LDS Scouting

[SeattlePioneer]

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There are quite a lot of things I admire about the LDS Church and the way it is strongly managed to influence the lives of members.

 

To some extent, Scouting tends to illustrate some of the weaknesses of that approach is my observation as a district Scouter.

 

Units tend to be too small for good den/patrol interaction.

 

Since leaders are commonly "called" or assigned by church leaders, they often lack aedequate experience in the program and perhaps the skills and motivation to understand how to present a quality program.

 

The virtues of the traditional volunteer approach for Scouting has its own weaknesses in finding and motivating leaders. But when you do find them, the result is often really awesome.

 

Our district has an Assistant District Commissioner for LDS units who has done an outstanding job of providing leadership for LDS units over seven years. He's been awarded the District Award of Merit and has probably been nominated for a Silver Beaver.

 

Unfortunately, he is being called to another position and replaced by someone new. I hope that works out for the best, but I will really miss his skill and energy.

 

Does anyone have bright ideas on how Scout district organizations can do a better job of helping LDS units develope quality programs?

 

Are their things LDS church leaders should do that would help improve the quality of their Scout units?

[Eagle92]

This topic comes up frequently, and there was a very long thread on it a few months back, 10 pages worth, and I think a spin off.

 

http://www.scouter.com/forums/viewThread.asp?threadID=292052#id_293268

 

My observations on the matter include the following

 

1) LDS units need to follow the program as laid out by the LDS church.

 

From that discussion thread, reading some of the LDS literature on the net, personal observations, and comments from LDS scouters, the units I have encountered are NOT (caps for emphasis)following the LDS version of Scouting. Yes there are differences between LDS units and everyone else, but the LDS program does minimize that.

 

Are there things I disagree with the LDS program? I admit there are. I wish LDS units did not separate their 11yo. Scouts from the rest of the troop. I also agree with the poster whose comment lead to this spin off, that just as scouts are getting teh KSAs to lead a troop, they are being moved up to a team or Crew. Again from obersvations the 11 yo scouts are treated as Webelos, and the 12-13yos. have too much adult intervention do to the lack of experienced youth leaders.

 

But if LDS units followed the LDS plan differences would be minimized IMHO.

 

2) LDS units need to integrate and participate into their districts and councils more. In the councils I have been in, LDS leaders and units have been rather standoffish, i.e. not attending district and council events like RT, Camporee, summer camp, etc, and the constant turnover in leadership presents communication problems. When I was a DE, it took be over 2 months to get in contact with the SM as folks would not return my phone calls, emails, leaders changed and people didn't know who the new leaders were, etc.

 

As an OA chapter adviser I went through the same thing trying to contact the LDS troop. It can be very frustrating.

 

There has only one exception to the problem above. One district I was in had a bishop who had a very strong scouting background, made sure his units and leaders were involved. He was also the District Chairman, so that helped matters

 

3) LDS leaders need training. In all my time as a trainer, not once have I seen LDS leaders at training. And to be honest the only trained LDS scouters I have encountered are the ones who are dedicated to Scouting, and are not just called to be a Scouter.

 

Again this is not meant to be anti LDS, far from it. But meant to help out.

 

Now what can district to to improve.

 

1) make the effort to welcome the LDS scouters.

 

2) Acknowledge some of the differences in the LDS and the current BSA program, and make accomadations.

 

And I am sure our LDS brothers will enlighten us on some of the problems they have faced.

[magic823]

Since it's my comments that was spun off.

 

My experience as a boy, and my experience as an adult scouter let me to believe it would be exceptionally hard to have a good LDS troop, by virtue of how they structure their programs. The ways I would suggest they change for the betterment of scouting are:

 

1. Sorry, but no Varsity Scouting. Leave the boys in Boy Scouts till they are at least 16. The 14-16 year olds tend to be when the boys are finally learning to be leaders. Yanking them away from the troop leaves a leadership void. It also would allow troops to be a little bigger.

 

2. Combining several wards into a bigger troop. This was it gives boys greater opportunities to lead since it allows a more true patrol system.

 

3. De-emphasize what I see is as the Eagle at all costs mentality that seem prevalent in most LDS troops I've seen. There's no problem in encouraging boys to Eagle, but the push to get it before 14 is excessive and causes a lot of "fudging" of requirements that I've seen.

 

4. Allow their good Scoutmasters to stay in the job. It was a constant turnover of adult leadership in the LDS troops.

 

My experience as District Camporee Chairman and OA Chapter Advisor allowed me to see almost every troop in action. At camporees, my Tenderfoots knew more scouting skills that the Eagles from the LDS troops. From sitting on EBORs I watched unqualified Eagle canidates from LDS troops get approved (we were told we could fail them).

 

Steve(This message has been edited by Magic823)(This message has been edited by Magic823)

[jhankins]

LDS units need to follow the rules put forth by the LDS church, but each unit needs to represent the needs and concerns of the local area.

