Lessons from youth camp

This past weekend my council held its annual PL/APL (Golden Arrow) and Sixer/Second (Silver Star) camps. It was a great experience and we had almost 100 people at camp. That was a new record for us. Our usual Golden Arrow courses are capped at 24 participants but we had such a demand the planning team decided to hold a second course simultaneously. On of the reasons for the 24 participant limit is simply the logistics so we took the schedule for the full day on Saturday and simply reversed the morning and afternoon sessions.

A couple of things I learned:
1) If you build and run a top notch event then people will come. We had one group bring four scouts and four cubs over six hours to camp! They left Friday just after lunch. The principal of the school, after hearing why eight kids had to leave early, was so impressed that he allowed them to be absent from school without any kind of penalty. Additionally, we had a number of groups drive 2-4 hours to get there.

2) You need to prepare some parents for being away from their kids just as much as you do the kids!!! One set of parents (from the same community as mentioned in #1 above) missed their kids so much they drove all the way to camp to check up on Saturday night. Their kids had been having a great time and had not mentioned home at all until...you guessed it, the parents arrived! Well, the kids after suddenly "deciding" they wanted to go home, eventually stayed and finished up the remaining 17 hours before leaving the next day!

Garth
Alberta

My Lessons learned.

First, the GA & SS training is one of the best youth leadership programs I have had the pleasure to be apart of, and have our youth attend. I strongly encourage every Scouting Group to consider this type of leadership training for thier youth (and leaders right Garth?).

Garth is correct, build and run a top notch program and the youth will come. It was amazing the work the planning team put into this program, and having double the youth was even more impressive.

My youth (also the group mentioned above) talked the entire 6 hours home about what they all learned on the weekend and couldnt wait to get home and get cracking on the balance of the requirements for the GA. Our Cubs sang songs they learned and talked about the new friends, fellow Cubs they had met. 6 hours in a van full of Cubs Scouts & Scouts after a weekend of having fun OUTside was almost as fun as the weekend!

Your Cub Scouts & Scouts will benefit from this leadership training program, hands down.

The 1st Anzac Scout Group would like to thank Garth and his team for the outstanding weekend. Our youth experienced something they will live with forever, and fair warning, we'll be back next year, with possibly 2 vans full.


ps. Glad we got to see the Golden Arrow ----------->

Well, I appreciate Ron's kind words but in reality, his group is an inspiration to me of the concept of 'build it and they will come'. Over the past year and a bit, in his small community, Ron and some others got together and started a scout group and have built it from nothing. They're running EXCELLENT programming and the community has responded with support and parents signing up their youth.

In terms of Ron's general comments, I strongly agree that youth leadership needs to be taught and instilled from the beginning. A PL or a Sixer MUST be more than someone who takes attendance, collects dues (do groups still do that anymore??!!) and then isn't heard from again. They need to be taught how to be a leader and I believe the courses we run do just that. I think the demand we get each year is evidence of our success.

The key are having adult leaders who will allow the youth to properly act in their role. To this end, there is one more course that my scouting colleagues and I want to develop for our youth leadership continuum - a course that teaches adult leaders how to use their youth leaders. As part of the Golden Arrow PL/APL course we bring in the adult leaders on the last morning of the event (they aren't present for the course itself) and one of the sessions is just for them. Over the last seven courses (and over many WB 1 courses I've trained at) a recurring theme is that the adults simply don't know how to run the patrol system and how to effectively use their youth leaders.

The youth leadership group I associate with have now developed four courses specifically for youth (Silver Star for Cubs, Golden Arrow for Scouts, Impact for Venturer companies, and Heroes for senior Venturers). Our last one to develop and test will be to bring adults in and teach them how to use their youth. The Wood Badge curriculum is not teaching this. Yes, they are taught briefly ABOUT the concepts but this is simply not sufficient. I see it over and over again that the adults either don't know how (the biggest reason) or don't want to relenquish control. Our Kudu course (we have the name but not all the curriculum) will bring in adults to the same place and time where SS and GA are being run on a weekend. The adults will be completely segregated from their youth except during certain times when they can put into practice some of the concepts they're learning about. A significant 'do at home' part will also be a part of the course where the trainers will visit and help the adults back at their home groups so they can have guidance at running an actual Sixer Council or Court of Honour.

Anyway...I've gone on for awhile now. Ron's group is just one piece of evidence that when you run a compelling, exciting program, people will come to it.

Garth
Alberta

So how would we start up such a program? I wouldn't know where to start and our area does not have anything like it.

The Wood Badge curriculum is not teaching this. Yes, they are taught briefly ABOUT the concepts but this is simply not sufficient. I see it over and over again that the adults either don't know how (the biggest reason) or don't want to relenquish control. Our Kudu course (we have the name but not all the curriculum) will bring in adults to the same place and time where SS and GA are being run on a weekend.

We've noticed this problem too. As we've run our PL training, there has been demand for training for adults on how to make use of the newly-trained PLs.

This really drives home how broken Scouts Canada's training system is. It should come as no surprise, however. Effective training for troop leaders needs to be done by other troop leaders who are currently running highly successful troops. People who are not running successful troops don't know what it takes. Even former troop leaders will be wearing rose-colored glasses about how a troop should work. We need people with current experience and success.

Woodbadge badly needs to be fix and until it gets fixed, such training should stop altogether. A completely untrained person is less likely to mess things up than a person who thinks they have relevant training, but has instead learned many misconceptions.

One thing worth adding.

Our Scouts have not talking about our experience at GA camp, but also the fact they were lead by Venturers and Rovers. Our Scout group hasnt had any interaction with Vents or Rovers until this camp.

On account that the Vents and Rovers were leading this training helped instill the value of the training coming from thier peers. My Scout Troop is very excited about becoming Vents in the near future, and I am thankful for the opportunity to help these Scouts experience growth in Scouting.

So how to we make all these good things happen? We have some good courses from Garth and good input Liam. How do we get these courses implemented across the country? How to we get the kids to go on them? How do we get the leaders to go on them? How do we get leaders to buy into these concepts? How do we get the right leaders to be trainers? Many trainers aren't any good no matter what material is put in front of them.

Generally, how can we turn all the good stuff that appears in this forum into concrete implementation across the country?

Hi Garth;
Thanks for the great story! It's great that you've got such an effective programme running for the youth in your Area! I was wondering what kind of youth involvement you have at the planning and execution level of this training programme. Do you find that any senior youth are volunteering to help organize and deliver this programme?

Help organize and deliver? We're training them to take over the entire event!! At this most recent course nearly every session presenter was a senior Venturer or Rover, a graduate of our Heroes SiT course we run each year. Additionally, all eight patrols and all four sixes had a senior Venturer assigned to be with them all weekend. For this event my co-course leader was a senior Venturer whom I worked with to help further mentor and train.

The youth leadership training continuum (Silver Star, Golden Arrow, !mpact, Heroes) we have developed is specifically designed so that the there are increasing levels of senior youth participation. Once they have taken the Heroes course they assist in nearly all capacities for lots of other training events.

Garth