Scoutmaster Podcast 60

And now it's to you, Scoutmaster. The time is marked by a lack of truth. The world turns to Mason. Scoutmaster. Scoutmaster will tell you, knowledge of the precise time of day is essential in the execution of our responsibilities. This is why I am always assured that one of my assistants is in the possession of an accurate chronometer.

Pardon me, William, Yeah, May I ask you to consult your chronometer and to reveal to me its present readings. Uh, yeah, sure, Brick T T, I'm not Exactly.

What are you saying? I just don't quite understand.

Um, what time is it? Oh, alright, yeah, it's ten-fifteen. Thank you, my stalwart assistant. Yeah, no problem.

Hmm, Hey, Mr Mason, how you doing, Do you know what time it is? Well, as any scout should know, if one orients themselves to direct north, as I am doing now, then you use the palm of your hand as a measurement against the azimuth of the solar object, Then one can determine the precise time of day. Really, Really, I don't know about that. That is correct. Really, I make it to be ten-fifteen am. Wow, it's earlier than I thought it was.

Thanks, Mr M. I don't know.

You know, just holding your hands up and stuff like that and looking at the sun, I don't know I wouldn't trust it. Let's go ask Mr Gilead.

Yeah, he's easier, Mr Gilead, yeah, what time is it? It's ten-fifteen. Wow, No kidding.

Wow, Yeah, I guess the old man knows what he's talking about, doesn't he? I'll tell you, I'll never question him again. Join us again for another exciting episode in the career of Rick Mason. Scoutmasters.

Well, how about that? Hey, this is Podcast Number 60..

Welcome back to the Scoutmaster Podcast. This is Clarke Green. Hey, before I get going, just forgive me if I've been a little behind on answering emails or responding to comments on the blog. I'm working on a new home for the Scoutmaster blog and podcast online and I'm very excited about being able to expand some of the resources that we offer and put everything in an updated format, and I will make sure to tell you a little bit more about that soon. It's not quite ready for prime time yet, but I'm really looking forward to getting the new website launched. This is what came across the Translum this week on the blog about our interview with Les Stroud and his book Will to Live.

Jason had this to say: he says it's a great book and, like you said, it takes a little getting used to the style, but after you do. It's a great read with amazing stories.

Got to agree, Jason, One of the better books I've read so far this year. We did a post on the blog about power tools and CO Scouter got in touch and said thanks very much for addressing this topic. It, along with fixed blade knives, are two areas where scouting legend rather than BSA policy often seem to guide folks' actions. Scouts often participate in inherently dangerous activities like rock climbing and shooting and swimming and diving and hiking and camping and clement weather. These are the very things that often draw boys to scouting.

Our responsibility as adult leaders is to provide access to these activities in the safest manner we can, not to avoid them to keep ourselves absolutely safe. Well, I got to agree with you there.

CO Challenge and, you know, measured risk- that's all part of the program and I often get questions about the use of power tools and scouts and everything like that. Go to the blog at scoutmastertypepadcom and look at the post.

Can Scouts Use Power Tools? You'll get some answers for it. Last time on Podcast 59, we talked about a few things. Mark in San Diego wrote in to say this: another classic podcast. Although some moms may not want their sons to grow up. It is precisely these boys that benefit the most from being away from home for a week without mom.

I think it's also exactly the case that the issue here is not if the boy will survive, but if mom will survive. Some moms kind of don't know what to do with themselves except worry. Yes, absolutely.

The best path is to have a wing woman- Okay, Jason, I think I get that- Instead of a wing man, a wing woman who is going to step in and commiserate As men. Often there's just no way we can understand. Just ask a mom and she will tell you.

There's no way we can understand, Unbeknownst to me. Last year my wing woman set up a mom's night at her house on the Wednesday of summer camp for some of the moms to get together, have some wine and get over the hump. What a brilliant idea. Hey, Jason, that is a good idea. I'll have to float that one and see if it makes sense to anybody. On homesickness, we had one case where a first-year scout was getting multiple letters a day from home almost from the time we arrived at camp, giving him more homesick rather than less.

For the first couple of days it was fine, but it just got worse After a while we just held on to those letters and we gave them back to him before going home. He was always too busy and having fun to be homesick or take the time to read letters.

