Eamonn

In just under eight hours I'm off to camp to start setting up for NE-IV-153. What started as a plan in May of last year, is going to happen starting on Friday. I have to admit to having a few butterflies, but that is a good thing. The staff are ready,willing and very able. Maybe I'm not the one to say it, but these guys are good. It is the most inexperanced staff that I have ever worked with. My first staff experiance there was only three new guys. We have a staff of twenty. Two have staffed the new course, me being one of the two. We have three who staffed the old courses. Everyone is telling me that this is great. Sad thing is that under the new rules you only get one chance as the course director. It would be nice to have one more and work on the things that might need worked on. The course is full. Just over a third of the participants are female. (25% of the staff are female.) We have a mixed bag from all the programs not counting Varsity Scouts. We do not have any African- Americans or Hispanic participants, in fact I think I'm the nearest we will get to ethnic diversity. I hope to spend some quiet time and make sure that all the tees are crossed and the I's are dotted. I will have my laptops, but there is no internet available. I'm to cheap to pay for the wireless cell service. So please if you are talking to the Big Fellow upstairs do say a little prayer for the course, and I could always do with the odd good word. Thanks, Eamonn

I have to think about that!! Eamonn

Over the years I have heard of people who have not followed all the rules and may have over stepped the mark. I have never heard of a bribe that was offered or taken. If anything most of the Advancement Chairs. That I know have gone above and beyond to help a Lad reach the rank. Eamonn

Sad to say I will miss yet another Gilwell Reunion this year. This event has always been a lot of fun and I try to cross the pond to be there. I keep in contact with "The Guys" mainly via E-mail. This week we talked about the reunion and somehow got to talking about Campfires and cooking over wood fires. Back in "The Day" When I was a Scout and even as a Adult Leader, we cooked almost exclusively on wood fires. There was a propane stove for emergencies and for the leaders early morning tea. But cooking over a wood fire was camping. It now seems that the wood fire is on the way out. A friend send me this poem, which I thought you might enjoy. To A Bewildered Boy Scout. Farewell to the campsite fire The hawthorn twigs that sparked it up Which kindled in you strong desire For brackish tea from chipped tin cup And toast too toasted, or nor quite Though relished in the flickering night "Environmentel studies find ..." Etectera, drone- you know the rest And this should all be kept in mind In future there will be a test While parents drive you in the car For safety's sake, to where you are The poisoned cloud, the forest blaze Among the many awful sights Which fog our allergenic days And dog our neurasthenic nights The campfire. It could be to blame Akela, hang your head in shame And as you're here let's dwell a while On health and safety issues first With Scouting in the modern style As death-traps go, a fire's the worst Beware the woodsmoke in your hair Carcinogens are lurking there A campfire was a filthy thing Which Mr Baden Powell strove To sit you round and make you sing How cruel of him. Now light the stove Observe the small blue flames are pretty. Sing now and forget the city. Ging-gang gooligooligooli.... Watch it. Eamonn

While I do not have a problem with adult friends pulling each others leg. I can see how what happened to Old GreyEagle was nothing but wrong. While working on the Service Team, we used to get a lot of young Scouts who were sent out looking for the Left handed : Smoke Shifter or Bacon Turner. I used to always ask the young Scout to go and fetch his Patrol Leader.Once he arrived I gave him one of my best speeches on the English Scout Law that read :A Scout makes good use of his time and is careful with possessions and property. When the poor fellow was really bored with that one we would move on to the Law that reads : A scout has respect for himself and others. I have a lot of friends that love to pull my leg, we take it as good fun and spend many happy hours retelling the tale, they know me and know where my "Soft Spots" are they never go there. I feel the same way about nicknames. These are fine if they are ok with the person being named and are done out of affection or respect. If they cause any harm they too are wrong. Scouting offers so many great opporttunities for so much fun, we do not need to get our jollies at the expense of others.

