Scoutmaster Podcast 337

I'm Kyle Burkholder and I'm a Scoutmaster with Troop 333 out of Peoria, Illinois. This edition of the Scoutmaster podcast is brought to you by backers like me. Thanks a lot, Clark.

And now for you, Scoutmaster. This was another not so great week as far as jokes go and scouts, because I tried to tell them the one about the sidewalk but it was already all over town.

Yeah, oh my. Hey, this is podcast number 337..

Well, welcome back to the Scoutmaster podcast. This is Clarke Green. Let's take a look and see who's been in touch. We'll go to the mail bag. I heard from Morgan McDermott, who's an assistant Scoutmaster with Troop 20 in Winnetauk, Illinois, And he said I was listening to the podcast about the scout who was disillusioned by recent events and he did not want to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

You'll remember that That was a couple of podcasts back, I think. But Morgan goes on to say: my own son is a new second-class scout And over the last few months he's been struggling with the dichotomy between the ideals and philosophy he's been learning in the Boy Scouts and the many realities out in our very large and diverse nation that he's been following in the news. What I tell my son, is that our country is an unusual and complicated creation, that our founders came together to create an ideal of what society could be: free, equal, just, fair, with room to live in peace for those who live, speak or pray differently than we do. I tell my son, the flag we wear on our uniform and scouting itself represents an ideal of what America could be: A nation that is mentally awake and morally straight, A nation that helps other people at all times, Wherever a person finds themselves on the political spectrum. Their ideal America will share much with what a scout pledges in the oath and law. In my brief and wonderful time in scouting, I've learned that there are as many reasons for being in scouting as there are people involved.

No two scouts. No two scouts seem to come at the program from exactly the same angle or seek exactly the same benefits.

I think, though, that if we were to examine the words of the oath we take and the law that we repeat and the pledge that we give, all three represent a goal, a height that a person and a people as imperfect as we- and we all can be- strive to become. Wow, isn't that a great thought? I'm going to repeat that.

I think that if enough of us were to examine the words of the oath we take, the law we repeat and the pledge we give, all three represent a goal, a height that a person and a people as imperfect as we and we all can be, strive to become. I couldn't have said it better, Morgan, I really appreciate those thoughts and I appreciate your perspective on the issue. We're about aspirations. We're about opportunity and encouragement rather than compliance. When we encounter some pushback from scouts about these things, it is a precious opportunity to look into them, not only for them but for ourselves. Thanks again, Morgan, Really appreciate that.

Oh, there was lots of comments on last week's podcast because I was talking about trying to come up with a one sentence job description for every scouter everywhere at all times. Now, folks kind of got that, but they also offered some things that, while weren't in the same vein as what I intending, are definitely worth sharing. One that I really like came from Daryl J Van Dyne, who's been a Scoutmaster for 42 years. He says more power to you, Daryl, and Daryl wrote this in reply to last week's podcast. In scouting, No one sits on the bench, and lots of folks like that one. I do too.

I think that's a great picture, isn't it? Nobody sits on the bench. Everybody's an active player in scouting, and Jeremy added, with a good sense of humor. Jeremy added, with the possible exception of the adults. And yeah right, The adults can sit on the bench all they want, but no scouts.

If I remember correctly, I put it this way at one time in the deep, dark, dim past: No scouts on the sidelines, No scouters on the field. How about that?

Oh, we could have a lot of fun by just sitting around and doing sayings all day, couldn't we? Chris Ackley wrote about that podcast. My philosophy was number one- I'm here for the boys- And number two when it comes to all the politics and other things that get in the way. You go back to number one. I like that one too, Chris. That's a good thought.

Carl Melvin Bennett, who is an Eagle Scout and a 60-year veteran of the Scouts, chimed in to remind us of what has been said all along in scouting- I think I quoted Baden Powell- It's building character, citizenship and fitness in our youth. Shane Cunningham, again with a really good sense of humor, that most of you have said, taking ordinary boys and turning them into fine young men, And all of these are all parts of the puzzle, right?

If you remember, my one one sentence job description was building character by applying the patrol method, And there were a lot of comments about preparing boys for something, and I get that. I think that's important. But I just want to point out we're in the opportunity business. I'm going to repeat myself for the 70th time that we're in the opportunity business and aiming at opportunity is really the key. Aiming at developing a particular set of skills or types of behavior. It's different.