Last year we had a first-year scout get seriously homesick, you know, kind of crying and balled up on his cot in his tent. Three older scouts would walk him all around camp and just talk to him about stuff and I can't describe how proud I am of the compassion and sense of duty the older scout showed in making sure he got through it. This is one of my all-time favorite assistant Scoutmaster moments. The homesick boy is hooked for life. He's not missed one troop meeting or a camping trip all year.

Well, thanks, Jason for the comment, and you know I got to agree. When our older scouts reach out they're compassionate, kind.

You know human beings. It's a huge difference, doesn't it?

And if you haven't caught on yet and you didn't listen to the last podcast, we were talking a little bit about the reluctant, overcoming the reluctance of moms to send first-year scouts to summer camp. So go back and listen to podcast 59 if you haven't heard that, and you'll pick up on it. Larry Geiger weighed in on the same podcast, same subject. He says this: I didn't develop a lot of sensitivity to soothing mom's quivering worries, but I've always had an assistant Scoutmaster who's a lot more sensitive than I am. The younger scouts always go to him. Older scouts always come to me about leadership problems and outdoor stuff.

You might be much more sensitive than I am. I have letters of documentation about how insensitive, inflexible, indifferent and intransigent and rigid I am.

Oh well, Larry, I think you're selling yourself short. Yeah, you might feel that way, but I don't think you're that way. That was a great idea. I sort of used my assistant Scoutmaster for that, but I like the whole idea of moms talking to moms. There's a whole range of ideas you could use to make this work. Keep the good stuff coming.

Well, we'll do our best, Larry, and you keep on commenting. We certainly do appreciate it. Blaise Vitali, he wrote in. He was featured in a call-in segment last week. He says thanks for using my question on this week's podcast. I enjoyed the answer.

The new troop plans are coming together. I'm also about halfway through reading Working the Patrol Method, the book, and I'm trying to have all the boys do a bit more. However, at this level. They seem to just want the adults to run the show. Hopefully that will change as they get more experiences camping next to other Boy Scout troops. Yeah, they're going to catch on pretty quick, Blaise.

I wouldn't be too concerned about that And I would suggest reading Working the Patrol Method to every new and old Scoutmaster out there. It's a very worthy read. Rob Ferris and Harry Wimbrow and the guys did a fantastic job on that book. And go to scoutmastertypedcom, You'll see it right there. Blaise went on to say I wish there were a way that you could teach meal planning and preparation on the blog.

Yeah, well, we got a few things on there. It seems the best way to learn this topic is by doing it, but I don't want the troop to suffer through the learning process.

Well, first of all, Blaise, thanks for getting back in touch. Always appreciate it. I got to tell you cooking in Scouts, something we've talked about many times. Yeah, I have like my expectation. I hope that they bring food and I hope that they cook it.

How about that? You know ramen noodles. They can be eaten in a brick without any water. I know I've had Scouts prove it.

Yeah, how about that? Also heard from Tom Gillard from down in Tennessee. He had some very nice things to say and he also offered the story That was the basis for our little brick mason segment just before we got to you here.

So thanks very much, Tom, And thanks for staying in touch. I told you about this last week and you still have a chance to do it. If you're in the Wisconsin area, there is an expedition canoeing school by Cliff Jacobson.

It's going to be a weekend here the first weekend in April and there will be information about that. If you're in the Wisconsin area and you can get to that, you're planning a canoe trip, or if you're not planning a canoe trip, spending a weekend with Cliff Jacobson, who is a world-renowned canoe guide and author, is well worth the time. I wish I could get there, but just can't make it to Wisconsin.

So look on the blog scoutmastertypepadcom for a link to information about the expedition canoeing school. The Scoutmaster newsletter will be out this week and the subject of the newsletter, which is a review of the podcast and the blog usually set up around a monthly theme, is going to be bridge-crossing season, And we're going to talk a little bit about that in Scoutmastership in seven minutes or less here in a moment.

