Scoutmaster Podcast 276

I'm Chuck Wolf and I am an assistant scoutmaster with Troop 342 in Raleigh, North Carolina. This edition of the Scoutmaster podcast is sponsored by backers like me And now the old scoutmaster, Hey, Hey everybody, this is Clarke Green.

It's summertime, and so our next few podcasts feature on-core presentations from our archives, And this week I'm going to play an interview that I recorded a few years back with the authors of a fantastic book called Working the Patrol Method. It's a longer podcast than usual, but I didn't want to break up the interview.

I think it'll be worth your time. It's a fantastic book And these guys really know what they're about, so it's well worth listening. As always, this podcast is only possible because of the generosity of the folks who become scoutmastercgcom backers. Go to scoutmastercgcom, click the support link at the top of the page. You'll find out how you can become a scoutmastercgcom backer. We'll be back with our regular schedule of podcasts in a few weeks.

Until then, let's get started, shall we? And I am happy to have on Skype with me Rob Ferris and Harry Wimbro, two of the three authors of a book called Working the Patrol Method.

How are you guys doing this evening? Great, great, great.

So, Rob, you've got five kits from what I can tell. That's right, I do, I do. One of them is an Eagle Scout and the others are on the way.

Huh, Well, except for my daughter. Well, yeah, yeah, She was, in part, inspiration for what we wrote. She's been a constant supporter and she actually reviewed a part of the books.

You became an Eagle Scout back in the late 60s, early 70s And then, when your oldest son turned 11, you got back in. Just briefly, tell me what this statement in the book means. It says Wood Badge changed your life. Wood Badge was what made me finally get the Patrol Method inside and out, And it was just an incredible experience for me.

It allowed us to actually practice the Patrol Method as adults and then to step back and actually realize: okay, how do we create this kind of teamwork, How do we create this kind of camaraderie with our Scouts back in our units? It was an amazing experience. Let me also introduce Harry, Harry Wimbrough. And you also became an Eagle Scout in the mid-70s- Yes, 1975.. When you wrote the introduction to this book, your son, Joe, was on his way.

Has he made it yet? Not yet. I keep reminding him on a daily basis that his time is running out. He's a senior in high school, plays in three different bands, plays the flute and has a girlfriend.

So I remind him that his time is running out. You and two million other dads are doing the exact same thing.

Well, even though I made my Eagle in 75, what a lot of people don't know is I set my board, or got presented my Eagle, after I had already completed basic and AIT for the Army. Oh no kidding.

So you were right up against it too. Huh, Yes, I was right up against it.

Well, you know, your secret is safe with me. I will not tell Joe that. I'll bet he already knows, though He already knows.

Oh, I want to also mention Ted Knight, who is one of your co-authors. You had the three of you author this and unfortunately Ted couldn't join us this evening.

The book is called Working the Patrol Method and there was a specific reason that you stayed in the book for having gotten it started and taking it all the way through to press. Tell me, guys, who is Bryson Bort? Bryson Bort is an Eagle alumni of our unit. He joined the United States Army. He was stationed with the Army where he was exercising a leadership position As he got into that and started trying to do his job effectively. What he realized was that many, many things that he learned in Boy Scouts were invaluable to him in assisting him and informing him as to how to be a leader in the United States Army.

You begin in the first pages of the book with an email that you got from Bryson. It is a very inspirational introduction to the book. It really kind of sets the tone.

Why don't you describe exactly what you were after in going through the work to write this book? It must have taken ages. It was a labor of love, Clark, but it actually literally took some years. It took us about four years to put it all together. The stories that are in the book are actual stories that we could take and mold and write about how the adult leader coached and mentored and taught the young scout.

What do we call those in the book here? Campfire yarns, Yarns, just as Maiden Powell called his stories yarns- We adopt his terminology. They are tremendously helpful in kind of putting some meat on the bones of the concepts that you're talking about, because a lot of what was in them was very familiar to me as a Scoutmaster- Pretty typical stories that happen in scout troops all over the country. Actually, a lot of what Scoutmasters will see- or I'm experienced Scoutmasters will see- in our book. As you say, Clark will be very familiar. It will be situations that they've confronted themselves or that they've seen other leaders in their units confront.

