Scoutmaster Musings

On a Wednesday night during January, there's usually not much activity at scout camps in Wisconsin. But, last night a fire did $30,000 damage in Summit, WI when a couple storage buildings burned down.

The camp is near Oconomowoc, Wisconsin and has two camps situated on 290 acres. It's one of the oldest camps in the country, being around since 1917.

I expect the loss is not that great, insurance and more volunteer work can take care of replacing the sheds and equipment. The concern I have is that the cause is still under investigation. It would be a shame to find out it was deliberately started.

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Looking through many troop web sites, I've run across dozens and dozens of 'Troop Guidelines', 'Troop Handbooks', and 'Troop Discipline Policies' - every one similar, but different in some ways.

When boys join the troop I serve, they are given a 3-ring binder containing a few pages of information about how Boy Scouts differs from Cub Scouts, how patrols work, and how they need to take responsibility for their own advancement. There are also a couple empty baseball card holder pages for them to store their advancement cards and merit badge cards. We've got nothing written about special discipline policies - they just aren't needed.

Every boy over 10 years old knows what's right and what's wrong and how to behave. That certainly doesn't mean they will always do what's right and behave correctly, but they know. So, what good does writing down rules do? I can't think of any rules that are not covered by just saying, 'Our troop uses the Scout Oath and Law as our guide. All scouts are expected to do their best to follow that guide.'

The main reasons that scouts misbehave are:

• Unsure of Expectations


• Testing Limits


• Boredom


• Looking for Attention


• Wanting to Lead instead of follow

Whether or not you agree that the correct behavior is known, there will be times when someone misbehaves. Maintaining discipline in a troop can be touchy, just like in any other group. I've found that the structure of a troop helps take care of most situations effectively and quickly, and with minimal escalation.

Discipline isn't a bad thing - it is not the same thing as punishment. Discipline has at least a dozen definitions, and nearly all of them include 'training'. Discipline is training and correcting someone to bring about expected behavior.

Like everything in Scouting, the training of scouts is the most important thing a Scoutmaster team can do. Including the allowed and expected discipline actions in your junior leader training helps set the troop on the right track. The leaders need to know that they are expected to maintain discipline and what their limits are.

Scouts should maintain discipline in their troop by training other scouts how to behave. So, let's call them the trainer and trainee for these general tips:

• Never have physical contact when addressing a problem - not to punish nor to force a scout to come with you.


• Model the correct behavior. Demonstrate what IS expected before correcting others.


• Ask another trainer if they notice the same problem. It may not really be a problem.


• Ask the other trainer to join you and tell the trainee you'd like to talk with him for a minute.


• Go someplace out of hearing of the troop, but in plain sight of everyone. This minimizes embarassment but keeps things safe.


• Address a specific behavior. Rather than 'you are being weird', try 'it disrupts the meeting when you scoot around on your chair' or 'scouts can not learn important skills when you interrupt the instructor'.


• Describe the expectations - 'See how the other scouts are sitting? try to do that while someone is speaking.', or 'Keep an eye out for the sign going up. See if you can be the first one to notice it next time.', or 'Try to come up with an answer to your question yourself before asking the instructor.'


• Check that the trainee understands what you want to happen. 'OK, what will you try to do differently now?'


• Monitor the trainee and look for him to do the correct thing. Give him positive feedback.

Taking time to train scouts to maintain discipline gives them opportunity to learn to deal with power and authority. They will run to you for intervention much less, and they will learn to be fair.
It's a good idea to have the senior scouts do a presentation on discipline for the whole troop occasionally. A skit demonstrating how they would address an imaginary problem the right way is entertaining and educational - especially if the problem is one that has been noticed in a few scouts recently.
It's also a good idea to make sure the scouts are expected to report any disciplinary actions they take to the scoutmaster or his assistants. This gives them an opportunity to show they are doing their job and get positive reinforcement on a job well done.

So, I've just mentioned what you might consider trivial things - being obnoxious, being noisy in meetings, not respecting an instructor - and you're wondering about real discipline problems like fighting or stealing or constant cursing. Well, a boy will push the limits in whatever group he finds himself in until he discovers the limits. By having older scouts trained and available to maintain discipline for new scouts, they will quickly learn the limits. They will know cursing is not accepted. They will know that hitting in anger is not accepted. And, they already know that stealing is not accepted.

If a scout purposefully behaves against what he knows is accepted, then the Scoutmaster needs to handle the discipline immediately. This is not something resulting from being untrained, but from a specific decision to do what is wrong. Addressing the problem directly with the scout and his parents is the best way to handle this.

Most issues with scouts have to do with boys doing weird, impulsive things, and sometime just plain mean things, but rarely things that indicate a real problem. Allowing trained, older scouts to address the behavior nearly always brings it around.

As is true for everything in scouting, the discipline of a troop is an ongoing, never-ending, rollercoaster ride of learning. It is not a plateau that is reached and maintained.

