And now to you scoutmasters.

At camp, while I served on staff there, the cook was always the one that got chosen first for any of the baseball games when we made up teams. You know why? He always made the best batter. Ouch. Ouch. Hey. This is podcast number 101.

Welcome back to the Scoutmaster podcast. This is Clark Green. So all your letters of protest and complaints about the joke is just heard. I will forward to Bill McFarlane, who contributed it to the Scoutmaster podcast. Thank you, Bill. In the mailbag this week. It's a big mailbag this week. And so here we go. Will Hensman wrote in to say, Happy 100th, Clark. Can't wait for more. Great. Top 10. I'm guilty of at least seven out of 10. And that goes back to most of these messages. Go Back to our 100th podcast last week, and we started out with the top 10 reasons. You may be listening to the Scoutmaster podcast a little too much. So you might want to go back and hear that. If you haven't heard that, let's see. Howard Jones from Troop 570 in West Springfield, Massachusetts, said, What a great milestone. 100 podcasts. Congrats. You seem to be channeling a mix of Gene shepherd and Green Bar Bill. Well, geez, Howard, that's a nice thing to say. Oh, about retelling your jokes around a campfire? I need to be clear. I didn't tell the penguin joke. I look forward to the next 100. All the best. And we're not going to even discuss the penguin joke again, are we? Boy, you got to go back a ways for that. So, Howard, thanks for being a longtime listener. Larry Geiger said, Happy 100th Clark. I love the music. So much fun. More Maynard Ferguson, please. Well, Larry, you'll be happy with this podcast then. And you're all going to hear Larry in a little while. Peter LaRue, my buddy from over in South Africa, said, congratulations, Clark. I look forward to many more podcasts. Steve Borger from Melrose Troop 68, who has a podcast himself, said, Congratulations on podcast 100. Jeff Pearson said, Congratulations on number 100. I have enjoyed them all and look forward to many more. The Netcomish now, if you're not familiar with their website, it's the USSSP website that is the United States Scouting Service Project website. Said, I just put a recommendation out to our Facebook readers to have a listen to your podcast. Well, thank you so much. Adam Cox wrote in and said, congratulations. I've downloaded podcast number 100 for my trip home tomorrow. Blaise Vitali wrote in. Congratulations. I've gotten lots of great advice from these podcasts. I scored four of your top 10 signs. Brian Spellman said. Congrats. Been listening since the start. Keep them coming. And Brian is one of the presenters for Scout Nation Podcast. He also has a blog out there and Brian's out there in Indiana if I remember correctly. Thanks, Brian. Kyle Ryle got in touch and he said, keep those great podcasts coming. Clark, I've recommended your site and podcast to many scouters in my area. Hope some of it rubs off. Folks, if you do have a problem with podcasts rubbing off on anything, just use a stiff wire brush and maybe a little diluted muriatic acid to remove any residue. But yeah, seriously. Now the remainder of podcast number 101 is taken up with a Scoutmaster panel discussion and we're going to be discussing Scoutmaster conferences and then we're going to move on to a new calling question about how do you maintain the integrity of youth leadership while making sure that things actually get done? That is one of the perennial questions in scouting, isn't it? I hope we'll be able to come up with some good advice for you. So that's going to fill the rest of the podcast. It was a long Scoutmaster panel discussion this time, so this is a extra long podcast. I hope you'll enjoy it. And it's going to be all that much longer if I don't get things started. So let's get started, shall we? A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent. A Scout is trustworthy, oil, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean.

And now to you, Scoutmasters.

So last spring, we were on our fishing trip. Now, we don't go every year, but every couple of years or so, the guys plan a trip where they can go fishing. And so we have this great campsite, and it's near a brook and everything like that. And I watch a couple of the older guys get up in the morning, and they get out of the campsite pretty early, and they scatter on down the trail, and they're looking behind them, kind of making sure nobody's following or anything like that. So, you know, we get up, and after a while, I work my way down the trail, looking in on the Scouts, see how they're doing. And I come across these two older Scouts, and they've got their spot on the brook there. And, you know, I saunter down to them. I say, how's the fishing, guys? I say, oh, it's great. We love this spot. This was the spot we were in a couple of years ago. I said, how do you know? And they said, well, there's this little bed of clover right here that grows right next to the brook, and we know that this is our spot. And I said, guys, you can't use that to tell if this is your spot. And they say, well, why is that? And I said, come on, everybody knows you can't tell a brook by its clover. Oh, my. Do they get any better? They just keep getting worse, don't they? Hey, this is podcast 102.

