Scoutmaster Podcast 162

Hey, this is Clark, and I want to remind you that this podcast is brought to you by ScoutmasterCGcom Backers. The funds we get from our backers cover the expenses of producing and publishing everything at ScoutmasterCGcom, including what you're about to listen to. Go to ScoutmasterCGcom and click the support link at the top of the page and you can join hundreds of your fellow Scouters who help me keep the podcast freely available for Scouters all over the world.

And now for you, Scoutmaster. Hey, here's a scouting fun fact.

Okay, If you took all the Scouts in, all the troops across the country and you formed a line, that line would stretch from the Atlantic Ocean up to right about where the dunes are on the beach, where a tenderfoot scout would run out of the line and start chasing seagulls. About 20 feet from there there'd be a scout whose mom called him on his cell phone to ask him where he was and what he was doing and when he would be coming home, and by that time the rest of the Scouts in the line would be getting a little antsy.

So about a half a mile in there would be a game of pickup football going on and the line would be a little wavy from that point until you got to the place where the senior patrol leader forgot to phone his patrol leaders and have them show up for the giant scout line that is stretching across the country, And then there'd be a pretty good gap there and Scouts in Kansas would be wondering where everybody was and where the line crosses the Rockies. The Scouts in Colorado would probably be snowboarding and not paying much attention to the whole thing, And on some beach in California Scouts would be milling around for a while until they decided: you know, forget this line thing, let's go swimming.

You know, you get the idea right. Hey, this is podcast number 162..

Hey, welcome back to the Scoutmaster Podcast. This is Clarke Green.

Well, let's take a look in the mailbag. Ron Lasala wrote in and he said: I'm a great fan of your site and then he told me how to fix my karak bend- not infographic- that I published last week. I don't know if you guys caught that or not. I managed to catch it pretty quick. I fixed it and I had one of the crossings wrong and oh my goodness. But this is.

This is the problem when you proofread your own stuff, folks. Actually I'm happy that I have a lot of proofreaders out there And you know, if you find a problem and you see something that I've gotten wrong, get in touch. I really, I really really do appreciate it. And Ron's in in Tallinn, Connecticut, with Troop too. Thanks, Ron, Thanks for getting in touch and thanks for helping me out there. Terry Dutton is with Troop 16 in Oak Park, Illinois, And he writes in to say: Hi, Clark, your work is appreciated.

I listen and read, looking for ways to be a better scouter for my Scouts, and your podcasts and blog always hit home. Thanks for the great work.

Well, thank you very much for being in touch, Terry, And I certainly appreciate the kind words. Heidi Medina Cordero wrote in to say Thanks, I'm loving it. Thanks, Heidi, I love it when people write in. I really do. David Thompson writes in from Mililani, Hawaii, Troop 164, and says: I just started my role as Scoutmaster in January. You have a fantastic resource that has infinitely sped up my education as a Scoutmaster.

Yes, they showed me the volcano and I jumped in. Thank you, And you know, in Hawaii, David, that's kind of almost literal, isn't it? You can get in touch with me. I send a question, send a comment or just say hi, And you can do that by emailing me at Clark C L A R K E at ScoutmasterCGcom.

So in this podcast we're going to answer some email questions And that's going to take care of the rest of the podcast. So let's get started, shall we? Hi, I'm Kevin Callan and I'm listening to Scoutmaster iPod. No, I can't. I am Kevin Callan, the happy camper, and you're listening to the Scoutmaster podcast.

I had this question come in. I came across a situation that happened to one of my venturing crew members who was also registered with a Scout troop. He completed all his requirements for the rank of life, asked for a border review and his trip denied him the opportunity to have a border review because he owed them money for rechartering.

While I respect that you have to enforce collection of a past due fee, is restricting an advancement opportunity a valid method? My view as a unit could maybe restrict youth members participation in camping or other events due to an outstanding debt, But I see in the guide to advancement that no unit can add additional requirements to advancement.

