Scoutmaster Podcast 211

Hi, I'm Scouter John, and I'm a Scoutmaster with Troop 358 and Signsville, Indiana. This edition of the Scoutmaster podcast is sponsored by backers just like me.

And now for you, Scoutmaster. A week or so ago at our Scout meeting, I had my Scoutmasters minute. At the end of the meeting there, I substituted in a quick ghost story and it was called The Summer with No Cat. I don't know about you, but around here we've had a lot of snow days this year. I'll bet you, if you're listening to me, you have too.

And so I told the Scouts my scary, scary story about the year you know, back in the olden days, when there were so many snow days one year that school just went all the way through to September and nobody got to go to scout camp, Scared them pretty good. I think they probably figured out in the end. The old man was just pulling their leg.

But wow, it's getting kind of serious, isn't it? Oh, my Well, spring will be here someday. It might only last a day or two, but it'll be here.

Hey, this is podcast number 211.. Welcome back to the Scoutmaster Podcast. This is Clark Greene. Let's take a look at the mailbag here. I heard from Dave Long, who's an assistant Scoutmaster with Troop 68 and an advisor with crew 382 in Onalaska, Wisconsin, And he wrote in to say just a word of encouragement and thanks from a new backer. I've been following the podcast for some time and finally got caught up.

I can appreciate the work involved in crafting the podcast and doing your other duties. Thanks so much, Dave. Thanks for becoming a backer. We'll talk about that in a second. I heard from Rob Knapp, who's a Scoutmaster with Troop 348 in Reiner, Virginia, And he said: thank you for all the time you put into your blog. It's truly a wonderful gift.

After listening to many of your podcasts, I feel like you're an old friend. Well, thanks, Rob.

So much for your kind words. It's always good to hear from everybody. Heard from David Copeland, who got in touch over Facebook and said: became a backer today with an investment. The resource is. Inspiration over the years have been priceless. Certainly encourage anyone that gets value from it to give back.

Thanks, David. David Copeland, that's a familiar name. He's a long time reader and listener.

And, David, thank you so much. James Keith is with Scout Troop 25 in Martinsburg, West Virginia, And he says, as always: thanks for all of your efforts. On behalf of Scouts and Scouters everywhere, I've encouraged my patrol leaders council to read the Green Bar Life articles.

Well, thanks, James. I hope they find them interesting. I hope they find them useful.

If you haven't looked into them, I've talked about them a few times on the podcast And we have the author of the Green Bar Life articles at scoutmastercgcom on the podcast to talk about them a little bit: Enoch Hysie. Enoch's a 19-year-old Eagle Scout who has fresh in his memory his experiences as a youth leader And he's sharing some really great information aimed at youth leaders and scouts who aspire to youth leadership And I want you to make sure that you let them know about Enoch's work.

So go to scoutmastercgcom and look for Green Bar Life And you'll see a growing number of articles that Enoch has produced there. Now I've been talking with Enoch about setting up a live chat so that guys can sign on and they can ask Enoch questions and they can have a discussion about youth leadership or whatever is going to be useful to them. Keep your ears open. Hope to launch that very, very soon. I promise to tell you about how to become a backer If you find what we offer on the blog and the podcast to be helpful to you and useful to you. You can return the favor by helping me make it possible By becoming a scoutmastercgcom backer.

The money that backers pay goes to support the blog and the podcast and defray the expenses of producing and publishing them. And boy I'll tell you, I just really appreciate everybody who steps up to help make this possible. And within the past week, let me thank the following new backers: Mark Eschen, David Copeland, James Keith and Peter LaRue. And Peter LaRue, by the way, is a South African scouter And he has a great blog about pioneering called Ropes and Pulse. Google that Ropes and Pulse And you're going to get some great pioneering information from Peter LaRue.

Well, in this week's podcast I've got another interview for you. Yep, last week we talked to Best Cook with the Cambridge Garden Guides down there in Australia and we're going to change our tune a little bit this week And we're going to welcome back our old pal, Arlen Ward, who is a scoutmaster out in Colorado and started a brand new scout troop last year. From time to time I've gotten Arlen to come and talk to us on the podcast. Let us know how the troops going and what it's like to be a brand new scoutmaster, brand new troop, And that's going to take up the remainder of the podcast.

So let's get started, shall we?

And now our next episode of the Colorado experiment. Welcome back to the podcast, Our old pal Arlen Ward, who is a scoutmaster of Troop 17 out there in Colorado.

