Scoutmaster Podcast 24

And now, to you, Scoutmaster.

So this Scoutmaster goes to his psychiatrist and he sits there and the psychiatrist says, well, how are you feeling this week? He says, well, sometimes I feel like I'm a teepee and sometimes I feel like I'm a pup tent and then I feel like I'm a teepee and then I feel like I'm a pup tent and it just goes on and on and on. I can't make it stop and the psychiatrist says, well, you're too tense. You're too tense. Okay. Yeah. Don't have a lot of time before the theme this time. I'll tell you why on the other side. This is podcast number 24.

Hey, welcome back to the Scoutmaster podcast. This is Clark Green. Even for Scoutmaster podcast standards, this one is kind of long. So that's why I didn't have a whole lot of time before the theme. And of course, I've taken up time talking about why I don't have a lot of time. Oh my goodness. Well, what's in this podcast? In Scoutmastership or in seven minutes or less, which is stretched into more than seven minutes this time is about the relationship between three central groups that lend leadership to a Scout troop. Then we have a story from camp that I hope you'll enjoy by request. If you're a really faithful listener, you might have heard that story before, but we'll end with creating a troop-based high adventure program. I also wanted to take just a moment to catch up on some reviews and things and nice people who have emailed me. I had a wonderful email from Joe Pelletier. Joe, thanks so much for your kind words. Joe's an assistant Scoutmaster in their troop. His youngest is Weevilos1 this year, so I'm sure that you joined me in wishing him well in his scouting. He had some very complimentary things to say about the podcast. Thanks again, Joe. So my good friend and fellow Scouter, John Punt, wrote to me. John used to be an assistant Scoutmaster with our troop, and then because of his job, they moved away, and so he's working with a new troop, and we exchange notes every once in a while. Good to hear from you, John. John asked me a question in an email that I think is important for everybody, and that was, do I take requests? And yes, I encourage requests. I like to get questions from people because if there was something of particular interest to you, email me. Let me know. ClarkGreen, C-L-A-R-K-E-G-R-E-E-N, at gmail.com. Thanks to Scoutmaster Ray, who left a nice review on iTunes for me. Thanks, Ray. Do appreciate it. He says that the Scoutmaster podcast is Super B. Oh, wait a minute. That's superb. Superb. Thanks, Ray. Hey, let's get on with it. Scoutmastership in seven minutes or less. What's the role of a troop committee, and what is the proper relationship in the leadership structure of a scout troop for the troop committee and the other two leadership groups? That would be the Scoutmaster and his assistants, and then the Patrol Leaders Council, or all the youth leaders in the troop. There are three kind of distinct groups within a scout troop. What are the proper relationships between these three groups? Concentrating specifically on the committee role for a moment. Well, a good place to start to answer that question is to really understand what happens at the level of a troop committee. I recommend to you the online training that the BSA offers on the subject. That'll give you a really good idea of exactly what the functions of a troop committee are and how it's supposed to function. It's a little thin. That particular training is a little thin on the relationship of the troop committee to the Scoutmaster and his assistants and also to the youth leadership. That's what I want to kind of expand on here. The broad concepts are what I think is very important. One missing emphasis in the training is that the central decision-making group, as far as the program and activities that Scouts are going to do, is the Patrol Leaders Council. The Patrol Leaders Council sets their calendar. They decide what they want to do. And then that, through the Scoutmaster, goes to the troop committee for its support and approval. That is basically the structure. And that's the way the three relationships are outlined. The role of the Scoutmaster and his assistants is to coach and to train and to work with the youth leadership and then to represent them to the troop committee who lends their plans. I'm talking about the Patrol Leaders Council's plans, administrative support. It's an important relationship to get right. Now, what usually happens is that a troop is somewhere on the continuum from being totally adult-led, where the boys are merely participants in a program being presented by the adults, to being totally youth-led, where the youth are planning and presenting their own program and activities. So our goal is to be on the youth-led side of that continuum. And we're somewhere in the middle. Now, why isn't every troop just naturally youth-led? And how does it come to be an adult-led kind of idea? One answer is that adults don't get trained. And they don't understand the program. So they don't understand the relationship between these three leadership structures within a Scout troop. And they don't understand exactly what Scouts are supposed to be doing. And so they kind of default to this thing where adults plan and present and boys participate, kind of as guests at something that the adults are putting on. Or somebody gets trained and gets the idea, oh, well, we're supposed to be youth-led, so let's work on that. And the first couple of times out of the box, it's a little shaky, and the youth don't make very