Scoutmaster Podcast 193

And now it's the old Scoutmaster, The old scouter. He likes to come and visit the troop meetings once in a while.

He likes to keep up with what we're doing and you know, talk scouting. He's getting on in years.

So his wife has to help him get there. She drives him over to the meeting house and helps him get inside and she'll sit there with him and it's great. He can talk to the scouts and share stories and things like that.

And he was there the other night and I said: listen, do you remember? You told me about a backpacking trail You used to take the scouts out on and it had a waterfall. It was a beautiful place and I can't remember the name of the place.

Do you remember the name of the place? He says, oh, of course.

Of course I remember the name. And I said: well, can you tell me what it was?

He says, oh, yeah, yeah, What's the name of the flower? The red flower, right, Did she get for Valentine's Day? And stuff like that.

I said: do you mean Rose? And he says that's right, that's right. And he turns to his wife and he says: Rose, what was the name of the trail with the waterfall where I used to All. Right, this is podcast number 193.. Welcome back to the Scoutmaster Podcast. This is Clarke Green And we begin, as we always do, with the mailbag.

Dave Self got in touch with us through Facebook. He said I listened to my first podcast, episode 192, tonight. Great show, I'm glad to have a quality scouting podcast to listen to. Looking on iTunes, I don't see any of the older episodes.

Well, Dave, we're working on fixing that. But in the meantime go to scoutmastercgcom and you'll see in the main menu a link to the podcast archive. That's where all the old shows are. You can download them. You can listen to them online, Also on Facebook. Skip Tampke got in touch with us and said I met two Eagle candidates the other night at a border review, Two very different Scouts, both outstanding candidates.

Based on what I'm seeing at boards of review this year, the future of America is in good hands, Skip. I heartily agree And thanks for getting in touch. Mike Marty is in Reinhold, Pennsylvania, and he's the scoutmaster of Troop 214. And he wrote to say thanks for the great site. I've been browsing your daily emails for some time and just recently started listening to the podcast as I drive to work. I'm a scoutmaster for a new troop.

My involvement with scouting started years ago when I took my oldest son to a role in Tigers And I also signed up to be the Tiger Dan leader. Both of my sons are in Scouts, working on their Eagle. Both have autism, but they're very high-functioning. This has been a bit of a challenge. Sometimes I inflict those challenges on myself when I try to protect them too much. Recently my youngest son completed national youth leader training and the OA ordeal.

What made this possible was my not being involved and the Scouts and the adults in leadership at those events having an open mind. The majority of Scouts in our troop are identified with one learning difference or another. We work to reach out to boys who really need Scouts. Once again, thanks for helping me be a better scout leader. Thanks, Mike. Thanks for the kind words and thanks for getting in touch.

Eric Humann writes to us from actually the north of France and says thanks for the work you do and for sharing your knowledge. Well, thank you, Eric. Thanks for being in touch.

Here's a response from the anonymous writer of an email we talked about in podcast 192.. Thanks for your personal email response to my question and your response on the podcast, The distinction between objective and subjective requirements and the point that we are looking for individual progress is very helpful. I'll encourage my troop committee and our advancement chair to take a listen to the podcast and see what happens. Thanks for all you do. In fact, I really don't know how you do it. You must be retired or independently wealthy or have a very understanding wife.

Well, I'm not retired and I'm not independently wealthy by any means. But you hit the nail on the head, I do have a very understanding wife. Thanks for getting in touch and thanks for your kind words.

As I've been talking about on the last few podcasts, my new book, The Scouting Journey, is on its own little journey to completion right now And you know it takes more than just getting it all written. It has to be proofed and all that stuff And slowly but surely we're seeing the light at the end of the tunnel And our publication date is mid-November. It looks like we're going to be on track.

So more news about that later. On November 10th, which is a Sunday from 9 to 10 pm Eastern Daylight Time, we'll be doing our next Scout Circle at scoutscircleorg And that'll be about the transition from Weebelows to Scout. Make sure to tune in and have a listen, And in this podcast I have a story to tell you.

It's a good Halloween story, And then we're going to answer some email questions. That's going to constitute the remainder of this transmission.

So let's get started. Shall we Bride me a letter? Send it by name Email. That is, folks.

And here's an answer to one of your emails. Brian Rodini asked this question.

