Celebrating! (Giveaway)

This giveaway is closed. Congratulations to Fishgutts!

I do not think I have ever done a giveaway on this blog before. When I realized this week that this blog is three years old, I thought it was about time, and a three-year anniversary is as good a reason as any. This blog has evolved over the last three years, I have learned some things, I have made some great friends, and I hope that we have helped some people.

I also try not to promote myself on this blog, but I am so excited about my new Wood Badge fabrics that I thought they would be just the thing to give away, so please forgive me for self-promoting this one time.

The winner of this giveaway will be able to choose one of these Wood Badge stuffed critters:



OR

A fat quarter (basic cotton) of one fabric from either my Wood Badge fabric collection or my Derby Cars collection



OR

A small decal (5") of your choice of Wood Badge critter.

Rules:

One entry per person. To enter, simply leave a comment before Friday, September 27th, noon (PDT).

I must have some way to contact you. If I do not know your e-mail address, and it is not in your profile, and you do not leave it in your comment, you will be disqualified.

Open to U.S. residents only.

A Century of Honor

If you have not seen it yet, there is a website for the celebration of 100 years of LDS Scouting. It has links about the museum exhibits, a couple videos and information about a broadcast coming up on October 29. The broadcast will be on the website as well as at church buildings. This could be an opportunity for community outreach by inviting other Scouters in our communities to celebrate Scouting history with us.

Church History Museum

We were in Salt Lake last week, and I was able to take the boys to the Church History Museum to see the Norman Rockwell exhibit and the exhibit about Scouting and the Priesthood. If you get a chance to check out these exhibits, I highly recommend it. They are very well done. (Unfortunately, I did not have my camera with me that morning, but I did snap a few pictures with my phone.)

My favorite thing about the exhibits is that they have pamphlets for both Cub Scouts and Boys Scouts to help them earn awards using the two exhibits. The Cub Scout booklet is specifically aimed at the Rockwell exhibit. After looking at the exhibit, discussing it (using questions from the booklet) with a parent or leader, and creating a composition according to instructions, a Cub can earn both the Art Belt Loop and a special patch that can be purchased at Great Salt Lake Council service centers. For Boy Scouts, there are two booklets: Scouting Heritage and Art, which guide a Scout in activities to help him earn the respective merit badges (some activities can be done at the museum, and some will need to be done at home). You can find these materials upstairs with the exhibits or ask one of the very helpful museum workers about them.



The exhibit about Scouting and the Priesthood is especially impressive the way it was put together. It is interactive, with a place children (or adults) can write or draw about a good turn they have done and pin it to a board, as well as design a neckerchief. There is a display about the Unknown Scout and Boyce with a little audio thing (this and the bugle were my youngest's favorites). There are interactive knot-tying and flag signaling stations, and there are several other things to look at and do to experience the history of Scouting in the Church.

(Warning: There is also an exhibit right now to go with the Primary's Book of Mormon celebration that is on par with any children's museum we have been to, and it comes right after the Scouting and the Priesthood exhibit. If you are visiting the museum with younger children and you do not want to spend all day there, make sure to steer them toward the Rockwell exhibit before they see the Book of Mormon area. Otherwise you might have difficulty extracting them. If you brought a second adult with you - which I did not - sucker him/her into taking the kids through the Book of Mormon area while you enjoy the Rockwell exhibit in peace.)



The Norman Rockwell exhibit includes paintings Rockwell did about Scouting and Boys Life covers by Rockwell. There are discriptions and bits of history around the room as well. There are even a couple of interactive screens where you can draw or look at Rockwells (playing with these screens was my middle son's favorite part). Of course, being in a room with actual Rockwell paintings was amazing enough and the focus of the display; fancy interactive activities were not so important here.

I consider both exhibits to be those "once in a lifetime" experiences. The Rockwell exhibit runs through the end of this year. The Scouting and the Priesthood exhibit will be up until October of next year.

Uniform Library

We have been running a uniform library for over a year now. It has made it possible for us to require the boys to wear uniforms, because if they cannot afford a uniform themselves, we can provide one for them. This is something we do personally, but you can also set up a uniform library on a unit or ward level, or I have even heard of districts or towns with a uniform exchange program. I wanted to share how we run our library, what to expect and what has worked best for us.