And now to you, Scoutmaster.

Advanced natural navigation techniques. Number one, on what side of a tree does moss grow? On what side of a tree does moss grow? That's easy. The outside. Oh, brother. Please send. Send some jokes. Oh, my gosh. This is podcast 105.

Welcome back to the Scoutmaster podcast. This is Clark Green. Let's take a look in the mailbag, see who we've heard from in the past week. Dave Legge is Scoutmaster Troop 35 in Mount Claire, Virginia. He wrote in to say this. Hello, Clark. Thanks for your podcast. I recently started listening and now wish I had discovered you long ago. I learned so much with each one and I look forward to the next. I've gone into the archives and started from the beginning and I'm in the tens right now. Again, thank you for the time and effort you put in your podcast. It really is making a difference. Well, thank you, Dave, for getting in touch. Dave also sent along a couple of ideas for future podcasts. And hey, keep listening. Some good ideas there. Scott Cormier wrote in and he said, I'm a former Scout and camp staff member and just now returning to Scouting after many years away in the military. Well, thanks for your service there, Scott. We all do appreciate that. I was looking around online for how to get started back with Scouting and to refresh my knowledge on Scouting. That's when I found your site. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I feel like I'm getting a better understanding of Scouting than I ever had before. I'm really getting excited after listening to the first two podcasts. Look forward to reading and checking out all the other information you have. Thanks again so much for the work you have done. Well, thank you, Scott, for being in touch. We certainly do appreciate it. And you can find out more about the Scoutmaster podcast over on ScoutMasterCG.com we got a blog. That's right. And we update the blog usually at least three or four times a week with new articles about Scouting, things for you to look at, things for you to think about. This time in the podcast, I'm going to treat you to a little field recording I did very recently with a friend of mine who's been involved with our troop for quite a while and has an interesting story to tell from the perspective of having been a Boy Scout himself and being a parent. And this might not be a totally unique scenario, but I think it's very important for us to. To listen to each other and to have the benefit of listening to other people who go through a lot of the same things that we do. I think that that's the key feature of having a podcast like this because we are not alone. And that is going to be backed up by a email question that I received this week. And I think the answer to that will also point out, hey, you know, we're not alone as Scout leaders out here. We have a vast support network. It just takes a little effort to tap into it. And you can tap into the support network here by emailing me scoutmastercgorizon.net that's scoutmastercgorizon.net and I'll remind you the other ways that you can keep in touch with us before we leave you in this podcast. But we've got a pretty full slate, so let's get started, shall we?

And now, to you, Scoutmaster.

Once you decide to become a volunteer leader in scouting, somebody will tell you, well, you know, it's only an hour a week. You soon find out that it can be considerably more. Well, is that time worth it? Is it really worth all the time that you spend working with a scout troop or a cub pack? I think I have an answer for you today. Hey, this is podcast number 12.

And now, for you, Scoutmaster.

I go back to the campsite, I'm starving. And they hide food from bears, did you know this? They put the food up in a tree because bears can't climb trees? Well, come to find out, neither can I. So that tree had to come down. I paid the fine and I apologized. So now I'm eating a sandwich next to the fallen tree. And a raccoon comes into the campsite. Raccoon, it was big, I saw it. I went, look at the pony. It's a pony. Bad pony. And the raccoon wanted my sandwich. This, of course, is unacceptable. I chopped down a tree for this sandwich. And raccoons, they're brave, they don't scare you. You can't, like, throw a stick at it or anything. You know what I did to scare it away? I did an Ewok from Return of the Jedi. The little furry things, that scared it. It would hiss and I would go, Everybody wakes up, sees me. In front of the campfire. And they're looking for the empty tequila bottle. So that is comedian John Panette. Ewoks. I never thought of that. And I'm going to try it the next time I run into a bear. How about you? Hey, this is Scoutmaster Podcast number 21. on.

And now, for you, Scoutmaster.

