Scoutmaster Podcast 343

I am Daniel Desjardins and I am a Scoutmaster with through 4.2.6 in London Dairy, New Hampshire. This edition of the Scoutmaster podcast is sponsored by Backers Like Me.

And now it's the old Scoutmaster. Two penguins and a boy scout walk into a convenience store and they're carrying a canoe And the clerk looks at him and says, hey, is this some kind of joke?

Yeah, see what I did there. Hey, this is podcast number 343.. Welcome back to the Scoutmaster podcast. This is Clarke Green. It's mailbag time. That's right.

We heard from James Rogers, who's the Scoutmaster of troop 58 in Ashburn, Virginia, And he said: I love your website. Since I became the Scoutmaster two years ago, I often find myself referring back to your site for your wise words, James.

If you do find any wise words on the site, let me know so I can look at them, please. I appreciate your compliment. Thank you very much. I'm always glad that things are at least marginally helpful. Frank Maynard got in touch with us Now. Frank is the author of a blog called Bob White Blather And you really ought to check it out.

If it's not already on your reading list, it should be. Frank wanted to comment on the question we answered about the way that Scouters deal with district and council relationships, the way units deal with it, And Frank had this to say: he said your first contact should be with your unit commissioner, who is a key member of your volunteer leadership team. They're there to help you have a successful unit, give you support you need from the district and council.

So get in touch with your commissioner and articulate your concerns and those of the parents in your unit. Hopefully they will be able to help you and a good idea is to add them to your email list so that they're getting the same announcements that everyone else in the troop is, and make sure to invite them to attend your committee meetings. If you don't have a commissioner, you don't know who they are. Contact your district executive and remember you can also help out the district or council yourself. You don't have to take on a leadership role. You can always help with a camp or a day camp or another kind of district or council event, And I certainly agree with Frank's advice.

Thank you, Frank, for kind of rounding out the subject. On that Heard from John Quintana. He says: my spouse and I just came home from an Eagle Court of Honor for our oldest son and another Scout from our troop And the Steve Miller band tuned, Fly Like an Eagle came to mind. I'll give everybody a moment to think about that.

You know the tune right. The song's aspirations are like the charge given to Eagle Scouts: flying into the future.

Because you know, time keeps slipping into the future, It comes to mind that our Eagles don't fly so much as hike one foot in front of the other, sometimes with blistered feet. Most would like to sprout wings and fly during a hike. Yes, you're right, John. I've been with Scouts that have seen the Northern Lights for the first time, climbed mountains, braved cold weather. I've been honored to help bring these experiences to them.

Of the 55,186 young men who achieved Eagle Rank in 2016,, we don't really want them flying into the future quite so quickly. We need them hiking and inspiring the rest of us.

There were two more Eagles who opened their eyes today to go into the world toward uncharted paths, and for that we should be thankful, And I couldn't agree more with you, John. Thanks so much for those thoughts And congratulations to you and your family for your son's achievement One. One path ends and another begins. Right Over on Facebook last week got some comments about our last podcast, number 342.. Jerry Fraley said the best recruitment is a good outdoor program where the Scouts decide what to do. Couldn't agree with you more, Jerry, And that's why I emphasize the idea of inviting prospective Scouts to go camping.

Get them out camping, That's the heart of the program. Jim Brown said. I am the official recruiter for our council here in Alberta, Canada. I find little difficulty in recruiting youth. The major difficulty lies in recruiting adults.

Well, it's a different kind of recruiting, I guess, and getting adults to volunteer can sometimes be a bit of a bit of a challenge, If it's helpful at all. Jim, one of the things that I've hit on over the years is to ask people to help with tasks rather than get them to take on roles.

You know, a task has a beginning, a middle and an end. It's something that's a little more comprehensible to most people than actually being in an open-ended commitment of occupying a volunteer role. But once they have completed a couple of tasks they'll probably express an interest in the role. Part of things Patrick Huber commented. I couldn't get us the negative reply to the email about the district and council.

Well, Patrick, I wasn't trying to be negative, I was trying to be reasonably neutrally positive. How about that? I mean, we all know how all of this is supposed to work ideally. We know how scout troops are supposed to work ideally and districts are supposed to work ideally and councils are supposed to work ideally, But we encounter it at all kinds of different levels. Maybe being a little neutral or realistic sounded negative, but that wasn't my intention. Hey, we're still out there having a live chat every Tuesday morning around 8 am Eastern time.

Sign on over at scoutmastercgcom and join us. Like Sean Montano, who is a Scoutmaster from Troop 925 in Katie, Texas. Allen, who's an assistant Scoutmaster from Tulsa, Oklahoma, Adam Roth is a cub master in Plainview, New York. And Sean Mitchell is with Troop 27 in Snyder, Texas, where he's an assistant Scoutmaster.

