Scoutmaster Podcast 100

And now to you, Scoutmaster. Now the Scoutmaster Podcast Top 10.. It's not a copyrighted feature of the podcast, but you know.

Here's the Top 10 signs. You've probably listened to the podcast a little too much. That's right. Top 10 signs you've listened a little too much. Number 10. Secretly, Brick Mason is your hero.

Number 9. The happy wanderer is the ringtone on your cell phone. Number 8. People tell you that you're too tense and it makes you giggle a little bit. You gotta think about that one. Number 7.

You've encouraged your senior patrol leader to listen to the podcast. Number 6. You own a Kuiper Pass and you've tried to use it at your camp trading post. Number 5. You own at least one of the books recommended on the podcast. Number 4.

You've quoted the podcast and given the link out to Assistant Scoutmaster's troop, community members and or roundtable attendees. Number 3. All the podcasts are on your smartphone for quick and easy access. Number 2. You've retold the jokes you've heard on the podcast around a campfire. And the number one sign that you've probably listened to too many podcasts: You've listened to the first 99 podcasts and you're still listening.

This is podcast number 100.. Well, welcome back to the Scoutmaster podcast. This is Clarke Green. That was the top 10, was from good buddy of the podcast, Great Scouter, Bill McFarlane. Thank you, Bill, And thank you for your for your best wishes here at podcast number 100 and for your contribution.

Did I mention that this is podcast number 100? Yeah, that's right.

How about that? Huh, I didn't know whether or not we were going to make it a few times, but hey, people keep listening, people keep getting involved and that's going to be the subject of the podcast.

Is your feedback and your involvement? Nothing real serious this time around, because you know let's have a little fun, Because did I mention that this is podcast number 100? That's right, We got the marching band and everything.

So let's listen for a moment as they march by. Thank you, gentlemen, Thank you, Thank you very much. Appreciate it, You too.

Well, now let's get down to business here. Well, Hansman wrote in this past week. He said: I truly enjoy reading the blog, both the content and the comments, And the comments are a real important part of the blog. We're going to talk a little bit about that after a bit. Both the content and the comments help inspire me on my scouting journey.

Well, thanks. Well. Jamie Humphries wrote in. He said this: Hey, Clark, again, thanks for all the words of wisdom you put out every week. Funny thing happened the other day. I was playing your podcast on the two hour drive to one of our council camps.

My son was along with me. He just crossed over from Weeblows and he was riding in the backseat And I thought he was asleep. But he started discussing your podcast with me when we got home.

He downloaded all the episodes so he could listen to them himself. I just thought you might want to know that scouts as well as scouts get a lot out of your material.

Thank you so much, Jamie. Jamie's a brand new Scoutmaster in troop 4277 in Flugerville, Texas. That's where we hear from him. A few people have called in to send their best wishes on the 100th podcast.

Here's a familiar name. This is Frank Maynard of Bob White Blather, here to congratulate Clarke Green on the 100th episode of the Scoutmaster Podcast. Thanks for all your help and inspiration.

Well, Frank, thank you so much and thanks for getting in touch. You know Frank's a troop committee chair and he has a great blog called Bob White Blather And you need to go and check it out because it gives you a really great practical perspective of scouting from that committee position And I found a lot of useful things on there. Thanks again, Frank. We also heard from another friend, Clark. Hello, This is John Marsh from Tacumcy, Tac 607.. Clark, I wanted to congratulate you on your 100th episode.

I've been listening since about episode 30 or so and come to really appreciate your opinion about things and got a lot of benefit from your show. Anyway, congratulations. Thanks a lot, Clark. Take care Well. Thank you, John. Thanks for being in touch.

John also left a question that I'm going to answer in a future podcast about the job of chartered organization representative. So I started the Scoutmaster blog in 2005 and we started the podcast two years ago, And the responses that I receive indicate that people find it helpful And I enjoy hearing from a lot of folks every week And if you're already one of them, thank you.