Here we are, we're at camp. It's the first night at summer camp. Seeing patrolers kind of looking around, checking out to make sure everybody's okay, and the scouts are doing well, and he notices one of the guys is having a little trouble walking and wondering if maybe he hurt himself or something like that. The guy goes over and talks to him and says, hey, I noticed that you, did you hurt your foot or something? And the boy says, oh, no, no, no, I'm fine. But it looks like you're having trouble walking. He says, well, it's kind of hard to wear all these socks at first, but I'll get used to it. And the senior patrol leader says, what do you mean wear all these socks? He says, well, the list of equipment for summer camp said we needed seven pairs of socks. And the senior patrol leader answered him and said, well, yeah, but you're not supposed to wear them all at once. And the scout said, well, what my plan is, is if I put on all seven pairs, I'll just take one pair off every day, and that way I won't have to worry about changing my socks. Yeah. Yeah. It's amazing the way they think, isn't it? But what an efficient plan. Hey, this is podcast number 22. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hi. Hi. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Recruiting is definitely the hardest part of a scoutmaster's job and the one I was least prepared for. There's just not much training in the BSA for it, as if no one has figured it out. I think you might be right there. I asked, where do I find recruits? The only answer was Weeblos. And then I asked, can I go to their meeting and make a pitch for our troop? And I was answered, all the Weeblos have crossed over by now. So yeah, it's kind of like duck hunting. If you're not there when the ducks are migrating, forget about it, right? This is a daunting task for a troop of 10 scouts and three adults. I have talked to boys who did not have a scouting background from church, youth groups, and sports teams and have not seen any new scouts from these activities. I would like to talk to the parents and explain how our program can help their children. My question is, how do I get in front of them? Well, Alan, I'm not too sure you want to be in front of them. Because one of the points I'm trying to make about recruiting and the variable successes that you have with different recruiting methods is that the wholesale methods don't seem to work real well. And again, I don't have this all figured out, but I'm just going off the top of my head. The wholesale methods, you talking in front of groups, don't seem to work too well. You want retail. Retail method, which is one-on-one, anytime that you possibly can. So this is what I'm going to suggest to you. How about this? You have 10 scouts in the troop. You say you have three leaders, but with 10 scouts, you have somewhere between 10 and 20 adults who are some way associated with the troop. That includes the scouts' parents. Now, can you motivate them to each talk to, you know, 5 or 10 other families within a given period of time about scouting? If you do that, well, there's between 50 and 100 families, you know, 50 and 100 boys that you've approached about scouting. I can almost guarantee, I can't positively guarantee, but I can almost guarantee if you do those numbers, you're going to get somewhere between 2 to 10 scouts out of it. If you get 10, you have double drew numbers. If you get 2, that's 2 more than you've got now. I mean, it's kind of hard work. Naturally, the best thing to have is what I'm sure you already have, which is an engaging, interesting, and wonderful program that advertises itself and draws boys in like a magnet. But if you can motivate the folks to do that, and how would you do that? Well, make up an invitation that has a series of dates on it. Set aside one troop meeting every month as an open house meeting. You don't have to change the program radically or anything like that. Just, you know, note in your head that it's an open house, and you're going to spend some time talking to whatever parents show up. And make that an invitation. Give it to all the parents in the troop. You know, give them 10 copies apiece or whatever and say, hey, this is the way we're going to build our troop up. It's going to be great. Go ahead and give these to 10 families with a scout age boy and encourage them to come around to one of our open houses. And you'll have, sometimes you'll have an open house and nobody will show up. You'll have an open house and two people will show up. And it will be alternatively encouraging and discouraging. But that's basically the way of the world with this. I would really like to hear from any of you listening out there about effective recruiting methods. Maybe events or plans that you've tried that have worked out real well so we can share them with everybody else. Well, moving along. Today's podcast is a special about summer camp. And in Scout Mastership, in seven minutes or less, we're going to be talking about how to have a good week at summer camp as scout leaders. And then in the second part of the show, we're going to talk a little bit about homesickness. Homesickness. It's a real thing. And it's something to deal with. We got a full slate. So let's get started, shall we? Scout Mastership in seven minutes or less.

And now, for you, Scoutmaster.

So I sit down and I plug in the microphone and I record the podcast and then I put it online and I figure it goes out and Scoutmasters listen to it and maybe other Scout volunteers, you know. And this is wonderful. It's a great thing. Found out this week that Scouts are listening to the podcast as well. Not that they have any choice. No, these Scouts are in a van with Mr. Sipley and they're going on another outing with Troop 175 in Niles, Illinois. And Mr. Sipley is playing the podcast for them so they don't have any choice. They have to listen to it. Hey guys, thanks for listening. I found a little song that I understand is one of your favorites and so I'll play it for you. Why don't you sing along? I'm happy when I'm hiking Back upon my back With a real good friend To the journey's end 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 miles a day Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp At the break of day Singing on our way 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 miles a day Are we happy? Well, I guess Scout troop 24 Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!

