Scoutmaster Podcast 154

This edition of Scoutmasters podcast is brought to you by the folks in Conahoe Creek. out there, They know camping and they know scouts. They are scouts And they know how to get you great gear and great prizes for all your camping adventures. So go visit them at conahoecreekcom. That's c-o-n-o-h-o-creekcom.

And now for you, Scoutmasters. And they are usually so relieved that somebody came up with an idea that they'll jump on it like a dog on a bone, really work to carry it out and they'll put their own. you know, they'll put their own spin on it. Got dog's berry bones. Every metaphor breaks down at some point. Not the metaphor. Yes, every metaphor breaks down at some point. I'm trying to insert a little folk wisdom. All right, Walter, Here you are. Hey, this is podcast number 154..

Welcome back to the Scoutmaster podcast. This is Clark Greene. Let's take a look at the mailbag. See who got in touch this past week. We heard from Antelope, California, from Jeff Berg, who's Scoutmaster of Troop 22.. He said I just finished listening to the Scout Circle Hangout concerning the STEM NOVA program. Thank you for putting this together. Thank you. He said I just finished listening to the Scout Circle Hangout concerning the STEM NOVA program. Thank you for putting this on. I'll be challenging our older Scouts to create a program that can be implemented for our younger Scouts and presented to the associated pack. I'll let you know how it goes. Thanks, Clark, for all you're doing for us Scouters. I for one can say I'm a better Scoutmaster because of the podcast. Keep up the great work. Thanks so much, Jeff. I always appreciate hearing from people. I'm glad you were able to get something out of our Scout Circle presentation. I'll talk a little bit more about that in a moment. Glenn got in touch and there was a post this past week about keeping older Scouts active and I used an old picture of one of our backpacking trips to illustrate that post And Glenn said: your picture for that post made me laugh. It must be a standard pose. I've sent you a photo of my son doing exactly that on a high-class fall. Yes, I think that pose, which is standing on a rock and looking out over the valley and pointing you know, comes from the old LL Bean catalogs or something like that, is pretty familiar And for some reason it is a pose that boys adopt whenever they get to a high place. I did mention Scout Circle there and we recorded our first live Scout Circle just yesterday evening and it was about the Scouting's STEM NOVA program And if you'd like to see that, it has been recorded and it is available for viewing over at scoutscircleorg And you can go over. take a look at the video and we'd love to get some feedback about these presentations. I'm working with Scouter Arlen Ward Been working to put this together and see what we can come up with. come up with this kind of virtual roundtable experience where we can get people who really know their subject- and they wouldn't necessarily be available to a local roundtable- to come and speak. We think we might be able to do some pretty great stuff. So our next one will be in February, on the second Sunday in February. So keep an eye on scoutscirclecom and we'll keep you apprised of upcoming live events. I checked in again with Bill Fleming this week and let me share that with you. now I've got Bill Fleming from Conahoe Creek on the phone again. Conahoe Creek is a sponsor of the podcast. How you doing, Bill? Doing great, Clark, How are you doing? I got a look at this new thing you put together called the Scout Gear Bundle and I got to say I'm impressed. It looks like everything that a new Scout needs to be able to go camping. That's exactly what it is. These are things that will help you with some of the advancement requirements that you're going to face as you get into scouting and work towards first class. So I think it's a great idea, because what usually happens is a new Scout gets a gear list and then he and his folks go out and they try and find stuff and they're not too sure they don't have the expertise to be able to pick the stuff out and they end up with things that don't work so well. So putting together this bundle is a great idea. Let's talk about one of the pieces of it. For instance, I know one thing that if I tell my Scouts that they need a compass, they might go and get a discount store compass or something like that. that may be inexpensive, but it's not going to work very well. And in the Scout Bundle, one of the things you have in it is a really great Silver 1-2-3 compass. Tell me a little bit about that. Yeah, the Silver 1-2-3 is a very basic compass. However, real often you'll find advanced Scouts using that type of compass. It's good for map work as well as in the field when you're getting ready to actually work a compass course And, being a Silver compass, it comes with a great guarantee. It will give you great years of service, And that's just one of the selections that's made in this gear bundle. There's a first-aid kit and a sleeping