What thinks the group?

[NJCubScouter]

It couldn't hurt, especially if you could somehow compel everyone to ignore the fact that it is the CSE (etc.) who is around. Whether this happens at summer camps, overnight camps or at meetings is a secondary detail, especially since none of this is going to happen anyway.

 

There is of course precedent for this, from King Henry V's in-disguise mingling with his troops on the eve of battle (as imagined by Shakespeare) to the previously mentioned Undercover Boss.

Edited May 22, 2017 by NJCubScouter

[Back Pack]

Our guys are all "suits". I doubt they own any camping gear. If they spent one summer week having to use the facilities they make us use, those toilets would be fixed in two weeks.

[Scoutmaster Teddy]

Tico Perez would travel to Commissioner Colleges on weekends. I met him at the Daniel Beard College of Commissioner Science in Davenport, IA a few years ago. 2009?? Anyway, he listened to what we had to say and gave a speech during lunch. Seemed to be a down-to-earth guy. 

[SSScout]

So go to the National Meeting and suggest it.   http://nam.scouting.org/NAM2017.aspx

 

Or make sure your COR goes and makes the suggestion.  

[TAHAWK]

At least one pro who has held top positions, like leading the training team, is an Eagle whose Eagle dad was his Scoutmaster, was a Scoutmaster himself, and has three Eagle sons in Scouting.   Sorta' like a paid volunteer.   I have hopes for him.   It's OK to have hope, yes?

[Eagledad]

How about having each executive spend time with a randomly selected unit?

 

 

That might work. Years ago the adult OA sponsor in our district seem to visit our troop meetings a lot more than was expected for a person of his position. A few years later when he and I were part of a team building a Council level youth leadership training course, he told me that he was just trying understand why so many of our scouts had become leaders in the OA. I didn't get into the details of what he learned, but he had became a DE by that time and was trying to pass along some of our program ideas to struggling troops. I guess the question is if what he learned helped those units.

 

Barry

[perdidochas]

What think the group.  IF every summer, ALL (even the Chiefs) executives from National had to spend at least two weeks in a summer camp, a different one each year, as well as a couple of weekends during the year with "various" local units, all levels, just being a leader and mentor for scouts?

 

Would we see some things that we, as the ones that actually do the program, often have concerns about taken under serious advisement?  Would a chef learn something from being a server or hostess?

 

Just making waves because I am old and cantankerous.

I agree. I think top people need to see what people "in the weeds" see. I also think that all school principals should have to teach one year in the classroom every 7 years, and that all people who work in central school offices should be required to eat school lunch at least once a week in a different school cafeteria, given the exact same amount of time that the students/teachers have to eat (i.e typically 25 minutes or less).  

[qwazse]

Since the troop reserves the first session of summer camp, and that's when national inspection occurs, I've seen SEs (two of whom went on to be our past and current CSE's) in camp.

 

They didn't disrupt the boy's activities at all (unless going down to water's edge to chat with scouts fishing is disruptive).

 

I certainly do think an SE who can visit a different unit/round-table every month has a leg up on every other pro at his level.

 

Cross-training is even good for us amateurs. I often talk to the kids in my church who attend different troops/packs. I'm usually asking pretty targeted questions. Every now I might ask after a one of their leaders, if I know him/her, and the boy will say, "How do you know so much about this stuff?"

 

"I just read a lot," I reply.

[Stosh]

Since the troop reserves the first session of summer camp, and that's when national inspection occurs, I've seen SEs (two of whom went on to be our past and current CSE's) in camp.

 

They didn't disrupt the boy's activities at all (unless going down to water's edge to chat with scouts fishing is disruptive).

 

I certainly do think an SE who can visit a different unit/round-table every month has a leg up on every other pro at his level.

 

Cross-training is even good for us amateurs. I often talk to the kids in my church who attend different troops/packs. I'm usually asking pretty targeted questions. Every now I might ask after a one of their leaders, if I know him/her, and the boy will say, "How do you know so much about this stuff?"

 

"I just read a lot," I reply.

 

I hope you're reading more than just this forum! 

[NJCubScouter]

Apart from getting out into the "field", I would like to see the CSE and other top people actually read the full set of current advancement requirements, including MB requirements for at least the Eagle-required MB's, and maybe they will see that the BSA has tried to become too many things to too many people.  Perhaps resulting in not enough people.  Presumably there is someone in charge of advancement who reads everything, but I mean the very-top people.  Perhaps they read them years ago, but I think a read of the current requirements would help.  At the very least maybe they would see that some of the requirements are too vague.

