What is the salt & pepper of your program?

Stags was my patrol!

Every now and then I have a memory flash about stuff we used to do all the time when I was a young scout and I'm not talking about trying to find a coin at a phone booth to call home...

We used to scrum and yell a shout, throw our bag and stave "over there", all the time, before we start a game or run and activity. That took a bit of time, it brought us together as a team and was a constant pain to go fetch the bag and stave from "over there" at the end of it...

Without going into the Patrol System in detail, I would like to focus (and recall from my youth) those elements that supported the identity of our patrols, what made it fun and helped develop and embellish it, even define it.

Just think about it, a patrol has properties even if it doesn't have one single member in it:
It has a flag, a symbol, a shout, a rucksack, a corner, a name, a history, lots of awards, roles and certainly a character. Oh yes, it also has members, it has a PL an APL and Scouts and like a house is a home for a family, this is also true for the patrol, it must feel like a home to it's members but also supply the benefits of the house as a structure.

It is easy to forget those elements of scouting when we concentrate on staple and planned activities that "we must cover" or "work towards", like badges, camp, hikes etc.

We are good organising fund-raising, camp fires, hikes, visits, games and themed activities; but I'm talking about the small things that linger and repeat all the time, the salt and pepper of our camping and scouting lives.

Here's a quick list:

• a patrol shout! haven't heard any patrol going mad loud about starting or finishing an activity yet.
• a patrol totem, stave or beast! where does it go, who wants to have it?
• a patrol bag or box. Who's in charge? what's in it?
• make a gate for camp and other gadgets or pioneering. Why our tent/site is better than yours!
• have a night shift of patrol guards! They want our stuff!
• stories, encourage storytelling as a skill! Tell us, what happened?
• altered lyrics of a song... it's our job to tell them to keep it clean, it's their job to try...
• encourage made up scout-words that mean nothing outside scouting... woggle is a good start!
• keep the ash of the last camp fire to take back home for the next camp. - as a prize?
• fold the flag after flag down - an honour to the scout who helps with ceremony.
• whistle codes - encourage them to use coded whistle signals and they won't think it's a toy.

To extend this list just observe your scouts; what have they developed in their patrol? any nicknames? have they named the totem? the stave? have they developed a way of telling time in a weird way? do they do a dance? do they shout a yell?

If they decide to wear their scout belts with the arrow upside down, it's their thing!

Of course there are limits, some we see and they don't; still, it's their game that we are invited to, common sense can apply of course and if the altered lyrics or the nicknames are offensive we certainly can step in and discuss. They know that and we know that.

You can not plan those things in your program but they are there, they are invisible, heavy and influential, sometimes more than the things we plan and execute. Some develop organically if we encourage them. They actually develop in every child's play when we don't interfere.

And as they develop and pass from one generation to another our troop gains history, culture and legend.