One of our goals is to suggest at least what's the most appropriate or effective, or at least some ideas for some good ways to respond or to react that will further the goal of leadership development. Scouting is a game of the purpose In scout leadership for youth leadership.

You have to turn it into a game for them so that they don't really realize that they're actually learning something. But it's a game. The yarns are a good way to start. Everybody likes a good story. There's a lot that I've read in the book that I've written on the blog in years past. We're all taking the lead from good old Baden Powell.

It's not unusual that we should have some of the same ideas and things, but it's been pretty amazing. It's not, of course, that any of us are thinking that any of this is particularly unique. As you say, this is what Baden Powell intended. Yeah, he was there before any of us. He defined all this and it seems like that. At least some of us in the Scouting organization have gotten away from some of the basic things that were probably very clearly evident in 1911..

It's just not as emphasized in the training materials and it's kind of there but it's not highlighted. You know I teach- this is Harry, I teach Scoutmaster Specific- And the piece for Patrol Method is: you know you get 20 minutes. You just hit the highlights. You really can't teach the Scoutmasters everything that they really need to know. You talk about leadership, training and mentoring as being something that is hands-on and not theoretical. You take a young Scout.

He's been in the classroom all day long. So when he comes to a Scout meeting you don't want to sit down and talk leadership, You want to put some of it into practical application.

You allow that 11,, 12,, 13-year-old boy that's in charge of his patrol, you know, kind of make a mistake, and then you're pulling off to the side and you say, OK, what could you have done a little bit better, What went right, What went wrong And what can you do to improve on it the next time? You let the boy kind of make those decisions, but you as the leader don't make them foreign.

Harry, you're telling me that these guys are going to make mistakes- You know, I don't know, but too many leaders that don't make mistakes every day. We, as the leaders, have to be there to kind of pick them back up and say, OK, you made a mistake, All right, so yeah, you got to be there to kind of coach them along and show them, maybe, a different direction. You spend a lot of time in the book talking history.

Why is it important that we understand the history of scouting? Baden Powell lived 100 years ago And so you could look back and say, OK, well, yeah, scouting is traditional. Of course We've got all these great traditions.

What did what the Baden Powell wrote almost a century ago? What does that really have to do with what's going on in the 21st century?

And the fact of the matter is that if you go back and read what Baden Powell went through in order to create scouting, what influences did he have upon himself? Where did this all come from? What you end up finding is that he had a mixture of remarkable influences, And out of it, out of all of that, came what he referred to as his experimental summer camp at Brown Sea Island. It wasn't just the first Boy Scout summer camp. It was actually the model for the successful implementation of the patrol method. That has never been done before.

I mean, he was the first to do that And it was revolutionary. If you want to be an effective leader, you got to know a little bit about scouting.

So you got to learn about Baden Powell and some of the other great leaders that we've had within the scouting movement. We teach US history in our schools.

Why is that? So that we can understand why our forefathers wrote the Constitution and Declaration of Independence. There's something about the history of scouting that helps put things in context for us.

And then I was very impressed with a statement that you make in the book about stewardship and the stewardship of the scouting movement. What can you tell me about that? Modern scout leaders are actually following in the footsteps of a century of highly illustrious, highly motivated, highly passionate and experienced scout leaders that went before us.

We are the ones who have now been handed the torch, we scout leaders, And we owe those in the program who came before us the responsibility to carry that torch as effectively as possible into this new century. Okay, so let me give you this scenario: I'm a brand new, newly minted scout leader and you've got 30 seconds to talk to me.

What are you going to tell me to do? Read the book, Go talk to your SPL and ask the SPL what he wants you to do, And hopefully the SPL will tell you to go sit in the corner.

