Scoutmaster Podcast 216

Hey everybody, this is Brent Dixon. I'm an assistant Scoutmaster with Troop 192 in St Cloud, Florida. This edition of the Scoutmaster Podcast is very happily sponsored by backers like me. Thanks, Clark.

And now it's the old Scoutmaster. Have you heard about the scout who was so interested in knots he would only eat Thai food? Oh, you haven't heard about that yet, Oh dear.

Well, this is podcast number 216..

Welcome back to the Scoutmaster Podcast. This is Clarke Green.

Mike Beck wrote in about our post of a week or so ago about scouting as craftsmanship And he said: it's true, we should think of scouting as craftsmanship rather than as a form of institutional or mass production education. We often see instruction as holding a class, but that is not scouting. Your podcast on Introduction to Leadership Skills for Troops was timely for us. We're revamping the way that we present it as to make it more of a bite-sized and immediately practicable kind of thing. Our aim is that we won't just present one long training session, but we'll have a shorter initial event that will facilitate more active mentoring with the adults and the patrol leaders council. Thanks for getting in touch, Mike.

You know I found something that Biden Powell said after the podcast where we were talking about training youth leaders, He said this: the method is to lead the boy to tackle the objective of his training and not to bore him with the preliminary steps at the outset, which I think addresses the subject very well, don't you? I also heard from Rob Knapp, who is with Scout Troop 348 in Reiner, Virginia. He says: I've been a Scoutmaster for a little over three years now. Three years ago we thought that a scout run troop meant giving scouts a meeting outline, but it really wasn't their troop, They were just following an adult plan. I found your blog about seven months ago and after listening to the podcast for a month, you gave me the courage to work towards becoming a truly scout run troop. I'm happy to report that the patrols are functioning well.

Our senior patrol leader is following up with his patrol leaders. In our meeting room we have a whiteboard that has upcoming activities listed on it. At tonight's meeting one of the parents pointed out a mistake in the schedule and I told the parent. I thought this mistake was a great opportunity and he kind of looked at me strangely. I asked the senior patrol leader if he had looked at the whiteboard and he said he hadn't. But just by bringing that to his attention.

By the end of the meeting the scribe had corrected the mistake, with no further adult involvement. You know this stuff really works. Thanks again for all of your help. Thank you, Rob, for getting in touch, and Rob had an email question that you're going to hear a little later on too.

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Well, in this edition of the podcast, we're going to talk a little bit about positive peer pressure in Scoutmastership in seven minutes or less, and it's really under seven minutes this week. So I'm reminded of the saying that even a blind pig roots up a truffle every once in a while.

And then we've got some email questions to answer and that's going to take up the remainder of the podcast. So let's get started, shall we?

Scoutmastership in seven minutes or less? During a visit from a Weebelos den at one of our troop meetings, a scout was available to speak with the parents of the visiting Weebelos, and that week the older scouts had been leading a discussion with our younger scouts about disabilities awareness merit badge.

One of the parents was impressed that the older boys were leading discussions on the subject and asked this older scout: how do you get the older scouts to do this, How do you get them to lead a discussion with the younger ones on such an important subject? And the scout answered that he had watched the older scouts when he was younger and learned how to do things like lead discussions.

It all seemed, you know, pretty natural and unremarkable to him, And I think that this is representative of what I like to call positive peer pressure. It's something that takes a little time to develop if it isn't already present in a troop. Perhaps the most important influence on building this kind of positive peer pressure is the way that the Scoutmaster and the other scouts model the acceptance of and respect of new scouts. When they arrive, New scouts don't have anything to prove to us, They don't have any tests to pass. They become full members of the troop as soon as they walk through the door.

So if we are respectful of each other and we also delegate actual responsibility to our youth leadership and we praise their accomplishments and we accept their failures with grace and equanimity, we start sending a message about how people are treated in scouting. Everyone rises or falls to positive or negative expectations of their leaders and their peers. Some of our scouts will be at an age where they don't put a whole lot of importance on the opinion that adults have of them.

