have an area for Tiger Cubs. However, like the sections for the other Cub levels, it simply refers you to areas in Space Place that might be used to fulfill achievements and electives. It does not guarantee that the activites are all age appropriate for the youth you have.

 

You were asked for Go-See-It ideas. The Tiger section specificaly stated a visit to a zoo or aquarium as an activity for the elective Fun At The Zoo. These are both great ideas for a Tiger Go-See-

it. However, the link on the page takes you to a list of various different Space Place Partners in your state. The Go-See-It you seem to have recommended (you did not specify, but the reply you received did) is the Starbase Minnesota Youth Program. I must say, since the Starbase website states that it's "primary targeted audience is students, grades, 4, 6, 8", I agree completly with your TDL's assesment that the Tigers are too young for this outing.

 

You were insulted by the request that you send your suggestions to only the leaders and not the whole den. I believe "insulted" is an over reaction. I understand that you feel that for Shared Leadership the suggestions should go to everyone. I also understand that as the den leaders, they are trying to be the coordinators for the den. They asked for suggestions, not an on-line discussion between everyone. It sounded like they might have had some responses from other Tiger families who thought this was going to be the Go-See-It. They did not say they did not want any suggestions from you. They did not say that they were going to be the ones making all of the decisions without input from anyone else. Did you stop to consider that perhaps they were collecting the ideas which they then planned on discussing with the whole den at tonite's meeting? That is shared leadership too.

 

As far as the other 2 times you felt yourself insulted, I think you over reacted there also. There are a lot of skits out there that really are a bit to mature for Tigers. There are also a lot of skits out there that take a rather questionable view all together. I really doubt that the leaders nixed the skit simply because you were the one to propose it. When I look for skits for my Tigers I always have to weed thru a ton of inappropriate stuff to find things that 1)don't make fun of people 2)have no reading and are very easy to remember and 3)do not include any kind of hitting. Maybe the leaders decided that no skit was better than a bad skit.

 

Last, being interrupted is rather rude and can be agrivating, but I doubt it was ment as a personal insult to you. Pack meetings can be rather hectic. There have been many, many Pack meetings when I was interrupted while tring to talk to a parent or a scout. There have been times when I have had to cut short conversations because I was needed elsewhere. Heck, there have even been times when I have done the interrupting. I remember once getting the Asst Cubmaster to state he had some announcements to make just so I could break into the Announcements Song at the top of my lungs!

 

You are to be applauded for both volunteering and getting trained, but it seems you are determined to burn your bridges with this Pack. Unless you are ready to eat some crow, and have a NICE talk with the Tiger Den Leaders, it sounds like you need to find a Pack better suited to you and your son.

 

Also, you need to take a deep breath, chill out, and remember that you always wait at least 1 hour before you send a letter written in anger.

 

[ScoutNut]

BTW - While I realize that you are not a big fan of the Tiger program, making statements like :

 

"The Tiger Cub Program is the most success non issue program in the history of the Scouts. AND the turn over rate is at 99.9999%"

 

without including any specific written reference for where you got your facts and figures, is particularly inflamatory.

 

0(This message has been edited by ScoutNut)

[ScoutNut]

And, in this case, incorrect. I am sure that there are many units out there which are having problems with recruitment and/or retention. Most of these problems, I would guess, would be in all levels and not just with the Tigers. There are also many units out there which are doing just fine.

 

(This message has been edited by ScoutNut)(This message has been edited by ScoutNut)

[ScoutNut]

The Pack I work with does not have a problem with retaining Tigers. All of the dens (Tigers included) usually have at least 85% of their boys continue on the next year. Yes, we do get new boys starting in each level of Cub Scouts, but never more than have returned from the previous year. At every level, the majority of the boys, started with Cub Scouts as a Tiger.

0(This message has been edited by ScoutNut)

[ScoutNut]

Please pardon my burping !!! It usually only does this at work!

 

 

[Eamonn]

Isn't it a shame that there isn't a "Hey give that back" Button on the keyboard?

What were you so upset about?

You say that you were OK with the change of date and the change of location.

So it was either them not taking up the idea that you came up with? Or the fact that the Den Leaders asked you to channel your ideas through them?

Looking at your reply to the Den Leaders. I know that if I were in their place, I would fail to see what I had done to insult you.Then looking at your third point, I would follow your instructions and you would be taken off the roster.

I can't help but feel sad that you were /are willing to allow your hurt and your feelings take your little fellow out of something that I would hope he was starting to enjoy.

I of course don't know the Den Leaders or how well the Den was doing? Still they are a couple of volunteers trying to do their best.

You don't post what your future plans are? As of now at your request you are no longer part of the Den or the pack. You could go shopping for a new pack, you could just quit or you could apologize to the Den Leaders explaining that you were just having a bad day. The choice you make is yours, I do hope that for the sake of your son that you work out something that will allow him to remain in Cub Scouting.

Eamonn

[gungho4scouts]

Thanks for the comments so far. I've had a chance to start a new day and the stress of work has dissipated. Now that I have a taste of what the Scouts are, the group overall dynamics is just not for me. Plain and simple. As the DE told me, this is not uncommon.

 

It's something that I've have been thinking about for sometime. But 100% agree that the way I went about it wasn't right. Hence, why I posed the question just after I sent it.