SeattlePioneer

Ummm. I took Wood Badge in 1985. At the time I'd been Scoutmaster for three years, and had significant climbing and backpacking experience before that. The Wood Badge Course I took was not ABOUT teaching outdoor skills. But in the week long camp, people had a chance to learn or improve their camping and outdoor skills. People learned from each other and learned by doing, not by formal instruction in the arts. I vividly remember laearning about the importance of being on time for meals and other aqctivities. Wood Badge Staff "adults" took their meals with patrols. The first couple of days meals and other things could be on the ragged side, and the staffers waited perhaps twenty minutes or so before dinner was served. After about five minutes, they got up and politely excused themselves, saying that they had a meeting scheduled to begin in a few minutes they had to leave for. They didn't have time to eat much of their dinner. A quarter century later and I'm still trying to get Scouting activities started on time and ending when scheduled because of that lesson, most recently at our districts Roundtable last night. To me, that experience was a dramatic example of how to teach Scouting values and practices!

Was AS from 1981-1982 and SM from 1982-1987. I took Wood Badge in 1985. When I got back into Scouting in 2004 I went through the SM training again, including the OLS program. In our area, it's taught by a corp of dedicated old Scouters who have put together quite a program. While it's not a place to master all the Scout skills in a couple of days, it was a good place to review those skills for me. Perhaps most important, it modeled the method of teaching multiple patrols Scout skills simultaneously, by setting up various stations and rotating patrols through the training. I think that was excellent for a lot of adults to see and experience. Also, this training featured superior use of ceremonies, creating an impressive sense of majesty about completing the course and earning the "trained" patch and such. I was mightily impressed by that and it has influenced me to use ceremonies more effectively. I went back and participated in subsequent classes two or three times as a Patrol Adviser. Anyway, my experience was a good one and I learned some useful lessons.

As a 31 year old Scoutmaster and now as a 61 year old Cubmaster, I never had the time to take much in the way of pictures. For that reason I especially like the idea of some nice scrapbooks of photos of Troop activities. I probably have about a dozen slides of six years as Scoutmaster and that's it.

As district Membership Chair, I talked to the District Executive tonight about using the BeAScout.org website as a recruiting tool this spring. We both think it's a useful tool, but our council hasn't been promoting its use. Despite that, we are considering how we might pioneer use of this tool in the council. Some i8deas include: 1. We need to get access to the website in order to use its features. Getting appropriate passwords and such shouldn't be too difficult. 2. We need to clean up the website, eliminating units that are listed but don't exist for various reasons. Once we have access and passwords, that should be easy to do. 3. We need to motivate units to update their pins, the information provided when someone clicks their unit on the map. Methods to do that are: A) The usual e-mail blasts B) We are planning to award a ribbon to units meeting certain membership standards. Updating pins would be one of the requirements. C) If pins aren't updated, iquiries go to the Council and District. When forwarding on membership inquiries, a reminder to update pins would be included 4) The biggest issue is how to promote use of the website. Our answer to that is to slap the BEASCOUT.ORG brand on as many things the district does as possible, including all the recruiting material printed up for spring campaigns. We are fancying ourselves as the pioneers and models for the rest of the council on how to use this resource. After using this for the spring and fall recruiting seasons, we might anticipate taking the results back to the council to encourage a council commitment to using this resource a year from now. Any additional ideas on how to promote use of the website or encourage units to update pins and such would be welcome.

Proud Eagle, Th Scoutmaster was a nice guy, but not capable of functioning very much as a leader. He was easily pushed around by the CC. The Committee Chair fancied himself an intellectual among pygmies, so of course whatever he did was more than justified. He never held Troop Committee meetings either because "no one was interested." He wound up threatening to leave as Committee Chair, and I took him up on his offer in a hurry! We found a reasonably competent parent to be CC and started hiolding Committee Meetings and such, which people WERE interested in attending. The former Committee Chair attended Committee Meetings and continued to work with the program, but I personally backed up and encouraged the Scoutmaster in turning down the Scout for his Eagle Scoutmaster conference. (By the way, I was mistaken in saying the Scout had a Tenderfoot level of Scouting skills. Upon further thought he was a moderately competent Second Class). As I mmentioned, the boy wound up moving to a Troop of Asperger Syndrome boys, which was a good thing I suspect. The father was a pretty sophisticated guy, editor of a newspaper wire service and he clearly recognized that his son had challenges he was going to have to face in life. But despite that he was grossly overprotective of his son, which let the boy keep sliding off the hook of being responsible. Well, we do our best. Sometimes that's not a high standard.

