June CubCast, ScoutCast Podcasts Now Online

 Boy Scout Summer Camp, Boy Scouts, Camping, Cub Scout Day Camp, Cub Scouts, District News, Membership, Program Helps, Program Planning, Recruitment, Retention, Top Scouting Articles, Training, Venturing  No Responses »
Jun 172013
 
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If you only listen to one CubCast this year (although we hope you catch them all), make this the one. Hilda Blaine, a five-year Cub Scout volunteer extraordinaire with the Grand Canyon Council in Phoenix, Arizona, chats with us about everything you need to plan your Cub Scout year and how it will make your Cub Scout Leader experience a whole lot easier.

For your Boy Scout volunteers, point to the latest ScoutCast recording about economic diversity within troops. As much as we’d like it to be, Scouting isn’t free; uniforms, camping equipment, and activities all cost money. What do you do when you have kids that come from all different economic backgrounds, or if someone’s economic situation changes? Joining us for this fascinating topic is the team leader of the Council Fund Development Team, Mark Moshier, who shares with us how to keep funds from being a problem in a Scout’s involvement.

Both podcasts can be found online at www.scouting.org/ScoutCast.aspx.

…read more

Via: Scout Wire

Effective Scouters don’t let Competence Obscure Possibility

 Boy Scouts, Cub Scouts, Program Planning, Top Scouting Articles, Training, Venturing  No Responses »
Jun 122013
 

Effective Scouters are alert to possibility, to the challenge of the moment.

If we aren’t watchful, though,  those transient moments of possibility become obscured by our preoccupation with competence.

There’s no inherent virtue in being an experienced Scouter, after all if you stick with something long enough you become experienced. Hopefully experience leads to competence, but competence shouldn’t obscure possibility;

As we get more experienced, we get better, more competent, more able to do our thing.

And it’s easy to fall in love with that competence, to appreciate it and protect it. The pitfall? We close ourselves off from possibility.

Possibility, innovation, art–these are endeavors that not only bring the whiff of failure, they also require us to do something we’re not proven to be good at. After all, if we were so good at it that the outcome was assured, there’d be no sense of possibility.

Seth Godin  Competence vs. possibility

Consistency and competence are certainly valuable but they are not really what we are aimed at in Scouting.  Our goal is not a  isn’t consistent product, in fact we aren’t producing a product at all. We are working with individual one-off human beings with individual hopes, dreams, talents, and possibilities.

Our challenge is to  help our …read more

Via: Scoumaster Clarke Greene

Go west, young men: Scouts begin coast-to-coast bike ride with a purpose

 Boy Scouts, Camping, Council News, District News, Top Scouting Articles, Venturing  No Responses »
Jun 102013
 
The planned route.

Ten Scouts, two leaders, 3,700 miles, and something to prove.

This morning, a group of Scouts from Troop 845 in Chapel Hill, N.C., dipped their tires into the Atlantic Ocean in Havre de Grace, Md., and headed west for the Oregon coast.

But their 10-week trip, dubbed Lucky 13 for the year 2013, is hardly a pleasure cruise.

The young men are following the lead of Scouts from their troop who took a similarly grueling cross-country journey in 2005, 2007, and 2010.

“Their epic tales of adventure,” Assistant Scoutmaster Brian Burnham told me, “have inspired us to take off this summer and ride 3,700 miles over 10 weeks from coast to coast.”

The planned route.

And like Troop 845 riders before them, the Lucky 13 crew is doing it all for a good cause: the University of North Carolina Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. They’ve raised $21,005 for the center so far and are still accepting donations.

The riders are carrying a GPS tracking device, meaning anyone can follow along with their journey — a route that will take them through 10 states: Maryland, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, South Dakota, …read more

Via: Bryan On Scouting

Mike Rowe Speaks at Boy Scouts of America National Annual Meeting

 Boy Scouts, Community News, Council News, Cub Scouts, Venturing  No Responses »
Jun 102013
 

Check out this great video from the 2012 National Annual Meeting where Mike Rowe, Host of Dirty Jobs and Distinguished Eagle Scout, speaks to attendees.

Does Your Scouting Unit Promote Grit?

 Boy Scouts, Cub Scouts, Membership, Program Helps, Program Planning, Recruitment, Retention, Training, Venturing  No Responses »
Jun 082013
 

Angela Lee Duckworth: The key to success? Grit

 

In her late 20s, Angela Lee Duckworth left a demanding job as a management consultant at McKinsey to teach math in public schools in San Francisco, Philadelphia and New York.

After five years of teaching seventh graders, she went back to grad school to complete her Ph.D. in psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, where she is now an assistant professor in the psychology department. Her research subjects include students, West Point cadets, and corporate salespeople, all of whom she studies to determine how “grit” is a better indicator of success than factors such as IQ or family income.

