Lisabob

GW as far as I'm aware, there's nothing stopping you from wearing a kilt whether you attend WB or not (except, perhaps, common standards of decency, depending on how much of your legs others can bear to see ) When I agreed to go to Wood Badge I was extremely skeptical of the value of the course. And in fact I really only signed up because our then-UC cajoled me into it with a promise that it would help improve my then-floundering unit where I had more or less fallen into a position of leadership during hard times. Turns out, the UC was also a WB Troop Guide and I suspect he was recruiting in order to get the course up to quota as much as anything else. So I signed on but I wasn't expecting much, especially given the fairly low quality of other BSA trainings I'd attended. But my expectations going into the course were quickly proven wrong. And for me at least and I think others will back this up from their own experiences, the value of WB was not found primarily in the leadership training, useful as that might be to some folks. For me, the value in WB was found here: 1) Getting to really know a whole network of scouters across several districts and councils, who are truly dedicated to scouting. These people "get" the idea of delivering the promise in ways that go far beyond just buzz words and platitudes. They're actually out there doing it! And I know that I can fall back on that network any time that I have questions or issues related to scouting and every one of them will give me 110% to help with whatever I need. In a world where most unit-level scouters are only there for their own kid and it is a major hassle to get them to even consider going through basic training, where lots of people grumble when asked to offer anything beyond their literal "hour a week" to scouting, having that network of deeply dedicated fellow scouters to turn to is really a gift. 2) Having the mental space to focus on what the vision and mission of scouting is really about. Yes, sure, we talk about that here on the forum but it is a rare thing to discuss in most units, where the focus tends to be on whatever activity is coming up. It can be easy in day-to-day scouting to lose sight of the larger vision, or never to have seen it to start with. WB gives you that opportunity to re-visit the matter and grapple with it on your own terms. While this is something I suppose one could do on one's own, at the same time, most people will not. And it is perhaps made more meaningful when you combine this with #1, a group of people with a common dedication, thinking and talking through these sorts of big-picture matters together. 3) The ticket process. I don't mean the (IMO) somewhat silly way the actual process of writing tickets is presented as some big mystery. I mean the process of coming up with tickets that are meaningful to the participant and the people the participant serves, and then carrying them out. While some of the things that people (myself included) might do for ticket items are things they perhaps would have done anyway, the overall process, when combined with #s 1 and 2 above, allows a leader to really see how they can leverage their efforts to make a lasting and coherent program of change or improvement for their unit or district or whatever level they serve at. Again, we're talking big-picture here. 4) The chance to refresh one's batteries when it comes to scouting is certainly a part of this. I haven't yet met anybody who went through the course who didn't walk away with a renewed commitment to scouting. And that's really exciting, especially when we acknowledge that burn-out happens to even (especially?) our best leaders sometimes. There are certainly things that WB doesn't teach, or teach well. It is not designed to teach outdoor skills to the uninitiated. It is not designed to make people into Scoutmasters, although a lot of SMs would benefit from taking the course, IMO. And yes some of the leadership stuff can be found in other corporate courses, which may be of more or less value to different people. But for me, the networking with other enthusiastic and deeply committed people, the chance to take the big-picture view of scouting, and then to figure out how that big-picture view can be a building block for my own unit in more tangible ways, all made WB worth the time and money that I spent on it. And yes, I can honestly say that I continue to see my role in scouting today as one never-ending ticket, and I'm excited about that prospect. Maybe WB is not the right thing for you, or maybe now isn't the right time for you to consider it. That's fine and WB is not some big honor society or secret club or what have you that it is sometimes portrayed as. It isn't the end-all, be-all of scouting. I know some wonderful Scouters who have never been through WB and probably never will, either. But it can be a really good experience and I suggest you consider trying it before you decide to write it off as a bunch of nonsense.

