Scoutmaster Podcast 7

And now for you, Scoutmaster.

I have a book that was published in 1952 by a Scoutmaster by the name of Rice E. Cochran. Here's something interesting. I rapidly acquired a reputation for supernatural wisdom by saying nothing.

As the patrols pitched camp and cooked their meals, I simply strolled about watching everything with an Olympian air, and when a patrol had difficulty getting its fire started, I merely stood and watched silently to the deep embarrassment of the patrol.

He's not saying nothing, but he's thinking plenty, I heard one boy mutter to another. Okay, so which one are you? Are you not saying nothing but thinking plenty? Or saying plenty but thinking nothing?

This is podcast number seven.

Hey! Hey! Hey! Hi, welcome back to the Scoutmasters podcast. This is Clarke Green in Scoutmastership in seven minutes or less. We're going to have a little discussion about being a Scoutmaster or being a legislator.

This involves troop policy manuals and job descriptions and contracts and things of that ilk. Then I have a story about a buddy of mine, George, who used to work for me at Scout Camp, and a little something that George and I did while we were at camp. And I have to tell you parenthetically that George worked for me years ago, and now he has a son who is of an age to join our troop, which is going to be happening within the next week or so, which is making me feel a little old, but it's a happy moment. Our second installment of our series of moving a troop from being adult-led to youth-led, and then a Scoutmasters minute about giving.

And that will wind up the podcast, so let's get ourselves started, shall we? Why, of course we shall. Scoutmastership in seven minutes or less.

You know, as a new Scoutmaster, I noticed a couple things about Scouts, and I think it's something that most newer Scoutmasters recognize. They're not very serious about stuff sometimes.

No, they don't take things seriously. They don't seem to have a real good grasp on responsibility. It can be downright aggravating. Along with all the great stuff, all the great energy and the desire for discovery, and as nice and as kind as they can be, sometimes they're just aggravating.

Well, I don't know if this is news to you, but that's basically what happens when you're in your teenage years. That's basically what happens when you're an adolescent. So I came up with a strategy that was not unusual to me to try and solve what I saw as problems, and that was to go ahead and become a legislator and write a manual for our troop about chiefly concentrating on three things.

One was attendance, which was very provoking, and two was discipline, which wasn't as big a problem, to be very honest with you, but, you know, you've got to be ready, right? Be prepared. And the third one was leadership.

So this manual was, of course, a work of great area addition and wisdom, and we got it photocopied and showed it to the boys, and they were not impressed.

They were not impressed at all. I doubt whether one of them ever actually read it. What it was chiefly useful for was to quote to miscreants, you know, you're late for the meeting, and it says right in the manual that we gave you that you're supposed to be on time, or you missed this campout, and, well, we know that you're supposed to go on campouts. Apparently, that was not the magic switch that was going to turn them into responsible adults.

It didn't happen. We got so frustrated, I remember this very clearly, me and a couple of my assistant scoutmasters, we got so frustrated with patrol leaders and things like that, kind of, you know, not being mature adults and taking their responsibilities seriously, that we decided we would trot out a set of job descriptions and contracts and ask them to sign a contract so that they would truly be committed to their leadership position. They would understand the weight and importance of it, as we did. The contract was as useless as the manual because the contract did not automatically turn my teenage patrol leaders into wise, considerate, skilled leaders. What does that is a lot of mentoring and coaching and a decent attitude and the realization that these areas of discipline and attendance and leadership are not problems that you're supposed to solve. They are the price of doing business when you're doing business with people who are going through their adolescence.

That's the way that it works. And you need to understand a few things about adolescence, and you need to understand a few things about scouting, and then things get a little bit smoother. And I think one of the big ones for me was understanding that I was not supposed to be fixing problems. I was supposed to be growing decent human beings and decent leaders. And that if I concentrated my efforts on that instead of my creative writing exercises, that I would have much greater returns. Now, I've done a little informal survey online of troop handbooks and guidebooks and policy manuals and bylaws and things like that. And I have got to be honest with you.

I see that there is some utility in some of them, especially when it comes to financial matters and things like that. What I would like to see is I would like to see a troop policy manual on one 8.5 by 11 sheet of paper.

I'm a big advocate of the 8.5 by 11 sheet of paper on its own, on one side. Now you're going to ask me, what happened to the policy manual that I wrote? Well, it got a lot smaller, and it became a troop family guide. And it is only just to kind of be like a frequently asked questions type thing about scouting for people who are unfamiliar with it.

And mostly refers them to the salient parts of the scout handbook rather than trying to restate it in the manual. It also talks about some very basic logistic policies that we have as far as camping is concerned in gear and things like that. It does not read like the sea jackets manual or the uniform code of military justice.

I can guarantee that. Even though that stuff is fun to write, it's the wrong tone for a scout troop. It is not full of negative reinforcements. What we try to do is reflect what scouting is, which is positive reinforcement, which is thinking about good things. It's not a system of demerits and difficulties. It's a chance for us to encourage.

