Re: Wood Badge (lengthy reply)
Alan Houser (troop24@EMF.NET)
Thu, 13 Jun 1996 23:04:31 -0700
Michael Holmes <MHolmes@CORETECH.COM> asked:
Subject: Wood Badge Course
>4. Over the past 10 years, the BSA has offered increasingly more week-end
>courses and fewer week-long courses. Do you feel that this should continue
>to the point of holding week-end courses exclusively?
When Mt. Diablo and Silverado Councils merged, we had a happy conjunction,
to use an astronomical term, at least with respect to Wood Badge courses.
While Mt. Diablo had been holding the weekend course, Silverado was a
part of the North Coast cluster: a group of small, mostly rural councils
spread out over a large geographic area (basically from San Francisco Bay
to the Oregon border -- and though we call SF Northern California, in
reality it is just about exactly the middle of the state). None of
these councils would have the resources to stage their own course, so
they joined together in a cooperative group with the hosting of the
course rotating from council to council while all contributed staff.
Anyhow, the year of the merger was the year Silverado was scheduled
to host the course. Naturally it would be unfair to dump that back
on the remaining councils in the cluster, so the new merged council
hosted the course AND put on its regular 3 weekend course. Naturally
there was a lot of interest in the weeklong course from folks who
couldn't spare the five weekends (3 on, 2 off) for the weekend course,
so it was fairly well subscribed from the former Mt. Diablo Council.
This might be an option for other areas, to work out a group agreement
with neighboring councils whereby each one would host a weeklong course
once every 4-6 years instead of a weekend course, with assistance from
the other councils in the cooperative group.
And to second what John Oakes <joakes@UNM.EDU> said:
>Has anyone thought of approaching their bosses about sending them to
>woodbadge as professional leave? I did and after presenting them a
>synopsis of the course, provided by my Council Exec....they did. I paid for
>the course, they paid for my time away.
This is an excellent idea. I know of a number of companies who so
value the Wood Badge training that they not only give time off, but
also pay for the cost of the course!
Alan R. Houser ** Scoutmaster, Berkeley Troop 24 ** troop24@emf.net
** WWW page ** http://www.emf.net/~troop24/t24.html **
And, I used to be a Bobwhite....
Terry Howerton Sakima Group, Inc. SCOUTER Magazine Kansas City | 
