Scoutmaster Podcast 157

And now the old Scoutmaster. This is Roger Thor Rupe, assistant Scoutmaster in troop 1323, sending a shout out to our troop and all the troops in the Seneca district of the National Cavalry Council: Keep up the good work and keep on shouting boys. Thank you, Roger, for calling with the shout out. This is podcast number 157..

Welcome back to the Scoutmaster podcast. This is Clarke Green. Yeah, the voice is a little raggedy. Yeah, we had our big father and son weekend this past weekend and I make a lot of noise at that weekend apparently. So hey, let's take a look at the mailbag and see who's been in touch. Howie Jones said: hi, Clark, like your post about the policy changes, wondering, in the historical context you brought up, if we might get the authors of the scouting party to discuss how the BSA has handled change in the past and what lessons we can learn from for the future. Thanks so much for being in touch, Howie. I will have David Scott, the author of the scouting party, doing a presentation with us for the February scout circle. And if you don't know what the scout circle is all about, go to scoutcircleorg- Scoutcircleorg and find out. and that's coming up this Sunday between 9 and 10 Eastern Standard Time, a live presentation and you'll be able to ask questions and things, and we'll be talking about David's book, The Scouting Party. Let's take a look here. A friend of mine just sent me your post on the recent membership changes and I would like to say thank you from the bottom of my heart. I'm currently an assistant scout, master, merit badge counselor, Eagle Scout, Wood Badger, former venture explorer, council camp staff and district volunteer. I've done a lot in scouting and I also happen to be gay. In 2009,, at the age of 20, I left scouting because of this policy. A couple of years later, I was contacted by the chartered organization representative of a new troupe who knew me from my scouting years and they were looking for assistant scoutmasters. I told him my story and his reply was that they did not care. They would appreciate it if I could come and help them out. If this policy changes, it resolves the difficult position any gay scouter like me is in right now. Like anybody else, I want to serve and give back to scouting, and that is from Josh and Josh. Thanks so much for being in touch with us. Cammy Brandon said thank you for the great info shared on your Facebook page and website. I'm an avid fan and I share everything on our troupe Facebook page. Cammy, it's great to hear from you and thanks for getting in touch. John Fox wrote to say: hello, Clark. I'd like to forward, with your permission, your latest article concerning a possible major change in BSA policy. Thank you for your email articles. Please keep up the good work. I've had a couple of such requests this week. Anything that you find on the Scoutmaster blog or here on the Scoutmaster podcast is offered freely to assist you in your work in scouting, and if sharing it with others would help, do that. absolutely feel free. The only thing I ask is that you attribute anything you share to me, That's it, But otherwise no permission necessary. Go ahead and share anything that will help advance what you're doing in scouting. David Blomberg wrote in and said: I've done what you did in the past: Invited a Scout to come speak to the adults when we have Weeblows visiting. I did it last year but I forgot to do it this year. Oh well, thanks for knocking me in the head and reminding me, And, David, I know the feeling. Thanks for being in touch. I'm glad I was able to give you a little reminder there. David Hendrickson is in Cape Gerardo, Missouri, He said. for the past few days I've been pondering the words I would use to express my opinion on the proposed BSA membership policy change And, as is often the case, I found that somebody else's words- the words that you had written about the issue- expressed what I wanted to say. I've posted it to my Facebook wall. Having read your comments and responses to other comments, I believe we are of the same mind and I'll be visiting your page more often. If you're ever in Southeast Missouri, give me a shout And my wife and I will gladly buy you dinner as gratitude for your excellent insights into what Scouting should be. Well, thank you, Rat. If you're ever in Kenneth Square Pennsylvania, we'll find a place to have some dinner too. I could just start driving west and do a dinner tour, maybe I don't know How about it, folks. Well, I'm sure you've heard in the national news this past week that the BSA is considering a change in its membership policy. This change basically has two parts. The first would be our national organization would no longer consider sexual orientation as a barrier to membership. The second part of it is that this change would allow religious, civic or educational organizations that oversee and deliver Scouting to determine how to address the issue, and that the BSA would not under any circumstances dictate a position to their units, members or parents, And they would not require any chartered organization to act in ways inconsistent with that organization's mission or principles or religious beliefs. I've written about my take on that at ScoutmasterCGcom and there's been a lively discussion that followed. Not everybody's happy. If you're a regular reader or listener, you know that I have declined to make membership policies a part of the open discussion at ScoutmasterCGcom, And so this represents a little policy change of my own, Perhaps not national news, but I think it's going to be important, if this policy changes, for us to be able to discuss it, And I think it's going to be important to do it in a moderate way. I mean, naturally this has the potential to be a divisive issue, but I think our job as Scouters is to find a way forward where we can all continue to serve our Scouts, be loyal to our national organization and be loyal to the principles of the worldwide movement of Scouting. I'm sure there's going to be much more for us as time goes by, But podcast 157 is going out before the absolute change to this policy has been announced, So I think we'll leave it there for now. It's time to talk to our friends at Conahoe Creek, and I've got Bill Fleming on the phone again. How you doing, Bill? Doing great, Clark. hope you're having a good afternoon, I am, I am. Thank you very much. Listen, we've been talking about this knife sale that you're doing this month And it's Boy Scout knives. There are four different brands involved And for the month of February at ConahoeCreekcom, every day a different knife is going on sale. It will remain on sale for the remainder of the month. The sale is 10% off of the retail price. Plus, you can use your coupon code as a listener to the Scoutmaster Podcast- CG113, for an additional 5%. so it's 15% off of the knives that they're offering. That's right, Clark, And we're going to start with the Remington Boy Scout Camp Knife, which is actually a replica of the original, first ever Boy Scout knife. The Remington I'm looking at right now on ConahoeCreekcom is a real beauty. It's heirloom, quality kind of knife. Tell me a little bit about it. This particular knife comes with bull 40 stainless blade, a cap lifter, slash screwdriver, a can opener and a leather punch, And when you pick up this knife it just feels like quality. It's a really nice knife And it will last the scout beyond their scouting years and into adulthood, and being something they passed down for many years. It's a reproduction of the 1924 model of the Remington and it comes with a custom display box. It's a real collector's item, isn't it? Absolutely, They won't make these forever. So, that being said, I wouldn't be scared to make this my everyday knife. Put it to use, That's what it was made for. So that's the February knife sale at ConahoeCreekcom: C-O-N-O-H-O-Creekcom. Don't forget the coupon code for listeners to the Scoutmaster Podcast: CG113.. And remember, it's not just knives there. They've got all kinds of great camping gear. They'll help you figure out what gear works for you to meet the conditions where you go camping and make sure you get it at a great price. Thanks so much, Bill. Thank you, Clark, and we'll see you at the creek. In this podcast in Scoutmastership in 7 Minutes or Less, we're going to talk a little bit about competition, And then I've got an email question to answer And that'll take up the rest of the podcast. So let's get started, shall we? Scoutmastership in 7 Minutes or Less?