All those folks signed on to the chat for their first time this past week, along with many others who we call our frequent fliers, who show up almost every time we have a chat. It's always good to check in with everybody. Sometimes we discuss serious things and sometimes we just don't. Once again, Tuesday mornings around 8 am Eastern time, you can lurk and just see what's being chatted about, or you can join in the conversation. I hope you do Watch our Facebook feed and our Twitter feed for an announcement when the live chat will be happening.

Well, I want to pause and thank everybody who helps make the blog and the podcast possible. There's two ways to do that.

You could be a backer or you can be a patron And joining the ranks of backers this week, make a one-time payment in support of the blog and the podcast are Scott Madden, Alan Urlemans, Chris Thornhill and Gary O'Neill, And then we added a couple of patrons to this week, and patrons sign up for a voluntary monthly subscription. That helps us out.

And I want to thank Linda Bastion. Linda Bastion, if the name seems familiar, yes, that's Wade's mom And my fellow scouter.

Thank you so much, Linda And David Werner Both became patrons since the last podcast. If you want to become a backer or a patron, go to any page at scoutmastercgcom. You'll find links in the menu in the top right of any page And I'll have links in this episode's podcast notes.

Well, the remainder of the podcast will be taken up with answering some email questions. How about that for a change, or no change at all?

Well, I hope they find. I hope the answers are useful to you.

So let's get started, shall we?

He's my favorite all time boy scout. Well, his first email, the sender asked to remain anonymous And it begins like this: I have a scout who earned life rank three years ago. About six months after that he completed the six month requirement in a position of responsibility.

He's completed all of his required merit badges And then he disappeared for three years. About a month or two ago he started working on his Eagle project.

Now he isn't coming to troop meetings or events, but he's working on his project. I became the Scoutmaster two years ago And in that time I haven't had the opportunity to see him as an active member of our unit. If somebody was to ask me: is he an active scout, I'd have to say no.

So my question is: what would you do in my situation? This scouts going to approach me and ask me to sign off that requirement in Eagle that says that he's an active scout, And I'm wondering if I should get him to be active in the troop for a few months before I sign off that requirement.

Well, you know, the situation you describe is pretty easy to sort out Actually. First, there's really no reason to require the scout to redo any requirements. They have no expiration date other than his 18th birthday. If the active requirement is signed off in his book, the fact that he fulfilled that requirement never expires.

Okay, If it's not, then it's time to sit down and have a discussion with the scout. But it kind of follows: if the scout hasn't already fulfilled the role of responsibility requirement, he must have been active in his troop to do so.

So there's really not a whole lot of question. That is fulfilled the requirement.

So let's look at that active requirement for a moment. It says be active in your troop for a period of at least six months as a life scout. It does not say be active for the past six months, It says be active in your life scout.

So once that requirement's fulfilled, it never expires. If the scout didn't participate actively in the troop for three years, that doesn't nullify the fact that he's already completed that requirement.

Now I understand you didn't necessarily witness any of this service or activity, but there's a lot of requirements that get fulfilled that we don't witness. Like most Meribadge requirements, correct, You should not and may not to become active again if he's already fulfilled the requirement. It's really just black and white policy. That's very clearly spelled out in the Guide to Advancement.

So it's really not my opinion, right? I mean, this isn't a matter of opinion or style or differences like that. It's basically this is just the way that it is.

So happily this doesn't really need to be a concern of yours, and soon you'll have a new Eagle Scout. I heard from George Stockburger, who's with Troop 99 in nearby Newtown, PA, and George said this: I'm the advancement chair for our troop and I'd like to get your opinion on how to interpret the completion of first class requirements 1a and 2a.

Okay, well, my opinion is worthless, George, you know some well. I guess sometimes it's minorly helpful, but my answer will not be opinion.

And George goes on to say: here's the first class requirements I'm asking about. 1a says: quote: since joining, participate in 10 separate troop and patrol activities, 6 of which included overnight camping. And 2a in part says: quote: help plan a menu for one of the above campouts.

So George asks: is it appropriate to give credit for completing the camping requirements in 1a if the Scout has not completed the cooking requirements for 2a? Requirement 1a doesn't specifically state that the cooking requirement in 2a must be completed to receive credit for the camping requirement. George, you answered your own question because you're right. Requirement 1a doesn't specifically state that the cooking requirement in 2a must be completed to receive credit for the camping requirements.

So these are not interdependent. If they were, it would be very clearly stated.

