Scoutmaster Podcast 113

And now the old Scoutmaster. Okay, can I ask this question then?

Yes, sir, What is the penguins in the desert? Two penguins are in a canoe in the desert and the one in the front looks to the one in the back and he says: where's your paddle? And the penguin in the back says: yeah, it sure does. Yeah, Yeah, exactly What. Yeah, I even wrote that one down. I can't get it.

Okay, so they're in a canoe in the desert. Now, what's in the desert Sand?

What are paddles made out of Wood? The first penguin says: where's your paddle? The second penguin says: yeah, it sure does. Yeah, I'm thick on that one.

Where's? Where's? W-H-E-R-E- apostrophe S, and W-E-A-R-S.

Where's, As in, where's out, Where's out? Okay, Where's your paddle?

Where's out? Yep, it sure does.

So how long has that one been floating out there? A long time, Way too long, Way, way too long. I've had to explain it a number of times. Here's three more times.

Yeah, exactly, I've been waiting for you because you've run through it a couple of times in the podcast and you're like: good, what's the answer? What's the answer?

Well, now you know you're in the secret group of people. Now I know I won't tell anybody, No, nor will I tell the joke? No, it'll be on the podcast next week. Hey, this is podcast 113, 113..

Welcome back to this edition of the Scoutmaster podcast. This is Clarke Green. Let's take a look in the mailbag and see who has been in touch. Woodhunter left a nice comment and review on iTunes- Another five-star review. He said: excellent podcast with a wise speaker.

This is a podcast that I look forward to listening to every week and one that I keep each edition of so I can listen to them again and again. Well, thanks very much. That's very kind, Brett Niemeyer. He said: thank you for the podcast. It really helps broaden my perspective as a Scoutmaster in serving our Scouts, our fellow Scouters and other volunteers in our troop district and council.

Thanks so much, Brett, and thanks for being in touch. Lou Rinaldo, who is an assistant Scoutmaster with Troop 628 in the Glaciers Edge Council in Wisconsin, wrote in and said: I really appreciate your work.

Are the podcasts available for a Zoom on the Zoom Marketplace? And Lou notes: a Scout is thrifty. I got my Zoom used.

Well, Lou, thank you for being in touch. I'm glad you're enjoying the podcast And I have, at your prompting, made the podcast available on the Zoom Marketplace.

And you know, it's an untapped part of the market. I didn't realize that I wasn't on there, So now the podcast is available to the two or three dozen Zoom users that are left in the world. Blaze Vitale over on Google Plus sent this report. Blaze participated in one of our Scoutmaster panel discussions recently. He said our Troop had a great meeting today. Using a suggestion in a podcast, I had the boys read pages 36 through 39 of the Scout manual.

Then I stepped back and they made their own patrols. The process was somewhat chaotic but the boys seemed reasonably happy with their decision.

Get the boys to read the book and then do what's in the book. How about that? Good for you, Blaze. I'm glad to hear things are going well. Darren Cranford over on Google Plus said he's listening to the Scoutmaster podcast on Scouts Canada. That was a couple, three podcasts ago.

He said there must be something wrong with Harry Snyder's mic because he sounds awfully funny. Eh, We did have a little cultural exchange of accents on the podcast that we dedicated to Scouts Canada, So do go and listen. In this edition of the Scoutmaster podcast we're very happy to present you with the April edition of the Scoutmaster panel discussion. We had a great guest and hopefully you will find the information useful.

So let's get started, shall we? Hey, it's time for another

Scoutmaster panel discussion. This week we got two out of three, which ain't bad, they tell me, Those two out of three.

We have Larry Geiger down in Vieira, Florida. How you doing, Larry? Good Good evening, Clark. And we've got Tom Gillard in Tallahoma, Tennessee.

Tom, Hey, Clark, how are you? I am doing well. And our third musketeer, Walter, is off on a jet plane somewhere.

He's doing college tours with one of his boys, isn't he? Yes, That's what I heard.

You know who just showed up on Skype? Hi there, Walter's in the airport. Hey, Walter, Yes, I'll sign off. Hey, Walter, I was going to tell you something.

That happened, though, when we were flying back from, or getting on the plane to come back from, Hawaii. We got on the plane and it started raining, and I could.

