Those Scouts are tough sometimes

[lrsap]

We recently had a camping trip where my PL son, who is really working hard to get FC by Summer Camp, wanted to work on some of his requirements that he has left. I told him fine, but as a leader he has to remember it's not all about him. I told him like I will all my PLs that I can offer guidance in his advancement if he takes the lead in helping his patrol advance as well.

 

He took to this well. A couple of things he has left to work on are his cooking requirements and his lashings to make a useful camp gadget. In the kitchen, he did a good job of making sure the boys that needed certain TF or 2C requirements assisted him accordingly. Those guys did pretty well as I expected. The actual running of the kitchen, however, was not a smoothly run operation at all. Kind of a "Ok, I lit the stove, now where are the eggs?" sort of thing. It was pretty easy for me and the 16 year-old that serves as our main trainer to agree he did not do the job well enough to get the requirement signed. But it did lead to great troop meeting conversations about camp kitchen organization the next few weeks, and a PL determined to redeem (his words, not mine) himself.

 

The lashings and camp gadget are what I found most interesting and eye-opening for me, and the inspiration for the thread title. He worked on his lashings for two weeks before the trip, and put together a tripod lashing with shear lashing flag pole. With this, he was going to have his patrol members needing TF work on their flag raising and lowering requirements while earning his FC ones as well. So here I am, all puffed up dad and SM, thinking how fantastic this was.

 

Along comes the 16 year-old before the flag work starts. "That tripod could be more sturdy. And the shear lashing is a little too floppy. Try that again." So here goes PL son, undoing and starting the two from the beginning without a complaint. And guess what? He could do better. And he did do better.

 

I learned a lot in a short amount of time. Basically, if I can acquire the resilience of a 13 year-old Patrol Leader and the tough, uncompromising standards of a 16 year-old Trainer, I might make a somewhat decent Scoutmaster one day.

 

And the 16 year-old did sign off on the camp gadget, the old softy!

[Eagle92]

And that's how it's done!

 

EXCELLENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Eamonn]

It's these moments that make what we do all seem worth while.

Ea.

[desertrat77]

Outstandng, thanks for sharing!

 

The scouts typically have an incredible sense of excellence.