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WRW_57

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Posts posted by WRW_57

  1. Call them and find out about their scholarships. https://www.nols.edu/en/resources/financial-aid-scholarships/ .  The school is a non-profit. This course $245, about the same as a WB endeavor.

    Like many things, it' s a case of you get what you pay for, and if you do not have to call for Search and Rescue during scouting career it will have paid for itself on the first trip. 

    BSA national has been in discussions with NOLS Risk Management Services, off and on, for the last 20 years about  audits and consultations but never seems to get around to making a commitment.

  2. If you or your unit are going to take scouts into the backcountry, seriously consider taking this course: https://www.nols.edu/en/about/risk-services/training-courses/wilderness-risk-management-with-nols-and-rei/. This is the perfect compliment to a wilderness first aid course because it teaches how to avoid unnecessary risks beforehand as well as what to do after you've stabilized your patient.

    I'm a council IOLS Instructor, ASM, and a grad of WB, Powder Horn, and Kodiak. I'm also an  Eagle Scout and former NOLS Senior Course Leader who taught this material for 13 years. This course is well suited for scouters and is better than any the BSA provides for this subject mater.  You will not get this info at IOLS, WB, PTC, Powder Horn,  Kodiak, Scouter U., or the National Camp School.  PM me if you have questions.

    • Like 2
  3. I bit the bullet and went out of council for a 5-day course, offered by National for the same reasons Miami Chief identified. I was well run and required less time than the local offerings. Do not underestimate the value of outside-council contacts. If you want to staff a local wood badge course this may not be the route take, as you'll have no personal history with the local WB junta … something often more valued than teaching skills or subject-matter expertise.

     

  4. Some folks in other patrols really struggled with identifying ticket items.

    Our troop guide made us come up with five ideas the first afternoon.  We each of us put them on our own white board*, for our other patrol members to  see, and comment on. This allowed for rapid development without angst. As individuals we  brainstormed each others ticket items until everything was baked by Wednesday. We all thought about our items before arriving, so it was just a matter of mapping them a WB dogma. None of the 25 tickets items were the same.

    * we got to meet in a training room, with miles of whiteboards.

     

     

  5. I think the horn and axe display may have been left out due to weather, and not a formal decision. There was plenty of WB traditions and formality, but the focus was the learning and how to understand the moving parts inside and outside a unit.

    No patrol patches, no bead thingies for PLs, no stuffed animals, just patrol flags & yells,  & Tr1 neckerchiefs. Some jokers took our patrol flag and hid it ...after their WB SM conference I believe they regretted doing it. My patrol got to laugh twice on that one.

    No talk of geeking out with fellow critters after the course, just how to be more effective scouters when we returned.

    The NYLT-youth lead the teamwork games at Camp Rocky Mountain, that each WB patrol participated in.

    The absence of camping as a patrol was not missed by anyone. Some patrols had enough friction without having to tent together.

    My patrol  consisted of a disaster-response  mgr (ASM), real estate consultant (SM), professional musician (DistCampChair), shipyard quality inspector (ACM), and a NASA flight controller for the ISS (CM). We skipped all the BS and went straight to "norming", got our stuff done efficiently, and had time plenty for laughs.

    As taught, the course was about the youth, not me.

  6. I paid for it myself as an ACM with 18 months left in the Pack before my kid heads to boy scouts. I taught outdoor leadership  at the Nat'l Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) for 13 years. I wanted to see what BSA was doing after being out of uniform for 40 years.

    My pack will be sending two senior leaders next year and paying for it. Both have 3+ years left in the pack. Both of them need to learn the big picture of contemporary scouting so they can effectively delivering the minutia at the unit level. For these folks its time to get a clue or return to den leading. We have 75 scouts and do about $16K in popcorn each year.

  7. I was there at the spring pilot course at Philmont, as a student. Here is what I recall:

    • B & G + crossover  at Lunch Day 1
    • I was told more topics taught by troop guide
    • Ticket ideas due Day 2 EOD (9PM), Completed tickets turned in Day 3 EOD, Approved tickets returned Day 4. No other homework or late-nighters.
    • Patrol Project was a 7-10 minute on what we got out the course. No PPTs. Day 5 in AM. It took us about 45 minutes to put it together taking and white boarding.
    • Students politely challenged the lectures  on occasions for the better.
    • 5-hr outdoor segment run by local NYLT grads.
    • Newton-car project replaced game of life.
    • Nothing terribly stupid or silly. Did not overdue the patrol identity thing like you see from local wood badge grads. No Kudu horn blowing or axe-n-log displays.
    • High caliber group of students and nat'l -level instructors
    • Only brief movie clips to compliment presentations.
    • No mention of folks having to retake the course...not a huge curriculum changes. Perhaps more info on evolution of teams and the  leaderships styles best suited for various stages of development and situations.
    • The program kind of assumed you knew about the history of scouting before, as well as the patrol method.
    • One, patrol cooked dinner. Chow hall or sack meals rest of time. Slept indoors.
    • Plenty of in-class patrol assignments & presentations. No artificially induced "stressing" events. Ton of valuable class participation by students.

