Scoutmaster Podcast 135

And now the old Scoutmaster. Well, why don't you ask your patrol leader about that?

Well, ask him. Ask him again. Alright.

Well, ask your senior patrol leader about that. Well, where are you supposed to be right now? Hey, this is podcast number 135..

Welcome back to the Scoutmaster Podcast. This is Clarke Green. Let's take a look at the mailbag here. We heard from Bill McFarlane this week. He says wonderful podcast and thank you for your piece on Neil Armstrong. He was one of the reasons I became an Eagle Scout all those years ago.

Everyone remembers his famous words from the moon, but he also gave a shout out to the Scouts on the way to the moon and even carried a World Scout badge with him. Let me add: the scouting with your son piece that you did last time was spot on.

Well, thank you very much, Bill. I certainly appreciate that. Remember, Bill has Bob White's Blather. It's a blog by Bill who's a very experienced troop committee chairman. I ought to make sure to check that out. We're hearing from Ann Olson again.

Last week She tried to correct my pronunciation of the town where the Northern Tier high adventure base is Up there in Minnesota. The town is spelled ELY.

I mistakenly pronounced it Eli a couple of podcasts ago, And then Ann was kind enough to correct my pronunciation of it And last week I had it as Ellie, And you know what She says: this: hi again, Clark. It was a great podcast, but it appears I didn't describe the pronunciation of ELY well enough, though Ellie is pronounced with two long E sounds.

So it's Eli, Eli. Okay, So now we got it. Thanks again, Ann. It's those darn flatlanders again.

You know what I'm saying. Larry Geiger got in touch and said podcast 134, one of the best ones ever. I was sitting in a house 16 miles from pad A watching the video feed from the moon on our old RCA TV set when Armstrong said those famous words. We had just watched the launch of Apollo 11 a few days earlier. While standing down the street looking across the Banana River, My dad was in the LLC manning the video switcher for the cameras on the pad during the launch. It was an amazing time.

And the other feature on last week's podcast: you talked about a young scout slowly gaining independence from his dad, but you didn't tell the other side of the story. I was red faced, tired and sweaty and sore, headed up the last couple of hundred feet to the evening shelter on the Appalachian Trail When who comes around the corner but my son and his best friend Carl? He hiked back down the trail to check on his dad and make sure everything was fine. He offered to take my pack the rest of the way, but I carried it in camp. He helped me set up my tent and we joined the other guys around the fire in front of the shelter for dinner. A few years later, on a Wednesday, after four days on the Appalachian Trail, he drove me all the way home from North Carolina to Central Florida when the base camper came to tell us that my dad probably wasn't going to make it through the day and my wife and mom wanted me to come home.

My son and I have shared many special moments like this at sea base and on our AT hikes and canoe trips and camping And, as you said, if we trust the program and go with it, we're going to get to know our sons a lot better and they're going to get to know us Well. Thank you so much, Larry. I certainly appreciate that This week on the podcast. Just a couple of quick things.

It's Labor Day, for one thing, So you know we're kind of taking it easy, but I have a couple of things for you in Scoutmastership in seven minutes or less. One is 10 ways to work with your senior patrol leader.

And the second one asks the question: why do scouts drop out of scouting? Two things that'll take us into the fall: Lots of camping going on, lots of meetings, things like that. I'm looking forward to it.

I know you are, So let's get started, shall we?

Scoutmastership in seven minutes or less. Senior patrol leader: that's the key leadership position.

Now, how do we work out the relationship that we have with our senior patrol? You're the Scoutmaster. You're supposed to be watching what's going on. You're supposed to mentor this young man through the process of learning to lead.

Well, how does that happen? I've got 10 points for you. One is to let him own the program. I mean, they are responsible for the troop program. They're responsible for meetings and outings. They're responsible for the whole thing.

If he's receiving a written plan and is not actually responsible for the program, he's responsible for running your idea of what the program should be. Let him own it. Let him come up with some ideas, Let him put them together, Let him run them. He'll do a lot better than you think. The other one is: never criticize your senior patrol leader publicly. Don't holler at him.

Don't criticize him in front of other scouts. No other action is going to undercut his authority or the relationship that you form with him than doing that. Number three: give him some direction and some boundaries. Keep him focused on what scouting promises. Show him where the boundaries are, But at the same time you do that, point out the vast possibilities that exist within those boundaries. Number four: be polite.

I'm not polite. Sometimes I have to say and ask permission If he's running something, if he's leading the scouts and something, don't just barge in, Ask permission.

Hey, can I take a moment to say something? Ask permission Instead of jumping in and taking over and doing things.