The first thing you ought to know when setting up a uniform library is not to expect to get all of the uniforms back. It helps to track the uniforms carefully, keeping a list of everything that goes out. We also sew tags inside of each uniform, with our family name or the pack number on them. (You can make your own with printer fabric or get a swatch with sixteen tags here for $5, plus shipping.) People are generally well intentioned and want to give the uniforms back when they are done, but I find they forget. I often have to keep track of the boys or leaders who leave the program, and go to the person or parent and ask for the uniform back. Sometimes I have to ask a few times. The uniforms we have not gotten back were ones loaned out to people in other wards or people who moved.

For the above reason, you need to obtain the uniforms as cheaply as possible. It helps when people in your unit are willing to donate uniforms as the boys outgrow them. You may also need to be less picky about uniform library shirts. Shirts that are long-sleeved, have glue spots on them or are without collars tend to sell a little more cheaply on ebay. A troop in need may decide to go a little "retro" and obtain the older green shirts, as these often sell for a lot less than the newer tan ones. Have everyone you know keep an eye out at thrift stores. You never know when you might walk in and find a uniform jackpot where you have never seen uniforms before. This happened to us recently when we went into a local thrift store and spotted two Cub Scout shirts and a Boy Scout shirt all hanging together toward the front of the store. Never having sold any before, the lady at the register charged us $1.50 a piece for them. Score!

Not wanting to redo the library everytime we move, any uniforms we purchase, belong to our family. Any uniforms donated to us by other people belong to the unit that they are in. When we were part of a "quad-pack" (four wards' Cub Scouts meeting together), if someone donated a uniform, we wrote their pack's number on it, and when the quad-pack broke up, we gave those uniforms to the corresponding wards. We keep all of the uniforms together in one tote, with the labels and list to keep track of everything.

Despite the difficulties, the cost, and the missing uniforms, I am glad we started our uniform library. It is really a nice thing to have. If you have any experience with a uniform library or uniform exchange program, please tell us about it in the comments.

Belonging

The first day of Wood Badge, I was in a really bad mood. Sunday afternoon, we had had a committee meeting that had not gone well. I was upset about it for the next two days (fortunately, on Tuesday, I remembered during a class that I had both the unit commissioner for our pack and the assistant district commissioner sitting right behind me; I was able to talk with them at lunch time, which cooled my simmer considerably). Something had also happened with my family Sunday night that left me feeling doubly rotten the next day.

Like I said, Monday, starting Wood Badge, I was in a really, really bad mood. Then I found out I was a Bobwhite, which did not improve my outlook at all. (Prairie Chicken?!?)

Something happened shortly after that, though, that changed everything. My patrol elected me as our first “patrol leader of the day.” Something about being put in that position gave me a feeling of ownership and responsibility and made me decide that if we were going to be Bobwhites, we were going to make being a Bobwhite something to be proud of.

By that evening, our patrol was feeling unified and showing off our Bobwhite pride. By the end of Day 2, I really felt we could hold our heads high, having shown everyone what it meant to be a Bobwhite. By the end of the week, I could not imagine being anything but a Bobwhite.

One of my favorite moments all week was the final time we sang The Song and we were joined by the staffers who had been in those same patrols when they were in Wood Badge. I felt a great sense of pride as we were joined by several staffers I had come to admire over the course of the week. Logically, I knew that patrols were assigned randomly and did not really mean that much, but there was such a great sense of belonging to know I share something – my Bobwhite-ness – with so many great people.

When a boy puts on a scout uniform, when he walks into a room where others are wearing that same uniform, does he experience a similar sense of belonging, of sharing something important? How much more, even, does that feeling grow when he sees adults he admires and respects wearing that same uniform?

Then, when that boy is given a real leadership role within that group of boys, overseen and guided, but not controlled by those adults he admires, I can now imagine better than ever how that sense of belonging grows into a feeling of ownership and responsibility. That is an opportunity every boy deserves to experience.

So you're going to Wood Badge (or thinking of it)...

First off, it was requested that I remind everyone that Wood Badge is not just for those currently in Scouting. The leadership topics taught will benefit you at home, at work and in other leadership callings. Whether in Scouting or out you will not regret attending Wood Badge.

