I’m not sure how exhausted I’ll be tonight to fill you in on what happend during my first weekend at Wood Badge, so I’ve scheduled this as my 100 Days of Scouting update for today. I’m still at Wood Badge, making friends and learning things. But rest assured, I’ll be posting something soon. Or you can check Twitter when I get back in cell phone range.
Whew!
Another full day of scouting stuff that I’ll tell you all about when I get back. I’ll be camping out in my tent, hopefully I’ll get to see more stars than we’ve got around town.
See y’all tomorrow!
Today bright and early at 7 AM was the start to my Wood Badge course, W5-61-11-1. I am sure I am having lots of fun and learning a lot. I’ll tell you all about it when I get back.
I think that qualifies as doing something scouting related today. Might be hard pressed to find anything non-scouting related.
I’ve been meaning to write about my expectations for Wood Badge before I have the experience. Since I leave bright and early tomorrow morning for day one, I guess that writing will have to be today.
Through work I have had classes in situational leadership, project management, the seven habits class, and other related topics.
Does that mean I know it all? No. Will I learn something even if they cover similar material? Of course!
I have seen Wood Badge described as “getting a PhD in leadership skills“. As someone that spent four years getting a PhD in something else, I’m pretty sure that would be over-selling the course. I have also seen it described as “the ultimate in Scouter Leadership Training”. I am rather suspect of that claim as well. If that was true, why would there be a need for things like the Philmont Leadership Challenge? I think it would fall more to an “advanced” training, something you take after you are a trained leader (know what you need to do) and have bought in to what scouting offers youth. It isn’t a capstone, it is a stepping stone.
Will attending Wood Badge make me a better Scouter? No, but I think it will provide access to the tools that might. Do you have to go to Wood Badge to be a good Scouter? No, I don’t imagine that you do. But I think there are things to be learned here, just like any other training.
What do I expect to get out of Wood Badge? I plan to have a great time with like-minded Scouters that have a passion for the promise of scouting. I plan to learn skills that will make me a more effective leader within the pack, within my district, at work and at home. I think the introspection will help me sharpen the focus on things that are important to me. I also thing everyone is different and no two Wood Badge experiences are exactly the same.
Many people have described their experience as “life changing”. That I totally believe. If you go in with an open mind and heart, and really want to learn and embrace the methods, it very well could change your life. I’ll let you know how it works out for me.
My son’s den met on Monday and finished up the last requirement for their Wolf badge, then they selected and practiced a skit for the upcoming pack meeting. Our den has had an interesting dynamic in leadership, and I think it has worked out well.
As tigers, I was the den leader and as soon as I found out one of the dads is an Eagle Scout, I talked to him about becoming an assistant. This worked out well for that first year, having someone to work with on planning the den activities. Then at the beginning of this year I took over as Cubmaster, my assistant agreed to take on the Den Leader position as they moved through the Wolf year. He recruited another den parent to be the Assistant Den Leader for this year. As it sits for the upcoming Bear year, the Assistant is going to take over the den, and the current den leader is going to take on the Pack’s Popcorn Kernel job in the fall.
Now we just need to find a new assistant for next year!
I think that having people run the den for only a year or two actually helps keep it interesting for the boys. Everyone approaches it with a different style, and the boys are fantastic at adapting. Even though it has been different, it hasn’t been any less fun.
I’m not sure how the leadership will end up for the Webelos den years, but I’m sure it will be great! We have an awesome group of families that all have stepped up to help out.
Most of the other scout stuff for days 42-44 were preparations for the Wood Badge course this weekend. Well, that and arranging for a porta potty to be at our next pack meeting (outdoors in a park with no bathrooms).
I often wonder how other Cub Scout Packs handle all the stuff that collects. Where do you store your pinewood derby track? What about your catapult? Or even your “Wheel of Fortune“? The Cubmaster’s garage seems to be a common response. I feel fortunate that our pack has a storage unit just down the road from our neighborhood. It helps keep everything is a central location, and is full of all manner of scouty stuff. Problem is, it really isn’t well organized, and I’m not sure what all is in there.
I spent a lot of time on days 40 and 41 going through some of the things that have migrated from the pack’s storage unit into my garage. I hope to get things organized so we know what we have and where it’s at.
