Wood Badge in a Week or Two Weekends

[Cito]

I just got back from a week long wood badge course at Philmont. Now part of why I did it out of council was so I could go to Philmont and part of it was because I wanted to do it in one week. Total immersion I figured.

 

I've talked to a number of people who did it over two long weekends and it sounds like they spent a lot of time between the weekends working on their project. We just had to stay up late but we had limited time. I also know that we didn't have to mess with meal planning.

 

So I would suppose that some of you may have done it one way and staffed it another. Other than scheduling for some people, is there really any advantage to breaking it up into two pieces?

[Unkiewill]

I am currently in between Wood Badge weekends. My patrol has already had a lots of emails, a conference call and will have a patrol meeting tonight. But a part of that has been menu planning and making sure we have all the gear that we need for the upcoming weekend.

 

It would have been nice to do a week long course but for me it is much easier to take two Fridays off than take a whole week off of work. That is the big benefit for me.

 

From what I have heard one is not better than the other they are just a little different.

 

I used to be an Antelope.

[Tokala]

My Council has found that a week long course doesn't work out because of people required to take vacation. The weekends work out where folks only need 1 day of vacation for each weekend.

 

Boy Scout Leader Wood Badge ran over 3 weekends and we had skills and presentations presented to us at patrol meetings during the breaks. That schedule was basically a Wood Badge weekend every other week with the patrol meeting on the weekend in between.

[dfolson]

The advantage for me was schedule. I could not take another week of vacation (2 weeks for Philmont - have to save some for family)

 

David

I used to be a Buffalo...

[Ohanadad]

The other advantage I like in breaking the course into two weekends is that you get a chance to go back home and work on your tickets. When I went through, I wanted to talk to my Committee Chair, Cubmaster, etc. to refine my tickets and get the OK from them that I could do it. By the time we went to the second weekend, I had all of my tickets approved and could enjoy the camping with the patrol. Additionally, we were able to work on our project (printing out pictures, gather info, etc.) which would have been difficult or impossible at the campsite.

 

The flip side is you always have the few that go home and completely forget about WB and tickets. You see them furiously working the night of day 5 trying to get their tickets approved instead of enjoying the time. All in all, it's six of one and half dozen of the other.