Once you are signed up and looking forward to your Wood Badge experience, my biggest piece of advice is: Relax. You remember how anxious I was before going? I also spent a good part of the week anxiously not looking forward to Friday. A large part of my anxiety was rooted in the "overnighter" (also referred to as the "outdoor experience"). Some was also related to the service project, as well as the group presentations, all of which happened on Friday.

Guess what? That was the fun part. Partway through the day on Friday, I realized that the hard stuff was all over, and pretty much everything left was fun, especially the overnighter. I probably could have enjoyed the rest of the week even more had I not been so worried about things that were not worth worrying over. (I should note here that I have heard that the outdoor experience is handled a little differently on courses that span two weekends rather than a full week, so I cannot speak to that, but I am sure it is just as fun.)

Which brings me to my next piece of advice: Have fun. At Wood Badge they will keep you super busy and throw lots of information at you, but you can, and should, have fun with it. Do not stress out about getting everything right. They emphasize all week long to do your best, and that is all you need to do.

Piece of advice number three: Take a few minutes at the beginning or end of each day to reflect. Think over the day's experiences, and look through your binder to get a preview of the next day. I was glad I had my little Wood Badge journal to write some things in. I definitely recommend writing down your thoughts and experiences every day, because the week is packed so full that it is very likely that by the end of the week you will have forgotten what happened at the beginning. I also found my small notebook a handy place for writing down song and cheer ideas whenever they occurred to any of us.

Piece of advice number four: Rely on your patrol. That is what they are there for. The guys in my patrol were great. They helped me with the camping and outdoorsy stuff. They did most of the cooking. In fact, as long as I kept coming up with songs and cheers and doing most of the crafting, they were happy to do pretty much everything else. We tried to use each person's talents where they were most effective. Of course, we also each got a chance to do a little learning and growing in new areas, taking turns with the various leadership positions, but we were always there to cover for each other.

Finally, what helped me the most was the advice my buddy Fishgutts posted in the comments a few weeks ago: Ask yourself what they are trying to teach you. Throughout the week you will have many challenges thrown at you. The most important thing is not how well you do but what you can learn from it. I was really grateful for this piece of advice and tried to remember it all week long. It came in handy.

I have tried to make this the post I wish I had read before my Wood Badge experience, and I hope it helps others, especially to not be afraid of Wood Badge. I cannot say enough that it can be one of the most amazing weeks (or two weekends) of your life. If anyone else has any advice, questions or comments, please add them to the discussion.

I also want to add the plea that if you live in the Nevada Area Council, please try to attend Wood Badge in-council if you can, rather than going to another state. Not only do we need the attendance numbers, there are a couple of unique things that I think make NAC Wood Badge the best (I do not want to spoil the surprise, so you will just have to trust me). I know there are others who disagree with me, but I am convinced our council has the best Wood Badges. ;-)

Fresh from Gilwell

Someone asked last week if I would share my reactions and impressions after my Wood Badge experience. I can tell you it was everything everyone said it would be. I really saw people change and grow over the course of the week, right before my very eyes. I may even have done some growing myself. I definitely learned some things. I made friendships that I do hope will continue for the rest of my life. The people there who I already knew, I grew even closer to. It was an incredible experience that really is hard to put into words.

So I have to say more emphatically than ever, if you have not yet been to Wood Badge, go. You will not regret it. Do it for yourself, you family, your ward and stake, and your Scouting program. Even Cubbers will benefit hugely from the experience. In fact, a good portion of the people I met there were Cubbers, and they got at least as much out of it as the leaders of the older boys. I even heard several of them say they hope to serve on a Wood Badge staff in the future.

Some of the lessons I learned this last week included: What you want is not always what's best for you (I already knew this, but I was reminded of it in a big way). One person really can make a big difference, with help (that may sound almost like a paradox, but trust me, it isn't). Be observant. The stature of a Bobwhite is no indication of character (although my Bobwhites were anything but small in stature - inside or out).

I will post more about Wood Badge, what to expect and that kind of thing next week, but for now I only have one more thing to say:

I used to be a Bobwhite, a good old Bobwhite too... so I'm going to work my ticket if I can!