Scoutmaster Podcast 66

And now it's the old Scoutmaster. You know why Scoutmasters make lousy timekeepers. I haven't met one yet who knows how long a minute is- Yeah, including me.

Well, this is podcast number 66..

Hey, welcome back to the Scoutmaster podcast. This is Clarke Green.

Well, let's see. Here We're going to get all the emails and comments and reviews that have come in in the past week. Let's go first to iTunes. Todd Grady left a nice rating on iTunes where he said: Scoutmaster Clarke Green shares his years of experience with the BSA in a concise, informative and fun format. Wow, thanks, Todd. Always nice to get some kind words.

Rob wrote in to say the new website is awesome. Thank you very much. It's at scoutmastercgcom- Scoutmastercgcom.

Still a lot of stuff to get online there and some plans for the future, So keep an eye on it. Tom Heading, who is in troop 406 in Kashocton, Ohio- I hope I said Kashocton properly. Tom Says this. I've been involved in scouting since grade school in the 70s and love the insights you share. By the way, I'm putting together some scout songs to play before our next court of honor And I'm looking for all time favorite Boy Scout and the song from Switzerland. I'm having a hard time finding them on iTunes.

Well, Tom, it's pretty simple. What you need to do is go to any one of the posts that contains a podcast and you'll see a little Amazon widget At the bottom of that post and that will point you to the different music that is used on the podcast, And you can go ahead and go to Amazon and buy the MP3 version of that song right there.

So that helps support the people who make the music, and it helps me too. So I really appreciate it and thanks for the kind words, Tom. Steve Jensen is a Scoutmaster in Troop 228 in Santa Clarita, California, And Steve wrote to say: you have no idea how helpful your podcast is. It's taught me how to fish by driving home some basic principles. I can't tell you how many seemingly difficult problems I've solved by just reading the requirements again or going back to what scouting is all about. I'm coming up on my first anniversary as a Scoutmaster and I can honestly say I couldn't have done it without your help.

Your podcasts have done a lot more than just giving me a bunch of responses to canned situations. They've given me a foundation and a basic set of principles so I can come up with my own answers with confidence. The results are obvious. We just picked up 22 new Webelos, a 50% increase in the size of our troop, And our first two campouts have been the best I've ever been on. It's all about following the program. Thank you, Wow, Steve, that is fantastic.

That is really fantastic. I don't think you're listening to the podcast as responsible for getting 22 new Webelos or as to blame for you getting 22 new Webelos.

Hey, folks, imagine that You go to a scout meeting and there's 22 new Webelos there. Wow, that's intense. But, Steve, seriously, thank you for the very kind words and I'm glad that you're finding the podcast useful. Bill McFarlane wrote in. He said I was filling out a NYLT, that's National Youth Leadership Training Form- this morning And I ran across something I had never seen before, or if I had seen it before, it just never clicked with me. The program is an adult-led, boy-run troop model.

Quote unquote. What is an adult-led boy-run troop? I always thought the model troop was boy-led and boy-run. Wow, Bill, I had never seen that statement either, Mostly because we don't really utilize the NYLT thing, but that's a very interesting question. Maybe the adults lead and the boys run, I don't know, It might just be an uncomfortably phrased sentence. Maybe it should have read: adult-mentored and coached and boy-led and run.

But yeah, sharp eye Bill. Maybe somebody else out there has something to contribute in answering that question and you can email me at scoutmastercg at Verizonnet. Scoutmastercg at Verizonnet.

So the Scoutmaster newsletter went out last week and the newsletter is an email newsletter that goes out once a month and it's usually a bunch of resources around a scouting theme. It's a little digest of the blog and the podcast. This month the theme is campfires and cooking. It's one of my favorite things to do. I included some of my favorite resources in there and I included some of my favorite recipes as well. I must say, with all modesty, I am a pretty good campfire cook.

Yeah, I really enjoy doing that. It's one of my favorite things to do And it's a great giveaway. This month too. Usually we are able to include a giveaway from one of our affiliate sponsors And this month it's going to be from the folks at Little Bug, And they manufacture two different wood-burning stoves- a senior and a junior- And we just had a review about these stoves on at scoutmastercgcom. I've used them for years.

