Scout leaders receive new training
The Belize Scout Association will be holding its first leadership training course for fifteen of its senior members. According to Roberto Harrison, the association’s Training Commissioner, the course is just one of their many objectives outlined in the Scout’s National Work Plan. Harrison says in the past, training was always conducted in Belize City by their city leaders, but now there is a move to decentralize training and conduct it at the district levels. Assisting Harrison with the course will be two representatives from the Boy Scouts of America, Thomas Catanzaro and John Metcalfe. Harrison first told us what will be expected from the leaders once they have completed the course.
Roberto Harrison, Training Commissioner
“Taking this course makes them a part of what we call the training team. When they complete the course they are expected to go back and do training at the district level or group level as we call it.
Training in the areas of group dynamics, effective communication, leadership skills, leadership techniques, things like that.”
Thomas Catanzaro, Course Lecturer
“This training course is the background for the advanced trainers and the Scout Association of Belize. They learn the skills that are done in the advanced courses and the techniques of teaching those skills and the programs of the Scout Association of Belize, so they can be representatives of the National Association.
Most of the people coming to the course want to learn it. Most of the people coming to the course have already accepted a role of leadership and our job is to help them to put words and titles and development skills, so we can help them get better in what they have already committed to do.”
John Metcalfe, Course Lecturer
“Oh I think the most important thing for me is keeping it fun and doing different things than they are used to so it doesn’t become a routine thing. Making it interesting so they want to do it and they can pass it on to the kids. And that’s real important because if it does not pass on to the kids, there is no point.”
Q: “Give us an example of how you would make a particular session exciting and interesting?”
John Metcalfe
“Okay I have a bunch of goofy songs, songs that are fun and I try to lead those, action songs, so they can wake up and enjoy things.”
Q: “Care to give us an example?”
John Metcalfe
“Oh I don’t want to say it on television. Let me see. One finger, one thumb, one hand keep moving and it goes on and on until they are jumping up and down. One finger, one arm, one hand. It’s that sort of thing.”
The course, which gets underway at Camp Oakley on Saturday, will conclude on Monday, December twenty-first. In other scout news, Scout Leader Marlon McNab tells News Five that the Scout Association has been asked by the Minister of National Security Jorge Espat to take on the responsibility for raising the flag at the Pallotti Junction round-a-bout each morning. McNab says the scouts are very honored by the request and will be unfurling the flag each morning at six-thirty.