It was raining, but I could see rain on the window of the airplane, but not on the tarmac, And I thought: and Conan, does the rain fall mainly on the plane? Well, I think I've got to get in line. We'll talk to you soon.

Okay, Bye, You guys have a good talk, Right? Okay Bye, One of the things that I have had several questions about over the past few weeks is talking about Meribadge, blue cards, And I guess if you want to be really doctrinaire and official about it, this is the application for a Meribadge And the first step with that. When a boy gets a blue card, he brings it to the unit leader for a signature.

And what in the world is the unit leader doing? Sign in that?

Why does the unit leader need to sign an application for a Meribadge? I think it's just so you can see what's being worked on And it's just sort of the keep you in the loop and then I can look for a counselor if they have any problems. I agree with all that Tom said for sure. I guess what I wanted to say is that in scouting those kinds of times are designed to facilitate non-confrontational interaction between the adult and the scout. It's part of the adult relationship.

So Scoutmaster conferences, signing blue cards, boards of review, things like that kind of institutionalizes the relationship. It's part of the conversation.

So let's say, John, he's a second class, He decides to work on his forestry Meribadge. He gets a blue card.

Scoutmaster says why forestry? And he says he's curious about that And then he says: well, how are you doing on your second class rank? And the scout says: good, Anyway, I only have two more requirements. I'm working on some first class stuff. Scoutmaster signs a blue card, sends a scout on his way.

So conversation happened, a relationship. I got another example here.

Scoutmaster: hi, Freddie, So I see you're interested in starting another Meribadge. Question: how are you doing on the other 11 you signed up for?

How did you pick this Meribadge? Have you contacted one of the other 11 Meribadge counselors?

Yet How are you doing on getting to first class? And then the question: well, do you want to hold off starting another before you finish a couple of other ones? Maybe we could talk about finishing something one thing before we start another one.

So there's a piece of conversation. You know things like that And so you know.

When he's done, Freddie says: well, I want to start it. Then he signs it.

And some people are going: well, why would you sign it? Well, that's not the point.

The point is they had the conversation. The point is that they interacted.

So, just like with the Scoutmaster conference, it's not there to pass the scout, it's there to facilitate the conversation, to facilitate the interaction. So I don't know.

I think that's really important that we do that. By the way, Freddie's a real scout. That's not his name and he's not in the troop anymore.

But you know, I think he ended up starting 16 merit badges and I think he finished one. But that's about it. I ran across some leaders at a function that troop policy was they would not sign any blue cards. They would not accept blue cards if the scout had X number of open merit badges already. And I piped up and said: you can't do that. And they go.

Well, that's troop policy, That's what we've been doing. I said, okay, Because I wasn't about to change that You weren't going to have a bear in that fight. No, I don't think so.

Well, I think it's important to think about that. Here's what I hear.

Is that a lot of times, unit leaders- and we're mostly talking to Scoutmasters, but I want to include everybody as a team coach and things like that- They think that the signing the merit application for a merit badge, where it says that I approve of this, means that they need to vet the whole situation and tell a scout whether or not he can do a particular merit badge, Maybe because of his age, maybe because of his rank or something like that. That's what I'm hearing from you guys, though You don't think that that's the right way to go.

Well, if a scout came to me and said I'm going to start what, is it life saving? The first question I was asked: do you have first aid merit badges? He says no.

I'd say, well, I guess I can sign this, but there's no reason to because you got to get first aid first. There's two or three where you got to have one before the other, But other than that, no, There's no reason to not sign it. I'm pretty clear on that, And you'd advise him, You talk to him, You give him the benefit of your experience, but you wouldn't deny him the opportunity to go ahead and give a shot at that merit badge. No, I've never not signed one that I can think of. There's merit badge universities. There's the day they're going to spend at the local museum working on a particular merit badge, or something like that.

There's lots of group opportunities, but there's also the individual opportunities. Two or three scouts may run down a counselor and decide to do the merit badge together, And so that would be one of the functions of our signing the blue card would be to make sure that the scout is going to a registered counselor.

Yes, Check out who they're going to go see and know who that is And then encourage them to take another scout or two with them if they want to. If the scout wants the merit badge and they need a mom or another scout or somebody there, Yeah, we typically- a lot of ours- have ended up meeting out over at the library just to have a public venue for something like that And mom or dad is looking around or something They're close by. But this one kid wants to do this merit badge and nobody else wants to.

