Question about Patrol Leaders

[gwd-scouter]

For those of you that have mixed age patrols, are the patrol leaders elected to those patrols usually an older Scout? If a younger Scout is elected, how does it work out with the older Scouts in his patrol?

[Stosh]

Our NSP's have assigned older boy PL's. Once their year is up they can either keep their patrol intact or move around, form new patrols or whatever. They then elect their own PL. The only "rule" is that the patrol size is limited to 8 boys. Next year, SM will select the NSP PL's from his corps of qualified scouts and make the assignments.

 

Stosh

[Eagledad]

Really depends on the maturity of the Patrol. I found the mature patrols elect older scouts. But I was also surprise to see that patrols also look at bringing up younger scouts to get experience. Im sure that idea bleeds down from the servant led PLC culture, but sometimes they get a little younger than I would have liked. Still, the older scouts were purposely good mentors.

 

Our average patrol leader age in mixed age patrol was 14, I would have liked it a little older. But our program kept the older scouts pretty busy.

 

I cant remember a problem with older scouts not wanting to be led by younger scouts. I think it was because our Patrol leaders really do lead, so scouts that show a willingness to take on the duties are respected, and also because the older scouts see themselves as mentors.

 

Most of our pains came in same age patrols because friends of the same age tend to not want to take orders from friends.

 

Barry

 

[Gold Winger]

"Most of our pains came in same age patrols because friends of the same age tend to not want to take orders from friends."

 

Orders? Now you did it! No one is supposed to be giving or taking orders in Boy Scouts. It is all about Servant Leadership and if no one wants to do the dirty job, the Servant Leader gets to do it.

[Horizon]

My Patrols are ALL mixed age (we distribute new Scouts rather than create NSPs).

 

Older boys tend to be elected, but in some cases they have elected younger Scouts as the PL as well. They boys will see who needs a POR and use that as one of their criteria ("Billy needs a POR for Star, why don't we let him be the PL for the next 6 months?")

[Stosh]

I guess it was just a little dig at servant leadership, but my boys really like the concept and incorporate it well into the patrols. There seems to be a lot more team work and very little discipline problems because of it. My NSP that had 3 older boys in it had them all quit leaving just the new boys. They reorganized, selected a new PL and began the process recruiting new members. One of the new boys that they have recruited was an experienced boy moving into the area. In the best interest of the patrol they have asked him to be their PL. I find the concept "best interest of the patrol" being floated around a lot of discussion amongst the boys and I'm thinking it has a lot to do with servant leadership of taking care of each other rather than just focusing on self. I find that after getting them started, they learn the processes, they can pretty much take care of themselves and decide for themselves how they want to patrol up. Most of the boys prefer to keep their initial groupings intact.

 

Your mileage may vary...

 

Stosh