throwing up my hands - VENT

[Eagle1982]

If these adults want to get the "Scout" experience, perhaps they can just start their own patrol.

 

On this campout, there could have been a patrol of 6 boys. 2-3 adult leaders and a second patrol of 7-8 adults. Keep the patrols at least 300 feet apart, and both have to do the exact same things. This way the boys can be challenged to "out do" the other patrol.

 

However, the adult patrol has to:

(1) Police the area for garbage at the end of the event, just like the Scouts.

(2) Clean up dishes, just like the scouts.

(3) Participate in all daily activities, just like the Scouts (no picking and choosing)

 

If they want to be Scouts, treat them like Scouts.

 

 

[CalicoPenn]

How do the other lads in the VP feel? Are they all feeling the same as your son?

 

If so - I'd suggest they all take a unified stance and approach the SM and "patrol adviser (I really hate these types of positions) and lay it out - that the lads are not happy with the way the VP is going, and with the heavy adult involvement - and that either changes are made to benefit the lads, or the VP goes away.

 

By any chance, was this a shakedown hike for this summer's adventure? You mentioned that all the adults on this trip are planning on going on the high adventure trip. Seems to me to be a very easy solution - only two adults go along - the rest can all get together and do their own thing - separately from the VP. Except for the ASM, there is no reason for the adults with no boys in the patrol to be going anyway.

 

Lisa - I say go for it - bring the literature on the hiking group in - it may tick some folks off, but they'll also get the message.

 

[Mafaking]

This experiment has failed.

 

The adults couldn't provide the program as stated and thus no further investment of your boys time should be applied to this VP. No amount of discussion will penetrated the heads of these adults. I would advise your son to withdraw from participating in this VP any further. The leaders of this VP will instantly recognize they have failed and attempt to make modest amends. Ignore these as without a complete change in the adult head of this patrol there will be no improvement. Suspend all activity and be patient. State no time of when you will return only in the future you may consider rejoining a restructured VP. The VP leaders need time (1 year likely)to break the perpetual invitation of the adults to accompany them on outings. New VP by-laws may be needed to address the amount of adults that can go.

 

(This message has been edited by Mafaking)

[HICO_Eagle]

You know it's a sign of the times when someone has to complain about having 5 adults for every 3 Scouts on an outing. Most units I've been associated with have had a tough time getting 2-4 adults on a trip. The Boys should be allowed to work their program -- with 10 adults going, I'd say 2 adults could go with the Scouts for safety, the other 8 should form up an Old Goat patrol. Perhaps you could have a discreet word with your Unit Commissioner who could say something to the Troop Committee?

[Lisabob]

HA HA HA HA (sorry HICO, did you mention Unit Commish? We don't have one and our district's UC corp is notoriously weak.)

 

I contacted the SM and asked for a meeting to talk about how to develop youth leadership more generally in the troop. I see the same problems in the troop that I do with this patrol. Adults get frustrated that we don't have excellent youth leaders. But we don't really teach and mentor our youth leaders well either. And then people get frustrated that they aren't leading well, and the adults step in and do it for them because the boys aren't living up to unspoken, uncommunicated, untaught, expectations.

 

We have this problem with patrol leaders.

We have this problem with senior youth leadership (SPL, ASPL, and PORS).

We have this problem with youth-taught skill.

We have this problem every year.

Now we have this problem in the venture patrol.

 

 

I see a trend and I don't think we can blame the boys for it.

 

Calico, I don't know the answer to your question. Based on what my son has said, I think some of them find this to be as irritating as my son does, but I am not certain. Short of asking them (and remember, it is mostly their parents in attendance, which puts them in an awkward position!) I don't know how I could find that out.

(This message has been edited by lisabob)

[HICO_Eagle]

Sorry for raising another sore point Lisa. It sure sounds like your troop needs what we used to call Junior Leader Training or Patrol Leader Training. If the adults want the boys to demonstrate better leadership they need to 1) show them how to do it and 2) give them the room to exercise it. For that matter, your adults seem to need some basic review of traditional Patrol Method. Good luck!