We have several parents that do participate regularly with the troop on camping events and direct scouts in what feels like everything. They're cooking duties, cleaning up, later getting ready for a hike. Their intentions are good, but they interfere a lot. They tell scouts to move over and let them show you how to do something, or that they'll take care of putting the tents away. Over the course of several years I've spoken to a parent or two and the Scoutmaster has. The committee chair has asked them please to step back and enjoy the camp out and let the boys do what patrols do, But it's not working very well.

So as the assistant Scoutmaster, who is soon to become Scoutmaster, I am able to interact and work with my scouts. Trying to get the message to parents to stop interfering with the scouts is another matter. Brian, thanks for getting in touch. I'll tell you that there's absolutely no question that parents who are not registered volunteers don't really belong on camping trips or in troop meetings. Somehow things have gone astray here and you're going to need to make that stop. It's a simple fix really.

Tell parents, if they want to participate on a regular basis, that they need to register as scout leaders and complete their training. Otherwise they're just not going to be welcome on camping trips or at meetings, unless they'd like to observe a meeting or a camping trip.

You know that's fine, But there are rules. Observers watch and they don't participate. They don't coach or interfere and they're going to need to learn to control themselves. You can't talk parents out of interfering because they don't see it as interfering. You can train scouters to do things properly.

Now I'm not sure where everyone got the idea that scout camping is some kind of family event. It's not. None of the parents who are interfering with a scout camping trip would do something like suit up and head out on the field to play in their child's soccer game. If they did, the referee would throw them off the field. Remember this: The Scoutmaster coaches and advises scouts and they lead adults. If adults won't follow the leader.

They really just can't be part of what's going on. Get together with your committee chair and come up with a strategy you can agree on to address this, And you're going to have to tell parents in no uncertain terms that these things are going to change. I'll tell you what my general kind of standing order is for adults. One adult- the Scoutmaster, when he's present and his designee when he's not, interacts with and directs youth leadership and scouts during meetings and camping trips. No one else speaks to or directs any youth leader or scout without going through the Scoutmaster. When scouts are meeting or camping, that's game time.

No parents are allowed on the field. No adult volunteers are allowed on the field. They can observe and they can offer help, but they're going to do that by talking to the Scoutmaster.

When we go camping, there's an area for adults at a good remove from the scouts, within sight, but as many yards away as possible. Adults do not go into the scouts area unless they have my permission, and no scout other than the senior patrol leader enters the adult area. This would be a very big change from what you described. It's going to take a little while to make it work and it could cause a little bit of difficulty, but you'll be equal to the challenge if you gather together the resources in the Scoutmaster handbook and in the scout handbook and from your training that delineate the role of parents and the role of volunteers and the role of youth leader. I received this and it was requested that I withhold the name of the person who sent it to me. They wrote in to say this: first of all, I love the podcast in the site.

I began listening six months ago and I've now started from the beginning and I'm working my way through the podcast archives. The insight you share with your audience is extremely useful and it's fun to listen to. I've enjoyed reading your recommendations and read as much as I can find out about scouting, its history and its methods. I appreciate the kind words. Here's my dilemma. I'm an assistant Scoutmaster with a group of about 60 scouts.

I came up through scouting as a den leader, unit commissioner and the father of a scout. I've noticed in the six months I've been involved with the troop that there are some challenges and a few red flags with the program. Most all of the problems stem from adults taking command when they believe the meeting or event is becoming chaotic and they have a general feeling that the boys can't lead and they really care about the scouts and want them to have the best experience possible, but they seem to feel it requires stepping in too much of the time. The current Scoutmaster is retiring and the committee is looking for a replacement. I was asked to take the position and under the circumstances I would gladly jump into this volcano, But for the next 18 months I'm going to miss about half of the troop meetings because of a work commitment. The committee discussed the conflict that I had and they decided that, while it may be difficult, they still wanted me to be Scoutmaster and that other adults could fill in when I am absent.

I appreciate their support and their desire to compromise, but I see this kind of Scoutmaster by committee to be a disaster in the making. I'm pretty sure I'd be able to coax the youth and adults along towards the youth-led patrol method style of troop if I could be there full time, but under this scenario I'm not sure it'll work. I need your advice. Have you seen this type of setup work before, where a Scoutmaster is only at a portion of meetings and other adults are filling in when he can't attend. I know I can be a good Scoutmaster, but I don't think I should take the job on if I can't do it well.

