Scoutmaster Podcast 116

And now it's the old Scoutmaster. Three Cubmasters are talking at a round table and the first one says: I don't know about you guys how you guys are doing with uniforms and everything like that. Our Cubs all have scout shirts and scout pants, but they seem to wear the shirts out in like within a year They get torn and worn out.

And the second Cubmaster pipes up and says: well, you know, our guys seem to do okay with the shirts, but it seems like within six months the handbooks are all worn out and torn to pieces. It's amazing how quick they wear things out.

And the third Cubmaster pipes up and says: well, I got a topper for all of you, because my Cub Scouts can wear out a den leader in about 20 minutes. Hey, Adam Cox, the Google Plus. Thank you very much for the joke. All right, This is podcast number one 16.. Hey, welcome back to the Scoutmaster podcast. This is Clark Greene.

Always good to hear from folks out there, So let's look in the mailbag this week. Oh, it's a little thin this week, but we did hear from David Maynard. He said: I'm glad I found the site. I love to read all things scouting. We're glad you found us too, David, over at scoutmastercgcom. That's the home of the podcast and the blog and the vast social media empire of Scoutmastercgcom.

So do come over and visit us and let us know what you're thinking. And you know, when I have a thin week on responses and mailbag stuff, I always like to remind people that that for a podcast to remain kind of a vital and interesting thing, we need to have your opinions, your feedback, your ideas, your questions.

So get in touch at scoutmastercgcom at Verizonnet, scoutmastercgcom at Verizonnet. Like I said, you can always go over and read the blog scoutmastercgcom.

You know our next podcast is the Scoutmaster panel discussion. So if you have a question for the Scoutmaster panel, get in touch right away And maybe you can get in on the recording session for the Scoutmaster panel discussion. It's April and everybody's out camping. That's what I hope. I don't know about you, but around my area we're having what we are calling the March Rollover Days. It's been really cold.

We were out on an OA Weekend this past weekend and it was way down there in the 30s, which is very unusual for our area. But hey, it was good. Sleep and weather, Yeah, it was.

So would you indulge me for a little moment while I climb up on my soapbox. Would you please If you'd rather not fast forward a couple of minutes? Here's an older boy myth in scouting, And this is what the myth says: You can't get older boys to stay in scouting unless you give them a bunch of older boy stuff to do.

And that older boy stuff is: well, we're going to go whitewater rafting, go on ski trips, We're going to have a ferris wheel at the meeting place, We're going to have a half pipe out at summer camp and everything like that. We have to distract them.

We have to entertain them so that they'll want to stay with us and do exciting and cool things. Now we age out- two or three boys out of a troop of 30 every year.

So the older boy program in scouting is not about distracting them and keeping them entertained with these kind of wild things. I'm all about high adventure. I love it.

We go to Canada every year. We've been to Switzerland. Absolutely.

I think high adventure is a great thing. But if you're trying to entertain your older boys and thus keep them involved, I think you're barking up the wrong tree.

What's the older boy program in scouting? Having the real responsibility to run their troop, Having actual real leadership responsibility. Without that, they do get bored and they do walk away.

And they might be placated for a time with these kind of big activities and things like that, But if they don't have real, actual responsibility to run their own troop- you know, past the age of 14,, 15, they're going to get bored and walk away. I'm sorry.

So I'm going to climb down off the soapbox now and we're going to continue with the podcast, This time on the Scoutmaster podcast. In Scoutmastership in seven minutes or less, we're going to talk about fun.

Go ahead, Ask your Scouts one of these days why they're in scouting and they'll say: well, it's fun. Well, what in the world does that mean? It's a good question.

And then we have an email answer about partial completion of Marripe Edges, and that's going to do it for this podcast. So let's get started.

Shall we Scoutmastership in seven minutes or less. We did a recent survey that was trying to look into meeting and outing attendance for Scouts.

What encouraged them to come to meetings? What kind of- you know- complimentary, conflicting things that they have that cause them not to get to meetings or outings? And one of the things that was mentioned as a real attractant for both meetings and outings was fun, Fun.

Well, everybody wants to have fun. Cindy Lauper said best girls just want to have fun.

Why not boys? You know what?

I think fun is something that we really need to have in Scouts. I think that we also need to really understand what that means.

So fun means, in my experience, about three things. You know this is just hey. We're just talking here. This isn't science. I'm just telling you from my experience.

These three things are important for fun And before we talk about them, I want you to start thinking like a 12 year old for just a little while. Go way back, do what you need to do, sit down in a quiet place, Think about you know your time as a 12 year old and think about what motivated you and what seemed to be fun to you.

So once I've got you in that frame of mind, this makes a little more sense. So for our Scouts, friends are fun. Scouts are really strongly motivated to hang out with their friends. I mean, it's a primal instinct.

Do you remember this? As a kid, I remember we would cut classes.

I'm not encouraging that activity, But you know we would. We risked an awful lot to be able to hang out with our friends.

You know, if it came to cutting classes, going to class or being able to hang out with your friends, oh, every once in a while we would cut a class. If we had to spin a tail to tell our parents so that we could all go hang out somewhere together, that's what we would do.

