Coming to terms with my son's troop choice

[Basementdweller]

hmmmmm,

 

So your upset that YOU, Adult, Don't get to go camping, backpacking and other outdoor adventures.

 

 

Sorry the BSA isn't a family outdoor adventure club.

 

May I suggest googling your town and add Outdoor Club or Hiking club or Canoe club and see what pops up.

 

 

[Stosh]

About 95% of adult volunteers in a scout unit consists of parents. Pretty hard to tell them to go someplace else if they are interested in doing outdoor activities and if they do the ranks of adult leadership is going to take a real nosedive.

 

Stosh

[Basementdweller]

Ya know these discussions bring up a key part that really frustrates me.

 

Stop asking what Troops can do for your pack. Boy Scouts do not exist to serve packs. Boy Scouts want to camp, hike, canoe, throw a football around and socialize with their friends. Asking them to go out of their way to help packs do things is very noble, but it's also fighting an upward battle.

 

Run some events for the packs? I run away from troops that do too many pack / troop events. Those troops usually have adults assigned to market the troops to the packs and have a heavy adult overhead on the scouts. IMHO, I do not think it is an indicator of a good troop at all. If anything, it concerns me about how much the adults are running things.

 

Den chiefs? Many scouts want to be den chiefs but it rarely works because of #1 scheduling conflicts (need to virtually double your scouting time because of separate meetings, separate place, separate days, etc) and #2 how to get there, coordinate and plan (non-leader parents don't want more driving / tracking especially for something that doesn't advance their son). In my experience, den chiefs only work when there is a yonger brother involved in the den ... AND the parent strongly encourages it.

 

If your cubs want to choose a good troop, stop looking asking what troops can do for your Webelos. Ask more about what have they done this last year and what are they doing the next year. Watch a troop meeting from the back of the room.

 

And ya know, if you are in a good pack with strong relationships with other adults that are in the associated troop, don't discount that. Your happiness with the adults leading the troop will greatly influence the success of your scout. IMHO and avoiding extremes, I think it is far more important than choosing the right troop.

 

 

I thank my stars your elsewhere.

 

Boy run Troop. So are the boys going to pick doing slave labor for a bunch of cub families or going and doing a survival or fishing camp out.

 

Because of equipment damage we do not loan or share equipment with the pack. We do not help with family campout.

 

We do host the Webelos camping weekends and will bring them to our meetings and teach any skill asked.

 

 

So if your A CM and I know that you are troop shopping, why should I help you, there is no loyalty there????? Return on investment.

 

Why should YOUR attitude toward the troop leadership have any impact on your scouts success???? Does your scout like his patrol mates??? Enjoy the Program???? Can you afford the program cost????? Does he want to advance and his he????

 

 

Bottom line......It is the lads choice and sounds like he did right by him. That is all one can ask.

[dedkad]

hmmmmm,

 

So your upset that YOU, Adult, Don't get to go camping, backpacking and other outdoor adventures.

 

 

Sorry the BSA isn't a family outdoor adventure club.

 

May I suggest googling your town and add Outdoor Club or Hiking club or Canoe club and see what pops up.

 

I get plenty of camping, backpacking and outdoor adventures on my own time with adults and/or family. I don't need Boy Scouts to do that. What I was trying to say is that I am disappointed over the lost opportunity for this troop to stop it's dwindling numbers and get it turned around with a new influx of boys.

[dedkad]

Ya know these discussions bring up a key part that really frustrates me.

 

Stop asking what Troops can do for your pack. Boy Scouts do not exist to serve packs. Boy Scouts want to camp, hike, canoe, throw a football around and socialize with their friends. Asking them to go out of their way to help packs do things is very noble, but it's also fighting an upward battle.

 

Run some events for the packs? I run away from troops that do too many pack / troop events. Those troops usually have adults assigned to market the troops to the packs and have a heavy adult overhead on the scouts. IMHO, I do not think it is an indicator of a good troop at all. If anything, it concerns me about how much the adults are running things.

 

Den chiefs? Many scouts want to be den chiefs but it rarely works because of #1 scheduling conflicts (need to virtually double your scouting time because of separate meetings, separate place, separate days, etc) and #2 how to get there, coordinate and plan (non-leader parents don't want more driving / tracking especially for something that doesn't advance their son). In my experience, den chiefs only work when there is a yonger brother involved in the den ... AND the parent strongly encourages it.