I think they're a great alternative to either liquid fuel or, you know, canisterized fuel stoves. I think they're a lot better for the environment as well. They're pretty lightweight, They're pretty easy to use and they just seem to be totally indestructible. I recommend them highly.

And to qualify for the giveaway, you need to be a subscriber to the newsletter And then you need to go ahead and answer a trivia question And then we're going to do a random draw from all the people who provide the correct answer to the trivia question. So go to scoutmastercgcom, hit the subscribe link and subscribe to the newsletter And then you can get away in. You can get away, Nope, You can get in on the giveaway. In this podcast I'm going to answer a question about Scoutmaster Eagle Conferences after scoutmastership, in seven minutes or less.

And then we had a great response to the questions that we asked in our last podcast, podcast number 65. So we'll go and look at those responses after scoutmastership in seven minutes or less, And I think that's probably enough to do in any podcast, wouldn't you say? That's what I would say.

So let's get started.

Scoutmastership in seven minutes or less. Will Hensman, He's a scoutmaster, Scoutmaster Troop 777. And he wrote in to ask this question. He said the discussion in podcast 63 on scoutmaster conferences was very helpful and insightful. I have my first Eagle conference as a scoutmaster.

Do you have any suggestions on how I can encourage my Eagle candidate to prepare for his border review? I think he's truly a great candidate for Eagle. I just want to make sure I do my part for him as a scoutmaster.

Well, Will, congratulations. It's always a great moment when you have somebody who's completed all the work they need for Eagle and is ready to sit down with you at a scoutmaster conference. It's a great moment and a great relief in a lot of cases, especially if they are 18, 11 months, two weeks and seven days or three days or whatever you know.

Here's what I do. First of all, my Eagle scoutmaster conferences are not very formal and they're pretty brief, And here's the reason why Most of the time I've been in a pretty continuous dialogue with a scout who is getting ready to go to an Eagle border review. He's been working on a project.

He's been has had at minimum 10 months of a leadership position in the Troop, So we've had plenty of opportunity to talk back and forth, And so the first thing I will do is I will reassure him that he's a quality guy that he did all the work that he needed to do and that he should be very pleased with what he has done. I'll give him an encapsulated evaluation, My encapsulated evaluation of him as a leader, which will typically be: you know, you're a very capable leader, You're very well.

I remember several instances where it got difficult for you, but you rose to the challenge and you should be very satisfied. So putting him at ease is a pretty important thing.

And then, talking a little bit about the border review, it's much like all the other boards of review that you've had. There'll be some more people there.

They'll be asking more questions than usual And they will be evaluating your Eagle project- and you know it's quite a big deal- recommending whether or not you should become an Eagle Scout. I have no doubt in my mind that they will recommend you become an Eagle Scout. But let's prepare a little bit for the types of questions you're going to be asked.

Now, what kinds of questions do you imagine they're going to ask you? And if I met with you know, kind of a blank stare.

We'll start teasing that out a little bit by this method of socratic questioning, if you want to put a fancy name to it, which is basically just, you know, asking questions to help people hone their thinking and to help them be on their feet in a conversation. It also helps them be unexpected and be able to be flexible in commanding the subject that they're working with and being able to answer questions directed to them.

So I will get kind of pushy with my questions And my scouts by this time have learned to understand that this is a little game that we play, that I'm not trying to be mean or judgmental or I'm not disappointed in them in some way, But I ask these hard questions because it helps them think. It helps them think forward and helps them prepare and also should help them discover any places where they are unprepared or where they're a little weak in their thinking or knowledge.

So it's a bit of a game. So tell me how your project qualifies to be considered a fulfillment of the requirement for Eagle And once in a while I'll get a blank stare back.

I'll say, well, tell me what the requirement for Eagle is. So far as the project is concerned, I'll say, well, open the Scout Handbook there, read it.

Okay, now defend your project based on that requirement. Tell me what you did as a leader. Tell me why you think that that experience should fulfill the requirement for Eagle.

So far as leadership is concerned, What were your most difficult decisions? What was the most difficult time you had as a leader?