If we need your help, we'll let you know What we say on page 10 of the book. There's a paragraph in there which actually, arguably, tells it all. It says leadership, training and mentoring in a scout troop is actually very simple. Any Scoutmaster who puts his mind to it can do it. Trust and respect your scouts. Use the patrol method.

Give your scouts real responsibility. Mentor, motivate, recognize results. What we would tell a new scout leader is: do those things. Those are the important things to do. Look at the program from the standpoint of the boys and do those things. But in order to do those things right requires either experience, which obviously takes some time to get, or you can also go and talk to your Scoutmaster- or district training people or other resources.

And we also quote another thing in this book that Will Rogers once said. He said there are three kinds of men: the ones that learn by reading, the few who learn by observation and the rest of us have to pee on the electric fence and find out for ourselves, And that's what happens to most Scoutmasters. It's a trial and error occupation, I guess you could say.

So what we'd like to do is to give some new leaders a shortcut, rather than having to learn everything the hard way. Maybe we can give them sort of a leg up on the learning curve as well as an orientation, So instead of heading off in a direction other than the one that will lead them to a scout led and scout run troop, we can sort of orient them in the right direction, that in their journey in that direction toward a scout led troop that they will find a more rewarding and more effective leadership role for themselves. In particular, they'll be much more effective in teaching their scouts how to become leaders.

So at one point you guys were both newly minted adult leaders and you jumped in with both feet. What has changed about your approach from that first day to what you're doing now?

I think we can both say that radical changes have occurred since each of us began being scout leaders. We are both very energetic, sort of potentially do-it-all kind of people who have ideas, And I think that when we both started and had newly minted adult leaders, we were not effective in terms of developing a scout led and scout run program.

We were acting as patrol leaders ourselves, as adult patrol leaders, as opposed to scout leaders who will allow the boys to be the patrol leaders and the boys to be the leaders. Isn't it kind of messy when you let the boys do that? That's the fun part. That's the fun part. I'm a retired command sergeant major after 30 years in the Army. They say the big difference between the Army and Boy Scouts is that the Boy Scouts are adult leaders.

Every time one of my non-commissioned officers made a mistake, if I crucified them they wouldn't learn, They would shut down. And I find the same thing with the boys. The boys.

If you always are telling them that this is what you did wrong, what you did wrong, what you did wrong, well then they're going to stop doing anything Because all they know is I'm just going to get hollered at by Mr Wimbrough Because it's not being done his way. And that's where I had to step back and really take a look and kind of adjust my leadership style from the Army to the Boy Scouts. And it works in both places. Yes, It works in scouting and it worked in the Army too. When I first became a non-commissioned officer at the age of 19, I was a pretty hard charge in NCO. I had a wise squad leader of the tune sergeant, pulled me off to the side and said: Sergeant Wimbrough says you're going to go far in this man's Army.

However, you need to change some of your leadership style. So I did. There's a particularly interesting section of the book, and section 7 is called Planning: How to Facilitate Without Taking Over.

How do you facilitate youth planning without just kind of jumping in and doing it for them? Our experience, Clark, is that that actually is one of the most difficult things for a Scoutmaster to do. Scouts that are age 14,, 15, a troll leader age- are not generally very good at long-range planning. Their time window for planning is totally different from adults. Oftentimes Scouts are worrying about what they're going to have for lunch Five minutes before they're supposed to eat it. We're asking them to do some planning where.

So it's October, next June. We're going to go to, we're going to go caving next June and we better start making the arrangements. And they'll look at you like you have to have your head examined. That's next June.

What are you talking about? Why are we worried about that? That's a lifetime away. If you're a program director for a camperee, you're planning that camperee a year out.

You know about it at troop meetings and the boys? Just an example: We had a camperee last weekend.

The boys started really planning for two weeks ago And then the meeting before the camperee is. They finalized their meal plans and figured out who was going to buy what food and what time they were going to meet.

They had it well under control. As adults we do long-term planning and short-term plan.

The boys plan: when am I going to eat? When am I going to sleep?