[evmori]

It sounds like the adults in this unit are afraid of the youth failing & then that makes them look bad. They might be surprised at how well the youth would do if they would just get out of the way! Yeah the youth will make mistakes and that is when the adults step in & mentor the youth on how to correct the mistake & make provisions for preventing the same mistake in the future!

[Eagle1982]

A lot of adults think they are helping, when really they are hurting the program. We have adults that constantly break in to whatever the boys are doing to add their two cents. They did it during an outdoor campfire Court of Honor once. The adults didn't realize by breaking in to the boys program, they are making the boys feel bad about the program they put together. The stuff they added was interesting and correct information, but still was butting in. My philosophy is to butt in if information presented could be dangerous (like boys saying to get close to a bear to scare it away). If it's just wrong (like they say to use the wrong knot for something) I let them know in private later, and let the boys make the necessary correction (if they have not already discovered it).

 

Boys need to be modeled, not told, correct behavior. I like an adult patrol that acts exactly like a troop patrol. They can't start correcting the boys, that's the SPL and PL's job. They follow the SPL, just like everyone else. But they work at modeling the patrol method.

 

 

[Eagle92]

How many of these adults are trained, ie. YP, fast start, position, iols, etc.? if they've doen any type of training they would know better.

 

I have mixed emotions on disolving the VP. I've seen them work and keep interested older scouts involved.

 

I think the thorns and roses needs to be done first with the VP,taking notes, but without having names recorded. that way there is some anominity and the scouts won't be between a rock and a hard plac ewith the parents. Then with ALL participants need to have a thorns and roses session. The notes should be read aloud, so that they are expressed in case the youth don't want to confront their parents.

 

IF another VP trip is tried, and I hope it is, a clear set of rules needs to be made before the trip informing everyone of their roles. I would organize 2 groups, adults only and the VP with NO adults. As a concession to the adults, I would allow cell phones or radios for communication. have them start 30 minutes apart, knowing scouts their will easily outpace the adults. make the adutls work as a patrol to keep them occupied.

 

it sounds as if the ASM needs to practice what I call the "All Bundy Approach to Scoutmastering." He needs a camp chair, a cup of coffee, and is only allowed to get out of his chair for A) another cup of coffe, B) calls of nature C) Sleeping, and D) Life or death situtations. As a good friend of mine told me, "If no one is dead or goign to the hospital, it's all good."

 

 

[SMT224]

Every time we get out of the way and let the Scout lead or do a program we are delighted to see how well they do! Baden-Powell was right! If they let it happen, I think the cautious adults in your Troop would be shocked at how well you VP can handle themselves. And perhaps therein lies the problem.

[scoutingagain]

If the boys are 15 - 16 year old scouts, they're not going to change units at this stage of the game.

 

Lisa,

 

I'm looking at this specific issue a bit differently. Not every outing a scout goes on with his friends who also happen to be scouts has to be a unit, patrol or even scout event.

Doesn't your son and his friends ever do anything without the scout unit's adult leadership around? Why can't one of those activities be a simple campout/hike among friends? Those invited to attend? Has no one ever gone into the woods with just friends and not felt the need to fill out forms and follow Gospel as written by Irving, TX?

 

Imagine the adults response to the next scout outing when none of the boys sign up.

 

"Why didn't you guys sign up for the trip next weekend?"

 

"Oh it really sound fun and I'd like to go but my friends and I had other plans that weekend. We're going camping/hiking at someplace, Else. I'll make the next trip."

 

SA

[HICO_Eagle]

If the boys are 15 - 16 year old scouts, they're not going to change units at this stage of the game.

 

I don't know where you get this but I've seen plenty of boys change troops at that age and not just because their family moved. Sometimes their friends or role models have moved and they have realized the troop is no longer meeting their needs.

