Not enough participants.

[Lisabob]

Eamonn, I think having 2 courses a year in the same cluster is too much, as evidenced by the low enrollment. Our council is in a cluster with three other councils. We/they hold one course each year and even so, the 2006 course got canceled. I would rather see one course per year and be pretty sure it would fill, rather than hold my breath, cross my fingers, and hope that two separate courses would each squeak by.

 

 

[evmori]

Bravo scoutldr!

[Gonzo1]

Scoutldr,

Maybe we're suffering through the Hawthorne Effect.

 

[scoutldr]

I'll admit, Gonz, I have heard of the Hawthorne Effect, but had to go to Wiki to refresh my memory. I think this one fits:

 

Study 1d: This was conducted on two women only. Their production stayed constant under widely varying light levels. It was found that if the experimenter said bright was good, they said they preferred the light; the brighter they believed it to be, the more they liked it. The same was true when he said dimmer was good. If they were deceived about a change, they said they preferred it. Researchers concluded that their preference on lighting level was completely subjective - if they were told it was good, they believed it was good and preferred it, and vice versa.

[John-in-KC]

Two comments:

 

1) E, I really do hope the two CD's have an attack of common sense, and a good WB course happens. That said, what happened to "Always have a Plan B?" Am I the only one here who thinks adjusting the course site 60 miles each way isn't exactly unreasonable?

 

2) I sense, and I lament, some of the old/new comments about WB. What's done is done. In fact, it was done half a dozen years ago now. National is not going to change. Do not insult those of us who took the course recently (Feedback is a gift, and my feedback is I feel you insulted the work my SM/SPL/TG/QM/other staff did, my patrol did, and I did). It's time all of us got over WB/21CWB and got on with serving the kids: Isn't that why B-P gave us the beads and the necker in the first place????

[Lisabob]

Hawthorne effect means that people change their behavior when they know they are being studied. It can be a conscious or subconscious change.

 

John - thanks! I agree. If people don't want to take the current WB course - simple solution - don't. But I'll say this. I know several Scouters who are wonderful people, who are in many ways excellent scouters, who would benefit tremendously from taking the current course. Their scout skills are impeccable. But their leadership and communication skills are lousy and frequently get in the way of what they are trying to do. Why won't they take the new course? Because it is different from the old one. Because somewhere along the way, someone (and actually in these cases I know who - a hard core, stubborn, pig-headed person who thinks anything "new" is automatically "bad" and "things aren't like they used to be! Grumble grumble!") has told them it isn't any good. Guess what, they've been done a dis-service and so have the boys and other adults in their units.

 

 

[3EaglesDad]

OK Here I go, it all boils down to what is expected and promoted. In my council we hold 3-5 wood badge courses a year, we also are the only council allowed to hold a Philmont Course. How do we do it? We expect all leaders will take WB. We promote that you aren't really trained until you have gone to WB. You will see most everybody at a scout function has beads on. Everybody promotes WB to the new leaders. We start talking to the new Cub leaders as soon as they have a good sense of what they are doing. Some of these get it right away, some it takes a couple of years. You would be surpised how easy it is to get a cub leader to stay in after they have gone to WB.

For the last several years we have had full courses with all 8 patrols, because of some last minute cancellations some of the patrols have had only 5-6 in them but we have had at least 45-48 on each course. We also have a waiting list of people wanting to staff.

How is this possible? we promote the H**L out of WB.

So what I am saying is if you build it they will come, or promote and promote so more and expect all leaders to be WB trained. It also helps that most District level leaders are WB trained, and a lot of them have staffed.

 

3ed