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Are The Tickets Getting In The Way?


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In the report that I send to the Region about the Wood Badge Course that our council hosted last year I said that I thought there was too much stuff in the Vision and Mission Presentation. If you remember this is the first "Real Presentation" After lunch on day one, once the Course Director has given the Course Overview.

The material in it is absolutely wonderful and outstanding. While not wanting to spoil the course for those who have yet to attend. It has the Oak Trees, B-P footage even Maggie Thatcher gets in on the act. All as I say wonderful - But there is just too much. In this session we look at Values, Vision and Mission and this leads up to the goals and the Ticket.

Sad to say most people who attend the course have heard about the ticket. Once they hear about this it seems that everything else gets forgotten. I did ask the staff to really stress the Vision and Mission. In fact we asked the participants to write what their Vision and Mission was on the top each goal. Sad to say the goals through some unknown transition became Ticket Items and the ticket items became bigger then the Vision and Mission. Now as I talk to course participants they tell me how their ticket is going. When I ask is it helping you reach your vision and mission? They look at me as if I have landed from outer space. Again the tickets seem to be the be all and end all of the course. It is of course true that when the goals were put down on paper they were the tools that would help reach the vision and mission.

I think that maybe in that first presentation that we could stop and not mention goals until later in the day or even the next day.

So I'm asking all those who have had any involvement with the new course what do they think?

Thanks.

Eamonn

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I didn't have any problems with my tickets. I understood the Vision and Mission presentation. I know some of my patrol members had minor problems but it was worked out before the last day of WB. But then we had a Q&A period after each presentation.

 

It seems that some of the participants in your situation really didn't understand the Mission/Vision Presentation and probably took that as the way to their tickets and confused it with the Goals. There probably should have been more clarification between them and their Guides and Instructors.

 

I know in the course I went through. It was announced by the Course Director, SPL, Instructors, and Troop Guides that we had to have 1 ticket per session or presentation, that would help us in our Vision/Mission for the position that we are registered in, throughout the week.

 

Fortunately, I had tickets for both unit and District levels. My understanding was that the tickets were goals that helped us get to our Mission and Vision.

 

I have to look back at my copy of the syllabus.

 

Matua

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This isn't really the response you are looking for, since it has nothing to do with the current coarse, though it is vaguely related to tickets. It seems to me that some people are reluctant to take woodbadge because of things they have heard about the tickets. I know I have heard at least a couple people say they didn't have time for a ticket, even though they didn't really know what one was. (In fact I really don't think I have it quite figured out even though I talked with my dad about it and several other woodbadgers I know.) I know it is a personal concern of mine since I am next to inactive while I am away at college.

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I am the Senior Patrol Leader (Backup Course Director) for the 2004 course in our council. When the Course Director and myself went to the Course Director's Conference, there was a discussion on the Vision and Goals. In reading the syllabus, we realized that it is one vision, 5 goals. These goals are not tickets, the vision and the goals to accomplish this vision are the TICKET. We have given the Troop Guides sample tickets to review and have told the whole staff, ONE VISION, FIVE GOALS. As the Troop Guides started looking over the sample tickets (seven out of eight were participants in the last 21st Century course) they realized that they wrote their tickets wrong. They used 5 visions, 5 goals. Makes for a hard ticket and also keeping the emphsias on the vision.  The presentation will be more helpful on this course.

Dancin

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Eammon,

 

I agree that a huge amount of thought and energy went into the tickets during the first weekend. Much of it evolves as a result of the first presentation, where the participants learn that they will have to do this. In my course there was a great emphasis on getting the tickets written before returning for the second weekend. One guy never returned for the second weekend because he just didnt want to do the tickets.

 

I also believe that the process of writing the ticket becomes consuming and diverts the participants attention away from the course material. The participants are nave, and to a great extent flounder through the first iterations of their tickets. This may be a result of having to write the tickets too early in the course, and without the complete understanding of the program that would occur toward the end of the second weekend. In my course most of ticket writing occurred during the breaks. In reality I would have preferred to take a break during the break!

 

 

 

 

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As I remember, after I first signed up for Wood Badge I posted a thread here about Tickets, what was a good idea, and just what were they, the consensus was I should wait until the course to develop my own.

 

Well, as I remember it, the course didnt talk about tickets until the third day of the first weekend and yes, tickets were "due" on the second day of the second week end. Which I found strange to say the least as most of the people I took Wood Badge with all had at least one ticket item change, (with appropriate authorization of the personal counselor of course)

 

Perhaps a better approach would be to have the participants write "sample" ticket items to be sure they are getting the concept and then set the official approval with the personal counselor. As it was our patrol guide appoved our tickets yet our counselor signed off on them , it makes more sense to have the person who approves also be the one who signd off.

 

Perhaps the tickets are over emphasised, but when the Wood Badge song comments on them so strongly, its easy to see why the emphasis is there.

 

An alternative would be to have a pre-meeting of the participants explaing the ticket process, just the guidelines and tell the participants to think of how the material presented during the course will flesh out the ticket process.