What do you figure you got really good? How do you figure you contributed to your troop?

What were your best achievements as a leader in your opinion? Now, why was that a great achievement Or why was that a difficult time?

And, like I said, I'm kind of pushy And then I can also let them turn the tables on me and ask me difficult questions and kind of push me around it. Like I say, if you work it right, it's kind of a game that you play with your Scouts And you want them to push back, You want them to defend themselves and their ideas, And that's, you know, the method of Socratic Questioning. That's what really makes it work.

So Will. I hope that helps you a little bit. Once again, congratulations, And I would love to hear from any of you who have other input into what should be discussed or how to conduct a Scoutmasters conference with an Eagle candidate.

So do get in touch. Hi, I'm Kevin Callan And I'm listening to Scouts Master iPod. No, I can't.

What is it called again? Hi, I'm Kevin Callan, the happy camper, And you're listening to the Scouts Master podcast. Beautiful, beautiful. Write me a letter, Send it my name. Email- that is folks. I'm Kevin Callan, Email.

That is folks.

And here's an answer to one of your emails. In podcast number 65, I turn the tables on you and I asked you four different questions And I received a whole bunch of answers. I've weeded through them a little bit and I'm going to give you some ones that I selected that sounded really good And I'm going to answer three of those questions.

One of the questions was about high adventure opportunities in the central part of the United States, And those answers are going to show up online as posts in the High Adventure Resources area of ScoutsMasterCGcom, So be looking for those there. And we're going to answer the other three questions right here right now.

The first one that we came up with was: what do you do when a ScoutsMaster is retiring but he doesn't really leave And you know he's causing problems and he's interfering with the present ScoutsMaster? There were two basic strings of thought in most of the answers I received on this. One was the nice guy way and one was the old warhorse way.

Now, I think both of them are perfectly valid, and I'm going to start with Larry Geiger, who's in Cocoa Beach, Florida. There's a ScoutsMaster there And this is his second go round as a ScoutsMaster.

Larry was a ScoutsMaster for another troop in another place and then became a ScoutsMaster again. And Larry has this to say: He says: you really only have two options, and the first one is to get rid of them. And Larry, I wholeheartedly agree.

Larry's an old warhorse, and so am I, In the best sense of the term, I hope In the best sense of the term. You want to be as nice as possible, You want to be kind and considerate and a good person, But sometimes volunteers need to be fired. I'm saying it. I am saying it. Sometimes they need to go, And to do that, you get the Chartered Organization representative and the committee chairman and you sit down and you talk and you make a move and you get it done and you get rid of the problem. Sometimes that's the only solution.

It's extreme, but I'm sharing it with you because if you are presently finding yourself in this situation, that may be your alternative and that may be what you need to do, Without going into a broad explanation and detail of exactly how this process happens and the different issues involved in it. Let's just know that that is one alternative. If you need some help with a situation like this, get in touch. Do what I can. The second one was: I'll go to Larry's second answer because it was backed up by several others. Larry said work with the person and he pointed this out.

He says a troop can only have one Scoutmaster and only one. I can imagine two committee chairs, maybe splitting up some of the responsibility of the leaders. The scouts, the boy leaders and the other adults involved with the troop have to know who has the last word on some things and you need one Scoutmaster. Larry goes on to say this. He says: when I retired from being Scoutmaster of my first troop, I joined the committee. I helped out a little with Eagles and I went on a couple of backpacking trips.

They went on a 50 miler every other year with that for about six years. But that's about it and in retrospect that might have been too much. Larry found a place. Having been the Scoutmaster before, having understood the program, found a way to get out of the way. But still help. Steve Janssen, he's a Scoutmaster too, from troop 228 in Santa Clarita, California.

Steve was on the nice guy side of things but he still understood that this could be a problem and he suggested the same thing that Larry did. There may be another position, there may be a way for them to still remain and help out the troop. There's also Bill McFarlane who is up in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Scoutmaster troop 8 suggested that unexperienced Scoutmaster would be a valuable person to have at the district level as a commissioner.

