Podcast 317 - Troop Leader Guidebook Vol. 2 PART ONE

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? If this were the only idea in the guidebook (and it is not, by any means) it would be worth several times the purchase price.

Last month Walter Underwood joined me on podcast 313 to review the first volume of the Troop Leader Guidebook. Walter is back in this podcast along with 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).

The two volume format harks back to the only two volume edition of the Scoutmaster Handbook published between 1936-1947. The first volume covers everything a new Scouter working with a troop in any position needs to know. The second volume is a resource aimed at (but certainly not limited to) experienced Scouters. Ray shares his experience accumulated over a lifetime of Scouting along with ideas and practices gleaned from a number of previously hard to find resources.

I think you’ll agree with Walter and I, this two volume guidebook is a real game changer. Note that it is not just for Scoutmasters, but a key resource that every Scouter working with a Troop ought to study.

Walter, Mark, and I planned to get together for an hour that ended up turning into two. The edited version of our discussion clocks in at close to an hour that I’ll publish in two segments starting with this week’s podcast.

In This Podcast

A collective noun for Webelos? [0:20]

Intro [1:22]

Interview with Mark Ray and Walter Underwood [7:25]