Scoutmaster Podcast 169

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And now the old Scoutmaster. Hey, we were out cabin camping last weekend. We went to light the stove and a mouse jumped out of it. We tried to catch him but unfortunately he was out of range. It only gets better from here, folks. Don't worry.

This is podcast number 169.. Welcome back to the Scoutmaster Podcast. This is Clarke Green. Let's take a look in the mailbag here. Francine wrote in about last week's podcast And she said it's another great podcast. I had a similar problem with blue cards when a council summer camp issued completed merit badges on a computer printout versus the blue card.

I simply had scouts put their information on blue cards, stapled a copy of the forms the camp gave us to the blue card for our records, supplied the scout with their portion of the blue card with another copy of the form on it. It was a pretty quick, easy solution to the problem And we know that the official blue card. That application for a merit badge is supposed to be the only accepted form. Some people get it wrong once in a while. We don't make the scouts suffer, We try and find a way to solve it. Francine, it sounds like you found a way.

Thank you very much for letting us know. Alan Schneider is the Scoutmaster of troop 483.. He said I enjoyed your segment on patrols planning menus that one scout doesn't like. I've had new scouts come into the troop and it seems like their parents allow them to be picky eaters and they prepare their own meals for them and things like that, which is really almost impossible for a patrol to deal with. But if they work at it they find a way. If a patrol works with a scout who's got a problem with the menu, they learn to adjust their habits as a patrol and the scout himself learns something.

Actually, by the end of the first year in scouts, one mom came to me and said she couldn't believe her son was now eating so many different meals that she'd never been able to get him to eat before. Well, you know what, When you don't have a whole lot of choices, sometimes you adjust your menu a little bit. You adjust what's acceptable to eat, and a patrol can work around that, And it's surprising what kind of solutions they come up with when we put the problem in their hands.

They'll need a little advice and things usually end up working out, don't they? Thanks for getting in touch, Alan. I do appreciate it. Kim Jones is the committee chair of troops 723 in Placentia, California, And she wrote in to say I get all of the scoutmastercgcom emails.

I'm a subscriber and I really enjoy them and I found so many very timely. As a committee chair, I do my best to support our scoutmaster and his assistants. I find your ideas and viewpoints refreshing and informed. I'm sad that everyone can enjoy scouting. I did work with a gay cubmaster and she was the best things those kids could ask for. What really matters is what's inside, how we treat scouts and how we set an example for them.

Keep those emails coming. I'm truly a fan and I appreciate all the hard work you have done and still do for scouting.

Well, thank you so much, Kim. I appreciate the vote of confidence and I'm glad you're finding things useful, And I really appreciate you getting in touch. John Fox wrote in to say that he's been following the blog for a while and he likes the new ideas that he sometimes finds there, And he wants to put the three phrases for scoutmasters on the back of his Unit Commissioner business card. And you go right ahead, John, Feel free. Those three phrases you're going to hear again a little later on in the podcast. I'll tell you about that in just a second.

Before I get too far ahead of myself, let me remind you that May 12th- Sunday, May 12th- is our next Scout Circle. It'll be about summer camp.

We have a camp director who's going to be our guest and he'll be talking about summer camp and different programs and things. Plus, you'll be able to ask questions and get them answered in a live presentation situation. Go to scoutscircleorg. That's going to happen Sunday, May 12th, from 9 to 10 pm Eastern Daylight Time at scoutscircleorg.

I also want to mention that we have a YouTube channel. Now I'm aiming at a weekly video that is kind of, you know, catching you up on the blog and the podcast. Plus, they'll feature reviews of camping gear and other useful things for scout leaders.

So go over to YouTube, Look for scoutmasterscgcom, and let me thank those of you who've subscribed to our new YouTube channel and left comments and who are looking at the videos there. I really do appreciate it. The rest of the podcast is taken up with this month's installment of the Colorado experiment.

If you joined us last month, you know that we've got- we're watching- a brand new Scoutmaster and a brand new troop being formed out in Colorado, And it's been very, very interesting. And this time around we'll be talking about patrol leaders' council meetings, And we also managed to isolate three phrases that I think will be very useful to you as a Scoutmaster or a scouting volunteer.

