I've been leading the Pioneering Badge with a group of Scouts since February. A year ago, it's something I would've been unable to do. Leading this badge is one of my ticket items for Wood Badge - a highly involved Scout leadership program. Not having been a Boy Scout as a youth, this is kind of the closest thing I can do to earn a rank in Scouting as an Adult.
A year ago when I did the Wood Badge weekends of camping/training I was a disaster at knots and knew nothing of lashings and hitches. That's why I chose leading this badge as one of the five Wood Badge ticket items I have to complete - it pushed me. It literally took me a year of practicing knots, hitches, and lashings to be able to do this. I carried ropes and cords everywhere and practiced - waiting on planes, on planes, in meetings, etc.
What's the end result? I'm almost finished with the ticket item - but I've discovered that's not really the point. Above all, it's been tremendous fun - the challenge of the skills I had to gain and the process of leading the badge. I strongly believe in Nature Not Lecture - having Scouts gain skills during outings and activities, not sitting in a meeting room listening to a lecture. Leading this badge has proved to be a blast.
Here's a video of a little race I setup. It was my wife's idea - we saw a similar game on Survivor and she thought it would make a great game to teach the Round Lashing. She nailed it - the Scouts had a blast and were tying nice, strong Round Lashings by the end of the evening.
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