Who decides what's on your ticket?

[Grumpy]

I plan on attending Wood Badge training in the spring. I have some ideas of projects I would like to complete for our district and council. Can these be part of my ticket? Or do others decide what my projects will be?

[EagleInKY]

You'll receive materials before the course that helps get you focused in on your interests. Then, at Woodbadge, you'll work with a staff member who will be your ticket counselor. You are responsible for setting your own tickets, your counselor will help you refine them.

[SWScouter]

Grumpy,

 

I took woodbadge last Aug. at R-C Scout Ranch. I assume that's where you'll be taking yours next spring too. The course I was in has a web site with the info EagleInKY mentions. You can take a look at http://www.w4-10-04.org

 

You should look forward to having a wonderful time, learning a lot, and reinvigorating your scouting attitude.

 

SWScouter

[SR540Beaver]

Grumpy,

 

As has been stated, you will design your own ticket and your counselor will help make sure it fits certain criteria. A lot depends on who your counselor is. I've known guys who had very legalistic counselors who thought the ticket was trying to obtain the holy grail and would never ever allow a change in a ticket. By golly, you committed to it and you have to see it thru. Then you have others who are extremely flexible like mine was. One of the guidelines is that your ticket needs to pertain to your position in scouting. If you are a committee member, you need to write your ticket so that it is things you can do to benefit scouting thru that position. If you are an SM, same thing. If you are a DE, same thing. That kind of precludes doing something at the district or council level if you are in a unit. I was in a unique position because I took WB in September while I was the Committee Chair of a Pack. My son and I crossed over to a Troop the following February where I became an ASM. My counselor allowed me to rewrite a couple of ticket items to fit into the troop instead of the pack. Also, since I am part of the Jamboree contingent, she allowed me to change one of my tickets to coordinate and run a fundraiser for Jambo. Everyone who signs up for WB starts sweating over ticket items. Don't! It doesn't hurt to think about possible ticket items early, but the whole process will be explained when you attend. One possible snag to watch out for is if other people from your unit will be attending also. We had four people from my pack attend the same WB. Some of us ended up thinking up the same exact ticket items to do in the same pack. We had to get together and iron things out between us and our different counselors.

[EagleInKY]

Beaver is absolutely correct. Hopefully you'll have a flexible, understanding counselor as well. Mine appears to be. I attended in October and have completed one of my tickets. I thought of two of them prior to Woodbadge (one idea surfaced due to a problem we encountered in my troop just days before attending).

 

The great part of it is that these are things you need to be doing anyway. The ticket just encourages you to follow through. Four of my five ticket items are things I would have probably done anyway. It's just giving me the motivation to follow-through.

 

I used to be an Antelope...

[Eamonn]

Slow down. Please slow down.

You will write your own ticket. It should be written around your primary position. Or what you consider to be your primary position. You need to pick one if you have more than one. For example if you are a Den Leader and an ASM, your ticket needs to deal with Cub Scouting or Boy Scouting. If you are not a member of the District Team, you really should not write about doing stuff on the District level.

The entire ticket thing will be explained in great detail, hopefully you will incorporate some of the skills you get from the course in your ticket, which you can't do until you take the course. There is one ticket item that you really do need to wait till you have have had the presentation on before you can put pen to paper.

Eamonn.

[fotoscout]

There has been great debate about how much time the whole ticket writing process consumes during the course. I think its great that people are at least thinking about their tickets before starting the course.

 

Maybe it would be wise to give these people some information about ticket writing before the course starts. At least this way their energies would be channeled in the right direction.

 

During my course we spent huge blocks of time writing and rewriting tickets. All that time could have been put to much better use. Maybe these guys are on to something?

 

[bufordtjustice]

I agree with the comments already posted about how much easier it is when you have a ticket Counselor you can work with.

 

It will be difficult, but try not to focus too much on the ticket. Some scouters focus so much on the ticket items that they fail to enjoy the ride. It has been so much fun I wish I could do it all over again.