When am I going to eat? When am I going to sleep? I have a pair of socks. That's good. I don't have to worry about anything else.

Have you been talking to my scouts, Harry? I've been talking to my son. We're going to go camping, but they don't think about the tour permits, safety forms and all the health forms and stuff like that. That's where you've got to kind of coach them along on that area until when they start getting used to doing some of the planning.

Then they can say, oh, we need to talk to somebody on the committee to get our tour permit. We need to make sure that we have the permission forms. But it takes time and it takes the coaching and the mentoring of an adult leader to be able to do that, And it's actually a very valuable skill that an adult leader will be teaching his scouts in taking them through that exercise. It seems to us that there's some pretty important things involved. One of them is the expectation of how much planning.

So adults have an expectation of probably much more intense and much more detailed planning than any scout is going to have, unless maybe they're an older scout. Also, one of the points we make in our book is that, well, depending upon what it is, you may not need that intense level of planning.

So, for example, if you're a type A Scoutmaster and you don't want to disappoint the parents by making your unit look like it's disorganized, you want everything organized and running like clockwork. That means you need a very detailed plan So that way everyone knows everything that's going to happen in advance.

Then our suggestion is: well, okay, look at what the objective is. So if it's just a weekend camp out at a local park or whatever, do you need that level of planning, Or would you rather leave it up a little bit up in the air and let the scouts work through it and then actually learn from the experience? Sometimes you do need that level of planning If you're going to be doing something pretty intense, some kind of high adventure program where you are worried about health and safety kind of issues. Absolutely The adult needs to make sure that those details are locked down and solid. But it does seem to be helpful for a Scoutmaster to talk with the parents and to create an expectation that, look, this is not an adult-run and adult-planned unit.

Here We give our scouts major responsibility for planning and execution And if things don't go 100% perfectly, well guess what? That's the way it's supposed to be And as long as the boys have a good time, they probably planned it that way.

Well, I'm going to be the devil's advocate here for a moment. I mean, honestly, guys, I can expect a 15,, 16,, 17-year-old scout to be thinking about things like tour permits and permission slips and stuff like that. I mean, I'm the Scoutmaster.

Isn't that my job? Isn't that what I'm supposed to be doing?

So at that point it ends up being an issue of responsibility And we agree, Clark, that it's going to be probably an undue expectation for a 14,, 15-year-old scout to be worried about a tour permit and whether all the medical forms are filed and are brought along with the unit, But at the same time they shouldn't be oblivious to it either. Maybe he's not getting the tour permit, but he knows the adult on the committee that gets the tour permit for us And that becomes a teaching point, that teaching and coaching.

You know you might want to say, hey, have you talked to the tour permit committee member? So it becomes more of a teaching point than really for him to be applying. But it's something foreign to think about as it goes on.

So maybe the next time when he does as a patrol leader, plans an adding, he knows that. You know I need to talk to Mr Smith about tour permits. I can see that, Harry, but, like I say, I'm still being a devil's advocate here.

That makes sense, but isn't that just as a Scoutmaster? Isn't that just easier for me to do myself?

Yeah, it'd be easier for you to do it yourself, But what are you teaching the boy to do it yourself? And actually, Clark, that's actually a great comment because you could extend that to just about everything we're talking about.

Isn't it easier for the Scoutmaster to do it himself? Isn't it easier for the Scoutmaster to define the whole plan for the whole year?

Isn't it easier for the Scoutmaster to tell patrol leaders exactly what they're supposed to be doing? Isn't it easier to just bypass the patrol leaders and, you know?

Tell the scouts precisely what they're supposed to be doing? That's not the point at all. It is easier. It is easier for a Scoutmaster to have an adult run troop. There is no doubt in my mind that that's the case. It is easier for a Scoutmaster to have an adult run troop.

Much less trouble, much less coordination, much more straightforward to have- I'm sorry, to have an adult run troop, A scout run troop. That's hard.

