Scoutmaster Podcast 183

And now the old Scoutmaster. Here's something I found at Ask Andy. If you're not familiar with it, go over and check them out online. Ask Andy at the United States Scouts Service Project. He said waiting for things to improve of their own accord is like expecting an avalanche to divide and go around you.

Now you've got to roll up your sleeves. You've got to make things better, don't you?

Hey, this is podcast number 183.. Everybody roll.

We packed up our canoe And now we're flying across the lake. We're going camping, We're going camping. Oh yeah, We're going camping, We're going camping.

Well, welcome back to the Scoutmaster Podcast. This is Clarke Green And I am just back, a couple of days ago, from a wonderful, wonderful week up in Algonquin Provincial Park in Ontario, Canada, canoeing with our scouts. We took 25 scouts in three different crews. We had probably the best weather we've had, maybe in five or six years. The mosquitoes were out and the mutes were all hiding.

But you can't have everything, because you know where would you put it all. But we had a wonderful time up there. And let me make a pitch to you: If your scouts did not go on some kind of high adventure trip this year, next year, 2014,. Make it happen, Just make it happen. Go to ScoutMasterCGcom. Look for a high adventure.

Read what we've had to say about that. There's just you know what You can do it. You can absolutely do it. Make it happen. It's a great thing to do for your scouts And you're going to have a good time too.

So let's take a look in the mailbag. Wow, lots of mail from the past week. Aaron is a Cub Master in PAC 252 in Hudson, New Hampshire, And he wrote to say: first, love listening to your podcast. I'm a newly asked- or some may say suckered in- Cub Master, Even though you're talking about the Boy Scout part of the program. I find much of your thoughts, many of your thoughts, very useful in my approaches to working with Cub Scouts.

Do you have any recommendations for more Cub-specific podcasts? I listen via Stitcher And all the best shows I found stopped posting over a year ago. Some of my best ideas have come from listening to yourself and other podcasters. Keep up the show and thanks.

Well, thank you, Aaron. Thanks for being in touch.

So far as I know, I'm the only person who is publishing a weekly podcast. You would not believe the amount of effort and time it takes to put one of these things together. I would love to be able to speak more to Cub Scouts and to Cub Leaders, And if there's anybody out there who thinks they've got a voice and they have the experience and they would like to put in the time and make a commitment to do it, let's get a Cub cast going.

The only one that I know of that is now regularly published is the one that the BSA offers from time to time. I know that there's a big backlog of podcasts by the folks over at PTC Media that are still out there and still available, And you can find them on the web, PTC Media, And that's my best advice to you. But thanks for getting in touch, Aaron, I really do appreciate it. John Strohmeier is in Houston, Texas, with Troop 55. And he writes in to say thanks for putting all of this together. I'm just getting back into scouting after taking about 18 years off, And your site has been very helpful in getting my bearings and finding other information.

It's also great to hear a voice that supports the free range kids theory in Scouts. I don't have kids yet, but that's the way my fiance and I want them to grow up. I have two questions for you One. I can only find the latest two episodes on iTunes.

Do I have to go to the site to download the others? Let me answer that question first, John. Yes, that's the way it works right now. If somebody out there is an iTunes guru and they want to help me get all of the backlog, all 183 editions of the Scoutmaster podcast, on iTunes, I sure would appreciate it. Get in touch with me, Clark at scoutmastercgcom. John's other question is: I volunteered to be the assistant scoutmaster dealing with the order of the arrow for our troop.

I've found some of the extra opportunities for Scouts in the order of the arrow. There are high adventure OA trips and awards that Scouts and Scouters can earn as a part of the order of the arrow.

Do you think using these opportunities as carats for Scouts is the best way to motivate them? In the order of the arrow, It seems like offering the opportunity and awards with the advancement method of Scouting, But I'd like to hear from you about this.

Well, yeah, I guess they could be carats. I guess they could get more people involved in the order of the arrow.

But what is our point? Why are we doing this If involvement in the order of the arrow is something that somebody really enjoys and it's something that really lights them up and it furthers the aims of Scouting. That's good. Not everybody is going to be that way. I've been involved with the order for many, many years, sometimes much more actively than I am at present. Sure, it's great to have all those opportunities out there for Scouts to take advantage of.

Yeah, make sure they know about them. If they take you up on it, make it happen for them. And thanks for getting in touch, John, I really do appreciate it. Scott is from Troop 651 in San Marcos, California, And he wrote in to say: I was listening to one of your old podcasts way back in the 30-somethings when a Scoutmaster who wrote you and was disturbed by his scout's lack of imagination when it comes to cooking. I had been seeing the same thing for the past few months in our troop and we came up with something that at least helped motivate the boys to challenge themselves and try something new. One of our Scouts who was preparing to go to staff NYLT recently came up with an idea from his experience with the course.

