eagle-pete 11 Posted October 18, 2006 Share Posted October 18, 2006 I was just invited today to be on staff on a Wood Badge course in September 2007! I am ecstatic! I have been waiting for over 3 1/2 years for this. I cannot tell you how delighted I am to be on staff. WOW! Ok.. now that I got that out of the way and managed to come down out of the clouds for just a bit (NOT), any advise from any of you old-time staffers? By the way, I will be serving as Troop Guide. They could not have given me a better assignment. Best staff position! I haven't even been assigned a patrol. I don't even know when that will occur. I am so green at this, but excited! I do plan to make the best of this time and enjoy every single moment of it. I'm gonna have a great time! Anyway, your advise and council is welcome! Thank you. Eagle Pete Link to post Share on other sites
orennoah 11 Posted October 18, 2006 Share Posted October 18, 2006 Congrats!! Staffing is even more fun than it is work, and it's a whole heck of a lot of work. (If you do it right, that is.) My best advise is to work closely with your ASM-Troop Guide, make room in your schedule for all of the staff training sessions and ask lots of questions. Then, suck it up and make it look like you've always been a Troop Guide. Many eyes will be upon you. - Oren WE3-41-03 Bear WE3-41-05 Quartermaster Link to post Share on other sites
SR540Beaver 116 Posted October 18, 2006 Share Posted October 18, 2006 Pete, Congratulations! I just finished my first (hopefully there will be more) staffing experience a few weeks ago. Staffing is as much fun, if not more than being a participant. Every position is hard work, but TG requires a lot of prep as you will spend more time with the participants and do more presentations than any other position. But you'll have a blast doing it. While we had info on every participant, the patrol make up was not finalized, nor did we know which patrol we would have until the Wednesday evening before the participants began arriving on Thursday. SR-540 Beaver SR-756 Owl Troop Guide SR-??? ????????? Link to post Share on other sites
emb021 16 Posted October 18, 2006 Share Posted October 18, 2006 "I have been waiting for over 3 1/2 years for this. I cannot tell you how delighted I am to be on staff. WOW!" Only 3.5 years? Hah! It took me about 15 years... "Ok.. now that I got that out of the way and managed to come down out of the clouds for just a bit (NOT), any advise from any of you old-time staffers?" Yeah. Have fun, work with your fellow staffers, be there for your patrol and ALL the participants. Be mindful of your limitations. Realize that as a staffer, you will be putting in more time (more days, more hourse per day) then the participants. "By the way, I will be serving as Troop Guide. They could not have given me a better assignment. Best staff position! " Yes and no. It can be hard. As a troop guide, your job doesn't end when the course does, but when all your patrol gets their beads (or 18 months after the course, whichever comes first). "I haven't even been assigned a patrol. I don't even know when that will occur." On my course, we literally assigned the patrols (and the guides) the night before the course began (I think to insure we knew who was coming). We tried to organize the patrols by area, so that they would be from the same general area, and assigned the guides loosely along those lines. Patrol names was done to make sure there was a mixture of patrols in each area. So you will probably not be assigned the same patrol you are a member of. (I wasn't). "I am so green at this, but excited! I do plan to make the best of this time and enjoy every single moment of it. I'm gonna have a great time!" Its a lot of work. You'll need to prepare your presentations. But if you have the right mind set, you should do well. Link to post Share on other sites
SueM 10 Posted October 19, 2006 Share Posted October 19, 2006 Congratulations!! I just finished my first (of hopefully MORE) stints as a Troop guide and it was an awesome experience!! I loved every minute of it! We had so much fun doing the staff development AND the course!! It is a lot of work but well worth the effort..it really reinforces what you learn when you go through the course. We got our patrol assignments a week or so before weekend #1 but didn't get the names of our patrol members until the night before. Knowing which patrol we were getting gave us a little time to prepare something special for our patrols..even if we didn't know who would be in them. Being a Troop Guide is like being a parent..you bond with your patrol and it's hard to not want to guide them -too- much! It's tough when you have to start backing away from them because they're like your children!! Sue M. Beaver SR-605 Eagle Troop Guide SR-741 Link to post Share on other sites
eagle-pete 11 Posted October 19, 2006 Author Share Posted October 19, 2006 Sounds like fun, hard work, dedication, and a thouroughly rewarding experience. Also, just like participants, I will get out of it what I put into it. I am looking forward to GREAT Wood Badge. Thank you for all your advise. I am sure as the course date gets closer and I learn more I will have more questions. Eagle Pete Link to post Share on other sites
