How to create patrols?

[Bob White]

Eagle 1982, I don't think you quite get the kinds of commonalities that kids consider when they form groups.

[Cardinal]

Thanks for everyone.

 

Our patrols are set. Interesting mix of ages, too, as we combined clusters. Though they all fit.

 

Interesting selections for PL, too. I'm looking forward to watching this unfold.

 

 

[highcountry]

Since I took over as SM 2 years ago and from my experience as ASM for a year or so before that I have learned a lot and evolved in how we approach patrols. We tried a number of things that did not end up working and had to change from where things were when I took over to where we are today.

 

When I took over, the previous SM only had patrols in name, the scouts did nothing as patrols, they sat in chairs with their buddies at meetings, not in patrols, some of the PL's had bad attitudes and were in their closed cliques. As a result advancement was very little, retention was terribe with new scouts and meetings were dis organized, campouts were few, more than 2/3s of activitiew were cancelled for lack of sign ups.

 

We immediately had teh patrols stand in a group at meetings, and evolved to camping and buddy system in patrols. We tried a variety of things for youth leaders and patrols and finally settled on a fornmula that works.

 

1. The boys can elect, but the SM and ASM's have final say on youth leadership. Giving he boys their say and buy in is great but we had a number of non functioning youth leaders and it made it difficult to get teh troop functioning properly and hindered boy led ideals. Adults ended up taking on WAY too much. When positions open up, the SM generally appoints a youth with the work ethic, responsibility and leadership skills to have the troop function properly.

 

2. Boys aligne dthe patrols but SM and ASM's made a few adjustments.....breaking up closed cliques was not a priority but keeping teh goof off's in seperate patrols really helsp things

 

3. The non active (Ghost) scouts go into a seperate patrol. We have 6 boys who signed back up last recharter who are never seen, they get put into an extra patrol so theri lack of participation and attndance does not effect a viable patrol. These scouts obviously care less if they make it and we could care less if they do as they are not having any effect on the troop.

 

4.We found that re-aligning patrols caused confusion and we spent many months trying to get patrols to identify and function instead of moving ahead with patrol method. We would still have kids hanging with the wrong patrol 6 months after re-alignment and patrol leaders still clueless of their roster moths after election even after being handed theri patrol roster montha fter month. Some scouts never did change their patrol patches. With this mess, it was hard to get them to plan and meet and do things as a group to jell as a team. We add members in as we get new scouts but keeping the core patrols together once they are set, used to each other and working a sa team was key for us.

 

5. we limit the number of positions of responsibility. We got tired of scouts and parents asking for a position once the scout made 1st class so they could advance to Star. We finally changed teh mentality to getting that "checkoff" to one of gaining enough work ethic, dependibility, leadesrship skill and participation that they are trained, earned and ready for one of the fe positions to open up. It helps rally deliver the teaching of leadership and responsibility and helps us meet the goal of boy led troop. We found the Scribe, Historian and Librarian positions were teach boys no useful skills so they got aboolished. The Den Chiefs on a given year function as troop guides once the Webelos cross over to help the new boys who transitioned ans they have built a relationship, we don't have seperate troop guides. We do not have an instructor as we finally got the olders scouts to accept that it is up toa ll of them to help lead the young, and not demand an older scout high adventure program to keep them entertained.

[Eagle1982]

BW, do please explain the commonalities I seem to be missing? I'm always open to other feedback and suggestions. Like I stated, I've never tried it that way, but it is logical (and maybe that's part of the problem)

[SMDonHall]

I'd like to "piggyback" onto this thread:

 

 

Our troop has only in the past year and a half or so really started using the patrol method.

 

We get only 2-3 Webelos crossing over each year, and so we do not use the "New Scout Patrol" idea.

 

The past two years, we've put the incoming boys into one patrol together, with the newer boys, for the most part, being two grades away from the majority of the patrols they entered. So now,our patrols currently look like this:

 

Patrol A: Very active, 10th and 8th graders (7 members)

 

Patrol B: Very active, 9th, 7th and 6th graders (8 members)

 

Patrol C: Small (5 members)only three really active although the other two do show up on occasion, 9th & 11th graders

 

Patrol D: so-called "Leadership patrol" which really functions only as a vehicle for older scouts to either hang out, or not come at all. Currently it has only 2 scouts in it and only one shows up with any regularity. The SPL and ASPL are also considered to be in this patrol, so that makes 4 in that patrol.

 

We are considering getting rid of the "leadership patrol", putting the two members of that patrol into Patrol C, which would then be a patrol of 9th, 11th and 12 graders. The SPL and the ASPL would not be in a patrol. When the current Seniors leave, this patrol would again have only 5 members.

 

We will be getting a few new scouts in the spring. If we were to beef up patrol sizes and make them all similar, we would put them into this patrol C, but there would be a pretty big age gap between the incoming 5th graders and the next youngest which are 9th graders. Currently Patrol A and B work together very well, and they do not want to split up.

 

Has anyone ever had a big gap in ages like this in a patrol. Will it be a problem or do we need to force the other two patrols to rearrange in the spring? We could solve the problem this year by putting the new scouts into the other two patrols, but we'd have an even bigger age gap next year.

 

Don

 

(This message has been edited by SMDonHall)

[Bob White]

My apologies for keeoping you waiting for a response Eagle1982. I did not see your post until SMDonHal resurrected the thread.

 

What I was refering to was things outside of scouting that would help bomfd the Group together.

 

Besides being similar ages it could be that they all like to fish, or that they are all St. Louis Cardinal fans, or they are all into cars, or they all like country western music, or they all play instruments, or they are all on the track team

 

It helps that they have something in common besides scouting that will help them to enjoy each others company.

