GPS, Map reading, and forgetting how to think for yourself.

 I watch Cnet for interesting tech stories.  Today  I found a good one on utilizing a GPS to help  get around better and faster.  Here's the link to the story.

Getting lost with a GPS? Unfortunately, yes

For those that want the quick version.

Man buys Garmin Nuvi. Man takes trip. Man knows route home. Nuvi knows route home.  Man listens to Nuvi, although he knows better. Wife is mad at man for wasting her time. 

Had the man engaged his brain and not listened to the NUVI  he would not have sat in a 10 mile parking lot. Nuvi would have recalculated the trip and come up with a new best route. It also helps if you can understand the difference between shortest and fastest. The shortest route was simple the least amount of miles traveled.

Unfortunately, the author did not mention which model of Garmin Nuvi he had purchased.  The Nuvi may have spared him some skin if he bought the more expensive one with  the ability to recieve traffic updates.  Still had he only engaged his own mind  and stayed menatlly awake.  His pride would have been in tact. 

The shortcut or the right way, only you can really choose what is right for you.

The story of the Santa hat.

This year  Iwas in the mood to have more Christmas spirit. So how do I get and show more Christmas spirit? I thought to myself. I finally decided aftera trip to Party City, I must get a Santa hat.  I have seen 100 different regular red and white  Santa hats, verying from a 1.50  to propbablly $40. I saw christmass hats with springy trees, ones with antlers and lights, even  pimp styled hats.

I decide on a moderately priced hat with real faux mink trim and ball. It cost $8.00, and it was a bit different. I was happy with my purchase.  My first trip in to the real world was two weeks before Christmas.  One of the first reactions I got was you need to retire that hat, it's dirty. I politely explained that my hat was not dirty it was just trimmed with real mink cloth.  

The next  outing was to a cub adventure camp where I helped in the kitchen. While talking with another leader he asked whether I had killed the faux mink myself. I explained that no I had acquired the cloth from a real mink who knitted for a hobby.  He decided he liked his version of the story better.  I now knew I must get a better story  for my Santa Hat.  As I am a boring ole committee chair and not an exciting cubmaster   I may have to work on this more, but here it goes the  story of my christmas hat.

I was out with my son's webelos den in the East Texas Piney Woods,  the Den leader was teaching the scouts how to identified and follow animals by their tracks and scat.  One of the boy saw some tiny little tracks that no one could identify. So we looked up  the track in one of the books we took along with us. We discovered it was a semi-rare Texas Mink.  Having read how crafty these were  I started following the tracks.  Like other mink, I knew I would have to be very careful and quiet as mink are easily spooked. After what seemed like two forever's of slowly moving  down the trail and tip toeing in between twigs setup like alarms, I came upon a river bank.  Then there I saw it, the mink was leaned back against a tree knitting  what looked to be faux mink cloth.  Being careful  to stay three quarters hidden. I moved closer  until I  thought I could grab the mink.  Taking extra time  to prepare, I swiped my hand out to grab the mink but before  I could get ahold of him he slipped out of his knitted mink coat  and used my hand as a spring board to dive into the river.  I waited and waited but I never saw it come out of the river.  So I took his little knitting and the ball of mink yarn. I made the mink's knittingt into the brim of my santa hat and used the ball of yarn for  the ball on the santa hat. Unfortunately for me I tracked a brown mink instead of a white mink, so that's why my santa hat has  brown real mink cloth  trim instead of white.

The morale of this story is if your going to be different you better have a good story to go with it.

Then again maybe I should have gone with the santa pimp hat instead.

Recharter part 2

Ok so I have gone over the roster. I know where everyone is. I have talked to the current leaders and know who wants to keep on, who is going to try something new, and who is just moving on. I have talked to the pack as a whole about  recharter approaching and what the fee's are.  We have identified a person that may fill a hole we have. 

We are moving from a for profit Charter org to a non profit charter org. I talked to the DE and I think we have covered all the bases for the Charter Org swap.

We've had one scout pay his recharter already. 

I can't get into the Recharter system until after January 1, 2009. I hope everyone out there working through recharter is doing this well. 

