My husband and I went to the scouting planning meeting last night – our son is starting his third year as a scout. He loves it. It’s his thing. After scout day camp last year, upon exiting the harness for the zip line, our then seven year old proclaimed that he was “born to be a cub scout”. So, safe to say that we’re invested in this program.
Maybe that’s the problem. We care because it’s important to him. Sounds like a good thing, but it’s hard not to get too wound up about the details. These things start out nice and calm, but everyone has a busy calendar and (mostly) helpful, good ideas to give the boys another fun year of learning. But when everyone is passionate about the program and has good ideas, the meeting turns into a summit.
It wasn’t until we were moving into the second hour of planning when I started to get tired of the whole affair. I could actually relate to our boys’ whining…I wanted to go on a hike or work on a bird house. I think my mind wandered for a bit at one point because last I knew it was January and then we were talking about the spring camp. Hmm.
My friend got up and left. Don’t know if she was bored or just needed to get home.
Don’t get me wrong – planning is crucial to making this thing work. I just don’t have much of an attention span once the crowd giving input exceeds five. I think there were at least a dozen parents there.
We have new leadership this year. I’m pretty sure that any organization needs to shake it up every now and then. Scouts are great. Parents can be. Are we done with the calendar? I just want to make a bird house.