Isn't requiring a Scout to be paid in full adding a requirement for advancement? Am I right in reading this into the definition of the situation?

Well, yes, you are. A border review is one of the four steps in our system of advancement And qualifying.

To go before a border review means that a Scout has completed the requirements and he's had, you know, his Scoutmaster conference, which is one of the requirements, and he's headed for the board. I can understand theoretically why a troop would have this kind of restriction.

Okay, you know, when you think about it, all right, it makes sense. But there's some things that aren't being thought about here. These things trump any concerns you have about financial administration and things like that.

I think it's wrongheaded to try and hold Scouts responsible for the actions of their parents. If a parent has missed the rechartering date, you know there could be a variety of reasons, especially in today's economic climate. But here we've got a Scout who's been responsible enough to complete the requirements for the rank of life.

He's asked for the border review and then the board has the sand to say, well, no, we're not. We're not going to let you have a border review because you owe us money. When I hear about things like this, I wonder if people have been trained and I wonder if they get it. The Scouting program is a program for boys. Boys have families. Some families function at a very high level.

They pay all the dues, they pay rechartering fees on time, they pay camp fees in time. Some families are just a mess And it's not the boys responsibility to try and fix his family. If you have a policy or a practice in your troop or your pack or your crew that's making life hard for a Scout who may be at the mercy of a dysfunctional family, reconsider what you're doing, would you please.

And I think in the case that was stated in this email, I think that you're off base procedure wise, because you are adding, you're adding another requirement that is preventing this, this Scout, from getting a border review. Let's get trained, Let's get on board and let's figure out exactly what we're supposed to be doing. I also received this email.

I'm a fairly new Scoutmaster and I asked our committee if we could just go ahead and give merit badges and rank patches out at troop meetings and then hold the certificates and present those at the court of honor. They declined to do this because they said if they handed out the badges at troop meetings, no one would ever show up for a court of honor.

Then I noticed that they were handing out an Eagle Award to a Scout who wasn't even on a 100% uniform? How do I change things when a committee seems to be stuck in their old ways?

How do I ensure parents and Scouts are going to attend quarterly courts of honor, even if their Scout didn't necessarily advance in that last quarter? What you write about is a good example of a troop practice running up against recommended best practices.

A recommended best practice is something in the literature or training that's not necessarily a mandated procedure, and I think it's pretty well explained this way in the Guide to Advancement. Under a paragraph titled Mandated Procedures and Recommended Practices- and you'll find this on page two of the Guide to Advancement. The paragraph reads: this publication clearly identifies mandated procedures with words such as must and shall. Where such language is used, no council, committee, district unit or individual has the authority to deviate from the procedures covered. Recommended best practices are offered using words like should, while other options and guidelines are indicated with terms such as may or can't.

So you've understood the best practice about presenting badges at troop meetings and then presenting certificates at courts of honor. Here's where it's mentioned in the Guide to Advancement, and this is section 4.2.1.4.. The Scout is recognized. It reads this way: When the Board of Review has approved his advancement. The Scout deserves recognition as soon as possible. This should be done at a ceremony at the next unit meeting.

The certificate for his new rank may be presented later during a formal court of honor. So notice in that paragraph the word should and may. It's not shall or must.

Okay, What's being recommended here is a best practice. It's not saying that this is the only way to make things happen, but it's a best practice.

Now the committee is worried that if they don't hold on to badges, Scouts won't attend the next court of honor, and I can see that's an understandable concern. But I think that that concern is misdirected. I'd be more concerned that there's one or more things in the way you guys are presenting a court of honor that may be causing the problem.

So let me ask you these questions: Who's running the court of honor? To my way of thinking, the senior patrol leader ought to be the master of ceremonies, aided by his fellow youth leaders. If it's the Scoutmaster or the troop committee handing out badges and taking a long time to do it, or maybe just a short time to do it and the Scouts are just watching, it's not likely they're going to be very interested in attending.