I was never one to badger boys about getting the Eagle when I was Scoutmaster. We actively trained boys through First Class, and I was certainly glad to have boys motivated to get higher ranks. But if boys got First Class and they didn't want to get the higher ranks, that was there business. Of course Star and Life are pretty easy to get, and many boys get those. The Eagle is the tough one, and that was always fine by me. I've never been much impressed by boys who are dragged to the Eagle rank by a parent or parents. Those boys who are SELF motivated to get their Eagle, now THAT I respect! I have no objection to parents who do some coaching along the way. When we go snow climbing we have someone breaking the trail for us and some guidance on how to complete a complex program is fine with me. But I prefer to see a boy who has made the decision to pursue Eagle himself for his own reasons. And I used to do that kind of thing myself. I juust didn't have much interest in badgering a boy if Eagle was not something he was interested in pursuing.

As District Membership Chair, I was interested in seeing if I could get Catholic parish scout units to work together to support each other. Some are weak and others are strong. To that end, I found that there is a Catholic Dioces Scouting Committee, and I visited a meeting of that organization. The chair of that group is an experienced and charismatic Deacon, and he came out to a Roundtable breakout to which I'd invited Catholic Scout units. Several attended. Most of his presentation was about the religious emblem award program. I wasn't succesful in getting that cooperation between Scout units. The bottom line is that there may be other such Scouting oriented committees for different religious faiths. The same Deacon organizes and leads a Catholic Scouting summercamp as part of the regular summercamp program. One week Catholic units are encouraged to sign up and he organizes some religious activities during the week. I'd like to see religious faiths take more interest in units chartered by their churches, perhaps having at least an annual meeting to discuss issues and coordinate programs and initiatives. Such a meeting could be part of a larger Council training program if desired. I know there's a national Catholic Scout Committee --- perhaps other faiths have such a committee as well. Contacting such committees might make it easier to track down local committees and Scouters in your council's area.

I'm Commissioner for a pack I helped revive from the edge of collapse. Several years into that recorvery, no one was attending the excellent Cub Scout daycamp. I contacted the excellent day camp director, who offered to come to a pack meeting to promote daycamp. He came out and he and several Webelos Scouts did a skit about day camp activities. That produced several boys who attended daycamp and it's a reasonably well attended activity each year now. Same for our district marble tournament. The leader came out and gave boys new to marbling some instruction and opportunities to play marbles and boys participated in the tournament. So promotions are important! Based on my experience, I'd concentrate on units that aren't participating in your activities. Word of mouth among those units that are participating may be all the promotion you needs where units are already participating each year.

TN Scout--- I took Wood Badge in 1985. It wasn't training in outdoor skills then, although it used outdoor skills during the course of the training. My view of Wood Badge is that it aims to motivate adults to "work your ticket" throughout your life, not just when you have a kid in Scouting.

Hello Dances---- It may be that the police would be of no help, just as you describe. I'd find out though. If they say no, then you know. In the case of some youth group Treasurer's who spent the checking account on personal consumption around here, they are being prosecuted. Police might well decide that ripping off the Cub Scouts for $400 still merits their attention. If a detective showed up at someone's door investigating whether a theft had occurred, do you suppose thye family might be motivated to pay the money back to avoid having the prosecutor decide whether to file a criminal charge? As I say, worth a try would be my assessment.

I can give an example of how this kind of thing happens: A Scout had his father as Committee Chair. The father signed off pretty much all the boys advancement requirements, including merit badges and such. My own assessment was that this boy commanded Scout skills at about the Tenderfoot level, was the biggest whiner and complainer in the troop and had little conception of what it meant to "do your best." The only time I saw him doing his best was working to entice female camp staff into conversations at meals. That showed he had real potential if only he applied himself! When the Scoutmaster turned him down at his Life Scoutmaswter Conference, the father signed off on his advancement without a Board of Review. By the time of his Eagle Scoutmaster conference, the father was no longer Committee Chair. The Scoutmaster declined to sign off on the Scoutmaster Conference. The father moved the boy to a different troop composed of boys who all has Asberger's syndrome as this boy did. I don't know for a fact how that worked out in the end.