[Col. Flagg]

Apart from getting out into the "field", I would like to see the CSE and other top people actually read the full set of current advancement requirements, including MB requirements for at least the Eagle-required MB's, and maybe they will see that the BSA has tried to become too many things to too many people.  Perhaps resulting in not enough people.  Presumably there is someone in charge of advancement who reads everything, but I mean the very-top people.  Perhaps they read them years ago, but I think a read of the current requirements would help.  At the very least maybe they would see that some of the requirements are too vague.

 

This intrigued me, @@NJCubScouter. I get the vague and inconsistent implications and agree. Am more curious about the sentiment behind "too many things to too many people" comment with regard to requirements. Can you share more?

[RememberSchiff]

Assign a National guy to my unit and I'll have him volunteer to handle all the medical forms while I'll handle all the Tour Permits/Plans.

[Stosh]

Naw, he can handle the kid who has a nightmare and runs off into the woods at 100 mph screaming at the top of his lungs in the middle of the night.  How he got through those woods so fast I'll never know.  For me with a flashlight I wasn't catching up very fast.

 

Or the camp ranger shows up in the morning at -10^o with a barefoot kid in his pajamas who wandered the full length of the camp in the middle of the night.  Scouters hear a crash of glass, got up to investigate and then counted scouts and sleeping bags, the numbers matched.  What they didn't know was 2 brothers were sharing a sleeping bag.  Lots of 'splainin' to do on that one.

 

Maybe the national guy will write a program proposal to handle such things.

 

Life in the trenches looks a lot different than from an Ivory Tower.

Edited May 22, 2017 by Stosh

[NJCubScouter]

This intrigued me, @@NJCubScouter. I get the vague and inconsistent implications and agree. Am more curious about the sentiment behind "too many things to too many people" comment with regard to requirements. Can you share more?

 

Without writing too much of a book, and this is really just a compilation of things I have written over the past few years:

 

Generally BSA is afflicted with what I call "good idea syndrome" in which everything that occurs to someone in control as being a "good idea" is put into place either as an advancement requirement or a new "award" without adequate consideration of the consequences.  Some of the consequences of this regarding advancement are:

• There are now 13 Eagle required MB's out of the total of 21, it used to be 11 and maybe even 10 depending on how far back you go.  I think this is out of balance, and it results from the fact that everybody has ideas about what to add to the list, but nobody wants to remove one because they are all "good ideas."  Cooking was a good addition, but BSA National should have made the tough decision to remove one, or two. (Which ones can be discussed in the Advancement section, and it would not be a new discussion there.  Usually those discussions end up ADDING to the list, not reducing it.)  I believe the BSA literature still emphasizes the fact that many Scouts get introduced to their future career through the MB program, but I wonder whether this is as commonplace as it used to be; after all, most of the career-oriented MB's are non-required.  What is the motivation for a kid to earn Journalism or Law MB, for example?  (My son did earn Engineering MB, but he was already pretty much set on that as a career already.)
• In my opinion, the lower-rank requirements have gotten a bit too lengthy, particularly with the 2016 rewrite.  The only example I can think of as I sit here is that for the new Scout rank, a brand new Scout is expected to know the structure of the troop and patrol, different types of patrols, the merit badge system and some other things.  Can't we let the kid get in the door and experience how things work before we make him explain them?  What's the rush?  It's not a BAD thing, but it isn't really necessary in my opinion.
• This is closely related to my first point, and it is summed up in a phrase often seen here, "homework badges."  Citizenship is very important.  Personal finance/management is very important.  Communications is very important.  But when you add together all these "good ideas", the "outdoor badges" as well as the non-required hobby and career MB's get overwhelmed. 
• We recently had a comparison of the 1911 and 2017 requirements for Camping MB, which showed among other things that there has been a massive addition of verbiage without a corresponding improvement in how much you know about camping when you're done.  (And arguably a negative impact since the number of nights camping has gone down from 50 to 20, and as we have seen in recent threads, there is quite a bit of amateur lawyering done about how you count the 20.)  I am not saying we should go back to 1911, but I do think some of the required MB's could use some simplification.  Again, almost all the requirements are "good ideas", but are they all necessary?

I could go on but I think I've made my point, and it ended up being a book anyway.  

Edited May 22, 2017 by NJCubScouter

[Stosh]

I have often thought that Citizenship MB should suffice for all three. That would get the number back to 11.  Well, that's my "good idea" for the day.