Scoutmaster Podcast 223

Hi, I'm Christopher Simone and I'm the Scoutmaster of Troop 71 in Plendome, New York. This edition of the Scoutmaster podcast is sponsored by backers like me And now the old Scoutmaster.

So two scouts were sharing a tent and one of them reached into his pack and got a piece of chalk out and marked a big X in chalk on the bottom of the tent. And the other scout looked at him and said: why did you do that?

And he said: well, this is such a great campsite, This is just a perfect campsite. We could see the lake from here. There was a nice breeze blowing. We're just perfectly situated.

So I wanted to make sure that I could. I marked it and remembered exactly where this site was.

So next time we go camping, you know, we can get this site. And the other scout looked at him and said: he said that's never going to work. We may get a different tent next time. Oh, OK, Hey, everybody, this is podcast number two hundred and twenty three.

Welcome back to the Scoutmaster podcast. This is Clarke Green. Let's take a look at the mailbag over on Facebook. Robert Owen got in touch with us and said: many thanks, You have the blog. I always thought I'd write.

So I appreciate your assumption of that task. Well, Robert, we live to serve.

What can I say? And that comment came on the post on Facebook that announced our PDF package.

Now, if you haven't looked into this, I believe I mentioned it last week, but I put together a downloadable zip file of all of the infographics and some other useful PDF documents. There's more than 40 of them there that you can get by going to scoutmastercgcom And you'll see there's an announcement about that right at the top of the page And you can go ahead and get that and use it to further cause the scouting Wherever you are. There are some.

The infographics cover things like camping skills and knots and games And there's some other helpful things in there for youth leader training and just a whole bunch of stuff. And Wes Fish wrote in after he got the PDF package and he said: honestly, I first downloaded the free version, but once I got a look at it, I went back and I paid for it And, by the way, the PDF package is there for free. It's absolutely there for free. It can be distributed to all of you. I also provided a way that you can provide a small payment- It's $5- towards helping make it possible to create resources like that.

The point is is it's there for your scouts? And Wes went on to say: you know, I've been burned once or twice with this sort of thing online And, Wes, I know exactly what you're talking about, So I'm a little more careful of paying. First Matter of fact, I shared the link to the page with our local district on our Facebook page. I don't know how you and others like you find the time and energy to do these things. Thanks for your efforts, Wes. I'm glad that you found the things in the PDF package useful and I appreciate your feedback on it.

Alex Gomez checked in with us this week from Guatemala City in Guatemala. Thanks, Alex. Always good to hear from scouts from different parts of the world. Michelle checked in to say: love your site, Great idea, Thanks.

Well, thank you, Michelle. Peter said I am a cub master in it, Atlanta, Georgia.

My son just completed Webelos and is now a part of our troop. Our troop is growing, So I wanted to find out more about how a troop operates. Your material is excellent. Thanks for putting it together Well. Thank you, Peter, And thanks for volunteering for scouting. Keep in touch with us If you have questions or you need help with anything, we'll make sure that you get it.

Chris touched base with us to say, as we say in my troop, to commend someone on a good deed. As President Roosevelt said, the first president was Teddy bully. I find your pearls of wisdom and valuable as a Scoutmaster. Often publish them on our website and our Facebook page. Thanks, Chris. Go ahead and publish away, Share the links to our articles and anything else that gets created.

All as we ask is that you let people know where it came from, That's all, But as long as it's going out there to help scouts, that's that's what really counts. Michael is the Scoutmaster of troop one thing Four in Santa Rosa, California, and he wrote in about something we talked about on a recent podcast. After hearing about the Scoutmaster that does all the grocery shopping for his patrols, He had the right idea, but the wrong approach. The best way to look at this is to compare it to two pieces of gear.

We should be a safety net, But not a safety harness. The difference is that the harness keeps you from falling, Whereas the net let you go. The difference is that the harness keeps you from falling, whereas the net let you fall but keeps you from getting hurt when you do. As an example for last week's backpacking outing, I packed along an extra freeze dried meal and some extra oatmeal. That way, if a scout somehow forgot his food and if none of the other scouts had any to spare, he wouldn't go hungry.

Now, would I sleep better if I just purchased all the meals for the scouts and distributed them to them? Well, sure I would, But the boys wouldn't learn how to double check their packs and they wouldn't learn how to be themselves. Michael, that's a great picture: The idea of a safety net rather than a safety harness And, as you said, the safety harness that prevents you from falling, but the net let you fall and keeps you from getting hurt when you do. I love the picture and thanks for being in touch. Mike. Bobby said thanks for a great site.

