Outdoor Program

I want to share a great source for developing your skills! Outdoor leadership is different. What works at a Troop meeting or in the boardroom does not always translate well on a week-long backpacking or canoeing trip. Scouting offers great administrative training and valuable supplemental training in outdoor skills and safety. What we don’t have is a comprehensive training course in the group dynamics of long-term outdoor trips. Author Alex Kosseff has assembled what I would call a college level course for leaders in the AMC (Appalachian Mountain Club) Guide to Outdoor Leadership....

*During his lifetime Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the worldwide Scouting movement, wrote many books and articles directed to Scouters.*Each Sunday I’ll publish a selection from his writings in the hope that you’ll draw inspiration and understanding from his timeless ideas. ALMOST every night for the past few weeks Scouts and Rovers in twos and threes have been camping at my home in their hikes about the country. It is a real joy to me to see them and to note their various forms of camp kit and cooking, and their ingenious gadgets which show the true backwoodsmanship that is developing more widely among them....

… you know you’d like to go! Getting a high adventure trip off the ground sounds difficult, but you can make it happen for your Scouts. This week I’ll discuss some of the things you need to do to set up high adventure, and answer email questions about attendance at outings, and advise a new committee chair Links Mentioned in this Podcast Ken Greenberg’s Troop Patrol Practices Survey High Adventure Planning posts mentioned in Scoutmastership in Seven Minutes or Less...

*During his lifetime Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the worldwide Scouting movement, wrote many books and articles directed to Scouters.*Each Sunday I’ll publish a selection from his writings in the hope that you’ll draw inspiration and understanding from his timeless ideas. The year of Peace has been looked forward to by every man, woman, and child in the land as a release and change from the overclouding horror of war — and nobly the weather has played its part in making it so....

*During his lifetime Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the worldwide Scouting movement, wrote many books and articles directed to Scouters.*Each Sunday I’ll publish a selection from his writings in the hope that you’ll draw inspiration and understanding from his timeless ideas. Not long ago I was shown a pattern schoolboy camp where there were rows of bell-tents smartly pitched and perfectly aligned, with a fine big mess marquee and clean well appointed cooks’ quarters with a kitchen range....

*During his lifetime Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the worldwide Scouting movement, wrote many books and articles directed to Scouters.*Each Sunday I’ll publish a selection from his writings in the hope that you’ll draw inspiration and understanding from his timeless ideas. God didn’t invent physical “jerks.” The Zulu warrior, splendid specimen though he is, never went through Swedish drill. Even the ordinary well-to-do British boy, who has played football and hockey, or who has run his paper chases regularly and has kept himself fit by training exercises between whiles, seldom needs physical drill to develop him afterwards....

*During his lifetime Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the worldwide Scouting movement, wrote many books and articles directed to Scouters.*Each Sunday I’ll publish a selection from his writings in the hope that you’ll draw inspiration and understanding from his timeless ideas. LOTS of Woodcraft and Nature Study should be our Aim. Autumn is already upon us again. How suddenly it comes, and how it catches us if we haven’t laid our plans, in time!...

Some years ago we started a tradition in our troop called Scout vespers every Saturday evening when the troop is camping. “Vesperas” is a Latin word that means “evening” and is a root of the English word “west” where the sun sets. Gathering for a moment of reflection or a religious service in the evening has a long history in practice and symbolism; The Jewish Sabbath begins at sundown on Friday....