I was organizing some of the drawers in my house that contained scout memorabilia. Yes, I have more than one and shelves, and I came across my Wood Badge songbooks. The Assistant Senior Patrol Leaders have created these pocket-sized songbooks for each Wood Badge course. If there were any downtime, the Senior Patrol Leader would ask everyone to take out their songbook, and a new song would be learned.
If there is one thing that unites adults, it is that they do not want to sing songs. Something is holding them back from singing at the top of their lungs, songs such as “When the ants go marching in” or “Ghost chickens in the sky.” I blame middle school. That is when kids become self-conscious and do not want to stand out, and I think it carries over into adulthood for many people. Wood Badge is here to break that.
I signed up for Wood Badge early in my adult scouting career, when my son first joined cub scouts. We had a campout between the two Wood Badge weekends, and I took my songbook with me. During the campfire program, I attempted to lead the audience in the song “Froggy,” stumbling along the way to the delight of the cubs watching the train wreck before them. I would go on to learn the song, making it my “go-to” song for the next ten years in the pack.
We sing a lot at Wood Badge. We do it to fill time, we do it at Gilwell, and we do it during campfire programs. We hope you take these songs back to your unit and incorporate them into your program.
If you want to learn some songs while training to become a better leader, sign up for the next Wood Badge course. The Greater Alabama Council has a course every year, but you must sign up. Visit https://1bsa.org/woodbadge/ to find out more information.
If you need some songs to sing, I have you covered. Visit https://scouterwiki.com/category/songs/, where you will find songbooks from four Wood Badge courses you can download. You will also find links to some videos of Girl Scouts performing “The Banana Song” and “There Was A Great Big Moose.” Great songs for you Cub Scout leaders. There are other scout leader resources at ScouterWiki, so make sure you take a look around while you are there.
Now go sign up for Wood Badge!