It's been a little while since we've talked with Arlen, but he started this troop just about a year ago, Isn't that right, Arlen? I think that's what we decided. We would tell everybody: Yeah, it's been almost a year. We've just finished Recharter for the first time and we're off and running. At this point. We're old hands at everything.

I guess There's no new challenges that we've done at all. At least one Let's review quickly. You made a decision to go ahead and to start a new troop in your town.

You started with how many scouts? We started with six.

I think The very first meeting we had, we took over the community room at the local REI and just invited everybody and said: you know, if you're interested, come by, We'll figure out what we're going to do from there. And I think we had six families at that point.

And then the word got out: several boys who had been scouts but had left scouting, decided that what you were doing sounded interesting. And they showed up.

Yeah, we originally thought that we would kind of muddle through that first year and tell Crossover, which was actually last night, and work with the other guys on advancement and activities and kind of get them in the mode of doing scouting, before we got this influx of some Webelos- And the Webelos were really the reason that we did this. These were kind of the cohorts that my son was with. The Den Leaders and Assistant Cubmaster were all friends of mine and we started making arrangements last year to start a troop And we thought, like I said, there was going to be just a few half dozen or so.

And then, you know, they brought some more friends. And then some other people heard about it and then they brought some more friends And before you knew it we had 20-plus guys on the troop.

And where are you right now? You say you just had Crossover. Right, Right, Crossover.

There were eight that joined our troop last night And I think it takes us to about 30. From six to 30 in a year.

First of all, you've got to feel good about that, but there has to have been some growing pains along the way? Oh, there were. Yeah, there were a lot of growing pains, especially since there wasn't any traditions to fall back on. I mean, in some ways that was great, because we could set the tone as far as who answers what question.

I'm understanding that most of the questions that they asked me, I'm just going to turn around to them and say, well, you know, it's your troop, What do you want to do? Yeah, But we didn't have the traditions of well, how did we do this before?

They decided in May of last year that they wanted to go to summer camp, came to the adults and said: you know, we've decided we really would like to go to summer camp if at all possible. So May is pretty late in the season to be looking for a summer camp.

So we looked around and talked to Matt Myers, actually the council executive in Wyoming, and he was able to help us out and get us into their last week of summer camp, You know. So, using that experience, we're like: well, we have to obviously worry about summer camp way earlier than that, And so we started looking at summer camps in January, And it turns out that that's not even early enough, because the camps that they selected to go to.

Most of them were full by the time we were able to nail down a week that they wanted to go. That turned out to be kind of a big struggle. This year There's been some challenges with the schedule.

How about with families? How's that working?

You know, the more families you get, the more challenging it becomes, The more diverse the group right. Those first six families were very dedicated to making sure that this troop worked, You know.

And then as it goes along, I mean we have some had one scout that joined. He came twice, filled out the paperwork, brought it back the second time.

You know, we started going through things, thought, you know, taught them a few things, got them into a patrol and stuff like that, And we have never seen them again. Yes, The famous disappearing scout.

They go from state to state, Yeah, And they show up at your meeting for a couple of weeks and then they go away and it's time for them to move on and they go haunt another troop, The same, yeah, the same guy, Yeah, He's just going. But you know there was no response via email or phone calls as we tried to reach out to him, you know. And like, like you said, it's nothing new.

It was just there are some families that understand scouting better than others, So we've had to adjust along the way and make sure that we're explaining things to those that haven't been around scouting. Yeah, I mean, 30 years in, I don't think you can over-explain things.

A lot of the things we don't even know what it is that we need to explain. And then the only way we find that out is: you know, you end up with frustrated families that are like what is going on?

You know, I don't understand any of this, And you kind of talk through the way that they have things organized and it's like the light bulb goes on. Oh, okay, Well, you know, and so we obviously need to make sure that everybody knows where the calendar is, where the parents can get information about their scout, for whatever shocking reason doesn't come back and tell them everything that's going on.

You know, so communication's been a big one, for sure. How about just like mechanical stuff, like finances, advancement gear, stuff like that? As a troop, with no real equipment to start with, we've been trying to figure out how that works.

There's enough scouts that have tents that could bring their own tents, and then you can pair everybody else up. The big challenge that we have is around winter equipment and things like that. Yeah, you need it.

In Colorado, Basically, from about November December timeframe through about March, there's some real questions about how are you going to do your winter camping, And so it's just a matter of finding out what works best for our troop and the way that they work. You've got to try out two or three things and figure out which one really works. Sometimes that's half the fun. Yeah, I mean, these guys have had a great time.

Originally they had scheduled a trip in December and it was going to be like 10 below zero for the overnight trip, So this is going to be their first winter camping experience, And so when I talked to the PLC about this, it was like, okay, I have real concerns around what's coming up this next weekend. How do you guys want to handle it?

