What Would Green Bar Bill Do? (WWGBBD?)

Currently we have 3 Scouts in our Troop. These 3 have been members of the Phoenix patrol since September when the 2 new Scouts joined (1 scout joined troop last February after his own crossover).
In February we have 5 Scouts crossing over from Cub Scouts. I was looking for guidance on whether we should have the 5 join the existing patrol and reach the “magic” #8 or if we should have a new patrol, having one with 3 and one with 5.
I wondered, given the situation what would Green Bar Bill do? While I couldn’t ask him directly, I am fortunate to have many Scoutmaster friends to guide me and they helped me see the pros and cons of either side.
There is an opportunity for the Scouts to step it up a notch and be the guides to the incoming Scouts. There is also the opportunity to have a full patrol. While numbers aren’t everything there is a lot to be said for having a full patrol. Work can be divided efficiently and there is real opportunity to work as a team.
Tonight I put the decision to the patrol to make and they chose to welcome the five Scouts into their patrol. I think it’s the right choice. One of the new Scouts also had his Scoutmaster conference with me tonight for Scout rank. Among other things we talked about future opportunities for leadership. When I asked him about what he liked best so far about Scouting his response was that in Scouts they hold the power to make decisions and are in charge of things.
I’m not certain what Green Bar Bill would do in this situation but all indications show that putting the decision in the hands of the boys was the best choice to make because they made it – not me.

 

Scoutmaster’s iPad: Keeping it all together

While I always have my phone on me, sometimes I prefer the real estate of a bigger screen. Fortunately a number of my ‘Scouting Apps’ have iPad optimized versions.

Troop Badges is one of my favorites. Think of it as the 2010-2011-always being updated Requirements Handbook. There’s detailed requirement info for ranks, merit badges, and every special award I could think of so far. The basic version will let you record the activity of one Scout. the premiere edition enables tracking of multiple Scouts. If your using it to track activities right now you can only export the data one Scout at a time. in an email with the developer he leaned towards a bulk export becoming a feature in the future. Even if you don’t use it for requirement tracking it’s worth the price for the reference features alone.

** the official BSA iPhone app is supposed to be releasing a supplementary (integrated) merit badge tracking feature to the current iPhone app sometime in January. At present the BSA iPhone app isn’t adapted for iPad but the original design and level of detail works well at 2x mode. its actually more usable than it’s intended iPhone resolution as you can see the whole page at once in a legible size.

GoodReader is the best document manager and reader for the iPad. I use it for a lot of subjects but Scouts has a drawer or two and unlike my basement there’s a a working search function.

For my more permanent reference books and those after campfire fictional escapes iBooks let’s me carry a whole Scout trailers worth of books in barely the size of one.

I have a number of really good ‘find a hike/trail’ apps for the iPhone but none of them scale. So far Campwhere looks like it’s got the best info on local destinations to get outdoors no matter where you are.

If you need to brush up on your own rope skills, Knot Guide HD is a well presented and easy to follow.

If your looking for a solid BSA Field Guide so far there isn’t one. There are a couple Audobon Guides that could be great to flip through sitting in your camp chair while the Scouts make dinner but the prices put them out of reach for my present level of interest. If I win the “Billionth App” maybe I’ll reconsider.

Lately there seem to be a lot more astrological phenomena happening – or maybe it’s that I’m better tuned in to know when they’re happening and have gotten a chance to see them. Pocket Universe is a great app for stargazers and guys like me who love a night under the stars but would like to be able to identify more. On one campout we saw the ISS from Earth and another counted planets rings through telescopes.

With a little encoding you can get the rank videos offered by BSA.

