Confessions of a Woodbadge Scribe
I spent hours before accepting the position of Scribe on a Woodbadge staff, looking for information on what a Scribe on a Woodbadge staff was responsible for, to no avail. So I wanted to share my experience with fellow Scouters so that the next Woodbadge Scribe can go running, screaming, into the night before accepting. No, not really, because this position is truly more critical than you might think.
Essential job duties for a Woodbadge Scribe:
1.You are the Great Communicator. Its your job to facilitate communication between the Course Director, other staff, and the participants.
2.You are the technogeek. Expect to set up computers, maybe even a simple network, and be proficient in computer skills.
3.Weeks out from the beginning of the course, help Course Director/Scoutmaster in engaging all course participants. Send them a welcome email message (requesting a response) so that you can build a valid email distribution list. You are now the email deity.
4.You will also beg/borrow/steal/appropriate/rip-off a participants manual to facilitate the presentations. You can include much of the information sheets for the presentations in it, as well as material that will help the participants remember what they learned after they have returned home.
5.You will beg/borrow/steal/appropriate/rip-off the Patrol Leaders notebook for each patrol. This is to the Patrol leader what the participants manual is to the individual.
6.Maintain a list of participants that are planning to attend. Normally your council will provide you with this information, but be aware that as you get closer to the date, more and more people will move on and off the course.
7.Send out additional emails with the 20 questions document to complete for their own use and the PRQ document for the participants to complete and send back in, preferably by email.
8.You will stay up all night producing each days Gilwell Gazette (or not, depending on how fast your printer is)
9.You will be responsible for all copying, scanning, printing, searching for information in the Internet, and anything else information-related needed for the course.
10.You will be involved in taking pictures, ie Troop Photographer, and will probably be burning a CD/DVD with the pictures at the end of the course.
11.You will be responsible for running all of the A/V presentations using a PC and Powerpoint so be ready for that.
12.As staff, you may be asked to conduct a presentation, as well as managing the presentation equipment.
13.If your course is going to do the electronic version of WB Game Show, you need to find that software.
14.If your course is going to do the electronic version of Game of Life, there is an excel spreadsheet floating out there which will make things WAY easier.
15.If your course is going to offer energetic music between the rounds of Game of Life, you will want to come up with a music playlist.
16.Other duties as assigned.
So, still not scared off? How about some hints and tips based on my experience?
General:
1.Prepare, prepare, prepare, and then prepare some more.
2.Get some help. For everything that needs to be done, having more than one Scribe will definitely help.
3.Do everything, print everything, create everything you can BEFORE you start the course.
4.Locate someone elses Gilwell Gazette and use it as a template for your own. DONT REINVENT THE WHEEL.
5.Beg/borrow/appropriate/find a HIGH-SPEED copier/printer/scanner etc. Otherwise you WILL be up all night babysitting the printing of the Gilwell Gazette.
6.Make sure you have enough toner/printer cartridges to print 70ish full-color, multi-page Gilwell Gazettes for all six days.
7.Be able to provide different views of the participants list based on needs. Registration on Day1 will need certain info, like name, paid, medical form submitted etc. Other staff may need other information. Just be ready to give whoever needs what information, that information.
8.Find/appropriate/rip-off a template for the Ticket. Most CDs want Ticket goals to be written out by the end of the 3rd day or so, but many people will want to clean them up electronically.
A/V Presentations:
1.The Woodbadge DVD with the presentations on it is very unwieldy when played as a DVD. You will be much happier if you pull the presentations from the DVD and run them directly from your PC.
2.You should get the Powerpoint versions of the presentations and distribute them electronically or printed to the staff that are responsible for conducting those presentations. They will likely want to customize them.
3.The video segments in the Powerpoint presentations are actually MPEG files. IF you have a presenter that makes changes to a presentation with video in it, the corresponding MPEG files need to be in the same folder to be found when the presentation is played.
4.Get a presentation clicker to control the Powerpoint presentations. This way your presenter doesnt have to keep going back to the PC, and you dont have to sit there waiting for their signal to click to advance the slide.
5.Practice, practice, practice the presentations. Review them to make sure that the presentation you are planning to run is the one you want to run, and that it runs correctly.
6.Beg/borrow/appropriate a PA system so that your presenter can talk normally and not have to shout out to a room full of sometimes noisy participants.
There is probably more, but its all I can come up with for right now.
Happy Scribing!
