Category: Boy Scouts/ScoutsBSA

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The Order of the Arrow: What’s it all about?

The Order of the Arrow is at once a prominent institution in Scouting and a mysterious one. The OA is nearly as old as Scouting itself, yet it is misunderstood by some and unknown to others. While this is partly by design, there’s much about the OA that every Scouter should be familiar with.

In a four-part series, we’ll do a “101” on the history of the OA, followed by what it means to your troop and its Scouts, the OA and Cub Scouting, and the adult aspects of the Order. Continue reading “The Order of the Arrow: What’s it all about?”

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Dealing with policy issues

RuleBook_200A reader writes:

Our Scoutmaster wants to make changes to the troop uniform policy, but when I said I should have been in on the discussion he told me that uniforming wasn’t something that was at the committee chair level, since it deals directly with the Scouts. I said that changes of that nature need to be incorporated into the troop handbook, and should still be discussed by the committee. Should I have a say in the matter?

Let’s look a little deeper into what you’re asking and see if we can figure out what the real issues are. Continue reading “Dealing with policy issues”

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How often should a troop camp?

tentsA troop committee chair writes:

Our Scoutmaster wants to change our campout schedule so that instead of having monthly campouts, the troop would camp every other month, and do a service project in the months when there isn’t a campout. This doesn’t seem right to me – shouldn’t the Scouts be camping every month?

To start to answer your question, let’s go to the Methods of Boy Scouting and look at the Outdoor Programs method: Continue reading “How often should a troop camp?”

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The other troop library

libraryMost troops have a library of merit badge pamphlets and other information for the Scouts to use in going about their activities. It’s maintained by a troop librarian – a youth position of responsibility – and is primarily run by and for the Scouts.

There’s another library that every troop should have – one for the adult leadership to consult.

We wrote earlier about the responsibilities of the committee chair. Among the responsibilities of a unit’s committee chair is the rather vague but rather ominous duty to interpret national and local policies to the unit.

Just how do you go about doing this? Continue reading “The other troop library”

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Train all you can

untrainedIf you’re a regular reader of Ask Andy, the Net Commissioner, you might have seen this week’s column and you may have been nodding your head as you read along.

(If you haven’t seen it, please go read it now.)

TLDR: There was only one question – a lengthy one – from an enlightened assistant Scoutmaster whose son stumbled into a troop that was run by adults – something they called the “Troop Method”. He, and a few others, knew it was wrong, tried to change things to the Scouts’ benefit, but the old guard put their foot down. The ASM was wondering how to proceed.

You are more likely than not to have encountered some form of the method by which this troop operated. Continue reading “Train all you can”