Scoutmaster Podcast 268

I'm Jonathan Brower and I'm a Scoutmaster with troop 19 in Fort Wayne, Indiana. This edition of the Scoutmaster podcast is sponsored by backers like me.

And now the old Scoutmaster. Are you familiar with Horace Keppar? He's one of my favorite authors. He wrote early in the last century about camping, and quite an outdoorsman, and he had this to say. To be sure, even though a man rigs up his own outfit, he never gets it quite to suit him. Every season sees the downfall of some cherished scheme, the failure of some fond contrivance.

Every winter sees you again fussing over your kit, altering this, substituting that and flogging your wits with the same old problem of how to save weight and bulk without the sacrifice of utility. All thoroughbred campers do this regularly as the birds come back in spring, and their kind has been doing it since the world began. It's good for us. If some misguided genius should invent a camping equipment that nobody could find fault with, half our pleasure in life would be swept away.

Oh, we do love our gear, don't we? And you know that hasn't changed. It hasn't changed since the early part of the last century at least, when Horace Keppart wrote this. That comes to mind because it's part of a PDF that I have to offer at ScoutMasterCGcom, called Going Camping, Go Light. I'll have a link to it in the post that contains this podcast, And this happens to be podcast number 268..

Welcome back to the ScoutMaster podcast. This is Clarke Green Looking in the mailbag. We heard this week from John Moore, who is the committee chair of PAC and Troop 130 in Geneva, Switzerland. John wrote to say I'd like to request using some things I found on your blog for a new parent session with our graduating Webelos parents. There are some things that I find useful and I couldn't have said better. I hope you won't mind if I extract some of your points to share with the parents.

I'm glad I found your blog. Thank you for sharing your experience with the world.

Well, John, thank you for your kind words. I'm glad you're finding what we've produced useful and, naturally, Please feel free to use anything I've created to advance the greater cause of scouting. All I ask is that you let people know where you found it, And that goes for you too And anything that I've come up with. If you want to use it, you don't need to ask my permission. Just go ahead, and all I ask is that you let people know where you found it. There you go.

Hey, you're going to love this email. This is. This is really great. And this is from a reader and listener, Robert Williams, who's a new Scoutmaster, And he said: we just had our first real patrol leaders council meeting in a long time. It was fantastic. I followed your advice as closely as possible, although I probably should have been a bit stricter in living how much I talk.

Well, Robert, everybody's got to deal with that. I can talk the horns off a billy goat and the feet off an iron pot, So I understand what you're dealing with. But anyway, Robert goes on to say: before the meeting started, I distributed the patrol leader and senior patrol leader handbooks I had just purchased.

I sat down and said: OK, so what do you all think we should do? What's a patrol leaders council for? The senior patrol leader said I'll bet it's in the books and started flipping through the pages. He found the agenda in the senior patrol leaders handbook and just started working his way through it. He got to the part about patrol reports and he said: OK, we'll go around and turn.

Here's what I want you to tell me. At that point I excuse myself to get up and get a cup of hot chocolate. I came back a couple of minutes later and the patrol reports were going well. One of the patrol leaders brought up a behavioral issue and they discussed that.

And the senior patrol leaders said: well, have you talked to him? Have you talked it over with the other scouts?

If it keeps happening, come to me and if we need to, we'll go to Mr Williams. At the beginning of their meeting they were looking at me a lot, asking me questions and looking for my approval.

So I did a lot of real, exaggerated things like looking blankly for a few seconds and then saying melodramatically: Oh did you mean me? What were you talking to me for? And I looked behind me, feigning confusion once in a while, seeing if I could figure out who they were talking to. Finally, I had the assistant senior patrol leader read the paragraph where it says the Scoutmaster is only there for advice and guidance. And by the end of the meeting they were mostly speaking to each other in: the senior patrol leader, not me. When the senior patrol leader got to the big event planning section on the agenda, he started dividing up the jobs amongst the patrols and we're having a first year orientation camp out soon Now.

