Scoutmaster Podcast 137

And now the old Scoutmaster.

Hey, Clark Woodhunter, here, Don't mean to bust your chops, but being a Minnesotan, I gotta teach you how to say E-lee properly, Not E-lee, E-lee, That's how that northern tier is. And I tell you what you need to come up some winter and take your boys up there, because it's an awesome program in the winter. It has become a yearly event for our boys now as it's a progressively more advanced every time you go. Have a great day, great show, Thanks Bye. So after all this, I probably won't pronounce E-lee wrong again. Yeah, It's just good there's no high adventure bases in Faribault or Cloquet or Waseka or Lutzen or Aiken or Bemidji, and especially that there's not one up there on Kabatoga in the lake, because, boy, that'd be hard to pronounce now, wouldn't it? Yep, yeah, Okay, then This is podcast number 137.. You betcha? So there you go then.

Well, welcome back to the Scoutmaster podcast. This is Clarke Green. Hey, it sure is good to hear from the folks up in Minnesota. It puts me in mind of this. We're getting ready to go to Switzerland- last year, right, And we have a bunch of scouts ready to go and we're talking to them about you know, a little bit about international travel and what they can expect, and that we said that people would be very interested in speaking to them because they're from the United States and they have this accent that people hear in all the movies. And they kind of looked at us and they said: we don't have accents, So we've all got one, and that's one of the best things about it all, isn't it? Yeah, you betcha. So let's take a look at the mailbag Now. David Copeland wrote in. I had a four-hour drive on Friday and got a chance to catch up on the podcast. I enjoyed the 10 ways to support the senior patrol leader, and that was a couple of podcasts ago, I think 135.. Thank you very much, David. I'm glad you're finding that useful. Bill McFarland wrote in about our last podcast, Podcast 136,

and we had a Scoutmaster panel discussion with Life Scout Enoch, who gave us an interesting perspective of being a scout and working with adult leaders, And Bill said this: He said kudos to Enoch for trying something different. There's nothing more than a troop that just does the same thing over and over again. It's too bad that his troop did not have the choice to reelect him as the senior patrol leader. Although I've never set term limits. there have been times I wish the senior patrol leader would run for office again. And then, as a counterpoint, Bucky Collins wrote in and said this: He says it's understandable. Good leadership has always appreciated The senior patrol leader he mentioned. Enoch is doing a fine job, no doubt, but the time is actually really short and all those who are qualified should be given a chance at the position. You don't want to let leadership abilities wane just because he doesn't have the top post anymore. He can still be involved in another leadership role. It's all too easy for a troop to slide into this deceptive, comfortable position of fixed leadership where the same people are leading over and over again, When all the time what we need to be doing is filling our ranks with new recruits. Many a time in my youth, the kind of click mentality that kept the guys in leadership for a long time ruined a perfectly good troop or a post. A unit always has to be bringing in new members to stay fresh and vibrant. My beloved old troop recently folded after 47 years. At the end we had more skilled adult and young adult leaders and only two younger scouts. so we always need to be recruiting. While Bucky does, there are good thoughts, and I don't know that there's a right or a wrong way to deal with this. I think it depends on where the troop is. If you have a whole lot of younger scouts and a couple of older scouts, well, maybe those older scouts end up in a leadership position a little bit longer than usual. If you have some real go-getters amongst those younger scouts, hey, they may need to move right into those big leadership positions. You got to read what's on the ground and, as has been advised here, you don't want to fall into a rut. just because we elect a senior patrol leader every six months or every year doesn't mean that we can't revisit that tradition of doing things. You know, we'll need to look over the edge of the rut and see what's actually happening on the ground and read that. I think that's a pretty important thing to do. I'm a big fan of getting a broad perspective on exactly what's going on. Try new stuff. Don't get caught in traditions that turn into kind of bad habits over time. This podcast is an interview with author Mike Malone, and a lot of you would be familiar with his new book 4%, A History of the Eagle Scout Award. It's a fascinating read and it's a great book and I really enjoyed talking to Mike and I know you'll enjoy listening. One thing Mike mentions in the interview is another book called The Scouting Party, and I wanted to mention this because there is a review of The Scouting Party and also an interview with the author of that book in a past podcast, and I'll have a link in the post that contains Podcast 137, this podcast- so that you can find that book. If you're a fan of scouting history- The Scouting Party- It's a real good read too. I know a lot of you have gotten the Kindle edition of 4% and I have had lots and lots of questions about when it will come out as a regular old book that you can put on a bookshelf, and Mike's going to answer that question for us best he can in the interview. So that's going to take up the remainder of the podcast. so let's get started, shall we Music? So? friend of the blog and podcast. Michael Esmalone is one of the world's best known technology writers. He was twice nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting and you've read his articles and editorials like The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Fortune and The New York Times. He's the author and co-author of nearly 20 award winning books. Mike is, all importantly, an Eagle Scout and currently an assistant Scoutmaster of Troop 466 in Sunnyvale, California. Now, in this centennial year of 2012- that's centennial year of the Eagle Scout- Mike turned his considerable talent as an investigative reporter and writer, as well as his extensive experience as a scout and adult volunteer, towards a book that no doubt will stand, at least in my humble opinion, as the definitive history of the Eagle Scout award. It's called 4% and subtitled the story of Uncommon Youth in a Century of American Life. I think it's not only an authoritative history of the award, but it's kind of a meditation on the meaning and the spirit and importance of it, and I'm certainly honored to welcome to the podcast.