On Sunday I attended the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) Annual Scouters Conference for the Transatlantic Council (basically for Scouters outside of USA). I was there because of the lack of scouters when we moved to Germany in 2009 meant the only way our boys could keep scouting was to join as leader and committee members. So last year I was the Tiger Den mom (Grade 1's) and this year I have been the Wolf Den mom (Grade 2's).
The first session I attended was all about motivating parents! The Scouter produced this as a guilt trip we could use on parents who weren't playing a role in the unit; whilst quite American I'm not sure how it would go down in a British unit; but it's interesting nevertheless so here it is.
"Our Pack was saddened to learn this week of the death of one of our most valued members. Someone Else. Someone's passing creates a vacancy that will be difficult to fill. Else has been with us for many years and for every one of those years, Someone did far more than a normal person's share of the work.
Whenever there was a job to do, a class to teach, or a meeting to attend, one name was on everyone's list, "Let someone Else do it". Whenever leadership was mentioned, this wonderful person was looked to for inspiration as well as results; "Someone Else can work with that group". It was common knowledge that Someone Else was among the most liberal giver in our Pack. Whenever there was a financial need, everyone just assumed Someone Else would make up the difference.
Someone Else was a wonderful person; sometimes appearing superhuman. Were the truth known, everybody expected too much of Someone Else. Now Someone Else is gone! We wonder what we are going to do.
Someone Else left a wonderful example to follow, but who is going to follow it? Who is going to do the things Someone Else did? When you are asked to help this year, remember - we can't depend on Someone Else anymore."
I also liked the other suggestion of calling a parents meeting and asking one parent to barr the door as you ask all parents to stand up & those who are already doing a role can sit down - those left standing can only sit when they agree to take on a role! Maybe not too surprising when you appreciate that the BSA parent help spread sheet has nearly a 100 roles on it - how do we ever manage to do anything in Girl Guiding?
The "motivating parents" trainer dashed through a PowerPoint show on a lap top which wouldn't connect to the white board. The second trainer did a good job of generating discussion & ideas sharing around the new cub programme, but then left too little time to discuss the criteria for a quality unit and over ran so much we missed our next session! The final trainer, on Q & A, was the best of the day and had done his homework by emailing attendees in advance to find out what questions would be asked; he used the white board to best effect by grouping the questions into those with answers and those without - unfortunately we overran again but he had lots of ideas to share!
We did have a lovely lunch sat outside in the weak Spring sunshine looking up at the dusting of snow on top of the mountains at Garmisch Patenkirchen. I do like the idea of giving a special conference patch to all the attendees, and being able to sign up via paypal is a wonderful idea.