good plans. I mean, their plans are more like a puddle than a lake. And it's deeply frustrating to adults. Very deeply frustrating. Well, they didn't plan this, and they didn't plan that. They didn't think of this, and they didn't think of that. And this patrol didn't have any food. And so the adults get very frustrated, and they slowly but surely begin to take a lot of the responsibility away from the Scouts, take it on as their own, and they get a little meddlesome and coercive. And finally, the Scouts give up because Scout-age boys are going to follow the path of least resistance out of a sense of respect for their elders in one way and a sense of unfamiliarity with the process in another. So a troop can quickly become something that is on the other end of the continuum where the adults are taking over and kind of meddling, and they are presenting and administering a program for boys that boys should really be creating and presenting and administering for themselves. So the first thing to get right, in my mind, is where is the principal decision-making done as to what the troop will do? That is at the Patrol Leaders' Council. Now, this is not a set of responsibilities that a bunch of benevolent adults decide they will give to Scouts. This is one that the Scout, this is a set of responsibilities that the Scouts actually own. They own, as the program is written, these are things that the Scouts own. And it's an imbalance and it's a disservice to Scouting as a program generally and to a Scout troop specifically for adults to usurp those responsibilities that are properly in the hands of Scouts. Even though it's, as I said, really, really frustrating to adults when they are basically working with boys who don't know how to plan things. So what's the answer? Well, the Scoutmaster and their assistants need to coach and to plan without a great deal of coercion, without taking things over. They need to coach and plan along with the Patrol Leaders' Council. They need to make sure that those leaders are being trained in the idea of leading themselves. And that helps to create a balance between the three groups of leadership within a Scout troop. People often write to me and they say, well, we're working really hard on trying to make this a boy-run troop. Well, there's one thing and one thing alone that stands in the way of having the youth leaders actually lead the troop, and that is one or more adults who simply won't let them do it or just don't get it. That's the one thing that stands in the way. It's not laziness on the part of the boys. They're not being lazy. They just don't. You can't be lazy about something that you have no idea about. They've never seen a model and they don't know how to do it. So, our first job, really, is adult leader training that stresses the autonomy of the Patrol Leaders' Council to make these decisions and the role of adults in supporting them. If the adults are leading and presenting everything, well, that will seem quite natural. Youth members are leading everything. That will seem quite natural. So, both of those ways of doing it, either end of the continuum and all the points in between, have a way of perpetuating themselves over time because people look at it and they say, well, this is the way it goes. And even if they go to training, somebody will say something like, well, you go to training and you get trained, but you have to do things that work and this is the way it works for us. And, you know, all those things, to me, are just any number of excuses and equivocations. We understand the scout program, but we don't actually apply it because it would be inconvenient and difficult for us. My encouragement to you is to really think about the broad concept of the way the three bodies of leadership in any scout troop, that's the scoutmaster and his assistants, who are the coaches and mentors of the Patrol Leaders Council, who is the central decision-making body of the troop as far as program and activities are involved. And then the troop committee, which is a source of administrative support, of vetting and appointment of scout leaders, doing things that are beyond, far beyond the scope of a Patrol Leaders Council. So hopefully that helps kind of set you up with some broad concepts in the way that a troop committee relates to the other two leadership organizations within a troop. I'm a little deep, I'm short and stout. Here is my handle, here is my spout. When I get all steamed up, then I shout. Tip me over and pull me out. Tip me over and pull me out. Tip me over and pull me out. Tip me over. Pull me out. This has to be the truth, folks, because there is no way anyone could make this up. Tip me over and pull me out. Tip me over and pull me out. Tip me over and pull me out. Tip me over and pull me out. Our patrols keep a patrol log. And at summer camp, it's especially useful because it kind of gives them a report on the day that they can bring to the senior patrol leader at our evening Patrol Leaders Council meeting. So here we are. We're sitting around at night of a, you know, a sultry summer camp day and the bugs are chirping and carrying on. And, you know, I've got this one very young new patrol leader. He's kind of acting like, you know, a new employee would act in a board meeting or something like that, being very deferential and kind of quiet. You know, when it came his turn to talk about what was in his patrol log for the day, he mentioned that one of the boys in the patrol was somewhat concerned about the snake that was living under his tent platform.

