Wood Badge Reunions

[SilverFoxNEIV95]

A group of volunteers from our council has been hosting a WB reunion for about 4 years now with no help from Council. Now after 4 years, when our committee is becoming a well oiled machine, Council all of a sudden wants to take over. Currently we rent the camp, (no discount), plan the activities, provide the staffing and merchandising etc. Funds collected go to Scholarships and other training funding that we decide and not Council. In my opinion, our Council has never really supported WB training like other Councils that I've Googled have. I would like to know if anyone else has similar resistance. I would also like to know what other Councils do for their reunions, for example: Must they rent the camp out or do other Councils provide camp facilities at little or no charge for a reunion; Does Council promote it in their newsletter; Do individual districts have reunions, is Liability insurance and other forms such as a "hold council blameless" form required?

 

I am scheduled to meet with our Scout Exec, (who by the way is not WB trained and when asked why not, I was told by him that he "did not have time") in the next couple of days to discuss this and would like to know what others are doing prior to the meeting.

 

Thank you in advance

 

Tom Williams

NE-IV-95

Silver Fox Patrol

Course Director NE-IV-172

[FScouter]

Who exactly are you referring to when you say "Council"? Do you mean the volunteer training committee, the Scout exec, the girl behind the counter, the volunteer president? Who is "Council" ?

 

[insanescouter]

Woodbadge Reunions seems like a brilliant idea to me, which I have never heard of before... I am a good old bobwhite and been on the Scouting express for over 20 years...

 

Maybe you could share with us some of the things you do. Of course maybe that should be in a different thread.

 

 

Scott Robertson

http://insanescouter.org

 

Helping leaders one resource at a time....

[Tokala]

The local council, West Central Florida, has held a Wood badge reunion/recruitment dinner for many years. It's held at in the dining hall at our camp. They do not charge a fee.There is no trading post or merchandise for sale. It's simply a covered dish dinner where previous courses are recognized and a video from the latest is shown to the attendees. The menu is divided by critter. Each critter has an assigned part of the meal to bring and it rotates so the critters don't bring the same dish every year. It's broken done by appetizers, salads, breads, meats, desserts. The council promotes it, but it is organized and administered by the council training committee, specifically the wood badge coordinator.

 

Many times bead presentation ceremonies are held. The course director for the next course is also introduced.(This message has been edited by Tokala)

[Crew21_Adv]

SilverFox and Fellow Wood Badgers,

 

 

Greetings!

 

Here are my experiences with the Wood Badge Reunions.

 

I have staffed a few Wood Badge courses in a few councils. Two specific councils ran their Reunions very well. Both councils had their reunion chaired by the Course Director of that year.

 

I've only attended weeklong courses, which usually started on Sunday.

 

One council held the reunion the day prior to Day One, or Pre-Course Staff Day Three (which would be Saturday). All the Wood Badgers present from council would enter Gilwell Feild, a few announcements, certificates, presentations (this specific council awarded the silver spade for those that continued to write an annual 3-part service to council ticket), the group pictures, the Wood Badge song, then depart and walk to the Reunion Feast. At the feast there were more recognitions for farthest traveled, raffles, trading posts, and scholarship fundraising.

 

Another council also did a Wood Badge Reunion at the 100 Day mark (or the Saturday afternoon nearest 100 days, It was kinda modeled after FDR's New Deal). Most council Wood Badgers would attend. But this reunion was intended to monitor the progress of the recent course's attendees and to continue to motivate them and to discuss resources if the need assistance. This reunion was fun, but the bottom line was a health and welfare check on the recent course.

 

As I stated, all the reunions I attended were chaired by that year's Course Director, and their Staffers. So they were fully supported by the councils, and considered part of that years course.

 

 

Scouting Forever and Venture On!

Crew21 Adv

[evmori]

Who exactly are you referring to when you say "Council"? Do you mean the volunteer training committee, the Scout exec, the girl behind the counter, the volunteer president? Who is "Council" ?

 

For me, Council is whoever is employed by Greater Pittsburgh Council!

[eolesen]

Great ideas, especially the Day Zero reunion at the next Gilwell Field.

 

We had a course reunion about 15 months after the course finished, with several participants getting their beads in front of their course-mates. All was coordinated by the course staff.

 

 

[Lisabob]

We have one every year, run by the local WB association. As far as I'm aware, this is coordinated with the "blessing" of our council staff. It is a little hard to say whether it is a formal council event - I'm inclined to say not because the WB assoc. has its own board and runs separate elections to that board. On the other hand though, everyone involved is active in our council and some hold multiple positions including on council committees. So there's a good bit of overlap. The dues for our WB assoc. fund WB scholarships. However, to apply for those scholarships, one must go through council.