And I think let me jump in and say that for those who may be listening who aren't familiar, the way that a merit badge counselor relates to a scout is according to the BSA's youth protection policies. So that means there's no meeting.

The scout either has a parent or a buddy with him or they're in a public place or you know, I usually take the opportunity when I'm signing a blue card to quiz a scout about those protection policies and ask him when he plans on meeting with the person and who will be there and things like that, And that doesn't happen all that often. Usually it's somebody within the troop.

So I kind of look at this whole process, you know, as merit badge counselors, meeting with the scout, scoutmaster conferences, blue card signatures, service hour, approval signatures. You know all those kind of things are designed to facilitate communication and the association with adults method. And yet, kind of it's not that we don't want to talk to the scouts at other times, but there are just like at work.

You know we have annual or biannual evaluations. There's a certain institutionalized communication between you know, two parties.

We have the same thing in scouting And it's mostly for that purpose and not for approvals and stuff. It's a really actually it's a great opportunity because, like in the scenario you described, Larry Boy wants to do forestry merit badge.

Why are you interested in forestry merit badge? Well, I, you know, saw something on TV or I read a book or, and I just got really interested in it as well.

Is there, you know? Is there anything else about it that interests you?

Do you know that requirement, that second-class requirement where you have to know 10 plants and animals? Do you have you ever looked at that?

Can you help instruct something like that? And then the other thing is, I think it's really good when the advancement chair gives the scout his portion of the blue card and then eventually the scout gets, gets the card, the merit badge card, because I have had scouts at Eagle time who have had their rear-end saved because they had some documentation like those cards signed by the appropriate people and something got lost along the way, even perhaps in the advancement records in the troops.

So not real common, but two or three times at least. The merit badge card has been like: wait a minute, open their notebook.

You know, I tell the scouts, get a, get a notebook and buy those things for baseball cards and all the scout cards fit in those slots, they're about the same size. And scouts pulled out and said right here, here's my card signed by Mr Geiger and you know the chairman, and and everybody goes, oh, no problem, we have patrol advisors who are the adults that put, they control the computer.

So the scouts give them their books and and they put stuff into troop master through that and they they're the ones that initially get the, the blue card, or. Or they come to me and I signed off that, yes, it's complete, go give it to Mr so and so, go give it to your patrol advisor and he will enter it into the into the computer for you.

So off they go, they keep their part, but the, the unit portion, goes into their file folder in the, in the file cabinet. Same same principle, that way that if they lose them we still got a record, if we, if the counselor, doesn't have their sauce, I think, increasingly, as we have put these things into databases and everything, that it's increasingly easier to follow that trail.

But that little piece of paper can come in handy, right, and and then, when the, when the scout turns 18, you, you pull his file folder and hand it all of this paper. Yeah, that's what, that's what we do.

If we, if a scout leaves in such a way- we know, you know, like, oh, this is when he's moving on, we give him his, his stuff. Occasionally they just disappear, but we have limited space, so we need to get rid of it fairly quick, okay, so joining us for the Scoutmaster panel discussion is Walter Torres, and Walter is up in Chicago, is that right?

Walter? Yes, just outside the city. And Walter, it has been an assistant Scoutmaster for a number of years.

What's going to happen in May, Walter? Um, I get promoted, yeah, yeah, I- Scoutmaster as of May. He's a senior Scoutmaster of five years is retiring.

So you've been through the whole program with three signs. Is that right?

That right? I have 20 year old twins right now and my youngest is 16. All three boys and I started my adult career in scouts when the older, when the twins, were tiger cubs- wow, yeah.

So I was a tiger cub coach and committee chair and then when they we blows, I was we blows den leader and then I was, uh, assistant Scoutmaster when the older boys crossed over and I was den leader- we blows den leader again for my youngest son. That's, that's a long time in cubs. Man, yeah, it is. It really is. That's pretty intense.

Well, god bless you for doing it. So what can we help you with this evening?

Well, our unit has sort of been traditionally adult led, but, um, as of May, when I'm going to sort of be Scoutmaster, I'm hoping to sort of move things around and, um, I've got quite a few of the committee behind it and the committee chair is absolutely behind it. In fact, I've met, I've known him, since our, our youngest, have been in cub scouts.

