Scoutmaster Podcast 159

This edition of Scout Mash Podcast is brought to you by folks at Conahoe Creek Outfitters. 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 conahoecreakcom, at conohocreakcom.

And now the old Scoutmaster. So I went down to the waterfront to check on the scouts and they were doing fine. Sandy was lying on the beach and Skip was out being towed behind a motorboat. Bob, he was just kind of floating and Wilt had been out in the sun too long and Cliff wanted to get away from the waterfront and go rock climbing. So you know, pretty average day at the waterfront. Oh my, This is podcast number 159..

Well, welcome back to the Scoutmaster Podcast. This is Clarke Green. Let's take a look in the mailbag. We heard from Howie Jones this week. He said: perfect subject matter on your podcast 158.. That was our last podcast. Great proof that the policy change may not be the end of the world.

Howie, I appreciate you being in touch and thanks for the support there. Don Fowler is with PAC 295 and Troop 95 in Sparta, New Jersey, And he wrote in to say this. he said I recently stumbled onto your website and its awesomeness is mind numbing. Luckily, I have a long commute from Northwestern New Jersey to Manhattan, So I've been listening to about two or three podcasts a day and I'm up to number 56.. The PAC is doing fine. The Troop is transitioning from more adult lead to more boy lead. It's been slow going at times, but we're getting the hang of it. The Scoutmaster is on board with the plan and we're making progress. The info you've provided has given us a bunch of new ideas on how to keep that process moving forward. But Don ends by saying thanks for all you do Well. thank you, Don. Thanks for getting in touch. It's always good to hear from people and find that they're finding this useful. Hoyt Condra is with Troop 13 in Franklin, Tennessee, And he wrote in to say thanks for the great job you do supporting Scatters. Your podcast and website have become a favorite resource for many of the leaders in our troop and has inspired us to pursue making our troop true to Baden Powell's vision of the boy lead troop. I would also like to ask: who does your infographics? They're informative and well designed. Thanks again for all you do Well. thank you, Hoyt. I make the infographics. How about that? Yes, I do. I'm heartened to hear that they're informative and I'm glad you're finding them well designed too. It takes a little bit of work to put those together, but they are great fun, aren't they? If you have an idea for an infographic, you know be in touch. I would certainly like to hear it. Mike Lotties, I hope I got that right. Mike is in Deltona, Florida, Troop 565.. He said: you seem to have an endless supply of interesting and useful articles. I appreciate all you do. I particularly love the infographics. Well, there's another vote for the infographics. Well, great, I'd love to find a way to be able to visually assist my scouts with any number of complex ideas. Well, thank you so much. Mike Certainly appreciate hearing from you. We have a special guest in this podcast. Before we get to that, I've got this for you. Hey, it's time to talk to our friends at Conho Creek again. I've got Bill Fleming on the phone. How are you doing, Bill? Doing great Clark. Hey, we're back talking about Boy Scout knives. This month, every day, a new knife goes on sale for a 10% discount. It'll stay on sale at that discount for the entire month of February And this week. that I think I want to have because it is made by Sarge. Now, I'm not familiar with that brand name. Can you tell me a little bit about it? We just started carrying Sarge. First we were kind of skeptical about carrying Sarge because of the price point. So we got a few in And, after working with them and sharpening them, using them, we found that for the price it is an excellent knife. The one that came to my eye was Vision Maker. I like to do a little wood carving, I like to do some whittling, And this one looks like a real winner for that. Indeed, it is. In fact, we weren't carrying this particular knife. In fact, our supplier wasn't even carrying this knife. We had a customer contact us and say: can you get this knife for us? And it's just turned out to be a really, really good seller. It seems to be very popular, especially amongst the Scouts. The one I'm looking at has these nice Burlwood handles on it. It's got the two specially designed carving blades. I'm looking at it and I'm thinking that this is a $70 or $80 knife, but you've got it on here for $20 bucks. That's right. It's amazing. It's got a very nice high carbon, stainless, cheap-foot blades. They're easy to sharpen and get a very nice edge on Now. the deal on these is that for the month of February at ConahoeCreekcom there'll be a new knife that will go on sale every day. It will be reduced by 10% Once it goes on sale. it'll stay on sale all the way through the month of February And you can use your coupon code for listeners to the Scoutmaster Podcast, CG113. And that gets you an extra 5%. So you'll get 15% off on any knife. that's part of the sale this month at ConahoeCreekcom. Thanks Bill, Thank you Clark, And we'll see you at the creek. This is coming up March 10th- That's a Sunday. We're going to have our next Scout Circle And I'm pleased to tell you that our friend Frank Maynard is going to join us. Frank has the blog Bob White Blather. Frank is a long-serving and very skilled troop committee chairman And he's going to be coming on to Scout Circle to talk about committee matters. It'll be great to talk to Frank And what we'll do, as we do with every Scout Circle, the first 30 minutes or so we'll be talking about the subject And then the second 30 minutes of the Scout Circle presentation will be answering your questions, And it is a live presentation, something that you can participate in. So go to scoutscircleorg and make sure you bookmark that. And on Sunday, March 10th, from 9 to 10 o'clock Eastern Standard Time, we'll have Frank Maynard on talking about the troop committee. So the rest of this podcast is taken up with a discussion I had with one of my readers and listeners who is a Scoutmaster and has a very interesting troop, And we had a great discussion and no spoilers here. You'll have to figure out by listening exactly what's so interesting about this troop. Then I'll be back to tell you how to keep in touch. But in the meantime, let's get started, shall we?