Hey, do you need any adult support for that? Or what can I do to help you do this Quietly, not in front of the other scouts. Be polite. Number five is to encourage him. There's always going to be problems and challenge is good. He's responsible not to prevent the problems but to lead the troop through them And problems, even if he creates them.

They're not punishable offenses, They're good moments to learn. Number six: set the proper tone for leadership. Scouts aren't soldiers. You're not the captain, The SPL is not the drill sergeant. You're the coach. Your senior patrol leader is the team captain and the scouts are the players.

Find out where the markings are on the field. Stay on the sidelines. Let the SPL run the game. Number seven is: use your authority sparingly. First of all, you don't have a whole lot of authority anyway.

It's a good idea just to think that We have provisional authority where we can step in and we can prevent unsafe or improper actions. But the real authority lies in our youth leadership. When circumstances demand, do this quietly. Like I said, go back and ask permission And see if you can quietly ask a lot of questions. That will lead to a course correction. Don't grab the wheel out of their hands.

Don't hit the brake unless the wreck is imminent. Ask some questions and guide them towards a course correction. Number eight: keep your distance. Keep your distance. Let the scouts live their own lives. I mean: go fold a tent in the storeroom, Go conduct a Scoutmaster's conference, Go sit down, have a cup of coffee, Watch quietly.

Go talk to your fellow leaders, Stay out of their way, Keep your distance. Observe, Observe, but remember. It's their place, It's what they get to do. It's their playing field, And number nine follows up on that, because we guard that playing field.

So we're not just coaches, Sometimes we're referees, And when other adults interfere we've got to redirect their attention to something else. Usually one direct, clear statement about the role of adults is all that you need to do, And don't embarrass them, Be polite.

But sometimes the ref has to step in and remind a coach that he's on the field now and he needs to. You know, hightail it for the sidelines. Number 10. Always give your senior patrol leader plenty of feedback, and plenty means about two minutes in every hour. Don't wear them out.

Don't give him so much that you know he can't process it. Give him plenty of feedback about whatever's happening right.

Then Do it very, very quickly, quietly and politely And then step back, Let him process it, Let him figure it out. That's 10 little hints that have helped me deal with my senior patrol leaders.

And you know, do I hit all 10 of them? Not always.

Nope, But we keep pushing ahead and we keep trying And I think it'll help you sort out how to work out this whole youth leadership puzzle. Hi, I'm Kevin Callan and I'm listening to Scoutmaster iPod. No, I can't.

What is it called? Again, I am Kevin Callan, the happy camper, and you're listening to the Scoutmaster podcast. Ah, beautiful.

Why do boys drop out of scouting? Well, the BSA several years ago did a kind of an exit survey with boys that had dropped out of scouting and this is what they found out. It's pretty simple.

What do you usually hear? What do you usually hear going around and things like that?

Well, there's too many other things that compete with scouting, like sports and stuff like that, and they go and do those. Or, you know, the family didn't have a real commitment to scouting, or the boy didn't have a real commitment to it and when push came to shove, he got shoved, You know. But the real reason, the major conclusion of this survey, was that most boys dropped out of scouting because they didn't get to go camping enough.

I've got a pretty simple theory about why boys join scouting and I think you can back me up on this. They join scouting because they want to go camping, And they want to go camping and do this fun stuff with their buddies, And when they don't get to do that, they lose interest.

Them playing on a baseball team or something like that- well, that looks a whole lot better because you get to do things You know- just sit in meetings and listen to people talk- And it's program and relationships are the two major problems and the two major causes related to boys dropping out of scouting. When they're not having fun they don't want to devote any time to the program.

They drop out so they can have more time to do other things that they like to do more. 23% of the boys that were surveyed left scouting because they had conflict with the unit leaders. That's almost a quarter of the ones that go. They left scouting because they were in conflict with the unit leaders.

Now, units with a really good camping program- ones that go camping once a month- are a lot less likely to have those kind of conflicts. 69% of the boys that left scouting were the rank of second class or less.

Now, advancement is the byproduct of a good camping program. Most scouts in units that camp monthly can definitely rise to the rank of first class within the first year that they're in scouts. I don't think it's worth programming them that way, but they definitely have the opportunity to do that. 71% of drop scouts came from troops who went on eight or fewer outings a year. Only 15% of scouts that dropped out camped every month. 51% of scouts dropped out because their troop had five or fewer outings a year.

So this is pretty easy: Go camping every month and you have a statistical average of very few boys wanting to drop out of scouting, according to this survey. Pretty interesting, huh.

I think we all pretty much knew what this one said before we got started, but it's always good to know that people are asking these questions and see if they back up those assumptions that we make. Go camping every month, you've got a good, solid program and you won't have a problem with boys leaving your troop.