Wood Badge controversies

[Basementdweller]

Required

 

Mandatory

 

 

are dangerous terms to present to VOLUNTEERS. Most adults could care less about the outdoors.

 

When is the last time you went camping outside of Scouting?

 

Take this question and ask it to the current ME Generation of parents.

"I need a campership application to send junior to camp this summer." says Mom with the brand new Iphone in her manicured hand from the seat of her year old Expedition.

 

[OldGreyEagle]

"The volunteers of many councils and districts who have attended wood badge almost make it a mandatory training to volunteer at those levels. I have run into this, I call it wood badge snoobery. Now with that said, The more involved I get in district and council levels I find scouters that quietly wear the beads and aren't arrogant about it. "

 

So in other words, the Wood Badgers in your Council are pretty much a random sample of all adults, some do things for the show and glitz, others just do what is needed. I am pretty much sure that Wood Badge didn't turn some in snobs and others into quiet workers, that trait was set long ago.

[DeaconLance]

I think the problem is Woodbadge was originally about teaching scoutcraft and patrol method. It was the pinnacle of training in these subjects and the beads designated someone as a scouter who could pass on that knowledge to his scouts. Then the BSA decides they want a top notch business model management/leadership training course, which is fine, but they co-opted the Woodbadge name and insignia as the carrot by which to entice scouters to take the course. The leadership training course should have been a seperate program with different insignia. They could have created a new award to entice scouters to take the course and let Woodbadge remain about scoutcraft and patrol method.

[NE-IV-88-Beaver]

Apparently our old Wood Badge beads (got mine in 1997) aren't worth a lot in today's Scouting program! I looked up the requirements today to be able to serve on NYLT adult staff and they state that you must have taken WB21C or served on WB21C staff, not just be Wood Badge trained. Doesn't matter that I've served on Brownsea JLT staff for over 20 years. Requirements for SM and SA for the 2010 Jamboree stated that they must have taken WB21C.

 

I feel so worthless! If our training was so pathetic as not to qualify us to staff any future programs, why did they take our name, beads, woggles, and neckerchiefs as their own? If WB21C is so advanced and elite, why didn't they come up with something different to distinguish them from us old WB types? I guess they figured that we'd all eventually die off and then there wouldn't be any need for further discrimination and the regalia would again be pure.

 

 

Just a minor rant.............I feel better now!