 

If your cubs want to choose a good troop, stop looking asking what troops can do for your Webelos. Ask more about what have they done this last year and what are they doing the next year. Watch a troop meeting from the back of the room.

 

And ya know, if you are in a good pack with strong relationships with other adults that are in the associated troop, don't discount that. Your happiness with the adults leading the troop will greatly influence the success of your scout. IMHO and avoiding extremes, I think it is far more important than choosing the right troop.

 

 

BD, a Scout is helpful.

[Basementdweller]

Ya know these discussions bring up a key part that really frustrates me.

 

Stop asking what Troops can do for your pack. Boy Scouts do not exist to serve packs. Boy Scouts want to camp, hike, canoe, throw a football around and socialize with their friends. Asking them to go out of their way to help packs do things is very noble, but it's also fighting an upward battle.

 

Run some events for the packs? I run away from troops that do too many pack / troop events. Those troops usually have adults assigned to market the troops to the packs and have a heavy adult overhead on the scouts. IMHO, I do not think it is an indicator of a good troop at all. If anything, it concerns me about how much the adults are running things.

 

Den chiefs? Many scouts want to be den chiefs but it rarely works because of #1 scheduling conflicts (need to virtually double your scouting time because of separate meetings, separate place, separate days, etc) and #2 how to get there, coordinate and plan (non-leader parents don't want more driving / tracking especially for something that doesn't advance their son). In my experience, den chiefs only work when there is a yonger brother involved in the den ... AND the parent strongly encourages it.

 

If your cubs want to choose a good troop, stop looking asking what troops can do for your Webelos. Ask more about what have they done this last year and what are they doing the next year. Watch a troop meeting from the back of the room.

 

And ya know, if you are in a good pack with strong relationships with other adults that are in the associated troop, don't discount that. Your happiness with the adults leading the troop will greatly influence the success of your scout. IMHO and avoiding extremes, I think it is far more important than choosing the right troop.

 

 

I am being kind

 

A scout is also loyal.....so exactly how is troop shopping loyal....

 

You are forgetting this is not your scout experience, but your sons.

 

So unless you see an imminent danger issue or something that makes your sixth sense go off you should not share your OPINIONS with your scout or the other parents.

 

Did it ever occur to you that the Troop leadership is giving you the year or so to cool your heals and get de programed from the cub program???????

[Basementdweller]

About 95% of adult volunteers in a scout unit consists of parents. Pretty hard to tell them to go someplace else if they are interested in doing outdoor activities and if they do the ranks of adult leadership is going to take a real nosedive.

 

Stosh

Maybe the unit is flush with adults?????

 

I have posted before that the only reason I am SM is the rest of the Troop Adult leadership are too old to camp.

 

And to be completely honest. I would be just fine with being a drop off parent and not being a leader.

 

No hauling grubmasters to the grocery store, troop campouts, no parent hassles, no money hassles.......

 

I enjoy the boys and watching them grow........Sometimes it is just not worth it.

[dedkad]

Ya know these discussions bring up a key part that really frustrates me.

 

Stop asking what Troops can do for your pack. Boy Scouts do not exist to serve packs. Boy Scouts want to camp, hike, canoe, throw a football around and socialize with their friends. Asking them to go out of their way to help packs do things is very noble, but it's also fighting an upward battle.

 

Run some events for the packs? I run away from troops that do too many pack / troop events. Those troops usually have adults assigned to market the troops to the packs and have a heavy adult overhead on the scouts. IMHO, I do not think it is an indicator of a good troop at all. If anything, it concerns me about how much the adults are running things.

 

Den chiefs? Many scouts want to be den chiefs but it rarely works because of #1 scheduling conflicts (need to virtually double your scouting time because of separate meetings, separate place, separate days, etc) and #2 how to get there, coordinate and plan (non-leader parents don't want more driving / tracking especially for something that doesn't advance their son). In my experience, den chiefs only work when there is a yonger brother involved in the den ... AND the parent strongly encourages it.