I'm working on my wood badge project and collecting resources on retaining scouts. I saw one of your articles on it and I'm going to include it in my project. We're working on that wood badge ticket and I'm glad I could be of help On the blog this past week most recently, let's see, we had a couple of features from Baden Powell's blog.

If you haven't seen that I'm posting short articles that were written by Baden Powell during his lifetime on every Sunday, So you might want to check that out. I posted a great article by Enoch Heisey on Green Bar Life this week- What a patrol leader does when things go wrong, Because you know things are going to go wrong so you better know what to do right. But Enoch's got some great advice for patrol leaders and youth leaders there. We posted another infographic about outdoor clothing.

You know I find it a little surprising that parents don't pay that close of attention sometimes to what their scouts are going to wear in the outdoors. The clothing infographic is just basics, just an introduction to some of the issues that you might want to think about.

So make sure to check that out and check out our gear guide too. It covers all kinds of camping gear and there's a lot of information in there that will be useful when you go to choose camping gear for your scout. We had a Scoutmasters minute that we published this week talking about a couple of big birds- eagles and peacocks. If you haven't seen that, go to scoutmasterscgcom and check it out.

And then last week's podcast. We had our interview with Darnell Daly. James Chaplin wrote in and said: Another fantastic podcast, Thanks. I had the privilege of meeting Darnell when I took my troop to his council's camp in Hawk Mountain. He made a personal effort to talk to each and every adult leader that week and as many scouts as time permitted. He was a very open and humble person.

I really appreciated the interview, especially the quotes no man matures past age 12. And your discussion of how having a long tenure in scouting can cut both ways. I'm hitting my mid-fifties and I'm watching this happen amongst my peers in scouting as I muddle forward into different district events.

Thanks so much for being in touch, James. I always appreciate hearing from you.

Now I talked to you about the PDF package, but I want to make sure to let you know that, as you heard at the top of the podcast, we enjoy the sponsorship of scoutmasterscgcom backers. The funds that backers provide go to and lay the cost of producing and publishing all the content that we make available on scoutmasterscgcom. It's pretty easy to become a backer.

I offer different premiums for you choose, and within this past week I want to take the time to thank Timothy Ferrarati and Adam Cox for becoming backers. Thank you very much, fellas. I really do appreciate it, and it keeps us on the air, keeps us online.

Well, this Monday happens to be Memorial Day, and I hope that you're all celebrating Memorial Day and remembering our veterans, So this podcast may be a little bit briefer than usual. I have an interview that courted this past week that I think you're going to find particularly inspiring. As you'll hear, it all started with an email that I received from one of my listeners, and I really felt the point behind what he had to say was something that you would appreciate hearing, and what you're going to hear is a very simple story. It's not a story that you would end up reading in boys life or scouting magazine. It's not one that you would hear on the news, but the really important things that happen for us in scouting and happen for our scouts.

Our stories just like the one you're talking about or anything like that, but incredibly significant and important in the lives of a scout and his patrol and his troop And you know what- Important in the lives of Scouters too. I hope you enjoy the interview, so let's get started, Shall we?

I had a really interesting email a couple of weeks ago from a scoutmaster up in Corning, New York. I asked him if he would take a little time to talk with me on the podcast, because I think it's something that everybody would enjoy hearing.

And so, from Corning, New York, Scoutmaster Troop 61,, Bob Case is on the phone with me. How are you doing, Bob? I'm good, Clark.

How are you doing? Well, you know we're doing the best that we can. You guys headed off recently to the 52nd annual West Point Camperry.

So did you take a big crowd with you? We ended up taking 15 boys and five adults. Two of the boys that we took were actually from one of our sister troops in our area, from Troop 2..

It's a pretty big crowd that shows up there, isn't it? Well, I tell you, Clark, this point Camperry, the day I've ever had, there was a total of 7,600 Scouts and Scouts including the Cadets, as this thing was huge- The biggest one that I've ever had in 52 years- And so you went up there on a Friday. Yes, You have to backpack in. Yes, We applied to be a Lightfighter troop, which means that everything we needed for the three days needed to be in.

So we had everything loaded on our backs and it was probably the most grueling hike we've ever been on, Headed to the summit of Bull Hills, which is the summit peak there at West Point, And we got a special commemorative pin for climbing to the top of Bull Hill. You get into your site and you get set up on Friday night and it's getting around dinner time because your son, Joe, is actually your senior patrol leader.

