Scoutmaster Podcast 311

I'm Mike Hodder and I'm an assistant cup master with PAC 41 in Columbus Ohio. This edition of the Scoutmaster podcast is sponsored by backers like me And now the old Scoutmaster. If you were listening to last week's podcast, right at the top of the podcast I mentioned the large Baden Collider in Zern, Switzerland, where dedicated research scouters are studying scout physics. And you've probably seen in the news this past week about the Victorinox ephemerality. The researchers at the large Baden Collider are much closer to actually being able to explain it. And if you're not familiar with the Victorinox ephemerality, it is trying to explain why Swiss Army Knife toothpicks and tweezers really only seem to exist in pictures of Swiss Army Knives and not in.

You know, when you actually have a Swiss Army Knife, There's never tweezers or a toothpick in it. And apparently we're much closer to being able to explain this ephemerality.

So I mean I know that it's been true of just about every Swiss Army Knife I've ever owned.

So hey, this is podcast number 311.. Welcome back to the Scoutmaster Podcast. This is Clarke Green.

Let's look into the leathery depths of the mailbag Over on amazoncom this week, a review of- so far, so good- My book about. If I knew then what I know now how I would have spent my first few months as a Scoutmaster.

And we have this review from Ben McCall on amazoncom said this is not a how to book but a good story of how it should be. I'm going to pass this book along as required reading to my Scout youth leaders as well as adults. I would recommend this book. Just be aware it is a story about incorporating the patrol method, not an instruction book. Thank you, Ben. And it is not an instruction manual, That's for sure.

I think there are plenty of instruction manuals out there. But a good story about how the patrol method looks is something that you don't really get very much And that's why I wanted to write the book and the story It's once again.

The book is so far, so good. You can get it on amazon. You can get it on amazon in paperback and audiobook And you can also get it at scoutmastercgcom as an ebook And I also have the audiobook version available directly from the website. Bruce Kolkbeck is assistant Scoutmaster of troop 442 in Salisbury, North Carolina, And he wrote in this past week to say I appreciated podcast 310 very much. Nothing has bugged me more over the last 25 years of being a scouter than parents hovering over a scouts advancement. This has nearly pushed me to quit being a Scoutmaster a few times, But the scouts always managed to get me back to why I am a scouter in the first place.

I also enjoyed the advice that you gave out for parents who are also scouters. When my boys were in the troop, a friend of mine suggested what you suggest, that we'd agree to work with each other's children if there was some kind of difficulty.

We found that working with each other's children rather than trying to work with our own didn't drive us quite so crazy, quite so quickly, So we would wait quite a while before saying anything. It never takes long before my kids tend to get under my skin, and I imagine that's true of many parents. Knowing that there are other adults involved who are going to speak with them if there is a difficulty made us much more relaxed with each other, And I found that my sons tended to listen to another adult more attentively and respectfully than they did me.

I've told every parents that when we go camping they are not in charge of their own children. Well, Bruce, thanks for getting in touch.

I've got a lot of positive response to this series of three podcasts we did about parents and scouting, including this from Frank Maynard, who's a unit commissioner in the mighty Ottawa district. And Frank also has a blog called Bob White Blather and I'll make sure to put a link to the blog in this week's podcast notes because you should definitely check it out. Frank writes from the perspective of being a longtime troop committee chairman And this week he wrote in to say great series of podcasts on parents and scouting- very timely, since many troops have had or will be having orientation sessions for parents of scouts new to the troop following the crossover of Webelos this spring.

I think the key takeaway is scouting isn't just another event on the calendar, but most parents and many scouts don't see the benefits of scouting until a few years later on. So it's up to people like you and me to try and share our perspective as best we can. A lot of parents view their involvement with their boy scout son in the same way they did as when they were in cub scouts.

But your point is well taken that their son is getting to the age where he's more interested in hanging out with his friends than his parent. My own troop is having their parent meeting in a couple of weeks and I have pointed our folks to these podcasts and it should help them better explain boy scouts to parents who've been living in the cub scout world for five years.

Well, let's hope, right, Frank? Thanks so much. Thanks for your kind words, Frank. Thanks for being in touch. Every week, usually Tuesday and Wednesday mornings, we try and have a couple of live chat sessions over at scoutmastercgcom. Keep an eye on our Facebook feed and our Twitter feed.