Quite often I have men introduce themselves to me as former Boy Scouts. Often they say apologetically that they never completed Eagle. I tell them that in my opinion, the most important rank in Boy Scouts is First Class. The promise of Boy Scouts is to make boys reasonably skilled hikers and campers and such, and the basic of that are completed by First Class. If a boy really learns the values and requirements he should by First Class, he's done a lot. Star and life are basically polishing what should already have been learned. Eagle has the addition of leadership training and experience. And most boys have to struggle to develope the courage to complete the regiman, which develops grit and detrmination. But First Class! I see that as the real key to Scouting!

Not as many new (kindergarten) Tiger Cubs as I would like. Mostly 1st graders and 2nd graders. Last fall we used a Raingutter regatta using homemade boats to attract a crowd ---- and quite a crowd it was. This spring I'm anticipating making stomp bottle rockets to attract boys. When you can hold out the rocket launcher and rocket at lunch for boys to inspect and say "How would you like to make a model rocket tonight and race it against your buddies to see whose goes the higest and farthest, you KNOW you are attarcting their interest! By the way 83 Eagle, I see no one has you on ignore!

I say again: call the cops. The parents have already been opportunity to pay up. After that it's fraud or theft. There have been several reports of people ripping off Little League teams and such around here --- the cops have been on these people like a duck on a Junebug. Some people just can't keep their hands off of someone else's money if they get a chance. But when the cops come for a visit and explain certain alternatives to them you have the maximum probability of getting the money. Personally I think that's our duty to other Cub Scouts and families who depend on the program.

Jet526, To customize your pin: Log on to your myscouting.org account. In Unit Tools, select Be A Scout. You must be a registered leader in the unit you wish to customize.

I'm challenging all comers to see who has the niftiest pin! To see my Cub Scout Pack, enter an address of 1020 sw 128 st, burien, wa zip 98146. Select "more information" unit 1 St Bernadette Parish

skeptic, You need to sign in on a myscouting.org account. Under unit tools, select beascout. You have to be registered as a unit leader to update the pin for a unit.

Well basement dweller, Most mountaineering injuries occure because of a series of bad decisions. That's typical. In the story I related earlier in the thread, I led a winter troop outing with an eleven year old on his first hike. He wound up in steep, waist deep snow and couldn't move because of it. Quite a few similarities, but then we had strengths that compensated for those weaknesses, too. Hiking in winter conditions requires training, experience and good judgment to minimize problems and to bail yourself out when things go bad.

Call the cops. I'll bet she "finds" the money after a visit from the boys in blue.

BeAScout.Org is a relatively new interactive website that allows people looking for Cub Scout, Boy bScout or Venturing program to find units in their area. It's worth checking out if you aren't familiar with it. Units can customize their "pin" which symbolizes the location of their unit. When someone clicks on the pin, a photo or logo chosen by the unit appears along with basic information about the unit and an e-mail to the unit leader can be sent easily. My council isn't making much use of that resource ---not yet anyway. I customized mu units pin, but couldn't find any others that had been customized. If it's not customized, the default e-mail goes to the council and only limited information is provided when the unit icon is selected. Just a week or so ago my DE sent me two emails that went to the council for our district (as District Membership Chair I follow up on such inquiries). So--- Does your council use and promote beascout.org? Have you checked your unit to see if the pin has been updated? Is this working for you? Seems like a slick system if it gets up and going. I've checked various areas around the country and found some where the pins have mostly been updated. So it looks like some councils are probably using it and others, not.