Now, you've got to understand, where we go camping, there's, you know, snakes. There's garter snakes. There's a very rare roughneck green snake. There's rat snakes. There's several different kinds of snake. But most importantly, there's one that we have to pay particular attention to, and that's a copperhead. If you're not familiar with copperheads, copperheads are poisonous. They're not going to out now kill you, but it's certainly unpleasant to be bitten by one. So as the patrol leader sat there and he said rather quietly, yeah, you know, Alex is a little concerned about the snake that lives under his tent.

It kind of caught my attention.

After the patrol leader's council meeting, I grabbed one of my assistant scoutmasters, and I said, let's go look at the snake that's living under Alex's tent. It might be a good idea. And so anyway, is, you know, we're sleeping on tent platforms. They're wooden platforms. The tents are set on the top. And the scouts are headed off to the shower house before they hit the hay for the evening. And I thought, you know, we'll just go down very quietly. We'll take a look at this and see exactly what's going on. So here we are. We're down on our hands and knees kind of looking around underneath the tent platform. And there he is. It's a snake. And guess what kind of snake it is? Can you guess? Huh?

Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's a little, it's a little copperhead. You know, these, I've dealt with these guys before and they're, you want to treat them with respect and things. So I asked one of the fellows who is on the camp staff who was down in the site with us, he's one of our scouts. I say, you know, go on up, find the nature director. Tell him we got a snake and tell him to bring the snake stick and stuff down there. You know, they've got to, you know, we wait about 10 or 15 minutes and, and the nature director comes running breathlessly into the, into the campsite. He said, and in, in rather a louder voice than I would have hoped, he talks about the copperhead and we've got to capture this copperhead. And I'm like, yeah, well, let's, we might be able to do this without causing a whole lot of craziness. So, um, let's just keep it quiet. Oh, yeah. Okay.

So we begin trying to kind of, you know, reach under the platform and get the snake. And of course the snake is not very interested in this. Um, the snake would rather stay where he's at. He's comfortable. He's got a couple of scouts right there. Should he need to bite them, poison them, um, for any reason. So, uh, he's really got a pretty good crib right there and, uh, he's not very interested in moving. One thing leads to another, right? And finally there's, you know, uh, five, uh, adults and, and, and scouts and 10 flashlights. And there's a lot of hollering. So our quiet little snake extraction turns into, you know, a major, um, a major operation. And we, we've completely disassembled the tent platform to get at this snake and, uh, finally get it in the snake stick after a whole lot of excitement. And so, uh, me and the nature director walk on down the trail to a remote part of camp to, uh, release the snake and, uh, just, you know, let him be. He'll be out there where he won't bother anybody. And, uh, so I thought, you know, great end of story. The boys won't be concerned about this copperhead. Of course, they'll be concerned that there is a copperhead now under every tent platform because we didn't manage to do it very quietly. But we all headed off to bed and, uh, I had kind of figured that we were done.

But we weren't. No, of course we weren't. You know, one of the great things about being in camp with the scouts is that any little piece of news travels very quickly. Uh, in camp we call it the moccasin telegraph. And pretty soon the whole camp knows. And then the story gets embroidered and embellished. So here we are. We're walking back from lunch the next day. I get back to the campsite and one of the, my assistant leaders, uh, catches up with me. And he says, yeah, he says, uh, there's quite a story about the snake last night. And I say, really? He says, yeah, well, this is the story right now. Because as he was walking back from lunch, he heard scouts from another troop discussing this.

