Scoutmaster Podcast 333

I'm Mitch Tansby. I'm the Scoutmaster from Troop 404 in Oldman Beach, Florida. This edition of the Scoutmaster podcast is sponsored by backers like me.

And now it's your Scoutmaster. Camping when the weather is clear and sunny is just plain old camping. Camping when the weather is interesting, that's scouting.

Huh, There is a difference, right?

Hey, this is podcast number 333.. Welcome back to the Scoutmaster podcast. This is Clarke Green. Oh my, let's see. Let's take a quick look in the mailbag. Couple of new reviews on Amazon.

First one is for my book. So Far, So Good, And if you haven't seen the book, it's a quick read. It's the story of a new Scoutmaster and the first few months of being a Scoutmaster, And a lot of people have found it helpful. The story format is one that is pretty accessible. It's available over at Amazon- Look for a link in the podcast notes- And the latest review was: it's a nice story presentation explaining a Scoutmaster's role from Jay Steinmeier. Thank you for that review.

The other book I wanted to mention that got a new review this week is called The Scouting Journey, And the Scouting Journey is kind of set up like a map for Scouters, guiding Scouts through the Scouting Program, And you can check that out on Amazon too, See if you agree with James Taylor, who said this: good expository. Guidelines for youth led with some examples. I could use some further examples and details and stories for the different stages of development that our Scouts go through. Thank you, James. My plan is to work on a revision of The Scouting Journey this year. We'll see how that goes.

You know how plans go right. I certainly appreciate those two reviews. Check out the books if you haven't already. Every week we try and have a live chat session, Usually on Tuesday mornings.

It's not going to happen around the holidays because you know the holidays, But Timmy from Troop 21 in Florida checked in with us last week, as well as any number of our frequent fliers that check into chat. We talk about all kinds of important and unimportant things.

Look for an announcement on our Facebook feed and our Twitter feed and then come over to scoutmastercgcom. Join us for a live chat.

Before I go any further, I want to let you know the podcast will be on holiday break for the next month and we will return with podcast 3.34 on January 19th. So if I forget to say it later on, have a happy holidays and we'll see you in January of 2017..

I want to make sure to thank all the folks who are ScoutmasterCGcom backers, especially Jerry Foster, David Brown and Hu Tran, who added their names to list of ScoutmasterCGcom backers since our last podcast, And I want to say thanks to to all of you support the podcast through Patreon. If you'd like to become a backer or join our Patreon subscribers, go to scoutmastercgcom. You'll find links to follow at the top right of any page and links in this episode's podcast notes.

Well, this is going to be a shorter visit this time around. We have a couple of email questions to answer, So let's get started, shall we?

Email, that is folks, And here's an answer to one of your emails. Kevin Callahan is an assistant Scoutmaster with Troop 764, and he wrote to say this: thank you for administering this wonderful site.

I often find myself: how do troops ever do this? It's difficult to find a forum to get these answers. However, you've created just that forum: a community of scouts interested in improving themselves, their units and scouting.

I have been looking for ways to improve our courts of honor, So in your post on the subject, you mentioned holding quarterly parent meetings before courts of honor. Could you explain a little bit more about those meetings. I've been thinking about having parent meetings and I'd appreciate your input. You mentioned trading off a troop meeting night.

Does that mean the scouts are part of the parent meeting or do they go off and do something else while parents meet? What are the typical topics of the meeting, How formal are they and who usually leads them?

Well, Kevin, a couple of three years back, what we did is we put a quarterly parents meeting on our schedule and those happen on the same night as a troop meeting night and they also include a court of honor. Everybody arrives about 7pm, The scouts usually go outside to play a game or they go into another part of the building while we meet with the parents, and that meeting is usually the committee chair and the Scoutmaster or whoever needs to speak with parents, depending on what's going on on the schedule. If there's a fundraiser, it may be the person running that, and that talk with parents usually lasts about 15 or 20 minutes and we talk about what's happening within the next quarter, We take questions. It's a very, very informal type of thing and it's been very, very useful for us.

