Webelos patrol name

[dennism]

I am wondering if anyone has a good process that they have used to decide on a patrol name for the Webelos?

 

Tonight I thought I would try and let the boys run this part of the decision making. I gave them some basic instructions on how to act and communicate to come to a decision. They started out great! Then 4 of the 6 boys decided they would just make a decision. One of the boys did not ever get to talk about the name that he wanted. The 6th boy kept on changing his mind. I am thinking that I gave them too much rope and they eventually hung themselves.

 

So, how do I get this turned around to be a positive experience for all with a positive outcome?

[Pack212Scouter]

I've seen it done a few ways.

 

a) allowing the Scouts to come up with one that each likes, b) presenting them with a list of options.

 

a) allowing them to pursuade others, b) going straight to a vote

 

a) show of hands, b) secret ballot.

 

What I have seen done successfully is similar to the Olympic venue vote. First they are given a list of names to pick from. This should be long but not too extensive. Once each Scout has selected their favorite, you write them on the board. You then conduct a secret vote and come up with the top three. Cross out all the others and revote on those three. Then cross out the lowest and revote on the top two for the winner. The reason for this method is that often the favorite out of the first one or two votes will not win when the "losers" switch their votes to their "next favorite" name.

[Eagle92]

Dennison,

 

WELCOME TO THE FORUMS!And yes I was shouting at ya ;)Also congrats for becoming CC for ya pack. Big resposnibility, but a fun one. And this is a great site for information, as well as using your Unit Commissioner and district training staff.

 

What I've seen done when Webelos DENS (emphasis only, remember patrols are for Scouts in troops not Cubs in packs) is that the pictures of the patrol/den emblems are shown and they pick they pick the one they like via voting (any method works) Once the emblem is selected, then they work onthe name, with voting done again.

 

Good luck

[ManyHats]

Last year I incorporated it into the Citizen Activity Badge. They were given around 30 and asked to secret ballot vote for their 3 favorite. This was the primary election. We narrowed it down to 3 based on the votes. The next meeting the DL, ADL & CM picked 1 of the 3 and each gave a short speech as to why the den should pick the emblem they represented. Then each scout cast a secret vote for their favorite.

[rdclements]

Hi Dennism, welcome.

My son's den used the Denner position. Among other responsibilities, the Denner would manage discussions related to decisions. The Denner was the keeper of the Talking Stick, a tradition that we picked up from NA folklore. Our talking stick was an 18" piece of bamboo with feathers tied to it by strips of leather. In a conference, the leader (Denner) holds the talking stick and passes it to whomever desires to speak next. Only the person holding the stick may speak. This process helps to focus attention and increase the value of an individual's words; the scouts also felt motivated to be concise and precise. Just google "talking stick" for a better explanation.

 

When it came time to select a Den name and associated patch, the boys wanted to branch out from the standard BSA patrol emblems. They couldn't agree on a custom design, so I showed them the Snowgum web site - Australia Scouting. They chose a great looking spider and we ordered the patches online. I had to order get other items to reach a minimum order, but it was cool stuff.

[tdk101]

My husband printed out all of the patrol patches so the boys could see them. We then let them pick their top 3 by secret ballot. We then tallied all the votes and the top 3 choices made it to the final vote. We made a voter box and a ballot and then we had an election. This all tied in nicely because we were doing it while the presidential election and campaigning was going on. The boys had alot of fun about learning how the process worked. They ended up choosing the dragon as their patrol emblem.

[Greaves]

I printed the BSA emblems, and let the boys look at them all. Each boy got one nomination, and then we did secret ballot (put your head down and raise your hand) voting.

 

I was surprised that the winner won by a huge margin.

[NJCubScouter]

Dennism, others have posted good suggestions, but I actually do not see a big problem with what happened in your den. You threw both the decision and the process open to a bunch of boys, they discussed it a little, and they came up with a MAJORITY decision. Fairly quickly, it sounds like. It also sounds like you decided (either consciously or by default) that a majority would be enough to make a decision. (There are other ways to do it, such as a supermajority which would be two-thirds, which is a little technical for a bunch of boys, and 4 of 6 meets that test anyway; or a consensus (aka unanimity), which is growing in popularity among decision-making models but has the disadvantage that any one member may block the decision.)

 

So once you let a majority make the decision, and they made it, I'm not sure what more you need to do. Scout # 5 could have spoken up, even after the vote was taken, and try to change the minds of his fellow den members. It sounds like Scout # 6 did not have much of an opinion either way, so essentially he let the others decide for him.

 

I'll also tell you that the decision-making process you describe sounds fairer than a lot of ADULT meetings I have attended (and I am mostly referring to meetings outside of Scouting now.) I have seen the "silent majority" get steamrolled by an aggressive minority. At least in this case it was the majority that did the steamrolling.