Thinking of Scouters as coaches … … can help us understand our role in the game. These are just analogies – we aren’t actually coaches, and Scouting isn’t actually a game. Analogies are not exact copies, they only resemble what they represent. What a Scouter does may be similar to coaching, but Scouters hold an unique role in a young person’s life. We are part parent, part coach, part counsellor, part mentor, and part friend....
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....
If the Scouts are leading themselves who is leading the Scout leaders? This week I’ll field a couple of email questions that ask the question “who leads the Scout leaders?” Scouting is a team sport, while we all work to build consensus it’s not a democracy. It is, as BP said, “a jolly game” that depends on families, scouts and Scouters working together in a collaborative process. When people understand their roles in the process, their positions on the team that plays this “jolly game”, things get energized....
21 boys boarded a boat in Poole Harbor… … they had no way of knowing they were pioneering a movement for millions of young people around the world. Several lived well into old age to vividly recount their experiences decades later. Scouting’s pathways are now worn by travel, but each new Scout today has a “Brownsea Island Moment” when they encounter a new and unexplored land, just those boys did over a century ago....
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 11-year-old boy joins Scouting to get his character developed… … and few boys join to attend troop meetings, wear the Scout uniform, or sit before boards of review. Instead, they sign up for fun and adventure. Last month Walter Underwood joined me on podcast 313 to review the first volume of the Troop Leader Guidebook. We got back together with author Mark Ray to review the much anticipated second volume of the Troop Leader Guidebook (due to be in Scout Shops by the end of June)....
What is the ninth method of Scouting? Author Mark Ray begins the second volume of the Troop Leader Guidebook with these words; Back when you first attended Scout leader training, you learned that Boy Scouting has eight methods: adult association, advancement, ideals, leadership development, outdoors, patrol method, personal growth, and uniform. Now that you’re a seasoned leader, however, you realize that there’s a ninth, unstated method: time. Sort of ties everything together doesn’t it?...
What has a Mesoamerican Step Pyramid got to do with this? Today I want to talk about leadership, but I want to see if I can get you to come along with me and really examine what this means in Scouting. Leadership in Scouting is based on discovery. I have (what I hope is a great) analogy to share with you, and this one is a whopper! It’s a really complicated analogy, you may have to go back and listen to it again....
How do I know what frustrates a youth leader? I have been guilty of each of these ten things at one time or another. People who volunteer to work with Scouts are generally good-hearted, well-meaning folks who want to do their best to guide Scouts towards growing into useful, good hearted people themselves. But this goodwill is not enough, we have to strive to develop our skills as adult volunteers. We develop character in individual Scouts; there is no formulaic, step-by-step approach....
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....
What’s your vision for Scouting? Have you ever taken the time to really examine your Scouting vision, how you picture where you are headed as a Scouter? When I first became a Scoutmaster my vision was defined by what I knew at the time. The pictures in my head were so powerful, it sounds silly now, but they were so powerful I was trying to recreate them without understanding them....
Anyone who takes on a position of responsibility as a leader will feel pretty self-important at first. After all, you have been chosen, or you stepped in when no one else did. It’s a big ego boost to have a title, to have people follow your directions. That’s a pretty heady feeling isn’t it… all that power? Power scratches an itch, and some leaders never quite lose their addiction to power....
We tend to focus only on directive leadership roles when we are thinking about engaging our Scouts in leadership, but every Scout can (and ought to) be a leader. Here’s some thoughts you can use to encourage all of your Scouts to engage in leadership. **Leadership is much more than standing in front of the group giving directions.**There are four ways every Scout is a leader – First you lead yourself, second you follow cooperatively, third you help your fellow Scouts, and fourth you shape the directions and plans for your patrol and troop....
“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....
What do we do about outside influences in the lives of our Scouts? To begin with let’s figure out what’s “outside” and what is “inside”? Let’s interpret outside influences on our Scouts as something that is beyond our scope of control and inside influences as something within the scope of our control as Scouters. If you accept the premise that our Scouts are subject to a number of influences beyond the scope of our control, and this is part of the human condition what do we do?...
*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. A FURTHER way of discovering activities that will appeal to the boys is for the Scoutmaster to save his brains by using his ears. When in war-time a soldier-scout is out at night and wants to gain information of the enemy’s moves, he does so to a large extent by listening....
Is it the Council President, commissioner, or Scoutmaster? Nope, listen to find out which volunteers Scouting can’t do without, and to answers to email questions about a new Scoutmaster, Scouts who won’t lead, and new Scout patrols. LINKS Bedwetting and Scouts Kandersteg 2016 MUSIC in this podcast By a Campfire on the Trail Sponsored By ScoutmasterCG.com Backers Podcast: Play in new window | Download Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS Get The SCOUTMASTERCG APP Podcast Archive
… if we have youth leading Scouts who do we lead? Find out who the Scoutmaster leads and directs in this podcast as well as answers to questions about merit badges, Webelos wearing sashes, and adult supervision of patrol meetings or activities. Links in this podcast Blue Card InfographicThe Big Three Resources every Scouter should readGuide to Awards and Insignia Guide to Advancement 2013 Guide to Safe Scouting Music in this Podcast...
Active, aware, Scouters all ask themselves how well they are delivering the Scouting program. There are any number of ways to measure metrics, the Journey to Excellence being the most familiar and widely used tool. I am going to suggest ten questions a Scout troop can ask of itself that do not have metric answers. Hopefully the answers would help shape a long range view, and give some idea of what’s working;...