But going back to what Steve had to say, he said I think it's good to have the person as a mentor, assertive, listen to their advice and say: well, here's what I'm going to do. Anyway, I'm not really asking for your approval and I'm going to move forward. And the old Scoutmaster needs to understand that he may see his job as filling a vacuum and if you don't let that vacuum exist in the first place, you won't have the problem.

I think those are some pretty good answers that should help define a couple of alternatives and just to review one is: hey, sometimes you got a clean house and you got to get an interfering volunteer out of the way, and there's ways to make that happen. That's one alternative. The second one is making sure that they have a responsibility, that it's clearly understood that that's their responsibility and that they have retired from other responsibilities and being assertive about it.

One of the ways Steve puts it is: you need to let them know that they made a real difference and their experience is still valued, and then to use their advice and their counsel, but to make it clear that it's now your responsibility. Thanks, guys, for helping out with that.

The second question: I'm not going to tell you where the answers come from, and the reason is it's a little sensitive. The second question is: how do you address a scout who gets in trouble outside of scouts?

Here's a couple possible scenarios: he gets stopped by the police because he's involved in some kind of a physical altercation and maybe charges stem from that. Maybe he is gets a traffic violation. Maybe he has some kind of weapons violation. Maybe he gets in trouble at school for any one of a hundred reasons and ends up getting himself suspended or even expelled.

What kind of notice does the troop need to take of it? How do you deal with it and what happens to the scout? Everyone who answered the question agreed that there's no universal way to handle this.

It all depends on what the incident was and that the decision point came down to: is this a clear and present danger to any other scouts? So if a boy gets a traffic violation for speeding, not necessarily a clear and present danger to any other scouts, if he's having trouble at school, getting suspended for grades or something like that, you know, and that's one thing. If it's a violent problem, if it's a weapons violation, if it's a drug violation, there was a pretty much agreement that this has to be looked at very seriously, that it might involve asking the scout to step away from scouting for a period of time.

I'm going to give you advice based on my experience and based on the answers I got, and that is is that none of us- unless you're a professional and you're volunteering as a scout leader, none of us are law enforcement officers or lawyers or judges, and we have an excellent law enforcement system, we have a great court system and we have ways for these things to get sorted out, and I think it's very important, before we make any long-term decisions, to let these things come to resolution. I did have a scout who had a weapons violation and it resulted in some charges. It resulted in a real mess for him.

It was a very bad scene, but realizing that I'm not a professional investigator, policeman, I'm not a lawyer, I'm not a professional law enforcement person, what we had to decide to do was to let the processes outside of scouting come to a place and come to a conclusion before we were going to take any long-term action, since the charges were a clear and present danger to other scouts. If they proved to be true, we had to get in touch with his folks and say: look, the nature of the charges are such that we're going to have to ask him to step away until they're resolved. This isn't a punishment, we're not trying to be even more miserable, but it's our duty to our scouts and families to take this step. It was not a happy day for me, not a happy day at all, but that's unfortunately what has to happen sometimes.

I do want to give credit for this answer to Steve Jensen, because I think it's just general advice and Steve wasn't relating to me any specific or anything like that. But he said: at this point the boy's entire world is likely to have crashed around him, he's suspended from school or he's in trouble and his family is likely very angry and may be punishing him too, and the troop doesn't necessarily have to join in.

We need to remind him about the responsibilities he accepts each time he states the scout oath of law. We need to tell him we expect him to meet those responsibilities and then we need to believe in him. This is probably a critical juncture in that boy's life.

Which direction is he going to go? Is he going to continue on a downward spiral or is he going to get back on track? There's likely enough punishment being doled out to convince the boy he's done something wrong. The troop could be a safe haven, a place where people believe in him and just want him to do better. Steve, that's excellently said and I wanted to make sure you were tied to that statement.

That's just really really good advice, and there are any number of incidents where this is going to be the advice you want to take, where you want to back the child up. He is a child. We do have a juvenile justice system that is different from the adult justice system because it understands that there are different levels of responsibility in people in their developmental years. I had a response from another Scoutmaster. He said some time ago a scout from my troop was at school after hours with a group of students and he got in trouble. The school handled the issue.

