Scoutmaster Musings

For 15 minutes, or a couple pages in Boys' Life at least, Troop 479 gets to be famous.

At our troop meeting last night where we went sledding at a local park rather than meet at the normal place, one scout ran up saying, "Did you see it? Did you see it?"
He was waving his Boys' Life magazine that had just arrived in the mail today and had an article about the troop's winter campout last winter. The guys crowded around, "Hey, that's me!", "Here's you, Matt!"

We had just returned from this year's winter campout on Sunday so it was nicely fitting to have the article arrive the next day. This year, it was -20 with windchill down to -35 so we got a bunch of Zero Hero awards unlike last year when it dipped almost to zero but not quite.

This short, safe introduction to extreme cold weather camping is a great learning experience. When a tin cup or metal spoon instantly sticks to your lips, you learn to use plastic. Scouts learn that bananas are not practical cold weather food when they see one frozen rock-hard and are unable to eat it. There is no simple chore in frigid weather - every task is a challenge.

In case you didn't know, you can submit your troop's upcoming adventure as a story idea at Boys Life

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Fortaleza, Brazil is a big city in a warm climate and has many poor people and lots of trash around. Many of them are too busy surviving to worry about the natural environment, much like large cities in our country.

There was a natural area in the city close to where we were staying so we took a walk through it one day.
As soon as we stepped off the paved road onto the dirt trail, it was like a completely different world - nearly what I would expect a jungle to be like.

I was very excited to see this sign along the trail. It describes how long trash takes to decompose and is nearly identical to the Leave No Trace materials I use when teaching at home! (Click on the image to see a larger version)


We saw crabs in the mudflats, teaming fish, lizards, monkeys, birds, and thick foliage that completely masked out the surrounding city.

There were also signs warning against campfires, staying on the trail, and this one about observing animals from a distance.

This was one of the many highlights of my trip. Minimizing impact isn't just a USA-specific ethic - it is a global one.

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Making a personal first aid kit is a 2nd Class rank requirement that can be a fun activity. Every year, I show scouts that I have my kit and tell them I take it with me everywhere. I also give each of them a CPR mask and gloves from the Red Cross to start their kit.
This little kit is the basis for an extremely valuable part of Scouting - that of being prepared for medical emergencies as well as small injuries.
It's fortunate that I do take my little kit with me, even on family vacations. Last week, we used many bandaids for scrapes and scratches on the beach and around town.

But, that little kit is really just for the simple cuts and scrapes. When something bigger happens, you need to rely more on your ability to improvise with what is on hand and know the basic First Aid Response steps for various situations.

The basic skills introduced in the early ranks are built on in various merit badges, such as First Aid, Emergency Prep, and Lifesaving. Additional training available to scouts for Babysitting, CPR, and Wilderness First Aid expand on skills that ready a person for many situations. We really do need this sort of training to help ensure a safe scouting program, but it can get boring if not applicable to the scout. Making it relevant through examples, stories, and hands-on experience is crucial. I'm always looking for new examples, preferably not my own.

While playing in the waves in Brazil, my wife was unceremoniously smashed into the sandy bottom by a very impressive reminder of the power of nature. She came up with blood on her forehead and her hand on her neck, complaining that it hurt.
OK, right now, if you have some first aid training, you're probably thinking 'immobilize!' The problem was that those waves weren't just stopping until we could casually stroll on up the beach. They continued to knock her around, so getting her out of the water fast was the first task. Once we were in a safe spot, then we tended to her neck.
Turns out she just tweaked the neck muscles and the forehead was just skin scraped away. But, it was a good lesson that first aid can't happen until the scene is safe.

When I'm presenting WFAB sessions or doing first aid with scouts, it's more fun and interesting to stage scenarios. I could say, "Pretend this is a cut and show me how to treat it." Or, I could get a package of ketchup from Arby's and my pocketknife and pretend to be cut. Or, even make some easy fake wounds to use often.

Making the serious skills fun to learn is the trick. Maybe "Build it and they will come" could be "Make it fun and they will learn". This is what the Instructors in our troop hear from me over and over, through my words, and hopefully through my example when I'm doing the teaching.

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An apple a day keeps the doctor away - but it gets pretty boring eating an apple every day!

In Brazil, I was introduced to a plethora of fruits that I'd never tried - papaya, mango, cashew, and at least 3 others I can't write or pronounce. They were all wonderful, colorful, and tasty beyond belief. I didn't even know cashew had a fruit, and it tastes even better than the nut.

