July 22 2006; Aerodynamics session

Date : July 22 2006

We had a very interesting, informative and entertaining meeting. A person of high authority who is an expert on aerodynamics came to give us an explanation and also to show us the simple yet fun science of flying planes. The Government of India consults him in the matter of aerodynamics, so one can imagine his command over the subject.

He first gave us a briefing about the history of flying; how man's fascination for flying finally led to his success of roaming the skies. I was extremely surprised to know that even the fastest and complex aircrafts fly on the basis of such easy principle. The fact that he exclaimed that the science of aerodynamics can be understood by anyone who has passed the 7th standard speaks for itself.

After this he demonstrated to us actually how to fly simple planes according to your will, how by making minor adjustments in some parts of the wings and tail the desired direction of flying the plane can be obtained.

Everyone got a free sample of the planes made by the person (courtesy Scoutmasters) and everyone had fun trying them out in the Oesch Hall. Some of us sacrificed our gifts by getting them stuck either in the tubelights or parts of the roof

After this there was an effort to make a game of Captains Rings possible but in vain because' of reasons, the rain and Rajkumar(the peon). As a replacement to the gloomy shadow that had enveloped because of the loss of game, we played an optional game of Prisoners in the Oesch Hall with mixed patrols.

Over and out it was a fun meeting and at the same time very informative. I personally feel that such meetings are necessary because of their uniqueness as well the amount of knowledge they impart to the Scouts, thus in turn rightly serving the purpose of Scouts.

Council Dinner

Date: 8th July 2006
It was a Saturday & we had our third meeting and it ended it with a council meeting.
After that we the Council members were taken out for a dinner by the SM'S
This was a dinner cum council meeting . We discussed the topics mainly on which the leaders were going to be judged (more information is on the troop website) & planned what to do for the next meeting.
All the council members and scout masters enjoyed their dinner and had a great time.

Fourth Meeting 14th July 2006

There was school uptill 1'o'clock after which there was a Scout meeting at 2'o'clock.We did pioneering that is every patrol had to build a shelter and they were given points for it .After that the patrols played the scout game of Christopher Rounders . The ties were P1 vs P4 and P2 vs P3. P4 beat P1 and P3 beat P2. Then the troop was dispersed and the meeting was over and the council members had their council meeting.
SCORES
P1 50, P2 -50, P3 10, P4 85

SMs meets

Well i just thought it would be nice & informative to share how Khoj, Jaosh & me go about deciding stuff for our troop.

Things actually began two years back in the year 2004 when the 3 of us started playing decisive roles for our troop. We obviously screwed up our first few meetings due to lack of planning. The thing is that it seems to everybody that all activities we do for every scout meeting just come out of the blue. It seems as if everything is just available out there just waiting for you to execute it. Well its not all that easy i must say. But before i go ahead i must make it clear that i am not writing this article for people to give us credit for what we do. Its purpose is for my scouts & future co-ordinators or visionaries of the troop to understand the importance of planning and having explicit ideas about things one does. It only helps to make things better. Furthermore, i wish that my people reading this article don't do what we did when we begun- we didn't plan enough!

When we began, we decided to meet up at a place where we were comfortable & the environment to work was favourable. It could be any place --like school, somebody's home, a coffee place or someone's colony park...just about any place where you could have most productivity.

Well, the first thing to do then is to define an objective (or objectives) that you want to achieve. Maybe when you begin off as a group to plan your objectives, it may seem difficult for you to have common objectives. But what is important is that you need to reason and putforth arguements in support of what you are saying. All the people involved must realize that these arguements must be done in the right spirit to attain a common platform that is agreeable to everybody.

After your objectives have been defined, you need to design an activity that needs to be done with the troop to attain that objective. This is the most important part. Spend as much time as required on this. It is slightly difficult for me to tell how to go about designing an activity. Maybe i could write another article on it sometime. Anyway, you need to design your activity keeping in mind your
a. Objectives
b. Constraints--like time, budget, level of thinking of the scouts (whether they would understand at their age what you are doing), etc.
Sometimes it is good to inherit the troop culture and the activities that the troop has done in the past. But even if you plan to perform an activity that was done in the past years, it is very essential that you understand the objective of doing that activity. Inheriting activities from the past also saves you a lot of time--but it could be a mess if you don't understand why you are doing what you are doing!

Well, once your activity is planned then assign responsibilities among yourselves- who is going to lead, who is going to do what... basically distributing work, making sure things are available, permission is taken if necessary from the school or any place where you plan to do the activity, etc.

Thats about it...It seems very less, but infact there goes a lot of time doing it.

Well the article may seem a little out of place to the scouts especially. But maybe the ASMs may understand what i am talking about in this article since they plan to take meetings for the coming weekends.

--Ajit Vaidya (SM)

Third meeting: July 8 2006

The Scoutmasters organised a video for us to see. This video was about the oil crisis and the way George Bush launched an attack on Iraq with wrong intentions to capture oil reserves when he declared that Iraq posessed Nuclear weapons of mass destruction. It also gave us the message to use inexhaustible sources of energy instead of consuming exhaustible of energy.

After this one scout from each patrol had to come and explain about what he understood from the video. There were points for this. After this there was an option for the juniors if the wanted to go home or stay. An effort was made to start Captains Rings but the rings were not available. The meeting ended here. In the presentation, Patrol 1 came first, patrol 2 came second, patrol3 third and patrol 4 fourth.

Second Meeting

Date-July1 2006

In this meeting we completed the activity of preparing a scout book since it was raining and outdoor activities were not possible. 8-9 pages were dictated to us where we had to write them in a 100 pgs book. After this we had a game of ten catches. Patrol3 came first, patrol 1 second, patrol 4 third and patrol2 last.

Points after this meeting
P1 -30, P2 -10, p3 40, p4 -20

For The Council

This year we are going to keep a track of the leaders of the Troop and the progress the leaders make. For doing this we have introduced a new system of points. The leaders will be given points on basis of the way they perform. These points will be added to the patrol points. This means that, if a leader is not doing his part properly, the patrol will end up loosing points. This new system will be enforced from this coming Saturday, 8^th July 2006.

The leaders will be judged on the basis of the following factors in order of points:

Motivation: The leaders must motivate and encourage their patrol to work and other any circumstances must not de-motivate their patrol.

Work Distribution: During performing any task, the right job must be given to the right person.

Handling Scouts: This is the method in which work is given to the individual scouts. Work can forced upon people. Or people can be made to contribute actively. The method in which the leaders deal with the individual scouts during work distribution is called “handling scouts”.

Command: Command simply means that whether the scouts listen to the leaders when asked to do something.

Dedication: This implies the interest that the leader himself has, when he is performing a particular task.

(Motivation carries the most points. Dedication carries the least points. In that order)

These may be crude criteria for judging leadership but they give the leaders an idea about where they are deficient and where they can improve. However, these may be changed in the future as we all learn from our mistakes.

Khoj Badami (SM)

First Meeting

Date: 24th June 2006

First meeting was held at school where the juniors were made acquainted with the troop. Activities done were introduction with the seniors, leaders and scoutmasters,captains rings,prisoners and explanation of basic rules and regulations to be followed within the troop. Meeting ended with a council meeting.