Patrol Method at Camporees?

[Beavah]

Unfortunately, many of the scouts and troops started to become disenchanted with the competitions because one troop in our District won everything, consistently, year-after-year. They were the largest troop - at least four times more scouts than the next largest troop. So, by consequence, they could and did always enter their best, strongest, largest, heaviest, etc. etc., scout.

 

Did this bug anyone else, or just an old Minnesotan?

 

Maybe I'm just daft, but why is a troop competin' as a troop at a camporee? Especially a very large troop?

 

Do the rest of you find a lot of camporees where troops compete and run usin' "troop method" rather than by patrols? Is it because da camporee organizers are as uninformed as summer camps these days, and tend to force things into a troop rather than patrol structure?

 

Troop events and camporee competitions should be by patrol, eh? Yah, it works better if da patrols are mixed-age so that you don't have an "all Eagles" patrol, but at least the patrols should stay intact so a troop can't "mix and match" to produce an A-Team, with the rest of the troop bein' cheerleaders.

 

 

[orennoah]

It's a problem in my District, too.

 

Some of the troops do use the "troop method," including adult-catering and hand-picked patrols, not to mention programs designed around the camporee.

 

While my guys have gotten discouraged, they take pride in their actual patrols and how they use them all year round.

 

With proper perspective, your guys, too, will see that camporees are just for fun, not for determining who's "the best."

[OneHour]

In our troop, we use our patrols to compete; however, we take 1-2 volunteers from the older scouts' patrol to serve as troop guides to our NSPs. Our camporee usually occurs the month after our new scouts join the troop! They are green; as a result, most of their skills for the camporee are ojt (on the job training)! So far, our troop guides or elected troop guides are doing great teaching these skills on the fly. I do not subscribe to the mentality that one or two troops have ... to win at all costs, ie. put together the "A" team.

 

1Hour

[OldGreyEagle]

Just a thought...

 

Way back in my youth, I was a member of a very large and active troop. In the Chicago sururbs in the late 60's early 70's we went to the Grand Canyon, Glacier National Park and the group bicycled to Florida after I aged out. Even in such a robust group of gung ho scouts, there were some of us who were more gung ho than others. Quite frequently at Camporees and the like there would be considerable friction in patrols as the non gung-ho scouts would "let down" the more gung-ho of us. It was quite the morale issue. The Scoutmaster created the Gung-Ho patrol. Scouts who wanted to be the best and guess what? We were the only ones in the troop "allowed" to wear the red berets! To be a member of the Gung-Ho patrol you had to excell at at least one scouting skill, or better yet three or four (morse code/semophore was the exception) and maintain that skill. We werent assembled for Camporees, we were always a patrol and wore our berets with pride.

 

Now. did the scoutmaster subvert the Patrol system? We didnt have fights over why the lame brain couldn't distinguish between an oak and maple leaf as previously. The patrol functioned within the troop and we (or I ) was happy. I remember a parent saying it was wrong because as adults we would have people in our work places who didnt match the boys standards to which the scoutmaster replied yes but birds of a feather flock together. Putting singleminded of purpose boys together to accomplish a goal isn't bad, is it?

[prairie]

At a camporee in 1974-75 I was in a patrol that ran up against one of these uber-trols, I was one of the oldist by that time with quite a few youngsters, in skills where strength mattered little we did well, the tug-o-war against a patrol that was also in football ment we didn't have a chance. In fact some adult leader we had never seen before objected to the fairness of the match up. Don't know where we finished and don't remember who won overall, we still had a good time.

[moxieman]

There are always a few units like this. At our Klondike Derby, I operate the "Claim Jumper" station--scout trivia based on advancement requirements. Get a question right, score a nugget. Get a question wrong and loose a nugget.

 

Advancement questions are based on the highest ranking member of the "patrol", which "levels" the playing field. The Tenderfoots do a lot better then the Lifes and Eagles. (chuckle) Even when I toss the same question at both rank groups. Probably 'cause it's the material is more fresh to the Tenderfoots. Then again, MacGyver was only a Tenderfoot scout.

 

When I get a patrol of greenhorns and a Troop Guide, I give them the option of deciding whether or not the TG participates with the understanding that I can ask questions up to his rank if he does.

 

I'm sure there are other ways in other competition events where you can level the playing field between normal patrols and ubber units.

[CA_Scouter]

Sounds like a SM with a large ego.

 

If the patrols really are their normal patrols, then ok, but if they are formed for the purpose of winning events at camporee, then that's not ok.

 

Guess I'm just stating the obvious though, eh?

 

 

[EagleInKY]

I've had this issue in our district. Our district activities seem to discourage patrol method. For example, the Klondike teams are supposed to be 7 (and only 7) members. If you have more than that, they want the extra members to just run along and not participate. If you have more than 7 they ask you to loan members to other sleds that are under-manned.

 

At our upcoming camporee they have only one real competition. It's similar to a soapbox derby. But they are in teams of two. Troops can enter as many teams as possible. There is no patrol competition. We chose not to participate.

[Chippewa29]

In our district, they have often had two different categories set up for different patrols: ones with Scouts age 11-13 and ones with Scout 14-17. If a troop follows BSA guidelines when setting up patrols, this works out really well.

 

I have no problem with what OGE said. If I had a group of Scouts that were real go-getters and wanted to be a regular patrol, I would seriously see about having that happen. As long as they are a regular patrol, more power to them.

 

The only time I think it would be ok to have Scouts from different patrols is if there weren't enough from each patrol to compete. At a campout my troop hosted (two other troops joined us) last spring, one of the troops only came with seven Scouts (out of 20 in the troop). There was a ton of team building that needed at least 4-5 members, so they combined the Scouts together in one patrol. They just happened to be seven of the best Scouts from that troop (made sense they were the ones to show up) and obviously overmatched the other patrols in a couple of competitions. I had no problem with that.