Historically that camp out's mostly been planned by adults, So I was excited to see the senior patrol leader go ahead and plan it and divide the responsibilities amongst patrols. I probably did a little too much talking here, asking some questions and making a few suggestions, But the patrol leaders council was making all the decisions. Then they got to the part where they're supposed to plan for the next few troop meetings. They did get a little off track and I had to redirect them a little. But they realized they should use those meetings to get ready for the camp out and they started deciding what to do each week.

So they planned out those next two weeks and it was a beautiful thing to see. I was just blown away watching these young men take charge and make plans. I really didn't think it was going to work.

The senior patrol leader always seemed so uncertain of himself. But now I see if you just give them the room and set some expectations, they'll work to achieve that. If you elbow them out of the way and just do it for them, they'll sit quietly and let you take over.

This patrol leaders council meeting ran about 45 minutes and honestly I wish they'd had more time because I was so interested in what they had to discuss. I only had to provide a few nudges here and there. I may have overdone it on praising them, because at one point they asked if I was being sarcastic, but I was actually very sincere. It went 10 times better than I expected and I told them.

So They expressed mock offense that I had such low expectations of them. Thanks for all your help. This is a very promising start and I'm very excited.

So far, so good. Well, Robert, that's a fantastic report and I'll repeat exactly what Robert said.

Now I see that if you just give them room and set some expectations, they'll work to achieve that. But if you elbow them out of the way and just do it for them, they'll sit quietly and let you take over. Couldn't have said it better myself. Robert, That's a great report and I expect to keep hearing great things about how this is working out for you. Hey, over on the blog this week. Oh boy, we got a lot of attention with this post titled Stop Being a Merit Badge Counselor.

Lots of comments and a big discussion about several things to do with merit badges Once that was posted this past week. Go over to scoutmastercgcom and read the post, but make sure you read the comments to very interesting discussion. I also posted my first impressions of a new tent that I have to review, the Teton Mountain Ultra 3.. Looks very, very promising. Looks like a great choice at a good price for scouts. Once again over on scoutmastercgcom.

Let's see we had two or three great live chats this week. Keep an eye on my Facebook and Twitter feeds about the live chats. They're mostly on weekday mornings and a lot of people stop through and sign in and we chat for a bit. And in addition to all of those frequent fliers who normally stop by, we chatted with John Clements, who's from troop 692 in Castlebury, Florida. Greg Brennam is a scout who's a scoutmaster for troop 901 in Cypress, Texas. Peter, who is an assistant scoutmaster for troop 110 in Millbury Massachusetts.

Monica, who is a troop committee person. Wendy, who is an assistant scoutmaster in Illinois, And Jeremy Jenkins, who's a scoutmaster in China Grove, North Carolina, with troop 315, and Michael Cotter from Columbus, Ohio, where he's a den leader with PAC 41 and a group scoutmaster with the 97th Lucas Sullivan scout group, which is a group with the Baden Powell Service Association.

So before we go any further, everything at scoutmastercgcom is there to help you as a scouter, And I hear from people all over the world who tell me that it helps And that's very, very gratifying. So to keep everything freely available, I depend on people just like you who become backers.

Now it's an unusual idea, So let me take a moment to explain. If I was sending you a paper magazine or a newsletter, you'd expect there to be some costs associated with that. I need to pay printers and authors and I need to pay postage.

What happens these days is in the digital world is pretty similar to that newsletter, because somebody has to spend their time producing the content and then incur the expenses of publishing it, And that's what I do. And backers are the folks who make a one time kind of voluntary subscription payment, and that money covers the expenses of producing and publishing what you find on scoutmastercgcom, including the podcast that you're listening to right now.

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Well, in this podcast I have some email questions to answer, But before I do that, in Scoutmastership in seven minutes or less, we're going to talk about who signs off rank requirements and that'll take up the remainder of the podcast. So let's get started, shall we Scoutmaster ship in seven minutes or less? I wanted to take a minute just to cover this, because you'll see in the email segment next that I got a question about patrol leaders signing off rank requirements, And I can't really remember a time where patrol leaders in our troop did not sign off rank requirements.

So I'm always a little surprised when people find this unusual. So I guess what I understand, that this is not like necessarily a common practice in all troops.

So when we have a question about something like this, what do we want to do? Well, you know you can listen to me talk and talk and talk, and I can give you ideas and I can give you opinions.

