Issue 611 – August 13, 2019

THE LAZIEST SCOUTMASTER

Charlie, with his wife and 12 year-old son, moved in next door just two weeks ago. Charlie Junior is a Scout, and Charlie Senior—who’s been reading my columns off and on since his son was a Tiger—asked me about a week ago if I knew anything about Scout troops in town that he might check out for Charlie Junior. You bet! I told him about three local troops, including where and when they met, and encouraged him to visit all three. Yesterday, while we were mowing our lawns side-by-side, we took a break and I asked him about his visits.

“Yup, Andy. I visited all three. Two of them look pretty good.”

“Two out of three is pretty good, Charlie. But what was the problem with number three?”

“Well first let me tell you about the first two…

“They’re both a good size. Big enough so that they feel like real troops, but not so big that a new kid like my son will get lost in them. The third troop’s about the same, so no problems in that area. But what a huge difference in their Scoutmasters!

“The first two Scoutmasters I met—one’s a man and the other’s a woman, by the way—were really involved with the kids. They both made all the announcements at the beginning of the meeting, so all the kids would know what’s coming up in the next couple of weeks. One of them even told the kids what kind of meals the other troop adults would be cooking for them. The other one stressed to the kids how the troop’s ‘transportation director’—cool title, huh!—would be arranging for any kid who signs up for their troop campout to have an assigned seat in one of the cars.

“Then each of these Scoutmasters really went to work! In both troops, they divided the boys up into ‘learning groups,’ where they taught different skills, like knot-tying, lashings, how to pitch a tent, and so on—all good stuff!

“For the game-time in each troop meeting, they each had a whistle, that they used to start and end each game, and of course for any infractions of the rules.

“Finally, at the end, each one had a ‘Scoutmaster’s Minute…well, not a minute, actually…

“In one of the troops, the Scoutmaster told the kids about the importance of good citizenship and how, next week, there would be a class on the Citizenship in the Community badge, where they’d all get ‘partial’ credit for the requirements they completed in the class.

“The other Scoutmaster had something really special—it was a sort of ‘pop quiz’ on what each point of the Scout Law meant to them and what they’d done in the past week to live up to that point. Boy, that really drove home the values of Scouting!”

“How long did that last?” I asked.

“Oh, maybe twenty minutes. Maybe a bit longer—I really wasn’t looking at my watch, but I could see that some of the kids were getting tired of standing there at ‘attention’,” Charlie told me.

“Okay, so that’s two troops,” I said. “What about the third one?”

“Well, that one started off a little weirdly,” Charlie said. “In the first place, that Scoutmaster invited me to sit down with him in the back of the room, instead of standing up in front of the troop. And when I asked him how many kids were in the troop, he told me, ‘None’.

“None?” I said.

“That’s right, Andy. He said they don’t have ‘kids’ in his troop; they have Scouts. I guess I’m a little dense, ‘cause I’m still not sure what he meant.

“And when we sat down, I asked him why he wasn’t making any announcements for the boys.”

“What did he tell you, Charlie?” I asked.

“He said there’s a Scout who does that—the Senior Patrol Leader. Boy, talk about passing the buck!”

“The same thing happened with skills instruction, Andy. When I asked him when he was gonna start teaching, he told me that he doesn’t do that…that there are designated Scouts who do this. Sometimes it’s an Instructor if it’s a specialty area. But mostly it’s the Patrol Leaders who teach skills to their own patrol members.

“And when I asked him about hikes and campouts, and how the troop committee and other parents help out with meals and transportation, he told me the same thing!”

“Oh?” I said. “What about meals and transportation and such? What does the Scoutmaster do?”

“Nothing!” Charlie said, and I could see his face starting to get red as his voice went up.

“You know what this guy does!” Charlie continued. “He does absolutely nothing to organize anything. He tells me that this is what the Senior Patrol Leader and the Patrol Leaders do, if you can believe that! How lazy can you get!

“He also told me that everything that can be done at the patrol level is done there, and the troop committee only gets involved if things like permits or special funds for admissions or stuff like that is needed. They don’t cook. They don’t drive. They don’t set up the room for the kids before the troop meetings. They do this other stuff, which looks like mostly paper-shuffling, and that lazy Scoutmaster allows this!

“He made a big point that the patrols take care of themselves. They have their own duty rosters, they do their own menu-planning and even food-shopping, and they arrange their own transportation with their parents in terms of which Scouts’ dads or moms will do the driving and which Scouts whose parent isn’t driving this weekend will be picked up by what driver.

“There are only two troop-related items he makes certain he takes with him to all activities, he told me. He takes the medical forms for the whole troop and any adult who will be driving or hiking or staying overnight. And he takes parents’ permission-to-treat forms for each Scout. He doesn’t even bring a big first aid kit like I’ve seen others do because each patrol has one, he said.

Sitting down on the grass and cracking a bottle of water, which I handed to Charlie, I asked, “So what happened at the end of the meeting?”

“Oh, that! Well, I’ll give him one for being brief. He actually took just one minute! It was a story about ‘sticking to the job till it’s done’ and he used a postage stamp on an envelope as an example. That stamp may seem insignificant, he said, but unless it sticks to its job, that envelope just doesn’t get delivered, and who knows—it could contain a birth announcement, or acceptance at a college or for a job, or even a court appearance, or a notice that you’ve won a state lottery! So the next time you get something like that in the mail, be sure to thank that stamp for sticking to it till the job’s done.”

“Sounds like that small minute means something to you, Charlie,” I said.

“Yeah, I guess it does,” he admitted. “I guess, for teen-aged boys—or girls, too, for that matter—it’s a pretty good message. I’m gonna try to remember it for Charlie Junior.”

“I get the felling you’ll remember it just fine,” I said. “C’mon in the house with me for a second, Charlie. I have something you might want to read.”

And I gave him a copy of a short book that updated Baden-Powell’s original points-of-view, with Post-It tabs on some of the pages–the ones where Charlie would find insights like…

“Scouting is [an adult’s] job cut down to boy- [or girl-] size.”

“The Patrol Method” isn’t “a” way to organize Scouts. It’s the only way. Without The Patrol Method, it isn’t Scouting.”

“Never do for a boy [or girl] what [they] can do for [themselves].”

I hope Charlie visits that third troop again, but next time with his son (in uniform!). And yes, they should both visit the other two troops again, too. Why? Simple. This is a decision for Charlie Junior—and no one else!—to make. After all’s said and done, this is all about a Scout’s life!

Happy Scouting!

Andy

Have a question? Facing a dilemma? Wondering where to find a BSA policy or guideline? Write to askandybsa@yahoo.com. Please include your name and council. (If you’d prefer to be anonymous, if published, let me know and that’s what we’ll do.)

[No. 611 – 8/13/2019 – Copyright © Andy McCommish 2019]