But yeah, it's bridge-crossing season and time to think about what goes on there and how we can make that process work well as we bring new Weeblows from their Weeblows Den into the Boy Scout troops And we got a great giveaway. We have some products from E-Lite and E-Lite is a really kind of a cool new electrolyte replacement product And for a few drops from a concentrate added to any bottle of water is going to give you a great electrolyte replacement.

And if you listened back when we were talking with Dr Auerbach in the interview- I think it was podcast 58 or 57, Dr Auerbach recommended this product and I went and found out about it, And E-Lite people were good enough to give us some samples and to give us a kit that we are going to make the newsletter giveaway this time. So make sure you're subscribed to the newsletter.

It comes by email once a month And to subscribe you can go to scoutmastertypepadcom and there you go, You'll be all set. Well, we're going to talk a little bit about welcoming Weeblows into the troop and Scoutmastership in seven minutes or less. All right, we got a couple other things to do and that's plenty for this podcast.

So let's get started, shall we

Scoutmastership in seven minutes or less? Well, it's that time of year, It's time to welcome new Scouts who are crossing the bridge from their Weeblows, Dad.

And while I'm not going to go into step-by-step logistics here, I think it's important for us to take a moment and discuss some of the broad underlying concepts that are going to help make these new Scouts into old Scouts one day. Conventional wisdom says that that first year of a Scout's experience in his new troop is very, very important And it has a large bearing on his continuing in Scouting for the next several years.

Now there's a lot of shifting alliances and interests in adolescence that are beyond the control of any Scoutmaster. But there are some important steps that we can take to assure that we're going to get these new guys and they are going to stick with the program and they're going to get something out of it. Perhaps the first one is to kind of analyze the relationships that are going on. There's two or three different things to look at. One is a relationship between your older Scouts and your younger Scouts. The other one is a relationship between the newer Scouts who are coming into the troop that they have with each other, And one is between your new family's parents and yourself and the other adults who are involved with the troop.

I wouldn't assume, because we below has joined a troop as a den, that they should all remain together as a group. Now. They may have been great high functioning, They may have given great chemistry amongst those boys and they may be good pals.

And you know, after the past couple of years of being in a we below's den together, maybe a couple of them have worn out their welcome with each other. So talking to a den leader or the den chief who you've had in with, that we below's den is a good idea.

Which of these boys work well together, which of them are kind of bad juju, if you know what I mean. Which of them kind of set each other off? That might be a big thing for their first year. In making a few adjustments. Many troops use the new scout patrol plan very successfully. I've adapted some of the concepts and made a couple of changes to adapt it to work in our troop.

A lot of times a we below's den will form a new patrol and sometimes they'll become members of an existing patrol. It really depends on the boys who are coming in and the way that our patrols are set up at the time.

What I think is important is the scouts aren't in some kind of junior patrol or in a situation where they're just totally overseen by adults or have a lot of adult involvement in their patrol, because that's basically just like doing a third year of we below's. Now I think they need to be a good, strong, independent patrol, off on their own doing their stuff. It will take them a little while to catch on to that, but a little mentoring and a little oversight is a good thing, but giving them a lot of room and making sure that they are in a real patrol.

Let's talk about the relationship between your new scouts and your older scouts. This can be a problem sometimes. The attitude with which your troop receives new scouts is crucial.

Now I don't have to really tell anybody listening to this that we don't do hazing or initiations or bullying in scouts. We don't do that for adults, We don't do that for youth. Anyone who walks through the door and signs a form is a full member of scouting and your scout troop. They're a full member of their patrol.

They are full participants in every aspect of the program and the program is planned to accommodate them as well as the older scouts. Now, it might take a little explaining, It might take a little time, but older scouts need to understand that leadership is an opportunity for service, not an excuse for exercising their lordly authority over the little guys. It's also important to them in their scouting to advance in rank.

They're going to need to have a position of responsibility, and who are they going to be responsible for? Well, these new guys.

Now, the new guys are going to tire them out. The new guys aren't going to know what to do. The new guys aren't going to be all that cool, but we're going to work along with our older boys to make sure that they understand the importance of new scouts in their troop, to remind them to be a little empathetic, to remember what their experience was when they came into the troop and how they felt and the way that they looked up to or respected the older scouts or maybe had a problem with them. But a little discussion about this is always in order and it's always a good thing to sit down with your youth leadership and remind them how important all of this is and how important it is to be friendly and kind to the new scouts who are coming into the troop.