So every once in a while I'll hear somebody talk about competition in scouting, And competition is not a bad thing in itself- not at all- But I'm going to suggest that the idea of there always being a clear winner and a clear loser is probably not what we want to use when we talk about competition in scouting. Boys are naturally competitive. They like to win and they hate to lose. Competing is not bad in itself, but misapplied, I think the competition can be kind of corrosive, especially with younger boys. Winning is not always all it's cracked up to be and losing is definitely not always bad. We learn from doing things and giving them a try and making mistakes sometimes. Scouting is designed to recognize not only achievement but effort. Competition is a tool. it's a means to an end, but it's not an end in itself. The level of achievement in scouting is nowhere near as important as the effort that gets extended towards that. What one person can achieve easily may take somebody else a lot of effort to match. What we want to do is encourage effort and confidence in individuals and in the group. Baden Powell said this. boys are especially sensitive to measures of achievement and failures. It is the Scoutmaster's job to put these things into perspective for his boys. The boy whose inferiority complex has been born through many failures, can have his first win or two made easy for him so that he is led to intensify his efforts. If he extends the effort, no matter how clumsy, he can earn the badge. This generally inspires the boy to go on trying and the sense of inferiority fades quickly. You know, we're not all equally talented and gifted. We can all extend effort to attain a goal. When we're young, we need to learn to deal with dissatisfaction and disappointment by assessing the effort we extended, recognizing how we can improve and then redoubling the effort. Scouts need to compete right And they will compete, And trying to stop them from competing is absolutely fruitless. But what we do, as Baden Powell said, is put all this into perspective and show our scouts that it's not really whether you win or lose, but how you play the game. It's not really about just achieving, but it's about developing resilience and the ability to encourage yourself, to look for that effort, to know that, okay, I'm not as talented and skilled in every single thing as everybody else, but I can put some effort into becoming a better person. If we create an environment that celebrates achievement and effort equally, I think we've really done something and will really be helping our scouts,

Boy Scouts, Boy Scouts, Boy Scouts.

Find me a letter, send it by name Email. that is, folks.

And here's an answer to one of your emails.

Email came in asking me what I thought about offering eagle-required maripages on maripage days. Now you know what I'm talking about here. These are these big events where they may have like a, they may offer a number of maripages on a Saturday or something like that. The person who sent me this email says that they have a troop rule that none of their scouts are allowed to participate in. The person writing said: we've had this rule for a long time. We have a good base of counselors within the troop that offer eagle-required maripages, And I don't want scouts seeing an easy way out, And I've seen some things happen at these maripage days that I don't consider to be proper maripage counseling. So I'm going to agree with the person who challenged this rule in your troop and I'm going to tell you that you're outside of policy on this one. A scout gets to choose his maripage counselor. So long as a counselor is registered, there's no reason to prevent him from using that counselor And there's certainly no policy to back up the idea that you can. A recent change to the maripage application, the blue card- made it clear that scoutmasters and unit leaders are not pre-qualifying a scout to take a maripage, but that they're just making sure that the scout is going to be working with a registered counselor. Now if you have concerns over the way a particular maripage is being counseled by a particular counselor, well then you go to your district or council advancement committee and you share your concerns with them, because they're the ones who vet and certify people to be maripage counselors. There is one way for a scout to earn a maripage and that is to go to a counselor to complete the requirements to have the counselor certify it, and we're done. It's really not our place to question the quality of a scout's work on a maripage, because that's the maripage counselor's job. And I'll repeat myself: if you think a particular maripage counselor is not doing a very good job of it, well go to whoever certified them and bring that up. Scouts should be free to choose the place or the time or the counselor. Eagle-required maripages are no different from any other maripage, other than the fact that they're required to become an eagle scout. I don't think they need to be offered with any greater or lesser rigor than any other maripage. and I'll add this while I have the chance: There are no greater or lesser eagle scouts. The way a scout becomes an eagle is they do the requirements and they pass a duly constituted border review. There's no advanced eagle scouts and there's no lesser eagle scouts, There's only eagle scouts. in the same way, There's no scout that gets an advanced maripage, There's only maripages. And once again, if the question of the suitability of a counselor comes up, go to the people who vet the counselor. I think that a rule like this is kind of inimical to the idea of the maripage system. It's definitely outside of policy and I would just continue doing it. That's my advice to you, and if you have a question, you can get in touch and you'll find out how to do that in just a moment.