Scary you should ask that Joni. So my son and I had this same question and we're ah, a little concrete sequential from time to time. Consequently we measured out an 1/8 of a cup of uncooked basmati rice and counted. It comes to this: one cup of uncooked basmati is approximately 10,000 grains! Phew! Now THAT'S a lot of rice! But lest that leaves anyone feeling badly, think of it this way: a cup of rice, when cooked, could be a meal for three-five people (depending on how large the portions are and admittedly, it would be better to have something to go with that rice). But it could very easily be the only meal people in some poverty-stricken areas of the world get in a day. And it takes relatively little effort to accumulate that much rice on this site. And if we all accumulate some rice, well, 2 billion grains (plus some) have been donated in the last 6 weeks. 2 billion grains is about 200,000 cups of rice. And if each of those cups feeds 3-5 people one meal each, then all together, this project has provided somewhere between 600,000 to 1 million meals of rice to hungry people in just 6 weeks! Wow! Now that is, indeed, a lot of rice!

ARGH! Would you guys just knock it off!? We get it, ok, that some people on this board don't care for each other. Those people, I'm sorry, are acting like bratty children engaged in an incessant war of "I know you are, but what am I" and it is about as convincing as that too. Just give it a rest already, would ya?

Joni, A couple of thoughts occur to me as I've read through this thread. 1) Would you discourage a boy for applying for a campership, if he really could not afford the fee for summer camp? I bet you wouldn't. Why, then, would you be too embarrassed to apply for a WB scholarship? (You don't need to answer that but I hope you'll consider it.) And for what it is worth, I know that people in the WB course I took received partial scholarships because I was one of them and I helped another get and fill out the paperwork. I could not have afforded to attend at the time if it hadn't been for that. But I've never once heard anybody in our council say anything about who is/isn't receiving scholarships so it isn't something that is likely to be discussed far and wide. 2) Many units pay only a portion of the WB cost. I think our pack paid either $50 or $75, I don't recall which. I still ended up paying a portion, plus the cost of uniforming (our pack was pretty lax about that at the time and I only owned a shirt prior to attending WB). 3) People have definite views about whether "the old" or "the new" WB is better. Don't let that get under your skin. You will almost certainly get something very valuable out of taking WB. You might well have gotten something very valuable from taking "the old" WB course too, but it would likely have been a different "something" and anyway that's not an option so let that slide right off your back and don't worry about the comparison. 4) If you're as involved with scouting as it sounds like you are, and you plan to stay involved for some time yet, I think you'll get lots of pay-off from attending WB. And so will the scouts and the units that you serve. 5) If you want to talk with someone local about WB, I recommend you find out who the Course Director (CD) for the upcoming course is. This person will be a volunteer like most WB staffers are, but they are in charge of the course. Mind you, they will be of the mindset that you SHOULD take WB! The CD is certainly in the best position to help you understand what WB is and what it isn't though. Or maybe ask the upcoming CD for names & numbers of some folks in your council who have recently gone through WB and contact them. All in all, while there are those who will say WB is not worth it (ie, Kudu and others who share his views), I've yet to meet anybody who went through the course and who did not come away with a better appreciation, understanding, and enthusiasm for scouting. I'm confident that would probably apply to you too, if you decide that this is the right time to do it. (PS - fellow WB'ers - about the staffing question - our DE was on staff for my course! Is this unusual?)

Look I have to say that when we get to a point where we are seriously discussing Eagle candidates forging MBs and advancement reports and hacking into the online advancement system, we are facing bigger problems than whether a child has earned a MB or not. Honestly I know there are times when a boy has tried to fudge something. And honestly a Scoutmaster and the troop's advancement chair should be paying enough attention that they notice this. But really, I think it is a fairly rare occurrence for would-be Eagles to intentionally and maliciously commit fraud in order to obtain an unearned badge. So I'm willing to go with eoleson's assumption that "A Scout is Trustworthy" in the vast majority of cases, unless confronted with direct evidence to the contrary in specific cases. As for Joni's question, I suppose you might say that while the boy has indeed earned the MB in such a case, there is no record of it, so he is unlikely to receive the credit he is due for it. I'm pretty sure most boys understand this so Joni, what's the issue here? Do you have boys who are up for Eagle who never turned in blue cards and are now shocked that there is no record of what they believe they've earned? And finally yes, I'll agree, updating council records seems to be a common theme in the woes of a scouter! All the more reason to make sure you teach your scouts that a scout is organized. Actually I am confident that this goes along with thrifty - a scout uses his time and resources well so as to save himself and others major headaches down the road a ways.