[SueM]

We started a Wood Badge Association in our council about 5 years ago and we (the association) plan and hold our own reunions. We are basically an independant group, though we do have council staff advisors on our BOD and all our funds do go through the council channels. We raise our own funds through dues, memorabilia sales and other fund raisers. We get no financial help from the council...but provide the council with program support in any way we can. For example one of the projects we've done is to build collaspable bridges for cub scout packs to use for crossovers..one for each district in the council. We also provide scholarship help to people who want to attend WB or Powderhorn, who may not be able to afford the fees. We've also provided cracker barrels for summer camp staff, etc.

 

Anyway..when it comes to reunions, we generally just have a member find a place that we can use for free..perhaps a church or fire hall or the like and then we plan from there. The last one we did was a spaghetti dinner on a Sunday afternoon, where we just charged a minimal fee for dinner to cover the costs of food and also invited the families to participate so that we would not take away from family time too much and they could have a better understanding of what WB is all about. We had a great turnout and had a really good time. As far as I know, we have no issues with liability or insurance and have not had to do any kind of waivers for any of these events.

 

It may take a bit of a fight to get your council to agree to it, but it sounds like forming your own formal WBA might be what you need to do. It took us a while to "convince" our council that it was a worthwhile thing.

 

Sue M.

[Apache Bob]

Silver Fox - I think your WB reunion is a great thing and should be kept and run the way it has been run in the past. You have your committee running smoothly and the events have gone over with out a hitch.

Your Council now wants in on the action since the reunion is up and running and you are getting lots of WB people attending. Sounds as if they just want to come in and take over and make it their event.

I would tell your executive that he will be invited to attend once he has his beads.

We have a reunion each year in my current Council and all WB members are invited whether they did their training in this Council or in a different Council.

[OldGrayOwl]

SilverFoxNEIV95,

How is the WB reunion working out?

Sounds like to would be a real hoot (oops, there is that OWL thing again) to attend.

(Maybe the SE needs to attend Wood Badge in another council so he won't be trained by those that he is in charge of, sorta like a boss being trained by one of his employees).

[Buffalo Skipper]

In our council we have an annual Woodbadge Feast. Responsibility falls under the outgoing Program and Service patrols from the last course. For a nominal fee, we have a catered meal and great fellowship. Many Wood Badgers turn in annual tickets, and records are kept of concecutive years completing annual tickets; recognitino is given accordingly. We also hand out a "Silver Spade" award, to the Wood Badger who has given the most over time. The name goes on a plaque which hangs in the lobby of the scout office. I believe we have been handing recognizing this award for nearly 20 years now.

 

We have a new program director, and it took a little to get him on board. We will have our next one October 19. It has become a heartwarming tradition amoungst the Wood Badge community here.

[LaurieBear]

The council where I took my woodbadge course "NE-I-259" has a woodbadge reunion each year. This was a night of fun, food and fellowship. We had several beadings, a few presentations, Plus - they annoucned the next woodbadge staff.

 

 

[Chug]

I went to Gilwell Reunion last weekend, it was a brilliant weekend even though it chucked it down on Friday whilst we were pitching our tents.

 

BTW, The Scout Association is starting up a 1st Gilwell Park website; http://scouts.org.uk/1stgilwellpark/?pageid=1667 It's for woodbadge holders round the world.

[Buffalo Skipper]

We had our council Wood Badge Feast this past weekend, and a great time was had by all! I wanted to add some detail to what I first discussed above a month ago.

 

Since 1981, we have had an annual Wood Badge Feast. Any and all Wood Badgers in the council, including participants in the currently active course who are still working on completing their tickets, are invited. We have a formation of Troop 1 by patrols, flag cememony, fellowship, a great meal, guest speaker, and presentation of awards.

 

We strongly promote all Wood Badgers in the council to complete at least one annual ticket, which is submitted and recoreded. At Feast, everyone completing an annual ticket receives a small engraved plate with the year. After 3 concecutive years, they are presented with a plaque on which they can mount their plates. We also give special recognition for completion of 10 concecutive years of annual tickets. Even those who cannot attend Feast often submit tickets every year.

 

We also (since 1981) have presented what is called the Silver Spade Award. It is given to a singular Wood Badger who has given the most to the council, district, unit and youth (not back to Wood Badge) in the past year; this person is selected by past recepients. We are on our 3rd plaque, which proudly hangs in the lobby at the scout office for all to see (it is the only plaque of recognition which hangs in the office).

 

For the Centennial Anniversary, it has been proposed that we Wood Badgers pledge to complete 100 tickets in 2010. This is not to replace out annual tickets, but in addition to them. So, if we have 100 Wood Badgers complete each one centennial ticket and their annual ticket, that would be 200+ items completed that year (in addition again to our Wood Badge course, which would complete an estimated 250).

 

I have heard people here and with other discussion groups speak of some scouters who may see Wood Badge as the end of the road. We see Wood Badge more as the beginning of the road, one in which we have pledged ourselves to continued service to last a lifetime. Not all Wood Badgers follow this path, nor do we expect all to do so. But as good scouters, we try to set the example for all those who choose to follow and those who choose to take the lead. I believe that this continued commitment is one of our council's greatest strengths.