The Boy Scouts were started in England when Robert Baden-Powell decided there needed to be an organization that helped young men in their physical, mental and spiritual development, so that they may play constructive roles in society. Since that time there has been millions of participants world wide. Scouting is indeed a wonderful program that has helped the development and progression of young minds to change the world. I've either participated, served or sat on committees in scouting for more that thirty years. As an adult the hardest and most rewarding time I've served has been when I was a Scout Master. It's kind of like herding cats. For the most part Scouts love to finish awards or merit badges - but they would much rather eat and play games. So this required a little creativity and motivation to help them reach the final goal. When we were working on a merit badge I would announce that if we finished we'd go get a treat. Now quality isn't as important as quantity. A few scout could down a dozen donuts in nothing flat - they would put up with just about anything if there was a possibility of gorging themselves on some kind of high caloried creation. That worked every time - but then we found the ultimate motivation! I need to give a little more background - all great scout programs have multiple leaders and it's great if each of them have different talents. One of our assistants traveled for business all the time - now that isn't advantageous for meeting, but he had tons of great stories and trinkets. For some reason he went to Russia all the time. Of course every twelve year old thinks that someone that travels to Russia must be a spy or work for the CIA. When they asked him if he was a spy he would never deny it. One week he brought a Russia hat and the trinket of the year - Russian Scout Knifes! That wasn't what they were called and they weren't made for Scouts - but man they wanted one of those. When Scouts go camping they use knifes, axes, matches and a bunch of other stuff their Mom's wouldn't let them use at home. What if there was a knife that did it all? Well it didn't do it all - it had a two inch blade - was also a cigarette lighter and then it was a switch blade! To top it off it had some sort of Russia insignia attached - man I wanted one! Now the other assistant happened to be the chief of police - he told us that a switchblade is legal as long as it's blade is two inches or shorter. They would be legal once they earned them - and the blade could be used for the woodcarving merit badge, or what I can the thumb carving merit badge. I don't have to point out how many of the kids would want to start the fire every night. Our traveling assistant didn't see it as any kind of problem bringing them home on his next excursion - I'm sure that's because spy's can get through security without any problems. Now for the negotiations! There had to be at least one rank advancement and multiply required badges. The more we talked the more we required - the most important part of negotiations is to not let the other party know how bad you want your side of the agreement. It worked like a charm and they all worked themselves to death and all got the Russian Scout Knifes - now we had to explain to the parents that they were OK!
