In November we went to Gulf Hagas, again three adults, and eight or so guys.  I didn’t go on this trip but, it was reported to be fine and fun.  It has been 3 years since we’ve been to Gulf Hagas, so new again.  I was pleased because we had new guys on this one.

In November we had 2 work days with the folks from Belgrade Regional Conservation Association.  In truth this was primarily so that the guys who went on the Allagash could get their service hours for the 50 miler award, but, others joined us.  We worked on a couple of trail improvement on two different trails.  One was blazing and brush clearing, the other we set up stepping stones in one place, and laid the foundation for a bridge.  Muddy wet work for November but, a good show all around.  I think this is a great start to a good relationship with these people.

We also volunteered at the Christmas Stroll in Belgrade Village.  A little different gig for us, but, it was good.  In the past we’ve set up and lighted then cleaned up the sidewalk luminaries.  This year the Robotics Team did that.  We shifted our attention to Crossing Guards at the new BRCA building so the kiddies could visit Santa.  As well offered assistance and security for the horse drawn carriage ride some of us at each turnaround.

Next week we will go Bowling at our annual Holiday bowling trip.  All in all a good Fall.

• Growth in moral strength and character
• Participative Citizenship
• Development in physical, mental, and emotional fitness

Participative Citizenship is, I think, a matter that the guys struggle with.  Boy Scouts doesn’t exist until each young man with the young man next to him make it — Boy Scouts is not ready made. Nor is it made by adults, hence its name, “Boy Scouts.”   I’ve been struggling with how to explain this.  For now I’m thinking about it like cooking.  We have the recipe the ingredients and the cooks, but, until somebody cooks that is all we have.  Odd really that that is all it takes to make a community, some people, some values and somebody to keep it rolling.  That’s right somebody to keep it rolling, starting something is easy, what is hard is to finish it.  In general our frustration tolerance for difficulties in communication, motivation, and teamwork is amazingly low, perhaps again because we are seduced by our technologies to imagine that we are engaged with each other when we are really engaged with our machine and our selves and our machines and selves offer very little resistance.  It is hard to build community, but, truly, desperately at this place-time what is more important?

METHODS

• Advancement — “The Scoutmaster must be alert to check badge hunting as compared to badge earning.”
• Ideals — “The Scout Oath and Law are our binding disciplinary force.”
• Patrols — “The object of the patrol method is not so much saving the Scoutmaster trouble as to give responsibility to the boy.”  “The more responsibility the Scoutmaster gives his patrol leaders, the more they will respond.”
• Outdoors — “Scoutmasters need the capacity to enjoy the out-of-doors.”  “Boys can see adventure in a dirty old duck puddle, and if the Scoutmaster is a boys’ man he can see it, too.”
• Adult Association –“Scouting is a game for boys under the leadership of boys under the direction of a man.”
• Personal Growth — “In Scouting you are combating the brooding of selfishness.”  “We must change boys from a ‘what can I get’ to a ‘what can I give’ attitude.”
• Leadership Development — “In Scouting, a boy is encouraged to educate himself instead of being instructed.”
• Uniform — “Show me a poorly uniformed troop and I’ll show you a poorly uniformed leader.”

All of these quotes are from Robert Baden-Powell the founder of Boy Scouting.

One vital tool for making dreams realities – goal setting.

First, open up communication with your Scout. Have a goal-defining session. Make sure you have plenty of time , even several sessions, to work through the following exercise. Have them sit down with a piece of paper and answer questions like the following.   They need to be honest and self-reflective and that takes time for young people.

• What do I want out of life?
• What do I most enjoy doing?
• What gives me joy?
• What do I value?
• Who is someone I admire and what characteristics do they have?
• If I could solve a world problem, what would it be?
• What am I good at?
• What makes me motivated?
• Where do I see myself in 5 years, 10, 15, 50?
• Where would I like to go?

Second, teach your Scout goal-setting strategies.

1. Define their goals (wishes are not goals because some are not probable or even possible , e.g. “I wish to go to the moon right now.”)
2. Discuss and brainstorm the steps needed to achieve their goals. Do this step for each individual goal. If needed, research the goal online or at the library or talk to school counselors for guidance on how to reach the goal.
3. Identify roadblocks to accomplishing the goals and create plans to deal with them. For example, are their financial problems or time constraints to accomplishing the goal?
4. Make deadlines. Don’t be overwhelmed by large goals, set small goals to help meet the large goals.
5. And finally, have them report on their progress every now and again.

In connection with the final step, a good idea is to set goals and evaluations to work around the school programs. For example, grades can show academic success, or sports programs can show physical prowess.  Scouting shows success with leadership  Talk about how good it feels to meet goals and the rewards that come. Also, set rewards for accomplishing goals, e.g. “I’ll pay for Drivers Education, after you’ve completed your Life Scout”.  Teen goal-setting is a life skill that can take your child far.

Here we are on Long Pond headed down the Belgrade Stream to take out at Snow Pond.

So, a week later we packed it up and headed off on our trip.  Six or so hours of driving from Belgrade to St Francis, Maine, on the St John river and the international border.  We stayed at Pelletier’s campground and utilized their shuttle service.  Probably some of the best money we spent on the trip was getting them to drive us, our stuff, and our canoes the last 3 hours on logging roads.  Rather that than beating our cars up, and driving twice that setting up our own shuttle.  Our experience with this business was good, and their prices seemed competitive,  certainly, I’d use them again in the future, but, as always it is worth shopping around each trip.

There were a few bugs that first night.

We cooked dinner.

Got some sleep, but, not too much between the excitement, bugs, and first night on the ground.

Got up early so as to be on the road by 7am.