 

Have Fun

 

I received my beads last night. SR-618 Go Bears

[Scoutmaster Ron]

Prior to starting the course WE32803 I came up with a list of goals or personal mission statement I wanted to accomplish for the troop it worked for me you'll probably come upwith alot of ideas during the course especially talking to your other patrol members. After having this list I was able to work with my TC to fit it into the parameters (measurable, verifiable) of the ticket.

[Eamonn]

Some time back I started a thread, in which I suggested that Tickets are a distraction and maybe could be taken out of the course.

This is never going to happen!!

I do think that the course rushes into "Ticketing". The pre-course assignment is a good idea and needs to be made much more of. The presentation which brings up the ticket has a lot of really important and good material in it. I think that maybe it has too much material for one presentation? Still once the ticket is brought up, it seems that everything else is lost.

With so many courses now following the 2x3 day format, there is a lot of time to work on the ticket, in the off time and there is an excellent opportunity at the Patrol meeting to go over the details with the Troop Guide.

Once the participants have really got a good take on what their Vision and what their mission is, coming up with the goals really ought not be that difficult.

Many "Old Course" Course Directors seem to spent a lot of time making sure that the staff is ready and prepared for the presentations that they will be presenting, however there is a lot of important material covered in the troop meetings and the Staff do need to really have a good understanding about Tickets and vision and mission.

The Diversity ticket item really shouldn't be done till after the Diversity Presentation.

I do think that the Ticket really should be the place where the participant gets to put the stuff that they have got from the course to work. As other BSA training's change I think more and more participants will feel more comfortable dealing with things like Values, Vision and Mission. Some participants who have taken management training are used to working with these ideas are already used to working with them.

Some years back I took the old Cub Scout Trainer Wood Badge, that ticket was a real pain!! And did take up a lot of time (This was the week long course.) While I have seen the odd person struggle with the new ticket, it has been my experience that once the participant has his or her Vision and Mission sorted out setting six goals on paper to help work toward these is fairly straightforward.

Eamonn.

[SR540Beaver]

E,

 

I agree with much of what you said. It has been discussed many times here about the "mystery" of WB. Many WBer's don't want to "give away" too much and want people to experience WB for themselves. They do this to drive up the anticipation. I think this leads to ticket anxiety. People begin to fret and sweat over tickets. For heaven's sake, it isn't that big of a deal. I've seen ticket counselors actually scale down some more ambitious tickets. While you don't want to make them too simple, you also don't want to make them unobtainable. If you came up with an idea to recruit 10 boys to your unit and only managed to recruit 5, have you failed to fulfill your ticket? Counselors will look out for those kind of things and help rediriect them into something along the line of designing and implementing a recruitment program instead of actually recruiting a certain number of scouts. I heard of one person who had a ticket item of attending six Roundtables. WHAT!? You should be going to those anyway. That is too simple in my mind and should have never been signed off on. Bottom line, give it some thought, but don't obsess over it. Most people know of things that need to be done as projects that pertain to their position and can easily formulate and refine them during the course with their counselor. Put off today what you can do tomorrow!

[bryanren]

the ticket is to put into practice and return to scouting what you have just learned.

if you are currently involved at pack / troop level and are interested in moving up the tree and volunteering at a district or council event - by all means do it. help at pow-wow, jlt - if that is an interest.

what are your skills, interests - something that is a stretch, something that adds to scouting.

 

i gotta get mine finished!!!!

[kwarmack]

Do not go to WoodBadge with the worry about the Ticket. That is something that will come to you as you go through your WoodBadge course. The most important thing for you to focus on is the learning and the experience that you will get through WoodBaadge. Putting together your ticket should be easy if you do the Pre-Course work. Above all, have fun. The ticket will come and you will be amazed how much it will mean to you to get it done.

 

I just finished my Course in September in Chicago Area Council - C-16-04 and I will get my beads February 17th. You can do it.