So the story was that there was this huge copperhead coiled up on the bed, not under the platform, but on the bed of one of the young scouts in our troop. And it was attacking them. And the scoutmaster had to kill it with an axe. And then had apparently skinned it and made a hat band, which he would be sporting at that night's, uh, retreat ceremony. So, you know, that's the way the moccasin telegraph works, isn't it? And, uh, it has tempted me before to create some stories, but, uh, I've managed to resist the temptation. I'll tell them to you here. I'll tell them to you here. So this is the second in our series of talking about a troop-based high adventure trip. Talk a little bit about, uh, what a high adventure trip is and what the rationale for building one is in our last podcast. And this time we're talking about, um, some more of the nuts and bolts and the details that get involved. I mean, where do you go and what do you do? Well, the simple answer to that question is just about anywhere and just about anything. What are your scouts interested in doing? Are they interested in a week of backpacking? Uh, maybe canoeing? Uh, maybe just touring. There's nothing to say that you don't rent a van and you go visit, uh, several historic sites or something like that, uh, during, during the time that you, uh, set aside for a high adventure trip. Maybe they're interested in cycling or maybe they're interested in boating. Or, you know, you choose. Making a trip happen requires four things. The first is vision and leadership. That's easy to say, but it's more important than you might think. Somebody has to say, let's go. And then they have to show the other folks in the troop that it's actually possible. This can be a little more challenging than you think, especially with your first troop-based trip. But I'll tell you something. From experience, it's possible. It's not only possible, it's not as hard as you might think. It's not only not as hard as you might think. It gets to be easy the more trips that you do. The second thing out of four that it takes is details. Troop-based trips are full of details. And preparation time is going to take at least as many hours as the trip itself and probably a little bit more. But once you consign yourself to the fact that you're going to be doing a lot of detail work, then it's not quite so onerous. Third is a commitment to training and skill development. Now, whoever's going to lead or advise participants has to commit time to training and learning the applicable skills to safely carry out the plan. And fourth is going to be finances. Now, calculating the cost of the trip and collecting money and paying it out and accounting for all of that is an important aspect. There might be fundraising with it. It's all very important stuff. And those are the four things that we're going to talk about. The first, vision and leadership. It's the most important step because without any vision, you're not going anywhere. It's important to establish and protect the vision and to build anticipation and excitement with it because the details and the questions are going to try and kill the vision. If we want to motivate people, we need to get a picture of exactly what we're going to do. And one of our first canoe trips to Canada, we sat around our campfire on the first night after getting to a very hard-won campsite. And it was dark and it was difficult to get ourselves there. A day of paddling and portaging and a frustrating search for the campsite and, you know, the crew got separated, had me pretty wrung out. And I was lamenting over a couple of mistakes that I made to one of my fellow adult leaders who was sitting there at the fire making our dinner. And he looked at me kind of incredulously and he said, hey, look, here we are. We're camped out on a lake in Canada and we're going to have a steak dinner. I mean, what more do you want? So he had maintained the vision while I was bogged down in details. Getting that first troop high adventure trip off the ground required helping my scouts envision it as a real possibility. I was surprised at how skeptical they were. I guess it all seemed a little too good to be true or too logistically challenging to launch. The adults in the troop also required a bit of convincing. You know, some questioned if we were allowed to do such things. Some were concerned about the cost. Some were concerned about safety. And some were concerned about all three or four things like that. But they did finally get a hold of the idea and we were able to bring it into reality. So establishing the vision and then fanning the flames and motivating scouts to maintain their resolve through this forest of details is as important as the details themselves. Niels van der Rohe once said famously, God is in the details. So let's talk about the detail part of it. So the place that you're going to go, it might be a state or a provincial or a national park. And these are very likely destinations. And each is going to have its own particular rules and procedures. And, of