    The five day straight, out of town,  schedule worked the best for my work calendar. I was also strongly turned off by cliquish nature of my council's wood badge cult, and felt a higher-profile course had to be better than the local options. The added cost was well worth the valuable contacts and friendships I made at BSA-18-2.

    • Upvote 2
  8. The goo-gone cleaning environment needs to really clean as the possible. I found the partially removed adhesive turns into an instant dirt magnet. I also found that applying it from the inside of the shirt to help loosen up the patch. The adhesive was scrapped off the shirt with a sharp plastic knife repeatedly between additional applications. The de-goo'd spot was then repeated, gently washed with Dawn dish detergent to remove the goo-gone resident.  What a hassle, the and spot is never perfectly clean, as mentioned earlier.

    Now I locate the patches with only a little BM and then have a local seamstress sew them on.

  9. Since it is true confession time,  I end up "profiling" other scouters I do not know by their uniforms,  for better or worse. I suspect I'm not alone in this practice. I fully embrace the reality that the uniform police do little good for the movement.

    Here's a few examples:

     Incomplete or Incorrect, or both: Probably not the first person I'm going to for help, or trust with their answer. I have Den leaders in this category and it's no surprise when their scouts are unruly,  ill-informed, behind on advancement, or drop out. A case of bad examples creating bad examples.

    Rebel/Statement Maker: Unauthorized/ political/social items on their uniform. I'm not really clear what scouting method is in use with these silly, esoteric additions. I just assume Bozo-in-a-Bozo-uniform. I do not care what this person privately believes, or how  funny they think they are.  I'd rather see one's individuality manifest itself in creative  teaching and successful unit leadership.

     Complete & correct but over-adornedProbably will trust their answer, assuming they have the time and patience to stop talking with the other square knot admirals in the room.

     Complete, correct, & simple: Probably involved in scouting for reasons other than themselves. Their information and demeanor often supersedes what their uniform communicates. 

     I wear a full uniform with one knot and a name tag.  I have met a few acceptations in each category.

     

     

  10. Go now. I just did the Centennial WB Pilot Course at Philmont this March. My classmates were from  Cub, Scout, and  District positions.  The curriculum and program was the same for everyone. The first 1/2 day's lessons are presented in a Cub Scout theme, but  the instruction applied to everyone. Once you get there, no one cares what your position is at home, or the number of square knots you do not posses.  I'm a Cub Scouter and my experience at WB was positive and helpful. It allows me to be an informed and influential member of the committee.

    I was told the new curriculum shifts more of the instructional duties to the troop guide in the patrol setting, and the "game of life" is gone. The "management & Leadership" theory, while familiar, was also highly contextualized to scouting and working with youth.  The best part of the experience is being able to casually discuss your unit's challenges and get sound advice back from your classmates. Show up well rested, bring enough clothes changes, and you'll be fine. No need for long meditations beforehand. New ideas will start clicking in your head once the presentations begin.

    We also had folks writing ticket items across multiple scouter disciplines: cubs & scouts, cubs & district. Hopefully the common sense leveraged at my pilot course will find it way to into the update courses in 2019.

    Fortunately, our course did not get all juvenile and fetishy about their patrol mascots...this to me is the scourge of some wood badge graduates: the scouters come back and talk more about their patrol  identity than they do about their tickets and how these improved their units.  

    Who the hell cares about what "animal" you were, after the course?  

    • Like 1
    • Upvote 1
  11. I agree that hunkering down was their best choice for extending their luck. Their second lucky break came when the weather cleared long enough to pluck them off, early the next day. Based on their found condition and required hospital stays, it would be a stretch to think they could have survived another day. One media outlet reported that the evening temperature was in the teens.  

    To me, some of the clear lessons here center around understanding the difference between "institutional (scout trips)" and personal climbing,  and the risk one assumes in each endeavor. I think there are plenty of good opportunities in the higher mountains for scouts to have adventures and learn, without their leadership having to "play their last hand", cross their fingers, and then  hope the Almighty grants them a 30-minute-weather window for a Navy rescue helo . 

    Prior to the break in the weather that morning, their choices were grim:  continue freeze to death in the trench they dug on the summit, or die in a climbing fall due to poor visibility.

    As mention above, the irony of these situations is that  we can often ID the root causes only after they happen. Real mastery of  outdoor leadership is being  able to identify these dangerous roots cause as they are compounding, steer a course to mitigate them, and then continue to make the outing fun and educational.  I look forward to reading the incident review from National. 

