Catch up day...

Sadly, the blog has taken a back seat to some of the other activities of the last couple of weeks so today is catch-up day. I guess I shouldn't feel too bad, many of my classmates have been in the same boat. So here goes:

The 10 days of meetings and training in Kandersteg were a wonderful time to get to know the staff of Scouting based all over the world. I will be working with all of these regional offices and many of these staff throughout the summer so it was great to put together faces and personalities with names and locations. With 60 participants for the first week, it was quite a job to keep everyone and their office straight, especially if they recently transferred from the Central Office to the Africa office or from the Cairo office to the Manila office. 

 These are the six directors of the world-wide regions of Scouting with Anne Whiteford, the director of Education, Research and Development, Jim Sharp, the Executive Director of the WSO and Luc Panissod, the Secretary General of World Scouting. 




Cub Scout from the USA Flat Stanley was honored to meet the Secretary General of World Scouting in person, and Luc was a good sport to have his picture taken with Stanley.

But the meetings were about learning...and everyone did a great deal of that...in small groups trying to identify the characteristics of a strong project manager. 

And in large groups recognizing the importance of trust or learning about "feed forward" vs feedback communication.

But after meeetings from 9:30 am to 5:30pm every day, everyone was ready for some entertainment. That is John Lawlor, a proper red-headed (shout out to A, T, H and E) Irishman who, when he isn't managing Scouting World Events like Jamboree or the Moot, plays a mean guitar. All the Scouters taking part in the training and the younger staff working at Kandersteg (they are called Pinkies, as you might have guessed by the shirts) enjoyed his skill with the guitar and his enthusiasm for the tunes. It was a good way to spend the evening.