bag and a sleeping pad and a headlamp and all kinds of stuff that we won't take time to talk about right now. But go on over to ConahoeCreekcom. I think it's a great idea and I think it's just like having a personal shopper with a lot of experience. help you pick out gear that's going to last a long time and that is going to serve you very well, And also keep looking out. We're going to continue to build bundles based on different needs that people have. Bill, you'll customize this any way people want right. You'll use your expertise to help them choose the right gear for their particular climate. and just because it's in the scout bundle doesn't mean it has to stay in there. You'll switch things out and do whatever they need to get them the gear that they really want, right? Oh, absolutely. In fact, we've had several people already contact us this week wanting to get items switched around a little bit, or even one inquired about an item we didn't even have and we were able to get it for them. So that's what we're all about at ConahoeCreek. Well, thanks, Bill. Everybody get yourselves over to ConahoeCreekcom- C-O-N-O-H-O-Creekcom, and when you get ready to check out, use the special coupon code for listeners to the Scoutmaster podcast: C-G-1-1-3.. So in this podcast, finally, we have our first

Scoutmaster panel discussion of the year and we got a guest and everything. It was a wonderful time and I really appreciate everybody's time in recording that, and that's going to be coming up in just a moment and we'll revise the remainder of the podcast. so let's get started, shall we?

It's time for another Scoutmaster panel discussion.

Well, it's time for yet another Scoutmaster panel discussion, The first one of 2013, and we have the usual suspects assembled. Tom Gillard is down in Tolahoma, Tennessee. Hello, Tom, Hello. Happy New Year to everyone. Happy New Year, Tom. And Larry Geiger is in Vera, Florida. How you doing, Larry, Good, Good, Hey guys. And Walter Underwood is in the tall trees out there in California, out there in Palo Alto. How you doing, Walter, Doing good. And this time around, we have a guest with us and Maury is from Northern California. Hello, Maury, Hello. I've heard from Maury through email a little while back and I asked him to join us and he has some questions for us about the coming of Scoutmaster. So, Maury, give us a little background, Tell us a little bit about the troop you'd be taking over. Okay, Well, actually I'm officially Scoutmaster now. Oh, you are. It happened last night. So our troop is chartered through the American Legion. We have 47 boys And we've got lots of ASMs, lots of committee members. The boys' leadership positions are pretty well filled and they function pretty well, although patrol leader always seems to be one of the hardest jobs to get to work effectively. Generally, our boys' leadership positions are for a year. We do a planning meeting in late August and the boys meet every month for a patrol leader council meeting to plan for the following month. I think our troop is about 20 years old. That's a good size troop with 47 boys in it. Yeah, Something's going right. Here we are, fellas. We've gone to the roundtable or we're hanging out at summer camp and somebody has a brand new Scoutmaster and we want to give them words of encouragement. What's your best advice, fellas? How about we start with Tom? Well, right now it sounds like you've come in on the top of the wave and everything's doing real well, and the hard part will be to keep it that way, to let the boys- I'm on the bottom of the wave right now, Keeping the boys on task, doing what you're doing. It sounds like things are flowing real well for you. The question that I would have is where you want to go with your plan, and you're going to have to kind of decide if you want to drift along or if you want to draw a line and just start over. My first idea would be to just start the whole thing over again, Have a new annual planning conference, Do some training of my own, Get to know the older Scouts. I think you need to be really careful about just kind of drifting through the rest of the spring and not dealing with some of this, if that's what you want to do. So kind of hitting the reset button. Well, possibly, yes, Yeah. so, Walter, what would you say to a guy who talks up to you and says that they just got to be the Scoutmaster? Ooh, condolences, congratulations. It's going to be more work than you expected, but especially because it's so hard keeping your hands in your pockets and letting the other guys do it badly, which is the only way you learn is: you can't learn from success because you don't know what worked right. So I would pick a really small number of things, like one or two, maybe three, expecting that they're not all going to change. if you want to get, say, outings on a regular basis and patrol camping on outings, Just a couple of things. It may take a long time for those to happen. And then troop leadership training: sit down with SPL patrol leaders, have them set goals, see if the