kb6jra 10 Posted October 31, 2006 Share Posted October 31, 2006 Wow, I just read this thread. I too am taking the WB Staff plunge next spring and am looking forward just like Eagle Pete... The Course Director called and asked if I was interested, of course I said yes...he then asked to take my wife and me out to dinner. His way of smoothing out the "time away from family" concept with my wife (like she's not used to being a Scouting Widow). While I didn't order the fanciest thing on the menu, I did make him pay for it...nice tradition I think. Some day when I grow up and can be CD I'll do the same. Have a great time staffing, I certainly plan to... Matt I used to be a Bear... WE4-51-2-03 Link to post Share on other sites
eagle-pete 11 Posted November 1, 2006 Author Share Posted November 1, 2006 kb6jra Congratz! And make sure that you make the BEST of it! I know I will. What staff position will you serve on? Share your experience... I'd love to hear about it. Eagle Pete Link to post Share on other sites
John-in-KC 311 Posted November 1, 2006 Share Posted November 1, 2006 Congratulations to both!!! One specific comment (feedback is a gift! )... The powerpoints each TG uses at the breakouts in the first weekend. Consider, seriously consider, not using the BSA Woodbadge background with white print, rather using black lettering on a plain white background. I found the Woodbadge powerpoint slide master background very distracting and hard to read. I found the TG copy (black on white) far easier to read. John Link to post Share on other sites
emb021 16 Posted November 1, 2006 Share Posted November 1, 2006 "The powerpoints each TG uses at the breakouts in the first weekend. Consider, seriously consider, not using the BSA Woodbadge background with white print, rather using black lettering on a plain white background. " "I found the Woodbadge powerpoint slide master background very distracting and hard to read. I found the TG copy (black on white) far easier to read. " On my course, we (TGs) had little flip books to show print outs of the slides. They were primarily black print on white background. Link to post Share on other sites
eagle-pete 11 Posted November 1, 2006 Author Share Posted November 1, 2006 Yeah, I recall that what John refers to as 'breakouts' were our individual trainings we had with our TG. These were the flipchart presentations emb021 is referring to here. Good info, though on the PowerPoint backgrounds. I will be sure to pay close attention to these and make sure they are aesthetically pleasing. Thanks for the great tips and information. Eagle Pete Link to post Share on other sites
John-in-KC 311 Posted November 6, 2006 Share Posted November 6, 2006 Pete, It's not necessarily an aesthetics issue, to me, it's a communication issue. I'm nearsighted, -7 diopters +, and have some astigmatism. Someday, I will have to deal with cataracts (Mom and Dad both had a history). The issue of the background was that it was difficult, at best, for me to read the white lettering... it was competing with the background. Link to post Share on other sites
eagle-pete 11 Posted November 6, 2006 Author Share Posted November 6, 2006 I see John (no pun intended) I, too, have some vision issues. Not so severe as yours, perhaps. I do plan to pay close attention to the PowerPoint slides and charts we use. It's amazing how using a slightly larger font can also make a difference. Thanks for the tip Eagle Pete Link to post Share on other sites
SueM 10 Posted November 8, 2006 Share Posted November 8, 2006 I..as well as the majority of the other TG's...not only this course, but the course I went through...made their OWN presentations up! For one thing..our copy of the CD-Rom or DVD would not allow us to copy from it..plus the fact that I prefer making my own presentations. I did mine in Word and or Pagemaker..kept them simple with the 7/7 "rule" (which was explained to me as no more than 7 bullets..no more than 7 words in each bullet) and then used the syllubus and disk for reference. I don't like stock items anyway..this allowed for some individual creativity with the visuals. I'm more used to doing DTP so it worked out bettter for me. I'm willing to share my files if anyone feels they'd help sue m. Link to post Share on other sites
eagle-pete 11 Posted November 8, 2006 Author Share Posted November 8, 2006 SueM Very generous offer. The only thing is I probably will be using PowerPoint (I know... it's a M$ product). I don't have a copy of Pagemaker. Also, I do want to hold off on starting to create presentations until I get a better idea of what our CD has in mind for them. He will be strictly adhering to the syllabus. I don't know if there are restrictions on how presentations should be setup. And just so you know, there have been some recent changes to the syllabus. As I get further into staff developments I can let you know what we are doing and how liberal our CD is with creating presentations. Thanks Eagle Pete Link to post Share on other sites
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