Best Compliment you ever got as a Scouter.

[Stosh]

Maybe I should put in a good compliment rather than just a back-handed one.

 

One of my Wood Badge items on my ticket was to go back and help a Webelos den cross over and work with them through FC.

 

One of the boys at his ECOH sought me out and thanked me for all I had done for him and that only his dad had spent more guy time with him than I had. I hadn't thought about it, it was nice he did.

 

Stosh

[Woapalanne]

This was from a grandparent who went along on a weekender to an Air Force Base: "How do you get them to behave so well?"

[SeattlePioneer]

"Do you want me to pay for that new Scout membership with cash or a check?"

 

 

 

District membership chairs tend to be pragmatists.

[SMT224]

Two Scout families who had moved to another town ~20 miles away stayed with our Troop despite several Troops in the towns they moved to. The had to drive though rush hour traffic both ways, yet continued to attend on a regular basis and participate in activities and camping trips.

 

Recently, after his parents divorced, a Scout decided not to move to a beach town with his mom, but instead stay with his dad (how is barely supportive of Scouting) so he could stay with our Troop. There's a Troop in the town his mom moved to, but he did not want to leave our Troop.

 

[Tampa Turtle]

I had one boy, a nice lad, who explained he came from a long line of non-campers. He struggled through Webeloes as we did more outdoor activities but really blossomed in the last 6 months.

 

His father was jewish and proud of saying "jews don't camp". (While I was brought up Catholic I was grew up in a predominantly jewish neigborhood; we used to joke around alot. My reply usually was "what do you call the 40 years in the desert?")

 

He had a stay one summer with his gentile grandfather, a burly Indiana farmer, and got fired up to do manly outdoor things. (Got his Grandpa's 1940's scout knife)

 

Anyhow, I worked with the boy a lot and the weekend came for his first overnight Webelos campout as a Webelo. Struggled with the giant 3 person giant tent. Got bugs in his sleeping bag. Foil dinner got ashes in it. Fell down and cut his leg. Dad came and complaining the whole time. Etc, etc.

 

In the morning I am up early starting the coffee. I see his tent unzip, out pop's his head, and he pipe's up with "See Mr Turtle, Jews CAN camp!" I can still see that big smile on his face. Like money in the bank.

 

(He crossed over to our Troop and is doing well. He has to work harder than the other scouts on some of the physical stuff but is always doggedly cheerful. And his Dad is coming around)

 

 

[AnniePoo]

"That was the best trip I've ever been on!"

[suzisk8]

I helped out at our District Cub Day Camp and I requested to work at a station. The leather craft did not get shipped and the substitute was these gawd awful "pixie pouches" that were a bunch of lacing and not enough pounding. My first compliment was from the Day Camp director, she couldn't believe that I kept all those Webelos concentrating on the project. The second was the day after camp. I was at a food truck festival and one of the boys ran up to me and said, "Miss Susan I finished the pouch!" His dad told me thank you for making that section fun and not boring. Yea, that got me hooked and look at me now, I am on the District Membership sub-committee waiting to get nominated to be committee chair. Plus I am still going to volunteer for Day Camp next year, lol.

[OldGreyEagle]

Just when I thought I was out... they pull me back in.

 

[OneHour]

... on the night after our second den meeting for my oldest son about 10 years ago when he was a Tiger, as we were driving home, my son blurted out, "Dad, that was fun. I want to be a den leader just like you when I grow up!" Tears came to my eyes. He is an Eagle scout and a 3rd year at University of Houston.

 

... on the night that I stepped down as a cubmaster, I stopped and asked one of my cubs why he is crying. He wouldn't tell me, but kept on crying. His mother told me later that night that he didn't want for me to go away and he was afraid that he won't see me again. I cried. He is a senior in high school and is a Life scout in our troop working on his Eagle.

 

At one of the Webelos activity pin day many moons ago, one of my cubs was in my class. He came up and told me after class, " Mr. [OneHour], you are the best teacher. I wish that all of my teachers are just like you!" I was speechless (that's rare). I recounted his comment to me at his Eagle CoH as his Scoutmaster. His father teared up. The young starts at the Naval Academy three weeks ago!

 

... and there are other stories...

 

These are the reasons why I do what I do. I'm sure that it is the reason why you do what you do for scouting! ... of course also for the large salary that comes with the job!

[qwazse]

I've received lots like the above, so it took me a while to remember one that makes especially proud ...

 

Occasionally on a troop/crew swim, I'll here a couple of boys say "Let's dunk Mr. Q!"

 

It's nice to know they think I'm still worth the effort.

[NEI263Beaver]

One of my Webelos had to move just before his second year. During his last meeting I informed the den of his departure. The boys were saddened by the news but I was "misty". He and his mom stayed behind after the meeting she thanked me and he said "I love you Mr. Morse".

I guess I'm just a softy...I cried during their Cross Over too.

[Tampa Turtle]

See I can do the occasional non-snarky thread!

[CalicoPenn]

I was a young Scouter, chair of the District's Health and Safety Committee, an EMT working on upgrading to Paramedic, and was asked to run the First Aid Meet.