SPL has things they want to do. Maybe they have a better idea. Mentor a little bit in the direction of some things. you see that would help. And when you're in doubt, let the program roll. What was your position prior to last night and was this amicable? Were you the first choice or how did you become the Scoutmaster last night? I've been involved with this troop since 2002.. There have been rocky times in the past, but I would say over the last five, six years the ASMs and the boys and the committee have been working very well together And I think for the most part we adults have been fairly effective in not trampling on the boys. I was committee chair until 2009, and since then I've been an assistant Scoutmaster. I've sat in on a good number of the patrol leader council meetings So I have a fairly good rapport with the boys and the current leaders and I kind of understand what their style is. And again, I already have gotten a lot of practice trying to keep my hands in my pockets and keep my mouth shut so the boys can do their work. But I'm not coming at this completely cold and I have a relationship with the boys and the leaders already, luckily. You asked about the transition. The transition was completely amicable. Our previous Scoutmaster was doing a good job. His youngest son is starting as a Tiger Cub so he needs to kind of refocus his efforts and he'd finished a three-year tenure. We went through the standard process looking for a new Scoutmaster and I put my name in. I don't know what order I was. If you follow the process as it's written in the BSA rules, you don't know. And to be honest, it wouldn't matter because I'm the Scoutmaster now, regardless of how many candidates they went through. Oh, you're stuck, brother. Yeah, One of the things that I've seen. I'll get a lot of boys tell me I did the square knot for this rank, or I learned the clothe hitch for this rank so I don't need to do that anymore. Well, I know what I'd like to have happen, but I've been concerned for a long time that the attitude is: I did that requirement, I'm done, I never have to worry about it again. I was just curious about your comments on that. Okay, That's a pep one for Larry. Watch out. If they're going to be Star Life or Eagle, they're going to take a position of responsibility and you guys have heard this before. It's their job to lead, train and inspire those younger scouts to achieve first class and part of that job is teaching them those skills. You know there's different ways to do that: within the patrols or with instructor positions. I never was good at backing off of that. I kept telling them face to face. on some occasion some of the older scouts- that's your job, you know, And I mean the senior patrol leader- would pick out two guys and say: you know, you 16-year-old scout, you go, take those two 11-year-olds, learn Bolans or First Aid. I mean you have to make it part of the culture of your troop that that's what they do. Everybody who's first class. it's their job to be doing that stuff and it becomes a habit, It becomes part of what your troop does. As they teach the skills, they become real to them, not just, oh, I did that, It starts to become theirs to some extent Life has. you must do a list of requirements using the EDGE method, which is teaching others to do these skills, And we've kind of come around. I understand how many times can you tie a square knot? But if you make a little game out of it, like take a tent and strip all the ropes off it and then have them pitch the tent, well, lookie here, this is where this knot goes, and oh, this line's not long enough to reach this tree. so now we need to use a square knot to tie a longer line and make it more real-time or real-life uses for each of those knots and the advancements. Well, we're lucky that we do have that culture where the older scouts teach. We do a lot of that scout skills instruction in patrol meetings. So we have a patrol meeting Once. one night a month is the patrol meeting night, And so the patrol leader is the one whose job it is to get those other scouts to teach. In troop leadership training. I taught EDGE to the patrol leaders. Some of them have set goals for we want this many guys to advance, Well, they need other guys to teach them to get through that advancement. My question, Maury, is what percentage of instruction are scouts doing And on the other side, what percentage are adults doing? Clark, In the last few years they've been working very hard on having the boys do all the training. One thing that seems to have happened is that we have troop guides and instructors and so they become the ones that do the training and meet with the younger boys, but the other older boys just kind of feel like they've got to pass. Maybe our problem is not building the general culture for boys first class and up. But are adults instructing For the most part? no, not anymore. Okay, All right. And who's signing off requirements? ASMs can sign off requirements. For the most part, our troop guides are signing off on requirements up to