Patrol Leaders Serve at the Whim of the SPL?

[Kudu]

Last night at Roundtable we were given a copy of "Roles and Responsibilities," extras from the Wood Badge course last weekend. We were told "Your boys might find this useful."

 

Under "Role and Responsibilities of the Patrol Leader" it lists the usual "attend meetings and set a good example" stuff that passes for the "Patrol Method" these days.

 

When I got to the last item I thought that perhaps this was some kind of test, so I read it out-loud twice:

 

"Patrol leaders serve at the whim of the Senior Patrol Leader" [capitalization as in the original, btw].

"Patrol leaders serve at the whim of the Senior Patrol Leader?" I repeated laughing, "That can not be right!"

 

Well the presenter mumbled something to the effect of "Yes that is correct," but with a hurt tone in his voice so I did not follow up.

 

Is that REALLY what Wood Badge is teaching these days?

 

The page number is "I-17-A" or maybe "1-17-A."

 

Kudu

 

 

 

[SR540Beaver]

One word, no.

 

I've reviewed my admin guide and syllabus and I don't know where your folks got that as it is not a part of Woodbadge. Either your council is not following thru on the pledge the course director is required to agree to to serve in the position.....or someone was playing an April Fool's joke at roundtable.

 

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, why don't you register for the course so you will have some actual knowledge of what you continually criticize.(This message has been edited by sr540beaver)

[Eamonn]

Not sure in what Book?

In my copy of the staff guide A-17 Is " More Thoughtful Category" of the Who Me Game Cards and it has ten questions, none of them make any mention of a SPL or a PL.

A -17 in the Administrative Guide is the Course Directors Closeout Report. Again nothing to do with a PL or a SPL.

 

I have never seen or heard of this ""Patrol leaders serve at the whim of the Senior Patrol Leader"

As you know the WB SPL is a Staff Member.

Normally someone with some WB experiences.

The WB Patrol Leader changes everyday.

The SPL plays no part in the selection or that sort of thing.

 

On Day One of the course it is highly recommended that the Role and Responsibilities of the Patrol Leader appear in that days edition of the Gilwell Gazette.

It reads:

* Take a leading role in planning and conducting patrol meetings and activities.

*Encourage patrol members to fully participate in the Wood Badge Course and achieve all they can.

*Represent the Patrol at the Patrol Leaders Council (PLC)

* Set a good example by living the Scout Oath and Law.

* Practice using the leadership and team skills being presented during Wood Badge presentations.

* Ensure that the daily patrol self-assessments are carried out in a timely, effective manner.

* Provide patrol members with the resources and information they need to succeed.

* Empower the patrol to become a high-performance team.

* See that the patrol is prepared for all course presentations and activities.

(Page 30 of the Staff Guide)

 

It makes no mention of the SPL. Or his /her whims!!

Eamonn.

 

 

[Kudu]

* Take a leading role in planning and conducting patrol meetings and activities.

* Encourage patrol members to fully participate in the Wood Badge Course and achieve all they can.

* Represent the Patrol at the Patrol Leaders Council (PLC)

* Set a good example by living the Scout Oath and Law.

* Practice using the leadership and team skills being presented during Wood Badge presentations.

* Ensure that the daily patrol self-assessments are carried out in a timely, effective manner.

* Provide patrol members with the resources and information they need to succeed.

* Empower the patrol to become a high-performance team.

* See that the patrol is prepared for all course presentations and activities.

* Patrol leaders serve at the whim of the Senior Patrol Leader

 

Role and Responsibilities of the Assistant Patrol Leader...(etc.)

 

Eamonn,

 

The list that was handed out last night is identical, except for the additions in bold above. The additions appear in the same type font as the rest of the page.

 

The suggested wording for the Gilwell Gazette must come from somewhere. Again, the page number appears to be "I-17-A"

 

Kudu

 

[SR540Beaver]

No wonder you have such a dim view of Woodbadge. Your council isn't teaching it correctly. I suggest you get training from a neighboring council.

[Beavah]

Yah, I suspect someone in your council added that line. Probably because they had some sort of issue with an adult who was elected PL on a WB course recently.

 

B

 

[Eamonn]

Kudu

I copied it word for word. - Honest!!

 

As I posted each Patrol gets a new P/L each day.

The idea is that everyone gets to take a turn.

This isn't unlike any-other course I have ever taken taken (Old - New -BSA -UK -Boy Scout).

We might disagree on the wording of the job description and the wording.

I kinda think that when push comes to pull the role of a WB course P/L hasn't changed that much since I took my first course (Please don't tell anyone, but that was over 30 years ago!!) At Gilwell Park in England.

I really can't think why, anyone would want to add the line about a SPL and this whim thing?

It just seems a little silly.

 

Wood Badge Patrols are really hard to put together. (Talking as an Ex-Course Director.)

I tried really hard to make them as even as I could, mixing the newer people with the more experienced.

But just like many of the courses I have staffed or participated in; one patrol seems to never set a foot wrong, while one really has a hard time and seems to always be playing catch-up.

Back in 2000 I was a TG for a Beaver Patrol, the only all male Patrol on that course. The guys were so very competitive and seemed to come together in the first couple of minutes that they left every other Patrol standing.

The course was held at Camp Mountain Run. The second weekend (3 days) where the Patrols camp as a Patrol, they far exceeded everyone else in their cooking, camp layout -You name it!!