The Scout movement is forming a personal tie between the different foreign countries, a living force, a great brotherhood of service. a joyous work.

So today I'm talking with Jeff Kvistad. He is the Scoutmaster of Troop 965.. How are you doing today, Jeff? Great Jeff. I wanted to ask you a few questions about your troop. You have kind of an unusual troop, don't you? Yeah, we do. Let me start by asking you this: What's the average temperature when you guys go out camping? Well, it depends on the time of year.

In the later months of spring, like April and May, it could be up to 110 degrees, And our September, October campouts can be about 110, 115. But in December and January the high could be about 65 and low about 35. That's a pretty big swing there. That's pretty interesting. About how many Scouts in your troop: Well, we've been having about 16 active Scouts, but three just recently joined, Okay, And these Scouts are kind of all from the same neighborhood. Well, now they are, but they come from really all over the world. Our senior patrol leader is a New Zealander, We have an Australian, So we've got Lebanese, French-speaking Scouts. We have Dutch Scouts now who speak Dutch at home, And Americans- just a few Americans. we are definitely in the minority, though, But they all like the BSA program And the parents like the BSA experience of having the boys learn these leadership skills. Your district and council services. about how far away are you from? We're about a 14-hour flight from our council headquarters. Okay, So everybody did you hear that- About a 14-hour flight. So if you have to drive for 20 minutes to get to your council office, I don't think you have any way to complain now because Jeff's quite far away. So, Jeff, we've been playing a little game here. Where in the world are you? I am located in Kuwait between Saudi Arabia and Iraq, And you have a Boy Scout troop that is registered with the BSA in Kuwait. Yes, we do. So how did you find yourself in Kuwait? Well, kind of a long story. I'm in banking and 23-year career in a bank in Chicago And in the fall of 2009, I got an email from a friend. He had had an international career his entire life And he sent me an email saying he was in Kuwait. They were looking for other Westerners And he came home and talked to my wife And she was up for an adventure. So by the spring of 2010,, we had moved our family with four of our kids here to Kuwait. Tell me a little bit about the country. I think most of us are only familiar with it through the Gulf War and the things that we read in the news. But what's it like living there? Yeah, I would describe Kuwait as a combination of first-world wealth and third-world or developing world poverty. The first-world wealth comes from the oil industry. It pumps over 2 million barrels a day And all that money comes into the government And they distribute that money pretty generously to the native or ethnic Kuwaitis that are here through government jobs, generous grants, things like that And they in turn hire South Asians primarily to do the cooking, cleaning, constructing. There's a lot of folks here who come from pretty poor circumstances back in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and the Philippines come here for the jobs. I think it's kind of interesting to people that you can have a Boy Scouts of America troop in another country. Direct services are counsel, And that is right. at BSA headquarters in Texas There is a transatlantic council of the BSA that's located headquartered in Great Britain And I believe they are the counsel primarily for the European countries. People who are citizens of other countries- you mentioned New Zealand as being one- can actually join the Boy Scouts of America. The only rule that we've found is that citizens of the host country should not be joining the Boy Scouts of America. So, in other words, if you're a Kuwaiti citizen, your first obligation is to the Kuwait Boy Scouts Association, And Kuwait does have one. It should be fine to register expats, all kinds of expats, into your BSA troop. An expat is All the non-citizens of that country who are living in that country. expatriates, Okay, expatriates, okay. And so I guess a couple of practical questions come to mind. For instance, to join the Boy Scouts, you need to learn the Pledge of Allegiance and things like that. How is that handled? Yeah, how we've handled it is to become a scout. All we've said is: you have to know what the American Pledge of Allegiance says. We don't ask them to make it a personal commitment themselves. And then when we have our opening flag ceremony at each of our troop meetings- which we do- and we display the American flag- our senior patrol leader- because he's not an American, he's a New Zealander- he stands aside and says: all of you who are Americans, please follow our assistant senior patrol leader, who is an American, in the Pledge of Allegiance. And we also qualify it by saying: if you are not an American, please stand respectfully. We talked a little bit about the temperatures, of where you go camping. Now in the States, typically we're headed off to the woods, but it's a little bit of a different environment. Yeah, it's complete desert. We go out. There's no trees, no grass, no shrubs. around My very first camp out, we went out to a place we call Volcano Ridge. It has really nothing relating to a volcano, It's just some mounds in the desert. But we arrived at night so I couldn't really see around me. But in the morning, when I woke up, looked outside my tent, it looked like I was on the moon- Just nothing but sand and gravel and rocks for as far as the eye could see. So not a whole lot of pioneering, Not a whole lot. We have to buy our own poles. What about things like campfires and stuff like that? We usually bring our own wood out, moving pallets that are used in warehouses and stuff. You'll find those kind of strewn around construction sites and things like that. So we pick those up, put them in our trailer when we go out camping. Any particular dangers to camping in the desert? I mean, it's such a foreign environment for most of the people who'd be listening to this. This year began really tragically when we started our camp out with the news that a high school girl had died taking a hike with another student organization here. Originally we thought the reports were it was a scorpion sting, but with further information it was most likely due to dehydration- Cardiac arrest from dehydration. So our camping year began with that news And so obviously we were all concerned, Reminded us all that the desert is a deadly place or can be a deadly place. So what we did is as any scout should. we managed our risk wisely. So we made an immediate rule that all scouts had to bring a camel back or some equivalent type of device, And we found that really does make a difference. Scouts do sip more water throughout the day if they're wearing it. So it's definitely tragic what happened this year, but it was a good lesson for all of us that we do need to be careful. So, being this far away from the resources that we're used to- the support resources of a council and a district and things like that- do you find that particularly challenging? Yes, it is challenging because we don't have the training close by. Like you said, we can't go to a camp just half an hour away. The