first class. You said you had fairly well-distributed patrols. You could work on the culture that Walter's talking about within that kind of a thing. In my troops I've always had any scout whose first class can work with you on any requirement up to first class. Any scout that's first class and above should be doing some teaching as part of their car and life ranks. Okay, that's a good idea. I have one question for Walter to follow up on. Did Walter say that one troop night a month is a patrol night? That's right. One of the weekly meetings is a patrol meeting and the patrols decide where that is: the house, the rec room, the apartment building or whatever. The troop meeting plan has a time for patrol meetings. I think the monthly patrol meeting really forces the patrol leader. There's not a bunch of scoutmasters standing around it. I like that thing, Walter. It really pushes them into their position. It gives them a great opportunity to actually do what they're up to. Are you saying one of the nights that would be a troop night is instead when the patrols get together? or you're just saying you make sure patrols meet once a month at least? No, it's regular troop meeting night. You can already call your patrol leader to find out where it is. At the PLC meeting, the SPL talks with the patrol leaders about what they're going to do that night. At the next meeting they talk about what they did last time. We do a similar thing. All the patrols meet at the same place. They meet at the church where we have our regular troop meetings. They do that at least once a month and sometimes twice, Suspending the troop meeting night, putting it in the hands of the patrol leaders. it's been good for everybody. We have had patrol leaders who decided to just go for the National Honor Patrol Because that actually has a nice. that means you have two meetings a month. They'll get the patrol together at the end of the scout meeting or sometimes say: okay, this is a meeting and we're talking about what we're cooking on the camp out. You have to have people advance coverage of what a patrol should be doing. A good number of years ago we seemed to have a lot more variety in our troop meetings. The boys seemed to have gotten stuck in a rut and had very few ideas, Very few original ideas, about what they should be doing in troop meetings. I suspect part of it is they're really not working the program much anymore. I wanted to get some ideas about the universe of activities that they might want to consider for working in a troop meeting. What I find is generally our troop meeting plans are driven by the outing and whatever we're getting ready to do that month they're prepping for during troop meetings. whatever skills or other preparations need to be made are all centered on what's happening that month where we're going camping and what they have planned to do. What's it like in your troop, Tom? We're doing the same thing. we've got the district campery coming up and we know ahead of time what the theme is. There's a world of things right there. but have you seen the Wood Wisdoms book? Our senior patrol leaders have it. I've never been able to get them to actually read it or use it. It's got a lot of good ideas. some of them are hard to implement, but that's a good place to start too. The troop program helps. the three-year plan is one place. have them pick a theme and then do the meetings At some point. our guys started doing monthly themes, so they'll at the beginning, at the annual planning meeting, they'll decide on monthly things. Some of them are things like: we have the new guys showing up in March and so we need to do a thing about backpacking and stuff like that so they'll be ready to go in outings. Some of them we've got to do first aid at some point, so there's a lot of stuff that gets repeated. We do sing on winter camping and clothing and hypothermia every year. The monthly themes do help. Again, I've not been able to get anybody that interested in the troop program features. I have occasionally got them to use the games. it's a great list of games. When we're looking at the why of a troop meeting, you know, if we don't have a why behind what we're doing, I think sometimes we lose the spirit of it and guys and scouts just kind of- you know, well, I've already tied a square knot, we've already done this, let's find something new to do. but why are they doing it in the first place? one of the reasons is while we're getting ready to go camping, and the other one is, you know the phrase that I have adopted from Larry, that I suggest to everyone, and that is a scouts job becomes a first class. scout is to lead, train and inspire other scouts to become first class. if that becomes the watch word for these guys, then they have something to point at. and it's a continual goal and it always renews itself because there's always somebody new. you know, does your PLC talk about what works and didn't work in the previous meetings? because ours guys they all occasionally say, wow, that was the worst meeting that they've ever had.

