Scoutmaster Podcast 320

I'm Edward Watson and I'm an assistant scoutmaster in Troop 83 in Concord, North Carolina. This edition of the Scoutmaster podcast is sponsored by backers like me.

And now for you, Scoutmaster. Going camping is inspiring, isn't it? Because you get out in nature and you notice the great cycles of nature. And next time you're out camping, just sit down and take a little time just to feel what's going on around you in nature. I don't have any problem doing that myself. I don't know about you.

If you're quiet and you pay attention, you can almost feel the earth spinning around on its axis. Because the earth spinning around on its axis, that just makes my day.

Think about it. All. Right, Hey, this is podcast number 320.. Welcome back to the Scoutmaster podcast. This is Clarke Green. Oh, let's see here In the mailbag.

Jacques Navier, the Scoutmaster Troop 506 in La Jolla, California, got in touch with us And he said- I just thought I'd pass this one on from one worried mother of a scout going to his first summer camp week with our troop. I sent a link to your podcast number 312, getting parents ready for summer camp- to every family in my troop and heard back from this one mom who has moved to tears over what you had to say. Thank you for your advice.

Well, I don't often cause people to cry. I hope it was in the better sense of the term.

So thanks, Jacques, for getting in touch. Phillip Farmer is the Scoutmaster Troop 93 in San Antonio, Texas, And Phillip wrote to say so. I'm listening to your latest podcast while doing a project. My wife and son are hanging around. All of a sudden I see them dancing and clapping and realize they're dancing to that song that you have on the podcast from time to time about. He's my all time favorite Boy Scout.

My wife informed me she was looking for that song and she can't find it. So can you tell me where I can find that? Thanks for all you do for scouting.

Well, thank you, Phillip. And yes, it's very easy to find and I will make sure to have a link so that others may find that as well in the podcast knows, if you're not sure what song Phillip was talking about, Here's a little bit. You may dance and clap now.

Okay, You've been listening for a while. You've heard that a few times, haven't you? Dwayne Reindel is a Scoutmaster in Hilton Head, South Carolina, And he wrote in to say: I've recently discovered your podcast and I'm greatly enjoying them. They're a wonderful resource to answer questions and to encourage us along in our role as Scoutmasters. Thanks for all you do Well. Thank you, Dwayne.

This past week we did what we normally do. We have a couple of live chat sessions, usually Tuesday and Wednesday mornings. If you keep an eye on our Facebook feed and our Twitter feed, you'll be able to keep up with us and come to scoutmastercgcom and join in on one of those live chat sessions. Had a lot of people check in this week, including Jason, whose dad took a couple of scouts out in West Virginia, and Joe, who is in Frederick, Maryland, in the Catoctin Mountain District and National Capital Area Council. He's the advancement chair for Troop 1636. And both of those fellows checked in for their first time this week- Tuesday, Wednesday mornings- scoutmastercgcom Facebook feed, Twitter feed, live chat- come and join us.

It's always a lot of fun. Now, if you are a regular reader and listener, I have a favor to ask of you. I need you to do something for me this week. Go to scoutmastercgcom. Go to the upper right hand corner of the page. You'll see a menu there.

One of the links in that menu says support. One of the links says be a patron. These are two ways you can help support the podcast and the blog.

If you click the support link, it'll tell you how to become a scoutmastercgcom backer, which is a one-time payment to help keep the blog and the podcast afloat, And there are premiums that are available to you in my books and things like that. If you become a backer, if you click the be a patron link, it'll take you to Patreon, which is a way to make an ongoing subscription payment of $5 or more a month. Again, there are premiums available to you there.

So go to scoutmastercgcom, look for the support and be a patron- links right up there and the top of the page on the right hand side. Check those out for me this week, won't you? I'd like to take a moment and personally thank Edward Watson, Dwayne Rindle and Bob Hughes, who've all become backers since last week's podcast. Become a backer or patron this week and I'll make sure to thank you on next week's podcast, In this week's podcast in scoutmastership, in seven minutes or less.

I might get this one in under seven minutes, but I had a thought that I wanted to talk about, about scouting being more or less like gardening, And then I've got a couple of quick email questions to answer, and that's going to take up the remainder of today's podcast, So let's get started,

Just by a way of warning. All right, we're going to be talking in analogies here for the next couple of minutes.

Analogies are great because they sometimes can plant an idea or give you a perspective on something, so that you look at it in a way that you haven't looked at it before. But they're just analogies. They're just little pictures, snapshots of a thought or an idea, And if you push them too hard they kind of break down.

So, but with that in mind, scouting is kind of, I think, a lot like gardening, And scouting needs more gardeners than we need managers or officers or anything like that. Scouting isn't the science of management, It's not an expression of military discipline or anything like that. I feel like it's much more like a garden.

So think about what gardeners and scouts have in common. Well, gardeners prepare the ground and they plant the seed and they keep the weeds away to make sure there's plenty of water and sunshine, and then they just kind of step back.

And if you think about it, we do a lot of that in scouting, don't we? As scouters, We do some upfront work.

We facilitate, making sure that the scouts get to do what scouts do, and then we step back, more an observer than a participant. I think scouters do that. You kind of tend things rather than manage them or keep them all lined up in some disciplined manner.

You know, you and I can't make a tomato plant grow. We can create the opportunity for that growth, but we don't need to make plants grow because they do that themselves. Alls we're doing is tapping the potential that is in a seed or a plot of ground.

Now I'll do what I can to cooperate with my tomato plants. I'll give them something to grow on so they don't fall over and sprawl all over the ground, and I'll trim and tend them so that they become good, strong, productive plants.