So, hey, without further ado, let's get started, shall we?

And now our next episode of the Colorado experiment. This is our second installment of the Colorado experiment.

I love the idea that it's an experiment That's awesome, And that's Arlen Ward, And he's out there in Colorado And the experiment is, I think, at one point, Arlen. We call it jumping into the volcano.

Yeah, I think that's an apt description, as I think it was Walter that said: you're just not ever the same after you jump into the volcano. Right, In case you haven't been following the story, jumping into the volcano is a euphemism we're using for becoming a Scoutmaster.

And not only is Arlen a brand new Scoutmaster, but he's also got a brand new troop And we talked a little bit the last time we were together last month about how that came together And we've been talking a little bit here before we started recording. But, Arlen, you've had your first patrol leader's council meeting.

Yeah, So actually we've had two PLC meetings because we've kind of worked our way through the first month, which has been interesting. So who is at this patrol leader's council meeting that you're having?

Well, the very first one we had, we had talked to a number of scouts of different ages and we had two older, 16 year old life scouts that said that they really liked the idea of starting a troop and setting the tone and the culture of the troop from the beginning, And so we had the two of them was really the first meeting that we had. Obviously, from your experience level and your age and your interest in really setting this, I would like you to be involved in leadership positions in the troop And so why don't you join us one night and we'll sit here and we'll talk about it?

So it was myself, the committee chair, one of the assistant Scoutmasters. We kind of sat together on one end and then there was these two life scouts that sat together on the other side And these two guys are great. They have known each other since Tiger Cubs are great friends. They know a lot about scouting and what's been going on in their own experience. The troop is still kind of in this formative stages.

Is one of these guys your senior patrol leader now, or have you formalized anything like that? That was one of the first things that came up that I was like: okay, this is definitely not my troop, It's up to them, because that's what I had said to them.

I said: the two of you, or what do you want to do with regards to troop level leadership? And they talked about it for a little bit and they came back to me and said: we want to be co-senior patrol leaders.

And the committee chair looked at me: can they do that? I was like I've never heard of it, I've never seen it, but I don't see why not. I said you have to be prepared for the time that the two of you don't agree on something. And they seemed rather unconcerned with that. But I said: yeah, I have no problem with that. If you want to both be senior patrol leader, knock yourself out.

There will be elections and whatnot at some point in the future. This is the way that they wanted to move forward.

You're comfortable with that? Yes, Okay, I didn't see a reason to stand in their way. I should point out to everybody that should be everybody's watchword right there. I didn't see a reason to stand in their way. That would be a really good place to start.

So it's not worrying you that this isn't following some pattern that maybe you had in your mind or the other adults had in their mind? Are you guys overly concerned about having elections or formalizing things a little bit more, so it looks like the book, Or are you comfortable with moving forward this way?

When we talked about it initially, I said: if it doesn't work, we can always change it, And as it sits now we are looking at the first set of elections a year out- The size of a troop. There's plenty of leadership opportunities. I'm not worried about anybody not having their six months for whatever advancement that they need.

I want to capture one other phrase. The first phrase is: I didn't really see any reason to stand in their way, And the second one is: if it doesn't work out, we can change it. Yeah, And neither one of those are unique phrases that I came up with And I learned all this stuff from you, from other scoutmasters. There's a scoutmaster in our area that I had mentioned last time. I invited us down to talk about his program and what they do in their troop, And one of the things in Wood Badger they talk about is the stages of team development. If you significantly change the sort of thing that you're doing, you go through those same stages all over again.

So we have some idea of the dynamic of the relationship with the adults and these youth leaders. Right now you're working with two pretty motivated youth leaders and who are excited at the prospect of what's happening.

What are the adults doing at the Petroleum Council meeting? Honestly, I think that was probably a mistake to have them there.

Now, why do you say that They stepped in? Probably a little bit more than I would have, Just providing answers rather than asking questions. You don't have a transcript of the meeting, obviously, As that dialogue was going on. Give me an idea of what you consider to be like outside of the bounds of what you would like to have happen.

Well, I can kind of give you the whole dynamic of that in one topic, And this shows that these two scouts aren't any different than anybody else's. I guess They had brought up uniforms.

