I'm still the first counselor in the young men's presidency, but instead of being the Varsity Coach, I'm now the Scoutmaster. It was made official a couple sundays ago. (now that I think about it, I need to make sure it gets changed at the scout office too.)
I never thought I'd be a scoutmaster. I only made it to second class as a youth (that's basically nothing). But working with the young men, and helping the previous scoutmaster so closely, it seems a little more do-able.
I was able to go to some "Leader Specific" training last saturday. Training was from 8am to 5pm. There was some really good stuff I learned during the training, and will hopefully be able to put it to some good use in my unit. This Friday night and Saturday, there is some more training. It's called "Outdoor Leader Skills". I'm not sure what we'll be doing, but I'm sure we'll be in the blazing hot sun for a lot of it. (Not really looking forward to that part.)
After that, all I'll need is some training called "New Leader Essentials" and I will be considered "trained" and will get to add a "trained" patch to my uniform. The next "NLE" will hopefully be in August.
Why my sudden interest in going through BSA training? (I was planning to do the training already as a Varsity Coach, but now I'm doing it as a Scoutmaster instead.) I'm doing the training because our YM program isn't going anywhere. The boys aren't really progressing too well, and we've lost a couple of them to inactivity. So as much as I think I know how to run a program, it's not working. Therefore, if the BSA has nearly 100 years of experience of working with boys, and if the church has such a strong tie with the BSA, there must be something there that I'm missing as an adult leader. And let me just say, that even with just my one day of BSA training, I feel like I have a whole new set of "tools" to work with and use. It was quite motivational.
Scout camp is coming up in less than two weeks. I kind of feel like things are mostly in order for that. There are still some things to figure out as a whole, but for the most part, I think we're on the right track. We're going to Camp Tahquitz for scout camp. I'll be incorporating some of my new training before and during camp, and then trying to incorporate as much of it as I can afterward. Then by the first of the next year, hopefully be a fully functioning boy-run program.
Anyway, just thought I'd give a little update on how that was all going.
2 comments:
Dan goes to Scout camp at Emerald bay next week. I hope Anna is much nicer about the time commitment than i am. Sometimes i am not nice at all about how much time Scouts takes away from our family.
and congratulations, i think. ;)
Anna grew up with scouter parents. In her eyes, they often put scouting before family, so she is keenly aware of the time and toll scouts can take. She does value scouting, but the old feelings reer their head when there's a conflict.
I'll let her know she has a sister in arms with you!
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