Scoutmaster Podcast 262

I'm Gary Miller and I'm a Scoutmaster with Troop 326 in Emmett, Idaho. This edition of the Scoutmaster podcast is sponsored by backers like me And now the old Scoutmaster.

So the patrol's getting set up and they're putting up tents and things like that, and the patrol leader turns to one of the scouts and says: look, go see the quarter master and see if he has any lanterns. And the scout says yeah, okay. And the patrol leader says wait, wait, wait. If he has any tent stakes, get six.

And so a short time later the scout returns with six lanterns And the patrol leader looks at him and says: why did you get six lanterns? And the scout says: well, he had tent stakes. You got to think about that one.

Hey, this is podcast number 262.. Yeah, Welcome back to the Scoutmaster podcast. This is Clarke Green, right into the mail bag. Let's see. Bernard Lawner is the troop committee chair with troop 329 in Battle Creek, Michigan, And he says: I love the information I found on your site. Once again, I'm starting to feel the fire of scouting burning within.

Good for you. Bernard Harry Schneider is in Sherwood Park, Alberta, Canada, and wrote to say thanks for putting up the article on plan do review. We're really excited about starting to roll out our new Canadian path program in Scouts Canada. If you're following the blog, last week I put up a post about the plan do review element of Scouts Canada And you definitely want to check that out. It's a very simple, uncomplicated way to involve scouts of any age in developing some leadership and planning skills. Harry went on to say: coincidentally, Dean Post and I- and Dean and Harry were both on the podcast a while back- have national level positions with the project and are supporting the program as it rolls out.

Thanks, Harry, for getting in touch. I really love the concept behind the Canadian path And I don't think I've mentioned it on the podcast before, but go check out Scouts Canada and the Canadian path And then also Scouts Ireland has something called one program.

Really really interesting, brilliant developments in scouting in both of those programs that are well worth taking a look at. Paul Geets has got in touch and Paul is a new backer And he said: I'm halfway through.

So far, so good And I love it. My nine and a half year old daughter asked me what I was reading And I told her and I showed her that you had signed it too And she said that's clever.

So I asked her why the word clever? And she said because your name is green and you signed it with a green pen.

Now I wonder how much I miss on a day to day basis. I need to pay more attention. It's all in the details. Yes, if you become a backer and you get an autograph copy of one of my books, I will sign it with a green pen.

Why exactly? Why your daughter thought I that's my name.

Hey, we did a few chat sessions again this week And once again keep an eye on our Facebook and Twitter feeds for the times when I'll be live on ScoutmasterCGcom having an open chat session In addition to all of the frequent flyers that check in on the chat. It was great to chat with Paul Napoli, who's an assistant scoutmaster in Baltimore, Maryland, And Ronald Moreno Alvarado, who is with Scouts Venezuela was on chat. Timothy Smith, who's a scoutmaster in Connecticut And John Coleman, who's an assistant scoutmaster in Collierville, Tennessee, with Troop 56.. Stu Jackson is in Denver And he's the newly minted scoutmaster of Troop 212.. And we heard from the 91st Sojourners Group, which is in Kingston, New York, And they're a Baden Powell service organization group, And Rob with Troop 18 in Muskego, Wisconsin, checked in, And David Scott.

So, like I said, weekday mornings usually you'll see an announcement in the Twitter feed or on the Facebook feed. Come around to the live chat, check in and say hello. Before I go any further, I always want to take a little bit of time to mention how we keep the blog up and running and how we keep the podcast moving along. It's because of the people who sign on to be ScoutmasterCGcom backers.

I started this backer program a year or so ago. It's based on the idea that if the resources I've created have helped you, you can return the favor and help me keep them freely available to scouts all over the world by becoming a backer.

So this is how that works. Go to ScoutmasterCGcom, Click on the support link at the top of the page And you can become a backer by making a one-time voluntary kind of subscription payment for the blog and the podcast and things like that. And, as you heard earlier, some levels of support will earn you a premium, like an autograph copy in one of my books or all of the books.

But I want to take a moment to thank Alicia Jeffcoat, Paul Geaches, Kevin Hansen and John Coleman, who all have become backers since our last podcast Once again go to ScoutmasterCGcom. Become a backer this week and I'll be sure to thank you during our next podcast.

In this week's podcast, in Scout MasterChip, in seven minutes or less, we're going to discuss the scale of scouting, And then we've got a couple of quick email questions to answer and that's going to take up the rest of the podcast. So let's get started, shall we? Scout MasterChip in seven minutes or less.

Here's an interesting thought. Scouting has a scale. It was designed to work at a specific scale. To understand what that scale is, we don't have to go any further than reading what the founder of Scouting had to say about it.

And here is a quote from Baden Powell, from an article that he wrote for The Scouter, which was the period article published by the Scouts Association in Great Britain. He wrote this in the 1920s and let me just read it to you here, As the camping season is now upon us. I may say that one or two of the camps which I have already seen have been unfortunately on the wrong lines, though others were very satisfactory. I strongly advise small camps of about a half a dozen patrols, each patrol in a separate tent and on a separate ground, as suggested in Scouting for Boys.