 

If your cubs want to choose a good troop, stop looking asking what troops can do for your Webelos. Ask more about what have they done this last year and what are they doing the next year. Watch a troop meeting from the back of the room.

 

And ya know, if you are in a good pack with strong relationships with other adults that are in the associated troop, don't discount that. Your happiness with the adults leading the troop will greatly influence the success of your scout. IMHO and avoiding extremes, I think it is far more important than choosing the right troop.

 

 

I kept all of my opinions to myself, which is why I posted here so I could vent a little. I did not put any pressure on my son one way or the other. I didn't want him to doubt his choice and end up being not fully committed to the troop that he did end up choosing, whichever that would be.

 

As to your other comment about loyalty. When a troop does not provide a Webelos outdoor activity for your boys to earn their AOL, you have no choice but to reach out to a troop that does. You may call that troop shopping, but I call it doing what is best and necessary for the boys to finish and enjoy their Cub Scouting experience. If it had been my choice, I would have chosen the CO troop out of loyalty because the leaders did a good job of building a relationship with me. However, the CO troop leaders and their Scouts did not develop a relationship with my boys, so there was no loyalty there.

[Stosh]

About 95% of adult volunteers in a scout unit consists of parents. Pretty hard to tell them to go someplace else if they are interested in doing outdoor activities and if they do the ranks of adult leadership is going to take a real nosedive.

 

Stosh

I hear you! At my age, a boy-led program is all that I can handle.

 

Stosh

[fred johnson]

Our troop recruits and invites Webelos to join us on any camp out that logistically would work. We also provide a calendar of events and cleaned up roster (last initials only, etc). We even volunteer to help at events if we can get scouts to sign up for it. And we have a November camp out that targets Webelos and we teach them skills and ask them if there is anything special we should cover. We also have two den chiefs in other units.

 

================================================== ======

 

But several troops in our city are very gung-ho over-the-top recruiting now. The troop that is getting most of our cub scouts now has threads into at least four packs if not five. They start contacting the potential scouts and scout leaders when they are Bears. We were used to 6 to 12 months in advance. And they are at 80+ boy scouts. I think they would be happy if they had all the scouts from our city.

 

So now I'm stuck as CC of our troop and COR of our pack and our troop ... where the pack leaders are tied to the other troop and promote that troop. For years the pack fed our troop. It changed and now it's almost impossible to change back until the other troop screws up again. ... SO ... If our COR wants a strong program, it seems only logical that I should remove the pack leaders that are supporting the other troop and suggest they join the pack of that troop's COR. Why should I sign off on pack leaders that don't support our troop? Their sons joining the other troop is prima facie evidence that they don't support the COR. So why have them as our pack's leaders. Seriously. The idea of a COR is that the COR wants to run a youth program. Why have leaders that promote another group's youth program? I'd rather have a weaker pack that supports our troop then extra leaders that don't support our troop.

 

The point is the BSA program design does NOT make sense.

 

================================================== ==========

 

If the argument for troop shopping is that there are bad troops, then, ... because there are at least as many screwed up packs ..., BSA should promote pack shopping instead of leaving so many youth to join bad packs. Every pack should put flyers out to all the local schools and let the supposed best pack win and let the other packs die. (not serious, but this is the parallel of troop shopping) Or have big city wide join scouting event and people choose the pack they want and let the others wither and die. (not my suggestion, but it's parallel with troop shopping)

 

I fully believe that the imbalance between healthy and flailing units is a result of this troop shopping and the structural separation between packs and troops. It starves fresh leadership and lets units continue for years with flaky programs. It's a problem that's very well known at the cub level as by the time leaders are experienced they move onto Boy Scouts. Then at the Boy Scout level the good adults tend to clump at troops with good reputations leaving other troops to wither or continue flailing forever. You don't have enough new energy coming in to drive improvements. So you end up with a cycle of growth and sickness in packs and troops. It's a bad program design that leaves way way too many scouts and volunteers in weak units and leaves them with bad experiences. Every time we state that we know there are half the packs/troops are poor units, we are also stating we know that half the people registered in scouts are having poor experiences with scouting.

 

It's a bad design because it depends on a COR but then subverts the COR by having the charter org chase the same scouts again and again.