Mean-while there was another Patrol which just struggled the entire time.

Of course I put it all down to them having the best Guide!! (Joke)

The SM and the SPL felt a little bad that one Patrol seemed to be so far ahead while one was so far behind, but once the Patrols were set and formed there really wasn't much that could be done about it.

Same thing goes for the P/L's.

Once the Patrol sets the roster of who is going to take which day. It's set and weak or strong that's the P/L for that day.

Eamonn.

[John-in-KC]

Sounds to me like some CD had one or more recalictrant participants, so he stuck the PD (SPL) with the heavy lifting.

 

I'm trying to figure out the circumstances where the course leadership would have to remove a participant form patrol leadership in the first place...

[BadenP]

Kudu

As you know I usually agree with you about many skill sets that the scouting program has lost over the years, however in this case I am sure someone added that line. The wording, "at the whim..." sounds amateurish and unprofessional and I am sure this is an individual trying to inject his own beliefs into the training. You should have nailed it right then at the training and maybe the guy would have backed down and that line would have been crossed out on the spot. If more volunteers do not question these type of whacko notions that sometimes come up in training sessions than the misinformation perpetuates itself and poor leadership is the result. Always question something you know is obviously false, if the instructor can not give you a credible answer then he has no business teaching the course.

[Eamonn]

Of course there are times when even the best trainers get things wrong! (I don't think that is the case here!)

Sometimes the myth has been around for so long and passed on and around that it just becomes accepted.

 

There are some who refuse to utter the "I really don't know, but I'll try and find out for you".I'm not sure if it's an ego thing or not?

 

I don't know very much about Varsity Scouts.

To the best of my knowledge there has never been a Varsity Squad? In the Council I serve.

The Course I was SM for was a "Cluster Course". The Staff came from five different Councils, none of these had any Varsity Scouts.

Some of the participants wanted to know more about Varsity Scouts. So I had the National Office send me all the free stuff that they had.

I passed this out to every participant.

When I read the course evaluation forms completed by the participants, a number of them were unhappy that the Staff and myself were not more knowledgeable about this subject.

Strange thing is that none of them were involved in Varsity Scouting and now seven years later there still isn't any Varsity Scouts in any of the Councils.

Sometimes you just can't win!

Eamonn.

[NeilLup]

Hello Rick,

 

There is no question in my mind that you are saying the precise truth and that the document was handed out at your Roundtable. However, I don't believe that there is any chance in the world that it is an official, semi-official or even useful unofficial document.

 

As was mentioned, I would say that a tip-off is the terminology used. The common lauguage would be "at the pleasure of" as "Counselors serve as the pleasure of the President." Saying "at the whim of" appears to empower a degree of arbitrariness and capriciousness that is simply inappropriate.

 

As you well know patrol leaders are elected by the patrol members except in those units where they are appointed by the Scoutmaster or in the religious sponsored units where they are called by God and sustained by the patrol membership.

 

I have never seen a Scouting document suggesting anything else be it at Wood Badge or anyplace else.

[HICO_Eagle]

This kind of garbage is why I find the training mandated by National to be rather worthless. They keep trying to sell official training as improving the program but I find much of it to be worthless to me (or worse than worthless when they spew stuff that's flat out wrong as you cited).

 

Any training -- mandatory OR recommended -- should offer some kind of benefit to the trainee. That benefit can be personal (education or growth) or administrative (improve understanding of how the council or national operate, reduce chances of lawsuits, etc.) but there should be a benefit. Handing out wrong information is about as far from beneficial as you can get.

[Kudu]

BadenP writes:

 

"Kudu As you know I usually agree with you about many skill sets that the scouting program has lost over the years, however in this case I am sure someone added that line. The wording, "at the whim..." sounds amateurish and unprofessional and I am sure this is an individual trying to inject his own beliefs into the training."

 

The document can be found at:

 

http://inquiry.net/adult/whim.htm

 

As you can see, it appears to have been copied from a copy of a copy, reminiscent of the days before desktop publishing. Apparently it was not something that someone produced for this year's WB course.

 

If fact one of our Troop's Committee Members attending the Roundtable asked me if I wanted her to "type out a fresh copy for the boys."

 

As Neil points out, the term that they were probably looking for was "serves at the pleasure of."

 

As I noted in my initial post, the thing that caught my eye was the mixing of two different editorial styles, the lower case patrol "leader," and the capitalization of "Senior Patrol Leader." The later is in the style introduced by Green Bar Bill which has not been used by the BSA since the end of the golden era of Hillcourt's Patrol Method.

 

This document came down from the highest local level. The last meeting got too heated, but the next time I attend Roundtable I will casually ask him if he knows from where it originally came.

 

Kudu

 

 

[OldGreyEagle]

here are links to three "Gilwell Gazzettes"

 

http://www.sr851.org/Gilwell_Gazettes/Gilwell_Gazette_v1i1_Friday_20071005.pdf

 

http://www.people.vcu.edu/~albest/woodbadge/Gazettes/SR809/GilwellGazette-Day1.pdf

 

http://wb63.com/pdf/wb63gazette2-1.pdf

 

 

All have the list of Patrol leaders responsibilities, non say anything about whim, looks like a local thing

[shortridge]

If that page gets photocopied any more, it'll become unreadable! Does that represent the quality of most WB handouts? It looks like a page that someone pulled out of a file folder from the '80s.