And they decided that instead of going up Friday, they decided to turn it into a day trip instead, And so we left really early Saturday morning. We went up and went snowshoeing- about six and a half seven miles total. They stopped and cooked their lunch at the halfway point. They made it through it. There were some lessons learned along the way as far as how to stay warm and how to stay dry and stuff like that. But it wasn't as risky as having them then spend the night up there that next night when they're cold and miserable.

So the PLC dealt with it when it was brought to their attention and I'm supposed to be looking out for the safety and well-being part. And yet at the same time I wasn't overriding their plans. I was just kind of explaining through what the challenges were.

How about money, How about finances and things. We're just kind of making that up as we go.

Yeah, I think everybody does that. That was when we did our Journey to Excellence scorecard for this year. That was one that we got dinged on because there's one on there that the troop has a budget.

So I turned to the community chair and said: do we have a budget? A what?

And he goes well, sort of, Because we didn't really know what costs were associated with things. We started based off of other people's experiences with other troops and said, well, this troop does it this way and this one does it this way.

Let's kind of pick what we think works the best out of that And run with it And then adjust as necessary. Now the troop now is to a size where we have a committee And before it was really just the committee chair took care of a lot of things and I took care of the Scoutmaster side of things. And we've come to the point where we've identified other things that the Scouts can be involved in.

We did a popcorn fundraiser in the fall. The adult that had volunteered to kind of organize all of the popcorn fundraising. He came to me and he goes.

You know, I've been looking at this and I don't see a reason why we can't have a Scout run this. They want to do a Scout fundraiser, They can run it.

I would be more than happy to look over their shoulder, give them advice along the way That's to be taken to the PLC and say: look, you know, you guys want to do a popcorn fundraiser. Here's, you know, here's your option. You guys figure out who's going to do it.

How about other administrative things like advancement and stuff like that? How's that worked out?

It has its own hiccups along the way as well, You know. I think for a while our advancement reports weren't being submitted the correct way. The committee chair, to his credit, was able to get that fixed.

But you know, navigating the systems that are in place has been a bit of a challenge along the way. From a boy, the boy's standpoint, their patrol leaders and senior patrol leader, you know they're empowered to do a lot of the advancement stuff up through first class and they've really taken to it. From an adult standpoint it's been less of an issue because it has been handled at the scout level and they've taken ownership of their advancement. They seem to be doing really well. Of course we do have some scouts that it's not a priority to them and the associated frustrated parents that are worried that their son isn't advancing as fast as the other guys that are the same age or whatever, and especially the ones that come from Cub Scouts, because they're used to. When everybody hits third grade they all do this, and when they hit fourth grade they all do this.

And then you get to Boy Scouts and it's like, well, you've got a couple of them that are really gung-ho and they're constantly chasing people around to sign off their book, and some of them that probably couldn't find their book if there was a hundred dollar bill in it for them. The key part is let's get them out there doing things.

I said you know, attending the outing isn't important to me. Attending the outing will make a difference as to how they approach scouting.

And there's families that have jumped on that and pretty soon they've got patrols bonding together, working on advancement together, going through books together with no adults involved, And some of the other ones. I've talked to the parents a couple of times.

Said: you know, look, I understand that you have a goal for him: to get to Eagle. I said you know you have to realize that the benefit isn't in the Eagle, The benefit isn't in the experience. I said I can't promise you that he'll bank it there. If he's engaged and having a good time, he's going to get the benefit anyway, one way or the other. Right, right, You're getting ready to close the books on the first year.

The $64,000 question is: would you do it again? Oh, in a heartbeat. I'd be more prepared if I were to do it again.

But you know I had a scout that his parents were concerned and he was concerned about being away from home, And so they said: okay, he can go on the camp out, He'll come up Friday with you guys and we'll come up on Saturday night and pick him up, And he called them from the campsite on Saturday afternoon and said: don't come get me To see that it makes it worth it. You've got 17-year-old life scout. That's our SPL.

You know he comes up and shows me these little tenessential hang tag things that he made and laminated to give to each of the scouts, or give groups of them to each patrol so they can give them to the scouts before the camping trip, and to see him excitedly showing them off and saying: look, I put these together. I think they're going to be really useful and, you know, taking ownership of things that nobody had to remind them about.

They're no longer asking me, what are we doing at the meeting this week? And seeing that after the fourth or fifth or seventh time that you've talked them through, that you know the eighth time they don't come ask you and they just do it.