Why would you? Okay, I've got my badge and all's I'm going to do is sit there and listen to the Scoutmaster or the troop committee spout off for a while and they're going to bring me up and yeah, I don't need to do that.

How long is the court of honor? Now?

I would tell you that our troop courts of honor, you know, with a troop of about 35 Scouts, average maybe a half hour to 45 minutes. If we're presenting an Eagle rank, which we do as a part of our regular troop courts of honor, it may go as much as an hour, an hour 15, but we keep that time brief and meaningful rather than long and kind of hard to deal with.

What's the program at the court of honor? Is it appropriately formal without being, like, incredibly overblown?

I think simple words, spoken in honesty, are always better than a lot of pageantry. Scouts want some formality and ceremony, but they don't want it to the point where they're reluctant to participate.

Remember yourself when you were that age Now, some of us would have thought that standing up in front of a bunch of people in our Scout uniform and saluting and getting our hands shaken and badges presented and everything like that was pretty cool and we would really enjoy doing that. Some Scouts are not going to like doing that very much and they'll you kind of have to encourage and congel them.

So it's just a minute or two and it's important that you stand up here as an example to your fellow Scouts and the families that are here to be recognized for your achievement. If we're putting Scouts through this kind of gauntlet of ceremonial things that they have to do and everything, consider that they might not want to do that and think about what the program is like and think about maybe rewriting it and starting over again.

What else is happening at the court of honor? I'll say that our practice is usually to combine our court of honor with some announcements and discussions with parents. It's kind of like a parent's business meeting for a few minutes before each court of honor while the Scouts are getting ready to talk about our schedule of camping trips and rechartering or friends of scouting or whatever information needs to be exchanged. And it also gives parents a chance to bring up questions and things, but only for a few minutes. It's not an hour long thing, You know. It's relatively informal and this is value added for a parent and it's an encouragement for them to attend.

When is the court of honor? We hold our courts of honor in place of a regular troop meeting on that troop meeting night, so that way it's on everybody's schedule already. You got to think about a family with a couple of active children.

They're likely to have a pretty involved schedule of meetings and activities, and I think it's important to make things as easy for them to remember and to attend this kind of thing as possible, because they already have a pretty busy schedule. Now, if you apply some of those ideas- like when the court of honor is, what's happening at the court of honor, what the program is, how long the court of honor is and who's actually running the court of honor, you may find that parents and Scouts are a little more interested in them and make a point to attend.

Now, that being said, there's little chance you're going to get every single Scout and family to any given court of honor. So do what I do: Concentrate on who shows up and remain aware that a few simple changes may make it possible for a lot more people to get there. It's not the fault of families and Scouts when they don't attend something like this. We ought to look at what we're doing, how we're doing it and why we're doing it before we get too upset that nobody's showing up for what we're doing. Scouts and families vote with their feet. If they aren't showing up, it's more than likely that we may have something off base.

Now you also touch on something that a lot of Scoutmasters ask: how do you get a committee to change their old ways? And the answer all begins with training and studying resources like the troop committee guidebook and the guide to advancement and the Scoutmaster handbook.

I mean, we all too often think that we have to wait for a training event. You know, we look at a council or a district schedule.

We see a training event as a couple months away and we think, okay, we're going to go do that and we try and encourage the people working with the troop to get there. And you know what happens. The schedules are this way and that way. Training events can fall at bad times and all of a sudden, instead of five or six people getting there, it's you and maybe one other person. Don't limit yourself that way. Take the initiative and get your adult volunteers the resources and work with them to learn about these things together.

There's a number of resources out there. There's online training through scoutingorg, there's training events, like I said, at your district or council, and there's always asking somebody to come and hold a training session for your troop and your adult volunteers.