Okay, And what happened next? I want to get Joe's end of that story. Hello, Hey, Joe, I got your dad to tell us a little bit about getting to the West Point Campery. You guys hiked in- Yeah, He said it, just about killed him.

How did it do for you? It was all right.

The trailhead was really muddy and there was a lot of rocks, but overall it was a really beautiful hike. You get up to your site there and you get set up.

How long have you been your troop senior patrol leader? I'm actually finishing out my term now and I've been the senior patrol leader for one doubting year, so to speak.

So you started back last fall or last spring. So I would have started last spring and then I've been the SPL until now.

So let me ask you about being the senior patrol leader just a little bit. We're going to get back to the story here in a second.

So you become the senior patrol leader. At the beginning Not really, I don't think any of us really does.

I was excited about it because I'd gone from being just a senior patrol leader and then thrown right into the senior patrol leader position, kind of without a choice, because nobody wanted to be the SPL and quite obviously, without an SPL there's no troop. So I kind of took the bull by the horns and went at it.

Let's go back to Friday night and then we'll get back to the story. What exactly was going on there? Honestly, from my perspective, chaos. I instructed the boys to kind of set it up one way, but then they kind of started doing something completely different. It was starting to get a little out of hand, I guess you could say.

There was other boys who were struggling to get their tent set up, and then there was me who hadn't even gotten to start the camp. This sounds like a pretty typical camp out to me. Yes, it was.

We had to find them cooking groups, so to speak. One boy packed in the stove, another one packed in the fuel and the third one packed in the pot. What ended up happening was there were certain individuals who had been asking the adults for their water instead of making their own.

The way I see it is, we asked you to carry that stuff in so that you can take your meals and carry your own. It's not fair to the adults, who packed that stuff in and have to wait to boil more water because you're taking mirrors. I kind of got a little frustrated with it, but I just kind of let it go. You had a discussion with the Scoutmaster about this.

What did you tell them? It's unfair to the adults because they have to wait longer to get their hot water.

You were really invested in having the patrols take care of this, right? Yeah, The patrols are supposed to carry their own.

Now this seems like kind of. I mean, I'm calling you up and I'm asking you to talk about this story and everything, but you stood up for what was supposed to happen and you went to the adults and you kind of told them: why are you giving these guys this water? That takes some guts.

It did take a little bit of pulling up, so to speak, to be able to do that. Because they are the adults, You need to take the reins that we are doing something that you don't really like or you would like us to change.

Talk to us about it and we'll see what we can do. It's different from the home environment, where the adults are the elders, so to speak, and you go to them and you don't really tell them what to do, to scouting, where you get to go to the adults and ask them to do those things.

How did that go over with the Scoutmaster? For the most part it went over pretty well.

Didn't get angry with you? Not really.

No, At first he was kind of struggling to see it from my point of view, but then, after a little bit more of an explanation and speaking about it more, we did see eye to eye and we did realize that it was time to make the change. How did the rest of Camp Areco Actually? Camp Areco was amazing.

When do you hand over being a senior patrol leader? I'll actually hand it over next Wednesday at our Court of Honor. You're going to miss it. You think Yes and no.

I think I'll miss leading the boys to an extent and always knowing what's going on and knowing the plan, but at the same time I think it'll be a release to finally not have to bear that stress. Yeah, I mean, it's a big job, isn't it? It is a big job. It's a little stressful at times as well. If you could tell every other senior patrol leader or patrol leader, any scout who has a position of responsibility in their troop, about your experience, you get to tell them something encouraging or something they may not understand about the experience.

What would you tell them? I would tell them to always ask the boys what they would want to improve on, because, as a leader of boys, I always try to make the program as enjoyable as possible- and just to be able to not only ask the boys what they want, but to ask them what they didn't like, and to be able to take that constructive criticism and, instead of taking it to heart, to run with it and take the constructive criticism and try it and see how it works, because the worst that's going to happen is it's not going to work well and you're just going to try something different. Yeah, right, I mean, give this a try.

If it doesn't work well, we'll try another one. So, yeah, that's a good attitude. I like that.

Maybe you know this and maybe you don't, but adults sometimes we get a little frustrated with you guys. Yeah, I know that None of this is supposed to be easy. None of this is a walk in the park. It's supposed to be challenging.

From the perspective of being a senior patrol leader, what do you tell these other adults? How do you encourage them to work with their youth leadership? I would definitely encourage them to remember to listen, because as teenagers we don't have as much experience as they do communicating how we feel.