It could be a subtle difference, but I think it's an important difference, especially when we're assessing our efforts. We are aimed at building character through applying the patrol method.

I also heard from Jeremy Steinmeier, who is an assistant Scoutmaster with Scout Troop 303 in Orinda, California, and he run in to say thanks so much for the podcast. I've been working my way through back episodes and I'm feel like I'm on the fast track to adult leader education. I completed my introduction to outdoor leadership skills training all three months ago. Last weekend I went to an all day lead training, but I'm not sure if I know about lead and Jeremy wrote it as like an acronym, LEAD- put on by our council.

But I can't believe how well I was able to keep up with more seasoned scouters on scout issues. You make it clear that you do not represent the official voice of scouting, but perhaps you should be.

Oh well, that's a very kind thing to have said, Jeremy. I appreciate that. I'm really glad that there is not an official personality or an official voice in scouting. It's all written down.

You know, with over a century we've pretty, you know, you've got to figure, we've got it kind of figured out at this point, except for, you know, some of the, some of the logistics changed, but the point, the aim, the big stuff, that hasn't changed. So yes, Jeremy, very kind thing to say. But boy, I'm glad I'm not the official voice of anything much.

Frank Maynard, our pal Frank Now Frank has a blog that's aimed at those that serve on troop committees. It's called Bob White's Blather. It goes beyond just troop committee stuff. But boy, I'll tell you, I keep my eye on that blog and you should too, And I'll have a link to Frank's blog in the podcast notes. But I had a little trouble with the pronunciation of an Ohio town last week and Frank wrote in to say: you've probably heard, but Cup Master Scott is probably in Alleria, Ohio.

Aha, Okay, So I was not working on that, I was. I did not get that one right that I, Frank.

Indeed it was Illyria and it's E-L-Y-R-I-A which it makes sense now that I know how to pronounce it, but boy, it was giving me a problem last week. I'm hereby make amends to all of our listeners in Ohio and elsewhere who value the correct pronunciation of town names. Frank also wrote that he's enjoying the podcast since the break over the holidays and commented that telling folks show me where it's written when they tell you something about scouting is a good response to most of the nonsensical assertions that we sometimes hear.

Well, thanks for that, Frank, and thanks for being in touch. Every week I try and have at least one live chat session. Sometimes we're able to fit two in, but usually the live chat sessions will happen on Tuesday or Wednesday mornings. Keep an eye on our Facebook feed and our Twitter feed. You can come along and join us, as did Rob, who's an assistant Scoutmaster with Troop 235 in North Plainfield, New Jersey, and Eric Patel, who's an assistant Scoutmaster for Troop 81 in Chelmsford, Massachusetts. The Scoutmaster of Troop 301 in Ontario, California, checked in Scott Jones, who's with Troop 911 in San Antonio, Texas, was there, as was Ted the Scoutmaster, Troop 45 and Glen Ellen, Illinois.

All of these folks showed up on the chat session for their first time this past week, along with a long August list of frequent flyers who check in on a regular basis. Once again, it's at scoutmastercgcom. Keep an eye on our Facebook feed and our Twitter feed. Jump in, join us during the chat.

We have a great time doing it And, if you do, I'll mention you on next week's podcast. I want to pause for a moment to thank all the folks who are scoutmastercgcom backers, especially this week.

I want to mention James Chaplin, Lisa Murray, Eric Mondrush, Kyle Burkholder and David Metz, who've added their names to the list of scoutmastercgcom backers since our last podcast. I want to say thanks to so all of you who support the blog and podcast through Patreon, including Daniel Luktefold, who became a Patreon subscriber since our last podcast. If you want 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, the remainder of this rather brief podcast will be taken up with the answering of an email question. So let's get started.

Shall we Send it by name Email? That is, folks.

And here's an answer to one of your emails. I heard from Brad Watts, who is in St John's, Florida, where he is part of the committee of Troop 287. And Brad wrote in: I'm the treasurer for our troop and our committee has been talking recently about our next round of fundraising. It has been a very adult, heavy undertaking. Because of this and some other things, I've been thinking about something you wrote or said a while back. I don't remember if it was during a chat or in a blog post or maybe on a podcast, but it was about money and scouts, basically kind of shielding the scouts from the money.