Come on over, sign in and

Join us and, in addition to all of their frequent fliers who checked in this week, we also heard from Paul C, who is a Scoutmaster for troop 314, Milford, Massachusetts. Once again, Tuesday and Wednesday mornings, keep an eye on the Facebook feed and the Twitter feed.

It will let you know when we're live. Come on over to scoutmastercgcom and say hi and join in one of the live chats.

If you're a regular reader and listener and what we have created has helped you, you can return the favor in one of two ways. You can become a scoutmastercgcom backer by making a one-time payment, or you can make a subscription payment via Patreon by pledging five dollars a month or more and become a patron.

Now there are special premiums available to anyone who becomes a patron or a backer. So go to scoutmastercgcom. Look right up there at the top of the page. You'll see a support link and you'll see a patron link. You can check out both of those.

I want to take a moment to personally thank Chris Smith and Jeffrey Brown, who've both become backers since our last podcast, and do me a favor: will you become a patron or a backer this week, and I'll be sure to thank you personally on next week's podcast? Well, in this week's podcast I have one of your stories to share with you and then I'm going to answer some email questions and that's going to take up the remainder of the podcast.

So let's get started, shall we? Hey Clark, this is Kevin Rhodes, scoutmaster of troop 316 in Lugoff, South Carolina. I'd like to share a story with you regarding boy leadership and when adults should intervene and when should we step aside and let the boys solve their own problems.

This was very clearly illustrated to me relatively early in my career as a scoutmaster when we were on a backpacking night hike. Very short trek- about a mile and a half from the parking lot to the campsite, but just enough to expose the younger boys to what the rigors of trail camping would be.

And when we get to the campsite- and of course it's night, so it's late and we're all tired and we're ready to bed down, two of my first years show up and inform me at that moment that they don't have a tent. And I admit that my reaction at that moment was one of my less admirable moments as a scoutmaster.

I remember getting a tone in my voice and admonishing the boys that the time to have told me that was a mile and a half and 30 minutes ago, not you know, there at the campsite. Well, fortunately, one of my older scouts intervened at that moment and said: don't worry, I'll take care of it.

And again, in this state of mind, my tendency would have been to you know kind of quiz that scout. Well, what's your plan, how are you going to handle it, what tools do you have, and and such. But fortunately that quiet voice spoke to me and said: take a deep breath, find something else to do and see what solution the boys come up with.

So about 30 minutes later, I'm invited to inspect the solution that the boys came up with on their own and and lo and behold, it's a perfect rendition of the emergency shelter as described in the Boy Scout Handbook. It was such a wonderful reward. I don't know what surprised me more: the fact that between them all they had managed to find a tarp and extra rope and poles and fashion tent pegs and all that.

Was that more surprising? Or was it more surprising and rewarding that there was evidence that they had actually read the book to begin with? But whatever the case was, it was such a great moment.

Well, there's a follow-up to that and it's just as good. The next morning, the two first years came rushing up to me first, light, eyes wide open, to tell me that in the middle of the night a fox had poked its head into the open end of this emergency shelter. And I can't help think these boys are going to be telling that story long after they've forgotten my name. But they'll be telling that story of seeing that fox poke his head in the end of the tent. But at the same time I'm reminded that had I solved the problem as an adult would do it, they probably wouldn't have had that opportunity to begin with. I would have probably hiked back to the trailer and gotten a tent for them and and that would have been the solution, or we would have found other tents and sleeping accommodations for them.

But by letting the boys come up with their solution, I think these two boys had a much richer experience and hopefully one that they will carry with them for the rest of their lives. I know I'll carry it with me for the rest of mine because it has really taught me that in the heat of problem solving- which happens all the time in scouting, as you well know it's- it's best to sometimes take a deep breath and let the boys come up with a solution on their own.

We can always trump that solution if we have to, but let's see what they come up with, and in that, in this case in particular, it was better than anything I would have thought of. Thanks for letting me share

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

So this email question comes from a new Scoutmaster, Eric Flesher, who is with troop 309 in orange village, Ohio, and Eric says this: as a new Scoutmaster, I've been trying to make changes here and there, without overstepping. There's been resistance to change, but I've been able to make some progress.