that does get discussed and sometimes it's not just last meeting, it's, you know, something's brought up, people say, oh, that didn't work, oh, yeah, we love that. so there is some institutional memory and there is some discussion and argument back and forth and I try to be really quiet when I start hearing that kind of stuff, because they're actually doing their job. well, that's where you could tell: talk to the SPL about stop, start, continue about to take that what worked and say, okay, quick, guys, which we stop doing, start doing, continue doing and make notes, subscribe makes notes. yeah, but also boys are boring. you know, from about 12 and a half till about 16, you know that they can just sleep and eat all day long. I mean, you know, sometimes we need to challenge them. you know you just have to say: well, you know, we're going canoeing with the senior patrol or the PLC guys, we really need to hit the water. you know you need to plan on how to do that, train on that, spend the weekend in a canoe and you don't want to run their program, but occasionally it is your job to kind of inspire them. we have this with outings where the guys are really bad at imagining some place they haven't been. I think it's just a skill you learn later. the SPL we have now have a rule we've used for a while, which is that what is a third of outings have to be some place. you didn't go last year, so because otherwise I go, let's go back to Castle Rock and then after four years, are going. no, it's really boring in Castle Rock. so you're both exactly right, they cannot see outside that box, they cannot see outside the city hardly, and you have to push them. but you have to throw those, some of these things into the list, into the pot, and they go: oh, where'd that come from? and maybe they'll do it. I'm the blog and on the podcast. we talk about the patrol method constantly, we talk about the importance of the autonomy of youth leadership constantly, and sometimes I think that people see that as kind of an on off switch. either we do this all the way or we don't do it at all. you know we tried this and the boys sat around at a patrol leaders council meeting and they couldn't come up with any good ideas. our job, as Larry said and as Walter said and as Tom said, sometimes is to throw that idea on the table and say: I think you guys ought to try this, and they are usually so relieved that somebody came up with an idea and they jump on it like a dog on a bone, really work to carry it out and they'll put their own spin on it. I'm a little concerned that right now our troop was focused too much on advancement and doesn't really have enough enthusiasm for scouting or outdoor skills. you know, which is what Baden Powell said was the whole point of the program. this is an area where I'm really not sure there hasn't been a lot of effort to try to really develop a backpacking culture. leave them at home. if your first backpacking trip is, six scouts and three adults go, and if everybody, if 40 guys stay home that weekend, go and when you get back see what happens when those six guys come back. you know you don't have to build every single activity around every single scout in the troop. somebody's going to stay home. we've gone with just three scouts before. we gave them the opportunity to back out. we got there and I think there were six and three of them didn't show, so it left three and they go. no, we want to go and we said let's go. so three scouts and three adults went backpacking and they had a great time and they did come back and they told them they had a great time and that may be how Walters troop got started. 20 years ago we did a film on Shakedown Dayhike with two adults. you know people got busy or whatever. like: let's go, I got a walk, I'm going to be left behind. to film on advancement and requirements and things like that are to scouting, what doing drills is, to a sport. they don't want to just throw a basketball back and forth or practice three point shots all day. they want to actually play the game. you know you may suggest that to them that you know you guys are kind of caught up in doing the drills and you're missing the whole game. let's go out and play, let's go hiking, let's get out in the woods, let's go camping. the heck with all that other stuff. you know, forget about the advancement. see if that appeals to them. when you do the things that scouts do, they advance. if you go camping or you go backpacking or you go canoeing or you go on a good hike, they're doing things towards advancement, but they're not doing it because they're going to advance. they're doing it because it's what scouts do. does that make any sense? yeah, yeah it does. this was alluded to earlier on, our planning meeting didn't work very well. what ended up happening for as far as I can tell, is most of the boys came completely unprepared, with no ideas, so sounded like it was a situation where they they couldn't really imagine themselves anywhere. well, this is where you go to the senior patrol and you start asking them some questions. but when you start asking them questions about the arrangements that they have made and the practicalities involved, they begin to wake up to that a little bit. this sounds like I'm headed in another direction, but tell me a little bit about your patrol leaders council. and when they meet, they actually meet on a troop night. the senior patrol leader, the patrol leader and all other leadership attend. the boys, you know, work through an agenda of the things that they need to talk about. so part of it is planning, part of it's planning troop meetings and part of it's talking about upcoming events. so how many scouts are at that? meaning? actually