Nah, I completely agree with you John, and I say that as a current district membership chair. Of course I made my views fairly clear when I agreed to take on my present role, that I refused to play bean counter (only) this time around, and that what I wanted to do was develop a comprehensive strategy to help increase membership via solid programming, rather than last-minute creativity with numbers. And if "they" don't like that approach? Well then, "they" are more than welcome to replace me. However, I am beginning to hear more and more about meeting those goals (which, BTW, I had no hand in setting) and I know things are getting a little warmer under the feet of my DE. I'll do whatever I can within reason to help us make our goals but no way should we be keeping units on the books just because it helps us meet some criteria, if in doing so we aren't actually serving youth. I guess it is easy to lose sight of the bigger picture sometimes though.

GW< sure there are some of those folks out there but I've noticed that it has surprisingly little to do with gender! Some of the worst offenders I've met in this dept. are dads. I know one guy who has three sons, two of whom are Eagles. Not one of those boys is allowed to go on a camp out unless dad goes too. And when he goes, he appears to be incapable of leaving them alone to do their own thing. They're super-nice kids and all but I'm not sure who really earned that Eagle badge. Go figure.

Hi Joni, First, regarding WB, I agree that it can seem like a lot of money for a volunteer to shell out for training, especially in comparison to the (far lower) cost for most of the other BSA training sessions. However, most councils offer Wood Badge scholarships to those who otherwise could not afford it, and many units will help their scouters pay part of the cost as well. With regard to qualifications for WB, all you need is to have completed all required training for your current position. If I recall correctly you are a troop committee member, right? So you would need to have had Youth Protection Training, New Leader Essentials, and Troop Committee Training. YPT and the committee training can even be done online if I recall correctly, so the hurdle is fairly low. Now as to whether it is desirable (though not required) to have other training under one's belt, is another matter, and I think it makes sense for troop committee people to take OLS too, but I don't think it is required unless you are an ASM or SM. As for Cedar Badge - this looks to me like a local nickname for a council's National Youth Leadership Training week. Maybe they figured more leaders would send their youth if the name mirrored WB, I don't know. Hope this helps!

"would have been better if they would have spent 30 minutes going over the Venturing program. " Agreed. It was nice that the young men and women who assisted with our course did so, but as others have also mentioned in various WB threads, Venturing leaders tend to be a distinct minority and there are an awful lot of Scouters - myself among them, sad to say - who did/do not know much about the Venturing program. In our area, the same is true of Varsity Teams, which there are maybe 3 of in my district and probably less than 10 of in our whole council. When we got to the part where we needed to do a display "explaining" or incorporating Venturing and Varsity, it was somewhat a matter of the blind leading the blind, I'm sorry to say. Real opportunities for better understanding were overlooked here, IMO. But, I think this would be a tough thing to mandate nation-wide because in some areas, the Venturing program and certainly the Varsity program are better-known.

Brent, Interesting comments, and thanks for your perspective. I was a cub leader when I took the course and I thought the way the cub program was introduced made a mockery of it. I'm not sure that what you are describing post-2005 sounds a lot better, but that's just my view and I don't have first-hand experience with the updated version. For what it's worth, I really liked the content of the movies but the timing was terrible and I don't recall there being a de-briefing (maybe that has changed, or maybe my CD was playing it fast and loose there, or maybe I've forgotten which suggests it wasn't very influential if it occurred at all, I'm not sure which). My major problem with the timing of the movies was that they were really late at night (like, ended around 1am) and I just wanted to go to bed. Is that a standard thing? Or was this just the way it worked out in my course?