Our patrol leaders are now more than decorations, not much more, but more than before we have a patrol leaders council that is meeting. The scouts are doing planning for outings and meetings, but not quite so far in advance as I would like, but it will come. Maybe I hope. Eric goes on to say hopefully the change in our program will bring back some of the older scouts who we seem to see only when they want something signed off in their book. These scouts do advance and we do regularly produce eagle scouts, but they seem to fly away from us, the older scouts.

I have now had no real leadership responsibility when they were younger, but I hope to do better with the next waves of scouts and pass along a better message. We do have some high adventure type things- canoeing, whitewater rafting and hiking- coming up, but it's hard to plan without the involvement of the older scouts, and our new scouts that are actually ready for this sort of thing are few in number.

Do you have any ideas or advice about getting the old scouts interested in active again? Well, Eric, first of all, I can sense that while you're happy that you're being able to make some changes and strengthen the role of your youth leadership that you feel it's it's not coming along as quickly as you would like.

But you know what. You're going to always have that feeling. You're going to have this little edge of dissatisfaction that things could be better. And that's good, because when we're working with youth, we are always traveling.

We've never arrived, we're never at a place where we say, okay, everything's fixed about the youth leaders having a real responsibility in doing things. Nope, that never happens. It's always a challenge. It's always something that's going on. There's always new scouts taking on new responsibilities. They're going to be all over the map and you have to get comfortable with traveling, because that's really all we ever do as scouts.

Now, as far as the older scouts involved are concerned, I don't know that you'll be able to fix this. Okay, and that's fine, because what I want to encourage you to do is, first and foremost, pay attention to the scouts who are showing up.

If they aren't there, you can't do much for them, right? Don't get distracted by these older guys who don't show up.

Do your best, get them, you know, try and encourage them to be there, but don't let that be a pebble in your shoe. Since you became a Scoutmaster when they were a bit older, you're going to be a little bit of an interloper. They may like you or they may not like you. They may like what you're doing, they may not like what you're doing. You're somebody who's changing things and people don't normally go for that, you know. I mean it's true no matter who was in that position.

So it's nothing personal. Usually it's just the way that things go.

Now I understand the the thinking behind adding older scout stuff to your program but frankly that's not likely to help. I mean, it sounds like a wonderful idea but it's not likely to do very much for you. You can put a lot of trouble into something like this, with the likelihood that the older scouts are just going to turn their noses up at it anyway.

Now, if you can figure out who in that group of older scouts is the opinion maker, and you can get them and you ask them to come and meet with you and tell them exactly what you shared with me, which is basically: you know I could really use your help. I think it'd be great fun to work together. What would you like to do in the troop and see what you can get them thinking about, then you may have a way of getting them involved. In my experience, older scouts stick with scouting for one reason and one reason only, and that's because they have real responsibility and the adults involved step back far enough to let them lead. They do not usually stay around reliably or make much of a contribution to what goes on just because they get to do older guy activities.

So in my experience you know- just to be very frank with you- you've got a very narrow chance of turning this around and I would be careful not to let it bother you because I don't think it's anything personal and I wouldn't waste too much energy on it. I would definitely work at it, but I would concentrate on the scouts that show up and create a culture with those scouts where this sort of thing isn't going to happen in the future. Your job is making it possible for your scouts to do what scouts do. That's what you focus on. Concentrate on the ones who show up and don't worry too much about the ones who don't. If your scouts are doing what scouts do, you'll have a very attractive program, word will get out and you will definitely grow.

You know, the biggest challenge to our work is keeping it simple and staying focused. We have a very specific goal: we build character in young people.

We have a very specific method and that is the patrol method. Everything else- and I mean everything else- is just window dressing. Keep that simple thought foremost. We build character in young people through applying the patrol method and look for ways to make that happen.

And it won't be very long before your younger scouts right now are engaged. Interested older scouts who are leading their own program had this email from Jacques Goulet who is the Scoutmaster of troop 473 in Fort Pierce, Florida. Jacques wrote in to say I'm the Scoutmaster of a brand new troop.

We have eight scouts who just crossed over from Weebel O's. We ran our Weebel O's program almost completely outdoors, just scouting and having fun and utilizing the patrol system where it was possible.

I wanted your advice on what we do now that they're in the troop. I was thinking that we need a senior patrol leader and a patrol leader and with only eight scouts I want to be careful not to water down the whole leadership structure.