a lot. I would say 10 to 15 boys, okay, and some of them aren't patrol leaders, obviously. oh no, not at all. we only have four patrols, okay. and how many adults are at that? meaning there are three regular adult attendees? the Scoutmaster I would attend, and we also have another assistant Scoutmaster whose job is to make sure that boys are showing up. you know they're actually doing something in terms of their leadership requirement for their higher ranks, okay, so let me suggest this to you: trim that patrol leaders council down dramatically. you have your senior patrol leader, yeah, the senior patrol leader, assistant senior patrol leader and the patrol leaders. that's it. maybe the scribe, maybe the scribe, maybe the quarter master- I think we have the quarter master and the scribe at most of ours and they get together and they make the plan and then they work with whoever else is going to be involved in that plan. and the reason I suggest this is that with a group that large, it's going to be really, really difficult for them to focus and to actually arrive at decision points. oh, yeah, yeah, I've seen that. so, yeah, trim that group down and keep all the adults, including yourself, out of the room, talk to them a little bit ahead of time and say, okay, so what are your expectations for this meeting? and you may have to add one or two to begin with and say, okay, so when you're done, let me know, and I would just like you to review what you've planned with me very quickly at the end of the meeting and the other guys who are involved in leadership positions and things like that. you'll have to create something else for them to do. if you focus a smaller group on those plans, it's going to set a precedent so that when you come around to an annual planning conference they're more focused on what they're up to more. what I would do is I'd sit down on my SPL one-on-one and I would chat with him, tell him that the next PLC meeting, these are the six guys I want you to have, and then I would sit down in that meeting. I would talk to the PLS and SPL and say: look, you guys are the leaders. here's your responsibilities, here's some things I'd like to see. let's talk about our schedule, because there's some problems and issues. and 15 guys at a PLC meeting- that's just way too big for your SPL and your patrol leaders. they're just lost in the noise. the other thing that I know that we're probably not going to get your whole list of questions here. fine, this has all been really useful. the other thing I would suggest with the patrol leaders council is the once a month meeting. that's excellent. a lot of people don't even get that. I would suggest that you, if you're not already doing it, that you have the- you know the 10 or 15 minutes before every meeting and the 10 or 15 minutes after every meeting. the patrol leaders council is just expected to get together and sometimes that's five minutes of standing there and saying: how did everything go? what did you learn that you need to change next time? what would you adjust? what was real successful? I saw you guys doing this and it was fantastic and a big pat on the back for that. I know that when we started doing that many years ago, that really helped to jumpstart their initiative and they were constantly getting together. we've been really lucky in our troop. when boys stand for senior patrol leader, they make a serious commitment and they're there. however, you know you've got band, you've got sports, you've got other things that have seasonal components to them. what do you do if a scout stands for election and you know they're going to have commitments where they're just not going to be there for a long period of time? I've actually had this happen with patrol leaders. you know, basically decapitating the patrol in the middle of the year and things start to drift. if that's one thing I would say is that whatever you guys want to do, but a year is probably too long, we have elections twice a year. the guys can have elections anytime. they can have elections tomorrow. it's their patrol, it's their troop. we have twice a year, normally twice a year, elections. say, one of the patrol leaders has a sudden commitment that starts not showing up, sort of like Larry, they say, well, we don't have a patrol leader, we'll fix that problem. and for the senior patrol leaders, when, when the elections come up, I ask everyone that wants to throw their hat in the ring to come see me and I go through, I get the book out and I say: these are your responsibilities. what other commitments do you have in the next six months? you will have the time to do that and they may or may not say yes, but anyway I sort of lead them through the requirements of what it's going to take to be senior patrol leader, especially the senior patrol leader. we get tied into schedules of elections sometimes, and when I say we, I mean adults. it becomes a habit and that forms an expectation in the boys. I'm all in favor of especially patrol leader positions being a lot more fluid. one of the reasons is because they do have a lot of commitments that we want to see them keep outside of scouting, to give them the flexibility so that they can do that without feeling like they've let somebody down or they've backed out of a commitment. hey, you know, if you've got to spend the next three months of Tuesday nights at marching band, that's no harm, no foul. we want you to have fun at marching band. it's just time for somebody else to have the patrol leader spot. and you know the senior patrol leader. it's a little bit different and they should go into it knowing that it's a pretty serious commitment. and maybe the question to ask them