When I wasn’t doing that, I took my family snowshoeing in Rocky Mountain National Park. It was a fun short trip that took about two hours, but really gave the kids a chance to try out snowshoes for the first time. From a scout-related standpoint, I got to hear my 8 year old son explain to his sister why we wear layers. I guess he has been paying attention.
The verdict is that it was fun and we’ll be doing it again.
There is a phrase used in scouting circles to describe the physique of Scouters called the “Scoutmaster’s build”. Not really a compliment. I myself have not exactly been on the fitness train for a while now.
But no longer. I decided on day 37 that I had waited long enough, and found myself a new Crossfit gym. I belonged to one while I was going to school in Ft. Collins, and really liked it. As I spent less and less time up north, I didn’t get to the gym very often. Well, now I found a new gym that is less than a mile from work and has a lunchtime workout. I went for a visit, and then came back every day for the rest of the week.
It is great to be moving again!
So I’m not sure that joining a gym really fits the requirements of “doing something for scouting”, but it will help me as I continue to work with scouts of all ages. As the Cub Scouts become Boy Scouts and head out on more challenging adventures, I want to be there with them. Not holding them back, but helping them out.
Besides, being a Cubmaster can be tiring work sometimes:
Over days 37-39 I also:
After the Wood Badge meeting, I spent the next three days getting ready for our pack meeting. Many months ago I thought it would be fun to do a scouts vs. parents trivia game for the pack meeting, and call it “Are You Smarter Than a Cub Scout?”. Originally it was just to provide a program for a month where we didn’t have a lot planned, but it quickly grew to a major production.
It all started out simple enough. We would have the den’s come up as a group and answer some trivia questions based on knowledge found in their respective rank handbook. Then the parents (or a parent representative) would come up and be asked a question. That was going to be the event for the evening.
Then a few things happened. I found out:
So in my never-ending quest to make the awards portion of our pack meetings more interesting, I figured we should incorporate all of these presentations into the game show theme. This is what we ended up with.
Our gathering activity was a bag of straws, a roll of tape, and a small paper flag with the den number on it for each den. The goal was to see who could make the tallest free standing flag pole before the meeting started. It was fun and had everyone engaged. Turns out “free standing” was the tricky part for most of them. 
First, we called up the “Grand-Prize Winners” (the two Webelos II scouts that missed the Blue and Gold). We talked about the Arrow of Light award and what it means. I presented them with their career arrows as the “grand prize” then told them we were playing “Let’s Make a Deal”. We had a Door #1 and a Door #2 (really just PVC pipe frames with shower curtains on them). Behind one was the boys from the Troop, ready to welcome them to Boy Scouts. Behind the other was a Tiger Den Leader and a couple of his Tigers, ready to help them start over in Cub Scouts. The two boys hemmed and hawed for a minute then chose the right door. So I had no choice but to let them go off to Boy Scouts.
Next up was our “New Contestant” who had earned his Bobcat. I talked about his own journey to the Arrow of Light, and how he was taking the first steps on that trail tonight. Then I explaned that our new contestant was here for “Wheel of Fortune”, but ours was even better. It was a “Wheel of Scouting”, and he earned the right to take a spin of the wheel to see what adventure awaits. Our wheel was this one:
After he spun the wheel I told him he was a winner, and as a bonus he would get to do all the things on the wheel as a Cub Scout.
The next contestants were the “Returning Champions”: one of our Webelos I dens. They figured out what game they were playing when I had their parents each grab a painted pizza box with a number (1-12) on it and gather on the stage. Deal or No Deal was a played by calling up each scout, having them pick a number (and possibly trade it for another box that I had when the “banker” called). Inside each box was one point of the Scout Law, and they had to say what that word meant to a scout. After it was over their parent pinned on the new rank badge.
The last group of awards was to the other Webelos I den for their whittling chip. Instead of being contestants, they were the life-line call for the Assistant Cubmaster who was playing “Who Wants To Carry a Pocketknife”. It was a series of questions around knife safety. Then we decided the prizes (patches) would go to the life-line, since they answered them for the contestant.