The only real question is is the iPad something you can practically carry and not look out of place with your backpack and well weathered coffee mug. This could help:

 

Sports vs. Scouts

Besides being a Scout my son is on the town wrestling team. It’s his second year, and while he’s started later than most, so far the sport suits him and he enjoys it. The team practices three times a week so for about three months my son may miss the weekly meeting or have to chose whether it’s a tournament or a camping trip he’ll be attending that weekend. So far we haven’t had to deal with any draconian coaches that won’t tolerate lapses in attendance but as he gets older and the sports more competitive that too will fade.
It takes more than camping to make a Scout physically strong so I’m not knocking sports. However l will admit that part of me is petty about the competition because too often in the past I’ve heard parents say that their sons are either withdrawing or not joining Scouts because they’re going to do baseball/wrestling/football/etc this year instead. I always try to explain to parents that Scouting is a year long program. If a boy has got other activities that will pull him away for a few months our camp lantern will be on to welcome him when he comes back. If just a fraction of the parents pushed their sons to join Scouts like they do sports… well let’s just say the towns culture would be a lot different.
As I sit in the stands watching I can’t help bit compare (contrast really) sports to Scouts. In a lot of ways Scoutmasters are a lot like coaches. In others we couldn’t be further apart. Both are gilded in the noble aspiration of bettering a boys abilities. Both mentor and ‘educate’ and train the youth under their guidance. The biggest difference to me is that while the coach never stops coaching and may still be barking directions and techniques during the competition, the Scoutmaster’s real place is to step back and let the boy do as much “on his own” as circumstance and imagination permit, and above all – no one ever sits on the bench.

 

Reaching for Heights One Step at a Time

This past weekend the Troop had their January campout. We booked one of the cabins at our council’s Scout camps. A little friendly flak was received as to why we weren’t tent camping but one of the intentions was to make it more amenable to our new Scouts who have little to no camping experience.

As the date got closer and closer I was disappointed by the number of Scouts that had signed up. That said our Troop advertises itself as one that camps every month and I don’t believe in canceling outings unless there is an issue of not meeting the required leadership quotas.  For this outing leadership was certainly not an issue. As it turned out it wound up being me (Scoutmaster), my son (Tenderfoot), our Troop Committee Chair and his son who is one of our Eagles that has recently registered to be an adult leader.

We got in a little hiking, a little sledding and a lot of cooking.  All in all a good time was had by mostly all.  I say mostly because I wound up with a stomach virus Saturday night.  No one else was affected so I don’t think it had anything to do with the Scouts culinary skills, just something I must have picked up before the weekend started. Being indisposed most of the night it was actually reassuring that I didn’t have to worry as much about what troubles the Scouts were getting into during my absence. So in a way, the low attendance may have worked out for the better in this case.

I’ve made a number of friends in Scouting simply via the internet alone, though many I would welcome the opportunity to meet in person.  As stories and adventures are shared around our virtual campfires it often happens that I think “I wish our Troop was more like so and so’s…” I have a lot of aspirations of what I want our Troop to become but it’s important to realize that we’re not going to become the perfect troop overnight. What’s important is that we keep taking those steps and keep moving forward, even if it’s just a little bit at a time. After all Scouting is about the journey – not the destination.  So my advice to you new Scoutmasters out there is keep aiming high – just don’t look so high that you fail to see the little accomplishments you do make along the way.

 

97 Years of Boys Life at your fingertips thanks to Google

2011 will mark the 100th Anniversary of Boys Life Magazine. I still remember as a kid being able to browse back issues at my local library. They didn’t have ALL the issues from what I remember, maybe a few years worth, and my discoveries were more serendipitous than anything else.

I recently discovered that every issue of Boys Life magazine from 1911 to 2008 have been scanned and indexed by Google Books. Scouting Magazine is also part of the collection.

The exciting part is not just browsing the collection but in being able to do what Google does best and to search all the back magazines.

If you put in Boys Life in the search field and follow with additional information you can find issues addressing specific subjects as well.
(I tried Boys Life Geocaching, Boys Life Scuba, Boys Life igloo and Boys Life Ninja)

There’s a Google Books app for iPhone and iPad. Currently the apps don’t appear to have access to any magazine content. So pull up a keyboard and a cup of tea and take a search through history.