Musing while chain sawing...

[Eamonn 61]

DugNevius

I don't have the answer.

It is a sad fact that many of the guys I am talking about are proud Wood Badge trained leaders.

What really vexes me is that these guys know what they are doing is wrong.As if that wasn't bad enough they have new leaders join, these new guys attend training leave with the training high and never get to put the stuff that they learn into practice, because of the "We don't do it that way" syndrome.

During my time as District Commissioner, I thought that I would be clever and before the R/T Commissioner got going with his thing I took about ten minutes each month and covered the methods of Scouting. Everyone said that the presentation was good and they liked the handouts. Still nothing changed.

The guy who is one of my ASM's for the Jamboree arrived at our first troop meeting not wearing Scout uniform pants. I had requested that all the Scouts wear full uniform if they had one. I know the guy has three kids, one in college and two boys going to the Jamboree, but I had to insist that he started wearing the full uniform. The other two are great!! One is the SM of what I think is one of the best troops in the District.The other is a just 18 year old, who OJ (My son) says I like better than him. He was in with me last Jambo and his Dad was there working as a RN. I was the guest speaker at his Eagle Scout court of honor. A super Lad who attended the last world jamboree and is the Wagion OA Lodge chief.

We never seemed to have these problems back home in England, but that was twenty years ago and it could be that people think differently and we don't have as many people involved? I don't know.

At times I think we have fallen into the thinking that some sort of a program is better than none.

The thread on Commissioners did seem to be saying that there are flaws in the Commissioner service, but even if the service was perfect how would you deal with the people who know what they ought to be doing but have made the choice not to do it?

Some people might say that we need to work on getting our chartered partners more involved. That might work. It would be great if we could really get the COR's more involved, maybe we need to rethink their role. Back home we had a Group Scout Leader, as a rule this was an older leader who was a mentor to the leaders and worked with the Group Committee (The group was all the programs: Cubs, Scouts and Venture Scouts - Yes they were Venture Scouts in the UK from 1969 until about three years ago)

Maybe we need the Districts to be doing more in the area of offering programs that units can participate in?

I really don't have the answer.

I keep thinking about the Johnny Cash song, To Beat The Devil.

 

And you still can hear me singin' to the people who don't listen,

To the things that I am sayin', prayin' someone's gonna hear.

And I guess I'll die explaining how the things that they complain about,

Are things they could be changin', hopin' someone's gonna care.

 

All we can do is to keep trying, keep setting the example and remember that A Scout is cheerful.

Eamonn.

 

[CNYScouter 46]

OldGrey Eagle and Eamonn -

 

You guys hit the nail right on the head with my experiance with Scouting.

 

I would like to add that I see many adults involved with Scouting as a reason to do the camping and outdoor activities and nothing else.

 

I recently switched troops and visited a few before making a decision on where to go. The more "by the book" the troop was the more sucessful they were. The ones that used the aims and methods, as taught in training, the larger the troop, the retention of older Scouts was greater, and the more active the Troop was.

 

I do not know if this is any correlation but one thing that I have noticed is that the more highly educated the "Free Thinkers" are the more likely they want to do things thier own way. I live in a more effluent part of town and most of the parents and adults had 4 year degrees or higher and the higher the formal education they had the less likely they were to want to get training or follow the program.

 

This weekend I completed the Scoutmaster training. I was very lucky to have a Patrol Guide who has one of the most sucessful troops in our council. The SM is a DPW worker, no college and works with hos hands. He was a great guy. He was interrupted many times over the weekend with Scouts in his Troop needing to talk with him about something.

 

He would like to have more kids in his Troop but with 77 Scouts and 26 ASM's (all trained) he can't find a meeting place in his community big enought to hold more. At this point he has not turned anyone away but he is not sure what he is going to do in the future. The secret to his success is that the boys always have fun and does his best to follow the program as set up by the BSA.

He made a great impression with me and I feel I can learn a great deal more from him in the future. I am even going up with my son this weekend to participate in his Troops "Mud Run". This is a mountain bike & orienteering event through a very wet area. Prizes are given not only for the fastest but the muddest.