If I understood correctly, when I first started as the troops treasurer, I was really latching onto the idea of letting the scouts take on a bigger role with the money, Thinking that working through the scribe was one small way that, as treasurer, I could support the idea of our troop being youth led. But whatever it was that you said or wrote got me to rethinking this idea that all this money stuff isn't really what scouts is all about, that it's better for the adults just to handle the money and fundraising so the scouts can get on with doing what scouts do.

When I think of it that way, the character building we're doing here really does come more from camping in the outdoors and using the patrol method. The money is just kind of almost static distraction and a bother really. And I'm beginning to think maybe you were right.

I continue to try and work with a scribe a bit anyway, mostly because we have a scribe and he needs something to do. But honestly I don't see a whole lot of benefit in it for him and I don't get the sense that he's at all interested in it.

And honestly, who could blame him As an example? Several times I've tried to coach him to take some questions back to the Patrol Leaders Council about do's. When I follow up it's never been addressed, neither no time or no interest, and probably at least a little bit of both. The troop has had a practice of collecting one dollar a week in do's and this goes into patrol envelopes and the former treasurer was taking care of all that themselves. And I've handed the responsibility over to the scribe rather than keeping it myself, hoping that the scribe would respond and be interested in it. But it doesn't really seem to be working out and I'm honestly not convinced the idea is worth saving.

I figure that our scouts will learn math and money, maybe for a merit badge or maybe in school, somewhere better suited for that lesson in scouts. They're having fun in the outdoors, learning character and leadership, and they do get some practice working within budgets for things like grub for campouts. I'm hoping you might elaborate on your thoughts in this area and help me pull together my somewhat fragmented thinking.

Well, Brad, I really appreciate your frankness, and it's not often that I get to hear from treasurers, especially ones that are making an attempt to do what you do, and that is try and devolve as much of the responsibility and activity involved down to the youth level. Give them the opportunity to take on some responsibility and learn a few things, and I think the whole subject of scouts and money is a sword that kind of cuts both ways.

Now, for many years we attempted to collect cash dues and I think it was similar. I think it was one or two dollars a month and, man, it was like pulling teeth. We had the little envelopes, we had the troops scribe, we had patrol scribes, we had it all lined up in a way that theoretically it should have worked perfectly. But through many, many years- I'm talking a couple of decades- I had one, at most two guys who were in the position of scribe, who really brought a whole lot of energy to this and made it work.

The other guys kind of did it begrudgingly because you know that was what was expected of them and they didn't do a very good job of it. And, long story short, the committee decided several years ago- which is probably more than a decade, maybe more than 15 years now- that we would discontinue the practice. The scouts never missed it- I don't think they ever missed any big opportunities to learn any big things. It just wasn't working and we decided the scouts could do other things that were more beneficial, commensurate to the effort involved in it. And it helps us clarify kind of the dividing line between scout and adult responsibilities.

Now anybody is listening to the podcast long enough knows that I think scouts should take on the responsibility for everything they possibly can take on. If they can take on collecting money and doing administrative tasks and paperwork and things like that, more power to them. Let them after it, let the adults work with them to make sure that that things are being accomplished properly. But that's only one side of the sword.

The other side of the sword is we have a finite amount of time that young people are able to devote to scouting at this point, and so whether or not that's really an optimal opportunity for them is something that you've got to judge. Where you are with the scouts that you're working with. I'm not saying one way or the other is the ideal thing.

What I'm trying to do is just explain from my experience where we were and where we ended up and, like I said, we decided adults would end up being responsible for money and paperwork and the scouts would be responsible for the rest. And we hit that balance and it seems to be working. There is definitely some return in having scouts responsible for administrative paperwork.

You know permission slips, collecting money and things- but when it comes down to it, the kind of supervision that you end up requiring for that sort of thing make it virtually an adult function, with a scout kind of going through the motions and not really getting much out of the experience at this point. Our adult volunteers do all the paperwork and manage all the money. We distribute cash to scouts, buying food for a camping trip for their patrol, making sure that a parent is cognizant of this, but that's about the extent that they handle funds directly.