So when we're done with the parents meeting- like I said, 15 or 20 minutes- the scouts come in and the senior patrol leader takes over and leads them through the court of honor. And the court of honor can be reasonably formal or informal.

We have a set script. We kind of adapt it to the situation, but I would guess I would characterize the way that we do these quarterly ones. They're pretty informal and once we've completed the court of honor it's time for juice and cookies.

Okay, So if you don't have juice and cookies, why are you even there? Right? And all of this takes about an hour to an hour 15, an hour 30, at the very most.

The things that we're trying to achieve in doing this is making sure that we have face-to-face communication with parents at least every quarter. We want to make sure that scouts get their achievements presented in a timely manner.

We'll present any rank advancements, merit badges or anything like that, as soon as we have them at the next available troop meeting and then we'll have a formal presentation at the court of honor. So we don't hold on to badges for three months.

We make sure to get them to the scouts as soon as possible and then the formal presentation happens at that parents meeting, court of honor. And to me one of the most important things is brevity.

We can't ask people to come out- usually with younger children too- on a weeknight for two hours. I think that most families would find that a little difficult, especially since everybody else wants them to come to their thing and sit there for two hours.

Now we try and make it as informal, comfortable and useful- like truly useful- as possible. I hope that helps you sort out exactly how you're going to make that kind of thing happen in your troop. This second email comes from Shannon, who says: I'm a very new Scoutmaster in a very small troop and I feel the weight on my shoulders because I've just completed all my training. Honestly, I'm tired and I feel overwhelmed with the task before me. I'd actually rather not do it, but I worry that things will fall apart if I don't. I'm also unsure that I'm the person for the job.

I think that these scouts would be better off with a man as a Scoutmaster And that, and that one was signed obligated Scoutmaster. Well, here's the thing.

Okay, would it help you to know that it's not really your responsibility to do everything, but to enable your scouts to make things to happen for themselves When we get scouting right. It's not a show that we're responsible to put on. No, it's something they make happen for themselves.

Scouts aren't so much motivated by earning badges as they are by doing the things that scouts do, And then they get the badges anyway. So it sounds like with a small troop, you have a single patrol.

So how about talking to the scouts about what they would like to see happen next and just go with that? You know you have the bounds of the program. You have the way that things work. You've been trained. You understand how that works. In a very small troop, you don't necessarily need a senior patrol leader and assistant senior patrol leader and all that stuff.

You have a small group. You have things to do. Scouts can take on roles of responsibility as the need arises.

I think you'll feel refreshed and empowered when you sit down with the scouts and say: how are we going to make this happen? Where are we going to go camping?

What do you want to do? And just start building on their answers. They're not going to have too many of them because nobody ever does it.

Nobody ever sits them down and says, okay, what do you want out of this experience? No, with youth activities, the experiences package you give it to them.

They do it, So they won't know exactly how to react to the idea that. Oh okay, let's all talk about exactly what we want to see happen and how this is going to work. One of the things I send people to regularly is the 15 minute patrol leader training. It's a real easy walkthrough of a very logical way of approaching what youth leaders are responsible for and how they get things done. Give that a read, Talk to your scouts, Let me know what they said and I'll be happy to help you if you have further questions.

The other thing I want to say is: the best Scoutmaster for scouts is the person who shows up. It doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman. Our scouts need people who are dedicated and care for them and empower them to do things for themselves. That's not gender specific at all, And I certainly understand the idea that boys need men that they can look up to, but that doesn't mean they don't need women they can look up to as well.

So while I understand your concern about that, I don't think it's quite as important as you think it is, And I encourage you just to roll up your sleeves, sit down with your scouts and start working on a way forward. It will be great fun- Not all the time, but it will. In the end you'll say I'm really glad that I did this. Hey, if you have a question for me, you can get in touch. It's not that difficult to do. I'm going to tell you how to do it in a moment, but I do want to remind you that the podcast will be on a holiday break for the next four weeks and will return with podcast number 334 on January 19th.

Have a great holiday everyone.