Working with older Scouts between the ages of 14-18 … … is both challenging and rewarding. What interests keep them involved? Simply turning up the ‘wow’ factor doesn’t do much to keep them engaged, because they are looking for much more than fun. Respecting and understanding what older Scouts need takes patient observation and an open dialogue. Our expectations of older Scouts are often very different than what they are looking for....
Email questions! I’ll answer email questions concerning patrols and planning in this week’s podcast. I think what most of us want is patrols with long storied histories, stable membership, and high functioning Scouts. It’s my suspicion these kinds of patrols only exist in the pages of handbook. I had a dog eared copy the 1940’s era Patrol Leader’s Handbook as a kid. It’s illustrated with line drawings and cartoons of a bunch of cheery fellows doing great things in an orderly fashion....
Scouting discipline is constructive… … because it builds character through applying the Scout oath and law. When we think of discipline we often think of systems of rules and punishments. These things are more familiar to our Scouts than open-ended situation where they follow principles. Asking them to judge themselves rather than issuing judgments may be something new. They will catch the spirit of this, but it takes a little time, and a consistent message....
No matter how we hard tried our Scout Troop planning seemed to be losing the battle for for space on crowded family calendars. Participation in our program was all over the map, some events would be well attended, only a handful of Scouts would show up for others. Patrols were rarely at full strength and our youth leaders were batted back and forth between conflicting commitments. After years of frustration I decided to find some answers....
Can you define Scout leadership without using the words “lead”, “leader”, or “leadership”? The Scout oath and law does a great job of defining leadership without any of those words. Look at the simple promise “to help other people at all times”. That’s where Scout leadership begins: helping other people at all times, by serving others and making things happen. Once you see the oath and law as a definition of leadership, things start to open up....
You probably can’t appreciate what your Scouting legacy will be a few years from now. Today you have your hands and your head full of getting things done; looking into the future may not be high priority. No matter how hopeful or difficult things may seem at the moment, no matter how well or poorly you imagine you are doing, how organized or chaotic things may seem, you are doing important work in the lives of your Scouts....
No doubt – Scout leader training is invaluable, as are the selfless folks who volunteer to train their fellow Scouters (thank you if you do!) I recommend you take advantage of every training opportunity possible. Trained Scouters are more likely to do good, and less likely to do harm. Scout leader training is about technique, facts, and procedures; all admittedly valuable things to know, but training has limitations. There are limited opportunities for developing an understanding of the concepts that inform the techniques, facts, and procedures – to gain the knowledge that enables us to resolve the hundreds of interesting questions Scouting poses....
Many Scouters claim; “We have a youth-led Troop,” but what does that really mean? Official literature mentions this sort of thing often, but how is do we really define “youth-led”? We’d like to think what the Scouts do and how they do it defines “youth-led”, but it doesn’t. Young people lead themselves all the time, it comes quite naturally to them. What adults do is just as important to a youth-led troop as what adults don’t do....
“I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think” ― Socrates On a long November night our group of eight was crossing Indian Pass in the Adirondacks when all but one of our flashlights quit in the cold and rain. We leapfrogged our way slowly by shining our one working light on the trail, hiking twenty yards or so, moving the light to the front of the group, and covering another twenty yards....
Although the founder of Scouting Baden-Powell and the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu lived centuries apart on opposite sides of the world, each describe the same three distinct leadership styles. More often than not we’ll find some aspects all three styles in the same person. I know I have used all three styles at one time or another myself. Leadership is the keynote to success– but leadership is difficult to define, and leaders are difficult to find....
I often hear from Scouters and parents who ask me to help them resolve Scouting problems involving a personality conflict, a disappointment, or other difficulty. Here’s a few recent examples – A parent of Scout who was disappointed by the outcome of an election was pretty sure that the election was unfair. Someone who wanted the Scoutmaster in their troop to hold youth leaders to a higher level of “accountability”. A Scoutmaster who wanted to find a policy that would keep an interfering parent from attending camping trips....
If your perspective of developing leadership is limited to what you believe needs to happen rather than observing what is actually happening you’ll miss opportunities, Let’s imagine we’re sitting around a table with the patrol leader’s council before a troop meeting. There’s a lot of chatting and dithering around, you turn to the senior patrol leader, and he reigns the council in. They’ve decided that they’ll be brushing up on their orienteering skills, and the senior patrol leader looks at you expectantly....
A reader asks: I would really like to hear how various troops handle money. While I am certain there is no “one” right way to handle Scouting and money, I feel we can learn from sharing each other’s methods. How is the money collected, who collects it and when is it collected? How much is an average weekend camping trip, how are these fees determined, and does fundraising cover these expenses?...
More than once, out hiking or paddling, I followed my instincts (the campsite is right over there!) rather than my map and ended up off course. Good pilots and navigators trust instruments over instincts. Compasses point at magnetic north. Scouters have assumptions or impressions about Scouting. Meridians of longitude on maps converge at true north. Scouting aims and principles are the Scouter’s map. To follow a true north meridian on a map with a compass we compensate for the difference between magnetic and true north....
Classroom methods are one way to instruct Scouts, but they are the least effective, (and least fun) way to get the job done. Many of us just don’t know how to instruct Scouts without the classroom approach. Baden-Powell encouraged us to do better; Our aim is merely to help the boys, especially the least scholarly ones, to become personally enthused in subjects that appeal to them individually, and that will be helpful to them....
Contributor Dave Klein lives in Southern California with his wife and two Boy Scout sons. He has been involved in numerous adult leader positions within both Cub and Boy Scouts for 11 years. Dave is Woodbadge trained and has served as Assistant Scoutmaster for eight years. He is also the Troop Activities Chair and Webmaster. Watching a Little League game I realized how much little league and Scouting have in common....
Scouters encourage and assess Scout Spirit in Scouts, but how often do we apply that same scrutiny to examine our own attitudes and actions? Speaking for myself; I don’t always live up to what I’d consider an ideal expression of Scout spirit; but I doubt anyone does either. How do we build Scout Spirit in ourselves? Think of it in terms of first aid training. Exercise Rational Control While we can’t control what happens around us, we can control how we react....
You gotta have a cake! I am more interested in the bigger ideas of Scouting rather than writing about my own Troop or my individual experiences. Bear with me today as I share what’s been going on recently. Short of two years ago I delivered this letter to our Troop Committee: Tuesday, October 09, 2012 To The Committee Troop 24 April 2014 marks my 30th year as Scoutmaster and I have come to the decision that September 1, 2014 will be the date of my retirement....
We set aside today to celebrate the United State’s 238th year of independence. Have you considered the individual “independence day” that is the aim of a Scouter’s work? It’s independence day when Scouts stand on their own two feet, overcome obstacles, best challenges, and take the initiative to set their own path forward. These strides forward into adulthood may look small to us, but fireworks are going off in their hearts and minds....
Before you read these ten common Scouting mistakes, let’s agree that being a Scouter means always moving towards the ideal, but we never truly arrive. Ideals are like stars: you will not succeed in touching them with your hands, but like the seafaring man on the ocean desert of waters, you choose them as your guides, and following them, you reach your destiny. – Carl Schurz 1. Making Things More efficient Would things would go so more smoothly if we just made a few changes?...