Maintain Inefficiency!

Not the most efficient way to get the job done, but lot’s of fun!

Strive to maintain the “inefficiency” of Scouting . It’s tempting to make things easier (for the adults, usually) and lose track of the goal.

Patrol Cooking It is much more efficient to cook as a troop, but that denies a patrol an active and challenging opportunity for growth and learning. Make things less efficient, encourage patrol responsibility.

Merit Badge Colleges and Classes Big merit badge ‘classes’ are efficient but this denies Scouts the opportunity of finding a counselor, communicating with an adult, keeping appointments and working through the requirements individually.

Making Mistakes Making sure that everything goes smoothly is efficient, but it denies developing youth leaders the opportunity to learn and grow.

Every so often our senior patrol leader arrives at our meeting place without any plans for the evening.

I briefly commiserate with his predicament and leave him to it. He usually makes sure that he never finds himself in that spot again.

I am a better instructor, can more easily maintain discipline, and have a great deal more experience than my best youth leader.

I enjoy instructing and leading and I can make things happen efficiently. If I take over I am denying one of my Scouts the opportunity. They will never do it as well as I can unless they are able to gain actual experience. They may not do things up to my standards, but it is their responsibility; it is their troop after all.

Things go so more smoothly if we adults do it all, but efficiency isn’t our goal, we want to create opportunities for Scouts to do for themselves.