Well, what are we going to do about uniforms? And we started talking about it in general terms and one of them said: you know, I was kind of hoping that we wouldn't need uniforms. He's 16 years old.

I remember being a scout at 16.. I wasn't entirely enthused about wearing the scout uniform then either. And at that point someone else said: look, we've got to. There's no question. You have to have a uniform, You have to wear the uniform.

We have to set the standard of uniform And just lay down the law of that's out of the question that we don't have uniforms. It became more of a discussion rather than you will have uniforms and more of a. This is why we do this.

So, looking at that issue, the scouts raised a question. Instead of giving them a policy statement as an answer, what I'm hearing from you is that you looked at it as an opportunity to have a little bit more of a wider ranging discussion in which they were able to discover the reason for something, rather than just being told: well, this is the way that it is, And I'm not saying that it was entirely blue sky and easy going and that it was all my way by the time they didn't completely come around to my point of view.

What was the outcome of either these patrol leaders council meetings? Do you have a full calendar of meetings all set up and outings all planned?

We have about three months' worth of activities planned and we have an idea, a general idea, of what's going to be covered in those meetings. More detail in the things that are in the near term, the next couple of weeks, much less what's going on in June and July.

Well, we were talking before. You mentioned the attitude towards these guys as far as troop meetings go.

What was that discussion? They didn't like just having meetings for a meeting's sake, And so for the new scouts that we have that have never been hiking, what do they need to know?

It was my part of that discussion and what came out of that? One of these guys said: well, you know, sometimes when we go hiking, some people bring way too much stuff and some people hardly bring anything at all. And that was quite literally what he said.

They said: well, okay, so what should we cover to correct that? And they brought up the 10 essentials and said if we're going to go hiking, we should talk about the 10 essentials.

It was like, well, fantastic, It works out much better that way than me setting it and saying: we're going to cover the 10 essentials, You're going to teach it this way. We started from what's the need and worked backwards from there. You knew what you wanted to do to get everybody ready to go on the hike. I had a general idea. Yeah, And you probably included in that general idea somewhere the specific of stuff to bring, like 10 essentials and things like that. But you didn't tell these guys that that's what they were supposed to do.

No, because at that point it goes back to what they were complaining about from their previous experience, which is: you're going to teach knots tonight And one of them says: you know, I'm tired of teaching the little kids Right After four years doing that. He doesn't want to do that.

But if you phrase it as we're going to go hiking, what should we do? What comes out of that is: well, I guess there are things that they have to be prepared for. If we're all going to go hiking and we're going to have a good time, they need to know the 10 essentials. What interests me really is the way that you enter into the whole conversation there.

If the Scoutmaster sits down and says: you know, we're going on a hike and here are the five things that you need to do to get everybody ready for the hike, That's a very different thing when you're sitting down and saying, what are we doing? Oh, we're going on a hike, So what are you going to do to get everybody ready to go on the hike? And letting that question fill in the blanks rather than the Scoutmaster filling in the blanks.

Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, That's repeated over and over again as we've gone through this A couple of iterations.

Now You know we're getting ready for our first camping trip and the camping trip is the same meeting when we were first talking about what activities should we do. We want to do something this month, but we don't have a lot of time to prepare, so let's do the hiking trip.

The next one was: I think we should have a camp out where everybody gets to know each other, because I don't know a lot of these guys just going camping to hang out and figure out who we're camping with, And that was their idea. Then let out of. That was like really good food, A lot of good eating and hanging out If we're going to do a good food.

That to me leads to questions around Dutch ovens And they're like: yeah, let's bring the Dutch ovens, We can do dinners out of that. It's a great opportunity for us to show off the types of food that you can have on a camping trip.

So we picked a date for that camping trip and then roughly said we've got four meetings before the camping trip. There's going to be things that we need to cover around: what to bring, how to cook certain things. They filled in kind of rough ideas around that.

The Monday after our hike, we had our second PLC meeting where we said: alright, our next activity according to the schedule you guys put out is this camping trip, And what kind of detail do we need to actually get into these meetings along the way? And so we're getting into things of how to pack a backpack, how to set up the dining fly, Things like that, And so those are the things that they're going to cover in the upcoming meetings.

