Age Restrictions on SM

[kb6jra]

I, like many of you, had the experience of becoming a Scoutmaster at 21. Got a call from my Scoutmaster, who was then the District Chairman. He told me of a troop, 2nd oldest in our area, in danger of folding. Good parents, just no experience and clue on how to run a troop.

 

I took the troop over and kept it going for 5 years. I was asked to take SM training at Philmont that year by my SE. I had 1 weeks vacation at work, so why not use it for training. Maybe that's where my current affliction started...hmm...

 

It was easy at first, lots of parental help, but it didn't take too long for things to go sideways. All members quit, parents left for another church, and had to start over. Eventually what I ended up with was a great groop of inner city kids and NO parents. Well there was this one parent that came to the meetings drunk an I spent most of my time keeping him away from his oldest son, whom he loved to verbally abuse, but that's another story.

 

I never had issues with older parents questioning my authority, ability or whatever. It just never came up. Probably because they didn't want to have to do the work themselves, who knows. The only people that seemed to take issue with my age were other scout leaders, particularly the Commissioner Corp at the time. That was unfortunate, but to my knowledge inclusiveness wasn't a prime component of any trainings given during the late 70's, early 80's.

 

At any rate, if you have a young Scoutmaster that is 21-25, and you give him/her lot's of support with trained ASM's, a good working committee, there's no reason why the program wouldn't be successful, IMO anyway.

[BrentAllen]

The "Group Scouters" and "Troop Scouters" we met in Cape Town, South Africa were in their early 20's. They explained that was the norm for them - boys would age out at 18, become Assistant Troop Scouters (ASM's), get trained, get a few years experience and then take over the Troop or Ship. I was impressed with their program - very active, lots of history and tradition, lots of challenging events and camps.

This is one of the groups we visited - 1st Bergvliet Sea Scouts

http://www.bergvliet.entry.co.za/

I traded Scout hats with the Group Scouter, Robert Callanan - it is one like he is wearing in his picture, customized with my name across the back. The Pack Scouter, Gavin Withers and his wife Heather, became our personal tour guides while we were there. We also traded neckerchiefs - their's are very nice - large, high quality materials - they put our's to shame. Man, I want to go back!

[prairie]

The point I'dd hope to make OldGreyEagle is the mentor should be avaiable, a UC would do just fine.