None of the scouts have come to me ever and said: you know, we really miss being able to handle all the papers, we really miss being you know. You know, I don't think we've even had a scribe for the past several months because, a- there was really no interest in it and, B- there's not a whole lot for the scribe to do and we could, you know, we could make work for him. Nobody's come to the senior patrol leader or myself and said, oh, I really really want to be described.

Now I know that folks out there probably make it work and make it work really, really well and that's fine. Again, just describing from my experience of my practice where I've ended up. One of the things about what the scribe used to do was collect permission slips, and we kind of almost eliminated permission slips. I know that a lot of people have made them online, virtual things, but we still use pieces of paper.

But we started collecting camping payments and permission slips on a quarterly basis and we did this for a number of reasons. First of all, one of the more practical things is is that this reduces everything for a given quarter, for three months, to one transaction per family, and that really simplifies our bookkeeping and it really simplifies it for parents, because they're not filling out three permission slips and writing three checks or making three payments.

The next thing that we found that we've benefited greatly from is we know who will be participating in what over the next three months, and our planning has then become more focused and advanced. Rather than waiting a week or two weeks before the camping trip to figure out who's going and whether or not we're going to have the critical mass to pull it off.

We know well enough ahead of time if any of the plans need to change because more scouts or less scouts than we imagined are going to be participating in that particular trip, and then we also use that participation information to shape how the youth leadership and the composition of patrols will be through the patrol leaders council. So far we haven't had to make big changes in the composition of patrols, but we have had a quarterly senior patrol leader and patrol leader elections. We've seen some changes there because our quarters correspond roughly to school quarters and scouts who are participating in a school activity like a team or a band or a club which is usually around for about three months time, they can better gauge their abilities to take on responsibilities for that quarter and they don't take on a key responsibility like being the senior patrol leader or a patrol leader if they are not going to be around for that quarter and it's no harm, no foul.

We want them out participating in things and that's fine, but they also owe it to their fellow scouts, if they're going to take on a key responsibility, to actually be there. So taking this approach is basically eliminated- the problem of having somebody in a position of responsibility who then finds they can't even show up to carry out those responsibilities.

Now our families so far appreciate the idea that we have a deadline for signing up 30 days ahead of the commencement of the next quarter and they can better plan their calendars that way and adjust for conflicts. Then they can looking at an annual calendar or looking at everything once a month, and so it's been working out better for our families too.

And this arrangement makes having a quarterly parents meeting- a court of honor- which I've spoken about in the past few podcasts- a necessity, and it seems like we're talking to our families on a much more regular basis than we have in years past. So I was talking about a two-edged sword, and the other edge of the sword, when it comes to scouts and money, is nearly as sharp as the one that we've chosen, and directly involving scouts in the administration of paperwork and money is not in and of itself a bad idea.

I, you know some people make that work. I'll just say once again, I found that it cuts into the diminishing amount of time that they have available to devote to scouts. I'd rather have them devote that time to things that were unavailable to them in other activities. Both arrangements could work out.

There's probably two or three edges to this particular sword and there's lots of different ways of getting things done. One of my assistant Scoutmasters, who served in the Navy and was in the submarine service- actually we were talking about things like this once and he said: well, it's kind of like we said in the Navy, it's kind of like making coffee.

I don't care if you perk the coffee, if you drip the coffee, if you you know it's instant coffee, as long as you end up with a cup of coffee. The method that you use, the way that you get to it, is not all that important to me and I think as long as we're providing opportunities for scouts and we're employing the patrol method and developing character, the way that money is handled, it can work a hundred different ways.

So I want to say thanks, Brad, for for asking that question and well, we talked about a little bit more than just money there. We talked about the effect of scheduling and things, and we're preparing for the- our third quarter of this type of scheduling in our troop and I've kind of delayed writing or talking about it until you've employed it for a year and we have some real confidence in it's that it's a good method to share with folks.

So this is kind of an interim report. It seems to be working pretty well. I'll have some links to a couple of other posts where we've discussed scouting and money, because there is a lot of official verbiage about how money should be handled and exactly who does what, and it's very useful stuff and I'll direct you to that through those posts which will be in the podcast notes. If you have a question or comment for me and like to get in touch, it's an easy thing to do and I'm going to tell you how to make that happen in just a moment.