 

And if for no other reason, it's a bad design because one charter org can only have one charter org rep who then oversees two units where the units don't have to support each other. A better design would be each unit can have a separate charter org rep. Zero requirement for it to be one charter org rep per charter org. Oh wait ... the COR is a voting member of the district and BSA. And each charter org can have one.

 

A fundamental change needs to occur. Personally, I'd really love to see adopt a UK approach where the charter org is a "scout group" and there is a natural progression between the levels and a strong relationship between the units. http://scouts.org.uk/about-us/organi...cal-structure/

 

==============================

 

Perhaps the very first change should be one re-charter. Don't recharter a pack and troop separately. One charter renewal. One check. One membership list. That will get the adults talking and working together. Only makes sense. Heck, our pastor always looks at me weird when he has to sign two different charters, sign two copies of the charter org agreement even though they are one charter org and they only have one charter org representative. It's a broken design that needs changing.

 

[Eagle92]

Fred,

 

In my neck of the woods, pack shopping is the norm. You might have 2-3 packs visiting a School night round up, so you visit the packs at their meeting. Even after Round up's are over, you still get folks switching around. different packs meet different needs. So your argument for pack shopping does exist and is viable.

 

As for why do you want leaders at the Cub Scout level who are involved in another CO's troop, maybe they have the knowledge, skills, and abilities to get the job done and be an asset to the pack. After all it is the SCOUT'S (emphasis, not shouting) decision to join a troop, not the parent's, at least it should be.

 

I know in my situation, 1 Boy Scout at one CO, and a Wolf and in about 6 months TIger at another CO. I knew the troop had some challenges, I and many others tried to advise and counsel to no avail, but I wanted my son to see them anyway as I could not believe the situation was as bad as I kept hearing and reading.

 

It was. Son went camping with them and it was a complete charlie foxtrot as I described in another post. I went away several times to keep form interfering and expressing frustration. He noticed the issues and, yes, when he asked me if that was a normal troop, I was 'trustworthy" and told him no, it wasn't. He wanted to see other troops, and we did.

 

I hope and pray that the troop situation improves as many of my former Cubs are in it. But one, who did have reservations about the troop, has commented ' If I don't like it, I transferring."

 

While the UK model may be a viable one, in fact I do like it myself, one key ingredient is the GROUP LEADERS ( again emphasis) who supervise the pack's, troop's and crew's leadership. Group leaders are similar to our commissioners, but more involved.

 

But as I mentioned, when you got leaders who think they know better than the folks who have 'been there, done that," and won't listen to their advice, or, more importantly, won't listen to the youth at their SM conferences, and with their election results, and then wondering why the youth are transferring or quitting scouts all together, troop has a problem.

[dedkad]

Fred,

 

In my neck of the woods, pack shopping is the norm. You might have 2-3 packs visiting a School night round up, so you visit the packs at their meeting. Even after Round up's are over, you still get folks switching around. different packs meet different needs. So your argument for pack shopping does exist and is viable.

 

As for why do you want leaders at the Cub Scout level who are involved in another CO's troop, maybe they have the knowledge, skills, and abilities to get the job done and be an asset to the pack. After all it is the SCOUT'S (emphasis, not shouting) decision to join a troop, not the parent's, at least it should be.

 

I know in my situation, 1 Boy Scout at one CO, and a Wolf and in about 6 months TIger at another CO. I knew the troop had some challenges, I and many others tried to advise and counsel to no avail, but I wanted my son to see them anyway as I could not believe the situation was as bad as I kept hearing and reading.

 

It was. Son went camping with them and it was a complete charlie foxtrot as I described in another post. I went away several times to keep form interfering and expressing frustration. He noticed the issues and, yes, when he asked me if that was a normal troop, I was 'trustworthy" and told him no, it wasn't. He wanted to see other troops, and we did.

 

I hope and pray that the troop situation improves as many of my former Cubs are in it. But one, who did have reservations about the troop, has commented ' If I don't like it, I transferring."

 

While the UK model may be a viable one, in fact I do like it myself, one key ingredient is the GROUP LEADERS ( again emphasis) who supervise the pack's, troop's and crew's leadership. Group leaders are similar to our commissioners, but more involved.

