Scoutmaster Podcast 7 – The Boy Led Troop 2

Comments

1. Frank Maynard says

   May 10, 2011 at 12:13 am

   Yes, our troop has a handbook. When we joined, nine years ago, it ran about eighty pages and contained everything from the Eagle scout process to detailed job descriptions for each youth and adult position (and an attendance and uniform policy). And, we have added policies and procedures since. Our latest addition has to do with some framework for scheduling boards of review, so the scouts will know how to go about it, the parents won’t be asking for exceptions for their kid, and to help preserve the sanity of the advancement chair. However, in recent years the handbook has been getting smaller and smaller, as we delete sections that duplicate already-published BSA and council policies (BSA has been known to change their language from time to time, and to quote an obsolete passage could put you in conflict). Now I enjoy writing policies and procedures. I do it at work, and I think I’m pretty good at not only the language but the way all the bases get covered. But I am thinking that a Boy Scout troop is no place for a thick book of adult-written policies, so for several months now, I’ve been considering undertaking an omnibus revision of the Green Book, as we call it. I don’t know if we can get it down to three pages but that is a worthy goal, and except for the adult job descriptions (we should take out the youth ones, since I doubt the boys would read it anyway), and given that we have fairly complete general-information FAQ sections of our troop website as a supplement, we should be able to cut it way back.