They're in the throes of developing their own personality, going through adolescence, and you know what I'm talking about. If you've ever lived in the same house with a 13,, 14-year-old scout, you know exactly what I'm talking about. But when they are in an atmosphere of acceptance and where adults treat them with some respect and adults give them responsibility, they're likely to spend a shorter amount of time in that kind of difficult period that all of us go through, If we maintain really positive, high expectations of behavior and performance and spirit, that's what we're going to see. If we reinforce those expectations with minimal and tempered and positive, constructive discipline, younger scouts internalize those signals and they see the way older scouts act and this kind of positive peer pressure is fostered and pretty soon the younger scouts grow older to perpetuate the cycle. This works both in positive and negative ways. In the same way that, unfortunately, negative or difficult behavior can spread through a group, Positive and constructive behavior can spread exactly the same way.

I encourage you to think in terms of positive peer pressure and talk to your scouts about it and start building that into the culture of your troop

E-mail. That is, folks.

And here's an answer to one of your e-mails. I got this e-mail question recently and we're going to just keep it anonymous because of the subject matter.

If a local business wants to donate money to a local scout troop, what BSA guidelines need to be followed? We would not be a project or event for or at the business, just a simple donation with no strings attached. The troop could spend the money as we see fit: on camping equipment or for paying for camping trips for scouts that need it. We would not promote the business in any way. Maybe put a thank you on our website or something like that. The answer to that question is a qualified yes.

A while back, I had in a blog post a document from the BSA called Fiscal Policies and Procedures for BSA Units. I will link to it in the post that contains this podcast, but it's one document that every volunteer ought to read at least once and then keep in their resource file so that when questions like this come up, you'll be able to turn right to it and get your answers.

Here's the part of the document that addresses this question specifically. Simply put, units are not permitted to solicit any gifts. Both the charter and bylaws and the rules and regulations of the BSA make this very clear.

Only local councils may solicit individuals, corporations, United Ways or foundations for gifts in support of scouting Units, and unit leaders and youth members may not solicit gifts in the name of scouting or in support of unit needs and activities, except in unusual circumstances where the unit has received permission to do so from the local council. Units are also prohibited from soliciting gifts on their websites.

Now, does that mean that people can't make gifts to your troop. I'm still quoting the document here. Units are not supposed to solicit gifts, but they can receive gifts. Anyone can contribute to a scout pack, troop or unit and many donors don't need or care about charitable deductions. Obviously, defining a solicited gift is not always easy, but we rely on our unit leaders to set good examples and honor the intent and spirit of these important guidelines. We know it's hard to stop people from being generous, especially towards scouting.

So the qualification in the yes that yes, you can accept a donation to your troop- is if someone came to you of their own volition and offered a donation, you can accept it. If they want a tax letter, the letter comes from your chartering organization.

If someone in the unit or the chartering organization went out and solicited this donation, well then you've crossed the line. As I just read, only local councils can solicit donations And the idea here, as you can imagine, is if units were permitted to individually go out and solicit and accept donations, you'd end up with some very well-funded units and underfunded councils.

So the idea is we want to not water one specific leaf, That's the scout troop or the cub pack or the venture crew. We don't want to just benefit them alone.

We want the whole tree- and that would be the council- to benefit, And then everybody gets the benefit of those donations rather than just one unit. If your unit was approached with the offer of a donation, I would advise you to keep all of it as transparent as possible.

Get in touch with your local council and explain exactly what's going on so there'll be no misunderstandings. Then be sure that everybody involved with the unit understands the rules about soliciting any additional donations, because you know people are going to see this donation, come through and think it would be a really great idea to go out and solicit others, And you have to explain very carefully and definitively that that is simply not allowed.