While this is a pretty simple answer, I want to take the opportunity to point something out that I say very often. The requirements are really pretty simple. If you sit down and read them without trying to interpret them.

If you run up against something in a requirement that seems to challenge the way that you understand something, that is good and then find out if the way you understand things is correct or not, I've had the opportunity to correct myself in by just simply reading the requirements and going: oh well, that's not what I thought at all, that's. Oh okay, I see the way that the requirement is written is different from the way I understand things.

So instead of looking for something that is not there or trying to bend the wording of the requirement to the way I understand things, I think I will just take it at face value. It makes life so much simpler and in my ideal scouting world.

Of course every requirement would be very easy to understand and there would be no question about them. But you know I don't get to live in that world and neither do you, fortunately. I'll just repeat myself. Read the requirements simply. If what they say at face value challenges one of your assumptions, then challenge that assumption, see if it's right or wrong. It's a good thing to do.

It makes you a better scouter. And our third advancement related email will remain anonymous and it says this: I'd like to get your thoughts on the scoutmaster conference. My interpretation is that it is objective, but the ones being run by our scoutmaster seem to be subjective. I replied with this. I said I have plenty of advice on how to conduct scoutmaster conferences, but their purpose is very clearly explained in the guide to advancement, which says in part- quote: it is a forum for discussing topics such as ambitions and life purpose and goals for future achievement, for counseling and also for obtaining feedback on the unit's program. Unquote, and you can find that in.

Ready. Here we are. It's guide to advancement, section number time.

Do you have your pencil ready? I'll give you a second. It's section four, point two, point three, point five. I'll have a link to this in the podcast notes, don't worry, and that section is entitled the unit leader or scoutmaster conference. That's where I got the quote that I just read to you.

So this isn't a matter of opinion or difference in style. Again, it's just basically sitting right there in black and white.

It's easy and you know, going along with my little sub theme here, if that challenges your assumption about what a scoutmaster's conference is, you need to change your assumption, because it's very easy to understand. It's right there in black and white.

And the author of that email got back to me with this said: our scoutmaster conferences seem to be well beyond what's described on your site, as well as what I can find in the scouting literature. They generally run from one one and a half hours after a seventy five minute conference. My son reported back that he did not get signed off and the scoutmaster wants him to come back and demonstrate a laundry list of skills. The scoutmaster, in an email to my son, asserts that this is not a test, but a scout at your level should know about the following skills in order for us to have a conversation to see where you are in scouting. From my perspective, this conference seems to have been a test because he did not pass all of the test areas and thus was not signed off. To be clear, he's met all the requirements per the scout handbook and has all of these things already signed off.

My reply to that is: I'm sorry that this scoutmaster doesn't get it- and this is actually more common than you'd hope. And this scoutmaster can assert that what he's doing in a conference is not a test, and I'll bet he's already read the guide to advancements that you can't retest.

So he said: well, I just won't call it a test. Well, I'm sorry, you can call a dog an antelope, but it's still a dog. And what is happening is that this scoutmaster has wrongly assumed that he's supposed to retest a scout on every skill before he signs off on a conference.

So when you read that section of the guide to advancement it very clearly states: the conference is not a test or a pass, fail kind of an operation. It's talking to a scout about a given set of subjects, checking up on the unit program, seeing what kind of experience the scout is having, asking him what his goals are, what his ambitions are. It's great. It's a great talk to have in the guide to advancement the recommended time for a scoutmaster conference from scout to life is maybe 10 or 15 minutes and it does allow that an eagle scoutmaster conference may go up to 30 minutes, maybe longer.

So if a scoutmaster's conference is a long, laborious test, taking an hour to an hour and a half, somebody is not understanding something properly. My best advice usually in this situation is to find another troop with a scoutmaster who gets it, because in my experience most of the time trying to get somebody to change their mind about this is a long, difficult and unpleasant process.

But the writer got back to me and said: well, this is a new scoutmaster's heart's in the right place. We'll work with him.

I don't want to really change troops and you know more power to you. I hope that works for you and I'm not saying that it won't. All I'm saying is in my experience it can be kind of difficult.

So I'm not going to go into a great deal of detail about scoutmaster conferences but I will have in the podcast notes links to a couple of posts I've written about it in the past. Scoutmaster conference is not particularly difficult to understand. There are no magic robes or top hats or brass bands. It's just sitting down and talking to a scout, and once you've been around the block a few times and you've done some scoutmaster conferences, you'll understand what I mean. It's a great source of information for you and your fellow scouts about how effective your program is, and it's also a great way to get to know a little bit more about your scouts.

So I hope all that helps. I would love to hear from you if you have a question or a comment. I'm going to tell you how to get in touch with me in just a moment. Music.