A scout run troop is harder because now the adult, now the scout leaders have to start thinking about their interventions. Do we really want to step in and command this or direct that or structure this, Or is this something that the scouts are able to do, perfectly capable of doing, and yet if we step in as adults, the scouts will just back right off and let the adult do it.

I think most experienced Scoutmasters would almost certainly say the same thing. Oh yeah, adult run troops. That's easy, Much easier. It's certainly a lot less wear and tear on the Scoutmaster's nerves, Right, and it also takes less time. The fact of the matter is that it takes more time to have a scout run troop, like Wednesday, and actually Baden Powell specifically said that. One of the things that he wrote- I can't quote it exactly, but he said something up to paraphrase.

He said that what you're supposed to do is to allow your patrol leaders to do as much as possible. It's not so much to save the Scoutmaster time, it's to train the scout, and that's what the point is. I continue in my advocacy role for the devil, but parents in our troop are just not going to put up with me sitting around and not doing these things. My committee is going to go crazy if I tell them that we're going to let the boys plan and lead these things. They're expecting me to do that.

I mean, how do I handle a situation like that? As the Scoutmaster, you have to tell them.

You know, go sit in the corner, Let the boys do it. Let the boys come to you and ask you for what they need from the committee. The committee is there to support.

Parents do more for their children today than when you and I were growing up, And so they have to allow their boys to spread their wings a little bit earlier than what they normally would at the age of 18 or 18 or 19.. And so you just got to pull them and say: this is a boy, Let the boys do it. Yes, it may look like chaos, but it's a boy controlled chaos.

The other thing that I would say is that I agree, Clark, that your question is one of the biggest quandaries of a Scoutmaster who wants to have a scout led troop. Wait a minute, I'm the Scoutmaster. All the parents are expecting me to be the leader. All the scouts are expecting me to be the leader. The program is expecting me to be the leader.

That means what? Does that mean that I, as Scoutmaster, need to stand up in front, make all the important decisions, or is there another approach where it's the boys who are up in front? It's the boys who are making the important decisions. It's the boys who are the most visible leaders. And I'll just quote from something which Ronald Reagan said. We've got this quote in our book as well.

He says there's no limit to what a man can do or where he can go If he doesn't mind who gets the credit. The scouts are the ones who should be getting the credit for the successes and taking the responsibilities for things that don't work out all that well.

So if I invest my scouts with the authority and the responsibility to plan these things, aren't they going to miss some stuff? I mean, wouldn't they get more out of it if I was planning outings and things?

Aren't they going to miss opportunity? Just be the opposite. Just the opposite.

If I, as the adult leader, plan everything, being the type of person that I am, I've written a five paragraph operations order and have all my execution checklists and execution matrix so that I know everything is going. I've got to have this, this and everything is going well, Yeah, okay, great. But if the boys plan it and say they're going to learn from their mistakes, they actually might miss some opportunities in one respect and gain immeasurably other opportunities on the other side.

So in a world where our scouts- at least many of them in many parts of the countries- are expecting to be entertained by adults and programmed up the wazoo, out the wazoo, by the adults to put the scouts in charge and have responsibility for figuring out what they're going to do. That's an opportunity.

If I'm not making sure that it's really a whizbang program and everything, aren't they going to just leave the troop? How am I going to attract new scouts? If the scouts are just caught up and leading and doing all this stuff all the time, I mean they won't be doing anything fun. That's the key. They are doing fun things because they're the ones that are planning the program with the resources that you've given them, With the boys planning the program, with the boys executing their program. That's what's going to keep them active.

Because if you, as the adult planet, they're saying, huh, okay, yep, here we go again. We're doing the same stuff and we're not doing what we want to do.

And the other thing I would add is that it's not like the Scoutmaster just sits back and lets the program fall apart. You might need to do that on occasion in order to make sure the boys understand that it's their responsibility, that if they don't do it, it's not happening. But this is where the mentoring and the coaching and the advising comes in. Where you don't tell them what to do, You do what any respectful leader will do when training a new leader.