In my personal opinion, I think a thank you letter to the donor, hand-delivered by a deputation of uniformed scouts, would be a nice gesture in recognizing the donation. I would advise against mentioning it on a website or in a newsletter or anything that could be misconstrued as the BSA endorsing a business in any way, As in anything that you hear on the podcast or read on the blog. This is my advice, based on reading the policy statements that I can find and my own experience. I strongly urge you to contact your local council and explain what's happening, to be doubly sure that nothing is misunderstood, and to study the policy documents that I'm referring you to and make sure that I've got this right. I've been involved with council level fundraising issues and I've learned that these policies are there for very good reasons. What some misguided volunteers and units do to lavishly fund their leaf, their unit, their small part of the council- and I'm talking tens of thousands of dollars- is pretty stunning.

It's not that councils are greedy, it's just that when money goes to the council, everyone benefits, All the units benefit, And so the rules and policies are there for very good reasons And naturally I recommend that you understand them and follow them. Rob Knapp writes in to ask: we'll be having elections for senior patrol leader soon. The scouts will be electing the new senior patrol leader and, as you suggest, that scout will appoint his quartermaster, scribe chaplain's aides, et cetera.

Do you suggest that the scouts elect the assistant senior patrol leader, or should the senior patrol leader appoint him as well? Also, should the assistant senior patrol leader be present when the Scoutmaster and senior patrol leader are meeting together or just act as a fill in when the senior patrol leader isn't around.

Well, your question about how the positions of responsibility are filled aren't a matter of opinion or choice. It's really spelled out very specifically in the Scoutmaster's handbook And quoting from that. The youth leader with the most responsibility in a troop is the senior patrol leader. He is elected by all members of the troop.

So we understand: senior patrol leader gets elected by the other scouts. And then the Scoutmaster's handbook goes on to say- quote with the approval of the Scoutmaster, the assistant senior patrol leader is appointed by the senior patrol leader.

Okay, so we've got that piece. And then in the Scoutmaster's handbook it talks about other troop positions And it says this quote: depending on the size and needs of the troop, any or all of the following positions may be filled. This is at the head of a listing of descriptions of these different positions of responsibility. Unless otherwise indicated, the senior patrol leader selects the scout who will hold each position. The Scoutmaster can help the senior patrol leader make these decisions on the basis of the candidate's overall qualifications rather than merely on popularity or friendships. Scouts serving in any of the following troop positions will also continue to be active members of their patrols.

So the handbook then goes on to list the positions of quarter master, scribe, OA representative, historian, librarian, instructor, chaplain, aide, den chief, junior assistant, scout, master, et cetera. And while they use the phrase unless otherwise indicated to modify the idea that the senior patrol leader selects the scout who will hold each position, I haven't found anything in the descriptions of any of those positions that indicate someone else would be appointing those positions or those positions would be elected for some reason.

So the process you go through with a senior patrol leader as he makes those appointments is a really great opportunity to work together. I usually sit down with a new senior patrol leader and I ask him who he wants to appoint for what position, And in our troop we typically have an assistant senior patrol leader, quarter master and scribe Most of the time. I don't have a whole lot to say about the choices that he makes, other than you know. That sounds good to me. If he's having a tough time choosing, I would advise him to start with any scouts who put themselves forward for the senior patrol leader election, because the fact that they stepped up is a pretty good indication of their interest and commitment right.

So I advise him that he should start with his best choice for assistant senior patrol leader and offer him any of the positions that are open, but tell him that he's hoping that he'll take the assistant senior patrol leader position- and they almost always do- and then the new assistant senior patrol leader and the senior patrol leader can continue going through and making appointments. As for your second question about whether or not the assistant senior patrol leader should be around when you're talking to the senior patrol leader, most of the time when I'm talking to my senior patrol leader it's in the context of the patrol leader's counsel, So the assistant senior patrol leader is always there.

I think the general rule of thumb is, when you talk to the senior patrol leader, yeah, I think it's a good idea to have the assistant senior patrol leader there because he'll be listening in and he'll get the same directions, the same mentoring, the same training. It's not always practicable, but I think it's a great idea when you can make it so.