BeAScout.Org is a relatively new interactive website that allows people looking for Cub Scout, Boy bScout or Venturing program to find units in their area. It's worth checking out if you aren't familiar with it. Units can customize their "pin" which symbolizes the location of their unit. When someone clicks on the pin, a photo or logo chosen by the unit appears along with basic information about the unit and an e-mail to the unit leader can be sent easily. My council isn't making much use of that resource ---not yet anyway. I customized mu units pin, but couldn't find any others that had been customized. If it's not customized, the default e-mail goes to the council and only limited information is provided when the unit icon is selected. Just a week or so ago my DE sent me two emails that went to the council for our district (as District Membership Chair I follow up on such inquiries). So--- Does your council use and promote beascout.org? Have you checked your unit to see if the pin has been updated? Is this working for you? Seems like a slick system if it gets up and going. I've checked various areas around the country and found some where the pins have mostly been updated. So it looks like some councils are probably using it and others, not.

I'll relate one story of a troop snow shoe hike a few years ago. This winter hike was in cold weather +15 to 20 degrees and 10-15 MPH winds. Along a closed and snowed in Forest Service road in a national forest. Icy conditions on the road ---no real need for the snow shoes but most people wore them. We got 2+ miles in to our turnaround point where we had lunch and the Scouts did some glissading (sliding) down a suitable hill side with a run out at the road. I noticed we were missing a boy out on his first outing with the troop. We did some looking around before I saw him --- he had slid down another snow slope which had several feet of soft powder snow. It was a steep slope and looked out over the great snowy beyond. He couldn't get up and couldn't do more than flail around in the soft snow. One of the parents wanted to take charge of extracting the boy, but I made a point of making sure that our senior Scout had the responsibility. We had made a game of tying a bowline and throwing the loop to "rescue" a scout during troop meetings --- now they had a chance to see that the skill wasn't just a game. The Scouts got the bowline tied and sent one Scout down on the rope about thirty feet to get the loop around the young Scout. They helped pull both boys up the hill. They did an excellent job with this practical rescue! We hadn't done an adequate job of maintaining the buddy system and keeping an eye on the new Scout in particular. If he'd slid another ten feet or so behind some scrub pine trees, he wouldn't have been visible and hearing shouts might have been problematic. Between the temperature and the wind, the weather conditions were severe. Could have been a real problem if that boy had slid down much farther. Down hill was nothing but the great snowy Beyond. It's amazing how fast you start to sweat even in cold weather when a boy is missing!

Thank you sasha for your good wishes. Our schedule is: May 9th Recruiting Night May 16th Bobcat Den Meeting May 21 Bobcat Den Outing June 7th Bobcat Den Meeting June 20 Bobcat Den Meeting June 25-26 Campout and crossover (Bobcat Den dissolved) Among my aims is to get new Cub Scouts off to an outing ASAP. The den meeting before the outing serves for sign up and to explain our expectations such as the buddy system and such. That gives two additional den meetings which also need to prepared boys and families for the overnight camp. So there is plenty for new Cub Scouts and parents to learn in those meetings. Our summer activities include participating in a 4th of July Parade, Cub Scout daycamp in July and either a pack barbeque or participation in a district Cub Scout Camporee in August.

Thanks for your comments Nike. It's difficult to motivate unit leaders to come in for training on how to do effective recruiting. One of my recent bright ideas is to treat the unit leaders and their Cub Scouts to a model recruiting night that will be FUN and ATTRACTIVE for them to do with their Cub Scout. I was interested in whether you or other pack leaders might be motivated to attend such an activity in place of a more conventional Roundtable. My aim is to give this a try at our March Roundtable and see what happens. It sounds like you have your role well defined, so that might not be helpful to you. I appreciate that input!

Hello Nike, Thanks for relating the tasks you perform as Pack Membership Chair. As District Membership Chair I will be holding a Roundtable in March to train unit leaders in how to donduct an effective recruiting night. Rather than have this a lecture, I'm thinking about inviting Pack leaders to bring their boys and have a model recruiting night, with boys and parents constructing a raingutter regatta boat or stomp bottle rocket and then SHOWING parents how to get applications signed and such while the boys are out launching stomp bottle rockets or racing. My aim here is to make this FUN for parents to attend, and thus attract unit leaders like yourself to find out about different ways to hold a recruiting night. Would that be something you might be motivated to attend with your Cub Scout? If you had additional training like that would you be interested in doing some new things with your recruiting night? You seem happy as the Papwerwork Queen --- and that's a valuable contribution (I'm my own Paperwork Queen, so I know!) Just curious if you might be interested in doing more if you had additional ideas on what you might do.