Bamboozled - that's Joe's word of the week from the troop meeting last night.  It means "purposefully confused, tricked or led astray".

It reminds me of how Wily E. Coyote is always trying to bamboozle the Road Runner with his intricate schemes and contraptions, such as painting a tunnel on a rock wall so the road runner will smash into it.  Of course it never works.

Maybe we can learn something from the coyote.  Trying to bamboozle folks usually doesn't work.  I suppose it also doesn't fit many places in Scouting since we are more about leading and trusting our patrolmates - it's hard to do that if a scout is afraid of being bamboozled at any time.

It's kind of like the 9 Magazines or Chinese Numbers team activities we've done in the past.  It's fine to do those as long as it is done among a group that is willing to support each other and help everyone discover the 'secret' without making them feel inferior.  But, if it's done just to trick someone, it loses its value.

Here's a few points I'd like to share from last night's troop meeting:

• It was great that Charlie had a back-up game ready just in case - even better was that it was a new game!
• I thought Kory did a good job by stepping up when Joe asked for a quick filler song during the technical difficulty.  I'm glad Joe can count on support from the more experienced scouts when he needes it!
• During Joe's reflection on First Aid, Peter D. had a great suggestion that might have gotten overlooked.  He said it would be good to have a single first aid skill at each meeting that scouts could spend more time on and really learn instead of a bunch of them that only get lightly covered.  Hopefully, the PLC will consider doing something with that suggestion.
• The Scoutmaster Minute was to demonstrate that saying you'll do something is easy.  You are at a comfortable plateau with no pressure.  But, once you accept the task, you have stepped up and are now in the mode of doing hard effort which is uncomfortable - the longer you are in that mode, the more uncomfortable it becomes.  Once you complete the task, you are again at a comfortable plateau, but higher and stronger than you were with more experience and skills to call on for the next challenge.  So, stepping up to do a task and getting it done quickly is the way to go.

Scout On