I would really closely examine any document that your troop might have and consider doing a bit of editing. Get out a big pair of shears. Garden shears would be good.

Chainsaw, whatever. And see if you can get it on one 8.5 by 11 sheet of paper. I know. You're going to ask me the question, is mine on one 8.5 by 11 sheet of paper? No, it's not. Because, frankly, I've got better things to do right now than to try and reduce it down. I think we're on three sheets of 8.5 by 11 paper in booklet form. So maybe two. So I'm working on it. I have not attained perfection yet. And when I do, it will be announced on this podcast.

That's for sure. So just a couple ideas about troop manuals, policy manuals, and the like.

This has to be the truth, folks. Because there is no way anyone could make this up. So one of the things we're fiercely proud of at our scout camp is our retreat ceremony. It's styled after the West Point retreat ceremony that they have every evening.

And we've had it going on for about 90 years. It's about 10 or 15 minutes worth of pomp and circumstance. And there's an actual band and a bugler and flags and marching and all kinds of great stuff.

And years ago, I was on staff. And there was a special evening where we were going to have a retreat ceremony. And a film crew was going to be present. A film crew from the National Office of the Boy Scouts of America. And the camp director and the program director who play a key part in the retreat ceremony were going to be absent that day, owing to a day off they had scheduled.

And so me and my friend George were going to get to stand in the camp director and the program director spots for that retreat ceremony and be immortalized on Sunday. So we were excited and nervous about this whole thing. The film crew had mounted a camera on top of a van.

And there was a road right beside the parade ground so that they could do this kind of sweeping pan. It was going to be very dramatic. And they were excited because the retreat ceremony, of course, is very picturesque. And the retreat ceremony started out and everything was going okay. And there was a point at which the program director and the camp director spots are supposed to make a couple of turns, you know, and a couple of salutes and things like that.

And we totally messed it up. We couldn't remember who was to turn to who and who was to salute to what. And so we looked a little, we looked a little rag tag here.

And then it came time to strike the colors and fold them up. And the colors came down the flagpole just fine with the proper bugle call. And then the fellows started to fold the flag. And these are senior staff members that are folding the flag, you know.

These are not just like little tenderfoot scouts who are doing this. The guy who was folding the flag did not notice until too late that he had folded the blue field of stars of the flag inside. And so the flag fold would not work out at all. And he got to the point where he finally noticed that. And he uttered a very unscout-like word under his breath, but loud enough for us to hear, which of course said everybody laughing. And then he had to unroll the flag altogether and begin folding it again. So I later saw the tape, and you really couldn't tell that we did anything wrong. But we were not very happy with ourselves at the end of that particular retreat ceremony. It was definitely one to remember. We'll be right back. We'll be right back.

In our last installment, we talked a little bit about the broad concept of who owns the troop, and we agree that it's the scouts. And we talked a little bit about some of the reservations that adult leaders usually have over having the youth leadership take over the responsibility for the troop.

First of all, understand that the role of the adults in the troop is going to change drastically. Your relationship to the scouts is going to change. What you do at a troop meeting is going to change. The participation in the life of the troop is going to change. And what's going to happen is you're going to clam up. You're going to stop leading.

If you stop leading a little bit, then the scouts have to lead a little bit. If you stop leading a lot, then the scouts have to lead a lot. If you stop leading altogether, then the scouts have to lead. Wow.

Are you really going to do that? Are you really just going to show up one night at a troop meeting and just shut everything down and say, well, I'm not leading anymore?

It's not going to be that easy. You're going to have a slight transition period. But it's going to be slight. And what you're going to do is you're going to work with and mentor your youth leadership so that they begin to take the reins.

And you need to have a plan and you need to have a set number of meetings that you're going to do until they're ready to take over. Now, you would think I would advise you to send your youth leaders into a training situation.

And I'm not going to do that because they don't learn to be leaders in a training situation. They learn to be leaders through a continuous process of coaching and mentoring.

And that's your job as a Scoutmaster. So we're going to begin with some simple things and we're going to let them move on to some bigger things. They're going to run the opening of the meeting. They're going to run the patrol part of the meeting. They're going to run the game part of the meeting. They're going to run the instructional part of the meeting. And they're going to run the closing part of the meeting. And you're going to show up at the closing for about two minutes.

All right, I'm giving you two, not just one. For about two minutes for a Scoutmaster's minute and say something encouraging and wonderful. And that's going to be it.

The rest of the time, what you're going to be doing is observing. You're going to be looking and seeing what they're up to. And you're going to watch them work.

You're not going to tell them anything. You're not going to share. You're not going to instruct. You're not going to shout at them. You're not going to interject. You're just going to watch them do what they do. Then you'll have a little time afterwards where you can sit down with your leadership core, with your senior patrol leader, patrol leaders, you know, your key youth leaders, where you sit down, not you and six assistant Scoutmasters, because now you have them outnumbered and they're not going to be able to do anything. But where you sit down and you just kind of review the meeting very lightly. You make some suggestions, perhaps, and you ask a lot of questions. That's the way it's going to work.