What we did was announce that the patrol at a fast-tasting dinner on an up-cutting outing would win the Golden Spoon. Be sure to make some echo sound effects when you say this. Thanks for the direction, Scott The Golden Spoon.

So we started doing it and we sent the judges around on the Saturday night to sample what the scout had cooked, and the results were impressive. I told them the winner would be announced at our next troop meeting and the senior patrol leader presented a spray-painted serving spoon they could hang on their patrol flag.

We don't plan on doing this necessarily every month, but the patrol leader's council now has a tool they can pull out a few times a year to shake things up. I'm not sure we're the first ones to do this, but I thought this story was a good example of how the Scouts can be creative and apply what they learn and possibly give others an idea they can use to inspire some more ambitious cooking.

Well, thank you, Scott. Thanks for being in touch and it's a pleasure to try. You may come up with an idea on your own. You may come up with a similar idea of your own, like a golden fork maybe. We also heard from Mike Frame in the Isle of Palms, South Carolina, with Troop 502.. He said: I found you a few months ago and I really enjoy your website and especially your podcast.

Working on my commissioner college project and thought your listeners could give me some feedback and suggestions, I also have a website entitled BSA High Adventure and Summer Camp Guide. It provides a list of counsel and high adventure links for Scouts and I'll have a link to that in the post that contains this podcast. Go check it out, Get in touch with Mike Frame down there in South Carolina and let him know what you think. Thanks, Mike, Thanks for getting in touch and thanks for sharing that with us.

Well, as I noted before, I'm meeting next week with a quart of honor and there's lots and lots of work to do with the Troop and the Venture Crew. I'm sure everybody out there is busily working on their preparations for the fall and basking in the afterglow, shall we say, of summer camp and high adventure trips.

So I have a couple of email questions for this podcast and that's going to take up the rest of the podcast. So let's get started, shall we? One, Six, Five, Four, Three, Two, One. Let's start the fun.

Here's an email question that came in from Fred Glover and he is in Glendale Heights, Illinois, with Troop 351.. Clark, what's your opinion about Scouts carrying cell phones on outings?

Well, Fred, cell phones and similar electronic devices are really just part of the fabric of modern life, I think. Like a pocket knife or a gas stove, they can be useful, but they are also subject to misuse. I asked my youth leadership to set the standards of use for them and the kind of etiquette that one would need if these are going to be taken along on a camping trip or be at a scout meeting.

And you know, once we've done that, we really have no big problems. That's not to say that I particularly like having cell phones around, but it's not really something to make an issue over. I got to tell you I've tried that in the past and it's a losing battle. I stopped fighting and started working with the Scouts on it and we're in a good place with it.

If we have cell phones out on a camping trip or a meeting or something like that, you know there's just be courteous about using them. Don't use them in the middle of somebody's presentation or while you're in the middle of an activity, and it works out pretty well.

So thanks for that question, Fred, and I hope that helps Mike Sakura- I hope I got the last name right. Mike is with troop 706 in Columbia, Missouri. He said: in several posts you refer to Scouts choosing their own patrols. In one post you even describe that it's a possibility of that being a fairly fluid thing.

Can you provide some more details on how that works? Do you allow boys just to float between patrols?

How does it affect the ability of a patrol leader to know who's in and who's not leading their patrol? If it's something more structured, how often do you let the boys switch or realign patrols?

How do you avoid the problem of less popular or more introverted boys being left out? Our troop has assigned patrols to new Scouts joining each spring. We traditionally structure patrols by age group and use older Scouts as troop guides to train the new Scouts on their camping and cooking. But especially at the older level the boys behave as you suspect: They're hanging out with their friends, not their patrols.

I'm taking over Scoutmaster this fall and I want to start letting at least the older boys choose their patrols, but I expect some resistance from adults. So I'm looking for answers before I get the questions. Thanks for all you do for Scouting and for being such a great resource.

Well, thank you, Mike, thanks for your kind words there and thanks for getting in touch. When it comes to patrols and patrol assignments and the way that all that works, let me ask everybody to step back for a moment and ask: why do we even have patrols to begin with?

I mean, what's the point? Scouting has patrols? Because that's where all the aims of Scouting are met, Each Scout looking after his fellow Scouts, the patrol looking after the individual Scout. That's where it all happens.

Now put yourself in your Scouts shoes for a moment. You're going to be working with your patrol all the time, for fun, for achievement, for challenge. You'll be camping and tenting and cooking together.

Who do you want to do this? With Your friends, of course. That's probably why you join Scouts in the first place. You want to do things like camping and tenting and cooking and being in competitions and planning and doing great stuff with your friends. From our perspective as adults, we'd like to have perfectly balanced patrols by age, rank and experience, because we think this will make things more efficient and manageable.