 

 

[Beavah]

Has anyone ever had a big gap in ages like this in a patrol. Will it be a problem or do we need to force the other two patrols to rearrange in the spring? We could solve the problem this year by putting the new scouts into the other two patrols, but we'd have an even bigger age gap next year.

 

Yah, da answer really depends on the personalities of the lads, eh? Both old and young. Some older boys really blossom when given younger lads to teach and watch out for. Some younger lads are used to "older brothers".

 

Some also depends on the dynamics of your troop. Are patrol competitions "inclusive" in that everyone has to contribute, and the kids are cool with the notion that their performance often depends on their smallest guys, and we cheer no matter what?

 

But to find the real answer to your question, yeh ask your boys. Let them work it out. Like BobWhite says, they know the personalities and players better than you do, eh? Only put a few adult requirements down, like "all patrols must have enough people to be viable on every campout" and let 'em deal with it.

 

They might choose to dissolve patrol C and be a two-patrol troop. Or yeh might find that a lad who is lookin' to break free and become another leader wants to head up a new patrol. All kinds of things. Let 'em figure it out.

 

Beavah

 

[asm 411]

As troops do occasionally we have a need to something with our patrols. We currently have 4 patrols. With 3, 7, 6 and 6 patrol members. The pack in town has no Webelos IIs this year and I have been trying to recruit 5th graders without any luck so far.

 

This leaves us with 4 Scouts aging out well before the next group of Webelos Cross over. Giving us a total of 19 by next September. When I pointed this out to the PLC and asked what we should do this is what they came up with. First they wanted only two patrols because they have been on too many campouts with only two or three Scouts per patrol.

 

Okay that gives us probably two patrols one with 8 and one with 9 probably if you remove an SPL and ASPL for the ranks.

 

The next questions was how to place the Scouts in the patrols. This discussion went on for a very long time. They decided we should have an activity at a regular meeting, they pick checking tents (set them up, make sure they are clean and look for damage).

 

Even though we do most everything by patrols now for this activity the Scouts could pick anyone they wanted to set up the tents in twos or threes. The PLC would observe who worked well together and then using attendance data from the campouts from the last year they would create the new patrols.

 

Our meeting was canceled yesterday because of an ice storm yesterday so the tent check will be next week. I will let you know how it goes.

 

I found it interesting. Do any of you use a similar method?

[CA_Scouter]

Yea, I'm in a similar situation. We started out the year with 3 patrols but with a couple of drop outs and non-attendees we now have patrol sizes of 5, 6 and 5.

 

We have 3 webelos crossing over this year and one ageing out this month, so we'll have a total of 18. I'd like to pare it down to 2 patrols.

 

Let us know how the tent thing goes... sounds like a plan...

 

[roguedawg]

I read on some of the posts that some of the patrols had fewer than 8 members. We tried to keep 8 members and if there were 10-12 members another patrol could form. Years ago, the troop was up to the time to have patrol leader elections. Two boys were upset that they did not get elected as patrol leaders. So my dad came up with the "Patrol Leader Challenge". The PLC was open to any scout, any time of the year. He announced that if any scout was able to recruit 7 boys, he could be removed from the patrol and start his own patrol with himself being the patrol leader. So the two boys rounded up 8 boys between the two of them and started a new patrol. Try this in your own troop with the patrol leaders council.

 

Oh my troop tended to mix up the ages of the boys so the younger ones were being training up the older boys. We also kept buddies together when they came into the troop. We kept the patrols together, but if there were any big issues or personality conflicts, there could be transfers to other patrols. We encouraged the boys to work out any differences since when they would get into the work force, they would learn how to deal with other people.

 

Patrol leaders had to be approved by the SM's, but the boys elected who ever they wanted. Sometimes they made poor choices and were stuck with their leaders for 6 months.

[ThunderFox]

I can only speak to my belief about creating patrols.

 

DO NOT DO IT!!!! DO NOT DO IT!!!! DO NOT DO IT!!!

 

As SM, I would discuss the need for membership accomodation with the SPL. I would explain that we had XX numbers of Webelos coming and remind him what size patrol our troop seemed to be comfortable with. I would explain that the troop has voted every six months that new Scouts would always be blended into existing patrols or into new patrols with 3 or 4 experienced Scouts who volunteered to mentor the new ones.

 

Then the SPL would put this before the PLC and under his wise counsel, the Scouts would do as they saw fit. If they were right, great! If they were wrong, when they figured it out, they fixed it.

 

This method always worked for us.

 

Cheers,

Ol' Thunder Fox

[spl229]

wow that is one extreme i do not want to see. a) the SM shouldnt choose the patrol leaders, b)allow more time for the patrols to develop dont realign them every year you do not establish any grouping or friendship, and c)if you have patrols stick with them do not swithch at campouts.

Yes the terms are too long for a position. have each one be 6 months and have the ASPL take over for the SPL after the six months of his term and so on.

[Cardinal]

Hey, I like the last one about the ASPL taking over for the SPL.

 

We also have an issue with the older boys, who might be SPL or ASPL, or PLs, not going to camp, but opting for high adventure activities, so that position has a void for camp.

 

 

[ThunderFox]

It has long been a boy made policy in our troop for older Scouts to go on the annual high adventure trip; they must give leadership to the younger Scouts at Summer Camp. The founding 15 Webelos made this policy because we had to borrow two older Scouts from another troop when they went to their first Summer Camp with our loan older Scout.

 

They hand down the story to the younger Scouts so they know why the rule. The founders have grown, graduated and moved on, the story and the tradition remain.

 

(Whew!)

 

Ol' Thunder Fox