When I first volunteered with the troop committee, there was a lot of interaction between the Scouts and adults on campouts. At one low point in our membership (a trend that was not surprising in retrospect), we had nearly as many adults as Scouts going camping. Why not? – the adults enjoyed camping as much as the boys did. However, the adults didn’t exactly leave the boys alone. In fact, on many campouts the boys asked the adults to do the cooking (and the adults agreed – especially the Scoutmaster). I’ll say we had some delicious meals, but that’s not the point, at least for the Scouts. We’d get to camp and the adults would be barking orders at the Scouts to get the dining flies and tents set up over there, and would jump in and do it for them if they were having trouble. Hikes were nearly always led by the Scoutmaster or an assistant (as in the movie Follow Me Boys or any of a dozen other stereotypes). Adults often fiddled with the menus the boys drew up (even making the menu occasionally themselves), taught Scout skills, built fires, and got on the boys to clean up. It’s no wonder I was conflicted about the way I saw things unfolding versus the way I had heard it was supposed to be. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was a classic sign of untrained adult leadership. Continue reading “The role of “other” adults, part 2″
Has this ever happened to you? You spot a parent at a troop meeting, chat with him or her and decide they’d be a good fit for a particular task you have in mind. After discussing it, they agree to take on the job, and you give some basic direction. Later that month at the committee meeting, they either don’t show up or report that nothing much has been done. We tend to brush it off as “everyone’s busy” and let it go, but as the weeks go by, there really isn’t any further progress. You really hate to bug them – they did volunteer, after all – but something has to move forward.