more is: do you think a year is too long, or would you guys rather see us change the senior patrol leader every six months, for instance? and you know, let them chew on that for a while. we have discussed this with the boys and they said they liked the year because they said: I agree it's a long time. they say that the first six months they're learning the position and the last six months they're actually doing the position. but it is a year. for a boy who's 14,, 15,, 16- a year it's a significant portion of his life. yeah, it's almost a 14,, 15th or 16th of it. yeah, we have. we have six months of terms and but the SPL almost always serves two terms and it is that kind of thing where you learn and then you do it. I think part of it is with patrol leaders, especially in the first really big job they've had, and it's the most important job in the troop- to make sure that they know that you can't lead if you're not there. patrol leaders are expected to be on campouts and this is the thing where you do have expectations. these are the expectations you know. if it's been a couple of campouts, you're going to sit down right away and say these are the expectations for your position. in case you're not really not clear, in some cases you could say what's your position. it's one of the more constant tasks for a Scoutmaster is keeping- I don't want to say riding herd on youth leaders, but just keeping up with them and helping them understand the commitment and then also helping them shape that commitment so it fits. and if our goal is a consistent leadership for a term of six months, well then we're going to do things differently. but if our goal is to provide opportunities to young men to try these things out and to discover something about them. I think we can be a lot more fluid with the way that they're administered. there's nobody too young to be a patrol leader. if he's elected, then he's old enough and you have to just keep pushing the patrol thing and then you're just going to start looking for every way that you can to pull the assistant Scoutmasters out of the boys campsites. you just don't stop. you don't ever give up, and it is not an easy thing to watch chaos but to understand that learning is happening. really, the difference between success and failure so far as a patrol leader is concerned, as a trick of perspective, our ideal of what looks like a successful patrol leader and what is actually successful for that individual boy are two very different things. I would be a little surprised if a 12 or 13 year old patrol leader was hyper competent. they're pretty messy, they're pretty unprepared most of the time. but what did you say towards the beginning of our discussion, Walter? you don't learn from success. my son was a patrol leader for a year and a half. the very last patrol meeting he actually wrote down a plan. he said: hey, that worked, that's a success. absolutely, absolutely small steps. sometimes we do that with SPL, but maybe you should have been for a year and a half- and those small steps are what you use to keep them moving forward and to step upon the next small step. success for them to work on and just keep growing from there. Mori, have we hit everything that you hope to hit, or is there anything that you were especially interested in finding out about? you know, I think we've touched on, we've touched on a lot of things and it's given me some fresh ideas and perspectives also, so I'm very excited. good, well, it's an exciting ride, that's for sure. interesting, if nothing else. well, I'll make one personal suggestion. that is, to find something you like to do in scouting and make sure you do that, whether it's having adults eat good food on camp outs or shooting sports or just something, and have that happen. you know, Mori, I say this over and over again- the guys are tired of hearing me, but you know, one day you have a son in the troop, right, yes, yeah, one day you're going to be walking down the trail and this 17 year old, 160 pound guy is going to walk up next to you and put his arm around you and your sweat is going to be running off your brow and you're going to be feeling too old for this and go down and go how you doing? dad came by to check on you and to see if you're okay. you know putting them in charge and doing this over and over again, and that will happen and you will absolutely know exactly why. you just said yes last night. and congratulations on that, Mori. I hope we've been able to help you a little bit. there's always lots of things to talk about in a subject like this and we love to talk, but I guess we have to all go to bed at some point. so thank you so much for joining us this evening. thank you, and I'm going to keep listening to the podcast. it's a lot of fun to listen to. and, Walter, you need to keep an eye on the snow pack out there. I hear avalanches or something. am I wrong? we have a nice snow pack and, who knows, maybe I'll run into Mori and his troop on the slopes of Mount Diablo.

maybe snow there. snow level is going to be 1500 feet this weekend. well, thanks very much, Walter, for joining us again. and, Tom, how's the snow pack in Tennessee, it's very light for 2 or 3 inches of rain in this. well, thanks so much for joining us again. Tom, thanks a lot. see you later. and Larry, the man who does not know snow. no, it was 81 degrees on the patio this evening, but it was a beautiful sunset over the Indian river. no, as a matter of fact, no snow, no snow. and I thank you, Clark. thank you, Larry, thanks for joining us again, and I've got to tell you there's no snow here either, but you know, we hold out hope. it's only January. thanks once more, guys, and I really appreciate your time.