 

The format of our first aid meets were always the same - 5 problems to solve, all increasing in difficulty, all increasing in time alloted, all dealing with injuries in the woods, none dealing with illnesses, at least one with a transport on a stretcher, and the last one always dealing with 2 vicitms and multiple injuries so that the victims ended up looking like mummies. Then a 15 minute cartoon or safety film while the judges added up the scores. If you paid close attention, you'd learn that the questions started to repeat themselves - the same sets of questions were used for over 20 years, just rotating through. A lot had changed in those years but the questions never did.

 

I made some slight modifications to the format - there would be 6 questions now, all freshly written for the meet. There was a mix of questions covering injuries one might come across at home/school/in town and on camping trips. One of the questions dealt with heat related illness. The question dealing primarily with lacerations was someone being cut in the kitchen with a knife or broken glass. There was no longer a question about a Scout tumbling off a cliff breaking an arm and a leg and some ribs and cutting themselves and banging their head and twisting an ankle and on and on and on. I tried to keep the questions grounded in likelihood rather than throwing the kitchen sink at folks. A Scout taking a tumble and breaking a leg is far more likely than a Scout taking a tumble and looking like a scarecrow at the end.

 

None of the solutions would take longer than 10 minutes to complete (no more 20 minute marathons). But each of the teams were given 10 minutes to complete their first aid, along with 3 minutes to read and discuss the problem. Scouts were warned to listen to and read the instructions very carefully. One of the questions dealt with witnessing a car crash - no fuel leaking - with a couple of injuries. They key part of the question was "Fire Department Paramedics are less than 4 minutes away". Teams were given 10 minutes to complete. Only two teams earned full points - one was a Webelos Den (have I mentioned yet this was the first year we invited Webelos Dens to participate?) that did nothing because they were overwhelmed by the number of injuries (this would have been a final question in prior years) - the other was a team that realized Paramedics were 4 minutes away so they told the judge they would call 911 and just try to comfort folks that help was on the way. A couple of teams were given half points when they treated for shock only but the rest of the teams tried to treat as many injuries as they could in 10 minutes.

 

In the past, we didn't share the scores with the teams before they were turned in - I changed that as well - the judges reviewed the scores so the teams would know where they did well and where they went wrong - there were a bunch of leaders already upset that I had changed the way problems were done in the first place - after all, we had done it a certain way for over 20 years - but now this question drove a lot of them over the edge. I held firm though, and by keeping a running tally of the scores, was able to announce and award 5 minutes after the last problem, as teams were still working to clean up, the winners and the ribbons.

 

At the next roundtable, when a discussion of the first aid meet started, one of the most vocally opposed "old-timers" got up and said that after he got home and thought about it and talked it over with his Scouts, he came to the conclusion that the problems posed were the most realistic he had seen in his 20 years as a Scouter, that the question with the paramedics 4 minutes away really wasn't a trick question but a great reminder of how much has changed in the last 20 years, and how his Troop had to adapt their training a bit, and that he sure did appreciate the event running less than 2 hours instead of the usual 3 then thanked me and led a round of applause.

 

That's the best compliment I got as a Scouter.

 

The next year, a friend of mine hooked up an internal telephone line in a "phone booth" that would ring to another phone if the number 911 was dialed and throughout the event, teams would have to send someone to the phone to call for help - as one team finished, a runner would bring a card to the next team, right in the middle of working a solution, to send someone for help. This time, when one of the Scouters complained that I was taking team members away from working on the solution and we should do that when they teams were in the middle of squaring things away for the next problem, and I explained that in a real life situation, at least one of the members of the team would be sent to go for help (and that every team, throughout the event would lose someone for a short time during a solution and none would get an unfair advantage), the Scouter thought a second, said that makes sense, and went away with a smile on his face. That was probably the second best compliment I got.

[Scoutfish]

Going back to my old pack tonight to run the Pack meeting.

The CM waon't be able to do it due to unexpected obligations.

The rest of the leadership and committee got together and decided they wanted me to do it because they wanted the boys to have fun and enjoy it.

 

Doesn't sound that big a deal , but I have moved over 30 miles away from my old residence which was already 12 miles from the CO. I live in an entirely different council.

 

I asked the CC if they really needed me to do it and he said: " Oh Yeah! WE really, really need YOU to do this. We want the boys to enjoy scouting!"

[artjrk]

When I was a Webelos Den Leader, I had one scout who I guess didn't appreciate my sense of humor a few years previously. I had hidden his cookies during a hike after he had asked me to watch them for him. He initially thought I had eaten them, but he got them moments later. Anyway, during our final year as Webelos, we were doing an orienteering course around the school. The kids were really enjoying themselves. This scout says to me, "You know Mr. K_____, I used to hate you, but this is kinda fun."

 

Today this Scout is in his final year of Boy Scouts and is set to earn his Eagle as well. He was a SPL while I was SM. Now whenever I visit the Troop he is one of the first to call out "Jimbo!" a term of endearment I have been given by the boys. I can't wait for this scout's ECOH.