Wood Badge Program Trains Leaders
Greater Tampa Bay Area Council, hosted a Wood Badge Course over the course of two weekends. The first weekend was held in Lake Wales at the Flaming Arrow Scout Reservation. The second weekend was held in Hernando County at Sand Hill Scout Reservation.
So what is Wood Badge all about? Wood Badge is about training leaders.
“Founder of the Scouting, Baden Powell decided he had to train leaders, there wasn’t enough trained leaders so he developed Wood badge. It’s kind of on the principle of seven habits of highly effective leader, but with a boy scout twist,” Eric Perron said. Perron is District Chairman for the Withlacoochee District.
Powell introduce this program to the United States while he was visiting the US from England in 1936, however the Americans didn’t take full interest in the Wood Badge concept until 1948. As the interest grew, new courses were implemented to focus on the main concept: leadership.
Lisa Rauchmiller has been involved in training for twenty-one years. She explained how team development skills are taught during these courses and and the importance of those skills to upcoming leaders. “If one person, if you just touched the life one person, that one person touches other lives.”
During the first week, scouts learned about leadership skills. During the second week at Sand Hill those scouts put those leadership skills to work in the Leave No Trace; Outdoor Ethics
The tenants of Leave No Trace Outdoor Ethics are as follows:
-Plan ahead and prepare
-Travel and Camp on durable surfaces
-Dispose of waste properly
-Leave what you find
-Minimize campfire impacts
-Respect wildlife
-Be considerate of other visitors
These courses are divided into eight patrols: Antelope, Bear, Owl, Buffalo, Fox, Eagle, Beaver and Bobwhite. When participating in these patrols, scout leaders learn to work together throughout the Wood Badge course by learning outdoor experiences and gaining problem solving and decision making skills.
“The stuff that I learned in this course has helped in my job, help me with dealing with people, leadership. It has applied to everything about my life. So I use a lot of the communication skills, diversity at my job now. Everything that we learn here, you will be able to apply to all aspects of your life,” Perron said.
This course is open for all adult scout leaders in all programs as well as scout professionals.
Scouts are you interested in taking a Wood Badge course? Tampa Bay Scouting will be holding another course in the spring of 2017. Find out information here:
http://tampabayscouting.org/training/wood-badge