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This problem isn't unique to the 3 day weekend courses. I just heard yesterday from the SPL at my experimental course in 2000. He is now the course director for a 5 day course planned for August 2002 in the PA Dutch area. As of now his course is only half full and he is concerned that he'll have to cancel it if he doesn't meet the minimum enrollment. If you're interested in attending I'm sure that they would love to have you join.

Hooooooold everything! Who said anything about urbanizing the program or eliminating the 'outing' in Scouting? The outdoors continues to be an important setting to instill the values of the Scout Oath and Law. You have obviously been around a long time and have seen many changes during your Scouting career. You can probably list many more than I can--but how about Tiger Cubs? They didn't exist when I was a Cub. I started as a Bobcat, then moved on to Wolf. Remember the Lion rank before moving to Webelos? Well, Lions don't exist anymore. Over the years the program has been continuously updated in small and not so small ways to adapt and evolve. I assume that the National, Regional, and other Scouters responsible for a major change to the Wood Badge course have done their homework in assessing the current needs of the organization and in developing a training course that meets those needs. One piece that I agree is missing from the picture is that I don't think that the reasons for the changes or the focus of the new course have been communicated very well, if at all, throughout the organization. My own council knows virtually nothing about the program that will be given in July. To me that indicates a BIG communication breakdown somewhere, and this should be addressed. In the absence of official information, it is natural that some people will assume the worst--"that the program is going to #@%* in a handbasket" and worse. But we are living in a diverse and changing world--with two working parent families, single parent families, non-English speaking homes, computer kids, and on and on. So we must also continue to evolve ourselves to keep Scouting as the most successful youth program ever. Period. I think that we would agree on at least one other point. Scouting is indeed in trouble--and we need leaders like you--and me. It needs people who care about the program and in developing our youth. If the men and women in my Wood Badge course, both staffers and students alike, were any indication of the quality of the new program, I am not worried. Scouting has endured many changes before and will endure this one as well. Who knows--there might even be some positives resulting from the change.

As I mentioned, my course was experimental and in part was designed to test different ways to present the new material to see which method was most effective. Staff feedback from the 8 experimental courses held throughout the country will be combined into the final version that will be rolled out in July. As a result, the course that I took is not the final version that will be rolled out in July. I would speak to someone in your local Council who is either trained as a staffer for the new course or takes it after July. They should be willing to share the information with you.

The Wood Badge course is changing significantly effective July 2001. The new course will focus on leadership skill development and is open to all Cub Scout, Boy Scout, and Venture leaders. I took one of the experimental courses with the new program in August 2000 and thought it was great. I had never taken the previous Boy Scout Wood Badge, but I understand that much of the tradition is retained in the new one. Courses before July 2001 will use the old Boy Scout program, but those after will all be the new one. We did spend a few hours on outdoor skills and did an overnight with our patrol a short distance off site, but the main focus was leadership development, not outdoor skills. I was told that they were updating the Scoutmaster fundamentals course to include more of the outdoor skills that were previously covered in the 'old' Wood Badge. A big part of the course was adapting to change and our need to be flexible and open to it as leaders. Even though the course is changing, don't despair--Scouting is continuing to evolve and change to meet the needs of the boys.