Scout On!

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The SPL in our troop does a great job of holding a Reflection after most activities so scouts can see how well things went and how we can improve. Reflections are an extremely important part of scouting and I'd recommend promoting them in your unit.
Reflections have been called 'Thorns and Roses' and many other similar terms - basically giving each participant a chance to voice what he liked and did not like about the event. The current BSA training materials promotes the concept of Start, Stop, Continue for reflections.
The leader asks what the group should Start Doing - positive actions which are not yet happening; what they should Stop Doing - actions that are keeping the group from being their best; what they should Continue Doing - things that are being done well and making the group better.

Our troop will be organizing two high adventure trips and a long-term camp this summer. To help with the final reflections after these events, I have a High Adventure Evaluation Form for all participants to complete. The main goal is to help scouts realize that they actually did lead at times, help others along, and accomplished many tasks. Hopefully, they will also come to the conclusion that they did more than they thought they could yet still have room to grow and improve.

Scout On!

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We're building quinzee huts and camping in them in a couple weeks. Here's a few tips to keep in mind when your troop camps in cold weather.

• Fail to Plan / Plan to Fail
• Always bring a bit more than what you think you'll need - water, food, clothes.
• Make sure that you have a good knowledge of the signs of frostbite and hypothermia. You should be able to recognize it in others and in yourself. Tell someone right away if you or another scout is showing signs of cold-related problems.
• Stay hydrated. It's easy to get dehydrated in the winter. Eat and drink plenty of carbs.
• Keep out of the wind if you can. A rain fly for a tent can be pitched to serve as a wind break. The wind chill factor can often be considerable and can result in effective temperatures being much lower than nominal.
• Bring extra WATER. It's easy to get dehydrated in the winter. You aren't visibly sweating, so you don't think to drink water, but since the air is so dry, you lose a LOT of water through breathing. Drink lots of water!
• Bring extra food that doesn't need to be heated or cooked. Granola bars, trail mix, etc.
• Keep a pot of hot water available for cocoa or Cup-a-Soup, these warm from the inside.

The entire list of tips can be read at Winter Camping Tips

Scout On!

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Ho-Ho-Ho!

I received a letter from Philmont - we got lucky and have reservations for 2 crews for the middle of June, 2008!!!! Now, that's a nice early Christmas present.

Now, over Christmas vacation, I'm sending an email to the Senior Patrol Leader so he can figure out what to say at his PLC meeting on Jan. 2. The patrol leaders should be excited to hear we got in. He'll need to announce the trip at our next troop meeting and tell everyone that a $50 deposit is required before Jan. 21st. He'll need to find two crew leaders to start working on the trip. It's still a long way off, but there is a lot of planning and prep to be done.

Over the past two years, the scouts have gotten quite good at planning campouts so I'm confident that a couple of them will do just fine handling Philmont. Since I've gone in 2005, I expect to guide them along as needed and ensure the essentials get covered, but it will definitely be their trek. I'll direct them to the older scouts that went in 2005 for advice and guidance and then fill in any holes that were missed.

We have two high-adventure backpacking trips to organize and execute in 2007 so those will be helpful for the Philmont crew leaders' learning.

Hey, maybe we'll see you at Philmont!
Scout On!

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Just a note to join the millions of Merry Christmas wishes on the Internet.

Our family will be spending the next week visiting relatives and dodging snow/rain flurries. We finally got our first snow of the year - of course it was just before we plan to hit the road. :-) But, at least we're not heading to Denver!

Peace to you and your family.

Scout On!

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Just today, I read about Google Gadgets so I decided to see what I could do. These gadgets are little bits of code that allow a person to add interesting things to their web page. For example, a clock, a calendar, a random photo, weather, even a magic 8 ball.
I tried my hand (mostly just to learn about it) and made a random Square Knot award gadget. Anyone can embed it on a web page just like you see in the box to the right where it says 'sample here'. It's just a single line of javascript code so its awful simple to do.

If you refresh this page or right-click in the gadget and choose 'Refresh' you'll see a different knot.
I did notice that there may be nothing showing up if you have your browser security settings tight. If you refresh this page, then it might show up.

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I expect you've heard a great story while gathered around a campfire sometime in the past couple years. Maybe you thought, 'Wow, now THAT was a good story!'

I'll tell you, a good story doesn't just happen. The storyteller puts in some real effort to read, learn, and memorize the story well before casually telling it on a starlit evening as if it just came to him. A storyteller extraordinaire is a gift, a burden, and a curse.

Some people just don't seem to be able to tell a story. No matter how hard they try, it seems a line is forgotten or the sequence is mixed up. That person able to transport an audience to a different place just through his words has a gift. But, it is a gift that can be enhanced through effort. I sincerely believe that anyone can learn to tell at least a few good stories if they really try. The amount of effort needed varies from person to person.