So it's a really powerful, instinctive thing. Hanging out, just kind of being around and doing things with your friends, That's fun. Even school can be fun if you get to sit next to your friends or even if you just share a class with them. I mean boys, we'll go to a lot of trouble and potentially make a lot of trouble to be able to hang out with their friends.

So let's think of that as part of the equation of fun. The other interesting thing is- and it didn't come to me like really fast- It took a long time before I realized that challenge is fun, especially for Scouts. I mean any kind of a physical challenge, from a 15-minute game to a five-day backpacking trip, is fun, And the more challenging the circumstances, the more fun everybody seems to have, at least in retrospect.

So what are some fun things that we've done? Well, how about being huddled under a tarp for hours at the end of a portage trail up in Canada in this really intense, swirling electrical storm. It wasn't like the most pleasant thing to do, but, man, it was fun.

How about slogging up five miles of switchbacks with aching feet and an aching back and just swimming in sweat and having many more miles to go after? When you got over the top of that mountain- I mean, at the time everybody felt like they were going to die, but it was fun.

How about waking up one morning and finding a bear ate all your food? Not fun, No, very unpleasant at the time, but through the prism of memory and this kind of magical thing that happens, these are incredibly great memories. They are accomplishments and that was fun.

So friends are fun and challenges are fun, and even dismal, awful challenges can be fun. So really great challenges, They are super fun. Independence is an important aspect of fun.

I remember the intense sense of independence We felt, you know, as a kid went on a Saturday morning. We'd get on our bikes with three or four of our best buddies and we would head off for the day. That was just the best thing ever At 12 or 13,. With a bike, we had the world at our feet and we just had this whole kingdom that we could bike through.

Now no one knew exactly where we were or exactly what we were doing or exactly when we'd be back. We were on our own and it was magical. We'd spend our money as we wanted, we would wear what we wanted to go, we would say what we wanted to say and we would get back when we wanted to get back, as long as it was somewhat close to the time that the street lights went on, which was the universal signal for heading for home.

Yeah, it's not that we did these marvelous, incredible things. I mean, it was pretty humdrum, you know.

We'd ride around on the bikes, maybe go into McDonald's and maybe be able to afford a thing of french fries or something like that and, you know, go to places that we already knew about. So that in itself wasn't the fun part.

The fun part was is we were on our own and we got to do it by ourselves, and it was just a heady, incredible experience. Do you remember that?

So scouts need to have some independence. They need to be on their own to the greatest extent possible to experience a sense of real independence. That is tremendously fun. Fun is not usually a carefully mapped out or managed experience. It's usually a little chaotic and unpredictable.

So go back to being that 12-year-old self, and maybe a few years younger than that, and remember birthday parties. Now, maybe I'm all alone on this, but I remember birthday parties as not being a whole heck of a lot of fun. I mean, they could be really miserable.

So you go there, you have all your friends, So that's one of the elements of fun. You have cake If you're the birthday boy or girl, you get presents, But it was all kind of controlled and presented by adults and I was supposed to react in predictable ways and my friends were supposed to react in predictable ways And somehow it could just be awful. Not every birthday was awful, but some of them- Oh, you're very, I mean some of them- were not happy days.

I think every one of us can remember a similar experience, All the elements of fun, but it was so highly engineered It just didn't work out to be fun at all. Fun is like one of these things that it seems like if you make fun your goal, you say, well, this will be fun. It has a really good chance of not being fun If you make hanging out with your friends and being challenged and having some independence- your goal. You got a better and even chance of it being something that is fun.

So we're talking about fun and scouting. We aren't talking about matching tablecloths and napkins and paper plates and a piñata and a cake with candles and party favors. We're talking about friends and challenges and independence. If those three things are in a walk around the block, it will be fun. If they're not, in a trip halfway around the world to the great places, it won't be fun. I hope that this helps.

I hope it motivates you to think about fun in the way that a scout does and to make their experience all that much better. You were always on the beat boy, beat boy. Yeah, You were always on the beat boy, beat boy. Yeah, I'm hanging in the street boy, street boy.

Yeah, We were dancing to the beat boy, beat boy. Hi, this is Dr Paul Auerbach And you are listening to Clarke Green on the Scoutmaster podcast. Write me a letter, send it by name Email. That is folks.

And here's an answer to one of your emails. Pete Rivers sent me this email. He says: great show Clark. My question is about partial completions of merit badges.

We have several boys in our troop that have partial completions on several merit badges. Usually they are from summer camp. Some of them are from several years ago and the boys were not given blue cards But a report was sent containing all the merit badge information.

Do the scouts need to find another merit badge counselor to complete the work? We live in a fairly small rural town and we do not have some of the merit badge counselors that match up with what the boys are missing. My advancement chair, a predecessor, would sometimes check off the missing requirement if it was something like you know: show a finished project to your merit badge counselor.

Is that acceptable, or do all the requirements for merit badges have to be checked off by a merit badge counselor for that merit badge to get credit? I brought this up and my Wood Badge troop guide said that I have hit upon a touchy subject.

Since advancement is part of my ticket, I want to know the right thing for my scouts. Any advice?