How would you handle the situation?

[OldGreyEagle]

Hey, welcome Dutch and ditto to all thats been said. I cant improve on it so I wont try, but I had to lend my support to the group.

 

What he is doing is wrong

 

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[LauraT7]

I see two problems here -

 

the first is YP training. A scout should NEVER be alone one on one with any adult, registered or not, unless that adult is the scouts own parent. Two adults, one kid; two kids, one adult; or more than three, or a public place is OK. We do stretch the rules a little in our troop because we have two familes that work nights and their boys need rides to and from meetings. so they always ride with another boy and his parent(s) - never with a leader alone. We have a couple of ASM's who do not have kids in the troop - they do not offer rides for YP reasons. ALL of our volunteers are great, upstanding citizens and I would trust any one of them with my child. But rules are there for good reasons. YP isn't just about sexual predators - it's about common sense.

 

The second problem is in their interpretation of the requirement they are trying to cover, which is for 1st Class - 4a, b and e.

 

4a. Help plan a patrol menu for one campout - including one breakfast, lunch, and dinner - that requires cooking. Tell how the menu includes the foods from the food pyramid and meets nutritional needs.

b. Using the menu planned in requirement 4a, make a list showing the cost and food amounts needed to feed three or more boys and secure the ingredients.

e. On one campout, serve as your patrol's cook. Supervise your assistant(s) in using a stove or building a cooking fire. Prepare the breakfast, lunch, and dinner planned in requirement 4a. Lead your patrol in saying grace at the meals and supervise cleanup.

 

in no part does it say that the boy has to cook for the entire campout - only 3 meals, breakfast lunch and dinner. (However, a short campout might be just 3 meals) It does NOT say he has to do all the planning, preparation and shopping by himself.

 

For this requirement we get around these problems in a couple of ways.

 

We have a couple of adults who often take the boys shopping - If there is only one leader available to go shopping, we have parents drop the boys at the store and meet them there.

 

the adult is there to write the check and offer advice if asked - usually needed only if the group of scouts is all first- year scouts.

 

prior to arriving at the store, we have them divide up the list by department, and check the sale ads - dairy, meat, frozen food, etc. When we arrive at the store, everyone goes to find the things on their list - they meet back at the front of the store, check their lists, make any changes or swaps and put everything in one cart. we checkout and go home.

 

As for the three meals, we seldom have one boy cook all meals in one weekend. usually there are quite a few boys that need this requirement - so a boy will cook a breakfast at one campout, a lunch at another and a dinner at a third, so that everyone gets a chance at cooking AND cleanup. that is our troops' interpretation of how to handle the requirement - rather than making the duty rosters unbalanced. Other troops may not interpret it the same way - but it works for us.

 

__________

 

we recently had a new ASM - who does not have any kids - offer to administer the BSA swim test for a boy who needed only that last requirement for his first class. He wanted to 'invite' the boy to his health club as his 'guest' (and any others who wanted to do the requirement, too) and go through the swim test so they could complete the requirement and not wait for summer camp or a special troop swim. His heart was in the right place, but he was so new he had not been trained and did not understand that if it had ANYTHING to do with scouting that it had to be under scouting rules. that included YP, Safe swim guidelines, etc.

 

We WILL do a swim test soon for the boys that need it - but it will be under ALL of scoutings rules.