Well, that's a very interesting situation that you describe, and it's always a tough decision. But I gotta say you're asking the right question. To my mind, the whole thing boils down to one thought, and it's the same one that I shared in answer to the last email: that Scoutmaster leads adults. He coaches and serves as an advisor to the scouts, but he leads adults. When he tells adults what to do, they fall in line.

Now, the situation you describe could work, but there are some important caveats. Be very clear about your vision and precisely how you expect adults to behave once you become the Scoutmaster.

Here's what I would advise you to: tell the troop committee that you, as the Scoutmaster, are the only adult who attends the patrol leaders council meetings. You reserve the right to invite others, but no one else attends without your invitation. You will bring the plans that the patrol leaders council has developed to the committee. The committee functions to support the patrol leaders council through the Scoutmaster, not to pass judgment on the plans of the patrol leaders council- No votes, no picking things apart. They find the way to make the patrol leaders council's plans happen. Only one adult- and that will be you as the Scoutmaster when you're there, or the person you designate, and that just needs to be one person- interacts with and directs the youth leadership during meetings and camping trips.

No one else speaks to or directs any youth leader. If you're going to do this, choose one person who will fill in for you. You can't be there, Not a team, not three or four different people. One person, and I'm not suggesting that that person is called a Scoutmaster or that you're co-Scoutmasters. There's only one Scoutmaster and they call the shots, and the other person is an assistant Scoutmaster. They do as you direct.

Now, the adults involved are no doubt wonderful, helpful people who are doing what they think is best, and they're going to be a little or a lot worried about these things and they're probably going to tell you that they just won't work. Tell them that they will work. It won't be nice and neat, but it will work if you give it enough time. I would estimate it's going to take a year or two of concentrated effort on your part to turn things around. Some things happen quickly, others take much longer than any of us can imagine. I would come up with a plan, I would put it in writing.

I would give it to the committee. If they want to modify or vote on or bargain over the points in that plan, I'd probably end up passing on the opportunity of serving as a Scoutmaster. I'll repeat again: The Scoutmaster coaches and guides scouts, but he leads adults. If the adults won't follow your lead, they'll need to find somebody else to be the Scoutmaster. Howie Jones from Troop 570 in Springfield, Massachusetts, asks a dad's interested in being an assistant Scoutmaster.

He asked: what are you looking for in an assistant? And that leads me to ask you: what do you think the relationship between the Scoutmaster and assistant Scoutmasters ought to be?

How do I build a good working and training relationship with assistant Scoutmasters? Well, Howie, my advice comes from a specific context and that's a troop applying the patrol method. When the patrol method is in action, scouts are leading, of course, and in a lot of ways there's not that much for adults to do. We do invite every parent to participate in some supporting role and we welcome those who respond. I've watched the overall ratio of assistant Scoutmasters to scouts climb really steadily in other troops over the past few years. I have to question the need for more than three adults attending a camping trip.

I've seen troops where the ratio is close to one adult for every scout. Now what do those adults do?

How can youth leaders have a fighting chance if there are that many adults around? More to the point, my working relationship with assistant Scoutmasters is principally defined by their availability. Most of my assistant Scoutmasters are busy people with families and we tell every adult volunteer that they set their level of involvement. No one's ever going to give them a hard time about it. If they can't be there, they can't be there.

We've never really had a problem getting adults for camping trips and I think part of the reason is we let them set their own expectations and level of involvement. When somebody does step up and join us as an assistant Scoutmaster, the first thing I tell them is: I am their leader, They follow me and they do what I say. I am completely unambiguous about this and for the third time in this podcast I repeat: I advise scouts and I lead adults. My first responsibility as a leader of adults is to make sure that they do not interfere with the game. Since our boundary lines aren't painted on the floor or chalked on a field, I have to shell assistant Scoutmasters where those lines are. I tell them.

If they doubt where they should be or what they should be doing, they should stand next to me. Then they know they're in the right place. New assistant Scoutmasters are encouraged to get trained beyond the required youth protection training. I encourage them to take every online course that they can.

Over the past years, our district and council training events have grown smaller and smaller and there are fewer opportunities for in-person training. I try to get assistant Scoutmasters to listen in when I'm training youth leaders and this seems to help a great deal. And as I have run all of the training required to be an assistant Scoutmaster many times over the years, I usually go through these sessions with my assistants piecemeal over a few months if they can't get to one of the regular training sessions. I have found that a new assistant Scoutmaster without any scouting background gets on board a lot faster than a former cub leader or most eagle scouts. People with scouting experience have some preconceptions that may or may not jive with the patrol system, and we butt heads from time to time, but with a sense of perspective, some good humor and some unambiguous direction, we usually solve those problems pretty fast How. I hope that helps.