I'm used to apples, oranges, bananas, and grapes, with watermelon and cantalope added in season. They taste great, are healthy, and I know what to expect. But, just like having an apple a day gets boring, it can be monotonous cycling through the same small set of fruits month after month. By trying something new, I experience a unique flavor sensation. Sure, I might not care for some of the tastes, but I can only find out by trying.

Our troop has historically done a few campouts year after year - skiing, lock-in, kayaking, climbing, pioneering, okpik. The scouts enjoy them and annually add them to the calendar. But, I noticed that attendance appeared to be dropping on some of those 'common' events.

By adding a few new 'flavors' of outing in each calendar, the scouts have kept the events interesting and attendance has improved. The old favorites are good and healthy, but the new exotics add something different for the guys that "have been there and done that".

Now, we have a platter of enough different outings that a three-year cycle can have no repeats except summer camp. It's still up to the scouts to decide, but there's no excuse to do the same old thing - unless it's too much fun and tradition to miss.

Challenge scouts to come up with some new outing ideas and I bet your fruit basket will be overflowing with some wild choices.

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I wish Delta would adopt the Cub Scout motto.

In the older Boy Scout lingo, DELTA means Developing Ethical Leaders Through Action. But, today I'm talking about Delta Airlines. I figured I should vent about this tonight at the end of a long day of catching up and be done with my whining for the whole year. :-)

It is amazing how unattached people can be to their jobs and the effort they make (or don't make) to fulfill their role. I was brought up to believe that whatever the task assigned to me, whether calling the plays or filling a waterbottle, I should do it as efficiently and thoroughly as I could. And, I still tackle tasks that way. When I have to shovel snow, I get it down to pavement or ice. When I vacuum, I get back in the corners where no one can see. I think the airline industry needs remedial training in task completion and ownership of duties.

Our family vacation to Brazil from Minnesota was a terrific experience with everything being great fun except for the problems with our air travel using Delta/Northwest. Our luggage was lost/delayed on the way there. The web page to check for luggage status never updated and even after we picked them up, listed our bags as at an 'unknown' location. The person that promised a call to let us know when they arrived didn't call. The people we talked to via phone said they would investigate and respond, but did not. And, on and on... We finally got our luggage at the airport 5 days late - we checked in person every 2 days.

Coming back to the USA, our luggage was again misplaced but did arrive the next day. I talked to one guy waiting in line to enter a claim and he said he was 6 for 6 on delayed luggage for the year with Delta. There are many people with much worse horror stories, like being stranded at O'Hare for 2 days, so I know our problems were not all that bad.

I understand there are lots of people flying and lots of bags moving around, but everyone else knows that too. The percentage of mixed up luggage is way too high. With all the technology we have, it just can't be that difficult to place Bag A on Airplane B. An automated system reading the barcodes on luggage tags should zip items lickety-split. And, we should have little scanners around the airport like the price checkers at Wal-Mart where you can read your luggage tag barcode and it tells you instantly where your item is. FedEx, UPS, and the like do it already.

I think the problem is that people get involved in the system. When a person that doesn't have pride in the work he is doing nor the self-respect to perform the task to his best ability takes on a task, then the system fails. If there is no incentive to get some luggage from here to there before the plane leaves, then it might not make it. Oh well.

This happens in any system, not just airline luggage. If a troop scribe doesn't think his notes from a PLC meeting help anyone, then he might get around to writing them down. If the patrol leader isn't going on a campout, he might not bother to make sure a menu is planned. If the scoutmaster's son finally made Eagle, he might not put much effort into guiding the other Life scouts on. Any of these can happen if the people involved don't have the mindset that doing your best is what you should do for every task.

I suppose lots of Cub Scouts and Den Leaders don't really think that much about the Cub Scout motto when they memorize and recite it. But, it's really one of the most important things anyone can learn. If I do my best, I can't really do much more than that.

Well, I feel better now.
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To my mom and that other person that checks this blog - I'm back from vacation!

My family returned last night (actually early this morning) from our once-in-a-lifetime trip to Brazil for Christmas and New Year's. I expect I'll be sharing thoughts and memories of the trip here for the next few days to get it out of my system, but it was basicaly a fabulous experience! A few quick blips:

• Delta Airlines needs some help
• We are awful fortunate to live in the USA
• It's weird to have 90F for Christmas when you're used to -10F
• There are lots of fruits that taste better than apples, oranges, and bananas

I'm spending today working through Boy Scout Trail emails and other tasks that went undone. I hope you had a nice holiday and are ready for a great 99th year of Scouting in 2009.

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