WOOD BADGE

For any questions on training in the Timucua District contact Chris Tipton District Training Chair, or Karen Kircher - North Florida Council Training Chair

NEW: Boy Scout Leader Fast Start
Cub Scout Leader Fast Start
Venturing Advisor Fast Start
Safe Swim Defense
Safety Afloat

Wood Badge is available to all Scout Leaders; Cub Scout, Boy Scout, Varsity, Venture, District and Council leaders. The new Wood Badge training program will focus on leadership, not Outdoor Skills among other changes.

CLICK HERE for more Information and a Registration Form for WoodBadge 2008!

Wood Badge for the 21st Century

Welcome to Wood Badge for the 21st Century, the ultimate leadership training program for the adult leaders of the Boy Scouts of America. Established in 1919 by Robert Baden-Powell, Scouting’s founder, Wood Badge has been the training ground for hundred of thousands of Scouters around the world. As the challenges in the world have changed, Wood Badge has also evolved to give leaders the skills they need to strengthen Scouting in meaningful ways. The latest version of Wood Badge training represents the most significant changes in the program since the early 1970s. Building on the past, understanding the present, and looking to the future, Wood Badge for the 21st Century stands ready to provide leadership for Scouting and leadership for America.

The Wood Badge Warning

 Not Ordinary Training

The Wood Badge for the 21st Century course brings together leaders from all areas of Scouting – Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, Varsity, Venturing – and all levels of Boy Scouts of America professional staff. Reflecting the best of nearly a century of Scouting experience, the course also draws upon the most current leadership models used by corporate America, academic circles, and successful outdoor leadership organizations throughout the country.

This new version builds on all that has come before it. Veteran members discovered that the best of the traditions and experiences of Wood Badge were brought forward and recast to be enjoyed by today’s participants. Wood Badge draws from a wide range of sources within and beyond the bounds of Scouting to present the latest in leadership theory and team development.

Participants in Wood Badge attend a six-day course offered over two weekends. Course attendees begin their Wood Badge experience as Cub Scouts, then bridge into Boy Scouts and form patrols for the remainder of the program. Selected staff members interact with participants in the role of a Venturing crew. Representing a month in the life of a Scout unit, Wood Badge participants assume leadership roles to plan and carry out an extended outdoor experience.

Within this framework, participants take part in numerous presentations, discussions, and activities that explore and advance a wide range of leadership philosophies and tools. A key area of exploration is the process of team development. By recognizing the stages through which developing teams must pass, participants will learn to apply appropriate leadership strategies that enable teams to reach their highest levels of performance.

All course participants will become familiar, both in theory and in practice, with the points of view of Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, Varsity Scouts, and Venturing. Wood Badge staff will expand upon that shared vision by guiding participants through three days of presentations and activities that parallel three weeks of a Scout unit’s meetings and activities. The final three days of the course parallel the experiences of a Scout unit setting out on the fourth week of a month for an exciting and challenging outdoor experience.

Green Bar Bill Hillcourt's
Impact on Wood Badge

The first US Wood Badge Scoutmaster 

As the Boy Scout program program matured in the USA, it became apparent that Wood Badge could provide valuable advanced training. To familarize the United States with Wood Badge, John Skinner Wilson, Gilwell Park Camp Chief, came from England to provide a Rover Scout Wood Badge Course for BSA at New Jersey's Mortimer L. Schiff Scout Reservation.

Bill Hillcourt was a member of the Burnham Patrol on that WB Course, May 12-20, 1936. Four days later, May 24 to June 3, 1936, Bill was the Staff Troop Leader and "Dog's Body" (Senior Patrol Leader) for a second course. It qualified Bill to receive his WB Beads in 1939, and to become the national Deputy Camp Chief of the United States.

After World War II and a BSA training hiatus, Wood Badge was re-awakened to become a permanent part of the American Scouting scene.

Early in 1948, the new Scout Executive who had replaced Dr. James E. West, appointed four national Staffers to get Wood Badge underway as a national training standard. Bill Hillcourt was one of the four, BSA's first Deputy Camp Chief and by then, also the national Director of Scoutcraft.

These four national Professional Staffers decided from the start that two BSA Wood Badge courses would be run in 1948:

• the first at NJ's Schiff Scout Reservation with Scouters mostly from the Northeast, as a proving ground for this BSA WB training
  (Course #1, July 21 - August 8, 1948)

• the second at Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico, would be fine-tuned to become the standard of Wood Badge for the BSA 
  (Course #2, October 2- 10, 1948)

William "Green Bar Bill" Hillcourt was the Scoutmaster for both.

The Philmont course was held Cimarroncito. Thirty-five (35) men mostly from the Western parts of the U.S., assembled at Philmont's "Big House" at noon on October 2, 1948, to launch BSA's Wood Badge.

The course started tenuously with Professional Scouters pitted against Volunteer Scouters. SM Bill Hillcourt regrouped his Staff and broke an impasse. Patrol spirit soared and Participants overcame the obstacles of high altitude, physical and mental fatigue, slow and difficult supply deliveries, poor communications with the Philmont Ranch, and bad weather with rain, sleet, snow, and cold!

Philmont's Wood Badge #2 Course followed that of WB #1:
it was unquestionably a mountain-top experience. Tired Scouters returned home with strong, enthusiastic feelings; the future of Wood Badge in BSA was assured.

William "Green Bar Bill" Hillcourt's Totem became a circle with"WILLIAM HILLCOURT" as it's circumference; "Bill" was handwritten at an angle over a PL's two green bars inside the circle; at its bottom, two leather throngs came out of a WB Woggle; the left one held three beads and the right one, two beads -- Bill was a "5-Beader"!