All this brought us to the actual program part of the pack meeting, our orignial game of “Are You Smarter Than a Cub Scout?” Each den answered four multiple choice questions as a group, then the parents answered one. The game heavily favored the scouts (by design) since they answered four questions for every one the parents got to answer, totalling 32 to 8. The parent questions were also quite a bit harder (we really didn’t want them to win). The questions and answers were projected on the screen via computer, and sound effects were provided for right or wrong as well as the 20 second time limit per question. The Committee Chair and the two Assistant Cubmasters were at the judges’ table, complete with white wigs and a gavel. They hammed it up while determining the correctness of the answer. In the end, the scouts won 22-5 and everyone was given a roll of Smarties to celebrate.
We closed it out with a Cubmaster’s minute on how we were having fun and learning at the same time, and how that fit in with the idea of a “Game With A Purpose“. Then the flag ceremony, and we sent everyone home. 90 minutes start to finish.
The feedback from parents has been awesome! Everyone had a great time, and the parents as well as the scouts were engaged for the whole meeting. The e-mails and conversations have all been extremely positive, and I think we have set a new bar for the next few years. Plus, it was a great time putting it all together! Make no mistake, I got to be the MC for the night, but there were lots of people that put in many hours of work to pull this off. Both Assistant Cubmasters and our two Webmasters were instrumental in getting this off the ground.
I would like to solve the puzzle, Pat.
Next month is a campfire pack meeting at a local park. Guess we better get started on the preparations!
Back in January, we added a new member to our household. Toby is (currently) a 4 1/2 month old Rottweiler who is awesome in every way. When we picked him up at the kennel, I met his father, a 154 pound hulk of a dog that is a giant, gentle teddy bear. We knew that with a dog that size would needs to be well trained, so we enrolled him in training the day after we picked him up.
Trained dogs are truly a joy to be around and very useful (not to mention happier). For Toby, he starts his second course next week, and already understands a lot of what is expected of him.
Scout leaders are like puppies. If you approach training with an eagerness to learn and don’t come in with an uncooperative attitude, you too will be a joy to be around, much more useful, and happier to boot.
Today I went to a pre-course orientation meeting for my Wood Badge class (W5-61-11-1). It was great to meet most of my fellow course participants, put faces to names for the staff, and get some questions answered before heading out for the wilds of Peaceful Valley Scout Ranch on March 25th. We turned in the required paperwork and got to work meeting those around us doing what may be the standard boy scout training gathering activity: find others to sign your sheet that meet one of two dozen criteria.
After the flag ceremony we were introduced to the (very, very energetic) staff. I really like the energy, and glad to see they are willing to put themselves out there to make this a great experience. The next couple hours were filled with information on:
I am impressed with the staff that has been assembled for this course, and the decades of scouting experience (and excitement) will make it a lot of fun. Wood Badge training isn’t the be all end all of training, but it should be full of great information and and I couldn’t be happier with the people I will be joining on this journey.
How did people run packs before e-mail? For that matter, how did they do it before text messages, cell phones, the internet, and social media?
Case in point: a few days ago I got an e-mail (on my phone) from one of our Den Leaders. It said “I think the Tiger Picnic is scheduled for the same day as the Elementary School’s Carnival Night”. So I looked up the number for the school office (on the internet via my phone) and gave them a call. After confirming that they were indeed scheduled for the same night, I looked at the pack calendar (still on my phone) and figured a week later was Memorial Day weekend so that was out. But a week earlier didn’t seem to have any conflicts.
So I called my Assistant Cubmaster (who was responsible for reserving the city park where we are having the picnic) and left him a voicemail saying that we were changing the date by a week. A couple of minutes later I got a text message from him that he got my message while he was at the city desk filling out the paperwork to reserve the park. Just in the nick of time!
So long story (sort of) short, all this wonderful technology helped fix a pack problem within minutes all while I was driving down the highway at 80 miles an hour. No, not really. I was in the lab at work. But imagine how much more problematic that would have been without these technologies.
Today I used quite a bit of these technologies to coordinate pack stuff:
Tomorrow is my Wood Badge pre-course meeting. Don’t really know what to expect, but I’ll be there bright and early with bells on!
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