Scoutmaster Podcast 332

I'm Mitch Danspey. I'm the Scoutmaster from Troop 404 in Norman Beach, Florida.

This edition of Scoutmaster Podcast is sponsored by backers like me, And now it's the old Scoutmaster. How many Scouts does it take to change a light bulb?

Well, just one, but it takes four days because Scouts do a good turn daily. I hear the collective groan: Thank you,

Hey. This is podcast number 332..

Well, welcome back to the Scoutmaster Podcast. This is Clarke Green. Hey, let's take a look at the mailbag. Kevin Brew left a comment about podcast 329 and Kevin is in the United Kingdom And he said: from a UK perspective, I've often said that badges should be a result of Scouts enjoying themselves, whether camping, hiking, activities at weekly meetings and generally doing what Scouts do. I see too many Scout leaders planning around the badges instead. Yeah, that happens.

I mean, you know we talk about horses and carts and things like that. You know let's not get the cart before the horse. Have a lot of fun.

Do what Scouts do? The badges? They're there. They happen as a natural result. Kevin Cookson is the Scoutmaster of Troop 8010 in Yuma, Arizona, And he wrote in to say this: my Scouts have achieved a new level of understanding the patrol method- Or maybe I'm the one who's finally figured something out.

I looked up an old blog post of yours dated September 26, 2012,- Troop leadership elections And I went to our Tuesday night meeting and here's how it went. The Scouts had known for months that elections were coming up. I talked with my senior patrol leader about how he was going to run the elections, explained what positions were elected, which were appointed, etc.

I told them they had 10 minutes and then I left the room. That's simple. The new senior patrol leader came out, told me the results. New patrols were formed and they had patrol leaders that even come up with new patrol names and yells. I couldn't be more proud.

It's like you said: so much of the work of a Scoutmaster is really just getting out of the way. With much gratitude for all you teach us Scouters.

Thanks so much, Kevin. I'm sure glad you let me know that. Yeah, get out of the way.

You know Scouts understand how to make things happen. They don't make things happen in the same way that adults do, but they get the job done and then they gain experience, they learn, they build character.

What could be better? Last week's podcast number 331 had these responses over on Facebook. A lot of folks follow us on Facebook. By the way.

I don't know if it's your thing, but there's over 15,000 folks who look in on what's happening at ScoutmasterCGcom on Facebook, So you might want to check that out. James Montigny said: I love this advice in the way it's presented.

Thank you Well, thank you, James. John McFadden said: spot on, as usual this week, and super relevant. Thanks, John, Glad we could be of assistance there. And Brian Hildebrand left a big smiley face. You got to love Facebook right.

Here's a big smiley face right back at you. Every week I try to have a couple of live chat sessions. It's been mostly once a week for the past several weeks, But what you do is this here: mostly Tuesday mornings or Wednesday mornings. If you keep an eye on our Facebook feed and our Twitter feed, you'll see me announce that we're having a live chat session. You come on over to scoutmasterCGcom, sign in, join in the chat, like Gary did this week, who was on the chat for his first time. Gary's a scoutmaster near Chicago.

Thanks for stopping in, Gary. Lots of frequent flyers also stopped by And we discuss things of great importance and zero importance, But it's a way to a while away a little of your free time.

You have free time, don't you Right? Hey, I want to take a moment to thank all the folks who are scoutmasterCGcom backers.

Thank you so much. We keep things moving and joining. The many people who help support the podcast financially this week are Jill Blantz, Victor Malhar and Tonya Cornelius. They've added their names to the list of scoutmasterCGcom backers since our last podcast. Thanks to to all of you who've added your support, to the many folks who help us make the blog and podcast possible through Patreon. Patreon's kind of like a monthly subscription.

Becoming a backer. It's like a one-time thing, But if you'd like to become a backer or join our Patreon subscribers, visit scoutmasterCGcom. You'll find links to follow at the top right of any page and links in this episode's podcast notes.

Well, in the remainder of this week's podcast, I've got some email questions to answer, So let's get started, shall we? Across the nation, communities and the parents of Boy Scouts are observing Boy Scout Week, Agreeing with the boys themselves that adventure, that scouting. Write me a letter, send it by name. Email, that is folks.

And here's an answer to one of your emails. This first email question comes from Jeff and he says: as a Scoutmaster, I continually have this issue. Our Scouts move through the ranks and that position of responsibility is needed, typically a four or six month term. Our leadership term runs October through March and April through September After the senior patrol leader election. I encourage the Scouts to write up a brief paragraph of the leadership role they're interested in and why the senior patrol leaders should appoint them. I will sit down with the senior patrol leader and review the submissions and any leadership positions available.