I'd love to get your email question too, and I'll tell you how to get in touch in just a moment.

This has to be the truth, folks, because there is no way anyone could make this up. John was one of my fellow Scoutmasters here in our district.

We struck up a friendship years ago when we were working together in a Scoutmaster training course. One thing led to another and we ended up co-sponsoring a district camperee. We got the boys from both troops together to plan the camperee and present things, and we wanted to have some kind of special feature at the Saturday night campfire.

So John and I started putting our heads together about that and since the camperee was scheduled later in October, right around the time of Halloween, we decided that we would go ahead and get pumpkins so that when the troops arrived at the camperee we would present them with a pumpkin with the instructions to make it into a jack-o'-lantern and they would bring that jack-o'-lantern to the Saturday night campfire and we'd put the jack-o'-lanterns out at the campfire and it would create a kind of cool Halloween atmosphere there around the campfire. The program for the campfire was pretty simple. I got to be the emcee, I was asked to have their patrols come up with skits and songs and things like that, and we lined them up and we got things ready and I don't know exactly how we struck on the idea of the pumpkin man.

I don't know if it was John's idea or if it was my idea, but somehow we ended up deciding that we should have a pumpkin man visit the Saturday night campfire. So what do I mean by a pumpkin man?

Well, you'd have to meet John to understand this and I don't think he'd be upset if I told you that John's build is kind of pumpkin-like. He was a solid guy and if you had to pick out somebody to be a pumpkin man out of a lineup- and John was in that lineup- you'd probably pick John.

Now somehow- I don't know how- he came across a fluorescent orange jumpsuit with all kinds of white reflective panels on it and things. It looked like a cross between an airline pilot and one of the guys that works out along the highway. We got down to the campery, we distributed the pumpkins and we went through all of the Saturday activities and Saturday night rolled around and it was time for the big campery campfire.

And this campfire was held in this kind of wonderful natural amphitheater we have at one of our scout camps. There's a creek in the background and kind of the stage is just right there high on the bank of the creek and then up the hill near the creek there are benches in this kind of nice natural amphitheater. John got into his pumpkin man outfit that day- glow orange jumpsuit- and he got himself out of sight down towards the creeks and nobody could see him.

And you know, at the right time the scout started to filter into the campfire circle and of course they brought their pumpkins. And as the pumpkins came in we took them and we sat them around the campfire in a big semi circle.

It looked great and we started the campfire with a song and then it was time for the first skit and what we had done is we had this log, this kind of a stump, and we set that over to one side of the campfire and the idea was, when your troop came down to do a skit, we would take your pumpkin right and we would set it on the log and we would say, hey, here's troop 15's pumpkin, and what do you think of this pumpkin, isn't it gorgeous? And everybody would go yay, and then we would put it on the log and they would come out and do their skit.

So the first troop came up, we put the pumpkin on the log and they came out and did their skit. And of course you know I came out afterwards and it was naturally.

It was one of those skits that you've seen, you know, several hundred times, right? If you've been to more than one scout campfire, you know exactly what I'm talking about. There's seems to be, by regulation, almost a number of skits that must be part of each and every campfire.

So this skit- you know it was fine, they did a fine job of it- is one that a lot of people had seen before, and so after the skit was over and the applause died down a little bit, I stepped out and I said, well, let's give a cheer for that skit. And I forget exactly what cheer we gave, did a cheer and everything, and I asked the audience.

I said, well, what did you really think of that skit? And you know how scouts are they're. They told us their opinion and it was mixed.

And I said: you know, I have a friend here who also might have an opinion about this skit. I said because it's close to Halloween, we have all these jack-o'-lanterns here. I invited my friend the pumpkin man to come and be with us this evening and I looked off and I said: hello, pumpkin man.

Pumpkin man, are you there? And John kind of popped up from behind the creek bank in this crazy orange jumpsuit and strode up to the campfire nonchalantly and we shook hands and I welcomed him to the campfire, introduced him to the scouts and I said: so, pumpkin man, did you, did you see the last skit? And he said, yeah, I saw the last skit.

And I said: wasn't it great? Didn't you think that was a great skit? Not really.