 

Every Bishop of the church has the flexibility to make the program fit the needs of his constituents, the community he serves. Only have four boys in your church? Recruit outside. Don't have many scouting trained leaders? Invite commissioners and trainers from outside the church to help.

 

We have one ward who only has 2 church members in the scout unit. The other 20+ boys are from the local community who just want to scout with their friends.

 

Are there things church leaders can do to better scouting in their areas? Think outside the box when it comes to bettering the young men of the community, not just about your own boys. If the church is truly responsible for every soul in their area, then step up to the plate and show it.

 

I spent two hours with Brother Pack from LDS/BSA relations this past year and he's one of the most passionate scouters I've ever met. He gave himself goose bumps talking about B-P's legacy and how we can better the church's understanding of scouting. Call him and chat with him. I guarantee you'll get some great insight.

 

[John-in-KC]

I will echo one of E92's comments:

 

- Where there is a good Stake President, there is good Scouting. I've seen a District in my neck of the woods turn around when the Stake President put a priority on Scouting. People came out of the woodwork from the wards, because the word was out: "I am keeping book on this."

 

- I've seen a District out west where the Stake President said "God gave us the Sierra Nevada, let's use it." He also actively encouraged Scouting, but he did it by example: He was an ADC in his home District. From what I learned, he was also willing to be a little less "Law" oriented in having youth and leaders still camping on Sunday.

 

As I've learned so often these past few years, so very much of what we do is all about the people we're with...

[OldGreyEagle]

Just a thought here, the LDS church is not the only Chaterting Organization that has units that "go off the Reservation" at times, it just has the status of being the largest Chartering Organizations

[Eagle92]

OGE,

 

Definitely correct in that I've seen other units go off the reservation. But it's as if 90% of the LDS units I've are off the reservation. One of the problems IMHO is leadership. the units that do go off usually have no or poorly trained leaders. Or leaders who want to do things their way. Seeing that locally with one unit: leaders don't care about training or district activities. they want to do things their way. No problem with that, just don't complain when you don't know what's going on, or your charter is not being renewed, b/c you you don't show up to RT and know when event deadlines are, or that ALL leaders must now have YPT or they are dropped form the charter, meaning you now have no leaders to keep your unit going.

[AlFansome]

As with everything, there are good and bad aspects of the LDS methodology...more often than not it comes down to Scouters' attitudes regarding their service to scouting and their young men.

 

Example:

 

Went to Philmont and attended "Strictly for Scoutmasters". One of the facilitators was from Utah (I assume was LDS)...fantastic, knowledgeable, great attitude, asset to Scouting.

 

One of my classmastes was LDS. His father was an Eagle and was Scoutmaster, he was an Eagle and was now stepping into being a Scoutmaster. He had the absolute worst attitude I've ever seen in a Scouter, bar none. Could not care less at all about the class, didn't contribute, was texting his wife all day during class, and frankly you could tell that he was just doing what was expected of him. I think it's that aspect of leadership in LDS that appears to be the weakness in the model....volunteer leaders are more likely to be motivated and invested than those who are asked to take a particular position. My classmate clearly didn't want to be Scoutmaster, but that's what he was going to be, whether because of his father's expectations or something else.

 

 

 

[jhankins]

I was quite moved when I had an LDS unit commissioner tell a group of brethren that if they were just showing up to scouting because "it was their calling" they were thinking the right way, but not feeling the right way.

 

He put it into perspective for me as a female scouter on how I think it *should* be seen by the church: God is asking you to work with the future generations of church members, to help teach a boy that could possibly be the next prophet. Who are you (the people) to scoff at your duties because it's 'just a calling?' You're being asked and entrusted with the most precious gift we can give to the world, another generation of able-bodied men.

 

 

[Oak Tree]

Around here we regularly see LDS people at roundtable, at the University of Scouting, at district events, and at training sessions as both students and instructors. From what I've seen, that's all good and the people doing that are fine.

 

However, it's also the case that in the council office it appears to be an accepted fact that LDS units are hard to get a hold of, will be the last ones to verify their membership rolls, and generally seem to be more likely to be off the reservation. And yes, I've seen non-LDS units do that, and there look to be some good LDS units, but statistically there's definitely a difference.

 

The LDS units stand out for reasons both important and unimportant. There is constantly a distinction being made "LDS troops will camp together over near the exit at the district camporee so that they can all leave on Saturday evening without disrupting the other troops." Or, "We're going to run IOLS on two Saturdays to accommodate the LDS units." Or, "LDS troops don't split up their boys this way", "LDS troops don't choose their leaders this way", "LDS troops work hard to have all their boys earn Eagle by age 15", "LDS leaders have their own training week at Philmont."

 

I'd prefer not to have one group that so consistently stood out as being just a little bit different. Are the differences bad? I'm sure we could debate each one individually. Quite honestly, it doesn't affect me much. They can run their troops their way, and I can watch them and learn from them just as I'd watch and learn from any other troop.