Everybody is a winner

[Eamonn]

Take my word for it, I'm not really that competitive.

As a Lad I played a lot of sports and had fun.

Winning is a lot better than losing.

 

Back when I was a CM there was a Den Leader. A really nice Lady and great Den Leader. She wanted the Pack to not present awards at the Pine-wood Derby and just give everyone a ribbon for participating. We already were giving out these participation ribbons.

I argued against this. My argument being that in life there will be winners and there will be losers. It was better that these little fellows learned this when they are young and in a safe environment.

I won that one.

But she was also active in our local soccer club. She and some of the other Mothers managed to push through that for our under sevens, no one would keep score and that there would be no goalie.

I was thankful that my son was over seven and had no part in this?? Whatever it was, because it sure as heck wasn't soccer.

If and when we start meddling with election's, they become pointless and we run the risk of people (Scouts) Seeing them as being fixed.

Scouts and Scouting is very much about life lessons.

Ea.

[DLChris71]

I had a son in one of those no score no keeper leagues...the kids even at 3 or 4, are not clueless. They know when they are winning or losing. At least when you keep score you can gauge improvement. Somehow in most youth leagues, and in some real sports league there is always one team that is endowed with a few talented kids that do throttle everyone else 20-1. The question is can you improve as a team to keep it down to 8-1 in the next meeting.

 

Winning takes effort, the absence of winning is impossible.

[OldGreyEagle]

In the Lehigh Valley where I live, there is a School Distric that did away with Validictorian and Salutorian because, as we know, we are all winners.

 

The odd part was that they still play Football and compete in all athletic events and as far as I can tell, those are competitions and scores are kept, there are no exhibitions

[Stosh]

If everyone is all the same, why does BSA promote rank advancement and POS's I would think that in an equalized society there would be no need for leaders. You can't tie a simple knot, no problem, you did your best and that's good enough.

 

"Good enough" makes everyone a winner. Real winners don't settle for "good enough."

 

Just my 2-cents worth.

 

Stosh

[skeptic]

With today's election criteria, it really takes a scout being unpopular not to be elected. Or, somehow, the voting scouts do not understand the procedure. I too realize they are unlikely to go back to even the 90's rules, I think they would be better off to have some form of "real honor" involved again, rather than the way it is now.

 

We old guys that were elected in the early days often went years not being chosen, due to those restrictions. But the prestige and mystery of the Order also were something to which you generally hoped to be invited eventually. All discussed before, so just too bad that our permissive society has so negatively affected this. JMHO of course.

[T2Eagle]

There is one problem specific to OA elections that I've scratched my head over for a few years but without coming up with any solution to: they are elections without consequences for the electors.

 

If a troop elects the wrong person to be SPL, that is picks maybe the most popular but not the most capable or even a not at all capable scout, the troop suffers for it, and the scouts learn a lesson. The election cycle ends and the next election usually has a very different flavor. In my troop a few years ago the selection was so bad that during summer camp there was discussion among the scouts about impeaching the SPL. Every scout who was part of the troop then has made sure that lesson is passed down to all incoming scouts, and our SPLs have uniformly been good, very good, or excellent since then.

 

But if a troop elects a dud, or fails to elect a good candidate, to OA they never feel the results of their decision and so learn no lessons. I have seen this happen within the troop a couple of times.

 

We are a medium size troop with a strong program and good resources so we don't look to the OA to provide anything for the troop. In my time in the troop we haven't really had any scouts who actively participated in OA after their ordeal and so there is no feedback to the troop about the consequences of our selections.

 

Does anyone have any thoughts on this conundrum?

[qwazse]

But if a troop elects a dud, or fails to elect a good candidate, to OA they never feel the results of their decision and so learn no lessons. I have seen this happen within the troop a couple of times.

 

Did the "duds" pass their ordeal?

 

Did they cause harm to the chapter?

[KC9DDI]

To offer a slightly different perspective...

 

More than a few times, youth make decisions based on what we see as the "wrong" bases. We often see this in troop leadership position elections, as well as OA elections. The fact that a non-parent ASM contacted you about this issue makes me think that there is at least a possibility that Scouts may not be voting based on acceptable criteria, and this isn't just a "everyone's a winner"-type issue.

 

So, all I'm saying is, it may be worth doing a little more investigation into the situation before you write it off. I agree that it's not appropriate to change the election results - but maybe the OA and the unit leadership might need to work together the help ensure that Scouts are taking the appropriate factors into consideration when voting.

[T2Eagle]

Qwazse asked:

"Did the "duds" pass their ordeal?

Did they cause harm to the chapter?"

 

A couple I've seen didn't bother going to ordeal. As to whether others caused harm to the chapter -- I don't know. And more to the point: what if they did? It wouldn't have any negative consequences to the scouts who elected them, it wouldn't necessarily result in any of them looking at the election process differently.

 

That's why I say it's a head scratcher to me --- an election with no impact on the electors.

 

[Eagle_23]

KC9DDI: The ASM spoke to the Chapter Advisor. Turns out the CA has first hand knowlege of this scout being a bully. to in short everything worked out and the election is valid.

[qwazse]

I've seen our not-ready-for-prime-time boys bow out of the election or before the ordeal. I've seen one or two of the rest rise up to the ordeal and really get a lot out of the program.

 

All of this played out as they still camped and hiked with the troop, so everyone (except the first-years) had some idea of what was at stake come the next election. So, I think a little lesson-learning did go on.

 

I guess this process is acceptable to the O/A, so I never questioned the lack of formal feedback to non-candidates.