So, okay, that's a long history there. So one of the things that that was interesting to me was reading these older books, was these patrol activities, patrol hikes, patrol camps, patrol camps and senior and service projects and so forth. But then I've got the new guide to safe scouting, January 12, and it describes, uh, of course, to the to deep leadership, uh, 21 year old, required trips and outings.

And then it says- quote: there are a few instances, such as patrol activities, when the presence of adult leaders are not required. An adult leadership may be limited to training and guidance of the patrol leadership.

And then it goes on with the proper training, guidance, approval of troop leaders. The patrol can conduct day hikes and service projects.

So I guess there's two parts of this. What is there a real list of approved, quote, unquote patrol activities?

And what happened to the patrol camping? I'll do my best to answer. The part that you read from the guide to safe scouting also notes that, uh, while patrols can conduct day hikes and service projects, appropriate adult leadership must be present for all overnight scouting activities.

And, um, that is actually, I think that is fairly new, I would say within the past five or six years. Does that ring a bell with you guys in my background? We, we basically did anything that we wanted to do.

We did have patrol camp hikes, patrol fundraisers. We were all over the community on our bikes with wagons.

Um, you know, we had patrol bike hikes. We did our hiking merit badges alone or with a patrol, barely with an adult.

But since coming back to scouting in 87 I haven't had any experience with patrol camping, as we were saying earlier. It just doesn't seem to come up.

The guys haven't really requested it or they've never said, oh, what's that all about? And I remember doing that as a kid also. We would be all over the place. But, um, my patrols recently have done bike hikes as a patrol. They just plan it and go draw a map.

So there's been some patrol activity and I would encourage that. You know what you just said. The patrol activity is one thing, but they have to get there and they have to get back.

So there's always an adult usually nearby. Somehow. In viera there's a lot of kids that are relatively close by.

They ride their bikes to somebody's house and then go on a 5 mile bike hike and they just one saturday meet at 9am and off they go and they come back. But they tend to do that kind of stuff in our community on their own also.

They get on their bike and ride to the sports fairly common in viera, other parts of florida maybe not so much. So I think there's two answers to one part of this question. One is that there is some specific guidance from the guide to safe scouting about adults being present on overnight scouting activities, sounds like it. And the other one is that in our experience- and I will agree, Larry and Tom, in our experience there's not a whole lot of opportunity at present for patrols just to get together and go on a camp out or something.

How long ago, Larry, for you as a youth in scouting- 40 years, 30 years maybe, alright, so at least 40, maybe, at least 40 maybe. So you go back and things were. Things were a little bit different. It was before the age of the automobile and the airplane, I'm sorry.

Well, my mom didn't drive until I was 14, 12, I don't know. So when I was a kid we went everywhere on our bicycles and my guess is that all your pals and the guys that were in your patrol were within reach of you by bicycle. Oh yeah, the guys that are in our troops now. That's just kind of. There's kind of like a physical impossibility for them to be able to get on a bike and go visit their patrol. In big school districts they can be a 15-20 minute drive apart.

Well, it's kind of cliche, but it was a different time. Back then people, there weren't as many cars on the streets and right now I wouldn't put my kid out on some of these streets for anything. They would get run over. There's kind of like those two answers.

There's a guide to safe scouting, for overnight scouting events, and then we also need to be thinking about just the kind of logistical challenges that there are. Hey, Walter, are we helping any? I mean, I guess the next going with it is the idea of the boys sort of venturing out.

One of Clark's podcast he talked about his guys going out on a camp, out camping together on Friday and then Saturday marching off on their own some distance away, and then the adults sort of dropping in a couple of times during the day just to make sure the mayhem and the bloodshed was at a minimum. And that's pretty much what I was really hoping to do. I would highly encourage that type of activity. When we camp we don't go to KOAs or a lot of times even scout camps.

We go basically into wilderness. There's no bathroom, there's no, you know, it's a, a fire ring and a couple picnic tables, and usually we send the patrols off from the adult campsite, usually near the center of things. I often cannot see the patrols directly.

They're behind the palmettos, they're in a hammock, they're, you know, they're 100 to 400 feet away. They're not in the next county, but you know they're off on their own, they set up their own kitchen, they cook their own meals.