You don't want to go on ideas and opinions alone, do you? You want to go to the resources that are provided to you by your scouting organization and make sure that you're getting things right. It takes a little study, It takes a little work to do that And I do my best to remind everybody- don't take my word for it. Go to your resources. Make sure you're doing your best to deliver scouting to the young people in your community.

Now about this question about who signs off on rank requirements. Well, if you're involved with the BSA, here's the resources that help answer that question. The first is in the Guide to Advancement 2015..

I'll have a link to it in the post that contains this podcast, And when we talk about the Guide to Advancement, we talk about long numbers, right, So get your pencils ready. This is in section 4.2.1.2, titled A Scout Is Tested And, quoting from that section, the unit leader authorizes those who may test and pass the scout on rank requirements. They might include his patrol leader, senior patrol leader, an assistant unit leader, another scout or the unit leader himself. Merit Badge counselors teach and test on requirements for merit badges.

Once a scout has been tested and signed off by someone approved to do so, the requirement has been met. The unit leader is accountable for ensuring proper advancement procedures are followed. A part of this responsibility includes the careful selection and training of those who approve advancement.

So let's look at this for a moment. The unit leader- so in a scout troop that would be the Scoutmaster- authorizes those who may test and pass the scout on rank requirements.

So who could that be? OK, well, it could be the unit leader or the Scoutmaster himself, It could be an assistant unit leader, It could be another scout, It could be the scouts patrol leader or senior patrol leader.

So it's pretty wide open policy wise. You don't want to go to your troop meeting tomorrow night and say, OK, patrol leaders can sign off all rank requirements. That probably wouldn't be such a great idea because of what it says in the guide. The unit leader is accountable for ensuring proper advancement procedures are followed, and a part of this responsibility includes the careful selection and training of those who approve advancement.

So you know you can't just make a blanket statement and say, well, all patrol leaders can sign off all rank requirements now, because that wouldn't be really very responsible, would it? You would want to make sure that your patrol leaders are trained in proper advancement procedures, right?

So anybody signing off requirements really should understand how to do it. They should be trained. Nobody should be signing off requirements without first having discussed this with the unit leader.

Correct? Once a scout's been tested and signed off by somebody approved to do so, the requirement's been met. He's not getting tested on it again.

So it's a pretty important moment. Now I will tell you from my experience: training patrol leaders to do this very, very simple, training adults to do it- reasonably simple- and the ongoing process, of course, of them signing off requirements and then and then, through Scoutmaster conferences and discussions with Scouts, understanding how the requirements were signed off- and it's not that you have to retest the requirements, You just might ask a couple of questions about them- Is a great opportunity for a unit leader or a Scoutmaster to mentor and train his youth leadership. It's a really great opportunity.

So let's go to the Scoutmaster handbook. Very simple statement there.

So this is in the Scoutmaster handbook. In the advancement section It says step two: a scout is tested and it says this quote: Scouts might be tested by adult troop leaders or by their own patrol leaders, troop guides or another junior leader, provided that the youth leader has already earned the rank the scout is aiming for.

So we get a little additional information in the Scoutmaster handbook that coincides with what we read in the guide to advancement, and the Scoutmaster handbook adds this consideration: provided that the boy leader has already earned the rank the scout is aiming for, I think that's a very reasonable provision. So, based on that guidance from the resources that we have, I'll tell you how this works. In my own troop Any youth leader is trained and qualified to sign off rank advancements as long as he's earned that rank.

And you know it works very, very well. And there are some perennial objections to doing that because it's felt that youth won't be rigorous enough in their examination of Scouts for requirements and things.

Well, I really haven't found that to be the case. That happens sometimes, to be sure, And when it does- and we find out that it's happened that you know the requirement well, they kind of rushed through that one.

Well, that's a great opportunity to sit down with whoever approved their requirement and refine their technique a little bit, And then, if they really gave short shrift to the Scout, we have a discussion about how they can fix that. They're not going to go back and retest the requirement, but they're going to involve the Scout in making sure that they demonstrate their understanding of that requirement, a situation where they're sharing it with other Scouts, which is also recommended in the Guide to Advancement.