If you're not, you know, feel free to get in touch. I have kind of a basic idea that several hundred people listen or read regularly, But tracking numbers like that is a really fuzzy and exact science.

The only way to know that people are actually out there is to hear from them directly, either through an email or a voicemail or, you know, through one of the social media networks And there's some really smart people, People that are smarter than me- that read the blog and leave comments as well. It would be remiss of me not to mention Larry Geiger and Tom Gillard and Walter Underwood.

They always added something to the conversation- very experienced scouters, very smart guys, And I invited them to join me on the podcast for the last several months as a member of a Scoutmasters panel, And I'll tell you right now that podcast 101 will feature a Scoutmasters panel discussion And I'm finding those a lot of fun and I'm finding them pretty useful. You can also email- Got a lot of emails in the space of a week, but I'm always happy to read them and respond to them- And you can also subscribe to all the posts that I put up on the blog and you would get notified every time this podcast comes out. You can subscribe on the blog via email at scoutmasterscgcom and you'll get an email notification anytime something new shows up there on the blog. This continues to be a very gratifying experience because people get in touch, because I know that people listen and I know- and they tell me- that they get something out of it- What really got me writing the blog and what got me doing the podcast was the idea that scouting is a pretty universal concept and that it works really, really well. In the case of what I'm doing, it helps a lot of young men through a potentially difficult period of time in their lives. It helps them kind of find their feet, gives them a way to express their interest and energy in a very positive manner.

So scouting has been an effective, meaningful movement to many, many, many of us over the past a little more than a century now, And while the World Wide Web certainly isn't in its infancy- it's still developing- We're still learning how to use these channels of communication and how to work together to make them effective in informing the work that we do as scout leaders. Hopefully, this podcast is a small part of that effort in moving things forward.

The one thing that I think you can draw from any of the messages that you hear here and any of the advice that you get is that we are all in this together. It really doesn't matter where we are- not just in the United States but in the world, because I've had the pleasure of talking to several people outside of the United States and you've heard a couple of the interviews that I've recorded with people in Tunisia and South Africa, places that are going to be culturally very different, But scouting is designed to adapt to different cultures and different ways of life and to address just some basic things about us as human beings, And that is why it works and it will continue to work so long as we apply it right. And no matter where in the world you go, you're going to find that you experience the same triumphs, the same challenges, the same difficulties, the same achievements that all of your fellow scouts do all over the world. It's really quite amazing.

So there are these common things that, once we begin to see and understand them, we can apply to the scouting movement to do a little bit of good in the world and to create some good human beings. And that's what it's all about.

And so long as we can serve that end, we'll keep on with the podcast and the blog and all of that stuff. So my heartfelt thanks in you're making this effort worthwhile. Spread the word, let people know and get people involved in the conversation. That's what really makes it work. That's what really makes this happen.

I want to play a story that I recorded some time ago. I think I may have gotten it into one of the earlier podcasts, but it's one of my favorite stories from summer camp. That's how we're going to close the Scoutmaster podcast number 100.. And again, my thanks to you And you'll hear more about how to get in touch after we're done. Favored, All-Time Boys Scout. Favored All-Time Boys Scout.

Favored, All-Time Boys Scout. You are always on the beat boy, beat boy. Yeah, You are always on the beat boy, beat boy. I'll hang it in the street boy, street boy. We will dance into the beat boy, beat boy. Hi, I'm Kevin Cowan and I'm listening to Scoutmaster iPod.

What is it called again, Hi, I'm Kevin Cowan, the happy camper, and you're listening to the Scoutmaster podcast. Ah, beautiful, beautiful.

Our patrols keep a patrol log and it's summer camp. It's especially useful because it kind of gives them a report on the day that they can bring to the senior patrol leader at our evening patrol leader's council meeting.

So here we are, we're sitting around at night of a, you know, a sultry summer camp day and the bugs are chirping and carrying on. And you know, I've got this one very young new patrol leader.

He's kind of acting like you know a new employee would act in a board meeting or something like that, being very deferential and kind of quiet. You know, when it came his turn to talk about what was in his patrol log for the day, he mentioned that one of the boys in the patrol was somewhat concerned about the snake that was living under his tent platform. That's what he said.