But our concentration ought to be not on how efficiently we can manage things, but on the happiness of our Scouts, because happy Scouts get the work of Scouting done in their own time, in their own way. Some patrols are going to be orderly and slick and operate to a very high standard. Some are going to be a little messy or chaotic, They may be a little slow, they may be a little fast, but our Scouts will be happily doing the work of Scouting regardless. Scouts aren't interested in our organizational charts. They aren't interested in our idea of who they should be associating with. As you noted, they find their friends and stay with them, no matter what your chart says.

So instead of fighting that strong desire to be with their friends, how about if we capitalize on it? How about if we talk to the youth leadership and ask them how they'd like to form and manage patrols?

How about that? Ask them, Don't tell them how to do it. Ask them how to do it.

Talk to your youth leadership and then step back and see what they come up with. Explain they mustn't leave anybody out or make them feel as though nobody accepts or likes them. That deals with the question of boys who may be a little introverted or don't have a lot of friends within the troop or who maybe have problem behaviors, But explain to your Scouts that they need to be included just as much as anybody else and that they have a fantastic opportunity to exercise the Scout Oath and Law by working on bringing out that introverted Scout or befriending the Scout nobody else seems to like.

That's really what it's all about, isn't it? Now step back and respond to what they do. Don't tell them what to do, necessarily. Just respond to what they do. Ask them how things are going, if they think that the arrangements they have made are working or if they could be improved on. Protect them from bossy, interfering adults who want to tell them what to do and how to do it.

Let them lead, Let them decide and work with them. And are you going to encounter resistance from adults about this?

Well, of course you are. You're going to encounter resistance from adults about a lot of things.

As a Scoutmaster, And you know what. You've got a patch on your shoulder that says Scoutmaster, and if they would like to have it and they would like to arrange things according to their tastes and their lights, Well they can have the patch right. Otherwise, they can stand by and they can support your work and support what you're doing with the troop.

Now, none of this advice is intended to create meaningless anarchy. You have to train your Scouts to understand the aim of Scouting. As you go along, You ask lots of questions, Observe rather than participate, and watch carefully for positive actions within the patrols that you can congratulate them on. Scoutmasters aren't really Managers. We're more like Gardeners: We pull the weeds, We keep away the pests, We supply a safe, well-watered place for Scouts to do the work of Scouting and to grow into useful, happy, contributing adults. And it's really that simple.

Work with them on this, ask them what their solutions are and help them shape something that everybody's going to like and, most importantly, gets the work of Scouting done. Mike, thanks for getting in touch again and I hope that helps. Don Ross is with Troop 261 in Castle Rock, Colorado, and he says thanks for the truly valuable insights. I love the podcast that I'm currently mining the blog and stealing nuggets for my own use. I'll gladly pay you in coffee, gorp and campfire ashes from my Scoutmaster pension fund should our trails ever cross- and I hope they do.

Well, I do too, Don, and I'll take the coffee and the gorp and the ashes any old day. I have been involved in Scouting for a long time. I have three sons, two of whom are Eagle Scouts and the third is just winding up as life requirements. Our current Scoutmaster will be stepping down in December of this year and I will be taking over. Over the years Our troop leadership has kind of swung back and forth: from being mostly adult, led more or less like an advanced Cub Scout pack, to being very youth led with varying degrees of adult guidance, sometimes great, sometimes less than great. My desire for my tenure as Scoutmasters to guide them into that golden balance where the adults are present, engaged and necessary, but the boys are the ones running the troop.

In a recent podcast you listed three conditions you require for any activity that the Scouts plan References were directly related to the patrol method in the game of scouting. I am scouting your blog to find those references but I haven't found any directly yet.

You put the requirements very eloquently in the podcast and I want to employ them in our upcoming planning session and I'd also like to know what the best primer is on the fundamentals of the classic patrol method. I really want to engage my patrol leaders council in this immediately and need to ensure I'm adequately equipped to help them handle it.

Well, Don, thanks for the kind words. I really appreciate you getting in touch. Most of the answers you are looking for are going to be found in the book Working the Patrol Method. I will have a link on how to find that book in the post that contains that podcast. But Working the Patrol Method- it's available on Amazon. And the rest of the answers you're going to find from the experience of just trying things out and making things work.

The big plus, the biggest part of the answer, is in the fact that you understand that it's your job to enable the boys to make sure that these things happen. That's, follow the advice and working the patrol method and you'll get off on the right foot. And congratulations and thanks for taking on the job as Scoutmaster. You can get in touch with me with a question or a comment and you're going to find out how to do that in just a moment.