And I said: well, pumpkin man, please, we're trying to be kind here- are you sure you didn't like the last skit? He said, no, not really seen that skit a lot of times. I don't think they did very well. And of course this was all coming off the cuff.

It was a joke and everybody understood in the way that we were doing it, so no feelings were hurt, but I got to honestly disagree with you, pumpkin man. It was a great skit. And he said: you want to know what I really thought of that skit.

And I said, yeah, that's why I brought you out, I want you to give us your opinion. He walked out of the campfire light and he came back with- have you guessed it yet? Good old John had spent part of the afternoon gathering the materials and putting together a giant mallet. I mean, this thing was huge. It was probably about four or five feet long.

It had a big log 12 inches in diameter as the mallet head on it and he brought that out and there was a little murmur that started to go through the crowd once he got a big hammer for it. What's this all about?

And John looked at the jack-o'-lantern that was sitting on the log, the troop who had just done their skit- and he said: so you really want me to tell you what I thought of that skit? And once again I said yeah, I really want you to tell you that skit. He says that pumpkin there that belongs to the guys who did the skit.

And I said yeah, and the murmur in the crowd started to go up a little bit now and they started to get a little excited because they saw the pumpkin sitting there on the log. They saw the pumpkin men and they saw the giant mallet and in their fevered imagination they started to make some connections. The pumpkin man took a couple of strides over to the log and he lifted up that mallet and he brought it down with a resounding crash and smashed the pumpkin into a thousand pieces pieces and a roar of approbation went up from the crowd like none you've ever heard in a scout camp before. They were thrilled. The guys who made the jack-o'-lantern were thrilled. The rest of the scouts were thrilled.

They thought it was the best thing they had ever seen. And so the pumpkin man took a bow and went off stage again and it was time for the next troop to come up and do their skit.

And dutifully, as they took the stage, I inquired as to which jack-o'-lantern was theirs and I put that on the stump where they now smashed jack-o'-lantern used to sit and they went ahead and they did their skit. And at the end of the skit I said: well, what did you guys think of that skit?

You know how scouts are. They were calling and carrying on and I said: shall we ask the pumpkin man what he thought of the skit? Yes, ask the pumpkin man.

So John strides back out and I said, pumpkin man, what did you really think of that skit? He says, well, it wasn't too bad. It was a little bit better than the last one. And I still don't like it very much.

And I said now, pumpkin man, come on, they were doing their best. They came out and they gave us a great skit, don't you think that? Nah, I really didn't like that skit.

And he looks at the crowd and he says, yes, yes, we want to know. And so he strides over to the stump where the poor innocent jack-o'-lantern is sitting and he lifts his mallet up over his head and he brings it down and he stops and he puts the mallet down and he rubs his hands together, he spits into his palms and he picks the mallet up again, brings it up over his head, he brings it crashing down on that pumpkin and it goes, blow into smithereens all over the place. The crowd goes wild again and it was time then to bring the third troop up for their skit.

And we found their pumpkin and we put it on the stump where the poor innocent pumpkins that had been smashed to the thus far head-sat and this troop went ahead and got into a skit and they got a couple minutes in and pretty soon the crowd was chanting: pumpkin man, pumpkin man, pumpkin man, and you know, it was almost impossible to stop them. It was a runaway train and of course, out comes the pumpkin man, down comes the hammer and another jack-o'-lantern smashed.

Well, we had a fantastic time that evening. It was one of the best campfires I've ever been to, oft commented on, and everybody had a blast and we smashed 15 or 20 pumpkins and everybody thought it was just wonderful.

Now that would be enough of a story to tell, but let me dial ahead a year or so. John and I end up down at camp for one reason or another- I really can't remember why, and I'm talking to him and we're just kind of catching up- and he said that thing at the camperee that went over great. And I said, yeah, the pumpkin man. I said that was fantastic. He said yep, yep.

Last month the pumpkin man came to visit the Cub Scout camp and I said, John, you didn't, did you? He said yeah, it didn't turn out to be a very good idea, though.

I said, John what happened? He said: well, we did the same thing.

We told all the dens to make a jack-o'-lantern and bring it with them to the campfire, and we did the same thing. Their mothers got kind of angry with us, though, because they spent an awful long time working on those jack-o'-lanterns, and so from that day forward, at least as far as Cubs were concerned, the pumpkin man went into retirement.