Life Enhanced

Last spring I went to Woodbadge, I thought about my ticket items for nearly a month between weekends.  I have items that enhance me and ones that enhance the program. I'm not struggling with  my ticket items but i'm not progressing really well either.

I recently read a post from Lonestar scouter  about Scouting being Life Enhanced.  What a great  thought!  It makes a great elevator pitch,  When some asks you what is Scouting? you turn around and say scouting is life enhanced. That gets you in the door.  You now have time to talk about what you mean by Life Enhanced.  Life enhancedto me means doing things I would do anyway but with more purpose. 

When you go to the grocery store do you as the scouter or your scout really pay attention to what is going on.  Probablly not.  I know  when my wife sends me after hamburger, buns,  and milk. I go right to those items and just grab  them. But when my wife tells me figure out a dinner for tonight, My mind kicks in. First I go to the fresh foods, Vegetables and meats, to find an inspiration. If I find an inspirational meat, I head to veggies next.  Then wrap up the meal  in picking up any remaining items. That's what scouting is supposed to do for all of the scouts.  Take life from a checklist of do this , to an adventure. 

So what does this have to do with my wood badge ticket, I should have kept my ticket items to life enhancing items. So when you finally get off to the Wood badge think about  things that you do because they are your scouting job.  Then think about how you make them life enhancing. If you need to attend roundtable, be part of roundtable.  If you need to put on a pack meeting, then Put on a packmeeting that is original. Original songs, orginal skits, original cheers, etc.  If you need to do this anyway why not do it in a way that helps you grow as a scout. 

A scouter is a scout with experience. If scouting is life enhanced, then it should enhance scouters as well.

Working in IT Versus being a Scouter.

Working in IT, MIS, Network Administration  or whatever you want to call it is very often the job of an unsung hero.  You work in a room that's loud as all get out. Alot of times in some dark closet of an office or cubicle. After years of doing this work you tend to develop some phobia of recognition. To some extent, this is a phobia of praise.  After all no one asks the IT guy to lunch, says you did a good job on making sure all our backups were done last week.  

Your asking, What does this have to do with scouting? When was the last time you told your comissioner, committee chair, advancement chair, etc. good job. These "books" positions are  the IT types of jobs of the scouting world. After a particularly good  pack meeting the  Cubmaster will get a good job at on the back.  So give them a pat on their back before they  develop a phobia of praise. 

I have noticed this phobia of recognition and praise more often in the past year.  Late last spring,  is when I first noticed it.  I was being told by several people that my DE  knew who I was.  I kept thinking how could this be. I haven't met him but 3 or 4 times.  I thought I had kept my head down and  out of site.  This really couldn't be, I was 1 volunteer out of 140 units.  

Well over time I keep putting my head up there a bit more each time.  I went to Wood Badge.  Nothing really remarkable, but It was the beginning of my search for scouting knowledge.  So wood badge made me volunteer  for roundtable staff.   Helping out here, I was invited to the meeting after the meeting. Our roundtable staff  goes  to Taco Cabana after the meeting.  This  eventually  gave me a temporary invitation  to cook at council events.  After the first cooking session I was added to the permanent list. Along the lines of the roundtable staff ticket item,I thought TDC  would be a good class to take. Well that landed me on District Training Staff.  I attended a training staff meeting, and realized I should be going to District Committee at least occasionally.  Then word leaked out that we would be redistricted.  Even more incentive to  go to District Committee.  

Each time my head  kept creeping higher, more recognizable, more chances to get praise.    This past Saturday I finally realized what I've done.  The new DE for my new district was in the training audience and introduced themselves after one of the sessions. It caught me off guard and I was quite... embarrassed. I guess that's the right word.  I think she heard my name mentioned in the training, but they also knew I was going to be in their district.  Not very long ago, I would have taken this as a sign I was a trouble maker. This time I felt praised.  The network manager in me, thought that was an unusual and awful feeling.  To the scouter it felt good, my good work and effort had been rewarded simply by  someone knowing my name. 

Take the time to praise your  IT person before they get cynical and over cautious about praise. It'll be part of doing a good turn daily, and make them warm inside.