If a scout has not spoken to the senior patrol leader or submitted a leadership request, they are usually not chosen for a leadership position. Some Scouts have even indicated that they do not want a leadership role due to sports conflicts or if they want to take a break from being a leader.

Now my issue is the performance of the youth leaders. Several youth leaders don't attend patrol leaders council, don't go on camp outs, attend less than half of the troop meetings or do nothing in their leadership role.

Now I speak with them and remind them of their responsibilities as the leadership term progresses. Later I will get a request for a Scoutmaster's conference and I will ask them: well, what have you done with your leadership role?

They usually will respond with nothing, so I will not sign off and recommend them for a border review? I have one scout's been a historian for the past year. During the last two years he's been on zero camp outs, attended 15% of troop meetings and has not produced anything in the historian role.

Now this is typically a scrapbook with photos and writeups of what's been happening during the year. I've spoken with him multiple times, gently reminding him of his role and responsibilities. He said that he'll do better than he's absent for the next four to six weeks.

He's now asking for a Scoutmaster conference for life rank and I've asked him to show me the efforts of his role as a historian before I recommend him for a border review. So this brings me to my two questions: Am I being out of line for refusing to sign for a scout who has not done anything in a leadership role, and how do you encourage scouts to fulfill a leadership role?

Well, Jeff, let's start with the second question first. I think the answer to the question- how do you encourage scouts to fulfill leadership role- is more about the perspective that you have on the way these positions work.

When there's things to do that are vital, practical and engaging, you know scouts will roll up their sleeves and get things moving. If the role that they're in isn't vital or practical or engaging, they don't pay too much attention to those roles, And you know who would.

If it's not going to be something that is valuable to me as a scout or to making things happen, why am I going to be bothered with it? That's just the way.

I think at least Most of us find dealing with the issues that you've outlined challenging, So let's see if we can unwind some of this. The first challenge is to understand. There are no leadership positions mentioned in any of the rank requirements, Only positions of responsibility, And that's an important distinction, because not every one of the positions of responsibility necessarily require what we would normally identify as leadership skills. The ones that do, it's pretty obvious because they have the word leader in them, like patrol leader, senior patrol leader, assistant senior patrol leader.

That's not to say that guys occupying other roles won't have leadership qualities and exercise them, But I think it's an important distinction. So let's talk about roles of responsibility And when we talk about these, the first question ought to be what needs to be done, not who needs to fulfill a rank requirement or who submitted a leadership request, And we addressed this a couple of podcasts back.

You know, youth leaders aren't employees of the troop, They're active players in a game. I get the idea of submitting a leadership request on a piece of paper, but really to me it invites all kinds of associations with business and industry and employees. I would stay as far away from that as possible.

Now, if you remember you go back a couple of podcasts. We talked about this responsibility as the horse. The program is the cart And advancement is the track. The cart leaves behind. A horse without a cart or a cart without a horse is not going to leave the right kind of tracks right.

So we need the combination, We need them all put into perspective, We need them hooked up the right way. But there has to be something to do.

There has to be a program to do it for And then you get the results that you're looking for. The program's there, It's ready to go, but it can't go on its own. It's all words and books and words on pieces of paper. It doesn't have muscles or lungs or a heart. The program is just sitting there. Responsibility is where all the heart and muscle is.

That's the way things happen. Advancement can't go on its own. It's the result of action, It's not the actions themselves. The positions of responsibility are there to make things go, Not to parse out advancement opportunities.

So encouraging scouts to do something about their position of responsibility has to do with the nature of the position itself and your perspective. It can't just be why don't you do your job, You know. It can't just be that. It has to be something that a scout sees as being vital and engaging and important to the life of his patrol and his troop.

The first question you asked- which I am answering second is everybody keeping notes- was: am I being out of line for refusing to sign for a scout who's not done anything in a leadership role? When a scout hasn't achieved our expectations, we have to first ask if those expectations were actively shared or just kind of passively implied. I mean, you can't hand a scout a sheet of paper with expectations. That never works.

You have to actively discuss those expectations and then get them to develop a set of shared expectations. You have to collaborate on this.

It's our responsibility to assure that from the get-go there's a shared expectation that the scouts understood them and then, to you know, monitor their progress in achieving those expectations. So in the particular instance that you talk about, Jeff. You've got a scout who has gone for a year without doing anything and I've got to say that's actually more our fault as scouters than anything else. Allowing a scout to remain in the position for a year without requiring any results is a very clear message to him. There's no problem with the way you're doing this. I guarantee that is what this scout thinks, because he's asking you for a Scoutmaster's conference for life rank.