While to some extent I understand where you're coming from GW, remember that we are talking about 7-8 year olds (2nd graders)and not about boy scouts. And if they have a horrible experience they may never want to go hiking anywhere again. KISMIF needs to be a guiding principle when working with cubs. I think Ana should encourage her scouts to do the whole hike! But reality is that some of them just might not be ready for that and better to have planned for that in advance, than to discover it half-way through when there is no way to deal with it except to drag them on anyway, whining and crying the rest of the day.

This sounds like it might be a lot of fun, but it may also be a good idea to have a couple of bail-out points along your route in case there are boys who aren't up to the whole five miles. While I'll agree that 5 miles really isn't all that much, reality is that most kids these days probably are not used to walking even a couple of miles. And I know the last time I went on a 5 mile hike with some of our eager young boy scouts, several of them felt that they were "done" around the 3 mile marker. And they were three years older than the kids you are describing. So go for it! But plan for how you'll handle kids who are not able/willing to finish, without causing them or you too much unhappiness.

"hoping to change its policies by subversion from within. " Joni, perhaps what you see as "subversion from within" others see as a form of thorns & roses - honest discussion of what works, what doesn't work, and why, can lead to change.

Oh yes Trev, I saw that and liked it. Nicely done.

Not directly scouting-related, but as this is Thanksgiving week, I am thankful that I, my family, friends, colleagues and neighbors, have enough good food to eat. And along those lines, have you heard of this cool way to help provide food to the world's neediest people, administered by the United Nations World Food Program? The idea is that you answer vocab questions and for every question you get right, you have "donated" 10 grains of rice. (The rice is actually paid for by the ads on the bottom of the screen) Here's a link to the FreeRice FAQ: http://www.freerice.com/faq.html And here's a link to the "game:" http://www.freerice.com/index.php This program has been running just since early October and has already donated 2,457,120,420 grains of rice. It has been noted in major newspapers like the Washington Post and the BBC news channel. Cool, huh? Might be a fun thing to share with your scouts this week.

Aquila, interesting that both B&G Club and 4H serve more youth than the BSA. I'd venture that maybe the Y does too, though I don't feel like looking them up right now so I'm not 100% sure. At various times in our lives my son and I have participated in all of these and they offer excellent programs. However, the programs these groups run are not typically focused on the same types of outdoor activities as scouts. B&G tends to be more of an after school/latch key program in most places and operates primarily in urban and large suburban settings. 4H offers a huge array of programs, but in some ways they're more like Venturing, typically focused on a specific set of interests surrounding part of the 4H program. For example, there's a 4H dog club, a 4H farm-animals club, a 4H horse club, etc., in our area. I've spent lots of time with 4H as both a youth and as an adult and while I suppose it could be done, I've never heard of a 4H camping/outdoor skills club. My son has spent a week at Y camp for several summers and he loves it. Very different experience from BSA camp though, much more hand-holding from the counselors and few individual responsibilities for the kids. I like many of the Y's values though and I think he gets some rather different things out of going to camp there than he does from his week at scout camp so I'm ok with that. Funny enough, the Y camp he goes to has recently started offering a "wilderness adventure" week where the kids get to (gasp) light their own cooking fires, sleep in tents, and learn to identify plants and animal spoor. This is probably a radically new experience for a lot of youth who are not scouts, but it is executed in a way that is far more adult-controlled than anything you'd ever get in a good boy scout troop. All of these other alternatives are good programs. None of them offer the same type of experience, either in terms of outdoor content or in terms of teaching youth self-sufficiency and working/leading in small groups, that the BSA offers. And in the past, if you look through various threads, when folks have used the "don't agree with BSA policies? then just go join Spiral Scouts!" refrain, it has typically been in an off-the-cuff sort of a way - ie, "we don't want to discuss the nature of your disagreement so just go somewhere else." And in that regard, yes I maintain that it has been a dodge. It is equally a dodge to say "don't like the BSA? Then just go join 4H/the Y/B&G Club/etc." if saying so is meant as a way to avoid discussion. Writing off the disagreements people have does not make them go away.

