Recruiting for council training committee

[Eagledad]

Like all committees and organizations, the quality of performance is only as good as its leaders. 

An example of what the committee can do is how we approached teaching the new SM Specific course in 2000. Council presented the course when it was introduced to see how well it was written. It was terrible. Roughly a 9 hr course divided in three parts that had no flow and often contradicted each other. (I had learned later that the three parts were written by three different “volunteers “ authors who never met each other. They sent their parts to National who wrote the final syllabus.)

Anyway, our council training committee discussed ideas of how to better present the material. We came up with several ideas for presenting the course better, which several districts (including ours) experimented with. And several good versions were discovered. Now, I know a couple of districts would have tried something on their own (including ours), but because council took the lead, all the districts were presented with the results of several different versions. 

I was also lead on experimenting with a new idea of a Council JLT course. The new idea was a boy run style where the participants developed the course syllabus and schedule each day. The course was replaced by NYLC, but I have not ever seen anything like it before or since.

A lot of folks seem to be trying to fix a lot of problems on this forum lately. If you have the will and personality, council is one of many paths to effectively make change.

Barry

[MattR]

2 hours ago, Eagledad said:

If you have the will and personality

I knew there was a catch.

But back to your JLT course. How did you come up with a course that, I assume, was not in compliance with the standard JLT at the time? Or was it in compliance. I always wonder about that with training. I mean, the idea of having the scouts create their own training sounds great and also not at all what the syllabus suggests. Or maybe I'm missing something.

[Eagledad]

13 minutes ago, MattR said:

I knew there was a catch.

But back to your JLT course. How did you come up with a course that, I assume, was not in compliance with the standard JLT at the time? Or was it in compliance. I always wonder about that with training. I mean, the idea of having the scouts create their own training sounds great and also not at all what the syllabus suggests. Or maybe I'm missing something.

It was the brainchild of a couple of scoutmasters with a good reputation for building successful patrol method programs.

The way it worked is after all the participants  (14 or over) arrived at camp, the course SM asked all the scouts to create PLCs of 6 members. No scouts from the same troop could be in the same PLC.

Then each PLC had to elect the SPL  and assign a PLC position to each member. Once all the participants had a PLC and position (only took about 15 minutes), the SM gave a 15 minute lesson of how to run the PLC meeting that was also described in their SPL handbook. then they were tasked to create the course agenda for the next day that included everything from getting up to lights out. The only requirement was scheduling 4 one hour class sessions, 2 more PLC  meetings and a campfire or troop meeting. Each of the PLCs agendas were thrown in a hat, then the one drawn out was the agenda that is used with that PLCs Spl running the agenda.

It made for an interesting week, and the SMs gave the results rave reviews. However, National required we replace it with their brand new course, NYLT. And the experiment was over.

Most of the staff were graduates from the National JLT course at Philmont. They had a blast playing the adult leader parts. 

Barry

[Jameson76]

11 hours ago, WisconsinMomma said:

if you were asked to participate on your Council training committee, would you?  Why or why  not? 

Would need to know what if anything the Council Training committee actually accomplished OR was it just a check the box committee (yep we met).  What is the charter of the group?  What are their goals?  What have they implemented or improved last 3 / 5 /7 years.  What do they actually do that helps the scouting program at the unit level?

[ParkMan]

Yes - count me in.  Training is a blast and helping to make training successful across the council is a great opportunity.

Just tell me when the meeting is.

[mrkstvns]

On 1/21/2019 at 9:04 AM, WisconsinMomma said:

Here's my question for you, Scouters -- if you were asked to participate on your Council training committee, would you?  Why or why  not? 

No.  But not for any petty "like / dislike" reason. 

The reason I wouldn't want to do that is because the council (and district) has several committees that interest me much MORE than training does. I love the outdoors and have some experience and education in nature and outdoor ethics....so the conservation committee would make better use of those skills.  I've also got a degree in computer science and a long career in technology, so the STEM committee would also be a better (and more interesting) use of my time and knowledge. I'm not a teacher and most BSA "training" bores me to tears, but STEM and Conservation always trip my trigger.

I'd encourage scouters to take a look at what committees and other volunteer opportunities are available in the district or council and see if one of them fits your own interests. 

[John-in-KC]

As others have stated, it depends on what the dynamics of the committee are, how much authority the Council President, Board and SE give them, and can the committee impact the council mission...

ive seen councils where those answers are yes. I’ve seen councils where kitchen cabinet committees of insiders hold the authority, and the “official” committee is there to be a rubber stamp.