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I also took this year's course and during the 1st coplof days tickets were not mentioned that much. Then during the second weekend everyone in my patrol was hammered to get them written up. A cpl of fellow patrol members went thru the training bu decided to just not do them. A pre meeting about tickets what is acceptable would have been better at least for me.

My only advice for new woodbadgers is not to start anything until the course is over just in case you were planning on using it as a ticket. To me, yes the tickets got in the way.

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I agree that the ticket gets in the way. My Wood Badge experience was that after the first presentation, the pressure was on to complete our tickets. I would have benefitted from a little bit od advance info on just how to write a ticket. I knew I was going to need 5 goals, but where I was stumped was the Values, Vision and Mission statement. I had never done anything like that before and it was intimidating. With the pressure to get my ticket approved before we went home that weekend (!!!!) and having to attend and participate in the presentations, I felt overwhelmed. I told my son, who has ADHD, that I had a new appreciation for how he must feel every day. My brain was going in about 20 different directions all at once. This may sound corney to some of you, but the only way I got through that weekend was to pray. I went to bed Friday night praying for guidance and patience and when I woke up on Saturday, I had my ticket complete in my head. I very quickly wrote everything down, before I forgot anything! Some different advance information might have been useful, or less pressure to get the tickets completed before the second weekend might have made it a less stressful experience. Don't misunderstand, I loved my Wood Badge experience, and a few changes would have made it better, for me.

 

The other problem I experienced with tickets getting in the way, is multiple leaders from our Troop attended the same Wood Badge course. It has put an additional stress on the youth of our Troop to try to implement all of the goals of these adults. Our guys are Wood Badged out.

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I haven't been through the course so I'm speaking as an observer, an observer from waaaaay outside.

 

I know a few ASMs who have gone through Wood Badge recently and nearly everything that they say revolves around their "ticket" and what they need to do to complete it. Helping their Troops deliver a good program seems to have taken a back seat to completing their ticket.

 

Maybe like many things, the prize has become more important than the process. Join Boy Scouts, not to learn but to make Eagle. Go to college, not to learn but to get a degree. Go to Wood Badge, not to learn but to complete your ticket and get your beads. Yeah, I'm a cynic but we all know that.

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Scoutmom,

 

Boy! Do I hear you! We had four of us from the same unit at the same Wood Badge. We were all assigned to different troops with different troop guides. We had to sit down with one another and hammer out our tickets because many of us had the same ideas for ticket items. It is kind of hard for two different people in the same unit to get PackMaster up and running as individual ticket items. We worked it all out, but it really put a strain on us to come up with ticket items that didn't overlap.

 

FOG,

 

Your ticket items are supposed to relate in some way to your current position as a scouter. If you are working your ticket, it should be benefiting your program and unit......not getting in the way of it.

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Personally for me I wish they had told to have an idea of what your tickets might be before starting, then you can sit down with the SM and or the CC as to best help your unit. Everyone told me that your tickets will develop while your there but again for me it was better to have an idea or list of ideas before starting.

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FOG,

 

I learned a lot as a scout, Life Scout, quit when I was 17 joined the army at 18. Do I wish now that I finished Eagle? Tough one. Go to college and double major in physics and philosophy and don't finish. What are you......a well educated drop-out, that's what. You have to meet all the requirements to get the end reward, how can you not learn something beneficial along the way?

 

(This message has been edited by Trail Pounder)

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Wow, what great timing. I just got called and told that I am giving the Vision and Mission presentation at our course this April. Since I have not seen the new WB course in action, I didn't realize what this is all about. I am reading all the comments with a lot of heart.

 

As for the tickets, I've already heard from folks in our last October course say they feel overwhelmed by their tickets. I thought that odd because they only have five compared to the nine we had in the old course. I don't really remember anyone feeling overwhelmed by the tickets in the old course. After reading this subject, maybe there is to much emphasis on the tickets.

 

Barry

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Actually it was fear of tickets that kept me out of Wood Badge as everyone I knew who was "doing" Wood Badge seemed to always mumber something about a ticket when I saw them, that and the rumor was you had to be a slave to Council for 2 years. While I was interested in doing Wood Badge, the fear of tickets, (the unknown) kept me away for years, it didnt help that no one would talk about them either. I understand about not giving the experience away, and this may be overkill, but perhaps a meeting with the participants AND the scout/Cub master or Committee chair if the its the scout/cub master in the class would be nice with the personal counselor to go over need in the unit and what might be worthwhile goals. We werent assigned our Counselor until the second sunday, perhaps having met him upfront before the classes would have been nice and a good way to get the thought process rolling.

 

I took Wood Badge with 2 other ASM's in the troop we humbly serve, there was some jockeying for certain projects, but the Commitee Chair loved it, never has so much been done by so few for so many in such a short period of time. Progress of tickets was reviwed at Troop COmmittee meetings, and tons of ticket ideas kept comming up. My fellow Wood Badgers and I coined the term "Ticket Creep" , seems what we wanted to do was great but the attitide was, well if you do that, if you can do this at the same time it would be perfect. We made a list for the next crop of vict ahh participants to continue where our projects ended.

 

Just as a curiosity, in the previous edition of Wood Badge, how was the ticket process handled?

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