 

But as I mentioned, when you got leaders who think they know better than the folks who have 'been there, done that," and won't listen to their advice, or, more importantly, won't listen to the youth at their SM conferences, and with their election results, and then wondering why the youth are transferring or quitting scouts all together, troop has a problem.

We encourage families to look at other packs if ours doesn't fit their needs. In our case, all the packs in our town are pretty good, so the pack shopping consists mainly of just finding out what days and times the pack and dens meet, so they can choose one that best fits the family schedule. Personally, I think when families are looking at packs, they should be taking a closer look at the dens. You can have an awesome pack, but there may be a weak den leader at your son's grade level. If the pack structure is that the den leader progresses through the ranks with their son, then you could be stuck with that weak den leader for your son's entire CS career. New CS families don't really know about how the packs and dens are operated, so they are not savvy enough to ask those kinds of questions.

[dedkad]

Our troop recruits and invites Webelos to join us on any camp out that logistically would work. We also provide a calendar of events and cleaned up roster (last initials only, etc). We even volunteer to help at events if we can get scouts to sign up for it. And we have a November camp out that targets Webelos and we teach them skills and ask them if there is anything special we should cover. We also have two den chiefs in other units.

 

================================================== ======

 

But several troops in our city are very gung-ho over-the-top recruiting now. The troop that is getting most of our cub scouts now has threads into at least four packs if not five. They start contacting the potential scouts and scout leaders when they are Bears. We were used to 6 to 12 months in advance. And they are at 80+ boy scouts. I think they would be happy if they had all the scouts from our city.

 

So now I'm stuck as CC of our troop and COR of our pack and our troop ... where the pack leaders are tied to the other troop and promote that troop. For years the pack fed our troop. It changed and now it's almost impossible to change back until the other troop screws up again. ... SO ... If our COR wants a strong program, it seems only logical that I should remove the pack leaders that are supporting the other troop and suggest they join the pack of that troop's COR. Why should I sign off on pack leaders that don't support our troop? Their sons joining the other troop is prima facie evidence that they don't support the COR. So why have them as our pack's leaders. Seriously. The idea of a COR is that the COR wants to run a youth program. Why have leaders that promote another group's youth program? I'd rather have a weaker pack that supports our troop then extra leaders that don't support our troop.

 

The point is the BSA program design does NOT make sense.

 

================================================== ==========

 

If the argument for troop shopping is that there are bad troops, then, ... because there are at least as many screwed up packs ..., BSA should promote pack shopping instead of leaving so many youth to join bad packs. Every pack should put flyers out to all the local schools and let the supposed best pack win and let the other packs die. (not serious, but this is the parallel of troop shopping) Or have big city wide join scouting event and people choose the pack they want and let the others wither and die. (not my suggestion, but it's parallel with troop shopping)

 

I fully believe that the imbalance between healthy and flailing units is a result of this troop shopping and the structural separation between packs and troops. It starves fresh leadership and lets units continue for years with flaky programs. It's a problem that's very well known at the cub level as by the time leaders are experienced they move onto Boy Scouts. Then at the Boy Scout level the good adults tend to clump at troops with good reputations leaving other troops to wither or continue flailing forever. You don't have enough new energy coming in to drive improvements. So you end up with a cycle of growth and sickness in packs and troops. It's a bad program design that leaves way way too many scouts and volunteers in weak units and leaves them with bad experiences. Every time we state that we know there are half the packs/troops are poor units, we are also stating we know that half the people registered in scouts are having poor experiences with scouting.

 

It's a bad design because it depends on a COR but then subverts the COR by having the charter org chase the same scouts again and again.

 

And if for no other reason, it's a bad design because one charter org can only have one charter org rep who then oversees two units where the units don't have to support each other. A better design would be each unit can have a separate charter org rep. Zero requirement for it to be one charter org rep per charter org. Oh wait ... the COR is a voting member of the district and BSA. And each charter org can have one.

