Scoutmaster Podcast 349

I'm Owen Wilson and I'm a scoutmaster with troop number 868 in Peoria, Arizona. This edition of the Scoutmaster podcast is sponsored by Backers Lightning.

And now it's the old scoutmaster. Mark Eshin is out in San Bruno, California, where he's the scoutmaster of troop 72. And he wrote in to tell me I had to have a discussion with one of my scouts who, apparently without her permission, took something out of his mother's kitchen to take on a camping trip. Oh, that happens every once in a while.

So we sat down and I talked to him seriously about this and he simply told me it was a whisk. He was willing to take A whisk. He was.

Oh, thanks, Mark, I think.

Hey, this is podcast number 349.. Welcome back to the Scoutmaster podcast. This is Clark Greene. Let's take a look and see who's gotten in touch by opening up our virtual mailbag for a little virtual mail: Steven, Majka. Anyway. Steven got in touch with me and said it's no big deal, but I'm going to mention Anyhow, because of Family Pride and all that My last name is pronounced Gives me three choices here.

I'm going with Makka, Makka, Maka. Yeah, that's what I'm going with. Steven goes on to say: I know you have trouble with city names. Add last names to the mix. Not that it's a big surprise, because it sure doesn't look like it's pronounced the way it's spelled. No, it doesn't, And thank you for that.

Stephen is a wavy loss leader and Coupe Mastery with PAC 43 in Washington. I also heard from Jeremy Steinmeier who said thanks for all the great podcasts. By the way, I've been posting the link to the Ten Essentials PDF for my camping and backpacking outings. The pictures seem to reach Scouts like no other list can.

Well, thanks, Jeremy. It's always good to hear people are finding stuff useful And I'll have a link in the podcast notes so people can find that PDF. And I haven't talked about it in a while. I've got a big, giant PDF package that you can get from ScoutmasterCGcom And these are all things that I've created over the years And one of them is the Ten Essentials.

Like Jeremy says, sometimes you know the pictures are more useful than just a list, So give that a look. Andrea Cooperman got in touch with us about last week's podcast.

We were talking about who leads the leaders And she said: I guess in a way I disagree with the idea that the Scoutmaster and the committee chair dictate the direction of the troop. Yeah, you do need somebody to make the final decisions and at times to be the fall guy. But I found I get more out of my adult leaders when I give them the reins. When I take my ego out of the equation, things generally go smoother. My way isn't always the right way And I have come to recognize what my weaknesses are And I try to encourage other adults to show me new ways of taking care of business.

When I ask them, how can we make this better, What do you think? And someone says that they'll take care of things, I say awesome, How about it?

And how can I help? Well, thanks for that, Andrea.

You know, I don't think we disagree at all, because both of these things are true. The Scoutmaster and the committee chair are supposed to get together and make things happen. The committee chair, in the way that things are set up, has really got the final word on things. If it comes to that- and let's hope it doesn't right- I mean everybody should be able to get together and agree on things. You want to build consensus. You want everybody.

You know: hey, we're doing Scouts, Let's be happy. The style that you apply when you are in that position ought to be exactly as you described. Let people take care of their responsibilities in the best way that they possibly can, And that might be different than you first think it should be. Like you said, Andrea, give them the reins, Let them run with something, Let them be happier. You're going to have that responsibility taken care of.

What could be better, right? I heard from John Patrick Hickey.

You said thanks so much for all the great things you share to advance scouting- Great and fun stuff. Thanks, John Daryl Oakley got in touch to say another great podcast with helpful guidance in regard to the Sasquatch song- That was last week's podcast- played the Sasquatch song.

Where do you find this stuff? Well, Daryl, that particular song comes from a band called Lost Festingos. Lost Festingos- It's actually a band that one of my Scouts who's hiking the Appalachian Trail- we've heard from Bucky Kellogg that's his band.

I'll have a link in the notes so that you guys can find that song and the other ones that Lost Festingos has created. Once a week, when we can manage it- and we've been had a pretty good run here the past several weeks- we get together on Tuesday morning around 8 o'clock Eastern Standard Time for a live chat And a lot of folks show up.

We have a lot of fun. Bill Cooper, who's an assistant Scoutmaster in Oklahoma, showed up for the first time this past week.

Here's how to get in on it: Go over to ScoutmasterCGcom at the appointed time, Most Tuesday mornings, 8 am, Eastern time. At ScoutmasterCGcom, Keep an eye on our Facebook feed and our Twitter feed. There'll be a link directly to the chat, or you go over to ScoutmasterCGcom: Click the live chat button at the bottom right of the page. Come on and join us.

Before I get to the email questions I'm going to answer this week, I want to pause to thank all the folks who are ScoutmasterCGcom backers- Each and every one of you. Thank you so much for your support, And a special personal thank you this week to Steve Berthume, Seth Condell, Brian Norton and Anita Simpson, who all became backers since last week's podcast.

I want to say thank you to everybody who continues to support the blog through a Patreon subscription. 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. It's easy to do And if you join backers or patrons, I'll make sure to thank you personally on next week's podcast. Hey, a little later on today I am going to be talking with the boys again. That's right.