Transatlantic Council in Great Britain has been very generous in inviting us to their events, however, And to our senior patrol leader and assistant senior patrol leader this year went to NYLT in Great Britain last summer and that was a great experience for them. Did that help build the troops on? Oh, it was tremendous, tremendous difference. I mean all the troop committee members commented the parents noticed that between last year and this year the boys really got it And the parents who went to that- one parent in particular who expected to go to this camp, expecting to be one of the leaders and found himself sitting on his behind. he said, And he said he finally got it. His eyes were opened about what scouting was all about- that it's the boys taking the lead. So it was really a transformational experience. It really elevated our troop to the next level. Usually, when we find ourselves with some challenges, we also find ourselves with some opportunities. Being in Kuwait and being able to camp in the desert and stuff like that is quite an opportunity. What kind of other things are you looking at in the future, Like some of our dreams are? we were talking about a hike in Wadi Rum in Jordan this year, actually like a 50-miler, But right now we've tabled that idea for next year. Other ideas are an all-night hike and then watching the sunrise over Mount Sinai in Egypt. Our schools aren't all on the same vacation schedule, So we have to deal with passports and visas And then the cost. We have to rely on donations from corporations or families. What I have found when I've traveled internationally is that there's just not a whole lot that separates us all. There's some cultural things, there's some societal things, but when it gets right down to it- sit down with a cup of coffee with somebody, you're pretty much all speaking the same language. After you grow up in the States, more or less by an accident of geography, you don't really get to interact with a whole lot of people from other countries. It's fascinating to be in a place where you're an American and you're in the minority nationally. It just gives you a new perspective, doesn't it? It's a great perspective too, because you realize then what minorities experience in America. So it's very much a learning experience for my wife and I and our kids, And we appreciate being Americans. We appreciate freedoms and the institutions that we have in America that give America such stability. And probably one of the biggest things I've learned is that, despite the politics that we see in the news, that generally people really love the United States. They love Americans. And I'm going to go back. I know more appreciative of what we have in America, but also very appreciative of these different cultures that I've come to know and respect here in the Middle East. Is there any particular thing you can point to that you've picked up specifically from that culture? that was a big change for you. Among the Middle Easterners and the South Asians that are here, there is a warmth that is very refreshing. We Americans tend to be so business-like And over here you can sense that among different cultures- and I should qualify that with different cultures- have different degrees of warmth that you can sense, but there is a genuine human warmth. that is delightful. Kuwait is a majority Muslim country, is it? Yes, it is. What's that like? There's more of a social recognition here of religion, and Islam is very structured in the sense of five times a day we hear the call to prayer from the minarets, which is something from an American perspective we're not used to. We have scouts, a number of scouts, who are Muslim. There is a religious emblem in BSA for Islamic scouts. What we've done is we still pray out loud, but we always stick to the non-sectarian prayers. We say, like film on grace Film scouts, whether it's okay to pray out loud in this kind of setting, and they've assured us that it's fine. This year we selected our chaplain's aide as a Muslim scout. Our chaplain we recently got is a Christian, So we've kept the reverence part in our troupe. very much so, but also being very sensitive to our differences in faith as well, I would imagine you find that more enriching than challenging. Yes, it is enriching. And again, by camping with scouts of different faiths, you realize how much you have in common, how much we need to depend on each other to make a camp successful and how much of the 12 points of the scout law still hold in common, and very much so that all unites us. The audience we're talking to is mostly scouts in the States. Maybe they're sitting here listening and they're thinking it would be nice for us to be able to get into a situation like that or to be able to see a little bit more of the world. How would we encourage them to look at the prospect of an international trip? Do you think that's something you would suggest to them? Oh, absolutely. Americans, I think, have a very limited view of the world through their TV set. Nothing gets on the TV unless something bad happens there. Americans, I think, tend to think the world is a very scary place, particularly in the Middle East. When we came here, alarm bells sounded throughout our extended families. Why would we even want to be this close to Iraq? But my wife, fortunately, is very adventurous type and I am too. What you find is that people are the same all over the world. Generally, people want to live in peace, They want to have a decent job. They want to raise their families. People still go shopping here. We've got shopping malls, We've got traffic, We've got traffic jams. In some ways, the world has definitely become a global village. Sometimes I feel like I'm still in the States. We had occasion to do any events with Kuwaiti Scouts or any other scouting organizations over there. We did have an event with the Kuwaiti Scouts. We found some challenges, though, with language, with age differences. They allow scouts here up into the early 20s. We made the best of it though. We had a weekend camp out with them and we did some games, some competitions. Jeff, how long have you been a Scoutmaster? Only a year, I imagine. your experience would probably be pretty similar to any Scoutmaster who's been around for about a year or so. Both my son and I were new to Scouts. two years ago, A friend of ours introduced us to scouting and we immediately took to it. We were hooked on it. However, there's a lot of transitions here. in Kuwait, Families come and go. In the fall of 2011,, we found ourselves our troop without a Scoutmaster because our previous Scoutmaster had to move on. He was reassigned By January 2012,. our troop had to recharge. We could not recharge without a Scoutmaster. All the parents got together and we were all facing: what are we going to do without a Scoutmaster? They all took a step back and I forgot to take a step back. Lo and behold, I was the Scoutmaster by unanimous consent, Without any really previous scouting experience. in my youth, or up till two years ago, I was a Scoutmaster and it's been a great experience- A great experience in leadership. You learn pretty fast that you can adjust your expectations. You should not have expectations that you've grown to have with adults in the corporate world. What I found difficult in being a Scoutmaster is when to intervene and when not to.