So just a quick overview of those things And, once again, don't ever take my word for it. Go to the, go to the resources yourself, Read what has to be said there And if you find that I've got something wrong or you think I've got something wrong, make sure to get in touch with me. I always appreciate hearing about that Email.

That is, folks, And here's an answer to one of your emails.

So we've got two or three email questions to answer this week. The first one comes from Tim Smith, who's the Scoutmaster of Troop 52 in Danbury, Connecticut, And Tim said this: I'd like to start off by saying thanks for both the blog and the podcast, as well as the books. They've given me some direction as Scoutmaster and to our Petroleum Council in changing the way our troop has- quote- always done things unquote.

Well, Tim, that's a challenge for all of us. I can tell you Troop 52 has 57 scouts as of this writing. The Petroleum Council, which we still call the green bar, meets monthly and typically for a few minutes after each troop meeting. They also meet in the late spring to plan for the coming year. Currently, our patrols do not meet outside of troop meetings.

So I have two or three questions for you. Number one is you mentioned in the description of a ideal quote, unquote- troop meeting in one of your podcasts that patrol leaders would be signing off requirements for younger scouts. Currently, our Scoutmaster, Assistant Scoutmasters and Junior Assistant Scoutmasters are the only ones authorized to sign rank requirements, But I've been considering extending this to patrol leaders.

Has this always been the case in your troop And, if not, what was the transition? Like, Tim, inspired by your email question I shared earlier in

Scoutmastership in seven minutes or less about the mechanics of this question, I can't honestly remember a time where patrol leaders didn't sign off requirements of my troops, so I really can't comment on a transition. I don't really imagine there needs to be like a big giant transition-y thing at all.

I think that the scouts will get it immediately. Make sure to follow the resources, make sure patrol leaders understand the responsibility involved and I think you'll find that it works just fine, Tim.

Second question: was we limit terms and positions of responsibility to one year? Scouts are limited to a single year term as the senior patrol leader.

Do you think we ought to have this kind of limitation, Or should we just let things roll? We've also limited these positions to scouts who have at least first class rank, so that they have a position of responsibility to satisfy advancement requirements for higher ranks.

Should the senior patrol leader only appoint those scouts that come to him or all that need a position? Well, Tim, as to the length of terms and qualifications for positions of responsibility, first let's talk about the length of the term. Oddly enough, I've found that the length of the term has very little effect on the way leadership develops or the level of competence that they ultimately reach. Any period of time that somebody's going to be in a position of responsibility is divided into thirds. The first third is getting to know the job, the second third is getting good at it and the third third is being good at the job.

So whether the tenure in that position is a week long or three years long, I think that those thirds they'll fill up any length of tenure. I've had guys who are crew chiefs for our week long trips in Canada and their development in those steps, in those three steps, is almost identical to the way a senior patrol leader develops over a six month period, which happens to be the length of the term that we have in our troop. Prior to that, we had senior patrol leaders serving for a full year Roughly. They would develop in thirds. I don't know that the length of the tenure is really all that important, other than in that it is long enough to fulfill rank requirements. Personally, I pay very little attention to the qualifications or rank requirements in positions of responsibility.

I have very little to say about positions of responsibility to begin with, but I find that if a scout wants to advance, he'll find a position of responsibility. I can't recall one of our scouts being held back because he lacked the opportunity to occupy a position of responsibility. And, like I said, who ends up in those positions has very little to do with me And I'm not really all that concerned with who gets elected or appointed to those positions. They're all youth decisions. I just work with whoever they choose.

Now I will advise the senior patrol leader if he asks. When it comes down to appointing guys to positions of responsibility, Some senior patrol leaders ask me and some don't.

So Tim's third question was: you've also mentioned that you have one meeting night a month dedicated to boards of review and the patrol leaders council meeting. If I understand you correctly, you have another night dedicated to patrol meetings.

How smoothly did the transition to that schedule go? How did the scouts handle it, And do they find that it distracts from the presentation of the program?

Well, I've talked about this before, but let me tell you what our- what our- meeting night schedule is. We have usually one or two troop meetings every month, one or two patrol meetings every month and the Monday night That's when we meet.

