No Win Situation: Loyalty to the Scouts or the CO's troop

[Eagle92]

Well, I feel like I'm in a no win situation. As most of you know, my old den moved up to Boy Scouts, and my son and his buddy went to a different CO's troop. Two of those new Scouts have brothers who are in my Wolf Den with my middle son, so I have some contact still. Last week we had the pack's PWD, and one of the Boy Scouts attended. I asked him how things were going, and he appeared to be getting discouraged with the troop already. I asked mom about it, and she was definitely not a happy camper. The troop had cancelled last month's camp out last minute because the SM got sick, they have cancelled meetings due to weather without telling everyone it was cancelled, and no one knows what is going on. They haven't even started on summer camp planning, and they want to go to a popular out of council camp!

 

This weekend while doing Scouting for Food, a the other mother who's older son was in my den and has a younger one with me too, asked me why I chose the troop my son joined. I told him, he wasn't too impressed with the CO's troop when we went camping, he had friends in the other troop, and he liked the fact that they go camping every month, with the goal of doing a HA activity every 4 years, so he may miss the one they are trying to do in 2 years, he'll be able to go after that as a youth. She was also telling me about the same problems that the scout and mom had when I was at the PWD.

 

I have tried my best to stay neutral towards the troop. Heck I have tried to train all their leaders ( only 1 showed up because "it was too cold to camp"), counsel and advise them im my role as their acting UC ( original one died, and i am it until a replacement can be found), I have recruited new scouts for them ( had some reservations doing so, and turned out to be correct as the kids left after a few months and now won't give Scouts a 2nd chance), and even stayed overnight with them on a camp out to insure 2 deep leadership when everyone left except the SM, his son, and one scout whose mom went out of town and couldn't be reached when they tried to call her.

 

But I'm here for the boys I want them to have the same opportunities that I did.I want them to enjoy scouting, but seeing and hearing all the problems, I am seriously in a no win situation. I do not want the CO's troop to fold as I know how hard it is to restart a troop, but I do not want to lose those scouts.

[Scouter99]

I feel your pain lately. Frankly, you've done your best, the troop is slovenly and doesn't want to do better. Don't waste any more boys on that troop, send them to one that is worth their time and your effort. If the troop doesn't like it, give them a list of their issues and they'll either fix it or not. Packs do not belong to a troop, and cubs should go to the best troop. Their problems aren't your problem.

 

until a replacement can be found)

Oh boy, they saw a sucker

[qwazse]

E92, you are thinking like a DE.

STOP IT!!!!

You can be more direct than you are being as UC. Take a moment with the troop's key three and say, "Most years, I dole out advice from the cheap seats, but this year I'm gonna offer you all an evaluation from a parent's and kid's perspective. This is a rare year when I'm able to do that since I'm close to so many of the cross-overs. You can take it or leave it, but here it is ..."

 

Tell them what you know. Tell them you think that they should dig deep and make some changes, but if they don't you'll support them as best you can. If they think there's to many conflicts with you promoting your son's troop, they can ask for a new commish"

 

Would it be nice if the boys in your community were served by every troop in the neighborhood having a strong program? Yes! But if there is one troop coming on strong while another folds, is it a crisis? Not really.

[Basementdweller]

You are not a neutral Party when it comes to this unit. Your opinion is biased. Scoutmasters get sick and in a thin program outings get canceled. A Shame some of the ASM's or parents couldn't step up and give the SM a weekend off.

 

You should NOT be their unit commisioner or involved with them in any manner. You are super biased against them and are too deeply involved in the CO, Troop and Packs politics.

 

 

You need to back way up. This is not your scouting journey.....yours was over when you turned 18. This is your son.

 

Have you ever wondered how your shenanigans are impacting his scouting adventure????

I will go further and suggest you disinvolve yourself with your sons troop. Your a roundtable commisioner, I suggest you concentrate on that and let your son have some fun and HIS ADVENTURE>

 

[Basementdweller]

You are not here for the boys.

 

Currently you are stroking your own Ego as Self proclaimed super scout......

 

Didn't you post last week that you took the role of SPL from the lad an assigned jobs to the PL's at a training session????? That was way out of line.

 

So I will state you are involved for you and no one else.

 

Not meant to be mean but a wake up call to look in the mirror and ask yourself if you have lost your way

[RememberSchiff]

It's okay to step back or step out. Why not spend more time with your family and son, doesn't have to be scouting related either. This time and opportunity will not come again.

[Austinole]

Just be honest

[Eagledad]

Surely you aren't the only one in the district who understands the troops problems. I was the first person responsible for failing units when I was the District Membership Chair. I would pull in the Key 3 as well as any trusted experienced leaders and discuss a plan for the troop. The plan may ask the UC to help, but coming up with the plan was by no means a UC responsibility. This should not be on your shoulders alone. This is a district problem, not a UC problem. UC is only a communication connection between district and unit. Barry

[Twocubdad]

Yeah, you being the UC is a terrible idea. As UC, you need to punt this mess to the ADC or DC today.

 

But given your involvement (entanglements?) with the CO, I like qwase's advice with one tweak: first ask if they want your advice. A smart SM knows new parents and Scouts are going to be much more comfortable talking with their old den leader until they have a chance to build a relationship with the SM and the other leaders of the new troop. You could approach the SM (and I would include the CC) by saying as the DL for these boys you still get a lot of feedback from them and their parents which you think they should hear. IF THEY WANT, you are willing to sit down with them. Then, as Austinole says, just be honest.