[scoutingagain]

Well perhaps I should have said they are not likely to change units.

 

More to the point, it doesn't sound like this unit is likely to make the cultural change these boys are looking for in the next couple of years if they havn't done so in the last 3 or 4. So they may need to get their independent outdoor experience outside of scouting. That's a shame.

 

One other thought. And here's a plug for a NH Council High Adventure Experience. Hidden Valley Scout Camp offers a Valley Voyager program that includes a 4-5 day backpacking experience in the White Mountains of NH...Lead by Camp Staff. "A Scout must be at least 14 years old, a swimmer and happy about carrying a backpack" Adult unit leaders do not participate.

See: http://www.nhscouting.org/openrosters/ViewOrgPageLink.asp?LinkKey=17388&orgkey=1812 .

 

SA

[Lisabob]

Wow. Cool, scoutingagain. I spent just a little time in the White Mountains as a kid and have very fond memories. Not doing anything nearly as strenuous as real backpacking! I will forward to my son for his VP's consideration.

 

 

One of my son's complaints after the last 2 hikes has been that the adults are all focused on using the hikes as a means to an end (preparing for a week-long trek in Northern MI national wildlife area this summer). But the boys also want to be able to enjoy the hikes too and not just get through them. Thus, there's a real difference of opinion about things like pacing, the amount of time it takes to prepare and eat meals, what time they should be done each day, how quickly they get moving in the morning, etc. The boys like running ahead, it is true, but they also like stopping to explore interesting things along the way. They aren't cooking gourmet food by any stretch, but they also don't like being told to hurry up, hurry up, with their lunch plans. Stuff like that.

 

It seems they're at cross-purposes with adults who have a different agenda (teach boys discipline so that they can do a week-long hike in remote places this summer and make it to the end point on time). And it seems like both the adult and boy agendas haven't been fully communicated, let alone accepted, by the other side.

 

So let me ask you a question, because I have no experience to draw from here. When you are preparing for a big expedition like a week-long trek, how do you do that? It is one thing to say "have practice hikes" and another to have a sense of what those practice hikes are like? Are your practice hikes tightly controlled or are they just hikes for the sake of getting miles under the belt? I hope that makes some sense because I'm not even really sure how to ask what I want to know.

 

Feel free to spin off and by all means, if you think you can articulate what I'm trying to ask better than I just did, go for it. I think it might be useful for my son to read your responses too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Eagle92]

Grant you my expereience with treks has been by paddling, but some of the same things can apply. For all three 50+ milers I've done, we were told we had to reach X point by Y time. How far we did each day didn't matter, as long as we reached X point by Y time.

 

Now we did break the milage down by days, so that we had an average amount of miles we wanted to do each day. But on two of those treks, we had bad weather come in, and we had to stop far short of our projected goals for the days of the storm. We wound up having to make emergency camps (which we also planned for) and made up some miles the next day.

 

On my third trek, we actually decided to go further than planned one day b/c 1) we had a nice current that put us way ahead of schedule and 2) one of the emergency sites on our ploat plan also had some "luxury" facilities in the form of flush camodes and showers that we wanted to use. It actually turned out for the best that we decided to go ahead of schedule and get to the emergency site as one of the guys with a medical condition started having some major health problems about 45-60 minutes away from that site. A medevac chopper was able to pick him up from that campsite easily, whereas it would have been alot more challenging to get him out of the scheduled campsite.

 

Now for my advice. Make sure that the practice trips do a little more than distance than your planned daily average. That way if an emregency comes up, and you have to stop early for the nite on the weeklong trip, you can make up the milage easier.

 

For the main trip, look for emergency camping spots along the way.

 

Also look for spots that will make medevac easier if needed, and hopefully it won't be.

 

Otherwise go at a nice pace, and do stop to smell the roses and enjoy the sites.(This message has been edited by eagle92)