Author and Scouter Mark Ray offers these thoughts on the the GSUSA lawsuit that’s been in the news lately; Did you roll your eyes when you heard the news that the Girl Scouts of the USA was suing the Boy Scouts of America for trademark infringement? That’s perhaps understandable–until you dig into the complaint GSUSA filed. […]
Understanding Scouting
BSA Separate But Equal Plan for Girls
I did not start out as a believer in co-ed Scouting. For most of the last 35 years I’ve been a volunteer with the Boy Scouts of America the status quo worked fine for me, co-ed Scouting was a big unknown, and being unknown it was something to resist. Three Things That Changed My Mind. […]
Where Scout Leadership Begins
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 […]
Girls in the BSA?
Yes, girls in the BSA. I want the BSA to be a fully co-ed organization with no limitations on how girls participate. Before you lose it understand I don’t think girls in the BSA should be forced on anyone. More about that later. I think we can and must make this happen for one simple […]
Authentic Scouting is Viral!
How do you share knowledge or skills with more than one person? If it’s just three or four people we get them together and tell them. Easy, right? What if it’s ten or twenty people? How about thirty? When numbers grow we start thinking in terms of economy. The classroom is an economical model of instruction, we are all familiar […]
Every Scout is a Leader
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 […]
Do What Scouts Do
Imagine, for a moment, there is nothing called “Scouting”, no program, no troops, no councils, no districts, no uniforms, no badges. Someone comes up with an idea for helping young people develop character by getting outdoors and going camping. They share this idea with young people who get pretty excited about it. They get their buddies […]
Three Leadership Styles
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 […]
Inclusive Scouting Map
A reader has taken the initiative to create a map of inclusive Scouting – they write: Though we may not always agree on the policy, we can always agree that more youth in Scouting is a good thing. So for parents, youth, and volunteers that haven’t considered Scouting in the past because of inclusivity concerns, we’ve created this […]
Kazimierz Piechowski – A Scout’s Story of Impossible Odds
In Podcast 270 I tell the story of Kazimierz Piechowski, or Kazik, who grew up as a Boy Scout in Tczew on the border of Poland and Germany. When the Nazis invaded in 1939 Kazik learned the true meaning of the Scout motto. British songwriter, Katy Carr, wrote “Kommander’s Car” a song relating the pivotal moments of Kazik’s […]
Why do Scouts go Camping?
I was dumbfounded when the parent of a Webelos visiting our troop asked; “What about a Scout who doesn’t really like camping?” How would you answer that question? The best I could come up with was; “I don’t really know what Scouting is if we aren’t camping, I don’t think it’s an option.” I couldn’t really […]
Plan-Do-Review
Scouts Canada has created a clear, uncluttered, engaging process in the “Plan-Do-Review” component of the Canadian Path. Scouting is made up of intuitive principles that are intended to be taken at face value. Simplicity can be elusive; we tend to prefer complications. At first blush there’s nothing groundbreaking or new about this approach. It’s so intuitive and simple I think most […]
10 Point Scout Troop Checkup
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 […]
A New Scoutmaster – Chapter Fourteen
This is the fourteenth installment in a story that follows a new Scoutmaster, Chuck Grant, attempting to use the patrol method in a troop that has forgotten how. I’ve based this work of fiction on the stories shared by readers and listeners, questions they have asked, and the advice I commonly share in reply. Scoutmasters can expect to encounter challenges and […]
A New Scoutmaster – Chapter Thirteen
This is the thirteenth installment in a story that follows a new Scoutmaster, Chuck Grant, attempting to use the patrol method in a troop that has forgotten how. I’ve based this work of fiction on the stories shared by readers and listeners, questions they have asked, and the advice I commonly share in reply. Scoutmasters can expect to encounter challenges and […]
A New Scoutmaster – Chapter Twelve
This is the twelfth installment in a story that follows a new Scoutmaster, Chuck Grant, attempting to use the patrol method in a troop that has forgotten how. I’ve based this work of fiction on the stories shared by readers and listeners, questions they have asked, and the advice I commonly share in reply. Scoutmasters can expect to encounter challenges and setbacks […]
A New Scoutmaster – Chapter Eleven
This is the eleventh of twelve installments in a story that follows a new Scoutmaster, Chuck Grant, attempting to use the patrol method in a troop that has forgotten how. I’ve based this work of fiction on the stories shared by readers and listeners, questions they have asked, and the advice I commonly share in reply. Scoutmasters can expect to encounter […]
A New Scoutmaster – Chapter Ten
This is the tenth of twelve installments in a story that follows a new Scoutmaster, Chuck Grant, attempting to use the patrol method in a troop that has forgotten how. I’ve based this work of fiction on the stories shared by readers and listeners, questions they have asked, and the advice I commonly share in reply. Scoutmasters can expect to […]
A New Scoutmaster – Chapter Nine
This is the ninth of twelve installments in a story that follows a new Scoutmaster, Chuck Grant, attempting to use the patrol method in a troop that has forgotten how. I’ve based this work of fiction on the stories shared by readers and listeners, questions they have asked, and the advice I commonly share in reply. Scoutmasters can expect to […]
A New Scoutmaster – Chapter Eight
This is the eighth of twelve installments in a story that follows a new Scoutmaster, Chuck Grant, attempting to use the patrol method in a troop that has forgotten how. I’ve based this work of fiction on the stories shared by readers and listeners, questions they have asked, and the advice I commonly share in reply. Scoutmasters can expect […]
A New Scoutmaster – Chapter Seven
This is the seventh of twelve installments in a story that follows a new Scoutmaster, Chuck Grant, attempting to use the patrol method in a troop that has forgotten how. I’ve based this work of fiction on the stories shared by readers and listeners, questions they have asked, and the advice I commonly share in reply. Scoutmasters can expect […]
A New Scoutmaster – Chapter Six
This is the sixth of twelve installments in a story that follows a new Scoutmaster, Chuck Grant, attempting to use the patrol method in a troop that has forgotten how. I’ve based this work of fiction on the stories shared by readers and listeners, questions they have asked, and the advice I commonly share in reply. Scoutmasters can expect to […]
A New Scoutmaster – Chapter FIve
This is the fifth of twelve installments in a story that follows a new Scoutmaster, Chuck Grant, attempting to use the patrol method in a troop that has forgotten how. I’ve based this work of fiction on the stories shared by readers and listeners, questions they have asked, and the advice I commonly share in reply. Scoutmasters can expect to […]
A New Scoutmaster – Chapter Four
This is the fourth of twelve installments in a story that follows a new Scoutmaster, Chuck Grant, attempting to use the patrol method in a troop that has forgotten how. I’ve based this work of fiction on the stories shared by readers and listeners, questions they have asked, and the advice I commonly share in reply. Scoutmasters can expect to […]