There is a district charter. It is one of my goals; Not to ask people who serve at the unit level to serve on the district committee. I have a way to go. There isn't a line outside my door with people waiting. My view is that the district will never be able to serve the units as long as we are taking people away from the units. The committee chair. can select the people he or she sees fit to serve on the committee and they can be added to the district charter. We do of course ask them to pay the fees. The charter is good for a year, so they serve for the year unless invited to return. In the case of MaineScouter, I have never seen the term YPT administrator used before. I do think that it would come under District Training. In our district we have a number of "Ex- Cub Scouters" Who only present Cub Scout Training's that is all they do and they do a really good job. Eamonn

Eagledad, I agree that Agendas are great. Do you think that an agenda is a form of directive leadership?

Members at large be they District or Council are still working members of the District or the Council. I have just spent a year getting those people who were doing nothing off our distict Charter. The people that we do have as members at large tend to be people who perform one big task for the district. We have a Doctor who sponsers our district golf outing. He is not expected to attend the monthly district committee meetings. IMOHO having people who are not doing anything is wrong. It is a problem. What do you do with the person who has no place to go? Members at large can be a great asset to both Districts and Councils, but it is not someplace just to stick a name. Harsh as it may be if someone can't fit in and there is no place for them, they might want to take a look and see if this is the organization for them. Eamonn

I used to be a Service Team member at Walton Firs National Camp Site, back in England. We would go to the site one weekend a month acting very much as Campmasters do. The camp had a fulltime Warden (Ranger.) Bill Cook, Bill was ex-navy and liked everything to be very prim and proper. We used to pull in late on Friday night. Come morning Bill would be there in the old hut to make sure we were up and ready for the day. He had a very big nose, which looked a lot like Bill Clintons, a kind of a line down the center. When he talked his head nodded and if he got excited his leg also shook. One Firday night, I hung a empty cardboad box from one of the roof beams. Bill arrives in the morning, sees the box hanging. He asks what is in the box. I tell him to shush and whisper that it's a bird. A Bird - What sort of bird, asks Bill. I act kind of dumb (Not that hard!) And tell him that I think that it's a kestrel. A Kestrel -A Kestrel - You can't keep a kestrel in a box. He says. By now both the head and the knee are in full action. He then starts tapping the box making cooing sounds. I leave the box there all day. Sunday morning Bill is back. Box is still in place. He tells us that we have to let it go, that there are laws about keeping Kestrels. We agree to let it go, but will wait till after breakfast. As luck would have it on the cover of the Sunday Times Supplement, that Sunday is a big picture of a Dodo bird. After breakfast I take the box outside, with all the team members and Bill , who is keeping a safe distance and open the box. Of course nothing happens. Bill very carefully moves till he can see inside the box, which has the picture of the Dodo in it. To add a final touch, we had a turkey for lunch we dressed up the carcass with foil and left it on his bird table. Guess who ended up painting the latrines next month. Eamonn

Someone once said that there are no atheists in a fox hole. Having never been in a fox hole and never been a atheist I don't know. Still over the weekend I did hear this from a Lutheran minister. There was a Doctor, a Lawyer and a Engineer. They were discussing the worlds oldest profession. The Doctor said that if you look in Genesis you will see how God took a rib from Adam and made Eve. This was a surgical procedure. So Medicine was the oldest profession. The Engineer disagreed. He said if you went back in Genesis you will see that out of confusion God made order. Making order was the job of an Engineer. So that was the oldest profession. The Lawyer said that they were both wrong and asked who they thought started the confusion in the first place? I don't have all the answers, but for the nost part I like to think that my God and me are on good terms. At times I question the rituals, and then there are times when I take great comfort in the rituals. If I ever do find myself in a Foxhole I feel sure that my God will be there for me. I only hope that I'm ready for him. Eamonn

Have we ever had 3 people agree in a row before? I join with the Honorable Gentlemen from the Midwest. Eamonn

Man Of Steele, makes a good point. We used to call this A Guided Discovery. In training we use it a lot, so as not to waste the time of the participants. If we look back to the Quatermaster in the Four styles of Leadership thread, we see that on the first campout, he forgot the tarps. Now thanks to experiance and a little help, he is able to do the job with little or no direct directive leadership. The leader has taken care of that in the very early stages when he or she was setting up the project.