When is that judgment? I suppose it's where the art comes in. It's not a science, but when is it mentoring and when is it interfering? That's a hard one to figure out. The great thing about your podcast- and I've listened to 46 of them now- your consistent theme is to let the boys lead. I try to do that more and more, and every podcast I listen to is further inspiration for me to do that. However, I know there's times I have to mentor and I know there's times I have to intervene. It's deciding when to do that. That's the most difficult. Everybody who's listening is who's a Scoutmaster is nodding their head right now, because it's always a challenge. You certainly don't feel alone. No, I realize that your podcast theme and your philosophy is there because everybody experiences it. I certainly have enjoyed talking with you. I really appreciate you agreeing to do this. I know it's fascinating for people to learn about what happens in the rest of the world. It's been a great experience for us and our kids too, even at the times they wish they were back in the States. I think they're going to look back on this time and really see how they've grown, really in seeing other cultures, other ways of life here. The time I asked you for about an hour- and I know you have other things that you've got to move on to, As do I, and I really appreciate you spending the time with me. Jeff, It's been nice to talk to you. You're welcome, Clark. Your blog and your podcast are tremendous, tremendous help. I know I told you this. It's been the wood badge. I haven't been able to attend yet. Don't worry, I'll attend it someday, I hope. But keep up the great work that you're doing. I appreciate it. I'm glad you're finding things helpful. Once again, thanks, Jeff Ma'asalama, which means peace. be with you in Arabic, Asalama.