IDEAS FOR SCOUT TROOPS By JACK COX Editor of Boy`s Own Paper LONDON: HERBERT JENKINS First published by Herbert Jenkins Ltd 3 Duke of York Street London, S.W.1. 1954. Second Printing September 1955. Third printing October 1961 Downloaded from: “The Dump” at Scoutscan.com http://www.thedump.scoutscan.com/ Editor’s Note: The reader is reminded that these texts have been written a long time ago. Consequently, they may use some terms or express sentiments which were current at the time, regardless of what we may think of them at the beginning of the 21st century. For reasons of historical accuracy they have been preserved in their original form. If you find them offensive, we ask you to please delete this file from your system. This and other traditional Scouting texts may be downloaded from The Dump. CONTENTS Preface Month Weeks Page October week 01 to 04 05 November week 05 to 08 10 December week 09 to 13 16 January week 14 to 17 23 February week 18 to 21 28 March week 22 to 26 33 April week 27 to 30 43 May week 31 to 34 48 June week 35 to 39 54 July week 40 to 43 61 August week 44 to 48 67 September week 49 to 52 73 PREFACE The aim of this little book is to help anyone whose job it is to run a Scout troop. The reader may be an adult leader with little experience of this worthwhile voluntary work of youth leadership. Or he may be a teen-age Senior Scout or Rover Scout who wants to run a troop. Scouting lore and knowledge and technique has to be picked up as a leader gets on with the job, and his most valuable asset is Lord Baden-Powell’s Scouting for Boys. A Scouter or a prospective Scouter needs to be reading it constantly so that he gets his Scouting perspective right. He can also take a practical and valuable Wood Badge training course at the International Scout Training Centre at Gilwell Park or elsewhere. This book does not aim at presenting new and original thoughts on Scouting technique. It does try to give one sound idea for every troop meeting of the year, based on a long personal experience of running Scout troops. The reader can pick and choose where he likes, discarding or improving or adapting as he thinks fit. No two troops are ever quite alike, and the art of adapting a particular idea to a particular troop may be a test of initiative for a keen and lively Scouter. These ideas have been successful in ordinary troops. Some of them may be new to the reader. Others he will recognise in new garb. In Scouting we have to keep our ideas forever fresh, and the skill with which we can put over basic Scout training as visualised by the Founder is a measure of our success as leaders. My experience has been that leaders are always on the hunt for ideas and new ways of doing old, familiar things. Frequently programmes have to be made up in a hurry, or something may be wanted quickly. Under such circumstances this book may be found useful. It is important to realise that Scout training is a continuous process and not something confined to one troop meeting a week throughout the year. In that sense training is not just a matter of putting over a few simple ideas from Scouting for Boys on fifty-two nights of the year. Such a presentation of Scout training would always be regarded as artificial by leaders of real experience. But the fact remains that the majority of leaders are often stumped for a quick idea for a particular meeting. So many leaders, and especially inexperienced ones, have asked me for ideas for Scout troops that I have tried to set some down in this form. All of them come from my own notebooks, which I kept as a practical Scouter, and I have chosen those which have stood the test of time. JACK COX Wycliwood, Wolsey Road, Moor Park, Hertfordshire. Week 1 OCTOBER (i) HELLO! Here we are at the start of a new Scout year. There’s a crispness in the air; fires are being lit; football is getting into its stride. It’s October, and the fall of the year. We’ve already decided this is going to be the best year in the history of the old troop; best in every possible way—for programmes, keenness, efficiency, camping skill, good turns, everything. There isn’t a moment to lose. We’re going to start right away with Week 1 — the first meeting of the new Scout year. Let’s spend tonight sorting things out and getting things in trim. First of all, let’s elect new patrols. Court of Honour met last week and approved it. Three patrols of eight? Four patrols of seven? Four patrols of eight? What’s it to be? Well, the troop decides that for itself. Every troop in Scouting is alike, yet different! We have a framework for Scouting in Scouting for Boys, but the way that Scout training fits into things in any one troop is that troop’s concern. What did the lads say? Four patrols of seven? Good. Let’s have it that way. We’ll elect four P.L.s first. Boys only are allowed to vote. No Scouters in this, of course. We’ll use any system of election we like so long as it is secret and aboveboard. With us each boy writes four names on a card and then pops it into an “election box”. We soon have four names acceptable to the majority of the troop. Then they need six braves to surround them—and the patrol names must be considered (some bird or animal in the locality is the only logical solution)—and the patrol dens or corners must be sorted out amicably. All this will take a bit of time. So we’re going to stick to Peewits, Seagulls, Woodpigeons and Curlews. I didn’t really expect any change in patrol names or choice of dens. We’re going to have a quarterly patrol competition. That was decided last week. There’s a small silver shield in the Scouter’s den and it’s worth winning, not to mention the night out that goes with it—a feed in the Pelican Cafe and a theatre afterwards. Now how are we going to run the competition? Not chalked points totals on a blackboard; or pencil notes in a book or anything like that. Look at my new competition board! I got the idea from an ordinary ringboard. All we do is get a nice smooth board about three feet by two feet or whatever size you need—deal or pine or oak or anything—and bevel the corners and edges. Then we put row after row of brass hooks on it, paint the whole thing and give it a decorative heading of some kind. Above each hook we paint a number in a distinctive, contrasting colour. Then we take four spare patrol knots, one of each of the four patrols, and make the brass bits at the top into a loop. Quite easy with a pair of pliers. All we do then is to hang the patrol shoulder knots on the right hook at the end of each weekly meeting. We have a hundred hooks on our board and we’re not over-lavish with points during the quarter. They really have to be earned. The advantage of this idea is that it keeps the lads on their toes. Anyone can see at a glance how the competition is going, and at the end of any one troop meeting the lads go home knowing where they stand. Try it and see for yourself how it makes for keenness. Then there’s a woodcraft touch we’ve always had. No chairs, forms, deckchairs or what have you! The real thing. Beech logs. And the way to do it is to cut them all at the same time so they’re all the same age roughly. We cut one for every boy in the troop and his log is kept in his patrol den or corner— all the seven together neatly. How useful they are! As seats; for “logs round” at the end of each meeting; in games and stunts of all kinds. Each log is peeled of bark, and dried out, and then has the patrol emblem painted on it—to a uniform pattern and size. Each boy is allowed to decorate his own log if he wishes. We’ve had logs like that in our troop for forty years—not the same ones, but the idea. Then there’s the problem of what to do with Scout staves and where to keep them. Each lad has one, used on ceremonial occasions only and for “inspection”. We have staff-racks on the wall of each patrol den and the seven or eight staves are kept there neatly one above the other. Week 2 OCTOBER (ii) HE average weekly troop meeting is so short (one and a half to two hours) that it pays to find every possible way there is for saving time in running it. The main idea is to get the meeting running crisply and smoothly, and to know in advance what is going to be done. Boys will soon be as keen as mustard once they realise that they are being “put in the picture” and belong to a troop which gets things done.