Ed, if you look back at what you said: "Just a simple command." I think that you will see that the idea of commanding is not the best way to go. What is wrong with commanding? Try this one. Hey Ed sit down and listen. Or Hey Ed do you have a minute? We need to talk, why not pull up a chair? Which one feels better? Which one do you prefer? Eamonn

For my Queens Scout service project, I worked at the then Cheyne Walk Center For Spastic Children in Chelsea. There were about sixty little ones there with an assortment of handicaps. We did get a pack up and running. This side of the pond. In our district there is a school for Special needs Kids. Working with the School District, who is the Charter Partner, we have a pack to serve these boys. It is an after School program, and the School does provide transport to bus them home. The Leaders are parents who are supported by some of the teaching staff. My feelings are that most of our volunteer leaders do not have the training to undertake this big of a challenge. A lot of people will make the argument that it is better for everyone if we mainstream, but depending on how bad these boys are handicapped it can be just more then we can manage. Add to this your feeling about the Mom. I think you might be better off to contact your DE, or the person on your District Committee in charge of starting new units and see if there is any way of starting a Special Needs Unit for these Boys. Some of the Lads in our Special Needs Pack are over the age guidelines, and while they would not be able to manage Boy Scouts, they enjoy and are getting a lot out of the pack program. Much as I hate to say it, I think that you might be biting off more then you can chew. You might want to talk to someone other then his Mom,to see if he really is able to manage being a Cub Scout at this time. One of his teachers might be a good person. Eamonn

While I don't mean to hijack the thread. Yes Dave it is nice when good things happen to good people. Our DE,just became a Grand Mother, for the first time. Needless to say it was a future Scout. Eamonn

I don't know how it works elsewhere, but all the people who serve on our District have been invited or nominated. They all have a job to do. Some are in Commissioner Service. Some serve on the District Committee. The District is not a place to hang your hat, more a place to put your car in overdrive. Units and Unit Leaders deliver the program to the youth, while the District supports the units and the Leaders. It is also very important that even though we at the District level may have the odd moan and the odd groan, we are charged with supporting the Council and the policies of the Council. Some people have the wrong idea about what "Being on the District" is all about. We are in no way the boss. We serve. We don't tell people what to do. We offer friendly advise. In most cases we never interfere. The big disadvantage is that a lot of your troop buddies have no idea about what District Service is all about. If one more person tells me that I'm only interested in numbers, I will go nuts. If one more Commissioner over steps the mark I will go more then nuts. If the Scout Exec. Tells me that the District FOS,Popcorn and Project Sales goals that I set for our District are not high enough. I will tell him to go pound nuts. If we can't get two new units started by the end of the year so that we can be a Quality District, the DE, will join me on the nut pile. Eamonn

Sometime back I said that I had just started reading the One Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard. If you have not yet read this do it ASAP. I have now read six books that he has somehow had something to do with. Most of them three or more times. This in no way makes me any sort of an expert and I in no way claim to be one. In the posting Four Styles of Leadership we seemed to be having a problem with the Directing Style of Leadership. Or to be more precise, I was having a problem. I hope to explain how I see this and then have you all let me know what your thoughts are. It is my hope that we will all come out of this a little wiser. Directive Leadership and Directive behaviors are related primarily to productivity. They pay attention to what the team (Patrol?) is supposed to be doing and the focus on getting the job done. This style of leadership involves: Devveloping team purpose and values. Clarifying team norms and ground rules. Establishing roles. Identifying goals. Agreeing on structure and strategies. These would be the undertaking or the duty of the team leader. I may have not read some of the postings in the Four Styles Of Leadership, the right way. But it seemed to me that we were getting into a new field that had more to do dealing with behavior then dealing with leadership. When we deal with behavior there is the Cooperative Approach and the Proscriptive Approach. While it might be said that the Proscriptive Approach is a form of the Directive Style of Leadership, under the heading of clarifying team norms and ground rules. And it might be also said that the Cooperative Approach is used in both Coaching and Supporting. If we only view Directive Leadership as "Order Giving" We might be a little off base. Your views are much appreciated. Eamonn

My brother is John. At home we call him Sean. The Irish for John. I was to be Ian. But someone said Ian was the Scottish for John. So I got Eamonn, the Irish for Edwin or Edward, also the first president of Eire.

Her Who Must Be Obeyed might beg to differ!!! Eamonn

I belong to Wagion Lodge 6. One of the older Lodges. I'm not as active as I would like. This is my 26th year in the Lodge. My son is very active, two weeks back he became the Vice Chief and I think that he has plans to try and go as far as he can go.