So he's pretty sure there's no problem. Now you say that you gave him some reminders and you discussed with him, You encouraged him and everything, and that's great. But scout age boys are not susceptible to gentle reminders for the most part. Most of the time they have to have things very clearly spelled out. They are literalists, They do not take hints. There has to be a continual engagement and evaluation, because scouts do not have a good handle on their schedules.

Their level of excitement about responsibilities is highly variable and you can be very direct about this without being unpleasant. One of my stock questions is when I'm concerned that a position of responsibility is not really being actively taken on is to say, hey, what have you done towards fulfilling your responsibilities this past week?

A lot of times the answer is: well, I've been really busy, I've got a lot of homework, I'm playing football, whatever, And I just haven't had time to do anything. And you know what? That's fine. And I say that. I say, look, we all have weeks like that.

Let's look at next week. What specifically will you be doing this week And when will you do it? What will I be able to ask you the next time we get together- And in the instance that you shared, Jeff, you're talking about a historian who's supposed to be making a scrapbook.

Maybe he tells you: you know what? I'm going to get a scrapbook on Wednesday and get started. That's great. Bring the scrapbook with you next week. Show me how much progress you've made Now. If he hasn't made any progress by the next week- and this is probably exactly what will happen- If he's not interested or engaged in the whole thing next week, he'll show up.

You'll say: did you bring the scrapbook? No, didn't have time to get it.

Then I would tell him this: Look, if you don't have the time to do this right now or you're not really interested in doing this, I understand. There's no problem. No harm, no foul.

Would you like to pass this on to someone else, Or do you think you really want us to be able to continue? If the answer to that question is the affirmative yes, I really want to continue in this- Then the deal is: something must happen by next week. That's a non-negotiable term. Something must happen. You need to show me what's happened next week.

If the answer is no, then that's fine. Tell them you'll work with the senior patrol leader past the responsibility onto somebody else and when this guy is ready, when he has the time and the interest, we'll get them a responsibility.

Now, if week three rolls around and there's no progress, I'm going to say that we've discussed how important this is for you to make some progress on getting this done. If you can't honestly do it, I understand and apparently that's the way that it is, But there is no way we go on past next week.

Specifically, what can I expect? When will we talk next week And then get an answer, have a shared expectation about what's going to happen and say, look, that's great.

I want to make sure you understand something: If we get to next week with zero progress, then I'm going to tell the senior patrol leader to pass this responsibility onto someone else. Have you heard and understand exactly what our agreement is here.

So let me go back, because this is kind of a step one, two, three, four thing, which I'm not normally very fond of. But listen to the spirit behind the thing.

The first time out is to say: so, what have you done? If the answer is I haven't done anything, then you say: okay, so what's your plan for next week and what will you have done? And you have a collaboration, you create a shared expectation. The next week rolls around, likely, it's not, nothing's happened.

You say, okay, yeah, I know We all have weeks like this. Let's get back up and running next week. Definitely this is going to happen. Then we get to that next week, nothing's happened. Again.

And then you say, okay, look, this is what must happen by next week. If it doesn't happen, I'm instructing the senior patrol leader to pass the responsibility on to someone else, because you're either not interested or you don't have the time, and that's fine, And there'll be a position of responsibility for you when you do have the time, and one that you're interested in. If you don't have any results for me next week, that's what's going to happen Now.

Do you understand that? Do we have a shared expectation.

Now, if that scout never shows up, I've got to pick up the phone and have that conversation right. But there has to be a point of action or a point of moving on And, Jeff, I would suggest consider shortening the time that scouts spend in particular positions of responsibility.

Six months or a year is really an eternity for a scout-age boy, And even most adults that I know now would find making an absolute commitment for the next year or the next six months to be very challenging, if not impossible, because there's a number of commitments a scout or an adult has to balance in taking on any kind of responsibility and making a commitment towards it. You can think that that's a horrible character flaw. The way that our lives are ordered in this day and age is very complex. The way a family's life works is very complex. The way a young person's life works is very complex, And if you want to fight with that complexity, go ahead. I don't want to fight with it.

I want to make scouting work for every single young person that I can make it work for, And I can do that without diminishing expectations or standards. It's not that difficult to do. I'll tell you what we've been doing and experimenting with.

