Question for pre-21st Century Wood Badgers

[david.w.rahfeldt]

I learned NO new woodcraft or camping or outdoor skills

 

I spent about 30 minutes doing breakfast and the cleanup from it daily (our patrol)

 

I learned that sitting on hard seats for hours listening to inane lectures about stuff that was lame / trite "leadership" training stuff from the 60's was really boring.

 

I learned that standing around watching ceremonies for hours makes your feet tired and your soul bored. Ceremonies need to be impresive and brisk ... not droll and slow and endurance exercises. Ceremonies are NOT a place for lectures while everyone stands around.

 

I learned nothing new about the patrol method.

 

I did learn that singing is still fun if you relax and just go with it ...

 

OH ... and I did learn that if you want to get good sleep in a cabin with a bunch of guys who snore like they are a medical experiment gone wrong, you need to make sure your batteries on your mp3 player are charged .... to cover the snoring with a book-on-tape (mp3) or music ...

 

Would I recommend the Wood Badge 21st Century ... that depends on your previous leadership experiences and training ... if you have an MBA or Ph.D. and do business or technology consulting, nah ... it will seem childish and silly to you ... if you are a dock worker and never had any of these trainings back in the 60's (or in your corporate training today) when it was in vogue ... yah, probably kinda fun and you can learn about pert charts and project manamgnent and SOW's and stuff you will never use in scouting ... rofl ...

 

Frankly ... its ONLY value is that it provides a focus method for those who are not used to such tools or self management skills to build leadership self assessment ... OK for that, more or less ...

 

It makes you a member of the "woodbadge club" ... a certain degree of respect there ... from your Scouting peers ...

 

Dont expect to learn any woodcraft.

 

Too weak sister on the leadership stuff, and they left out all the old woodcraft stuff ... ergo ... I think it is kind of a waste of time for most well educated folks to bother with.

 

Unless your sole purpose it to practice your singing ... and get an excuse for a couple weekends away from home ...

[nolesrule]

"you need to make sure your batteries on your mp3 player are charged .... to cover the snoring with a book-on-tape (mp3) or music ... "

 

They had mp3 players before WB21C was implemented? You must have taken one of the last of the previous courses (and paid out the wazoo for the mp3 player).

 

/finishes reading the post...

 

Oh, my mistake. You were talking about WB21C. There's already 3-20 threads on the merits of that training course. This isn't one of them.

[SeattlePioneer]

 

 

 

I think that WAS worth learning!

 

I really got a good example of the emotional power of a good ceremony at the Scout Leader Outdoor Skills Training. They did an excellent ceremony at the end of the program which impressed me a lot and led me to use ceremonies more and have better ones.

[david.w.rahfeldt]

CONCUR ... a GOOD ceremony should leave everyone trying to control themselves emotionally and failing.

 

How do you know the ceremony was good?

 

When folks need to wipe tears from their eyes you did it right

When the end of the cermony is marked with automatic silence out of respect for the intensity of the shared feelings, you did it right.

 

When folks shuffle off bored to find a place to rest their tired feet and bored souls ... or run for someplace to seek amusement ... you did NOT do it right.

 

SHORT, HONEST, INTENSE, REAL ... is the guage for ceremonies.

 

A bugler at a ceremony once spontaneously asked for 30 seconds of silence

 

"in rememberance of those thousands of men who have preceded us - who had the courage to choose to dedicate their lives to love of their fellow man and to ensuring the freedom to choose to love, and who so loved life itself that they were willing to pledge and give their lives to ensure us the same opportunity to life, love, pursure our dreams. "

 

He then dropped to his knee, folded his bugle under his arm, and hung his head in silent prayer.

 

Unbidden, everyone followed his example.

 

He then stood, closed with taps, and walked off silently.

 

There was not a dry eye amongst the troops.

More than one had to be helped to their feet shaking with emotion.

 

THAT kind of deep, honest, and real emotion is ... irristable, unstopable.

 

Ceremonies from the heart ... not from the book

 

No ... he was not following the protocol for the ceremony ... in fact he mutated and aborted a perfectly good well practiced formal ceremony.

 

What he did was a 1000's times more powerful than any planned ceremony.