Issue 622 – November 19, 2019

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(Here’s another column that was delayed while we fixed our glitches…)

Dear Andy,

Unfortunately, our troop’s Committee Chair has been bullying our Senior Patrol Leader over our planned orienteering project for “Webelos Woods.” He just sent our SPL an email (yes, he copied others too, which is how I came to see it) that criticized the SPL’s planning and made a point of trivializing the SPL’s efforts.

What can we do to solve this? We’ve considered contacting our District Executive, but we’re not sure if this is the best course of action. (Name & Council Withheld)

Yes, it sounds like there’s a problem here. But the first problem may not be what you’re expecting… The first problem is that the Scout involved here shouldn’t be communicating with the committee chair of your troop, or vice-versa. This flies in the face of how troops are organized!

Your Senior Patrol Leader has one and only one direct adult contact, and that’s the Scoutmaster and no one else.

As for “bullying,” that’s not what’s going on here. This is a clear case of a line-of-communications error.

I’m hoping that you’re the Scoutmaster. If you’re not, then you need to have a conversation with the Scoutmaster right away, so you can get this straightened out—and the Scoutmaster is the person to straighten it out!

A close and collaborative relationship between the Senior Patrol Leader (the troop’s highest-ranking youth leader) and the Scoutmaster (the SPL’s coach, mentor, guide, and teacher) is vital to the success of the troop.

The Scoutmaster is the one who communicates with the committee chair; absolutely not the SPL! Get this fixed and this problem (which is really a symptom of the fundamental problem) will go away instantly!

This is an internal, troop-level problem; your District Executive can’t “fix” this for you and neither can your commissioner staff. For the good of the troop, this is for the troop’s people to fix. I’m hoping this can happen right away.
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Hi Andy,

How many Scouts are required to recharter a troop? (Les Nickerson)

The general BSA policy is that a unit must have a minimum of 5 youth and 3 adults in order to charter. In my experience, for rechartering, that policy is usually the one that’s followed. However, there can be extenuating circumstances so that if there’s a shortfall of either youth or adults, your council’s District Executive will usually go to bat for you, to keep the unit on the books for at least a year so that it can re-grow itself.
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Hello Andy,

My last requirement for Life rank is my 3 hours of volunteer conservation service. I have the opportunity to create a conservation project in the town my grandparents live in, to help recycle wood that would otherwise be burned or taken to a landfill. My grandparents live in a small town where there are a lot of elderly people, many of whom are retired farmers. For these folks, it’s hard for them to throw anything out because they think they might need it someday—this is how they’ve lived their entire lives! My grandparents have collected a lot of wood over the years from helping neighbors build or repair houses, and my grandfather did a lot of carpentry at home when he wasn’t teaching. Plus, many of their neighbors also have garages and sheds full of all kinds of wood that could be used for repairs or even to repair grain bins, chicken coops, and so on. They have been talking about getting a dumpster and hiring someone to get rid of the wood because they physically can no longer do this themselves, but they keep stalling on this because they feel like there’s a lot of wood that may be usable “someday.” My three cousins and I plan to do the “heavy lifting” and we’ve arranged for some adults with trucks to haul the useable wood to some families in the town who are still farming and can put this wood to good use. We have a plan to sort through all the wood and salvage what’s still good, so it can be recycled. There’s a lot of wood and the project will take us probably three or four weekends. Do you think I could use this as a project to satisfy the three hours of conservation work that would be required? Thanks, Andy. (Soon-to-Be Life Scout)

Thanks for reaching out and asking. In my own opinion, your idea sounds terrific. It’s a valuable and noteworthy endeavor and it seems to me that it’s certainly in the realm of conservation.

Take what you’ve written to me and show it to your Scoutmaster. I’d be dumbfounded if he didn’t give you a green light for your idea and your organizational skills to make this happen! (Yes, be sure you talk to your Scoutmaster FIRST!) On to Life… and Eagle!
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Hello Andy,

I hope you can direct me to a cross-reference of Cub Scout activities by rank. This would be a great help in planning pack outings. If, for instance, we’re going on a hike, it would be helpful to know which achievement in each rank a hike is needed for. As a pack, we’ll be discussing this at our November meeting, and I’d like to be able to tell our Den Leaders what we’ll be doing for which of each rank achievement. Thanks! (Elizabeth Piantadosi)

Achievements are, of course, grouped by den-type: Wolf, Bear, etc. So the best bet is probably to describe to each Den Leader what the dens will be doing while on the hike. This way, each Den Leader can review the achievements for his or her Cub “group”—Wolf, Bear, etc.—and then plan to check off the achievements their Cubs can accomplish while on the hike. This way, the Den Leaders “own” the idea and this increases the opportunities across all dens for enthusiastic participation!
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Dear Andy,

At our troop committee meeting last week, our Committee Chair made the point that Scout advancement needs to be slowed down because, right now, Scouts earning their ranks are too immature to deserve them. The Chair made the further point that no Scout should be allowed to work on any Eagle-required merit badges until they’re “older and more mature,” so that they “better understand the importance of what they’re doing.”

Andy, my hair nearly caught fire on this one! I did speak up, and I told the committee that these ideas by our Chair are completely against BSA advancement policy, as described—any one of us can go read it right now!—in the GUIDE TO ADVANCEMENT. But I was alone. Our troop’s advancement chair sat there and said NOTHING. This means I’m effectively “outnumbered,” especially since our Scoutmaster, our Committee Chair, and the district’s Advancement Chair have a solid three-way relationship and I’m not part of that group. What do we do here? (Scout Parent-Troop Committee Member)

Of course what this troop’s Committee Chair is doing by attempting to “slow down” Scout advancement is DEAD WRONG! In plain fact, it’s one of the most stupidly wrong things I’ve ever encountered in my nearly 50 years of Scouting.

Unless you have allies on the troop committee or among the troop’s Assistant Scoutmasters, and the District Advancement Chair is actually unopposed to this slow-down idea, you’re stuck. There’s absolutely no way any corrupted organization has ever been successfully corrected “from the inside,” and any attempt at this will suck dry your own energies and emotions and result in disappointment and rancor.

If you do have allies, or if the DAC does agree that the slow-down nonsense is exactly that, then you’re golden. Go and get this fixed, with the DAC at your side.

But first, focus on your very first responsibility, and that’s your own Scout son. Without hesitation, quietly check out all neighboring troops, looking for those that don’t have this sort of baloney going on, so that—if necessary—you can save your son (and maybe his friends, too) from this horsepucky.

Happy Scouting!

Andy

Have a question? Facing a dilemma? Wondering where to find a BSA policy or guideline? Write to askandybsa@yahoo.com. Please include your name and council. (If you’d prefer to be anonymous, if published, let me know and that’s what we’ll do.)

Although these columns are copyrighted, any reader has my permission to quote or reproduce any columns or column parts so long as you attribute authorship: “Ask Andy” by Andy McCommish.

[No. 622 – 11/19/2019 – Copyright © Andy McCommish 2019]