Now you gotta understand where we go camping. There's, you know, snakes.

There's garter snakes, there's a very rare roughneck green snake, There's rat snakes, there's several different kinds of snake, But most importantly there's one that we have to pay particular attention to and that's a copperhead. If you're not familiar with copperheads, copperheads are poisonous.

They're not going to out now kill you, but it's certainly unpleasant to be bitten by one. So as the patrol leader sat there and he said rather quietly: Yeah, you know, Alex is a little concerned about the snake that lives under his tent, It kind of caught my attention. After the patrol leader's council meeting I grabbed one of my assistant scoutmasters and I said: let's go look at the snake that's living under Alex's tent. It might be a good idea.

And so anyway is, you know, we're sleeping on tent platforms. There are wooden platforms, that tents are set on the top and the scouts are headed off to the shower house before they hit the hay for the evening.

And I thought you know, we'll just go down very quietly, We'll take a look at this and see exactly what's going on. So here we are, we're down on our hands and knees kind of looking around underneath the tent platform and there he is, it's a snake.

And guess what kind of snake it is? Can you guess? Huh, Oh yeah, yeah, it's a little. It's a little copperhead.

You know these, I've dealt with these guys before and they're you want to treat them with respect and things. So I asked one of the fellas who is on the camp staff, who was down in the site with us. It's one of our scouts.

I said you know, go on up, find the nature director, tell them we got a snake and tell them to bring the snake stick and stuff down there. You know they've got a, you know we wait about 10 or 15 minutes and the nature director comes running breathlessly into the campsite and in rather a louder voice than I would have hoped, he talks about the copperhead and we've got to capture this copperhead and I'm like, yeah, well, let's, we might be able to do this without causing a whole lot of craziness and let's just keep it quiet. Oh, oh, yeah, okay.

So we begin trying to kind of, you know, reach under the platform and get the snake. And of course the snake is not very interested in this. The snake would rather stay where he's at, he's comfortable. He's got a couple of scouts right there, should he need to bite them, poison them for any reason.

So he's really got a pretty good crib right there and he's not very interested in moving. One thing leads to another right, and finally there's, you know, five adults and scouts and 10 flashlights and there's a lot of hollering.

So our quiet little snake extraction turns into, you know, a major operation and we've completely disassembled the tent platform to get at this snake and finally get it in the snake stick after a whole lot of excitement. And so me and the nature director walk on down the trail to a remote part of camp to release the snake and just, you know, let him be, he'll be out there where he won't bother anybody.

And so I thought, you know, great end of story. The boys won't be concerned about this copperhead.

Of course they'll be concerned that there is a copperhead now under every tent platform, because we didn't manage to do it very quietly but we all headed off to bed and I had kind of figured that we were done. But we weren't. No, of course we weren't.

You know, one of the great things about being in camp with the scouts is that any little piece of news travels very quickly in camp. We call it the moccasin telegraph.

Pretty soon the whole camp knows and then the story gets embroidered and embellished. So here we are, we're walking back from lunch the next day. I get back to the campsite and one of my assistant leaders catches up with me and he says yeah, he says there's quite a story about the snake last night. And I say really.

He says yeah, well, this is the story right now, because as he was walking back from lunch he heard scouts from another troop discussing this. So the story was that there was this huge copperhead coiled up on the bed- not under the platform but on the bed of one of the young scouts in our troop- and it was attacking them and the scoutmaster had to kill it with an axe and then had apparently skin that made a hatband to be sporting at that night's retreat ceremony.

So you know, that's the way the moccasin telegraph works, isn't it? And it has tempted me before to create some stories, but I've managed to resist the temptation. I'll tell them to you here. This is Cliff Jacobson and you're listening to the Scoutmaster podcast with Clarke Green.

Well, thank you, Sir Robert. Anything else, good luck to you and good campus. Thank you very much, Sir. Until next time, everybody. Thanks again