I mean, it's pretty easy analogy, isn't it? Gardeners and scouters do a lot of the same kind of work, And for both gardeners and scouters to do a good job, they have to be able to collaborate with the powerful forces at work.

You know, in gardening it all starts with planting seeds, those little bundles of potential. Now that seed might be a blade of grass or a giant sequoia, And we need both of those things. One's not better than the other One just happens to be a little bit bigger, right A monoculture of either of them all over the world.

If we only had one kind of plant, that wouldn't be such a good idea, would it? We need to have a good diversity, good, healthy diversity of plants, Just in the same way, you know, we need to have a good, healthy diversity of scouts.

I'm the reminder of the way of a lot of Indigenous peoples, including the Native Americans, pair plants together, And I think one of the more famous ones is corn and squash, because they complement each other. And maybe you've seen it where you plant some corn in the middle of a mound and some squash around in a circle. The squash spreads out and kind of makes a natural mulch on the on the ground, and the corn grows up nice and tall, gives a little shade to the squash. It's that kind of symbiotic relationship between two very different kinds of plants that support each other's growth. The soil has to be just right too, Not too loose or too firm. If we're planting in a pot, we know our seedlings will outgrow the pot eventually and need to be moved to a bigger one, And they may only grow to full size if they're put out in the ground, out in the garden.

Plants need water. Some need more than others, but they need it in measured amounts and may need more as they grow. Some plants thrive in the shade and some need to be in the full sun to do their best.

So you following me here, I mean, if you think about this and you look at your scouts, they don't come in a package with instructions like seeds. I mean, we get our scouts as they are, not as we wish they could be, but we nurture that growth potential in them And as we begin to see them grow, we'll discover, just like we would if we had a bunch of seeds. We didn't know what they were and we saw them grow. We'll begin to discover what kind of plants they will become.

We have to respond to what kind of plants they will become and nurture that growth. I mean scouting and gardening.

I think there's a lot of similarities there. We know that all our scouts need the same things from us and from the program, but not necessarily an equal measure, Just like plants need the same thing from a gardener, but not necessarily an equal measure. We know our scouts are going to grow at different rates and they'll flower at different times and thrive in different conditions, just like a gardener knows his plants will do.

And that's about as far as I want to torture this analogy, but I thought it was an interesting idea. And scouting isn't just a well ordered garden in a back corner of your lawn, It's a broad sunny field, a deep, wild forest. It can be plenty of space for everyone to grow to their full potential. All time boys Scout. You're my favourite all time boys Scout. You were always on the beat boy, beat boy.

Yeah, You were always on the beat boy, beat boy. I'll hang it in the sweet boy, sweet boy. We re-dancing to the beat boy, beat boy. Yeah, You're my favourite all time boys Scout. Write me a letter, send it by name Email. That is, folks.

And here's an answer to one of your emails. Here we go. The first email comes from Mike Ford, who's the Scoutmaster, Troop 209 in Silver Spring, Maryland. Mike says: I love the podcast, love reading your books.

So far, so good. I'm a new assistant Scoutmaster and I was wondering if I need to take out a liability policy, especially for being involved in scouting. Would you recommend such coverage.

Well, Mike, your concern is definitely a valid one, but the BSA has you covered already. In the podcast notes I will have a link to the page that explains the whole general liability policy that the BSA has And from that page quote: this coverage provides primary general liability coverage for registered volunteer scouters with respect to claims arising out of an official scouting activity which is defined in the insurance policy as consistent with the values, charter and bylaws, Rules and regulations, the operations manual and applicable literature of the Boy Scouts of America. This coverage responds to allegations of negligent actions by third parties that result in personal injury or property damage claims that are made and provides protection for scouting units and chartered organizations. Unquote: That's a couple of good run-on sentences, full of $9 college words.

I think you get the sense that you're covered And I'll say this okay, as a volunteer of 30-plus years and having worked with a few hundred other volunteers in the BSA in local, district, council and national and international settings, I can tell you I have yet to hear of a volunteer scouter being sued, not once in my experience. So I hope that helps you rest easier.

This email came in from Dwayne Reindel, who's a scoutmaster in Hilton Head, South Carolina, and he said we have a scout that is currently serving as the senior patrol leader for our troop. He will turn 18 during the term of his service.

Does the BSA stipulate he can no longer serve in a youth leadership position once he turns 18? He'll be in high school as a senior for the next year, if that makes any difference?

Well, Dwayne, the BSA defines an adult as a person 18 years of age or older and a youth as a person under 18 years of age, And you'll find those definitions in a document called the rules and regulations of the Boy Scouts of America, and I'll have a link to that resource in the podcast notes for this podcast. So once a scout turns 18, he needs to register as an adult and complete youth protection training. He cannot continue in a youth leadership position And he must observe all the policies and procedures affecting adults when participating in scouting.

Now, I've been in this situation many, many times before. I have had scouts who turn 18.. Sometime between when they are juniors and seniors in high school, what we do is we get them to register as assistant scoutmasters and usually by this time they've been a junior assistant scoutmaster for a while anyway.

So it's not that jarring of a transition for them. Sometimes it's a little bit of a surprise that they have to obey all the rules that adults have to obey So far as youth protection is involved, but that's not usually all that difficult.

Now, whether he's in high school or not, he is going to be regarded as an adult by the BSA, And this isn't my opinion. It's not like a difference in styles or interpretations or anything.

It is a clearly expressed rule And I showed you right where to find it, So I hope that clears things up. Now, when it comes to matters of official policy and things like that, I want to make sure you understand I'm not an official of the Boy Scouts of America. I don't speak for the Boy Scouts of America. Do the same thing I do. Go to the resources, see if I have it right and let me know if I don't. If you have a question or a comment for me, it's very easy to get in touch, and I'm going to tell you how to do that in just a moment.