The mentoring and coaching process is continuous. And you and your youth leadership are going to be learning a lot of things together. You're going to be collaborating. You're going to be discovering and inventing and trying things out.

And it's really a very exciting and rewarding process. And now think about coaching. Coaching takes place mainly away from the playing field, correct? So when it's troop meeting time, that's not your coaching time.

Your coaching time is mainly away from the playing field. And we're going to be talking about where to fit that in. What is this going to look like? Well, I'll tell you exactly what it's going to look like. You've been to a Pinewood Derby.

And I think you'll agree with me that there's three basic kinds of Pinewood Derby cars. All right? The first one is the one that the Cub Scout had absolutely no help with at all. He took the kit out of the box, put it together in about five minutes, slapped a little paint on it, and covered it with decals. And he's as proud of that thing as he is of any Maserati that's on the street out there. The second kind shows a lot of his own work, but it also has some refinements that indicate that he had some help.

And the third kind of Pinewood Derby car is the one that shows up to the Pinewood Derby in a shoebox, you know, packed in cotton, because nobody is allowed to touch it because somebody else basically made it for him while he watched. Your troop is going to be a combination of the first two types of Pinewood Derby car.

It's going to be Scout Made and Scout Run, but it will show a couple of little refinements here and there that indicate that somebody's watching this store.

It might not be the fastest. It might not be the slickest looking one. It might not win any beauty prizes, but it's going to function just fine. And it's going to inspire a lot of admiration for the people who create it, which is the Scouts who own the troop, right?

Prepare for a blow to the old ego, because if you're a very involved Scoutmaster and you're used to running a lot of things, making a lot of decisions, making all the plans, and, you know, presenting the program for the boys, this is going to hurt the old ego a bit.

And I am speaking from experience. So I'm not speaking from an ivory tower somewhere. I'm not speaking as though this isn't something that I have to deal with all the time. But here's a couple of useful things that have really helped me along the way. And one of them is that I have learned that this has absolutely nothing to do with me.

It's not a reflection on me as a person. What do I mean by that? Well, your Scouts are going to make some bad decisions. They're going to act like their age, which can be really difficult sometimes. And they're going to be fairly inconsiderate at times.

And, you know, the inverse is also going to be true. They're going to make wonderful decisions. And they're going to act well beyond their age. And they're going to be very considerate and compassionate at times.

But no matter what, you know, if they're being good, if they're being bad, it doesn't really have anything to do with you. It's not a personal statement about you. It's not a personal statement about your ability to lead, inspire, coach, or mentor them. What it is, is it is them being themselves. And whatever we're going to have to deal with to get over that, you're going to deal with it. Because them being themselves is so much more interesting, so much better for them, and so much better for all the Scouts in the troop, that it is well worth any small price that we might have to pay to our egos. So we'll talk about this and wrap this up in our third installment on the next podcast.

That's right. It's time for a Scoutmaster's Minute. I'm on my hands. Do, do, do. Me, me, pie. Me, me, pie. Me, me, pie. Me, me, pie. Me, me, pie. Let me ask you a question. Are you worried about where your next meal is coming from? Are you worried about having a safe place out of the weather to lay down and sleep tonight? Are you worried about the immediate safety of your family and the immediate health of your community and the stability of your family and your children? Probably not. If you live in the United States, you probably have it pretty good. No, there's a lot of need and trouble out there and things that we need to help with in our own country, but we have it pretty good, don't we? And I'm thinking of the people of Haiti and I'm thinking of the people of Chile who are undergoing this chaotic, cataclysmic natural events that have happened in the past several weeks and months, and they really need our help. And what's the best way to do that? Well, we can't all suit up and go to Haiti, and we can't fly down to Chile and start helping out. I was inspired to read about the scouts in Chile who are helping clear rubble and make up emergency packages and who are generally assisting with aid to their own country. Well, there's a way for us to help, and it comes down to this. It comes down to a very few dollars, and I think we can all afford that very few dollars.

UNICEF is a United Nations arm that is concerned with the health and welfare of children, and the American Red Cross is well known as lending disaster relief in these situations, and they will benefit from us sending money. If we all sent a little bit, just imagine the immense impact it would have. If the scout law means anything, it means that we're going to help when help is needed.

If this amazing technological marvel called the World Wide Web means anything, it means that we're going to understand that people need help, and we're going to be able to send it. We have so much, and it takes so little to help out. I'm going to have a link to the UNICEF and the American Red Cross efforts in Chile, and I hope that you will follow that. I'll have it at scoutmaster.typepad.com. Follow that up.

Send a few dollars. And consider making a monthly pledge to either one of those organizations, because they're worthy and they eliminate a lot of suffering in the world. So we have a lot, and we pledge to help, and here's an excellent opportunity for us to do so.