Hi Tamegonit, Welcome. Many of us "Old Folks" Well me anyway do really want to have your take on the stuff that we spend so much of our time on. So please don't go. We do want you here. Be careful there are a few on this forum who have been known to pull the odd leg. Eamonn

Ok,now I feel like a real louse. Thanks for the friendly kick in the pants. I will smile and say thank you. Still $200.00 is a lot of money to spend. I can think of a lot of better things to spend it on. But I think that everytime I spend money on cigarettes. I suppose that at the end of the day, it is their money and they can do what they like with it. Eamonn

What Baden Powell had to say about the patrol. "The patrol is the character school for the individual. To the patrol leaders it gives practice in responsibility and in the qualities of leadership. To the Scouts it gives subordination of self to the interests of the whole,the elements of self-deniall and self-control involved in the team spirit of cooperation and good comradeship." If we look on Leadership or better still if we look at Team Leadership as the ability to move the team through the stages of leadership. These stages being: Directing, Coaching, Supporting and delegating. While the Leader is the person who must take responsibility for the team performance and getting the job done, he or she needs to be aware of the needs of the team. About 40 years back Bruce W. Tuckman came up with the idea that all teams go through four stages in their development. He used: Forming. Storming. Norming. Performing. There have been over the years a variety of ways to explain this. Forming. The Patrol wants to go to camp. Everyone is keen to go. Morale is high. But without some Directive Leadership, nothing is going to happen. The leader needs to develop the goal, establish roles and orient the patrol. The patrol members may all want to go to different camp sites and all have different ideas of what they are going to do when they get there. There is a need for direction which must come from the leader. Storming. The patrol still wants to go to camp. Some are not so happy about where they are going or what the program will be, but they are starting to make preparations.There is still dissatisfaction. The leader is now in coaching mode, trying to get everyone to work for the good of the team/patrol. Norming. The patrol members are coming around, they are working hard to get ready for camp. Some are still not happy, but things don't look that bad. Our leader is now in supporting mode, helping the patrol members to get ready and selling the camp to those members who are still a little unsure. Performing. This is when the performance stage. All the patrol members have come around and are busy doing what they do best in preparation for the camp. Our leader can now go into delegating mode.He has seen his team through the stages. However he is ready to fall back or even start all over again if things change. This could be due to a new member in the team or a change of plan. Eamonn(This message has been edited by Eamonn)

Some really neat stuff here. Just love the "No But." Not so sure about just leaving. There are many who are just happy to see the back of me!!! I do think that people know when you care and know when you mean what you say. So a Thank You or a Well Done can mean a lot. I think that having everyone share information about success is very important. Eamonn

A friend of mine is the Charter Rep. For a local troop who were without a Scoutmaster. I took the position, while they searched for a new Scoutmaster. The troop was not in the best of health. They did have 26 Scouts on the charter, with about half of these attending the weekly meeting.Of the 26 there were nine Eagle Scouts. The Patrol Leaders Council had never met. They did attend summer camp but did little or no camping. Troop meetings were a real mess, no opening or closing. Just a lot of Merit Badge "Classes" Once we got the SPL and the PL's up to speed. Troop meetings got to be a lot more fun. These lads had never played a game at a troop meeting. We started planning camps and hikes and the Merit Badge "Classes" went Bye-bye. Some of the parents were not very happy. One even said that all this fun was ok, but what about doing some work. I explained that if his son was interested in any merit badge that the troop had all the books and I had a Merit Badge list and I would be willing to help his son set up any merit badge that he was interested in. This wasn't what he wanted. He wanted the "Classes". I explained that that was not the way that it ought to be and that maybe this wasn't where his son ought to be. Some of the parents were shocked to see the Troop doing non merit badge stuff. So at the Court Of Honor, I explained how the system worked. Of course being the District Commissioner at the time, they did take that maybe I knew what I was talking about. In fact one parent came forward and became the Scoutmaster, took all the training. Is doing a great job and is off to Wood Badge this fall. I would be sure to explain the methods of Scouting. Along with the Mission of the BSA, making a point that Eagle Scout making is not what we do. The Scout does that. Welcome to the Campfire. Eamonn