Minimum Rank to hold Scout Leadership positions?

[Oldscout448]

Advancement is to be signed off by a "troop leader" the handbook does not specify a position or rank, but if the troop is to be scout led it follows that most of the TF to 1st class should by tested and signed off by the PL. He is the one who is spending the most time with Tommy Tenderfoot right? So it follows that when possible a PL should know the skills and know them well, ergo he should be first class.

There are of course cases where that is not going to happen (a new troop, or a patrol where the only first class scout or higher is a bully or just plain lazy and everyone in the patrol knows it ). A good reason to have an ASPL around to sign off the books.

As for the appointed PORs rank does not matter as long as they can (and will) do their job. If I have two scouts who want to be troop bugler, I don't look at the patches of rank on their shirts, I just hand them a bugle, close my eyes, and say "play' to the colors' the one who plays it best gets the patch.

Oldscout

[Stosh]

Where does it say that there is to be only one bugler?.... oh, yeah, the same place that says there is only one Instructor, one Den Chief, one ASPL, etc. As long as they are functional with that POR, should they not get credit for it? Johnny got elected PL, but Joey did all the work. Who should get the credit? There needs to be a functionality credit for the POR, not just wearing a patch for 6 months. Or better yet, credit for doing the job regardless of whether there's a patch on the shirt or not.

 

Stosh

[qwazse]

Now you're putting words into his mouth, Stosh. I suspect if the boys took it in rotation (the owl handling taps; the lark, reveille), Os448 would shell out for two patches. He might count time served as 1/2 the duration per boy in office, but that's a different thread ...

[Oldscout448]

Stosh, I was trying to respond to the question of rank required ( or not ) for a POR not a question of numbers of den chiefs, Instructors, etc.

 

For the record, "my" troop has 3 den chiefs, and two instructors, but we are not big enough to need two ASPLs yet.

 

My hypothetical bugler contest was only to show that I want some one who can and will do the work required for the job.

 

I would has no objection to a pair of buglers ( I love echo taps ) but right now we only have one scout who owns a bugle. It would make it somewhat difficult for the second bugler to practice. And as a one time trumpet, bugle, french horn player, I know how vital practice is.

 

Oldscout

 

PS. I have not read all of your 4,916 posts Stosh, but the ones I have read over the last few years, convince me that you and I are much alike in our desire to see Scouts elect their own leaders, run their own program, lead their own patrols, make ( and learn from ) their own mistakes.

I am always glad to teach a scouting skill to the scouts,be it felling a dead tree or lashing, but I am much happier to stand back and watch the older scouts teach it. Not that they always do it as well as I could but that they are the ones learning to teach and lead and mature. And that I guess is why I'm still in Scouting after all these years.

[Stosh]

Guys!, raising a question does not mean I am going to start a battle on which I have to win. I just ask the question and if for some reason it causes people to stop and ask further questions and to maybe even think on it a bit, it has served it's purpose. Immediately after asking the question, why not two buglers, it was discussed, echo taps, and shared responsibilities. So the question is valid and not locked in stone that one has to have only one bugler and it opened the awareness to maybe we can associate this further into other areas as well as bugler. Instructor is a natural, ASPL if the unit is big enough, QM? Big troop big job! What about a boy on the patrol level working as a QM? Does he not get credit for working with the other QM's of other patrols (QM PLC???) with the troop QM as the Chair (SPL of QM's?) If one has a big troop with a ton of equipment why shouldn't there be more than one QM? If I have a small troop with only one patrol and it has a QM how is that any different than 12 QM's in a huge troop?

 

My only point being,.... we are all worried about giving opportunities for POR advancement for our boys and then why do we go and put some unnecessary rules and restrictions on who can serve in those positions?

 

And heaven forbid if all the boys in the small troop all had POR's and they all worked together and that a huge troop had way too many POR's that things actually got done efficiently and effectively. Seriously? What kind of problems would a huge troop have if each patrol had a QM that kept track of their equipment and notified the troop QM when things weren't up to snuff? Why should they wait around for 6 months to a year for the QM to come check it out and make recommendations?

 

It's a good thing that the Madison Scouts Drum and Bugle Corps doesn't have to fight over who gets the bugler POR. [h=3]Scouting and the Madison Scouts[/h] Throughout most of its history, the corps was an Explorer Troop (Post 600) of the Four Lakes Council. The corps was eventually reassigned as Venturing Crew 600 of the Glacier's Edge Council. In 2011, the corps was reassigned as an Explorer Post.

 

Stosh

 

[scoutergipper]

It is a fairly common problem on interweb boards to have posters respond (seemingly negatively) to something that wasn't said. It would be helpful to have some kind of phrase indicating one is simply expanding the discussion, not accusing a previous poster of having said something they didn't.

[Oldscout448]

S'all good, Stosh

[Stosh]

Don't worry, I don't let it get to me when I'm misunderstood. It is a common problem on forums.

 

But just for discussion: (how's that for a neutral phrase?) Let's look at the patrol QM getting POR credit....

 

1) Okay, let's dump the legalese minimum requirement to hold POR.

2) Any rank can hold QM including the assigned QM in the NSP. Yes even the NSP!

3) Now he's not yet FC working on Star so his POR patch means nothing for rank advancement.

4) He gets nothing but on-the-job training, PL/TG mentoring, working with an experienced older scouts including the troop QM,

5) Gets a chance to try stuff to see if it works, PL: "Where the Dutch oven you were supposed to get from the storage bin for tonight's supper??" It's not the end of the world, but the boy learns!

6) Gives him something to focus on for taking care of the boys in the patrol (leadership)..... yes, one can very easily lead from the QM position! It's ideal for servant leadership skill development!

 

And he goes into his FC BOR and they ask him, "Now that you're working on Star, do you have any idea what POR you might want to do?" "Yeah, how 'bout the one I've been doing for the past year?"

 

Leadership isn't just for the older boys! Every boy from Scout/TF through FC needs to experience POR responsibilities and given a chance to learn to lead BEFORE the SPL's going to hold his feet to the fire and count credit for advancement on it.

 

How much of this thread talk is about dumping on scouts AFTER their 6 months of on-the-job training? Why wasn't that going on prior to FC? Oh, yeah, only your older boys get POR training. To me, that's a real waste of leadership training opportunities just because some kid shouldn't be wearing a POR patch until he's FC.

 

Can you now see why I find it strange that I'm considered off the wall with this stuff because I don't have problems with boys earning POR credit in the higher ranks? As a matter of fact, it is so natural for these boys, many of them function in multiple roles later on in their scouting career, they have to journal their POR responsibilities for the BOR's The only requirement I have for a POR is the boy makes a commitment to be functional and not just wear a patch for 6 months.

 

I have a boy right now in my new troop that has been functioning as PL for the past 4 months. He is Scout rank so his work won't count towards any POR advancement, but I don't see him as wasting any time. By the time he's FC, I'll have a fully functional PL maybe SPL ready to go, not training, no expectations, no hassle.

 

It's totally unfair to the boys to have them sit around watching, when they could be doing hands-on training for these POR's before some leader flips the switch and now expects great things from them. Chances are, unless he's got some trump cards up his sleeve, it's just ain't gonna happen the way one expects it to.

 

Stosh