Hey Trev, I appreciate your compilation there. A nice tidy summation of many Scouters' views. Mind if I borrow it from time to time? With due credit of course.

With regard to the requirement that a second scout attend - no, that's not in the MBC rules anywhere. THere is a requirement that there be no one-on-one contact but the second person could be anybody, doesn't even have to be a scout (or a youth, for that matter). That said, I know many troops who try very hard to avoid having parents serve as MBCs for their own boys, for obvious reasons, even though technically there is no prohibition on that scenario. On the main question, I'm in agreement with GW that the MB was earned when the MBC said so. If in doubt you could also float this question with your district advancement chair.

Since there seems to be a desire to talk about this topic, I'm spinning off a thread rather than further contributing to the hijacking of robvio's thread. It seems to me robvio has a legitimate question and it would be un-scoutlike to continue harumphing on about WB over there in the manner that some have. Now, if you want to *change* the current WB in some way, big or small, I do think it requires that you have more than a third-hand familiarity with the WB course outline! So I would ask that only people who have some direct knowledge contribute their CONSTRUCTIVE suggestions here. Want to rant/rave or otherwise carry on about something? Good, then go start your own thread elsewhere to do so. Now as for me: One thing I found irritating in WB was the way that "cub scouting" was used as a sort of cutesy introductory phase. This is something Kudu brought up too, and one of very few places where I think he's right about the need for revision in the 21st C WB approach. I recall being a little embarrassed that we went "through" being cub scouts in all of about an hour, with little actual thought or emphasis given to what cubbing is really like. This reinforced the views among some troop leaders that cub scouts exists simply to "feed" their troops and therefore that cub leaders are some lesser sort of scouter. Annoying. And totally un-necessary. I understand that this has been "tweaked" somewhat since I took WB in 2003 and that now there's a longer "cub" period, culminating in a "Blue & Gold" dinner on the first night. But I still get the feeling that this is pretty contrived. The structure of the course is really based on patrols and troop-level leadership (SPL, etc.) and I think it might be better to just stick with that. So that's one thing I would like to see changed, though perhaps those of you who have been through the most recent version of 21st C WB after the "tweaking" might disagree, and if so I'd be interested in hearing why. I used to be a BOBWHITE, a good old bobwhite too!

emb, I am a Wood Badger, but thank you for the suggestion. I was responding to John's comment regarding WB Staffers paying for the privilege of staffing. In our council, WB scholarships are not provided to staffers as far as I know.

Yeah there John, slow down a little. "Mouse turds" to you might be "Buffalo turds" to others. Personally, my discretionary income budget does not always include an extra $300 (plus other expenses) for scout training, no matter how "worth it" it might be - and I'm not doubting the value, I just have plenty of more urgent places to spend $300+ sometimes.

Ideally Webelos should choose the troop that is the best fit for them. This business of "feeder" packs, while I understand where it comes from, is not really how things are designed to work. Just because a boy was in pack 123 does not mean he will be best served by joining troop 123's program. He might be happier, more successful, and stick with it longer if he joins troop 456's program instead. And ultimately we should be looking for that best "fit" for everyone rather than getting caught in the turf war. What I would suggest is that if your troop decides you want to do an open house for all packs, get together with the SMs from the other troops in town and let them know that's your plan. Encourage them to do likewise (meaning, they should also invite your "feeder" pack). I've found that if we take the perspective that we're all brothers in scouting regardless of the troop #s on our shoulder, everybody ends up better off. And a little open communication goes a long way toward avoiding hurt feelings.

