Humility
I was at our Boy Scout District Roundtable meeting tonight and spent about an hour or so afterwards talking with some scout leaders tonight and realised something very important: humility. If you have just two boys and they are both relatively young Scouts, it doesn't matter if your troop has been around for 90 years and your leaders have all the training they can possibly get; you still need to have the humility to ask some experienced Scouts (not Scouters) to come in and mentor them. I was amazed to hear a fellow Scouter complain about dwindling numbers and lack of enthusiasm and then complete toss aside my suggestion that the council find experienced Scouts to serve as mentors to the smaller units. I focused on mentors because they have experienced leaders. What they need are boys in their peer group who can show them the way in a way that those who are not cannot. But instead of considering my advice, she insisted they weren't small because they are the oldest ...