Refusing Transfers

[Twocubdad]

 

In the first place, TN, I think you're borrowing trouble. I'm guessing the probability of this ever being a real problem is in the fractional percentages. But my real job involves anticipating and preventing low-probability problems, so I understand where you're coming from.

 

The answer is to run the program the way it should be run -- 2010 version. If a boy transfers-in with dificiencies in certain outdoor skills, you give him a big, Friendly, Kind, Cheerful welcome and you TEACH THE BOY THE SKILLS in which he is difficient. Real simple. You don't talk bad about his old troop and you don't make him feel like some city slicker just off the bus from Noo Joisey. You train him up just like any other new Scout.

 

My opinion is the split between "traditional" troops and "parlour Scouts" is a false one. Folks tend to spin the conversation to unnecessarily justify the way they want to run things -- like using tags like "traditional" and "parlour", for example. There's no need to fall into that trap. Our mantra at the session of National Camp School where I teach is "Program is Flexible, Policy Is Not." There is plenty of room within today's Scouting to run the program you want. You don't have to pretend to be part of some underground movement to do so. Go to Roundtable. Get all the training you can -- including Wood Badge. Then offer the best program to your Scouts you can. The rest is just politics.

 

(This message has been edited by Twocubdad)

[rdclements]

The problem, TN, is that you are proposing to operate a BSA unit without following the BSA program. This forum is filled with discussions about leaders who don't follow the program and the trouble that results. Most of the time, such failures result from ignorance. You are proposing to run a unit in such a way from arrogance.

 

If you want to run a non-BSA style unit in your own little corner of TN, then found your own organization - "Our little corner of Tennessee Psuedoscouts" - rather than try to get leverage out of using the BSA name.

 

If outdoor skills are the thing you're after, how about a Venturing Crew that specializes in advance outdoor skills. You don't need to reinvent the BSA Troop program, just use the program available for your specialized focus.

[Kudu]

moosetracker writes:

 

TNScouterTroop - It is not that you are trying to run a high standard troop. Kudu & JBlake47 run retroactive high standard troops. Many right now think I might be battling with Kudu over his troop, I am not, merely stating there are things that you can change, and others that you can not ... Kudu ... Kudu...

 

Moosetracker has linked TNScouterTroop, JBlake47, and me with the same general discussion points in three different threads. This is the one in which TNScoutTroop has chosen to respond, so I will reply here.

 

Of course having one of his threads turn into a discussion about "Kudu" is Beavah's worst nightmare, but if nobody says anything, he will never know I was here.

 

I don't know why Moosetracker is stuck on 1912. I will spin off a thread that explains the advantages and disadvantages of all the different Scouting programs over the last 100 years.

 

If you know the difference between Baden-Powell's "Patrol System" and William Hillcourt's "Patrol Method," then you can mix and match different Patrol approaches to the personalities of the natural leaders in your Troop at any given time.

 

TNScouterTroop has indicated that he uses Hillcourt's 3rd edition of Handbook for Scoutmasters as a reference. Certainly he will learn more about the "Real" Patrol Method from these 1100 pages (written by the man who brought the Patrol Method from Denmark to the United States) than he will from any current BSA publications or training courses.

 

If he downloads a copy of the current rules and regulations, he will find that despite all the dire predictions of moosetracker and others, the actual rules and regulations allow a considerable amount of flexibility:

 

http://www.scribd.com/doc/8919606/Rules-and-Regulations-of-the-Boy-Scouts-of-America

 

http://www.scribd.com/doc/8919588/Charter-and-Bylaws-of-the-Boy-Scouts-of-America

 

These electronic versions are superior to the paper versions because you can search on keywords.

 

TNScoutTroop writes:

 

We doubt we'll really be 'competing' with other troops. Our 'market' is boys who've never been Scouts, or boys who gave up on Scouting as they encountered it. Most troops don't want these boys in the first place.

 

That is a good description of how I ran my last Troop. Unlike Stosh, I did NOT want Webelos crossovers!

 

Cub Scouts is mostly a filter that discourages the kind of rough-and-tumble boys for whom my program was geared. Webelos Scouts cross over by the spring of fifth grade, so I went into the local public school at the beginning (or sometimes the end) of sixth grade.

 

If TNScouterTroop reads "Chat 15: His Entry" on page 229 of his HBSM 3rd edition, he will find that a Scout is "invited" into a Troop, and likewise a boy must be "invited" to join a Patrol, he cannot just be assigned. Page 223 quotes surveys at the time indicating "that three boys in every four want to be Scouts." I kept some statistics on my recruiting and found that consistently about 71% of the audience would sign a list (in front of their peers) asking me to call their parents so they could join. If we can assume that 4% of the audience were already in a Scout Troop, then the resulting 75% figure indicates that despite the claims of modernists, 3/4 of sixth-graders still crave the Scouting program as it was described in the HBSM 3rd edition. See:

 

http://inquiry.net/adult/recruiting.htm

 

In the beginning I would keep calling the parents until I had about 20 new Scouts registered, but I found that the families that needed the most effort on my part to get them to the first meeting, turned out to be the most dysfunctional after they joined.

 

So I took a page out of Hillcourt's description of "invitations" and consulted the newly registered Scouts as to which of the boys (whose parents might have said OK--or not said "no"-- on the phone but never showed up) they wanted to join the Troop. This reduced the number of new registrations from around 20 to about 15 per year. Usually two or three would drop out right away, those who had been excited by my tales of rattlesnakes and bears, but who proved to be terrified of raccoons (and cat holes)

 

But once word got around, however, we would make that up when the new Scouts brought in friends and older brothers. Yes, older brothers! Two or three older brothers a year.