“Angela Lee Duckworth’s research validated and furthered my beliefs in the keys to success for individuals, teams and a business. While intelligence is required, Angela demonstrated that the determining factors for success were perseverance, hard work and a drive to improve.”

Shabbir Dahod, Forbes

True colors: Is your pack, troop, or crew website brand-compliant?

 Boy Scouts, Council News, Cub Scouts, District News, Program Helps, Top Scouting Articles, Venturing  No Responses »
Jun 072013
 
brand-id-guide

The color scheme on your troop’s website is red and blue, but is it the right red and blue? Is that the right shade of yellow on your pack page? And what about that Venturing logo you converted to 3D “for effect”?

In other words, are you brand-compliant?

Don’t worry, there’s no “BSA Brand Police” planning to perp walk you in handcuffs if your unit’s website or printed materials don’t match the official specs.

If this all sounds a little like minutiae, it is. But these details are an important part of maintaining the BSA’s iconic brand. And you’re a key player.

So why not do all you can to create a consistent look and feel in all the ways a Scout and his family interact with the organization?

The Boy Scouts of America Brand Identity Guide (pdf) breaks down the basics for you. You can learn the proper and improper ways to use BSA logos, the exact specs on official Scouting colors, and even tips on websites, social media, and photography.

Converting to the official colors can be your first step. Here are the specs: 

Corporate Trademark

Back to the Future… The Outdoor Program

 Boy Scouts, Camping, Cub Scouts, Membership, Program Helps, Program Planning, Retention, Top Scouting Articles, Training, Venturing  No Responses »
Jun 072013
 
If you build it they will come pt.4, The Annual Plan

Boys join Scouts for the Outdoors.. they join for the adventure and fun times that they are promised.  Parents sign them up for Character development, life skills, and the values of the program.  The outdoor program is the heart of Scouting.  It is the place where the Scout learns, practices skills, develops friendships and a love for the wilderness and has fun.
I am sure by now that you have tore through the Aides to Scoutmastership… this has been a fun couple of days pouring through the writing of our founder.  The more I dig in to the book, the more I know that the organization that BP was forming was centered on the boy and that his first and foremost goal was developing them to be good men.  In the early years of the 20th century, England was a different place and boys were not allowed to just be boys.  There are so many problems with suppressing the will and spirit of the boy and BP saw the destruction of  boyhood and the effects that it has on manliness.  I fear that this is happening again and its high time to take get it back.
The outdoor program of …read more

Via: Scoutmaster Minute

The Bridge Builder

 Boy Scouts, Cub Scouts, Program Helps, Top Scouting Articles, Venturing  No Responses »
Jun 062013
 

The Bridge Builder

An old man, going a lone highway,
Came, at the evening, cold and gray,
To a chasm, vast, and deep, and wide,
Through which was flowing a sullen tide.

The old man crossed in the twilight dim;
The sullen stream had no fear for him;
But he turned, when safe on the other side,
And built a bridge to span the tide.

“Old man,” said a fellow pilgrim, near,
“You are wasting strength with building here;
Your journey will end with the ending day;
you never again will pass this way;
You’ve crossed the chasm, deep and wide-
Why build you this bridge at the evening tide?”

The builder lifted his old gray head:
“Good friend, in the path I have come,” he said,
“There followeth after me today,
A youth, whose feet must pass this way.

This chasm, that has been naught to me,
To that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be.
He, too, must cross in the twilight dim;
Good friend, I am building this bridge for him.”

Will Allen Dromgoole

The Bridge Builder

…read more

Via: Scoumaster Clarke Greene

Rex Tillerson speaks out about change and ‘The Main Thing’

 Boy Scouts, Council News, Cub Scouts, District News, Top Scouting Articles, Training, Venturing  No Responses »
Jun 062013
 

“So we’ve made the decision. We’re going to change,” says Rex Tillerson. ”Now what?”

Less than 24 hours after the volunteer delegates voted to change the BSA’s membership policy for youth, Tillerson addressed a large room full of Scouting volunteers and professionals at the closing general session of the BSA’s National Annual Meeting.

In a powerful, heartfelt speech, Tillerson made his message clear: Change is inevitable, but “The Main Thing,” which is to serve more youth in Scouting, hasn’t changed. With that he mind, he reasoned, it’s time for all of us unite toward this common goal.

Tillerson, immediate past president of the Boy Scouts of America and a 2010 Silver Buffalo recipient, knows something about making big decisions and dealing with change. When he’s not serving as a Scouting volunteer, he’s the chairman, president, and CEO of Exxon Mobil Corp., one of the world’s largest companies.

In 1999, Tillerson worked for Exxon when it merged with Mobil—definitely a big change for both companies.

Take 10 minutes to watch the video below and listen to Tillerson’s message. Then, share it with the members of your Scouting family. 

…read more

Via: Bryan On Scouting

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