Well ok there LH, I've got one foot halfway in the door here. I was planning to be a UC to a cub pack, went to commissioner's college (which was great, by the way - learned a lot, met some interesting people, definitely worth my time and money), talked with my DC. But then I ended up taking on a more time consuming position with a different aspect of "the district," something I sort of would rather not do, but they needed to fill the position and I am both capable and available, and not entirely unwilling. So I've held off on UC'ing for now because I'm not sure I could do both, well, at the same time. Anyway, all that by way of saying I don't know if I fit into your criteria for this thread, but as you yourself said, you're not getting the sort of people responding that you were hoping for, anyway. Probably because most of the regular folks on this board don't fit the profile you drew. But, if I had signed on as a UC - my caveat was that I only wanted to work with packs, not troops, crews, or teams. I've done a good bit of reading and observing at the troop level, and I've been a troop committee member for a few years. I've camped with a couple of troops here and there. But I've never been an ASM or SM and I doubt I will be anytime soon. In what may be a boundless fit of arrogance, I think I more or less "get" the outline of the program, but still, without that hands-on experience, I would be uncomfortable advising an SM on many things. On the other hand, I have a good deal of hands-on experience with packs, including both the experience of picking up the pieces when things go badly wrong, and the experience of helping a pack double in size by virtue of a really good program. I can speak from experience about what it takes to fill most jobs in a pack because I've done most of them, and I have a good sense of where the problems are likely to be because I've had most of them and worked through them without much help. My UCs, you see, were mainly people who had little to no experience with cubbing, or whose experience was mainly "long ago, in a galaxy far, far away." They were - and are - great people with lots of scouting knowledge, but they were probably better suited to work with troops than packs. So, what constitutes a "Quality" cub program? For starters, a CM who understands that his or her major role is to be the "ringleader in chief" and not the "chief executive" or worse, "dictator." This person needs to be willing to be goofy in public, well-loved and even a little awe-inspiring to all those kids, respected and hopefully liked by their parents. And then, individual dens with den leaders who took the job because they wanted to, not just because they needed to put somebody's name on the sheet of paper! Unwilling den leaders don't do a good job. And then, depth of parent support (committee members too). You can run a cub pack on the hard work and steam of a couple of families, but when they burn out or their boys move on to boy scouts, or they leave, the whole pack is in danger. And then program - pack meetings that the boys want to come to, dens meeting on their own at least a couple of times a month, etc.. It isn't that this is unimportant, but I've found that if you get the above leadership issues right, the program flows from there because the right leaders will actively seek out "best practice" for their program through training, through reading their leader manuals, through networking (with UCs!), and so on.

Matt, I can't address the matter of rank here - but from a perspective of raising young men of character I think you're doing the right thing. Kids like this can be so hard to get to and often people write them off. Kids like this are also frequently so used to being misfits and often under-achievers too, that it can take a long time for them to believe that some adult is really looking out for their best interest and not just being a jerk or causing the kid to be a further misfit. And of course sarcasm and smart alec remarks seem to be many teens' favorite responses to everything (Me: What color is the sky? Teen son having a "moment": Oh I dunno, purple with green stripes?) Of course, by the time the kid is up for Eagle, unless he or you are fairly new to the troop, I'd expect he would know you and hopefully feel comfortable around you. But maybe not, maybe you're just the somewhat distant SM to him still. Please keep it up with this scout. Help him identify specific times and places where he can exhibit honest changes in his behavior. He may actually need coaching or even roll playing in how to do this! His automatic response could be that ingrained. I've worked with a few young men and women (freshmen/sophomore in college age - but not so different from high school really) who needed to be instructed in how to address their classmates and professors, why certain classroom behaviors send (perhaps unintentional) negative messages to others about them, etc.. Stuff I never thought anybody would need to be told but they were so stuck in their own groove that they didn't notice and didn't know how else to respond on their own. Here's hoping for a good outcome.

Hamster patrol??!???! Now *that's* funny! Just better not put them next to the Owls in the critter order.