 

So, as TNScouterTroop says, there are plenty of boys out there who want nothing to do with a regular Scout Troop, but will register with a Traditional Troop (an additional 28% of sixth-graders, to be precise).

 

Now to get back to Beavah's actual topic

 

There is certainly no BSA rule or regulation that prohibits a Troop from testing the skills of a potential Transfer before he is invited to join. Suburban Troops with hardcore outdoor "High Adventure" programs often base admission on aptitude to keep their numbers down to a reasonable number (B-P and Hillcourt's HBSM 3rd edition limit that to 32 Scouts).

 

Remember that the BSA during Hillcourt's HBSM 3rd-5th editions (1938-1972) did NOT push Eagle.

 

"Advancement" was just one subset of what Hillcourt called the "Activities Method." See:

 

http://inquiry.net/adult/methods/index.htm

 

So I only stress Tenderfoot through First Class, which usually took 16-24 months.

 

(One Scout earned First Class in five months, but he had a photographic mind. Two years later when he became Troop Guide, I handed him an axe and he headed to the axe yard with the new Scouts. Our program was based on lightweight camping, so he hadn't handled an axe since then. It turned out that he had not only memorized my "axe speech" from two years before [including all my jokes], but he flawlessly imitated my voice [pauses at key points to get the Scouts attention] and bearing [dramatic body language with an axe to stress a point]. But I digress).

 

Where was I? Oh yeah, the biggest difference between my Troop and everybody else's is that although we had 30 Scouts, we never produced more than one Eagle every two years or so. The Troop I work with now in the rural south has about 40 active Scouts and produces about three Eagles a year.

 

Also, our program was based on physical distance, which requires "Real" Patrols, so with the pressure off Star through Eagle we did not have to hold regular elections to feed the POR beast. Instead we stuck with the best leaders. If a bad leader was gung-ho on Eagle, we found some other POR for him.

 

Even if TNScouterTroop decides to push Advancement, I don't see how anyone could possibly object to him testing a Scout's skills before he is "invited" to transfer in. Scouting is a game, a hard-played game.

 

That being said, I never did. I was more interested in whether a new older Scout had the "Natural Leader" skills to camp a Patrol a football field away from anyone else.

 

Nachamawat brings up some interesting points about Baden-Powell and religion (B-P's father was a very famous and very radical 19th century cleric). But I won't comment on that in this thread.

 

As a matter of fact, if anyone wants to debate anything I have written which is not directly related to how Beavah set up his topic, please spin it off so we can discuss it elsewhere.

 

"A Bit Like Merlyn but Worse,"

 

Kudu

(This message has been edited by kudu)

[shortridge]

My understanding is that a CO can certainly restrict membership. If a Jewish synagogue wants to say that only Jewish boys can join, that's it's prerogative. If a VFW post wants to rule that only children of veterans can join, that's it's choice. If a PTO wants to serve only children from a specific school or district, that's fine.

 

But for a troop to say "we only want Scouts who already have these basic skills" strikes me as the worst kind of silliness. We're supposed to be about helping boys learn those skills. If your troop is as top-notch as you think, you ought to be able to get them acclimated and excited by your outings very quickly.

[moosetracker]

Agree with and adding to shortridges post..

 

If your troop is as top-notch as you think, your scouts with tenor in the troop, and your Adult leaders should be able to bring a transfer's skill set up.

[Beavah]

Yah, as yeh all know I'm often amused by the notion that every troop implements da program in the same way. That's just not reality, and it's not what da BSA expects. I know troops that don't use advancement at all, but just run as a middle school outdoor program using BSA facilities and insurance and youth leadership and other program features. Their councils are delighted to renew da charter every year.

 

What TNScoutTroop is talkin' about is not as far off as that, eh? In fact, TNScoutTroop is talkin' about something that is well within the "regular" BSA program. I reckon most of us can recognize a few troops like TN's in our areas, eh? I know I can. I don't think there's any need to "run under the radar", because it's pretty ordinary scouting, with a "strict" view of advancement as being for proficiency.

 

I reckon most of us can recognize a few "advancement mill" troops in our areas as well, if we're honest and payin' attention. And lots of troops somewhere between those two.

 

I think da problem TNScoutTroop is anticipating is one I've seen plenty of times. When a lad from a looser "advancement mill" troop transfers into a "stricter" troop, it can create a lot of tension. Not so much for the lad; the kids adapt pretty well. But parents who are expectin' a continuation of rapid advancement for limited skill proficiency often raise a ruckus, eh? Not much different than what all troops deal with when some cub scout parents move up to troops and don't understand da change in the way the program works.

 

Now yeh might say like Calico that it'd be nice if we were all standardized, eh? Develop a nationwide standardized test or somesuch. That's worked well for schools, eh? Fact is, there are always differences, and da effort to really standardize is way more than anyone is interested in. Besides, we like the fact that some troops go climb Mt. Rainier and set their programs and expectations for that, and some troops manage to get a few inner city kids out camping a few times a year and set their programs and expectations for that. If TNScoutTroop wants to be da former, I think we should welcome 'em and treat 'em as fellow scouts. But TNScoutTroop, be careful not to be too down on da other fine volunteers who are also gettin' kids out into the woods, even if they aren't climbing Rainier.

 

Beavah