Let me ask you this- Answer this as honestly as you can: Who's leading and who's following in these two meetings that you described to me? Yeah, I would say I've been leading that discussion. I'm the one that brings up the questions. I'll be facilitating the discussion.

Okay, Who's getting the last say decision-making wise as far as what they're up to and how they're going to make it happen They are? Who's going to do what?

What all are we covering in the meetings? Every once in a while, I'll bring up some administrative things that we need to get taken care of.

Our very first meeting, in addition to covering the 10 essentials, the other thing we were supposed to cover- or they were supposed to cover- was getting patrols set up. But Mother Nature intervened and on the night of our very first troop meeting, we got 14 inches of snow in our neighborhood.

So they decided that they didn't want to set up the patrols. Yet They said: we don't have enough guys here to divide up into what they want to do.

I was like, okay, that's fine, I said, but that is something that we need to get done, especially before we go camping, since these guys are going to be cooking as a group, they're going to need to figure out what they're doing. The one thing that I haven't heard anything about in the discussion thus far are things like advancement or requirements or anything like that. There's this voice that every Monday is in my head that tells me that scouts advance when they do the things that scouts do. And it's come up repeatedly and I've written it down and tried to keep that in mind And I've even used that phrasing to describe it to the scouts.

I mean because I have parents of scouts that have said, well, in the last trip they were and they did merit badges and troop meetings and we need to figure out which merit badges they're going to do in troop meetings. I was like, well, I kind of made a face because I can tell you're not really a big fan of that. I said no. I said troop meetings are preparing for outings but merit badges have nothing to do with that.

I said merit badges are interesting and I think as a troop we certainly should offer opportunities to do merit badges. I said if we want to set up, if we've got enough interest from a group of scouts that they all want to do, say the first aid merit badge is a group.

I know merit badge counselors, we can set it up and we can set it up on some time. That's not.

But what I left it with was we can go to the PLC with it and see what they want to do. I said, well, we've got to decide what merit badges happen at troop meetings.

This was another adult and you said, well, we'll go to the patrolers council and see what they have to say. What kind of reaction did you get from the adult They understood- That was why they had moved to this troop in the first place- was we're giving them leadership opportunities.

And when we get together with a group of these parents and we talk, often it comes up, from my perspective, it's not so much what we're doing but who's doing it. And that just kind of brought that home.

It's like, okay, yeah, as a committee or as a Scoutmaster and as few assistant Scoutmasters, we could figure that out, but at that point it goes back to them running a program that somebody else handed to them. I think that a lot of people who are in your position would be looking at the book and they would be thinking about advancement, they would be thinking about setting up patrols, they would be thinking about the leadership chart and everything. You just don't seem to be overly concerned with that stuff. Don't get me wrong. I've been through that book many times. Look through the requirements and all of those pieces.

When it comes to this first camping trip that we've got, since we're taking Dutch ovens and things like that, we're not going to be that far from the car and so I had brought up with the, the PLC said, look, since we're already hauling a bunch of stuff and we're not, this isn't going to be much of a the way of a backpacking trip. What about bringing the axes and the saws along and teaching the totem chip and the knife safety and the axe yard and all of that stuff? That, from my standpoint, I don't see us having a lot of opportunity to do when we're doing much in the way of backcountry things. And they're like, yeah, that would be good, that's the sort of activity that they could see doing as they're getting to know each other.

And so we talked about that for a little bit and they were in agreement that that we could do the knife safety stuff. And that stems out of me looking through the book and seeing the requirements for second class and tender foot, that safe handling of a knife. I explained to these guys a fire starting competition and they looked at me all confused.

I said, look, you know you have two stakes in the ground. You put a string across here and a string across a little bit higher, and you can't stack wood any higher than the bottom one and the first one to burn through the top string wins.

You know they looked at me and said I've never heard of that before. And you're seeing them respond to this way of doing things with a good amount of energy and engagement.