And now, to you, Scoutmaster.

So this Scoutmaster goes to his psychiatrist and he sits there and the psychiatrist says, well, how are you feeling this week? He says, well, sometimes I feel like I'm a teepee and sometimes I feel like I'm a pup tent and then I feel like I'm a teepee and then I feel like I'm a pup tent and it just goes on and on and on. I can't make it stop and the psychiatrist says, well, you're too tense. You're too tense. Okay. Yeah. Don't have a lot of time before the theme this time. I'll tell you why on the other side. This is podcast number 24.

And now for you, Scoutmaster.

I just spent a few moments looking at a trip report, which is basically like a crew log from our canoe trip in 2004. We had a day of pretty good rain, and we decided that we were going to head out a little bit early because we were pretty wet, and it didn't look like the weather was going to get much better. And so we headed down a huge lake, 8 or 10 miles of paddling down this big lake with the wind at our backs, and it all went pretty well. The waves were a little high, and we were very anxious to have things over with. And we got in sight of the dock there, probably just about 75 yards from the dock, and I was in the stern of our canoe, and one of my assistant Scoutmasters, he was in the front seat of the canoe up in the bow. And we had turned the corner, and we saw the dock, and we're ending this big trip for six or seven days out in the wilderness, and we were really happy to see the Outfitters store there and everything, and we were paddling along quite nicely, and then my partner's canoe paddle broke, like right in the middle. It just broke. It broke in half. He couldn't do anything. And so I paddled us in. Seven days with that paddle. It broke in the last 75 yards, and we didn't have a spare along with us. You know what we've done since? We carried a spare paddle. Hey, that's one useful way that these little patrol logs and trip logs work. So we'll be talking about it a little bit more. This is podcast number 25. This is podcast number 25. Welcome back to the Scoutmasters podcast. This is Clark Green, and this is podcast number 25, a day of celebration. Okay, celebration's over. Let's get down to business. In Scoutmastership, in seven minutes or less, we're going to be talking about patrol logs and their usefulness. And then I have a Scoutmasters minute for Scoutmasters. Not really for Scouts, but for Scoutmasters. And it's not a minute. It's a lot of minutes. But you're used to that, aren't you? And then we'll end up with our third installment in our discussion of building a troop-based high adventure program. All righty, then. I think we should get with it, don't you? Scoutmastership in seven minutes or less. Somewhere along the way recently, I mentioned patrol logs, and I've gotten a couple of questions about the importance of them and how they work and et cetera. So I want to spend a couple of minutes just talking about how a patrol log is a useful tool to a patrol leader and a senior patrol leader. What is a patrol log? Well, basically, it's just a diary of what the patrol does, and it contains some facts about who was participating and what they did and things like that. But most importantly, it should have a place for each member of the patrol to put in their personal reflections on exactly what worked for them and what they enjoyed and perhaps what they didn't enjoy and what didn't work for them. This way, the patrol leader can review it and the senior patrol leader can review it and they can look at improving the way that they present their program. Practically, a patrol log is, you know, one of those little composition books and the patrol leader has that with them whenever his patrol meets and the patrol scribe is the one who is charged with keeping up with the log and making sure that things get written in it. One of the ways that we emphasize the usefulness of the patrol log is anytime we're camping, whether it's a weekend camp out, whether it's a high adventure trip, or whether it's our week at summer camp, the patrol log gets opened every evening just for a few minutes. The patrol sits around and they make a record of what's in their log. And then when we're on a weekend camping trip, it'll be on a Saturday night. We usually arrive on Fridays. And then on a Saturday night, after dinner is cleaned up, the patrol will sit down and make a record in their log. And then they will all get together, the entire troop will get together for what we call Vespers, which is just a little evening observance of a scout's reverence and duty to God. And we use the patrol logs as a way of starting the conversation about what went on today and what worked well and what didn't work. And this lasts for, you know, 15 or 20 minutes, but it gives us a way to sit down and to concentrate on what we're doing and why we're doing it. At summer camp, the patrol leader's council will assemble every evening for a few moments after the patrols have made the entries in their logs. And the patrol leaders will each share what's in the log. And the patrol, the senior patrol leader will work with them to help correct things that are wrong or maybe encourage them to do something that they've missed or congratulate them on a job well done. And it's also a way for me to sit back kind of quietly and listen and get a good idea of exactly what's happening during the day at summer camp. And maybe it will bring some things to mind that we need to deal with and maybe it will give me an opportunity to give