You know that's the stuff that I'm looking at going. Yes, okay, It's working, sort of.

So you would definitely do it again. You wish that you could be a little more prepared. I don't know if anybody can be.

You know I tried to be. You know like some of the things that I thought were going to be important aren't Well.

Give me an example: What are we doing in the meetings? I mean, I had visions when we started this of wonderful flag ceremony, openings, patrols sitting in these nice, neat rows with patrol leaders reporting on the stuff that they'd been up to, breaking off to do different things, gathering together to do some sort of inter patrol competition- I mean the stuff that's on the agenda, that the training shows you right, that here's what a Boy Scout troop meeting is supposed to look like, you know.

And I showed that to our PLC and they went, okay, Oh, that's nice. That's nice, Mr Ward, Yeah, that's great.

Then they looked at me and said: do we have to fill this out? I said only if you think it's useful. I said this is just an example. Your troop meetings can look completely different.

They're like: all right, They filled them out by putting the date on them, What they're going to cover that night, in the title block, And then I think which patrol was doing the opening flying ceremony, and I think that was it. Yeah, they've never looked at him again.

So so be it, you know. So my expectations about meetings are different, right?

Well, let me. Let me unpack that for a moment, because I think this is really, really important.

So you go in with a full head of steam and very idealistically say we're going to start a scout troop. But you know, you're not just an idealist.

You know that this is going to be a challenge And it's going to be a little bit difficult. But no matter what we do, we're all going to have some idealized picture in our minds of exactly what this is supposed to look like.

And then we're going to meet with- I'll call it- disappointment in the fact that it doesn't end up being exactly as we pictured it. As a matter of fact, you know, instead of the solemn flag ceremony and the patrols all standing in their nice neat rows, it's more like everybody running around the room with their arms over their head, screaming. I've actually seen that meeting.

I think. Yeah, I mean, it's not even that. It wasn't exactly what I was thinking it was going to look like, but it was vastly different.

And the things that make for a successful meeting are completely different in my mind now than they were before we started this. Originally it was that they would have a spirited patrol competition and everybody would be having a great time.

And now the things I look for are: you know, I told my senior patrol leader a month ago. I said: you know, at this point you have no business teaching everybody at the same time anything. I said you should have your patrol leaders teaching their patrols. Your job is to make sure that the patrol leaders have what they need in order to be successful in doing that. You hit 20 boys in a room in mass. You can't teach them anything, I can't teach them anything, and I've done a few of these.

But you get them into groups of 5-8 in the patrols and all of a sudden they're paying more attention, they're moving at a speed that's more conducive to the guys that are in that group and the patrol leaders are challenged a little bit more because they're put on the spot for making sure that they accurately describe whatever the skill is that they're working on. So for me, when I look at a troop meeting and say you know how successful are they being?

I'm looking at: are the patrols working as patrols, as a senior patrol leader and the troop staff doing their part to make sure that everybody is, you know, in kind of making sure things are flowing along, Which wasn't the case before. You know, before I thought you know, successful troop meetings were, you know boys that could rattle off the Ten Essentials and tie a square knot behind their back, blindfolded and you know, and the scout skills part of it, But turns out that they learned the scout skills part of it when they're out on the camping trip.

It's such an important distinction and I think it flummoxes a lot of people. It can be really frustrating for a lot of folks. If you don't see what you're expecting to see, you doubt whether or not you actually should be doing this at all.

And I wonder about those ghost scouts that show up and then disappear after a couple of meetings. If you know they had an expectation from a family point.

Are they doing scout stuff in the meetings? And then they go to these meetings that look like chaos and a bunch of boys just screwing around and not seeing the same things that I'm seeing in it and decided to waste their time for their family and they're disappearing before we get that knowledge to the parents that this is a lot more chaotic than Cub Scouts. I know you don't think that's even possible, but yes, it's true.

You know These aren't nice, neat meetings. This is messy and ugly and frustrating to adults on every level. I mean, there's still times I have to bite my lip. Yeah.

Well, you and me both, Yeah, and so I know that the parents are looking and they're going. Did these guys even know what they're doing? I wouldn't worry about the ghost scout, because all she need to do is go to ghostscoutorg and see what they're coming back And you'll see the schedule. Like I said, these guys rotate throughout the country.

You can see by district and troop number the schedule where they're going to show up at your meeting for like two meetings and then disappear. I wouldn't worry too much about that. The family stick around long enough to go where the boys are going out on a couple of outings with the troop. They start to see it.

You know they're coming back jazz and energized. You know why are you excited?