Yeah, yeah, I think they have more questions than anything else at this point and I do see from the parents some concern that things aren't moving as fast as they would like. But I think that's going to be a continuous thing, that the scouts are always going to have more questions and some lack of assurance that these things are going to take care of themselves along the way, and the parents are always going to be wishing things were a little bit more organized and perhaps we had a six month calendar instead of a month and a half calendar. Those are going to keep coming up and as long as we keep on the message of: yes, I understand that your family is busy and we will do our best to get a longer range calendar put together, but it's going to be rather nebulous in the first bit and the reason that it's going to be nebulous is because you're invested in letting the guys find their own way rather than giving them a menu of stuff to work with. I could sit down in three hours and lay out a year's worth of activities and meeting plans for a scout troop. We do that for the Cub Scout pack all the time. We call it our annual planning meeting.

The adults sit in a room and we lay out what we're going to do next year. We pick the dates for everything and what the activities are going to be at each monthly pack meeting and stuff like that. But this is different.

This is, again, not so much about what we're doing, more about who's doing it. Okay, so now I've got three phrases, so let's see.

The first one was: I didn't see any reason to stand in their way, and then the second one was: if it doesn't work, we can change it right. And the third one was: yeah, we used to do that all the time for the Cub Scouts. Yes, I like it. Okay.

So our kind of standard three questions. What worked really well, what worked better than I ever thought it would, is turning to the Scouts and saying: what do you think? Whatever the topic was: I've got the second PLC meeting.

We sat down and one of these guys looked at me and said: I think we need to go to summer camp. And we had decided as adults: it's going to be a month after we start the troop, we'll just camp through this summer and then we'll go to summer camp next year.

And they're like, yeah, but I just think we need to go somewhere and we need to get these guys into a summer camp and spend a week. And I couldn't argue with that. I know, I'm all for it.

So we've made some phone calls and done some research and found a number of camps that have space still and we'll take them back to them and say, look, this is what's out there. What do you guys want to do with it?

Is there anything that just absolutely fell flat and you thought it was a great idea but it just didn't get anywhere? Anytime we're traveling anywhere, we should be in full uniform would fall into that category. 100%. The very first outing we had. I'm sitting there going.

Do I show up in my uniform? I told them that we were going to go everywhere in you, but I don't see how this is going to work. As Murphy's Law of Combat says no plan ever survives initial contact, and that's what happened here. The funny thing is that was mine. That was my vision of what the troop should be.

I was the one that the PLC meeting said I would really like to see this and they went: okay, fine, it lets you have that one. And it didn't work.

But at the second PLC meeting- that's what I told them- this was a great idea, I thought, turns out not so much. And they all nodded and said, yeah, what would you change?

What would you have done differently over the past month? I think a lot of the families are still really starved for information.

I think we didn't explain early enough in this to some families that this is what it's going to look like. From a parent's perspective. It's going to seem kind of haphazard and it's going to seem rather like we're throwing things together at the last minute. But a lot of that's coming from. I am really resisting the urge to lay out the plan and letting them do it, and they're not going to do it more than a month in advance.

We can get the activities on the calendar further out than that and maybe, as we work forward a few months into this, maybe they'll get faster at it. But we can spend an hour and a half talking about what's going to happen in the next month as we move away from having adults involved in that PLC and they start asking those questions or coming prepared with answers to them. They're going to get better at it and that communication is going to come along. But I got families that look at this and say I wish I knew more about what's going on.

So do I? So do I? Yes, absolutely.

Is there anything I've missed that you would hope to talk about? There's been some surprises along the way. The weather has definitely made sure that we're flexible. We've had to readjust locations for things and kind of goals for meetings when not everybody can get there, and we're still struggling with the fact that we don't have a set meeting place yet.

So we're seeing if we can move up that calendar a little bit with our meeting place or just finding another organization or a community center or something where we can meet instead of meeting in houses. And that was again brought up by the PLC, those guys saying: look from our perspective, this is where things sit right now. Arlen, I really appreciate you talking with me and we'll do this again next month and we'll see exactly how you're doing. Yeah, hopefully by then I can tell you all about how these guys are expert campers and can plan things six months in advance. And the emails and parents have stopped asking any questions.

Well, if that happens, I'm moving to Colorado. Yes, fair warning. It's been an interesting initial contact, for all of us for sure.