More Q&A: Committee approval of advancement, smartphones at camp

The mailbag brought a couple more questions to the Bobwhite’s attention in the last few weeks. I’ll take a stab at answering your conundrums this week.

First, a question from an experienced den leader – and thank you for your service, as you are the front-line deliverer of Scouting to our Cub Scouts! – about a committee chair’s role in advancement: Continue reading “More Q&A: Committee approval of advancement, smartphones at camp”

There is only one Scoutmaster

I once had four bosses in the same job, all at the same time.

At one point in my career, I was a department head at a branch location of a company that had a half-dozen locations around the country. Our branch had two divisions, which my department supported, and each division had a manager. The location had a general manager who ran the overall branch operation, and the corporate headquarters had a chief of the department that I headed. I effectively answered to all of them.

Talk about confusion!

There were times when I felt like I was being pulled in four directions. Manager A wanted something done, but it went against what the corporate head’s policies permitted. Meanwhile, Manager B and the general manager were asking me to do different things as well. There was no clear managerial chain of command, and the way things ran in this organization made it difficult to rectify the situation. I left after a couple years, primarily for greener pastures, but also because the conflicting structure made it difficult for me to satisfy everyone.

If this befuddled me, think of how it would affect a Scout-age boy. Continue reading “There is only one Scoutmaster”

Dealing with policy issues

RuleBook_200A reader writes:

Our Scoutmaster wants to make changes to the troop uniform policy, but when I said I should have been in on the discussion he told me that uniforming wasn’t something that was at the committee chair level, since it deals directly with the Scouts. I said that changes of that nature need to be incorporated into the troop handbook, and should still be discussed by the committee. Should I have a say in the matter?

Let’s look a little deeper into what you’re asking and see if we can figure out what the real issues are. Continue reading “Dealing with policy issues”

A teaching moment

scout_sign_250“This is America. Go back to Mexico!”

“Build That Wall!”

These words are all too familiar today. You might expect to hear them at a rally for the current Republican presidential candidate. The outrageousness is reported by the news media for all to see and hear.

But, in this case, it wasn’t at a Donald Trump rally where the words were shouted.

It was at a Scout camporee.

Seriously.

Continue reading “A teaching moment”

Summer camp survival kit

Even though summer camp rolls around each year at this time, we’re never quite prepared for it. We generally do a pretty good job, but there are details we tend to forget from one year to the next. Add to this the changing nature of our troops and a refresher becomes a good idea.

So, whether you’re heading to camp next week or next month, here are some summer camp-related articles that I and others have written on the subject recently. Continue reading “Summer camp survival kit”