Topic
What it takes to lead a troop week after week. Scoutmasters and assistant Scoutmasters wrote openly about vision, patience, mentoring youth leaders and the occasional rainy campout.
200 posts · 2007–2020
11 posts
After the BSA Board of Directors’ historic decision to welcome girls into Scouting , many in the Scouting community had just one question: When can my daughter sign up? Other Scouters had more specific questions about the reasons for the move, implementation and rollout plan.
Sometimes the desire to support Scouting’s youth-led model clashes with the wishes of parents or your fellow Scouters. That’s happening now in a troop in the northeast. The senior patrol leader wants to shuffle the patrols; some parents and assistant Scoutmasters are against the idea.
Jim Potjunas left an indelible mark on Troop 101 and the entire community of Warren, Ohio. Potjunas was just 18 when he helped start the troop 42 years ago. Five years later, he became its Scoutmaster. He led the troop for 37 years, during which time he helped 148 young men become Eagle Scouts.
A while back, we ran a couple articles about the role that other adults play in a Boy Scout troop. By “other” adults, I’m referring to assistant Scoutmasters, committee members and parents of Scouts. But sometimes, you encounter a situation where adults like to stick around after their sons have aged out and moved on.
Because he devoted so much of his life to Scouting, Bill Hemenway was many different things to countless Scouts and Scouters. To some he was a troopmate or Order of the Arrow brother. To others, he was a Cubmaster or Scoutmaster.
I’ve struggled to understand the role of a junior assistant Scoutmaster. It’s right there on the organizational chart, it has a (kind of fuzzy) job description, but (like many of you) I never found a way to apply this role to my complete satisfaction.
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.
Handing a Boy Scout a badge of office doesn’t automatically make him a good leader. He needs to be trained. He needs to take the Introduction to Leadership Skills for Troops, or ILST. This training course is conducted in three modules — each 60 to 90 minutes.
When a young man turns 18 and heads off to college out of town or out of state, one of two things usually happens. You might lose track of him as he begins this new chapter of life — Scouting just a happy, though formative, part of his past.
There are two types of vacancies in adult leader positions in Scouting: expected and unexpected. But even the latter type of departure - perhaps a result of injury, illness or a Scouter moving away - can be taken in stride. That is, if you've established a succession plan.
Forrest Gertin, an Eagle Scout and Vigil Honor OA member from Rochester, N.Y., will serve as 2017 National Chief of the Order of the Arrow. His election was announced late last week by the Order of the Arrow, Scouting's national honor society.