So the Scouts do not feel themselves to be part of a big herd but members of independent, responsible units. Large camps prevent Scout work and necessitate military training, and one which I visited the other day, though exceedingly well carried out as a bit of army organization, appealed to me very little because it was not only entirely on military lines but the patrols- the essence of our system- were broken up to fit the members into the tents. He went on to say: patrols should be kept intact under all circumstances. If more than six or seven patrols are out at the same time, they should preferably be divided into two camps located, say, two miles or more apart.

So Scouting has a scale and for our purposes here we're going to we're going to look at two different scales that Ben Powell pointed out in this article: the patrol and the herd. Our target, the place where everything happens in Scouting, is the Scout and the smaller group or his patrol. As Scoutmasters, our most important mandate is keeping the program targeted at building and supporting patrols, because patrols are the scale of Scouting. Herds are too big, they're too large for Scouting to work effectively. The real work happens when Scouts are working in a patrol and they develop mutual respect for each other and foster cooperation within a group of equals. And this cooperation, this small group, is where the really radical ideas like self-government through the patrol method take place.

A patrol is this kind of laboratory of leadership and personal development. Ben Powell called it the character school for the individual. Everybody in a patrol has some kind of responsibility. Everybody in a patrol has a part in the decision-making process and in the direction of the patrol. The reason that we're focused on patrols is because those things just don't happen when we're treating Scouts as a big giant herd.

A Scout in a patrol of you know five to eight guys doesn't get lost like he would in a big herd of 30 or 40 Scouts, where he's just another face in the crowd. Within the patrol, Scouts act on this notion of reciprocity. Cooperation, with all its troubles and triumphs and difficulties, enables each Scout to discover more about themselves and to integrate the concepts of the oath and law into their character in a very real way.

When we have real self-government, the Scout Oath and Law are not just a bunch of concepts that are preached by adults. They're very meaningful, They're very useful, They become lively, motivating concepts, because that's the only way you're going to be able to get anything done in a patrol. You have to do it by the Scout Oath and Law.

We want to foster this cooperative independence using the patrol method. So the central importance of that prioritizes everything else about Scouting. It's the scale of Scouting.

If we're trying to work with Scouts in a herd of 20, 30, 40 Scouts it's not going to be as effective at achieving the aims of Scouting as it is when they are working with a group of peers in that group of you know five or eight Scouts in a patrol. So when we're camping, patrols should have their own spot. And I know that it's a little bit of an eyebrow razor when you read that. Baden Powell says if more than six or seven patrols are out at the same time, they should be divided into two camps like two miles or more apart. But he noted the difference between the military precision of having an even number of tents and dividing the Scouts up into the tents and ignoring the patrols. And it's a really apt illustration of the idea of the logistics supplanting the idea of why we're doing Scouting in the first place.

It's always about patrols, Whatever the logistics need to be to support the patrols. Well, that's what we should be thinking about.

So every time we encounter something like this and we talk about the patrol system and everything, we need to understand why. Well, why does the patrol system work? It's certainly much more efficient to get 30 guys together and run them through the same thing.

We can process them much easier that way. Why do we have to do it in these small groups? It doesn't seem to be very efficient sometimes.

Well, the reason is is because at that scale is where Scouting really, really works. When we go above that scale or below that scale, it's not able to work as well.

So, once again, our target, the place where everything happens for the scout, is in his patrol, and our most important mandate is keeping our eye on that and building the program targeted of supporting the scale of Scouting the patrol. Write me a letter, Send it my name, Email, that is. Folks,

And here's an answer to one of your emails. Andy Davis is a Scoutmaster and he sent me this question.

He says we have one patrol with 10 and another patrol with five. We have three or four new scouts coming into the troop and they all want to join the patrol with 10..

Now, how are we going to guide them to the next group? How are we going to guide them to the next group?

How are we going to guide them to the next group? How are we going to guide them to the next group?

How are we going to guide our young scouts to resolve this issue? We always want them to have the choice of patrols, but if they all go into the patrol of 10, this is going to cause us a problem.

So I replied to Andy and I said: what does your patrol leaders council think of the situation and what ideas have they shared with you to resolve the problem? And Andy replied: well, I'm meeting with all the adult leaders and we're going to talk about this, get on the same page and prepare any guidance that the patrol leaders council might request. We will stand back and listen unless the patrol leaders council makes a decision. That's going to be really ugly or overly complex.

And my reply to Andy was: well, you know, I understand the idea of having adults on the same page and everything like that. But rather than starting with consulting with the adults, let's talk to the patrol leaders council first.

And that means you as the Scoutmaster, nobody else, just you sitting down with the patrol leaders council and saying: here's the situation. We got 10 guys in this patrol, we got five guys in this patrol. We got three or four scouts. They all want to join the patrol with 10.

Do you guys see that as being a problem? And you know what are they going to reply: well, no, not really, you know.