The burden of telling stories is that the next one has to be better than the one you just told. Once you tell 'a good one', people will want to hear another. It's tough work keeping a small collection of good stories ready to tell. It's even harder to cycle in new ones each year to prevent stale stories. The work doesn't end for a storyteller.

When the campfire flames dwindle and the scouts start yawning and you chuckle at a few of the younger ones with their heads nodding around like a bobblehead doll, inevitably someone will pipe up with 'Hey, tell the one about ...!' And, then you're on the spot again to tell that same story you've told umpteen times before but they always like it - that's the curse of being a storyteller. You may be sick and tired of a story, but you still have to tell it again. In my case, there are two of these stories that the scouts which began in my Tiger den and are now in our troop want to hear - The Purple Gorilla and The Medicrin. It got so bad with the Medicrin that I made up The Med and Sin and The Medic Men just so I could have a variety. :-)

Even though being known as a storyteller can be an extra burden, the rewards far outweigh the burden! The most fun is when I hear someone request a story and a scout starts telling one of 'my' stories and the new guys just love it. And, so begins another generation of storytellers.

So, during these slow(?) times of winter, take some time and learn a handful of good stories for next summer. Always have a half dozen ready and you'll be able to fill in a slow campfire or cover for a scout that needs a bit more time to get a skit ready.

Scout On

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Around here, right after Christmas break is when Webelos families start deciding which troop to join. Most cross-overs occur in February at Blue-Gold dinners with a few Packs crossing in March.
Before a Cub Scout family decides on a troop, they really should investigate all their options. After all, this will hopefully be a group they will be associated with for at least 7 years. Some towns have a single Boy Scout troop, while others have a handful to choose between.
I've got a set of questions and some prefered answers at Joining Questions that will help get your mind thinking in the right direction. Every troop has a different personality and each scout will want to join one or another for his own reasons. It's important that the family consider the values of each troop decide on which one will be a best fit for the individual scout's enjoyment, advancement, and accomplishment.

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I've found that some scouts (ok, just about all scouts) don't prepare for a scoutmaster conference without prompting. When I ask what they've learned in the past 6 months, or what good turns they've done, or how they've demonstrated Scout Spirit, more often than not I get a blank stare.

To make scoutmaster conferences more interesting and valuable, I've put together this Scoutmaster Conference Preparation Sheet. A scout can print this out and complete it before his conference to help him have answers in his head for those questions that the scoutmaster will ask.

If the scoutmaster has scouts turn these in to him, he can keep a history of the scout's thoughts and see how his ideals evolve.

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I've heard that some troops don't camp in the winter. I've also seen posts on the 'net from troops down south exclaiming that they got a patch for camping outside when the temperature dropped below freezing.

Now, up here in Minnesota we don't usually make a big deal about cold weather, but I admit that we also have awards for cold weather camping.
At Northern Tier you can earn a patch for sleeping outside as a participant in their Okpik (snoy owl) program when it gets below 0F degrees.
The Northern Tier program is excellent, with dogsledding, snow shelters, snowshoe hikes, and everything you'd expect in deep winter.


Many councils have their own cold weather camping award and the requirements range widely, depending on the locale.
For example, in Minnesota, there is the Zero Hero patch from Viking Council (now Northern Star Council) which you can receive for camping out in sub-Zero fahrenheit temperatures.
Like most council awards, this one is awarded on the honor system and sometimes its awful hard to show scouts that the thermometer says 3 degrees. :-)


Philmont has a cold weather camping program also. Philmont is the only BSA National High Adventure Base where you might experience 'winter camping' year-round - due to their altitude. Kind of strange, considering most scouts think of it as a hot, summer camping location.
The Philmont winter camping program is called Kanik (snow flake) and they teach a lot of useful cold weather camping skills.


So, don't let the cold weather stop you from camping. Enjoy the snow, if you have it. Experience freezing waterjugs, frosty grass, or cold rain if that's all that mother nature sends your way. Whatever you do, do it safely and it can be fun. There is an excellent book available through your local scout shop that is the BSA guide for winter camping. It is titled, 'Okpik: Cold Weather Camping' and currently costs $10.

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I've been talking with the Webelos den leaders and Cubmasters of the three packs our troop usually pulls Webelos from. It looks like maybe half the Webelos will be continuing on to Boy Scouts. This year, I put in what I feel was a very big effort to make sure all Webelos, parents, and den leaders were aware of our troop, our meeting and recruiting dates, and that we are ready to help them transition. This included email, personal visits, and postcards.

We're doing all 12 points listed on Webelos Transition Tips but we are only half the solution. It is so important for Webelos den leaders to see their program as a stepping stone to Boy Scouts rather than a finish line for Cub Scouts.

We'll know for sure in March if our efforts made a difference, but I'm already preparing to meet with the Cubmasters in May to discuss how we can improve the Webelos Transition. I believe the most important thing to do is bring the den leaders to the stepping stone mind set.

Scout On

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