How to Use This Book

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Me? Written for me? Yes, you, Mister Scoutmaster, Assistant, or Troop game leader, this book was written for you. To get all you can out of it, begin by doing two things: - if you are a Scoutmaster without an Assistant, start right now to get one. If you are an Assistant help recruit other men to help.

Don't listen to anyone who tells you it's easy for one man and a group of 11, 12 and 13year-old boys to run a really successful Boy Scout Troop. But with another man working with you, you will bolster each other's morale, and work together making up for each other's weaknesses. If you make it clear that you are doing everything you can to make the boys happy your assistant will join you in doing the same. If you work well together, you will establish a spirit of cooperation that will be an example to the entire Troop, so don't overlook the value of an assistant.

"Now, what's the second thing to do?" Next, conduct weekly meetings of the Patrol Leaders Council. That, you will soon find, is "the gang" required to put into operation the activities and ideas suggested in these pages.

"Oh, but I can't give one evening a week to the Troop meeting and a second to a leaders' meeting." You don't have to. Just start Troop meetings 15 minutes earlier, close them 15 minutes earlier, and then conduct a Patrol Leaders' Council meeting as suggested in your Handbook for Scoutmasters.

Do the boys in your Troop refer to you as "our new Scoutmaster" or "our new Assistant Scoutmaster," as the case may be, or have you been working with them a while, long enough to know how to iron out difficulties such as every Scoutmaster or Assistant occasionally encounters. Whichever you may be this book is addressed to you and to the leaders of Scout ways and games. Pass it along to them - even to Patrol Leaders - and encourage them to use it also.

You direct your effort, of course, toward getting your Committeemen and Patrol Leaders' Council to work with you in making a better Troop with better programs which will stimulate and help your Scouts to advance. If this is your aim, this book will help you, because it provides an abundance of instructional as well as recreational games. Use this book along with Handbook For Scoutmasters, SCOUTING, BOY SCOUT PROGRAM QUARTERLY, and BOYS' LIFE.

After you have studied a game or recreational activity, ask yourself these questions:

1. Will our Scouts enjoy it?

2. Will they succeed well enough with it to carry it through to a successful conclusion? 3. Do we have, or can I secure and train men or boys to lead that activity, provided I do not lead it myself?

If your carefully considered answer to two of these questions is "No", turn to a more suitable activity. If your answer to the third question is frequently "No", get busy, start now to give your leaders what is known as "on the job training." This is the learn-by-doing method practiced in Troop meetings, preceded and followed by discussion, advice and plenty of encouragement at Patrol Leaders' Councils following each Troop meeting.

Before going deeply into activities in any chapter just stop a few minutes and read the introductory paragraphs to that chapter. Yes, they contain some theory but theory that gets into the fundamentals of the subject as revealed by the thinking and experiences of outstanding leaders throughout the country. Without both the "know-how" and "know-why" you will be working in the dark.

The "Tips" following descriptions of activities are a feature of this book. They are intended for the leader of the specific activity under which they appear, so pass them along to the leader, be he man or boy. The tips are more than suggestions, they are summations of conclusions growing out of actual successful experiences.

No one could be expected to remember all the information contained in this volume, so do not hesitate to take it to every meeting of your Troop, and especially to meetings of Troop leaders. Refer to it as a speaker refers to his notes. Do not read from it yourself, rather mark your chosen paragraphs or tips in advance, pass the book around and let others take turns reading from it. Scouts prefer that to having a Scoutmaster read to them.

Boy Scout Games