It's Wood Badge Time

This was an exhausting, but good weekend. Ter and I spent it up at Gerber Scout Reservation (Camp) beginning our Wood Badge training. The first question would be, “What is Wood Badge?” It is the highest level of adult training in leadership available in Boy Scouts. We had been looking forward to this for a while. Events prevented us from going a couple of years ago so we were determined to make it this time around.
Our adventure began Thursday evening as we decided to get a motel room for the night so we wouldn’t have to get up so early for the long drive knowing it would also be a long first day of training. We stayed at a nice little more of a Mom and Pop type of place for the night, the Bell-Aire. It is a nice, clean comfortable place to lay your head down for the night. The room didn’t have some of the amenities you usually see now such as a coffee pot but it didn’t really matter as we would basically just be getting up, getting dressed and heading out for breakfast at Russ’s just down the road. Neither one of us got much sleep. It was when we were getting ready to leave Ter discovered a “wardrobe malfunction”….it was definitely chilly out and his long uniform pants were at home!!! It was a good thing he brought his long uniform socks to keep his legs at least somewhat warm. Lesson learned, check your uniform before loading the car!! Due to rules complete official BSA uniforms are required for the course. I borrowed a pair of official shorts for training but this weekend they would definitely not be used. I’ll probably have to finally invest in a pair for myself.
A good breakfast and some coffee got us fueled for the start of the day…on to Gerber!!!We arrived and checked in and were assigned our “Den” as we would start training as “Cub Scouts” and later become a Patrol when we “crossed over” and became “Boy Scouts”. Our Patrols are set up by a questionnaire we send in after signing up for the course. We have a diverse group, which is good. We would become pretty good friends by the end of the weekend. The other lady in our group and I shared part of a cabin for the weekend.
We started our training and it was fast paced. The morning went quickly. It had been raining so having rain ponchos handy was the order of the day. After lunch we went down to the beach by the lake where we transitioned to “Boy Scouts” and my group became the Eagle Patrol. One member of the group immediately got the enthusiasm going by making up a Patrol cheer. The training outdoors went pretty quickly as the rain was really beginning to come down. Many activities were moved inside. The rain did let up enough for us to have our tasty supper in a shelter down by the lake. Then it was back to the dining hall for some team building activities. You have to learn to trust the other members of your Patrol during the time of our training and the activities were interesting. The facts you learn about your fellow Patrol members really help you to relate and bond as a group.
Saturday evening was the Wood Badge game show. It was loud and fairly raucous at times for sure. The noise was such that I ended up turning off my hearing aids….which did cost me getting much out of one of the games but I could feel the friendly competition between the Patrols. Earlier there was an activity where each patrol built a rocket out of a couple of pop bottles which we shot off. There was quite a bit of laughter watching the rockets shoot off the “launching” pad. Ter and I ended up shooting off the last round against each other. We were laughing so hard as the fellow running the launches started a cheer as to which of our rockets would go the farthest it was hard to listen for the countdown. Terry’s rocket won, but it was all in fun. We also worked on our menus for weekend two as it is more like an actual campout with us being required to put up a tent, cook our own meals as a Patrol, along with the writing of our “tickets” for the goals we have to reach to earn our position as Wood Badge. It is seen as quite an honor to earn your Wood Badge beads as it shows dedication to Scouting and all it means to the youth of our nation.
Sunday morning was chapel in accordance with the last point of the Scout law, A Scout is Reverent. Then there was time once again to work on our “tickets”. There was one more learning session then we settled in to watch the movie, “October Sky”. We were to watch for various elements of what we had been taught about leadership during the course of the weekend. It was interesting to see how the various elements worked together while viewing it.
After that it was time to go home, take a hot shower, and start to recover and digest all the events of the weekend. In a way it was sad to part as we had bonded pretty well during the brief time of the weekend. We will be working together as things progress. Our Patrol and Wood Badge Course members will become friends for life. Everything we learned this weekend can be used in every situation. I’m sorry to kind of repeat myself, but it is times like this that make Scouting special.