It came to my attention and he and I sat down and discussed it. Since the school did not press charges and the scout abided by the school's decision regarding punishment, I felt that there wasn't really any need for us to take further action than the discussion the scout and I had as to what to tell the parents of the other scouts. I directed them to contact the scout directly if they wanted any more information.

So that was a very good way of handling that. Here's what you did.

Tell me about it. Do you think the punishment that you received is fair?

Okay, so now we're both on board. We both understand what happened.

How are we going to take care of this in the future? Can you be trusted?

Are we going to have any problems within the confines of a scout troop? The boys are going to talk to the boys and the parents are going to find out and they're going to want to know what's going on.

Well, if you really want to know what's going on, go ahead and call their parents. I'm not going to tell you anything. I talked to the boy. I'm sure that there's no present danger to your son and if you think you need to know the details of this, call the boys parents.

I think that's excellent advice. What do we tell parents?

Well, we tell the parents that we're on the scout's side, we're on his life and we need to be there for them. We're not going to send him away, that it's not a health and safety issue and we're not just shrugging it off, as boys will be boys, or that there's no big deal. But we feel that it's important for somebody to stand behind him and we're going to stand behind him. He knows he made a mistake and it doesn't necessarily mean it's the end of everything in his life.

So some very good answers to that from several people and, like I said, I'm going to keep most of that just because of the sensitivity of the issue, as I will with another kind of sensitive issue, and that issue is what happens when you have a little flame war in your troop over the email. Yes, the email, email is a wonderful thing until people start arguing back and forth on it. And people argue over email with a great deal more vitriol than they would ever argue in person. I can't associate some of the people who answered some of their answers because they're just good general answers. Larry Geiger said you really have to try and ignore people who do this. The best way to avoid it is to run all communication through one account with a blind distribution list.

That way, if the reply comes back, the troop leadership can deal with it. By all means try to restrict having things distributed to someone so that they can just hit reply to all and start a flame war. The way that your emails are set up is important. If you don't understand the technicality of that, one of the boys in the troop probably does, or one of the adults involved with the committee will be able to get that set up. But yeah, sending out to a general distribution list in which all the emails are included in the sent to part of the email, very bad idea.

Very bad idea because now everybody who received the email can just hit reply all and then the cat's out of the bag and boy oh boy. Then you have a real mess. Anonymous responder said this. I've had a lot of experience with this one. Unfortunately, our chartered organization recently put a stop to a flame war by just going back and answering the original question and laid out the basic principles.

Here's why we're here and based on that, here is the answer. He did it in a way that wasn't preachy, scolding or condescending, just a statement of fact. He didn't include the other emails in the chain. He didn't address any of the sniping or the other pettiness. They expressed just simple, calm, quiet, dignified responses.

That ended the discussion and I think everyone else went from being angry to being ashamed as they realized just how petty and silly they were being. Bill McFarland- he answered one of the other questions before. He said: my best suggestion is to have a sit down meeting, having anybody who's been involved with the online mess sit down and talk. I definitely agree with Bill there that any emails you send out to your troop are informational, not editorial. Informational, not editorial. You get the difference there.

Any comment on people's actions or thoughts, or especially if that comment can be read in any way to be a criticism- if someone needs to be criticized or otherwise needs their actions or words questioned, that needs to be done in person, not by an email. Let's go back over the whole email biz. First of all, you can avoid the flame wars in two different ways. One is to assure that the way you're distributing emails doesn't allow people to reply to all and just send it back to the list, and that's very, very important. Second way to avoid it is to make sure that emails are informational, not editorial, and that if there is a problem that needs to be resolved, it's never addressed in an email. It's done in person.

How do you kill a flame war once it begins? Well, a calm, dignified, wise response from somebody in authority, basically telling the children that are involved in the flame war to stop it. The other way is to take whatever the conflict is and turn it into a face to face meeting. Great advice. I knew you guys would come through and you did, and we really appreciate it.

So that's three of the questions answered. Thank you very much, and keep an eye on the high adventure section of the site and you will see some suggestions coming through for high adventure in the central part of the united states.