So we tend to say how we feel in a kind of blunt way because we haven't quite learned fully how to express it in a different way. So don't exactly take it as blunt and rude as it may sound, because I know from my personal experience when I first started this term I didn't.

I had struggled expressing how I felt about something, so quite oftentimes I would come off as rude and almost bashful just because I had struggled to expressing myself differently. Did you find that the adults in your troop actually were able to listen to you? It was a little bit of give and take because I talked to them about it, but we had kind of came to the compromise of: I'll remember to work on my social skills. If you remember that I don't mean to be rude and bashful when I speak. That is a really excellent advice job: Taking the time to listen, understanding that you're still working on things that they have been pretty good at for maybe a few years, and being patient. I definitely agree.

That's what I'm still working on personally is patient. And how old are you now? I'm 15.. I got to tell you you communicate very well. I was really fascinated with the story that your dad told me about this particular incident, because a lot of times these really really important things in scouting that adults need to know kind of boil down to very simple stories. Your advice to adults is really really great, and I'm sure you're going to miss being senior patrol leader.

What's your next leadership position? Do you think The historian?

I think it'd be kind of fun to start taking pictures and creating slide shows and things of that type for the troop. I wish I had more time to do that myself.

Well, Joe, I appreciate you taking the time to speak with me. Good on you for your job as senior patrol leader and I'm sure you're going to have a lot more fun. You still got a few years left to have fun in scouts.

You're going to be an Eagle Scout, do you figure? Yeah, I'm life right now and I'm going to be doing my Eagle project over the summer, so I should have it quite soon.

Excellent, Well, congratulations my friend. Is your dad still there or I can talk to him? Yeah, he's still here. Thanks, Joe. Yeah, you're welcome. All right, here he is.

Hi, Clark, You got to be smiling right now. Absolutely, From year to year, Joe didn't seem to think the hike was quite so difficult as you did.

Well, you know, when we're 40 years old, things look a little bit different than they do to a 15 year old. You figure, huh, Yeah, What did you get out of that experience?

Was there a sudden revelation or was it something you've been looking for for a long time, that you finally saw? If you had the ear of other scout leaders, which you do actually right now, what would you tell them about this experience that was particularly meaningful, was particularly informative to you?

Well, the one thing that we've been working on for several years is the patrol method and to get the patrol method to work, And the one thing that I always told myself and my son and the other assistant Scoutmasters and the adults of the troop is: be patient, It will happen. And camp out after camp out.

There was things that weren't getting done and you know, there was those little failures, but all those little failures they fixed them. And when we got to West Point, and that time at dinner time, when all those instances were just like you know what you guys are, the kids, we're the adults, we can wait.

And when we got the tough love, so to speak, of you know, this is your patrol, you need to take care of your patrol. It was one of those awe inspiring moments.

And I look at my assistant Scoutmaster, who was the previous Scoutmaster, and we just look each other and smile And we knew right then that the troop had just changed, Changed for the better, and it changed for everything that we were looking for. And we finally come and the patrol leader started taking charge and the patrol members were doing what they were supposed to do.

So the one thing I can say is: don't give up. Trust the program.

You know, the one thing that Boy Scouts has taught me and taught a lot of my friends that I work with is that it lets these boys do things that they don't get to do in school, and they get to learn how to lead, They get to take care of themselves and learn what responsibility is, And they finally did that, And it's just amazing. So, having faith in the program, it doesn't look like anything until it looks like something Right, Which can take a while. Right, It sure can.

And now you're going to have a new senior patrol leader. What next Wednesday?

Is that what Joe said? Yes, They had their elections last night.

We have a new senior patrol leader, Four new patrol leaders, And they were ones that were part of the trip to West Point And it has been around And they're ready. They're fighting it a bit to start playing it, But in some ways it's all going to start over again too. Yes, it is.

Yes, I've had it pretty easy, Clark, I tell you, having Joe being my senior patrol leader for my first time, being a Scoutmaster, it helped out a lot to have him around, And you may think that he'll just be able to go back to being just a Scout, but I have a feeling that he'll always be a leader to the other boys And he has already got everything set for him to start helping out the next senior patrol leader, And I think he's excited. Excellent, Excellent.

Well, it's a great story and I appreciate you taking the time to share it with us. I'm sure people will find it inspiring.

Great Well, thanks again, Bob. Thank you. Thank you for everything. It's my pleasure, Especially when I hear stories like this. Thanks for allowing Joe to speak with me. I really do appreciate it.

Oh, you're welcome. No problem, Okie doke thanks. Thank you, Clark. Right, Bye-bye.