If that is unworkable, how about studying things together as a group and using what resources you can find online? Think creatively, get everyone trained or retrained and make that an annual thing. Once you start thinking about these things, old habits have a tendency to get changed, especially when you see the wisdom in a lot of these recommended best practices. I would make one observation about the ego presentation you mentioned. Uniforms are a best, recommended practice and they're not required by policy at any time or any place, and you'll find this in the guide to awards and insignia, on page five, which says- and I'm quoting: while wearing the uniform is not mandatory, it is highly encouraged. The leaders of scouting, both volunteer and professional, promote the wearing of the correct complete uniform on all suitable occasions.

Whenever I mention this, I get a lot of comments, and so let's be clear on something: Yes, uniforming. Yes, uniforming is one of the methods of scouting. Yes, uniforming is important. Yes, uniforming is highly encouraged.

We've made the mistake sometimes of thinking that it's mandatory and then enshrining unit rules about uniforms and things like that. What I want to do is just encourage you to think about it.

Okay, and this email came across the transom this week. I'm writing to share part of an email from a parent about merit badges, because to me it's a classic helicopter situation.

Here's what she wrote: can you tell me what badges my son has partially completed at summer camp? I'd like to work with you to get these finished up now, between now and summer camp, and I would like him to be able to register for merit badge work at camp on new badges instead of spending his time finishing badges from last year. Additionally, I'd like to talk to you about his earning some of the eagle required badges, like the citizenship badges and things that seem pretty intense. I would like to plan his summer around badge work versus signing him up for all kinds of busy work camps around town. My challenge is is that this parent hasn't picked up on the general hints about the onus being on the scout, the importance of his own interest and motivations being driving factors in earning badges, the real learning that comes from communicating these things.

So I'd love to hear your thoughts on how I can send a clear yet respectful message to this parent when the subtle hints I've dropped don't seem to be enough. This is actually a pretty common thing. Parents can be kind of hard driving.

They get behind their boys and they really drive them on advancement, and I think that we can do what we can do to explain to them that this should be boy driven, that this should be based on a scout's interests and he should be allowed the latitude to administer his own advancement in the way that he sees fit. Not every parent is going to get this and this is not going to be consistent with every parenting style out there.

So what do you do when there's a hard driving parent? Well, first of all, we don't punish the boy, right? We're not going to make remarks about his parents or the way things are going or anything like that. We're going to cooperate with this parent. We're going to do our best to help satisfy what they're trying to do.

We don't really know what's going on at home, do we? We don't know what this parent's driving at. It may be that, hey, we just have one of those good tiger moms who's driving the kids pretty hard to achieve, or we may have a mom who's a bit worried about her boy and trying to help him focus and trying to help him use his time wisely. Absent that knowledge, what I would encourage anyone facing this kind of situation to do is to accept the fact that not every parenting style is going to be absolutely consistent with the way that you see parenting and the way that you see scouting, That parents are supporting their boy's participation in scouts because they see that participation as being something consistent with the goals that they have for their sons. If they're going to drive pretty hard and they're going to have maybe more to do with what then we think is appropriate with shaping what their sons do in scouts, we're going to deal with it as diplomatically and as kindly and as respectfully as possible. We're not going to make the scouts suffer for the actions of their parents and we're going to cooperate as much as we possibly can with what parents are doing.

Don't take that advice as the thin end of the wedge where we just say, oh well, we can't help anything, so we just go and we do whatever parents want us to do. You know, sometimes there's a line and we need to point that out and we need to say: look, you know, for this to work the way that you want it to work and to achieve the goals that you want it to achieve, I'm going to recommend that you think about maybe stepping back a little bit and helping him focus- yes, but making sure that he's focusing on the things that he wants to do rather than the things that you want him to do. Sometimes a little kind nudging and advice like that works, sometimes it doesn't, and getting ourselves too exercised over it can have negative results for the boy and negative results for the family.

So you know, that's my best advice on the situation. Everybody's going to handle a little bit differently, but at the basis of it, we're cooperating with parents for what they want for their sons.

So if you have a question, you can email me and you'll find out how to do that in just a moment.