course, getting online and getting an idea of exactly what you're in for is a good start. A lot of times, popular places will have a lot of online trip reports and reviews and those can be very informative. I'd suggest that once you think you have all the information that you can glean off the web, you pick up the phone and call someone at your destination. Find somebody who's interested in talking to you. Sometimes it'll be a park ranger or somebody who runs a concession in one of the parks. And confirm the information that you have is correct. Outfitters or other local businesses are usually more than happy to talk to you about putting a trip together. I would just get out and do and let the miles take care of themselves. But when you do start thinking about mileage, you need to, you know, have the context of terrain. A mile that gains 2,000 feet in elevation is a lot different from a flat mile. The trail conditions, water, weather, and camping regulations, they'll affect the time and effort that are required to cover a distance. So if you're planning a hike as a part of your high adventure, you need to become very expert in these things. And you need to become expert in planning trail distances and route selection. And it's probably one of the more crucial choices in making or breaking your trip. And you need to gauge this route selection with the cruise ability and your familiarity with the terrain. The next detail is people. If you want, this isn't a rule. It's kind of a rule of thumb. Crews should probably be more than 5, less than 12. Now some destinations will regulate the maximum group size. Ratios of adults to youth are important. When we go canoeing, we usually have crews of 7 or 9 with the maximum and minimum of 3 adults over the age of 21. Because if we have an equal number of adults than scouts, or we have more adults than scouts, then the trip becomes diminished as far as the scout experience goes. The scouts should always outnumber the adults, in my opinion. I'm careful to explain that the adventure is for scouts, and adults are along for the ride. We make sure that our adults understand that. And sometimes we have to turn them away, because we already have the maximum number that we want to have. So deciding who goes and how many, that's another important detail. Getting there and back, the transportation part of the trip, is another set of details. Rentals, and fares, and timetables, and drivers, and group rates, and insurance, and accommodations are all going to demand your attention. The gear that's going to be required, can it be rented? Or does it have to be purchased by your troop? Or does it get purchased by individuals? There's probably going to be a mix of all three. The quality and utility of your gear is important, and it will require a little bit of research. What looks inexpensive and indulgent at home may prove to be cheap and indispensable when you're, you know, eight hours away from the nearest store. So learning about the gear that's required and making sure that you get the best stuff that you can afford is very important. Food is another one of the details you're going to come up with. The appropriate weight, quantity, and nutritional value of a backcountry diet is a pretty big task, especially when you expand it into five or ten people. And then buying it and packing it after it's planned is also a pretty big task. In my experience, it's best to have at least two or three crew members assigned to doing different parts of that task and making sure that it happens. Training and skill development is important, and one of the skills that you're going to have is planning a menu and purchasing it for this kind of a trip. So those are the big detail areas that you're going to need to consider for a high adventure trip. And next time around, we're going to talk about making sure that everybody is trained and what the appropriate type of training is for a high adventure trip. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Well, thanks for listening once again to the Scoutmaster Podcast. You can read the Scoutmaster blog at scoutmaster.typepad.com. You can follow us at Scoutmasterblog on Facebook and ScoutmasterCG on Twitter. You can subscribe to the Scoutmaster podcast on iTunes and feel free to leave a comment or a review or a rating. You can email me, Clark Green, with your comments and questions and requests at clarkgreen at gmail.com. C-L-A-R-K-E-G-R-E-E-N at gmail.com.

Now it's time to proclaim the disclaim-er. However, the Scoutmaster blog and the Scoutmaster podcast are not official publications of the Boy Scouts of America, nor are they endorsed or sponsored by the Boy Scouts of America. Nope, nope, nope, nope. They're just me talking into a microphone trying to have a bit of fun and lend a hand to Scout leaders. And before we leave you, we want to hear from the founder. What do you have for the folks this time, Sir Robert? Good luck to you and good camping. Well, thank you, sir. Until next time. We'll see you again soon. Taxi trafigurant I love you.