We fill positions of responsibility every three months And we do that based on the commitments for going camping for the next three months And that way there's no question as to whether or not key youth leaders will be on camping trips or at meetings, because they can't accept a position of responsibility unless they're committed to being on all the camping trips and at all the meetings, or at least you know the majority of the meetings. And that's for a three month period of time And it roughly corresponds to the quarters at school, So that school activities, extracurricular activities at school, kind of mesh with that.

So you know if you're going to be in the marching band, you're going to play football, you're going to be a wrestler, you're going to be a basketball player and that's going to consume all of your free time outside of school for the next three months, which is usually what the season is. No harm, no foul. We expect that.

But you know, to make things work smoothly for the patrols and for the troop, we're asking for a commitment upfront. Tell us what you're doing for the next three months and then we'll make some decisions about who it would be appropriate to offer positions of responsibility.

I mean when we work with scouts, we have to accept the idea that they likely have no earthly idea of the things that we take for granted. A few scouts are really capable and responsible, but most need a lot of experience before they truly understand the dynamics of all this. Because we are familiar with business practices, We tend to use them when dealing with scouts and positions of responsibility, but I'm going to say it again and I'll keep saying it, and over and over: They are not our employees. Scouts is not a business. You are not the boss. Positions of responsibility- and scouting, to me at least, is about working together to get things done.

They're not about title or privilege or command structures. It's all just this big grand game that we get to be the coach and the mentor. We collaborate with scouts to realize the wonderful opportunities the scouting offers. And this happens one scout at a time, one conversation at a time, one week at a time, and when we focus our efforts on making scouts successful in these positions of responsibility rather than laying down a gauntlet and challenging them to be successful. No, we focus on making them successful, helping them out as much as possible and making our expectations realistic, considering the complexity of their lives and their family's lives.

It's not an easy subject, is it? It's not easy to do and it shouldn't be easy to do. It's one of the bigger challenges of being a scouter.

The next question comes from Brian Frey, who is the committee chair of crew 808 in Mililani, Hawaii, and he says: I'm working with some energetic youth and dedicated scouts to get a new venturing crew established here in Hawaii and I've accepted the position of crew committee chair. The crew president- and if you're not familiar with the way venture crews work, folks, the crew president is a youth leader. The crew president would like to move away from what our troop did, which was to collect a permission slip for each scouting event. This proved to be time consuming and kind of frustrating for scouts and adult leaders organizing the event. The new procedure would be to have the parent or guardian sign one permission slip for their youth annually. This one time consent would cover all the events for the year.

I'm a little concerned about this kind of approach. I see the BSA has an activity consent form that looks like a per event form, but it doesn't state that explicitly.

I'm curious to learn if you've had any experience with this type of thing and, if so, what is your approach? Well, Brian, I don't know that there's any specific policy that would prevent anyone from doing an annual permission slip, but I don't really think it's very practical. Anybody who's listened to the podcast or read the blog knows I am a continual, dedicated foe of unnecessary paperwork- and all paperwork in general, by the way- But I do understand that some paperwork is important. Permission slips indicate to a third party that a child is knowingly placed in the care of an adult other than a parent. That's important. They also share information with families about where to drop off and pick up, how to contact their child, who's in charge and what they will be doing and where they will be.

So I think all of that information is important, but it doesn't necessarily only have to be shared in a permission slip. There's also the factor of actually having absolute solid plans a year in advance. I've never been able to achieve that because we've always had to change something and that may not be possible. I know it would be for me and probably would be for our troop, What I mentioned in the previous answer- the email- bears on this a little bit, because what we started doing is having a three month permission slip.

So we have three months of activities outlined on the permission slip with all of the information that I just mentioned: the who, why, what, where and how. It's a little bit lighter lifting for families and it's easier to administrate. From our point of view, Three months seems to be the limit of a family's ability to look forward and plan and it's really challenging for some families. There's a lot of things that recommend this idea of looking three months ahead, getting commitments three months ahead, getting permission slips, taking care of getting payments three months ahead. It cuts down on a lot of fuss and bother of doing it every single month. It gives us a very concrete idea of what our participation will be for a given activity and, as I said in the answer to the previous email, helps us work with our scouts to set up positions of responsibility that are achievable in a three month period.

And we are beginning our second quarter of doing this. The first quarter it worked out pretty well.

The second quarter took a little bit longer to get off the ground with it because we were also dealing with rechartering and other giant paperwork- snafus. But give that some thought, Brian, and see if that helps you answer that particular question. Hey, if you've got a question for me and you'd like to get in touch, it's very easy to do and I'm going to tell you how in just a moment.