Okay, Let me show you some resources. Let your scout develop it, And at that point you're not the one who's dictating it, He's deciding it. He's got responsibility for it. He'll execute it. It'll be great. He'll take the credit for it.

He'll have a big smile on his face, He'll have learned a ton of stuff about himself and about how to be an effective leader. So you guys must have a troop of just who are some kind of superhero scouts, because my scouts, they wouldn't be able to do this, would they?

You know, any scouts would be able to do it. And no, our own troop is not superheroes or anything like that.

So obviously it doesn't always work 100%, Because basically these scouts who are planning these program events are inexperienced and they have a lot to learn, And so in the course of learning, they may not be able to put on something that is as perfect and clockwork as an experienced Type A adult who is planning the whole thing from beginning to end in thought of every detail. It's just not going to be like that.

It's more going to be like making sausage as opposed to having some pristine, elegant finished product that's just handed off to the scouts and say, okay, you guys execute this. If you do this, it'll be great, But you are sacrificing something. There's no doubt about it.

In a scout run troop, at least until you end up being able to retain the 16 and 17-year-olds who are now in the habit of taking responsibility and making these kind of decisions, There's going to be a lag, And this is where persistence comes in. This is where you have to keep your eye on the objective. As a Scoutmaster.

What are you trying to accomplish here? Are you trying to have a 100% perfect program Or are you trying to train new leaders?

So I've been to the training and I watched the videos and everything looks really perfect in those videos. And I showed this to my Scouts and I went and I worked with them on this And they're looking at it like a dog with a new pen. They don't seem to understand any of it. They don't plan anything, They don't do anything.

So what am I supposed to do? Yeah, I mean, that's a tough one.

Well, yeah, but maybe what you have to do is take a boy that's not a patrol leader yet, but is maybe a first-class Scout. He wants to be a patrol leader.

So you're sending off to the NYLT, the National Youth Leadership Force. That won't kind of get him excited about the program And he brings it back in kind of making like a leadership trainer so that he can an advisor to other patrol leaders, kind of like a troop guide for leadership.

If the boys just want to sit around and let the adults do it, well then what you do is you plan a weekend to where you're just going to sit around And when the boys say, well, this wasn't very much fun, Then you say, okay, if you had a plan something we might have been able to have some fun activities while we were on this camping trip. But she left it all up to me as the adult. The only thing I wanted to do was go out to the woods and sit on the rock next to the fire. For me that's a fun time. But maybe before that you have a conversation with your patrol leaders council Say: gentlemen, this is your weekend, You're going to plan this weekend And whatever you plan within reason, as long as there's no issues with health and safety, ISA, Scoutmaster are going to go along with it. But it's your responsibility to plan.

And so you challenge them and make them understand that maybe for the first time in their whole lives, they're able to actually plan their own time for a whole weekend. They get to do what they want to do. It's their responsibility and it's their privilege to do it, And no adult is going to tell them: oh, you can't do that, You can't do this, You have to do this and you have to do that.

And that's an amazing opportunity for a 21st century- you know, 15th- Because most of them, many of them, at least in many parts of the country, many of them, never get that opportunity. If I do this, if I tell them that they can do anything they want to do, all they're going to do is sit around and play video games and you know they'll just eat whatever they want to eat and they probably won't get any requirements done, And you know.

So how in the world can I just let them have carte blanche to go and do whatever they want to do? You just go and do requirements for the weekend.

Well, that's not the right way. You go and you do an event and then you look at your, have a look at their book and you see what requirements that they might have did.

And the other thing is that if you challenge your scouts to come up with something, you'll be amazed. Exactly, You'll be amazed. Sometimes, often actually, they will come up with something that you as a Scoutmaster would never have thought of in a million years. It's not because it's not appropriate, It's not because it's not safe. It's entirely safe and it's entirely appropriate. And it's theirs.