I want to make sure to set a precedent about these different positions and expectations. Without older scouts, their experience will be slightly different and from the beginning, but I want to make sure they're having fun and preparing to lead the next group of scouts.

Well, Jacques, it sounds like great fun. You got eight guys, you got a new troop, but I think what you basically have is one patrol and, quite honestly, one patrol doesn't have any use for a senior patrol leader.

So I would just go with a patrol leader and with eight guys in the patrol. Everybody will have some kind of a position of responsibility, because how else is the patrol going to work?

And I think, quite properly, you've said you want to set precedence and expectations for growth, and I agree that that would be something that you want to do, but it's not something to aim at. You don't have to try and make that happen. It will happen if you do this.

What I want to encourage you to do is to talk to your scouts as if you know absolutely nothing about what happens next. Forget all you've learned.

Sit down with them and ask this question: what happens next? You'll probably get eight sets of blank stairs, but creep on pressing for an answer.

You know where would you go to find out what happens next. One of your scouts will eventually figure out that the scout handbook has the answers, especially if you have one sitting there in front of you as you ask these questions.

Well, what part of the handbook would help us sort out what to do next? You ask, as if they can't figure out that, that they ought to read up on patrols.

And at that point in discussion I would discover I had something to do for the next 20 minutes and walk away and tell them: you know, guys, read up on that. I'll be back in a bit to see what you've learned- and you get my drift here right. Put this in their hands and let them begin to discover things about scouting. That's the precedent and expectation you want to set above all others.

Likely they will get the important things right, but if they don't just keep on asking questions until they do make a pact with yourself not to provide any information that you can guide them to discover for themselves as they grow in responsibility as scouts and add scouts into the troop, well there are other questions to be asked. How big should a patrol be?

If we have more than one patrol, do we need any other positions of responsibility? I mean, you have this wonderful opportunity to leverage their curiosity and problem-solving abilities through discovery. If they start discovering these things for themselves, they'll believe that they're, they have the idea and they'll own those ideas if you just tell them things. It'll be something that you directed them to do. See how much you can get yourself to think like an 11-year-old. Don't lay out 10 years of plans.

Just point out the next breadcrumb on the trail, and that's going to be invigorating, exciting for you and for your scouts. In the end, you will have helped them build a very strong understanding of scouting and they will really be leading themselves. I'm going to guess that not a lot of other people are going to give you this advice and they will tell you to do all the footwork for your scouts and just tell them what to do next. They will tell you that what I propose may be ruinous or silly and it will take too long and it will confuse your scouts or something like that. But the boys that you're working with are much more capable than anybody imagines.

They just need someone to kind of light the fuse and get out of the way and then be there to coach them and help them out. And Jacques got back to me and said: I will definitely try this out. I'll sit down at the table with them with the book and ask those questions. I love that idea and honestly, I'd rather they talk than I do.

Well, Jacques, that's the right attitude and I I'm look forward to hearing how everything works out for you. Paul Thiel is the Scoutmaster of troop 825 in Houston, Texas, and he wrote in to ask me this question.

He says a dad has been pushing me to have more camping nights so that some of our scouts, notably one being his son, can complete their 20 nights for camping merit badge. The camping merit badge requirement says camp a total of at least 20 nights at a designated scouting activity. I told the dad that patrols can have their own activities, including campouts, which could be included as long as the scouts are doing scouting and other bsa requirements are met. Like too deep leadership and things like that.

Only I am now seeing dad trying to organize a camping trip with what appears to be an exclusive invite list of his son's friends in the troop, some of whom are in his patrol and some are not. I'm concerned that this smaller group camp out could cause rifts in the patrol and troop and the adults who are go along, who are unlikely to have any training, may overwhelm the scouts and that the camp out may be more of a family or friends event than a scouting event.

What criteria do you apply to a camp out in order to qualify for the merit badge? How would you designate a scouting activity or event?

Well, that's a very interesting question, Paul, and before I give you my answer, I've never found anything that was a set definition of what it means to have a camp out under the auspices of scouting and that a merit badge counselor would pretty much be making the decision as to what qualified as a night of camping. But I'd take this series of events as an opportunity to set down in your troop a basic understanding of what constitutes scout camping and what doesn't.