Well, we got to cook, you know, breakfast, sausage on a stick, and so we didn't have to do dishes and we think we're geniuses, Right, And they're like: well, you know, hey, he's having a good time, Great. You send them to camp out a couple of times and you go on the third one.

You know the Scoutmaster saying, no, no, you were setting up over here and they're setting up over there, And you kind of look at it with trepidation and realize that they have their camp set up and they're making their dinner and and they not once have come over to ask what they're supposed to be doing, and they start to relax And a few months into it they're, they're kind of ready to start, but then it repeats itself with every, every new set of challenges. Right, As soon as you get one group that's competent, then it's time for the incompetent group to move in and start the process all over again.

Well, you know, I had a scribe come up to me. He's been a scribe for a month now and he says he says I, he says I don't want to be scribe anymore.

Like, oh, I was like, well, you need to talk to the senior patrol leader because I got no control over. And I said, well, why, what are you worried about? He goes, I'm not good at it. I said I've seen you send out emails to the troop, I've seen you taking notes and be able to respond to questions at the PLC meeting.

You know he was just kind of frustrated and so I said I said you know, you realize that everybody is learning their positions. I said all of the patrol leaders and all the, you know the senior patrol leader and everybody else that's in a leadership position.

They're learning it as they're going, So we don't expect you to be perfect when you get the job. I said, you know, we hold that for, you know, six months from now, Right, When you're done.

But when you, you know, I expect you to be better at it than you started and and learn along the way. I said there's nothing about this troop that that's perfect, You know. I said, believe it or not, your Scoutmaster is not perfect.

And he kind of laughed and I said, no, really, That's the part that I think, from the voice standpoint, that you know, do you want to run for patrol leader? Well, I don't think I would be good at it. I don't know what I would do as patrol leader.

Well, that's okay. You want to learn how to be a patrol leader?

Why not be one? Easier for me to get across to the parents than it is to the scouts, because they don't want to mess things up in front of their peers. Yeah, they're pretty sensitive about how they appear.

I have boys come up to me and you know I want a leadership position. I said, well, just be a leader, Yes, Well, what do you mean?

You know, just do the things that a leader will do and the position will find you. You know, they get a little aggravated with their inability to do some things.

How do I make these guys be quiet? They won't listen to me.

Well, just keep on after it and, believe me, things will work themselves out. If you want to be a patrol leader, be a patrol leader.

You know, I can't put you through a training course or anything like that. That's going to help you significantly to get through the process that you're going through right now. That seems to work more often than not.

You know, we talked this week at our troop meeting the same thing that Enoch had pointed out in the scout circle, which was deliberate enthusiasm. Yeah, I had pulled a couple of patrol leaders aside and mentioned that.

I said you know what does deliberate enthusiasm mean to you? Because they were just kind of hanging back, feigning lack of interest in anything.

You know, because if I don't care, then it doesn't matter if I mess it up, right, Because I could say I just didn't care And talked about. You know how much of a difference just acting enthusiastic makes. I said, and before too long: you are enthusiastic about what's going on, because it's a lot more fun to go through life with enthusiasm than it is to be moping around and pretending like you don't care. And it made a difference even with those couple of guys You saw, more engaged with their patrols. And, speaking of patrols, that's been one of our biggest challenges. And starting with six, you have one patrol.

Then, when you get to the point where they needed two patrols- the you know the PLC- you're like: okay, well, how are you going to handle this? Right, Do you think they need to be in two patrols?

Yes, Well, how do you divide them up into patrols? And that was their question to me.

So how do you do that? Well, I said I can tell you there's a couple of different ways. Other people have done it And you can do it either one of those or your own way, or however you want.

I said you know, my advice is that it's not permanent. If it doesn't work, you can change it.

They took the troop and they made them into two patrols And then, before too long, we needed a third patrol And they were at the point where they had three patrols of eight scouts in each one. And then I'm showing them the roster.

I said: you've got, you know, crossovers coming, Guess what? What do you want to do?

And so they decided to go from three patrols to five. Your patrol identity has been a moving target for these guys And I think there's been some struggle with that as they've grown. After a year you would do it again. Of course, there's been some challenges and difficulties along the way. You changed your mind about a couple of things.

Where do you think you're going to be a year from now? I think the biggest changes were in the year past, right?

So I think this year is going to be more of us getting into established traditions rather than rapid changes like we've had this year. Well, Arlen, thanks so much for spending the time with us again, And we're going to check in with you in months to come and see how things are going on. I'm glad to hear everything's worked out well. There's been challenges, like I said, but it's been a lot of fun and I wouldn't have changed it for sure.