They, you know they come through during activity times. But basically we adults just kind of hang around the picnic table in the fire circle and it all happens kind of around us out there.

And so that seems to me to be the modern version of what in the past was actually the patrol and the patrol leader just with their walking sticks heading out of town, you know, to the little lake like follow me boys or whatever. But so, being in the suburbs of Chicago, it's a little hard for the boys to sort of set off on their own. It's almost exactly what Larry was saying.

But after listening to some of Clark's words of wisdom, we took our, the adults, took their campsite and moved them 100 feet or so away from the main campsite. If we look hard we can still see the blazing campfire and we can sometimes hear them. But they are on their own for the most part. They know where we are and they were not that far away.

But I we did that. This was the the second time.

This past weekend was the second time we've been out there and it seemed to work pretty well again. One of the lines in the the guy who saves counting is appropriate adult leadership must be present for all overnight camping activities.

So the idea of the boys hiking off a little distance or some distance away from the adults sort of brings up the question: what is an appropriate distance of a good distance for appropriate adult leadership? That's left open because every campsite is different and every troop is different.

You know, you kind of have to decide. You know, there's in my troop, for instance, 11 year old, brand new Webelos. I'm not going to send them off the same place that the raven patrol goes and those guys are 16 and 17 year old. They walk off in the woods and go find a campsite that's relatively much further away. We had a backpacking trip last year.

I would say the older scouts were probably almost a quarter of a mile away in another campsite, but close enough for emergencies and close enough to you know one or two adults. You know, like one of the scouts, dads walk by and say hi and you know whatever.

It wasn't so far away that it was a trek. So you know, I think it's open. That way we've got like a 15.

We're on the campsites on a lake with about a 15 foot drop off to the lake, so we keep all the guys together. They're separated but together so the older ones can keep an eye on the younger ones.

And your question puts me in mind of basically that sweet 16 of scout safety and if people aren't familiar with that, I think it's a really good test for anything that we do. If you look at that and you're able to conduct an activity with just considerations, then you're in good shape.

So that can be. And, Larry, I think you hit it spot on with you're talking about like the younger patrol versus the older patrol, reminded me of ability groups and the safe swim defense or in safety afloat, and you know.

So you're going to have to gauge what the ability of a given patrol is, gauge what your level of comfort is with a given patrol being, you know, out of sight, Walter, did we hit most of the things that you had hoped we would talk about so far in the context of this? Absolutely, it's again. We've got a relatively young troop.

My son now is the oldest. He's 16. Let him into the committee chair, son.

They're both 16, so they're less involved as they used to be. The next set of kids are 14, the next oldest and then all the way down we got four new we blows coming over in a couple of weeks.

So we've got a relatively inexperienced group. Like I said, the adult leadership has pretty much been running the show, buying the groceries, cooking the food.

Well, what's your, what's your plan in May? The plan in May is we've got two training camps scheduled. Basically, get the boys sort of organized. I'm fighting the I'm not fighting.

I'm sort of debating on on whether to take one of your advice, your bullet, your podcasts, about having the boys organize themselves into patrols based on their own desires, because there's a we have patrols on paper but no one can point to a patrol leader. So I'm thinking that that would probably be one of the first things to do when we get a critical mass of the boys showing up. How many friends, I'm sorry, you said how many.

How many scouts are in the troop? We've got about 18 on paper and anywhere from anywhere from 8 to 12 show up at a given time.

So we've got the two training camps, then summer camp in the end, middle of middle of July and then we're off until August, which we have a traditional we blows invitation. We invite the we blows around the neighborhood to come to a weekend. I had some good feedback from blaze vitally, who was on the Scoutmaster panel discussion. He he took one suggestion which was he has a smaller troop.

He has, I think, 8 or 12. I suggested that they take the scout handbook and turn to the part that talks about patrols and just read that and then say what happens next.

Well, he did that and he said it worked. Well, that's in my notes to do. I've got quite a few notes from your podcasts. I've got a 35 minute train ride each way every day, which is more than enough time to listen to a podcast and take notes, and listen to it on the way home and take notes again and cross reference them.

Do you have an annual planning conference? Yes, sir, we, yes, yes, we do.