Well, you won't find this directly stipulated in any of the literature that I've looked at. Here's what I would tell dad: for camping to be considered under the auspices of scouting, that means the camping is arranged by the patrol and troop leadership, not by parents or independently by individual scouts. Qualifying trips are open to all scouts in a patrol or in the troop and not an exclusive guest list.

Now, some activities- very few of them actually- may have an age or skill qualification, but these are decided by the patrol leaders, counseling and consultation with the Scoutmaster. You have to also understand that any troops schedule must respect family schedules, and expanding the schedule by adding a lot of other trips to them creates an expectation that quickly becomes unsupportable.

And, along the same lines, trained, qualified adults must be present and, beyond those qualifications, the specific adults who are invested in training and mentoring youth leaders- should be present, because there are vital opportunities for this work and we have to respect the schedules and commitments of those scouters too. We cannot infinitely expand the opportunities for camping. Scouts go camping with very specific goals in mind, not just to go camping or to rack up nights camping.

We have a method- and I sound like a broken record on this podcast- but we have a method, the patrol method, and it's aimed at very specific thing. Like I said, I don't think you're going to find black and white rules about this anywhere. I'm not suggesting that you write up a rule. I'm suggesting that you have an understanding in your troop as to what constitutes a qualifying night camping and that this is going to be something that you, as the Scoutmaster, decide based on your training and knowledge, with the support of troop committee. And don't equivocate about this.

Don't beat around the bush, tell dad: no, that's not the way we do things and here's the reasons why- and this last email will remain anonymous and this is what the author said- I stepped down as Scoutmaster a couple years ago. Our current advancement committee chair has been unhappy with the troop and the way that it's run since his boys joined, and now he wants to fix things his way. I attached one of his email edicts to this message that I'm sending you, and I have no idea how the committee chair or the chartered organization representative feel about this person, but there's been many instances where he's caused issues. I feel like I should back up the current Scoutmaster and in some ways shield the scouts from the overzealousness of this advancement committee chair and the changes that he's trying to make.

Do you have any other advice? Well, every once in a while, we have good intentioned adults trying to do things that they really shouldn't be doing, and the first step in getting stuff like that fixed is having an understanding about the hierarchy and the relationships between adult volunteers involved with the scout troop. Any direct concerns that committee members have with how the Scoutmaster is administering the program should be addressed to the committee chairman and the Scoutmaster and the committee chairman will sort things out, and if they can't agree, they can take that issue to the broader committee.

Nobody but the committee chairman should be informing the Scoutmaster about changes in policy, procedure, program, and so the committee chair should tell this advancement chairman that any concerns that he has need to be addressed directly to him, not in a broad discussion, in a group email or anything like that, because, let's remember, scout troops and troop committees are not democratic assemblies and debating societies. While the input from every committee member and every assistant Scoutmaster and all adult volunteers is valuable, it has to go through the right channels, otherwise things become confused.

So let's talk about the email problem for a moment. If I were the committee chair, I would definitely let everybody know that we do not send out group emails for discussion and debate.

That's why we have committee meetings. That's why I has the committee chair have a phone number. We're not going to debate issues with the giant group email because things get easily misunderstood. It's very easy lose the chain of who's saying what and why, and I would make sure that that sort of thing comes to a swift conclusion.

Now, during my time as a Scoutmaster, every once in a while I would receive an incendiary email from a parent or another adult volunteer, and I learned to never, ever respond with another email. If somebody was complaining about what I did as Scoutmaster, I would get my phone, call the troop committee chair and put it directly in his lap, because I'm only going to take direction on issues like this from the committee chair. My agreement with the committee chair was always that I do not want to participate in this kind of drama. My brief is working with the scouts directly, and if somebody wants to discuss something about policy or procedure or program, they start with the committee chair, who will then discuss it with me.

Honestly, a lot of the drama that I hear about amongst adult volunteers would be minimized and brought to a resolution a lot quickly if people would understand the role of the committee chair and the role of Scoutmaster and the relationship that they have with each other, and if there was a very strong understanding that no discussions about policy, procedure or program were ever going to happen over email emails- very useful things sometimes, but boy, it can really cost trouble, can it? Well, I hope that advice helps. If you have a question for me, you can get in touch. It's pretty easy to do and I'm going to tell you how to do that in just a moment.