We were on the road early.  The plan was to drive up to the bottom of Chase rapids leave our gear continue to Churchill dam and run the rapids in empty boats.  Chase rapids is nine miles of class I-II rapids, fun, fun, fun.

Here we are posed on the dam waiting for our turn to start.  Em and I seem pleased to be having our picture taken and Phil is telling Dave how to do it.

Since we don’t have pictures again until we camped that evening I guess we can say that we were busy and having fun and that is as it should be.  We had the interesting experience of another group embedding themselves in our group.  They had just rented equipment and started running Chase rapids without any real previous experience.  They decided we knew what we were doing and were going down with us.  Obviously there are all sorts of ways to run the Allagash, but, I think the confidence of experience we had was the superior approach.

Em and Ian lashed together a camp chair out of fire wood and a piece of nylon fabric that Ms Bacon had prepped ahead of time.  They decided that my bulk was a suitable test for the design and construction.

We had a nice campsite  this first evening on the river.  We shared it with a group, looked like 3 families, they seemed to be having a lot fun and they were easy to get along with.

Basically that is how our days went: up early, paddle — some days long, some days short — set up camp, swim, cook, and go to bed.  We saw lots of wildlife, moose, deer, eagles, loons, geese and so on.

Some amazing scenery.

Historically the Allagash area was heavily logged and one of the interesting pieces of technology that was designed and built in Maine to meet the needs of the logging industry were the Lombards two of which have been abandoned in the woods.  One was a steam driven the other gas, here we are pictured with one:

I have a saying:  “It isn’t an ‘adventure’ until something goes wrong.”  And by that definition our trip  was just that a well planned and executed trip — but, no adventure.  We portaged the Allagash falls, in a drizzle, the carry was mostly easy and uneventful.  Our practiced and confident group handled that with grace and speed.  We had two other groups at the portage at the same time and… they seemed to be working harder then us.

The rest of the afternoon rainy… even torrential.  And I conceded at  some point that we might be on the verge of an adventure.  But, we got to our campsite and busted around getting tarps up and a fire going.  Later the rain let up and we set up tents an got into dryer clothes.  We had to set the tarps up to shelter the fire which, alas, turned the kitchen area into a chimney.  That really only affected the cook, which in this case was me:

The last day we ran down the rest of the Allagash to the village and then out onto the St John and paddled back to our take out at Pelletier’s Campground.  A very mellow end to a wonderful trip.

3 Rules of Scouting Leadership

The guys have done and gone to summer camp.  From what I hear the had a good time.  Special thanks to the parents that made this week happen for the boys.  Mrs. Bernier, Mr. Lenfest, who stayed all or most of the week, Amanda, Shawn, and Julie and Richard all helped a bunch too, I’ve probably missed others and that is my bad and no slight on them.   From the conversations with the guys they had a good time, but, they are looking forward already to going to Camp Bell next year.   These two camps are just very different programs and being able to alternate between them creates a rich experience for the guys.

Summer meetings start tonight at the Center for all Seasons, same “bat” time.  The thrust of meetings over the summer will be Cooking merit badge.  Tonight will involve a lot of planning for that.  We will be putting the frosting on the Allagash Trip tonight as well, as we take off next Saturday.  I can’t believe it is upon us but, here we go.  I’m really looking forward to it and I think we will have a ball.  We’ve been canoeing regularly during the week and occasionally on the weekend as shake down paddles for the trip.  Mr. Miller, Ms Bacon have been pulling those together for us.

August is kinda empty at the moment.  But, I think we will shift gears and focus more on hiking and backpacking as the guys have asked.

One of the constant themes I’ve returned to in my short tenure is that of the Patrol Method and a boy run troop.  I’ve emphasized the responsibilities of the young men.  At times I’ve talked about the adults responsibility to do less and less for the young men but I think this blog enty:  Adults Attending Scout Camping Trips is a good meditation on the subject.  Certainly, we have made progress on these goals, but, we still have work to do.

The BSA has adopted a “new” training model.  It is being used across the program, in adult and youth leadership training, and it is appearing in the new rank requirements for youth advancement.

In the bad old days we said, “see, do, teach”.  And in truth this is the same, with “teach” detailed in the practices of “guide” and “enable”.  What does this mean in the real life?  Learning, in scouting, is not a once off click off, but, rather a matter of repetition.  And this is because we are looking for extremely high competence even “mastery”.  “Mastery” is defined as roughly 10 years of practice, or, 10,000 repetitions.  Basically we cannot look to our schools for models to understand this, rather, sports, is a better example.  Star athletes practice year around, the love of the sport is intrinsic and motivates them.  We hear kids say to one another “hey wanna play catch?”  And they go toss a ball around maybe every afternoon all summer long.  It is fun, sometimes easy, other times intense and competitive.  And so it goes with scouting.  I tell the guys that they can’t tie a knot till they can do it in the dark, in the howling wind and rain, while hanging from their knees, and being beaten by a flapping tarp.  Mastery is a rare level of accomplishment in our world of drive-thru instant gratification.

Your son may experience “Explain” for 18 months, and “demonstrate” for another 18 months, and “guide” for another 18 months, and at that point they may be Patrol leader for the first time, and he experiences for the first time our expectation that he create situations that “enable” others, to have the lesson “explained, demonstrated, and guided”, and that goes on for another 3-4 years.  And maybe, just, maybe, they will be Eagle Scouts at the end of it.  But, in truth, I wasn’t really an Eagle Scout, until sometime between 18 and 21, even though I was recognized at 16.  Again, mastery takes 10 years, and about 10,000 repetitions.  So when your son’s complain about having to repeat the basics all the time… well now you know.  In truth I don’t know if that is enough to get them to understand, but, perhaps it helps.