    The injured kids are from an affluent part of town, so they'll surely get the best medical care available. The troop has been around for more than fifty years, and is a good unit. Hopefully the lessons-learned will be broadly communicated, and the policy re-boot will be minimal.

    https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/boy-scout-remains-hospitalized-after-mount-baker-rescue/281-562085823

     

     

    • Upvote 1
  12. I believe this story is far from over. Rumor has it several in the party suffered frostbite. I was told the group had an  "epic" on the same mountain, in previous years. The newspaper described it as a "hike". It is, actually,  technical mountain travel where one ropes up to move  more safely across snow covered crevasses in the glacier, as well as protecting climbers on steeper terrain.

    I've guided* on this mountain, professionally, twice.  Summitted once, backed off once, near the top.  It can be winter time on that mountain every day of the year, including June. On my last trip there we there we had just summitted the peak on the same route as the scouts, when the entire summit dome whited out. We turned around immediately and located our decent path before it was snowed in. No summit pictures, no celebratory hugs, just the get "F"-out-of-there, ASAP. 

    Here's a few questions I'd be asking, as an investigator.:

    -- How many times had the trip leaders been on the mountain before?  What was the weather like before?

    -- How much experience did they have climbing peaks this high, during this season, with groups this size (three rope teams of four)?

    -- What was the climbing plan? What was discussed as mission-abort indicators (i.e.  weather events, fatigue, loss of visibility) for turning around early?

    The weather that day was crappy here in Seattle. We were doing our Pack's rank-up picnic at the same time, with frequent rain squalls, and wind a sea level.  They were climbing the mountain from the side which typically gives one a view of incoming weather.

    Based on my personal knowledge of the mountain, I'd say this kind of trip is better suited for 16+ year-old's, with properly trained and experienced leaders. All to often, especially with inexperienced climbing leaders, it is easy to assume one's early successes in the mountains are due to personal competence, instead of, just, dumb luck. Add a little leadership machismo to this equation and your expedition has the potential to make the headlines, when conditions go south.  

    This story makes me angry.  I believe the facts of this story show that the group had no business being on the mountain that day. Scouts got hurt because of poor adult leadership and outdoor risk management. This near-tragedy was totally preventable, in my opinion.

    And, remember:

    • "Plan you climb, climb your plan."
    • "When you are on top of the mountain, you are only half way home."
    • "Live to wimp again."

    * 18- 28 yr old students, on a 5-week wilderness mountaineering course. Glacier travel, crevasse rescue, personal energy mgt., ice axe techniques, are all instructed before "heading up the hill."

    • Upvote 3
  13. On cross over night our Pack does simple AoL rank advancement recognition with the recipients, followed by whatever thank yous the parents offer the retiring AoL Den Leader, then we have the boys back up in front who are bridging over. This second group receives a Completion of Cub Scouts Certificate and then crosses the bridge to their new Scoutmaster who provides a new necker, handbook, and wisks them away on the troop's bus to their first meeting, a welcome reception. Nobody goes home empty handed.

     

    • Upvote 1
  14. The bed wetting challenge can be mitigated to some extent by having the youth keep a "pull-up" underwear in a ziplock bag in his sleeping bag, which he changes into at night, in the privacy of his sleeping bag. The following morning he changes out of the wet pull-up, again,  in his sleeping bag, and places the wet item back into the ziplock bag. None of his pals will ever know. It can be disposed of discretely by an adult. This can be practiced at home beforehand.

    To keep things simple, our Pack expects a parent to accompany their child to resident camp, including Webelos.

  15. We've have 5th grade girls in our pack now. They will hang out a second year in cubs until they bridge over next. They are Webelos Scouts this year and will be AoL next year. Our council endorsed us (selected pack for the pilot program).  I believe they felt it more important to build momentum than adhere to the original age limits

  16. I'm a third generation Eagle Scout (1977) , behind my father and his father. My son is a Webelos Scout presently and may choose to do the same.  My dad and grandfather were in the NESA database but not myself until I submitted  documentation. 

    The photos is from 1949 Buffalo Area Council Court of Honor, Buffalo NY. It was noted in the newspaper article that accompanied this photo, that a second generation was very uncommon in he council, as well as being a 14 year old Eagle.....youngest on record in that council at that time

    DJS_FOS.png

    • Upvote 1
  17. In 1974 I do not recall any elections in our troop. In a troop of 30 boys, maybe one per year were tapped out at a camporee. If you did not attend the camporee, you missed your chance. The scoutmaster identified the  candidates to the OA during the big campfire ceremony. Besides first class, one needed to be a PL for some time. At the time, maybe 10% of the unit was in OA, and none of the troop's goof-offs.

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