GreenBar.ws: Teaching How to Patrol

A few weeks ago, I wrote about getting things started. How do you get things going in your pack. For us it was  getting started participating in a Webelos Campout or Web-o-ree.  I have been thinking back to that campout. It was the first time our pack had taken the Webelos camping. A great many of us had  camping experience. We lacked Patrol camping experience. While we all loved the campout and watched as  the scouts work as a team.  It fell to us as Dad's  to take care of the boys. Even though half of the group have finished the Arrow of Light requirements, It was the first time any of Pack 458 went Webelos Den Camping.  A couple of times I tried to push a couple of the boys into  getting the food going, but in the end Dad was running the show. 

As Dad's we did our job, but as scout leader's  we need to work some more on the patrol method.  I frequently wander the digital frontier. I recall a site that had a book on it that taught  more about the patrol method, by means of competition. It went through each patrol members position.  It only had 8 positions and a scoutmaster.  I think it was the Pine Patrol or something like that.  It was good for the competitions  that were held during that era. 

I am told often that as Committee Chair, I am a key piece of  the Webelos to Scout Transition.  I oversee the pack program.  My Webelos leader is just awesome, though some in the pack, first had some doubts about him. I am pretty sure all of his scouting experience leaned more to the practical aspects of ranch life. I have to admit I couldn't tell you much about my scouting life except for a phenominal campout that started by trip ruining rain. I hate being cold, and even worse is being cold and wet. I know nothing about how a patrol functions. I know that patrols are THE method to scouting.  Even going through Wood Badge, the ultimate in scout training, I didn't pickup  much beyond, Patrol Leader, Assistant Patrol Leader, Scribe, and Chaplain's Aide. In our Troop 1 the Patrol Leader's went to the PLC and found out what was happening the next day and relayed the information.  Easy Enough. But what do they really do?

I happened upon www.GREENBAR.ws looking for information on how to better use the patrol method in our next campout.  First, I have to say I did no know that .WS is the top level domain for Samoa.  Next,  yes the site hasn't been updated since 2003.  I do hope it stays up.  I Found it interesting how this author chose to tackle the subject.  First, he divided the work into information for adults and information to be related to the scouts.  So far, I have put my attention in to the portion to be related to the scouts and even further in to the patrol organization. Anthony Mako, the author, has 10 positions in his patrol. Chaplain's aide is not one of them.  He goes through each as if he is talking to the Patrol Leader. 

The site has been an enjoyable read so far. If you find you need some more information on how a Patrol works and the positions involved, take a look at www.greenbar.ws

T minus 2,160 hours till Recharter

 I have already wasted 288 hours since I was handed my recharter packet. There is currently 90 days left before recharter. So what should have I been doing and what have I done? First off  according to the  packet I should of had this 15 days longer than I have.  Such is life.

I should have a membership and rentention chair to hand all this off to, but I don't.  So here's some skinny.

I have  checked the roster  once against mine. I Have given applications to the den leaders with boys  that arenot on the recharter paperwork.  These boys need to be turned in  within the next 30 days.  Starting in mid January  The council will put  us in a no paperwork zone. Meaning they  put everything off until I am ready to turn in  the recharter package.

Ok we have a list of  boys that is now solid, If you have a program like  Packmaster you can  create a fund rasier and  sell each boy national dues, boys life, and  a pack dues  item. Otherwsie you can do similar in excel, open opffice or on a sheet of paper.  Make sure you have a reciept book. 

If you have someone with Visio  have them make a pack organization chart  with all the positions on it.  Othewise  grab some grid paper and draw it out.  Check with everyone on the current org chart  that they want the position for another 12 months. Check with them for people that may fill holes you have in the org chart. So  by  the next Commity meeting you should have an idea of which positions you will need to fill.

At the next Pack Meeting, announce that you will  be collecting for recharter and the final  date for payment is 15 days prior to your recharter date. Be aware that you will say this for the next 3 pack meetings and no one will  pay attention.

So here is a copy of the org chart I created last year.  I suggest that you ask people to commit  to two years  that way you can create a succession plan. Yet ask them if they want the posiotn every year. I pulled every position  from the leader book.  This doesn't  have the scout parent coordinator position. I hope some of you still find it useful. 

  

P.S. If you want a copy of the visio or the image, I will be happy to email one or both to you.