If you've been listening in on the past several podcasts, we've had a few episodes where we get to talk with two of my old Eagle Scouts who are out through hiking the Appalachian Trail. It's been great fun. They are in town this week. They're coming to the troop meeting. I'm going to get to talk with them and we'll record something for an upcoming podcast.

So anyway, you've sent me email questions. I've got answers, So let's get started.

Shall we Write me a letter? Send it by name

Email, that is, folks. And here's an answer to one of your emails. Steve Berthium, who is the Scoutmaster of troop 46 in thingsboro, got in touch to say this: This issue appears to have no easy answer. I have a second class scout who hates camping. He's popular with his peers, He helps out on service project, He intends meetings, but he's just not going to go camping overnight, even if a parent comes along. His parents are a loss to explain it.

There's certainly not overbearing helicopter parents that one might associate with this type of issue. Camping just seems so central to the benefits of scouting.

Can a boy succeed in the program without it? Well, Steve, there's no question that camping is scouting and vice versa. And this scout that you're talking about, if he's second class, he's had to have gone camping overnight and absolutely refusing to go.

I think that something may have gone on on an earlier trip. So my first step would be to ask him about this. Steve got back to me and said I spoke with the scout. I told him I wanted to make sure I hadn't missed anything, He hadn't had any bad experiences. He said none of that had happened. He just hates going camping.

He also told me he planned to leave the troops soon And I asked him to try and stay at least until we reach charter. But he was pretty noncommittal.

Well, Steve, I guess when I was nine or 10, maybe maybe a little younger- I decided I wanted to play a little league baseball. Actually, I had no idea what I was getting myself into, because I was nine or 10..

I was, you know my friends were playing baseball. I thought, well, that's what you do, So let's go play baseball. And I found the whole thing kind of confusing and really, really boring. Frankly, I grew to not like it very much at all My parents insisted that I see that season out And actually when it came down for the next season, even though I hadn't really liked it very much, I signed up again. I went to one or two practices and I realized I wanted nothing to do with it.

So I stopped. I quit Now. I suppose I could have gotten a lot out of the experience, but around 50 years later I don't regret not having played baseball or any other sport. To tell you the truth, I was just kind of as out of place on a sports team as one could possibly be And I suppose I would still be kind of out of place. I don't hate sports, It's just something I don't even have the most passing interest in. It's a totally inaccessible experience for me.

When it comes down to things like this, maybe you know, sometimes boys have like two settings: They love something or they hate something. That's their binary, That's the way they express their feelings. I don't think that the scout you're talking about hates camping. It's maybe just not something he wants to have anything to do with. He might not find the experience to be accessible to him at all- And I get that. I don't have a problem with that- And absent, his parents resolve to require this of him, He'll probably stop being a scout, because scouting means going camping.

He doesn't really think camping is all that great and he's not interested in doing it. And I again, I don't have a problem with that And I have had scouts in the past.

You know, they spend a couple of years in the troop. They may even advance a little bit and then they're at a point where they go.

You know this, I'm not this. This isn't working for me.

I have other things I want to do, better ways to spend my time, And you know what? That's fine. I didn't make a very good baseball player. Some boys just aren't interested in doing scouts.

I think that your due diligence is to find out what's going on, make sure that there's not a problem that can be fixed. But in the end there is a percentage of boys who are not going to be interested in being scouts. And scouting casts a pretty broad net, but it can't be everything to everybody. It has a focus and a concentration and some people are going to like it and some people aren't.

So I don't have a problem with that. I know it's never good news when this happens, but it's nobody's fault.

If indeed this scout does leave the troop, make sure you assure him you aren't distressed or disappointed in him and wish him well and tell him the door is always open if he changes his mind. The sender of this next email asked to remain anonymous.

They said: can a Scoutmaster and assistant Scoutmaster make a scout sign a leadership contract that they will abide by all the rules, be active, serve entire term of leadership and attend most of the troop meetings and troop outing? And if they can actually do this, shouldn't the Scoutmaster request approval from the adult committee before taking the contract to the scouts?

Well, let's break this down into three questions, Two questions you asked me, and both are pretty easy to answer. Can a Scoutmaster or assistant Scoutmaster make a scout sign a leadership contract? I suppose so. Yes, I don't see anything that prevents that, but we'll discuss more about that in a moment.

The second question is: shouldn't the Scoutmaster request approval from the committee before taking a contract to the scouts? You know, I think it would be a good idea, but there's no real statements of policy that I can find describing that kind of approval.

Hopefully everybody knows what's going on, because the Scoutmaster is discussing things with the committee and the committee is discussing things with the Scoutmaster, and there's a dialogue going on there all the time and this would come up. The third question is the one that I ask, and maybe it's the most important one, is that should a Scoutmaster or assistant Scoutmaster make a scout sign a leadership contract?

Well, if you're asking me- and you are- I would say no, And I say this advisedly, because a couple of decades ago I thought that this was a great idea, but it wasn't. It's a bad idea, I guess. At the time I thought that a contract would give me some leverage or it would teach scouts an appreciation of the kind of responsibility they were expected to take on. And we printed that stupid contract out and, of course, they signed it. But they didn't behave any differently than scouts who had never had a contract. They missed meetings and trips, just like before.