We have them in August for this way. We had our real one this last year, which was the boys ran it absolutely and you could see some of the adults just sort of edged, edgedy and fidgety. Take them out, yeah, yeah, and they did a phenomenal job. Good, yeah, that's vital.

We do ours in May and present it to the committee so we're ready in August to kick off the year. But, yeah, put them in the room and close the door and let it go.

Yeah, you mentioned that before in one of the Costco master roundtables and that's what I'm leaning toward now so the committee can sort of look at it and then finish it up, because it took the committee four and a half months to get through the calendar after the boys did it. Yeah, well, you know how adults are.

That should be about five minutes where they, the boys, present it, they approve it and boy, four months, that's well, they're there. You know it's adults, they're trying again. I got to understand something. The adults in the committee are relatively new to one to three years in the troop. They're all Cub Scout leaders or were okay.

So there's your mindset. Okay, you got some more. I do, I have some work and I'm going to, like some great wise men once told me an email: take it slow and easy and don't lose any sleep. Yeah, you do your best.

Tom's Council has got a new Cub leader deprogramming camp that they're going to set up, and well, that's pretty much what I'm trying to get my training camps to be. It's pretty much deprogramming the adults and then let the boys deal with the younger boys. It's, it's, it's. We've done it last year and it worked out pretty nicely. Scott master wasn't too happy with it, but he didn't say much. Yeah, if you keep the adults out of their hair, you will, it will work.

And my lack of hair doesn't let, doesn't that things cut right through. Yeah, right, Clark. Yes, yes, I am, I am. We are in possession of perfect skulls. Yes, exactly why would one want to cover that with hair, goodness Christ.

So since you're going to be a new Scoutmaster- I'm not exactly sure where it was- I just want to mention this tonight. There was a comment by Rick H yesterday about trustworthy and you read that. Walter and the other guys read that. Yes, it was on this. It was one of the last two or three posts that he commented on about. It was the one I wrote about the heart of the scout law.

But then he talked about trustworthy and he was talking about putting the scouts. He was just saying that he doesn't do this, doesn't keep a list, doesn't do that.

He asked the scouts, you know, and a scout is trustworthy and he runs his troop based on the scouts. Word and boy. That was. I thought that was a powerful comment. That's that's a very important aspect of it and it is.

This is a battleship kind of a turn, you know, or an aircraft carrier kind of a turn. It takes a while. Yeah, oh yeah. If you can get to that point, I mean that's just great. That's what I've been listening and learning with the podcast is to take it slow and don't don't let the adults- what I'm hearing is they don't give it two months- to say, oh, we tried, we're done.

How long did it take, Tom? I'm at a year now.

How long have you been at it? 18 wonderful years. 18 wonderful years. Yes, I listen to the podcast, Walter.

Did we cover everything we needed to cover for you? Absolutely, you, gentlemen. I appreciate your time and your effort and your service that these provide. Again, I listen quite often and I've gained a lot of patience.

I think, oh well, good, I'm glad it's been useful, for you need to have him back in a few months, Clark. Yes, we'll see. Give us a report. Congratulations on that promotion. Thank you, I got a bigger check too. They added one more zero to my check.

Unfortunately, the decimal point moved three to the left, but tell us so. Walter Torres up in Chicago really appreciate you being part of the podcast tonight and wish you the best of luck and your new role as a Scoutmaster next month.

Well, hey, Clark, thanks for the invitation. It was a real gas to to participate and, like someone else said, I can't wait to listen to the podcast. Larry, keep it real down there now.

Thanks, Clark, Tom, I want to hear more about this new facility that's being built down there. I will tell you a lot about it next April 1st.

What was that? April Fool's Joke? You played on us it was. It was some new property that our council has purchased and a lot of different activities that they're going to be able to to do, like a whitewater rafting, class 5 rapids base, jumping off of some of the mountains and three wheeling on some of the cliffs. They're going to keep them off the roads, but they're going to put them near the cliffs with a base jumping, with a landing zone lined in or fenced in with barbed wire to keep people from getting hit correct.

Well, that's just smart. Yeah, I thought so. I know Larry didn't fall for any of that. Tom, this is something you do and you distribute to the district. Yes, certain people that don't get to that won't fall for it too much, but won't get too excited about it. Oh my,