Silly Scouting Stuff
I went to a reunion tonight for Woodbadge, which is Advanced Scoutleader Training. The traditions of Woodbadge go back to the very foundations of Scouting. Lord Baden-Powell conducted the original Woodbadge course to train adult leaders for his new organization at Gilwel in England. One of the cornerstones of Scouting is the Patrol Method. Consequently Patrols are very important to Woodbage. The basic patrol names have been used since the first course. Each Patrol gets to embellish on their basic name, for example I was in the Beaver Patrol. There are Mighty Beavers, Bartle's Beavers, Bucktoothed Beavers, my Patrol were Just Plain Beavers.
Part of the Patrol lore is to build a Patrol Flag, which is then kept to display at future courses. Well after 60 odd years of teaching Woodbadge in Kansas City they have more than they will ever need or be able to use, so they are going to need to purge them. So they brought in a whole bunch and laid them down on some tables in the back. After the dinner and program they told us that if we wanted a Patrol Flag, we could take them. I went back and dug through the piles a couple of times and did not find mine. I was about to give up and an older gentleman was standing there collecting Beaver flags, and what do you know, he had mine. He was gracious enough to let me have it.
This may sound silly, but I had a really great time that week and we put all these little gee-gaws on the flag to represent different things that happened. Since no one else from my Patrol was there, or even my course, I did not have to fight with anyone for it. Now I will save it to use in training as an example of what happens when Patrol Flags go Bad.
Part of the Patrol lore is to build a Patrol Flag, which is then kept to display at future courses. Well after 60 odd years of teaching Woodbadge in Kansas City they have more than they will ever need or be able to use, so they are going to need to purge them. So they brought in a whole bunch and laid them down on some tables in the back. After the dinner and program they told us that if we wanted a Patrol Flag, we could take them. I went back and dug through the piles a couple of times and did not find mine. I was about to give up and an older gentleman was standing there collecting Beaver flags, and what do you know, he had mine. He was gracious enough to let me have it.
This may sound silly, but I had a really great time that week and we put all these little gee-gaws on the flag to represent different things that happened. Since no one else from my Patrol was there, or even my course, I did not have to fight with anyone for it. Now I will save it to use in training as an example of what happens when Patrol Flags go Bad.