Information, Observation, and Inspiration for Scouters
When many people think of “camping” they think of gassing up the RV and loading it up with groceries, beverages, maybe the ATVs, video games and sports gear, and heading to the lake, a KOA or a state park and plugging in for a weekend or a week.
To a lot of Scouts and Scouters, that’s not really camping – it’s a vacation in a tin can. But just what is Scout camping?
Troops go camping every month – it’s part of what we do. Continue reading “What is a Scout campout?”
I got an e-mail from a reader:
I’m the advancement coordinator for our troop. Recently I was running the “Scouts Not Advancing” report in Troopmaster and noticed that we have a good number of Scouts who haven’t advanced in rank in 18 months or more. One of our committee members told me that an assistant Scoutmaster used to collect the Scouts’ books, went through them to see what hadn’t been signed off, then told the PLC what requirements were missing to try to get the Scouts to help others advance. What is the best way for the committee to help move advancement along? Should we have some of the older Scouts work with the younger ones to get requirements done? How about a troop meeting where we have a session with sign-off stations?
This is an issue that seems to come up frequently. While some Scouts advance quickly through the ranks, others seem to lag behind for one reason or another, and it sometimes makes the adult leaders wonder how to help them catch up. Continue reading “Scouts who are not advancing”
Time now for a couple more questions from readers.
Social Security numbers in troop records
From a troop committee chair:
Troopmaster has a place in the adult records for a leader’s social security number. Should we be recording the SSNs of our adults? It seems to me like that’s private information.
A unit has no reason to retain Social Security numbers of its adult members. It has no use for them, and in fact it can be a liability to the unit when stored in a database such as Troopmaster, which can typically be accessed by multiple persons in the unit. This is why the SSN field is blacked out on the unit copy of the application form – units are expected not to file that bit of info away. Continue reading “Q&A: More on SSNs, counselor ID numbers”
We sometimes use the terms interchangeably. We have a boy-led troop with boy-led patrols. They read Boys’ Life. “Never do anything a boy can do” is a key piece of advice, and Baden-Powell made frequent references such as “The Scoutmaster teaches boys to play by doing so himself” and “The boy is not governed by don’t, but is led by do.”
It is the Boy Scouts of America, after all. Our constituency is overwhelmingly young men – boys – and we frequently think of them as such. However, when it comes to dealing with them in the context of Scouting, it helps to think of them with higher expectations than merely “boy”. Continue reading “Boys or Scouts?”
One of the most fascinating and fulfilling things about being part of the Scouting movement is watching our young people grow and develop as individuals, team members and leaders.
Every time I sit on a board of review (as I did for two new Eagle Scouts last week), I’m reminded that, in one way or another, the adults of our troop helped these young men grow. We did it, not by doing for them, but helping them see what’s important and how to handle it when they see it. Continue reading “How to help young leaders grow”