I don't know what I was going to do with that contract. I mean, what am I going to do?

Take them to court, You know? Or I guess the best thing I could do with it is show them a piece of paper with their signature on it and say: well, you haven't been keeping up with your contract.

Don't you feel horrible? So I could make scouts feel bad for being teenagers, and that's kind of shooting fish in a barrel.

There are plenty of other people who do that, so why not just join in? But you know, what I came to realize is this: Scouts are volunteering their time just like I am.

I don't have to sign a contract, and there's something about being taken at one's word. I am not their employer. I'm not their boss or their drill sergeant. I am only there to make an opportunity possible for them. And anyone working with young people is going to need to accept that. They're young, inexperienced and barometric.

They're going to make plenty of mistakes. They've got giant blind spots. They have no experience.

You know they're going to come into something like this not understanding at all what they're getting themselves into. They're going to have a problem comprehending what their responsibility is. But with a little bit of work you learn how to be encouraging and how to tap that vast potential that they all have and help them develop themselves into good, contributing adults. And you can't really accomplish that with a contract. What you can accomplish it with is having an open dialogue with your Scouts If you're frustrated about something or if they're missing something or if they don't understand something you know. That's why you're there: To coach them along, to encourage them.

Every tool in our toolbox is a positive thing. If you're using negative methods, get rid of them. Stay positive, Be encouraging, Be helpful, But most of all, understand that you cannot achieve what you think you're going to achieve using something like a contract. Come on Now. The person who originally sent me that question says: I really appreciate your response.

We had a couple of Scouts who didn't perform very well in their positions of responsibility and they were fired. I just thought a Scout couldn't be relieved of their leadership.

Thanks so much for your advice. I'm very grateful.

You know I want to differentiate between a couple of things of what a Scoutmaster can do within the policies and procedures, as I understand them, and the attitude that's the basis of their actions. So the actions that you describe like insisting on that Scouts sign a contract or firing them because they're not doing their job well, is not specifically prohibited in any policies procedures I know of. Once again, as the program is described, it's described in positives, not negatives, In the good things that you can do, not the bad things that you shouldn't do. And when people are doing something like this, it be lies and a lack of understanding on their part of what Scouting is and a problematic attitude towards young people. And when a Scoutmaster adopts this kind of problematic attitude, my general advice is leaving them to themselves and finding another troop where the Scoutmaster better understands their role. I mean, sometimes people say they want to change what's going on and I tell them not to waste their time If it's possible to find another troop that gets Scouting and doesn't deal with these sorts of things.

I heard from Mike Rosslender who's the Scoutmaster, Troop 208 in Westlake, Ohio, and he said I was listening to podcast 199,. Wow, we're going back a ways about the rule in the Guide to Advancement. The words of review should be composed of registered committee members. There's some exceptions for smaller units, but the bias towards registration is high. Registration of adults costs money.

I think that they are already donating their time and we ought not to be asking them to pay for the privilege. Why would any rational committee chair register more than a minimum of adults during annual rechartering?

Anyway? I know as a cub leader I didn't really understand the Boy Scout program until I sat on my first board of review.

I think once parents see how the program really works, they stop fighting it and better support their sons. So I don't really understand why we can't have parents sitting on a board of review and it's limited only to registered committee members.

What am I missing? Well, Mike, I think, as laudable as the goal is there.

I think what you're missing is registered adults have to have a current youth protection training certificate. They also have to pass a background check, And I believe that's an excellent rationale for limiting the participation in boards of review to registered adult volunteers. Unregistered parents on the board, even if it's not for their own son, can possibly be seen as being too difficult or going too easy on somebody else's son If they're not practiced in the way that boards go. That makes every board a training experience, which I don't know that I particularly care for that idea, But I do understand that listening to what goes on at a board of review could be very informative. However, I didn't make the rules.

The BSA makes the rules and we need a minimum of three adults from the committee to conduct a board of review, And I know that that can be a challenge sometimes. I'd recommend this to you Have a regularly scheduled board of review. We do one once a month.

Plan ahead, and you know you have so many committee members. Get them on the roster, Get them to do it. And when it comes to the idea that, yes, it costs money for adults to register as volunteers- it's a pain, You know. They have to go through training.

That's a pain, everything like that- Well, sometimes we just have to settle for the idea that there is a price of doing business. You're going to be a volunteer scouter. That means you are accepting the idea that it's going to cost you a little bit of money. It's going to cost you some training, time and things that perhaps you'd rather not spend. But in my experience the BSA has the lowest bar for becoming a registered volunteer of any other scouting organization in the rest of the world. I am an eternal foe of things like paperwork and filling out forms and paying fees.

Nobody likes it, but it's a price of doing business And so we just it's something that we deal with. So, Mike, I hope that helps.

Well, that's it for the emails this week. I would love to get a question from you or help you out if you have a problem or a situation that could use another set of eyes. I'm easy to get in touch with and I'm going to tell you how to do that in just a moment.