Wood Badge… in just a week!

Hello again everybody I’m Charles Mead I’m the director of marketing and public relations for the capillary Council of the Boy Scouts of America and we are talking today about a special wood badge course opportunity that our council is uh doing this summer in 2023 uh and I am

Pleased to be joined by some of the staff members from that course uh David Stroud Gilbert Perez and Francine Plunkett and this course we should get right out of the way uh if you have the opportunity during the month of June specifically June 26th through the 30th

Out at our lost Pine Scout Reservation you have the chance to do the wood badge course over the span of an entire week instead of a couple of different weekends like we would normally offer it there is a reason why that we are doing this course in particular uh Francine

I’m going to start with you um obviously scouting I don’t think it’s any secret to anybody has not done a great job when it comes to making sure that as many different kinds of families as possible is involved in the program one of the ways that we can do that of

Course is by having more volunteers and units that look like the families that we’re trying to invite to be a part of this is that what what is it about this course that is so important to that goal my viewpoint on this is I’m coming from

A Cub Scout which is more or less the elementary school children uh Viewpoint and if we can get their parents more involved and understand more about scouting then we have the possibility of them continuing as volunteers it is difficult for some families to be involved but if they can

Come out as a family as a group and then have the parents out that day learning they’ll get better at it Gilbert how how difficult is it to for us as an organization to be I think authentic is an important word here where we’re trying to involve and invite as many people as

Possible and we don’t have uh leaders that look like them uh from your point of view and obviously I am assuming one of the reasons why you’re involved in this course uh how important is it that we have as many different kinds of folks as possible coming in and being

Volunteers regardless of whether it’s Cub Scouts Scouts BSA or any other program one of the things that I’ve always thought was that the use regardless of level of scouting will be engaged when they have a bond with their leaders okay and one of the things that happens and and this is a

Great opportunity for those youth to be trained or to learn from adults who’ve been trained in Wood badge that look like them and that’s the big thing and and I’m looking forward to that opportunity is trained those adults and make them leaders that they can engage and keep their Scouts engaged also

So David I think one of the things that we want to make sure that we are very very clear about is as much of a focus as we have with this particular course in inviting all of our African-American Hispanic Asian Pacific Islander uh Native American all of the different

Families who are out there that could benefit from The Scouting program we want leaders from all of those communities to be trained to be involved but uh just as important is that we don’t want to exclude anybody who might come and be a part of this program so uh

You know if folks look like me look like you they are more than welcome to come out here and uh in fact in a lot of ways uh it’s probably very very important if not critical that we have as many different kinds of folks involved in this course and working together to make

Sure that we’re all making the scouting program better uh absolutely Charles uh I’m blessed that I have a membership in a large troop we have a very diverse troop so uh this is a good opportunity I’m hoping to get a lot of my adult leaders from my unit out

To do this it’s valuable to anyone to to see the diversity there’s great diversity in this in this community and we need to work together on it so one thing that I think would also be important for us to touch on is the benefits not only and and we’ve touched

In other conversations about what wood badge gives you as an adult volunteer that you then take with you uh back to your family life to your professional life but obviously The Scouting component of this is very important how much of a difference in Francine you brought up Cub Scout point of view

Before which is critical because I don’t think a lot of people necessarily think of wood badge and Cub Scout altogether but how important is what people will learn in this course when it comes to fall recruiting time and you’re trying to bring additional families in to be a

Part of this program uh are there unique skills or knowledge that you take from this that will help make that more successful well I learned to be a better leader you’ve got managers and bosses leadership is guiding someone so in the Cub Scout Arena you have guidance

You start training them to be leaders so with the parents coming in it will carry over into their school life their home life all through life so understanding and being part of a scouting family many resources it can take you from just being a kindergartner to an astronaut

To a president to a senator so building these little standards and then having the parents and leaders come to learn how to better what they give to the boys I imagine Gilbert that one of the biggest challenges that exists when we talk about this course in its particular aims uh

Obviously everybody sometimes has a challenge getting time off but maybe even greater than that is that sense of do they really want me there and if if you might uh as much as you care to share the work that you all are trying to do with this course to truly

Communicate the idea that we really do want anybody and everybody to be involved because at the end of the day our goal is to make sure that scouting is better and that there are more Scouts in that program very true um this is for everyone okay

Um it’s not just about a specific group of people it’s for everyone and I think that the team that we’ve put together for our staff um kind of represents that um I know we have um we’re not just local we’ve got uh National level scouts or from different councils coming in

Um scouters coming in from different councils so we’re looking to be all-inclusive okay I don’t know if we’ll ever truly achieve that goal because there’s always someone who feels they’re on the outside right um but if we reach out to as many people as possible I think we’ve come pretty close to that

Goal so fair enough and I think you bring up a good point that we want to emphasize if you’re watching this and you’re not within the Capital Area Council well uh we absolutely are extending uh the invitation to you to come be a part of this course receive

This training uh it’s it’s critical that we have going forward as many well-trained well-intentioned adults as possible that’s the only way that The Scouting program will grow and be able to reach as many scouting uh level youth that absolutely deserve the chance to benefit from this program and David

Maybe we’ll we’ll wrap up with with kind of that broader thought of it’s no secret to anybody The Scouting has taken some hits over the last several years the things that have not changed is uh just how beneficial this program can be but it’s absolutely uh critical that in

Order for us to be able to invite more people and to have more units that can have more Scouts we have to have the trained adult leadership as a part of that yes we do the growth of the program is critical there’s I’ve been with the program for

30 years now and have seen thousands of Youth come through they all benefit my son benefited greatly through the program and I want to say that I was able to help pull some young men through the program and now some young ladies proud to have them there

And that they are better people for having come through this just going through the program excellent well uh the course is June 26th through the 30th at our Lost Pines Scout Reservation in Bastrop you can find more information about the course as well as the links to sign up for it

On our website at www.bsacac.org wood Dash badge everybody thank you very much and we appreciate also the work that you all are doing as staff members for this summer course and we hope that you will take time and join them this Summer and be a part of this course

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