 

A fundamental change needs to occur. Personally, I'd really love to see adopt a UK approach where the charter org is a "scout group" and there is a natural progression between the levels and a strong relationship between the units. http://scouts.org.uk/about-us/organi...cal-structure/

 

==============================

 

Perhaps the very first change should be one re-charter. Don't recharter a pack and troop separately. One charter renewal. One check. One membership list. That will get the adults talking and working together. Only makes sense. Heck, our pastor always looks at me weird when he has to sign two different charters, sign two copies of the charter org agreement even though they are one charter org and they only have one charter org representative. It's a broken design that needs changing.

I'm curious to know if you are in favor of families being able to transfer schools if their neighborhood school is an underperforming school, or if you think the families should just tough it out and attend their neighborhood school.

[fred johnson]

Our troop recruits and invites Webelos to join us on any camp out that logistically would work. We also provide a calendar of events and cleaned up roster (last initials only, etc). We even volunteer to help at events if we can get scouts to sign up for it. And we have a November camp out that targets Webelos and we teach them skills and ask them if there is anything special we should cover. We also have two den chiefs in other units.

 

================================================== ======

 

But several troops in our city are very gung-ho over-the-top recruiting now. The troop that is getting most of our cub scouts now has threads into at least four packs if not five. They start contacting the potential scouts and scout leaders when they are Bears. We were used to 6 to 12 months in advance. And they are at 80+ boy scouts. I think they would be happy if they had all the scouts from our city.

 

So now I'm stuck as CC of our troop and COR of our pack and our troop ... where the pack leaders are tied to the other troop and promote that troop. For years the pack fed our troop. It changed and now it's almost impossible to change back until the other troop screws up again. ... SO ... If our COR wants a strong program, it seems only logical that I should remove the pack leaders that are supporting the other troop and suggest they join the pack of that troop's COR. Why should I sign off on pack leaders that don't support our troop? Their sons joining the other troop is prima facie evidence that they don't support the COR. So why have them as our pack's leaders. Seriously. The idea of a COR is that the COR wants to run a youth program. Why have leaders that promote another group's youth program? I'd rather have a weaker pack that supports our troop then extra leaders that don't support our troop.

 

The point is the BSA program design does NOT make sense.

 

================================================== ==========

 

If the argument for troop shopping is that there are bad troops, then, ... because there are at least as many screwed up packs ..., BSA should promote pack shopping instead of leaving so many youth to join bad packs. Every pack should put flyers out to all the local schools and let the supposed best pack win and let the other packs die. (not serious, but this is the parallel of troop shopping) Or have big city wide join scouting event and people choose the pack they want and let the others wither and die. (not my suggestion, but it's parallel with troop shopping)

 

I fully believe that the imbalance between healthy and flailing units is a result of this troop shopping and the structural separation between packs and troops. It starves fresh leadership and lets units continue for years with flaky programs. It's a problem that's very well known at the cub level as by the time leaders are experienced they move onto Boy Scouts. Then at the Boy Scout level the good adults tend to clump at troops with good reputations leaving other troops to wither or continue flailing forever. You don't have enough new energy coming in to drive improvements. So you end up with a cycle of growth and sickness in packs and troops. It's a bad program design that leaves way way too many scouts and volunteers in weak units and leaves them with bad experiences. Every time we state that we know there are half the packs/troops are poor units, we are also stating we know that half the people registered in scouts are having poor experiences with scouting.

 

It's a bad design because it depends on a COR but then subverts the COR by having the charter org chase the same scouts again and again.

 

And if for no other reason, it's a bad design because one charter org can only have one charter org rep who then oversees two units where the units don't have to support each other. A better design would be each unit can have a separate charter org rep. Zero requirement for it to be one charter org rep per charter org. Oh wait ... the COR is a voting member of the district and BSA. And each charter org can have one.

 

A fundamental change needs to occur. Personally, I'd really love to see adopt a UK approach where the charter org is a "scout group" and there is a natural progression between the levels and a strong relationship between the units. http://scouts.org.uk/about-us/organi...cal-structure/

 

==============================

 

Perhaps the very first change should be one re-charter. Don't recharter a pack and troop separately. One charter renewal. One check. One membership list. That will get the adults talking and working together. Only makes sense. Heck, our pastor always looks at me weird when he has to sign two different charters, sign two copies of the charter org agreement even though they are one charter org and they only have one charter org representative. It's a broken design that needs changing.