Wayne Wilcox is the Scoutmaster of Troop 184, which is part of the transatlantic council, because Troop 184 is located in Cobham, England, So from across the Atlantic, Wayne sent this question. He said I'm proud to say, after awarding three Eagles last year, we have another eight scouts who will have earned the rank of Eagle by the end of this program year.

We have a policy where we present a scout with his new rank badge immediately after his border review at the end of a Troop meeting- because our boards of review are normally held the same night as Troop meetings- And then we recognize them at the Troop's regular Court of Honor by presenting the rank certificate and the mother's pin. It's been our practice to only allow Eagles to wear their badge of rank after their Eagle Court of Honor. A couple of this year's Eagles will have about two months between passing their boards of review and the next Court of Honor. I'd like these scouts to be allowed to wear their Eagle badge to a council event. That happens after their boards of review, but before their courts of honor.

Do you think allowing a new Eagle to wear his patch prior to actually raising his hand for the Eagle charge and pledge is permissible? By the way, love the podcast.

Well, thanks for getting in touch, Wayne. This is an easy answer because it doesn't involve my opinion or my advice. It's all pretty clearly set down in the Guide to Advancement 2013..

Now, before we talk about that, if you're listening and you don't yet have a copy of the Guide to Advancement 2013,. Get online, search for it- It's available in PDF form- and then read it, And that way you'll know the answer to most of these questions, or you'll have a pretty good idea of where to find the answer. Back to Wayne's question. We're instructed to recognize scouts as soon as possible, and you're doing that with guys up to Eagle Scout, but we don't create our own rules or traditions that change these instructions.

So here we are in the Guide to Advancement. Here are the big numbers. Ready, You got your pencil, I'll wait.

Okay, here we go In section 4.2.1.4, titled The Scout is Recognized. It reads this: when the Board of Review has approved his advancement, the scout deserves recognition as soon as possible. This should be done at a ceremony at the next unit meeting. His advancement may be recognized again later during a formal court of honor.

So the only way that Eagle is slightly different from the other ranks is that the application has to be approved at a national level before the insignia is issued to the troop. So there's going to be a little more delay there. And when we take a look at Sharpen Your Pencil, because here's another section, number 8.0.3.0 and titled Particulars for the Eagle Scout rank. The Eagle Scout medal or patch must not be sold or otherwise provided to any unit or to the scout. Nor should the court of honor be scheduled until after the certificate is received at the Council Service Center from the National Advancement Team.

So we find that we are instructed to recognize scouts as soon as possible after their Board of Review, As soon as the advancement application has been submitted and we have the insignia. We want to recognize them right away And then we can recognize them again at the next court of honor by presenting them with the certificate, that little card that comes along with the badge.

And you know, if you use the mother's pens, you can do that too. The only difference with the Eagle is you have to wait a little bit longer because the National Advancement Team needs to issue the Eagle credentials before any of the insignia can be released to the troop. I also want to note that a court of honor is nothing more than a formal presentation of the achievement. Nothing official happens after the Board of Review has concluded and the certificate for Eagle is issued, because the Board of Review is the effective date for the rank. A scout is an Eagle as soon as he walks out of the Board of Review, pending the issuance of that certificate. The Eagle Pledge and similar practices are basically- they're just optional traditions.

They're not some kind of official action that makes somebody into an Eagle scout When there's been a long tradition. That's kind of contrary to policies like this. By not allowing scouts to wear the Eagle insignia until they've gone through the Court of Honor and taken one of those traditional Eagle pledges or the Eagle charge, there's an opportunity to review what we're doing and align ourselves with what we really ought to be doing. I've heard the argument about this several times that you're not an Eagle and take the pledge or receive the Eagle charge or some combination of the two, but it simply isn't true And it never has been to my knowledge.

I think if this were so, the Guide to Advancement 2013 would explain exactly how that worked, but you'll find that there is nothing there. If you find any statements contrary to that, I'll be glad to tell everyone. Wayne, I hope that answers your question. I'm glad you're enjoying the podcast. Sounds like a great troop. Eight new Eagles this year.

Good for you.