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Scouting Leadership (Serious Side of Scouting)

Why Should I Go To Wood Badge Training?

You’re a good Scout Leader. You work with some great kids who are really growing under your supervision, right? You’ve heard about something called the Wood Badge, and that you have to work really hard to earn it. But, since things are already going pretty well, is there really a need for you to put yourself through all of that hard work you’ve heard about? Wouldn’t it be better to invest that time in helping build a better programme for the Scouts you are working with?

Well, I suppose you could argue the point, and maybe even do so with some amount of success. Let me ask you something, though — don’t you think there is a chance that you will be able to provide a better programme with some really effective leadership training under your belt?

You see, while I had many chances to participate as a trainee in Wood Badge training over the years, there was always something that intervened and prevented my going. While it was most often a question of professional requirements, there were a few times when I worked on an activity for my Scouts instead. Looking back, I rather wish there had been some way I could have made the time for Wood Badge several years earlier. Still, water under the bridge…

That’s why I’m writing this for you. If you don’t have your Wood Badge yet, I hope to talk you into doing whatever you can to get into the next available course, no matter where you live.

What Is Wood Badge?

I suppose I could launch into a long recitation of the traditions surrounding those two little wooden beads on a leather thong and the neckerchief and woggle that go along with them, but I’ll leave that for your Wood Badge trainers to talk to you about.

The outward symbols that you wear after completing the training and all the extra work that goes along with it are just that — symbols. They serve to tell others that you have earned the most significant training award for adults in Scouting. They show the entire world-wide family of Scouting that you have accepted and completed training as a Leader that meets a high standard in every country where Scouting exists today.

Yes, we have Wood Badge in every country where adults take the time to work with young people in the Scouting programme. The training methods and standards are fairly universal, even though the administrative details vary from country to country. If you see a Leader from another country wearing the Beads, you know that he or she has completed the same type and level of training as a Wood Badger from your own country. You have even more in common than do all the other Leaders who have yet to complete their own training.

The course content and camaraderie that are part and parcel of Wood Badge training are something that you can use in your every-day life and profession, as well. Many large corporations, including some military organisations recognise the Wood Badge as a high-quality management training course that enhances your value to the people you work for.

When you go through Wood Badge training, you will find yourself working with the Patrol Method that we are supposed to be using in our Scout Groups. Generally, there are three main areas of training where you will learn more about Scouting and managing people of all ages than you ever thought possible.

The first is in the area of outdoor skills development, where you will spend at least part of your course living outdoors as a Patrol. Some Scout Associations have all of their training pretty much based in the outdoors. Some have their classroom time indoors. During your outdoor training, you will live in tents in a Patrol camp site set up according to your Scout Association’s standards. You will be a member of a Patrol, much the same as the Patrol you will find in a Scout Troop. Your camp chores will be split up according to a rota, so that you will have your turn at everything from cooking to doing the washing up and everything else in between.

During the course, you will be a member of a Patrol. In some countries, this will mean having a Patrol name taken from the animal kingdom — the "critters" you hear about from BSA Leaders in particular, as in, "I used to be an Owl, and a very wise old Owl indeed…" (I took my Wood Badge with the UK Scout Association, where we were not quite so "critter" oriented.)

The second area of training is more academic in nature, where you learn about the structure and function of the various levels of your Scout Association, as well as the administrative details that go into managing the programme on all levels. A lot goes into he building of this part of the training, and you will be getting a lot of very practical information about the building and maintaining of a quality Scouting programme that will apply directly to the work you are doing with in your Scout Group.

Once you have finished this intensive training, you will generally be turned loose on the unsuspecting Scouting family in your area. However, in most countries, you will be coming back with a mission, because you now have a project to complete before you are deemed qualified to be awarded your Beads. In most countries, this is a project of your own choosing, but is has to be something that will impact directly on your Scouting programme, either within your Group, or within the District at large. In accomplishing your project, you will be building on the skills you gained during your training course.

Since my Troop and Group both had strong programmes before I trundled off to training, I aimed my project a bit higher, helping to strengthen the quality of my District’s Patrol Leader Training programme. There was a lot of work involved, but It was also a lot of fun for myself. I must have done a good job, since the ADC Training deemed me qualified to wear the Beads. I was quite surprised when the moment came, since nobody warned me ahead of time that the DC would be coming to our AGM to award my Beads in front of all the assembled Scouts and parents of the Group!

Why Should You Go?

Now that you have an idea of what the Wood Badge means, you may still be wondering why you should go. Well, I can think of a few reasons that might appeal to you. Perhaps you can come up with a few more?

When a Leader goes to training, he or she gains respect from the Scouts in the Group, as well as from the other Leaders. This is not a small point, though it may seem to be on the surface. After all, your Scouts will look at you a little differently, since they see you dedicating extra time to learn to help them have a better programme. You become more of a person to be looked up to in their eyes. I know this is so, because that’s how it affected myself and my friends in the Troop when I was a Scout and our Troop Scouter used a week of his holiday time to go to Wood Badge training — time that he could have spent with his family. That he was willing to make this sacrifice for us meant a great deal, and made him even more of a positive role model in our eyes.

When you come back from your course, you will find yourself looking at the programme you offer your Scouts with new eyes. You will also have a much-enhanced appreciation of your Scouts as individuals full of untapped potential. If you take your training and run with it, you will be able to help them improve their programme week by week until you have something that they will want to build into a better place for everyone their age to be.

As a Leader, I am always more impressed by a Leader who is willing to get all the training available — especially by one who is willing to take the time and effort to earn the Wood Badge — than I am by a Leader who maintains that he or she already knows more than enough, and thus doesn’t need to go out and get those Beads. All too often, these are the Leaders whose Groups are having problems keeping their numbers of youth members or are having trouble keeping an active outdoor programme happening. It would seem that these are the Leaders whose groups often have to file more accident forms than most…

One of the best aspects of Wood Badge courses is that you get to know a whole lot of other Leaders with a wide range of backgrounds in and out of Scouting. You will have a whole raft of ideas to bring home with you, since these are all quality, experienced Leaders. You have to be REALLY resistant to new ideas to come away from even an hour with these folks and not have something new to put into your resource kit to help improve your own programme.

Even though you are there for a lot of very intense training, you will find that you will look back on Wood Badge as a time when you had more fun than you would ever have believed before the course began. The social aspect of a Wood Badge course is a rich training and resource ground of its own. As you get to know the other Leaders, and become closer friends with many, you will find that you will work together long after the training course to help each other with problems and help to enhance your programmes.