I'm in favor of people doing what's best for their kids. If the school is bad, they can transfer. But there is a big difference between a bad school and shopping for the best situation.

 

In my city, there are six normal elementary schools and one specialty (alternative teaching style) school. I only know one parent who has posted for the alternative style school. I know no one that has petitioned to attend a different elementary school. Otherwise, everyone attends the ones assigned. And those parents then join the PTO and school activities and make that school better.

 

I've yet to see an elementary school in our area flounder because everyone is avoiding it.

 

I think it's the same with scouts. If you want to switch, fine. Go for it. But it's a "switch". Otherwise, try to help your scouting unit become better.

 

Teaching everyone to start from the beginning with the "shopping" concept hurts scouts.

[fred johnson]

Fred,

 

In my neck of the woods, pack shopping is the norm. You might have 2-3 packs visiting a School night round up, so you visit the packs at their meeting. Even after Round up's are over, you still get folks switching around. different packs meet different needs. So your argument for pack shopping does exist and is viable.

 

As for why do you want leaders at the Cub Scout level who are involved in another CO's troop, maybe they have the knowledge, skills, and abilities to get the job done and be an asset to the pack. After all it is the SCOUT'S (emphasis, not shouting) decision to join a troop, not the parent's, at least it should be.

 

I know in my situation, 1 Boy Scout at one CO, and a Wolf and in about 6 months TIger at another CO. I knew the troop had some challenges, I and many others tried to advise and counsel to no avail, but I wanted my son to see them anyway as I could not believe the situation was as bad as I kept hearing and reading.

 

It was. Son went camping with them and it was a complete charlie foxtrot as I described in another post. I went away several times to keep form interfering and expressing frustration. He noticed the issues and, yes, when he asked me if that was a normal troop, I was 'trustworthy" and told him no, it wasn't. He wanted to see other troops, and we did.

 

I hope and pray that the troop situation improves as many of my former Cubs are in it. But one, who did have reservations about the troop, has commented ' If I don't like it, I transferring."

 

While the UK model may be a viable one, in fact I do like it myself, one key ingredient is the GROUP LEADERS ( again emphasis) who supervise the pack's, troop's and crew's leadership. Group leaders are similar to our commissioners, but more involved.

 

But as I mentioned, when you got leaders who think they know better than the folks who have 'been there, done that," and won't listen to their advice, or, more importantly, won't listen to the youth at their SM conferences, and with their election results, and then wondering why the youth are transferring or quitting scouts all together, troop has a problem.

I agree that the Group Leader is the key role and needs to coordinate between units and help the units build on each other. You say it's like a commissioner. I think it's more like an active charter org representative and/or a larger group committee chair with sub-committees for each unit. Heck, there really should be one treasurer for the group and one recruiting program that recruits all ages and one training chair and ....

 

PACK LEADERS THAT SUPPORT A DIFFERENT TROOP - I must actually disagree. I'd rather mentor and get interested parents to training and help grow new leaders than keep leaders that promote a troop in a different charter org. It's like the "Miracle On 34th Street" movie where salesman send people to the best deal even if a different store. That's the ideal. The best deal or the best troop.

 

In this case, our troop does fine and has for years. We had one fall where we kept two kids that "needed scouts" that caused other scouts to leave or transfer. Those two scouts had more issues than we could handle and to be frank their parents used scouts because they had so few options with their kids. Those scouts are gone now and our program is fine. But those families/leaders now have ties to other troop. It is out of self-interested they promote the other troop. It's not because the other troop is better. It's because they want scouts to join with their sons. I can tell you stories about broken bones, tied up scouts, major bullying and such from the other troop. No troop is perfect. The issue is the other leaders promote the other troop out of self-interested. Perhaps, the best case is waiting until a set of parents develops a bad perception of the other troop. That will happen. It just takes time.

 

But for the current leaders and as with Macy's in the movie, that can only last so long before management needs to re-align attitudes or go out of business. Ideals are good. What really happens is different (leaders promoting a different troop out of self-interested). But staying alive is necessary.

 

So ... IMHO ... it would be best if I as COR removed those leaders or suggest they switch to the pack of the other charter org. I'm not sure if I will do that. Probably not. But it would be best for the overall youth program run by the charter org. IMHO.