It's not your idea, It's their idea, And it might not be something that you as a- you know as a 40 or 50 or whatever your old Scoutmaster- might think is what those boys are going to want to do. So if you had been dictating it, you would never in a million years have thought of doing that. But it ends up being a blast for them. They absolutely love it and they own it. It's theirs and they own it. We're not wired the same way as a 14, 15-year-old is.

They're wired just a little bit different And sometimes it's hard to remember that we were that 13, 14-year-old boy doing the same thing. Talk to me a little bit about you, have a section about caring leadership.

What is caring leadership? Tell leaders three things. One: lead from the front, Set the example and take care of your people. You've got to know them. Everybody that's in your patrol is a valuable member, But you as a leader, you have to know what's his likes and dislikes, And caring leadership actually is one of the most important things to get across to our young leaders, because it really is part of the key to the whole thing. Anyone who's studied and worked with adolescents, anyone who's tried to have anything to do with the Scout Troop, knows that a 14- or 15-year-old boy is pretty self-absorbed.

They're thinking. Oftentimes they're thinking about one person and that's themselves. To get them to think about the 11-year-old who's just joined the Troop and needs some mentoring and some help. That's important. Once again, that's something that at least some Scouts is going to be a real revelation for them that they're supposed to be thinking about younger Scouts. They're supposed to be caring about those younger kids.

But that's what our program is based on. I think, fellas, that we've just scratched the surface of what's in the book and it's arranged in a way that's very accessible.

I think it's just an excellent resource for Scout leaders. Let me ask you this, guys: If you get discouraged and you get down and things aren't going quite so well as a Scout leader, what makes you keep at it?

What do you think about that kind of reanimates you and gets you moving again, Although we can take inspiration from people like Baden Powell, and that certainly is one place to go. But the other place to go is just to watch your boys, watch how they're interacting with one another and reflect on the huge potential there and that you as a Scout leader can have a major impact on their lives. When you start thinking about that, it's pretty hard to stay discouraged for long.

When I get discouraged, one of the things that keeps me going is when you sit in a Scoutmaster Conference and you talk to a boy and you're asking what he wants to do and he says: I want to be an Eagle Scout. And you're asking: well, why do you want to be an Eagle Scout? He says because scouting and Eagle Scouts make a difference and that kind of rejuvenates me a little bit.

And just looking at the boys and their smiles at the end of a camping trip when it's been raining and you've been miserable, and they say, oh man, was that a great time? Or what. The best times always have rain involved- apparently Always- I mean that's my experience- Or snow. Yeah, Rob, I'll start with you. Tell me your best scouting moment. My best scouting moment is, I would have to say, is a series of discrete events where Scouts have come up to me after they have been able to lead activities and come up to me and say, Mr Ferris, that was the best, That was the best thing we've ever done in scouting.

Those moments are just exhilarating. You just feel on the top of the world that you've made a difference.

So, Harry, you're up. What's your best scouting moment Actually happened last year when I was able to. I was a crew advisor for a crew that went to film on And finally, towards the end, the crew came together as one And they really got it. On the bus ride, when they presented me with a belt buckle, I finally realized that they finally got it and what it really meant. That was probably one of my greatest scouting moments. You're taking some of the profits from this and dedicating them to the troupe.

Is that right? Actually, not just the troupe, but some other worthy scouting organization.

So that's absolutely right. We wrote this book Not to Make a Prophet, I guarantee you. Our main interest with this book is to get the word out on the patrol method. I mean to try and leave our own legacy by getting that word out to a 21st century scout leader.

So we're trying to make a difference And that's the only reason why we undertook this endeavor. And if you want five or more copies, there's a discount available.

Is that right? Absolutely. They just send us an email and we're happy to accommodate. Yeah, to work through that.

Well, I'll tell you it comes with my highest recommendations. I'll have a link to it on the blog, folks, so that you can find your way to a place where you can order the book. And I really appreciate having talked with you, Rob and Harry. It's always good to talk to scouts.

Once again, congratulations on a piece of work well done. It's our privilege to talk with you.

Thank you so much for discovering us and tracking us down here, for doing this