Say: well, do you really want to have a patrol with 13 guys in it? Do you think things are going to work well at that scale? Huh, hmm, hadn't thought about that before.

Where could we find out, guys, what size ideally we want patrols to be? Where could we find that out?

Well, I don't know, Mr Davis, maybe we in the scout handbook? Yeah, let's take a look, let's, let's see.

So you begin a conversation with the patrol leaders council where they begin to do a couple of things. They are going to get a better understanding of exactly what scouting is all about, because you're going to get them looking for answers and then they're also going to go through this wonderful process of talking and discussing and coming up with resolutions about how this should happen.

Let's say, one of the scouts says: oh well, we, we can't allow them to be in that patrol town. We're going to put them all in the patrol of five.

And then the question becomes: well, okay, so put yourself in the position of one of these new scouts, tell them that they don't have a choice of patrols, but we're just going to assign them to a patrol. How would you feel about that yourself? You think that's a good idea. And this discussion just keeps on going.

Now one of the most common questions I get are this kind of question around the arrangement of patrols and who picks patrols and how to balance patrols. And should patrols be totally permanent, always, always, always, or can they be a little more flexible?

Do you have to have eight, can you have five, can you have ten? And there's no set answer for any of this. There are only guiding principles.

So the guiding principle is: is that we know that in general, eight is the target number for an effective patrol that has the critical mass to function properly. But a patrol of five could function pretty well. It all depends on the scouts. Right, and a patrol of ten could function pretty well. It all depends on the scouts.

So you can't make a hard and fast, absolute rule about this. You have to deal with scouts on an individual basis and figure out what's going to work best for them, and that's why we have a patrol leaders council to do exactly that.

Well, shouldn't the scouts be able to choose their patrol, or should we assign them to a patrol? Well, they should be able to choose their patrol. That's pretty clear in every, in every resource that I've ever seen- is their choice.

The only consideration- well, no, I mean, there are rules to the game, right? We know that there's a critical mass number. It depends on the group of scouts. We know that going too far above that number and we don't have a patrol anymore, we just have a little herd of scouts.

So you know, you start talking about things. You say: well, you know how many guys can play basketball at the same time.

You know why is that? Why do we have a limited number?

Why can't the whole team just get on the court and start playing? And these kind of questions are pretty interesting in a patrol leaders council. They start talking about these things, they begin to understand and they come up with a resolution.

Once they've made a decision and they put it into play, they're going to examine what they've done, see if that resolution works, give it a month or so, and if, in a month, it looks like it's just falling to pieces, well, it's time to sit down and talk again and come up with another plan. So look at all the wonderful things that are happening in this scenario. We're focusing on the patrol system, we're trying to make sure it works and we're going through a process of development of leadership skills and understanding with our patrol leaders council. At the same time- and that's the point, right, that's why we're doing this in the first place- you could, as an adult, just make all the decisions and say, uh nah, these three or four guys, there's no way they can be in this patrol at 10.

We're not going to split up the patrol at 10, they're going with the patrol of five, and that's the way it's going to be, and you know what that might work. But you've denied yourself and your scouts the opportunity of working through this process, which is what scouting is really all about.

So hopefully, hopefully, that's not too confusing and hopefully that helps you answer a similar question, if you have one, about the way patrols are made up and who gets chosen and how it works, go to the patrol leaders council first and start asking questions. That's always going to be my first advice in situations like this, because most of the time they'll come up with a pretty brilliant resolution to the whole thing.

Hey, i heard from glenn grezik who is uh, with troop and crew 709 in vista, california, and glenn asks: should a scout get their patch right after passing their border review? Well, glenn, the short answer is yes and i'll point to two things in the guide to advancement that inform that answer. In section 3.0.0.3, which is titled unit advancement responsibilities, one of those responsibilities is- quote: obtain the necessary badges, certificates etc. And arrange for timely presentation. It's best to obtain and present these as soon as possible after they're earned and they can be represented in a more formal setting. Also in the section 4.2.1.4, the scout is recognized is the title of that section.

When the border 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 the formal court of honor.

So based on those two statements, i think the answer is yes. As soon as the border review has completed or a merit badge counselor signs a merit badge application, the clock starts ticking.

We want to get whatever recognition it is to the scout in as few ticks as possible. So as soon as the advancement committee has the badges they need to get into the hands of the scouts. If that's at a unit meeting, that's fine.

A brief informal presentation there and then you can represent it in a more formal ceremony at a court of honor later on. And of course we want to do this because scouts want to be recognized as soon as possible for what they've done.

It encourages them to keep advancing and you know it's just a question of fairness. Why should i have to wait for two months to get a badge that i already earned?

Once the clock starts ticking and the scouts earn something, we want as few ticks to go by before he has it in his hands, so glad. I hope that helps.

So just a couple of very quick questions. Today in the email segment of the podcast. It's spring break. Everybody's outside doing stuff, not sitting around their computer asking me questions. Good for you. But if you do have a question, you can get in touch.

It's pretty easy to do and you're going to find out how to do that in just a moment.