the patrols and the patrol leaders a good pat on the back for a job well done. It's a pretty simple system. And it's not something that we require of the scouts. It's not something that we force upon them and we double check and we read all the patrol logs and we make a big deal out of it. But it's more or less a tool that they can use and we encourage them to use it. And we don't get all upset and angry when they don't. But we encourage them to use it and to make a good habit out of it. Does it work all the time? No, absolutely not. It doesn't work all the time. But it does help. Our high adventure logs probably have been the most useful to us over time because they helped us capture a lot of little details that have helped us improve those trips over time. And the scouts really like going back and reading them because we make a tradition out of, you know, what was your favorite thing today or what was the most interesting thing that you saw or what was the most difficult part of your day. And it really helps you remember after the trip is over exactly what happened. And it has gone a long way to helping us improve the program around our high adventure trips. So I encourage you to give it some thought. Get the patrol leaders and the senior patrol leader to buy into the idea and see if a patrol log will help you in building your troop program and building your patrols. That's right. It's time for a Scoutmaster's Minute. If I say these two words to you, what do you think? I've got some Borglund. No, it's not Cub Scout code. No, I'm not cursing at you in a foreign language. Listen again. Got some Borglund. Yeah? Doesn't ring a bell? Well, maybe somewhere back in the deep recesses of your memory that name is stored back there somewhere. Heck of a name, isn't it? Got some? Yeah. G-U-T-Z-O-N. Got some Borglund. Well, you might not remember the name, but you know this guy. You certainly do. Now, Got some probably not a good person to use as an example of a hero in some ways. He had some troublesome politics in his time. He was irascible. He was a perfectionist. He was difficult to get along with. But you know some of his work. You absolutely know some of his work. Who is he? Well, look. This is why he came to mind. The other night, we were at a scout meeting, and we were having our little patrol leader's council afterwards, and I was working away with the guys. I was encouraging them and trying to coach them and work with them a little bit. And it was, you know, it was like emptying a bathtub with a teaspoon. You know exactly what I mean, right? You think, well, are we going to have to talk about this again? Do we have to go over this ground one more time? Well, you do. And that's what Got some did. Yeah. You got to keep chipping away at things. It's one little chip here, one little chip there, and finally you have something in the end that you've chipped away out of the solid rock. And this is what came to mind after, you know, we sat through five or ten minutes of listening, and then I talked to the guys for a little bit and asked them lots of questions about what they were doing and why they were doing it, trying to get to the point of a resolution and moving ahead. And as, you know, as we left, one of my assistant scoutmasters kind of looked at me and he kind of sighed and shook his head and I said, yeah, I know, I know, this is like trying to, this is like trying to build Mount Rushmore. You just keep chipping away. You get the air hammers out every morning and you get on a rope and you put yourself down and you start chipping away. And, you know, maybe every once in a while you can get out the dynamite, but probably not because that'll blow the whole thing to pieces. So it's just constant effort, consistent. Mount Rushmore took about, I think, you know, closing in on 25 years. That's who Gutzum Borglund is, right? He's the sculptor who created Mount Rushmore. But he kept chipping away, didn't he? And that's what we've got today up in the Black Hills that every single person who's hearing me has seen at least a picture of. Our work sometimes in scouting is kind of like building Mount Rushmore. Yeah, just a chip at a time. You get rid of all the stuff that you don't need. You refine the stuff that you do. And the final result is really kind of a work of art and a wonder to behold. I can imagine somewhere, like in the 12th year, Gutzum Borglund getting up in one morning and saying, what in the world have I gotten myself into? But you know, he kept a vision. He knew in his mind what he wanted to create. He knew how to do it. He kept at it. We're creating something as scout leaders. We're creating an environment for boys to grow and to learn some things about the world to develop character and to become decent human beings. And it works. Sometimes it takes longer than we think it ought to. And it's a little bit more difficult and you gotta keep at it all the time. But in the end, when you step back, you'll have something that you'll be happy you spent the time creating. Yeah, just like in Mount Rushmore. So keep at it. Keep chipping away.

And now for you, Scoutmaster.

When a Scout sees a tag on a tent and it says waterproof tent, that's a challenge. They need to find a way to pitch it so that it gets wet. Yeah. When he sees a label on a frying pan that says non-stick frying pan, he has to find something that's going to stick to it. Last but not least, don't bring anything camping that has the label fireproof on it. It's just not a good idea. Trust me. Hey, this is podcast number 26.