Sean's Scouting Pages
When BALOO first arrived in 2000, the Tahquitz district was first in our council to present the training, and I believe that we were among the first in the country to offer the training in a non-pilot capacity. (Our first course took place in March of 2001, just a few months after the syllabus became available.) Since then, we've put on BALOO a number of times, and our district training team (along with guest trainers from other districts and councils) have tweaked the event so that it is the best training we can accomplish. Along the way, we've identified a number of areas where we could improve on the training—not by altering the content, but by adjusting the suggested schedule that comes with the syllabus.
OK, I know that a lot of people will have a real problem with that last line—adjusting the schedule. Let me emphasise that it is a suggested schedule only, and that we do not alter the content, just rearrange it. The reason that we do this is because we found that the material didn't "flow" well, either for the trainers or the participants. What we did was to shift sections of content so that it is delievered with other, similar information. For example, there's lots of information on planning scattered throughout the course. We moved it all into the planning session. And some content just doesn't fit. A campfire right after lunch? Here in Southern California, that just doesn't work. It's too sunny, and the effect is lost. We moved the campfire to the end of the day instead.
We also adjusted the times for different sessions. Where we added material, we added time, and vice-versa. We shifted some material into the round robins, and added a round robin, separating Games, Hiking, and Outdoor Activities into a Games breakout and a Hiking and Outdoor Activities breakout.
The result is what we believe is a much better event. And others agree—we've shared our changes and course content with other districts and councils across the country, and the feedback has been very positive from all quarters.
And we've amassed a wealth of material, for both presenters and participants. For example, we have some original BALOO songs that were written specifically for the course. One of our staff was married to an artist who worked for a toy company, and he developed some fantastic illustrations for the cooking presentation, and some signs we use to mark the round robins. We have a great deal of theme ideas, including pre-prepared all-original campfire programs. And of course, a wealth of handouts all distributed on CD.
Once I have time, I'll post some of the information on this site, especially our staff guide and revised schedule, campfire program, songs, and artwork. But in the meantime, if you're a BALOO trainer and would like to get a CD with all of our information, drop me an email and I'll be happy to provide you a copy. All I ask is a fair trade--our BALOO trainer/participant CD for your powwow CD or book, or for one or two of your council's shoulder patch. And I'll never post all of it here—it's a full CD, and it just doesn't make sense for people to be downloading 700 meg from my website when I can mail it to them on CD, which is probably more useful anyway!