We want to have lots of positives. We want to have acceptance and support and positive reinforcement for our new guys.

We need to take every opportunity to make them feel at home and safe and wanted. We need to be careful not to belittle them.

We need to be careful not to, you know, make a big thing out of their inevitable mistakes or misconceptions about the way things go, but just to help them along, mentor and be kind and friendly to them. The third relationship is the relationship of the parents of new families with the troop committee and the Scoutmaster and things like that. I have a new motto for this, called assume nothing. Assume nothing.

I mean, if you've been around scouting for a while and you and your family are used to it and you know how to make things happen and what happens at campouts and things like that, we often will take that and we'll kind of forget what it was like to be new and to not know exactly what was going on with your son or maybe where he was going or what was going to happen at campouts and things, And you know, truth be told, I get a little tired of that. I get a little tired of answering the same questions over and over again, but I do make sure that new parents have all of my contact information and understand that they can call me with any question or concern that they have anytime and we'll do our best to take care of it.

The other thing is our troop committee puts together a little new parents orientation and gets them together so that they can meet each other, meet some of the other parents in the troop and learn a little bit about the things that are going to happen next and how planning is done and how preparations are made for campouts and things like that. You know, it's a vitally important thing that I think a lot of troops end up missing sometimes And when parents get discouraged, scouts get discouraged, And when scouts get discouraged they vote with their feet and they walk away from the scouting and they walk away from the program.

So that's just a few thoughts on how to make new scouts welcome and how to make sure that they stay on and become our older scouts Music. Hi, I'm Kevin Callum, the Happy Camper and you're listening to the Scoutmaster Podcast Music.

That's right, it's time for a Scoutmaster's minute Music. Well, you might not know this, but I have spent most of my adult life as a carpenter. That's right. I've been in the trades most of my adult life and I can tell you from experience that one of the most essential tools for a carpenter to have is an accurate measuring tape. It's a pretty important thing.

The other thing is, I can tell you, is that the most overrated tool that a carpenter has is a measuring tape. And here's why Sometimes, if you have to cut out a piece of wood to fit into a space, if you go and you measure and you transfer the measurements well, you can make a mistake or you can misread something A lot of times. It's easier if it's possible to hold the piece of wood right to the place where you need it and mark it right. There Don't need a measuring tape at all.

Now, what in the world does this have to do with scouts? Well, boys are like boards. I mean they're rarely uniform, featureless raw material. They have twists and knots and difficult cross-grained areas that has to be adapted to the task at hand. As Scoutmasters, we might have measuring tapes of rules and policies and requirements from advancement to work on the boys with and to measure their performance with, but it's rarely that accurate. It's rarely the way that it looks in the books and the pictures right.

What it is is. It's making do with what we have and making sure that the measurements we use are individual.

Now your house is probably a good, secure, dry, warm, durable place to live and probably enjoyed a great deal. Scouts likewise. They need to be decent people, good citizens, capable leaders, reliable, just like a good house. Any carpenter who insisted that every dimension of a house be consistent to the fraction of an inch would end up being really frustrated, because the world just doesn't work that way. Any Scoutmaster who wants to make similar demands on the precision of his scouts, that they all measure up to the exact same thing, that they all look alike, that they all act alike- is going to find that they are trading the perfectly acceptable for the absolutely perfect.

A dimensionally perfect house in theory is possible, but it wouldn't function any better than a house that maybe was off a quarter of an inch here and there. And get out of measuring tape and measure your own house if you doubt it. There isn't one out there. There isn't a perfectly square, perfectly level, perfectly plumb house in existence. It just doesn't happen.

But they're very comfortable and they're secure and they're durable and we enjoy living in them, just the way that we want our scouts to be. We want them to be comfortable and secure and durable in life And we do that not by measuring them to the fraction of an inch, but by making sure that the skills that we share with them and the maturity they reach fits the purpose at hand. Remember, each one's a little different. Each one measures up to the extent of their highest reach and his fellow scout's highest reach, And the test of our work as Scoutmasters is not perfect achievement, but the character of our scout.