Not uncommon not to be active in HS

[shortridge]

I wasn't nearly as active in my troop during high school as I had been previously. Yeah, there were girls and gas, but I was also taking college coursework and working part-time.

 

But just because I wasn't SPL or a troop guide or quartermaster doesn't mean I wasn't active in Scouting. I was a den chief, chapter and lodge officer in the OA and worked on summer camp staff for five years. Those opportunities matched my desire for real responsibility and leadership - teaching Cubs how to tie knots and build birdhouses, organizing several hundred people in campwide service projects and running overnight outpost programs, all before I turned 18.

 

My troop's monthly outings to the local state park kind of paled in comparison.

[eaglescout1996]

I agree with Shortridge's comments...I really think the older boys who do remain active despite their other involvements, aren't always with their Troop.

 

Now that I'm my Lodge's Conclave Adviser, I've noticed that alot of the Lodge and Chapter Officers do ALOT for the Lodge and are active in their school or sports as well, but not really in their Troops. Many serve on Staff at Summer Camp or go on HA trips in the summer...they're really looking for that next challenging activity. Many like to teach the younger scouts (CS/first year BS), but seemed to get weighed down with the boys who've been in a few years and are still under 15.

[CubsRgr8]

Beavah,

 

I wonder if coherent patrols are a common factor in those troops you observe with active HS youth. By coherent, I mean patrols that were formed early in a scout's association with a troop and kept its membership as the scouts grew older. I rarely see anything like that around here. It seems to me that true BSA compliant patrols are truly the least properly utilized method of scouting.

[GernBlansten]

CubsRgr8,

That's my point. If the gang of HS'ers is a tight patrol of best buddies, I can see them riding the scouting train to the last stop. But if they aren't, there's not much to keep them, no matter the program. Heck by 16, my son got his Triple Crown in national high adventures. He's been there, done that. Most of his current buds are not scouts. It really is a challenge to get him to re-engage. This is from a scout who attended every meeting and campout from 11 to 15.

 

Venividi, as for shaming the older scouts to stay active, that just doesn't seem like a good method.

 

[Eagle92]

As a youth, the the bulk of the patrols in my troop were mixed age , so that you had 11 y.o.s with 14 y.o.s. But the Leadership Corps program was around, and that tended to keep your older scouts togehter in one patrol. Yes they worked with the other patrols, but they also did their own thing as well on trips. While some of the members of the LC were my "competitors" i.e. PLs of the other patrols when I was a PL, by the time we got to the LC, we had common experiences that forged into a tight nit patrol.

[ScoutNut]

"Venividi, as for shaming the older scouts to stay active, that just doesn't seem like a good method."

 

Very true! As a matter of fact it can have the oppisite effect. It did for my son.

 

Son worked part time at the local grocery store. That ment some evenings, some late nights, and some weekends. He would put in his request for the days he could not work and the weekends he needed off, but he did not always get them. Especially being the "low man". If he called in sick, he had to track down someone else to take his place. Switching with someone else usually ment giving up a day he already had things planned. If he wanted to keep his job, he could not always call in sick, and he certainly could not just not show up.

 

He started out making as many of his weekly Troop meetings as possible. Then his SM started giving him grief every time he missed a meeting or weekend campout. He felt that his commitment to Scouts should overrule his job. As a consequence son attended even less Troop meetings.

 

However, he was a Den Chief, and made many of the den & Pack meetings. He worked with the District Cub Scout events. He staffed Cub Day Camp and Cub Resident Summer Camp. He helped out at Council popcorn delivery and return. He stayed an "active" Scout, just not very active with his inflexable Troop.

 

 

[WAKWIB]

ScoutNut: Glad to see your son stayed very active giving leadership in the Scouting program. At a certain age a young man's Scouting "work" can extend far beyond the Troop and do much good to the other areas of the organization.

Too bad his Scoutmaster chose to harp on your son's attendance instead of kindly recognizing his efforts to earn his own money and being happy to see him when he could. Like us adults, the older Scout wants a place to serve where he feels welcomed and appreciated.

[Venividi]

Gern,

 

I didn't mean for my comment to come across as an attempt to shame a scout into staying active, though on re-reading what I posted, I can see how that came across.

 

I think it is important to let scouts know that the troop needs them. Older scouts want to be needed; they want to know that they make a difference. In a scout led troop, scouts do have a duty to their fellow scouts. When they had come in as new scouts, older scouts led the troop, taught skills to the new scouts, planned and ran campouts, etc. It is now their turn. The point that I wanted to make, but failed, was that in a scoutmaster conference, you can talk about the needs of the troop, the duties that come with membership, and that the troop really needs them.

 

The second part is to back that up with action. For example, if an older scout has accepted a role as instructor, agreed to teach a certain skill at a specific meeting, but isn't prepared and doesn't do so, then if an adult steps in and does it for him, one message that is sent is that they really arent needed. Of course, then another friendly chat with the scout about what is going on in his life, and how fulfilling commitments is called for.

 

Hope this makes clearer what I meant to say.

[Venividi]

Scoutnut,

 

As a scoutmaster, I would consider your son active; den chief is an important troop position that provides a link between a den and a troop. I see it as one of the best troop recruitment methods. Working at cub day camp and other events, he is demonstrating his commitment, and is informally a representative of the troop. In my book, that would be not only be fulfilling his duty to the troop, but exceeding expectations by reaching out beyond the troop.