 

Otherwise, if you just show up and dump a lot of negatives on them, you'll be the bad guy dissing their program. There is still a good chance that will happen any way, but you should do what you can to improve the odds.

 

 

[fred johnson]

Eagle92 is in a no win situation. He's right. As a leader from the pack, he is a representative of the CO and has responsibility to represent them well. He also has responsibility to support their efforts.

 

But he's also a parent and as such can put his kid into any unit he wants. I'd assert he can't promote another CO's unit as he's already registered and promised to support his CO. But, that's me. COs support the units. So, unit leaders should support the CO. Anything less is two faced.

 

The problem is Eagle92 can't as Scouter99 (not picking on you) "send them" anywhere. There is no such authority. Den leaders can push a troop and most parents just don't know any different. So it works somewhat and sometimes.

 

It breaks though when you have situations like Eagle92 where the pack now has fed two troops and has ties to each. But BSA promotes troop shopping and it results in the breaking up of dens and friendships through having each scout "choose" his troop. Of course, scouts can change at any time. But this whole troop shopping concepts does more damage than good. Anyway, I've said it before and I'm sure I'll say it again in another post.

 

BSA has a broken model with troop shopping. I hope they fix it soon.

[dedkad]

I understand your concern because I am having the same issue with our CO troop. You want the CO troop to succeed, but unless they want to change their ways and are willing to listen to constructive input, then it is not going to happen. Our CO SM has not contacted me to ask why none of my Webelos are joining his troop. I don't think he wants to hear the truth. While we were visiting their troop, they told me that if a boy doesn't want to join their troop, then it's a problem with the boy, not with the troop. That could be the case if that happened sporadically, but when you continue to have decreasing membership, you need to look inward as to the cause of the problem. It is tough being in this situation you are in because you feel stuck in the middle between the CO troop and pack. I kind of agree with some of the others that you need to separate yourself from this situation out of fairness to the troop. Even if you aren't actively promoting the other troop, it is hard to stay neutral if everyone knows your son has joined a different troop and they come to you for honest reasons why. Let these boys visit the troops and make their own decisions, just like your son did. Sadly, some of them may make the wrong decision, but that is their decision to make, and it is their problem to deal with. You can't save the world and you can't save every boy from making a wrong decision. Focus on what you do have control over, your Wolf den, and make the best of that.

[Eagle92]

Folks,

 

1) THANK YOU for all the comments, ideas, everything as it does help tremendously. Also thank you for letting me vent on this topic.

 

2) I know I am too close to this topic to see clearly. Believe ti or not, I know I am a bad choice for the UC position, told the DC my concerns and said I would do it until they found another. They did find someone in August, a former committee member from the troop who left town for about 2 years to take care of her dying mom. I don't know what happened, but I was asked in Dec to help them out with the charter, a UC duty.

 

More later.

[Eagle92]

back for a few minutes.

 

2) continued. Don't know what happened to their UC that took over in Aug/September.

 

3) DE and district commish know of the problems. Unfortunately we have a new commish, and new chair, who don't know what has been going on.

 

4) COR and CC are MIA. Had a very long talk with the SM when I stayed overnight with the troop. Everything I mentioned was responded with excuses, how Scouting needs to change with the times, or how the district needs to change how things are done, specifically having trainers from other districts come in and provide training (instead of the leaders driving to where the trainging is being offered.

 

5) For the last camp out they actually had a new ASM and one parent going along. Both had BALOO ( I know not the same as IOLS) both have extensive camping expereince as Scouts way back when ( ironically both were in the troop my son joined and had the current SM as either ASM or SM in their youth) so I would have no problems with them camping on their own. Problem is SM has this notion that IOLS is required for camping, which it is currently not by this council. ( different note: I personally would use the new ASM for IOLS staff due to his extensive camping experience, as well as his EMT and pioneering background.

 

More later

[fred johnson]

Folks,

 

1) THANK YOU for all the comments, ideas, everything as it does help tremendously. Also thank you for letting me vent on this topic.

 

2) I know I am too close to this topic to see clearly. Believe ti or not, I know I am a bad choice for the UC position, told the DC my concerns and said I would do it until they found another. They did find someone in August, a former committee member from the troop who left town for about 2 years to take care of her dying mom. I don't know what happened, but I was asked in Dec to help them out with the charter, a UC duty.

 

More later.

Unit commissioners. You've hit on another broken BSA model. Every district I've talked with has problems with their UC ranks. A functional district UC staff is like a yeti. Scouters say it exists but no one has ever seen it themselves.

[Eagle92]

Folks,

 

1) THANK YOU for all the comments, ideas, everything as it does help tremendously. Also thank you for letting me vent on this topic.

 

2) I know I am too close to this topic to see clearly. Believe ti or not, I know I am a bad choice for the UC position, told the DC my concerns and said I would do it until they found another. They did find someone in August, a former committee member from the troop who left town for about 2 years to take care of her dying mom. I don't know what happened, but I was asked in Dec to help them out with the charter, a UC duty.

 

More later.

UC is one of the toughest, least appreciated positions in scouting. It takes a very special type of person to do the job. In all my years of scouting, I know of only 1 district that had the ideal 3:1 Unit to Commissioner ratio, and then for only 1 year. And even then some UCs were not really doing their job.

 

Best UC I ever encountered was the one that served as the pack and troop's UC before he passed away. Been there, done that, had the t-shirt. Also had the tact, courtesy, and charisma to work with folks. Boy do I miss him.

 

On a different note, if the concept of the 'Scout Group" that you propose replaced the current concept, then the commissioner role in some shape or form, group leader perhaps, would be vital to coordinating everything and mentoring the leaders within the group.