We meet on Monday nights after we go camping. Each month is dedicated to the patrol leaders council meeting, Scoutmaster conferences, boards of review. It's not a regular troop meeting.

Now, I don't know that there's any real problem with the program being presented because of that schedule. It seems to run fine, so far as I can tell.

Sometimes we have four meetings a month, sometimes three, sometimes five, depending on the calendar, But that's basically the way they divide up, which exchanged one or two of our troop meetings each month for patrol meetings, because we wanted to encourage patrols to meet and do things together And we found that trying to do that outside of that one night a week was a real scheduling challenge for them. So we decided we don't need to have a troop meeting every single time we get together.

So we opened it up so the patrol leaders could plan independently their own activities and what they're going to do that night. And our scouts have received it reasonably well and it seems to work pretty good for us.

Heard from Rob Karagnan who is with Scout Troop 1 in Portland, Maine, And he said: can you help clarify the BSA policy on stoves? I am interested in getting an alcohol burning stove But I've heard and read that the BSA has banned alcohol stoves. I did look at policy on storage, handling and use of chemical fuels and equipment And you'll find that in the Guide to Safe Scouting and I'll have a link to that in the post that contains this podcast. Rob says: this policy tells me I can only use commercial stoves and use them only within the manufacturer's instructions.

Is that the way that you read this in the Guide to Safe Scouting? Well, yeah, Rob, that's exactly the way I read it.

The whole alcohol stove ban is one of those urban legends in scouting that seem to persist because I don't think too many people have bothered to read the actual policy, So they assume that all alcohol stoves are banned. If you read the policy, it is just what it says: Homemade alcohol stoves are prohibited, but commercially manufactured stoves they're OK.

And then there's a statement about fuel, And this is also pretty clear: Use the fuel specified by the manufacturer. Pretty simple, right.

So if you get a commercially made alcohol stove and you use it according to the manufacturer's instructions and you use only the fuel that the manufacturer specifies, we're in good shape. Now the only thing that I would add, Rob, is understand that alcohol burns with a very visible flame in daylight.

So make sure you read the directions that come with your stove, because a common accident that happens with alcohol stoves is when somebody tries to refuel the stove while it's still burning or the burner is hot. So make sure that it's out and the burner is cool to the touch before you refuel the stove. Once again, folks go to the guide to save scouting. Read that policy and see if I've got it right.

And the last email for this week is this question: What is the maximum recommended weight for backpacks? Some of the old scouters in the troop keep telling me that one third body weight is the maximum, And I find references online telling me one quarter body weight is maximum and I'd appreciate your wisdom on this.

Well, I got to tell you the percentage of body weight is not a very good measure when it comes to figuring out what the maximum weight of a backpack ought to be, If you think about this. So one third or one quarter body weight means 150 pound person could carry up to 50 pounds And to me that's way way too heavy. It's much more than it needs to be. My pack usually weighs in around 25 to 35 pounds And 35 pounds is pretty heavy for for a two night weekend. If I was a lot more serious about it, I paid more attention to it, I could trim about five pounds off of the weight that I carry, But I'm reasonably happy getting it to in that 30 pound area. Scouts in my experience are all over the map with what they're able to carry comfortably.

30 pounds is not necessarily too much for a small, framed younger scout. Now some smaller scouts are going to be really taxed trying to carry that much And I've had much bigger and more and older scouts who have real difficulty carrying a backpack.

It just seems to get under their skin and it's very, very difficult for them to do And this is why, when we go backpacking, we go backpacking by patrols. You know the whole troop is there, but the patrols sticks together. They share their food, They share their cooking gear, stoves, tents, and the guys who are more capable of carrying more weight will usually be very happy to do that if somebody is having trouble in their patrol.

So I know there's a lot of advice out there that talks about a percentage of body weight as being a measure for the maximum, But, like I said, there are so many different situations and so many different types of scouts that I would not use that as a rule of thumb. The way that it works best for us has been to stay in that 25 to 35 pound area and to make sure that everybody sticks together as patrol, And it usually seems to work out just fine that way. If you have a question for me, it's very easy to get in touch and you're going to find out how to do that in just a moment.